SPEAKER_02: Mama Ada Adoyo is the International Chair of Christian Women of Kenya, a vibrant interdenominational movement, and a patron of the pastor's wives fellowship, Kenya.
SPEAKER_02: She is the host of Watch and Pray, a program that airs on Hop TV every Monday evening, 8 p.m.
SPEAKER_02: to 9 p.m.
SPEAKER_02: She is an author of a book titled She Shall Be Called Woman.
SPEAKER_02: She is the wife of Bishop Emeritus Boniface Adoyo of Cita Ministries.
SPEAKER_02: They have been married for over 45 years.
SPEAKER_02: She is a mother of two adult daughters and a grandmother of eight.
SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome Mamada Adoyo.
SPEAKER_00: We can all stand, let's all let's all stand that she's coming.
SPEAKER_00: We honor God for this great woman of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep clapping, appreciating her as she gets here.
SPEAKER_00: Our mother of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father God Almighty, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, this evening we are thankful to you as we open your word, the word that gives life.
SPEAKER_01: I pray, my Father and my God, that it will please you to enrich our lives, to build our lives, and to cause us to move into the next season because of your grace, because of your favor.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you and we honor you.
SPEAKER_01: This is our prayer to you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And we all say, You may be seated, please.
SPEAKER_01: And to Pastor Ambrose and your good wife Martha.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad to see every last one of you to make time to be in this great celebration, this great time of seeing the faithfulness of our God.
SPEAKER_01: Buenos if you say it like you believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And so I was asked to speak on um rest, the jubilee that brings rest.
SPEAKER_01: And um there's a time I went, let me recognize the presence of my husband.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, Bishop Adoyo ever I get overtaken.
SPEAKER_01: I come with a jacket that I shouldn't come with and forget to introduce my husband, but there's me.
SPEAKER_01: There's me.
SPEAKER_01: Um it is Bishop Adoyo who made me to be what I am.
SPEAKER_01: I I had no confidence in myself at all until he put in place at Sitam Valley Road where we were, and Sitam uh fraternity and uh put in place a radio station, uh what we call as hope uh hope fm.
SPEAKER_01: And uh one of the leader, the manager of that Hope FM said, um, Mama Adoyo, Mrs.
SPEAKER_01: Adoyo, Sister Adoyo, whatever name, uh, can you uh be taking a program?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, What is that?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not Leonard Mbombombotella, you know that those kind of people.
SPEAKER_01: I I said no.
SPEAKER_01: And she insisted and uh said, okay, you can just be giving us two hours a week.
SPEAKER_01: So I said, okay, let's just try it, knowing that it's not going anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: And so uh, but after some time, I kept meeting people, maybe at a meeting, or I answer phone or something, and they would say, Are you Mama Adoy?
SPEAKER_01: Are you Mrs.
SPEAKER_01: Adoyo?
SPEAKER_01: I say, Yes, you know me.
SPEAKER_01: And then they say, No, we don't know you, but we know the voice.
SPEAKER_01: The very I keep saying this.
SPEAKER_01: I like to say this at the beginning of uh, you know, a message like this.
SPEAKER_01: I keep saying the thing you despise in your life, maybe even the people you despise, but about yourself, the thing maybe you don't like the size of your feet, maybe you don't like the shape of your eyes, maybe whatever the thing that you despise.
SPEAKER_01: I want to let you know that that's the thing God will use.
SPEAKER_01: That's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: For some reason, for some reason, the very thing you despise is the very thing that uh God uses.
SPEAKER_01: And so I I used to first of all not like being a pastor's wife because I thought pastors' wives should be singers, they should be good cooks, they should be all those.
SPEAKER_01: And I was none of all those.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh I I thought, first of all, Lord, if you wanted me, if you wanted my husband to be a pastor, you should have given my wife who sings, or you should have made me to have a voice that sings.
SPEAKER_01: And you know it's that same same voice again that brings me here tonight, and I thank God for that.
SPEAKER_01: Some years I went to Rwanda, the country of Rwanda, uh, because I like to make that clear because there is another place in the constituents that's called MHia.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have heard of MHI?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the people that do what?
SPEAKER_01: They am high, the place where the senior pastor does what comes from.
SPEAKER_01: There's a place there called Luanda.
SPEAKER_01: Luanda.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not talking about Luanda of the senior pastor and bishop say, no, I'm talking about ruanda, the other country over the other side.
SPEAKER_01: I went there to speak at a conference, and uh I had my own notes and my own uh the theme and all that.
SPEAKER_01: And just before the conference began, early in the morning of the beginning of the conference, um I want to believe it was Jesus, the Lord, spoke to me and he actually said, talk about me, talk about me.
SPEAKER_01: And that stuck with me.
SPEAKER_01: I talk about other other characters in the Bible, but I like to talk about him.
