North Park Baptist Church of Bridgeport CT

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Thankful Giving

November 17, 2024

A Thankful Church

2 Corinthians 8:1-5, 9:11-12

Mark Smith

Thankful Giving

Date Preached: November 17, 2024

Series: A Thankful Church

Speaker: Mark Smith

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A thankful church gives out of thankfulness. We'll see that in a group of churches who surprised the Apostle Paul with the depth of their giving. From these churches we'll learn some characteristics of churches that give thankfully, and we'll have an opportunity to answer the questions, "Am I a thankful giver?" and "Is my church a thankful giving church?"

Thankful Giving

Thankful Praying

November 10, 2024

A Thankful Church

Colossians 4:2

Mark Smith

Thankful Praying

Date Preached: November 10, 2024

Series: A Thankful Church

Speaker: Mark Smith

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A thankful church is known through thankful praying. Paul instructed the Colossian church to pray with thanksgiving. He unites prayer and thanksgiving in other passages, as well. Thanks and prayer should go together. Knowing that is the easy part. Doing it consistently is the challenge.

In this message we'll consider five obstacles we (or our church) will have to overcome to be consistently thankful in our prayers.

Thankful Praying

A Thankful Church

November 3, 2024

A Thankful Church

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Mark Smith

A Thankful Church

Date Preached: November 3, 2024

Series: A Thankful Church

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Not only are individual Christians to be thankful people, but churches are to be thankful churches. It makes a big difference in the fellowship, worship, service, decision-making, and outlook of the church to be thankful. As we'll see, Paul instructed a church that had a lot to complain about to always be thankful. We'll look at how that is possible as we thinks about what we have to be thankful for in our church.

A Thankful Church

Be the Church: Reach

October 20, 2024

Be the Church

Acts 1:8, 2:41, 2:47, 8:4, 13:1-4

Mark Smith

Be the Church: Reach

Date Preached: October 20, 2024

Series: Be the Church

Speaker: Mark Smith

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The early church connected, grew, and served. They also reached. They were reaching people where they were and they were reaching by going out and planting new churches. We need to be reaching, too. In this message we'll define reaching, explain why we should reach, what we are reaching people for, and what the message is that we are trying to reach others with. We'll conclude with an opportunity to commit ourselves to reaching others for Jesus.

Be the Church: Reach

Be the Church – Grow

October 6, 2024

Be the Church

Acts 2:41-47

Mark Smith

Be the Church – Grow

Date Preached: October 6, 2024

Series: Be the Church

Speaker: Mark Smith

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The second action word of the church is Grow. We see the church growing in at least two ways in the early chapters of Acts, and we see believers growing in at least three ways. We'll look at these and determine how the word grow should apply to us today, and how North Park Church works to help believers grow.

Be the Church – Grow

Be the Church: Connect

September 29, 2024

Be the Church

Acts 2:41-47

Mark Smith

Be the Church: Connect

Date Preached: September 29, 2024

Series: Be the Church

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Four words describe the first church found in Acts 2:41-47. Believers connected, grew, served, and reached. These are action words for every Christian. In this message we look at the two dimensions in which believers are to connect, briefly discuss the importance of connecting, and then share ways that believers can connect through the church. We conclude by evaluating the quality of our connections and make plans to improve them.

Be the Church: Connect

Be the Church: What Is the Church?

September 22, 2024

Be the Church

Matthew 16:18, 1 John 3:1, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Acts 2:41, Matthew 28:19-29

Mark Smith

Be the Church: What Is the Church?

Date Preached: September 22, 2024

Series: Be the Church

Speaker: Mark Smith

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In this first message in the series "Be the Church" we discover four New Testament facts about what the church is.

Be the Church: What Is the Church?

The God Who Reveals the Future

August 25, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 9:20-27

Mark Smith

The God Who Reveals the Future

Date Preached: August 25, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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In response to Daniel's prayer for himself, his people, Jerusalem, and the Temple, God sends the angel Gabriel to reveal His coming plans for His people, the city, and the Temple. He reveals that God has a timeline of seventy weeks to accomplish His work on earth.

What are these seventy weeks? Are they literal or figurative? Are they normal seven day weeks or something else? When do they start? When do they end? What is going to happen during these 70 weeks? These are questions that must come to our minds as we read this passage.

While some of these can be readily answered, we'll discover some are a bit trickier. Yet despite the challenges, the message comes though clearly. God is going to carry out his plan to end sin, provide atonement for sin, and bring in everlasting righteousness. He knows, reveals, and controls the future. Christians can have confidence in the future.

The God Who Reveals the Future

The God Who Is Ready to Forgive

August 18, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 9:1-19

Mark Smith

The God Who Is Ready to Forgive

Date Preached: August 18, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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As the time approached that Jeremiah's prophecy that the Jews would be allowed to return to Jerusalem would be fulfilled, Daniel devoted himself to prayer. It is interesting to see what he prayed for: not the physical needs of the exiles, but the spiritual needs of the nation.

