Good morning and welcome to this service of memorial and remembrance and honor of Robert Burnett. The psalmist writes, ‘I give thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart. Before the gods I sing your praise. I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness. For you have exalted above all things your name and your word. On the day that I called, you answered me. My strength of soul you increased.’
Please stand and let us sing hymn number 705, ‘It is Well with My Soul.’
We thank you for the life that you have given to us. We thank you for the life of Bob Barnett, the love that he shared, his witness and faith in you. We ask that you help us to remember him well, to follow and learn from his example and remain steadfast in love and faith of you, our rock, our redeemer, and our only savior.
We pray this in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray to you by praying, “Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’
Please be seated.
Our first scripture reading comes from Psalm 23.
‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’
Next, we turn to John chapter 11, beginning at the 17th verse.
‘Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
Our next hymn, if you would please stand, is number 450, ‘Lift High the Cross.’
Please be seated.
Our next scripture comes from the book of Job, chapter 42, verses 1 through 6.
‘Then Job answered the Lord and said, ‘I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me. I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Our second reading comes from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53.
‘Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground, he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide with him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.’
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, you have given us your word today as the only rule for our faith and our practice, teaching us what we are to believe concerning you, teaching us what we are to believe concerning your promises and the great salvation you have wrought for us. Let us hear your word and find comfort in what you have to tell us. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Our whole human condition seems to be typified by suffering, beginning from the first light we see and the first breath we take until the moment when our soul is separated from this, our mortal shell. However, as Christians, we believe and we know that this is not how God created us to be. To suffer is not what we were created for, but we do. To suffer is not what we were created for, and yet each and every one of us, in varying degrees and ways—no matter our socioeconomic or political status—we all suffer. Nobody is exempt. Oftentimes, many of those who appear to suffer the least are the ones who are actually suffering the most, suffering where it matters.
Scripture tells us about a man named Job. Job was considered righteous before both God and man. He was prosperous and wealthy; he was by every definition extraordinarily blessed. However, the Lord permitted all manners of trials and tribulations, calamities, and calumnities to befall him at Satan’s behest. God did not cause Job’s sufferings. Contrary to the opinion of his friends, his sufferings were not directly related to nor proportional to either his righteousness or his sinfulness—so much so that we might risk accusing God of being unjust towards Job. But as bad as they were, his sufferings remain less than he or any of us deserve for our many sins.
The sufferings of Job cannot be explained or rationalized from a human perspective because they require the heavenly view. Yet even knowing that, we cannot and will not know or understand precisely why the Lord allows everything to happen to him or to any of us. Instead, we must simply trust, hope, and rest in our faith that somehow—somehow—it is for the good of those who love the Lord.
Still through it all, Job never lost his faith in God. He never stopped trusting the Lord or his goodness, even while he was demanding to know why. Although Job got mad at God, he still trusted the Lord and his good providence. At the conclusion of his story, which we read, after he had demanded that the Lord, the only living God, the absolute sovereign of the universe, explain to him, a mere human creation, why, God plainly and simply told him, “No.”
This prompted Job to reply, ‘I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.’ Finally, after everything, God restored Job and increased him from all that he had lost because it pleased him to do so by his grace, mercy, and love for Job. Job was restored to wholeness fully in this life. And while we cannot expect that we all shall receive likewise, we still hope and pray for it.
Even still, we hold tight to God’s promises in Christ Jesus that we shall be ultimately restored and made whole when we are raised and glorified with his Son. Then James, the brother of Jesus, he idealized and exemplified Job, holding him up on account of his steadfastness, as the ESV says, or his patience, as the King James says. His patience and steadfastness with the Lord. He commends Job to us as an example for hope realized, writing, ‘Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You’ve heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you’ve seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful,’ expressions of God’s love that he showed to Job.
So James teaches us that sometimes the best or the only purpose to our sufferings that we can know, the only purpose that we can know, is that somehow we are given an opportunity to exercise patience and steadfastness in God. We are given an opportunity to pray and trust in the Lord and to prepare us for recognizing, receiving, and better appreciating God’s compassion and mercy. Our times of suffering should draw us closer to God; they should not drive us away from Him. Through our times of suffering, we are also given the opportunity to allow the application of our faith, our patience, and our steadfastness to become examples for the encouragement of other younger, newer, weaker, or even struggling believers.
And although we do not have a good or humanly satisfactory answer for the question of why we suffer, Scripture and our faith provide us with enough comfort to know that there is some good purpose and valuable use for our sufferings.
But beyond Job, whose suffering, as unjust as he would want to claim it, there is one who knows far more about unjust suffering than every other human person, the suffering servant of the Lord, Jesus Christ. The prophet Isaiah wrote, ‘He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.’