SPEAKER_01: He reminds me, and he reminded me to do that for this celebration that talk about me, show them how I behaved or how I did my celebration.
SPEAKER_01: And so that is what I want to share that Jesus Christ celebrated.
SPEAKER_01: His life was a whole lot of celebration.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to show three sections of the Lord Jesus Christ and how he moved from one season into the next without without airs, without feeling uh let me use that word arrogant about it.
SPEAKER_01: And so I I ask that uh I be I be uh given the readings.
SPEAKER_01: I will do, I'll give you Bible verses because that is our foundation.
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll use Bible version um uh verses because that's our foundation.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to look at the book of Luke.
SPEAKER_01: I like that book, I seem to use it more than others, but the book of Luke, chapter 3, and verse 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_01: I trust that the media will be quick, eh?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I can see you're quick.
SPEAKER_01: Um uh how did Christ introduce himself here on earth in terms of his mission and what he had come to do?
SPEAKER_01: What did he do?
SPEAKER_01: How did he do it?
SPEAKER_01: And right here in Luke chapter 3 and verse 21, and we will also look at 22.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the Bible says, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized.
SPEAKER_01: And while he prayed, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit 22, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, and then it said, You are my beloved son, with you I am pleased.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say that Christ in coming and beginning his uh uh ministry, his mission, he first of all needed or made himself or identified himself with the people that he was going to minister to.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that that again.
SPEAKER_01: That at the beginning of Christ's ministry, he identified himself with the people that he was going to minister to.
SPEAKER_01: And how did he identify?
SPEAKER_01: By actually getting baptized.
SPEAKER_01: We all know that he did not need to be baptized, but somehow he got himself to be baptized.
SPEAKER_01: When all the people had been baptized, he became one of them and also got baptized.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says three things in those two verses that we've read.
SPEAKER_01: We don't, yeah, we can just stick on 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that after being baptized, he prayed.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know how he prayed, whether he knelt, lifted up his hands, closed his eyes, or whatever he did.
SPEAKER_01: All we know is that he prayed.
SPEAKER_01: And as I was thinking about this, I said, How the Lord wishes.
SPEAKER_01: And the the idea of prayer is connecting with his father above.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to say, Yes, I'm identifying with these people, yes, but I must remain connected to you, Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: And it says that as or while he prayed, heaven opened upon him.
SPEAKER_01: Now I want to tell the Parklands Baptist Church to say that the gear of prayer cannot be underestimated.
SPEAKER_01: The gear of prayer cannot be underestimated.
SPEAKER_01: Identify yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, let me put it this way: that you need to identify yourself with this community of people, every last one of us.
SPEAKER_01: I have come from a church or we have ministered in a church that was a big church.
SPEAKER_01: And it's very easy for you know, people just say I go to Sitam Valley Road.
SPEAKER_01: But you as a pastor, you kind of look at this person and say, I've never seen him.
SPEAKER_01: But he says he comes to that church.
SPEAKER_01: So mine this evening is to say that coping from the pattern of Jesus Christ, that in this Jubilee season, this shift, this change is one where the Lord is saying, identify yourself loud and clear.
SPEAKER_01: Can I hear an amen?
SPEAKER_01: A better amen.
SPEAKER_01: And in identifying with him, you remain connected.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you just identify, then that's social.
SPEAKER_01: That's just social uh finding people and friends.
SPEAKER_01: But we must at the same time connect with heaven above.
SPEAKER_01: Like I already said, he was in prayer, he got into prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And as you go into prayer, as you I know I'm saying what what um what people are another time I needed some help from some big company here in Nairobi.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'm leading a movement that is about prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And that lady, a born-again Christian, dismissed me.
SPEAKER_01: She dismissed me loud and clear.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Mama, who is not praying?
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's praying.
SPEAKER_01: That can't be a mission.
SPEAKER_01: You didn't get it.
SPEAKER_01: That you cannot come around and say, Oh, we are prayer, a praying group.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's praying.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm saying this to to kind of cancel that and to say we must be intentional about prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Sit and sitam, uh, Parklands Baptist.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry for that.
SPEAKER_01: Parklands Baptists, that we must be intentional in our prayer as we identify and get involved.
SPEAKER_01: I've already said that point, but uh that that we may remain connected to the Lord God Almighty that is going to help you, that is going to bring to fruitfulness.
SPEAKER_01: The second thing about uh that those two verses is that while he prayed, the scriptures say, while he prayed, heaven opened over him and the Holy Spirit came upon him.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say this that without the empowerment, without the indwelling, without the active activity, uh, active uh participation of the Holy Spirit in your life, you may be identifying yourself, you may connect with God, but you won't have the energy, the power to continue.
