November 7, 2024 • 27 mins
When you think about the people who have made a real difference in your life that passed away, you can often have a spread of emotions. On All Saints Day, we remember those people, and Pastor Tim Lindeman speaks to us about what that means and why it is so important for all of us.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We remember those that have gone before us to be
into their eternal glory, and when we thank God for
what they meant to us and the gift that they
were to us, the love that we shared with one another.
But we also remember the faith that they lived and
the example that they set for us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning and welcome to peace to you from Peace
Lutheran Church in Arvada, Colorado. On the first Sunday in November,
we celebrate All Saints' Day. It's a remembrance of those
who have gone before us and death and through faith,
are now in the presence of our Lord Jesus. God
in his word calls them a great cloud of witnesses.
(00:50):
They are our spiritual heroes. Remembering those who have gone
before us in faith. We give thanks for those faithful
witnesses as we pray that God will bless us us
to follow in their footsteps. May we be encouraged and
strengthened as our great cloud of witnesses cheers us on.
Now Here's pastor Tim.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I will never forget my thirteenth birthday. It promised to
be a perfect day. A tradition in our family. With
the person whose birthday it is, you get to pick
out what you're going to have for supper, and I
was just absolutely certain pizza.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Was going to be the best thing I've had in
a long time.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And then to think about it, also, I was a
John Wayne fan, and this was before you could pluck
a move, plug a movie into the DVD player even
the VHS, or play it online.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
We had to wait for Network TV.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And that night, on my birthday, they were going to
play John Wayne movie to Alamo for my birthday. It
was going to be a great day. I was so excited.
And then as we got out of school. It was
a Monday, we got out of school and I was
like just free and easy. I didn't even have any homework.
(02:10):
I mean, it was like perfect day. We were heading
the football practice, and to make football practice even more
fun than usual, it had snowed that day, so there
were about three inches of snow on the grass and
we were slipping and sliding, but the sun was out,
it was nice, it was warm, and it was just
a perfect day. After football practice, a bunch of us
(02:31):
were gathered around the front of the school waiting for
our parents to pick us up. One by one. Everybody
got picked up except for a guy by name of
Ron Gillim and me. Now I confess I started it.
Took a little bit of snow in flicked it Ron,
(02:54):
and pretty soon we had an all out snowball fight
going just Ron and me. Now, Ron was a wonderful
football player. He was bigger than anybody else on the team.
He was a wonderful offensive lineman. He was not a
good quarterback, so I wasn't too afraid when we were
having He was missing me all over the place, and I.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Was able to nail him.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
He wound up with his one and he let it
fly way over my head and.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
It hit the window.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Now there was a reason why we were not We
were told not to ever have a snowball fight in
front of the school, And now I knew why. As
the glass shattered, it fell on top of the principal's desk.
Ron looked at me.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
There was no blood left in his face.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
You know what I'm talking about, And he said, and
he swore me to silence. He said, let's just keep
this between you and me. Nobody needs to know. That
pretty much ruined my birthday. The pizza did not taste
good that night, and then when I was watching the movie,
I don't even know that I remember very much of
(04:05):
the movie at all, because the whole time I was
had this guilt going on inside of me, this dilemma,
knowing that I should fess up, that something should be
done about this and be for it to be made right.
And after the movie was all done, I finally went
in to my parents and I confess what happened. I
(04:28):
told him my dilemma, that I had made a promise
to Ron, and at the same time I knew that
it was the right thing for me to do was
to go ahead and to tell somebody about it. My dad,
who was a DC at our church and also one
of my teachers, looked at me and he said, Tim,
I'm not going to tell anybody.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Well, you just told me. You're a man. You need
to make a decision.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I didn't know that came with being a thirteen year old,
and I'm sitting there trying to figure out what I
needed to do, because on the one hand, I'd made
a promise to Ron. On the other hand, I knew
that I should confess what had happened and take responsibility
for it. And the next morning I got up, I
still wasn't sure what I was going to do. I
(05:14):
walked into the classroom, I looked at Ron, and I
went up to Ron and I said, Ron, I promised
I wouldn't rat you out. I'm going to go to
the principal's office. I'm going to tell him what happened,
but I'm not going to point the blame at you.
