Sermon Title: Heaven: Joy and Glory [All Saints’ Day Sermon 2026]
Sermon Text: Psalm 149:4
Sermon Summary: Heaven is God’s gift of eternal life, consisting of fullness of joy in His presence. Saints will differ in glory according to their faithfulness, yet this will only increase the joy of all.
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Liturgical Date: All Saints’ Day
Calendar Date: 2026-11-01
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County

Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church serves Baileys Harbor and other locations in Northeast Wisconsin.

The following transcript has been cleaned and lightly edited with the assistance of AI:

TRANSCRIPT

Today we’re going to be thinking on these words from the 149th Psalm, which we prayed to the Lord here just a few moments ago. “Let the godly,” the saints, “exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their beds.” And on the basis of this, we are going to be talking about heaven, this great gift given to God’s holy ones, His godly ones, the saints, who we believe all those who belong to Christ are saints.

We’re going to be talking about how heaven consists in eternal glory, and also heaven consists in eternal joy. I love talking about heaven with my catechism classes. Love talking about heaven because I know I do not have to plan anything. No lesson planning necessary. All I have to do is start talking about heaven a little bit, and all of a sudden the hands start going up with the questions, and the rest of the class is just answering question after question after question.

“Pastor, will my dog be in heaven?” “Pastor, will I have wings in heaven?” “Pastor, will I have my own cloud in heaven?” “Pastor, will I get bored in heaven?” The questions just keep pouring on. I love it. I love talking about heaven with them because of that. Boy, it’s a joy to see their interest and a joy to answer their questions from a biblical perspective on heaven.

Because quite honestly, there are many people proffering views on heaven. I can almost guarantee you, you can go into the book section in Target or Sturgeon Bay, and there will be books about heaven written by people who claim to have seen heaven. And more often than not, the things that they claim about heaven run in direct contradiction with what the scriptures say about heaven.

And so it’s good for us to understand what the Bible says about heaven. Let’s not listen to those who proffer their own opinions and own experiences, but rather listen to the Holy Scriptures and what they have to say about heaven. And once again, when it comes to heaven, it consists in joy on the one hand, and glory on the other hand.

A Picture of Heaven from Lambeau Field

How many of you were watching, maybe you were there actually, but maybe you were watching on TV, but how many of you were watching the Packers game on Thursday and you saw the World Series Champions Milwaukee Brewers running out onto the field, and they went and did that Lambeau leap, and they had their trophy with them?

How many of you saw that? Raise your hand if you saw. Just a few of you, right? Okay. I didn’t see it. Unfortunately, I was on the road at that time. I caught part of the game a little bit later, but I was on the road during that time. So I didn’t see the Brewers come out. But I imagine that as the Brewers went out there on the field, experiencing, in a worldly perspective, about as much glory as anybody could possibly have, right? From a worldly perspective.

I would guess that the entire stadium erupted with absolute joy over their glory, right? That whether you were standing on the sidelines, or if you had the expensive seats right in front at the 50 yard line, or if you were up in the nosebleed, it didn’t matter, you were just filled with ecstatic joy.

And probably when you were sitting at your own televisions, right? I’m guessing that’s how it was. I sincerely doubt that a single one of you were jealous, upset, angry over their glory. No. Their glory was your joy. What a great image of heaven. Because even as we differ in our works and our obedience in this world, so also in heaven will we differ in glory, and yet that will not diminish our joy, but rather give us more joy.

And that might sound confusing to you. You probably haven’t heard a Lutheran pastor talking that way about heaven before, but it’s the scriptural truth. It’s in our confessions, by the way, and Martin Luther himself talked this way. We’re gonna be talking about this. But first of all, let’s talk about joy.

Fullness of Joy in God’s Presence

Psalm 16 verse 11. There David is in a very literal sense, I think if I were to try to conjecture on the situation of his life when he’s writing this, he’s at a literal low point in his life. Okay? I would conjecture based upon the language that he’s using here, that there’s a very good chance that David is writing this either in the moment or in remembrance of when he was hiding away in caves and pits trying to avoid getting killed.

And as he’s sitting down in those caves or those pits, he’s looking around and he’s thinking, “My goodness, this is like the grave. This is like death.” And he has people pursuing him and his life, and so his mind is on the grave in a very literal sense. And despite the fact that his life is so much in danger, yet he has trust in God. Psalm 16 verse 10: For you, oh God, will not abandon my soul to Sheol, to the grave, to the pit.

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there is fullness of joy. Did you catch that? Fullness. If you’re in the presence of God, it’s joy. There’s no diminishment of it. In your presence there is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

What a great testimony of faith. And a great promise to all of us who will also face the grave. That on the other side of death there is life. On the other side of the grave there is exaltation at the right hand of God. And that on the other side of this valley of the shadow of death, and the other side of this veil of tears, is joy and pleasure with no diminishment. On the other side of the grave, for those who trust in Christ Jesus, is heaven, eternal life. What a great comfort.

What a great hope. What a great consolation. And this gift of heaven is not by our works, it’s not by our deeds, it’s not by anything that we have done, but rather eternal life, the gift of heaven, is wholly, fully, completely the work of God in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus our Lord took on our sin in His most holy and precious cross.

Now the wages of sin is death, but where sin has been atoned for, has been paid off, no longer is there death. And therefore we are confident that we will live. That even as Jesus Christ himself went down into the grave and yet rose again, so also we, too, who have been baptized and believe, will rise unto eternal life. And when it comes to having heaven itself and when it comes to eternal joy, that’s all God’s work. So the work of the hand of God, not by ours.

