A Good Samaritan Is Willing to Be Inconvenienced

Luke 10, verses 25 through 37. This is a very well-known story, a parable of the Lord: the Good Samaritan. This image of the Good Samaritan has become embedded in humanity’s consciousness throughout the centuries; there are many works of art, including works from the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. Hopefully Marlene can find one of the Good Samaritan, one of those works of art, and put it up there. There have been many artistic renderings of that figure, the Good Samaritan. Some of the finest theological, artistic, and narrative minds have devoted themselves to creating images of the moment depicted in the parable of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I want to speak a little about that parable of the Lord during this season in which God has moved our hearts to devote ourselves to evangelizing our community and to doing what I call intentional evangelism, because we do a lot of evangelism in many different ways, and that is why our church has continued to grow over the years. But we have never had many campaigns or special events dedicated solely to evangelism, or strategies, although we do have many things. For example, we have homes in the city that open their doors, and we want to include more of them—so many things.

Many people listen to the radio program; many unbelievers listen to it, and people come here to the church through that program. Through the Internet we reach tens upon tens of thousands of people in many different ways: God Speaks Today, the sermons, this very sermon that is being watched in many parts of the world—many blessings, so many things. Bonds of Love, all the social outreach work we do, which is evangelistic in nature—there are many ways.

But God has placed a desire in our hearts as never before. And let me say in passing that sometimes people think evangelism means nothing more than standing at a train station and handing out tracts. There are many ways, and sometimes there are more effective ways to evangelize. That is important. Tracts are good, but nowadays people need other ways of receiving the Gospel.

And we are going to work hard. So I want to devote a few sermons to shaping your understanding of what effective evangelism entails, of the important elements involved when you share the Word with someone and invite that person to church, and of the key elements in sharing the Word with someone. I also want to make evangelistic appeals and cast the net, because if someone comes who does not know the Lord, we also want to give that person the opportunity to know Jesus Christ through our services—that too.

So I want to devote a few weeks to this, as I recently did with the message about the Samaritan woman. Last Sunday we had Youth With a Mission sharing with us. In a while, we will also take part in a campaign with Billy Graham called My Hope—My Hope. In fact, the international director of that campaign for the Hispanic world, Brother Eliu Camacho, was with us this morning, and that was a beautiful time as well.

So, on a certain day, we are going to open our homes to present a message that Dr. Billy Graham will deliver. This man is already almost 95 years old; he turns 95 precisely this year, and that is why that special day will be held in celebration. Well, there are many things. I do not have time to explain everything, but it will be a great blessing. God has many beautiful things in store, and onward we go. I hardly even dare to evangelize anymore, because you can see how crowded we are—it is difficult. That is why we have to begin building our new sanctuary, so that we can fill it even more.

By the way, Iris and Pedro, it pains me to see you there; there is room available over here. It always pains me to see my brothers and sisters getting stiff necks there beside the columns. Anyway, again, that is why we want to share this. This message is expressly about evangelism. Let me read it with you and then interpret it as we go: Luke, chapter 10, verse 25.

It says: “And behold, an expert in the law”—that is, a Pharisee, a Levite, a professional in the Jewish religion—“stood up,” I imagine during a teaching gathering of the Lord Jesus Christ, “and said, to test Him.” What does it mean that he stood up and said something to test the Lord? It was not that he wanted to taste; it was not that he wanted to test the Lord in that sense. Rather, he wanted to trip Him up. He wanted to see how He would answer, to see whether he could get Him into trouble with the religious authorities of His time.

So he asks Him a question, and he is not really as interested in the answer as he is in seeing whether the Lord slips up on it. To test Him, he says: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” That is a question many people ask, and I believe it is the key question for all humanity: What must I do to be saved? What must I do to make sure that when I die, I do not go to hell, that I do not go to a place of eternal suffering, but instead can enter the Presence of the Lord? Because our life does not end here. How many of you know that?

We are so incredibly precious. A human being is something so extraordinary that we are not like those old cars which, when their usefulness is over, are taken by a machine and crushed into a cube of metal, picked up with a magnet, and thrown onto the scrap heap. A human being is not like that. A human being has something irrevocable within him, which is the Spirit of God. Yes or no? The breath of God is within us as human beings.

And what do you do with the breath of God in a soul? Do you think it simply disappears? Poof—you press delete, and it vanishes from the scene? It is the life of God; it is something irrevocable, something eternal, something that must continue onward. It is an energy within you. That never disappears. It passes on and takes on another mode, another form, and that is what is called eternal life. But eternal life is either hell or heaven, and here on Earth you choose where you are going.

So I believe that, in the end, every human being has a concern: How can I make things right with God, and where will I go when my life here on Earth is over? This man was not truly interested in that. What he wanted was to see whether the Lord would answer incorrectly so that he could get Him into trouble with the religious authorities of His time. But it is a legitimate question, and we have to make use of that question when we speak with people and ask them: Do you really know where you are going when you die? And what will get you into heaven when your life is over?

