"What Disciples Do: Disciples Affirm Resurrection Hope" (November 2, 2025 Sermon)

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Text: Ephesians 1:11-23

The question keeps returning in whispered prayers and hallway check-ins: where do we find hope when grief is heavy and the world feels unsteady. We take that question to Ephesians 1 and to the tradition of All Saints, where names are spoken, bells ring, and the church stands together at the crossroads of lament and resurrection. Rather than polishing pain, we name its complexity—how sorrow can walk with numbness, how love can sit beside anger—and we explore what it means to place our hope on Christ, not merely in Christ, as a living foundation that does not sink when life does.

We reflect on the echoes between modern stories of loss, like the song Requiem from Dear Evan Hansen, and the ancient cadence of the church’s prayers. That contrast helps us see how requiems are more than sad songs; they are acts of surrender, entrusting those we love to a larger story. Paul’s words lead us to the heart of that story: the power of God at work in Christ, raising him from the dead and setting him above every rule, authority, and name. From there we talk plainly about false hopes—money, status, personalities, and politics—and why they cannot carry the weight of our longing. The resurrection can, and does.

Out of that foundation comes courage: to preach life where violence is loud, to feed neighbors where scarcity speaks, to sing when the words catch in our throats. We honor ten saints by name and hold space for every untold name our listeners carry. Together we remember that eternal rest is promised and that our loyalty to Christ frees us for love that lasts. If this conversation meets you in the ache and invites you to stand on steadier ground, share it with someone who needs that ground too, subscribe for more thoughtful theology and practice, and leave a review with the moment that gave you courage.

Follow us on Instagram @guilfordparkpresbyterianchurch
Follow us on Facebook @guilfordparkpc
Follow us on TikTok @guilfordparkpreschurch
Website: www.guilfordpark.org

Chapters

• 0:00 Scripture Reading From Ephesians
• 2:37 Prayer And Content Advisory
• 3:14 Where Can I Find Hope
• 5:15 All Saints Bells And Names
• 8:26 Dear Evan Hansen And Grief
• 10:32 Numbness And Overwhelm

