(For a very faithful choir member who had given most of her life to singing in the church choir.)

The Apostle Paul declared, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Paul loved life and loved his friends, but he knew it was better to die and be with the Lord. ________________ too felt it was time to lay aside the burden of illness and disease and to find that sorely needed rest and refreshment that only Heaven can give. While her death brings sorrow to us, it has brought victory to her. To live in and for Jesus Christ is to conquer death and to experience all that Heaven affords. _____________ gave her life in service to Christ through her daily work and through her church as (a Sunday School teacher and secretary of her class). She was a constant witness to the saving power of Christ through her words, her character and her deeds. So death for her is gain indeed.

Death is always gain for a Christian. Let me list two out of many reasons why this is so.

DEATH ENDS THE LIMITATIONS OF THIS LIFE. It sets us free to serve God in a perfect body and mind unhindered for Eternity. Charles Kingsley suggests that death is gain "when it means the end of sorrow; terminates all the diseases of our body; the errors of our minds; the imperfections of the present...unites us with the society of the `just made perfect'' and gives us the honor of serving God without weariness or end."

Christians come to look forward to the resurrection of the body which God gives. Paul strains at the limits of language in I Corinthians 15 to describe the perfection of that body. In the end we who trust in Christ look to the resurrected body of Christ as an example of the body we''ll have, and so we accept his gracious promise as our hope: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die." That is why a Christian and only a Christian can say, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Bruce Dunn, a well-known pastor and speaker to a vast radio audience, says in one of his writings that he believes Gods wants us to be a little homesick for Heaven, that He doesn''t want us to sit too tight in this world. He says that death, sorrow, and the pains of body and heart while we are on earth can all be contributing factors in making Heaven more wonderful for us. Naturally, young people are going to want to experience some more of life here on earth, and even older people will want to stay on if everything is going great, with all the family healthy, the bills paid, the kids behaving themselves and nobody breaking your heart. But the tears and hurts of life are earthly reminders that Heaven is our real home. Dr. Dunn concludes that it is the tears that keep our hearts and minds Heaven-bound. Death ends the limitations of this life. (1)

DEATH ALSO IS GAIN, BECAUSE IT MAKES US PART OF THE HEAVENLY CHOIR WHERE WE ENJOY GOD AND SING HIS PRAISES FOREVERMORE. The Book of Revelation speaks of the new song and the worship and praise the people will render for eternity. The voices will cry out, John the writer says, "Praise our God and all you his servants." The great multitude of believers will sing, "Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

I''m sure this would delight _______________ who faithfully sang God''s praises for years in her church choir. Christianity above all other religions has been a religion of music and song. A Roman governor of an Asian providence wrote the Emperor to describe the group of Christians he had found. The most striking thing he could say of them was of their life of joy and praise. "They meet at dawn," he says, "to sing a hymn of praise unto Christ as unto God." When the noted atheist, Robert Ingersol, was buried, this notice was posted for his funeral: "There will be no singing." That''s appropriate, for apart from faith in Christ, what is there to sing about? There is no reason to sing when we die.

But if we are Christians, we can sing in life and in death. Jesus, the Bible says, brought life and immortality to light when he came into our world. He gave believers a song of joy and victory to sing forever.

The poet tells the story this way:

Before the song started, the world, broken-hearted,
Was dreamlessly passing the long, empty days;
Then a dark, lonely hillside was spangled with light,
And a song burst into the night!

A new Word was spoken, and chords that were broken
Wove gently together to make a new song.
It was more than a carol to greet the new morn--
For the source of all music was born.

He started the whole world singing a song.
The words and the music were there all along!
What the song had to say was that love found a way
To start the world singing a song. (2)

That love is God''s love for you and me in Christ. Jesus said, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." Through his life and death and resurrection, he makes this life available to us, but it is ours only if we turn from self and sin, believe in him and accept his rule over us, and then live for him. He said, "He who has the Son has life, but he who does not have the Son of God does not have life."

There is something worse than dying physically. It is to die, spiritually. It is to die in our sin without hope or a song. For as Paul tells us, "We know that God who raised the Lord Jesus to life will also raise us up with Jesus, and take us together with you into his presence." _____________ knows the full truth of that now.

So we let Christ comfort us and we comfort one another. We sing the songs of the redeemed and we gladly exult, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

As the missionary, Richard Knill, lay dying he would sing hymns, for he found in them the comfort and assurance that he would need to cross the Jordan. Toward the end, he called to his daughter and said, "I cannot sing. Sing for me my favorite hymn." Thus it was that she sang to him on his deathbed these words:

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell''s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan''s side;
Songs of praises, songs of praises,
I will ever sing to thee....

______________ is now forever singing His praises in God''s heavenly choir.