Sermon Title: Hunger Games
II Kings 6:24,25: Some time later, Ben-Hadad king of Aram mobilized his entire army and marched up and laid siege to Samaria. There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.
II Kings 7:3-11: Now there were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? If we say, ‘We’ll go into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.” At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one was there, for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, “Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!” So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also. Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let’s go at once and report this to the royal palace.” So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, “We went into the Aramean camp and no one was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were.” The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.
II Kings 7:16: Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of the finest flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the LORD had said.
Every Christian has a mission given to them by God – a Christian leader and writer, Dennis Bickers, calls it the “Great Commission” and “Great Commandment” calling. This means God calls us to love others and tell others about Him. No Christian is excused from this calling – everyone who comes to faith in Christ has been given this mission as part of their inheritance from God. We should be concerned that we not only carry this mission out in our community, but also throughout the world. It is God’s desire that every person hear the message of the Gospel and experience His love, and it is every Christian’s calling to participate in God’s great work. This Sunday, we will hear that how God has given us an opportunity as a church to be a part of a new church starting in Peoria. God will use the new church to spread the Gospel message and share God’s love with others, thus carrying out the “Great Commission” and “Great Commandment”. Our support of this church plant is one of the ways we fulfill our calling as individual Christians and corporately as a church. Pastor Russ Shearer, the leader of this new church in Peoria, will be sharing about this work and bringing the message on Sunday. He is a gifted speaker and his message will sure to be a blessing. Hope to see you then!
