ALL SAINTS DAY, ??06 (11/05) 
Sir, we would see JESUS!
Rev. Frederick Stiemke
Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Asheville, NC
Ephesians 1: 1-2 

?¨Saints Alive!?Æ

In the Name of JESUS!

Beloved in Christ Jesus, will you pray with me? O eternal God ?± Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ?± on this All Saints Day we give You humble and heartfelt thanks for the deliverance granted to all Your faithful departed through Christ, our Savior. The saints in heaven now await that glorious Day of Resurrection, when with their bodies, glorified like that of Christ Himself, will rise to reign forever in eternal peace and joy in heaven. Fix our hearts and eyes also upon Jesus as our only Savior that we, too, may join that triumphant procession of the redeemed to serve You forever in the heavenly mansions You have made possible and prepared for us; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

In the name of Jesus, who alone can cleanse us from our sin, chosen, precious children of God:

Today is All Saints Day. It??s a time when we in the holy Christian Church give thanks to God for His faithfulness in Christ Jesus to the departed saints, who are now with our Lord in heaven awaiting that great Day of Resurrection. We also pause to thank God that through the power of the Holy Spirit these departed Christians remained loyal to their Savior. We pray that the Holy Spirit will enable us to imitate their unwavering faith in Christ Jesus. 

For this special day of remembrance the holy, inspired Word of God that forms the basis of the thoughts I as your vacancy pastor wish to share with you is found in the first two verses of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Christians in Ephesus. It reads as follows: ?¨Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.?Æ

Is this a strange way to address a letter, ?¨To the saints in Ephesus!?Æ? Since obviously St. Paul is writing real people here on earth, some of you might want to ask, ?¨How can he do that??Æ Well, we need to probe a little deeper. The Holy Spirit inspired Christ??s apostle to pen the words as the Lord wanted him to convey them. [2 Timothy 3: 16] Thus, though truly St. Paul??s words, it is none other than the Holy Spirit who is also addressing the entire body of believers at Ephesus as ?¨saints.?Æ While a person might mistakenly view ?¨saints?Æ as only God??s people in heaven, or only those Christians in heaven who lived the most godly lives on earth, that??s NOT the way our merciful God views Christ??s people. The amazing thing for us is that God preserved this letter to the Ephesians till today as a part of the Bible. So this letter and title, ?¨saints,?Æ is also meant for you and me, too.

If a person does a careful study of how the word, ?¨saints,?Æ is used throughout the Bible, it is indeed used to describe God??s saved people in heaven. However, that student of the Scriptures will also find that quite often it is the designation of any person who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior ?± whether they are in heaven or still here on earth. That may be puzzling at first if you are a person who takes seriously, as we all should, the reality that every Christian on earth is imperfect, daily sinning in thought, word, and actions. So corrupt is our human nature that Isaiah describes our plight this way, ?¨All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts like filthy rags.?Æ [Isaiah 64:6] Jesus Himself spoke a similar word of judgment by declaring in the Sermon on the Mount, ?¨For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.?Æ And those men were at least outwardly the most pious and religious people of that day. That??s all the more reason to ask, ?¨How then can God declare a believer in Jesus here on earth that still sins every day a ?¨saint????Æ

That??s precisely the point! GOD takes the initiative! GOD declares the believing sinner a ?¨saint.?Æ Our God does not lie! He always speaks the truth! Think back to St. Paul??s address in the opening verses to the Christians at Ephesus. There you??ll find the reasons why our heavenly Father can do this. In this epistle the inspired apostle extends to the believers and to us, ?¨Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.?Æ 

GOD??S GRACE, His love, and forgiveness are free. They are not earned by the believer. Our gracious Father in heaven declares that those who trust Jesus as their Savior are righteous in His eyes. The Lord has covered us with the holy, sinless life of our Savior as well as His holy, precious, innocent blood shed for us on the cross. These gifts are ours when we trust Jesus to cleanse us from all our sin. Thus the hymn writer penned these words of truth about Jesus, ?¨His blood can make the foulest clean. His blood avails for me.?Æ Not any one of your sins and failings, nor all of them put together, not even all those added to your corrupt sinful heart are too great for God to forgive. The Lord can do anything He desires, and forgiving us is one of His deep longings.

Recall, my friends, how one of the elders in heaven described the saints before the throne of God to John in Revelation 7: ?¨These are they that have come out of great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them pure?Æ (How?) ?± ?¨ in the blood of Lamb.?Æ [Revelation 7: 14,b] The saints in heaven know full well that their deliverance was and is 100% God??s action and His gift to them. That??s why in this same chapter those redeemed of the Lord in heaven cry out in a loud voice, ?¨Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.?Æ [Revelation 7: 10]
St. Paul also extends to the Ephesian Christians and to us, ?¨. . . PEACE from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.?Æ The eternal peace treaty between our holy God and sinful believers is signed, sealed, and delivered in the blood of Jesus. Now only rejecting Jesus as our Savior can separate us from the love of God in His Son. From this preserve us, dear Father in heaven!! 

It is because our faithful loving Father keeps on cleansing us of our sin day after day, hour after hour, moment by moment that even now you are from God??s perspective a saint of God??s redeemed family. Forgiven, you are holy and righteous in the eyes of God. Indeed, Biblically you have every right to put the word, ?¨Saint,?Æ before your own name. If you know the name of the person sitting beside you, put this title of God??s grace, ?¨Saint,?Æ before that individual??s name as well. Do you truly believe this is proper? Biblically it is! Why then do we at times buy into Satan??s lies that we or any other Christian is of little value? Every believing child of God including you is precious in the mind of Christ. We need to see other believers and ourselves in this light of God??s unfailing love. We all are truly redeemed, purchased not with gold or silver, but with the holy, precious blood of the Son of God! THANKS BE TO GOD!

In our Communion liturgy we have a tangible reminder of just how faithful our Lord is to us and how precious we are to the living God. Our heavenly Father permits us to lift up our voices and join the very angels of God and those saints in heaven in singing, ?¨Holy, holy, holy Lord, Lord God of pow??r and might: Heaven and earth are full of Your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.?Æ Think about it: In the Lord??s Supper we have a foretaste of the feast to come in heaven. As we eagerly await the gifts of Christ??s body and blood in Communion with the bread and wine, our own voices actually join the heavenly choir in praise and adoration of our Triune God. How marvelous God??s love that this should be! What extraordinary grace and peace our merciful God gives to us as His free gift!

Yes, you truly are a saint of God, valued beyond measure in the eyes of Lord, cleansed within and without by the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. So, rejoice and give thanks to our God for His faithfulness; for through Christ??s grace and peace you are in fact one of God??s ?¨Saints Alive!?Æ Amen.
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?¨And now to Him is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy ?± to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore.?Æ [Jude 24-25] Amen. 

© The Reverend Frederick A. Stiemke, Vacancy Pastor