I'm not even going to mention your name. But I
need to get this off my chest. So I walked
into the principal's office, which happened to be right next
(05:36):
to my desk his door, which did not prove to
be very advantageous over the course of time. And I
walked into mister Lobenstein's office and I said, mister Lobenstein,
I need to talk to you about something. I suppose
you noticed that the window up there is broken. And
he said, yeah, it's the first thing I noticed when
I walked in this morning. I said, yesterday after football practice,
(06:00):
it was my fault. I started a snowball fight, knowing
that we weren't supposed to have snowball fights out front
of school. A snowball hit the window broke, and I'm
here to tell you I'm so very sorry and to
ask for your forgiveness, and I'll make sure that the
window gets paid for.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I don't know how, but I'll do make sure it happens.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And to my surprise, I heard another voice and it said,
mister Lobenstein, I'm the one that threw that snowball. And
Ron had walked in behind me and he said, it's
my responsibility.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I'm sorry. I need your forgiveness.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And mister Lobenstein looked at us and he said, gentlemen,
thank you for taking responsibility for your actions. Thank you
for coming in and asking for forgiveness. I want you
to know that you're forgiven. Now you better get in
the classroom start working on your religion assignment. I never
(07:04):
heard another word from mister Lobenstein about it ever again.
And it was at that point my friend said, I
want you to know that, and this is the whole
point of the story. Mister Lobenstein became a hero of
my faith. From that moment on, I wanted to be
a little bit more like mister Lobenstein. I wanted to
(07:25):
be forgiving like he was forgiving. And that year I
learned so much about him. You know, there were times when,
in his words, he was up to his tail and alligators.
He was busy and understressed, and yet he had a
sense of humor. He was a wonderful prayer. Every night
(07:46):
we would sing together abide with me. And I wanted
to be like mister Lobenstein in so many ways, and
I learned so many lessons from him. Didn't follow him.
I still don't follow him perfectly, but he is a
hero of my faith. And as I look back on
my life, I realized that I have a whole bunch
of heroes of my faith. I have a mom who
(08:10):
still is one of my heroes, and I go to
her when I need help. I have a dad that
I recall died thirty years ago, but he's still one
of my heroes, and I want to be like my dad.
I had grandparents, as blessed with grandparents who not only
showed me what it was meant to be a believer
in Christ, but they talked about it with me. And
(08:34):
I had youth leaders and Sunday school teachers and day
school teachers and professors in college.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And you. I learned from you. I grow hanging.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Out with you. I have a whole bunch of heroes
of the faith. Can you identify a hero of the
faith in your life.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I want you to think about that for a minute.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And I don't want you to tell the person why,
but I'd like you to turn to somebody next to
you and tell them, this is a hero of my faith.
Sure that with one another for a moment. I'd like
you to take an opportunity sometime today to talk to
(09:21):
somebody about these heroes of the faith and explain to
them why they are heroes of your faith. And maybe
not going to take place over lunch today or sometime
during family devotions this week, but share this is a
hero of my faith. And this is why the author
(09:42):
of Hebrews calls these people a cloud of witnesses. We
just read a Bible passage and almost started to read
it again, right, what we call the faith chapter. It's
God's all of faith, all right. And in this hall
(10:03):
of faith, he starts listing all of these different people
like Abraham and Able. He starts with Abel, who taught
us what it means to proclaim God as our God,
to bring our first fruit offerings and the worship Him
from the heart. And then he goes on to people
like Abraham. Abraham, who God says, I want you to
(10:24):
pick up and go, and out of faith. He picked
up and went and didn't know where he was going,
but he followed God. And then he goes on to
others like Moses, who God says, I want you to
deliver my people, and Moses does it at her own
personal risk. And then you about David, a man after
(10:45):
God's own heart, and Rahab and Samson and all kinds
of different people. Gideon, these are that great cloud of
witnesses finishing all this. The author of Hebrews says this. Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
(11:08):
let us also lay aside every weight and sin that
clings so closely. These are men of faith. And how
does the author of Hebrews describe this faith? It is
the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of
things not seen. Folks, we're not talking about. And this
is what we talked about in confirmation class this week.
(11:30):
It's not as I hope the Broncos win.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Kind of faith or hope.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
All right, how many of you hope the Broncos are
going to win today? How many of you are absolutely
sure they're going to win today? There's faith back there,
the assurance of things we hope for. He uses words
like assurance and conviction. That's what faith is. But I
(11:59):
want you to think about that God's Hall of Faith
that he put out in this chapter. We're talking about
people like Abraham. And yes, he got up and he
went when God told him to. But then when the
famine came and he had to go to Egypt to
find food, he became afraid. He forgot to trust God.
