It would be good

By Odon Bulamba

 

Luke 12: 37, “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them”.

 

This verse contains two parts (1) it would be good for those who will see the messiah coming… (2) the Lord is going to come take all of us around the table and we will go to the kitchen and He will serve us.

 

Some Bible versions say, “blessed are those that will be part of that group,” while other versions say, “it will be good” and today my message is, “it would be good”.  How often do we say that, it would be good if I were blessed or it would be good if I were rich or if I were taller or if I had a better job or if I were stronger or younger or I was a good singer.  Some might say, New Zealand is a good country but it would be good if John Key wasn’t the Prime-minister.  We say it would be good when we have a dream for a better life but we never want to say it would be good to fail my test or to break my leg.  When would it be good for you?

 

When you wake up in the morning, you feel hungry but lazy to get the food, you might say, “it would be good if I had servants to bring me breakfast in bed”.  When you feel too tired to drive, you might think it would be good if you had a chauffeur.  At 5am people woke up to watch the world cup rugby (like an early morning prayer) because the All Blacks (AB’s) were playing.  Even those who went to bed at 3am made sure they were awake at 5am.  Watching the game was good because people were happy to watch the Australians get smashed and many people said, “it would be good for AB’s to win”.  Many of us, our hearts were pumping fast and people could shout with joy.

 

To wear the black jersey is not an issue of 2 seconds.  Why do they give those players the chance to wear the black jersey and to be called AB’s?  You have to prove yourself to be an AB and the process starts at the age of 5 years.  The more the player works hard, the more his path starts to be seen by some people and then the selectors start to say, “it would be good if they were in my club”.  Then after working hard, the selectors start to say, “it would be good to see him as an AB”. 

 

Then us Kiwis see who was selected to represent New Zealand.  Why did they pick up Richie McCaw but left behind Tyrone.  It is not fair, we are all part of this nation and we all want to share?  Why don’t people complain about that?  Why don’t they go to court?  Why don’t we deserve it?  There are people who are even better than our AB’s but they didn’t get selected.  You can be shocked to see extremely talented people who are not part of the AB’s.  The selectors also look at your behaviour, how you act, how you grew up, your past games, how good/bad you were to other players and all of that will make them decide whether you deserve to be on the list.

 

After the pre-selection which they can choose maybe 50, only 15 will be on the field and they have to work hard and maybe even break their bones.  If you look at their ears, they have lost shape but those players don’t give up.  Even with the pain they keep training hard and fight.  The coach who doesn’t play the game will tell who will be playing on the day and who won’t be so there is another selection after being selected.  That small group of 15 will play the game and if you don’t perform well, the coach will call you off the field and call someone else in.

 

These are the rules of the game.  Do you think all those 50 who were selected love each other?  No, because although they are in the same team, they are rivals.  In our church today, in the Kingdom of God, we have people who are fighting because the roles we are playing, someone else can play it better if we are not careful.  That is how God works.  For example, the ten virgins: the five foolish virgins couldn’t come back inside because they moved outside.

 

God gives us everything that we need and it is up to you to choose what will be good for you.  It was good for the AB’s to win but after winning, what is next?  Some have been training since they were five years old and now they will retire after an 80 minute game.  For example, we prepare for a trip to Rotorua and start packing a week in advance and drive for two hours to get there.  The challenge God is giving us is, what is good for you?  Is it good to wear the jersey of the AB’s and be seen on tv?  When I take off the jersey, someone else will wear it.  Where are the famous rugby players of the past?  Today we are talking about someone new and tomorrow it will be someone else.

 

God says, those that endure, I will welcome them in and cook the meal for you.  Some versions say He will wear an apron to prepare a meal for you.  Your king/boss will cook for you.  How will you react?  I have been serving God for years but there is a time now that He will tell us to sit down so He can serve us with His menu and ask us what we want, “what is your order?”  While God is preparing the food for us, we sit around the table.  Can you imagine our conversation?  What will we talk about while Jesus is in the kitchen?  Will you talk about yourself?  Will you be shocked because you know you are servants and should be doing something for Him?

 

It would be good to let God to serve you. That is what you should choose in your life because He knows your taste and what will upset your stomach and knows your senses.  For example, God knows that if you give to Trish salt, she won’t like it because He knows her inside out.  When asked, what would be good for you, many people will choose material things like a Porsche or mansion or knowledge or capacities to do things. 

 

Solomon said in Ecclesiastes that is vanity so everything we think is good is vanity.  If everything is vanity and useless, what should I ask from God?  Although Solomon may have asked for something good when he said give me wisdom, he has passed away and left it behind so even wisdom is vanity.  Why didn’t he say, “Lord serve me what is good for me because you know what is good for me”?

 

If you are on the plane and you ask for something that is not in the plane, they won’t land the plane just for you.  God knows very well what is stored in the Kingdom of God.  You have to decide what is good for you.

 

“And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision”, Daniel 8:16.

 

In Daniel 8:16, a voice of a man asked Gabriel (an angel of God) to explain the vision.  What is your vision for your life apart from buying a house or travelling? We can have millions of visions but we need someone to explain those visions.  When Jesus says I will prepare a meal for you, do we understand the meaning of that?  What does it mean?  We need a clarification of it.  I’m sure God was not talking about a kitchen like ours and to start cooking but He was talking about something deeper: I’m preparing myself to welcome you to my Kingdom of God but we have to share a meal.  What type of meal is He talking about?  Are we really going to eat normal food in heaven?  No, because our bodies will change and we won’t even feel hungry anymore.

