Kore Byler Funeral Sermon

Well, good morning. Greetings to you all, and I want to thank you, Brother Dave, for that opening, and Brother Silas for leading out in those hymns.

To the family, I want to extend my sympathies and my, uh, heartfelt grief over the loss that you're experiencing this day. Brother Elijah said last evening here, when we went through the line, he said, "We're rejoicing." And I believe that rejoicing does not have its basis in the loss, but it has its basis in that the Byler family, along with all of us, have a good sense of a foundational hope by the grace of God that all is well, as was already mentioned by Brother David.

And, you know, there's rejoicing not only here, but the Bible says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord are the death of His saints." So we believe this morning that God is smiling. And just thinking of a few memories of the Byler family, along with David, I say, as I knew Brother Corey, he was a very humble man. That is the first characteristic that comes to my mind when I think of Corey. In humility, he was a man of, uh, maybe a few words, but a man of solid words, and very quick to acknowledge his shortcomings, and very quick to be free and confess his sins and his faults before man and God. What a blessing.

And as was mentioned, he was a servant in the community, and for his family, and I think of the many, many years he served and, uh, cared for Brother Luke, that always stood out to me as a blessing. What a blessing.

I could, uh, share many memories. We've, I guess my wife and I got to know the Byler family back somewhere in the early '90s, mid-'90s somewhere, when we first came to this church. And I remember the John and Elijah, my wife and I did not know them apart. Back then they were these young, slender, steady Byler boys. We knew they had different names, but to me they looked the same.

And one of my first memories of, uh, one of them, I'm still not quite sure which one it was, stopped at our house one day when I wasn't home. My wife said one of those Byler boys stopped in and said, "He's in charge of, uh, getting the devotionals together in our church, and he's going to ask me to have Sunday morning devotion sometime."

I'm like, "No, he's not." I said, "I never spoke in public, and he's not going to get me to start." That scared me so badly. I said, "Well, I'm just going to void that Byler boy, whoever it was." So I sort of voided both of them for a while. I just sort of kept my distance. That's just extra little memories. But he did catch me one time and ended up having devotions at church.

Many memories I could think of, just worshiping together, talking together, and so on. Sweet memories. We're not going to take a lot of time with that this morning because we have another subject here that we need to address. It's the subject of death. Solomon says, "Better is the day of death than the day of one's birth." 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.

Let's bow for a word of prayer.

Dear God, we do invite you to be here this morning. We thank you for this time, and we thank you for the life that we can celebrate of Brother Corey. And Lord, as your word tells us, that the living will lay it to his heart. And we're here to do that this morning, and we pray that you would give us wisdom and guidance as we search out this great subject of death. We know that the devil's idea of death is to destroy us, but your idea of death has a different purpose, and we want to find that out this morning by your help.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You can turn with me, turn your Bibles to, uh, 2 Corinthians at this point. We'll look at a couple verses there. 2 Corinthians 5.

Verse 1 says, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God and house, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan earnestly, desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon the mortality, the mortality, that mortality might be swallowed up in life." I see in those verses that Paul is helping us to understand. He's using this illustration of the house, the tabernacle, our body, wherein we live.

This earthly body he's talking about being dissolved. And when that happens, he says, there's another tabernacle, there's another house that is being prepared, that is an eternal house, that has foundations that will never go away. But if you notice in this verse, in these verses, there's a burden, there's sort of a, a debate going on, if we can use that term, between the two places, the two houses.

Part of me is saying, uh, but I know this tabernacle. I know this body. I've been born in this body. I grew up in this body. It's very familiar to me. And therefore, there's part of me that doesn't want to let go of this body. It's the only body I know. You see the battle in these verses that Paul is bringing out, and yet there's another part about us that knows this body is a dying body.

So we don't really want to stay in this body, do we? We want to get rid of it. We want to, because we know there's a better one waiting. But in our humanity, we don't, let's just be honest, we don't really want to let go.

I don't really want to die. Do you want to die, Brother John? Not really. Elim, do you want to die? Not really. We still want to sort of hang on to this. And there's a real battle going on here, we see, between the two.

Verse 4 says that the mortality might be swallowed up of life. I like that term.

