Good afternoon. My name is Ricky Jones. I am the pastor here at River Oaks. I was Marty's pastor years ago when this church was named Redeemer Presbyterian. This is not the first funeral that I had planned for Marty. About 14 years ago Cynthia and I were in ICU unit. I was about three days in to a coma. The doctor told Cynthia that if he didn't wake up that day then he probably wasn't going to wake up. And so we planned a funeral and then we got up and prayed. I remember the feeling. I grabbed Marty's foot. It was really hard and I said, Lord wake him up. We need you to wake Marty up. And then I walked out because I didn't really expect anything to happen and his dad walked in right behind us. I got over Marty's face and said, Wake up! And his eyes popped open and we got 15 more years of that brother and I'm thankful for that. I'm very thankful for that. I'm going to actually read some of the texts I intended to read so that's good. I'll show them how you did great. You read it much better than I would have, but I appreciate you. I mean, I did tell you what I was going to read and so you knew but
love you, man. So I'm going to shorten what I'm reading. But this is from Romans 8, sorry, in verse 26. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray as far as we ought. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those who before knew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son. In order that he might be the first born among many brothers and those who be predestined, he also called and those who be called, he also justified and those who be justified, he also glorified. Amen. As I've gotten older in the ministry, I've come to love generals actually, which is very weird. Laurel, I did your wedding so I want you to take the fence it does, but I hate weddings. They're so perfect. You have to be perfect and I'm not. So I always get the mothers mad at me because I mess up pictures. But the generals, you really do get to see the fruit of a life well lived. And it seems to be places where God, the Holy Spirit, comes closer to us than others. And I'm honored to be invited to speak at Marty's. I think it's a big honored when people invite you into the grief. So thank you. I do think funerals like this are more complex. You get kind of a tangled web of emotions. It's called complex grief. And I'm not going to really give you a sermon as much as just biblical advice to help you work through those emotions. And I do want you to know that God, your Father and the Holy Spirit and the Son will be glad to lead and heal you if you let them. And so this is just my fatherly advice to you. First of all, be sad. Be sad. Or sad because God created us to love. He is love itself. He is the image of love. He created us in the image of love. And the annoying thing about love is it never ends. First Corinthians 138, love never ends. And that stinks because the people we love leave us. And so we're stuck here with all this love and no one to give it to. And that hurts. And the better of a dad he was, the better of a friend he was, the more you mourn him, it's, I hate it when people tell me they don't want people to be sad at their funeral. Like what kind of person are you? Do you want to be glad you're gone? No. We're sad that you're gone Marty and we're going to be sad. You don't have the right to tell us not to. And so we're going to mourn with him. And if you will, the heart is an amazing thing. It's a self healing organ. And if you will let it feel, it will heal itself. It really will. So be sad. Second, and this is going to be a little bit controversial maybe, but it's okay to be mad. It's okay to be angry.
When Marty took his own life, he was not in his right mind. If he had been in his right mind, he would have never done that to you. And it's okay to be mad at him for doing it. You'll forgive him eventually. If you don't let yourself feel mad, you won't let yourself forgive him. I don't know if that makes sense. But the only other option is just to press down those feelings until they become hard and numb. And you don't want that. And if you want to kind of rescue the memories you have of your father, the best way to do it is to admit he should have done that. And then forgive him for doing it. So it's okay to be sad. It's important to be sad. I think it's okay and important to be angry. It is not okay to feel guilty. It is not okay to feel guilty. In every funeral, in every funeral I've ever done and every funeral I've ever experienced, my first, the first thought of the family whose lost a loved one is I didn't love him enough. I didn't do enough. And when it's taking your own life, it's even worse. And you're going to be asking yourself, did I do enough? Should I have checked on him more? Should I have seen something? Did I miss something? Marty's death is not your fault. It is not your fault. Now this is this is hard theology. This is going to be a bite of hard food, but it's important. Jesus tells us that not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from his father's will and every hair on your head is numbered. Now that wasn't hard for Marty to number the hairs on his head, but not one of them was shaved off without God's knowing it. And the only person who could have stopped it was Jesus. And he didn't. And I don't know why. And we'll get to ask him that one day, but it is not okay to feel guilty. Not one of you could have stopped this. And that's important. It's important because the answer to the question to do enough is always no. What is enough? Do I do everything I could? No. And if you let yourself, you'll beat yourself up for decades over that. Don't do it. Just take that stuff right to Jesus. Verse 34, verse 33 of Romans, I says, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies who can condemn Christ. Jesus is the one who died more than that who is raised and is at the right hand of God who is indeed interceding for us. And remember when Paul here is saying no one can condemn us because Jesus has died for us, that includes ourselves. You don't have the right to condemn you or anybody else. It's not okay to feel guilty. And it's not okay to feel regret. And what I mean by that is this
there are things you need to say you're sorry to your dad for and to your husband for. And that's okay. And I hope one day you will visit a grave and tell him you're sorry. You need that just to cleanse your own conscience. But I can tell you right now he is not mad at you. He is not mad at you.
I was in the hospital a few days this fall. We still don't know what I was sick of, but I was really sick and terribly scared. And I wrote a letter to my boys in case it didn't turn out the way we wanted to turn out. And in that letter I wrote I said I know your feeling regret. I know you're thinking about the times you disappointed me. And I just want you to know I don't remember any of them because that's how love works. Love covers the multitude of sins and marries with Jesus. And he is forgiving you and he doesn't even remember the things you've done that might have disappointed. So you can let that go. It is okay to be sad. It is okay to be angry. It's not okay to feel guilt. It's not okay to feel regret. And finally it is absolutely vital that you feel hope. The beautiful thing is that death has not separated Marty from the love of God. William Reid I'm sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor power nor height nor death not anything else and all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. Death has not separated him from that love. Jesus is still connected not only to Marty's soul but to his body. The Jesus who was raised from the dead from the dead for us has made death itself into nothing more than a shadow. And he will return. Marty will return and he will be beautiful and he will have a full head of air and he will rise and he will be perfect and he won't be depressed anymore. He'll never be depressed again and he will be he Paul tells us he'll be as different as the seed is from a flower. That much more glorious. That much more beautiful but every that Marty and you can have the hope of seeing that again. That is what Christ is one for us when he defeated death for us. So feel hope practice hope feed your hope. Go to the Lord in times of hopelessness. Ask him for hope and it will be forever a blessing to him.