LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1967, Page 42

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42 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

It is here in the steadfast mercy of God in Christ
that the church has her unity. Almost immediately
after underscoring that the Gospel is a faithful saying,
God warns that we do not become involved in foolish
questions and contentions. It is as if God is warning
that divisiveness and dissension is certain to arise over
matters that are not a part of the Gospel. However im-
portant these points may seem to us, they are not
important enough to God that He stamps them with
His approval that specifies: “This is a faithful saying.”
That stamp He reserves for justification by grace, for
His precious Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yet we seem to ignore God’s warning. Our in-
ordinate concern for less essentials has been a disservice
to the Gospel of Christ and to the unity of the church.
Whatever else the uneasiness and disturbance within
our own Synod mean, they say loudly and clearly that
we have. been diverted from the Gospel. The price of
sectarianism and false unity is always the Gospel of
Christ. By contrast, we confess with gratitude and joy
that the oneness we have sensed increasingly with oth-
ers is the blessed fruit of our devotion to the Gospel.
As long as we treasure the Gospel of justification by
grace as God’s highest gift, so long we will enjoy not
‘only this blessing but. also the joy of true unity that
accompanies it.

So many wonderful things in the Synod rarely re-
ceive mention. The ratio between problems and pub-
licity is something like 3 to 97. That is, 3% .of the areas
providing problems receive about 97% of the publicity.
So little is said about what is right in the Synod in
regard to the doctrine of God and man, sin and grace,
justification and conversion, sanctification and good
works, the last things and our hope in Christ Jesus,

The cause of the Gospel is affected by the way men
handle the Gospel. It is a disservice to the Gospel to
employ strife as a means of reconciliation. This is a
denial within itself. How can you reunite men when
you cross bridges of God’s grace carrying weapons of
struggle rather than hands outstretched in forgiveness?
How can unbelievers ever embrace this faithful saying
when churchmen apply words like grace and reconcilia-
tion and redemption to something other than the great
things that Christ has done? How can anyone ever
conclude that God’s grace is something to be trusted
when our actions deny what we say with our lips? It
is time for us to kneel in penitence, confessing the
violence we have done to God’s grace. It is time, above
all, that we implore God to enable us to handle His
grace with grace.

Because God has put everything at stake in the
Gospel, we can dare to do the same. The Gospel means
that we don’t have to spend our time and effort trying
to justify ourselves before God. God has made us
Just and right and holy in Christ. Now Christians are
free for other things. Our concerns, not only the
greatest concern or the nearest, not only spiritual
concerns like forgiveness or future concerns like death
and eternity, but every concern -has: been assured by
the grace of God. It is this grace that enables us to say:

“If God spared not His own Son but delivered Him up
for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give
us all things?”

Even as this is true for us, it is true for everyone
else. This is the faithfyl and trustworthy Word in which
we can place our confidence also as we proclaim it to
others. Justification by grace is the reliable fact which
we ought, in Paul’s words, “to affirm constantly.” As
Lutherans we have a simple and strong phrase that
covers what Paul is saying. Our way of saying it is this:
We believe, teach, and confess. Our teaching and con-
fessing tells that we believe, and it is our invitation to
others that they might believe. We make our invitation
boldly and baldly because Christ is there to back up
His claims and to make good on His promises.

But God’s grace is always more than words, more
than words that God speaks to men or that men speak
to one another. Grace is God in action by what He
does Himself and what He does through people. God
wants those who believe in Him “to maintain good
works.” By our words and works we make the grace
of God “good and profitable to all men.”

“All men” embraces a great many people. It em-
braces at least 3.5 billion men at this moment in history
alone. It includes people whom we describe as Chinese
or black or rich or illiterate or evil. However we
describe these men, they are part of the world God
so loved that He gave His only-begotten Son. They
are part of the world where you live and move and have
your being because God there wants to touch someone
through you. .

Christian men will respond to the precious Gospel
pressures. It is not possible to have faith and ignore
the needy. God’s Word does influence the men who
hear it and accept it.

Each of us gathered here today has a place where
he comes together with other children of God around
the Word and sacrament. That place and those people
may be very remote from your thinking at this moment,
Somehow you may have even come to the conclusion
that you have come to this key city of the world and
to this convention for more important things. Without
detracting the slightest from this convention and all
the good things we hope God achieves here, I want to
remind you that the place where the challenge lies is
where your congregation and its members live. :

We shall give more help this year than ever before
in service toward the implementation of the resolutions
of this convention.

Two years ago The Lutheran Church — Missouri
Synod: adopted its Mission Affirmations. They have
stirred churchmen in many parts of the world to see
and think more clearly about the church’s God-given
responsibility to the world. Is it embarrassing for us
to be asked whether these affirmations have stirred up
anything at all in our own congregations? Reports from
1966 show that our congregations now. own more than
$1 billion worth of real estate. What are we doing with
it beyond making interest and. principal ‘payments on
the quarter billion dollars we have borrowed to build it?