Here’s my advice to young pastors concerning funeral sermons:
- You need to develop at least five different sermons…although some can be just variations of another
- A sermon for a saint who lived long and well
- A sermon for a younger person who lived for the Lord but died too young
- A sermon for a person who had no testimony
- A sermon for a person you never knew personally
- A sermon for a person who died tragically
- Those sermons, though, basically use just two approaches
- We celebrate the victory we have in Christ over even death and our hope of resurrection
- We point people to the comfort that is ours in Christ
- Not all funeral sermons can operate at the celebration level but all should offer comfort
- Don’t make the person’s life your text. If you can preach about our victory in Christ – make the sermon about Jesus. If you emphasize comfort in grief – make the sermon about the Lord’s willingness to comfort even in times of loss.
- Do use the person’s life in illustrations – include some heartwarming memory or some conversation or something that connects them to your sermon. Caution: don’t make the sermon about your relationship with the person. That does more to impress people that you’re a wonderful person than it causes them to remember that we have a wonderful Lord.
- Remember that a funeral sermon is an opportunity to minister to people who are thinking about life and death – and often they are people who don’t hear many sermons. If you can point them to Jesus as our hope and comfort you might move them a step closer to coming to Christ.