SPEAKER_01: So as you take your position in prayer, I hope I'm talking to somebody somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: As you take your position in prayer, remember to also connect and say, where is the power of the Holy Spirit in my life?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, as Christ knelt there, lifted up his hands, closed his eyes, whatever was his posture, we know that God in his own way opened heaven and released enforcement.
SPEAKER_01: It's like there was reinforcement upon that um activity or submission or identification with the people.
SPEAKER_01: So the second thing, the infilling, the incoming of the power of the Holy Spirit upon him.
SPEAKER_01: That's a pattern for you.
SPEAKER_01: To say, I need the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do this in my power, I can't do this by pushing myself, by staying on longer hours.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The third thing was the voice that came.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, I've never heard the voice of God.
SPEAKER_01: There will be a ministry in your heart, in your spirit that will tell you what you are doing has approval from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And so I see a pattern there of Christ beginning the ministry by identifying himself with the people, connecting himself to God, and the Trinity actually coming by the Holy Spirit and fulfilling his approving his start of his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible then says this as we go to Luke chapter 4, we live now chapter 3, and we go to Luke chapter 4 and verse number 1.
SPEAKER_01: It's like it.
SPEAKER_01: The next thing is this in Luke chapter 1, chapter 4, and verse 1, it says, Then Jesus being filled, please let's go there.
SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan.
SPEAKER_01: So right from the time that we have left him in verse 22, 21 and 22 of chapter 3, we now see him, and we are told where he's coming from and where he is going.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't remain stagnant in one place.
SPEAKER_01: I have been sent to you to say, don't stagnate, don't be too satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: With this is good.
SPEAKER_01: We mean 50 years, we've done this.
SPEAKER_01: That's good, but onward we must move.
SPEAKER_01: And so please give me again that chapter 4 and verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Of then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, returned from the baptism place of the river Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where I come.
SPEAKER_01: That there has to be, it's not wilderness as in a place of lions or wild animals to eat him or anything like that.
SPEAKER_01: No, it is seclusion.
SPEAKER_01: The point I would like to say here is that Jesus then realized that yes, I have identified with people.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I've had the voice of God, but I need time out.
SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing me?
SPEAKER_01: From here, I can't see you guys there, but I hope you are seeing and hearing at the same time, and at the same time also the onliners.
SPEAKER_01: I see Christ filled with the Holy Spirit being in the wilderness and telling himself, I need time out.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to say this for 50 years, and we saw yesterday those who are here right from the beginning of the 50 years.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe you have been here just five years.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been in this church just the past even two years, and you may not have so much of the history of that.
SPEAKER_01: But the point I would like to say, because now we are thinking of the next 50 years.
SPEAKER_01: We are transiting, we are exiting from the first 50 and going to the next.
SPEAKER_01: We are saying that time for seclusion for you alone is key.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, the book of Luke, that gospel, is full of times when Christ would pull himself aside, would go on his own, not a group, not uh intercessors, not just himself.
SPEAKER_01: I felt led to come to each one of you and to bring you this word that in order for you to impact in the next 50 years, it is important that each one of us, one by one, on your own, as individuals, you find a way of a wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: You find your way in the wilderness by yourself to connect with God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says he was there for 40 days in that time of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It was prayer and fasting.
SPEAKER_01: I've already told you about prayer, and I want to add on the idea of fasting.
SPEAKER_01: My husband gets gets gets jittery and says, My wife, you fast too much.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I hope there's nobody feeling like that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, because I have found a key.
SPEAKER_01: I have for myself, I've found a key in fasting.
SPEAKER_01: And I I don't just find it for myself.
SPEAKER_01: I see, like the Lord said, I cannot run this mission that I was sent to until I get myself to connect with my God and see what it, how will I carry out this mission?
SPEAKER_01: How am I going to carry out this mission?
SPEAKER_01: And so he took himself for those 40 days connecting with God, get mapping out how is this going to work.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just attract somebody tonight to say, reinforce your fasting system.
SPEAKER_01: Then there is, of course, the medical part where a number of us, excuse my language, but sometimes I think it's kind of an excuse and say, you know, I'm on medication, or you know, this, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying uh you excuse me for that.
SPEAKER_01: But because I have learned the miraculous impact of fasting, I am seconding it.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that somebody will buy into that and say, I want to be, I want to be uh take time to go and fast and be away in fasting.
SPEAKER_01: In Luke chapter 21 and verse 37, I'll just skip and go ahead there because I need to combine it with this one of chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: In Luke chapter 21 and verse 37, just before Jesus finished his mission here, the Bible says that he would be in the church or in the temple preaching, teaching, helping people, and then in the evening, oh, I didn't know there was a group here even, and then in the evening, let me address it.
SPEAKER_01: And then in the evening and at night, he would go on the mountain to be by himself.
SPEAKER_01: I imagine that he wanted to call he would he would exhaust himself during the day ministering to people, and at night he would go to recharge himself, and so it says, and in the daytime he was teaching in the Temple.
