The Dash Between the Dates (Pop’s Memorial Service)

1.  Homesick – Mercy Me Video

2.  Scripture Reading  (Psalm 23 – Maddee)

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

3.  Prayer

Please bow with me in prayer: “All honor and glory to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by Your boundless mercy that we have the privilege of being born again.  We can live with a wonderful expectation because You, Lord Jesus, were persecuted, crucified, and buried for our sins. Yet death could not hold you in the tomb. You triumphantly rose from the dead on the third day.  And it is by Your death that a priceless inheritance was purchased for all who follow You as Lord and Savior.  You keep an inheritance for us in heaven, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.  For that, let us who are your children truly be glad!  Each of us must endure trials for a while, but all who fully trust in you for their salvation and sanctification will experience joy upon joy in the presence of our Savior. So as we celebrate Dad’s life and the reality that he truly is in a better place, help us to understand Your ways…and give us the strength to make it through somehow. Now to Him who is able to keep us from stumbling, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forevermore.” AMEN

4.  Hope  (The Shadow)

We're here today to celebrate dad's life, to celebrate the life of Jesus, and to examine our own him lives. And to do that we are going to look at three questions that hopefully we will answer today.

The first one is: What does God’s Holy Word tell us that will help us, to give us courage in the midst of knowing that dad suffered long, was in anguish, and then he died?

The second question is: what are we going to cling to when waves of sorrow happen…when we close our eyes and see his face, and long to be with him? 

The third question is: Why should you believe the claims of Jesus? In other words every one of us has to answer the quintessential question that Jesus posed to his apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” There’s no better time to answer that question than now.

*   Maddee just read Psalm 23, and verse 4 tells us, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." 

Dr. Donald Barnhouse was a Presbyterian pastor at 10th St., Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia in the early 1900s and he went just what we're going through. His wife died of cancer. And when he was driving his motherless children home, he was trying to figure out how do I help them to get them through what we're going through right now? At that moment a moving truck went by them and its shadow engulfed their entire car. And he asked his children would you rather be run over by the truck or by its shadow? “Of course” dad, “the shadow. The shadow can't hurt us.” He told them, “exactly. 2000 years ago children the truck in the form of the cross ran over Jesus so only the shadow will hit us”. Yes shadows can be scary but they cannot permanently hurt us.

*   In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  He has provided a way for all of us to only be touched by the shadow of death rather than to be crushed by it.

Now every funeral I've ever been to I've heard a pastor quote 1 Corinthians 15:55. But the first time I heard it I thought is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. I know I probably shouldn't say that, but I wasn't a Christian then. I didn't understand it.

*   It says us, “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?”  But when I think about the collective lumps we have in our throats, the tightening knots in our stomachs, the tears welling in our eyes, the well-deserved grief at the loss of a husband, a dad, a grandfather, a friend– this verse doesn’t seem to hold out much hope for us.  Why is that?

5.  The Stone’s Been Rolled Away

*   Because that is what pain does. When pain hits, our focus is narrowed and we don't see the big picture. Have any of you in here ever hit your thumb with a hammer? Or you stubbed your toe? At that instant all you are thinking about is right here. You don't see anything else at all. That is what pain does. And even when the pain subsides some and you are able to continue on with your project, thumbnails and toenails discolor and are reminders of what took place. That is what is happening to us in our spirits.

The death of a loved one can be like a hammer hitting hard, and it will continue. So the question is, how do we go forward from here? What's going to help us? What hope do we cling to with the void left by our side? Because dad's not here. And that's a hard thing. Even for those of us who have the blessed assurance that comes through the cross of Christ, we must deal with the realities that the clock is ticking. There are no timeouts in life. There are no substitutions. We all have that dash through the dates. 1927- 2013. There is a dash. How are we going to live in that dash? That is the question for us today.

*   Were much like the apostles who when Jesus was crucified, they saw him on the cross, they saw him die, and thought life is over. They thought, “We are never going to see him again.” But that is not the end of the story. Let me read you from Luke 24, verses one through eight:

“On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen!  Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:  ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’”  Then they remembered his words.

