Celebrating the Life of David Ivan Basye September 8th, 1940 - March 12, 2025
April 13, 2025
Scripture referenced 5 passages
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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2 Timothy 4:6-8 Paul as an older man being poured out as a drink offering, having fought the good fight, finished the race, kept the faith, and awaiting the crown of righteousness
6 For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure has come.
7 I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.
8 From now on, there is stored up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day; and not to me only, but also to all those who have loved his appearing.
World English Bible · Read it in another translation
Keep this verse
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Paul calling himself the chief of sinners, giving thanks that Christ showed him mercy and came into the world to save sinners
12 And I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service;
13 although I was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
14 The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
15 The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
16 However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, for an example of those who were going to believe in him for eternal life.
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
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Isaiah 40:31
referenced briefly as those who wait upon the Lord will mount up with wings like eagles
31 But those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.
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Jeremiah 33:3
identified as God's telephone number, call out to Me and I will answer and show you great and mighty things, connected to the Spanish worship song Clamami
3 ‘Call to me, and I will answer you, and will show you great and difficult things, which you don’t know.’
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Romans 15:13
closing benediction: may the God of hope fill you with joy and peace so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit
13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This was a memorial service for Dave Basie, held at First B Jackson. The message drew from 2 Timothy 4 and 1 Timothy 1 to speak about what it means to finish well, and what makes that possible. The preacher was honest that he did not know Dave well, but what he heard from the family and from those who shared memories shaped what he brought from Scripture.
What was said
The testimonies that filled the first part of the service painted a picture of a man who gave himself wholeheartedly to whatever he took on, who struck up conversations with strangers as naturally as with old friends, and who showed up consistently, whether at a softball game, a Spanish-language church on Monday nights, or a grandchild's jujitsu class. The preacher noted that three words kept coming back: faithful, supportive, loving.
When the preacher turned to Scripture, he acknowledged that 2 Timothy 4:6-8 is not the passage most people reach for at a funeral. Paul is an old man writing from what was likely a Roman prison, and he knows his time is short. The preacher drew a line between that kind of late-life limitation and what it looks like when someone fades after a broken hip and can no longer move freely through the world.
Paul's words come in a triplet: he has fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith. The preacher pointed out that Paul was not always the man who could say that. Before he was Paul he was Saul, a persecutor who chased down Christians. The change came when he met Jesus, and everything about his life turned on that moment.
To show how Paul understood his own standing before God, the preacher moved to 1 Timothy 1, where Paul calls himself the foremost of sinners, the chief of them. The preacher read this not as false humility but as the honest self-assessment of someone who knew exactly what he had been. Paul's point is that if mercy reached him, it is available to anyone, and that is precisely what God intended to demonstrate through him.
The crown of righteousness Paul says is waiting for him is not something he earned. The preacher was clear about that: Paul did not get what he deserved, which was judgment, and he did get what he did not deserve, which was righteousness credited to him. Paul says plainly that this crown is not for him only, but for all who have loved Christ's appearing.
The preacher closed by tying the two threads together. The glorified body, he said, is immortal and capable again. The image he left the room with was of Dave Basie at the banquet of the Lord, fully restored, tasting the finest things. The hymn Amazing Grace followed, which the preacher noted was written by a former slave trader, calling it a beautiful example of the same redemption the message had been describing.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Paul describes himself as 'the chief of sinners' even after years of faithful service. What does it mean to you that someone with that kind of past could receive a crown of righteousness?
- The preacher pointed out that Paul wrote to Timothy about faith passed down through his grandmother and mother. Who in your own life passed faith along to you, and how did they do it?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Read the full transcript 7,033 words
Amen. Thank you, Judy. I'm glad that y'all are here. Welcome. I'm glad to be here myself.
I I will admit right out of the box that I probably knew Dave less than anybody else in this room, but what I knew of him, I loved of him. And we shared a savior, and he's a good guy. And so I'm delighted to be here, but I am gonna give an opportunity towards later on in the service for one minute testimonies, and I'll describe that right now. One minute testimonies will be something encouraging or helpful, fun, or poignant for the family that would be reassuring and comforting, but it's not longer than a couple of minutes. Alright?
