CROWN OF LIFE LUTHERAN CHURCH
SERVING THE LORD AND US TODAY NEXT SUNDAY
Organist: Joyce White Robbie Lozen
Elder: 8 – Marv Lehman Paul Condon
10:45 – Mel Pavlisin Mel Pavlisin
Ushers: 8 – Ron Rahn & Marcel Krueger Paul & Zach Condon
10:45 – Mel Pavlisin & Kevin Syverson Doug & Noah Lozen
Greeters: 8 – Kay Lehman Dave & Judy Lamper
10:45 – Matt & Katie Visaggio Darlene Lange
Fellowship: Zola VonDeylen Marsha Wranovsky
(in honor of Jerry’s birthday)
Counters: Brian Kopp & Paul Condon Bill Renken & Mel Pavlisin
Communion: Vicki Balza & Darlene Lange
FLOWERS today have been given to the glory of God by Marv and Kay Lehman with their children and grandchildren in honor of the birthday of Darlene Lange. Thank you!
TIME OF FELLOWSHIP: Everyone is invited to enjoy refreshments and fellowship after the service at the school.
SUNDAY SCHOOL AND BIBLE CLASS will meet about 9:45 AM. Our Bible Class is studying a series of lessons on Love Takes Time.
REVELATION BIBLE CLASS will meet tomorrow at 10:00 AM.
WELS CONNECTION video will be shown today following our services. The topic for
this month is Vietnamese Outreach in Boise, Idaho.
NEW MEMBER RECEPTION: This morning during the 10:45 service we will be receiving publicly those who have joined our family of faith in recent months. They are Sharon Shimick, Nicole Randall, Kevin Syverson and Warren and Emma Stingl.
CALLS EXTENDED: With the impending retirement of Pastor Balza at the end of June, Pastor Brian Keller has been extended the call to serve as our new pastor. Pastor Keller is currently serving St. Stephen’s of Adrian, Michigan. Also, with Jennie Mehlberg having accepted a call to the MLC Early Childhood Center in New Ulm, MN, a call has been extended to Miss Cynthia Deno who is currently serving at St. Paul’s of Rapid City, SD. May the Lord lead each of them to a decision that is in keeping with his will.
RUBIES’ WOMEN’S BIBLE STUDY will meet on Thursday at 10:00 AM.
PRAYER LIST: Please remember in your prayers: Esther Stellwagen (recovering at home following possible min-stroke), Pam Adams (back/recovering), Agnes Woodard (husband, Deuel, has dementia in a nursing home in New York), Norine Metzger (Pastor Metzger’s wife from Michigan with physical problems), Levi Zimpelmann (Pastor Zimpelmann’s son from Montana with seizures), Carol Dobrunz (recovery from knee replacement surgery and cancer treatments), Kenneth Lange (son of Darlene Lange with cancer), Kimberly Wallace (the granddaughter of Darlene Lange who has been diagnosed with a form of breast cancer), Ruth Hayes (recovering from back surgery), Pat Hartwig (recovering from back surgery).
MEMBERSHIP BIBLE INFORMATION CLASS: Anyone is welcome to attend the new Bible Information Class that will begin on Thursday at 6:30 PM. There will be a series of 15 weekly lessons. The class will also be offered to anyone who would like to attend on a weekday morning or afternoon. Please contact the pastor.
PICTORIAL DIRECTORY: Pictures for our new pictorial directory will be taken on Friday and Saturday of this week by Olan Mills. Members and winter guests are encouraged to sign up today or call our church office at 482-7315 during weekday mornings to schedule a photo shoot. All who have their picture take will receive a free directory and free 8x10 photo. There is no obligation to buy anything.
BUILDERS FOR CHRIST: Four couples with Builders for Christ will be working at our church the week of February 20th. If anyone is able to host one of the couples during that week, please contact Bill Renken or our church office at 482-7315.
LENTEN SERVICES begin on Ash Wednesday, March 9th. Our Ash Wednesday services will be held at 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM. The theme for our Lenten devotions this year will be People of the Passion.
LWMS: Next Sunday, February 20, we will have a special offering for our LWMS Mission Box projects. These monies will go toward “Summer Student Assistants”, where seminary students receive valuable experience and the established congregations receive needed assistance (Home Missions), and “Lutheran Health & Development Project - Zambia” (World Missions). Your generous gifts will enable LWMS to continue to support our Home and World Mission projects. A basket will be available in the Narthex for your donations. (Checks should be made payable to COL with LWMS written in the Memo section) Thank you. Sheryl Renken, LWMS Reporter
PUBLICATIONS: Our Crowning Touch newsletter for February and the Forward In Christ magazine for February are available in the narthex. Also the new Meditations beginning February 27th are also available.