(12:22):
And he looked at his wife and says, yeah, she's hot,
she's good looking, all right, And all the Egyptians are
gonna think so too. They're gonna kill me and take
her for their own. So here's what we're gonna do, Sarah.
We're gonna lie. We're gonna tell him that you're my sister.
We talk about David. Think about David. He stole another
(12:47):
man's wife, committed adultery, he had the man killed to
cover his faces, and then he was an absentee father.
What kind of hero of the faith is that we've
got Samson? What did Samson do? He betrayed his own people,
He betrayed God by consorting with the enemy Rahab, who's
(13:11):
ray Ab. She's a lady of the evening so we're
talking about liars, cheaters, adulterers, murderers. The list goes on.
What kind of heroes of the faith of that are they?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Really?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
What about your heroes? Were they perfect? I'm quite sure
mister Lobenstein wasn't perfect. And another one of my heroes
of the faith is my dad. I know my dad
wasn't perfect. He admitted it to me. Being thirteen years old.
(13:55):
You can imagine that it. Once in a while he
and I would butt heads, right, and there were times
when he would call me on it, and I would say,
probably most of the time it was my fault, but
it wasn't always my fault, And there were times when
my dad would come to me and say, ask me
for forgiveness. Our heroes of the faith are not perfect.
(14:20):
But listen to what the author of Hebrews says. He said, Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us also lay aside every weight and sin which
clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the
race that is set before us. What I learned from
(14:43):
mister Lavenstein was that when I made a mistake and
I confess my sin, there was forgiveness what I learned
from my dad is the power of the forgiveness that
is ours those men, all my other heroes of faith
weren't heroes of faith because of who they were, but
(15:04):
because of what God had done for them. They kept
pointing me to the cross, to turn away from sin,
to confess that sin and turn to the cross. We
call that repentance, to cast away that weight of sin,
to cling to what is good, and what is good
our God, our God who loves us, who sent au
(15:28):
son Jesus to die for us. There's something else I
learned that day, on my thirteenth birthday. I never got
a bill for the window. Later on I found out
that my dad cleaned up the glass, went and measured,
(15:52):
and then went and bought some glass, put the glass
in at his own expense and with his own labor,
and he paid the price because he loved me. We
have a heavenly father who loves us, who is willing
(16:12):
to pay the price for us. And what was that price.
That price.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Was his son.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
We have a loving Father who loves us, and we
have heroes of faith who know that. And that cloud
of witnesses, those saints in heavens, that communion of saints
that we talk about in the Apostles Creed, that cloud
of witnesses, those that we've known and those that have
gone before us many years ago. What makes them heroes?
(16:48):
They keep pointing us to Jesus. They keep reminding us
that we can invest our sins, and forgiveness of sins
is offered to uses. Today is All Saints Day, and
we celebrate those people. We remember those that have gone
(17:09):
before us to be into their eternal glory, and when
we thank God for the what they meant to us
and the gift that they were to us, the love
that we shared with one another. But we also remember
the faith that they lived and the example that they
set for us, and we pray that we might be
a little bit more like them, that we would lay
(17:34):
our sins at the foot of the cross like they
did and rely on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
That's why those that cloud of witnesses, those spiritual heroes.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Mean something to us, because they keep pointing us to Jesus.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Can you pray with me, Lord, Heavenly Father, We thank
and praise you for all those heroes and faith, for
that great cloud of witnesses, and we pray, Lord, and
we thank you for all the saints who from their
labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed
(18:25):
thy name, Oh Jesus, be forever blessed. Allelujah, Allelujah.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
And who is our greatest hero, the Jesus that we
bless Amen. Amen.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Good morning, pastor Tim well, good morning. Yes, we celebrated
all Saints' Day. Yes, but so many of us are thinking,
and I know I was one until we talked about it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
What is a saint?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
What is a saint?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, that's a good question because so many times
when we think of a person that is in our
eyes exceptionally good or kind or generous, we call them
a saint. Right, Or we would take somebody like Billy
Graham or a mother Teresa, someone like that, a person
of great faith that is such a wonderful example to
(19:29):
all of us, we would call them a saint. But
in God's word, a saint is a person who's a
believer in Jesus Christ. And so through faith you are
a saint or I'm a saint. Those who have gone
before us are saints. And the reason we call them
saints and we are saints is because we inherit eternal.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Life through the grace of God and the faith that
He's given us. Okay, so our saints.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
What we're saying then is our saints can be our heroes.
The saints that we know can be our heroes at
the same time, exactly exactly, And we think about it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
We all have spiritual heroes, heroes, don't we those who
have gone before us?
