Update from Pastor Ngugi in Kenya

Pastor Ngugi and Family, April, 2012

Greetings in Jesus Name, I trust all is well with you through the gracious hand of the Lord. Personally I am fine together with the family and the church. I have continued to labour for Him in His Vineyard, which is the Church. During the Easter Season we had a great time of celebrating the Resurrection Miracle. I preached two sermon series and expounded that the Resurrection is the ultimate Miracle. By resurrection, God displayed His supremacy over all the forces that causes death, be it diseases, accidents, floods, fires, earthquakes, etc. By resurrection, God mocks the causes of death and assures all who believe in Him that NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD...Rom. 8:38. I have sent you the latest of my family pictures as a way of my family fellowshiping with you through photos. My firstborn daughter Lisper is 18, son Henton 15 and lastborn girl Jewel 12. We have an indescribable gratitude and appreciation for the prayers, support and love you have always shown towards us and the church ministry. With much love I remain. Pastor Francis Ngugi Nairobi/Kenya

News from Pastor Francis Ngugi (Kenya)

Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus.

I trust all is well with you my be4loved in the lord. Here in Kenya all is well except that our army is in a war with a neighboring Somali in an effort to flush out Al Shabab militants who have been kidnapping Kenyans & tourists. Everybody is in high alert because their sympathizers are retaliating by suicide bombs inside Kenya. But my family is fine as well as the church ministry. I have sent you the most recent pictures of our church. I have continued preaching my heart out, on Sundays doing an exposition on the Sermon on the mount. On the last three sermon series I have preached from Mathew 6:22-24. The first sermon I preached on THE GOOD AND THE EVIL HEART. The activities of the body are directed according to the light which is received through the eye: When the eye is sound and functioning properly & perceiving objects as they really are, the whole body is illumined: But if the eye be blind, or it's vision faulty, then we perceive objects confusedly & without distinction: As a result we stumble as if in the dark & cannot perform our task or journey properly: we are liable to run into danger. In describing the eye as the lamp of the body, Christ used a most apt symbol, since the eye has no light within itself: He used the eye to symbolize the spiritual understanding of the heart: If the heart be well illumined by Gospel truth and the Holy Spirit, it will be inclined to goodness: It will then direct man's life to godly actions: Then the whole of man's conduct & behavior will be pure & undefiled before God. But if the heart is not well illumined, its tendencies are evil & it remains hard, envious, covetous and full of vices of darkness: The whole of man's conduct will be heathenish & ungodly. What a man believes in his heart is what largely determines how he lives . On the second sermon series I preached on HOW SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS LEADS TO DISORDERLY LIFE. Jesus used the word "Single Eye" as a symbol of an understanding & illumined heart: it was the most suitable word pathologically, for a good or sound vision is a Single one: To see double or to look at different objects or different parts of an object with each eye is proof that our vision organs are defective, & a sign of approaching blindness. At Regeneration, the heart is renewed & the eyes of the soul has their vision rectified: The eye of faith is opened: The understanding of the heart is divinely enlightened: God becomes the heart's all-absorbing object & His glory becomes the chief concern of the regenerated believer. In consequence, the whole of life comes under Godly influences: The conscience become well informed: The affections are warmed up towards God, and the will is moved to act in the right direction. This enlightened understanding & divinely instructed conscience are now able to distinguish between things that differ, good & evil, & things heavenly and earthly. This miracle of Grace must happen if the man has judge rightly the the things that matters most to God and to himself: Without that, his vitiated mind produces nothing but disorderly life.His brutish lusts and evil desires eventually plunge his life into destruction. The third sermon in this series was MAN'S INABILITY TO SERVE TWO MASTERS. Christ had earlier diffrencitated between the Two Treasures...earthly & heavenly & between Two Eyes or understandings...single or evil. Now He opposes the Two Masters - stting God over against material riches which is symbolised by mammon or money. Christ's audience were the Jews who entwertained vague notions of happiness & whose minds were engrossed with dreams of carnal prosperity.

They supposed that their expectations of worldly aggrandizement & spiritual happiness were quite consistent. Christ informs them of their delusion & mistake: He asserted that he who has his heart partly on God & partly on self, who desires to grasp of both worlds, deceives his own soul: Such a one is in danger of losing both. Our minds and heart must be supremely fixed upon God: A man's affections cannot be equally divided: Man has no capacity to love the things of this world and love God at the same time with equal effort: If he dare do so, he will certainly fail to love one and love the other more: A man can only serve two masters UNEQUALLY whereby he occasionally do an act of service to one master, while he habitually serves the other whom he love most.

The influence which earthly riches exert upon men's minds, hearts and affections is a danger that Christ would not like us to ignore: In seeking happiness in earthly riches, men are moved to devote their time & energies to acquire them in detriment to the welfare of their souls. These and more were the highlights of the three sermon series. I sincerely thank you for your continued prayers, support, love and encouragement as I preach the glorious Gospel of Christ. My prayers are with you all the time.

