Well, good morning and welcome to the service for my grandpa, James Eric Wierson. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jason Matthews. I am the oldest grandchild, by the way, of Jim and Doris. I think it's kind of cool that the youngest grandchild will also be a part of this service. And James is James the third, I guess, right? So welcome.

This is a time to remember, to celebrate, and certainly to grieve as well. But as we do that together, I wanna remind us that we don't grieve without hope, right? Paul tells us that in 1 Thessalonians 4, where he says, we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again in the same way through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. And he's pointing us forward to a time that the apostle John describes in the book of Revelation.

And I just wanna read a snippet of that here as we begin the service together. He says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look, God's dwelling is with humanity and he will live with them. They will be his peoples and God himself will be with them and will be their God. And here's, I love this part.

He says, he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Grief, the grief that we feel, crying and pain will be no more because the previous things have passed away. So we come together this morning and we remember and we celebrate and we grieve, but not without hope. So let me pray as we begin this time together.

Father God, we thank you that as we come together this morning to celebrate and to remember and grieve our father and grandfather and dear friend, Grandpa Jim. Thank you God that you have brought us here as people with hope, people with the hope of the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, your son who came down to this earth and died on the cross for our sins. So thank you that we can come together this morning in your name. And we pray that as we continue in this service together, that you would be honored and glorified in it. And that you would give us your peace that passes all understanding. And then with that, Lord, that you would give us the hope that can only come from you. So we thank you for these things. In Jesus' name, amen.

700 years before the birth of Christ this was written of him Isaiah 53 verses 4 5 & 6 Surely he hath borne our grease and carried our sorrows Yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted and but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and Yahweh hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

We're now going to sing a hymn. This hymn is relatively new to me, but I think the tune should be familiar to most of us. It is a hymn that the family was listening to in the last days that Jim was on the earth. great encouragement and blessing to them and I think it will be to all of us. It speaks of those who served Christ well and are now glorified with him and it represents the hope that we can all have if we trust in Christ as Jim did. So let's stand and we'll sing the hymn 602 or it's in your pamphlet, the first song, Who Are These Like Stars Appearing.

Who are these, like stars appearing, These before God's throne to stand? Each a golden crown is wearing, Who are all this glorious band? Alleluia, a harp they sing, praising loud their heavenly King. Who are these of dazzling brightness, these in God's own truth arrayed, glad in robes of purest whiteness, robes whose cluster ne'er shall fade, ne'er be touched by time's rude hand, whence come all this glorious band.

These are they who have contended for their Savior's honor long, wrestling on till life was ended, following not the sinful throng. Least who well the fight sustained, Triumphed through the land of games. These are they whose paths were riven, sore with woe and anguish tried, who in prayerful love have striven, with the God they glorified. Now their painful conflict o'er, God has made them weep no more.

These like priests have watched and waited, offering up to Christ their will. Soul and body consecrated, day and night to serve Him still. Now in God's most holy place, Blessed may stand before his face. You may be seated. Hot mic. We haven't, as a Weirston family, haven't had a lot of practice with this eulogy thing. So if this doesn't sound very eulogistic, it is what you're getting. And now you know.

James Eric Wierson was born July 11th, 1936 in Roland, Iowa. He was the second of four sons born to Les and Margaret Wierson. After Les, his senior by 17 months, dad was a year older than Terry and four years older than Sean. He and his brother Les were nearly inseparable. Whatever one instigated the other was a willing collaborator.

A story Dad recounted from the early years was of sitting by a dirt road, this would have been in Iowa, watching a horse-drawn wagon or wagons overflowing with ears of corn. And as they would hit a little hole, some of the ears would tumble out for the taking. Recognizing the pattern, Dad remembered telling Les, we should improve that hole.

They not only played together, they worked together and delivered lots of newspapers in the rain and snow and hail and gloom of night and weekends and holidays. The post office has got nothing on the newspaper carriers. It was hard work which required a dogged diligence. In the early 1940s, the family moved to the Portland, Vancouver area to work in the war effort. His father worked in the Kaiser shipyard just right across the river, and his mom worked in the drafting department.

