My Pulpit Message - notes Growing in Character My Pulpit Message Notes are extracted from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday 6th February 2022. Preacher: Reverend Majid Ochieng NBC Deputy Senior Pastor. Topic: Growing in Character . Matthew 5:1-16 Scripture: Matthew 5:1-16 We Christians have an identity. We are known for certain things as individual. The gist of Jesus’ teaching on the sermon on the Mount is to remind his disciples / we as Christians who we truly are especially in the eyes of God. The message is true for us today. Who we are in the eyes of God. Identity in the eyes of God. The Christian life as outlined in the Sermon on the Mount is a coherent and an all embracing life.
show the true character of those who are the children of God. ‘Beatitude’ is essentially from Latin which means a blessing. The beatitudes are not given in a random order, but they overflow into each other providing a complete picture of a kingdom citizen. The first and the last contained some promise; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, “ Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven,…”
We are called to put We are called to put God first in our motives/actions/ God first in our motives/ businesses / the way we speak / in our families / in our actions/ businesses / the priorities. way we speak / in our families / in our priorities. All life comes under the control of God. That is the true All life comes under identity of who Christians are. the control of God. That is the true identity of who Christians are.
All eight beatitudes state a condition and provide a promise When does the believer experience these blessings? In eternity they will be experienced in their fullness. However there is a true sense in which they can be experienced now.
There are at least seven main sections of the sermon on the Matt 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Mount, but today we look at two: kingdom of heaven. Those who see themselves as spiritually empty 1: The blessedness of the believers Matthew 5:1-12. before God. 2. The influence of the believer Matthew 5:13-16 They see that without God there is absolutely nothing good that can come out of them. This brings the desperate nature of all man- The true identity of a believer / child of God in this par- kind that there is a vacuum in each of us that when God ticular context is the blessedness and the influence. has not occupied that vacuum there is a lot of emptiness in It is as if Jesus is saying the life of the kingdom the life of every human being. of God, with Him is a life of profound joy that no person This condition is the opposite of pride and self or circumstances can take away. The blessedness is not re- sufficiency. served for some distant future, but also in our time today, Recognising one’s spiritual poverty and lookone that theologians say ‘here and not yet’. There are some ing to God for mercy. things we can realise here as the children of God and some Their reward is the kingdom of heaven which that we will realise the future as the children of God. means they are going to be believers. It is the mark for those who have fully surrenThe phrase ‘Poor in spirit’ has a long history in dered to the King and tested His grace although of course the Old Testament particularly in the Psalms and refers to there is a future to rejoice to. those who have their full confidence and trust in God only. Jesus singles out at least eight aspects of that character / conduct of being blessed. In these verses Jesus gives eight beatitudes that
3 TT 139 | FEB 8th- 14th| 2022
