LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1967, Page 53

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CONVENTION SERMON 53

that we ought to let the churches stay as they are—
divided. Not so our Lord. He said, “Father, I pray that
they all may be one as Thou, Father, art in Me and I
in Thee.” Now the Father and the Son are one not
only in what they are but also in what they do, working
together the works of God. Even so we are to be one,
not merely in what we are, Christians, but also in what
we do and confess before men. Not divisions in the
church but oneness is the ideal. St. Paul was shocked
when he found contentions in Corinth. “Is Christ di-
vided?” he asked. “Are ye not all one in Christ?” “Now
I beseech you,” he pleaded, “by the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that
there be no divisions among you.” The church can
therefore never settle for divisions. She must always
strive to eliminate them, for they are the work of the
flesh, of Satan, and of sin. Our fathers therefore made
it one of their chief goals to bring about first one Lu-
theran Church in America and in the world and then,
God willing, one true confessing Christian church. Of
course, this cannot be done by compromise of the truth,
for compromise of the truth is also a work of the flesh.
No, factions, splits, and divisions must be eliminated,
for they are the works of the flesh. And we have re-
nounced them.

“Hatred, wrath, strife” caused by envyings and jeal-
ousies — these too are the insidious products of the flesh
which are observable also in the church. For in the
church good men who want to be liberals in the best
sense of the term, who wish to live under the full and
complete liberty of the Gospel, free from the traditions
of men, are charged with wanting to be libertines, free-
wheelers, and antinomians who despise God’s command-
ments, and so they are slandered and destroyed. Other
equally good men, conservatives who in wishing to
honor their fathers earnestly seek to obey God’s Word,
which says: “Stand in the old ways . .. Ask for the
old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein,”
are charged with being reactionaries and legalists who
like the Pharisees teach for doctrines the command-
ments of men. And they too are misrepresented and
often maliciously maligned. Still other God-fearing
Christians, who read in the Scriptures: “Ye shall ob-
serve to do as the Lord your God has commanded. Ye
shall not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left,”
and seek to be “middle-of-the-roaders” are charged
with being cowards, compromisers, pussyfooters, and
appeasers, who deserve only to be despised and de-
famed.

And the flames of bitterness and hatred are fanned
by words which Christ condemns. He said, “Ye have
heard that it was said by them of old time, ‘Thou shalt
not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of
the judgment’; but I say unto you .. . that whosoever
shall say to his brother, ‘Raca’ [that is, shall call him
stupid], is in danger of the council; but whosoever shall
say, ‘Thou fool’ [that is, shall destroy his honor and good
name among men], shall be in danger of hellfire.” And
is not this the very thing which is being unleashed in
the church today? Paul says, “If ye bite and devour

one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one
of another.”

Luther once said, “The slanderer has the devil on
his tongue, and the listener has him in his ear. There
is little difference between them.” Today we could say,
“The slanderer has the devil in his pen, in his type-
writer, in his printing press, and on the typed and
printed page; and the reader who approves has him in
his eyes and in his heart and in his mind. And there
is little difference between them.” For to slander and
defame, to fan the fires of hate and divisions within
the church — these are the works of the flesh, and they
that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh and renounced
them. The apostle therefore says in our text, “Brethren,
ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for
an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”
Let us, therefore, who have been called unto liberty
so walk in the Spirit that we may bring forth the fruits
thereof, which are “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gen-
tleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; against
such there is no law.”

Love —love for God who first loved us, love for
His Gospel, love for His Word—these are the fruits
of the Spirit. But we are to love also one another, not
with the sentimental love of mere emotion but with
God’s kind of love, genuine, deep, and real, which can
discipline, correct, scold, and yet love. Let us love all
of every race and of every tongue. Let us remember
that our Negro and Puerto Rican and Indian brethren
are as dear to the God who made them and saved them
as we are. Let us never talk down to them. Let us
prove our love by actions that bespeak honor and
esteem. And let us see to it that this love of God
gets out to the world for which it is meant.

Let us live also in God’s peace and be at peace with
one another. Let us bring forth the fruit of joy. In
dealing with one another let us be long-suffering like
God, who bears long with our failures and weaknesses
and sins. For patience and long-suffering in discipline
towards those who err or seem to have erred is not a
sign of weakness but of strength, since it is the fruit
of God’s Spirit. Let us practice also goodness and kind-
ness. Let us keep the faith and be faithful. Let us
profess Christ in meekness, always showing a good and
balanced judgment in all things, for these are the fruits
of the Spirit.

O dear fellow Christians, as this day we review the
works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit, must we
not confess that we have failed? Must we not acknowl-
edge with St.Paul: “I know that in me, that is, in
my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for the good that I
would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that
I do”? And must we not join him in crying out: “O
wretched man that I am, who shail deliver me from
this body of death?” and add: “I thank God through
Jesus Christ, my Lord”? For Christ Jesus has freed
us from the guilt of our failures and from the fruits
of our flesh. He did it on the cross when He prayed,
“Father, forgive them.” For to forgive is to release
from sin.