# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_2016_S75
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

CONVENTION
SERMON • 2

Saints and Faithful Brothers
COL. 1:1–14

by t he R ev. C hristopher S. Esget, L C M S S ix th Vic e -Pres id en t
66th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod • July 10, 2016 • Matins

Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was
betrayed, took bread and gave it to the disciples.
And the disciples argued.
How quickly we can go from the Lord’s table to
the devil’s business! St. Luke tells us that they received Christ’s blood, then immediately quarreled
about “which of them was to be regarded as the
greatest” (Luke 22:24).
These men were brothers twice. Sons of our first
father, Adam, they were now by His Supper blood
brothers with Jesus. Yet they fought.
The history of the world is the history of feuding
brothers: Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and
the 11. “But not so among you,” says the Lord Jesus.
His Father is our Father; He is our brother, making
us all brothers and sisters of each other, not by blood
alone, but by forgiveness. How then is it that you
murmur and grumble about those whom Jesus has
joined to Himself?

live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” Together,
we belong to Jesus. So, the apostle asks, “Why do you
pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you
despise your brother? For we will all stand before the
judgment seat of God” (Rom. 14:10). Whom Christ
has joined as brothers, dare we put asunder?
Sometimes brothers can be united in the wrong way.
James and John, the sons of thunder, were eager to
call down fire on those who did not receive Jesus.
Jesus told them, “You do not know what manner of
spirit you are of.” Will the Lord Jesus say this of us at
our convention?
There must be divisions, the Scripture says, to show
who is approved. But arguing in the church is like arguing in marriage: If you’re trying to win, you’ll lose
even when you win.

This morning’s remarkable reading has words easy to
gloss over, a standard sermon opening we’ve heard a
thousand times: “Grace to you and peace from God
our Father.” Boring! Yet that greeting is the good news!
To whom are these words spoken? To saints. And not
saints alone, but “saints and faithful brothers.”
That is who you are: holy ones, brothers and sisters
of the Lord Jesus, and so brothers and sisters with
each other.
How then can we argue with and grumble about
each other? St. Paul says in Romans, “Whether we
“Saints and Faithful Brothers”

U P O N T H I S R O C K • Sermon

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