THE FUNERAL SERVICE FOR

THE LATE

John Edward (Jack) Jones

May 28, 1999

We are gathered here today to pay respect to the memory of the late Jack Jones.

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,

3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."

3 Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

7 A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

8 You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you make the Most High your dwelling-- even the LORD, who is my refuge--

10 then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.

11 For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;

12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

13 You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.

16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."

31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John Edward Jones was born December 21, 1929, in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, England. Jack grew up during the days of World War II in England. He told me those were fun days because he could get out of school to run messages and errands. He also liked to follow around people that would set of flares as drills for local people to respond to. Once Jack got a hold of one of those flares, that had failed to go off, and took it home. Somehow in managed to finally light, burning a hole right through the wood floor of the front porch.

For a few months Jack was infamous in his town as the kid who tried to sail his uncle’s boat under the bowsprit of one the large sailing ships in the harbour. Standing vertical it would never fit but under sail it was leaning enough to allow the stunt. However, as Jack approached the larger ship blocked the wind that was pushing him and Jack’s boat stood upright – still maintaining its forward motion. The mast was snapped off of his uncle’s boat. Over the following months, Jack made as few trips into town as possible to avoid the teasing of older mariners who recognized him.

Jack had fun as a child and early teen but life at home with a violent father was hard. At 14 it was unbearable and Jack left home forever. Leaving home began a lifetime of adventures and travel for Jack. He fought alongside the Arabs of North Africa and enjoyed their honesty and respect for an individual’s property. Jack worked on a ship in the Middle East. One day, while in the Suez Canal, Jack was seriously injured, and the man next to him killed, when some rigging snapped. He once lived in Guatemala where he didn’t dare go from the bedroom to the kitchen without his pistol because of bandits. He also did boat repair in Florida. Jack and another individual knew of certain boats that had drugs on them. They fixed these boats by blowing them up.

In 1969 Jack was skippering a boat on the Great Lakes in Ontario when he made a trip to Niagara Falls to see what was there. It was during that trip that he met his first wife, Dorothy, at the Park Hotel. They fell in love, eventually married, and Jack became a step-dad to Dorothy’s three children – Carey, Brook and Scott. Niagara Falls, however, was too far from the ocean for Jack. Jack and Dorothy moved the family to Victoria in 1971. Upon arriving Jack bought a 42-foot sailboat named the Lalonga. Later they bought a 50ft diesel cruiser named Jason. He and Dorothy lived on it while Jack worked for DFO, patrolling Seymour Inlet. Counting fish, enforcing the law, and creatively challenging the department’s uniform expectations were just a few of the things Jack did. During his time with DFO, he survived being trapped under a logjam with a rapidly incoming tide, and a grizzly bear attack – both events written up in the local paper and copies of which we have to share with you on your way out. Later, at the southern end of Vancouver Island, Jack continued to fix boats, weld, dive, and perform many other roles in the marine industry. In 1979, Dorothy lost her 6-year fight with cancer.

After Dorothy’s passing, Jack and Gladys fell in love. In December of 1979 they married and Jack became a step-dad to Andrea. Two weeks before their wedding, Jack and Gladys were bringing his 82 foot barge (a former 7 car ferry) complete with most of his tools and hopes of livelihood, from Sooke to Sidney for appraisal and re-insurance (the insurance had lapsed during the final days of Dorothy’s illness). The environment Canada forecast of clear weather was wrong and instead 50 knot winds sank everything – with Jack and Gladys being rescued by the only other boat on the water that day – a fish boat that was only out there because it’s nets were tangled. That was Jack’s 4^th and last time in his life to be shipwrecked.

A couple of months later, returning from a job hunting trip in the Yukon, Jack was seriously injured in a car accident and survived a broken neck and serious head injuries. Unable to work for a living, Jack turned his attention to projects he could make at home – many of which were on home itself. In recent time Jack continued to work at his guitar playing, took up watercolour painting and had more than one laugh teaching a certain skinny pastor to play pool better.

I am sure that many of you have your own memories of Jack and at this time I would like to give you a chance to share some of them.

Sharing time: Judy, Al, and Andrew shared

I enjoyed my visits with Jack. He would often blurt out a pearl of wisdom learned the hard way. "Never carry a loaded shotgun when you are walking on ice." Yes, Jack had done that as well. A couple of times I told Jack that he should write a book. One day I even came up with a title for it, "Not Dead Yet."

It’s that title I want you to think about for the next couple of minutes. Not to be morbid, but at times like this our minds turn to the reality that all of us are "Not Dead Yet."

You see, as many times as Jack cheated death, Jack knew that someday he would loose. Knowing that reality, he placed his faith in God through Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 9:27-28

27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Jack believed what the Bible said. That after death, each of us will be judged, evaluated, and those who are perfect will inherit heaven.

Not very promising is it? Perfect. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.

But Jack’s hope was not that he would die and be judged – no it was that Jesus had lived perfectly and died for Jack’s sins. All Jack had to do was confess His sins to God and then give control of his life over to God.

Jack did that and today he is in heaven – not because the life of a crusty sailor turned out to be good enough. Not because he had a good sense of humour and was a faithful husband. No – because he didn’t trust in his own works for his salvation – he believed that Jesus had paid the price for him and that only Jesus could deliver him to Heaven.

But, as Jack knew, it is only while you are alive that you can trust Christ and that he did. Maybe he had an advantage because he had faced danger so many times, but Jack did not put off trusting Christ.

2 Corinthians 6:2

2 For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.

Jack’s barge wasn’t insured when it sank but His soul was safe when if left his body 2 Wednesday nights ago because he had given his life to Jesus.

Often the world tends to put people in a slot or certain category as they are known. It is true of us as Christians as well. Our checklist for spotting someone who is living for God includes regular church attendance, taking part in activities that are planned, and even using certain words and terms in everyday conversation.

Jack, as a Christian, didn’t fit that mold very well. However, that isn’t necessarily a measure of God’s pleasure with Jack.

Too often we look at what people are doing and not at how faithful they are being with what they have. We judge by their fruit – not their faithfulness.

Mark 12:41-44

41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts.

42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.

44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything-- all she had to live on."

It isn’t the volume of what we accomplish that pleases God. The Bible says that one plants, and other sows, another waters but God gives the increase!

When we consider Jack’s life we see a number of things that he had to overcome – his violent father and the life impact such an influence would have had. Being alone in the world at 14. And when Jack was in the serious car accident – recovery from a brain injury and the effects of medication for his breathing problems in recent years. At times Jack didn’t have very much with which to be faithful.

But that doesn’t matter – God rewards faithfulness – not fruitfulness.

I hope that all of us have a lot in our life to be faithful with – family, wealth, and health.

But maybe some of us have deep hurts in our life because of family.

I doubt non of us have had our business sink to the bottom of the straight of Juan de Fuca but maybe some of you are facing unemployment, difficult work circumstances, or even broken dreams of what you wanted to be.

Maybe some of you are struggling with your health – a lost sense, chronic pain, or something else.

Maybe none of these things apply to you – yet.

But if they have come (or when they do come) and you have less in life you can either curse God because you can’t be as fruitful as you would like, or you can, as Jack did, be faithful with the little that you have.

Jack would want me to encourage you today to put your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and give your life to God – being faithful with the much or the little that you have.

God rewards faithfulness not fruitfulness and God has taken Jack to Himself for his reward in Christ.

OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN

HALLOWED BE THY NAME

THY KINGDOM COME

THY WILL BE DONE

ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD

AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES

AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US.

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL

FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM

THE POWER AND THE GLORY

FOR EVER AND EVER

AMEN.