The truth will make you free

Pastor Kris Kile is a servant of the Lord. He works in a teaching ministry and we have known him for many years. We have always talked about the fact that there is somehow a connection between our church and the ministry that he leads and in a conversation we had a few weeks ago, we agreed that he would come, bring us the word of God and let us know something about it as well. of his ministry and that the anointing that God has given him to talk about transformative processes can reach our church as well.

Hello. It is tremendous to be with you on this day. I have several close friends who are here in this congregation. One is sitting right here before me, Patricia, and I am tremendously excited about the vision that you have held here over the years. From my perspective of what you are doing, not only is it having an impact here among this congregation, but I believe that God is doing and will continue to use what you are doing here in this place to change and transform the world. Amen. Beyond, much beyond. So I'm very excited to see what you're doing and it's a great privilege to be with you today and a great joy as well. So thanks.

I want to talk to you today about love, transformation and freedom, liberation. And I would like to invite you today to fully participate in this message. Now think about what would it take for you to fully participate in this message? Let's talk about that for a little bit. There will be times when I am going to ask questions and I am going to ask you to raise your hand, and that you can then answer those questions and that will be a way that you can participate today. And another way to participate fully is to consider what I'm telling you as more than just useful knowledge. Knowledge itself does not produce results so consider what I am saying in the light of your personal life, consider it in the light of who you are to the people you love and spend time with. Another way you can participate is by listening with an honest and open mind and heart. In other words, honestly consider what I have to tell you. Sometimes what I tell you may be a challenge to your opinions about life, about the world. And if I'm successful that's going to happen this morning, they're going to be challenged. My goal is to lead them to reconsider in different ways what love, freedom and transformation are, new ways of seeing these concepts.

My invitation is to be courageous, to have the moral courage to look at things in what may be a new and different way of looking at them. And all I'm telling you to do is consider these things with the heart of a disciple. A disciple is a person who is constantly learning, someone who is very aware that they do not always have the correct answers. Sometimes I think that we have things as misrepresented. We believe that the goal is to always have the answer. I would say that as disciples the goal is to stay in the question, not the answer. Do you know that Jesus in the Scripture asked more questions than the answers he gave? And many times when he gave the answers he gave them in the form of parables which in some ways was simply an invitation for people to consider new questions. So the goal of being a Christian is not to always have the answers, or to believe that you have the answers. Rather, it is continually reinventing the possibility of being in a continuous relationship with the One who is the answer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So it is in that spirit of inquiring, of seeking that I ask you to consider my message this day. How many of you wish you could love more powerfully and more boldly? So we're going to talk about that today. How do you know that you are loving more powerfully? Where do you look to determine how you are loving? Do you search within yourself? Or do you look to those you say you love? Many times I would like to convince myself that I am truly loving the people I care about and that I love, but if I really choose to be honest I have to look and ask those I say I love and allow their experience to instruct me my on how to truly love them, otherwise I would probably spend my whole life living in a fantasy world. How often have you failed to communicate your love to those you supposedly love? I notice that I fail frequently. My wife, her name is Katie, many times, although I always say that I love her, I notice that many times I do not produce in her that experience of love that I think I am doing. Now is that good news or bad news? I say it's good news, it's good to realize that. Now it is not necessarily good news that I fail in this task, but God has instructed us that many times we are going to miss the mark, we are not going to reach the goal. So the question is if my desire is to have a consistent experience of love with those I love, then how can I live in such a way that I can transform what I think is possible into loving and being living love and livingly loving others.

Let's look at what God says about love. In Luke, Chapter 10, verse 25, I invite you to look there in your Bibles. Here it says: “behold, a lawyer stood up and said to him (he is talking about Jesus), saying to test him: Master, doing what shall I inherit eternal life? And Jesus answered that lawyer of the law, he asked him: Well, what is written in the law, how do you read? And he answered saying: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and with all your strength and your neighbor as yourself. And the Lord said to him: you have answered correctly, do this and you will live.

Now, this is something important because we have here the interpreter of the law asking what must I do to inherit eternal life, Lord? How many would like the fullness of eternal life now and in the future? How many want that inheritance? He gives her the answer, He told her "love God and love your neighbor". Sounds simple right? But I believe that these two acts of loving God and loving my neighbor are inescapably connected to each other. I believe that many times we are very sure of our love for God but not so sure about our love for our neighbor. And the neighbor is the one with whom we are close, those who accompany us in life. They know that in the Scripture it also says that you will love your enemy too. I don't know about your experience but sometimes I feel that the people I love the most and with whom I feel closest, sometimes I feel like they are even my enemies...... But what's your problem? Why are you saying that? Why are you doing that kind of thing? Have you ever felt this way about people you still love? So God says: It doesn't matter how people approach you, how they act in your life. no matter that, it is always clear about your commitment to each one of them that I send you. And God defines that a little more.

