"GOD'S CHILDREN"
All Saints' Sunday
November 3, 2019
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.
1 John 3:2 (ESV)
I guess it's only natural that on this All Saints' Sunday we should give some thought to what a saint is and what it is about a person that makes that person a saint. In the Lutheran Church we have no official procedure whereby a departed Christian is named a saint by the Church. On the contrary, it is our belief, according to Scripture, that saints are named by God the Holy Spirit when He calls them to faith through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. The word "saints" literally means "holy ones" and it is used in Scripture to refer to those who are set apart--people called out of the world and sanctified by the Holy Spirit to be the people of God. They are to stand out from the world in that they have different values, different priorities, and a different lifestyle than do the people of the world. This is exactly what Jesus was talking about when He told His disciples: "You are not of the world, but I called you out of the world" (John 15:19) and: "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit" (John 15:16).
In this morning's text John speaks of the saints (including us) as "God's children." In the previous verse he says: "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are" (1 John 3:1). And in the prologue of his Gospel he describes these children of God as those "who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). It is clear that people do not become saints on their own, nor are they made saints by the Church, but their sainthood is a gift of the God who has adopted them as His children in Jesus Christ. And since we--the saints--are the children of God, He nurtures us and causes us to grow into what He has declared us to be in Baptism. Examining John's words this morning, we will learn what we are now and what we will become.
The common thread that unites the people of God is Baptism. It was there that we "receive[d] the sign of the holy cross both upon [our] forehead[s] and upon [our] heart[s] to mark [us] as [those] redeemed by Christ the crucified" (Lutheran Service Book, page 268). We were marked--branded, if you will--with the cross of Christ. In this way He claimed us as His own, making us children of God by the power of His Spirit. In doing this, our Savior has taken away our sin and covered us with His perfect righteousness. He has declared us to be holy people--people who are different than the people of this world. What this means is that we are no longer the self-centered and self-absorbed people that we were by birth, but that now we belong to God, as the apostle Paul told the church at Corinth: "You are not your own, for you were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19, 20). The innocent blood of the Son of God has bought us back from sin and death so that we might live no longer for ourselves but for the One who bought us.
This has implications for us both in this life and on the day of judgment. Because we have been claimed by God as His children in Jesus Christ, what Jesus did for all sinners becomes our very own. It is applied specifically to us, so that it is no longer a general: "God so loved the world . . . " (John 3:16) but rather: "God so loved Art Litke (or whatever your name happens to be) . . . " in particular. This means that "there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1)--that "if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:31, 32). There's a word for all of this--a word that ought to be very familiar to Lutherans like us. The word is justification. The theologians speak of objective and subjective justification. Objective justification is the redemption of all sinners--the payment for all sins of all people for all time; subjective justification is when this objective justification is applied to the individual sinner--now made a saint and a child of God through faith in Christ.
Our adoption as God's children and saints is not the end of it. In the text John says: "What we will be has not yet appeared." Baptism is the beginning of our journey as the people of God--a journey that began then and will reach fulfillment at the time of our death. It is a journey toward perfection, since we are told: "When He [namely, Jesus] appears we shall be like Him." Baptism sets in motion the process of sanctification, in which the Spirit of God slowly but surely conforms us to the image of Christ. It's not an easy road for us to walk. There are bumps and obstacles along the way, since we still have to contend with the devil, the world, and our own sinful nature as long as we live in the flesh. But it is a journey that will ultimately end with the completion of our salvation, when we will be like Christ. You see, who we are is inseparably connected with whose we are.
But we are not left alone in this difficult journey. The Lord who has redeemed us and has gone "to prepare a place for" us (John 14:2) also promises: "Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). He is with us as we follow where He has led. This is made evident to us in a variety of ways. First and foremost, He speaks to us and makes His presence among us known through His means of grace. In Word and Sacrament He comes to us in ways that we can easily comprehend and receive, giving us the strength that we need to live for Him, forgiving us when we fail, and giving us the courage that we need to go on. He also gives us the encouragement of Christian fellowship in His body, the Church. We are not a bunch of individual believers, left on our own in this world of temptation and sin; we are one body in Christ--members of one another who love one another, support one another, laugh with one another, cry with one another, and are there for one another in times of need.
One of the blessings that I enjoyed in attending a small Lutheran college was daily chapel services. I'll never forget the service on All Saints' Day of my freshman year. As we entered the chapel the side walls were adorned with a wide paper band that had writing on it. On closer inspection, I could tell what the writing was. On this paper was written the name of each of the four hundred plus students at the school, and in front of each name was the word "Saint." Yes, there was even a "Saint Arthur." That's what today is all about. It's a celebration of all the saints--not just the departed, but all of them--including us. It's a celebration not really of us but rather of what God has done and continues to do and will yet do for us and in us and through us. What a joy that is, as we sang just a little while ago in one of my favorite hymns:
"O blest communion, fellowship divine,
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine,
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia!"
(Lutheran Service Book, # 677, stanza 4).
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.