I’m preparing to preach my dad’s memorial service. By the way, Valley View will be livestreaming the service at https://youtu.be/qRqzXTxqdSM.

Planning a sermon for your own father’s memorial service is an interesting process. I have a process that I normally go through when preparing a sermon. This sermon is different.

Since 1986, when dad and mom went to Moriarty / Edgewood NM to plant Valley View Christian Church, his life verse has been Hebrews 10.35-39. It reads:

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, “He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Dad had a rather dramatic story about how that became his life verse, which I will incorporate into the sermon. The tl:dr is that both he and mom were reading that same text at the same time, not because of any coordinated plan but just because the Holy Spirit brought them to it separately.

When my sisters and I were planning the memorial service, we wanted someone to read this text as part of the service. I suggested my daughter, Anna, and they agreed.

So I asked Anna if she would read it–actually, if she would read 10.32-39–as part of the service, she agreed. And THEN she told me that this text had also been HER life verse since she was a sophomore in high school.