INTRODUCTION — THE QUESTIONS LOVE ASKS
It’s not the loudest questions that stay with us.
It’s the quiet ones — the ones whispered by an empty chair, a photograph, or a fading voice.
Questions like:
Where are they now?
Do they see us?
Are they watching?
Is death the end — or a pause between heartbeats of eternity?
These are questions that theology alone cannot answer; they demand a voice of love.
The voice of Christ who stood at a tomb and wept.
The voice that said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
The Bible is unflinching about death — but it’s even more unrelenting about love.
And so, this morning, we’ll talk about Ever-Loving Saints —
not because saints live forever by nature,
but because the love that made them saints never dies.
---
I. WHAT MAKES A SAINT?
We usually think of saints as people cast in stained glass — far removed from our own struggles.
But biblically, a saint is not someone who has achieved perfection;
a saint is someone who has received grace.
Paul writes to the believers in Corinth —
and if you know anything about Corinth, you know they weren’t exactly choirboy material —
and yet he begins:
> “To the saints of God in Corinth, called to be holy.” (1 Cor. 1:2)
To be a saint is to be set apart by love.
The moment grace finds you, heaven begins to write your story in permanent ink.
You don’t become a saint by climbing; you become one by surrendering.
And the mark of every true saint is not self-righteousness but love —
love that bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things.
Love that outlasts the grave.
---
II. THE FIRST LIE AND THE LAST ENEMY
Let’s rewind to Eden.
There stood the first man and woman, surrounded by life, yet hearing a lie:
> “You shall not surely die.”
It was the devil’s first deception,
and it has echoed through every religion that promises immortality without righteousness,
existence without grace,
and heaven without the cross.
But Scripture is clear:
> “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23)
Death is not a portal we glide through; it’s an enemy that Christ has conquered.
It’s not a friend to be embraced but a foe to be destroyed.
Paul calls death “the last enemy.” (1 Cor. 15:26)
Yet even that last enemy will bow before the Lord of Life.
---
III. THE SLEEP THAT AWAITS THE SAINTS
Have you noticed how tenderly the Bible speaks of death for the believer?
Not as annihilation, not as conscious torment, but as sleep.
Jesus said of Lazarus,
> “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go to wake him.” (John 11:11)
Stephen, the first martyr, was stoned and “fell asleep.” (Acts 7:60)
David “slept with his fathers.” (1 Kings 2:10)
And Paul comforted the Thessalonians:
> “I do not want you to be ignorant concerning those who are asleep,
that you sorrow not as others who have no hope.” (1 Thess. 4:13)
Sleep.
That gentle word changes everything.
Because sleep implies rest, not ruin.
It implies awakening, not extinction.
When you sleep, you are unaware of time.
For the believer, the next conscious moment after closing the eyes in death
is the face of Jesus coming in the clouds of glory.
Between the heartbeat that stops and the trumpet that sounds,
there is no passage of time —
just the miracle of resurrection morning.
---
IV. THE FIRSTFRUITS AND THE HARVEST
The resurrection of Christ was not a private miracle; it was a public promise.
Paul calls Him “the firstfruits of those who sleep.” (1 Cor. 15:20)
In Jewish harvest law, the first sheaf was brought to the temple and waved before God
as a sign that the rest of the harvest belonged to Him.
Christ’s resurrection is God’s pledge that the grave will not keep us either.
He is not “first” because no one ever rose before Him —
Moses, Enoch, and Elijah all live by grace before the cross —
but He is the Firstfruits because His resurrection is the cause of theirs.
He is the guarantee, the forerunner, the foretaste of eternal life.
What happened to Him in that garden tomb
will happen to every believer who dies in faith.
That’s why we can stand beside a casket and whisper, “Good night,” instead of “Goodbye.”
Because morning is coming.
---
V. LOVE STRONGER THAN DEATH
The saints are not immortal by nature; they are immortal by love.
1 John 3:14 says,
> “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.”
Love is the pulse of eternity.
When sin entered, death followed.
But when love took on flesh, death lost its grip.
Jesus didn’t overcome death by force of will — He overcame it by the force of love.
His perfect, sinless life satisfied the justice of God;
His cross satisfied the mercy of God;
and His empty tomb announced the victory of God.
When He cried, “It is finished,”
the flaming sword that barred the way to the Tree of Life was quenched in His blood.
And through Him, the saints will one day eat again of that Tree
in the paradise of God. (Rev. 2:7)
---
VI. SAINTS ARE NOT IN HEAVEN — YET
Sometimes, when death comes, we comfort each other with phrases like:
“They’re in a better place,” or “They’re looking down on us.”
Those words are meant in love — but they’re not quite what Scripture says.
The Bible teaches that the dead know not anything (Eccl. 9:5).
Their thoughts perish.
Their love, their hatred, their envy have all ceased.
They rest — not watching, not wandering, but waiting.
And that truth is not less comforting — it’s more.
Because it means that even in death, the believer is safe in God’s keeping.
