Funeral Service Douglas Lee Dipple

Call To Attention for the Funeral in memory of Douglas Lee Dipple and for the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

25Jesus said…”I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” John 11

Invocation

Gracious and Compassionate Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who art the author of life on each side of death, we cast all our grief upon thee, in faith confident that Thou dost care. With the suddenness of this death the meaning of your ways are kept in a mist from us, yet we confess that thy ways are higher than our ways, and thy thoughts higher than our thoughts. In this hour of bereavement, be an ever-present help in time of need, send forth a double portion of they Spirit for our comfort, and sustain us with faith when reason cannot comprehend the depths of your providence. In Jesus Christ name we pray. AMEN

* Scripture Reading

4″O LORD, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am!
5Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!
Selah

6Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
7″And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you.
8Deliver me from all my transgressions.
Do not make me the scorn of the fool (Psalm 39)

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. (II Corinthians 1)

1God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling. (Psalm 46)

Solo

Eulogy

The word ‘eulogy’ literally means ‘good saying.’ Its practice in funerals is the desire to accentuate the blessing that the departed was to those in this life because of their character. We speak eulogies not with the purpose of divinizing the deceased but rather to recognize that as all men bear the image of God so there is in the character of all men that which can be esteemed and well spoken of. In speaking the eulogy we are extolling the one we love who has gone to sleep but more importantly we are praising the one who gave life, breath and character to all that have come from His Creative hand.

When we speak of the life and character of Doug we are mindful of his easygoing character. Doug was not a particularly anxious sort and had the ability to field life in a way that spoke of a quiet confidence.

Perhaps this ability also accounts for his charm. Doug had the ability to put people at ease and make them comfortable. Somebody in the last few days put it this way when speaking to his family, “Doug was the kind of person who had the ability to make people feel, who he had only recently met, like they were his best friend.” None of us here should underestimate that kind of gift and many of us should pray that we might be given more of that ability.

However this gift was not a mere ability to glad-hand or to do a snow job on people. As we all read in the Lansing State Journal story Doug put feet to his friendships. I suspect the type of kindnesses extended by Doug that Mr. Middaugh recorded in that Journal article were not unique to Mike. I suspect that many here would echo Mr. Middaugh’s sentiments that Doug “would think about anybody else before himself.” The outpouring of affection that we have seen for Doug the past few days confirms his ability to have been more to people then just a really nice acquaintance. In the relationships he had with people there is every bit of evidence that there existed genuine depth.

Doug also retained a character trait that is not seen with a great deal of prevalence and that was his general respect for those who were a generation or two his senior. If you listened to Doug in conversations with those kind of people his address was consistently laced with respect…

‘Yes, Mr. Martens.’

‘Thank You Mrs. Douma.’

‘Good to see you Pastor.’

I would suspect that this was a gift that he learned in the home.

In my direct experience there are two things that I clearly remember about Doug. First Doug was intelligent. When I came to Charlotte Doug would have been about 13 years old and so he attended my initial catechism Sunday school classes. Doug consistently mastered the material and showed that mastery on the exams that were given. Further, he would interact with me during the class showing that he comprehended what was being taught.

Also, I recall Doug has having a keen sense of humor. In point of fact the personal memories I will always have of Doug is of him laughing or smiling. My memory of Doug’s sense of humor was reinforced in these past few days as somebody related to me the anecdote of how Doug had convinced a sizable portion of Spartan Motors that in a city without a port they were going to start building submarines. This planted rumor spread so far that at a plant meeting somebody unknown to Doug raised their hand and asked if the rumors were true that Spartan would soon be building submarines.

These are but a humble portion of the greater amount that all of you here know and remember. I can only encourage you to hold fast the imprints upon you that the life of Doug Dipple left.

We thank our Lord Christ for the traces of His fingerprints that can be detected upon the life of Doug.

Solo

Gospel

It is my earnest prayer that you will pause to listen to the next 10 minutes for it is entirely possible that you will hear something more important in the next 10 minutes then you will hear in the next 10 years.

Doug was what Scripture calls a ‘Covenant child.’ In the Church that means a great deal, not least of which is the God of the Bible claimed Doug as His own in Baptism.

And even though God’s people might neglect God’s covenant claim upon them by absenting themselves from the proclamation of the Word and from feasting upon Christ in the Sacrament that doesn’t negate God’s ownership claim upon his people who he has marked as His own in Baptism.