Paul knows that when we get ourselves to the place where we can let go of this house, then the mortality that this body carries is going to be swallowed up by life. What a picture. I want to think of a few thoughts about death, and these will not be new thoughts to us, but I think in a funeral there's a time for us just to all reflect this great elephant in the room called death, that we're just not familiar with. We weren't born to die. We really weren't created to face this elephant, were we? It's so foreign to us. So I think we need to just talk about it. Death is something that most of us don't really want to talk about.

We'd rather talk about life and inspirational things, wouldn't we? Not about death. Death has the idea of separation and, and taking us away and, and all of that. Let's think about the reality of death. As much as we don't like death, Job wrestled with this, and Solomon wrestled with this. When we when I think of Bible characters that wrestle with this whole thought of death, this elephant, um, Job says it like this: "There is an appointment, appointed time to man upon the earth.

Seeing his days are determined, the number of months are with thee; thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass." He's thinking about death. He says, we're, we're so limited in this life with our time, and then we're going to face this death. And he was the one that says, asks the question, "If a man then die, shall he live again?" So he was very inquisitive. He was, and, and, and, um, Ecclesiastes, we have that. Solomon as well.

So he brings it out as an appointment. And Hebrews 9:27 says, "It is appointed unto men once to die." See, there's that appointment again. Now we have appointments in this life. We have appointments to go to the dentist or, or whatever. We can sort of adjust them and, and finagle them and, and cancel them if we will.

But this appointment, none of us is going to be able to cancel, are we? The reality and the fact of death, we all have an appointment, and we're all going to be there on time. And it's God's time, not ours.

Paul says, "So then death has passed upon all men." We just can't escape it, can we? We will not escape it. David said, "There's but a step between me and death." That is how he saw it. It's just between us. The next part I want to look at is the origin of death. Where did death come from? And I think this is an important part for us to just look at together. Let's turn our Bibles to Genesis chapter 2. A few verses there in Genesis 2.

I think this is so important because, you know, death has a lot of relatives. You know, death has a great family tree. Pain is often, um, accompanied with death, sorrow, um, sickness, um, abuse, or all the ugly things that we can think of that have their roots and their connections in death. And there's a whole world out there today having many, many questions. If God is a good God, then why?

Why all this suffering? Why all this injustice? Why all this stuff that's so connected with death? And they begin to question God. I want to settle that with us, that death was man's choice, not God's choice. Genesis 2, verse 1 through 3. I'll read those verses. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work, which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work, which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God had created and made."

I want you to notice in those verses how often it is repeated that God is finished. God had a beginning of his creation, and he had an end of his creation, according to our understanding, though God is eternal. But he took six days to do everything that we understand, and he said, "I'm finished. I created everything that needs to be created, and all the host therein, it's finished." And he said he rested that day.

As a farmer, when I have everything done at the end of the day that needs to be done, and I could go to the house and sit on the recliner and stretch out and rest, there's a feeling of, "I'm done for the day.

I'm finished." I want you to notice the emphasis that God puts on that. "I'm finished. Everything is done." There was no such thing as death yet. If you read the creation story to this point, death was never in the equation, but he was done.

And then he rested. And he took that special day, and he put a blessing on that day, because that is the day when he was done. He was finished, and he rested. Oh, what a picture. Didn't Jesus sort of say the same thing on the cross when he said, "It's finished"?

There's another work that is also finished, that Jesus accomplished. It is finished. I just want you to notice there was no death there yet.

And then Genesis 2, verses 15 and 16 and 17, it says, "God is there organizing everything he created." He created, and he brought organization there. And he gave the duty of man. He gave the assignment to Adam to go out there to care for the garden and all the creation there. And then he said an interesting thing.

Flip, flip over a page.

"And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.'" That's where it all started. That very day, that very day that man disobeyed God was the first day of death.

When I look at that story, I'm like, "Adam, whatever ailed you." Did you notice God told him that all the trees, and I don't know, I'm just guessing, there were thousands of trees, and he said, "You can eat of all of them freely." Were you ever to pizza party where there's just enough of slices for each person to have one slice?

It's hardly enough, is it? It's like, "Oh, I'm hungry. We worked hard. I could handle the second one and maybe the third one, but we're limited." Here in this garden, they were not limited. God said, "You can freely eat until you're done.

Finished."

