Crown of Life Lutheran Church

CROWN OF LIFE LUTHERAN CHURCH

SERVING THE LORD AND US TODAY NEXT SUNDAY

Organist: Joyce White Rob Lozen

Elder: 8 – Paul Condon Daniel Hellmann

10:45 – Mel Pavlisin Dave Balza

Ushers: 8 – Dave Paulson & Zachary Condon Ron Rahn & Marcel Krueger

10:45 – Doug & Noah Lozen Dave Balza & Matt Visaggio

Greeters: 8 – Dave & Judy Lamper Dolores Stoddart

10:45 – Darlene Lange Brian & Cheryl Kopp

Fellowship: Marsha Wranovsky Ruth Pavlisin

Counters: Bill Renken & Mel Pavlisin Nick Yunker & Dave Balza

Communion: Vicki Balza & Darlene Lange

FLOWERS on the altar today have been given by Ruth Hayes in loving memory of her grandson, Courtland John Hayes. 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 today about 11 AM. Our Bible class is studying a series of lessons on Love Takes Time. Everyone is invited to join us for our Bible study.

CHURCH COUNCIL will meet on Tuesday at 7:00 PM.

REVELATION BIBLE CLASS will meet tomorrow at 10:00 AM.

RUBIES’ WOMEN’S BIBLE STUDY will meet on Thursday at 10:00 AM.

LWMS: Today 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)

The Spring LWMS Rally will be held on Saturday, March 12, at Christ the King in Port Charlotte. Mark your calendar. Thank you. Sheryl Renken, LWMS Reporter

YOUNG ADULTS will meet next Sunday from about 5-8 PM at the home of Heather Krug in Cape Coral. Anyone who is college age or older is welcome to join the group. If interested and you need directions, please contact Matt Visaggio at 239-246-8116.

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.

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.

CALLS: Pastor Brian Keller, currently serving St. Stephen’s of Adrian, Michigan, has been extended the call to serve as our new pastor. Miss Cynthia Deno, currently serving at St. Paul’s of Rapid City, South Dakota, has been extended the call to serve as our new pre-school director and teacher. May the Lord lead each of them to a decision that is in keeping with His will.

DEUTSCHLANDER PRESENTATION: Anyone who would like to purchase a DVD set of the presentation by Prof. Deutschlander for $2 is asked to contact our church office.

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.

LOVE TAKES TIME: Christ’s love truly is our calling. That love changes everything about us. Before we only lived for ourselves. Now our desire is to live for Christ. Jesus forgave a sinful woman’s many sins (Luke 7:36-50). What was her response? She went shopping for perfume. She brought a jar of perfume and poured it on Jesus’ feet while she wet them with her tears! She was committed to the One who was committed to going to the cross for her. May our days be spent in joyful service for Jesus. Next week we will hear Jesus’ comforting Word: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 7:50).

SERMON

Sermon Text: Matthew 25:31-40

31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me.' 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and invite You in, or needing clothes and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick or in prison and go to visit You?' 40 The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.'”

Sermon Theme: “A LOVE ONLY JESUS WILL REMEMBER”

The two largest bodies of water in the Holyland are often compared to the two different kinds of people. One is the Sea of Galilee, the largest fresh water lake in the land of Israel. It has an inlet on the northern end of the lake that receives water flowing down from Mount Hermon via the Jordan River. But it also has an outlet on the southern end that continues its flow back into the Jordan River.

And then, about 75 miles or so to the south of the Sea of Galilee, the water of the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea. Like its name implies, the Dead Sea is dead and stagnant because it has no outlet.

The Sea of Galilee is like people who receive and then give while the Dead Sea is like people who receive but never give.

Our lesson today is about people who are like the Sea of Galilee. They keep letting their love flow out of themselves to others around them. But their love is something so natural that they don’t even remember what they do. But Jesus does remember. Yes, we see here that our love for others is “A LOVE ONLY JESUS WILL REMEMBER”. That’s because Jesus always forgets what we remember and He always remembers what we forget.

