I did a little math, and I think in these past nine years I’ve stood here and preached about 1,250 sermons to you, and each one of them began “Dear Saints.” (I think there was once or twice that I began, “Dear Sinners,” but we got to the saint part by the end.) What does this mean, to be a saint?

Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day, so it’s a pretty good day to figure this out.

Most of the time, when we think of a saint we think of a person that does a lot of good works. “My grandma is a saint,” means, “My grandma spends all of her time doing good things for other people.” Or it could mean that a person has a great deal of religious devotion. “My grandma is always praying, reading the Bible and her devotions, and going to church.” (I’m not sure why it’s always the grandmas who we think of as saints.) It might also mean that the person has endured a lot of suffering with continued patience and faith. “She’s been suffering from her cancer for months; she’s such a saint.”

Now, in all of these, a saint is a person who has distinguished themselves through their efforts of love, or piety, or patience. These are helpful things for us to think about, that the Lord would mark our own lives with love for one-another, a love that sacrifices to serve the neighbors the Lord has given us. Or that our lives would be marked by a dogged determination to pray, to wrestle with Jesus to grab a hold of His promises and His gifts and Himself. And that we, like Jesus and the saints, endure the suffering of this life with an enduring and hoping patience, knowing that the resurrection and eternal life are our promised inheritance.

But is this what it means to be a saint, to be filled up to the brim with good works? “Saint” means “holy one.” Is this holiness of ourselves? Is the title “saint” something we have deserved, or something we are deserving?

I hope not. Remember what the Scripture says of us, “No one is good no, not one.” “The heart is wicked above all things.” “In sin my mother conceived me.” So we are taught to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses,” and “Lord, have mercy upon us.” We are sinners, and a sinner is the opposite of a saint. Our works and our corrupted nature cry out to God for wrath. We were asking for it.

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you got caught beating up your brother, and your mom said, “Bryan, why are you punching your brother?” and you responded, “He was asking for it.”? Remember that? Well, our sin and our sinful flesh really are asking for it; we really have deserved God’s temporal and eternal punishment. We have earned for ourselves hell.

Now, it is one of the marks of our sinful nature that we actually don’t know how bad we are; that we don’t think we deserve hell. But we do. It must be that the wrath of God that Jesus suffers is the wrath of God that you and I deserve, else the cross doesn’t make any sense. But look, it is the cross that shows us the depth of our sin, and it is the same cross that shows us the heights of God’s love. It is on the cross that you see the wrath of God that you deserve, but on the cross we see God suffering His own wrath instead.

And this was for you, to forgive you all of your sins.

This vision in Revelation seven gives it to us beautifully. I heard a pastor say this week that this chapter is the most beautiful thing written, and he could be right.

⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” ¹¹ And all the angels were standing round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, ¹² saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.”

¹³ Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” ¹⁴ I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Here’s the picture: Imagine that you are born wearing a robe, and you wear it your entire life, you never take it off. It is supposed to be white, but even when you are born it’s filthy, and every time you sin there is another stain on this robe, another tear on this garment. Can you imagine that? Every sinful thought is a mark. Every sinful deed is a mark. Every selfish moment, every neglected act of love, every un-pure thought or thoughtless word is a mark, a stain on this robe.

And this robe of yours that is supposed to be white and pure is nothing but filthy rags, the smell is horrific, and it’s a log-book of your wretchedness.

And now you breathe your last, you die, and have to appear before the judgment seat of God in heaven, and there you stand in shame with these miserable threads hanging around you, and the Lord takes them, and dips them in this vat filled with blood, with the blood of Jesus, and pulls them out, and they are gleaming, white, pure, sparkling, radiant, you see it! Bright and perfect and whole in every way, and the angel takes them and wraps them around you.

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Holy, pure, righteous, lovely, by Jesus, by His blood, by His cross, by His righteousness, by His forgiveness. He has robbed you of your sin and robed you with His life, His eternal life and blessedness that will never end.

This is what it is to be a saint, it is to be forgiven. It is to be washed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. It is not to possess and abundance of good works, but to possess Jesus, to be His, to take hold of His righteousness even as He has taken away your sin and taken hold of you.

This is you.

¹⁵ “Therefore they are before the throne of God,
    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
¹⁶ They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
¹⁷ For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

1250 times, and 1250 times 1250 times more, we rejoice that Jesus calls us His saints. Amen.

The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.