Sermon - Tom Bredehoeft Funeral - 11/5/22

Dear Susanna, family and friends of Tom: May God’s peace be with you today and always. Christ Jesus was crucified, died, buried, and raised for the forgiveness of Tom’s sins and your sins. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection you have been brought out of death to life eternal, and shall with all the saints together be risen from your graves when our Lord returns, and dwell with Him in paradise forever. God promises this, so let us not doubt but firmly believe that He shall raise all believers from their graves and give them the fruits of heaven just as Jesus was risen from His tomb.

In talking with Tom’s pastor, Pastor Cowell, and with Tom’s family and friends, I was given a brief glimpse into Tom’s 76 years of life on this earth. Like anyone, he had his ups and downs. He was hit with agent orange while in the military and then after many years of trucking he was injured on the job. Of course those things didn’t prevent him from enjoying life, such as watching the races or loving his dear bride Susanna.

But among the various details of Tom’s life, one thing that struck me is that he was adopted. The reason this detail struck me as notable is that it reminded me that he, along with all Christians, have been adopted into God the Father’s family through baptism. What’s more, Tom was baptized on Christmas, the day on which we celebrate that our Lord Jesus was born. How beautiful! Christ’s birth is made our birth through the waters of baptism, and that was marvelously illustrated when Tom was reborn in baptism on Christmas! 

When a child is adopted they do become the child of their adoptive parents. However, the fact remains that they were adopted into the family and weren’t born into the family. When a child is born into a family the parents don’t really have much choice in the matter, it just kind of happens, and whoever the child is is just who they are. Like the saying goes, you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family, except when it comes to adoption and the parents chose to bring this child into their family. With adoption the parents choose an outsider and bring them into the household and make them part of the family. In adoption a person who was at one time not part of the family becomes part of the family. What belongs to the family now belongs to the adopted child. Tom wasn’t always a Bredehoeft, instead his parents Edwin and Bernadine chose him to become a Bredehoeft and make him one of their heirs. 

This is fantastic because this is what God does with us! “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will.” God isn’t just stuck with us, but He chose us to love us! He took us out of our wretched situation and made us His own children.

And let’s be clear: our situation was wretched. All are conceived and born in sin and deserving of eternal death and damnation. That includes Tom, me, and all of us. According to our natural human birth, we are sinners belonging to Satan and deserving of the inheritance of hell. But God has adopted us to Himself through Jesus Christ! “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us.” 

Like adoption today, our adoption into God’s family wasn’t cheap. Jesus, our Brother and Good Shepherd, had to lay down His life for us. The cost of our redemption is the body and blood of Jesus, God’s own perfect Son. The rightful heir and Son of God willingly laid down His own life in order that Tom and we would be adopted into His family!

We are indeed now part of His family and belong to His household! When Tom was adopted his parents taught him, disciplined him, and even left him an inheritance, because he was in the family and their child. So too with God and us: He teaches us, disciplines us, and even gives us the inheritance of His heavenly kingdom! We don’t deserve it, but we receive it all by grace.

This adoption into God’s family is stronger than even blood connections. “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.” The love a mother has for her child is generally quite strong, but even that falters at times. God’s love on the other hand never falters and He never forgets His own.

He has engraved us on the palms of His hands, quite literally! The price to adopt us into God’s family cost Jesus His life. His hands were nailed to the cross, and when Jesus rose from death the marks were still there. We have been engraved onto the palms of His hands! He shall never forget us nor forsake us. Whether in life or in death, God the Father is our Father, and His Son Jesus is our Brother, and we shall never be forsaken.

Even in death Tom is not forgotten. In life Tom was a repentant, believing, and confessing Christian, so that even in death now Tom is with the Lord. His soul has gone to be with the Father and His body rests here on earth. On the last day Jesus shall raise Tom from the dead, he will be awakened and perfected, and brought into the joys of eternal life. Let us also like Tom continue in repentance, faith, and confessing Jesus, so that with Him and all the saints, we shall be united in God’s family for all eternity.