SERVICING GOD IN THE CALL

I. The Motive of the Heart

The reason why sometimes we come to church or why we keep coming—is because when we come, we don’t come because of Jesus; we come because of ourselves. When we finish church, people are like, “Church was nice!” But if you ask them what was preached, they say, “Oh, they preached about the church.” If you ask a person about the worship, they will tell you all about it, but if you ask them about what was actually preached, they can’t tell you in detail.

For some of you, when matooke (your favorite food) is prepared, you have a great appetite for it. You should have that same appetite for the Word. God is working miracles in churches today and we are not seeing them; it’s because when we come to church, we don’t come for Christ we come for the pastor. A pastor is not the one building the church. We try to build people ourselves, but there is no way we can build the Church of God. I am leaving Uganda soon, and my prayer is that when I come back, you will have grown in Christ.

II. The Test and the Testimony

I call Sunday a “Day of Families.” Anytime people begin to tell me their stories, I feel like crying. When they are talking about giving up, I actually get so excited about their testimony! Meanwhile, what they are saying is a serious issue, but I begin to smile because that test you are going through is only because of the testimony you are about to witness.

“After the test, there is a testimony. After rejection, there is acceptance.”

Don’t delay your blessing because when you are passing that test, it is like you are passing a test to move from one class to another. When you come to church, you have come to an educational center. And eventually, everyone will approve of you your teacher, your headmaster, and your friends because when you went into the test, you proved yourself. You must show yourself approved of God (2 Timothy 2:15). The Son must approve of you, and the Holy Spirit, our Friend, must approve. When we gather here, the Lord is educating us, but unfortunately, a lot of us do not want to go into the test. Some of us cannot be trusted to be promoted.

III. Discouragement in the Ministry

When people go through hardship, I become excited. Imagine you are looking for a job for three years; you tell a pastor and the pastor gets excited! But the Lord is taking you through a test. Sometimes even as a pastor, you have done everything good, but things don’t go well and you feel like giving up.

Once, we dedicated our lives to evangelism and we wanted God to bring more people. But as we looked for more, the people we had kept leaving. We gave up and wanted to leave church because it felt like the ways of God were no longer working. You hear God tell you, “Start a church,” so you start, and you start praying, “God bless them.” And when God blesses them, they leave your church! Then you ask yourself, “Did God call me or not?”

When you go to pray for a sick person and the next day they die, you feel discouraged. There were seasons in my life I told God, “You called and I decided to answer, but I will not answer again. Enough is enough.” I said, “My fellow pastors have houses, cars, and are married…” But I tell you, after the test, there will be a testimony. If I had given up then, I would have regretted it today.

IV. Loyalty to Christ Over Man

If you received Jesus here, don’t let go. Don’t let your pastor make you leave the church; you came because of Jesus, not him. If you leave, you will leave something very important. Don’t be like the singer who leaves the church because of choir misunderstandings. You leave a blessing behind!

Graduate to the next level! Put it at the back of your head: God has upgraded us; don’t degrade yourself. Instead of speaking bad about people, go and talk to them; don’t just speak behind their backs. If you’re a leader and you see a pastor preaching and you say, “Our pastor is sitting on our gifts, he is not allowing us to preach, he is singing alone, he is taking offering…” you are a witch if you keep complaining like that!

If you’re a pastor, God didn’t call you for a confinement; your place is with the people outside, not just at the altar. If church starts at 9:00 and you reach late always, when God wants to bless the church members, He won’t bless you because you are not acting like a member. You won’t join evangelism, you won’t be in media, you won’t be an usher that shows you came because of a pastor, not for God.

V. The Joy of the Work

Before I became who I am, I passed through things. When I tell people, they say, “Pastor, we like how you travel country to country.” I ask them, “Are you able to pass through what I passed through?” When I used to go to the villages, I used to borrow money for transport to go and preach. When we finished, they would give us only water, and we were so excited because they had given us water in the village!

We went to certain schools to preach and they gave us a soda; we were so happy! When we were done, we used to walk 10km just to get a car back. At that time, when they gave us soda after preaching, we felt like, “Oh, God is great!” Our joy was that we preached and they gave us soda, but at home, there was no food. Yet, the joy of doing the work of God never ceased. We were waiting to see what the glory of God looks like.

When Pharaoh gives you a mission, they give you a salary that can’t last you a month, but look how you work for another man’s pocket! You even wake up at 5:00 AM. When I was going to the airport, I saw people walking at 4:00 AM—the courage they have! Ноt for you, you can’t even wake up to pray.

VI. Miracles and the Power of the Gospel

We should work for God, love God, and dream about Him. We should bring people to God. There might be a person God is about to elevate; you must preach to them and bring them in. The person for your blessing is somewhere there getting drunk; he is somewhere in sin, but God wants him saved.

When I was in secondary school, I said if I go to university, my vision was “womanizing.” But the first week I reached school, a woman came to the class to preach to me. I liked her, so I listened. I don’t know what entered me, but I found myself at the front when she asked who is going to give his life to Christ. Another day, an intercession group came and I found myself in there too. I was only saying “zzzzzzzz” because I didn’t know how to pray! That was 1994. Slowly, I learned how to pray for an hour.

If that young lady never came to preach, I would have never gone to the countries I have gone to today. In my hands, I have seen the dead resurrect. I have seen the crippled walking. I have seen mad people getting well. If that girl never came, maybe all those people I prayed for would never have gotten well.

Once we were on a mission and one of the boys fell and died. I told them to carry him and I told them to pray. I told God, “Raise him or take my life, because I don’t know what I will say to his parents.” God told me to push air in his nose with my mouth. On the third time, he came back to life! The reason you are not seeing miracles is because of you. Whether people come or not is not your problem; the good thing is you doing what Jesus told you to do.

VII. The Lesson of Jairus (Mark 5)

I leave you with these three things:

1. Go to the Source: Look at Jairus. He was a very well-known man, but when his daughter died, he ran to Jesus. His status didn’t stop him from running to Him. When a man promises you something, there is an expiration date. When you depend on man, you will be disappointed, but God is your Source. Man has resources, but God is the Source.

2. The Delay is Not a Denial: Jairus went to Jesus, but there was an interruption the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus stopped because there was an emergency. Sometimes we don’t come to church because we feel like other people are getting blessed and leaving us behind. In whatever you do, like that woman, make sure you touch Jesus. Make sure you are always close.

3. Ignore the Report of Death: Another group told Jairus, “Your daughter has died, don’t bother the teacher.” But even if a miracle has delayed, it doesn’t mean God has forgotten you. When Jesus reached the house, people were crying, saying, “You’re late.” Don’t allow people to sympathize with your situation in a way that kills your faith. Jesus entered the house, sent away the crying people, and told the little girl, “Talitha koum”—“Little girl, get up!” If you do God’s work well, He will tell you to get up! Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” If I knew what I told you today by the time I was your age, I would have been so far. If you’re young, give your life to Christ. God calls us to add to us.