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

All right, friends, we continue our What Disciples Do sermon series with the letter from Paul to the Ephesians chapter 1 verses 11 through 23. Let's listen again for what God is saying to God's church. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit. This is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people to the praise of his glory. I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may perceive what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints? And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power? God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the age to come. And has he has put all things under his feet, and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fulfillness of him who fills all in all. Friends, holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God. Friends, let us pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Friends, before I get going, I do want to mention that this sermon does contain a brief mention of suicide, and I recognize that that is a particularly painful topic for some among us, so I just want to name that. Rather brief mention, but it is in there. Pastor Stephen, where can I find hope? If there's a common theme in my pastoral conversations with many of you over the past year, that's the one. Where can I find hope? As you and I gather today on this All Saints Sunday, we mourn those we've lost over the past year and indeed the years past in a few minutes. We will ring bells and light candles here beneath me to honor ten members of this church who have died in the last 12 months. We will ring the bells for Peg Lucens, Bobby Jackson, Ed Hendricks, Nat Bingaman, Carolyn Sherrick, Doris Mingle, Edith Phillips, Burl Hull, Rick Cromer, and Vernon Mole. Each of these beloved was a saint who has joined the heavenly chorus and is now, they're all part of that great cloud of witnesses that are cheering all of us on as we continue to run this race of faith. So today we sing a requiem for them. But requiemes are complex things. They are no simple matter when many among us feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the world's grief. As I was working on this sermon, I was thinking of one of my favorite musicals. It came out in, I think, 2015, Dear Evan Hansen. The story revolves around a socially isolated young man in high school who becomes entangled in a lie that inadvertently helps him connect with others in a way that he has longed for. And one of my favorite songs from the musical is called itself Requiem, and it's mainly sung by Evan Hansen's love interest, Zoe, as she processes her grief over her brother Connor's tragic suicide. In that song, she and her two parents sing a requiem for Connor. Notably, they sing this in three different places on the stage, which I think is beautiful, beautifully highlights the painfully isolating nature of grief. And ironically, each family member sings this requiem by expressing that they cannot sing a requiem due to their complex feelings following Connor's death. Zoe talks about struggling with mourning Connor while also feeling anger over the harm that he caused her in life. And then their parents, Cynthia and Larry, express anger at Connor for seemingly throwing away everything that they gave to him through their love. And so, together and yet apart, these three family members sing their requiem for their departed loved one with the refrain, I can sing no requiem tonight. I think that most of us understand that feeling. The sensation of being overwhelmed by grief and yet being simultaneously numb. It's two weird things to hold together these days. Like I said, I've seen this recurring theme in my pastoral conversations with many of you. It goes so much like, Pastor Stephen, where can I find hope? And I feel so numb, I feel so helplessly overwhelmed by my own personal losses, but at the same time, I feel numb because of the larger societal grief happening because of Chester's vaguely at all the things. So we gather this day to mourn those who have been lost to us, but we also gather on every All Saints Sunday, the first Sunday in the month of November, to hold that grief in one hand and then to hold the hope of the resurrection in the other. Holding those two things together is messy business, y'all. Make no mistake about it. But it is part of what it means to live as a Christian. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul speaks of this hope that we have on Christ. The preposition here, I think, is important. Notice he doesn't speak of the hope we have in Christ, but the hope we have on Christ. It's as if Christ, the risen Christ, is the sure foundation upon which everything else rests and depends. We might also sing it with the hymn that I trust most of you all know: On Christ, the solid rock I stand, all other ground is what? Sinking sand. Edward Mote once wrote that in 1834. My hope is built on nothing less. Yes, friends, as Christians, we don't place our hope on the places of grief in the world. Yes, we acknowledge them. Yes, we listen to those who are grieving. Yes, we comfort and provide for those who are grieving, but we don't place our hope on that brokenness. We don't place our hope on any power or principality. We don't put our hope on any one political ideology or any person who comes along promising that he alone can fix things. We don't place our hope on money. We don't place our hope on privilege or success or followers on social media. Those things are all fleeting, friends, and each one in time will disappoint and fail us. No, we gather to declare Christ and Christ alone as the foundation of our faith. And the key to that foundation is something remarkable called the resurrection. Paul describes it this way: God put this power to work in Christ when he raised from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places. Far above all rule, authority, power, dominion above every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the age to come, and he has put all things under his feet and has made him head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion above every name that is named. That's the totality of Christ's resurrection. And that's where we find our hope. Not in you, not in me, not in any earthly person who promises salvation in return for unquestioned loyalty. And there have been so many of them throughout the history of our faith and the history of the world. No, no, friends, our loyalty is to Christ, our sure foundation. And that loyalty gives us courage. That loyalty gives us courage to preach resurrection in a world that preaches violence. It allows us to preach resurrection in a world that denies food to our neighbors. It provides us with the audacity to sing about that sure foundation when everything around us feels so unstable. And so with every bell we ring today, with the reading of each of those ten names that we will surrender to God, along with the many other names, no doubt, on our minds, we will sing a requiem. A messy, complicated requiem, for no simple requiem can be sung in a world as broken as ours. But requiemes aren't just about expressing grief. Requiems are also about surrendering our loved ones into the story of Christ's resurrection. The story that I mentioned earlier is promised to each and every one of us. Most classical sung requiemes in the original Latin end with a section called in paradisum, which is the Latin phrase for in paradise, and it sounds like this. I'm probably going to butcher this, so if there's any Latin scholars among us, I apologize in advance. In paradisum deducant angeli, angel, into adventus suscipant te martyrs, ed peducant te in civitatum sanctum jerusalum, chorus angulum te suscipet et cum lazzaro quandum papere etunum habius requiem. In English it reads as this May the angels receive them in paradise. At thy coming, may the martyrs receive thee and bring thee into the holy city Jerusalem. And there may the chorus of angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once a beggar, may thou have eternal rest. So, friends, remember this day, whether you can sing a requiem unfettered, or whether the words get stuck in your throat, that eternal rest is promised to each of us and is indeed fulfilled today with all those whose losses we mourn. Through the power of Christ's resurrection, may God grant them eternal rest, and may we hold on to hope on the risen Christ, who has put all things under his feet, and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. In the name of God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God's beloved children, say.