[Machine transcription]
Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the children of God. You may be seated. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints, I have three things on our agenda this morning for the sermon. First, I want to get straight what it means to be a saint. Second, I want us to all rejoice in the blessed death of all those who have gone before us and who are waiting for us in heaven. And third, I want us to be ready to meet them when it’s time for us to die.
First, what does it mean to be a saint? We start the sermon, every Sunday here I stand up, or Pastor Davis, Pastor LeBlanc, stands up and says, “Dear Saints.” I wonder if sometimes you look around and say, “I wonder who he’s talking to.” You just start the sermon, “Dear Sinner.” That’s how we like to think of ourselves. We don’t like to think of ourselves as saints, I think. Because we normally think that what it means to be a saint is to be one who keeps the law. That’s how we think of being a saint, the one who keeps the commandments.
And if that’s what it means to be a saint, then really it’s a bad standard because you have one of two options. Either you have the option of thinking that, “Well, I haven’t done enough to be a saint myself. I haven’t kept the commandments. I haven’t done what the Lord required. I, after all, am a sinner. I can’t be a saint.” That’s the option of despair. Or maybe even worse is we think we have kept the law. “I’ve done it all right. Right? I’ve had a pretty good week. I haven’t sinned against God.” I mean, can you imagine thinking that? So I must be a saint because I’ve done it all right, and God must be very proud of me. That’s the option of pride.
In other words, if we think of what it means to be a saint as either to be righteous according to the law or to be condemned according to the law, it’s pride or despair, one or the other. But the Bible gives us a different definition of what it means to be a saint. To be a saint means a holy one. And you are holy not by your efforts, not by your keeping the law, not by your obedience. You are holy because all of your sin is taken from you and put on Christ. Right? Because if all of your law-breaking is given not to your name, but to Christ’s name, because he is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and that sin of the world includes your sin, mine, which means you are holy because you are forgiven. Amen.
The picture is from Revelation 7. Absolutely beautiful. Remember, there’s all these people, and they’re lined up to go into heaven, and the angel says to John, “Who are these?” And he says, “Sir, you know.” And he says, “They’re the ones that have come out of the great tribulation, and they’ve washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Amen.
The picture, if you could picture it, is that you, imagine just being born wearing a robe and every time you sin, every time you make a mistake, every time you break a law, every time you don’t think what you should think or want what you should want or say what you should say or do what you should do, any time you lack love, it’s like a mustard stain on that white robe. It’s like a mustard stain on that white robe. Can you imagine what a mess you’ve made of things? And me too. And now you’ve got to stand before the judgment seat of God dressed in this robe of this filthy, tattered up rags of your own life.
But while you’re lined up to go before the judgment seat, there is this vat filled with lamb’s blood. And you take this robe off and you put it in the blood and it comes out of that vat, blood perfect, holy, radiant, patched up, white, more beautiful and resplendent than it was even when you were given. It’s just perfect. And you are now dressed in that robe of the righteousness of Christ. Not your own righteousness, which is tattered, filthy rags, but in the righteousness of Christ. And this is how you are a saint, how you are a holy one. Because you are covered with Christ’s perfection. Because you are imputed with his righteousness. Because all that Jesus did right is given to you. And the Lord looks at you. He sees nothing wrong. He sees only perfection. The righteousness of Christ. So you are a saint.
And by this, we are ready to die. This is how we’re able to rejoice in the death of all those that have gone before us. That’s one of the things that we want to make sure we do on All Saints. A few minutes later, we’re going to read the names of all those friends and family from our congregation that died in the Lord’s name this last year. We’re going to remember all those that have gone before us. And we’re going to do that with joy, which might seem weird. But we do it with joy because we know that once we’re done with this life, we are now into life eternal. Into the joys of eternal life.
Now, we’ll admit that this is strange, even to us, but I wonder sometimes how strange it must look to the world, how we think about death, how Christians think about it, because on the one hand, we are pro-life. We’re always talking about it, right? I mean, politically, but always. We talk about how death is the unnatural result of the fall. It’s punishment for human sin. It’s a demonstration of the wrath of God. We say that we were never meant to die, that God created Adam and Eve to live forever in eternal life, and that now death is an invasion. It’s an enemy that we fight against in every way, and we fight for it in every place. From conception to natural birth, we say we want to protect life and respect people as created in God’s image. We fight like crazy against death, and then when it’s time to die, we say, “God be praised. Finally. Finally.”
Now, how strange is that? It must be very, very strange to the world, this view that the Christian has of death. But it comes to us in this way, that number one, we realize that death is in fact the enemy, that we were never meant to die, but because of the death of Jesus, because of his death and resurrection, death comes to each one of us as a gift. So that we can say with Paul, “To live is Christ, to die, remember, is gain.” Amen. It’s a benefit to us. In fact, not only that, but we pray for it every day. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, “Deliver us from evil.” We’re praying that the Lord would deliver us from every evil of body and soul, property, reputation in this life. But finally, when our last hour comes, to take us from this veil of tears to be with himself in heaven.