Speaker 3 (20:18):
And All Saints Day.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Of course we remember those who have gone before us
and death, and we know that they're in heaven through
the faith that they had and the example they gave
to us. And so we celebrate them on All Saints Day.
And we celebrate them for three reasons.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Really.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
First of all, we thank God for them and the
example that they gave to us. And we thank God
for the love that they have given to us and
all that they mean to us. And then finally, we
celebrate this day asking God to bless us that we
might follow in their footsteps and remain faithful until death.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Very good.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So faith, faith plays a big part in a hero
I know that my heroes I think about my dad
or you know, my uncle, are and different people that
I had in my life, some good friends, good teachers
that I had, good coaches that I had. And one
thing I can say is that as heroes, you know,
(21:21):
they did many things for me with me, but one
thing that they seem to all have in common is
this strong faith, the strong faith in God. And there
are strong spiritual leaders.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
For me exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
And the thing that we have to always remember in
all of this is we are saved by grace, and
we're saved by our God, who is gracious and loving
enough to forgive us in spite of the fact that
we fail over and over and over again. So it's
we're saved by what God has done for us, not
by the faith that we possess or that we have,
but that grace becomes ours through the faith that He
(21:58):
works in our hearts. Saved by grace through faith, and
through faith we live obedient lives. Our faith is born
out in trusting in our God and trusting in what
He has done for us. And you think about it,
if we trust something, we're willing to follow, which means
(22:21):
that works follow and obedience follows. And so we're so
grateful for those who have been examples for us who
remain faithful and followed God in word and in action
and the love that they gave to us and the
forgiveness that they offer to us, and that cloud of
witnesses is the church. I'm sure that you have many
(22:44):
heroes in the faith. You know, Sunday school teachers, day
school teachers, relatives, grandparents, parents, right, we all have them.
Mister Lobenstein happens to be one of mine.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
My dad was another, my mother, and I can go
on and on.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
There's a whole bunch of people that God has placed
in my life that have propped me up and have
encouraged me to walk with God. And when I fail,
they keep coming back to me and forgiving me and
loving me in spite of it. And I am so
grateful for that cloud of witnesses.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
And that story that that you shared with us, with
the broken glass and the broken window and things like that.
You know, it wasn't until later on you found out
that your dad had done all that. Is that accurate?
And you know, a lot of times these people that
are heroes that have that we you know that we
see the faith that they have and what they do
(23:40):
a lot of times, like your dad, they do these
things kind of behind the scenes. They do this, they
support you, they love you. They they do those things
kind of behind the scenes, like your dad did with
that glass, you know, and doing all those things. He
didn't do that overtly so you could see it and say,
you know, look what I did for you. He didn't
do that.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I'm sure that you can think of those people in
your life that poured into you love and forgiveness and
loved you in spite of the fact that you failed
right right, And when you think about that, the people
that are really our spiritual heroes, they're the ones that
it just flows. I mean, they can't help, but it's
just who they are out of love for God. They
(24:22):
want to share that love with other people. And they,
like I said, they prop us up, they hold us up,
they encourage us in our faith. And like I said,
mister Lobenstein was one, Mister vas Alaska's in high school
was another. And I can name I could name scores
of them.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, just to remember those names, I'm impressed. Those are
tough names to remember.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
That's for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Well, you know, I was thinking that my spiritual leaders
are people that I know, the biblical leaders that we have.
How they started off kind of on the wrong foot,
like you illustrate, like with David's life and how he
started and the things that he did unseemly and then Paul,
you know, and what he did. But the Lord is
there and he builds those people, raises those people up right.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
They are not perfect, but they keep pointing us to Jesus.
And that's why there are spiritual heroes. Our real hero
is Jesus himself.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Absolutely. Pastor Tim, thank you again for that message and
blessings on your week.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Same to you, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
For joining us. The Peace to you from Peast Church
in our bat To, Colorado. If you have no church home,
we would be delighted for you to join us on
any Sunday. Our address is five six seventy five Field
Street in our Batle, Colorado. Our services are at eight
and ten thirty am. Bible classes for all ages are
(25:55):
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or at Pasarbata at YouTube dot com. Peace to You
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(26:16):
at three O three four two four four four five four.
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(26:39):
the entire broadcast team at Peace Lupmchurch and Arbada, I
am rub In Holiday and may the peace of our
Lord you with you today and always
We remember those that have gone before us to be
into their eternal glory, and when we thank God for
what they meant to us and the gift that they
were to us, the love that we shared with one another.
