Memorial Service For Floyd McKeehan

My good friend and dear brother passed into glory a few days ago. I've joyfully wept and cried many times knowing full well that he is with Christ. I was humbled and privileged that, prior to his death, he and his family asked me to preach at his memorial service. It was an honor to know this man who led me to be more godly. He made me want to be a better dad, husband, pastor and lover of Christ. It was a pleasure to honor him by honoring Christ and proclaiming the gospel of His glorious death, burial and resurrection. This message was preached to several hundred people, many of which were unbelievers. I pray that God was glorified in the exaltation of His Son, Jesus Christ.
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR FLOYD MCKEEHAN, JULY 31, 2010

For those of us that are Christians and knew Floyd well in this capacity, we knew that his heart grieved over the condition of the American church. It grieved him to see pastors delivering soft and sugar-coated self-help messages to people who are lovers of self and despisers of God. It pained him to see the true message of Scripture watered down and diluted. He would often comment on how some of the older songs written about God contained more theology and food for the soul than the so-called sermons preached from plastic pulpits. You see, Floyd was one who loved God immensely because of the deep and soul-satisfying treasures found in Scripture. It was in the Scripture that Floyd found and came to know the treasure of the crucified, risen and now reigning Jesus Christ. And it was this Christ that Floyd wanted pastors and Christians to proclaim. As so today, you will not, indeed you should not hear a message that will be of no eternal benefit to you. The message from Scripture, from Jesus Himself, that I will share with you is intended, on purpose, to awaken you from your spiritual slumber, if need be. It is meant to be helpful for you for all eternity. I pray that you would receive it as such.

Loved ones and friends of Floyd, I stand before you today as friend of Floyd’s, as a pastor, but more importantly, as a servant of the most High God, Jesus Christ. And I come to bring you great news from God in this time of bereavement, mourning and loss. But before you can appreciate and receive and cherish this good news, this message of hope, I must share with you the flip side of the coin—that is, the bad news.

In Luke 13:4-5, Jesus poses a most amazing question to the crowds He has been teaching. It is startling when you hear the answer He gives to His own question. For those that think that Jesus’ teachings were nothing more that tidbits of information for wholesome living or that He only spoke on love, you will be surprised at what He says and I think it ties in perfectly for today.

Jesus had been teaching the crowds and His disciples and some people came up to Him and informed Him about a Roman ruler who had just slaughtered and killed some people. It was an atrocious act. Death was in the air. Jesus, knowing the way humans think, poses this question to the crowd: “Do you think that these people were worse sinners, were more wicked, were more evil than others because they were slaughtered and suffered in this way?” In others words, “Do you think that bad things like this only happen to bad people—to people who deserve it?” Jesus gives an answer and then He poses a 2nd and similar question and then gives the same answer to the first question.

Luke 13:4-5 Or [What about] those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?

So that’s Jesus 2nd question. There was a tower in Siloam that fell over and killed 18 people—a random tragedy if you will. Do you think that they were worse offenders, worse sinners before God than all the other people who lived in Jerusalem? Do you think God judged them for their sin and brought the building down on them? Some people have died, a tragedy has taken place and Jesus brings up the issue of sin and judgment and our standing before God. That is the nature of Christ. Always saying the unexpected…always taking people where they don’t want to go…always leading them to consider what matters most in life.

Now I want you to listen to the answer Jesus gives to these two questions…it is the same answer. Were the people murdered and slaughtered more wicked that the others who lives around them? Were the people killed by the falling tower more wicked than those who lived around them? Jesus says,

5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

That is a statement that calls for us to pause and reflect. No! He says. They were not more wicked—in fact, it appears that from a human standpoint they were less evil. Death happens to wicked people. Death happens to people who appear to be good from a human standpoint. But unless you repent, you will all die. And when Jesus speaks of death here, he means eternal judgment from God in hell. Notice that Jesus doesn’t answer the questions that you and I may have? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is there evil in the world? Those are legitimate questions but I think secondary to what matters most. If the answers to these questions mattered more, Jesus would have given those answers. But Jesus doesn’t answer those questions and in fact, He takes them to a more important issue—that of our individual deaths and eternal damnation before God.

