ALL SAINT’S SUNDAY
This Communion Service is a service of REMEMBRANCE- thanks to God for the lives of those who have labored here with us as: colleagues, family AND the CHURCH on earth!
We are reminded of our connection with the church triumphant!
We celebrate those "of whom the world was not worthy" and "who surround us as a great cloud of witnesses." Heb.11/12
We celebrate their faith. They gathered in this church, believed and lived the Gospel.
- Those who have gone before us were faithful.
- They answer the roll call, “when the roll is call up yonder I’ll be there”
- They gathered together across the years
-- and many of them through tough years of hardships, low salaries, sacrifices, self-denial.
- Some years apportionments were hard to meet & budget was meager.
Some of those whom we remember today, lived through the great depression, through its lean years, times of soup and bread lines, those of the 1st and 2nd World War
- Some of them lived through the years of a broken and splintered church
- Some of them lived through and survived a period of a hostile and divided nation,
- and yet they kept faith
- "obtained a good report through faith,"
- answered the roll call and stood, with other Believers in the faith
- What incredible loyalty to the cause of Christ!
What enduring faith in trying times!
What an amazing price to pay!
What a wonderful heritage they left us!
By the record of their lives they reassure us that endurance is possible.
Because of their faithfulness and their devotion to the spread of the Gospel,
and their belief in the power of a Triune God who makes the crooked straight!
and their utter resolve that Calvary's Hill is higher than Capitol Hill, we are here as "stewards of this divine mystery."
By their perseverance and their sustaining trust, we can have confidence that "sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,".
They show us "from afar" how to run with perseverance the race that is set before us by locking to Jesus, the Pioneer and the Perfecter of their faith. In us, and through us, they can be perfected (Hebrews 11:40).
Today we have a choice: We can fulfill the faith! Or we can cast it aside.
We can bargain it away,with our own ideologies
We can fragment it away, we can corrupt it and leave it bankrupt,this priceless heritage, this rich and abiding tradition that was given to us!
Paul would remind those saints who were receiving his letters that they were not the whole church, that there is a wider church, a larger fellowship -- a universal church, "All the saints greet you
A tiny group of people who felt insignificant in these huge, cosmopolitan, commercial cities of the Roman Empire
They felt disconnected, isolated -- a minority for certain, unimportant!
until they hear the words in Paul's letter: "All the saints greet you!"
There's the connection for them and there's the connection for us: "All the saints salute you!"
And that's the word for the followers of Jesus gathered here this morning at Pearsall Methodist Church
"All the saints salute you!"
Paul, Philemon, Phillip; Augustine, Athanasius, Agnes; Luther, Calvin, Charles,John, Sussanah, Asbury, Allbright, Otterbein; Abraham, Martin: "All the saints salute you!"
For although their bodies are dead and rest from their labors, they live in Christ!
We struggle sometimes now! Against despair
These bygone generations makeup of the clouds of witnesses.
Some may forget them! BUT GOD DOESN’T!
GOD KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE, AND THE BIBLE RECORDS IT, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses
They are the invisible onlookers.
The Old Testament ones, They are the ones who died in the faith still hoping for the promise.
We dare not fail them by losing faith and allowing our zeal to fade
We dare not fail them by giving up the fight and shrinking from the struggle and tossing in the towel.
We dare not compromise the full gospel that accompany grace
We dare not sell a "cheap grace" and neglect the cost of salvation!
And so we fight on, faithful, true, boldly energized by the salutes from all the saints, encouraged and enabled by the grace of God, the love of Jesus Christ, and the blessings and fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
And so shall fight on, with all of the courage we can muster knowing that the race is not given to the swift or to the strong but to those who endureth to the end. Many start out in church but what about the finish line?
And so we fight on, laying aside the weights and sin that so easily cling & entangles us.
And so we fight on, and we run with perseverance the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.
Remember the saints in your lives who have given your life meaning and purpose, and given you the ability to believe in yourself and to believe in God.
Name the saints, those who have died in the faith
Name the saints, those "who punctuated their dignity" with their faithful presence at Divine worship.
Name the saints, who kept their vows and upheld their church, with their presence, their gifts, and their service.
Name the saints, and as we celebrate holy communion.
Name the saints, and render to God thanksgiving for their faith, their lives, and their death, and may we all be joined together "as one, and one with the Holy Spirit," as we gather at the Lord's Table to break bread and to drink wine together on our knees.
