You and Your Eulogy - Charles R. Swindoll

it is my privilege to introduce our speaker today today's chapel speaker dr chuck swandahl known around the world simply as chuck is a familiar name to many christians in fact some of you probably based your decision to attend this very seminary because of his association and affection for dts he served dallas seminary so well as the fourth president and is known by millions around the world for his practical application of the bible to everyday living he now serves dallas seminary as chancellor emeritus and is also the senior pastor teacher of stonebriar community church in frisco texas he and his wife cynthia reside here in the metroplex love to spend time with their four grown children and their ten grandchildren and seven great grandchildren would you please join me in welcoming dr swendal today [Applause] thank you mark and welcome to uh all of you who are here today special welcome to you who are looking at the campus for the first time i commend you for the time you're spending doing that it's a good decision and you'll never regret taking time to think about it and pray before you make your final decision i don't usually begin with an apology but today i feel the need to do so because i'll be reading most of what i have to say the only reason i'm doing that is to save time if i if i didn't read it i'd take a lot of rabbit trails and we wouldn't get out of here until 12 30 or one and uh that wouldn't be good so bear with me i'll try to keep the reading interesting and on target with where we are today i want to escort you to the last place you can imagine you'll ever be it's the last place you'll be seen on earth you will be in your casket it will be at your funeral others will be there who have loved you through your life and you are there to be honored by those who will speak there are a number of things we do not know about that day of course we do not know where it will be when it will happen how old you will be when you die why you died who will attend the service who will speak what they will say you and i know none of the above but i do know this for sure those who are attending and especially those who will be speaking will remember the kind of person you were when you lived among us their focus will not be on your resume virtues like the grades you made in school or the academic accomplishments that you earned their words will not have to do with the skills that were necessary for your career the qualifications you brought to the marketplace at your death none of that will matter to anyone all those resume virtues that seem so important during your lifetime will now be over and done with frankly it's doubtful anyone will even care about them i also know this for sure as you lie there in your casket everyone's focus will be on your eulogy virtues your enduring character traits will be revealed and recalled at your funeral were you kind tenderhearted forgiving of others were you unselfish compassionate generous were you a person of integrity sincerity consistency and humility today i challenge all of us to set aside our ongoing preoccupation with our resume virtues which make us feel so important and in our own estimation significant and spend the rest of our time we have together focusing on the eulogy virtues allow me to lay a scriptural foundation for this and if you have your bible or the app that will turn you to your bible please locate philippians chapter 2 three verses 3 4 and 5. i want to read those verses for you from three different versions and then from a paraphrase and then make six comments regarding them from the new american standard do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also for the interests of others have this attitude in yourselves which was also in christ jesus from the new international version do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but in humility consider others better than yourselves each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others your attitude should be the same as that of christ jesus from the new living translation don't be selfish don't try to impress others be humble thinking of others as better than yourselves don't look out only for your own interests but take an interest in others you must have the same attitude that christ jesus head and finally the words of eugene peterson in the message which he paraphrases the verses don't push your way to the front don't sweet talk your way to the top put yourself aside and help others get ahead don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand think of yourselves the way christ jesus thought of himself now my comments regarding these verses and then i will tell you a story you will never forget first i know of no more penetrating convicting ever relevant advice for anyone going into ministry or being involved in ministry then these three verses paul wrote to the philippians second few callings can lead to a more selfish self-serving lifestyle than ministry if the flesh is allowed to take control third tragically getting more education can result in our being even more proud more demanding and less patient with others fourth unless you and i stay consciously aware of our need for the same attitude christ jesus demonstrated we will learn to fake it and we will become religious masters of deceit fifth god will use hardship disappointment and failure to break our wills humble our hearts and cultivate depth within us at the same time the adversary will use quick promotions public applause and impressive success to counteract god's ways of developing our character both are at work throughout our ministry and our lives and sixth how we respond to both the lord's sovereign bruisings and the enemy's subtle tactics will determine what others will remember in the eulogy virtues stated at our funeral by those who knew us best those two virtue titles are not original with me i recently read them in a very moving column written by jeff jacoby whom i do not know they appeared in the boston globe in a in a column dated february the 8th 2021 the column was titled the tree i sprang from it's rather long but it's too important for me to hurry through it is about jeff jacoby's father marcus jacobovitz later changed to mark jacoby jeff writes my first byline in the globe appeared long before i became a columnist a letter to the editor i had written was published back in january 1986 my most recent ballad in the globe appeared two weeks ago above a column headlined the politics of an auschwitz survivor's son like that letter to the editor 35 years ago it expressed values that i absorbed from my father's example and instructions a few hours after this column appeared online my father who after who uh who had tested positive for covet 19 was taken by ambulance in a hospital to a hospital in tel aviv where my mother was already a patient in the covid ward they ultimately shared the same room two days later he took his last breath my mother in the bed next to his was stroking his arm when he died more than once my father had told me that he regarded as a bonus every day every day since may 6 1945 when the u.s army liberated the death camp which was the last of four german concentration camps in which my father had