In First John, Chapter 4, verse 20: "If someone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar because whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen." And we have this commandment from Him, that he who loves God also loves his brother. How many of you have heard people who are always talking about their love for God and yet many times act with indifference and hostility towards their neighbor? God says that when we make those kinds of inconsistencies, we are, in effect, liars. So I can say that I love God all I want, but in summary what really counts according to Jesus is that my love for God will be reflected in how I behave with you and with others. So if I really want to know if I truly love the Lord, I must examine how I love those who I supposedly love and those who care about me and how I am loving those who do not matter to me. There is a very powerful connection between those two things, between love and freedom. How many of you would like to have more freedom? Raise your hand. Now, I can say that God is not in the business of simply giving more freedom, he is not in the business of more love, nor is he in the business of different love or different freedom. It is not in the business of more love or freedom or different love or freedom. I'd say he's not even in the business of better love or better freedom. God is interested above all in completely new love, new love. What interests him is a completely different experience of what freedom is.

Let's look at this connection between love, between loving and being free. In First John, Chapter 3, in verse 18, it says there: “my children, let us not love with words only”, I am reading here from a different version, and in this particular version it says “let us not just talk about love, let us practice it”. true love. This is the only way that we will actually love, that we are living authentically, living in the reality of God. It is also the way to close the way to debilitating criticism, even when there is reason to be criticized, us, because God is much greater than the worries and guilt of our hearts and He knows much more about our hearts than we do. we know about ourselves. Friends, once that has been settled then we stop accusing and condemning ourselves, we have boldness and we have confidence before God. So if I find myself worrying more about loving those I'm with than focusing more on my own needs and faults and am concerned then not so much with loving them, but with what they should do to me and give to me. life, and I am more concerned with loving those around me than being right at all times, then I can begin to experience and produce the freedom that is possible when we live in divine reality.

Now, many times when I talk to couples, counseling couples I've already lost count of how many times the conversation starts around, “Oh, if he would just do that, then our relationship would work out.” God says: look, jump out of it. He says: rather you are convinced of what God expects of you regarding it, what you have to do regarding that person and try to live responsibly about how you can contribute to the relationship, live in that reality and that will then produce freedom. Because think about it for a moment, if my life depends on how the other person is going to act towards me, then I am actually dependent, enslaved to their actions and their circumstances in order to carry out my commitment, experience my commitment. Do you think there is power in that kind of power? That's actually debilitating, it doesn't give you power. Nor does it have much to do with what Christ says about "love God and love your neighbor." So my question to you is this: What does it mean to live in the reality of God? God has essentially told us that we cannot see for ourselves, we cannot see life based on its reality, at least we cannot see its full divine reality.

In First Corinthians, Chapter 13, in verse 12, it says: "for now we see through mirrors darkly, but then we will see face to face, now I know in part, but then I will know even as I am known" . And now I want to read it to you from a different translation of Scripture. In this translation it says: "we still don't see things clearly, we are just looking like this, straining to see in the dark, looking through the mist, but it won't be long before the weather clears up and the sun shines brightly." , and then we will see clearly, we will see him with the same clarity with which God sees us, knowing him directly as he knows us. Now, when are we going to see clearly? When Jesus returns, when we see Him face to face. And so what is it saying here: is it the reality that we live between now and later? Meanwhile we experience life as if through a mist. So God says love me and love others, live in my reality, however He tells us, but you're still going to experience my reality like through a mist. It sounds like a contradiction almost.

But in John 8:32 the Lord told them: you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Now, for many years, when I read this verse, the way I interpreted it, was that if I could understand the Scripture then I would be free. And certainly Scripture is an essential part of understanding the heart of God, but I would argue that there is much more to having freedom than this. How many people do you know who know a lot about Scripture, yet don't experience freedom in their lives the way they would like? So it is indeed an important thing to know the Scripture, but it is not the whole thing.

God says: “truth will produce freedom”. Now, the word truth is very interesting. The original meaning of that word that we translate truth is reality, in the Greek. In the original Greek the word that is used to refer to truth in this verse is much better translated as reality instead of truth and means how to discover, remove the veil, bring to light what had previously been hidden. So, reality is lifting the veil, seeing things in a way that I didn't see them the same before. That is what produces freedom. So I would say that there is a direct connection between what Jesus here tells you about freedom and what He told the lawyer about what was most important in life. He told her "love God and love your neighbor" and in reality what happens is that we look at those we say we love to determine if the love we believe we are producing is truly being given.

