To win more

I want to read the Letter to the Corinthians, First Corinthians chapter 9, I am going to go to verses 16 onwards, First Corinthians 9:16, says the Apostle Paul: "Well, if I announce the Gospel I do not have to boast, because I it is imposed necessity” I am going to repeat that “imposed necessity” in other words is what? it is an obligation, it is something that comes from God and that God imposes on us, it is a necessity, it is something imperative, "and woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel!" say you: woe to me if I do not announce the Gospel! Listen to me, that is a very strong Word, woe is me if we do not share the Gospel.

"Therefore, if I do it willingly, I will have a reward, but if the commission has been entrusted to me unwillingly" in other words, if you preach the Gospel you make it joyful, don't spontaneously boast too much, but you will have a reward, and if you don't want to, you should also do it because you have received a commission from the Lord.

“What then is my reward? That by preaching the Gospel I freely present the Gospel of Christ so as not to abuse my right in the Gospel” you know what? Paul felt that it was such a great privilege for him to preach the Word that he had made a commitment not to receive a salary or anything else because he felt that for him it was such a special glory to preach the Gospel for free and depend on his own resources as he did. he did it for a living, but for him it was a great privilege and he thought that if he was paid it was an abuse of his right, so imagine, I think that there is a lot to learn from that, right?

Then he says: "For this reason, being free from all, I have become a slave to all to win as many as possible" that is the title of this sermon "to win as many as possible" remember that, "I have made myself to the Jews as if I were Jew to win the Jews, those who are subject to the law even though I am not subject to the law to win those who are subject to the law, those who are without law as if I myself were also without law, although I am not without law but I am under a law that is the law of Jesus Christ to win those who are without law; I have made myself weak to the weak to win over the weak, I have done everything to everyone” wow, “I have done everything to everyone so that I can still save some, and I do this” why? "for the sake of the Gospel to share it with me" may the Lord bless His holy Word, glory to God.

Brother you should read that three times a day with each meal because it is a beautiful example of what it is like to live on the edge of the sword to bring lives to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We are today continuing a series of messages that I started a few weeks ago on evangelism. My desire through these sermons is to create in all of us as a Church a powerful, consuming consciousness of the call to be evangelists, the call to live evangelistic lives, the call to assume an evangelistic consciousness both as individuals and as a congregation as well, and we have seen that evangelizing , sharing the Gospel, being fruitful, bearing fruit for the Gospel and for the Kingdom of God is not an option, it is an obligation, we have been talking about our commitment to become a truly evangelistic Church.

We have said that during all these years we have spent almost twenty years building buildings, renovating buildings, investing a lot of congregational money in building this beautiful physical plant that God has given us, together with two more buildings that we have next door, we have done a lot of tremendous things to have a truly appropriate place for the preaching of the Gospel in different ways. Our social service ministries, the offices that we have, the different rooms that we use for discipleship classes, young people, right now while we are here there are young people who are having their service there on the other side, there are discipleship classes that are being given in different buildings and halls.

We have invested a lot of money but now that God has allowed us to have this beautiful physical plant, now we have to invest our energies, our time, our money in bringing souls in large numbers to the knowledge of Christ Jesus, we have to pour our energies into being a Truly evangelistic church for the rest of our existence and my desire through these sermons is to prepare our sensibility, to raise our awareness of other things that we will be doing, and everything that we do that is oriented to bring souls to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We have seen that winning souls is not an option but an obligation, an expectation from God. As Proverbs 11:30 says: "Winning souls is wise" tell yourself there in your heart: "winning souls is wise". Do you know that when you win souls there is something precious that happens in your life as well and not just in the lives of those you win for Christ?

And we have seen through these sermons that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for those who bear fruit, those who are involved in advancing the Kingdom of God, that is, those who fulfill that great commission, go into all the world and preach the Gospel making disciples of all nations and teaching them to obey the things that I have taught them, those were the last words recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew that Christ gave before ascending to heaven, and in Acts he says: "And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and in all the earth.”

The Christian is called to bear fruit, there is no alternative. Those who use the gifts they receive to negotiate as we saw in that previous parable where the owner of the company gives each one a talent, gives them an amount of money and tells them: negotiate while I return, and he wants to negotiate for the Kingdom say do everything necessary to render what God has given you, do not stay with your hidden talent as one of the servants did who received a very strong scolding from his master, make sure that what God has given to your life you use it to bless others, share the Word of God.

We remember that the Gadarene demoniac that Christ freed from his great demonic oppression wanted to stay with Jesus, he wanted to enjoy this being who had freed him from his years of terrible waste of his life and the Lord told him: no, you are not called to be with me but go to your relatives and tell them how great things God has done with you, the Christian is not made to simply enjoy and eat, eat and eat, he is designed to give, give, give and share the faith with others.

Today I want to talk about something, one aspect of this calling, and that is that it is important to sacrifice everything to be an effective soul winner. Being an effective evangelist requires that you live a sacrificial lifestyle.

Every large, high-quality institution that provides some type of service knows that the client reigns, the client is the boss, yes or no? the higher the quality of a business, the more important is customer satisfaction. You go to a great hotel or a great restaurant and you see that they spoil the client, all those who serve in a great hotel are trained to give a 5-star service and put up with the greatest spoiling of the client so that they are satisfied.

I recently called Amazon, the big supplier of products, to return a computer because a person who came to bring it from one of those companies, I'm not going to say the name in case someone works on it here, but he took the computer and instead of putting on the computer or ringing the bell, from his vehicle he threw it to the door and left it there, and continued, and he didn't realize that my wife was watching what was happening from inside, and although it didn't seem like she was damaged because it was very well wrapped and had a lot of padding, but we still said you know what? We are not going to take any chances, this is an expensive product, if something suffered, then we have to hold them responsible, so I called the company and told them that we simply did not want the product and I explained, you know what? that person who was on the other end did not ask me: well, how far did you throw it and we are going to call to see if it is true or not, let us find out, she simply told me: don't worry, if you don't want it, give it back to us and we We are going to send you another one immediately, and they did not even wait for us to send the computer when they already sent the replacement, there were no questions, a very friendly and hospitable voice, there was no problem because that is the policy of that great institution, I was struck by the extreme courtesy of that person.

And if you call Comcast or Apple they follow the same policy, of course they try to sell you other products in the meantime, but it's like that, it's unbelievable, sometimes it's really like honey, too honey, and every time you say something: yes , I understand, thank you, they repeat what you said, it's an incredible thing.

I understand that this can reach truly surprising extremes. Two weeks ago I was talking to a young Italian man, we were at home talking to him and I don't know how the conversation turned to Amazon, and he told me: look Roberto, I live in Italy and he confessed something to me, these people go to the extreme that I have called, because he buys many products from Apple and Amazon, and all that, and I have called and told them: look, I bought an iPhone from you and I have had it for six months and I am already getting tired of it , and I would like to have a different one, and they have told them: well, send that one and we will send you a new one, and they do not ask me any kind of questions.

I had to ask him three times because he believed that either he was a big liar or he was telling me the truth and he told me: I do that many times with different types of products and they know, I am not telling them that it is damaged or deficient because if you told them right away.

My daughter Sonia also bought a charger, a battery for her computer, it wasn't working, she called them and they told her: keep that one and we'll send you another one immediately, they didn't even ask her to send us the other one to see if it's like that or anything, they are like that.

Now, I assure you that these institutions always get away with it, Amazon makes billions of dollars a year and is now one of the most amazing companies in the world, because they know that winning or retaining a customer is much more valuable. . That product cost them 200 or 300 dollars, they prefer the client to write well about them, how much publicity are they getting from me for free? What's more, I'm going to call them to send me a commission or something (laughs), but these people have a wise mentality.

Do you know that the secular mind is much wiser than the Christian mind? Sometimes here people come to our Church and instead of us saying: wow, a new soul, we are going to win it over, they tell us something that we did not like and we immediately look at them badly or ask to sit next to us and it bothers us to have them here instead to have the mentality, that is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: the children of this century are wiser in their treatment of their fellow men than the children of the Kingdom of light because these people know how to win customers.

It is much easier to be nice and flexible than to get away with it in the short term and lose a client permanently. Who are the customers of the Church of Jesus Christ? It's not us, it's not you, the customer is out there, we exist to bring customers to the Kingdom of God, to hit them, to turn them into customers of the Holy Spirit, of the Word of God, the Kingdom of God, each one of us. He is a seller of the Kingdom of heaven speaking in a very reverent way, each one of us has an excellent, eternal, perfect product to sell and that is called Christ and the Word of God.

And then who are we going to serve, who are we serving? We serve people who need to know the Gospel and whatever is necessary, whatever sacrifice is necessary, we have to do so that many people come to know Jesus.

Paul knew what it was to be an efficient seller of the Gospel, in that passage that we just read First Corinthians 9 we see that Paul had a very clear awareness of the importance of winning over his customers, he knew that the most important thing was to win over a soul and that is why he said: if I have to dress up as a clown, I do it because the important thing is to win a soul for Christ. With the Jews I speak the language of the Jews, with the Greeks I speak the language of the Greeks, with highly educated people I speak as if I were a highly educated person, with the simple I speak the Gospel simply, with the sinner I treat to make him feel good to see if I win it.

