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LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 71

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

CONVENTION SERMONS

Joy:fully Lutheran — Let’s Party

NEHEMIAH 8:1–12; 1 THESSALONIANS 5:14–22; LUKE 15:11–32
LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison
67th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod • July 20, 2019 • Opening Divine Service
The path to joy always runs through repentance. Ezra
brought the Law (the five books of Moses) before the
people. He stood on a platform made for the purpose, with
all the leaders around him. He solemnly opened the scroll
in front of the people. The people stood like we stand for
the words of Jesus. “Let us bless the Lord YHWH!” He even
used the sacred, unspeakable covenant name for God:
YHWH. Ezra shouted it! The text says Ezra dared use the
sacred name. The people lifted their hands in affirmation
and acclamation and said, “Amen, Amen.” “Yea, yea, it
shall be so!” Then they knelt and put their faces to the
dust.

I suspect he’d go right to the words of Jesus, especially
Jesus’ words to the religious people of the New
Testament. We’re the religious people.

To hear the Lord’s Word is to be in His presence. And
sinners know that in the presence of the Lord, faces
belong where? In the dust.

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and
then … take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matt.
7:5).

And Ezra read for hours. And he preached and explained
what he read from the books of Moses. Did he preach
about the fall into sin? The greatest commandment from
Deuteronomy? The admonitions to avoid idolatry, which
their forefathers had failed? Did he point out that these
refugees were returning to the idolatry that dogged their
forefathers and got them wiped out of the Holy Land and
put into captivity?

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they
are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Matt. 23:25).

“For all the people wept,” the text says. “All the people
wept as they heard the words of the Law.”
What would Nehemiah preach to us today?

Convention Sermons

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you
are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear
beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and
all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27).
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites.
For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at
the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly,
I say to you, they have received their reward” (Matt. 6:5).

“And he said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy of you
hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors me with
their lips, but their heart is far from me”’” (Mark 7:6).
“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you
know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1
John 3:15).
“But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman
with lustful intent has already committed adultery with
her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28).

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION | 71