When I think of what we are facing today, my mind immediately goes to all of the fruit that’s been laid up to our departed brother’s account, praise God!  My mind goes to that care and the love that each of us has been partakers of.  When we look around today, we see how many of us know that when we were able to be around him, there was a joy, there was a peace, there was a contentment in the Lord.  And he was one of the most thoughtful men that I’ve known.  Many different times in just sitting and talking with him, he was telling me of a project that he was making for someone—just thoughtful, something that would mean something to them.  It might be a handmade holster, or a belt, or something that he would give one of his friends—thinking about them.  A lot of men don’t have that.  I wish I had more of that in me. 

O death, where is that sting?  Amen?  And there is none.  Though we’re going to be sad, and we’re the ones that are left behind—he’s leaving a big hole in the ministry, and God will raise somebody up.  And we rejoice in that, thankful for whomever God is going to use to move in that role.  He’s been a large, large contributor to us as a community for many years.  In my mind, I can still go back—in my mind, I can actually dial in their wedding day.  There are not a lot of things I remember, but their wedding day stuck out because someone was passing out, and it was the first time I saw his brother; so, I remember that.  In fact, I was telling somebody today, “You know, his mom just went home not long ago”.  Yeah, we’re going to miss him, but let’s rejoice in the victory that has been won, amen?  Oh, there are going to be tears and heartache, but a great victory has been won.  Nobody is going to snatch him in this hour.  He will not be one that falls away in the last day, and we need to rejoice in that, hallelujah!

So, we want to take a moment and look at the goodness of God, the mercy of God, and as we face situations like this, nothing is going to make this go away.  You just have to go through it.  And much of our faith, our decisions, and our decision in making it through this is:  I choose to believe, for I know and have tasted of the goodness of God.  Amen?  God’s good, hallelujah!  And I choose to praise Him and to worship Him because His ways are far above my ways.  If He explained it to me, I couldn’t understand it.  It’s way beyond my ability to comprehend, amen?  So, we don’t ask questions.  Why ask a question to something that even if it was explained to you, you couldn’t comprehend it?  His ways are far above our ways, and the Judge of all the earth does right, hallelujah!  So, we rejoice in Him.  We give Him all the glory and all of the honor when we come into these areas.  It’s part of life; as Christians, we’re not immune to the normal course of life.  We’re not immune to tragedies.  We’re not immune whether it be some kind of an accident, whether it’s something like this that manifests itself suddenly that you had no awareness of.  The real thing we need to understand about this is: not one of us in here has a guarantee of tomorrow, so we should live our lives accordingly.  Amen?