SPEAKER_01: But at night he went out and stayed on the mountain called Olivet 38.
SPEAKER_01: Then early in the morning, all the people came to him in the temple to hear him.
SPEAKER_01: I am saying this that your life as a Christian, I'm not talking about pastors, in case you think it's the point for pastors.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying, as a Christian, your life ought to have some impact on someone somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: Your colleague in the office, your neighbor, your cousin, your in-law, somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: Because we see here that the life of Christ, because of what he was involved in doing, it says there in 38, the early in the morning, all the people, are you seeing the word all, all the people looked for him.
SPEAKER_01: There was something about him that people needed.
SPEAKER_01: And all of us, we are witnesses of the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: And if you are there and you are not born again, you cannot finish this week unborn.
SPEAKER_01: You must give your life to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying that if you're there and you're born again, Christ desires that your life has an impact on someone, someone, somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: Why is there such a weak amen?
SPEAKER_01: Do you know?
SPEAKER_01: All of us, all of us, the Parklands Baptist family, God has business and work for you to do.
SPEAKER_01: And that is why he says, as you do the much or the little that you do, remember to come back to connect with me.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why this point here goes back to chapter 4, where he went to uh pray and fast for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: But now here it was on a day today for the last week before he died.
SPEAKER_01: He realized I must connect with God as I impact with people.
SPEAKER_01: Am I making sense?
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying that you cannot just be busy coming to church without connecting upward.
SPEAKER_01: You will burn out, you will struggle, you will realize it's not working, you will be discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: But the pattern is here that each time you give yourself out, remember to withdraw and to go to God intentionally intentionally and deliberately to connect with God for Him.
SPEAKER_01: And then you don't have to persuade people.
SPEAKER_01: People will just come and say, I need to see you, I need to talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: A colleague in the office, a neighbor, uh, a church mate will say, I need to see you.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because you have something magnetic.
SPEAKER_01: This is what made Christ to have that impact in his time.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the mighty name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so he was in that uh uh in the for 40 days, he was in the wilderness, and like I added on that one, praying and fasting.
SPEAKER_01: I also want to add a third thing.
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm dealing with um a disciplined life.
SPEAKER_01: I would call it if I was to change the topic.
SPEAKER_01: A disciplined life, a life where you know you need to connect with God, yes, but you need to be a prayerer and a faster, a person who fasts.
SPEAKER_01: Then the third one that I want to say is um I even forgot to bring my gadget.
SPEAKER_01: I have a gadget here that will explain what I want to say.
SPEAKER_01: But be a person that reads the word of God, that is rhetoric.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure people there are saying, Mama, that is rhetoric, that's nothing new.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm saying you must read the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: So now for me, because I read the word of God, yes, but I've learned now in the recent like four or five months.
SPEAKER_01: I listen to the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: I've got that gadget in my handbag.
SPEAKER_01: I forgot to pick it as I carried my jacket.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but I listen to the word as I'm washing dishes.
SPEAKER_01: I listen to the word is just so I think you know, the three things will strengthen you so that you find yourself having a voice, you find yourself speaking and people listen.
SPEAKER_01: You find yourself uh magneting people when ordinarily it's just a classroom, we're just students here.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing stands out for you, nothing uh attracts uh anyone to you.
SPEAKER_01: But when you realize these three, and they are given there by the Lord Him or practiced by the Lord Himself, that you are a person who understands prayer, a person who understands the discipline of fasting, and the person who understands the discipline of the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Lamentation, chapter 2, please you can get me there.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Lamentation, chapter 2, and verse 19 tells me something here, and it says, it says, Um, arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read that again.
SPEAKER_01: Arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord, lift your hands toward him for the life of the young children who faint from hunger at the head of every street.
SPEAKER_01: Take me to the beginning of it.
SPEAKER_01: Arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I I I have already said that the three things I'm saying they are ordinary things.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to take you to another gear and to tell you that there's there's something that happens when you defy your bodily desires.
SPEAKER_01: One more time.
SPEAKER_01: There's something that happens divine, something divine that happens when you defy the bodily desires of your of yourself.
SPEAKER_01: For example, sleep, two, uh uh, hunger, three, just wanting to feel nice over there, pleasure.
SPEAKER_01: I wish to take you to this other gear where you something tells you that food smells so good.
SPEAKER_01: But in your heart of hearts, you had decided that you are not going to eat, or you are not going to spend time on that.
SPEAKER_01: But you find it comes, even it can be a phone, it comes so strong, and you feel like, let me just eat, then I will do what I was to do before.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Lamentation says, while sleep is so good, and I'm not suggesting this for every night, I'm just suggesting that when that impression comes upon you, it says, Arise, cry out in the night at the beginning of the watches, pour out your heart.