*   That singular question of the angels is the same for us today – “Why do we look for dad among the dead?”  He is among the living. Do not look for the living among the dead. Dad has risen. Those who have Christ as their Lord and Savior can be assured that the same thing that happened on Easter morning has happened to dad. The stone has been rolled away. Death could not hold him. But it wasn't always like that.

Eight months ago Dann gave me a call when dad was in the hospital, not sure if this was going to be his time. And when we got there, dad was in utter panic. He was struggling. He was afraid. And, as Dann will tell you, he did not want to close his eyes because he was afraid he was going to die. And he couldn't get through what was going to get him to heaven. He did not understand the gospel at that point. 

Dann had been sharing it with them for the last the last five years. I shared it with him again that day. And then I took dad’s hand and I prayed for him. And in that instant dad said, "I want Jesus. I want Jesus. I want Jesus." And a singular tear went down his cheek and he went right to sleep. It's the first time that I saw the peace that he had and that is when it happened for the first time. “I want Jesus.”

*   So as we examine our lives today, how can each of us be assured that we are truly in Christ, that we are truly saved? We live in a culture that says, if we have parked our seats in churches, then everything is okay. But that is not what Scripture tells us. If you've ever read the book of James, James was a brother of Jesus; it has some great wisdom for us. Now for those of you who have siblings who have a God-complex, think of what it was like for James. He had Jesus. Never did anything wrong. This is the perfect sibling. But even James did not believe that Jesus was the son of God, the Messiah, until after he was resurrected from the dead. So listen to the words of James:

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing to meet his physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

       

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. ¹⁹ You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

²⁰ You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? ²¹ Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. ²³ And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

So it is for your life. Have others around you examined your life? What fruit are you bearing, what deeds are in your life? At the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus sternly warned his listeners, “Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. [And this is a verse that has always put the fear of God in me.] Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” Matthew 7:21.

Here's the sweet part, even in the midst of unceasing pain, we could see this in dad’s life. We could see the fruit in dad's life. Because his thoughts and his words bore the good fruit that came from his belief, his trust, and his hope in the great exchange that took place. Because God made Jesus who knew no sin to become sin, so that in the Lord, Dad became the righteousness of God.

As he lay dying, his thoughts were focused on the well-being of those he loved…he was thinking about his wife of sixty years, about his children, about his grandchildren, his lifetime friends, about his brother-in-law. Hayden and Riley, your grandfather was thinking about you. He wanted to make sure that everyone else was going to be okay before he left. That's dad. He wanted to make sure that everyone else was okay! Dad did things, but he was in the background, he wasn't looking for applause for himself. He was a true friend, a true dad, a true husband.

He wasn’t laying on that hospital bed wishing he had worked more, or had bought a bigger house, or had a better car, or had a better IRA, or whatever. He was thinking about his relationships. If he was thinking about work, he was thinking about the three B's. But he was thinking about relationships! He was focusing on relationships that fulfilled the greatest Commandments. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and all of your soul, and all of your mind, and all of your strength”. And dad was fighting mightily to do that while he was laying in that hospital bed.

And “love your neighbor as yourself.” That was summed up in his quickness to say I love you - which Dann helped him to learn how to do. And it can be summed up in a way that, when Jay you were there visiting dad. Now he can't talk, but he’s squeezing your hand because he wants you to know that he appreciates you being there. But he also wants you to know that he's counting on you to help Dann. That was the beauty of it. But the sweetest thing to me was about a week before he died, Dann called me and he said he'd been talking to dad and asked dad if he wanted to pray. Now dad's having trouble communicating so he nods and Dann says, “What do you want to pray?” And dad says, “I love the Father. Father love me.” That sums it up for all of us.

Because at that point in time, dad was no longer looking at Jesus as being a fire insurance policy to escape hell. He was looking at Jesus as a relationship. He wanted to be with the one he loved, and the one who loved him better than all the rest of us combined.

For those who follow Christ, the promise comes from Revelation 21:4, “God will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.  For the world and its evils are gone forever.” That needs to be the focus for us amidst the tears and sorrows and the voids of dad not being here. They are not going to easily be filled… but we who grieve, grieve with hope because he is in the arms of Jesus Christ.

