LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1965, Page 44

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44 DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS

that He loves you, go to the empty grave. “He was
raised again for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). This is
God’s mighty Amen to the completeness of the Savior’s
love. In love He ascended into heaven and assumed
once more the reins of government of the whole uni-
verse in the interest of His church. He will lead His
church to glory. What more could He have done to
secure our pardon, to give us hope, to comfort us, to
make us supremely happy? His work is complete.

The Demands of Love

What does out text say? “I have loved you. There-
fore love one another.” His love enkindles our love.
His love is the motivation for our love. As His re-
deemed children we look upon Him not only as our
Redeemer but also as our Model. Five elements are
included in this model of the Christ.

Love Demands Confidence

First of all He left us the model that as His brethren
we should have confidence in one another. He dem-
onstrated this first demand of love in His own life.
To whom did He leave the Kingdom and say, “Build
it”?? To 12 weak men. At the moment when He as-
cended into heaven, one of the 12 was no longer there.
He had turned his back on the kingdom of the Christ.
But look at the men that were left. Peter, the impetu-
ous one, the one who could never wait for an answer to
his questions. Peter, the shameless one, who cringed
at the sound of a girl’s voice, “Aha, you’re one of His!”
Peter, the heel, who perjured himself, “I swear by
God I don’t know Him!”

Furthermore, two firebrands, James and John, went
out to preach in certain areas of Samaria. When men
didn’t promptly accept their preachment, they came
running back to Jesus, “Jesus, make us a commission
of two, and we'll go back into those cities, and we'll
burn them down with fire from heaven.” Firebrands —
men who couldn’t wait for the Word to soak in. Men
who had to drive through with their own thick heads.

And what does our loving Lord do with characters
like this? He makes them builders of an empire. “Go
ye into all the world.” That’s what I call confidence!
To take men who had denied Him, to take men who
had played the heel in the church of God, to take men
who showed they did not rationally sit down and evalu-
ate God’s plan for saving man — and to these incompe-
tents He gives the reins of His kingdom. This is con-
fidence at its best, confidence engendered by love.

Is He our model? As I write this, I wonder what’s
the matter with the Missouri Synod that we can’t have
confidence in one another! What robbed some of us
of our confidence in our leaders, in our teachers, in our
professors? How come that our congregations often
do not have confidence in us pastors, and we pastors
in our teachers in day school and Sunday school? Why
is it that many segments of the church often do not
exhibit confidence in our theological and normal schools?
If the Lord Jesus had confidence in the type of men

I have just described to you, and sent them into the
world, I think you and I can do no less than accept His
model of love. Love demands that we trust one another
and not with suspicion take every word that is spoken,
every word that is published in print, and make it mean
what is does not mean. Suspicion has filled the pages
of some of our magazines which pass under the name
“T utheran.” Instead of being God’s example of love to
the world, we have demonstrated to the world what
real lovelessness can be.

Please, forgive me, if I use a nontheological example.
Many of you were at the baseball game last night be-
tween the Tigers and the Angels. Perhaps at one point
in the game you noticed how, when a high fly went
to one of the outfielders, he wasn’t there alone. The
first baseman was there. The second baseman was
there. The center fielder was there. They suddenly all
surrounded him. What for? In case he “fiubbed” it.
They were right there to pick it up. They were there
to help.

As I sat there and watched that game, I thought to
myself, “What about tomorrow morning when I have
to talk to the delegates again? What an example for
the Missouri Synod!” We’ve got some men, too, that
are way out in right field. The trouble with them is,
beyond the foul line they’ve piled up a stack of rocks,
and instead of playing the game, they’re taking the
rocks and throwing them at the left fielder. Some of
us, playing center field, are getting hurt.

ll say something about the left fielders, too. There
are some men in our Synod who are way out in left
field in their theology, and instead of playing the game,
they are building rock gardens beyond the foul line,
nurturing their pretty theological plants of speculation.
We say to both of them, right fielders and left fielders
in our Synod, “Get back on the field! We’ve got a game
to win! We've got to get through with some hits and
get this over with because the end of the ninth inning,
the day of judgment, will soon be here, and we want
to be on God’s winning team.”

So we say to all of you: “Why can’t the Missouri
Synod be just like the outfield last night? Instead,
we've got right fielders way off, left fielders way off,
and center fielders getting hurt in the progress of the
game.” This may not be theological language, but it’s
still the truth, it still applies to the present situation in
Synod. Let’s get back on the playing field and play
the game as God wants it played.

Love Demands Loyalty

Second, love demands loyalty, not only to the Scrip-
tures, not only to the Confessions of the Lutheran
Church, but to every one of our articles of agreement,
to every commitment that we have made over our sig-
nature, which, we trust, was given in sincerity. We are
a Synod. What’s that? Let me use a simple example.
Here is one preacher who has a congregation; his name
is Jim. Here is another congregation that has a
preacher; his name is Joe. Now these two congrega-
tions get together and sign some papers. They say to