LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 80

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3. “To the Ends of the Earth”
I. Introduction
A Gospel-Centered Church in Time
Singing God’s Praises in Eternity
Esteemed delegates, brothers and sisters in Christ.
We’ve talked a lot this week about taking the Gospel of
Christ to the ends of the earth. This afternoon, we will
leave here with that challenge squarely before us as we
head home. But before we go, I will ask you to pause and
think with me for a few moments about a very basic point.
We will need to be clear on this if we are going to be up to
this challenge.
I want to ask, “Why?” That is, for what reason or to what
end are we taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth? The
Bible has several ways of putting the answer to this question. For my part, like “The Lutheran Hour,” which talks
about, “Bringing Christ to the Nations and the Nations to
the Church,” I’d like to concentrate on the fact that we
bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth so that through it
the Lord may build His church. This church will be Gospelcentered in time so that it may sing God’s praises in eternity.
Lutherans have some important things to say about the
church. They do not always agree with what others say.
That makes it all the more important that we have a definite idea of what the church is going to look like when the
Lord builds it through the Gospel that we take to the ends
of the earth.
Lutheran congregations will look different from other
kinds of congregations. This is not a weakness, however. It
is a strength. It is not coincidental or an accident of history
that we look different. Nor is it simply a matter of taste or
style. We look different because of our focus and context.
Our focus is on the saving work of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who declares us righteous before God, solely because of His grace, not on account of our works, in a word of
Good News that we believe and so receive. That is, we focus
on justification by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith.
This thoroughly biblical focus serves as the organizational
principle for our thoughts and actions as Christ’s church.
Thus, our teaching and practice are evangelical in the best
sense of the word. We are a Gospel-centered church.
Our context is the environment within which our churchly activity is shaped. Here again, we Lutherans are eminently biblical in that we take the long view of our context.
We realize that it reaches back in time to the days of the
prophets and apostles, and across the centuries wherever
the Gospel has been made known. Our context, therefore, is
catholic, in the best sense of the word. It is universal. We
believe in one, holy, Christian, and apostolic church. This is
the true catholic church, and it provides us context for what
might be called the style or form of our life as God’s people,
both for today and for tomorrow.
Sometimes people think that a church has to be either
evangelical or catholic, one or the other. They might be surprised to find that Lutheran churches look the way we do
because Lutheran doctrine, drawn from Scripture, is both

evangelical and catholic. When we take the Gospel to the
ends of the earth, it is to build a church that is both evangelical and catholic. It centers on the Gospel within a context that is universal. In the new millennium this will
require of us both evangelical faithfulness and catholic
responsibility. If we can accomplish this, we will be a
Gospel-centered church in time that will sing God’s praises
in eternity.
What will such a church look like?

II. A Gospel-Centered Church in Time
A. The Church as Evangelical
A Gospel-centered church in this world is by definition
evangelical, but evangelical in a different sense than the
theological movement known as Protestant “Evangelicalism.” Although that movement is beset by a great deal of
internal confusion these days, there ought to be no confusion about why we Lutherans call ourselves evangelical. We
have a theology and church practice that is Gospel-centered. The doctrine of justification gives coherence to everything that we confess, everything that we say and do. The
Gospel of Christ is the hinge, the center pin, the article
upon which the church stands and falls, as our old theologians used to say. All the other articles of faith hang upon
it. In it they all hold together.
We Lutherans have a hard time even thinking about the
church primarily as a sociological or political thing. This is
not a weakness. It is a strength. While of course the church
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