Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I trust that all is well with your soul. Myself, family and church are doing fine.
On preaching ministry, I continue wholeheartedly to tend the flock of the Lord by feeding them with unadulterated, fundamental Gospel of Jesus Christ. On my exposition of the sermon on the mount, three Sundays at a raw I have expounded Mathew 5:38-42 which focuses on Law and Retaliation.
The First Sermon I preached on: BEING IN-CHARGE OF THE SELF. The verses echoes a call on us to rule our own spirits and exercise a self government on our passions: Conquest of our own unruly feelings and emotions requires a more regular and persevering self-management: Withholding ourselves from revenge is a spiritual victory over our anger: By nature, there is a spirit in us which is turbulent, revengeful, and desirous of returning evil for evil: But when we are able to deny corrupt human nature its thirst for retaliation, this gives man a victory over himself: The spiritual result is that God's Grace triumphs and we manifest a noble, brave and strong spiritual character that invites God's blessings: God blesses our exemplifications of His grace when provoked to retaliate: This is because it is often His way to shame the party that did the wrong by overcoming the wrongdoer with believer's love, meekness and generosity: A Christian is not to be satisfied because he has won in a strife but in endeavoring to end conflict by mollifying the matter.
The second sermon I preached on: RESPONDING TO CONFLICTS WITH A SPIRITUAL CONSIDERATION. Jesus is refuting an error from Jewish teachers allowing individuals private revenge: There were statutes in Jewish law for use by their judges which the scribes had permitted to be used privately to settle personal quarrels and injuries, and often in a malicious ways: Christ forbade His followers from resisting attacks by way of private revenge for doing is being overcome by the same evil of his attacker: But public reparation by magistrates in sentencing an evil doer who has injured his fellow however, is not prohibited herein: Its private revenge where a victim take matters into his own hands and retaliate against the one who injured him that Christ forbade: The reason for this prohibition is to give room for the law of love to operate in a believers life: All believers are expected to seize the moment of distress and personal injury to show kindness to him that hates or injures them: However, God's will is not that this principle of grace should override and swallow up all other principles of justice: The requirements of justice and the demands of personal holiness are to be held in a balance by Christians.
Nevertheless, for the fact that they are believers, spiritual considerations should come into play and require Christ's followers to be men of different disposition from the rest of the world: They should be men of peace, meekness, enduring wrong, suffering loss, accepting hardship, full of compassion and operate by simple faith.
The Third Sermon I preached on: WHEN IT IS RIGHT TO CHALLENGE THE WRONG-DOER. In Mathew 18, Christ gave a model of settling offenses among believers: This implies that Christ was not rigidly against pursuit of justice when circumstances warrant so: Under certain circumstances, it would be a Christian bounden duty to seek the protection and help o the officers of the law: Law enforcers are one of God's means for preserving law and order in our communities: God's law given to the Israelites Judges was for the guidance and use designed to protect the weak from the strong: Remitting its demanded penalties was meant to secure justice and to serve as deterrent measures to the evil doers: It also prevented judges from inflicting too severe a punishment upon those guilty of injuring others: As such, we deduce that any law governing the well-being of the community is just, merciful and beneficent.
If inflicting of punishment on those convicted of crimes would make this world a much safer place to live in, then a christian has a duty to contribute to this well-being and safety: There are times when ignoring of wrongs done to us or ignoring injuries inflicted upon those who depend on us for justice would obviously be a failure on our part to perform our social duty towards public safety and justice: We must also not neglect the rights of vulnerable ones who depend on us for justice, by turning loose on society, those who would imperil the security: Even though as Christians we may forgive an offense against ourselves, we have responsibility to our neighbors: But even with these cases where duty requires us Christians to take legal action against one who has injured us or our depend ants, this must be done without any malice and should always come as our last resort: As Christians we mus be aware that it is extremely difficult to handle pitch without the fouling of our garments.
These and more were the highlights of these wonderful 5 verses of the sermon on the mount.
I sincerely thank you for your continued prayers, support, love and encouragement as I preach the Glorious Gospel here in Kenya. My prayers are ever with God for you that all His promises may come to pass in your life for doing what pleases Him.
With much love.
Pastor Francis Ngugi
Nairobi/Kenya