Let me put it to you like this. It really doesn’t matter how you die, whether it be in a collapsing building, whether you are murdered, whether you die of old age or whether you die of cancer. We all have an appointment with death. People who seem to be good die and so do people who have an outer appearance of greater wickedness. Everyone dies. The day is coming when others will give my eulogy, when others will eulogize you and the person next to you. We all have a date with death, with a casket or with an urn, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing we can do to stop it. We can take vitamins and exercise to put it off a few more years. We can seek medical attention when sick to stall it just a little bit longer, but everyone dies. So the issue of how you die is really secondary to the fact that you will die and that judgment from God takes place upon death. Death is the more important issue that Christ brings to these people’s attention and it happens to good and bad people.

Right now, you’re probably thinking, “Hey, dude, I thought you said you had great news?” I do, but remember that I said that before you can appreciate, receive, desire and cherish the good news you must hear the bad news. A person who is unknowingly sick and feels well has no desire to take any physician recommended medicines or treatment. The medicine is not good news to him when he does not feel sick or see evidence of his sickness. The medicine is but a nuisance. So it is with the sinner. The good news God has for you is a nuisance to you, an inconvenience. You will not want it, desire it, or take it unless you see how serious your condition of coming death is.

Death is serious and it comes from God and is a result of sin. Sin is disobedience to God and His commandments. Sin is loving other things more than God. You and I are great sinners. There is not a good person in this room. Sure, you may be good compared to the person next you, I mean, “come on, you’re way better than them, right?” And therein lies the problem preventing you from ever accepting the good news God has for you. It’s called self-righteousness. People are naturally self-righteous. They think they are righteous or good. They think they are well or healthy before God. They don’t consider themselves to be bad people or sinners that deserve the judgment of God. That is what I mean when I say that an unknowingly sick person will never take a cure for a sickness they are not convinced they have and see no evidence of. You have a sin condition that you may be denying because you don’t feel sinful and you don’t see evidence of your sin. But just as the doctor is there to show a sick person their sickness so that they’ll desire the cure, take it and be healed, so too, there is the pastor and Christian in your life to help you see your souls true condition so that you’ll desire the cure for your deadly condition, take it and receive eternal life. This cure is the good news we all need and will desire when our need for it is exposed.

You must be convinced of your badness, of your sinfulness, of the judgment due you, IF you are to ever understand and embrace God’s love for you. You see, God says there is none good but Him. The standard of goodness that God compares you to is not the person next to you or the criminal on death row or the registered sex offender. We are not judged on a curve. The standard of goodness that God compares you to is God Himself. He is gloriously perfect and we fall way short of that glory. If we want to know if we are truly sinners then God has given us His Law, His commands to see whether or not we fail. God’s commandments and God’s law are reflections of His character and nature. And to violate them is to fail to be like God, it is to fail to love God, it is to be a sinner. And the souls that sins will surely die. The penalty and wage and compensation due all of us for our sin is death in hell. So have you sinned? Indeed, all of us have.

God is a God of truth and commands us not to lie. That is something we are all guilty of countless times. God is a giving God and has given to us and commands us not to take from others. Yet I would say that all of us have taken things from others that do not belong to us. The value of the stolen object does not determine whether stealing is bad. If I took two dollars from your wallet or purse you’d know that was wrong and you’d be angry. But it’s only $2. No. It’s stealing. God commands us to honor our father’s and mother’s. Christ, the Son of God, honored His Father perfectly and so to fail to honor and obey our parents is to fail to be like the perfect Son of God. If we’ve ever used God’s name flippantly or as a cuss word, we’ve taken the name of God in vain and have committed blasphemy. If we have loved other things more than God then we are idol worshippers. Think about it. Many of us have gone camping, or to the snow, or to a lake or beach and have enjoyed God’s creation without ever giving thanks to Him. We’ve enjoyed food without gratitude. We’ve slept many pain-free nights and never expressed gratitude to God. We can be such ungrateful people who take for granted every good gift that God has given us. We love His gifts but not Him so much. I am merely touching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the sins we commit. But hopefully you can see with just the few mentioned, that indeed we all are sinners before God. These are serious offensives to God. Do not kid yourself and think that sin is trivial.

Let us go back to Jesus’ words. Unless you repent, you will likewise perish or die. Jesus doesn’t mean that if you repent of sin, or stop sinning that you’re never going to die a physical death. Here He’s referencing the eternal death in hell that awaits those who do not turn from their sin and come to Christ who is the Savior from sin, death and hell. We all have an appointment with death. What matters is this: How will God judge you? Will He judge you as a sinner or as a perfectly obedient, law-keeping, God-loving person? If you’re honest with yourself, you will hopefully see that all of us should be condemned as sinners. This is the bad news that awaits us all at death. We will all perish apart from God, according to Jesus, unless….Unless what? Unless we repent. The word repent means to change the way you live and to change the way you think. It means to abandon and forsake your sin…stop loving what God detests. Stop thinking in a way that is contrary to God’s thinking. Stop thinking you’re a good person. Start realizing you’re a sinner. Come to grips with the fact that you need someone to rescue you. You need a Savior. Let go of all that is taking you to hell and cling to the One who will bring you to God for all eternity in order that you might have everlasting joy in knowing Him.