He had a distinct and often shared memory of selling newspapers on a street corner in downtown Vancouver the day peace was declared. And he made sure that part of the memory that we knew was that he was yelling out, Wexstry, Wexstry. And we would ask, why Wexstry? Well, that's what the other guys were saying. So extra, extra, read all about it. But the kids were Wexstry, Wexstry.

After the war, the family moved back to Iowa, which lasted for a year or two, looking for regular work, and then they returned to the Northwest. Dad mentioned at one point that the moves left him feeling dislocated. It was in Portland the boys began working for a newspaper dealer whose influence was of great significance.

Dad said, he made us feel that he enjoyed knowing us and that he had some work that needed a responsible, faithful, productive boy. And Les and Jim filled the bill. Looking back, Dad believed that their work was, quote, the learning of a desire and ability to be managed and encouraged and made to see that a life that life could be enjoyed with the disciplines of work.

Does that sound like him? Remembering early years, dad remarked, Girls were always such a mystery, and his life was so much in activities and work that he didn't have a lot of leisure time. And so it was, as he was working in a cannery, he discovered that ball games and buddies were not the only important things in this world. He met a girl who charmed him from the very first.

And I can imagine, I didn't hear this, but I can imagine dad making some attempt at being witty or funny and mom coming right back at him and him thinking, ah, this one. In dad's words, she was a friend, meat for me. They were married April 13, 1957, Deb. And actually, he always said that he married Doris and Debbie. It was a package deal. 1957 would see the three of them move to Eugene, where dad was majoring in psychology.

After some years, he became disenchanted with psychology's answers to life's questions, and he changed to marketing and advertising, earning a master's degree. But of course, the study changed him from a nominal Lutheran to an atheist. In recounting an emptiness in his life, even with the family he loved dearly and the school success, he told me that in college he had written an assignment a story of a guy wandering along a stream bank, picking up interesting rocks and putting them in his pockets. He came to a bridge, walked up on the bridge, observed the creek, the depth and the width, and jumped in, with the rocks taking him down to his death. That is the life, the life, I don't want to say that, that is the, the hopelessness that modern psychology offered him. And like the rest of humanity, he moved on with life, like we all do.

He worked in advertising for a year there in Eugene. And then the four of them, to their delight, Stephanie had been added in 1960. The four of them packed up and headed back to Portland where he began writing copy and advertising for the firm Botsford, Constantine, and Gardner, which would have been a competitor of Wyden and Kennedy back in the day. He wrote ads for Blue Cross and the Pendleton account was entirely his own. I think he liked advertising because it was a creative outlet.

I was born in 1963, and Clark came in 1965, so we were six. And in 1968, Sherry Pettin joined the family, and Becky came to live with us for the year in 1969, and it was a houseful. Dad was adventurous. Extraordinary was an adventurous, extraordinary, enthusiastic entrepreneur.

Most people knew him as the paper man. And as he worked for the Oregonian as an independent distributor for about 50 years, all of his kids had paper delivery experience. We each have a distinctive memory of the phone ringing at 3 a.m. or whatever time it was in the dark of night. realizing we needed to lay really still and hold our breath and hope he would forget we were there. But on the days he didn't, or the days we were told the night before that you will be getting up, there was a common, it's time, that would call us to pull on the clothes we'd set aside and stumble down the stairs and out the door. Both Clark and I had our introductions to the newspaper business as dad passed his work wisdom to us. And in 1993, with Clark and Kelly as the chief lieutenants, he started Wierson News Agency, distributing both local and national publications.

He showed us that by doing a job well for long enough, you will be known for the reliability of your work, and potential customers will want your service. Always looking for an opportunity, he was able to layer businesses on businesses in an amazing way. And looking back, while not all of these businesses operated at the same time, many did overlap. He started with his marketing and advertising career, which, by the way, then led to a big shift to an entrepreneurial self-employment.

