# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1904_S51
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1904. 51

has acquired for you the blessing, everything truly good for time and eternity. You Christians have in Christ God's grace, a quiet conscience, forgiveness of sins, welfare of body and soul, comfort in prayer, joy in tribulation, protection in temptation, defiance against the devil, help against death, the hope of the resurrection of the flesh and the inheritance of eternal life. "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light," 1 Pet. 2:9. It behooves you therefore, the Apostle would say, to be thankful and to show your neighbor the same love that your God has shown you.

But how does this thankfulness show itself? Thus, says St. Peter, that you Christians proclaim the praises of him who has called you. And indeed we are to proclaim them to all men; that is God's will. For Scripture says, for example: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." "Lost" — a pregnant word! A whole series of gloomy pictures rises at once before the soul as soon as we hear this word: lost! — lost in the world among thorns and thistles, in the filth of sin, on the ways to eternal damnation! God lost, everything lost! So lost are all today who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Yet "the Son of man is come to seek and to save — that which was lost." This we are to make known — we who are Christians. If we want to describe briefly and concisely the whole work of our LORD JESUS from the manger to his cross, we shall have to say: It was a seeking, a seeking of the lost. His preaching, his teaching, his rebuking and comforting, his miracles, his suffering, his bleeding, his dying — it was all one single, constant seeking. Probably nowhere in Scripture are he himself and his work better characterized than in the picture of the good shepherd, who goes after the one lost sheep and in his seeking does not let up until he has found it.

So our work in the mission too must have this seeking shepherd's faithfulness of JESUS as its model; it must more and more bear the character of a faithful shepherd who seeks his lost little sheep. As the LORD, so the missionary church too must seek the lost.

So our heathen missionaries go out and seek; so also do our workers in the *Negermission* [mission among African Americans; the period's term "Negro Mission"]: they go out and seek. Hard journeys and yet blessed journeys, for they are Savior's journeys; hard work and yet blessed work, for it is Savior's work. Let yourselves be told of such mission work, of such seeking by our dear Negro missionaries — and let us rejoice over their self-denial and faithful love, over their