LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 83

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Praying Constantly for Being Joy:fully Lutheran
EPHESIANS 6:10–20; 1 THESSALONIANS 5:16–18

Rev. Laokouxang (Kou) Seying
Associate Professor, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis
67th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod • July 23, 2019 • Midday Prayer
One of the greatest moments of being joyfully Lutheran
came many years ago when I was studying systematic
theology at a Lutheran seminary that was not one of
our LCMS seminaries. During a Reformation seminar
session, a Methodist pastor asked, “I keep hearing
‘Lutheranism’ in our discussions, what exactly is
Lutheranism anyway?” Without hesitation, the
professor replied, “Well, to understand Lutheranism
we have to turn to Missouri Synod.”
I had never been more proud than I was to be a member
of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod on that day.
The beauty of it was that the professor did not even
know that I was a Missouri Synod pastor sitting right
there in the room. It was like scoring the biggest world
cup soccer goal. I just wanted to jump as high as I could
with my fist in the air celebrating a glorious victory.
We pray constantly for being joyfully Lutheran because
it is not always easy being a true Lutheran. The pressure
to conform to today’s culture and to relax our Lutheran
theology is a constant challenge to our church. To be
joyfully Lutheran means that we must be biblically
grounded, confessionally sound, and contextually
appropriate. Each of these tasks is not easy in itself, let
alone bringing them together in a meaningful way. To
confess the truth also means to renounce the false at
the same time. And this is not easy in our politically
correct postmodern culture.

authorities, against the cosmic powers over this
present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly places.” The text goes on to tell us to be
“praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and
supplication” (Eph. 6:12, 18).
For those of us that worked in the animistic context
ministry for many years, the devil and all his works and
all his ways were a daily reality that needed no
introduction or conviction. For the rest of us that are
not familiar with the animistic context, your ministry
context is just as vulnerable as any other ministry
context to the attacks of the evil one in all their
disguises.
Praying to be joyfully Lutheran is praying to expose our
Lutheran theology to the world, to bring the Gospel in
its purity to a world that desperately needs to hear this
good news of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only way (not
one of the many ways), the only truth (not one of the
so-called many truths), and the only life for the world.
Being joyfully Lutheran is simply praying that the truth
of the Gospel would be within us, and that we would

In his biography, Luther: Man between God and the Devil,
Heiko Oberman states, “For wherever God is at work —
in man and in human history — the Devil, the spirit of
negation, is never far away.”1 Because God is at work in
our church body today, the devil is also never far away
and is working very hard to destroy His work among us,
especially from within the church itself for our North
American context. Therefore, the Scripture’s call to be
on guard is just as timely in our days as in any other
time in the history of the church.
Our reading from Ephesians this afternoon reminds us
with these words, “For we do not wrestle against flesh
and blood, but against the rulers, against the
Convention Sermons

PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2019 (67TH) LCMS CONVENTION | 83