You may be seated.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.
In the name of Jesus, dear Christian friends, in the Lutheran Church, we believe that all
Christians who believe in Jesus Christ by his grace are the saints of God.
And because of that, we can rejoice today because we are God's saints through our Savior
Jesus.
At the same time, on this All Saints Day, we also want to take time right after the
sermon in order to remember our loved ones, our family members, and our friends who have
died in the last year.
As their names are read, I'm sure that many of you will have many memories flood to your
minds.
Some of those are going to be very good, positive memories, and some are going to be kind of
sad memories.
Some people you might know really well, and others you've never heard of.
And yet it's important for us to take time to remember each one of them by name so that
we are reminded that every single one of them is important in God's eyes.
And so today we remember their deaths, and we also rejoice that through their faith in
our Savior Jesus, their souls are now with him in heaven.
And because he has wiped away all of the tears from their eyes up there, we know that he
will now wipe away the tears from our eyes here as well.
Our text this morning is the end of the first lesson from Revelation chapter 7, 13 to 17.
Then one of the elders asked me, these in white robes, who are they?
And where did they come from?
I answered, sir, you know.
And he said, these are they who have come out of the great tribulation.
They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.
And he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them.
Never again will they hunger.
Never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat.
For the lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.
He will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
It's quite sobering for us to think of our own mortality, isn't it?
On a day like this, many questions come to our minds about death, but especially our
own death.
How will it happen?
Will it be sudden or drawn out?
When will it occur?
Will it be soon or decades from now?
Where will I die?
Will it hurt?
Who will be there?
Will I be alone or with family members or with a bunch of strangers?
You know, these questions can become Satan's playground if we let them.
If we dwell on them too much, we can lose all of our hope.
But at the same time, if we dwell on them too little, we might face death unprepared.
Today we're celebrating the faith of our loved ones who have died with Christ.
The psalmist wrote, precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.
Their death is precious to our Lord because they died believing the very declaration made
by the elder of heaven in our text.
He said, these are they who have come out of the great tribulation, that's life here
on this earth, the great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the lamb.
Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.
Today's not only All Saints Day.
This is also the international day of prayer for the persecuted church.
It's something we don't think about very often.
Did you know that people are still dying today because they believe in Jesus?
According to the Open Doors 2026 World Watch List, 4,849 Christians died this year because
of their faith.
Of those 4,849, 3,490 were all in the country of Nigeria.
It is the deadliest country in the world if you are a Christian.
One of the more publicized incidents of martyrdom happened back in February of 2015.
ISIS captured 21 construction workers in Libya and they took them out to the beach.
Twenty of those were Coptic Christians from Egypt and they were given a chance to renounce
Jesus and proclaim their allegiance to Allah.
And each one declined.
And one by one they were beheaded on the beach.
But the man at the end of the line was not from Egypt, he was from Ghana.
He was not a Christian.
And when he was offered his freedom, Matthew Oyega refused and said, their God is my God.
And with that simple last moment profession of faith, he too was beheaded.
None of those 21 men were afraid to die.
They weren't afraid to die because of their faith in Jesus.
It is that promise from God that gives us hope as we face death ourselves.
Many times before or after a funeral, family members and friends will gather and remember
the various details of their life.
A man's children might remember their father as more of a saint while his siblings might
remember him more as a sinner.
A woman might be remembered as a faithful wife and mother by her husband while the in-laws
feel that she was never good enough for their son.
After a person has died, people try to remember all of the good things they can about that
person.
But there are other people who remember the disappointments, the fights, the faults.
The truth is that we all are saints and sinners, both our loved ones and also us.
I once heard a professor point out that a person does not die because they are good.
They die because they're bad.
Sinful is the word the Bible uses.
In fact, Paul says the wages of sin is death.
And he wrote in Romans 5.12, Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and
death through sin, in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.
As sinful people, we often fear death because we view it from our sinful nature as the punishment
of God because we haven't done right.
And yet Jesus gives us hope as we face death.