To a significant degree, that was precipitated by his commitment to his family. He didn't want to be traveling for business, and he spent a lot of time in Chicago and New York back then, I'm told. Didn't want to be traveling for business while his family grew up, abdicating his responsibility. He chose the humble over accolades. He didn't choose what he felt would make him happy. or what would make his parents proud, he sacrificed a promising big-time career to serve his family.

So with the newspaper distributorship as a constant business base, there was a roofing company, a recycling company, he owned a gas station. At one point, to heat the drafty newspaper warehouse, he bought a few kerosene heaters. In the daytime, as passersby noticed the heaters glowing, they would stop and ask, how he was warming the place and he recognized an opportunity and bought hundreds of kerosene heaters directly from the manufacturer in Japan and sold them at home shows and made a retail store specifically to sell kerosene heaters and even mail order with the help of Tony Toste. He started a boutique coffee shop. Many of you would remember that and some of you here spent many years working at the coffee shop.

He decided to sell ice cream in the coffee shop because coffee's slow in the summertime and you can get ice cream wholesale if you're a store and he really, really liked ice cream. owned a specialty paint store, specialized as an international distributor of open ocean fish farming cages, which in my opinion was one of the shortest live opportunities, as one of the shortest live opportunities, was quietly one of the most successful for all the partners because he recognized an Italian company as a potential better international distributor than he could be, and managed to negotiate and sell his rights as the distributor, along with the manufacturer's technology and patents, selling himself right out of business. 33 years have passed and Weirston News is still operating today, which is truly a testament to the grace of God and God allowing faithful work to be recognized by customers that need work done. But his creativity and diligence as an entrepreneur is not his legacy. By Clark's first birthday, dad had made a decision that would affect the lives not only of our family, but of countless others.

Mom had started attending a Bible study in the neighborhood. There she heard the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ for the first time. At least it was the first time she heard it and was moved to repent. Leaving her sins at the cross, knowing she was forgiven by the blood of his sacrifice, she followed him gladly.

Dad came home from a business trip, to the same Doris, except she was brand new. I don't know how much time passed between mom's and dad's salvation, but Deb recalls, and she would have been old enough to observe this at the time, I don't know, I do know they were changed from the inside out by a power I couldn't understand. The legacy dad left us is not his entrepreneurship, We have piles of writings which, though valuable to us, are not his legacy. His legacy is in a consistent, determined, deliberate, humble faithfulness as a steward of the marriage, the family, the church family, and the business relationships and responsibilities that were put in his hands.

He was a fellow worker for the gospel in each of these areas, living it, speaking it. and content to be humbly submissive to it. He lived his faith. As Jesus said, whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Yes, dad was a good man, but his faith was not in his goodness. His good living was because of his faith. So now I say, you may say, I'm a good person. I would, and Jim would encourage you to measure your goodness against Jesus' words and definition. You may say, I've made my peace with God. And I would say, has God made his peace with you? That is the ultimate question.

As his children and family, and yes, his family was much larger than the four or five or six or seven who lived in the home at any one time. As his friends, as his children and family and friends and fellow workers now, we've had the privilege of living and working alongside a man who took the work the Lord gave him, seemingly menial work. I mean, think about that, newspapers, all the knocking your head against the wall is trash in two hours. every day.

He took the work the Lord gave him. He took it seriously. He cared that it was done well. A workman that needed not to be ashamed. He believed what he was told, whatsoever you do, do it as unto the Lord. With confidence, I believe, his Lord said to him, well done.

I forgot my reading glasses so we may struggle here, but that's okay. Thank you, thank you. I can see you all real good, it's just the close up. This is a passage written by the Holy Spirit who had the Apostle Peter who we can all identify with. And these are the words that we hear in honor of Jim.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. whom having not seen, you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently and prophesied of the grace that would come to you.

Searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when he testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that not to themselves but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into. This is the word of God. on behalf of the Wierson family, of which I am glad to be a part. If you don't know me, I'm James Wierson III.

The fourth is also in this room, in the back, and carrying his great-grandfather's legacy well. We thank you for coming. I thank everybody who's been a part of the service so far. I have the privilege of opening up the word of God to you. I wanna just make a couple notes as we do this, that we're here honoring my grandpa, Jim Wierson, and we've been doing that, if you've noticed, and Jason did such a helpful job of getting us started on that theme, we've been doing that by honoring his Lord.

And the Lord Jesus Christ is the, not just a part of my grandfather's life, but the center of my grandfather's life. He was an elder at this church. He was a great man of God and really in large part because of him and many other godly men, but in large part because of him and the conversations he and I would have, I'm here now.

So I want to honor him by considering his Lord and a few with me, if you have your copy of the Word of God, turn to the Book of Romans, chapter five, verses one and two, and this will connect exactly to what my dad just shared in the eulogy. Let me read these verses to you. I'm reading out of the English Standard Version. I don't normally use it, but this one has notes from my grandfather in it, so I thought I would bring it and use it.

It says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

I wanna talk to you just briefly about my grandfather's hope, which is the hope that all of us, that's available to all of us. And this is what was true of Jim Weirson. This is what is true of everyone who believes in the Lord Jesus. And this is what is held out to you by the Lord now. We are not grieving here as those who have no hope in seeing my grandfather again. We are grieving and even rejoicing at the same time because we know that he found true that When he entrusted his life into the Lord Jesus' hands, the Lord Jesus was found trustworthy. Let me just comment on these verses. The Apostle Paul in writing this says this, therefore since we have been justified by faith. There's a lot of church words in here, some theological terms. Let me just try to make these very simple.

Justified is to be in a right legal standing before God. God is the supreme lawgiver, and he's the supreme judge. When he created man, created Adam and Eve and all creation, he gave them a command, which was, thou shalt not eat of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. And Adam and Eve, we all know the story. This is just part of the culture we grew up in.

Adam and Eve ate of the tree and violated God's law, and they found that the penalty that God had prescribed for breaking that law was true. And they died. They died spiritually, and they expected death, and they did indeed die physically. And all of their children, down to us, died. There's only two people in human history the Bible tells us didn't die, and those are the exceptions which prove the rule that death is the lot. of humanity.

This is what Romans 3.25 calls the wages of sin. It's your due. It's what you've earned as a sinner. This is just what all of us know to be true and what scripture declares.

Jim Wierson was a sinner. He was condemned before the holy law of God. And he knew that. You were just thinking about what my dad just read in the eulogy and showing grandpa's testimony. He knew that. Yet, he was made to be not a man. guilty before the law of God, but right before the law of God, because he put his faith in the Lord Jesus, who paid the penalty for his sin. Grandpa noted, and he has a margin note in this Bible, in Genesis 3, 19, that both Adam and Eve paroled and marooned, preferring what they knew not to what they had severed from. It sounds just like him. They preferred their choice. They preferred to eat the fruit and sin instead of preferring to dwell with God in right standing.

Romans 3.23 states, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is us.

So how then can, could my grandfather have been justified by faith and then been at peace with God? Well, it states it here in this verse, through our Lord Jesus Christ. In just a couple chapters previously, Apostle Paul makes it very clear. He says this, now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Propitiation, another church word, another technical theological term, it means this. The penalty that everyone expects in their death, and at the final judgment, that penalty was paid by the Lord Jesus when he died on the cross.

So then in Romans 8, about believers who are justified, he can say there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no judgment reserved. It'd be double jeopardy. But just like our laws in our nation, which say that if you've been found not guilty of a crime in the court of law, you can't be tried for the same crime again. And God would be unjust to find us guilty when we have been justified by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is what was true of my grandfather. He was at peace with God through the work of the Lord Jesus. The result of Christ's death and resurrection is the total and complete payment of the wages of sin and death for everyone who believes in him. So we can stand here now, or sit here now, and think about Jim Wierson. And we can delight in the fact that he found his hope to be true. He hoped in the Lord. Grandma hoped in the Lord. And they are there delighting in the presence of their Lord and Savior. And we, if we have the same hope, can expect to delight in the presence of the Lord with Grandpa and Grandma in the future.

