Preached by Chris Broom, 5/3/2009

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Oscar and Laura Celebrate their Marriage--Our First Latino Wedding in the Church!

Mark Series part 14, Hope for Everyone Who Believes – Outline

Oscar first saw Laura when they were growing up in Mexico. He was thirteen and she was fifteen. He fell in love with her and they were married a year later. Now they have four children and yet they had never had a church wedding. They were both baptized in the Spanish ministy this past year and Saturday, we were able to see them exchange vows as disciples in the Kingdom of God. There’s hope for everyone who believes!

Mark 7:24-30

• You can’t keep good news to yourself. Word gets out!
• This woman in need heard that the Messiah was near.
• She came and begged Jesus to help her.
• Jesus says a really challenging sentence to her. He refers to the Israelites as the children of God and the Gentiles as their dogs.
• She could have responded in a defensive or prideful way, but instead she is very humble.
• She has a high regard for God and a humble view of herself.
• She responded in humility and yet she begged Jesus to still bless her.
• Jesus commended her for her faithful response and healed her daughter.
• This is the only time in the book of Mark that Jesus is addressed as Lord, and it isn’t from a Jew (the children), but a Gentile (dog).

There’s Hope for Everyone who Believes!

Romans 1o:1-2 / 11-21

1. There’s Hope for Everyone who Hears!

• Paul wants to see the Israelites saved, but recognizes that their zeal is not based on knowledge.
• There’s hope for everyone who believes! Even the Gentiles.
• But not everyone believed the message. Some were stubborn and obstinate!
• You cannot believe until you hear!
• That’s the heart of World Missions / Missions Contribution:
• The Syracuse Church sent us here so we could preach to this city! July 10-12, we are going back to thank them at the North East Evangelism Seminar, Live for Christ!
• The day after missions, I met a man and shared my faith. He sent us a check for $2oo for missions in the mail this week all on his own without me asking him!

This year’s special mission’s contribution was by God and for God! The hearts of the disciples in the campus, teen and young singles ministry was revealed by their readiness to sacrifice and give beyond their ability.

Brothers and sisters sold items of interest, did unique fundraisers, and simply requested money from people. Joel Klemmer sold a watch for $400 and a fish tank for over $250! Seeing Joel’s heart to sacrifice, God blessed him with nearly $8000 of financial aid to go back to school! Theo Dawson collected $180 from his relatives. Brittany Parlour sold clothes on the internet for $60. Joel Parlour collected $205 from his relatives and people from his school. He and Greg Biggs also helped a woman move for $150! Nikki DeBarras saw that she had some free time so she walked around a doctor’s office for thirty minutes and collected $100. Perhaps the most inspiring story came from Maria Cortez. Promising God in a prayer that any money collected through unemployment would go to missions, she walked to the mailbox and found a check for $340. She then sold a purse on the internet for $200 and had a bake sale with some of our teens to collect $85. Altogether, Maria gave over 75 times her weekly contribution pledge, which is 60 times more than the suggested personal contribution amount!

The goal for the church collection was around $49,000 and on Sunday, April 26 it was announced that the church gave almost $53,000! The money will be distributed to the Latino ministry and our youth ministry here in Chicago, and missions work in India as we support Raja and Debbie Rajan in the full time ministry.

Romans 11:1-2 / 11-24

• There is Hope for Everyone who Believes!
• God will not accept our excuses.
• Paul takes excuses away by obeying.
• Paul built a ministry to take excuses away.
• God blessed the “dogs” and it either hardened Israel or made them envious in hopes of their repentance.
• The door is always open for those who believe!

2. There’s Hope for Everyone who Fears!

• We need to be afraid of ever being so stubborn or obstinate that we walk away from His Kingdom.
• Our pride tells us that we know better.
• Fear is good! If we aren’t afraid, we act however we want. We are so arogant. When we are afraid, we watch our p’s and q’s. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom according to the proverbs.
• How dare we dabble with the world.
• How dare we not obey God in his way.

In the Kentucky Derby yesterday, a 50 to 1 longshot called MineThatBird came from behind and won the whole thing! It was the second greatest upset ever in the Derby. What would you say our odds are at evangelizing the world in our generation? Many don’t believe that we can evangelize the world in our generation and so they don’t have the vision to build anything beyond a local church, even if they teach the right doctrine. We are striving to build a movement that will reach around the world! It will not be easy! But if we can get to where we did before in the ICOC, and even beyond, then maybe others will start to believe and the end of world evangelism will be an explosion of people getting the faith and joining in! Let us pray! If we are arogant, we will be cut off, but if we build it for the right reason, maybe others will start to believe and get grafted back in!

There’s hope for everyone who believes!

-Chris Broom

Categories: Mark Series, Sermons
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