SPEAKER_01: How many times, my friends, how many times do we uh cry out within ourselves, like disappointed with yourself, hurt, and you go on in life with that burden, with that uh heaviness within you.
SPEAKER_01: And in the end, you discover you are not sorting yourself out, but you're not happy.
SPEAKER_01: This is the prescription that says instead of having sleepless nights, instead of feeling a failure, instead of feeling so and so hurt you so much, and every time you think about it, or every time you meet this person, or every time you feel like huh.
SPEAKER_01: Here it says, arise, cry out in the night, call out in the night at the beginning of the watches, and it is there.
SPEAKER_01: You we are allowed to pour out your heart like water, and then do what?
SPEAKER_01: What posture do you take?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hands for what?
SPEAKER_01: For surrender.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hands and say, enough of this pain and it's enough.
SPEAKER_01: I'm carrying this no more, I'm carrying this no more.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking to God whose attention I have full, and He has my full attention because it's now at night.
SPEAKER_01: At the beginning of the watches, we pour out our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say in this season, in this, this is a very precious moment.
SPEAKER_01: It's a leaping off from where you are to a better place, a higher place.
SPEAKER_01: Pour out your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Talk to God, be free with God, tell God these seven days, Sunday is not going to come and go, and I'm still struggling with this.
SPEAKER_01: Set me free.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord God, who says, I am a present help, not an absent help, a present help in time of need.
SPEAKER_01: So lift your hands up, cry to him, and this God comes through.
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes I'm talking and I'm thinking, these young people must be thinking that Ms.
SPEAKER_01: is outmoded, let her just, you know, disappear.
SPEAKER_01: But you see, the advantage, the advantage that I have is that once I was young and now I'm something else.
SPEAKER_01: But now, but now the difference with you is that you've never been old.
SPEAKER_01: So you don't know.
SPEAKER_01: So I have I have authority over you to tell you, even when I was young, or when I was that age, when I was a young married, this is what happened.
SPEAKER_01: So I bring you this word proven over the years of the Christian walk.
SPEAKER_01: To say that what the Lord prescribed for us to do, when we follow through, He comes.
SPEAKER_01: It's as simple as that.
SPEAKER_01: There is no magic about it.
SPEAKER_01: And God honors the sacrifice that you make, including being here.
SPEAKER_01: Because I was thinking about it and saying if the a number of you have been coming from Monday night up till you know Sunday evening, you'll be here without fail.
SPEAKER_01: That's a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: But let me tell you, no sacrifice of God is ever wasted, it is replenished.
SPEAKER_01: After Christ finished the 40 days and will not go into the temptation of the devil and all that, but in the same chapter 4, please you can take me there, Luke chapter 4 and verse 16 and 17, we see him doing something.
SPEAKER_01: We see Christ doing something.
SPEAKER_01: And it says this in Luke chapter 4 and verse 16.
SPEAKER_01: It says, He came to Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: Now he has come from the wilderness, and he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up.
SPEAKER_01: And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: We'll see 17 in a while.
SPEAKER_01: But he came to Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: I also have come with this message to say to the Parklands Baptist community, and to say, when you discover this God and how he's working in your life, the miraculous, the quiet miraculous that you yourself, you know the Lord dealt with my anger, the Lord dealt with my bitterness.
SPEAKER_01: You know that you have peace.
SPEAKER_01: You now don't walk in town looking behind as if to see whom you owe money, and you think they may just reprimand you.
SPEAKER_01: He came to Nazareth.
SPEAKER_01: Those of us who live in Nairobi, we want to hide in Nairobi, and we have matters or issues or cases back home.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like the Lord was telling us, says, go back home, go rectify.
SPEAKER_01: Pastor Ambrose and Pastor Simon will be very happy, and the rest of the pastoral team are very happy to see active members that are involved in this and the other.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what I've discovered?
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I've discovered?
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people are active in church and they look saints, they look amazing, but they will not greet their brother at home.
SPEAKER_01: Let me not make at home like it's home is only up country.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, they don't greet their brother who lives in Gong.
SPEAKER_01: When there are family meetings, I don't go because so and so, the Son of God glorified.
SPEAKER_01: I like that song that we are singing.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of God glorified, Jesus glorified, showed us the example that as you uh rubber stamp what God, what Christ meant by saving you, that you go back home and tell others and ask for forgiveness and forgive those that uh that hurt you right now.
SPEAKER_01: I know of a relative or a family where the young lady wants to get married, but she has a problem with the father.
SPEAKER_01: The mother is not there, she has a problem with the father, and she decided I'm getting married, but I'm not involving my father.
SPEAKER_01: I will inform him, but I don't need his input, I don't need his blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Let me speak to somebody, let me speak to somebody as I share this verse.
SPEAKER_01: Please just we'll come back to 17.
