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LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 107

Scan: The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

CONVENTION
E S S AY • 3

Built on the Rock—Confess
by t he R ev. Daniel Preus, L CMS Centra l R e g io n Vic e -Pres id en t

a nd the Sy n od ’s Fifth Vice-Preside n t
66th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod • July 12, 2016

Built on the Rock the Church shall stand,
Even when steeples are falling.
Crumbled have spires in every land;
Bells still are chiming and calling,
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the souls distressed,
Longing for rest everlasting.
1

These words are true. Spires have crumbled and
fallen in our land—many of them, but bells are still
chiming and calling. They’re calling to you and to me
and to all who are looking for rest from their labors.
And what do the bells stand for? They stand for the
confession. They stand for the rock on which our
Church is built: “You are the Christ, the Son of the
living God” (Matt. 16:16), Peter confessed. This is the
confession and the rock on which you and I are built.
The theme I have been given today to talk about to
you is “confession.” A person could go in more than
one direction with this theme. We could talk about
the confession of sin—and there would certainly be a
great deal to talk about. In fact, if we spent our time
together actually confessing our sins, we would never
get out of here. There is far too much to confess.

receive Absolution, or forgiveness, from the confessor,
as from God Himself, and in no way doubt, but firmly
believe that our sins are forgiven before God in heaven
by this.” Actually, it is this message of absolution—
that is, forgiveness—which leads us into the kind of
confession we are talking about here. Peter’s confession is actually a confession about the forgiveness
of sins, a confession about the Gospel, a confession
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. In
other words, God the Son took on human flesh in the
person of Jesus and came to save us from our sins
by forgiving them. This is what Peter’s confession
means. This is the rock, this message of the Gospel
about Jesus; this is the confession upon which you
and I and the entire Church are built.

We could talk about the fifth chief part of Luther’s
Small Catechism, I suppose—the Office of the Keys
and Confession. But the confession spoken of in
this part of the Small Catechism also deals with the
confession of sin and then, of course, absolution. But
then, as Luther says, “Confession has two parts: the
one is that we confess our sins; the other is that we
Lutheran Service Book (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), 645:1.
Subsequent references to this source will be abbreviated LSB.

“Built on the Rock—Confess”

U P O N T H I S R O C K Essay

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