They’re not floating in uncertainty; they are sleeping in grace.
Paul said,
> “We are confident... willing rather to be absent from the body,
and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5:8)
He wasn’t describing a disembodied spirit —
he was expressing a longing for resurrection morning,
when the mortal shall put on immortality,
and the saints shall stand, whole and radiant, before their Redeemer.
The presence of the Lord will not come by escaping the body
but by receiving a new one.
That’s why Paul calls the body a “tabernacle” — a temporary tent —
and longs for a house made without hands, eternal in the heavens.
---
VII. THE SAINTS WHO WAIT
Let’s pause and imagine that scene.
A graveyard.
Silent.
Crosses and flowers faded by sun and rain.
Beneath that soil rest generations who lived, prayed, and believed.
Mothers who whispered lullabies, fathers who fought their battles in faith,
children who fell asleep too soon.
They do not hear our footsteps.
They do not see our tears.
But God remembers the dust they became — and He has kept their names.
One day, a sound will break the stillness —
not the whisper of wind, but the voice of the Archangel.
And graves will tremble as heaven calls the roll.
The same voice that said “Lazarus, come forth”
will say “My saints, arise!”
And love will give back everything death has taken.
---
VIII. THE EVER-LOVING MARK
So what do we do while we wait?
If love is eternal, how do we live now as ever-loving saints?
Paul’s answer is startlingly practical.
After his entire chapter on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15,
he closes not with a hymn but with a call to action:
> “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” (v. 58)
Faith doesn’t make us passive; it makes us purposeful.
Every act of kindness, every prayer, every tear offered in Jesus’ name
is part of that harvest of everlasting life.
Love that endures beyond the grave begins by enduring today.
It forgives when it hurts.
It serves when it’s tired.
It believes when it cannot see.
The ever-loving saints are not ghosts in glory — they are disciples in progress.
Every time you choose compassion over criticism,
mercy over pride,
you are rehearsing for eternity.
---
IX. THE TREE OF LIFE RESTORED
Revelation ends where Genesis began —
with a Tree and a River and the redeemed walking in light.
> “Blessed are those who do His commandments,
that they may have right to the Tree of Life,
and may enter in through the gates into the city.” (Rev. 22:14)
Notice — immortality is not innate; it’s granted.
Access to the Tree of Life is the gift of grace.
We lost it when sin entered,
but Christ, our “last Adam,” has opened the way again.
That’s why Paul can shout,
> “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Death once had a sting — sin.
Sin once had a strength — the law.
But love fulfilled the law, and grace removed the sting.
The grave can no longer hold what Christ has purchased.
---
X. WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN
That old song — “When the Saints Go Marching In” — is not just a tune of nostalgia;
it’s prophecy set to melody.
Imagine that day:
Skies rolling back like a scroll.
Angels descending in radiant ranks.
The trumpet blast echoing from pole to pole.
And there they come — the ever-loving saints —
not because they were flawless, but because they were forgiven.
Not because they conquered sin, but because Christ conquered death.
Their faces shine with the light of His righteousness.
Their names are safe in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
The mother reunited with her child.
The soldier with his friend.
The pastor with his flock.
The broken with their Healer.
Every tear wiped away.
Every story redeemed.
Every love restored.
---
XI. EVER-LOVING — NOW AND FOREVER
So what does it mean to be an ever-loving saint now?
It means to live in resurrection hope.
To practice eternity in the small exchanges of daily life.
When you choose to forgive, you echo Calvary.
When you comfort the grieving, you speak the language of heaven.
When you love beyond logic, you prove that eternal life has already begun in you.
Because eternal life doesn’t start at resurrection morning;
it starts the moment Christ’s love rules your heart.
You are already tasting the fruit of the Tree of Life
every time you choose to love as He loves.
---
CONCLUSION — THE LOVE THAT NEVER DIES
Let me close with a story.
In a little mountain village, an old church stood with a small cemetery behind it.
One spring, a child’s grave was marked by a wooden cross and a ring of daffodils planted by her mother.
Winter came and buried the flowers under snow.
When spring returned, the daffodils bloomed again — not just by the cross, but scattered throughout the churchyard.
Their bulbs had multiplied underground, spreading unseen life through frozen soil.
The pastor smiled and said,
“Love does that. It multiplies in the dark and rises in the light.”
That’s what resurrection love is like.
The saints who sleep in Jesus are not gone — they’re waiting.
And the love that held them close is still working in us, multiplying through time until that great reunion day.
One day soon, the trumpet will sound, and the Lord will descend.
And love — ever patient, ever strong — will finish what it began.
Death will die.
The saints will rise.
And love will never end.
---
CLOSING APPEAL
If you’ve lost someone dear,
take courage:
they are not forgotten.
Their story is written in the Lamb’s book of life.
And if you live in Christ today,
you are already counted among the ever-loving saints.
Let’s live like resurrection people —
steady in faith, abounding in hope, overflowing in love —
until we see Him face to face.
