LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 60

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THE DOCTRINAL ESSAY
The Edifying Word

I

The Word of God Builds the Church
Lesson: MattuHew 16: 13-19

What do we, the delegates, advisers, and friends of
this convention, want at this hour?

We want good judgment for making the decisions on
the calendar of business. We want good tempers as we
debate the issues that are before us. More than that:
We want our fellow Christians back in our home con-
gregations to share our decisions. We want to plan pro-
grams which are not merely agreed to by people in this
room but supported by Christians all over the world.

Most of all, when we honestly face what we must
do here, we want help to do the will of God. We employ
human language and exercise human reason and hope
to raise human dollars. But really it’s God we need,
God to give us the right words and direct our reason
and give us and the folks at home the will first to give
themselves to God.

This convention holds before it the way by which God
proposes to invade our reason and move our hearts to
do His will. The Bible terms that way of God the edify-
ing Word, the Word of God that works His will and
gives His power to build His church.

A

We shall not be able to understand how the Word of
God works among us until we know who we are. We
are the church of God in this place. In the Bible the
word for “church” means literally “those who are at
calling.” The church is composed of people whom God
has called to be His people and to do His will. He has
called them out of the mass of society to be different, to
belong to Him and to serve His purpose (2 Tim. 1: 8-10).
That purpose is in the first place that they share with
each other the same call with which He called them, that
they cause that call to beat on the ears and hearts of
many others. Five years ago we called this God’s mis-
sion, God’s mission first to the church and then God’s
mission of the church to the world.

Think what this call is.) As men are born into the
world, Jesus says, they are flesh, incapable of doing the
will of God without the life of God at work in them
(John 3:5-6). They can think and act, plan and strive.
But the life within them is not the life of God Himself.
This is why we see so much hostility and cruelty, lone-
liness and self-seeking where we ought to see kindness,
help and peace.

This situation is so dreadful because it exists in
people whom God has made and whom He loves with
an everlasting love. God Himself moves to the rescue.
He sent His own Son into the world to reclaim these
derelicts, this human wreckage that we are by birth.
He did it by giving His own Son into the world as a
man. He lived among men, shared their work and play,

61

felt both their companionship and their hostility, and
finally died a dreadful death at the hands of the re-
ligious leaders of His own people. He did this because
God sent Him, He was God’s Messiah, He was carrying
out God’s plan.

When this work of His is put into words, we have the
call that summons men into the church of God. That
work of Christ is not only a story but an invitation and
a power. It is not only drama of God’s love on a screen
or in a book but God’s love in action toward you and me.
That invitation can turn the human heart from the death
of its disregard for God into faith, from the coldness of
its self-love into concern for others.

The church is the people who have experienced that
call and heeded it; but more—God has put into the
charge of His church the task of keeping that call com-
ing to others. The people of the church need that call
again and again. The world with its death and hate sur-
rounds and infects us day by day. The call of God
works the new life in the heart, but the call of world
and Satan erodes it and competes with it. The heavenly
Father gathers His people into families, into gathered
companies in whom His life and will is on top, so that
they keep His call coming to one another and thwart
the will of the flesh and nurture the life of God. (Eph.
2:1-10; 4:1-16)

Dr. Richard R. Caemmerer Sr.