Many times we get self-righteous, you see that people are afraid of us many times. Sometimes when I am conversing with people who do not know the Lord they say something and: oh! Forgive me, Pastor, because I said a word that, and I tell them: Don't worry, don't worry, I've already heard that word twenty thousand times; We don't, we cover our ears and we all get self-righteous at the moment, and people get scared of us.

If you want to evangelize souls, be simple, tell jokes with them, talk about baseball, talk about movies, talk about music, talk about good food, find out about the newspapers, about what is happening in the world. Many of us live in an evangelical bubble and all we do is read evangelical books, watch evangelical movies and we believe that this is holiness, it all depends.

I live reading because I need to keep up to date because my job is to sell the Gospel and I need to talk to modern people, classic people, adults, young people, whatever and we have to be training and preparing ourselves to be good sellers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we have to use any means. If this Church is going to be truly evangelistic, it has to be a hospitable Church, each one of us has to feel a great responsibility for those who enter through those doors.

If you go to the exit door and you find someone you don't know, it may be a visitor, say hello, give him a good face, tell him: God bless you, if he's dressed badly tell him: wow, those clothes are pretty, if they smell bad breath tell him: wow your breath smells like lilies, hit him closely so he doesn't notice, if he's drunk give him a hug tell him: God loves you, God has great things for you but don't be self-righteous when telling him, tell him so a respectful way, if he walks in a way you don't like shake his hand anyway and bless him no matter what his background is.

I say that the Gospel is made of Teflon, it doesn't stick to anything, if it's something bad the Lord will take it away, don't worry, there are people who shake hands and give you the tips of four fingers because they are afraid that if you they shake hands with someone who is impure, a demon is going to hit him or something like that, I always tell people: give me your whole hand because they think that if they shake hands with a man they are being sensual and what a , we have to clear ourselves of those things brothers, the Gospel is freedom in Christ Jesus, you have to laugh!

People want to come to a place where there is laughter, where there is camaraderie, where there is ease, where there is dance, where there is life, where there is prosperity, where there is lightness of spirit, where there is naturalness; only we think that the more serious we are and the more demanding, the more people will enter, it is the opposite.

The Pharisees spoke ill of Jesus because he liked to be at parties and weddings, the first miracle that the Lord did was at a wedding. I believe that although the Gospels mention Jesus laughing, I believe that the most beautiful smile that has been given in this world was the smile of Jesus. The most sympathetic laugh was that of Jesus. I suspect that the Lord was a great teller of good stories and that people liked to have him by their side and be with him because he was like that.

Plunder a terrible sinner simply the Lord saw him up on a tree and told him: Plunder get down from there because today we are going to eat a rice with chicken in your house, he was invited to his house, and when he was there eating Plunder he had already invited all his companions, and the self-righteous people of the town saying: oh look, he is meeting with the publicans, with the Pharisees, and Plunder moved with the sympathy of the Lord stood up in the middle of the day of that meeting and said to him: Lord, I I admit that I am a sinner and if I have stolen from someone I pay them back quadrupled, the love of the Lord, the sympathy of the Lord converted Plunder and I imagine many of his companions as well.

When the woman poured an alabaster vase with a very expensive perfume on the head of the Lord and wiped the body of the Lord with her own hair, there was a sanctimonious man who said: look, if this were a true prophet, he would not let this woman of bad fame come near to him and the Lord said: Leave her alone because she is doing this for My burial.

Do you know that the Lord likes it when people worship him in spirit and in truth and with ease? I believe that the Lord likes nothing more when a sinner adores Him and is looking for Him and comes to the Church with all their sin, because there He can deal with them and we have to make the doors of the Church wider, not narrower and we have to live for the unconverted, we have to make ourselves uncomfortable for the unconverted brothers, we have to ask the Lord to give us His sensitive and simple heart, and that we live with only one goal and that is to bring the greatest possible number of souls to the saving knowledge of Christ Jesus, saving a soul from eternal perdition deserves any type of sacrifice.

While I have been preaching these sermons the Lord has been filling me with that sense of passion for souls, I have asked the Lord to make me feel pain. Do you know what it is? The Bible says and we believe the Word of the Lord that if you do not have Christ you do not have the Father, he who does not have the Son does not have the Father, that is why the Lord sent Jesus Christ so that no one perishes but that all proceed to eternal salvation.

