LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1989, Page 73

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Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father, and
from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
Delegates, friends, and guests of the 57th Regular Con-
yention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, my
brothers and sisters in Christ, please listen to the Psalm
that is the basis of our meditation this evening—the basis
of our convention theme, “Tell Everyone What He Has
Done,” written in Psalm 105, verses 1-6:
“Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name;
‘make known among all nations what he has done.
Sing to him, sing praise to him;
tell of all his wonderful acts.
Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.
Look to the Lord and his strength;
seek his face always.
Remember the wonders he has done,
his miracles, and the judgments he has pronounced,
O descendants of Abraham his servant,
O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones. [NIV]

You and I have made the trek from the pew to the altar
and back to the pew again many, many times, haven’t we?
And every Sunday throughout the more than 6,000 con-
gregations of our church body and in many congregations
of Christian churches all over the world, brothers and sis-
ters in Christ proceed to the altar of the Lord, often with
heavy heart, laden with sin and guilt, feeling weak, only
to eat and drink the body and blood of the Lord and then
return. And when all have communed, the organ breaks
forth and we stand and sing that marvelous canticle,
“Thank the Lord and sing his praise, tell everyone what
he has done.”

What has He done? Ask any one of us again and again,
“What has He done for me?” We have just tasted with our
lips and with our mouths that the Lord is good, and good
indeed! Even my sin, taken upon Himself in Calvary, bur-
ied with Him in the grave, is forgiven. He has renewed
me, forgiven my sin, and said to me in that beautiful and
personal way, “My son, My daughter, take and eat. Know
what the Lord has done for you.” And then we come back
refreshed, having joined in this great confessional act that
unites us all as Christians, thanking the Lord for all He
has done, telling everyone what He has done.

What a marvelous theme these words are for this con-
vention, for our church body, for every one of its congre-
gations, and for every one of its more than two and one-
half million members, because it reminds us in a beautiful,
strong, simple, responsive, celebrational way of what the
mission of the church of Jesus Christ really is. Let’s look
at those words together briefly and simply this evening as
a way of focusing on the mission God has given us and His
beloved Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

The first word in that Communion canticle is Tell. Tell
everyone what He has done. So many times it seems that
we forget what we’re here for. Even churches and congre-
gations, and sometimes even their pastors and other lead-
ers, seem to be groping around for something to explain
what the church is here for. What is the mission of the
church, we ask. Theologians dig and explore and write
learned treatises on the mission of the church, and some-

73

CONVENTION SERMON

times it seems to many of us that the answers aren’t all
that helpful. Sometimes churches act as though we’re here
to make things happen on earth in terms of political or
social change or even revolution. We seek to be something
that we aren’t really called to be. Now, maybe that doesn’t
happen so often within the congregations of the LCMS,
that we forget our mission, but I dare say that sometimes
it does—that at times we are tempted to substitute power,
or renewed structures, or organizational change, or simply
out-powering someone else as the task at hand.

Our mission is really very simple, according to the can-
ticle we sing after Communion, and very simple in the
words of Psalm 105—“Make known among the nations
what He has done. . . . tell of all His wonderful acts.” Tell
everyone what He has done. The mission of the church of
Jesus Christ, yours individually, your congregation collec-
tively, and of this Synod, this collectivity of congregations,
is telling what God has done.

Tell everyone what God has done. That second word says
it all, doesn’t it? To whom do we exercise the mission of
telling? The psalmist said it in terms of “all the nations.”
The canticle after Communion says “everyone.” “Everyone”
includes, may I suggest very simply, two groups of people.
It includes us—one another, fellow members of our con-
gregations and fellow congregations united with us in the
confession of faith around the world. The church is always
engaged in telling itself what He has done. That’s what
Christian education programs are really all about as we
tell our children and our teenagers and our youth groups
and our ladies’ and men’s organizations, and the many,
many other groups with whom we have contact. We tell
ourselves again and again and again the mighty acts and
deeds of God, and the promises of God. What God has done
is the content of the church’s preaching and teaching and
service to itself.

But our mission is not limited to telling ourselves what
God has done. The mission of the church is to tell everyone
what God has done. And in many respects, the people who
don’t know it are the primary object of that mission. We
tell one another so that God can build us up and create in
us the power and the enthusiasm to tell those who don’t
know what God has done, what in fact, He has done for
them and their salvation.

In this world of more than five billion people, three out
of four people don’t even know what God has done for them
in the person of Jesus Christ. So the task of the church is
always the mission task of telling, not only ourselves, but
telling the whole world in our communities, in our nations,
and indeed, all over the face of the earth.

And then the content of our telling is said so beautifully
and so simply in these words from the postcommunion
hymn of praise, “Tell everyone what He has done.” We've
tried to capture that in our convention logo by enlarging
the word He to remind us that the message of the church
is not about itself.

Have you ever noticed how the old, sinful flesh in all of
us is always very ready and very well prepared to tell
everyone “what I have done” or “what we have done.” You'll