The elder in heaven told John that all those people standing with white robes before the
throne of God had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
No matter what these loved ones had done in their life, Jesus came to pay for all of their
sins.
He shed his blood at the cross of Calvary to offer forgiveness for all of the people
of the world.
That includes our loved ones, and it also includes us who are still alive.
Paul told the Galatians, You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Through faith, the Holy Spirit takes that forgiveness of sins and he makes it our own.
John said the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin.
Not just some sin, not just those sins that bother other people, not just the sins of
omission and commission, but all sin, even that inherited original sin of self-centeredness
that lurks deep in our souls.
The blood of Jesus purifies his people from all sin.
Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord said, Come now, let us reason together.
Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
In Christ, you have been purified from all of your sins.
In Christ, your loved ones have also been forgiven by Jesus.
So in Christ, we are his saints and that's what we're celebrating today.
Now our text goes on and he tells us how God takes care of his people in heaven.
First of all, it says that they are in the very presence of God himself.
Our text says they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.
We don't know exactly what that means.
How will we be serving God in heaven?
Does that mean we're going to have jobs in heaven?
I don't know.
Maybe it means we're going to be worshiping because we're seeing in the verses before
our text the whole church of God in heaven is praising God.
Salvation belongs to our Lord or to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
The real question is not what we will be doing, but who we will be serving.
We will not be serving ourselves.
We will be serving the Lord God Almighty in person.
What does God do?
He shelters us with his presence.
That means that God takes care of his people.
He provides for the needs of all of his people.
He protects them from all kinds of evil.
Our text said, never again will they hunger.
Never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.
He will lead them to springs of living water.
Or as Henrietta Von Hayden said in her children's hymn, I am Jesus' little Lamb, glad at
ever glad at heart I am, for my shepherd gently guides me, knows my needs and well provides
me, loves me every day the same, even calls me by my name.
Our text adds, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
That idea is expanded later on in Revelation 21 verse 4.
The voice from the throne of God said, he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things
has passed away.
All of the questions, all of the doubts, all of the troubles, all of the sorrows, all of
the evil, all of the fears, they're all going to be gone.
In Revelation 14, a voice from the heaven told John, write, blessed are the dead who
die in the Lord from now on.
Yes, says the Spirit, they will rest from their labor for their deeds will follow them.
In heaven there will be no tears because we will have perfect rest, perfect peace and
perfect joy.
The psalmist David rejoiced with that promise and he said, you turned my wailing into dancing.
You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy that my heart may sing to you and not
be silent.
Oh Lord, my God, I give you thanks forever.
My dear Christian friends, St. Paul told the Romans, everything that was written in the
past was written to teach you, to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement
of the scriptures, we might have hope, hope.
You know, we are linked with all of those who have preceded us by death through our
faith in Christ Jesus.
In the communion liturgies, the, at the end of it, the pastor reads the proper preface
and at the end of that proper preface it says, therefore with angels and with archangels
and with all the company of heaven, that includes all of our loved ones, we laud and
magnify your glorious name, praising you.
You see, today and together with all of the people in heaven, we are part of that one
holy Christian apostolic church.
It's an unbroken chain.
We are the communion of saints, the very church of God, and what a heritage that is for us
and for our children and for our children's children.
Even as our loved ones have died, were clothed with Christ in their baptism, so we have been
clothed with Christ's mercy and grace.
Even as they were fed at the Lord's altar, so too we come and receive the very body and
blood of Christ when we go to the Lord's supper.
And even as their tears are wiped away by our Lord in heaven, so also he comes and wipes
away our tears and he replaces them with hope and peace through all of his promises.
We have God's word.
His word promises that we, along with all of our loved ones, will one day be clothed
with robes made white by the blood of the lamb and that we will live eternally.
Rejoice my brothers, rejoice my sisters, our tears have been wiped away.
As Peter said, praise thee to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil,
or fade, kept in heaven for you.
Amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds through
faith in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen.