The Righteousness of Your Redeemer

Wow, I too know that my Redeemer lives. Wow.

My friends, Sara and I have been looking forward to this day for a long time—to meet the incredible students of Ensign College. I’ve been an admirer of President and Sister Kusch for a long time from a distance, and now, meeting them in person, I can see why they are so loved.

When I look at you, I am confident that the Church’s brightest days are still ahead. You are faithful. You love the Lord, and you love His Church. This Church is our home. We are brothers and sisters. And please remember—please remember—no matter what happens, you can always come home.

Now, I have prayed that I might share something today that will truly help you. You know, as a gospel teacher, it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to impress those you teach. However, after many painful experiences—some of us have to have more than others—you realize that lasting impact doesn’t come from wanting to impress those you teach. It comes from wanting to bless those you teach. So I have prayed and tried to prepare a message that aims to bless, not to impress.

One of the ways I hope our time together will be a blessing to you is by helping you see one of the most joyful parts of being involved in the Lord’s work—it’s seeing Him continue His “one by one” ministry, the way He blesses us in such personal and timely ways. To some, what seems like merely a coincidence are often messages of comfort and healing.

For example, in April of 2012, 80-year-old John Ekow Mensah sat in the temple in Accra, Ghana, waiting to take part in initiatory ordinances. Brother Ekow Mensah had joined the Church twenty-one years prior when he had been introduced to the Restoration by a woman with whom he worked. A younger man, 54 years old, took a seat beside him in the temple. The man had intended to attend an endowment session that morning, but he arrived too late, so he opted to do initiatory instead.

“Where are you from?” Brother Ekow Mensah asked the younger man.

“Sekondi,” the young man replied.

“Oh, I used to live in Sekondi,” Brother Ekow Mensah said.

“Oh? Which area?”

“Ketan,” the man answered. “Right by the school.”

A sense of recognition began to grow. The younger man looked closely at Brother Ekow Mensah and asked, “What is your name?”

“John Ekow Mensah,” he replied.

“That is my name too,” the younger man said.

You see, 50 years earlier, Brother Ekow Mensah Senior had married a woman whose grandmother held sovereign power in their tribe. Sadly, she was opposed to John’s marriage to her granddaughter. At her insistence, the couple separated when their oldest son, John Jr., was just a toddler.

When John was expelled from his family, all contact was cut off. There were no phones and no postal service. His search for work took him far from his former home. For decades, he worked just to survive. And then in 1991, he met a woman who told him about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

His son, John Jr., grew up knowing almost nothing about his dad. Years later, when John Jr. got married, he and his wife, Deborah, decided they wanted to find a church together. One day, while studying at the University of Ghana in Accra, John noticed a Liahona magazine sitting on a shelf. He picked it up, felt uplifted by what he read, and searched for the name of the publisher—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When he arrived at home, Deborah was excited because she had just learned about a new church from a friend. “It’s called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” she told him. John couldn’t believe it. This was the exact same church he’d been reading about that day.

They were baptized in 1999 and later sealed in the Accra Ghana Temple. Then, in April of 2012, something miraculous happened. Inside that same temple, father and son just happened to sit next to each other. Decades of separation ended. Both men had found the gospel separately, and both had been guided to the temple on the same morning.

Someone might say that was merely a coincidence. But those of us who know the Lord can see His ministry continuing—just as it did in His mortal life. He still goes village to village, house to house—one by one.

I love the Lord. I wish I could share with you hundreds—thousands—of stories of how He continues His one-by-one ministry. I bet you could share some with me. I hope you’ll write them down.

Now, I’m also hoping to bless your life by sharing with you a thought about the Savior from the Prophet Joseph Smith. This has lingered in my mind for years. When I first heard it, it was on a podcast episode, and I was captivated. I sought it out to study it in depth.

Okay, I’m just going to read to you a few portions. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught:

“The great Jehovah contemplated the whole of events connected with the earth… before it rolled into existence… the past, the present, and the future were and are with Him one eternal now,... He knows the situation of both the living and the dead and has made ample provision for their redemption.”

