"A Driving Passion"
Sermon Transcript for June 5, 2005
By Rev. Robert Sajjabi
It’s a privilege once again to stand before you. And it’s a privilege to me that you allowed me to speak a lot of God to you. It’s not my Word. I, therefore, want to depart so that Christ may take over.
Singing -- Holy Spirit, move me now. Move me now. Make my life love again. Holy Spirit, move me now, move me Father. Holy Spirit, move me now. Teach us oh Holy Spirit. Move me now. Change us Father, Holy Spirit. Move me. Now heal us, Father. Holy Spirit, move me now. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I’m singing to the Father. Praise to the Son. And so the Holy Spirit high above. Jesus Christ is the Lord of power and gives us the power to preach. Yes, Jesus Christ you are the Lord of power and you give us the power to preach. Amen.
I want to begin my sermon today by thanking the pastor allowing me to be in your midst today. Allow me to bring greetings from the Superintendent of the United Methodist Church, Uganda District. Really, people in Uganda love you! They pray for you! As I experienced today that you love them and you pray for them. That’s why we sing Jesus is a mighty God because you loved us before you saw us. You knew us before you see us physically. And that’s the love of God.
Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus identified Himself with the poor, hungry, sick, imprisoned, orphans, widows, and the needy. Matthew, Chapter 25, Verse 35-45 this is the foundation that our love, Jesus Christ, sent for us. All godly people, therefore, must be committed to give themselves in God’s missions as a response to God whom they chose whose nature and purpose is grounded in loving relationship with persons on the margins of society—mainly the poor, powerless, and displaced. Matthew, Chapter 19, Verse 16-30 continues to remind us a rich young man who was suddenly went to go and sell all of his riches he had and give all the money to the poor.
I also come to you with a message from the Book of John, the Gospel according to John, Chapter 6. Whether all of us know this scripture that Jesus fed 5,000 people with only five loaves and two fish, but there is a challenge here. It still is a challenge to people, to us when we are to learn to give or to do something. We receive the message in different ways. Most especially, we look at the physical. People having heard what Jesus was doing, miracles, signs, and wonders, they all come around and follow Jesus. They were all following Jesus. I pray that how I speak help you understand my accent.
Now, when Jesus saw the multitude, He asked His disciples, “Please, these people are hungry.” As there are so many hungry people around us, not only in Africa but also in America and everywhere, the challenge is there. The challenge is before Christians. The challenge is before God’s people. I say, “Where can you get something to feed all of these people?” This is what you always respond, “What can we give?” But, oh, Master, you know that even the wage for a full year cannot buy food for these guys. Thus our kind of mind, that’s how we see things. They thought about how much they have. Always when there is a challenge for us, when there is a task for us, we think about how much we have! But God Himself does not see how much you have. He doesn’t want to know what you have. There is a difference between how much you have and what you have. Some of the disciples looked up how much they had by that time and said even the wages for one year cannot be enough, it cannot even buy half of the food. The Bible says that Jesus asked them, knowing what he was going to do. What Christ was expecting from the disciples to present what they had, not to give reasons how much they have! Today the challenge to the church of God is what we have but people think in terms of how much.
Let’s go ahead and find out. Then, frankly brother, here is a young boy. He has five loaves of bread and two fish. Do you know what Jesus said? “Oh, that’s what I was waiting to hear. Please bring them to me. Bring them to me.” In other words, give them to me. Lesson from this, when Jesus was given this five loaves and two fish, Jesus wanted what they had not how much they had. Do you understand?
Singing – Hallelujah, Hallelujah. Sing to the Father, praise to the Son. Exalt the Holy Spirit high above.
Jesus Christ is the Lord of power. He just wants what you have. He uses that! Jesus will never do, will never perform miracles in this age unless we have what we have. There must be a lineage; there must be something to start with to begin with so that Christ might be Christ. This is what Christ wanted from the disciples. Look at this—just a young man, a young boy not even an adult. Maybe the disciples had money themselves, who knows? But they were giving excuses, you see, what we have is not enough. We can’t do it; can’t give that. You know? The baggage is too big; this is too big. We can’t, oh this is too much. We can’t, you know?
But here is a younger boy who agreed to surrender what he had and from what he had Christ managed to feed 5,000 people and he fed more than 5,000 because the Bible talks about men. What about ladies? What about children? There is no friend like our Lord, Jesus Christ, who can call all the multitude and feed them. It is by the love of Jesus Christ that I am here today. It is by the love of Jesus Christ that we are all one! No friend like you. All of those who are like Him are those who live Christ-like. So if we want to be like Christ, we have to live a Christ-like life. This is why we find ourselves with people so that we can lift them up. In heaven there will be no somebody who is different from the other. We will all be the same like God. God is the same. God has no difference. God has no colors. God has no size. God has Spirit and by His Spirit we are empowered! By his Spirit we gain faith and by faith we make things happen because we don’t walk by sight we walk by faith. We don’t do things by sight; we don’t do things because we have too much money. We do things because we have what we have and from what we have God multiplies that and miracles and wonders, signs and wonders happen and people glorify God! That’s what God wants.