But we also remember the faith that they lived and
the example that they set for us.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good morning and welcome to peace to you from Peace
Lutheran Church in Arvada, Colorado. On the first Sunday in November,
we celebrate All Saints' Day. It's a remembrance of those
who have gone before us and death and through faith,
are now in the presence of our Lord Jesus. God
in his word calls them a great cloud of witnesses.
(00:50):
They are our spiritual heroes. Remembering those who have gone
before us in faith. We give thanks for those faithful
witnesses as we pray that God will bless us us
to follow in their footsteps. May we be encouraged and
strengthened as our great cloud of witnesses cheers us on.
Now Here's pastor Tim.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I will never forget my thirteenth birthday. It promised to
be a perfect day. A tradition in our family. With
the person whose birthday it is, you get to pick
out what you're going to have for supper, and I
was just absolutely certain pizza.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Was going to be the best thing I've had in
a long time.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And then to think about it, also, I was a
John Wayne fan, and this was before you could pluck
a move, plug a movie into the DVD player even
the VHS, or play it online.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
We had to wait for Network TV.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And that night, on my birthday, they were going to
play John Wayne movie to Alamo for my birthday. It
was going to be a great day. I was so excited.
And then as we got out of school. It was
a Monday, we got out of school and I was
like just free and easy. I didn't even have any homework.
(02:10):
I mean, it was like perfect day. We were heading
the football practice, and to make football practice even more
fun than usual, it had snowed that day, so there
were about three inches of snow on the grass and
we were slipping and sliding, but the sun was out,
it was nice, it was warm, and it was just
a perfect day. After football practice, a bunch of us
(02:31):
were gathered around the front of the school waiting for
our parents to pick us up. One by one. Everybody
got picked up except for a guy by name of
Ron Gillim and me. Now I confess I started it.
Took a little bit of snow in flicked it Ron,
(02:54):
and pretty soon we had an all out snowball fight
going just Ron and me. Now, Ron was a wonderful
football player. He was bigger than anybody else on the team.
He was a wonderful offensive lineman. He was not a
good quarterback, so I wasn't too afraid when we were
having He was missing me all over the place, and I.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Was able to nail him.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
He wound up with his one and he let it
fly way over my head and.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
It hit the window.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Now there was a reason why we were not We
were told not to ever have a snowball fight in
front of the school, And now I knew why. As
the glass shattered, it fell on top of the principal's desk.
Ron looked at me.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
There was no blood left in his face.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
You know what I'm talking about, And he said, and
he swore me to silence. He said, let's just keep
this between you and me. Nobody needs to know. That
pretty much ruined my birthday. The pizza did not taste
good that night, and then when I was watching the movie,
I don't even know that I remember very much of
(04:05):
the movie at all, because the whole time I was
had this guilt going on inside of me, this dilemma,
knowing that I should fess up, that something should be
done about this and be for it to be made right.
And after the movie was all done, I finally went
in to my parents and I confess what happened. I
(04:28):
told him my dilemma, that I had made a promise
to Ron, and at the same time I knew that
it was the right thing for me to do was
to go ahead and to tell somebody about it. My dad,
who was a DC at our church and also one
of my teachers, looked at me and he said, Tim,
I'm not going to tell anybody.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Well, you just told me. You're a man. You need
to make a decision.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I didn't know that came with being a thirteen year old,
and I'm sitting there trying to figure out what I
needed to do, because on the one hand, I'd made
a promise to Ron. On the other hand, I knew
that I should confess what had happened and take responsibility
for it. And the next morning I got up, I
still wasn't sure what I was going to do. I
(05:14):
walked into the classroom, I looked at Ron, and I
went up to Ron and I said, Ron, I promised
I wouldn't rat you out. I'm going to go to
the principal's office. I'm going to tell him what happened,
but I'm not going to point the blame at you.
