“The Children of God, Remembered” Mount Olive Lutheran Church All Saints Day (Observed) Sunday Sermon November 3rd, 2024 – 1 John 3:1–3

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Sunday November 3rd 2024: All Saints Day (Observed) / 1 John 3:1–3 “The Children of God, Remembered”

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends Saint John writes, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are,” today we remember 18 of these Children of God, our brothers and sisters, our fellow members of the congregation and those cared for by Mount Olive over this past year by revisiting words from their Funeral Services and sermons preaches those days. We were blessed to assist these, our brothers and sisters, in this way in every case except for August Arndt who dearly wished to be buried by us but who had his wished denied following his death.  

Thelma Pickard

At Thelma’s Graveside Service, as happens at the graves of those we burry, we began with the words, “in the midst of life we are in death;” and we asked, as we do, “from whom can we seek help?” to which the answer comes, “From You alone, O Lord.” That day in a very private service I shared with Thelma’s family one of the enduring ways we receive this help, as Jesus teaches in our Gospel, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”[1] While I was at each of these Services and have heard all the words you are about to hear as a comfort for me, I pray now that what follows will be a comfort for each of you as we together remember these cherished children of God, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Verden Yahnke

You may have known or noticed that Verden’s middle name is Valentine, apparently that’s not because of Saint Valentine’s Day but rather because Verden had an Uncle Valentine [Here's an illustration about Christian love from Verden's Funeral Sermon].

Dear ones if you stand next to a river with strong rushing waters remember that river has a source, and if the rushing water of that river is an analogy for love then in the life of the Christian that love likewise has a source and that source is the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, that source is your heavenly Father’s love for you, the love that sent His Son Jesus to suffer all upon the cross of His crucifixion in your place, to wash away your sin, faults and failures in the rushing flow of His innocent blood, the very shed Blood which makes you His.

Doris Jones

We are not always a good judge of when and how the Lord is at work in our hearts. We often only have eyes to see [God’s work] after the fact. As an example: It’s like when there’s a truck stuck in the ditch. It’s stuck. [Later on after it’s been pulled out] does the truck say to the toe-truck, “When I decided to be pulled out of the ditch ...” No. The toe-truck is there to pull the truck out of the ditch, that’s the way it is for us. We are the truck in the ditch and Jesus is the Toe-Truck that pulls us out. [He’s there for us before we even know to ask for His help.]

Lorraine Paul 

The last time I saw Lorraine was in hospital, in the palliative care unit, and she was—you could say—preparing to travel to her eternal rest. She knew she was reaching the end of this life and she was ready to depart, all she needed to do was to wait for her ride. From the Scriptures I read to her these words “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD,”[2] and so she waited for the LORD, waited for Jesus. … We had Holy Communion where Jesus promises to come to us in the meal for the forgiveness of our sins and I sang to her the hymn we sang before the sermon [the day of her funeral service], “I am Jesus’ Little Lamb,” and so she was, and is, and ever shall be that little lamb of Jesus’. Lorraine waited for her departure to travel to “the house of the LORD” trusting this and holding fast to her Lord and Saviour, that Great Shepherd of the sheep.

Marlene Leir

She and Don, her late husband, over the years counted the members of their congregation at Mount Olive here as their church family, brothers and sisters in Christ, children of their heavenly Father. …

When death looms right in from of you, what do you have but the faith you’ve been given by God; she’d said a number of times “I don’t know how people go through this without their faith,” so what Saint Paul says in Ephesians about the blessing of the Father “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, [in order] that you may be filled with all the fullness of God,”[3] was something that I saw in her, especially at the end. Marlene went to her rest as one “filled with all the fullness of God” in Christ Jesus.

Dorothy Manz 

(Daphne Wagner's twin sister)

Jesus [teaches] you how [to] head scorn off at the pass, how you can side step derision and disparagement in your life, ‘seek first the kingdom of God,’ Jesus says ‘and all these things, that your Lord knows you need, will be added to you.’ Place your trust in the Lord first above all things and you will gain the kind of perspective and peace that the World does not offer.[4] This is the path to a life of contentment. Dorothy and her late husband Norman knew this, and more than that they experienced this and had it as part of their life together.

