I convey my love and greetings to you.The Lord continues to be gracious to me, family and the church.
A fortnight ago I baptized seven souls and yesterday I had a 33 year old man accept Christ in the church.
I have zealously been preaching the authentoic Word, doing an exposition from the sermon on the Mount in Mathew Chapters 5-7 in our Sunday morning services. On January 16th, I preached on: FAITH AND PRACTICE from Matt. 5:17-20: Jesus was correcting the various religious corruptions in the law out of the twisted rebbinic interpretations: Jesus had come to the earth with an express purpose of fulfilling and accomplishing all the righteousness God had demanded by the law: The Jews had reduced the law demands to mere performance of legal ceremonies without moral commitment, a kind of antinomianism that is even evident in Christainity today: Jesus made a demand that external ceremonies must correspond with internal persuasions.
On January 23rd, I preached on: RAISING THE STANDARD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS from Matt. 5:21. Herein I expounded on the Scribes and Pharisees standard of righteousness, borrowing heavily from Mathew 23, and showed its defectiveness: It was an outward show of ceremonies that made no conscience of vices such as impure thoughts, covetousness, hatred, jealousy, slander and had coldness of heart towards God: Their religious actions and practices proceeded from unsound principles of self-interest rather than the pursuit for the glory of God.
On January 30th, I preached on THE SIN OF HEART MURDER from Matt. 5:21-22. Jesus introduced a radical approach to worship that demanded a level of righteousness that was personal, perfect and having perpetual obedience in thought, word and deed: He picked on the Law against murder to illustrate this principle: He demonstrated that its true import prohibited not only the overt act of murder, but every evil working in the heart and mind which harbours seeds that could lead to murder: Such eveil workings of the heart include injust anger, hatred, contempt, deamining language, etc: God abhores all inward motions of evil in the heart in forms of thoughts, affections and attitudes with the same degree He abhores the overt act of murder: From this we realize that there is a sin called Heart Murder.
On February 13th, I preached on GETTING READY FOR WORSHIP (by repairing the damaged relationships) from Matt. 5:23-26. Jesus went further to show that internal vices of the heart do hinder our worship: Peaceful and harmonious co-existence with fellow believers is mandatory for worshippers: We do think we can do well with God without mending fences with our fellow believers: But irony of the mater is that God is much the Father of the offended believer as He is yours, and He cannot receive you while you continue casting a stumbling block in the way of your fellow believers: We need to acknowledge and confess our offences to one another and seek reconciliation so as to acquire God's approval and be admissible to His worship: Jesus borrowed from secular judicial practices to show the heavy cost of disregarding reconciliation: While there is still time and chance, we need to come to an amicable agreement between ourselves: But if we delay or refuse to reconcile, our case can be taken to the law by the aggrieved:But once you appear before the judge, the matter would pass out of your control and be subject to the decision of the court, whose business is to give strict justice and have it impartially enforced:This will involve costly litigation and procure imprisonment for the guilty.
On Mid-week Thursday Services I started a series of exposition of Psalms, with a goal of providing balanced spiritual diet between the Old and New Testaments.
I sincerely thank you for your continued Prayers, Support, Love and Encouragement to me as I preach the gospel of Christ here in Kenya.
With much love I remain.
Pastor Francis Ngugi
Nairobi/Kenya
