OK, God bless you, please take your seat.
The volume down a little. Please.
Let's pray. Let's pray together.
Father, we want to thank you once again for another special
day in your presence. The preaching of Your Word has
always been accompanied by Your manifest presence.
We ask that once again you bless your Word and that you cause
Your word to bless your people. We give you praise, We give you
glory in Jesus precious name, Amen.
It's always great to be here. I'm excited to be here.
It's been a while since I took the, the, the the restroom to
preach the gospel in this church.
So I'm excited to be here once a while.
I'm on the drum and at that time, I'm here as a preacher.
And so in whichever capacity I find myself, I think it is a
blessing to bless people with the word of God.
You know, I always say that it's an opportunity never to be taken
for granted when I get when I have to preach to people like
you. Because you see, the Bible
described those of us who are here in a very interesting way.
The Bible says that for you are a chosen generation.
This is the description that the Bible gives us.
Those of us who are here this morning, the Bible says for you
are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
And I'll hear this. It says you have God's very own
special people. What a blessing.
And that is why when there is an opportunity to speak to God's
very own special people, I don't take it for granted.
So I'm truly excited to be here and very thankful to the
leadership of the church for this opportunity.
I want to speak this morning very briefly, very, very briefly
on a subject I entitled Serving God, Serving God.
I have found through my study of Scripture that for everything
that God does, He has a purpose in mind.
I have found all through Scripture, right from the Old
Testament dispensation through to the New Testament
dispensation and even to the epistles, that there's nothing
that God does simply for amusement.
Everything He does, He has an exact rationale and a purpose in
mind. Before Jesus was born.
Before Jesus was born, there were mirrors of prophecies
regarding the breath of Jesus, explaining that the birth of
Jesus was not just for fun. There was a specific reason for
which Jesus was going to be born.
And that is why in the book of John, when John saw Jesus
coming, he said, behold, this is the Lamb of God, the one who had
been proposed to take away the sins of the world.
So for everything that God does, he's got a reason.
And the Bible says that for this reason was the Son of God, Jesus
manifested that he might destroy the works of the enemy.
And so everything that God does, it's not, you know, it's not
done just for fun or just because something has got to be
done. But everything that God does, he
does it because he has a reason. You remember when Jesus was
getting ready to call a number of people who would eventually
become his disciples, The Bible says he went and he saw Peter
and he said to Peter and a few other people that were there, he
said follow me. And the reason for which I'm
asking you to follow me is very clear.
Jesus said the reason I'm asking you to follow me is so that I
will make you vicious of men. So every time God does a thing,
he's got a purpose and a plan in mind.
OK, I am looking at the story of the people of Israel, and I'm
realizing that even with the ups and downs of the people of
Israel, God had a reason. God had a specific purpose for
them. Now you and I know that the
people of Israel have been kept in captivity in Egypt, and God
is looking forward to deliver them from this captivity.
And in God's attempt to deliver them from captivity, God is
raising a particular deliverer. I'm talking about Moses.
God comes to Moses and God gives an instruction to Moses and that
instruction that God gives to Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell
him God puts his purpose clearly written in there.
Please come with me. Exodus chapter 8, verse one.
Now this is God giving an instruction to Moses with
respect to the captivity that the people of God find
themselves in, in, in in Egypt. The Bible says, then the Lord
said to Moses, go to Pharaoh and say to him, this is what the
Lord says, let my people go so that they may serve me.
Now please appreciate the fact that, you know, God gives the
instruction specifically to Moses and says, Moses, I need
you to go tell Pharaoh this thing.
Now, the important thing is that He has to let my people go.
But like I told you, everything that God does, He has a purpose
in mind. So the reason why God is asking
Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people go is not just for
amusement. God was not saying let my people
go so that they can come out and just come and dance.
No, for everything He does, because there is a purpose, He
said, let my people go so that eventually these people who are
going out of captivity will be able to serve me.
So the ultimate destination is not just to come out.
The ultimate destination is that after you are out, you'll be
able to serve me. For.
I mean, a number of us here are, are UBC students.