Well, in the few minutes that we have what shall we say of this God of the Bible that has a special claim upon those brought to the Baptismal font but also lays a general claim upon all who live and breathe?

First Scripture records that God is big and man is small. Of course our tendency is to turn around this truth so that man is big and God is small. Still, the Bible teaches that God sits upon the rim of the earth and that its inhabitants are as Grasshoppers.

Scripture further teaches us that this Great Big Transcendent God is so Pure and Just that any creature that has any sliver of evil about them cannot be allowed into His presence, for to keep time with such sinfulness would call into question God’s Holy character.

Obviously what we have said already is not good news for people like you and I have more then just a sliver of evil to contend with. Indeed the Bible teaches that we were born with a human nature that is evil. We were born not able to commune with God due to God’s awesome purity. Indeed Scripture teaches that we increase our debt to God every day.
So, how do we resolve this dilemma?

On the one hand that God has a claim on us that if we fail to take seriously will result in eternal separation from the good life that only He can give — the good life that many of you here desire.
While on the other hand, because of our moral impurity, it is impossible for God to even hear any of our appeals for help.

The answer that the Church offers to this dilemma, in submission to God’s revelation in Scripture is the person and work of Jesus Christ.
God, with regard to His mercy and the need of fallen men, out of love, sent forth Christ to be the means by which His Just anger against our moral impurity would be extinguished through the punishment of His Son on the Cross.

During the Christmas season we celebrate this coming of Christ to save His people from their sins. During the Easter season that is just ahead of us we celebrate that Christ triumphed over the death that we deserved insuring that we likewise triumph with Him.

You see my friends Scripture teaches that the soul that sins shall surely die. Every sin must be visited with its proper penalty or God stands being accused of being unjust. Scripture further teaches that in what happened in the death of Christ on the Cross, God out of regard for His own merciful character, decided that He would lay the penalty of the sin of His people, people like you and I, upon the God-Man Jesus. On the Cross Jesus takes the sin of His people and in repentance He covers us with His obedience – an obedience that makes us a delight to the Father.

The result of this work of the Cross where God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself is that people like you and I can know what it means to live the good life in fellowship with the God who created us. The rejection of this God who sacrifices Himself to restore us to our full humanity results in an increasingly inhuman life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

This is the God who laid claim on Doug in Baptism. And this is the God who even now offers Himself to those who recognize themselves to be living on the wrong end of a life that is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

Christian Confession – Apostles Creed

Prayer For Family

Benediction / Dismissal – Numbers 6:24-26

On Honesty in Subscription to Creeds

“It (Subscription) is certainly a transaction which ought to be entered upon with much deep deliberation and humble prayer; and in which, if a man be bound to be sincere in anything, he is bound to be honest to his God, honest to himself, and honest to the church which he joins. For myself, I know of no transaction in which insincerity is more justly chargeable with the dreadful sin of “lying to the Holy Ghost” than in this. It is truly humiliating and distressing to know that in some churches it has gradually become customary to consider articles of faith as merely articles of peace: in other words, as articles which he who subscribes is not considered as professing to believe, but as merely engaging not to oppose at least in any public or offensive manner.”

Samuel Miller, 1769-1850
Doctrinal Integrity, pp. 59-60

The Canons of Dort open with statements that clearly articulate what is believed. After they are finished with the affirmations though they go on to write sections that delineate what is rejected because of what is affirmed. The men at Dort realized that every affirmation implies a rejection of its corresponding opposite. One finds the same kind of thing in the Belgic Confession of Faith. For example more then once the Confession, having made an explicit point will go on to say something like… ‘therefore we detest the errors of the ana-baptists,’ or ‘therefore we reject and abhor the errors of the Manichees.’ Similarly, when one reads the Heidelberg catechism with a close eye one realizes that certain segments are being written explicitly to contradict either Lutheran or Roman Catholic doctrines.

All of these documents are interested in defending the truth against error. We however, suggesting these documents are just ‘faith traditions’ no longer think there is a necessity to define the faith by rejecting what is not faith. Now, I realize that there is a necessity to be as broad and charitable as possible for fear of over restricting what lies within the circle of orthodoxy. I must wonder though if the modern danger we are facing is really the danger of being to narrow in our interpretations. Is it not instead the case that our generational error du jour is our proneness to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with everybody who shows up regardless of which Jesus they follow. The Reformed Church today has room for the Feminist Jesus, the Jesus in the American Flag (you know, kind of like a ‘pig in a blanket’), the ana-baptist Jesus, the Jesus whose Lordship is quarantined, the Pentecostal Jesus (whose followers seemed to have swallowed the Holy Ghost — feathers and all), and my personal favorite, the make him up as you go Jesus.