SPEAKER_01: But if you can go to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1 and verse 2 and 3.
SPEAKER_01: If you can quickly go to Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 2 and 3, you cannot, my friends, young people, you cannot make it in life as you defy the authority of your mother or father or both of them.
SPEAKER_01: No matter how blessed or how intelligent, you know, you have your PhD, or you are the greatest pilot on the continent, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And God is not joking.
SPEAKER_01: It comes, this is a quote from Deuteronomy, way back.
SPEAKER_01: If your father hurt you, if your mother, I'm talking, I'm still talking about Jubilee, because I want you to jump and springboard yourself into this next level and land safely, not crush land.
SPEAKER_01: So we can listen to all the wonderful uh works that are happening here these seven days, but if we don't follow the basic requirements that God has put in place, simple and straight, my friend, you did not find yourself in on this earth.
SPEAKER_01: A baby came.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, there was a man somewhere, there was a woman somewhere, and the two are responsible for your being here.
SPEAKER_01: And the word says, because of those two primary figures, you must honor them.
SPEAKER_01: Please, I'm praying, I'm asking.
SPEAKER_01: Shall I say I'm even begging?
SPEAKER_01: If you are there and your dad did you bad, your dad went ahead and did what you disapproved.
SPEAKER_01: You said if that's the case because my mother is not there, that's why you're treating I'm gone and never to come back.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: Please go back.
SPEAKER_01: Because you have a future ahead of you.
SPEAKER_01: You will have 50 years to go ahead of you, and they'll be meaningless, they'll be painful, they'll be let me use even the word failure.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't go back to that man, to that mama, and say, mama, forgive me.
SPEAKER_01: I need your blessing.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to verse 17, let's go back to Luke chapter 4, and now we can look at verse um 17.
SPEAKER_01: We are saying Jesus went back to Nazareth, to his home, to he went back to his home.
SPEAKER_01: And so 17 says, and he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.
SPEAKER_01: And when he had opened the book, he found the place where, and then it goes on and says, That home, that is as far as the family is concerned, but he remembered the house of God.
SPEAKER_01: One more time.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus remembered to go to the house of God as was his custom.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that you are here.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe this message might be, this particular point might be better for more relevant for the onliners.
SPEAKER_01: Please excuse me for that again.
SPEAKER_01: I hear so many times now people saying, I quit church, but I did not quit God.
SPEAKER_01: God is still in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still born again, but I don't go to church.
SPEAKER_01: My friend, let me tell you the very word, the very Bible says, do not neglect the meeting together of the saints as it is the habit of son.
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for coming out this night to be to gather with the saints.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for making time to gather with the saints.
SPEAKER_01: Because the scripture advises and says, don't neglect the meeting together.
SPEAKER_01: See the warmth, see the testimony around here, even just out there.
SPEAKER_01: You wonder what's happening in this place.
SPEAKER_01: So much life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we are all online, who would even know something like this is happening?
SPEAKER_01: Let's find, let's make it a custom to go to the house of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 22, please take me to verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: We'll skip it.
SPEAKER_01: The others.
SPEAKER_01: And then because of what Jesus had done, that we've already looked at the prayer, the fasting, the word, he was the word himself.
SPEAKER_01: Because of that, there you see a change.
SPEAKER_01: So I guess now I'm in point number three.
SPEAKER_01: So the first one is the water part, the being baptized, the praying, the heaven opening, and a voice of confirmation comes.
SPEAKER_01: The second one is him in the wilderness and struggling and talking with God and uh uh agreeing with God what should happen.
SPEAKER_01: And then the next one is now he leaves the wilderness and comes to actually now begin why he came.
SPEAKER_01: So there is that preparation, and now he begins what he came to do.
SPEAKER_01: And verse 22 of that Luke chapter um chapter four says this all bore witness to him, everybody bore witness to him, and they marveled at the gracious words that proceeded from his lips.
SPEAKER_01: Um, another version says this they marveled at the gracious words which fell.
SPEAKER_01: From his lips.
SPEAKER_01: You know, now we are in this season of campaigns.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying we are in the season of campaigns.
SPEAKER_01: And you can just, you don't even have to look hard.
SPEAKER_01: And you see the kind of language that grown-ups, adults use against the other.
SPEAKER_01: When you go through, when you sit under this kind of anointing, something spells you out, something becomes your signature.
SPEAKER_01: Your words, people should marvel at the way you handle conflict, at the way you handle abuse, at the way somebody looks down upon you and thinks you are a nobody.
SPEAKER_01: It says here that so all of them, all of them, they marveled at the gracious words which proceeded, which fell from his mouth, which fell from his lips.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Telling you, daughter, telling you, son, even as you enter into this, I want your language to change.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to watch.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just uh uh open your mouth for the sake of opening.
SPEAKER_01: Speak words that will bring healing.
