10 minute read
My Pulpit Message Notes
from TT 142
by TIMES TODAY
Grow in Wisdom
My Pulpit Message Notes are extracted from the sermon preached at the Nairobi Baptist Church (NBC) Ngong Road on Sunday 27th February 2022. Preacher: Pastor Melina Kemboi. Topic: Grow in Wisdom. Scripture: Matthew 7:1-29
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Personal examination
Pursue God
Protect yourself
Practice the Word.
1. Personal examination
- Many times our natural instinct as human beings is when we hear something that is quite challenging we start thinking about the person who needs to hear and we often forget to begin with ourselves.
- If the sermon onthe Mount was is this age, how many forwards would have been sent out right there from where Jesus was teaching? If we had WhatsApp, it likely we would be sending the messages out to the person you think needs to hear that message.
- Jesus begins this final section of the Sermon on the Mount with these words,
- So Jesus here is pointing out how we magnify and focus on the faults in other people’s lives and we fail to see our own major faults. That our eyes have huge planks of wood, but we are looking at the speck in our brothers’ and sisters’ eyes.
- Jesus is telling us that we need to begin by examining ourselves. This is something that we need to put into practice in our day to day lives that we’ll come to the LORD and lay our hearts before Him and allow Him to lead us in the process of examining ourselves. To ask Him, ‘Lord is my character in line with what you desire? God is there any offensive way in me, any sin hiding in my heart? Lord, can those around me testify, my mother, brothers, sisters, spouse testify that I really am truly a believer? Can my workmates actually say that I am a believer, a follower in Christ? Have I been relying on Your righteousness, or have I been trying with my own strength to walk this journey of life?
- David in Psalm 139 says
- David was one of those people who was not afraid. He invited God, come, show me if there is anything wrong in my life. And he said, God, then as you show me, deal with it and lead me in the right path. He opened up his life to the LORD and we should do the same.
- Jesus is saying we need to always start by examining ourselves and not be quick to judge. We need to also note that when Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t judge…’He is not saying we should overlook wrong behaviour, not at all.
- Many times in society people tend to say, ‘Don’t judge me,’ meaning we don’t have a right to tell them when they are going wrong, but this is not what Jesus is saying because in
Matthew 7:5 we see Him saying, ‘first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
- Therefore Jesus still had the expectation that we would be removing specs from each others’ eyes, but we need to be able to see clearly in order to evaluate, where am I or the other person doing so that we walk this journey together.
- Jesus is saying, even in pointing out error, we should not have a judgemental attitude of haughtiness, feeling proud or holier than others, because we are all sinners who have fallen short of God’s glory and we are on the journey of sanctification.
- Jesus called the Pharisees, who had adopted this attitude of feeling better or holier than others. He called the hypocrites because they would often look at others and condemn them to have this pride of, ‘I am doing better than you,” Yet God is the only one who can judge and decide people’s ultimate destiny.
- Our attitude, as we remove specs from other people’s eyes should be one of gentleness, humility, love, a deep desire to see each other doing well in Christ. To treat each other as we would want to be treated.
- So as we allow God to deal with the planks in our eyes, may we continue to share the truth of God’s Word with each other in love, even if it means sometimes it will be a gentle rebuke or correction.
2. Pursue God
Jesus encourages His disciples to pursue God. He says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
- So He is saying to us, keep asking, keep knocking, keep seeking in prayer. Don’t give up, because our heavenly Father is a good Father who know how to give good gifts to our children. Even though evil people know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more a Father who is good? He knows exactly what we need and so we can come to Him knowing He will give us what we need. Sometimes it may not be what we want, but it is exactly what we need.
- More importantly we need to pursue God because He is the only way to eternal life. Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus says,
- Do we desire to live abundantly to have life in it’s fullness? Then Jesus is the only Gate. Christ is the only Answer.
- To live this life in abundance we must pursue Him. We must come before Him. If we have not given our lives to this Saviour surrendered and said, Jesus be my Saviour, then I urge us today not to leave before we have surrendered our lives to Him.
- Those who have already surrendered their lives to Christ, He is saying, ‘Keep pursuing Me. Don’t give up. Bring your requests before Me. Come to Me in prayer. Seek my face. Get to know Me. Pursue Me with everything that you have.
- When other things like work become our first priority in our lives then even our relationship with God will take a knock and our fire/passion will slowly begin to die. Some of us may be focused on our careers, getting ahead and we forget everything else in the process.
- We may come to church, do everything, but we have forgotten the God who called us.
- So Jesus is saying to us, Pursue the Father in prayer. Don’t give up, even there is an answer you have not yet received, come and sit at His feet, ask, seek, knock and the door shall be opened.
- Some of us need a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit. Some of us need an empowering to just continue with life in our families. Some of us need breakthroughs and miracles. We need to pursue the LORD.
3. Protect yourself
- We need to be aware that in our pursuit of God, there are people who want to lead us astray. They want to pull us out of the truth of God and we seen in Matthew 7:15, Jesus cautioned His followers,
- Christ says the same thing to us today. Are we protecting ourselves from these false prophets who want to lead us astray?
- Jesus tells us to beware of false prophets and He says, you will know them by their fruits/actions / character. We look around and we hear so many cases of these self proclaimed prophets of money laundering, sexually immoral lives and so many different things and when we begin to look, by their fruits you will know them.
- Jesus says in the same passage, you will know who are His true disciples because they do/follow the will of God.
- We need to ask ourselves, if we are to protect ourselves from false teachings, from people who desire to lead us astray in our pursuit of God, what do we need? The answer is the Word of God.
- How will we know their fruits? How will we evaluate their fruits? Again coming back to the beginning, though God tells us do not judge, He does not say, throw all discernment and evaluation out of the window, no.
- Here when He is talking about false teachers we must engage in some sort of evaluation of their lives, of the fruit that they are bearing and our standard is the Word of God.
4. Practice the Word.
- Jesus finishes His sermon on the Mount by emphasising how important it is to practice God’s Word.
- Jesus tells us, the one who is wise builds his house on the rock. But the one who is foolish builds his house on the sand.
- In verse 26 He says, “But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.”
- As we look at the fruits and these prophets and teachers’ lives are they in line with the Word of God? Are their teachings in line with the Word of God?
- Is the fruit in our own life a reflection of the truth of God? Are we true followers of Christ who not only listen, having heard so many sermons, attended all the BSF sessions, doing one year through the Bible, growing in our knowledge and understanding of who God is but if it is just head knowledge, Christ says to us, not everyone who calls me LORD shall enter the Kingdom. There shall be people at the end of life who say God, did we not do this or that in your Name? And He will say, but you were not my true disciples. Did you do my will? Did you put my words, the things that I spoke to your through my words, did you put them into practice, or did it just remain in your mind?
- There is no one who is removed from this challenge that Jesus is posing to us and says you can choose. Will you be the wise man who built his house on the Word of God, or will you be the foolish man who chooses to build his house on sand and eventually his life and world comes crashing down because the foundation is not the Word of God.
- Are we putting God’s Word into practice in our lives? Are we obeying the words of Christ? In our relationships with our spouses, children, parents, workmates, the boss?