Can we unpack this for a second? “Jesus contemplated the whole of events connected with the earth before it rolled into existence.” What I hear Joseph saying is that “Jesus saw every moment of the earth before there was an earth.”The next portion: “The past, the present, and the future were and are with Him one eternal now.” Try to wrap your mind around that. Jesus sees the past, the present, and the future simultaneously. He experiences them at the same time—in real time.

The Prophet continues: “He knows the situation of both the living and the dead,” or in my words, “Jesus knows every single thing about every single person.”

Every time I read these revelatory insights, I quickly reach the limits of my own intellectual capacity. That’s not that hard. I just smile and think, “That is a God I can worship. How great Thou art.”

Now, all of that prophetic insight leads us to the conclusion. Did you see it? That last line—this astonishing Being has made ample provision for their redemption. Now, who does “their” refer to? Everyone—the living and the dead. What does ample mean? It means more than enough. Please listen. Our Savior, Jesus Christ, possesses more than enough time, skill, intelligence, and capability to save and exalt anyone who desires it. I often say, He is playing 5D chess. He has given every piece complete agency, and He is always seventy times seventy moves ahead.

A verse in 2 Nephi has also lingered in my mind for a long time. This is Lehi speaking to Jacob. Look toward the end there: “I know that thou art redeemed.”He says that! That feels like a pretty profound declaration to me, right? “Jacob,” Lehi says, “you are redeemed—exalted—I can see it.”

Now, if I were Jacob, I might expect that sentence to continue with something like, “I know that thou art redeemed because you are so righteous. God is just grateful to have you on His team, Jacob.” But that’s not what Lehi says. Instead, he says:
“I know that thou art redeemed because of the righteousness of thy Redeemer.”Jacob, you are going to be exalted… because of Him.

Through these statements and countless others like them, I have come to understand that the Lord intends to exalt both me and you. When Moses asked Him why He created the universe—the planets, the stars, the galaxies—He proclaimed, "This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”I hear Him saying: This is My why, My passion, My joy—it’s in exalting all those who desire to be exalted. He doubles down in the Book of Mormon by saying, “I am able to do Mine own work.”

How many times do we have to read that He is “mighty to save” before we start to believe it?

Coming to understand this has changed my prayers. Instead of listing all my wants, I now ask to be aligned with what He wants. I’m a parent, but instead of asking Him to help me with my children, I now ask Him how I can help Him with His children. Instead of wondering what He’ll permit, I ask now to know what He prefers. Instead of asking Him to change His mind, I now ask Him to change my heart.

Now, you might be wondering, “Brother Smith, if the Lord is so determined to exalt me, and if He is so incredibly skilled at it, why do I need to strive so intensely to live the gospel?”
That’s a valid question.

First and foremost, I strive to live the gospel because He has asked me to—and I love Him. Oh, I love Him, and I so want to be the person He has shown me I can be.

Second, taking part of the power of the Savior’s Atonement into my soul—taking it into me—is by choosing to live His gospel. Jesus designed His gospel to work in tandem with His atoning sacrifice. He composed a symphony of truths which, if I choose to live them, will transform the music of my life.

Faith, commandments, repentance, ordinances—all of it was designed by Him to change us into the glorious beings we are capable of becoming.

The more I study Him, the more I am convinced I will never find myself begging Him to let me enter celestial glory. Instead, He is the One who pleads with me to embrace His gospel and allow it to transform me.

I do not strive to live the gospel because I hope to somehow secure a spot in the Celestial Kingdom. I strive to live the gospel so that I will choose the Celestial Kingdom when it is opened to me.

Can I repeat that? I don’t want you to miss it.

We do not strive to live the gospel because we hope to earn a mansion in the Celestial Kingdom. We strive to live the gospel so that we will sincerely, genuinely want the Celestial Kingdom when it is offered to us.

Now, you might be thinking, “Why would anyone pass up the opportunity for the celestial kingdom?” That’s another valid question. Think of it this way: Living celestial principles is a choice you and I can make right now every day. So, why don’t we do it? And what leads us to believe that we will opt for celestial principles in the future if we’re not choosing them now?