Not until the church turns and sees things the way God sees them. Look at Moses when God called Moses, the one who was running from Egypt. And He is the man God is calling to go back. Listen to this; Moses used his kind of mind to serve the Israelites. So he wanted to kill so that he can stay. When we use our kind of mind we cause problems. And when we cause problems, consequences come upon us. So Moses had to face the consequences and the young to run away. But then God saw Moses and said, “Okay, let me show you the right way to do it.” So at this juncture, this moment, the church needs God’s divine direction. We should pray that God may give us a divine direction. When God gives Moses, and Moses saw a burning bush but not consumed, God wanted to show, to direct Moses into a divine direction so that he could deliver his people. Our God is the God who brought us from the land of slavery. And if he brought us out of the land of slavery, he’s sending us back to bring his people out of slavery.
Look here, when God was assigning Moses, telling him and giving him a divine direction, he said, “Now Moses, go back and deliver my people.” Moses said, “You know, God, you know I don’t have enough money. You know the money I have is not enough.” Look here, I don’t mind. I’m the Lord God of your fathers. I am the Lord God of Abraham. I call you by name. I knew you when you were still in the womb of your mother. What does God say? I have good plans for you. Not bad plans. But plans for prosperity, plans for being free and becoming free, plans for being independent, plans for making this happen, plans for bringing glory to me. And God asked Moses, “What do you have?” This is the question to everyone of us here. What do we have? What we have is what God is going to use to make miracles. If you want to see miracles all over the world, let’s have what we have. Let’s have how much we have. Praise the Lord!
When Moses presented the stick very hard, then God said, “Give it to me.” In other words, he said, “Throw it down”. Throwing it down it means let it go, let it go. Don’t possess what you have. God would never do miracles. God would have never turned what you have into a miracle. Our God is not a skeptic. He is a phenomenal God. I feel it! No matter how many people do not see it, somebody in the congregation is seeing it. Somebody here is perceiving it. Since he’s a miracle worker, he’s equal, more than equal, to heal our body. For the Bible says, “Ask to each of us, it is today; it will be tomorrow and forever.” God is not a liar, is not the son of man that he can tell lies. He’s a God who keeps His word. He’s a God of the continent. He’s a God who fills his pledges.
We need to have what we have and give it. When we let it go, miracles come. God possesses, not until you let the one bill you have, the five loaves you have and give it to Christ, you will never see a miracle. We are talking about we are doing this, how can God help? Not until we give what we have. Somebody said, “What can I give?” Most people think about money. But it’s only money! You can give bed sheets. There are so many people in Uganda who sleep on the floor. That’s where I come from! Christ said you worship what you don’t know, but for us we worship what we know and what we have touched on. So when I said this, I share my life and where I am today and where God has brought me from—a very poor family. But then God says, “Deliver my people.” And today 167 students, children, are being taken care of by your help. So there is a linage of Brother John. If Brother John had not come there to come back and share this story, “Oh, there is a project. Please someone give.”, you wouldn’t have known about it.
And there is somebody who had five fishes who said, “Okay, there is two dollars, there is five dollars, there is $1.00 given out. $7,000 U.S. dollars came to our school and helped.” Today we have an administration block. We have a ten-classroom building. Just a couple of months ago I needed what God give me, because we wanted more land to put up a playground and to put up a teacher’s house. Then we say, “Where can we get money?” Everybody was saying, “You know, Robert, there is no money. You know where we will get the money unless we write for donors.” I told them, “Guys, look here, we need to use what we have so that we make things happen. God will take care of the rest.” You know, but what can we give, right? You know? I said, “God is the one. I was sleeping in a tent. God gave me where to stay.” This does not belong to me it belongs to God. Let me go to the bank, mortgage this house, mortgage the land. If God wants, He will bring it about. For the Bible says, “He who loves his life more than he loves Christ, he will lose it. But he who gives his life to Christ, he will have it and have it in abundance.”