been imprisoned by that measure my dad was blessed with 27 660 bonus days he made the most of them to be sure in his 95 years my father did not build up a great business or hold a high office or accumulate financial riches he wasn't a noted speaker and he didn't write books when it came to what the new york times columnist david brooks calls the resume virtues my father's life was not particularly noteworthy but resume virtues are only one yardstick by which a life is judged there are also eulogy virtues those are the character traits that are recalled at our funerals the eulogy virtues are far more important than the resume virtues in the eulogy virtues my father excelled i didn't wait until his eulogy to acknowledge them now the story please listen very carefully fifty years ago this week the nazis came from my father's family i wrote in an early globe column the yakubovic there were seven of them in the house were awakened before dawn when the ss pounded on their windows like the other jews in a nearby village on the czechoslovak czechoslovak hungarian border they were ordered to gather their belongings and to prepare to leave at once 30 minutes later they were put on horse-drawn wagons and carted out to the nearest large hungarian town they were then herded into a ghetto the walls were still going up around around it as the jakubovic family arrived it was the day after passover for several weeks the ghetto grew increasingly crowded more and more jews were brought in then it began to empty as jews were taken out about 3 000 at a time were marched to the train station the waiting uh box cars were filled with families as each box car was filled the doors were slammed shut chained and locked there were no seats inside no windows no water the only toilet was a bucket on the floor for three days the train moved three days of suffocation thirst and filth when it stopped david and leah jakubovic and their five young children were in auschwitz i described in that column how i had once attempted to chart a family tree only to realize that the tree got narrower not wider my family tree i i wrote has stumps where branches ought to be one line after another ends abruptly with grandparents on both sides aunts uncles cousins all of them murdered in the 1940s my father became an immigrant arriving in america through ellis island having survived the death camp he made a happy marriage to a girl from cleveland and they were together for more than 64 years my father rarely spoke about the holocaust but i pressed him to tell me what he remembered of his first day at auschwitz he told me we arrived in birkenau part of the auschwitz complex on sunday morning it was still dark so it must have been before five o'clock all of a sudden the train stopped the doors opened people started shouting and dogs were barking there were guards yelling rash ross out out i remember going up to the platform we had to line up men and women separately and go in front of mengele he had a little crop in his hand and he was waving it left right left right there were two or three other guys and they were pushing you whichever way he pointed with this crop so my parents had to go to the right my youngest brother and sister they were not much more than babies small children what it meant left right i i didn't know at the time you just went where you were pushed i went to the other in the other direction i tried to stay together with my brother zoli we had to get undressed and then they gave us uniforms and tattooed us and that was it within a few hours zoli and i were separated that was the last i ever saw him or heard of him i guess they killed all my family off that day i didn't know it until later like many survivors my father admitted that he felt guilty for having lived when virtually everyone he knew and all of his family had been killed but neither survivor's guilt nor the trauma of starvation and enslavement left him mean or embittered despite the cruelties he endured my father retained the ability to laugh and to love he was never violent never insulting never harsh never overbearing he made a happy marriage and raised five of us kids in a little home that was safe and stable no one would have ever called my father an extrovert he tended to be on the shy side and was hardly the life of any party still he was never unapproachable or intimidating not to his neighbors or any of his customers any of his employees and especially not to us kids in the days since my father's passing my siblings and i have heard from people who were children 50 years ago yet still remember my father's particular brand of gentleness and encouragement none of which is to say that my father was a pollyanna or that he was incapable of losing his temper one of my vivid teenage memories is of my father blowing his top over a piece of bread it was during lunch and my sisters and brothers and i were horsing around at the table one of us flung a piece of bread across the table at the other my father exploded what's the matter with you that's food don't you ever let me catch you treating food like that again i was startled by his outburst which wasn't at all typical it wasn't until i was older that i finally understood that eruption of anger the man who had lived for years amidst hunger and seeing those around him die of starvation and nearly starved to death himself a piece of bread is no joke no doubt for the same reason my father never complained about food ever he ate whatever was offered and never asked for something different i couldn't tell you if he liked brussels sprouts or cabbage if he preferred white bread or or rye bread or if his favorite ice cream was chocolate or vanilla or strawberry if he asked for coffee and was given a cup of instant with powdered milk he drank it with appreciation not a word of complaint if he asked me for a cup of coffee and was given a cup of freshly ground freshly brewed starbucks with light cream he drank it with the same appreciation i'm quite sure that at the same un articulated level my father would have regarded the very idea of a favorite food as a mark of ingratitude the classic illustration of my father's unfussy attitude toward food occurred during a visit to boston and it was several years ago my parents insisted on taking my my family out to dinner and we went to a kosher restaurant when the waitress came to take our order each of us made a selection from the extensive menu when it came to my father's turn he asked that well he was asked what he would like and he answered with a shrug you may bring me anything dad i said dad this is a restaurant they need to know what you want you need to select something fine he said mostly i suppose to humor me in that case i'll have something with beef that was it that was as detailed as as he was going to get he was simply incapable of being choosy about any food even in a restaurant for choosing your food is the whole point in all my years of growing up in my father's house when money was very short and luxuries were few i cannot ever recall hearing him complain once about his circumstances it was as if he decided that after auschwitz no setback or misfortune was worth even a moment self-pity nor can i ever recall hearing him most about anything perhaps he