The very purpose of Confessional documents is to avoid this game of ‘pin the tail of meaning on Jesus’ that we see everywhere about us. Yet despite living in the kind of climate described above what we want to do is dilute the form of subscription in the Christian Reformed Church. This is like the one or two people who made it alive out of the Jim Jones compound in Guyana insisting that the Kool Aid needs to have more punch power the next time it gets served up.

I know… I know….

We live in a kinder and gentler time.

I have often noticed it to be the case that the people who remind me of that most frequently are the people who can afford to be kinder and gentler because their positions are in the ascendancy. Its easy for someone to admonish people to be kinder and gentler when the ones doing that admonishing are the ones having their way.

One must wonder what is afoot in the CRC. Recently we find out that it is proposed that in the projected new Psalter the Belgic Confession of Faith and the Canon’s of Dort won’t be included. Then we hear news of a proposed dilution in the force of the ‘Form of Subscription.’ If things keep going like this one won’t be surprised if one hears CRC ministers saying things like ‘Calvinism is like dry ice — to touch it is to be burned.”

Ok… so the latter would never happen but you take my point.

Professors, Libraries, Sons and Toys — A Parable

One there were two professors. One of them was a Sociologist while the other was a Physicist. They both had fine libraries in which they each took great pleasure. Each respected the other’s library but preferred their own library and each even thought their own library superior to the other. Each of the professors had one son and each of the sons had a grand toy collection. The son of the Sociologist’s toy collection revealed his preference for interactive games while the son of the Physicist’s toy collection revealed his preference for Lego blocks. The boys who were occasional playmates thought their opposite numbers collection was ‘OK’ to visit and play with once in a while, but like their fathers, they each preferred their own collection and each believed their collection was superior to the other.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear the parable of the Professors and their libraries and the sons and their toys.

So, it has come to this

Over the past year and a half I have been working with a group of people (about 4 families and a few singles) in Ann Arbor discipling them in their undoubted Catholic Christian faith. At one time there was hopes that this group might be able to form a core group of a fledgling Church but that hasn’t, to date, happened. These folks had been Christians a very long time but had only recently come to the fuller understanding of the Christian faith that is Reformed. I must say that in my 20 plus years of being in the ministry I have never encountered a group of people that were so hungry to understand what it means to be Reformed. They were reading books that many pastors never get to. I was and remain impressed and thankful to God.

When it became apparent that a fledgling Church wasn’t going to work out I advised them on some area ‘Reformed’ churches they might want to investigate. Being a Christian Reformed minister I was somewhat hopeful that the local CRC church might be a place where they could find a home.

After checking many of the area Reformed Churches they finally decided to check out the local CRC congregation. They came back with some very encouraging reports regarding the worship and liturgy of the services they attended and were finding some of the Sunday School classes offered to be encouraging. Eventually they decided to check out the prospective new members classes.

Welcome brick wall.

After one week of attendance one of the men was pulled aside with a request to meet with some of the leadership. Now it should be said that this gentleman is certainly one of the most well read and informed Reformed laymen I have ever known. Indeed it is my opinion that his breadth of knowledge of Scripture and passion for Christ outstrips most of the clergy I meet in this world. He was the one instrumental in teaching this little group the beginnings of Reformed Theology and Worldview and God used him to impact the lives of these families that gathered weekly around God’s Word. It was at this man’s request that I became attached to this little flock and I came to love all of the members of this Wednesday group like they were the family they were. I have known this man only a few years and yet I already count him as one of my closest friends.

It was his breadth of knowledge and his passion for Christ that earned him a meeting with the leadership who expressed to him their concern that he might be a source of friction in their church. In the meeting he sought to allay their fears and thought that all had been settled. That didn’t end up being true. After the following week’s prospective new members class he received a letter which I cite in part,

We do not typically ask new members to sign statements upon joining our congregation. However, we are asking you to sign the following statement because we recognize your intense interest in certain aspects of Reformed Theology. Our concern is that your views and opinions may cause divisions in our congregation. Throughout the years we have established a fellowship of believers from differing traditions of those who follow Jesus Christ. Differences of opinion and interpretation are accepted.