6.  Lesson for us Today?  (The Sinner)

*   Now just as Jesus told His disciples that He would suffer and die, I tell you a reality that is coming for each of us. We can run and hide and pretend it’s not here, but we are all going to die:  Hebrews 9:27 tells us, “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people.”

The question still remains: Why? Why do we have to die?  And why do we have to face judgment? We all like to think we’re good people. Why does it happen?

*   Because we all have a terminal disease called sin.  Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Another problem that I've noticed over the years is that we use these terms in Christianity are rarely define them. What is sin? And what is glory? Sin is anything you think, or say, or do that does not glorify God. But now we have to explain glory. Everything that we think, or say, or do is supposed to point to Jesus, not to us. It is not about us. We are supposed to be mirrors to reflect who Jesus Christ is. It can be summed up with, “what do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you boast as if you haven't? To him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” That is what glory is, we boast in who Jesus Christ is and what he has done.

None of us are good enough upon our own merits. You cannot work your way to heaven. You are not going to have your good deeds out-balancing your bad ones. As if somehow this is it, God is saying, “You’re in.” And that's the way every other religion is besides Christianity. You have to work your way there.

Let me just share this example: suppose you are making a scrambled egg breakfast for your friends, your guests, your family. You have six eggs but find that one of them is rotten. Are you going to put in the one rotten one along with the five in the hopes that the five would outweigh the one? No one’s going to do that! But somehow we think that we can put in our bad ones and our good ones will cover it up for God and he'll go, "That's great. You’re good.” It's never going to work that way. You are talking about a holy, spotless, Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. We cannot serve our lives to God, our work, and hope that that's how we are going to get there.

For the prophet Isaiah tells us that, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” Isaiah 64:6. And what he's saying is that, "I don't care how good your acts are, compared to God, they are not that good. They are never going to be that good.

*   But here’s the good news. In the gospel a gift has been offered – a prescription for what ails us. But, the only way you can receive it is through grace. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

But what's this grace thing? That's another one of those Christian words thrown around here. Grace. Grace means you get what you don't deserve. In other words, you don't deserve heaven. I do not deserve heaven. That is grace. Or you can take the acronym that I learned early on in my faith journey: God's riches at Christ's expense. It is at Christ's expense. We cannot do anything. Christ paid it all. He paid it all on the cross.

But then we have a problem here, how does this mesh with James's words that we heard earlier: “You see that a person is justified (made right with God), remember that, the rest of it?, by what he does and not by faith alone”? So, how does that work? What we need to understand is that what James is saying is, it is impossible to be a Christian and not have good works. It is impossible. Not perfect. But it's impossible not to have good works. It's impossible not to be able to look back 6 months ago, a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago and see that Jesus has brought you on a journey and has transformed your life from one degree of glory to another.

Or as Jesus stated, “a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.” If you are in Christ, you all are a good tree and you will bear good fruit. But Jesus said this in another way in John 14:15. A passage that you may have heard, but has often been misunderstood. Jesus said to, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Now most people take that into our very works oriented world and say, "I'm going to prove that I love God. I'm going to do all these things and then God will be happy." But in the original language, in the Greek, it's a causal statement which merely means that: if you love me, the result will be, you will obey me. It is a promise. It is not a command - If you love me do these things. If you love me, the supernatural out-workings in your life will be obedience to God's commands. That should give us a peace and a hope that we can't just work our way by having a little checklist… because if you have friends or you have family they will be more than happy to show you how to balance out your columns for you on the good and the bad. But I would never do that well.

But Dad understood that when he cried out, “I want Jesus.”

*   I’m pretty sure most of us know the opening words to the song, Amazing Grace… “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now found, was blind but now I see him."  But you know the story behind John Newton wrote that? John Newton was a notorious slave trader from the time he was about 18 years old. He eventually got to the point where he was able to captain his own ship. And he bought and sold hundreds upon hundreds of slaves from Africa and took them to ports around the world. Now as you probably know, a lot of them didn't make it. They didn't make the entire journey. So what do you do when someone dies? To tell the truth, just throw them overboard. Hey, get rid of the excess weight. So how is John Newton going to work this whole Jesus thing when he figures it out?