You know, I was a UBC student in in in 2017 when I did my
master's in forestry and I remember I have a very vivid
memory of when I received the e-mail that I have been admitted
to to study in UBC with my scholarship.
I was so excited, but guess what, people of God, that
excitement would only bring me here.
Once I am here, there is another purpose for which reason I was
brought to the school. So I cannot be in school and
only be smiling about my success of getting the admission, my
success of getting my scholarship and stay here
without studying because as long as I am here, there's a purpose
and a rationale for which I am here.
And so irrespective of the fact that I have moved from one stage
of my educational ladder to another level, I don't sit down.
I study because I am in the I have a purpose to achieve.
The Bible says the people of Israel were brought out of
captivity, but the instruction was very clear.
Go and tell Pharaoh that let my people go for the overarching
reason that they will come out and serve me.
Now you see, because this was so important to God, God did not
just say this once. In Exodus chapter 8 verse one,
God is speaking to Moses and tells Moses, go tell Pharaoh,
let my people go so that they will come out and serve me.
As though Moses did not hear this, so God had to repeat
himself. Exodus Chapter 9 verse one,
please, the exact same thing he says Moses, I need you to go to
Pharaoh. Give him this instruction.
Tell him that this is what the Lord is saying.
Let my people go again for a particular reason, that they
will come out and serve me. People of God, please hear me on
this. The story of the people of
Israel is a typology of what happens in our lives as
Christians. Today.
I'll explain that. The people of Israel were taken
out of captivity and brought into freedom.
Now that is exactly what happens to us as Christians.
The Bible says in the book of Colossians, the Bible says that
for we have been translated, we have been moved from a place of
slavery to a place of freedom. It says you have been translated
from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of his own dear
Son. So the purpose for which the
people of Israel were brought out is the same purpose for
which we have also been saved out of captivity into the
Kingdom of his dear Son Jesus. So we have a purpose to serve
the living God. Now we talk about serving God.
What does it really mean to serve God?
Now it's, I think it's very crucial that we, we understand
what it means to serve God because you see, the, the body
of Christ has succeeded in attributing the terminology
servant of God to a certain class of people.
We have succeeded in only looking at people who are
preachers, who are men of God, who are pastors, who are
prophets, who are what have you. And we call those people, you
know, we we have that coined terminology for those people and
we say these are the servants of God.
That is not entirely false, but that's not also entirely true,
because true in the Scriptures you will find people that were
men of God, women of God, that the Bible calls them servants of
God. A typical example is the prophet
Elijah. The Bible called, specifically
called him the servants of God. Another example is Elijah the
prophet. You know, we, we even had kings
like the King David that the Bible would call, you know,
servants of God. So that is actually accurate.
But there's still more to it because being a servant of God
is not a title that is bestowed upon a person.
Being a servant of God is actually a lifestyle.
Please let's move ahead. Serving God is a lifestyle of
loving obedience, voluntary submission, and purposeful
service to others aimed at bringing glory to God.
And that is why all across scriptures you'll find people as
a matter of fact. As a matter of fact, there was a
man in the Scriptures who was not even a man of God.
He was a businessman. And guess what?
God himself called that man a servant of God.
Come with me. Job chapter one, verse 8,
please. The Bible says then the Lord
said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job?
And this is God Speaking of a man.
Job was not a preacher like I'm doing this morning.
Job wasn't. But the Bible says God, speaking
to Satan, said, have you considered my servant?
Now the person who creates the benchmark to determine whether a
person is a servant of God or not is God himself.
And God by his standards, says this man Job has passed whatever
it takes to be called my servant.
So I'm trying to let you understand that you don't need
to be holding the microphone to be considered a servant of God
because serving God is actually a practical lifestyle of loving
obedience, voluntary submission, and purposeful service to others
aimed at bringing glory to God. Now please appreciate my choice
of words here. I choose the words loving
obedience because, you see, to obey is better than to
sacrifice, the Bible says. And some of sometimes we obey
simply out of compulsion and sometimes it's very possible to
obey out of fear. But when a person laughs, you
know, obediently, you know, laughs what he's doing.
It's a it's a whole different case all together.