After doing that, everybody is saying, “Oh, really things are lucky.” Today when we had to purchase that land on loan somebody was coming from South Africa in the conference passing by the General Board Office of the Nairobi asking, “Please, are there some funds for Uganda here?” They said, “Oh, there are some funds here.” But they say use it only on construction. They called to me, “Robert, what do you think we should do?” Here is some money but they say they want it on construction, not anything else. I said, “Okay, how ever much we have not yet paid the land, pay the mortgage off, but we can use this.” It was in my name, I’m signing the transfer forms in the names of the church. God will take care of the rest. He’s the one who gave me the house. He’s the one who gave me everything. If he wants, he will bring it. If he doesn’t, let them take the house. Today we are putting up the teachers’ quarter on that land. I left when we are grading the playground. We have the 20-years plan to have a primary section, secondary section. Once the place is built and finished, we want to take it to Sudan, the sinful city, be duplicated in Sudan. They have people suffering there. Instead of bringing students from Sudan like what we are doing today. So that will put the facility there and help many people there.
So that Humble Place will access the money. Teams come from here. There is a mission house there. You sleep on this site. You don’t need to spend all your money in the hotels. Anyway, I’m not complaining. The government gets good money for the hotels. But I think we need to think about what God wants us to do! How to spend our money, our resources! We need to be wise as we use our resources in the kingdom of God so that they will come help more or us. Where we take the money in the hotels, they get the money; they don’t take care of these vulnerable children. Why don’t we take the money? Who don’t we put up a mission house at Humble Place so that all the missionaries come and stay there? Don’t spend their money there, spend it here so that it can go and help, help, help everywhere! There is much to share.
What God wants is to let what we have, give it to Him. He’s ready to multiply it. Give what you have. You can buy a pair of shoes. Send it down there. It’s among the corporations cost. You can buy and send down there.
I really want to thank you for the work you are doing here in America reaching the poor society, reaching all of those who are underprivileged. However, we still have much to do. Go have more respect of that. We are all one because He created us in His own image. Yesterday I was sharing, when I was coming from Uganda I said, “God what will I share with the people down there?” And God said when I got here; God gave me this message of feeding thousands and thousands. The challenge today, the mission we have today, is feeding and taking care of thousands and thousands of people by using the two loaves and two fish in our midst. That’s what God wants us to have. Only what you have, give it to Christ, give it to God, God will use it.
God is Spirit and in His likeness we are all made. Therefore, we are also Spirit. I was saying yesterday that my color is different from his. My face is different from his. Listen to this, but we are all in God’s image! God is beautiful, wonderful! (Lost some of transcript due to changing sides of tape)
Listen to this, some Uganda’s say, “I can’t be like him. I’m white.” But I think its blood that makes us all alike to God. When I checked my blood, my blood is O Negative. My daughter is O Positive. Yesterday, I asked in the congregation, “How many have O Negative.” I may ask the same question today. Your blood group is O Negative. A few people. And then others are O Positive; others are lots of different groups. Do you think that makes us alike with God? No! There is a difference. However, blood has the same color—red—but the group is not the same. But there is only one thing that makes us alike with God and that is the Spirit that comes in you for God created man. It was just like a statue, it was made out of mud, out of dirt. I don’t know what kind of dirt was that. And it was there like a statue. It was not called man, not until God breathed the breath of life, the Spirit in God. So what makes us alike altogether is the breath, is the life that is in you today. So we all have life that’s why Christ says, “I came so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” Listen to this, this means there are people who have life but not in abundance. If you don’t give your life to Christ, you will not have life in abundance. If you want to have life and have it in abundance, you need to surrender your life to Christ.
I want to see somebody who says, “I want to give my life to Christ this morning.” Do you want to give your life to Christ? You’re timid in this congregation. Do you want to give your life to Christ? Please it is your time; today is your day. You are going to give your life to Christ. The life you have, the skin you see, the detail you are proud of today, and you think you are someone important, it is just nothing. Not until you surrender it to Christ. If you give it to Christ today, then you will have your beauty and have it in abundance.
Look at this because God wasn’t in our life. Is the God who gave Abraham a son at the age of a hundred, whereby some of us say, “Oh, I’ve grown old.” And you see, some of you just drop out of school because you want to get married so soon and you don’t want to go to college, you say you are getting old and you think you are getting old. If you want to turn your life, just give it to Christ. You may seem old when people see you. When they ask you, “How old are you?” “Oh, I’m forty.” “Are you married?” “No, not yet, I’m still studying. I still have mission to finish.” “Oh, do you think you are growing old?” I’m here to tell you, nobody who gives his life to Christ, God will never disappoint you. You may not see it in your generation. It has to come in the generation, in your second-generation maybe, in your first generation maybe. But I pray that when they see God is growing in our generation.
Let’s bow our heads and pray. “Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Father. For you have spoken to us this morning. This is your Word. It is by the Word that every thing on the universe was made. I also speak the Word for it is written that when we keep Thy commandment, our lives shall be like your Word. Give us peace of mind; give us wisdom; give us the Spirit of the Son; give us divine direction so that we may know Thy way. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen”
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