Well, John is on the Greyhound, his ship, and for 11 days they are in the worst storm ever. Their ship is being beat and it is about ready to fall apart. And John finally remembers what he had been taught from his mother, and he just cries out, "Lord, have mercy!" And the storms stilled. I want you to know that is exactly what dad did when he said, "I want Jesus." The Lord stilled his heart.

But at that moment, Newton became a pastor from that point forward. A very influential pastor that influenced men like William Wilberforce, who was the driving force behind ending slavery in England. But he knew that that could never balance out everything he had ever done that was wretched in his life. And that is the way we are to. We need to look at our lives honestly and say, "the sin in our lives is horrendous. The grace is amazing." And as John Newton lay dying, he said, "the one thing I know, I am a great sinner in need of a great Savior." That's the way it is for all of us. I don't care where you come from. I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've done. We are all in that exact same boat. We all need to cry out the living God like John Newton.

Because 1 John 1:9 says: “If we confess our sins, He [Jesus] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

7.  Lord, Liar, or Lunatic – How can we be certain? (The Silver Dollar)

*   The final question that remains for each of us:  Why should we have faith in Jesus?  With all the competing religious claims in the world today, why follow Jesus? Seriously, why do it? Why is Jesus any different? What did dad understand that helped him to cry out for God's mercy available through Jesus? Many have said that Jesus was a great teacher, nice guy, good sage, follow his advice but he wasn't God. But there's a problem with that because Jesus claimed to be God.

John 14:6 we read earlier: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Now on the surface that might not seem like Jesus is saying anything about being God. But understand back in the book of Exodus where Moses and the burning bush, remember that? And God tells him, "go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh, ‘Let my people go!’ Moses said, "Ummm, who should I say sent me?" And God said, "Tell them I AM sent you." When Jesus said, "I am," he was using the very name of God. The Jews would have understood that. And six more times in the gospel of John, he uses that. I AM the bread of life. I AM the good shepherd. That was a definitive way to show the Jews that he was God.

But, if that example doesn't work for you, consider John 10:30-33: Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many miracles. For which of these miracles are you going to stone me?” They said, “We are not stoning you for the miracles. We are going to stone you because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Jesus claimed to be God.

 

So each of us has one of three options when it comes to Jesus.

1.   You either believe he is the Lord, and if so then get on that ship because nothing else is worth sailing.

2. Or Jesus was a liar. He wasn't God. And if he is a liar, then you must avoid him. He cannot just be a good teacher. He cannot be a sage; you cannot follow the man's advice. He is a liar.

3. Or the third thing, he really believed he was God. In which case he was a lunatic. And it's really good not to follow lunatic either.

So you have a choice. He is either the Lord of all creation. He is a liar. Or he is a lunatic. But he cannot just be a nice man, a good teacher that we should follow.

*  I want you to consider two pieces of evidence that help to show that Jesus is who he said he was. There are many more, but just these two. There are, let's see, 60 prophecies in the Old Testament that point to the Messiah, the Savior who would come. All 60 of those in were fulfilled in one man, Jesus. Now these were written hundreds of years before he was ever born. Now mathematicians much better than me, for those who know me…math, no. With the science of probability, for just eight of these to have been fulfilled in just one man, the odds would be one in 10 to the 17th power. I have no idea what one with 17 zeros after it is, but maybe our politicians do, but I don't. That is beyond my comprehension.

But these same mathematicians have said it would be like taking silver dollars and filling up the state of Texas. It would fill the entire state of Texas 2 feet deep! Now we’ll mark one silver dollar with a red X, blindfold a guy, and tell him he can walk anywhere he wants in the state of Texas. You get a chance, you pick one. You get that one, that's the odds of these being fulfilled in one man.

*   Second thing that you need to consider, Jesus’ tomb is empty! No other religious leader has an empty tomb. None. Only Jesus. And, it wasn't like they didn't know where his tomb was. Jerusalem wasn't that big at that time. Joseph of Arimathea was an incredibly wealthy man who owned the tomb. They had a couple squads of Roman soldiers who were watching over the tomb, it was sealed with a Roman seal. They all knew where it was. If they could have produced Jesus’ body, it would have ended everything. “He's not risen. Here he is.” And that's the beauty for us today, because it's empty. And the New Testament records over 500 witnesses who saw the risen Jesus! 500. And you could say that if it was only one or two... maybe they were having a lot of problems. You can understand sorrow and grief and maybe that's just what they were going through. But over 500 in a 40 day period? There is no safer place to be than in the arms of Jesus Christ. No safer place. Ever.