A minute or two is great. We do have a lunch and sort of an afternoon plan for after the service. A light meal is gonna be provided afterwards for everybody here and if it goes more than a couple of minutes, please tell it down the hall but we'll we'll take the one minute testimonies about Dave later on. Would you pray with me? Silently while I pray out loud.
Lord God almighty, we stand amazed in your presence lord and we're thankful for a life that you saved and redeemed for a life that lord we all looked to. Lord, salvation is found in you and you alone and we are thankful that he was a was a believer and a participant in that. I'm thankful lord too that this family is gathered and we wanna be as helpful as we can in this time of grief. So, lord, thank you for the presence for everybody in the room. I pray that you would make your presence known to each of us, lord, and something that happens here today.
It's in Jesus name that we gather and place our hope. Amen. Amen. And now, would you stand and we're gonna sing together a a bouncy number. How about that?
I'll fly away.
Some glad morning when this life is all, fly away to a home on God's celestial shore. I'll fly away. I'll fly away, oh glory. I'll when I tie hallelujah by and by, I'll fly away.
Amen. Y'all can have a seat. You sound good. You sound really good. I'm gonna invite up right now, Shane, if you would for a eulogy.
In Greek, the word eulogos, u e u means good and logos means word or content or what is to be conveyed. So Shane's the first one that gets to say the good word today. Yeah. The yellow one, we call that mustard. Mustard.
Greetings everyone. Thank you. I'm Shane, youngest son of Dave Basie. Glad that everyone could be here in memory of our father. He was a very gracious and a great man and very missed very greatly by many of us.
And you as well. Sorry about that. I'll stand away from this other mic. Okay. Alright.
So in general, I wanna just thank everybody for the gracious flowers and gifts and cards and memories that have been shared and conveyed to the family. We're definitely very grateful for that and as well as the church and what they've graciously done for us. Appreciate that immensely. Dad, my dad Dave was born 09/08/1940 until Timmons and Dave... And Ivan Basie.
He was brother to Earl and Pat, who have now passed, and is survived by Frank, who is here with us today. They've started to live his life, living out his life in South Park, just up by church out there that's up down South Park Road right now. But anyway, that building is still there to this day, and he lived there for quite some time, and then when they did finally move, they moved... It didn't have electricity, and when he did come back to move move, he moved into Jackson, and he lived almost all of his life in Jackson. He lived a brief stint in Montana, but besides that, he was...
Most of his entirety was living here in Jackson. He spent several winters feeding elk at the beginning of his career at the National Elk Refuge, and one of the stories he had was, he got caught in the headlines, he created a stampede of the elk when the vehicle he was operating died, parts and go get help. And so, he went to get the help, and the elk stampeded, so that was in the paper. He also spent... He also started doing construction, and he built many prominent buildings here in Jackson, namely the Snow King Resort up here on the hill, the Pinkarter Plaza, the Jackson Lake Lodge, where a few of those to name.
And after that he eventually began his own construction company with his brother Frank, Macy Brothers Construction, which he did until 2003 when he retired. My dad had many qualities, as you all well know. He would throw all of his efforts into the hobbies that he might have at one time or another. One of those hobbies was making ice cream, when he did, he made gallons of ice cream at a time, like, as kids we loved it, you know, was like, what flavor are we gonna make this time, you know, so that was really good. And then, he also took up gold mining panting for a while, and he had all the stuff, and he'd just go out wholeheartedly, and we still have a little bit of remnants in his house from that.
So, little bit of... Few flecks of gold. He never struck it rich, though. He also had... Dad had a love for animals, dogs, and he had several birds as well in his lifetime.
So, I just wanted to make mention of that. One of Ella's favorite moments was of her dad taking her to jujitsu class, and every week he would come and get their stuff, get her gathered, stuff gathered together, and go to class, and afterwards she would ask for him to stop by the store to get yogurt at the Maverick store, and he almost always did that. I think the thing that was greatest about that was he didn't... I think the time that he spent, he just made that time and that commitment that I'm gonna do this for you, and gave it his wholeheartedness. He did that with, I think everything he did, he gave it with his whole heart, and everything, and that's one of the things I can remember the most.