I will only choose the celestial kingdom in the future if I choose to repent now in the present. And I have to keep choosing repentance every day. The first two principles of the gospel are: trust the Lord and repent. So what am I going to do today? I’m going to trust the Lord and repent. And what am I going to do tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that? I’m going to trust the Lord and repent—because repentance is the key. It’s the practice that will transform me into a person who genuinely wants a celestial life.

Our Heavenly Father and our Savior freely choose their way of living. Therefore, my path to becoming like Them must also be freely chosen.

If I am coerced or forced, I’m not truly like them because they are not coerced or forced. I must choose to repent, to improve, to realign, to gain a holier view of God and myself—every day. Remember this simple but profound statement from Elder Dale G. Renlund:

“Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right.”

The most important choice you will make is whether you are going to dedicate your life to the Lord Jesus Christ and trust that He will take you into the eternities. I hope you’ll choose Him. I hope and pray that you’ll choose Him. And as Elder Holland said, I hope “your love for Him and your discipleship in His cause will be the consuming passion of your mortality.”

And Elder Holland could read the phone book, and I would follow him.

Now, many of you have already made this decision. If you haven’t, and this path seems kind of intimidating, fear not. Step one: start by using your agency to ask Him for help. Be prepared to repent. Elder David A. Bednar taught: “To choose to follow the Master is to choose to be changed.” As you get to know Him better, you’ll see that is His first answer to almost any question. I have what I think are pretty important questions, such as, “Do the pearly gates swing open or do they roll open?” His response is usually something like, “That’s an okay question, and I will answer that one day. For now, please devote your time and your energy to faith, repentance, keeping your covenants, and following the guidance of the Spirit.”

Honestly, when the Savior comes again, I’m convinced one way we’ll know it’s Him is when He announces that His first sermon will be on faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost. We’ll turn to each other and say, “Yep, it’s Him.”

Now, once you decide to center your life on Him, there is still more to do. I need to make sure you understand your critical role in the Lord’s work here in the last days. As I prepared this talk, that came to me over and over: Tell them their role.

A close friend of mine likes to say, “The Lord gets His work done through His people, and He gets His people done through His work.”

Now, for you to truly understand why you are here on earth, you need to know some basic Bible history. Do not let me lose you here. Keep your eyes on me.

Approximately three thousand years ago, the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, known as the house of Israel, were led by Moses out of Egypt. (Remember, “Let my people go.”) Then they were brought by Joshua back into the promised land to fulfill their role as the people entrusted with the gospel and the mission to share it with all the families of the earth. Now, you might hear someone ask, “Wait—if the Lord loves all of His children, why would He have a chosen family?” It is because He loves all of His children that He has a chosen family. Because this family, known as the house of Israel, is under covenant responsibility to bless all the families of the earth.

The house of Israel was supposed to be a holy nation amid a world run by greed. But at some point, they grew tired of their responsibilities. They grew tired of being different, and they went to the prophet Samuel and told him they wanted a king so they could be just like everybody else. My friends, the Lord will never force the chosen family to be the chosen family. Respecting their choice, He instructed Samuel to grant their request, saying, “They have not rejected you, Samuel. They have rejected Me. They do not want Me to be their King.”These chosen people could no longer make a difference in the world because they were no longer willing to be different from the world.

In the following centuries, the Israelites were scattered across the planet. The Book of Mormon is very clear: the Lord scattered Israel not to punish them—He was trying to save them. There was a promise—a promise of a future gathering.

But for now, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, with its ten tribes—are you still with me?—was conquered by the Assyrians. Later, just after Lehi leaves (and just after the Mulekites leave), the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon. Now, fast-forward six hundred years to the time of Christ. There’s just a small portion of Israelites in the Holy Land—a mere fraction of the once-mighty nation they had been.

Let’s keep going. Following Christ’s Resurrection, He visited scattered Israelites. We find one such visit in 3 Nephi. Back in the Holy Land, the final scattering of the Jews occurred at the hands of the Romans at the end of the first century. Yes, Christianity continued through converted Gentiles. But as time rolled on, a most critical, plain, and precious truth was lost: the covenant—the promise between Jehovah and Abraham and Sarah—the promise that their posterity, their family, would bless all the families of the earth. That covenant faded into obscurity, and both the family of Israel and the promises given to them were forgotten by everyone. Well, almost everyone.

