Some of you moved here from formerly German territories in Eastern Europe. And even, those of you who have lived here in Southwestern Michigan most or all of your lives, many of you have children who have moved to other parts of the country.

It’s can be pretty hard, in the face of such lives, to remember our roots. And yet, as Christians, we know that our true roots can follow us and our children wherever we go, just as they followed our great-grandparents here 100 years ago. That’s because as children of God, we know our everlasting Father follows us wherever we go. David wrote: Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? … ⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. (Ps 139:7-10) The same Lord followed our forefathers to America and, praise God, didn’t let them forget Him in their new homeland.

What an awesome miracle of God’s grace it really is, that one hundred years after the founding of this church, that so many years after your parents first journeyed to America, we are gathered together as their spiritual children to praise the same, unchanging, loving God today!

When a child comes to visit her parents, it’s because she respects them and loves them and is grateful to them for the way they treated her as she was growing up. Good parents produce good and grateful children. We’re here today as God’s children because of His love for us through the years. He has raised us well. He provided for us. He cared for us. He gave us the wise advice we always needed. When tragedy struck he lifted us up again. When sorrow overtook us, he comforted us and made us happy again. Do you understand what I’m saying? We’re not here because we’re such good kids. We’re here because God was and still is such a perfect Father. We can’t help it. We want to praise him for all his goodness to us. We want to be good children because he raised us that way. And we want to pass on that wonderful family heritage—those roots—to our children and grandchildren after us. Today we want to pray, as Solomon did at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem 3000 years ago: "May The Lord Our God Be With Us As He Was With Our Fathers; May He Never Leave Us Nor Forsake Us."

Truly The Lord Was With Our Fathers, just as he was with Solomon’s father David, and with all his people Israel. He led them out of the land of bondage in Egypt. Before them he miraculously opened the Red Sea and led them through on dry ground. He fed them miraculously with the bread of heaven for forty years, and by his mighty hand they took possession of the land he had promised on oath to their forefather Abraham 500 years before. Under David and Solomon, the Lord made his people into the most powerful kingdom on earth. Let God be true, and every man a liar. (Rom 3:4)

God was with our fathers in the same way. He who sent his Son to redeem for himself an eternal people from every tribe and language and people and nation, sent the Gospel to Germany, to Russia, to Africa. He brought our forefathers to faith. He adopted them through the water of baptism. He instilled in them through preachers and teachers the vision of an eternal, heavenly home, for which they came to long as strangers and refugees on earth. Persecuted and uprooted, he led them to America, to Michigan, to Benton Harbor. And he followed them each step of the way. He blessed them here. He gave them work. He gave them food. He gave them homes and he gave them children and grandchildren. But above all, he blessed them with his abiding presence. To the world they may have been refugees and emigrants. To God, they were his very own dear children.

And by God’s grace, they didn’t forget that. So they sought out their fellow believers and formed a congregation. Even if they’d never had a church building, they would have had by far the most important thing of all—the Word, the ministry, the Gospel, the sacraments; fellowship with each other and fellowship with their God.

But he gave them more. Like David and Solomon, they longed to build the Lord a dwelling, from which his promises could continue to ring out, calling the young and old to rest. They began building immediately because they put the Lord first. A church wasn’t something they visited once in a while. It was to them what it should be to everyone—the center of their lives.

God blessed their zeal and determination, and less than twenty years later they began the work of building a larger house of God. Look around you and you will see how important God was to them. They didn’t want a box "to get the job done." They wanted a temple that soared toward the heavens and pointed men to their final destiny. They didn’t want windows that just let in the light. They wanted windows that offered a glimpse into another world—a better one—the one they longed for and the one we long for too. Truly, we can proclaim as did Solomon three millennia before us "The Lord Was With Our Fathers!" It was he who gave them their zeal. It was he who taught them to put their faith first. It was he who increased their numbers. It was he who blessed and multiplied their offerings—all because of his faithful, abiding love for them.

And that unchanging love never ceased. As times grew more prosperous, he sent reminders to his people, that they still needed their God. Through World Wars, urban decay, and even crime that struck close to home in the form of injury and fire, God blessed St. Matthew’s people, not letting them forget the one thing needful. He wouldn’t let us forget to long for a better home, a heavenly one. He wouldn’t let us forget that true mission work is always truly work—and sometimes difficult work. It’s too easy to grow spiritually lax. It’s too easy to forget God when things go well. But God loves St. Matthew’s, and so He strove to keep our spiritual muscles in tone. Surely, "The Lord Was With Our Fathers!"

Through a century of ecclesiastical turmoil, he has kept our church faithful to his Word. Hardly a month goes by, without reports of some new heresy reaching our ears. Homosexual marriages, denying the virgin birth and the resurrection of Christ, ecumenical agreements at the expense of sound Biblical doctrine. Through it all, God has graciously kept this church faithful to the Scriptures and to the Lutheran Confessions. God doesn’t change, and the truth doesn’t either. How many other churches ring out with the same truth 100 years after their founding? It’s not our doing. Our ears, too, often itch for change. No, it is God who has done this. Truly, "The Lord Was With Our Fathers!"

And now we pray, as we stand on the threshold of a new century and a new millenium, "May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us."

‘We need his presence every passing hour. What, but his grace, can foil the tempter’s power?’ The world of 100 years ago was not an easy place to live. There were no antibiotics. Our forefathers didn’t drive cars when they arrived in Benton Harbor. In many cases they came here in flight, as dictators persecuted and wars threatened.

But make no mistake, our day may be easier for life in this world, but it is every bit as dangerous—perhaps more so—for those who want to live for the world to come. Cars may make it easier to get to church, but televisions and Lazyboys^® make it harder. The German language made it harder for them to feel at home in America. But the English language has made it easier for us to listen to every heresy and fall for any of the ever multiplying sects with which Satan has inflicted American Christianity. Healthcare advances have made it easier to worship and praise God into our 70s, 80s and 90s. But the DANK, the Kickers and motorhomes have made it easier to put God’s Word in second place. We need to pray that the Lord would remain with us, even as he was with our fathers. "May he never leave us nor forsake us."

May he graciously turn our hearts to him when we sin. How sad it would be, if our second century were not a Century with Christ. If our pastors were afraid to remind us of the truths of God’s law. If they were afraid to call sin what it is, to correct, admonish and rebuke. No, may God turn our hearts to him when we sin, that repenting on bended knee with true inward sorrow, we and our children might continue to receive his everlasting pardon from the cross.

May he teach us, and instill the heartfelt longing in us to always follow his commands. The easy way out is not the right way. We will need the Spirit’s power to want to always do the right thing, not the comfortable or the convenient thing. "May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us."

May he awaken in us the zeal of our forefathers to build up His kingdom. As our fathers rolled up their sleeves and in some cases emptied their savings account to build this church, may we have the same zeal to do the tasks of our day—reaching out into a changed neighborhood with the Gospel, and inviting all to the pure Gospel banquet that God has spread in the Lutheran church.

Dear friends, fellow members of St. Matthew’s, we stand today at the threshold of our second Century with Christ. Pray and work for the prosperity of this corner of the Kingdom of God. Rely confidently on God, for by ourselves we can accomplish nothing. Remain in Him, work for Him, worship Him, live for Him, and by His grace, our own great grandchildren will rejoice here 100 years from now over the blessings of Two Centuries with Christ! "May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us." Amen.