Romans, Chapter 12, there's another piece of the puzzle there. In verse 1 he says “do not be conformed to this century, but be transformed through the renewal of your understanding so that you can verify what is good and acceptable, the perfect will of God. So in Romans 12 the Lord offers us the possibility of being transformed. And what does transformation mean? Think about it for a moment. What does transformation mean? The word used here for transformation in the Greek is the same word used when a worm, a worm, turns into a butterfly. It's kind of dramatic. Brand new. So what God is involved in is giving completely new life, on a moment-to-moment basis. So how do we bring about that transformation? If we are walking, wandering as if we are in a mist and suddenly the mist lifts and disappears instantly, would that be a completely new experience?

Consider your heart for a moment, the Scripture says that the matters of life come from the heart, it says that the mouth speaks of the abundance of the heart, however it also says in the Book of Jeremiah, they do not have to look for it, I'm just going to give it to you.

Jeremiah 17:9 says, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately evil and sinful. Who can understand and know? So God says that everything in our lives, the desire to love for example, comes from the heart and at the same time says that our hearts are full of self-deception and malice, evil. Do you think that this malice that exists could produce a fog in our perceptions? It sounds like a paradox, a contradiction, but in reality that is what happens. So if the issues in my life emanate from my heart and my heart then has that inherent evil, then what can I do? Is there an answer, a way out?

I would say that this is not so much an answer as a question that we must stay and live with. And in the commitment that makes it possible to live in that tension there, is what we have been talking about up to here. Maintain the desire to love others, live in that commitment, live tied to that commitment and continuously analyze if we are actually carrying out that love.

In Second Corinthians, Chapter 10, verse 4, it says there that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal.... (It says that you have heard that verse before) ..... but powerful in God for the destruction of spiritual strongholds, tearing down arguments and against everything that seeks to exalt itself against the lordship of God, taking all thought and taking it captive to the obedience of Christ Jesus, and being willing to punish all disobedience when their obedience is fully carried out. Again in the version that I am using I want to give a more colloquial, simpler translation.

It says: the tools of our trade are not for marketing or for human manipulation, therefore they are capable of demolishing that massively corrupt culture. It says, we use these powerful tools to destroy worldly philosophies, to tear down barriers that have been erected against God's truth, by taking every loose and rebellious thought and impulse within ourselves and in the structures of life and embedding it in Christ Jesus. Our tools are ready, prepared, to clear the ground of any obstruction that tries to erect evil and lies and that opposes obedience and maturity. That is what the ministry in which I am involved tries to do. It is designed to support people so that they can build the disciplines and practices that he talks about here in Second Corinthians of taking every thought captive to Jesus Christ.

Many times the fog of life, of which we speak, is produced by the personal filters through which I distortedly examine life. Each of us has a completely different point of view than the others, and that perspective is made up of the entire sum total of our past experiences. Everything we've heard, learned, and what we've decided we're going to do about those experiences. And while there are some things that we believe we all have the same opinion about, I would argue that no two human beings have the same filter through which they interpret life experiences, and we are unconsciously unaware about it. We do not know many things and that we have decided about life, we are not aware of them. We've just decided that's the way it is and there's nothing I can do about it. That's just the way things are. However, what I choose and what I decide to do about my reality, many times differs from what those whom I supposedly love, how they interpret and see life, there is a difference in perceptions between them.

I know that many times when I am talking to someone I enter into competition. There is what I am saying to that person and then there is what you are saying about what I am saying. That internal conversation that we all have, how many know what I mean? People normally speak like 150 words per minute normally, Caribbean people speak more, but the mind is capable of thinking in terms of 600 to 700 words per minute so we are always filling those gaps there, we are always filling them with our own internal conversation. . And what is it that gives fire to that internal conversation? Well, there it talks in Second Corinthians, Chapter 10 about this.

It says: loose, rebellious thoughts, emotions, impulses, evaluations, judgments, the whole package, there it is. And most of the time we are not aware of what we are really thinking. It is automatic, let us not be surprised that the Scripture says that we experience life as through a mist, there is interference. So what is the solution? Well, what does Jesus say? He says love God and love your neighbor, and then if you say you love me, says Jesus, but you don't love your neighbor, then you are a liar. So the solution to begin to determine how my internal conversation, rebellious thoughts, emotions and different feelings do actually support or actually prevent what I say I am committed to doing, which is to say loving people truly constitutes what I am. God says that I give my life for those that in reality I say that I supposedly love. That is, if there is consistency between what I am truly thinking, what the word says and what I am actually doing in my act of loving others. In the Scripture it says that we must give our life for our neighbor. That is much more than just physically dying for someone.

