Funeral Sermon

First sermons aren’t usually known for their profundity (mine certainly was not). They are usually fairly short, despite the uncomfortable pauses and nervous stuttering. All Luke tells us about Paul’s first sermon is that “he preached Christ…that he is the Son of God (Acts 9:20). It sounds as if even the great apostle’s first sermon was short and simple.

The other night at our church, a brother named Abraham preached his first sermon. He did a great job, and everyone was extremely proud of him. He will probably listen to the sermon somewhere down the road, years from now, and blush a bit at it, like all preachers do when they listen to themselves from the perspective of maturity.

I have to say though, while his first sermon surely won’t be the best he will ever deliver, he said something at the beginning that touched on a truth as deep as any he will ever proclaim. He wore a new suit to church Sunday, getting ready for his homiletic debut, and someone ribbed him a bit about it, asking him, “You going to a funeral after church?” As he prepared to dive into his text Sunday night, he told about that comment, and then he said that in a way, yes, he was dressed for a funeral. It was his funeral, because he had to die to himself in order to do what God had called him to do.

I wanted to tell him to just go ahead and sit down, because he wasn’t going to be able to top that. What a truth! Jesus said in Luke 9:23, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Pay attention to that phrase, “take up his cross daily”. Jesus was not referring to a piece of jewelry to be worn on a necklace. The cross was an instrument of execution. To take up your cross is akin to picking up your own coffin. There is a sense in which every one of us must have our own funeral. We must come to the point where we die to our own wishes, our own wants, and our own ways. We must die to self that we might live for Christ.

Paul put it this way. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20

Pray for Abraham Baker and his family. He died. Yet he is living like never before.