LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 108

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The motivation to serve God and our neighbors is
peautifully set forth by Dr. Luther when he speaks of the
ird benefit of faith.” It is this: that faith unites the
hristian with Christ as a bride is united with her
idegroom. We today look on opportunities to serve in
ongregations, Districts, Synod, and in our communi-
es as all being ways of pleasing our Bridgeroom with
shom we are united in spiritual marriage. In turn, as
‘juther writes, not only does Christ “pray and intercede
sr-us, but He teaches us inwardly through the living
ction of His Spirit.” As the inspired apostle Paul
yrote to the Galatians (5:22-23): “The fruit of the spirit is
ave, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness,
th, meekness, temperance; against such there is no
‘It isthen no imposition when the Synod calls upon us
» work together to bring life to the resolutions adopted
our Synod. Whether the resolutions relate to doctrine,
missions and evangelism, to stewardship, to parish
ducation, to educate church workers, to help the hungry
‘ahd oppressed of the world, all these resolutions are
portunities to use our Christian liberty. In the Free-
‘dom of a Christian the great Reformer writes, “A man
des not live for himself alone in the mortal body to
ork for it alone, but he lives also for all men on earth;
rather, he lives only for others and not for himself.” He
‘choes the apostle Paul’s words in Rom. 14:7-8, “None of
is lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we
ve, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the
Lord.”
Yes, we are free in order that we may gladly serve the
‘Lord who made us free and His agents in serving our
ellowmen. There is a youth emphasis in our convention,
n emphasis which we pray will be maintained through-

Luther: “For this reason God has ordained two
‘ovVernments: the spiritual, by which the Holy Spirit
produces Christians and righteous people under Christ;
d the temporal, which restrains the un-Christian and
cked so that—no thanks to them—they are obliged to
keep still and to maintain an outward peace” (““Tem-
oral Authority,” in Selected Writings of Martin Luther,
Vol. II, p. 281, Theodore G. Tappert, ed. Philadelphia:
rtress Press, 1967). ‘ ;
* One of my sons is a police officer in a town in
Minnesota. I like to kid him: ‘You do the law; I do the
Gospel.” But there is an important truth here: Each of
us, each in his own vocation, is serving the rule of God.
As Peter points out, we are citizens of God’s rule of
e, the heavenly kingdom, who are nevertheless up
ur eyebrows in His rule of reason and law, the
ly kingdom. The quotation from Luther makes the

CITIZENS OF TWO KINGDOMS 109

out the Synod. We and our children are freed to serve.
What a great thing for a young man and woman to face
the challenges of the years that lie ahead of them and to
say, “lam free. Christ has freed me. Now like Christ and
in His Spirit of love I shall serve my fellow human
beings. I will support the evangelism and mission
thrust of my church. I will seek to bring comfort and aid
to the oppressed and disadvantaged. I will devote my
talents daily to putting God and His people first.” And
in many, many instances our young people will also
answer the Spirit’s call to the ministries of our great and
blessed Synod, and will enter our colleges and semi-
naries. They will become the pastors, teachers, directors
of Christian education, missionaries, deaconesses,
chaplains, professors, and other professional church
workers of the new generation. They have been freed to
serve—to join the long line of those who in all ages have
proclaimed Him who loved us and bought our freedom
with His suffering and death.

* * *

We close our meditation with words from Luther’s
Freedom of a Christian.

If we recognize the great and precious things which are
given us as Paul says (Rom. 5:5), our hearts will be filled by
the Holy Spirit with the love which makes us free, joyful,
almighty workers and conquerors over all tribulations,
servants of our neighbors, and yet lords of all.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Paul A. Zimmerman, Ph. D., D.D.

Quotations from Luther are from Christian Liberty by
Martin Luther, edited by Harold J. Grimm. Philadelphia, Pa.:
Fortress Press, 1957.

Citizens of Two Kingdoms
1 Peter 2:9, 13-17
(Friday Morning Devotion)

same point: God has ordained two governments, the
spiritual and the temporal. You and I are “Citizens of
Two Kingdoms.”

I

You and I live, by the grace of God, in what
Lutherans traditionally have called “the kingdom of
God’s right hand.” That’s simply a way of talking about
our life in Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit
whom he sends. He won this life for us by His death and
resurrection. He gave it to us in our rebirth through Holy
Baptism, and He constantly sustains it for us through
the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.

The kingdom of the right—which is essentially nota
place or an institution or an organization but God’s rule
of grace—is by human standards a strange and wonder-
ful kingdom, for it is a rule completely without law or