I'm not even going to mention your name. But I
need to get this off my chest. So I walked
into the principal's office, which happened to be right next
(05:36):
to my desk his door, which did not prove to
be very advantageous over the course of time. And I
walked into mister Lobenstein's office and I said, mister Lobenstein,
I need to talk to you about something. I suppose
you noticed that the window up there is broken. And
he said, yeah, it's the first thing I noticed when
I walked in this morning. I said, yesterday after football practice,
(06:00):
it was my fault. I started a snowball fight, knowing
that we weren't supposed to have snowball fights out front
of school. A snowball hit the window broke, and I'm
here to tell you I'm so very sorry and to
ask for your forgiveness, and I'll make sure that the
window gets paid for.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I don't know how, but I'll do make sure it happens.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
And to my surprise, I heard another voice and it said,
mister Lobenstein, I'm the one that threw that snowball. And
Ron had walked in behind me and he said, it's
my responsibility.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I'm sorry. I need your forgiveness.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
And mister Lobenstein looked at us and he said, gentlemen,
thank you for taking responsibility for your actions. Thank you
for coming in and asking for forgiveness. I want you
to know that you're forgiven. Now you better get in
the classroom start working on your religion assignment. I never
(07:04):
heard another word from mister Lobenstein about it ever again.
And it was at that point my friend said, I
want you to know that, and this is the whole
point of the story. Mister Lobenstein became a hero of
my faith. From that moment on, I wanted to be
a little bit more like mister Lobenstein. I wanted to
(07:25):
be forgiving like he was forgiving. And that year I
learned so much about him. You know, there were times when,
in his words, he was up to his tail and alligators.
He was busy and understressed, and yet he had a
sense of humor. He was a wonderful prayer. Every night
(07:46):
we would sing together abide with me. And I wanted
to be like mister Lobenstein in so many ways, and
I learned so many lessons from him. Didn't follow him.
I still don't follow him perfectly, but he is a
hero of my faith. And as I look back on
my life, I realized that I have a whole bunch
of heroes of my faith. I have a mom who
(08:10):
still is one of my heroes, and I go to
her when I need help. I have a dad that
I recall died thirty years ago, but he's still one
of my heroes, and I want to be like my dad.
I had grandparents, as blessed with grandparents who not only
showed me what it was meant to be a believer
in Christ, but they talked about it with me. And
(08:34):
I had youth leaders and Sunday school teachers and day
school teachers and professors in college.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
And you. I learned from you. I grow hanging.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Out with you. I have a whole bunch of heroes
of the faith. Can you identify a hero of the
faith in your life.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
I want you to think about that for a minute.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And I don't want you to tell the person why,
but I'd like you to turn to somebody next to
you and tell them, this is a hero of my faith.
Sure that with one another for a moment. I'd like
you to take an opportunity sometime today to talk to
(09:21):
somebody about these heroes of the faith and explain to
them why they are heroes of your faith. And maybe
not going to take place over lunch today or sometime
during family devotions this week, but share this is a
hero of my faith. And this is why the author
(09:42):
of Hebrews calls these people a cloud of witnesses. We
just read a Bible passage and almost started to read
it again, right, what we call the faith chapter. It's
God's all of faith, all right. And in this hall
(10:03):
of faith, he starts listing all of these different people
like Abraham and Able. He starts with Abel, who taught
us what it means to proclaim God as our God,
to bring our first fruit offerings and the worship Him
from the heart. And then he goes on to people
like Abraham. Abraham, who God says, I want you to
(10:24):
pick up and go, and out of faith. He picked
up and went and didn't know where he was going,
but he followed God. And then he goes on to
others like Moses, who God says, I want you to
deliver my people, and Moses does it at her own
personal risk. And then you about David, a man after
(10:45):
God's own heart, and Rahab and Samson and all kinds
of different people. Gideon, these are that great cloud of
witnesses finishing all this. The author of Hebrews says this. Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
(11:08):
let us also lay aside every weight and sin that
clings so closely. These are men of faith. And how
does the author of Hebrews describe this faith? It is
the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of
things not seen. Folks, we're not talking about. And this
is what we talked about in confirmation class this week.
(11:30):
It's not as I hope the Broncos win.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Kind of faith or hope.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
All right, how many of you hope the Broncos are
going to win today? How many of you are absolutely
sure they're going to win today? There's faith back there,
the assurance of things we hope for. He uses words
like assurance and conviction. That's what faith is. But I
(11:59):
want you to think about that God's Hall of Faith
that he put out in this chapter. We're talking about
people like Abraham. And yes, he got up and he
went when God told him to. But then when the
famine came and he had to go to Egypt to
find food, he became afraid. He forgot to trust God.
(12:22):
And he looked at his wife and says, yeah, she's hot,
she's good looking, all right, And all the Egyptians are
gonna think so too. They're gonna kill me and take
her for their own. So here's what we're gonna do, Sarah.
We're gonna lie. We're gonna tell him that you're my sister.
We talk about David. Think about David. He stole another
(12:47):
man's wife, committed adultery, he had the man killed to
cover his faces, and then he was an absentee father.
