Showing Honor

Our Savior Jesus shows us the most amazing honor! He entered our earth and took on our human flesh, he wore a crown of thorns and suffered in our place upon His cross, and He rose to new life for us and as a guarantee of our crown of life to come. None of this is deserved on our part.

As His people seeking to obey the Fourth Commandment, we are called to show honor in turn. We first honor God Himself by worshipping Him, gratefully receiving His gifts, seeking Him in prayer, living as faithful stewards, and more. We also honor the Lord by how we treat our neighbor, and in the case of the Fourth Commandment, how we treat our neighbors in positions of authority over us. 

The Fourth Commandment teaches us to honor our father and mother. Our parents are the most basic authority figures provided to us by God - and that's the primary reason we honor Him - because they are God-given, not because they are perfect people or because they do what we want or like.

The wider meaning of the Fourth Commandment includes honoring a variety of authorities in our lives: in both the state and the church, in our workplaces and schools, and beyond. It's not easy to serve in positions of authority, having difficult decisions and pressures on your shoulders and having to deal with all sorts of "people issues" on a regular basis. This is a good reminder that the authorities in our lives and in our wider world need our prayer and support, and as long as they are promoting what is God-pleasing, we owe them our obedience and cooperation as well.

Out of fear and love for the Lord our God, Christians must seek to honor parents and other God-given authorities, and in doing so, set an honorable example for others to follow as well. 

The Pastor's Windshield article for July 2023

I haven’t watched a lot of the classic sitcom, “Cheers,” but I do know the refrain of the opening song. I wonder if you remember it? 

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name

And they’re always glad you came

You want be where you can see

Our troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows your name

Now, if you frequent a bar like “Cheers” so much that everybody literally knows your name, that’s probably not a healthy thing! More seriously though, don’t you appreciate being in a setting in which you’re known and welcome? Isn’t it nice to be called by name? Don’t you love it when someone lets you know they’re glad to see you?

Being a place “where everybody knows your name” is a good goal for a Christian congregation like ours, wouldn’t you say?

I hold in my hands the first draft of St. Matthew’s new pictorial directory. It’s a simple printout of names of individuals, couples, and families with our photos and contact information. And it’s a tool to help us learn just a little bit more about one another.

I want to challenge our members to use this directory to learn as many names as you’re able. Then, when you see those folks, call them by name. Help us make St. Matthew an even more warm and inviting church than it already is.

Our new directory, coming in this 25th year of St. Matthew’ ministry, is another step in looking ahead to our next 25 years. In the coming years, the individual faces will change. New faces will be added. Faces will mature. Photos of some faces will remind us of saints who departed to be with Christ.

We confess that our Lord’s church isn’t built on you or me, or on any other individuals, past, present, or future. It is built on Jesus Christ our Lord! He is our one Foundation. He is the Rock on which we stand firm, no matter what may be happening around us in this troubled world.

Peter called us Christians “living stones … being built up as a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). Paul used a metaphor for the church of one body and many members: “all the members of the body, though many, are one body … For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). 

I would suggest an additional metaphor for the church: we are a people whose faces, names, and lives reflect the loving face of Jesus. 

A photo in our church entryway is designed with this in mind. Each individual photo from St. Matthew is blended into the portrait to become part of a much more important image, that of Christ Jesus.

It's the same for us. Each one of us who is part of the life of this congregation has been united with the other members to reflect the life and love of Jesus, both within our fellowship and in our service to those outside of the congregation. Knowing this, let’s continue to learn one another’s names and stories within our congregation, and then together, let’s share the great name of Jesus and reflect Him both on our individual faces and in our personal acts of witness and throughout our shared life as His church.

In Christ’s peace,

                        Pastor Kory Janneke

Jesus' Invitation to You

This past Sunday we reflected on the Third Commandment:  "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy."

At the outset of Christianity, the first disciples set aside Sunday to gather together for early Christian worship. This was a departure from the Old Testament practice of ending the week with the Sabbath on Saturday. Sunday stood out to these New Testament believers for two primary reasons. First and foremost, Jesus rose from the dead early on a Sunday morning, the first day of the week. Second, the Holy Spirit whom Jesus had promised was sent upon the first disciples on another Sunday, fifty days later at the Jewish festival of Pentecost. Stemming from these two world-changing Sundays, the first Christians began keeping the Sabbath on Sunday.

They also kept the Sabbath differently than God's Old Testament people or their Jewish contemporaries. More than ceasing to work and taking a day to rest physically, New Testament Christians kept the Sabbath as a Christ-centered day. They gathered together in their homes and in the temple courts in Jerusalem and gave thanks for Jesus' life and ministry among them and for His death and resurrection for their salvation. They recalled and discussed Jesus' words, along with His ancient words through the pens of the Old Testament prophets. They sang the songs of Jesus as recorded in the Bible's songbook - the Psalms. They received Jesus' body and blood for their forgiveness in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. In short, they sought to keep the Sabbath by gathering in remembrance of Jesus, trusting His promise that He was with them as they gathered in His name, and by receiving the gifts of His Word and Sacrament.

So how can you keep the Sabbath as a New Testament Christian 2,000 years after those first Christians?  In much the same way as they did - receive God's Word! Hear the voice of your Shepherd & Savior Jesus. As Martin Luther put it in his Small Catechism, God wants us to gladly hear and learn God's Word, both in public reading and preaching of the Word and in our personal and family devotional reading of Scripture. In that sense, keeping the Sabbath is not just something to be done on a set day of the week (such as Saturday or Sunday) but everyday! We keep the Sabbath "holy" when God's Holy Word is on our hearts and minds and lips.

Along with Sunday, the day most Christians have set aside for public worship services, every day, is a day to rest in God's Word and promises - to rest in Jesus Himself and His amazing grace and in the salvation He has already accomplished for you and which is yours as a baptized believer in Him.

Both every day and every Lord's Day (Sunday), Jesus invites us, as He does in the words of Matthew 11, "Come to Me ... and you will find rest for your souls."