I believe that is the most important question a human being can ask. Forget about how much money you will have when you retire. The most important question is: What will happen to me when I die? Where am I going? And every human being has that nagging doubt in the heart, no matter how rich or highly educated: What will happen to my life? I assure you that on a deathbed, during the final hours or days of a human being’s life, even if that person has been a hardened atheist all his life, he will ask himself: Listen, what if I am wrong? What if hell is real? What if heaven is real? What if these crazy Christians are right after all?

And I believe there have been more deathbed conversions in the world than you think. Before their lives ended, many people said: You know what? I am not going to take any chances. I am going to make peace with God, and they surrendered themselves to Him. And you know what? In His mercy, God received them. Now, I tell you: Do not wait until the last moment. Make things right with God. Make sure your passport is stamped, your visa is in place, and all your papers are in order. Then you can live your life well here on Earth; everything else is icing on the cake, the frosting on the cake.

So this man asks: What must I do to receive eternal life? By the way, that is another thing too, isn’t it? Use that question to speak to people when you preach the Gospel to them. Then the Lord, knowing what was in this man, answers him with another question. He did that many times, and He says: Well, what does the law say? What is written in the books of Moses? How do you interpret it? How do you understand what it says? He also wanted to see where this man stood, and He wanted to set a little trap for him, which we will later see how He springs.

And the man answers Him very wisely because this man knows the Bible; he is a professional in religion, and many people know religion. In fact, their parents were evangelical Christians. In fact, perhaps they attended church for a while, and they read and secretly watch Christian television programs and all these things. They know, but they do not have a relationship—just as this man did not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ—yet he knows what the Bible says.

Religion does not save anyone. The fact that people come to church, know the Bible, and listen to sermons does not guarantee that they will know the risen Christ. The fact that a person comes here and puts two dollars or ten dollars into the basket does not mean that person is saved; it does not mean that person knows God. This man did not truly understand the substance of Scripture, and we are about to see how He reveals that and why the Lord tells him this parable.

But this man does answer very correctly. He says: Well, what I must do is love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind. He knew the first commandment, which is really the foundation of every experience of salvation: surrendering your life to God, loving Him above all things, and valuing the things of the Spirit.

Now, what does it mean to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength? There is a lot to digest there. If you love Him that way, it means you must put Him above everything else. He must be your daily bread, your true north, your foundation, your point of reference. But this man knew the Bible and answered the Lord very well: God must be loved first. And not content with that, he went a step further and hit the nail on the head concerning the horizontal dimension of spiritual life as well, saying: “And love your neighbor as yourself.”

Because if you analyze the Ten Commandments, there are two dimensions: one is the vertical dimension toward God, and the other is the horizontal dimension. You shall not steal; you shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not bear false witness—all those things concern one’s neighbor. And there is another, vertical dimension that concerns God. This man knew both aspects and answered the Lord to the letter with exactly what he was supposed to answer. And the Lord said to him: Very good. “You have answered correctly; now do this, and you will live.”

The Lord often spoke to people that way to see what they would do. When the rich young man came to Jesus Christ with that same question, threw himself at His feet, and said: Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life? The Lord said to him: Well, keep the commandments. And this young man said: Yes, I have already done that since I was a child. Lord, I know the Bible; I know religion. If that is all, there is no problem. Why, then, do I feel so anxious and so uncertain about my life? And the Lord said to him: Well, you are still missing one little thing, and He thrust a blade right into his heart, because this man had money, influence, prestige—everything that money provides.

And He said to him: Well, all you have to do is go to your ATM, to the twenty-four-hour machine, withdraw all the money you have, and give it to the poor. Free yourself from all that anxiety and attachment to money, because the Lord knew that his greatest weakness was that he loved money, loved his life, loved his reputation, and loved the influence he had. You know, brother, nothing can be placed between you and God—nothing. Not a woman, not a marriage, not children, not finances, nothing. There is nothing you should love more than God. And the true test of a Christian is whether there is something he loves more than Jesus Christ. If you are not willing to surrender everything for Christ, you still have a long way to go before entering the Kingdom of God.

The Lord said to him: Well, surrender everything; come, take up your cross every day, and follow Me. And this man’s arms fell to his sides, and it says that he went away sad because he had great wealth. This man had not truly discovered the source; he preferred riches to the peace and salvation of his soul. So here, in this case, this man answers very well, and the Lord says to him: Well, you have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.

What the Lord was telling him was: The only thing you still need to put into practice is loving your neighbor as yourself, because these Pharisees did not love people; they neglected them. Their religion was a religion of scourging, commandments, and religiosity. They neglected the poor; they had neglected people’s souls. And the Lord knew that what this man had was an intellectual religion, but not a religion of the heart.

And when the Lord said, Well, do what you are saying, and you will live, it says that this man wanted to justify himself. Why did he want to justify himself? Because he knew that the Lord had struck him right in the heart, that he had plenty of intellect but did not have the heart of a servant of God. So, wanting to justify himself, he tried to hide behind a sophism, a philosophical subtlety. He said: Well, Lord, who is my neighbor? I do not understand that. Define for me who my neighbor is.

