Funeral Service—August 5, 1992
Wollaston Church of the Nazarene
We are united today in a sense of loss and grief, a profound anguish that has been palpable throughout our community and beyond. We have suffered incalculable loss. It is right and proper that we grieve. I do not pretend to offer any answers to the very apparent unfairness of it all.
In these dark hours we need to hear a word from God. And if we will listen, God is speaking to us just now two clear words. Both of these words are pure scripture- but they come from the heart of Cecil Paul.
The first word is the life of the man himself- and it is a word of confidence- the confidence of a life lived with God at the center- a life motivated by the love of Christ. That confidence is expressed in the words of another man named Paul:
"For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 2 Corinthians 5:1
This word of confidence comes with such strength because it is coming from a life sharply focused on God.
This passage in the heart of 2 Corinthians is Paul the Apostle's testimony, and it profiles the life Cecil Paul lived. Look with me at power of a godly life:
"For the love of Christ constrains us..." 2 Corinthians 6:14 "We do not peddle the word for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." 2 Corinthians 2:26
To accept the fact that we are where God has assigned us, is to scorn the lower motives, dollar profit, ego gratification, or any other of the drives of the world.
"We are not as Moses, with veiled face to cover the fading glory, but with unveiled face we behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 3:13,15
To dare to live with who we really are— to be in touch with our own deepest feelings, and still to live in community and love is not an easy task.
Cecil was very human. He cared deeply what people thought of him, but he cared even more deeply what God knew of him, and he lived accordingly, in integrity, with an 'open face."
There is an Honesty of obedience before God's Word. There is a joy in living under its authority.
"We do not distort God's word— we are not "clever"..""not walking in craftiness, or adulterating the Word of God" 2 Corinthians 4:2
Every minister of the Gospel knows the pressure of what people, even GOOD people, want to hear, as opposed to what the simple sense of the Word demands. Cecil lived in that pressure with grace. And so far as I can tell, he never compromised with what he heard God's Word requiring.
This profile of the life of a man or woman of God as outlined here in the heart of 2 Corinthians continues:
It is impossible to glorify God and seek to impress others with our own greatness at one and the same time. The Apostle put it this way:
"We do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus' sake." 2 Corinthians 4:5
Cecil Paul was gifted. He could have been extremely successful in many fields. He could have sought the way of personal ambition. But instead he was God-centered, and so he became the servant of God's people.
Do you see this brief but clear profile outlined here in the Word of God, and written out in the life of our brother?
It is no wonder that the word of confidence rings true!
The other word from the Lord through this man of God is a word of challenge. We are united today in our loss and grief. We have re-discovered in the past few hours something of just how much we need each other. We have confessed that we do love each other and that we do love God.
Now this life lived out in mission and integrity and self- sacrifice challenges us to use that unity in seeking together God's own will and God's own way as perhaps we never have before.
This word of challenge could be summed up, perhaps, in some notes that were on Dr. Paul's desk at home— perhaps a message he was preparing— just the most sketchy of scrawls. It may have been an outline for faculty day later this month— I don't know. I do know that the theme in Cecil's mind for this school year at Eastern Nazarene College was "renewal in community."
That message was not developed— just a few thoughts. Part of those notes read:
"Not sold out to the world ... sold out to mission!"
And then words to the effect "What captures my imagination— what I focus on— drives me!"
And finally a portion of scripture that was one of his favorites:
"They that wait upon the Lord shall RENEW their strength..."
Can we ask God to help us to live out that sermon Cecil Paul never got to preach?:
"Not sold out to the world ... sold out to mission!" Sold out to God! Living entirely captivated by His love!