An Anointed and Diverse Community (Part 1)

Open your Bibles to First Corinthians, chapter 12. We are going to do it bilingually today; thank you for your patience. Thank you—we know that these days can often get a little difficult, but today we want to talk about why doing this is so important. You know, the pastor has recently been talking about our being a supernatural community with a supernatural mindset, and a very important part of this mindset is being baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Now, a question: Who baptizes us in the Holy Spirit? When we are baptized in water, the pastor is the one who does it. So, many times when I was young, I used to ask the pastor, “Pastor, can you baptize me in the Holy Spirit now?” And they would tell me, “No, I’m sorry, that is above my pay grade.”

John the Baptist used to say that after him someone more powerful than he was would come. John said that he baptized with water for repentance from sins, but the one coming after him would baptize them in the Holy Spirit and fire. Jesus is the one who baptizes us with his Holy Spirit.

Now, we pray for one another and lay hands on one another, but we know where that power comes from. Now, what I want to talk about today is not baptism in the Holy Spirit, but rather the baptism that is by the Holy Spirit. It is a baptism that takes place in a person and comes only through the Spirit, and we read about this in First Corinthians 12.

We are reading in Spanish while I read in English.

Father, in the name of Jesus, we thank you. Thank you for your calling upon our lives and for making us part of that supernatural body of Christ. It is a spiritual membership, and I ask you, please, to help us live up to it and be counted as part of it, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Baptism by the Holy Spirit into what, toward what? Come with me to verse 13. According to verse 13, we were baptized—were we baptized in water, or baptized by the Spirit into one body? To understand that I am baptized by the Spirit, I have to understand this reality: that the Spirit has inserted me into a larger community of people. And that entails using the gifts God has given me so that I can serve. It means being who I am in order to be a blessing to others. It does not mean that you are going to imitate Greg... You know, I remember when I was new here, and I said to myself, “I have no clue what I’m doing here.” So I started imitating Roberto. You know how you ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?” I would ask myself what Roberto would do. And I quickly discovered that I was not fooling anyone. There is a saying that goes, “You have to be yourself.”

But we do imitate the faith of our mentors, hoping that their anointing will rub off on us too. So Paul writes to the Corinthians that he did not want them to be ignorant about the gifts of the Spirit. They were people who used the gifts of the Spirit, spoke in tongues, and moved in the miraculous, but Paul was concerned that they lacked a little knowledge. It is possible to move in spiritual gifts and be ignorant about what they truly mean.

One of Paul’s first concerns was that they be able to distinguish genuine Christian spirituality from what was not Christian spirituality. It was a pagan culture. People were accustomed to worshiping other gods or idols. They were also accustomed to using different kinds of magic. And the apostle Paul is very clear in emphasizing and saying that this has nothing to do with the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

I think about our society: many people come to Christ after having practiced different kinds of spirituality. Some go to have their cards read so they can be told the future, or they approach some mystic to look at the palm of their hand and tell them what is going to happen in their future. Or they are obsessed with some kind of astrology and try to find out, according to the date on which they were born and the alignment of the stars, what their destiny will be.

The Bible makes it very clear that genuine, true Christian spirituality is focused solely on Jesus; it focuses on the glory of God. And the fundamental difference here is who is in control. In this pagan spirituality, the person practicing this magic was the one in control, manipulating the kind of reaction the other person would have. But as Christians under the grace and anointing of the Spirit of God, we say that Jesus is Lord. We say that he is the one in control and that it is his supernatural power flowing through me, but he is the one making every move, not me, and he receives the glory. That is how we want it to be: Jesus is Lord, and he is the foundation of our spirituality.

Another difference with pagan spirituality is that you can be spiritual and do things your own way. But through the Holy Spirit of God, you have no other option than to use your gifts among other believers. “I don’t like them very much. I want to stay home, receive prophecies, and do my own things at home.” The point is that there are no lone rangers here who are anointed by the true Spirit of God. There are different gifts, but the same Spirit; different ministries, but the same Lord; different workings, but the same God.

If you look here, there is a beautiful image of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the person of God—the three in one working together. Somehow, God the Father is distinct from God the Spirit. They do different things, but they remain one; both are God.

There is a saying in English that goes, “Try to understand the Trinity and you will lose your mind. But if you deny it, you will lose your soul.” It is true. I do not know how, but it is real: God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son—the three are real; each one operates in his own way, but they are one.

