LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1969, Page 64

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64 THE DOCTRINAL ESSAY

lock a most important door for each other to walk
through. They don’t jingle when they are unused in the
dark pocket. But they have a most cheerful sound as
men get them out to use them, the keys to the kingdom
of heaven, the good word which says: “Just think, God
through Jesus Christ has forgiven our sins, and we have
a new day to put to work for Him; let’s be on our way.”

I

The Word of God
Builds Christian Congregations

Lesson: EPHESIANS 4:11-16

We are grateful for the meaning that the Lord
Jesus has put into the church and which our lesson
from the Epistle to the Ephesians reinforces: The
church is people who build up each other’s faith as
they speak the Word of God’s forgiveness to one an~-
other, protect each other from false doctrine, and enable
one another to move out into life doing the will of God.

A

This morning we focus on the group that we are
accustomed to call our church, namely our congregation.
In the New Testament that was the body which Chris-
tians first called the church, namely the Christians in
a given locality who came together to strengthen each
other’s faith.

That is how we still use the term “church.” My
church is my congregation. True, my family is the
church in my house. My congregation is a number
of families living in the same locality and bound to-
gether by the same desire: to serve each other’s faith
and life and sustain one another for the will and work
of God.

Twice in my life I have sat in a private home at
the first meeting of a number of people who were
founding a Christian congregation. Perhaps many of
you have had the same experience. It was a solemn
moment. As time went on, other individuals and fami-
lies joined the circle, and a larger room had to be
provided and ultimately a church building. Those peo-
ple were bound together by the strong tie of purpose:
Let’s do for one another what has to be done in order
to sustain ourselves in faith for love.

As time goes on, a congregation of Christians may
find this initial will and purpose becoming weak. Babies
and other youngsters join the group, and they have
to learn from scratch. Some newcomers are there not
so much because of Christian purpose as for reasons
of simple friendship and sociability. We often wonder
why later members don’t have the same enthusiasm
for the church and the congregation that we had when
we first started it. In the larger areas or the country-
side some members move to a distant location and take
up membership in other congregations or try to come
from a distance to attend at least the services of wor-
ship. Their membership, good as it is, is hampered
by the fact that they do not share the life of their
fellow members around the clock all the days of the

week. We all realize that the work of preserving the
faith and life of one another takes more than one
hour a week in a formal service.

All of this helps us to see that what makes a Chris-
tian congregation be a church is that its people are
close enough to each other to share the edifying Word.
They have to be close enough to each other to respond
to each other’s needs and handicaps, to supply help
to each other and sustain each other in waywardness
or grief or anxiety. St. Paul likes to call the church
in a given place the body of Christ, and the mark of
the members of a healthy body is that they are con-
nected, so that blood supply and nerve impulse can
pass from one to the next. (1 Cor. 1:2-9; 12)

B

Distance isn’t the only handicap for the church.
St.Paul suggests that every group of Christians has
in it both strong and weak. Some are weak because
they are deficient in the necessities of life; they are
poor or hungry. Others waver in their understanding
of the Christian’s faith toward God. (Rom. 15:1-2; Gal.
6:1-5)

This doesn’t imply, John the seer would say, that a
congregation that is wealthy is strong; it may be poor
and weak and blind (Rev. 3: 14-22). What makes a
congregation of Christians strong is their mutual will
to take care of each other, to have compassion on one
another in need. The scorn of many thinkers in our
time has come upon the church because congregations
sometimes seem powerless to help their own members
and extend help to their surrounding community.

This is the business of the church, that the strong
take care of the weak. For the time is coming that a
person who once had help to give may now need it
from another (2 Cor. 8:14). The simplest demonstra-
tion of this is the child who needs help from his parents
and then as years go on becomes the one who must
care for the needy aged. St. Paul says that the person
who refuses to take care of his own kinsmen is worse
than an infidel and has given up the faith. (1 Tim. 5:8)

But notice what we are saying in all of this: It is
the business of Christians to take care of one another.
And we are saying an even more basic thing: It is the
business of Christians to provide the will to have com-
passion toward Christians or non-Christians alike. That
takes the edifying Word: the reminder of the work of
Christ that not merely corrects the straying or gives
help to the needy but the work of Christ that corrects
the selfish heart and gives the will for compassion.

Our time is apt to get confused about what the
Gospel of Christ and the work of the church really is.
Something is evidently wrong when people claiming
to be Christians try to help others in danger of their
lives or in need of daily bread and shelter by speaking
pleasantly about God’s love in Christ and then turn
their backs (1 John 3:16-18). This has led people to
say: The Gospel is that people give bread to the hungry,
that they help and heal, that they have compassion,
no matter what they say.