LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1989, Page 75

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alize how many times I am really tongue-tied or don’t
] like telling anyone anything. There are many times
when I feel like I just can’t tell at all, just like Moses and
other saints of God when God called them to tell someone
‘of His wonderful deeds. .

Once in a while our telling becomes concentrated on
ourselves or our own congregation or our own family. We
emphasize Christian nurture and all of the programs of
telling about God that go on within congregations. But too
nt often we fail to do a good job of telling our communities
ur" and our world and all those who don’t know Jesus Christ.
So we tell ourselves and not the world! And we never seem
to get away from focusing on what we have done instead
of what God has done, or acting as though it’s our doing,
our coming together, our passing resolutions, our organiz-
ing more effectively, that will make the kingdom of God
_ come, and come more effectively. For all this, and for ever
- go much more that we have failed to do for our beloved
- Lord, we confess our sins this evening. But even as we do,
we know that God, even tonight, and even tomorrow and
~ every day of every life of every week, continues to act on
our behalf with the gift of His Spirit and the new life of
forgiveness.

There are many examples all around us of people who
tell what God has done where this has become a special
blessing. For in spite of it all, in spite of our weaknesses
and sins and shortcomings, wondrous things are still done
by the people of God. Ask my friend, George Wollenburg,
who got a call this afternoon that a 12-year-old boy in his
congregation in Montana died this afternoon in an acci-
dental death. We weep with those who weep, and yet deep
down inside, Pastor Wollenburg and the mother and father
and friends of that child are grateful to God for those who
told him what God had done for him and continues to do
in all eternity.

Perhaps during this convention we'll get to hear the
story of the little seven-year-old girl that the women at the
LWML convention heard about last week in Rapid City. A
publication put out by CPH called “The Worldwide Evan-
gelist” told about the pressing need for Bibles in various
parts of the world. One day a letter came to CPH written
by this young girl, and enclosed with it was a check for
$40 which she had just received as a birthday gift from
her friends and her family. With the letter and check were
the instructions to please use her money to buy some Bibles
for those people who didn’t know about Jesus. She wrote,
“P.S., How many Bibles can you buy for $40?” And when
President Gerber at CPH shared that story with his co-
workers (and I don’t know the exact figure, because I un-

CONVENTION SERMON 15

derstand that fund continues to grow), several thousand
dollars came in from the employees of CPH to help this
young girl’s gift grow even larger. When President Gerber
invited her to come to the LWML convention to.tell the
story of her interest in telling everyone what He has done
through the Bible, the Word of God, her mother responded
after thinking about it just a little bit. She said no, that
wouldn’t be proper, because, you see, she must understand
that she didn’t do anything special, that the glory really
doesn’t belong to-her, but to God Himself. That little girl
had caught the secret of the mission God has given His
church—the mission of telling everyone what GOD has
done.

Ask Missionary Henry Rowold, who wrote some of us a
few weeks ago, about the experiences he is having in China,
Hong Kong, and other parts of Asia, in the wake of what
has happened in the People’s Republic of China in recent
weeks. Listen to him tell about the persecution of God’s
church there. When you've been there, as some of us have
been, you’ve had some experiences of meeting fellow Chris-
tians in China—that mysterious land inhabited by one-
fourth of the world’s population, more than one billion peo-
ple. I will never forget the worship service one Sunday
morning in Gwanzhou when 12 of us had arrived a little
early with a brochure with our pictures on it, and our
names in Chinese. A beautiful old lady came around
matching the pictures with the faces, and we asked, why
was she doing that? Then they told us: “She is checking
out your names to match your faces so that she'll recognize
you when she sees you in heaven.” Then you thank your
good and gracious Lord that someone, somewhere, told her
everything that God has done.

So, my brothers and sisters, in spite of all of our sins
and shortcomings, we in the church of Jesus Christ have
not only been blessed in our own lives with God’s forgive-
ness and life and love for us, but in our congregations and
in our Synod, too. That word of the good and gracious and
acting covenant God of Israel, who has led us from our own
Egypt of captivity to sin and the devil—that has become
the message that can capture us and this church body, too.
May that happen, my brothers and sisters in Christ. May
everything we do in this convention help us individually
and congregationally and synodically to Tell Everyone
What HE Has Done, and to do it with the joy and the
celebration of a truly happy and thankful church.

God grant that to each of us, and to all of us together,
as we now stand and confess what He has done in the words
of the Nicene Creed.

Ralph A. Bohlmann, President