And Adam said, "That one tree that you mentioned we shouldn't eat of, out of the thousands," he went after that one. That was the day it all started. It all started on that day. And anything that's related to death has its roots and its bases back to that day. Do we get that? Do we get that? Can we tell the world today, when they begin to blame God for all the death and all the abuse and all the pain and all the sorrow and all that goes with death, can we say it all has its roots back to that day?

Next part I want to look at is the sorrow of death.

Now, death brings with it a certain sorrow that we can't deny. We just can't deny it. Genesis says it's the first enemy of man, and Paul says it's man's last enemy. And I think, may I just add, I think it's man's greatest enemy.

It's death.

Our medical science here has spent a lot of time today to try to push back death, prolong life. And I think if it was possible, I think medical science would do away with death. They tried it, haven't they? They just like to wipe it out and get it out of the way.

But it's not going to happen, is it?

"Unto the woman he said, 'I will greatly multiply thy sorrow.'" Notice the word sorrow there. "And in thy sorrow thou shalt bring forth thy children, and the desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

And then to Adam he said, "Cursed is the ground, for thy sake, in sorrow." Notice the word sorrow again. "Shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee."

So I'm going to say to the family, if you need to cry through this time of loss, it's okay. Death brings with it sorrow. Remember when Jesus was at the burial or the death of Lazarus, he wept. Jesus wept. And in the Old Testament time, we see when there was a loss of a loved one, even when he was right with God, that there was a day set for mourning, maybe months at times, where they mourned and wept their sorrow that goes with it.

And for Jesus, when he was in that garden and he was facing his death, what did he say? He told his disciples, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful." See that? He was facing the same kind of sorrow when he was facing his death. He says, "Sorrowful even unto death." And he said, "Oh Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."

And then he came back the second time. I always marvel at that. He prayed, and he asked God if he could let this cup of death pass and just go away. If that's possible, would you let it happen? And then the second time he came back and said, "Well, if this is not okay for this to go away, then I will willingly go through it."

And he embraced it for our sake. But I want you to notice that death is not only an enemy to us, but it's also God's enemy. It is his first enemy, and it's his last enemy. And could I say it was Jesus's greatest enemy?

He faced that enemy. It was not familiar to him because God knew nothing about death. It was not in his creation and picture at all.

Now, let's look at the purpose of death. Now, as mentioned, the devil's idea of death is to kill, to steal, and to destroy. And I think his ultimate purpose in it is to separate us from God. So then, but I want to look at God's purpose of death. And, and, and in this picture, we don't have all the answers. We're just going to glean from Scripture what we understand, realizing that God is sovereign. And when it comes to life and death, he, his ways are so much higher than our ways.

They're past finding out. But a few things we do understand of the purpose that God has for death. Paul says it's a liberation.

He talks about the creature. This is in Romans 8. He says, "The creature is waiting for its glorious liberty from the bondage of corruption. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the redemption of the body." That is a picture that death is used as an avenue in God's eyes, as an avenue to liberate us from this trapped body that we're in. And especially Cory in these last years, where he was sort of hunched over. And I'm sure there was pain there that we don't understand. He was trapped in this body. And Paul says that our bodies are groaning in travail, waiting for its full redemption. So God and David touched on this. He used the avenue of death to liberate us from our bondage of this body.

Paul asked the question in Romans 7, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And then he goes on in Romans 8 and explains that who's going to be the great deliverer? It's Jesus Christ.

Another point I want to look at. Now, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:36, he told the church there, "Thou fool." Now, he was discussing the subject of the resurrection. He says, "Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." That means that seed that you put in the ground, and they must have been farmers to understand. You put a seed in the ground. He says, "Except that thing die, it's not going to live again." So God chose the avenue, death as an avenue to have the resurrection realized. And then he did that in the seed that we put in the ground to help us understand.

The first process of growth is death. And there would be no resurrection without a death. That's what he's saying. And Jesus says, "Except the corn of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abides alone." So could we say that this is an avenue that God chose? He chose this thing called death to usher in the resurrection into our life.