One of the other efforts that Ella shared was that he had... She had gotten a rabbit from the fair, and so she... When he got home, well, we gotta have a house for the rabbit. Well, dad dad took it, you know, to heart that he right away that he needed to build a rabbit house, and a rabbit house was like the airstream of rabbit hutches, you know, if know what I mean. So, you know, that was another one of great memories that Ayla had.
Dad avidly followed Davey and I, and Sean and Ayla's softball teams. We were involved in softball, and he was he was probably our utmost avid supporter, very... He was always there early, and there to encourage, and whatnot. And I've I've... One of the things I remember wholeheartedly that he would he would be talking to everybody that's in the bleachers, talking about, you know, his sons and this, and you know, he he talked...
He he always had a way of being able to... He even talked to a random stranger or whatever, and he'd be able to know things that... I'd be like, how did you know that? And it's like, because he asked questions that most of us would probably be saying, why would you do that? But he did, he knew some of the statistics that we would, no one else would ever try to ever get out of somebody, or even like their, maybe even their clothing size, or you know, hat size, or something of that nature.
So, anyway, something that was pretty awesome. People always called him, at the baseball games, called him Mr. B, and everybody called him Mr. B, and it was pretty... He was pretty...
It was pretty good memories for all of us. Dad loved to... As I told you about these conversations already, so I don't need to go back through that. See here. Dad was an avid fishing enthusiast, and Davey, in his latter years, helped take dad to get him out after his hip had broke and whatnot, and he's like, well I still wanted to spend time with him and get him out in the outdoors, and he'd take him out fishing, and he'd get a little chair and get him propped up, and chair, and get his line out, and sitting there.
And then one of the times he walked away and he was off fishing, his chair fell over, and he was laying on the ground, and some lady came by and helped him up, and got him picked and everything before David got there, and the teacher, lady, he was just holding this, know, like I say, that type of conversation that you, you know, only that could strike up with a mere stranger. It was pretty awesome that, you know, some of those stories. And there's a lot of them, know there's countless of them, and we're going to probably have this open up for several others. One of the ones that... I've...
Dad was a member of the voluntary fire department for over nineteen years here in Jackson, and one of the ones that we had when we lived on on log cabin up on across Flat Creek, we had to have fire drills, because we lived on a second story, we had to figure out how to climb out the window onto the roof, and in some way get ourselves down off the roof to escape a fire in case it will ever ever occur. And I thought that was rather, we thought that was rather humorous, but at the same token he was watching out for our safety. But another time we'd had a burn barrel out in our yard, and he started the fire, and he was off running and doing something, and asked me to watch the fire, and so I was like, okay, and I watched, and the wind picked up, and all of a sudden the fire had caught the grass on the side of the of burn barrel on fire, and it started spreading rapidly, and I was like, ran up and told dad,
hey dad, this is your fire, and whatever, and he called
the he called the fire department. We were down there patting, beating down the flames trying to... With our coats trying to get the fire out, and then when we... Eventually, the fire trucks got there. When the fire trucks got there, they fell through the bridge.
They couldn't get to the house safely. So after the fire... Luckily the wind subsided and it went right into the creek, and it kind of burned itself out. But shortly thereafter, I remembered the project of building the bridge. It was built built to withstand lots of weight, let's put it that way.
That was never going to happen again on his watch, so that a really good memory that I had as a young child. Dad was a devoted family man, always lending a hand to his parents, siblings, children. He loved his family unconditionally, and passed his strong work ethic down to them. Dave was immensely proud of his kids: David, Kim, Ella, myself. His legacy, dad's legacy, lives on in us in these generations that follow.
As Dave grew older, his neighbors, friends, and family wrapped their care around him. The last years of Dave's daughter-in-law, Christina, grandson Michael, and Ariana, and Reina, and Pepe, helped Davey to care for our dad. He was able to stay in home was able to stay in his home as a result of this, up to his death. Dave cherished and loved them all. Dad loved God and served the church for many years, greeting and seating people.
