Town & Country Lutheran Church

04/16/2025

New sign just in time for Holy Week.

09/24/2024

Still true.

09/19/2024

Confirmation started last Sunday, but it's never too late to join us.

09/18/2024

09/16/2024

See you Sunday.

11/24/2023

Join us in person or online at 9:30 AM for the LAST SUNDAY OF THE CHURCH YEAR

Ezekiel 34:11–16, 20–24
1 Corinthians 15:20–28
Matthew 25:31–46

By the Cross of Christ, We Enter the Kingdom of Our God and Father

When the crucified and risen Lord Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead, “he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt. 25:32). “To those on his right,” who have been crucified and raised with Him through repentance and faith in His Gospel, He will grant the blessed kingdom of His Father (Matt. 25:34). Having been justified by His grace, they live unto righteousness in Him (Matt. 25:35–40). But “those on his left,” who trust in themselves and despise their neighbor, will depart “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). Until that day, the Lord searches for His sheep “as a shepherd seeks out his flock” (Ezek. 34:11–12). Through His preaching of repentance, He disciplines the proud sheep and goats, “the fat and the strong,” but through the preaching of forgiveness He rescues the lost, binds up the injured, strengthens the weak and feeds “the lean sheep” (Ezek. 34:16, 20). In this way, He destroys the power of death in the children of Adam by His cross, so that “in Christ shall all be made alive” by His resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20–26).

Town & Country Lutheran Church4049 Marconi AveSacramento, CA 95821Paypal: [email protected]

11/20/2023

Join us in person or online at 7:00 PM for Thanksgiving Eve.

Deuteronomy 8:1–10
Philippians 4:6–20 or 1 Timothy 2:1–4
Luke 17:11–19

We Praise God for Sustaining Life in and through His Word

The nation resounds with thanksgiving for the earth’s bountiful harvest, crops of wheat and grains, all beneath the canopy of God’s almighty care. But “man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deut. 8:3). The Church is the vessel through which the Word of God penetrates the world with its Law and Gospel. It is this divine Word that proclaims Jesus as the sole source of life, health and wholeness. It is Jesus who heals lepers with His Word: “Go and show yourselves to the priests” (Luke 17:11–19). Of the 10 cleansed, only one expresses thanksgiving back to Jesus. But true gratitude proceeds from a heart sustained by faith. Jesus bids this one Samaritan to “rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” So also, we are sent from the Divine Service, bolstered in our faith by baptismal and Eucharist blessing to be thankful in our circumstances of plenty and hunger, abundance and need (Phil. 4:6–20).

Town & Country Lutheran Church4049 Marconi AveSacramento, CA 95821Paypal: [email protected]

11/17/2023

Join us in person or online at 9:30 AM for the TWENTY-FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Zephaniah 1:7–16
1 Thessalonians 5:1–11
Matthew 25:14–30

God’s Gift of Forgiveness Engenders Our Forgiveness of Others

The Day of the Lord is “near and hastening fast,” and it will be “a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation” (Zeph. 1:14, 15). The Lord will search out and punish “the men who are complacent” concerning His Word, “who fill their master’s house with violence and fraud” (Zeph. 1:9, 12). Then all their works and efforts will be for nothing: “Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them; though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them” (Zeph. 1:13). But those who fear, love and trust in the Lord are “good and faithful” stewards of His property (Matt. 25:21). They live by faith in His free gift of forgiveness, and they multiply His goods in the loving forgiveness of their neighbor, and “the master of those servants” settles His accounts with them by the gracious reckoning of His Gospel (Matt. 25:19). Likewise, “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9). Therefore, let us also “put on the breastplate of faith and love” in our dealings with one another (1 Thess. 5:8).

Town & Country Lutheran Church4049 Marconi AveSacramento, CA 95821Paypal: [email protected]

11/10/2023

Join us in person or online at 9:30 AM for the TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Amos 5:18–24
1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
Matthew 25:1–13

The Gospel Prepares Us for Our Heavenly Bridegroom’s Coming

The Day of the Lord is “darkness, and not light” (Amos 5:18, 20) for all who trust in their own righteousness and piety. The Lord will not accept their “burnt offerings and grain offerings,” nor will He look upon their “peace offerings” (Amos 5:22). Instead, He desires a heart of faith that trusts in Him, which lets “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24) in love for the neighbor. In order for the “lamps” of our lives to burn brightly with such love, we must be filled with the “oil” of forgiveness through faith in our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ (Matt. 25:1–4). Therefore, as we await His coming, wisdom directs us “to the dealers” (Matt. 25:9), that is, to the ministers of His Gospel. Thus we wait upon the Lord, and we “encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:18). Waking or sleeping, we are prepared to meet Him when He comes “with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God,” and “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).

Town & Country Lutheran Church4049 Marconi AveSacramento, CA 95821Paypal: [email protected]

10/27/2023

Join us in person or online at 9:30 AM for the 𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐀𝐘 (𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝)

𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝟏𝟒:𝟔–𝟕
𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝟑:𝟏𝟗–𝟐𝟖
𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝟖:𝟑𝟏–𝟑𝟔

The Son of God Has Set Us Free from Sin and Death by His Grace

“Wisdom is justified by her deeds” (Matt. 11:19), and the true wisdom of God, Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son, justifies us by His deeds. He prepares His way by the preaching of repentance, but He has suffered the violence of the Law and voluntarily handed Himself over to violent men, in order that we may eat and drink with Him in His Kingdom and “remain in the house forever” (John 8:35). He is “a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matt. 11:18–19), and He has rescued us by His grace from the slavery of sin and death. By the proclamation of His eternal Gospel “to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people” (Rev. 14:6), “the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law” (Rom. 3:21), “that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26). And by the hearing of that Gospel of Christ Jesus, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:25), “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).

We Are Recreated in the Image of God by the Cross of Christ⁣
⁣
Plotting against Jesus, the Pharisees attempted “to entangle him in his words” by asking about the payment of taxes to Caesar (Matt. 22:15). The Lord pointed to coins required for the tax, and He answered that we should “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21). But if coins bearing the image of Caesar should be rendered to him, then man — who is made in the image of God — must be rendered to the Lord. That tax is paid for us by the Lord Jesus, the image of God in the flesh, by His self-offering on the cross. And from His cross, as the Lord’s anointed, He reigns as the true Caesar over all nations “from the rising of the sun and from the west” (Is. 45:6). The Lord once called and anointed Cyrus “to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings” (Is. 45:1). Now by the preaching of the Gospel, “in power and in the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 1:5), foreigners from all over the world are “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9–10). ⁣

Town & Country Lutheran Church4049 Marconi AveSacramento, CA 95821Paypal: [email protected]

10/25/2023

Join us this Saturday for Octo'bug'fest from 4:00 to 7:00 PM. There will be food, music, and games for the kids. And of course, the guest of honor, the pastor's 1963 VW Beetle.

10/25/2023

Getting ready for Octo'bug'fest!