The good news is that you can be rescued by God from the judgment of God in order to be with God in heaven. How is it that God accomplishes this for you—this rescuing, this salvation? He accomplishes all this through the life and work of Jesus Christ. The Father sent the Son to live the perfect life that you and I have utterly failed to live. Jesus is the only one who has ever obeyed God’s commandments perfectly. Jesus did everything that the Father required of Him. In Him was no sin. He was the only good person to have ever lived and thus the only one to deserve eternal life with the Father. Understand that first. That was part of what Christ came to do.
Secondly, understand that when Jesus died on the cross, He was dying in the place of those who repent of their sin and trust that He alone can save them. He came to be our substitute in death. We deserve to die. He paid the penalty and fine for us and suffered the wrath of the Father in our place. We deserve the wrath of God. On the cross Jesus absorbed and took the wrath of God upon Himself so that it can be diverted from us.

So here’s what happens when we repent of our sin and come to Christ for eternal salvation, for eternal life with God. When we turn from sin and turn to Christ, when we believe that He alone can save us and that there’s nothing we can do to save ourselves, when we put our faith in Him, two wonderful things happens. (1). We can know that Christ has taken away our sin and removed it from us. Where did the sin go? That sin was placed on Him when He died on the cross so that when He died, He was being treated as a law-breaker even though He was not. He was suffering for my sins, my crimes against God and the crimes and sins of all those who would believe or trust in Him. Our sin gets put into His account, so that He was treated as a sinner and thus suffered the wrath of God in our place. (2). When we repent of our sin and believe in Christ, His perfect obedience and righteousness, His perfect commandment keeping gets transferred to my account, so that God will treat me as if I had never sinned. Even though I am a sinner, God will treat me as the perfect Son of God and I can be with God forever. Christ treated as sinful me. I can be treated as the perfect Christ. This is the work of Christ. This is what He came to do. And only those who repent of their sin and believe that He is the Savior have this wonderful gift of forgiveness…these same believers have this great gift of righteousness.

This is why those of us that knew Floyd can rejoice today. While our hearts miss him. We are confident that he is with God right now. Not because he was a good person…because Floyd was a sinner too. We are confident that he is with God right now because Floyd recognized his sin and Floyd came to Christ seeking forgiveness, seeking the perfect righteousness of Christ, seeking salvation…and God gave that to Floyd when Floyd repented and put His faith in Christ. Floyd knew that the cross of Christ was where the justice and mercy of God met in a beautiful display. And Scripture says that if Christ is our Savior, then death has lost its sting. The grave has no more victory of us. Though we die a physical death, that death has be transformed into a passageway that leads Christians into the very presence of God where our joy will be taken to infinite levels. To see a Christian family rejoice when a loved one has gone to be with Christ is a most comforting and encouraging thing. God has turned our mourning into dancing through Christ.

For those that reject the Savior, then the words of Jesus still remain waiting for you to come to terms with. Unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Those are words that should make your heart pound. We live in a world were we are amused to death. The radio is loud. The food smells good. The movies are great. The clubs are bouncing. The text messages are constantly going off. And unfortunately it takes moments like this, days like today, to get us to stop for a moment and realize that we are all but a breath away from meeting our Maker. Do not be so distracted by the entertainments of life that you never stop to consider what really matters. Satan would love for you to be preoccupied the trivial. Really, he would.

In the time that I knew Floyd I can say that he wanted his life to matter. And right now and I know he is with God and he wants his death to matter. His death would be a waste if we did not share this vital message with you. God appointed this day, the memorial service of Floyd, to be the day that you would hear the good news of salvation. So what is left for you to do? Do what Christ said and taught through His ministry. Repent of your sin and believe that He died, was buried and rose again in order to bring you to God for all eternity. The answer isn’t to look within. The answer is to look outside of yourself. Look to the cross. Look to Christ. Look to the empty tomb and you will not perish. Though you die, you will live forever with God. And that is great news.

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