God draws the elect through His Word and Sacraments...

Furthermore, the declaration in John 6:44 is right and true, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who send Me draws him."  However, the Father will not do this without means, but has ordained His Word and Sacraments for this purpose as ordinary means and instruments.  It is not the will of the Father or of the Son that a person should not hear or should despite the preaching of His Word and with for the drawing of the Father without the Word and sacraments.  For the Father draws indeed by the power of His Holy Spirit.  However, He works according to His usual way.  He works by the hearing of His holy, divine Word, as with a net, by which the elect are plucked from the devil's jaws.  Every poor sinner should therefore attend to the Word, hear it attentively, and not doubt the Father's drawing.  For the Holy Spirit will be with His world in His power, and will work by it.  That is the Father's drawing.
~FSD, XI, 76-77

All Scripture, including the doctrine of election, is written for us, not to be driven to despair, but to have hope...

This eternal election or ordination of God to eternal life must not be considered in God's secret, mysterious counsel in a simple-minded way.  It is not as though election included nothing further, or nothing more belonged to it, or nothing more were to be considered in it, that that God foresaw who and how many were to be saved and who and how many were to be damned.  Nor should we think that He only held a sort of military muster, such as, "This one shall be saved, that one shall be damned; this one shall remain steadfast in faith to the end, that one shall not remain steadfast."

From this notion many get and imagine strange, dangerous, and deadly thoughts.  These cause and strengthen either self-confidence and lack of repentance or hopelessness and despair.  So people fall into troublesome thoughts, and say, "Before the foundation of the world was laid" (Ephesians 1:4), God has foreknown His elect to salvation.  And God's foreknowledge cannot fail or be hindered or changed by anyone.  In view of this, if I am elected to salvation, nothing can hurt me, even if I perform all sorts of shameful sins without repentance, have no regard for the Word and Sacraments, concern myself neither with repentance, faith, prayer, or godliness.  I will and must still be saved, because God's foreknowledge must come to pass. If, however, I am not foreknown, nothing helps me anyway, even though I busy myself with the Word, repent, believe, and so on.  For I cannot hinder or change God's foreknowledge."

In fact, even when godly hearts have repentance, faith, and good intentions to live by God's grace in a godly way, thoughts like these arise:  "If you are not foreknown from eternity to salvation, your every effort and entire labor is no help."  This happens especially when they see their weakness and the examples of those who have not persevered, but have fallen away again.

Against this false delusion and thought we should set up the following clear argument, which is sure and cannot fail:  All Scripture is inspired by God.  It is not for self-confidence and lack of repentance, but "for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16).  Also, everything in God's Word has been written for us, not so that we should be driven to despair by it, but so that "through the encouragement of Scriptures we might have hope" (Romans 15:4).  Therefore, there is no question that lack of repentance or despair should not in any way be caused or strengthened by the sound sense or right use of this teaching about God's eternal foreknowledge.  The Scriptures teach this doctrine only to direct us to the Word to encourage repentance and godliness, and to strengthen faith and assure us of our salvation.
~BOC, FSD, XI, 9-12

The Holy Spirit lays hold of a person's will and works in him the new birth and conversion...

Dr. Luther has written that a person's will in his conversion is purely passive, that is, that it does nothing at all.  This is to be understood with respect to divine grace in the kindling of the new movements, that is, when God's Spirit, through the heard Word or the use of the holy Sacraments, lays hold of a person's will and works in him the new birth and conversion.  When the Holy Spirit has worked and accomplish this, and a person's will has been changed and renewed by His divine power and working alone, then the new will of that person is an instrument and organ of God the Holy Spirit.  So that person not only accepts grace, but he cooperates with the Holy Spirit in the works that follow.

~BOC, FE, II, 18

The Sacraments and Word are effective because of Christ's institution and command...

Strictly speaking, the Church is the congregation of saints and true believers.  However, because many hypocrites and evil persons are mingled within them in this life, it is lawful to use the Sacraments administered by evil men, according to the saying of Christ, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat" (Matthew 23:2). Both the Sacraments and Word are effective because of Christ's institution and command, even if they are administered by evil men.
~BOC, AC, VIII, 1-2

Everything in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal...