That Gospel that says that people do not get lost because God loves too much for people to get lost, why did the Lord bother the way he did to come to this earth, become a humble and simple man, strip himself of His glory, spending thirty-odd years on Earth, training a whole group of people for the greatest undertaking of all, which was to preach the Gospel, why did He mount a cross and shed His perfect and precious blood if not because Did He know that it was through His sacrifice that mankind would gain salvation and eternal life?

The Word of the Lord says: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish" but may have eternal life. The Word of the Lord also says: "Because there is no other mediator between God and men but the man Christ Jesus" I would like to, frankly, I would prefer it not to be so. I would like everyone to be able to enter the Gospel without any kind of preconditions, but the Lord was pleased that it was through His Son. On the day of His baptism, the Lord said: This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, and if God said so, there is no other way to enter the Kingdom of God if it is not through Jesus Christ, then we have to share because a soul that is lost for eternity that is a terrible loss.

God gave His Son so that a soul could be saved, so that no one would be lost, and we have to understand this. I ask God to give us absolute awareness that saving a soul from eternal perdition, and what is eternal perdition? It is being in an eternity without having communion with God. Somehow there is going to be a dimension that I do not understand how that dimension is going to be where the Presence of God will not reach, where the face of God will not illuminate, where the Presence of the Lord will not maintain a preserved life.

I believe that the greatest criminal in this world is recognizable as a human being because in some way the grace of God touches him, but one day that criminal will not have access to that preserving grace of God and then I believe that his being will be in total mental, spiritual agony, because the unifying work of God's grace will make this being eminently schizophrenic, totally divided. For me that is hell, it is the separation of all thought because the grace of God does not unify and does not preserve, I do not necessarily believe that it is with a demon dressed in red pajamas poking someone with a trident, I think it is a lot more sophisticated than that but whatever it is I don't want to be there and I don't want my loved ones to be there either, and you have to tell them: settle your accounts today, today is the day of salvation.

You have to preach that Word because saving a soul from hell deserves any kind of sacrifice. When we are clear about the value of a soul no sacrifice is too great, I ask the Lord to make us aware of the value of a soul.

I am reading a biography of D.L. Moody, Dwight Lyman Moody, one of the great evangelists of the 19th century, has struck me with his all-consuming passion for souls. Moody as a young man left a promising career as a merchant, as a salesman and businessman who was making a lot of money in Chicago in his early twenties to pursue evangelism, and the Lord blessed him, and he began evangelizing children. People called him crazy moody because he had such a passion for youngsters in a city that was expanding like Chicago in 1865 or 70 there, and there were a lot of kids, imagine 200 plus years ago he hadn't cared of children like today, the social agencies and there were a number of children in the city of Chicago abused, mistreated by their parents, there were hundreds and thousands of these children running through the streets of Chicago unattended during the day, and Moody felt a great passion for those children.

And he started an evening Bible school class, Saturday night, and he went to look for the children in one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago where people told him: don't go in there because they're going to kill you, and there Moody was going with a couple of friends picking up these children and taking them, and he opened a place that had been a bar, rented it out and cleaned it up, and there he established a Bible school where hundreds and hundreds of children came to hear the Gospel. In fact, President Abraham Lincoln came and visited that bar because Moody's reputation had already spread, and there he had to play with them and become like a child, jump and dance with them, they would only hear for three or four minutes and then they were already losing attention, and Moody did everything possible, he gave them bits of sugar, people criticized him because they said he was bribing children with bits of sugar to bring them to the Gospel, that's why they called him crazy moody because he did everything he was necessary to win over those children.

And little by little those children were learning to pay attention, and when they were a little trained he would take them out and put them in an Evangelism class, and those children were transformed by the Word of God, and I believe that the love that Moody had and his humility in dealing with children first was what then allowed God to place him as one of the great evangelists in the world and in Europe, Moody came to win hundreds of thousands of souls, it is said that he is one of the men that he has won more souls for the Gospel and established institutions that still exist such as Moody Seminary in Chicago and other similar institutions, because he loved souls and God exalted him.

Moody said: There is no greater honor than to be an instrument in the hands of God to lead a person out of the kingdom of Satan and into the glorious light of heaven. Another quote from him says: we don't need any more experiences on the mount of transfiguration, when a man gets so high and thinks he is so high that he can't reach down yet lost then there is something wrong with his Christian experience.

If León de Judá is going to become a truly evangelistic Church it will have to make great sacrifices, we will have to forget about ourselves and our personal comfort so that God can use us as a truly powerful and prophetic Church in this city. Many of us say: I want to see our Church evangelizing but there is a price to pay: your comfort, your preferences, your privileges.