Now in Job chapter one, verse 8, there he says there is no one on
earth like him. Now God starts by saying, have
you considered my servant Job? He doesn't end there.
He helps us to understand what qualifies this man to become his
servant. So he said there is no one on
earth like him. How?
How do you mean God? Listen to this?
He said he is blameless and he is upright.
He is a man who fears God and shunts evil.
Now to be blameless and upright connotes that you are lovingly
obedient. To be a man who fears God
connotes that you are a person who is willing to submit
yourself entirely voluntarily at the tenets and and everything
that God says. So we see here that serving God
is not a title that is bestowed on people, no, far more than
that. It is a lifestyle of loving
obedience, voluntary submission, and purposeful service to
others. And I want to dwell on this for
a bit. Purposeful service to others.
You know, there was a time that Jesus was, was telling a story
and he said that his coming was going to be like a king who was
in his glory. And you know, he will, he'll be
speaking to his people and he will tell them that when I was
hungry, you did not feed me. When I was thirsty, you did not
give me water to drink. He said I would.
He would tell them that when I was living in prison you did not
come to visit me. And when I was naked, you did
not come to clothe me. And the Bible says the people
who ask the king, where did we see you naked?
And we did not clothe you. The Bible says that people who
ask the King, where did we see you in prison, that we did not
come to visit you. And Jesus said something very
important. He said, Whatsoever you do to
the least of my brothers, you do unto me as well.
So Jesus is literally implying that if we are able to serve
other people, then we are in turn serving him, Jesus.
And that is why I coined that definition to say that serving
God is a lifestyle of purposeful service to others, again, aimed
at bringing glory to God, not for amusement.
So we know what it means to serve God.
Let's go ahead now we want to ask ourselves why should we
serve God? Why should I serve God?
And I I I'm beginning to use a lot of whys nowadays when when
you close from church and you find it last was it 2 weeks ago
I was here playing the drums and the origin kids.
One of them came here and I was, you know, was trying to play
along with me and I said no, hold on, don't play that way
play this way. I was telling, you know him the
rhythm and then he's like, OK, he does it for a while and then
it's like, but why? And I said because that's what
makes it nicer. Place it for a while.
He says, but why is that nice sign not the other one.
So there's always a why somewhere.
So I have a why here for you today.
So why should I serve God is the question.
Why should I serve God? There are I don't think that
we'll be able to do justice to all the reasons why we have to
serve God. So I have an it's, it's an
inexhaustible list of, of, of of reasons why we should serve God.
But let's see a few of them come with me.
The first one. The first one is that there will
be a difference between those who serve God and those who do
not serve him. I'm not making this up Church.
This, this is from the Scriptures.
There will be a huge difference between those who serve God and
those who do not serve him. Come with me to the book of
Malachi, please. Malachi chapter 3 from the 17 to
18. Now please look at the context
of the Scripture. This was a time when the people
of Israel were seriously lamenting, OK, They were saying.
They were complaining and saying, look, it looks like our
service to God is proving futile because we have seen people who
are not serving God. We have seen people who are
wicked, you know, exhibiting some appreciable, you know,
achievements of, of, of prosperity.
These guys are doing so well, but they are wicked people.
And we serve God and there's nothing happening for us.
And they were seriously complaining.
But in the midst of these people, there were a few others
whom the Bible calls remnants. These are people who are still
serving God irrespective of what was happening around them.
And God noticing this speaks through Malachi and he said to
them that on the day when I act, this is God speaking.
On the day when I act, says the Lord Almighty hear this.
He says these people who are the remnants still serving me, He
says they will be my treasured possession.
I'll say that again, God is speaking and he said on the day
when I act regarding these people who are remnants and
still serving me in the midst of whatever is going on in the
world, He says on the day when I choose to act, says the Lord
Almighty, these people who are the remnants, they will be my
treasured possession treasure. When some something is a
treasured possession, it's not just a possession, it's so
treasurable. I'm not willing to let it go.
He says I will spare them just as a father has compassion and
spares his son who serves him. What a beautiful promise from
God. So in the midst of the fact that
they are serving God, it looks as if in the human sense and in
the human mind it looks as if they are not achieving anything
with all the service to God and God speaking through the prophet
said, when it is time for me to act, they will be my treasured
possession. I will spare them just as a
father has compassion and spaces or his son who serves him.