What kind of hero of the faith is that we've
got Samson? What did Samson do? He betrayed his own people,
He betrayed God by consorting with the enemy Rahab, who's
(13:11):
ray Ab. She's a lady of the evening so we're
talking about liars, cheaters, adulterers, murderers. The list goes on.
What kind of heroes of the faith of that are they?
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Really?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
What about your heroes? Were they perfect? I'm quite sure
mister Lobenstein wasn't perfect. And another one of my heroes
of the faith is my dad. I know my dad
wasn't perfect. He admitted it to me. Being thirteen years old.
(13:55):
You can imagine that it. Once in a while he
and I would butt heads, right, and there were times
when he would call me on it, and I would say,
probably most of the time it was my fault, but
it wasn't always my fault, And there were times when
my dad would come to me and say, ask me
for forgiveness. Our heroes of the faith are not perfect.
(14:20):
But listen to what the author of Hebrews says. He said, Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us also lay aside every weight and sin which
clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the
race that is set before us. What I learned from
(14:43):
mister Lavenstein was that when I made a mistake and
I confess my sin, there was forgiveness what I learned
from my dad is the power of the forgiveness that
is ours those men, all my other heroes of faith
weren't heroes of faith because of who they were, but
(15:04):
because of what God had done for them. They kept
pointing me to the cross, to turn away from sin,
to confess that sin and turn to the cross. We
call that repentance, to cast away that weight of sin,
to cling to what is good, and what is good
our God, our God who loves us, who sent au
(15:28):
son Jesus to die for us. There's something else I
learned that day, on my thirteenth birthday. I never got
a bill for the window. Later on I found out
that my dad cleaned up the glass, went and measured,
(15:52):
and then went and bought some glass, put the glass
in at his own expense and with his own labor,
and he paid the price because he loved me. We
have a heavenly father who loves us, who is willing
(16:12):
to pay the price for us. And what was that price.
That price.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Was his son.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
We have a loving Father who loves us, and we
have heroes of faith who know that. And that cloud
of witnesses, those saints in heavens, that communion of saints
that we talk about in the Apostles Creed, that cloud
of witnesses, those that we've known and those that have
gone before us many years ago. What makes them heroes?
(16:48):
They keep pointing us to Jesus. They keep reminding us
that we can invest our sins, and forgiveness of sins
is offered to uses. Today is All Saints Day, and
we celebrate those people. We remember those that have gone
(17:09):
before us to be into their eternal glory, and when
we thank God for the what they meant to us
and the gift that they were to us, the love
that we shared with one another. But we also remember
the faith that they lived and the example that they
set for us, and we pray that we might be
a little bit more like them, that we would lay
(17:34):
our sins at the foot of the cross like they
did and rely on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
That's why those that cloud of witnesses, those spiritual heroes.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
Mean something to us, because they keep pointing us to Jesus.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Can you pray with me, Lord, Heavenly Father, We thank
and praise you for all those heroes and faith, for
that great cloud of witnesses, and we pray, Lord, and
we thank you for all the saints who from their
labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed
(18:25):
thy name, Oh Jesus, be forever blessed. Allelujah, Allelujah.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
And who is our greatest hero, the Jesus that we
bless Amen. Amen.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Good morning, pastor Tim well, good morning. Yes, we celebrated
all Saints' Day. Yes, but so many of us are thinking,
and I know I was one until we talked about it.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
What is a saint?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
What is a saint?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, that's a good question because so many times
when we think of a person that is in our
eyes exceptionally good or kind or generous, we call them
a saint. Right, Or we would take somebody like Billy
Graham or a mother Teresa, someone like that, a person
of great faith that is such a wonderful example to
(19:29):
all of us, we would call them a saint. But
in God's word, a saint is a person who's a
believer in Jesus Christ. And so through faith you are
a saint or I'm a saint. Those who have gone
before us are saints. And the reason we call them
saints and we are saints is because we inherit eternal.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Life through the grace of God and the faith that
He's given us. Okay, so our saints.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
What we're saying then is our saints can be our heroes.
The saints that we know can be our heroes at
the same time, exactly exactly, And we think about it.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
We all have spiritual heroes, heroes, don't we those who
have gone before us?
Speaker 3 (20:18):
And All Saints Day.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Of course we remember those who have gone before us
and death, and we know that they're in heaven through
the faith that they had and the example they gave
to us. And so we celebrate them on All Saints Day.