He attended every Sunday as well as Spanish church on Mondays. That we can take great courage in knowing that dad did have a relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, and we know that he's in heaven with the father now. And so I just want to take great courage in that. And that's all I have.
Thank you, Shane. I have... Speaking of him being in church all the time, I I spoke to Mike Atkins this week. And I called him and I said, Mike, I'd love for you to be here. He said, well, I can't get get here.
I got somewhere else I have to be. But he was very, very active, definitely a part of the family. And I'd say, if I had three words that would describe him in the years that I knew him, it was that he was faithful and always there when he was needed. He was extremely supportive of the kids in their endeavors, whether it was a Spanish church or support groups, or he was always there to encourage and be a part for them. And he was very very loving and he came about that love as a matter of course in his life.
He was very loving and fully embracing the rest of the family as the family spread, the in laws. He said, I'll be praying for you all this weekend. So that's from pastor Mike. Would you stand? We're gonna sing another song, assurance, congregational hymn.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story. This is my song, praising my savior all day long.
This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. Perfect submission, perfect delight. Visions of rapture now burst on my side.
Angels descending bring from above. Echoes of mercy with first of love. This is my story. This is my song praising my savior all day long. This is my story.
This is my song praising my savior all the day long. Perfect submission, all is at rest. I and my savior, I'm happy and blessed watching and waiting, looking above, filled with his goodness, lost in his love. This is my story. This is my song praising my savior all the day long.
This is my story. This is my song. Praising my savior all the day long.
Amen. Y'all can have a seat. This building makes noise all the time.
I don't know if you all
are noticing this, but on funerals, think of it more often. When people come in during the week, they said, I've always said, if I ever walked into a church, the place would fall down. If you hear crackles, it crackles all the time. It's not you. Okay?
It's not you. This is the time here for for the one minute testimonies. I usually give you a song to think about things. Shane started us with a good word, but if you have a good word, would you share it? I think I was one of the random conversations.
If I had to give my experience with Dave Basie, it would be at the Virginian on a morning by myself and he just said, hey. No. Not what hat size is that, but you know, something something along those. You're a big old boy, that sort of thing. I I get that a lot.
But I don't know him very well and I'd love to know him a little bit better. So is there anybody that would like to share? In English, there you go.
I'm just passing the mic everybody.
I don't know. Maybe you can hear me without the mic, but...
Well, the people on the Internet can't. So...
Oh, the people on the Internet... My gosh. I'm on TV. My name is Mike Wardell, and Dave Basie and I were classmates all through elementary school, junior high school, and high school. I see another one of our classmates, Corinne Haumann.
He... Is here, and maybe there are some others. Dave Basie was a good, good guy. And later in our lives, we didn't see too much of each other, but for about twelve years, we saw a lot of each other. And one story that I want to share with you is, in 1950 when we were entering the third grade, the grade school then was, down on the Northwest Corner Of Jackson, Street And Broadway.
There's a, I think, a condominium complex there now. And in the fall of the year in those days, in September, there was often a spike in enrollment because of the summer people that were here, the park, summer park personnel, and so forth. Well, there was a particularly high enrollment that fall, and they ran out of room for us in the main grade school. So they didn't know what to do. What they wound up doing was combining the third grade, half of the third grade with half of the fourth grade, and they put us up in the old log ski shelter where the, ice center is now.
And that was unbelievable. You were up there, Corinne. I was up there. John Turner, Vern Schenkel, Mary Blair, Luana Simons, Anita Schenkel. I I can't remember all of them now.
But one, lunchtime, I went home for lunch or I went down to the grade school lunchroom. I can't remember which. Doesn't make any difference. But Dave Basie and John Turner and Vern Schenkel had brought their lunch. They brown bagged it, they were...
So they stayed up at the ski shelter. I went home. I was the first one to arrive back from lunch, and when I walked in the ski shelter, the whole ceiling was caved in. It had just collapsed, a good portion of it. It was a kind of a fiber fiberboard stuff.