Daphne Wagner

(Dorothy Manz's twin sister) 

Daphne didn’t credit the work of her hands as her own, she didn’t count her God pleasing thoughts words or deeds as a credit to herself or a means of her own salvation, no she trusted that Jesus’ love for her is what saved her from her sin and from the darkness of this World. Her desire to have the love of the Light of Christ shine in the darkness put her hands and feet in motion to help and care for many people she never even met in this life,

William (Bill) Woolhether

Jesus, God the Father’s Son, was a carpenter, and as a carpenter He would have known a little bit about building things, about getting a place ready. The Hands and Feet that were nailed to the cross on Good Friday were the hands and feet of a working man, the hands and feet of a builder, a hard worker, who lifted wood and pounded nails, who could saw and plane and make level. He was very qualified to promise a house to His disciples. At the cross the nails that drove through His flesh and pinned Him to the wood were the first nails pounded into that promised Home in Heaven. Every House starts somewhere, whether at the job site or in a pre-build facility, there will always be that first nail driven into the wood, that second nail, that third nail and before you know it, with blood sweat and tears, before your eyes stands a house, and when everything is prepared and people have been moved into it, then you are not just looking at a house, you are looking at a Home.

Harold (Jack) Schumann

Jesus risen from the dead after His brutal Good Friday crucifixion and death becomes the very promise of our resurrection from the dead. A promise first made to our sainted Harold in his baptism in March of the year he was born. What does it mean to live with a promise? What kind of impact does living with a promise have on a person’s life? There are of course different degrees of promises in our life; from pinky swears to wedding vows we make promises and some of these promises the World sees as unimportant, yet for us the importance of a promise really revolves around how important you think the person is that’s making the promise to you and, for your part, how important the person is to you, if you’re the one making the promise to them.

Herbert (Herb) Biesenthal

The wonderful news for us is that the selflessness of our Lord Jesus has not run out; His righteousness has not faded away over time; His faithfulness to His heavenly Father has endured death and the grave and the harsh ravages of time and in His glorious Easter resurrection from the dead these wonderful gifts of the Lord are promised to continue in their endurance straight through to The End unto eternal life.[5] Confident in this Herb knew that there would never be a time when he could not turn to Jesus for forgiveness; Herb knew that he could always trust in Jesus. Because the friendship of Jesus is everlasting, the friendship of Jesus and His salvation is what lasts.

Adina Wekerle

If you call yourself a Christian and have not considered the driving force at work in your heart, there is no time like the present, each day you have been given is a gift from the Lord; make the best of it to the glory of God and the good of your neighbour. And remember there are times when your hands are the ones working to provide the help and then there are times when you are the one in need of helping hands. It is also a lesson to learn how to receive the help and care of others.

Agnes Miller

Everyone has ears, the question is whether they are painted on or not, Jesus often says, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” [And in the Gospel of Saint Mark Jesus also] said to them, “Pay attention to what you hear.”[6] Pay attention to whose voice is calling you and pay attention to where they are calling you to. Listen carefully. … Agnes long heard these promises of eternal life in Christ and while her hearing was poor in her last years she could hear the promises of Christ Jesus loud and clear. She had ears to hear,

Dolores Pelzer

The more you focus on the future the more you short change your present and your past; the more you live in the past the more you short change your present and your future; the more you live only for today the more you short change the good things of the past and the promises of future joy. The art of balancing the past and the present and the future is called contentment. Not everyone has this. Dolores had a generous measure of contentment in her life. She rested her heart and mind on Christ Jesus even in the face of hardships and challenges, the One she knew to be “the same yesterday and today and forever.”[7]

William (Bill) Wendel

Does time tick by as slowly there [with the faithfully departed as] it does here? This we do don’t know but until The Last Day when time itself is made new and is redeemed with everything else in creation we will need be patient until our time comes. In the here and the now we will want to live lives to the benefit of our neighbours and everyone we meet, to keep them in our hearts and have concern for them just as Bill in Christ had concern for those he was in contact with. Bill learnt this from his teacher Jesus along the way and it is a good lesson for all the faithful to embrace in this life as we pass the days until the day we are called home in Christ Jesus.

