A funeral sermon for a builder who became a farmer

N was a builder who became a farmer.

I won’t detain you more than a few days, but the Bible has quite a lot to say about both farming and building.

Let’s take building first.

It says that unless the Lord builds the house, the labourers labour in vain.

In the end, it is God alone who establishes the works of men’s hands.

Everything else will crumble, fall and fail.

In fact, if you set yourself up against God, he might even come and tear your tower down.

God is building his kingdom, his church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

God himself is like a mighty building, he is a stronghold, a fortress to which we can run.

God is our mighty citadel in whom we are safe and secure.

Jesus is the stone the builders rejected which has become the chief cornerstone.

He is the rock on which the wise man builds his life.

If we build on sand, our house will come crashing down when the storms of life come.

There is much more we could say, but let’s consider farming.

Again, God himself is a farmer.

The world is his field.

God planted a garden in Eden and he made men and women to cultivate it.

We are all to be under-farmers, tenant farmers, stewards, if you like.

God looks for a return from us but we all tend to want our independence and seek to keep the crop for ourselves.

One man sows, someone waters, another man reaps, but God alone gives the growth.

The kingdom of God is like a seed that grows quietly but that bears a great crop, 30, 60 or a hundred times what was sown.

Jesus is like a seed that dies and goes into the ground only to rise again with glorious transformed new life, which brings life to others.

Like the plants, we are not to worry:

God the farmer knows our needs and will make expert provision for us.

There is a great harvest coming when God will gather in his crop and separate the wheat from the chaff.

But God’s farm is a mixed one.

He’s not just into arable.

(I don’t think he has a farm shop exactly but…)

He has many creatures.

The cattle on a thousand hills are his.

God is a shepherd who knows and guides and provides for and protects his sheep.

In fact, Jesus Christ is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep to save them from the satanic wolf, only to take it up again.

N was a builder and a farmer.

So is God.

May God enable us to build our lives on Jesus Christ, the rock, the chief cornerstone and to put our trust in him, the Good Shepherd, that we might grow and flourish and be fruitful and at last be brought safely in in God’s great harvest.

Amen.