Now understand that nothing had happened to precipitate this letter. My friend had entered into some friendly discussions where some polite disagreements had been registered on both sides but there was nothing that even approximated conflict or friction. In the first meeting my friend made it known that he opposed women in office but as the CRC allows both views to be held he didn’t think that would be an issue. He also made it known in a kind of an offhand way, in the course of a conversation, that he believed in a young earth citing a book by Douglas Kelly as support.

So why this letter? Please understand dear reader that he’s being asked to sign a letter, promising to stay on a short leash, in order to join a Reformed Church, for the danger he represents in having an intense interest in certain aspects of the Reformed Faith. Oh the shame. Oh the disrepute. Oh the horror of such convictions. Next thing you know they’ll be asking a prospective member to leave a deposit if they show up having the Heidelberg catechism memorized.

Now what of the fear of upsetting the different traditions? First, just exactly what ‘different traditions’ are we talking about here? Does this mean that in our Church membership we have Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, and Jehovah Wittinesses who are all following Jesus Christ? Heaven to Murgatroyd … even — we wouldn’t want to upset that apple cart introducing somebody who really took the three forms of unity seriously would we?

Again, the paragraph cited above speaks of differences of opinion and interpretation are allowed… except apparently for a Reformed opinion or interpretation. And what of these differences of opinion and interpretation? Just how different of an opinion or interpretation can one be before one is told that is to different? Can one believe in Arminianism and be a member? Open Theism? Inclusivism?

Yeah, I’m a little pissed. Actually, more then a little. I would cut my right arm off to have this guy in the Church I pastor and what he is getting in another Reformed Church is the right boot of fellowship.

I am even more sizzled over the fact that this group of people can’t find a decent Reformed Church in a huge metropolitan area to Worship in without driving a sizable chunk to get to one.

I have these friends who rightfully are lamenting they can’t find a Reformed Church. I have my daughter in Florida who is living in a large Metropolitan area that can’t find a decent Reformed Church. Every where I go I meet people who say, “We don’t have a good Reformed Church in our area.”

Maranatha.

Back To The Form Of Subscription

Recently, I heard somebody of some import and seniority suggest that we should scrap the previous form of subscription for the new one based on the metaphor of chapel attendance. It seems that when this person was in college she was required to attend chapel and did much to avoid the requirement, and according to her testimony, her low views of Chapel were shared by many of her classmates. However, once she graduated college the college lifted the mandated attendance requirement and, mirable dictu, voluntary chapel attendance blossomed like thousands of acres of Tulips after a fresh spring rain.

Obviously the illustration was supposed to prove that requiring somebody to sign the Form of Subscription only makes them want to do everything they can to avoid what is required of them while, so the thinking goes, if we make signing less onerous then the result will be that everybody will take the Three Forms of Unity seriously, just as lifting mandatory chapel attendance resulted in massive chapel attendance.

Now, as one who could never be outstripped in finding creative ways to avoid mandatory chapel attendance I found this analogy intriguing. The problem though is the metaphor doesn’t really fit. First, requiring people to sign the form of subscription is more akin to requiring somebody to consummate their marriage after they are married. The attitude is not, ‘well, if I have to,’ but rather, ‘well, duh, that’s one reason I signed up.’ Just so with the Form of Subscription. A requirement to sign the document should be met with a ‘well, that’s why I’m here to begin with,’ and not a ‘well, if you’re going to make me, I guess I will, but boy promising to defend those Three Forms of Unity is like being asked to go to worthless chapel services.’

Second, the metaphor doesn’t fit unless what is included is that the new document really means that the requirement is that you don’t have to uphold the three forms of unity any more. In the above metaphor it was the release from attending chapel that supposedly freed people to attend chapel. If the metaphor is going to fit we would have to say that we no longer require a form of subscription, in any sense at all, believing that the results would be that deacons and elders would instantly begin to defend the Three Forms of Unity. With the new ‘covenant of ordination’ we haven’t released people from going to chapel, unless of course that is really what the subtext is.

Still, if the whole denomination is consistent with polling I recently read where only 17% of a small sampling of denominational Ministers, Elders, and Deacons, have read the Three Forms of Unity in the last ten years, I’m not sure why we should have a Form of Subscription, a Covenant of Ordination, a note from Mother excusing us from swearing allegiance, or any other kind of promissory process.

Now, I need to finish this so I can get to Chapel. You wouldn’t believe how many of those things I have yet to make up.