And we celebrate them for three reasons.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Really.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
First of all, we thank God for them and the
example that they gave to us. And we thank God
for the love that they have given to us and
all that they mean to us. And then finally, we
celebrate this day asking God to bless us that we
might follow in their footsteps and remain faithful until death.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Very good.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So faith, faith plays a big part in a hero
I know that my heroes I think about my dad
or you know, my uncle, are and different people that
I had in my life, some good friends, good teachers
that I had, good coaches that I had. And one
thing I can say is that as heroes, you know,
(21:21):
they did many things for me with me, but one
thing that they seem to all have in common is
this strong faith, the strong faith in God. And there
are strong spiritual leaders.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
For me exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
And the thing that we have to always remember in
all of this is we are saved by grace, and
we're saved by our God, who is gracious and loving
enough to forgive us in spite of the fact that
we fail over and over and over again. So it's
we're saved by what God has done for us, not
by the faith that we possess or that we have,
but that grace becomes ours through the faith that He
(21:58):
works in our hearts. Saved by grace through faith, and
through faith we live obedient lives. Our faith is born
out in trusting in our God and trusting in what
He has done for us. And you think about it,
if we trust something, we're willing to follow, which means
(22:21):
that works follow and obedience follows. And so we're so
grateful for those who have been examples for us who
remain faithful and followed God in word and in action
and the love that they gave to us and the
forgiveness that they offer to us, and that cloud of
witnesses is the church. I'm sure that you have many
(22:44):
heroes in the faith. You know, Sunday school teachers, day
school teachers, relatives, grandparents, parents, right, we all have them.
Mister Lobenstein happens to be one of mine.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
My dad was another, my mother, and I can go
on and on.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
There's a whole bunch of people that God has placed
in my life that have propped me up and have
encouraged me to walk with God. And when I fail,
they keep coming back to me and forgiving me and
loving me in spite of it. And I am so
grateful for that cloud of witnesses.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
And that story that that you shared with us, with
the broken glass and the broken window and things like that.
You know, it wasn't until later on you found out
that your dad had done all that. Is that accurate?
And you know, a lot of times these people that
are heroes that have that we you know that we
see the faith that they have and what they do
(23:40):
a lot of times, like your dad, they do these
things kind of behind the scenes. They do this, they
support you, they love you. They they do those things
kind of behind the scenes, like your dad did with
that glass, you know, and doing all those things. He
didn't do that overtly so you could see it and say,
you know, look what I did for you. He didn't
do that.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I'm sure that you can think of those people in
your life that poured into you love and forgiveness and
loved you in spite of the fact that you failed
right right, And when you think about that, the people
that are really our spiritual heroes, they're the ones that
it just flows. I mean, they can't help, but it's
just who they are out of love for God. They
(24:22):
want to share that love with other people. And they,
like I said, they prop us up, they hold us up,
they encourage us in our faith. And like I said,
mister Lobenstein was one, Mister vas Alaska's in high school
was another. And I can name I could name scores
of them.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, just to remember those names, I'm impressed. Those are
tough names to remember.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
That's for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Well, you know, I was thinking that my spiritual leaders
are people that I know, the biblical leaders that we have.
How they started off kind of on the wrong foot,
like you illustrate, like with David's life and how he
started and the things that he did unseemly and then Paul,
you know, and what he did. But the Lord is
there and he builds those people, raises those people up right.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
They are not perfect, but they keep pointing us to Jesus.
And that's why there are spiritual heroes. Our real hero
is Jesus himself.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Absolutely. Pastor Tim, thank you again for that message and
blessings on your week.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Same to you, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
For joining us. The Peace to you from Peast Church
in our bat To, Colorado. If you have no church home,
we would be delighted for you to join us on
any Sunday. Our address is five six seventy five Field
Street in our Batle, Colorado. Our services are at eight
and ten thirty am. Bible classes for all ages are
(25:55):
at nine to fifteen am. You can easily access our
sermons online at www dot p s, Lucrit dot M,
or at Pasarbata at YouTube dot com. Peace to You
in Part is a listener supported broadcast. If you would
like to sponsor a broadcast in the future, call us
(26:16):
at three O three four two four four four five four.
If you would like a copy of today's broadcast and
no charge to you, contact us at the same number
three oh three four two four four four five four.
You can access our sermons at any time by going
to our YouTube channel Peacearbata YouTube dot com. Now from
(26:39):
the entire broadcast team at Peace Lupmchurch and Arbada, I
am rub In Holiday and may the peace of our
Lord you with you today and always
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