Sandy Stout Funeral
September 18, 2021 (died September 10, 2021)
Note: Sandy Stout and her husband Joe came to our church in the late 1970’s and became dear friends of ours. Joe owned the Jeep dealership in Wichita and generously provided me with new Jeeps on several occasions to take to Colorado on vacation. Sandy was one of the few in our church family who succumbed to the Covid epidemic.
Obituary: Sandra K. “Sandy” Stout, 82, loving & devoted wife, mother, grandmother, and friend, died September 10, 2021.
Sandra Kay was born to Milton Eugene Powell and Ava Marjorie Dyer Powell on March 31, 1939, in Monett, Missouri. At the age of 12, Sandy lost her father, and shortly thereafter, she and her mother moved to Wichita, Kansas so her mother could work at the Boeing Company. Sandy attended East High, graduating in 1957. During this time, Sandy was active in the Civil Air Patrol, an involvement she always spoke fondly of and was proud to have been a part. Sandy went on to attend the University of Kansas, was a member of Sigma Kappa sorority, and graduated with a B.A. in Performing Arts.
It was while attending KU Sandy and Joe met. They were in a Children’s Literature class together, and since both attended East High, Sandy knew of Joe, that he was from Wichita, and that he surely had a car! Seeing this as an opportunity to hitch a ride back home, as the story goes Sandy “coyly” threw her Henry’s Department Store raincoat over her chair so Joe (drawn to cute blondes!) would see she was from Wichita as well and offer her a ride! And the rest as they say, is history.
Joe and Sandy went on to have 4 children: Cynthia Kay, Catherine Sue, Byron Gray IV, and Amy Jo. Joe and Sandy enjoyed an amazing 60 years together, always by each other’s side, always supporting and respecting each other, and immensely devoted to each other to the very end. Theirs is a beautiful marriage to be emulated.Besides her love for Joe and their 4 children and staying busy raising a family, Sandy enjoyed many hobbies and clubs. Together Sandy & Joe participated in Jeep 4×4 clubs, antique car clubs, automobile dealer organizations, Christian ministries, and of course their beloved church, First E. Free. And, most special of all, they loved to dance together. Whenever out for dinner (or any occasion really!), if there was music and even the slightest bit of open space, Joe would take her hand, swing her on to the dance floor with the greatest of ease and without a word spoken, and they would ballroom dance
unabashedly no matter the crowd or occasion. We all loved watching Joe & “Tweetie” glide and romance across the floor.
Sandy also loved philanthropy! She gave of her time to many worthwhile organizations over her 82 years. She was a member of Wichita Junior League, volunteered with Wichita Historical Society, Wichita Symphony, P.E.O. Chapter EI, Assistance League of Wichita, and Children’s Theatre.
Sandy belonged to several clubs, including Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), Colonial Dames, Daughters of the Confederacy (DAC), Wichita Farm & Ranch, Wichita Horseless Carriage Club (HCCA), a Mahjong group, and several book clubs. ‘
Her hobbies included women’s bible study, genealogy, philanthropy, playing tennis during her family-raising years, always reading, playing mahjong, and crossword puzzles. Joe and Sandy also enjoyed traveling, took many amazing trips over the course of their marriage, and particularly loved their years of RV’ing. But most of all, Sandy’s biggest hobby was her family. She thoroughly enjoyed her 4 children, 10 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren, spending time with them, remaining extremely involved with them as they grew, loving them, caring for them, and supporting them. She was the best Wife, Mom, Grandma and Great Grandmother anyone could ask for!
Sandy was preceded in death by her parents, Milton and Ava Powell, and her son, Byron G. Stout, IV. She is survived by her husband, Byron G. “Joe” Stout, III; daughters, Cindy Stout (Paul Craig), Cathy (Ron) Brock and Amy (Lee) Butler; daughter-in-law, Carrie Stout; and grandchildren, Rachael (Brock) Basquez, Emily (Brock) Brickley, Molly (Brock) Lusby, Mallory (Stout) Cook, Ellen (Stout) Morris, Byron G. Stout V, Lindsey Stout, Jake Stout, Ransom Butler, and Faith Butler; as well as 17 great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, memorials have been established with The Navigators and First Evangelical Free Church.
Welcome: We are gathered today to celebrate the life of Sandy Stout, wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and dear friend to many. Please be assured that Joe and his entire family appreciate your presence, and the kindness so many of you have expressed in various ways. Sandy’s passing leaves a major hole in our church family and I know in many of your own lives.
You can tell a lot about a person from thumbing through her Bible. I had that privilege this week and I am going to read some of the passages that Sandy had highlighted in her well-worn Bible.
Romans 1:16-17: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written: “But the righteous one will live by faith.”
John 14:1-6: “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many rooms; if that were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will take you to Myself, so that where I am, there you also will be. 4 And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going; how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.”
Phil 4:4-8: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
Rev. 21:1-7: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He *said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life, without cost. 7 The one who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My child.”
Prayer: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise.” We honor You today as the giver and sustainer of life. We thank you that You are also the one who redeems us, reconciles us to Your Son, and provides for our eternal future. We praise and thank you today for the privilege we had of knowing Sandy Stout and having her be a part of our lives. This family has wonderful memories of her as a woman of faith, a faithful wife, a kind, generous, and loving mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Thank you, Father, for the impact Sandy had on all of us.
I ask, Lord, that you will fill the huge void in Joe’s life. Their marriage of 60 years has been a great example of commitment, faithfulness, and friendship. I pray for his health that you would grant him a full recovery and the opportunity to continue to pour into the lives of his family, as well as into the men he has so faithfully mentored through the years. I pray for Cindy, Cathy, Amy and Carie and for their families. They will miss Sandy tremendously, but we ask that You grant to each of them the renewed commitment to disciple their own children the way Sandy did them.
We are grateful for the confidence we have that Sandy is with her Savior, because for the believer, absence from the body means presence with the Lord. Help us to turn in faith to Christ and to lean on Him alone in this time of need. We pray all these things in our Savior’s name, Amen.
Message: One of the major purposes of a funeral service is to honor the memory of our loved one. I loved Sandy Stout, and I know you did, too. I always called her St. Sandy. She knew it wasn’t only because of her character.
I remember well the first time I met Joe and Sandy. It was 40 years ago. I had invited Chuck Swindoll to preach here at First Free. Joe had recently come to faith in Christ, he had heard Swindoll on the radio, and he wanted to hear him in person. So the whole family came. And then they came back! Joe told me later he assumed the preaching was that good every Sunday. And despite the rude awakening they received, they continued to come back, and for the past 40 years Joe and Sandy have been an integral part of our fellowship. Their dear son Byron was married here in the chapel, and six years ago we had his memorial service right here.
But there is another purpose of a memorial service, and that is to speak to the living. I always like to ask,
What would God want to say to us who are left behind?
Is there some special truth we need to digest?
Is there some encouragement we need as we move on?
One of Sandy’s favorite verses of Scripture is a favorite of many of us: John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” So I’ve decided to speak to you today about the very simple, yet profound truth that “God loves you!” I don’t care who you are or what your circumstances are in life. God loves you! It doesn’t matter what evil things you have done or what good you may have left undone. God loves you! In fact, God wouldn’t love you one whit more if you were absolutely perfect or one whit less if you were the most rotten scoundrel on earth.
My Scripture text is just three verses from Romans 5, verses 6-8:
{6} … at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. {7} Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. {8} But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Not everyone believes that God loves him or her; some, in fact, have grave doubts about that. After all, they live with broken relationships, or they are in physical pain, or they’ve lost a dear loved one and they can’t understand how a good God would allow these things. If you are struggling with some doubts about God’s love, I want you to consider just how beautifully God has demonstrated his love for us.
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Consider that first statement, “when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” The supreme act of love in all of human history was God’s gift of His one and only Son to die on the Cross. He left His glorious position in heaven, become one of us, and then, despite living a perfect life, he was cruelly put to death—for us. But it’s impossible to grasp the enormity of that gift unless we understand ourselves accurately.