There are many leaders who do not like other leaders to come to work when more people come to the Gospel because they see that their position is being taken from them and they are baring their teeth like a dog that is trying to remove its bone, and we alienate people. There are a lot of people who are very comfortable sitting there with their spaces and it bothers them when an usher comes and tells them to hold up their bag so someone else can sit down because they like to have both arms open and cross their legs, and rest, and enjoy the service, but if many people come to know Jesus Christ, you will even have to give up your seat, are you willing to do that? You have to bother to serve Jesus Christ.

I tell him that many times the Lord has brought me to mind when our Church was just beginning in its very beginnings, I was not yet the Pastor, I was a layman who had barely served in the Church, Pastor Vergara was preaching and I remember that image in my mind of me sitting with Meche with my legs crossed in the calmest way listening to the sermon and enjoying myself, and sometimes I long for that. Sometimes I go through the streets of Boston and Cambridge on Sundays walking towards the Church and through the windows of a restaurant I see people reading the New York Times having a piña colada or a bloody mary with the newspaper waiting for a good bronch and me going to church to sweat the fat drop there preaching, but you know what? That is a great privilege for me, I thank the Lord that it is so.

I would like to be there reading the New York Times but serving Christ is much better as the Word says, being used by God to bring souls to the knowledge of Christ and advance the Kingdom of God is the greatest privilege I can have, and my family has gained much more by being a family that serves the Lord than if we had won our lives. The Bible says that he who loses his life will gain it. When you sacrifice your dreams for Christ the Lord blesses you far beyond your expectations.

I remember the price we had to pay to come here to Boston, leaving the comfort of Cambridge, we left a building that we didn't have to pay for it, beautiful, beautiful with an organ that was beautiful to listen to in a neighborhood without crime or anything, very elegant and we left all that to follow the call of the Lord to come here to Boston to be better located, to be able to reach our people, I thought of the Latinos only because my faith was only enough for that, and when we got here I already told them how gloomy this place was, but the Lord has blessed us beyond our expectations.

I thank God that I had the courage to listen to him and dare to sacrifice everything, and not only have we not sacrificed anything but we have gained much more because we dared to believe God and jump into the void trusting that the Lord was powerful to bless us You have to get out of your comfort zone, you have to believe the Lord.

For many who saw us leaving the comfort of Cambridge to a place as difficult as this was twenty years ago, our move to Boston seemed like real madness, it seemed like real madness to me too, but God blessed our faith far beyond what we would have imagined and I still say that we have not seen all that God has for us, we are on the verge of simply seeing the glory of God.

When we do the Will of God, even if it costs us greatly at the beginning, we will always receive much more than what we apparently sacrifice. That is the message of Philippians 2:5 to 11, one of my favorite passages, which tells us: "There is in you the same feeling that there was in Christ Jesus, who being equal to God did not take being equal to God as something to cling to but emptied himself and assuming the form of man became obedient to death and death on the cross, for which God exalted him to the highest and gave him a name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of what is in heaven, on earth, and under the earth,” he says: there is the same feeling in you, in other words we have to imitate Christ in His willingness to imitate the Father.

Why did Christ come to Earth? because the Father told him: You are My only solution, someone has to pay the price of the sin of that humanity so that humanity can be saved, and the Lord said: Father, here I am, Your Will be done and not mine, and the The Lord emptied himself of His glory, took the form of a babbling, innocent, fragile baby and then he started that race, and one day he had to climb the cross after being bruised and tortured and shamed, and shed perfect and precious blood .

And that self-humiliation process says that for that reason God then gave him a name that is above all names, because when you humble yourself in Christ you are exalted, when you lose everything you gain everything, when you humble your pride and your vanity, and your comfort, and your prerequisites, and your dreams, and you go out of your way to advance the Kingdom of God God never tires of blessing you, I can tell you from my own experience.

Throughout our life we have seen the grace of God descend upon us, the more we have given, the more we have received. I am a debtor to Christ Jesus and no one admires or respects me for what I have done for personal interest because I have learned that when you give to the Lord God, he blesses you more and rewards you, and there is no such thing as a believer living like Christ she lived giving herself to him, giving everything to the Lord.

Are you truly willing to pay the price? I say that and I know but many of us say amen and we don't know what we are saying because if you knew what is on my mind you would be scared right now. You have to live that way.

In the passage that we read from First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks of becoming a Jew with the Jews, becoming weak for the weak, living under the law for those who are under the law in order to win them all for Christ, that has very practical, very concrete implications for our life, how can we apply that to our current condition as a Church, as individuals?