was never one to blow his own horn or perhaps he lost the urge to brag once he saw the utter degradation which human beings to which human beings can be reduced some holocaust survivors emerged from their ordeal furious with god for not having stopped the slaughter many turn their backs on faith some become enemies of any religion such responses my father understood only too well but they were not his responses he didn't hate god for what he had lost and he didn't abandon his faith in which he had been reared on the contrary he deepened it with observance daily study in prayer he attended morning prayers faithfully driving or walking when he was in good health using a cane or a walker as his legs began to deteriorate and finally being pushed in a wheelchair when he could no longer stand on his own his jewishness went to the very core of his identity in his retirement years even at the very end when he could do little else he studied every day while the pandemic prevented his talmud study group from meeting in person he had study partners by phone or via facetime he is a jew who survived i wrote about him once and he survived as a jew marcus jacobovich later marked jacoby in 1946 just a year out of the death camps having survived the holocaust he regarded every day as a bonus on the jewish calendar my father drew his last breath on the fifteenth day of the month two bishvat the day is a minor festival the birthday of the trees on which jews traditionally celebrated the fruit trees of the holy land and which is to this day widely commemorated by planting tree seedlings for me and my family to bishop will unavoidably have a bittersweet tinge from now on i will mark the date each year by planting trees in my father's memory and i will reflect with love and gratitude on the opening words of the book of psalms happy is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked nor taken the path of sinners nor joined the company of the scorners but his delight is in the teaching of the lord and in that teaching he studies day and night he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water that brings forth his fruit in its season whose leaf shall not wither and whatever he does shall prosper my father never had a byline not in the boston globe or anywhere else but his life so rich in eulogy virtues has influenced my writing for more than 35 years my father's formal education ended when he was just 13 but no man ever taught me more may his memory be a blessing as his life most assuredly was men and women i love what you're doing and i love what you're pursuing i prayed about this talk a long time i missed two other meetings with you and thought about bringing something like this but not till i came across it that it seemed to ring true is what i should say today i'm not concerned about your studies you're all very bright you're except for me being accepted here means you're right and i was brought in on probation and was grateful to god that they brought me in on probation i began as a lawn boy mowing the grass and keeping the shrubs and planting flowers one thing that came from that dr walberg learned my name that was uh one of the one of the byproducts of it but i had a chance coming from the ground up because i had nothing that was impressive in myself stuttered till i was about 16 and had a teacher in high school that taught me how to speak without stuttering so when i came to the school i came dripping with gratitude i never expected the privilege of studying here i never dreamed i'd be accepted so i have no worries over your ability to make it i made it anybody can make it but i do care about your character and some of you will fail because of that i've seen it through my 60-plus years in ministry and it breaks my heart every time i see it every time i have to deal with an individual who has fallen my heart breaks because they've hurt the ministry somewhere along the way they missed something very important in their training all of them as i recall were very bright people i've run across no dummies in ministry i see some on television but i i i i don't come across any that have graduated from dallas seminary that are dummies again i say you you have the brains for it but you may not have the character for it that's why i read this to you here is a jewish father who shaped the life of his son like no one anyone anyone else in his life ever shaped i read somewhere that life is like a coin you can spend it any way you want to but you can only spend it once at your eulogy at your death in your casket at your funeral we'll learn how you spent it no one will ever mention your grade point average trust me many will mention this kind of kindness life of gratitude lack of complaining gracious spirit unselfish heart care about others genuine compassion there will be some who will know you well enough to talk about how you treated your wife with such kindness or your husband how you took such good care to kneel down and listen to your children and were patient when they spill the milk on the table time and again as they were learning how to hold the glass they won't mention all the places you pastored they will talk about how you treated your neighbor or how you worked with your staff or how you loved your parishioners dr two saint who's now gone was it in our church for a number of years i just loved having him there we had two saint and hendricks you talk about intimidating preach with two saints and hendricks in the congregation you'll learn what humility is all about i'll tell you but two more loyal friends a man couldn't have as a pastor two saints used to say the secret of ministry is really very simple teach truth and love the people you'll be good at teaching truth you'll learn how to do it here i want you to be just as good at loving the people they may forget what you teach them they will never forget how you love them that's character that's what lasts even beyond auschwitz that's what lasts when you're gone and they carve a few words into granite and they remember how you lived your life teach truth love others let's bow together we love you lord we love you deeply we don't love you conditionally we don't love you because you've given us good health or our good legs to walk on or a good mind to think with or the ability to speak or learn or even learn other languages we love you because your son died for us and you gave him to us thank you father for the deep things that make life great like great parents great children great friends great memories great lives that have shaped ours been patient with us thank you father for providing this in a million other things and for doing it so quietly and consistently cultivate within the school a body of men and women who love well and may they do it first at home with those they know the best may that mark their lives and may they may they be remembered for that thank you for these thoughts you've given me may they linger with us for the rest of our days in the name of jesus we pray everyone said you

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 9,665

Rating: 4.8914027 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: D8uNBF8PBhc

Length: 40min 24sec (2424 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 21 2021