Now look at verse 18. He says, and you will also see
again the distinction between the righteous and the wicked and
between those who serve God and those who do not serve.
This is God speaking. God said that when it is time
for me to act, it will be so crystal clear as day and night
the difference between those who serve me and those who do not
serve me. I travelled outside of the
country recently and when I was coming back, I got to YVR and
then there was a loud shout. They said all Canadian passport
holders and permanent residence to the left or the others to the
right. Yeah, for some people it is
possible to group them together. But for some other people,
because of the oath of allegiance that we have, we have
sworn to, to, to pay our taxes and, and to be good citizens in
Canada. We were asked to be in one
single line and to be treated perhaps differently from the way
the others are being treated. The Bible says that then the
Lord will come and he'll be able to descend between them that
serve God and them that do not serve him.
I want, I want to be one of the people in the queue of them that
serve God. Yeah, I want to be one of those.
And this is my intention for you, that you also become one of
the people that desires to be in that queue because the Bible
specifically says that God will come and He will make that
distinction, that incontestable distinction between them that
serve Him and them that do not serve Him.
Let's go to the second point, please.
Yeah, one more. Now, serving God invokes the
protection powers of God. I like this one.
Serving God invokes the protection powers of God.
Now, I've told you that this is not an exhaustive list of, of
all the, you know, the blessings and the benefits that comes with
serving God, but these are very salient ones, and I really want
us to pay attention to them, that serving God invokes the
protection powers of God. Come with me to the Book of
Revelation. Now, the Book of Revelation is a
very interesting book, very apocalyptic in nature.
It's got a lot of, you know, revelational stuff happening in
there. John the Revelator was writing
this one here and he said that, you know, there are
characteristics of every Angel. OK, there are characteristics of
every Angel, but there are these 4 angels.
Please follow me carefully. There are these 4 angels whose
duty, what they are empowered to do is to destroy and harm the
land and the sea. This this is their duty.
They are empowered so in response to the destruction that
people are causing in, in response to the sinful nature
that the people on the earth were exhibiting.
There are 4 angels who have been empowered with a sole
responsibility of destroying the earth, destroying the land,
destroying the sea. This is what they do.
And in the vision John the Revelator said that even though
these 4 angels are in existence, he says, then I saw another
Angel aside these four. He said, I saw another Angel
coming up from the east having the seal of the living God.
And this Angel was shouting with a loud voice to the four angels
who have the power to destroy the earth.
And he said he called out in a loud voice to the four angels
who had been given the power to harm the land in the sea.
What was what were they? What was this Angel telling the
four angels? He says he told them do not harm
the land or the sea or the trees until something happens.
He says don't harm the don't execute your powers yet.
Hold on. Ceasefire and so we put a seal
on the foreheads of the servants of our God so angels, I'm not
taking away what you are bestowed to do.
I'm not taking that away from you.
This is what the Angel is saying.
He said, look, I'm not stopping you from doing what you are
created to do. I'm only telling you to put an
abrupt halt on your execution powers now, because the people
who serve God have to be marked with a with an indelible mark so
that the destruction will not come upon them.
There is a divine exemption for those people who serve God
diligently. And for that matter, hold on
ceasefire. Let me mark them before you have
any action. And so serving God in itself
invokes that protection dimension of God.
As you know, there are so many dimensions of God.
There's the mercy dimension of God, the protection dimension of
God, but serving God provokes that dimension.
Let's go to the Third Point. The Third Point is that God
promised blessings to those who serve him.
God promised blessings to those who serve him.
Look at these people of God. I keep saying that whenever you
find a scripture where God is speaking, and specifically those
scriptures where God says this is me, I am the Lord and I'm
speaking, you really got to pay attention to that particular
scripture because that is God's word himself.
The Bible says Psalm 89, verse 34.
The Bible says my covenant will I not break, neither will I
alter the words that is going out of my lips.
This is God speaking. He says my covenant.