The growing churches, the evangelistic churches, the churches that God is using and has used through the centuries generally start out with an evangelistic and entrepreneurial vision and God blesses them because they are being entrepreneurial, they are doing business for the Kingdom, but many of those churches do you know what's up? that over time they forget the original call and become comfortable and established churches, they fall in love with their properties, they fall in love with the program every Sunday, they fall in love with the predictability of the program and the control, they make boards and governments, and then they choose the best tithers, and those tithers then become an interest group, people no longer want their children to mix with the street people who will come to Church, they don't want their walls dirty and so they they become proprietary protectors, and then they stop thinking about those who are outside, those who need to be saved by the Gospel.

Someone has said that the only institution that exists to serve those who are outside it is the Church because every corporation works for its clients, its internal personal interests, but the Church exists for those who have nothing to do with it so that they can come and meet Jesus Christ.

We have to develop the mentality that anything that allows us to win souls must have priority, anything, say with me: anything, it doesn't matter if it bothers us or if it costs us time or money if it leads us to the salvation of souls that It is what we have to do brothers. For us the Hispanic Congregation, I am going to speak for a moment to those who only speak Spanish, that means that God has called us not only to win the souls of Hispanics but also people of all races, cultures and languages of this city.

Every day our Church becomes more and more an international Church, we are no longer just a Latin Church. When I go to different places and they ask me to introduce myself, I say: I am Pastor Miranda and I pastor a multi-ethnic Congregation, before I said a Latin Church but I have been training because it is no longer like that, our Church has to identify itself as a Church that ministers to different races, different cultures as we saw last Sunday Easter Sunday at the 9 o'clock service, this was full of African-Americans, Anglo-Saxons of different European nationalities, Africans, Asians, Cape Verdeans, mixed families. A microcosm of humanity was with us, and don't you think that this is a great privilege for us brothers? Instead of staying in the Latino ghetto, God is calling us to evangelize the nations, that is a great privilege.

We cannot become a protective Church that says: no, we Latinos were the ones who built, the ones who gave money and now they want to take it from us, this Church is not yours nor is it mine, it belongs to the Kingdom of God, believe it, receive it in the Name of the Lord. Your glory is to be an instrument for spreading the Gospel wherever you go, you already have salvation, so be satisfied and now serve the Lord.

If the Lord wants to fill this with all races, cultures and ethnic groups, glory to God because the Lord said: Go to all nations, He did not say only go to Hispanics. Everything God has allowed us to do here is His, it's for Him and His glory, and you know what? if you adopt a mentality of distributing the Kingdom, God is going to bless you greatly, do not hold on to anything, do not hold on because if you hold on to it, it becomes a nail that grows inward and hurts you, start running the Gospel, sacrifice everything, give everything, forget about your privilege.

Oh! My privilege is because I have been here for 20 years in León de Judá, a lie, welcome the first one that arrives and know that they are more valuable than you are now, you already know where you are going, you know what it is, deviate So that he reaches the same level as you, get uncomfortable, give everything for the Kingdom of God. If you are a leader, look, let other leaders come, give up your position, don't worry, the Lord will find another position for you; what happens is that people fall in love with what they have, what it is, and then they stagnate and rot in their hands. Give, give, thank the Lord for others coming.

I remember when God was bringing León de Judá to another revival twenty-something years ago before we moved here, when the Holy Spirit came upon our Church and the gifts began to flow into Central Baptist Church God began to bring people from outside, people who knew of the power of God and who became a help, and do you know who it was that caused a problem? the ancient leaders, the tithers, the Sunday school teachers, those who did not like that the Lion of Judah was beginning to flow in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and accused me of having stolen their Church.

And it got to the point that after a few months this Church began to become a divided Church, and I began to hear from people there who were upset and who thought that Roberto had stolen their Church, so a dear sister, one of the women that I loved the most, an elderly lady came to say that we had stolen from her, that I had stolen her Church, and it hurt me so much to hear that from a woman that I loved so much, but our Church began to become bitter because those leaders did not want to progress.

God was doing things, the music was changing, my way of preaching was changing, the time of ministry was changing, the composition of the leadership was changing, things were changing, that is why I tell Pastors with whom I speak: look, do not ask for revival if you are not willing to pay the price because when a Church begins to change and there is an effervescence, all the structures begin to revolutionize and those who are used to the status quo feel bad.

The fact is that it got to a point where I had to propitiate a gentile division of the Church and I invited, I called the Pastor who founded our Congregation who was available at that time, I told him: would you like to come to Boston Pastor again? ? because I know that many of those people were grieving for those mild and calm times in León de Judá, and I asked them: would you like to come and found a Church there? We are going to support you with money, a place and we are going to donate all the leaders who want to go with you, and we did so.

