All Saints’ Day (w Bap) November 4, 2018 John 15:12-21
Jesus took all the pain so that we might have all the gain!
PRAYER
On this the first Sunday in November when many Christians in the world celebrate All Saint’s Sunday (the closest Sunday to Nov. 1st, All Saints Day) we do so focusing this morning on the One, who makes Saints!
That’s an odd kind of phrase, making Saints! Some make bread, others cookies and cakes. Last week Matthew, Barb and I sliced and salted close to 100 lbs. of cabbage to make sauerkraut! Some people make things from wood, cloth, stone and all sorts of materials. But making Saints, that sounds kind of strange.
This past week billions (or at least many many millions) made or masqueraded or impersonated themselves as ghosts, goblins, vampires or gules. There were some storm troopers, Minecraft characters, a trio from the Wizard of Oz and a few Frozen characters but only one Elsa. Each was impersonating someone else. There were cutesy movie characters but I saw more evil at my door than I wanted to.
In fact as I went about my business this past week I saw people working on their homes and yards to get ready for the big night. I saw black cats, dragons, pumpkins, ghosts, skeletons, tombstones, a lot of cob webs and spiders. Have you been to Tim’s on Thickwood?! I saw all sorts of guleish set ups but not one scene from Toy Story or Frozen. A goodly part of the world really goes all out in its attempt to be scary, zombie-ish and evil looking!
Even though all of this may seem lightyears away from our topic of making Saints on this All Saints Day the truth is that’s not, it fits perfectly!!!
You see, 500 years ago Christians would go to graveyards on Oct 31st to clean and take care of the gravesites of their loved ones. The celebration was called All Hallows Eve. It was a blessed time of thanking God Almighty for those who had died believing the truth about Jesus and how he had changed them, Sainted them before their death! After all He is the One who takes non-Saints and made them Saints.
Before we become Saints, people who are given the gift of faith in Jesus, what are we? (Pause) (If you are reading this online, this is the place where I take a sip of water and I give the congregation an opportunity to answer my question. Two reasons: I’m dry and need a sip of water and I’m one who likes for the congregation to be using all of their brains power on Sunday morning, not just the listening section.)
What are we? We are … , and we don’t like to hear this, and the world scoffs at us for saying such, but Scripture is very clear that God alone is Good, He also has the corner on the market on perfection! What does that leave us with? We are …? Evil! On our own, not connected to Jesus, we are, evil!
But the truth is that God loves to make Saints from what is evil! After all that’s all he has to work with!!! He made us perfect in the Garden of Eden but we said we didn’t like his work and His choice for us. We said we would rather hang out with the scaly guy who slithered up the tree and tempted Eve!
Truth be known, without Jesus changing us from the inside out, to make us Saints, we are all spiritually the gules and goblins, ghosts and skeletons, fiends and frauds that many dress up as at Halloween.
There are only two possibilities in life! We are being either who we are (if we don’t have faith in Jesus) or not who we were (if we now stand in that faith)! However, with a clear understanding of who we were before Jesus changed us, we very much want to stay away from the dark side from whence we came.
God takes, God loves to take, God rejoices in taking us from being conceived spiritually dark as goblins, vampires or gules and making Saints out of us! He loves to clean up what is dirty and dingy and spiritually dead and make it alive and perfect in his eyes, perfect for a new relationship with himself.
The truth is that’s exactly why you brought little Luke to be Baptized this morning. What happened to him in Baptism? He was washed with God’s Word (the words God calls us to use) and one of God’s most common elements (the water God calls us to use in His Sainting process) all so that little Luke might be changed, might gain a second birth and new life.
You are now a Saint of God little buddy! Made so by God Himself! You are now forgiven all the sin that your mom and dad gifted you with at conception. But don’t blame them, we are all the same, it’s in us to give. Truth is Luke you will give that same spiritually foul and guelish gift to your kids. And because our genes are sin corrupted, all the way back to Adam and Eve’s post Fall genes, we don’t give birth to uncorrupted kids. BUT you are forgiven Luke, not just of what you received from mom and dad but of all that you will commit and omit. You are forgiven of all sins past, present and future, at this very moment! He has made you holy and perfect in His sight.
Oh yes, like all of us, you mom and dad will see Luke act as a guel or goblin at times. Evil will rear its ugly head in and through him as it does in and thru each of us in our lives. BUT that’s not who you are anymore Luke That’s not who we are anymore! Luke and each of us, who are Baptized, are Saints! Made so by God, chosen by Him and thru whom he wants to work in a world that is so fully engulfed in evil and hatred!
But is this magic? Where did all the evil, vile and deadly consequences go? Jesus took them! That’s correct! He took it all upon Himself at the cross 2000 years back. He lived a perfect life all for the whole purpose of being worthy to suffer in our place, worthy to pay for all our devilishness. All the hurt and pain which our sin causes us, and others, Jesus took upon Himself to pay for it in full! Jesus took all the pain so we might have all the gain!
Jesus is this world’s perfect garbage collector. He takes our hate and lust, our greed and spite, our pride and two-facedness, our ________________ (you fill in the blank) and placed it upon himself and dies to fully, 100% forgive us and make all, thru faith in Him, spotless in His perfect sight. We are forgiven Luke, Melody, Dillon. We are forgiven TLC congregation. You are forgiven, person reading this on our website! And thru faith in Jesus cross work all the gain is yours!
Jesus forgave all humanity! He came from heaven above. He laid aside his place of honour and all the perfection of being in his Father’s presence and came to live in the world which we had and are destroying with our sin. But more than this world he cares for you and I and the eternal mess our lives are in without him. He came to take all the pain of living in this mess upon himself to forgive little Luke, you and I that the gain might be ours. All the gain of peace even now amidst the mess we yet live. He gave the Holy Spirit to live in every one of His followers to lead and guide us daily! The gain of a huge family around the world who knows the Truth that without Jesus we are nothing and have nothing to live for! But with faith in Jesus we have all and everything to live and die for as we share him with each other and all others.
How to share Him? Be your new self, daily amongst each other and others. Be giving and forgiving. Boldly live as Jesus kids in this hurting world. It needs to know of him though us.
What’s the first word that comes to your minds when you think of ghosts, goblins, vampires or gules? Love? Caring? Joy? No! Rather, death and evil, grime, hurt and pain and, well, everything that is the dark side.
That was us Luke. But no more! Jesus took all the pain so that we (and all) might have all the gain! Amen and Amen!
John 15:12-21
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.