“Only God can get you through a situation like this,” Locke said. “There’s a God in heaven that will not allow this to be wasted. He’ll bottle up every tear of every person in this room, blood and not blood, and there will be a glorious reunion.”
“I want to say to every parent in the house and in your house watching,” he said. “You’re doing a good job with what you got. And I promise you, no matter how bad it is right now, it’s not worth it. Forgive quick. Love deep. Talk a lot. And answer the phone. The Lord is good. That’ll never change. That will never change.”
Centering his sermon around Psalm 62:1, Locke described the service as both a moment of grief and a declaration of faith.
Locke also addressed the complexities of blended family relationships while honoring Evan’s biological mother, and his wife, emphasizing unity, grace, and reconciliation ahead of the funeral services. He urged church members to receive everyone with compassion and avoid division during the grieving process.
“I have to pay honor to the fact that he also has a birth mom, and she’ll be here Wednesday, and she needs to be here, and she needs to grieve, and you need to love her and respect her,” he told the congregation. “We were all in the room together at the same time. So, no hard feelings, and she’s hurting on Mother’s Day like the rest of us are.”
“So divorce doesn’t change everything. It doesn’t change who your kids are,” he continued. “So just please be conscious of that, because we want to honor her as well to be here Wednesday, because it’ll be extraordinarily difficult for her as well for perhaps other reasons and that doesn’t matter.”
“Let’s just give honor where honor is due,” he added.
Locke shared he is still receiving details surrounding his son’s death.
“We don’t have all of the records and medical examiner’s report and toxicology report and who dropped him off at the hospital. We don’t know those details yet. We will,” he said. “But even not knowing, I know one detail, in the last moments of his life, the Spirit of God drew near to my son and comforted him because him that cometh unto Jesus, he will in no wise cast him out.”
The pastor said that “it was in that moment the sweet arms of Jesus received our son into the heavenlies, regardless of his struggle.”
Evan’s final message to his father 24 hours before the fatal overdose concerned a treatment facility.
“Here’s what he sent me, and here’s why I want to use it,” Locke said.
Locke continued:
There was a screenshot of him talking to a lady by the name of Nancy in California. He was getting ready to go to another treatment facility. He had been clean for eight months. We had him back at the house living with us for several months through Christmas and all of that. We were so honored and glad that we did.
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“There was a screenshot of him going to a place in California. He didn’t know how he was going to get there. It was literally the dozenth one we put him in—get good for a while and back on it and good for a while and whatever. Neither here nor there,” Locke explained. “But he was trying to go to a place, it’s like a year-long program, 14 months in California, and I didn’t really know anything about it.”