The greater reality for those of us who are living is to be willing to interrupt the way I think things are that Scripture says is distorted and foggy anyway, and live in community with others, in relation and being open to their way of seeing reality. For example when I say that I love my wife, Katie, I can be open to how she perceives my love and how she feels that I am truly loving her instead of telling her: no, you are wrong, when what she is saying to me Saying how she perceives my love doesn't coordinate with what I supposedly think is true. There is tremendous freedom in this. think about it

If every time you love a person, at least here in your mind as you think, then because you give them the freedom to express themselves, you discover for the moment that you are not loving them as you think, or your experience of your love is not what you think it is. So this constitutes a direct invitation for you to enter reality as it is, instead of remaining in fantasy, the personal distortion that you have built for yourself. And Jesus says that this fact, this honesty produces freedom, because then you are free to live with what is real, what is, and then act within your commitment to live in reality, in what is honest, what is true. There are great resources, great power in that posture. So the key then is to live responsibly, inquire and analyze responsibly. Be clear about the vision that will animate your relationship with others. Be open. Live honestly, authentically with respect to others so that they can then believe that you are an opening, that you are open to them also informing you, instructing you about what your relationship with them really is. This requires moral courage, and is an ongoing invitation to live on the edge of faith, because authentic relationships cannot be continually controlled so that we are always in control and turn out to be what we want those relationships to be.

How many of you have noticed that life usually never ends up being what we want it to be? I would say that this is part of God's plan because then we have the opportunity to discover what He truly has for us and Jesus says that this reality will then be experienced in terms of my commitment to genuinely love others. What's more, I would say the following: I would say that if I am genuinely committed to living reality authentically, I have to maintain a relationship with others.

Love God, love your neighbor. That reality and living in it will produce freedom. While those whom you love and who love you instruct you and feel free to let you know about their personal perception of reality, then that will allow you to not be controlled, enslaved to the fog and mental distortions of life. . Clarity in life is produced by an unwavering commitment to love others and a commitment to always act in faith, to throw yourself into the unknown of what that new, interactive reality will produce, and that produces great hope in life. so that you no longer have to live in despair and resignation to circumstances.

So, that's what we do in the trainings that we're involved in because we support others and help them process their relationships with others, and we're always involved in an ongoing conversation with others. leadership here at your church about how we can work together to bring that transformation, that freedom, to happen in new and creative ways here in your congregation. So if you're interested in learning more about how you can live that authentic life, we're going to have a three-day seminar shortly in January and this Thursday, bookmark this for those interested, December 15 at 7:30 p.m. Tonight here at the church we're going to have an informational meeting if you're interested in learning more about this to talk a little more about this. In order for you to learn a little more about the different resources that we have available to you, this meeting will be in English but we will have translation if needed as well.

And I would like now to close in prayer. Thank you Lord for your love, your faith, your faithfulness, your grace and your mercy. And Father, I ask that you pour out a special blessing on this church, on its leaders, the congregation as a whole. And Lord guide us, show us your way. Thank you Lord in your name. Amen. Give the Lord a round of applause. Thank you.

It is that freedom that God wants for us to live in that authenticity. Let's not live fooling ourselves. It is so important, brothers, what our brothers say here that there is so much..... I agree with Chris that the biggest source of problems for Christians is not so much sometimes horrific sin, great excesses, but that tendency that we have to deceive ourselves, to impose our perception of things on others. Those small moral, ethical defects, in marital relationships, with our children, among friends, church companions, that is where God's blessing often escapes. It's like, if we open 3 windows right now here in this sanctuary, no matter how hot it is inside and when everything is very prepared to heat us, if there are air leaks, if cold air enters, no matter how much we want it will always be there. cold. Many times we are like that, we give money, we serve, we do this, we do that, but there are those subtle escapes in our relationships, we oppress, deceive, criticize, gossip, impose ourselves, exploit others, in subtle ways, then everything What we do is worth nothing because there is an escape from the pressure, from the seal that must be in the Christian life. Those little foxes that spoil the vineyard of which the writer speaks.

God calls us: Examine yourself, examine yourself. And where are you letting the divine pressure of your life escape? In what area of human relationships are you allowing the blessing to go away, the blessing of God to slip away? I believe that this is the great frontier of the people of God, it is not so much that we speak the language or jump or pray, praise God for these things, we love them, but all this if there are escapes of justice in our relationships and of true love with that we should love others, then it neutralizes the benefit of all other things. We are open to enemy penetration and suffering so God calls us to be authentic, be true. Live in the truth, even if it's uncomfortable. Thank you for your word. Amen. Glory of God for his word gives us freedom. Amen. It sets us free, as the Lord says "you will know the truth and the truth will set you free".

Go to Spanish Version < Table> Sermon by Kris Kile (with translation by Dr. Roberto Miranda) recorded December 11, 2005 in León de Judá Congregation (52 min.) Listen | View (100K) | View (400K) < /Table> Hear and see more recorded presentations Sunday December 11, 2005

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