The tithers left me, the musicians left me, the teachers left me, the Church was left with new people, the income fell by half and it was painful because I made a call and 25% of the cream of the cream supposedly but they were conservatives who didn't want to change, they wanted the Church to stay a traditional Baptist Church.

But you know what? that at the end of that year and that year with the sadness of seeing the Church reduced, of not seeing people I loved in the pews and of knowing that we were a Church in mourning, but then the Lord began to bring new musicians, began to bring worshipers in the spirit. Tell me if I am lying to those who were there at that time, you know that I am telling the truth, brothers, anointed people began to bring us and they raised their arms to us because I had no experience in the Holy Spirit, the gifts began to move among us and at the end of that year we had the same number of people that we had before the division and the same budget, and at that time God already gave me the vision, the dream of the Lion of Judah that brought us here to this Church, and if we had If we had those conservative people, we could never have come here to Boston because they would have opposed it, but you have to dare to be uncomfortable, you have to dare to go and look into the abyss and contemplate what God wants you to do.

The churches die because they are not willing to die, the Lord says that if the grain of wheat does not fall to the ground and dies, it remains alone, nowadays there are many people who complain that the churches are not growing, that society , but look, look at the churches in our time, I don't want to be critical but we don't often listen to the Holy Spirit because if we listened to the Holy Spirit we would have to change the style, we would have to do something different because the wind of God blows through where he wants, and sometimes we fall in love with the boat and the direction we are going and we say: Lord, do not bother us, we are too old, let us live now, retire here in the spirit and work now You with another to come later.

There are churches that do not want to grow because if they grow it takes away their intimacy and comfort, and that sense of being a small family. You live to bring souls to the knowledge of Christ, to advance to the Kingdom of God, you do not live for your comfort. I saw last Sunday at the 9 o'clock service what I have seen in my mind of the service in English. Do you know why we started the service in English that is given there in the other sanctuary? Because I have always understood that God calls us not only to serve Hispanics but has called us to be a Church that serves the entire city of Boston, and I said: I am going to start a service in English because I have known that if that community grows there will be an extraordinary impact on this city.

And this past Sunday I don't know how many were here at the 9 o'clock service, were any of you at the 9 o'clock service? the majority come at 12, but I saw that this sanctuary here was full and part of the upper part too, but what struck me was that a third of the people who came were either unconverted or new people seeking the Lord. I saw African-Americans, I saw Asians, I saw Cape Verdeans, I saw Latinos who speak English, I saw a woman who had told me a long time ago about her children who, for reasons that were long to explain, had not come to Church and that Sunday they arrived, they are English speakers and they speak English only because the son's wife is American, and I asked them: how are you, what do you think? Because I greeted them and he told me: look, they are delighted, they had been hurt by a Church that had separated a long time ago, they had not gone to any Church for months and months.

And that day, when I saw that Congregation so different, I said: look, wow, this is what the Lion of Judah can become, and that perhaps means that we are going to have to increase the frequency of our services in English, and many Latinos are going to feel bad about it and they are going to say: they are stealing the Church from us, I hope not. I don't know how many here say: no, we are a Hispanic Church and now these faded gringos are coming to take the Church away from us, be careful; sacrifice yourself, what matters is a soul. A soul is a soul, be it black, be it white, be it homeless, be it young, be it a child, a soul is eternal, a soul is infinitely valuable, no matter what clothes it has. A ragged person is worth the same as the president of this nation in the eyes of God, he is a soul, he is an eternal spirit, he has the image of God in him or her, no matter what race, no matter what external covering he or she has. Look inside, look at that divine energy that is going to exist for all eternity and that if you do not find a place where you can listen to the Gospel, you are going to be lost for all eternity, that is a price that you have to be willing to pay.

I would love to come to church and preach the same sermon in Spanish, my life is complicated by having to preach bilingually and having to preach two languages many times, but you know what? what a great privilege that is brother. Our ministry has expanded, our lives have been blessed, greatness in the Kingdom of God costs, the outer shell has to be broken.

Do you know that if a grain of wheat or beans or whatever does not rot on the outside, the life that is inside cannot interact with the earth and receive nutrients from the earth? he stays alone Take a chickpea bean or whatever and put it on a table and come back five days later to see if it is the same bean, it would be crazy to think that that bean that you put on that surface is going to become a bush, you can't . Now put it in the earth and that grain begins to break with the humidity and the cold, and the nutrients of the earth, that grain opens, it splits on the outside and if I could say ouch! it would, it would hurt, but then life begins to emerge and a plant then becomes possible, and that plant gives many grains like it, and becomes something fruitful and beautiful like it, and that's the life of yours and mine .

