Above is a pic of my youngest daughter and me.
My Husband, My brother in Christ
Phriday Philippians: Your Funeral
You are probably thinking my title to this post is a bit crazy, but bare with me.
Philippians 1:6 says, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."I recently got an e-mail from my dad. He and his wife, my mother since I was 13, did missions work in Brazil. They recently received the news that one of the missionaries that they worked with down there has passed on to Heaven. A co-missionary wrote to tell us of how the Lord worked in this time and how, even to the moment of the last breath drawn, this Bible translating missionary impacted people's lives. The medical staff at the hospital this missionary died at broke down in tears and apologized for not being able to do more. They were especially thankful for this missionaries' heart to translate God's Word into the language of Brazil's Indians... the whole hospital staff was touched in some way by this missionary during the hospitalization. 1,200 or so Indian leaders and pastors prayed together and had a service to "remember" and to bring praises to God.
A taxi driver giving attendees a ride to the grave site told them that a famous Brazilian race car driver was buried in that particular cemetary. One of them commented at the grave site on how much better was the race that this missionary had run.
God will complete and perfect the good work in us because the Bible says so. What is the "good work" in us?
"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."-- 2 Timothy 1:9
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:3-6)
Christ's redemption is the completed work where we can cry out as He did on the cross, "It is finished." But why does it say "He who began ... will complete it..." ??? This is both the perseverence of the saints and the preservation by God. This is both the completed work of being sanctified and the ongoing process of sanctification. This is the life led unto the death of the body, to the absolute finish of the race and glorification of that body.
So what made me think of this title for this particular passage? Spurgeon writes, "...we believe that God the Father was the architect, sketched the plan, supplies the materials, and will complete the work... Be it known this morning that every man and woman here is either saved at this present moment or lost, and that salvation is not a blessing to be enjoyed upon the dying bed and to be sung of in a future state above, but a matter to be obtained, received, promised and enjoyed now. God hath saved His saints, mark, not partly saved them, but perfectly saved them."--Spurgeon
What will be said at your funeral? Will it have been obvious that God was your all-in-all? That every breath you took was done for His glory? Will it be confidently known of you that it was truly God that worked in you and through you and will certainly perfect you until the day of Jesus? How is the race you are running and which direction are you going?