And he says that we shall all be changed. And I believe this is 1 Corinthians 15 where he's discussing the whole subject. "When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'" O death, where's thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

The sting of death is gone. The victory of the grave has lost its power. Why? Because we have come into a new life, the resurrection life. And it's only through this avenue of death that we can attain that. Otherwise, you're not going to have it. So this is a blessing, is it not? This is why we can rejoice. It's why Brother Elisha said, "We're rejoicing," because they believe that their daddy has laid down this earthly tabernacle, and he went through the sting and the pain of death to be ushered into that new resurrected body, that body that knows no more pain.

And he, he, he died to live, to die no more again. He lives to die no more. The death, he's done with the death and done with the grave. That's over for him. He will never face that again. Never.

What a glorious ushering in of the new life, the resurrection life. We say goodbye to the sting of death. It lost its grip, its sting. O victory, O grave, where is thy victory? It's gone.

Another point I want to bring out. This death, God chose to use it as a vehicle to go to our new house, our new home. We put point A to point B. We think in those terms. We either do it by car or bicycle or airplane or train.

Point A to point B. And God chose death to take us from here to there, to take us from what we know of as time. We live in time here. Those of us that are still breathing here, we're still in this time. He took, he took that trip, and he went into eternity.

Now, eternity is a place that has no end. And we understand from Scripture, eternity has two different places. Remember the story in Luke, I believe, is it Luke 16, where Jesus uses the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

Now, the rich man was not right with God, and Lazarus was right with God. And the Bible says that Lazarus died and he was carried into a good place where there was comfort and bliss and joy. And then the Bible, Jesus says, "The rich man also died, but he went to a different place." They both died. They both went into this thing.

And it especially mentions they were buried. So they did what we're doing here today. Same thing. They both died, but they ended up in two different, drastic different places. In fact, these places were so drastically different. If you remember, Abraham said that there's a great gulf between the two places. In fact, this gulf is so great. It's not a picket fence. It's not a little privacy fence. But the gulf is so great that no man can pass from one place to the other.

And I'm here this time to just simply say the difference was between these two men, what they did with Jesus. That was the difference. And I'm here to say if there's anyone here this morning that is not right with Jesus, there's no better time to get right than today.

Because what you do with Jesus is going to make all the difference which place you're going to be forever. Remember Jesus at a burial at a death of Lazarus, the Mary, and Martha's brother? He said to Martha, he said, "He that believeth in me, though he were dead." So they believed Lazarus was dead, and I think he was. They buried him, and they put grave clothes on him. And Jesus used that as an illustration. He said, "Just as Lazarus appears to be dead, if you align your life with Jesus, though you go through this process, though you pretend, though we pretend you're dead," using my, my understanding here, "yet shall you live."

And then he makes another very strong statement. He says, "He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

Does that mean we'll never go to this box? No, we know that we're all going to die this kind of death. But what Jesus is bringing out, I believe he's bringing out to us that the resurrection life already begins here.

We have a foretaste of it. And then he says that when you go to this box and you're buried, it's just opening up. It's the beginning. It's not the beginning completely, but it's everything on this earth now is settled pertaining to the things, the former things, Revelations calls it. All the former things are settled. And the foretaste that you experienced in this life is just going to be revealed in a great open way.

So with that, I want to urge us, let's really make our calling and election sure. Let's use this opportunity this morning to understand that this elephant that we call death is going to be our appointment sooner or later, but it will happen. And let's do as, as Amos said to the children of Israel, "Prepare to meet thy God." And Balaam said in his prayer, "Let me die the death of the righteous." There's a difference. We can die the death of the atheist or the unbeliever or maybe the believer that just is backslidden away from God. We can die that kind of death. But Balaam says, "Let me die the death of the saints, the death of the righteous."

That's the kind of death we want to pursue, is be right with our God.

Solomon says, "The righteous have hope in his death."

In closing, I just want to think about let's use this opportunity this morning as the psalmist, I believe it's Moses, that says, "Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." So prime time for us as we face and we are faced with this reality. Teach us now, those of us that are alive, teach us to number our days, that we might make a difference and apply our hearts unto wisdom. Wherefore, my beloved, 1 Corinthians 15:58 says, "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable." When we think of death for our own life and as we face it going forward, all of us, let's be steadfast. Let's be unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.

Let's make that our life from here forth. For as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, that's 1 Corinthians 15:58. I want to leave those closing words with all of us this morning. May God bless you.