Now, this is something mysterious, but it is possible. Somehow, God takes people who are very, very different and makes them one. Now, I want to make a very important distinction: when we talk about gifts of the Spirit, a spiritual gift is not the same as the innate talent with which you were born. Many times God takes your talent, anoints it, consecrates it, and uses it, but the mere fact that we are talented does not mean that we have been endowed with those gifts. That is what I love about the dance ministry we heard about: we take people and teach them what it means to worship, to be anointed by the Spirit, and to take that dance and dedicate it to the Lord. The dancing part is only one part of the learning process. There are many gifts in the body of Christ.

There is the message of wisdom and the message of knowledge. Now, that does not mean that you went to school; anyone can do that. No, what we are talking about here is God giving that knowledge and that wisdom supernaturally, so that we know how to proceed in particular situations. The gift of faith is when you are praying and you know that you know that you know that something is going to happen at that moment. That is the gift of faith.

I remember being in the Dominican Republic on a trip once, and there was a man who had a certain kind of intellectual disability. We were praying because there had been a period of famine near the Baní area, and that was precisely what we were praying about. This man, with his almost childlike mind, was praying, saying, “Lord, I ask you to send rain today.” Then he suddenly looked up and said, “Oh, Greg is visiting us, and we don’t want it to rain while he is here,” and he said, “Lord, let it rain after he leaves.” Near Baní, as you are heading out, there is a candy store, and as we were leaving this store, heading out of Baní, guess what happened? It started pouring rain. It was because this man had a gift of faith.

Perhaps if he had had a few academic degrees, he might not have had the faith of a child. Different gifts with different people, and it is the same Spirit. The list goes on: people who have the gift of healing, who pray specifically for someone and that person is healed; gifts of prophecy, discernment, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. The key in this text is that everything is given by the Spirit as he determines, and it is all given for the purpose of the common good of the entire body of Christ.

Are you a Christian? If you are, then whether you know it or not, you have a gift of the Holy Spirit—something. There is something in you. I do not know what it is, but there is something, and if you use that gift, all of us are blessed. Now, if you do not use it, we all suffer. There is no way to hide here; there are no anonymous Christians here, and we are going to come back to that.

Verses 12 and 13: this is where we come to this part about baptism. And it says that the body is one, although it has many members. As the text says in verse 13, through one Spirit we were baptized into one body. God, through his Holy Spirit—if you have him—will baptize you and include you in the body of Christ.

Have any of you been baptized in water? This is a day you do not forget, not only because you are completely soaked in front of hundreds of people, but because there is a moment in the baptism process when you have to let yourself go and entrust your life to the person baptizing you. If that person drops you, then you get to heaven faster. You let yourself go, and you allow that person to baptize you and bring you into that new life.

In the same way, if we want to move in that supernatural anointing of the Spirit, it means letting go of how I want to use that gift and allowing the Holy Spirit to take me and immerse me in a community of faith. There is no other way to do it.

Now, some people want to be anointed all by themselves at home, and that is fantastic. Perhaps that gift has something to do with being alone at home for a period of time, but true anointing will eventually include you in the community and in the dynamics of the life of faith.

This is where things become more interesting. Verse 13 says that we are baptized by the Spirit into one body, whether we are Jews or Greeks, slaves or free; we were all given the same Spirit. When the Holy Spirit baptized someone into that community of faith, back then he also did so amid a diversity of cultures: the church was a mixture of Jews and Greeks. A supernatural community will be a multiethnic community.

Do you know how many countries are represented here today? There are easily about 25 countries represented here. Now, what naturally happens when people follow their natural inclinations? You join a club of people who are like you—perhaps people from the same country you come from, people who share common interests, people with whom you would naturally feel comfortable spending time—and there is nothing wrong with that. But if you want to be part of a supernatural community, it means you end up rubbing shoulders with people who are not naturally like you, people from different cultures, with different styles and different personalities. And it can get very interesting.

Now, there is another part to this. It also says that it does not matter whether someone is a slave or free. Back then, there was obviously a system of slavery, and slaves were invited to participate in that community too. A supernatural community will also have an element of socioeconomic diversity. That means people who perhaps have many financial or material resources together with people just like them—if they want to move in the Holy Spirit of God, there can be none of that. A supernatural community will bring all these people together, and it is beautiful, it is complicated, it can sometimes get ugly, it can be a mess, but the glory of God is manifested in those aspects. We are baptized by one Spirit into one body.

Now, this is not optional either. If you want to move in the Holy Spirit, you have to be baptized into that body. That means I redefine who my people are. Now, make no mistake: there is nothing wrong with celebrating our countries, where we are from, or where we come from. You be yourself; be the person you are culturally. God knew where you were going to be born. And he wanted you to be born into that culture; it is part of his purpose for your life.

