“God’s
Love for Us in Christ” (John 3:1–17)
Opal Copple’s funeral sermon. Feb. 8th, 2012. By: Pastor John M. Taggatz
1.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our heavenly
Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Dear family and friends of Opal,
today I pray that God will give you the courage, comfort and consolation
through His Son Jesus Christ to help you bear the grief that you have over Opal’s
death. But, know this. That even though Opal’s death appears to be
her end, it isn’t. For Jesus promises us
in His Word that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting
life. The message from God’s Word is
taken from John 3:1-17. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Those who are here today know that I
didn’t have the privilege of getting to know Opal personally. I was able to minister and read Holy
Scripture to her and her family while she was in hospice care at St. Elizabeth’s
Hospital. But, the wonderful thing about
our Christian faith is that we believe that God knows each and every one of us,
even more than we know ourselves. We’re
fearfully and wonderfully made, even the hairs of our head are numbered by God
our Heavenly Father. God knew Opal, and
He searched her out and chose her in Christ to call her to the Christian faith
and to confess with her lips that Jesus Christ is Lord.
3.
I was told that Opal had been doing
a lot of listening to God’s Word recently before she passed away and this
should be comforting to us. She had been
writing Bible verses down to reflect and meditate on. God’s Word says on Romans 10:17, “17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the
word of Christ.”
So also
in Ephesians
1:1-14, 3 Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places, 4
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and blameless before him… 13 In [Jesus] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel
of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” Since Opal has heard the Word of
Truth from God’s Holy Word, we can be sure that she received the faith to
believe in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior from sin, death, and the power
of the devil. And, that she received the
gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, having been reborn in Him.
4.
This leads us to the text that I
want to preach to you this evening to give you hope and comfort in God’s Word. John
3:14-17 says, “14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son
of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal
life. 16[Jesus said:] “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17For
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through him.”
5.
How do you show love for God? We can’t see Him. We know that He’s there, but we don’t have
that face-to-face relationship with Him that would allow us to show our love
for Him in ways that we can for our family or friends. It helps us to first identify just what kind
of love we’re talking about. If we want
to know what love is and how to show it, we should ask God, because, “God is love,” the Bible tells us (1 John
4). God is the author of love. He wrote the book on love. And not being content with merely lecturing
the world on the subject of love, He put His love into action. He sent us love in the form of His own son,
Jesus Christ. Jesus loves us with more
than just a friendship kind of love, even though He certainly is our friend. To help us understand His love for us,
Scripture calls Jesus the bridegroom and the Christian Church, His bride.
6.
The love Jesus has for you and for
Opal is more than a feeling. His is the “doing”
kind of love. Jesus loved us and died
for us before we ever learned the first lesson on love. We became Christians, not because we loved
God, but because God first loved us.
This is true of Opal as well. No,
at one time Scripture tells us, we were enemies of God not wanting anything to
do with Him, because of our own sinful nature.
Romans 5:10 says, 10
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son,
much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.” Christ’s love prompted Him to take steps toward
our salvation before we even knew we needed to be saved from our own sins, from
death, and from the power of the devil.
7.
Already in Moses’ day, God revealed
His plans for our salvation in some striking ways. In the Old Testament book of Numbers chapter
21 we learn that the Israelites were dying in the wilderness after being bitten
by poisonous snakes. It was then that
Moses, at God’s bidding, lifted up a bronze serpent for them to look at and be
healed. It wasn’t their looking that
saved them. But, the power of God’s
promise associated with their looking that saved them. So too, it wasn’t Opal’s own work of hearing
God’s Word and reading Holy Scripture that saved her, but the faith in Jesus Christ
as her Savior, that she received by the power of the Holy Spirit in the hearing
of God’s Word that saved her and gave her the gift of eternal life. In other words, Opal didn’t convince herself
to believe in Jesus as her Savior by her own willpower, but it was a gift given
to her by God through the hearing of His Holy Word.
8.
This Old Testament episode was a
preview of how God in love would one day let His own Son Jesus be lifted up on
a cross and how that Son’s death would be the remedy for all sin. It was our Lord Jesus’ death on the cross
that was the cure for Opal’s sin as well.
We must look to the cross of Jesus Christ for eternal life. Just as the Israelite was saved with a look,
so the sinner is saved by looking to Jesus as his Lord and Savior.
9.
We call this the great exchange,
when God substituted His Son’s life for us worthless sinners. Isaiah 53 tells the whole story, “Surely he took up our infirmities and
carried our sorrows…the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” God had one perfect Son. He was willing to give that one and only Son
Jesus, that He might one day have a whole kingdom of sons and daughters, and my
friends you and Opal are included as God’s sons and daughters, who have heard
the Word of Truth in Christ Jesus and have come to believe in Him as your Lord
and Savior.
10. This
good news of salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord is foolishness to natural
man. To human reason it seems all wrong
that God would sacrifice His Son to save sinners of every kind. That prostitutes, murderers, and drug dealers
who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus shall not perish, while
respectable people who try to do what is right are condemned to hell if they
don’t believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. But, this is the offense of the Gospel. The fact that salvation is entirely by God’s
grace and not by works of the law, by man’s own goodness.
11. But,
in this offense of the gospel is also its greatest glory, for the gospel doesn’t
demand, it gives. It doesn’t require
that we meet God halfway with our good works, but it assures us that Jesus went
all the way to death for us, and for our beloved Opal. It offers eternal life to babies who can’t do
any good works and to old sinners who have broken God’s law again and
again. It takes hold of tax collectors
like Matthew and prostitutes like Rahab, and by the power of the Holy Spirit
through the hearing of the Word of God, makes them repentant and believing
saints. It gives the thief on the cross
the sure hope of heaven, and it gives you and me, sinners that we are, the same
hope and fills us with all joy and peace.
12. Jesus’
resurrection from the dead was the absolute proof that in Him and in what He
did God accomplished for us and for Opal what we could never hope to do on our
own--overcome sin, death and make us fit for heaven. God “gave
His all” because He loves you. Just
as he loved Opal and sent His Son Jesus to give up His life for her that she
too may have the gift of eternal life by believing in Him. When a woman told her pastor that she didn’t
think she was saved because she didn’t love God enough, the pastor simply
replied, “That doesn’t matter. He loves you in Christ.” Engrave these words in your memory. Hang them on the wall of your heart. God loves you. He loves Opal and has prepared a place in
heaven for her. And finally when your
last hour comes, you will join Opal with all the saints of God in that joyful
reunion in heaven that will last forever and ever because of what our Lord
Jesus has done for us through His death and resurrection. Amen.
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