 

What lessons is He wanting us to learn?  What is that meal?  There are no more temptations in heaven so we don’t need to read the Word of God to read anymore but we have to eat.  What is brimstone?  In Daniel we see the angel Gabrielle (find out the meaning of Gabrielle).  This angel came down to earth.  Can you give another example when he came down?  He visited Mary and told her, “You are going to conceive and the child who will be born will be called Jesus”.

 

There were 100’s of girls in Israel were preparing themselves to become the mother of Jesus but this Mary who was no one, was the one that God chose.  Mary who saw an angel, did not know if she recognised an angel.  Will you recognise an angel?  Is it a creature with wings and white skin and a robe?  How do they look?  The angel will be the one who will explain the vision.

 

In Africa, people will say to you, from now on you will receive the gift of prophecy, in Jesus name, receive.  Is really God the one giving it to me or is this man just telling me to make me feel good.  In the end, you will see everyone is a prophet.  To become a prophet is the role of the HOLY SPIRIT, not a man.  Unless there is a revelation of the HOLY SPIRIT to inform the person.  Without the Holy Spirit, you will start to live in confusion. 

 

Day after day a tree will be there without fruit and when a tree grows big without fruit, it gets cut down.  People today only want to hear what they want to hear and if you talk about things they don’t like, they will keep their distance but Jesus is saying come together around the table and I’ll leave you there for a second while I serve you.  When the Baptist, the Brethren and the Pentecostal are there together at the table and the king leaves the room, the conversation starts, what church are you from?  You will start to promote who we are rather than what we should be.  It would be good to be a child of God rather than to belong to a church of this earth.

 

Yesterday I met two men at Noel Lemmings.  One said he belongs to Hamilton East church and another one said, Rototuna.  I asked, do you both believe? Yes.  In what? God.  Who is God? Our creator? Where does He live? Heaven.  I kept asking questions and they answered, “if you try to discover everything from the Bible, you will become crazy”. 

 

I told these men that my cell-phone is my best friend.  Our phone knows better who we are and what we intend to do, all our secrets are on our phones, all our conversations.  Whenever you leave your phone for two seconds, you rush back to your phone and unlock the phone using the code that restricts access to others from knowing what is going on between your phone and others.

 

Imagine if our phones can become our Jesus and wherever you go, you are in contact. Where is the wifi, where is the password for this phone? What is the password to understand the Word of God?  Then I come to the kingdom of the internet and I can choose from it what I want.  What do you do with the internet?  There are millions of website.  Where do you go? Facebook, youtube?  When you use the phone, everything you get on line, you get a smile and can communicate without opening your mouth to people miles away.  How many friends do you have on facebook?  About 100.  It’s normal, from there you can make 1000’s of friends.  People exchange ideas, photos, events and even send messages and videos in the middle of doing something. 

 

Jesus says, I will be your servant and I want to serve you because I want to teach you, I want you taste the true meal.  The bread is my body, the wine is my blood.  How does bread taste? You can’t explain it.  You can know it tastes like bread but you can’t explain how it tastes.  You can say wine is bitter but you can’t explain bitterness. 

 

I told those men that my phone is my friend but I should replace it with Jesus.  For example, if I use my phone to keep in contact with my friends then I should remember to keep in contact with Jesus.  How often do I interact with Jesus?  When He tells me to sit around the table, what do I do?  What will be the first meal in heaven when we go there?  Houses are there.  Do we really need houses, beds, lights? No, they mean something as metaphors.  When you go to Australia, you will know what motel you will stay in and you will look up on google to be prepared.  If you get to Australia and your hotel is different to what you saw on the internet, you will complain and declare, “I’m not spending $600 to stay in such a place”.

 

The Bible has grey hair.  Some parts are dark.  We have to stop and ask ourselves what does He want to teach us from this?  Zacchaeus at the age of an adult had to climb a tree. People will say that is not normal.  The Bible is clear, we have been selected and we are his children and He is approaching us to feed us.  In order to eat, you need a mouth and tongue to taste and a throat to swallow the food and the entire body system to operate.  If you don’t have a throat, how will He offer food to you if you can’t eat or even don’t sit down at the table or don’t wait for Him? It would be good for me to one day understand the Word of God because if you understand it, no one will lead you astray.

 

 The Word of God is not only about sin.

 

When we see the angel Gabrielle, we believe he is handsome and perfect and attractive but I have come across verses about cherubim with eyes all over their bodies.  Will you come close to such a creature?  Six wings.  Sometimes, people wear masks and children can scream while behind the mask is their mum/dad.  The scary mask creates fear.  Why did God create these scary looking creatures and talk about these images in Revelations and Daniel.  We don’t want to hear about it.  Was He happy to scare us?  What was His plan behind this creation?  When we start to think like that, we start to understand the Word of God. 

 

God, what did you want me to understand about the lamb with one horn here and another there.  These a monsters and we feel that monsters are evil.  These are the kinds of preachings we need because my people get lost because of lack of understanding.  We need discernment to understand and you can’t get discernment from a shop, it only comes when you understand and you only understand when you search and learn.  How can you tell someone is lying to you.  You know it’s not true.  No matter what the child says, you know that it is not true.  How do you know that? What is your secret?  Or someone takes something in the house, you will know who did it.  It is because we live with people and know who they are.  The spirit of discernment, the HOLY SPIRIT that lives in us, does not hide secrets from us.  People today think the HOLY SPIRIT gifts are like a mystery.

 

People today are getting confused.  Who is a prophet?  What is prophecy?  God can tell you this is coming and it will be fulfilled, then we know they are a true prophet.  You are the child of God, created in the image of God and it means something to us.  What reflects God in me?  How do I look like God?  You will only know that when we know God.  How can I compare myself to God, if I don’t know God?  The solid food is for those who are believers who go deeper and deeper to worship the person we know.  We can only worship the one we know.

 

What would be good for you and for your family and those around you?  Let’s pray.