*   But knowing all this is not going to make the pain of the hammer caused by dad's death to go away automatically. But we grieve as those who have hope. And the bruise will manifest itself in moments when we turn as we always have and dad’s not there. It's at those moments when we need to share with each other the stories to remember dad, to keep his memory alive.

There are three things in my life that I will regularly remember about dad. The first one: I can remember being allowed to tag along with the Boy Scouts and we were taking the subway to go see a baseball game at Shea Stadium. First time I'd ever been on the subway. And dad said, "Wallet, front pocket." And I was like, "what's with the front pocket?" "Pickpocket." So I got my first lesson in pickpockets, and dad taught me about street smarts. And, as my family will tell you, my wallet has never been anywhere but in the front pocket, to this day. So dad taught me street smarts, and I remember that every time I stick my wallet in everyday. There it is.

The second thing, dad taught me how to use a handsaw. I can still remember. I can still see it. "Okay, get a measuring tape out. Measure. Measure twice, cut once. Make your mark." Then he said, "Take your thumb put it on the side of the saw and drawback three times. The thumb is going to be your guide. Get the groove and then go." So dad gave lessons in regular, daily living. You got street smarts and daily living.

And the other thing I remember is, I don't know I was maybe five or six years old, all I can remember is being really small. There was a door with a metal frame and glass in it, and I remember dad telling us, "You hold the door open for women." So I can remember with all my might, you know I'm grabbing this thing holding it and my mom goes through, my sister goes through, and a couple of other ladies go through. And I'm taken, I'm pretty good. Then I look up and dad's arm was up here like this. But that to me epitomized who dad was. Because dad would tell you how to do things, he would show you how to do it, and he would help you to do it. Dad was not looking for the glory. He wanted to help you to become what you could be.

You need to celebrate the life that we were allowed to be a part of and take heart if you are a disciple of Jesus. Because we have a hope and a future and we will see dad again

8.  (The Safe Passage)  

Let me start winding up is down with this thought:

I understand that death can be a fearful thing. I understand that. But it need not be does we have a Savior who has gone before us and prepared a place for us. Revelation 21:4 tells us that God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. [Dad’s tears are wiped away] There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” A place where the evil of this world does not exist. A place where we can rest in our heavenly Father's arms!

*   When the time comes for us to die, and it will for all of us, if we have a prolonged sickness, or we have a time when we know that death is coming quickly, or if you just know it’s coming some day, I want you to remember the story that I told dad in the hospital eight months ago when he was afraid. I said, "Dad do you remember when we were young? All the kids in the car, we come home from somewhere late in the night and people would be falling asleep. Dad would take us up his arms, put us in our beds, help mom to put our pajamas on. The next morning we would wake up not a care in the world. Except we had two questions, "How did I get in bed? And how did I get my pajamas on? And that is what Scripture promises will exactly happen. God came, God the Father, picked up dad took him into heaven and dad has new clothes.

Because Philippians tells us that, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body.” Dad will have a glorious body.

The Apostle Paul sums it up like this: “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.  We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14.

Please stand and join together in singing How Great Thou Art. The words are on the back of the card you got when you came in.

9.  How Great Thou Art – Alan Jackson Video

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10.  Scripture Reading  (1 Corinthians 15:1-6, 54c-58 - Maddee)

This is from first Corinthians 15. “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,  and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep…[T]hen the saying that is written will come true: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

11.  The Blessing

“May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father, who has offered to share the inheritance that belongs to God’s holy people, like Pop, who learned what it meant to live in the light.  For God has rescued his children from satan who rules in the kingdom of darkness, and has brought them into the Kingdom of His dear Son where there are no goodbyes and there is no end.  God has purchased the freedom of His children through the blood of Jesus and has forgiven all their sins. Now, may the Lord bless you and keep you.  May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.  May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.  Amen!”

*All images copyrighted by Dann P. Schrader