I’ve been trying to think of the right picture for it. Here’s the best that I’ve got. So can you imagine you’re at home and there’s a thief that’s trying to break into the house? And you see him, he’s kind of looking in the front yard, so you lock the doors, you put the blinds down, you see him going around the house, and so you lock the windows and you lock the doors, and you’re watching to make sure he doesn’t get in anywhere, and he’s testing everything, and you’re locking it up, and you’re trying to keep him out. And then finally, he goes around to the front door, and he knocks on the door, and you let him in, and you welcome him, and you get him some coffee, you know. Right? This is how death is. We’re fighting against it until finally it’s time, and then we welcome death. In fact, as a friend, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, death has no more sting, it has no more judgment, it has no more fear. It is the way that the Lord brings us from this life to the life to come.
And maybe that’s the main point, that the way the world looks at life is that this is all it is. You’ve got one life, you live it, death is the end, it’s the last page of the book, it’s over, that’s all. Dead is dead. But we know better. This life is like the preface. I don’t even think it’s chapter one. It’s like the introduction. It’s like the acknowledgments. And then when we die, we finally turn the page into real life, into life that goes on and on.
In fact, this is how Jesus describes it in John chapter 5. He says that all who believe in me will not die, but they will pass from death to life. That’s the wrong order. We should say, “Jesus, hold on, hold on. It’s first you live and then you die.” But that’s not what our Lord Jesus says. All who believe in him will pass from death to life. And that is to say that what we’re doing right now is not really living. We’re kind of slowly dying. Till finally we finish.
And on that day when we breathe our life is when life begins. Life eternal starts in the glory of God. And in that way, we rejoice that all those that have been called into heaven before us are now enjoying that life. What the old theologians used to call, and I think we should bring this language back, what the old theologians used to call the nearer presence of God. Called into that nearer presence. And we rejoice for those that have gone to that nearer presence, to our grandparents, great-grandparents, and parents and siblings, and children, and spouses that have gone before us and are waiting for us there. We rejoice that clothed in the righteousness of Christ, they’ve been welcomed into that eternal joy. We thank the Lord for that.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we’re not sad. We are. We are. We weep for those that have died, as our Lord Jesus did. It’s a good work that we mourn, but we do not mourn as those who have no hope, for we know that the dead in Christ live before him forever, and that they’ll accompany Jesus on the day that he returns, and they’ll welcome us also into his presence, and we’ll sing his praises forever. So we thank the Lord for those who have died in the faith.
And third, we want to be ready to die also. I don’t know, this is a… Sometimes people say, “Pastor, it’s kind of morose to talk about death and dying,” but here is… I mean, if we don’t do it here, where are we going to do it, right? We’ve got to talk about it in church. And it’s like a big secret that all of us are dying. Something that… I mean, it’s… Right? Death and taxes are the only two things you can be sure of. And, I mean, at least death, if the Lord doesn’t return, all of us are going to die.
What does that mean? What does that mean when your last day comes? When my last day comes? When we breathe our last? Are we ready? I think we have the idea that we are going to have to stand before the Lord and defend what our life was like. “Here’s the things I did well, and here’s the things I did poorly. Here’s the things I did right, here’s the things I did wrong.” There’s going to be a judgment. But listen to what Paul says. “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Now, look, I know that you have not lived how you were supposed to live. Neither have I. That if the Lord were to judge us, that we would all be guilty and condemned. But this, dear saints, is the business of the cross. All of your sins are on Christ Jesus so that there is no condemnation for you. There’s none left. It was all spent on the cross so that your death is being welcomed into the joy of life eternal.
And this is how John says it in John chapter 3. Remember that verse we started with? “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the children of God.” You were born children of wrath, children of condemnation, children of death, children of sin. But you have been born again by baptism, by faith. You are now the children of God.
Now, the problem is we don’t look like… Have you met someone and you’re like, you’ve never met the person before, but you meet them and you’re like, “Oh, I know who your mom is,” or “I know who your dad is.” You look just like your parents. Here’s the problem for us. We do not look like our Heavenly Father or our brother Jesus Christ. We look like sinners.
It has not yet been revealed that we are the children of God. And I think that that’s why this life is so full of trouble. Can you imagine if you already had the glory of the resurrection? If as soon as you were baptized, you started to radiate like Jesus in the transfiguration with the glory that will be revealed in us on the last day, and all sickness and sorrow and sinfulness would be gone. Imagine how it would be. We would walk around the world and people would be like, “Where did you get all that brightness?” Right? You can’t see it yet. One day we will. But you have it now by faith. You are God’s children.
And your death is now a birthday, a homecoming, a being welcomed into the eternal life that the Lord Jesus has won for you. You, after all, even though you are a sinner, are by the death and resurrection of Jesus a saint. And you belong in eternal life. And one day soon Jesus will bring you there.
So we rejoice in this—the holiness of Christ given to us, the glory given to those who have gone before us, and the hope that that day is coming one day soon for each of us as well. May God grant us this wisdom and courage through Christ our Lord. Amen. And the peace of God which passes all that your mind can do, keep you in the true faith, a life everlasting. Amen.
