Today we’ll attend a Memorial service for a good friend.
Jack was a gentle man, a kind person, and a humble one as well. He was open, honest, generous, and hospitable. He’ll be missed by family and friends, his community and church will feel his loss.

Funerals are designed to make us think about the big issues of life.
The serious stuff we’d rather not dwell on most of the time, especially on a warm sunny Friday afternoon!

But God thinks funerals are a great opportunity to urge us to take inventory of our lives.
Parties are intended to entertain and divert us, not make us contemplate our eternal destiny .

Funerals wig people out.
For exactly the reason you might think.
They don’t like thinking somber thoughts about death and dying.
Who wants to be confronted with mortality?
The End.

Of course for Jack, it’s not the end, just a momentary transition from death to life.

There’s a great section in the Bible that compares funerals to parties, and the funerals come out on top.

It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.
Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
Ecclesiastes 7:2-4

It turns out that a funeral improves your heart.
Your heart’s IQ goes up when you have to face the truth that the same fate awaits every single human being.

It’s what happens in the moment just after death that’s key.
Then, like Real Estate, there are only 3 things that matter:
location, location, and location.
And you find out in the end, it’s Who you know, not what you know that’s crucial.

Jesus said . . ., “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
John 11:25

Do you know God?
Have you come to Him through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ?
You can know that you have eternal life.

that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
John 3:15-17

None of us have a lock on long life or good health.
Take time over the weekend to connect with God.
Reflect on the direction you’re headed and the trajectory of your life path.
Are you making your life count for eternity?

Investing trumps spending.
Invest in something eternal and the dividends will pay off forever!!!