NOTES: NIV softcover large-print Bibles are available for $7.50 each. Please see the pastor if interested in purchasing… Church mugs with the Crown of Life logo and Bible passage are available on the table in the narthex for $4 each… We are again saving old Meditations for the WELS Prison Ministry.
SERMON
Sermon Text: Acts 2:37-47
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" 38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call." 40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." 41Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Sermon Theme: “THE IDEAL CONGREGATION TO SERVE”
If you moved to a new area and were searching for a church to join, what would impress you the most? Would it be how friendly the members were? Would it be the pastor and how nice he looked or preached? Would it be the music or how the church looked or the size of the congregation? Most people, when they are “church shopping”, are usually looking for something about that church that impresses them. Unfortunately, however, they are not always looking for the right thing, like what that church believes and teaches and confesses. Is it a church that is true to the Bible or not?
But now, what if we were to turn that around? What might impress a pastor about a church? That is what we are going to consider this morning on the basis of these words of our lesson. We will see “THE IDEAL CONGREGATION TO SERVE”. We will see that it is one in which all the members share a common faith through the faithful use of the means of grace and one in which all the members share a common love for one another and all people.
1.
Our lesson takes us back to the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead and ten days after He had ascended back to heaven. It was on that day of Pentecost that the ascended Savior sent the Holy Spirit upon His disciples who then boldly proclaimed the Word of God to the people at Jerusalem.
Chapter two of Acts especially tells us of a sermon that was preached that day by Peter. If you read his sermon, you will see that it is basically law and gospel. He told the people how they were the ones responsible for putting Jesus to death but on the third day God had raised Him from the dead to prove that Jesus’ death was the complete payment for the sins of all people of all time.
That is when we are told that the people “were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” And then Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off — for all whom the Lord our God will call."
There were a couple amazing things that happened. First of all, the people who had helped put Jesus to death actually listened to what Peter had to say to them. Keep in mind that, before this, they had no use for Jesus or for His followers. But by a miracle of the Holy Spirit the people listened to Peter and then they actually took his words to heart. They believed what he said and now they wanted to know what they should do.
And that is when Peter told them to “repent and be baptized”. The people needed to change what they were doing. But they also needed to change their thinking and their attitude toward Jesus and His Word. By offering them baptism, Peter was saying that once they changed their minds about their sin, then they would receive forgiveness through the gracious washing of baptism. Their sins would be washed away in the cleansing blood of Jesus – the very blood they had helped to shed on the cross by their sin and unbelief. And with their baptism, they would also receive “the gift of the Holy Spirit” which is faith. But this gift of faith was not only for them but also for their children and anyone else who would be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.
Then we are told that Peter warned them of the judgment to come if they refused to repent and “pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.’” The only way we can “save ourselves” is by heeding what the Bible tells us to do. And that is why there were some three thousand people on that day of Pentecost who repented and were baptized for the forgiveness of their sins. There has never been a time before or since when so many people were converted and brought to faith in Jesus at the same time. But that was a forceful demonstration of God’s grace and power at work to show what can happen when His Word is proclaimed.
That day of Pentecost, then, marked the beginning of the New Testament Christian church. Up to this time, during His ministry Jesus had gathered several hundred true believers in Him, both in Jerusalem and throughout the land of Israel, especially in the northern region of Galilee. But now the first real Christian congregation was established right there at Jerusalem. A small group of about 120 people now suddenly grew to several thousand people, served by twelve pastors – the twelve apostles.
But I think we can call this “the ideal congregation” for a couple reasons. First of all, the members of that congregation all shared a common faith through the faithful use of the means of grace. Listen to what we are told about them: “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” This one sentence summarizes what that congregation was like. “They devoted themselves”. The term here literally means to stick to something like glue. And the first thing they stuck to was “the apostles’ teaching”, or the teaching of the apostles. What did the apostles teach? Well, obviously, they taught the very words Jesus had taught them. Jesus had told His disciples to baptize and then to teach people to “obey everything I have commanded you”. They were to tell people about their sin and their great need for a Savior. And then they were to point the people to Jesus Himself as “the Way and the Truth and the Life”, the “only name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved”. That was the message the people needed to hear and wanted to hear. They were eager to learn and to grow in their knowledge and understanding of what the Bible says and did not take the easy way out by saying they had no time for Bible study or that “they already knew all that anyway”.
But they also stuck tightly “to the fellowship”. The believers realized they shared something in common – not only their faith in Jesus but also the true teaching of His Word. That was something that meant so much to them that they wanted to express their unity by worshiping together, by receiving the Lord’s Supper together for the forgiveness of sins, and by uniting together in prayer.
Any true pastor would agree that this would be the ideal congregation to serve. The members understood correctly that church membership was all about letting their pastor serve them with Jesus and with His Word. They truly loved the Word and they were “devoted” to hearing and learning it day after day. To them there was nothing more important than growing in their faith through the faithful use of the means of grace.