Fred Kohl, R.I.P.

It is always a privilege and honor to declare the Word of God on any occasion, but it is a particular honor to do so at the memorial service for a servant of God like Fred Kohl. As I was mulling over what to say, the passage that came to mind was from the apostle Paul’s address to the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. In the course of that talk, he said something in passing about the role of King David in the course of his lifetime, a phrase I would like to reapply here.

“For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption” (Acts 13:36, ESV).

Consider that phrase—served the purpose of God in his own generation. No man in his right senses could have any ambition higher than that. God has a purpose for each of His servants, and those purposes are as distinct and separate as the servants themselves are. Just as the servants are not interchangeable, so neither are the purposes.

Fred Kohl was a preeminently useful man in the kingdom of God. He was a dedicated Christian, a devoted family man, a hard-working Gideon, and a patriot. Out of all the elders who have served together with me at Christ Church over the decades, he was among the steadiest and most loyal, not to mention tough-minded and dedicated. He was tenacious in his grasp of evangelical truth, and a truly humble man. Whenever you would ask him how he was doing, his standard reply became a watchword among us—“Better than I deserve,” he would say.

His life was a testament to the power of God’s grace, but God’s grace is far more powerful than we sometimes assume. It does lift the undeserving out of the mire. And when the undeserving are lifted out, they can always glory in the fact that God has given them far better than they deserve. But the grace of God is not limited to such rescue missions. God’s grace comes to the undeserving, forgives and restores them, makes them realize how undeserving they are, and then the grace of God moves on to make them deserving.

The New Testament says things like this repeatedly. Paul exhorts the Ephesians to “walk worthy” of their divine calling (Eph. 4:1). He has a similar prayer for the Colossians (1:10). He tells the Thessalonians that since they have been called to His kingdom and glory, they should make a point of walking worthy (1 Thess. 2:12). He prays that God would count them worthy of their calling (2 Thess. 1:11). This last passage helps us to connect the thought to the earlier point about God’s purposes for us in our own generation. “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:” (2 Thess. 1:11).

When God calls the undeserving, He does so in order that they might walk with Him. When they walk with Him according to that calling, they are walking worthy of the call. And when they walk worthy of the calling, they then fulfill the good pleasure of His goodness. This is how men can walk in such a way as to be useful in their generation, fulfilling the purposes of God in their generation.

But it is easy for us hear words like “worthy” and then translate them into something having to do with self-effort. It is nothing of the kind. I know that Fred Kohl loved the gospel of free grace, and would want it to be declared here. And so here it is:

God created a perfect world, with not a blemish in it. Our first parents disobeyed His clear and unambiguous command, and so plunged our world into clear and unambiguous sorrow and grief. Ever since that day man has been born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. God could have left us in that state forever, but He did not. Although God could have just abandoned us there, in His good grace he determined not to. Immediately after our fall – though it might be better to call it a crash – God promised us a Messiah. The woman would eventually be avenged on the serpent. The seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent’s seed. So we have it all—creation, fall and promised salvation—and all within the first few pages of the Bible.

When the Messiah finally came, the Lord Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, and went to the cross out of obedience to His Father. There He suffered as a perfect sacrifice for sin, bearing in His sorrow and grief all the wrath that God’s people had gathered up for themselves. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. So it was that our Jesus lived, suffered, bled, died, was buried, was raised from the dead, and ascended into Heaven. His Spirit was then poured out on everyone who was to be born again, so that they might be born again.

If Fred Kohl ever gave you a copy of the Bible—and the chances are pretty good that he did—you will find this plan of salvation outlined for you somewhere near the inside covers. And in this we have a wonderful picture of grace. Fred was not saved because he gave people Bibles. He gave people Bibles because he was saved. He gave people Bibles because God gave us His Word in the form of the Scriptures, and prior to that He had given us His Word in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Any gift that we might give to others—all our “walking worthy”—is just a pale reflection of God’s great gift to us.

If you have received this gift of free grace, then this is a glorious opportunity to rejoice in a life well-lived, and to stir yourself up to imitate it. If you have not received this gift of free grace, then it would be hard to imagine a better time than now to do it. When you see Fred in glory, you can tell him that you became a Christian at his funeral. He’ll get a charge out of that.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.