Our lesson actually marks the end of Jesus’ teaching and preaching ministry. In all likelihood it was Wednesday of Holy Week when Jesus taught these words to His disciples. The very next day would be the celebration of the Passover meal followed by His arrest and crucifixion a day later.

That is what makes these words so appropriate at that time. Right before He lays down His life for the sins of the world, Jesus looks ahead to the final judgment at the end of time. These two events – His death and the final judgment - are so closely related to each other.

Jesus begins our lesson with these words: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory.” Jesus speaks of “the Son of Man” – His favorite name for Himself. It is not only emphasizes His true humanity, but also points to the fact that He is the promised Messiah as foretold by the prophet Daniel in the OT. As the Son of Man Jesus is coming again in all “His glory, and all the angels with Him”. And then “He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory” as the glorious King of kings. That is a day that is surely going to come and what an awesome day that is going to be.

On that day all the dead will be raised back to life and then, like Jesus says, “All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” All people who have ever lived in the history of the world will meet Jesus face to face in the sky as the laws of gravity will cease. And then people who lived together here on earth will be divided by Jesus like a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. The group on His right will be the sheep – His faithful followers – and those on His left will be the goats – the stubborn unbelievers.

The first words Jesus will speak will be addressed to His true sheep: “Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” This will be His gracious invitation to join Him for all eternity in the joy and glory of heaven. Jesus speaks of us as those “who are blessed by My Father”. This is why you and I will be invited. We were blessed once and we will continue to be blessed by God to the day we die. This is an obvious reference to the fact that our salvation is a pure blessing or gift from God. It is a blessing that comes to us only because of the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ. It was Jesus who obeyed His Father’s will in our place and it was Jesus who “became sin for us” so that He might suffer the full punishment on the cross that we deserved for our sins.

But Jesus will also invite us to take our “inheritance”. An inheritance is not something we earn but a free gift that we receive through faith in Jesus as our Savior. Even our faith is a gracious gift of the Holy Spirit through His Word. And our inheritance is “the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world”. God came up with His plan to save us even before He created this world. And then He chose us at the same time to be heirs of His eternal kingdom in heaven. Talk about being blessed – you and I are the most blessed people in the world to know Jesus and to believe that He is our one and only Savior from sin and hell.

But you know, the most amazing thing about all this is the fact that Jesus is so willing to take us home to heaven. Why? Well, it’s only because He always forgets what we remember. So often we remember those sins of the past that continue to haunt us and give us a guilty conscience. We think that God could not possibly love us because of what we are like or what we have done. We never seem to get our sins out of our minds.

But God be praised that He does not remember our sins. Like the psalmist says in Psalm 103: “God does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Or like David says in Psalm 32: “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him.” Yes, what a blessing to know that because of Jesus, our sins are forever forgiven and forgotten by God, even though we may still remember them.

But we can also see here that Jesus will always remember what we forget.

Because we are so blessed, wouldn’t you think it would be natural for us to show our love for Jesus in return? That, of course, is what we do with the time we spend in our worship of Him, in our study of His Word, in our quality family time, and in our volunteer time here at church. But there is another way we will also show our love for Jesus with our time. And that is by the way we help others in need. That is why Jesus says here: “For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me.”

Jesus mentions six different situations in which we may find people in need, especially our fellow believers: when they are hungry or thirsty or a stranger or lacking clothes or sick or unjustly incarcerated. And what will we do for them? We will give them something to eat or drink. We will invite them in and give them some clothes to wear. Or we will look after them or visit them when they are sick or in prison.

You see, Jesus isn’t looking for something that is impossible for us to do. He doesn’t say, “I was sick and you healed me” or “I as in prison and you set me free”. No, all He is looking for are little things – little acts of kindness and compassion. When we know someone who has a legitimate need, we won’t brush him off or refuse to get involved, but we will do whatever we can to help.