I will not break, neither will I alter the words that is going
out of my lips. So when God speaks and he says I
would do this, you can count all your hopes on it that He will do
it. Now this is one of the areas
where God puts His word in and says, look, I will bless you if
you choose to serve me. Let's go ahead.
If you go to the book of Exodus, the 23rd chapter and the 25th
verse, God is speaking. The Bible says you shall serve
the Lord your God, and he shall bless your food and your water,
and I will take away sickness from among you.
I'm speaking to intellectuals and scholars here today.
You understand mathematically on how in conditional conditional
statements, if X is equal to 5, then the following statements
must be true. Am I?
I'm not a mathematician, but I hope I'm correct.
I'm a forester. Now, if one condition is true,
that feeds into the next condition, and so the
prerequisites for the next portion to work is that the
initial condition must have been satisfied and fulfilled.
OK, The Bible says that you shall serve the Lord your God as
long as you keep your sight of the bargain, and you serve the
Lord your God. The Bible says he's too faithful
to fail. In the book of Hebrews, the
Bible says that for the Lord is not unjust to forget our labour
of love. So here he says, as long as you
keep to your side of the bargain, you serve the Lord your
God. He says there's something that
the Lord will do. What he will do is that he shall
bless your food, he shall bless your water, and that he will
take away sickness from the midst of the people of God.
Hear this. This is what we do when we go to
God and we pray to God using the Scriptures.
Yeah, when we go to God and we say God, we pray for your
healing to take place. And the Scripture tells us to
remind him of his own words. And we come in, we say, Father,
you asked us to serve you and that you will bless our food,
you will bless our water, and you will take our waste sickness
from us. We have done our part of our
part of the bargain. We pray that for you.
Look from your holy habitation and let your faithfulness that
has never failed be shown to us. And our God listens because once
we keep our side of the of the conditional statement, our God,
the Bible says it's impossible for him to disappoint us.
So as I'm ending the what I want to end with this is is how how
people can serve, how you can serve.
Now please realise, like I said from the beginning, that being a
servant of God is not a title that is bestowed upon us.
It is a lifestyle. Please take us back to the
definition. I think that's on the 4th slide.
Yeah, it's a lifestyle of loving obedience, voluntary submission
and purposeful service aimed at bringing glory to God.
So in our desire to to become servants of God, in our desire
to serve, we want to ask ourselves how can I serve God in
any capacity I find myself in? How can I exhibit, exhibit these
attitudes? So in the church, for instance,
we have so many avenues to serve.
You know, our, our sister is playing the piano beautifully.
Christiana is here operating the slides.
We have people who come here very early in the morning to set
everything up, set the speakers up and all of that.
And then there's another opportunity to serve.
We need people to be serving the, the communion.
I hope today the whole church is going to come down and serve
communion to the whole church as well.
But in any capacity you find yourself to serve, ask yourself,
is this an opportunity for me to love God obediently?
Is this an opportunity for me to voluntarily submit to the
dictates of God? And then is there an opportunity
for me to purposefully provide service to other people that
will bring glory to God? So in the church, I want you to
think through what can. You don't need to be a singer.
You don't need to be a drama. You don't.
But whichever capacity is it, you know, just calling people
and praying for them, saying God bless you, this is purposeful
service and it stays with the people.
It's a blessing to them. And God considers that service
even in our workplaces or in our schools, You know, is there an
opportunity where you can provide service to other people
to bring glory to God in whichever capacity you are in
our God is too faithful that when you provide the service to
to God through people or in any capacity, he will fulfill all
these things that we've talked about, including the blessings
that he promises. The Lord bless you.
Please, let's pray. Let's pray together.
Father, we want to thank you once again for the privileged
opportunity to serve and to serve you.
We ask that, Oh God, You will give us that grace, that
ability, and the enablement to be able to serve.
We ask that Your grace that empowers each one of us for
service will be poured out on us.
And Father, we know that Your side of the bargain is always
true, and You will never fail. And because of that, we bank our
hopes on You. We shall be careful to return
the glory to You and to You alone.
When all is said and done, we give You praise and we give you
glory in Jesus precious name, Amen.