We are saved by grace through faith and not by works, period. All praise and glory be to the Lord God for this great gift. And yet, part of that eternal joy will be seeing the glory that the Lord works in others. Just as we had joy at seeing the glory of the Brewers out there on Lambeau Field, so also we will have joy at the glory of others.

The Marriage Supper and the Bride’s Glory

Let me give you another illustration. On the basis of another passage. One of the metaphors of eternal life that the Lord gives repeatedly in the scriptures is the metaphor of a wedding, a wedding feast. We have this, for example, in Isaiah chapter 25, that on His mountain the Lord will set before His people a feast of food full of marrow and fine wine well refined.

We have Christ Himself using this metaphor in so many of His parables of what eternal life will be like and what the day of judgment will be like, and so on. And we have it as well in Revelation. I’d like you to listen to this passage from Revelation 19:6-9 concerning the marriage supper of the Lamb.

“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come.'” I want you to listen to this next part.

“‘And the bride has made herself ready. It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.'”

One of my favorite moments serving here at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church is on wedding days, and there’s lots of joy in weddings, right? There’s joy when, you know, the pronouncement, “I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. John Smith,” or whatever it is. Everybody’s filled with joy. There’s a quiet joy as they’re saying their vows.

The first real expression of joy happens after the wedding party has all come forward, and the groom is standing up here with me, with shaky legs, and we’ve closed those doors again. And after a little bit of a wait, the doors open, and there she is, the bride, with this beautiful gown that took her weeks and weeks to pick out and to get altered to just the right shape and form, with her makeup meticulously applied, her hair all done up beautifully.

And you can hear a gasp in the congregation, and you can see the knees of the groom get even a little bit more wobbly. It’s a moment of pure joy at her glory.

Differing Glory in Eternal Life

My brothers and sisters in Christ, this is what heaven is like. The scriptures are utterly clear that we will differ in glory in eternal life. In First Corinthians chapter 15, St. Paul discusses what the resurrection will be like.

He says, “I tell you this, that not all flesh is the same. There is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind and the glory of the earthly is another.” And then he talks about the heavenly bodies themselves, that even among the heavenly bodies there is a differing in glory.

“There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for the stars differ from star in glory.”

The scriptures are clear that this differing in reward in terms of glory, it’s in relation to how we have lived for the sake of Christ and what we have suffered on His behalf. This is why Christ Jesus said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

I have to be honest with you, brothers and sisters in Christ, when I have talked about heavenly reward, that the Lord will reward us for our obedience for His sake here on Earth, I have faced a fair amount of resistance from fellow Lutherans, and most especially fellow Lutheran pastors.

And I get it. We have a zeal to protect, defend, and to uphold the doctrine of justification, and I agree with that impulse. We must always uphold the doctrine of justification, and yet I fear that in the zeal to uphold the doctrine of justification, we have also failed to give people comfort.

The comfort and the resolve that comes from the knowledge of heavenly reward. Some of the objections that I’ve received from fellow Lutheran pastors are this, not only the concern that it obscures the doctrine of justification, but also, “Well, if you tell people that, then they’re gonna start doing good works not out of love, but out of selfish desire.”

And I always think to myself, “What kind of Christians are you dealing with that that’s your concern?” And certainly that’s not the upshot of why God gives us this promise. It’s clearly expressed in the Book of Concord, and Martin Luther discusses it as well in his commentaries on 1 Corinthians 15.

He says, “It is true, there will be a difference in yonder life according as they have labored and lived here. One will have greater glory than the other because he worked or suffered more in his office.”

I understand. I want you to listen again to these words of Christ. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Those Who Suffer for Christ Will Be Glorified

Last night in a place somewhere in maybe sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia, a Christian mother took time to draw a bath for her children, scrub them up, lay out their clothes so that this morning she could take them through her village to the church, they could worship the Lord Jesus, hear the gospel, the forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ, and have the great comforts of the knowledge of eternal life. And I don’t know any particulars, but I know that the world is big enough, I know the state of the world that certainly there was a mother for whom this was the case, that as she walked her children through the streets, she couldn’t be sure if she wouldn’t receive scorn and derision from others in her neighborhood.

She couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t face economic persecution for the sake of her faith in Jesus Christ. And maybe she couldn’t even be sure that she wouldn’t be beaten for the sake of taking her children to hear about Christ the Lord. I am absolutely 100% confident that in eternal life, that Christian mother will have a reward.

She will shine with glory for the sake of her willingness to suffer along with Christ. What have I suffered for him? Nothing. Nothing compared to what she has suffered. On that day, I’m not gonna grumble when she’s glorified. I will sing the Lord’s praises and exult in the fact that she has received her due.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, let the knowledge of this impel us as well to remain faithful to the Lord God and to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And let us give us comfort in the knowledge that those who have suffered for the sake of Christ will be glorified in the time to come. Our Sunday school teachers, your Sunday school teacher, who when you were a snot-nosed kid, stayed up Saturday night in order to get her lessons just right, and she got up early on Sunday morning so that she could teach you about Jesus, she will be glorified. That Christian mother or auntie or grandmother who when you were going astray still prayed for you, still encouraged you in Christ so that in time you began to live, believe as a Christian.

Even through her tears praying for your sake, she will be glorified. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what a precious truth this is, that in heaven those who have suffered for the sake of Christ and those who have been obedient will be filled with glory. That even as they reflected Christ in this world, they will reflect him yet even more in the world to come. And what a joy it is to know that on that day that will fill us with joy.

All praise and honor and glory be to Jesus Christ. Amen. In the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.