So Grandpa would want me to tell you that and to ask you this. Where is your hope? And perhaps you say, like much of our culture, I don't have one. Well, then listen to the words of my grandfather in his poem, Truth's Incarnation. And I'll end with this.

God gave truth a body. Pure manner gave he. Truth in men's clothing for sinners' perusal. None the pretenses of flesh waywards need he, needs him who's unfaltered, who's right able to stand, to stand straight before God, to stand but to kneel, to kneel there alone, to kneel there but to die, to die but for sins not his own. God gave truth his body, so that of the bent men would some locate reliefs past all their faint longings, and God's earned their beliefs.

Would find one there, and live of that truth, who would give for the sum there, as were promised such ending far back in the beginning. Death's done there, re-won here. Long's life fairly won there. the end's ending's beginning. Even forever, for them who have knelt in the kneeler, God's blessed then found finally at home there in him.

Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for our dear friend and brother and father and grandfather and great-grandfather, Jim Wearson. We thank you for his testimony. We thank you for the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross some 2,000 years ago, which secured for Jim and for all of us who believe eternal life and a true hope, a hope in the glory of God, which we await and which we expect we will be a part of because we are in Christ by faith. Lord, I pray that you would open our eyes to behold your truth and that we would stand like grandpa in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be with us the rest of the service and the rest of this day.

We praise you in Christ's name, amen. The next hymn you'll find in your pamphlet is Lead On, O King Eternal. I understand this was one of Jim's favorites. And my wife Krista has memories of playing it for him on the piano when she was first learning to play. So let's stand and sing. We'll sing it without the final chorus as written.

Thee alone, O King Eternal, the day of march has come. Fenced forth in fields of conquest, your tent shall be our home. Through days of preparation, your grace has made us strong. And now, O King Eternal, We lift our battles sung. Lead on, O King Eternal, Till sin's fierce war shall cease, And holiness shall whisper The sweet Amen of peace. For not with swords, but flashing, or roll of stirring drums. With deeds of love and mercy, we wait till Jesus comes.

We are looking eternal, we follow not with fears. ♪ For gladness breaks like morning ♪ ♪ Where'er your face appears ♪ ♪ Your cross is lifted o'er us ♪ ♪ We journey in his light ♪ ♪ The crown awaits the conquest ♪ ♪ We honor God above ♪ My name is Gary Custis. I'm not a weirson. That never stopped Dora setting me straight. So I think that means I'm some kind of a relation. I'm not quite sure what it is.

I've been asked to invite you all to stay for refreshments afterwards and to fellowship together. I've also been asked to read this passage of scripture. which talks to Christians and tells them what to be and to do in expectation of the coming of the Lord and being glorified in Him with those saints in heaven like Jim and Doris and the rest of us as well. I'm reading from 1 Peter 1, verse 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance, but as he who is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct. because it is written, be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojournings here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by the tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, As of a lamb without blemish and without spot, he indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you, who through him believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth, through the spirit, in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and abides forever, because all flesh is like as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls away. but the word of God endures forever. Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.

Let's bow in prayer. Heavenly Father, we are so very thankful for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. We're thankful that all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved, and all will be caught up in glory. And we shall be restored again with the loved ones that we have in heaven, Jim and Doris coming as well, being glorified. And we have that hope in us, and help us to live in light of the glory to come. and help us to know the Lord Jesus Christ, to believe in Him, that He is the Son of God, that He is the Savior, and help us to live in light of, Father, the one You who is holy. Help us to live for you. So we ask your blessing upon this time. We thank you for the food that is to be eaten. We thank you for the way in which you provide for each one of us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.