This is one of the longest recorded prayers in the Bible and is a model of what God told his people to do in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. Daniel knew that God was a God ready to forgive, if...

Perhaps you need God's forgiveness. If you do (and who doesn't), Daniel's prayer has a lot to teach you.

The God Who Is Ready to Forgive

The God Who Controls the Clock

August 11, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 8

Mark Smith

The God Who Controls the Clock

Date Preached: August 11, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Daniel 8, Daniel's second vision, brings us back into the Hebrew portion of Daniel. Whereas the vision of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2, and the first vision of Daniel in chapter 7 dealt with four nations who would be involved in the affairs of Israel, Daniel's second vision deals with just two, and one of them is hardly mentioned.

The focus is on a king who will arise out of the kingdom of Greece who will oppress God's people as no one before him, but will be destroyed. Theologically, the most interesting part of this vision has to do with time. In it we learn that God controls the clock. He sets the exact time event will occur. The application to our lives is direct and simple.

The God Who Controls the Clock

The God Who Directs the Future

August 4, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 7

Mark Smith

The God Who Directs the Future

Date Preached: August 4, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Many people view history as a series of more or less random events. Nations rise and fall, people rise to prominence and then disappear, and so on, but basically nothing much changes. The cycle repeats itself. Christians on the other hand see God directing history to the conclusion he's chosen for it.

This is the perspective that we discover in the visions that God gave to Daniel. In chapter seven, we read of the first of three visions of the future God gave to Daniel. While there is much that can be confusing in the chapter, the message is clear: God is in control of history.

If that's a message you need to hear or re-hear, this message is for you.

The God Who Directs the Future

The God Who Can Shut Lion’s Mouths

July 21, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 6

Mark Smith

The God Who Can Shut Lion’s Mouths

Date Preached: July 21, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Daniel again distinguishes himself, this time with the new king, the king of the Medes, Darius. For this he earns powerful enemies who plot to bring him down. Finding no fault in his administration they turn to use his commitment to God against him. The result it a night with lions, but ultimately, deliverance and continued success. His enemies face the fate they plotted for him, and Darius is convinced that Daniel's God is a God to be reckoned with.

The God Who Can Shut Lion’s Mouths

The God Who Brings Down Nations

July 14, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 5

Mark Smith

The God Who Brings Down Nations

Date Preached: July 14, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Once again God deals with an arrogant king and in the process brings down an empire, replacing it with another. Belshazzar, co-regent with his father, is the arrogant king who blasphemes God by using vessels from his Temple to drink to the gods of gold, silver, wood, and stone. Handwriting appears on the wall, and the king learns from Daniel that he's been numbered, weighed, and found wanting. That night he dies as the Medes and Persians invade Babylon and end the empire.

Belshazzar failed to learn from Nebuchadnezzar and the humiliation God brought on him for his pride. God shows again that he is in control and even controls the rise and fall of nations.

The God Who Brings Down Nations

The God Who Humbles the Proud

July 7, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 4

Mark Smith

The God Who Humbles the Proud

Date Preached: July 7, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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If you've heard of Bernie Madoff, Jeffrey Epstein, Sam Bankman-Fried, or R Kelly you know of at least one former high-flyer who was caught in wrong-doing, humiliated, and lost everything. We'll learn that King Nebuchadnezzar suffered a similar fate at the hand of God.

In Daniel 4 Nebuchadnezzar gives a first-hand account of how God destroyed his pride, and how he learned to acknowledge the God of Daniel as the one true sovereign.

Pride is a dangerous thing, as we know. It destroys. But, as we'll see, humbleness exalts, It's a lesson many of us haven't fully learned. We do need to learn to humble ourselves.

The God Who Humbles the Proud

The God of Fiery Furnaces

June 30, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 3

Mark Smith

The God of Fiery Furnaces

Date Preached: June 30, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Are you a soft sofa Christian or a fiery furnace Christian? In this message we meet three fiery furnace Jewish young men who refused to sit on the soft sofa of compromise in order to remain faithful to their God. In the process these three young Jewish men destroyed a powerful king's new religion. and were prospered for their faith and faithfulness.

They did not bow and as a result showed a pagan nation who the One True God really is. When the world pressures us to bow, will we? Are we soft sofa or fiery furnace believers?

The God of Fiery Furnaces

The God Who Reveals Mysteries

June 23, 2024

The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Daniel 2

Mark Smith

The God Who Reveals Mysteries

Date Preached: June 23, 2024

Series: The Book of Daniel: God Is in Control

Speaker: Mark Smith

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Daniel was elevated to the court of King Nebuchadnezzar while still a young man. One day someone came to execute him and all the wise men of the land. Why? Because the king had a bad night.

As we'll see, Daniel's faith in God saved not only his life and the lives of many others, but showed Nebuchadnezzar who the true sovereign was, he is Daniel's God, the God who reveals mysteries.

This God is still sovereign, and that has application not only for believers, but for everyone on the earth, even those who think they are as important as Nebuchadnezzar did.

The God Who Reveals Mysteries

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