Well, being the adventurous guy and curious guy that Dave was, he and John Turner and Vern decided they would explore the attic space in the old ski shelter. So they climbed up in there, and there was no floor. It was just rafters, and they fell through. And when I got back, John was kind of in shock, but Dave was sitting on a chair, and they used to have a shuffleboard up there. You remember the shuffleboard where you'd put, you'd put sawdust on this long 15 foot board, and they had the little tiles.
And then you... It's kinda like curling in a small way. And Dave had put a chair up on there for some reason, and he was sitting there holding his head crying. And... But at any rate, I'm I'm so grateful to be here today.
Dave was a good, good man. He was a gentleman, not just a gentleman. Mhmm. And I wish we had had the chance to spend more time together. Thank you.
Thank you, mister Wardell. Thank you.
And I just wanna... I have a little memory about uncle Dave. When Donna and I were grown up. Uncle Dave would always teach us all the new things that's going on around. And he would get down on the floor with us and we'd do Indian wrestling.
And he would try so hard to beat us, but for some reason, I mean, he could flip us. I think he just let us win sometimes, but he always had us competing or doing something. And then he was a member of the fire department and so he'd sic Donna and I on the community, the neighborhood to go sell the fireman's ball tickets and he made us rehearse it and he says, make sure you tell them, if they don't come to our ball, we will not come to their fire. And I think he meant it. But he was he was always a lot of fun.
He never knew what he was... He got me in trouble one time. I thought I was gonna get shot by my grandpa. It was when I didn't meet Judy until I was a teenager, a rotten teenager, but bless her heart, when Frank and Judy got married, Uncle Dave set me up to go out and decorate his beautiful Malibu car. And I'd never done it before.
He gave me white shoe polish and rocks and all sorts of things, put in hubcaps and boy, I was having a good old time out there. Pretty soon, grandpa Basie comes come out of the house with his shotgun. Boy, hell, you little hippie. I'm gonna get Anyway, luckily, Uncle Dave came out and rescued me, but I I remember torturing poor Uncle Frank and Judy by short sheeting their bed for years. They never never got over it.
But uncle Dave was the one that put me up to it. I'm just gonna say that's the disclaimer.
Quite an quite an instigator. Anybody else? This is like popcorn now when it stops popping, I'm gonna pull it off the stove. Alright.
I would like to say a few things about my grandpa. I will... I I always remember working with him in construction and doing odd jobs with him. I was... Remember looking up to him and, you know, as an adult, I was influenced by him to kind of gain important skills and join a trade.
And he always taught me to do my best and I can truly say I would not not be the same person that I am today without him.
And
it's just hard losing a friend in a mentor, and he will be real... Truly missed.
Francis Warziniak.
There you go. Yes, sir.
Dave was also a very hard worker. He and I fed at the refuge the last four years that they fed hay. And back in those times, we would have 10,000, 11,000 elk on the refuge. At the end of each day, we always had to mark down how many bales we fed the elk. And when Dave and I got put together, the other teams had about four or 500.
And Dave would all... And I would always hit a thousand to 1,100.
That sounds like work. Anybody? Alright. Christina? He
got me into baking. He taught me how to bake oatmeal cookies, he was like, you need to make sure exactly da da da. And I would just want to share that his love for ice cream, like they mentioned, when COVID came and he said, they told me they are going to close Wendy's. I need a favor from you. I need you to go and get a gallon of chocolate ice cream for me.
Not ice cream, frosty chocolate frosty chocolate for me. And when... I always remember when he would like some food, he would say, oh, wow.
That's great. What a great memory. Here you go.
I am Sam Pope and this is my wife, Alex. And, we were Mr. B's neighbor in Elk Run. We moved there in 2010. So, it's interesting to hear that he retired in 2003 because based on his truck, it kinda always looked like he was ready to work.
All the tools were still in there. But, yeah, I remember just the stories. He's always so full of stories and I was never really sure because I didn't know him before. I didn't know that part of his life where that... A lot of those stories came from and so I was never really sure which of those were true and it's interesting to hear about the elk stampede one because I guess that was true.