I remember there was a member here at the church, and I asked the pastor whether this person was Dominican or not. He burst out laughing and said to me, “Hey, is the Pope Catholic?” Some people are like that; some people are purely Dominican. And that is beautiful, it is wonderful; we like that. I believe that is why God calls some churches to be specifically single-ethnicity churches, so they can reflect the glory of God in a particular rhythm, in a particular style, and that is beautiful.

Some churches are Korean churches only, or Greek, or churches made up solely of Guatemalans, and there are some churches out in the countryside where there are only gringos. There is nothing wrong with a church having a particular cultural identity. It is like a stained-glass window made up of all these different-colored pieces of glass through which God shines and reflects His glory. But even in churches of specific ethnicities, if they are moving in the Holy Spirit of God, there will be a kind of urgency to connect with people who are different from them. They will feel uncomfortable. And you will see that churches moving at that level are very good at building bridges with churches of other ethnicities. You will see that with Pastor Roberto; he has many pastor friends from different ethnic groups. On any given day, you may see an African American, Chinese, or American pastor coming into his office here, because there is that urgency and need to connect with them, because we are parts of the body of Christ.

Now, we are not called to be a church of one specific ethnicity. Even when we were a more specifically Spanish-speaking church, we had people from all over Latin America. How many of you can say that the difference was noticeable? For example, if you go to a church where everyone is Guatemalan or Salvadoran, you notice it; you can sense that you are almost in that country. If you come from that background, you can arrive and feel completely at ease: I’m with my people. But who are my people? If I am anointed by the Spirit of God, my people are the people of God. My country is the Kingdom of God.

Now, I celebrate who I am culturally, but my citizenship is in heaven, and if someone is a son or daughter of the living God, that person becomes my brother or my sister. Of course, it gets complicated, but this is the heart of God, the heart of Jesus for us.

Do you remember the moment in the Bible when Jesus became the angriest? Of course, He often became angry with the Pharisees, but there was another moment—the moment when He became angry enough to take up a whip. It was when they were setting up sales tables in a specific part of the temple. Do you know in what part of the temple those tables were? There is a specific part of one of the courts, one of the temple courtyards, that was called the Court of the Gentiles, and we will read a little about this in Isaiah 56, because those tables were taking up space in the Court of the Gentiles. And that Court of the Gentiles was designed so that anyone who wished could come, seek to connect with the presence of God, and worship Him.

Verse 3 of chapter 56 says: “…and let not the foreigner who follows the Lord speak, saying, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from His people’; neither let the eunuch say, ‘Behold, I am a dry tree’…” Verse 4 says: “…for thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths, choose what pleases Me, and embrace My covenant, I will give them a place in My house and within My walls, and a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall never perish….”

Verse 7 says: “…I will bring them to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer; their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted upon My altar, because My house shall be called a house of worship for all peoples…”

This great multitude that no one can count comes from every nation, tribe, and language, all standing before the throne of the living God. And that special part of the temple was supposed to be a piece of heaven, and by setting up those sales tables there, they were keeping them from coming into the house of God, and that is why Jesus became so angry.

On the Day of Pentecost. What happened on the Day of Pentecost? In discipleship, people often do not know this. The Day of Pentecost was the day when God sent His Spirit, manifested upon the people through tongues of fire, and the people began to speak in different languages, and 3,000 people came to know Jesus that day. And that text emphasizes all the nations that were represented at that moment, on that day. And God says, “Where the Spirit of God is poured out, I will draw people to Myself.” People were not intended to be divided; they became divided through their own arrogance when they tried to build that tower that reached to heaven. And God confused their languages and separated each one to their own place. But God said, “In the last days, when I pour out My Spirit, all the nations will once again be made into one people, one nation.” It is the anointing of the Spirit of God, and it is part of our calling as a church.

You know what? Pastor Roberto does many things that I am sure a large percentage of us do not know he does. He is called to be a Kingdom Christian with an apostolic calling, which means that it is much greater than a single congregation. And God uses him to unite people from different cultural groups and churches and to pray for revival. Because to truly fight against those principalities and powers that Satan has established in this place, we cannot do it alone. We need our brothers and sisters throughout the region to join us in prayer. So, if you are called to be part of the León de Judá congregation, you are called to the same ministry.

That can be very uncomfortable; it can be a little… You know what? I learned—and I echo this—that in different countries, a word people use may be completely normal, but in another country it is a word that is like cursing someone. I learned something from the Colombians, and the Puerto Ricans looked at me as if to say, “Wow, you just said a bad word.” Misunderstandings happen, and just because we are anointed by the Spirit does not mean those misunderstandings will stop.