Most obviously, when we hear that, we remember Jesus’ many physical sufferings on his way to the cross. But just as important were all the many sufferings of his life before the climax. He was born, pushed out and expelled from his mother’s womb. He surely got sick and skinned his knees as a child while playing. He knew the pangs of hunger and thirst. He knew what it meant to be too hot and too cold. He experienced betrayal, abandonment, and rejection. He suffered verbal abuse and was almost certainly discriminated against for any number of reasons. He knew the pain of loss whenever members of his family or friends died.
Jesus experienced and suffered as much in life as—and on the cross even more than—any and every other human person can or ever will while we live. Understanding that, we take comfort knowing that we do not have a high priest who’s unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
See, Jesus knows and understands everything that you have gone through, are going through, or will ever go through. Although we like to think that we are helping and empathizing with others when we compare our past circumstances and feelings to their present troubles, Jesus, on the other hand, He alone actually does know. He alone has suffered far worse because He suffered hell and the full wrath of God as He died on the cross. He suffered the fullness, the entirety of it so that we would not have to. Jesus knows. And Jesus understands.
So thank the Lord, because that is why we can trust him and his promises. Because that is why He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Jesus suffered the fullness of what we deserve so that we will receive mercy instead of justice. This means that the many unfortunate sufferings which we still do experience are less than what we deserve, as with joy, and may somehow be turned and used for our good.
Jesus lived and suffered so that he and we could better relate together, so that he could empathize and sympathize with us as a man. Jesus suffered and died for our healing. Jesus died and rose from the dead. He was glorified so that we may live eternally with him. Jesus rose so that we can now live lives transformed, sanctified, glorified, and be glorified and perfected with him in his eternal kingdom so that we may be free from all of our present worries, cares, troubles, pains, sorrows, and sufferings someday.
The Apostle Paul writes, ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. And when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’
Therefore, we know and believe that we have been chosen, called, and adopted by the Lord because of Christ’s great love for us. Knowing and believing that since Jesus was born, lived, died, and rose again for us, we are also joined together with him in his victory over death, sin, and Satan. Knowing and believing this is what gives every Christian comfort and hope for our eternal future. Knowing and believing this is what gives us the strength and courage to persevere through our sufferings, to continue remaining steadfast in our faith, and to wait patiently upon the Lord through everything that comes our way.
And it’s only by looking ahead to our hope through our faith in Christ that we can endure and be persevered through our suffering. Because through our hope, we’re joined together with our Savior. As the suffering servant, He endured his sufferings while also trusting in hopeful anticipation. He understood that while it was the will of the Lord to crush him, He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand, and out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied.
So although I cannot offer us any happy answers to the question of why we suffer, I can and will point us to the example of Bob Barnett as a man who suffered more than anyone would have wished. Despite his sufferings, he also lived and loved well for God’s glory. Although he did not receive a completely miraculous healing or a full physical restoration in this life, I believe and am confident and hope that he is presently—right now—enjoying the healing and wholeness that every Christian expects to receive upon our passing and our translation to be with our Lord Jesus.
Right now, he is seeing our Lord with his own eyes, and he is receiving what has been promised to all who believe in and trust Christ. Therefore, I would and will and do commend to you the steadfastness and faith of Bob Barnett, who has now joined that great cloud of witnesses to the glory of Christ.
Finally, when you trust in Jesus and you experience suffering in this life, please know and remember that you are following a very well-worn path trod first by your Savior. Know and believe that at the end of this road, your Comforter and Intercessor is awaiting you even as he has also been walking with you. Because He alone knows what you’re going through and can fully empathize with you. He awaits to deliver you, to heal you, and to give you his peace forever. Amen.
Our next reading: Ecclesiastes chapter 3.
‘For everything, there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to seek, and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to cast away, a time to tear, and a time to sow, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.’
Our last reading, which we’ve heard in part but will hear again, comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
‘If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.’ Verse 1, ‘O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.’
Please stand as our final hymn is number 253, ‘Silent Night.’
And so as we prepare to leave this place, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each of us now and always. Amen.
Please be seated as we await some remarks from the family.
My dad was one of a kind. Those that spent any time with him quickly saw how much he loved and cared for those around him. My dad was honest, trustworthy, and upright with all that he dealt with. I have seen my dad joke and tease the women in the church to make them laugh. He was a loyal friend.
These are just a few of the things that my dad learned during his race or his journey in life. He also endured heartache, loss, and disappointment. All of these things would teach him valuable lessons and how to hope and trust. My dad was not a chatterbox. When he had something to say, it was very short and always to the point. The words that he spoke would ring true in your heart, and you knew what he was saying was right.
We are all on a journey race. Some of us are at a really hard spot; others where it’s a little bit easier. My dad has completed his race. He is now at rest with the one who created him and the one who loves him. My dad’s final words to share with us today would be, ‘Complete your race. Finish well.’ Thank you.
This now concludes our service. Sean will be dismissing us row by row, so please remain seated until he releases you. Thank you.