SPEAKER_01: My friend, even when somebody hurts you, even when something is unfair, there is a God in heaven whom you serve and to whom you submit.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Paul wrote in Acts chapter 23, uh somewhere there, and he said, the God to whom I belong and whom I serve.
SPEAKER_01: Did you get that?
SPEAKER_01: That Paul wrote and he said, There is a God to whom I belong, I belong.
SPEAKER_01: My friend, people, friends, whatnot, may have deserted you, but you belong somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: Where?
SPEAKER_01: To the Lord God.
SPEAKER_01: So your presence here, your presence here is in itself a sign that you belong to God.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says, Paul says, Whom I serve, you serve God.
SPEAKER_01: With your lips, with your reaction, with your all that, you must remind yourself, I am a servant of the Most High God.
SPEAKER_01: You are moving into a different plane altogether, a different maturity altogether, so that when other people become jittery, when other people panic, when other people think no, we must box.
SPEAKER_01: You say no.
SPEAKER_01: There is a better way, there is a safer way.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the mighty name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Let me leave that point, and I want to go to something totally different, but it's serving a point.
SPEAKER_01: We are in this fellowship or in this fraternity of Parklands Baptist, and hopefully that we are here to stay and to do what we have just learned now.
SPEAKER_01: But I see a community of professionals, a community of the younger generation, a community of people who have career-wise going upward, and you feel like yes, my very presence here is good enough.
SPEAKER_01: I want to take you to first Kings, please take me there to First Kings chapter 10, and I want to show you a woman, a woman who thought she had all that it takes, she thought she was everything.
SPEAKER_01: I said first Kings chapter 10.
SPEAKER_01: And I wish to read verse 1 to 7.
SPEAKER_01: But before I read there, I want to uh explain that point.
SPEAKER_01: Of this lady who thought herself very, she thought very highly of herself.
SPEAKER_01: She thought there can't be another person who can run their nation like me.
SPEAKER_01: But she had heard of this man, this other man that is great.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says, and we can go there now, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, we can say now, when Mr.
SPEAKER_01: So and so had the fame of Parkland's Baptist of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's somebody who is here to test.
SPEAKER_01: So let me see how that church goes.
SPEAKER_01: She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue with camels that bore spices.
SPEAKER_01: When she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about all that was in her heart.
SPEAKER_01: The next one.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon answered all her questions.
SPEAKER_01: There was nothing so difficult for the king that he could not explain.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to verse 7, just so I can see my minutes are going.
SPEAKER_01: However, so this woman comes.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why he missed to see the the bit I was looking for.
SPEAKER_01: She came to test him with hard questions.
SPEAKER_01: She came in a with a critical, like I must knock him down.
SPEAKER_01: She came with hard questions.
SPEAKER_01: And verse 7 says, Now she realizes she has talked to Solomon Solomon, has answered all her questions.
SPEAKER_01: And she says, However, I did not believe the words.
SPEAKER_01: She came not believing, she came thinking she's going to make Solomon fail.
SPEAKER_01: She came until I came and saw with my own eyes, and indeed the half was not told to me about you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say this that this is rich soil.
SPEAKER_01: Ah, this is a great place.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've learned this.
SPEAKER_01: I've learned this.
SPEAKER_01: That as long as one is delivering the word of God, somehow the mouth speaks, like we said, they marveled at the gracious words that fell.
SPEAKER_01: They are prophetic.
SPEAKER_01: The words are prophetic.
SPEAKER_01: So I declare to all of us here within the hearing of my voice: this is rich soil.
SPEAKER_01: But if you come in your next jubilee of 50 years, and yours is to, you are imagining, you're critical, you are thinking, oh, I was in that other church, it looked like this and it failed, you will miss it.
SPEAKER_01: This woman came with that, and she was taught by Solomon to understand that there is a difference between when you believe God and when you just come for the sake of finding information.
SPEAKER_01: She left persuaded and convinced.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say there is a Solomonic wisdom in this place.
SPEAKER_01: And as you join this community, as you get involved, as we have learned earlier, I want you to know that you will bless the church with your careerness or professionalism, but much more you will be yourself blessed more than you imagine.
SPEAKER_01: We are not looking for numbers, we are looking for deep Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Christians who understand those three disciplines I told you.
SPEAKER_01: Christians who say this body is harassing me.
SPEAKER_01: I must rise above it.
SPEAKER_01: I must push it under.
SPEAKER_01: Then you become an authority.
SPEAKER_01: You become a point of reference.
SPEAKER_01: You are not just a member.
SPEAKER_01: They tell me, Oh, I go to Parklands Baptist.
SPEAKER_01: My next question always is so, are you involved in the children's ministry or in ushering or in what?
SPEAKER_01: Most of them guess what they say.