Even small things like physical space—for example, when Americans talk, there is a little bit of space between them. So, I am new here at the church, and a Latino person approaches to talk to me; as a typical gringo, what am I going to do? And what is the Latino going to do? Before you know it, you are backed right up against the wall.

But these misunderstandings can happen. People can often even feel scandalized by others. And many times, we will have to confront the prejudices we have. Perhaps you were raised in a family that views people from other countries and their culture as though it were beneath your own. And it is time to repent of that. It is time to be a people, a peculiar people upon the face of the earth. And these messes are going to happen.

You know, we usually think the early church was perfect; we picture it as heaven on earth, with all that anointing. But you know what? One day, they had a very big churchwide dispute because the Greek widows were being passed over when it was time to distribute the food, while the food was being given to the Hebrew widows. And they were saying, “What is going on? Are there second-class people here now?”

Perhaps this was an accident; we do not know. Because there were ethnic and cultural tensions, those first people may have thought, “Ah, this is happening because I am Greek.” The Apostles became involved and prayed to identify deacons who could serve this food. Guess what country all those deacons were from? They were all Greek. Since they knew these were people who could easily be marginalized, they trusted that the Holy Spirit would raise up leaders within that community to minister to that community. People like Philip and Stephen.

God used these people, and He even used those little messes to bring blessing to every one of them. Now, returning to 1 Corinthians 12. Now I want to consider the two main obstacles that can limit our connection with that supernatural body. The first, I would say, is an inferiority complex. Perhaps you are called to be a tiny toe on the body, and perhaps you say, “Ah, because I am not the mouth, I am not part of the body.” Or perhaps you are an internal organ—the liver, for example—that no one sees, and you may think, “Since I am not visible, I am not part of the body of Christ.”

And God is saying that this inferiority complex has no place whatsoever in the body of Christ. There is no way we can bury our talent in the ground. Have you seen that poster where Uncle Sam is pointing at you, saying that he wants you? God wants you; He needs you… in the body of Christ. That is why it is so important to become involved in discipleship or the church’s cell groups, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, or the ushering ministry. It is a way of saying, “I am going to get involved and connect with these people.” And you may discover that you do not have certain gifts, but if you do not get moving, you will never discover what gifts you do have.

If you do not try to do something and fail at it, how will you know what you actually can do? There is no room for an inferiority complex. And lastly, there is the exact opposite: a superiority complex. The eye cannot say to the hands, “I do not need you.” The head cannot say to the feet that it does not need them. If anything, the parts that seem weaker are the most valuable.

I am sure of this: there are people sitting here whom no one knows, but they come, they are connected to the body, and who knows how many hours they spend praying for the Kingdom of God. And perhaps you will never know them, but you do need them. Yes, you need them—every one of them—and we need the people who seem most different from us, the people whose style makes us a little uncomfortable. We need them more than you think.

That sense of discomfort is part of the anointing of a supernatural community. You are not going to be comfortable at León de Judá, so surrender in that regard. And that is something you will notice. For example, in Latin America, people greet one another with a kiss. We gringos may not do that. But even when Latinos come here to the United States, that gesture is often toned down. Do you wonder why? Because our guard goes up, so to speak. We are in a diverse community, and we have to be alert to the fact that people are different. Sacrificing that kind of comfort is part of the price we have to pay in order to move in that true anointing.

To be uncomfortable yet filled at the same time with the joy of the Spirit of God. In 1906, during the revival on Azusa Street, God began to pour out His Spirit upon this nation in such a way that the gifts of the Spirit began to operate. The gift of tongues was revived once again, and one of the greatest scandals was that Black brothers and white brothers, and even Chinese—or other Asian—brothers as well, were all praying together.

If we want Pentecost to happen once again, if we want that kind of revival through our particular calling, that is what it is going to look like.

So, I would like to end with this call. Verse 25 says: “…so that there may be no division in the body, but that all the members may care for one another…”

God is calling us to care for others; God is calling us to open our hearts. It says: “…so that if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members are honored with it…”

God is calling us to open our hearts in order to be an anointed and diverse community. I invite you to stand. I may not do this very often, but I am going to do it today. I am going to ask you to look at the person beside you, and we are going to do a little language study. We are going to begin in Spanish, and that includes those who do not speak Spanish as well.

Father, in the name of Jesus, Father, we welcome Your baptism through the Holy Spirit into one body. Spirit of God, take control. Do Your wonderful work; do Your supernatural work, even that difficult work. We are Yours, and we surrender to You in the name of Jesus.

Father, I ask You to release an anointing of celebration in the months and years to come as we say yes to Your calling, Lord, because You are great, Lord, and mighty.