Ronald (Ron) Erdman

The Christian is called to humility in all their work; to humbly go about what responsibilities they have been given “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”[8] And so King Solomon says, “I perceived that there is nothing better for [each of us] than to be joyful and to do good as long as [we] live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all [their] toil—this is God’s gift to man.”[9] Dear ones, what is the gift of time with nothing to do? By the grace of God, in Christ Jesus, Ron made the most of the time he was given because God in Christ Jesus made time for Ron. Jesus perfectly filled His time for Ron and for you and for me right up to His last breath upon the cross of His crucifixion, enduring the shame of it and the pain of it, in humble service to us all. And in His resurrection from the dead Jesus continues to make Himself available for us, to make time for Ron and for you and for me as He stands ready to hear our prayers, as He comes to wash away our sins in baptism, as He comes to feed us with His Word and with His Holy Supper. Ron believed, and trusted this and desired this not just for himself but for you as well.

Ruth Wills 

(Words from a Sermon preached by Rev. Howard Ulmer)

God has a plan for our world. He created the world and continues to care for it. He created His people and continues to care for them. Although we sin and rebel against God, He cared for us by sending Jesus to be our Saviour. Through the death of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection from death, we have forgiveness of sin and the promised hope of eternal life. God, in His plan, continues to call us to repentance and to trust in Him. He guides and leads us to follow in the path that He has prepared. We do not walk alone. He speaks to us in His Word, the Bible. He speaks to us through others in times of a Worship Service and also in personal visits. In prayer we speak to Him and He also speaks to us; may we always be open and receptive to God’s plan and His message to us.

Eleanor Heuchert

Eleanor continues to be in the LORD’s safe keeping and by the grace of God you are in His safe keeping too, hold fast to this and trust in His faithfulness towards you, set aside self improvement and seek instead the clean heart[10] that by Word and Sacrament the Lord makes for Himself in you. His Word and Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion are where He comes to us and where we find in Him the peace and comfort that the World cannot give.

These your brothers and sisters, along with August Arndt and all the faithfully departed in Christ, including our dear brother Barry Triffo who went to his rest only yesterday on November 2nd have all joined that “great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,”[11] that Saint John speaks of seeing in the Revelation provided to him by the LORD. Dear ones, by the grace of God you, like they, all you who are baptised, all you with your faith in Jesus (be it ever so small or great), are counted among the saints and called children of God because of His great love for you: This is the promise of God to you in your grief and lose, take comfort in this promise, take comfort in this truth and hold fast to Jesus was we watch for The Day of His glorious reappearing and our finally happy reunion in Him.[12] Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Matthew 5:4
[2] Lamentations 3:26
[3] Ephesians 3:19
[4] John 14:27
[5] Philippians 1:6
[6] Mark 4:24
[7] Hebrews 13:8
[8] Ephesians 5:16
[9] Ecclesiastes 3:12-13
[10] Psalm 51:10
[11] Revelation 7:9
[12] 1 John 3:2

To listen/read the full sermons avaiable on our website click on the name below to open a new window. 

Herbert Biesenthal

Ronald Erdman

Eleanor Heuchert

Doris Jones

Marlene Leir

Dorothy Manz

Agnes Miller

Lorraine Paul

Dolores Pelzer

Harold Schumann

Daphne Wagner

Adina Wekerle

William (Bill) Wendel

Ruth Wills

William (Bill) Woolhether

Verden Yahnke

Photo Credit: Main photo croped image of "Thanksgiving Square Chapel [Windows] From the Floor," Dallas, Texas, USA from wikimedia commons; photo of "Close look of the details on the Tympanum of the Last Judgment" from wikimedia commons; all other photos suplied by the families and Mount Olive Lutheran Church.