Arise: Serving God - 17 May, 2026

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.

Exodus 8 · chapter mention

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,

Exodus 8 · chapter mention

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,

Exodus 9 · chapter mention

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?

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

Malachi 3 · chapter mention

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.

Psalms 89:34

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.