With much love. Pastor Francis Ngugi, Nairobi/Kenya

Update from Pastor Ngugi, Sword of the Spirit

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

Greetings from Kenya

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

Greetings from Kenya

Pastor Francis Ngugi of Nairobi, Kenya, sends our church his greetings and reports on his ministry:

Precious greetings in Jesus Name!
I and family we are doing fine and are steadfastly doing the work of the Lord here in Kenya.

My kids are back home for December Holiday to resume in January this year.

I am preaching my heart out spreading the Gopspel of Jesus Christ. Right now am expounding the "Sermon On The Mount" in Mathew 5-7.
The Sunday of 28th Nov. I preached on: BLESSED PERSECUTIONS, from Mt.5:10-12. They are called blessed persecutions because men's curses and revilings results from Christ's blessings to the victimized:Jesus taught that those who exhibit gogly lifestyle silently rebukes and reproves the ungodliness of men thus provoking their resentement: The resentment can be expressed in revilings or verbal abuse, defaming and slandering, all aimed at injuring, wounding and paining the godly: such responses is a strong prove of human depravity: It's amazing that men's curses and Christ's blessings should meet in the life of the same person: Persecutions with blessings should be "for Righteousness' sake" and can take the form of annoying, taunting, oppressing and tormenting: This means that one is opposed because of his right living: But there is a CAUTION: A believer should see to it that he is buffeted for right doing and not on account of his own misconduct or foolish
behavior:The words "for righteousness' sake" caution us to see to it that we are opposed and hated solely because we are Christ's followers and practice the truth we profess, but not on account of our own injudicious behavior.

On the sunday of 3rd Dec. I preached on THE ACCEPTABLE STANDARD OF A GOSPEL MINISTER, from Mt.5:13-16. My aim was to sensitize the church on apostasy and how they should discern the right fold to feed on spiritually: Just like a patient mind's the competence of his physical doctor, so should saints mind the expertise of their soul's physicians: Gospel minister's carry the Word which acts like the salt of the earth: It is a thorougher presentation of the Word that gives taste to the souls and lives of men: the figure of salt for the Word is relevant because salt's scientific properties, when applied to raw flesh, has similar results to the Word properly preached to human flesh: Rubbed to injured raw flesh on a human body, salt brings effects of irritation, biting, stinging, corroding, cutting, piercing and so on: Salt also makes our meat tasty and do preserve it from rotting by acting as antiseptic in the sphere of decay: This applied to effects of the Word preached to the souls means this; As salt arrests natural corruptions, so the Word preached militates against human moral corruptions: But if salt be mixed with dust and rubbish, it looses it pungency (sharp taste) and efficacy, same effects with the Word if preached minled with levity, exciting anecdotes, frivolity and cunningness that nullifies its power: Gospel ministers should PREACH SALT AND NOT SUGAR, but then have fortitude to braze the responses of the hearers: this is so because it is contrary to nature for those whose consciences are pricked to be pleased with those who wound them: Preaching it as it is will usher one into trouble like John the Baptist whom Herod jailed for condemning his act of taking the wrong woman: Ministers have to exercise Faithfulness and diligence to preach the real thing even if it may be untasteful like salt: Pulpit has its own dangers if one become menpleaser, yields to the demand for smooth speaking, and
substituting convictiong messages for tickling stories pleasant to the ears of the audience, and being full with trivialities and novelties: Jesus said that if the salt looses its taste tis is good for nothing but to be thrown away to be trampled under feet: Ministers with wrong tendencies makes the salt useless as it looses its taste and acrimony: Such ministers become unprofitable and valuelessto God and man: The consequences it to loose their influence and just like their tasteless salt Word) is good for nothing and get thrown out to be trampled underfoot by me, so do these ministers become irrelevant. Have you ever thought that the Bible has not shown case of those prophets of Old Testamnet and ministers of New Testament who apostatized ever becoming restored? Lets think about it seriously and takr care of ourselves.

I have emailed you family pictures and some for me doing ministry inside the church, and hope you will enjoy seeing them.

I sincerely thank you for your prayers, support, love and encouragement as I preach the Gospel of Christ here in Kenya.
You are treasured beyond words by my family.
With much love I remain.

Your's in the Lord's service,
Pastor Francis Ngugi
Nairobi/Kenya

Sword of the Spirit Christian Centre (Kenya)

This Fall, Heritage Bible Chapel has begun partnering in ministry with Sword of the Spirit Christian Centre in Limuru, Kenya. Senior Pastor Rev. Francis Ndunhu Ngugi sends regular, detailed updates about his church's ministry of preaching the Gospel and discipling new believers to the Committee via e-mail, and this month we received a gracious handwritten note of appreciation from him (see below).