So that that might make me have to reevaluate the whole thing. I remember very early on when when I'd first moved in, and I didn't really know him quite yet. He'd always be sitting out in his garage, sitting on the tailgate of his truck and smoking cigarettes, he said he never inhaled, which I thought was interesting. And he came over to my house and knocked on the door. And I answered and he said, he was going to Afton to see his ex wife, I think, which seemed like over...
Or something like that. And and he want... He said that if the place caught on fire, to move his truck out of the garage and to grab his parakeet. So so So I thought that was interesting. Anyway, you know, after we moved from there to another neighborhood in 2018, and my son and I would go and see him maybe once a month, he really meant a lot to us.
And he was a good friend of my son, and and I just... We haven't figured out a way to tell him yet. And on the way here... He's five. Yeah.
And on the way here, he said he said, you
know what, daddy? What we haven't done in a while? I said, what? He said, we haven't
go see mister b. And so, yeah. We loved him and we'll miss him.
Yeah.
I've known mister Basie for maybe, I would guess, a decade and a half. Yeah. And a lot from Spanish church with the rest of the Basies. And and I just think that what a wonderful person he was. And as spazzy as I can be, all I to do was talk to him and he really enjoyed talking.
And we would have very long phone conversations and I don't know. He he just had a heart full of love. And we used to talk about the Gold Rush show because he had some background in gold. And so he basically single handedly got me interested in that, and now I still watch it all the time. And so anyways, he kinda...
He he had a heart of gold and he was just just a heart full of love and there it is. Hi.
I remember Sam from mister Bee's house house And a guy would ride up on the horse and there'd be pause and he would look at me and he'd say the next word. He knew every word of every cowboy movie. That was cool. And he was good at cooking, So sometimes we have supper at his house and sometimes at my house just for fun for a little while. And just an all around great guy.
Great. He has that in common with my dad. I know every cowboy movie. Anybody else?
Alright. I'm gonna get through here. Excuse me. There you go.
Thank you. I'm going to try in in English. Okay. He
was the first person that I helped in the house... In his house.
Roommate. Roommate.
As a roommate. Okay. And
that was in 2005. It
was in 2005 when I moved here. He said I was he was very happy, and I was very happy in this time that we were eating a lot of Colombian food.
Yes. For me,
it was an experience that was. It was an experience of blessing to live with him for such a short time.
He taught
me English.
He
taught me by using the Bible. He gave me a Bible.
God He
taught me Spanish from... That's... I'm crying a little bit because that's how I learned Spanish too. Excuse me. He taught me Jesus.
Jesus. God. That's the way starting from the very basics.
For me, it was. Great.
Having left behind my family, it was a great way to enter into Jackson.
And senior David senior David.
I I always called him sir David, basically, senior David. Lord David even maybe, But senior David.
Mister David.
My dad's about the same age and
it was like living with my dad again and it was really great for me.
It was... He was taking care of me and as I was taking care of him. And taking care of the house and taking care of the cooking, and it was just a great thing, a blessing. He was like my dad. Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you.
I'm Elsa. I was in the Spanish church, drafter j, and I was leading the music, and there was a song that he loved. And it was song that I learned from Peru, I'm from Peru, and it's called, Glamour Me. Remember? Clamor me is called upon me and I shall respond to you and I will show you great and mighty things.
Listen to verse of the Bible. And of course, I play the music and I sing Spanish. And I can tell you mister Basie loved that song even though he did not speak Spanish fluently. So every time I went every Monday for worship, the first thing he says, you're gonna sing clamami. You know?
Every time he requested that song. So to me that is a godly thing to do even though you did not speak the language. But he loved the song and I have that great memory of him. And he was indeed a sweet and gentleman.
Jeremiah thirty three three, attended a church in Mexico where they said that's God's telephone number. Call out to me and I'll answer you and I'll tell you great and mighty things, which you know not. Anybody else? There's one more. Is that Dan?
Yeah. Hello,
everyone. My name is Dan and I've been a neighbor and my wife, Susan, with mister B for almost twenty years and... At Elk Run. I'm also on the board there for many years, and I wanna get something straight. Everyone said how gentle he was.
He was a tough guy. Every time I came out of my apartment and he saw me, he would tell me everything we were doing wrong as a board. Everything. And I go, yes, sir, mister P. We'll do it right next time.
No. He was a wonderful person. We've had many dogs since we lived there, and he was always there to, again, tell us how we were not training our dog correctly, but he would always give him treats. No, he was a great neighbor for us. We'd see him all the time.
He loved hanging out in the garage and watching everything that go on in the community. He was a very good friend of the entire Elk Run community and we missed. Thank you.
I'm Laura and I'm his granddaughter. I thought I could... I'm gonna try. Some of my favorite memories were him coming over for the holidays, like all... Every holiday.
And we, after dinner, would have dessert and coffee and my husband's not used to having dessert so much later. He goes, oh gosh, we go at the Basie's and it's like hours later because we played cards in between and that was some of my favorite memories of my grandpa was playing cards with him. We're... They're a big card family and he would say he wasn't cheating, but he did cheat. And he would always look at my hand.
He's like, I'm helping you. You're you're young. You don't know how to... You know, I'm just I'm just helping you. And really, he was cheating.
But... And his laugh, he just had a great laugh and so does my uncle Davey. They just have these big laughs and they were just... It was just an amazing time and so he'll be missed around our tables. Alright.
There's plenty of time down the hall afterwards. I think we're gonna call it right there. Thank you very much for speaking up. That's a good word indeed. Next on your program, it says encouragement from God's word and every time that I approach a funeral where I don't know the person all that well, I think I wanna know them better.
I've had a chance to speak to the family and I see some of the reverberations through the generations. And we all have a snapshot when I look at the when I look at the slides coming in, there are different times in our lives. And, the different times in our lives make all the difference in the world. And, for some reason, I thought of this passage As a as a memorial message, I don't know if anybody's ever used this for a memorial message before. It's not the typical Psalm 23.
It's not the typical, those that wait upon the Lord will mount up with wings like eagles. You know, somebody that has grown older and faded, it's really hard to watch them fade and then go and that's such an encouraging thing to say, oh, they'll mount up with wings like eagles. That's great and that's true. For those who wait upon the Lord, that's true. This passage, second Timothy four six to eight, it's Paul as an older man.
The apostle Paul we know is the most prolific writer in the New Testament. He wrote about two thirds of the New Testament. But he wasn't always Paul. Right? Before that, was Saul.
He was a persecutor of the church. He was a rough dude. He was a guy who was pursuing the per... The the purveyors of the way, the Christians. And and he met Jesus and it changed everything about his life.
And so, for I, Paul, am already being poured out as a drink offering. He was getting older and he was feeling his age and he felt like, I don't have long left and he reached out to his generational way at least maybe two generations. Paul mentioned, you learned this to Timothy. You learned all this about the gospel from your grandmother and your mother. And so, maybe two generations older than Timothy and he reaches out to him at near the end of his life and he says, I'm already being poured out as a drink offering, probably from a Roman prison.
Right? House arrest at least. And that time of being in having faded after a broken hip, people don't move around much. They're kinda under house arrest. So Paul says, I'm already being poured out as a drink coffer and I feel it.
The time of my departure is at hand and he's saying, I'm gonna leave this world. I'm not gonna have the same kind of experience. It'll be a different experience. But my time of my departure is at hand, Timothy and I know that was hard for Timothy to hear. He had traveled with him quite a bit and he had been left in charge of a church.
That was a difficult church. And he loved Paul but the time of my departure is at hand and Paul says and it's a great triplet here. I have fought the good fight. Earlier, he was fighting a different fight. Earlier, he was persecuting people and chasing them down and then when he met Jesus, it changed everything.
He fought the good fight. He carried the gospel with him and he shared and the good news, the euangelion, like I said, eulogy means good word. Euangelion means good message. The gospel is the good message that no matter who you are, no matter who you are, salvation is available and it's available in one place. He says, I've fought the good fight.