Jesus never forgets a promise. Despite giving Him every reason to, Jesus will never give up on the house of Israel. He will never give up on you.

Now—in my imagination—I see Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebekah; Jacob; Rachel and Leah; Bilhah and Zilpah asking the Savior when He is going to fulfill the promise He made to their family. I see them reminding Him that He had promised priesthood, posterity, and promised lands. I picture them eagerly waiting outside His office, pacing back and forth for millennia until finally the Savior calls them over and—with a gesture toward the earth—He shows them a humble farmer, a young boy walking into a grove of trees in upstate New York, and says something like, “I’m starting right now—with him.”And then, with His hand toward a vast host of spirits He had held back for this very moment—you, me, our parents and grandparents, our children, our grandchildren (yes, you will have grandchildren)—the Savior must have added something like, “And with the Book of Mormon, they are My grand finale.”

Now, if I were to ask a typical Primary-age child why they came to earth, I imagine I’d hear things like, “to get a body,” “to be tested,” “to have a family,” or “to become like Heavenly Father.” Very age-appropriate answers. But listen to how Elder David A. Bednar answered that question. He said:“We were foreordained in the premortal existence and born into mortality to fulfill the covenant and promise God made to Abraham. That is who we are, and that is why we are here. Today and always.”Incidentally, I encouraged my young twin boys when they were in Primary to share this with their teachers. If they were ever asked, “Boys, why did we come to earth?” they were to respond, “To fulfill the covenant and promise God made to Abraham. Ma’am, that is who we are, and that is why we are here.”

Now, please listen to me. You will always feel something missing from your life—always—if you’re not helping to gather Israel. And you will find—I promise you—your most profound and purest joys when you are fully engaged in this work with those you love. Why? Because deep down your spirit knows why you are here.

Now be advised: the adversary is real and wants to stop you from fulfilling your last-days foreordained mission.

And you can read how he works. He told Adam and Eve, “Be ashamed of your choices. Hide from God.” He told Cain to avoid work, to sidestep sacrifice, and to take—violently—from his own brother. Esau gave up what he wanted most for what his body wanted at the moment. Joseph’s brothers allowed jealousy to drive decisions that haunted them. David fell because he was not where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there. He treated Bathsheba and Uriah not as children of God he was supposed to protect, but as objects to be used. My friends, people are not objects. King Ahab got his friends and his enemies mixed up. That’s a recipe for disaster. The religious leaders in Jesus’s day were so entrenched in defending their religion against the pressures of Hellenization that they forgot the point of being religious in the first place. Laman and Lemuel seemed to have perfected the corrosive art of murmuring. Korihor was educated but so unwise—he bought into the idea that a belief in God was foolish, the effect of a frenzied mind. And for people like King Noah, Amalickiah, Kishkumen, and Gadianton, politics and political power became their god—and their demise.

Satan’s strategies have not changed.

You, though—you cannot allow tasteless temptations and amusements with a bitter aftertaste to distract you, fill you with shame, and steal your future. Remember who you are and why you are here. Now, no matter what you’ve done—no matter what mistakes you’ve made, whatever sins you’ve committed—you can have a beautiful future. Why? Because the Lord never gives up on the house of Israel. He understands you. He understands why you do what you do. He suits His mercies according to the conditions of the children of men. Your choices do not determine your value. You brought your value with you. How? Ask the Lord to help you learn to make decisions that match your value. You might ask, “How many tries do I get?” As many as you need—as many as you want. Why does He do this for you? Because you are beloved sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents with a divine nature and eternal destiny—and they have a work for you to do.

Some of you will remember what Percy Jackson told Annabeth Chase when he realized that the Lotus Hotel and Casino was distracting them from their mission to save the world. I can see how you’d forget: they were literally entertaining themselves to death. Do you remember? He had to grab her face and said, “Annabeth, this place is a trap. You check in—and you stay forever.”
Do you have any apps like that?

