All Saints’ Day November 1-2, 2025
“Part of a Family” I John 3:1-3
Rev. John R Larson Ascension Lutheran Church Littleton, Colorado
This is one of the great days of the year – All Saints’ Day. We read their names. We remember their lives. And even if we didn’t read the names of your beloved you remembered them on this blessed day. With moist eyes we sang, “For all the Saints who from their labors rest.” “Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine.” We get to say with a confident faith, “They aren’t here anymore, but they are just fine.”
Revelation 7 says of all those who have held to faith in Jesus: “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9-10)
I hope you enjoy this day as much as I do. The saints, our beloved, had two questions that they answered in life. And you, and I, sort of “Saints-in-Waiting”, also have the same two questions. The questions are:
- Who am I?
- What do I want to be when I grow up?
Who am I? That is sort of a big question. Our reading from John gives us the answer, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (I John 3:1) Who are you? A child of God. Who am I? A child of God. Two chapters later John would speak this truth again, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” (I John 5:1)
How did this happen? How could we be given such a name? It didn’t happen just by us coming into this world. It didn’t happen because of things we had done. It happened by a divine action. This same writer, John, would quote the words of Jesus, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again…I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3:3,5-6)
Your baptism was God’s claim on you. In your baptism – the water and the Spirit he is talking about – God’s hand grabbed you and made you a child of God. You were adopted – chosen. “I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)
A while back a little kid, who came with their grandma, looked at me and said, “Are you Jesus?” Wow!! I had just gotten a promotion. Can you imagine a bald Jesus? I can’t!! “No, I’m not Jesus, but I’m one of His children.” And so are you.
Some people discount how God looks at them. They will say, “I am a nobody.” “I don’t amount to much in this world.” Some have accepted the devil’s lies that they couldn’t truly be loved by God – their past, or present, is too checkered, too spoiled, too sinful. They think, “I’ll never be among the saints.” Wrong!! “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!! And that is what we are!”
Here is a word that God put in His Bible about this, “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” (Romans 8:14-16) Who am I? Through the work of Jesus we are part of a family, God’s family. We belong to Him and we belong to each other.
Our second question follows the first. “What do I want to be when I grow up?” Have you answered that one yet? Though I think some of you are never going to grow up!! The growing up that I am speaking about here is what is going to happen to you when you die. What is going to happen to you when we read your name, or my name, in that list of those who died this past year? Listen to our reading, “Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (I John 3:2)
There are so many questions about what life after death is like. Right now our soul and our body are united. But in death they are separated. Our soul finds its rest in heaven, but our body is in an urn, or scattered in the mountains, or placed in a casket. We are with Jesus – in part, but the resurrection of our body waits until the return of Jesus Christ to earth and the judgment of all the dead. As John says of these questions, “What we will be has not yet been made known.” Paul in Corinthians addresses this unknown like this, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” (I Corinthians 2:9) Then, in I Corinthians 13 he says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (I Corinthians 13:12)
What do I want to be when I grow up? Look at what God tells us. “But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him.” We shall be like him. What? We are so far away from being like our Lord Jesus. We have too much flesh. We have too many “qualities” that are undesirable. Too much sin. But there will be a day, that eternal day, when we are in heaven with our soul, and later when the body is reunited with the soul, that the path of our wandering ways will be no more.
Now understand – we won’t be Him. We won’t be God. We won’t be Jesus. That would be blasphemy. There is only one God. There is only one Savior. Only “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (See Philippians 2:10-11) But we are going to be like Him. As He is pure; we will be pure. As He has done things righteously; we will do things righteously. As He loves others, so will we. We shall be like Him.
In the final verse of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, (LSB 686) the anticipation of being part of that holy family is sung like this:
Oh, that day when freed from sinning, I shall see Thy lovely face; Clothed then in the blood-washed linen, How I’ll sing Thy wondrous grace! Come, my Lord, no longer tarry; Take my ransomed soul away; Send Thine angels soon to carry me to realms of endless day.
So, if that is how it will be in heaven, that we are going to be like Jesus, maybe we should make that our goal on earth. “I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to be like Jesus.”
This is a glorious day. The saints of God, through the sacrifice, death and resurrection of Jesus have answered both questions with a confident and humble faith.
Who am I?
What do I want to be when I grow up”
That is the question the saints of God have already answered. And that is the question we are answering right now. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are!…Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we will see him as he is.”
What a most blessed family we are a part of, now and forever!! Amen.