The first term the Apostle uses to describe us is “powerless.” He is calling us weak, helpless, feeble, unable to do anything for ourselves. For the past month Sandy was on a ventilator, unable to communicate, eat, drink, or even breathe on her own. It was so difficult for her family to watch her lying there, helpless, powerless. But friends, do you realize that spiritually speaking we are all on ventilators? We are all on hospice care. Left to ourselves, none of us is able to do even one small thing to please God or to achieve salvation. Even our good deeds are tainted by mixed motives. Yet God loved the powerless enough to give His only Son for them.
But that’s only part of the picture, for we are not only “powerless,” but also “ungodly.” “Christ died for the ungodly.” Now we don’t like to think of ourselves as ungodly. That’s a term we reserve for terrorists or sexual predators or politicians we don’t like. But actually, we are all ungodly. We have all failed to live up to even our own standards, to say nothing of God’s.
As wonderful a person as Sandy Stout was to those who knew her best, she was not perfect. I would personally be hard pressed to identify any major flaws in her character, but that’s only because I didn’t know her well enough. I know she did things she shouldn’t have done and she left undone things she should have done, because so have I, and so have you.
But did you know that character flaws have NOTHING to do with where we will spend eternity? If eternal life depended on how well we measure up to perfection, friends, there’s not a person here who could be confident of going to heaven. Sandy Stout’s eternal destiny does not depend upon her character or her accomplishments or her faithfulness. It depends only on the character and accomplishments and faithfulness of her Savior, Jesus Christ. He who was without sin died on the cross for Sandy’s sin and provided her the gift of eternal life.
In the next two verses the Apostle Paul contrasts God’s love in sacrificing His own Son with the typical nature of human love. He suggests that we consider two observable facts:
1. Very rarely will anyone die for a “righteous” person.
2. But possibly someone might be willing to die for a “good” person.
Now we must understand how Paul is using these terms “righteous” and “good.” It is my opinion that he is using the term “righteous” in the sense of “pious or rigidly upright.” The term reminds me of a man I knew years ago who considered himself God’s watchdog over the church. He could spot a deviation in someone’s life from a mile away, and he always felt compelled to point it out. Not surprisingly, because of his rigidity and severity he didn’t have a lot of friends. I doubt if anyone would make much of a sacrifice in his behalf.
On the other hand, there are some people who are best described as simply “good.” Their piety has been softened and made attractive by a gracious spirit. They speak the truth, but only in love. They don’t tolerate sin, but they do tolerate sinners. I’m talking about people like Sandy Stout. For such a person, Paul suggests, you might well find someone willing to sacrifice his or her very life.
But then the Apostle draws this amazing contrast: God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us while we were still sinners. We were neither righteous nor good when Christ died for us. We were “sinners,” meaning that we totally missed the mark as far as living our lives for His glory. We measured up in no way, yet God loved us enough to give His Son for us.
If Jesus did that for all of us, does that mean we are all going to heaven? If I may go back to the verse we started with, John 3:16, I want you to note the critical word, believe. “God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” That word “believe” does not mean simply intellectual assent. It means to put your full faith and trust in Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Sandy did that as a young woman and never regretted it.
How about you? Have you accepted God’s offer of friendship through faith in His Son? There are a lot of people who are of the mind that they would like to be friends with God but not yet. They are too busy now. They have other priorities. That’s a dangerous gamble, friends, because none of us knows when our life will end.
In conclusion, I want you to just stop and think about how amazing it is that the great God of the Universe says to you, “I know you’re powerless, I know you’re ungodly, I know you’re a sinner. But I love you, anyway. Let’s be friends.”
If you have never responded to that invitation, I am going to pray a simple sinner’s prayer. If this expresses the desire of your heart, I invite you to pray these words silently after me.
Prayer: Father, thank you for loving me. I know I don’t deserve it. I acknowledge that I am weak, ungodly, and a sinner. Thank you for sending Jesus into this fallen world to die on the cross for my sin. I receive Him today as my Savior and Lord. Amen.
We’re going to close with a song of celebration. I encourage you to sing it with joy and conviction.
Song: Victory in Jesus
Benediction: “Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, that is, Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”