Now, how can you overcome this world that is saturated with selfishness and sin? Pay attention. I think I found the answer in the Book of Mormon: you must feast upon the fruit of the tree of life until—not just taste, feast—until you see the great and spacious building for what it really is. Do you remember what Nephi said? He saw that many people did enter that strange building—and he added, “I heeded them not.”Did you know that in the book of Revelation, the Savior calls to the people in Babylon, in the great and abominable church? He says to them, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

I need to finish. I’m going to tell you a story written by C. S. Lewis. I’m guessing some of you have read The Chronicles of Narnia. This story is not from those books; it is less well known but still impactful. Lewis was not a member of our Church—he probably is now—but the theology of this story sits beautifully within what we’ve been talking about today.

The title of this story is The Great Divorce.

It starts in a gray, endless city where our narrator—likely a stand-in for Lewis himself—realizes that he is in hell. He says the streets are dim and cold and colorless. The people argue and complain incessantly—right? Hey, there’s Laman and Lemuel. Lines are long, and everyone is anxious, angry, and unhappy.

Then one day, a bus pulls up. This bus will actually take anyone from hell on a day tour of heaven. So our narrator gets in line, and after he finds his seat on the bus, it flies upward, rising above the clouds to a place more real than anything he’s ever known. The colors are bright. The mountains are towering and beautiful. And the people—the people are happy.

Many of these heavenly people come over to the arriving visitors—people they knew on earth, people they had loved.

One of these visitors is approached by a man so bright he can hardly look at him. But the visitor is embarrassed to talk to this heavenly being because he has this red lizard creature on his shoulder, and he doesn’t want anyone to see it. (Let me give you a hint I had to figure out as I read the book: the lizard represents this man’s sins.) The lizard is constantly whispering to the man, and he cannot get it to stop. This heavenly being—this angel—invites the man to stay in heaven. He does not have to go back. And the man wants to stay. But he says, “It’s no good see. This (He points to the creature.) “This can’t stay here. I realize that. I just have to go home.”

His angelic friend replies, “Would you like me to make him quiet?”

“Of course I would,” said the man.

“I can kill it,” said the angel, taking a step forward.

“Ow—ow! You’re burning me! Keep away!”

“Don’t you want to stay here?”

“Yes, I do. But why do you need to kill him? I didn’t want to do anything that drastic.”

“It’s the only way,” said the angel.

“Well, perhaps there’ll be time to discuss that later.”

“No. There is no later.”

“Well—I think a gradual process would be far better than just killing it.”

“The gradual process is of no use at all.”

“Well, I would let you kill him today, but I’m not feeling well, and it would be very unwise to do that right now. I think I need to be in better health—some other day, perhaps.”

“There is no other day.”

“Get back! You’re burning me! You can’t kill it—because you’d kill me if you did.”

“No. It will hurt you, but it will not kill you.”

“Well, let me go back. I’ll discuss it with my own doctor, and I’ll come again—the first moment I can.”

“This is your moment.”

“How can I let you tear me to pieces? You should have killed it when I wasn’t looking—before even asking me.”

“I cannot kill it against your will. It is impossible.”

Now, this entire time the lizard has been speaking to the man. But now it is so loud that the narrator can hear it. He hears it hiss, “He can do what he says—he can kill me. He does not understand you. Nobody does. How could you live without me?”

“Have I your permission?” said the angel.

“But it will kill me,” said the man.

“It won’t,” said the angel. “May I?”

This is the moment of his decision. Will he forsake his sins and commit to become part of the beauty of heaven? Or will he return to a cold and colorless hell?

“Okay—okay. Get it over with,” says the man.

The next moment, the man gave a scream of agony I had never heard on earth. The angel closed his grip on the reptile, twisted it while it bit and writhed, and then the angel flung it, broken-backed, on the grass.

“I’m done for,” said the man.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then I saw—growing back—the upper arm and shoulder of the man; then brighter still and stronger, his legs and hands, his neck and head materialized; and I watched the completing of a new man, not much smaller than the angel. The newly made man flung himself at the feet of the angel, who he now recognizes as his Lord—and embraced them.

Let’s return to where we started.

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: “The great Jehovah contemplated the whole of events connected with the earth before it rolled into existence. The past, the present, the future were and are with Him one eternal now. He knows the situation of both the living and the dead and has made ample provision for their redemption.”

My brothers and sisters—my friends—I know that you are going to be redeemed because of the righteousness of our Redeemer.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.