If we are willing to pay the price and die to our preferences, die to our comfort, die to what we say: this is mine, I earned this, I gave to all that financial campaign that the Pastor did and now I they come to take away what is mine, brother rebuke that in the Name of the Lord.

I feel right? that I am reaching you in this Word and that you resonate with me, that you understand what I am saying. We are going to pay the price and the Lord will give us a bigger building than this in the future without pain if necessary so that the Gospel continues to grow because when you give to the Lord the Lord does not tire of blessing your life and multiplying your possibilities, the Lord will exalt you.

I ask the Lord: help us pay the price whatever it is, give more money to You glory to You, give more time to You glory to You, live in a more sanctified way so the Lord can use you more, ask Him to the Lord to turn you into an instrument, that has a price. You are going to have to pray more, sanctify yourself more, sacrifice more, be a good worker because the Gospel is not preached in underpants, it must be preached with integrity. If you are swearing all the time and wasting your boss's time, don't try to evangelize him, be a good worker, be a good friend, be a good brother, be generous, live like a salesman 24 hours a day that you have to offer him at any given moment. your product and you better have won your customer, sanctify yourself, pray more, deliver more, adopt a disciple mentality.

God is not going to use a lukewarm person, God is not going to use a person who comes to Church and punches out the evangelical card and already believes that he is a disciple, a disciple lives 24 hours a day with his identity as a disciple. The Kingdom of God has too many evangelicals, what is needed are disciples who imitate their Lord, who reflect the character of Jesus, who live for Him, who have surrendered everything and placed everything at the feet of the Lord, and who say: Lord, what You want is Yours, whatever You ask me I will give it to You, that you take a blank sheet and put your signature below and say: Lord, write here what You want; My money is Yours, my time is Yours, my dreams are Yours, my privacy is Yours, my fun is Yours, my talents are Yours, my marriage is Yours, that house that I love so much is Yours, everything You want is Yours. I lay at Your feet Lord.

And if you live like this, you will know the greatest happiness, you will truly know Jesus Christ, because you cannot know someone who gave everything unless you truly do not give everything. Paul says: I lost everything to see if I know Christ in His sufferings and in His resurrection. If you truly want Jesus you have to be like Jesus and live like Jesus, and you have to truly mentor him, and a disciple is one who imitates his mentor in all areas. If God is going to do something in your life and if you are going to know what the true benefit of the Gospel is, let your flesh die, let your bark die. Be like the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies and dare to throw yourself into that abyss, believe me that you are not going to tear yourself apart because the Lord will send His angels to take you in their arms and give you a truly fruitful and fulfilled life.

If you want personal fulfillment, die to everything that gives you pleasure and to everything that you consider important, and live for Him, and throw yourself into the abyss, and you will see that the Lord will never let you fall off the cliff, that is the Lord's call for this Church, whatever it costs Lord, whatever You want we will do.

Stand up for a moment and give your life to the Lord, give it all to him. I ask the Lord that the next few years I have left I want to be like a cannonball fired for the glory of God, my great privilege will be to live as a soldier for Christ. Frankly I do not want comfort, I do not want anything except to know that I am serving the Lord and that I am in the center of His Will, and I call you to that lifestyle my brother.

Repudiate everything, surrender everything, sacrifice everything. Your bank account, your dream of going back to your country and buying a little house and living there until you die, give it to the Lord, put it in His hands like the rich young man to whom the Lord said: sell everything you you have and give it to the poor, and then follow me, are you willing to do that to find happiness? If you are willing to say: Lord, amen, I give you my life right now, I give you all that I am, all that I have, repent, repent of your comfort in the Gospel.

Repent of your desire to earn your life and give it to the Lord if you dare, if you are doing it from the heart I am telling you: this is dangerous. I asked him, I remember very well when I was at Harvard thirty-odd years ago I said: Lord, my life is whatever You want here and look at the mess I got into, praise the Lord for that. When you ask the Lord is dangerous, give your life to the Lord right now.

Young man, give your life to the Lord and you will see that God will give you your dreams or give you a greater and more noble dream. Give your marriage to the Lord. Man: give your manhood to the Lord, give him your pride, give him your manly vanity, give him your hardness, give him your masculinity and tell him: Lord, make me a piece of soft bread for Your glory so that others can eat me, sacrifice all your pleasures and everything you love, give it to the Lord.