We further believe that in this Christian Church, we have forgiveness of sin, which is wrought through the holy Sacraments and Absolution and through all kinds of comforting promises from the entire Gospel.  Therefore, whatever ought to be preached about the Sacraments belongs here.  In short, the whole Gospel and all the offices of Christianity belong here, which also must be preached and taught without ceasing.  God's grace is secured through Christ, and sanctification is wrought by the Holy Spirit through God's Word in the unity of the Christian Church.  Yet because of our flesh, which we bear about with us, we are never without sin.

Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered toward this goal: we shall daily receive in the Church the forgiveness of sin through the Word and the signs, to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live here.  So even though we have sins, the grace of the Holy Spirit does not allow them to harm us, for we are in the Christian Church, where there is nothing but continuous, uninterrupted forgiveness of sins.  This is because God forgives us and because we forgive, bear with, and help one another.
~BOC, LC, II, 54-55

Christ's obedience is credited to us for righteousness...

Therefore, the righteousness that is credited to faith or to the believer out of pure Grace is Christ's obedience, suffering, and resurrection, since He has made satisfaction for us to the Law and paid for our sins.  Christ is not man alone, but God and man in one undivided person,  Therefore, He was hardly subject to the Law (because He was Lord of the Law), just as He didn't have to suffer and die for His own sake.  For this reason, then, His obedience (nor only in His suffering and dying, but also because He was voluntarily made under the Law in our place and fulfilled the Law by this obedience) is credited to us for righteousness. So, because of this complete obedience, which He rendered to His heavenly Father for us by doing and suffering and in living and dying, God forgives our sins.  He regards us as godly and righteous, and He eternally saves us.  This righteousness is brought to us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel and in the Sacraments. It is applied, taken, and received through faith.  Therefore, believers have reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sins, God's grace, sonship, and are heirs of eternal life.
~BOC, FSD, III, 14-16

Through Word and Sacrament...

Therefore we constantly maintain this point:  God does not want to deal with us in any other way that through the spoken Word and through the Sacraments  Whatever is praised as from the Spirit--without the Word and Sacraments--is the devil himself.  God wanted to appear even to Moses through the bush and spoken Word. No prophet, neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments or the spoken Word.  John the Baptist was not conceived without the word of Gabriel coming first, nor did he leap in his mother's womb without Mary's voice.  Peter says, "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21).  Without the outward Word, however, they were not holy.  Much less would the Holy Spirit have moved them to speak when they were still unholy.  They were holy, says he, since the Holy Spirit spoke through them.
~BOC, SA, III, IX, 10-13

Law brings despair, but the Gospel brings consolation and forgiveness...

Whenever the Law alone exercises its office...there is nothing but death and hell, and one must despair, as Saul and Judas did. St. Paul says, through sin the Law kills. (See Romans 7:10.) On the other hand, the Gospel brings consolation and forgiveness. It does so not just in one way, but through the Word and Sacraments and the like, as we will discuss later. As Psalm 130:7 says against the dreadful captivity of sin, "with the Lord is plentiful redemption."
~BOC, SA, III, III, 7-8

How God works with us, calls us, and confirms the Gospel to every believer...

For we are daily reminded and encouraged that we are to learn and conclude that His will toward us is only from God's Word, through which He works with us and calls us. We should believe and not doubt what it affirms to us and promises. For this reason Christ causes the promise of the Gospel not only to be offered in general, but He also seals it through the Sacraments. He attaches them like seals of the promise, and by them He confirms the Gospel to every believer in particular.
~BOC, FSD, XI, 36-37

God deals with us through Word and Sacrament...

Therefore we must constantly maintain this point:  God does not want to deal with us in any other way than through the spoken Word and the Sacraments.  Whatever is praised as from the Spirit--without the Word and Sacraments--is the devil himself.  God wanted to appear even to Moses through the burning bush and spoken Word.  No prophet, neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments or the spoken Word.  John the Baptist was not conceived without the word of Gabriel coming first, nor did he leap in his mother's womb without Mary's voice.  Peter says, "For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit," (2 Peter 1:21). Without the outward Word, however, they were not holy. Much less would the Holy Spirit have moved them to speak with then were sill unholy.  They were holy, says he, since the Holy Spirit spoke through them.
~BOC, SA, III, VIII, 10-13