SPEAKER_01: We are just members.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: If you are there and you are hearing me, I'm graduating you to something higher, something bigger.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying there is a solomonic richness in this place that will bless this place with your being here and will in turn come back to you bigger than you imagined.
SPEAKER_01: This is how God works.
SPEAKER_01: You are not doing God a favor to be in his house, you are doing yourself a favor.
SPEAKER_01: The woman, the queen of Sheba, we were looking at first Kings 10.
SPEAKER_01: The woman came with all manner of treasuries and uh spices and whatnot to bring perchance.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon doesn't have them.
SPEAKER_01: So she came like in style with some degree of attitude.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says, the Bible says, when she said bye to she was amazed at the rich uh uh things that Solomon gave her to go back with.
SPEAKER_01: Are you getting the point?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you are coming on board in this new uh uh uh 50 years.
SPEAKER_01: You are coming on board, and you are coming, maybe thinking, hmm, I don't think they've had such a nighty guy like me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the one heading that department.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm here to tell you, you'll go back so enriched, you'll be grateful that you came to serve God.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be so enriched that you'll be happy you came into Parkland's Baptist.
SPEAKER_01: Mine is say, let's shift, let's shift and step into this soil, into this rich season, into this rainy season where we can grow and be of impact both to ourselves, to our networks, and to the church of Jesus Christ itself.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Allow me, please.
SPEAKER_01: I have reached the end of what uh our I needed to say, but um, allow me to say two points that I feel I felt led to just uh mention here.
SPEAKER_01: And please you can check for me the book of 1 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: I'll be real quick because I can see I have five minutes.
SPEAKER_01: Uh 1 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 7, if you can take me there and uh yeah.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says this.
SPEAKER_01: Then Saul, the king, by now he's not a king, he's just the son of Kish, said to his servant, But look, if we go to see the priest Samuel, what shall we bring the man?
SPEAKER_01: For the bread in our vessels is all gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God.
SPEAKER_01: What do we have?
SPEAKER_01: And then take me to first, we just hang, we'll hold on to that.
SPEAKER_01: Saul and his servant want to go and see the man of God called Samuel, and uh they don't have anything in their hands.
SPEAKER_01: And in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 12, and also verse 13, it says this and we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake.
SPEAKER_01: Be at peace among yourselves.
SPEAKER_01: I have this to say.
SPEAKER_01: I have this to say that I uh uh Pastor Faith last night alluded to this point and said, We have people, men and women, that God has chosen to steer the boat of Parkland's Baptist, and we are the members in this boat as we are being headed by the leadership.
SPEAKER_01: This man, Saul, and at this point, he is you don't hear his closeness to God, that gentleman, Saul, before he became king.
SPEAKER_01: But he had the knowledge that you don't go to the man of God to ask for help or for an answer or for prayer empty-handed.
SPEAKER_01: Let me bring you on board one of the ways to prosper.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not here for the gospel of prosperity, I don't belong there.
SPEAKER_01: But I tell you scripture, say that anytime a man of God does something for you, you are leaders here.
SPEAKER_01: Don't go about Bishop Adoyo, he's not a leader here.
SPEAKER_01: Please remember that verse.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Kings chapter 10 and verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Is it is that it?
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 9 and verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: First King, 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel chapter 9 and verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: So many times I meet people, maybe sometimes even in America, or some faraway place.
SPEAKER_01: Say, you know, Mama, you prayed for me.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, the the Lord answered me, that's why you prayed for me to get a visa, let's say.
SPEAKER_01: And now it's 10, 20 years, is when I'm getting the feedback of the prayer.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: When prayer is said to you, I'm not campaigning for any pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think they are needy for you to feel sorry for them and say, the mama said no.
SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like underscoring that, and the the other point that I have, um, I already had mentioned it, is honor your parents, your mother and father.
SPEAKER_01: So let me not go there because it's already done.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying there are things that we can put right, and because we are on this soil, because we are under the Solomonic wisdom, the Solomonic fertile soil, things will turn around for our good, for the good of the church, for the good of the family.
SPEAKER_01: And we become therefore the ambassadors.
SPEAKER_01: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_01: We become the ambassadors of the good news wherever we go, because we've seen it work in our lives, work in our community, and work in our church.
SPEAKER_01: Please let's rise up on our feet as I ask the senior pastor, Pastor Reverend Nyangao, to come and lead us in the next bit.
SPEAKER_01: But as he comes, just let's pause.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pause as you stand and just think.
SPEAKER_01: So, what was that?
SPEAKER_01: What did mama speak, Mrs.
SPEAKER_01: Adoya speak to me about?
SPEAKER_01: And how am I going to change?
SPEAKER_01: How am I going to respond?
SPEAKER_01: How is this changing me?
SPEAKER_01: What is it that I have been doing that is not right?
SPEAKER_01: And this God is faithful because this is why we are here this evening, and God bless you.