I've carried this message in sports metaphor. I've finished the race. I have done... I believe all that the Lord has had for me to do. This letter is one of the last things I have left.
I have kept the faith and the faith is really rooted and grounded on trusting in God's provision of a savior. We all need saving, all of us, all of us. Now, when he goes on from there, he says, I've kept the faith. I've kept... I've held on to this And finally, there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness.
Does that mean that Paul thinks he was righteous? I'll tell you what Paul thinks of himself in first Timothy in just a second, but there's laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, he's the only righteous judge and he's gonna give to me on that day. When I finally pass, I'm getting a crown of righteousness and look at how he thought of himself. He's... In some translations it says, the green part there it says, I'm the chief of sinners.
Let's just take Paul's testimony in first Timothy right here. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, mine and yours Timothy, who has strengthened me because he considered me to be faithful and he put me into service. Even though I was previously a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, rough dude, yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. I heard somebody say and then there are no truer words that you do what you know until you know better. And when you know better, then you have the opportunity to do better.
It's it's a trustworthy statement. Uh-oh. Well, let me let me go back. Yet, I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly and I believe I just didn't know and the grace of our lord was more than abundant. It was more than abundant with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.
It's more than enough to cover my sins. Now, is a trustworthy statement, Timothy. Don't ever forget it. This is a trustworthy statement. It's deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am the foremost.
I'm the chief sinner. Yet, for this reason, I found mercy so that in me, the foremost, the chief of sinners, Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for all of those who would believe in him for eternal life. That's the gospel right there. It's out there for all of us. What are we going to do with it?
And then he just overflows in praises and now, to the king eternal immortal invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever and ever. Amen. So that's what he thought of himself and he recognized that it was by the mercy of God that he did not get what he deserved and by the grace of God that he did get a crown of righteousness which he did not deserve. There's laid up for me this crown of righteous which the Lord, the righteous judge will give to me on that day and not to me only. He's not setting himself up on a pedestal.
He said, this is available for everyone. Everyone, it's not to me only but also to all those who have loved his appearing to look and to recognize that though I have fallen short, God has made a provision so that I might be called righteous where there was no righteousness and no goodness. Now, know that you all saw the goodness and some of you saw the roughness. I know that you saw that and in me, there's no righteousness. But in God, I can walk in his righteousness by a spirit.
The will of God was that his son would carry it out. The spirit of God is prompting and to say yes to the spirit of God and to walk into what he has for you is the most blessed gift. The best euangelion, the best good message that there is. I think that's the last I have. It is true that those that wait upon the Lord will mount up with wings like eagles and they'll fly and that's a great thing to know that the glorified body of one Dave Basie is immortal and capable again, and tasting of the finest riches at the banquet of the Lord.
I think that's the encouragement I have today. Would you stand with me? We're going to sing Amazing Grace. Song written by a slave trader to the tune of slaves. It's a beautiful beautiful thing the way that God redeems.
It's beautiful. So here we are, Amazing Grace.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like
I'm gonna invite up Carl Clemmer, associate pastor here for a while yet to close with a benediction.
Just a a short benediction here. And, Ray, you sang that with conviction. I did. I... And it was a great closer.
And don't feel like you have to rush out. Please join us right down the hall so we can mix and mingle. And and, again, we do wanna thank you for for being here. It truly is a celebration of life, and and appreciate every single one of you, and I'd love to carry this on down the hall. But I wanna end with this, and it's it's a benediction from Romans fifteen thirteen.
And it starts with, may the God of hope and hope here hope here is the expectation of what is sure and what is certain, and that is eternal life with him through faith in Jesus. So may the God of hope fill you with joy and with his peace, his gift of wholeness, fill you all with that, so that you might overflow then with hope, that sure and certain expectation by the power of the Holy Spirit. And may God bless and keep each one of you. May he make his face shine on you and be gracious to every one of you to look on you with favor and to give you his peace. Amen.
Amen. We'll see you down the hall.
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