Sermon for November 1, 2026, All Saint's Day

1 John 3:1-3 (All Saints’ Day)

“Children of God”

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer, Enfield, CT

November 1, 2026

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Epistle Reading from 1 John 3:

¹See what kind of love the Father has given to us, so that we should be called children of God, and we are. Because of this, the world does not know us because it did not know Him. ²Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. ³And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

It was God’s intention to bring into existence beings as like Himself as is possible for creatures to be like their Creator. We read in Genesis 1, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26-27 ESV).

God created humans—man and woman—as the crown of His gracious creation. Psalm 8 says, “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet” (Psa. 8:5-6 ESV). Created in the image of God, Adam and Eve truly knew God as He wishes to be known. They were perfectly happy in Him. The first man and woman were righteous and holy, doing God’s will. They were as like God as it was possible for creatures to be like their Creator.

Yet Adam and Eve were not content with the true likeness to God which was theirs by grace in creation. Genesis 3: “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:4-8 ESV).

Man grasped at a counterfeit likeness of God held out as the tempter’s bait, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In a moment of tragic amnesia brought about by the tempting sweetness of the serpent’s words, both Adam and Eve forgot that they had already been created like God, in His image, righteous and holy. But they wanted more than true likeness. They were not content to be in God’s image. Following the tempter’s lies, they wanted to be like God by becoming God.

The result of this fall into sin is that people who were created most like God now show in their lives things most unlike God: hatred, darkness, and death in place of love, light, and life. Lost was the image of God. No longer do people perfectly fear, love, and trust in God above all things. Our human will and intellect lost the ability to know and please God. We curse, speak carelessly, and misuse God’s name. We do not always honor or obey those whom God has put in authority over us. You and I hold grudges and are angry with others. You and I have gotten things in dishonest ways. We have gossiped and taken pleasure in talking about the faults and mistakes of others. Our thoughts have been consumed with strong wants, desires, and cravings as we have resented and envied those who have more than we do.

We are not at all like God, knowing good and evil. All we know by nature is what is contrary to the will and Word of God, that which is evil. We focus on ourselves. We have become our own gods whom we serve as we live for the self above all. We are more like the evil one who first rebelled against God and was cast out of His presence. As Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him in John 8, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 ESV). Given this reality, how can it possibly be that when the Scripture calls us “children of God,” we actually are what the Lord says we are?

God’s purpose to bring into existence people who would be as like Him as is possible for creatures to be like the Creator was not hindered by the Fall into sin. In the fullness of time the image of God, not vandalized and disfigured by sin and disobedience to God’s will, reappeared on earth in the person of God’s Son. Galatians 4:4-5: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

In Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Mary, the love, light, and life of God were made known in opposition to the hatred, darkness, and death of sin. However, with Jesus’ crucifixion, it seemed that hatred, darkness, and death had won the day, and that God’s purpose, which had survived the Fall, was now effectively done with. But instead, the cross of Jesus proved to be God’s chosen instrument for fulfilling His purpose and restoring to people the image of God through the forgiveness of their sins. John wrote a few verses after our text, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 ESV). Jesus did this by His cross and resurrection! The first Adam, by his disobedience, forfeited God’s image and lost His holiness and righteousness. Jesus Christ, the Second Adam, by His perfect obedience to God’s Word and with His sacrificial death on the cross and the shedding of His holy blood, recreates God’s image in us through the complete forgiveness of all sins, including the original sin with which we were conceived and born. Through faith in Jesus alone, we become the re-created children of our heavenly Father.

God calls us His children because of the work of Jesus for us on the cross and what happens to us as a result of the Holy Spirit creating faith in Christ within us. You and I enter the family of God through faith in His Son in Holy Baptism. As we are taught in the Large Catechism, “We must also learn why and for what purpose [Baptism] is instituted. We must learn what it profits, gives, and works. For this also we cannot find a better resource than Christ’s words quoted above, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” [Mark 16:16]. Therefore, state it most simply in this way: the power, work, profit, fruit, and purpose of Baptism is this—to save [1 Peter 3:21]. For no one is baptized in order that he may become a prince, but, as the words say, that he “be saved.” We know that to be saved is nothing other than to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil [Colossians 1:13–14]. It means to enter into Christ’s kingdom [John 3:5], and to live with Him forever.”^[1] 

Through the Word and water applied to each of us in Baptism, we are saved from our sins and eternal death. Baptism works “forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.”^[2] As the forgiven people of God in Christ Jesus (saints!), we are truly God’s children. And you and I are made brothers of our Lord Jesus. We read in Romans, “For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29 ESV).

As God’s children, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus—and that IS what we are!—we begin to display the Father’s likeness because of our union with Jesus’ death and resurrection in Baptism. While in this world, our likeness to our heavenly Father is displayed in part, but it is still imperfect. Here and now, our likeness to God, the restoration of the image of God, is not yet complete in us. God has begun a good work in us, says Philippians 1, but it will be brought to completion on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, “beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He is revealed, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” 

God will one day complete His re-creating work in us so that we will have His image fully restored to us when Jesus comes again. On that wonderful day when our Lord returns, we who have been made the children of God by grace through faith in Jesus will see our Savior face to face in the resurrection of the dead. We will then be like our living and resurrected Lord as much as it is possible for us to be like our Creator. We will see God and be in His perfect presence as His new creations that bear His image, as Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden so many centuries ago. We will then be clean from sin, sparkling in the holiness and righteousness of Jesus. All this will happen because of the love of God the Father which He has given to us, calling us to be His children because that is who we are in Christ Jesus.         

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, so that we should be called children of God—and we are.” This is not merely a name we hope to earn, but a gift the Father has already given us in Christ. In Holy Baptism He has joined us to His Son, forgiven our sins, and made us His own. And though God’s image is not yet complete in us, we live in certain hope: when Christ appears, we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him. Until that day, we cling to His promise, live as His beloved children, and rejoice that in Jesus this is who we truly are—now and forever. Amen.

     ^[1] Paul Timothy McCain, ed., Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (St. Louis: Concordia, 2005), 425.

     ^[2] Ibid., 339.