Look, those who know about philosophy, logic, and academic matters know that one of the most delicate ways of defining things is by seeking the definition of words. You need to have clear terms, but a great deal of time can be wasted on that. This man wanted to bewilder the Lord and confuse Him: Okay, define “neighbor” for me according to philosophy; what does “neighbor” mean logically? Who is my neighbor? Is it the Jew? Is it my fellow Pharisees? I do not know, and that is why I do not practice what I am saying.

Then the Lord said to him: All right, I am going to give you a parable, I am going to tell you a story, and then at the end you are going to tell Me who the neighbor is. And the parable says: “Jesus answered and said: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of thieves, who stripped him”—they stole his money—“and beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.” They gave him a sound beating and left him half dead. “And it happened that a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite came near that place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan who was traveling came near him, and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion; and coming to him, he bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, and placing him on his mount, he took him to the inn and cared for him.”

“And the next day, as he departed, he took out two denarii”—let us say that was 200 or 300 dollars at that time, whatever it may have been—“and gave them to the innkeeper.” The inn was like a hotel, a hostel, and he said to the hotel owner or the hotel employee: “Look, take care of him for me.” What did he say? He said, “Take care of him for me.” He did not say, “Take care of him”; he said, “Take care of him for me.” In other words, this man identified with this other human being and loved him personally, and he saw him as his brother, as his own, as something that directly involved him. “Take care of him for me, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I return.”

In other words, if what I left you is not enough, put it on my account, and when I return I will settle accounts with you. A generous offer, isn’t it? So now the Lord says to him: You have heard the story; you are an intelligent man, you answered Me very well, you know about history and literature. So tell Me—you who asked Me who the neighbor is and tried to entangle Me in a lot of strange things there—who acted as this man’s neighbor? Who treated him as his equal? Was it the priest, was it the Levite, or was it this Samaritan? And the man said: Well, the one who showed him mercy, the one who acted as his neighbor. That is, he was his neighbor, and this man was his neighbor too.

It was inescapable, it was clear: the Lord trapped him in his own question. Then He said: Well, you know what? Go and do likewise. How beautiful the Word is, isn’t it? And brothers and sisters, there you have a precious picture of the entire drama of the Gospel and of what God expects us to do. I say this is not merely a story about someone who did good and was generous toward another person.

I have always seen in this parable a little drama about the Gospel in its entirety. To me, there are two main characters: not only the good Samaritan, as the parable is often called, but also the man who fell into the hands of those evil men. He too is a very important character. And to me, that wounded man is an image of humanity—fallen humanity, stripped of its defenses.

It may be your neighbor; it may be the person who lives in the apartment next to yours in your neighborhood; it may be the person who clocks in at the machine there day after day with you at your factory. It may be a homemaker; it may be a friend of yours who does not know the Lord; it may be a stranger you see on the street there on Olvany Street or at the Neacast, picking up coins at night. They are our neighbors, and they are people who exemplify what Christ is saying here. This man is a symbol of humanity without Christ, which needs people like us who have the solution to its need and its problem.

Notice that it says a man was going down. Going down from where? From Jerusalem to Jericho. It was truly a descent in quality: Jerusalem, the beloved city, the city of God; Jericho, a city that was sinful in the Old Testament and that God had forbidden to be rebuilt. This man was descending geographically—perhaps it was a descent from a mountain into a valley—but it was a descent; he was going downward. And I see in this, my brothers and sisters, that the person without Christ is going downward. For the man who does not have Jesus, for the woman who does not have Christ, life for those people, brothers and sisters, is a continual decline.

For the person who does not have God and depends only on his youth, for example, growing old is winter. Someone has said that for foolish people old age is winter, but for wise people it is spring. I see many amens out there; it seems I am striking a chord with someone. (Laughter.) And it is true. Look, when you have Christ, brother, when you have the Word of God, you do not fear old age; you do not fear the fact that your youth is fading; you do not fear death. You know that life in Christ is a life of rising higher and higher, of growing better and better.

The Word of the Lord says that the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the day is perfect. The Word of God also says that the righteous will flourish like the palm tree; he will grow like a cedar in Lebanon. It says that even in old age they will bear fruit; they will be vigorous and green, to proclaim that Jehovah, my strength, is upright. By the way, I do not mean that he will be a dirty old man, only that he will remain green, full of greenery. I have wanted to tell that joke for a long time and had not had the opportunity. (Laughter.)

No, no; it means that you are going to be like a leafy tree, always green. Even as you continue growing older, the Lord is going to be a blessing. Boys become weary and tired, and young men stumble and fall, but those who wait on Jehovah will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.

Brothers and sisters, for the children of God, life goes upward. For the one who does not know the Lord, it is a descent, because what motivation does he have? When a person who knows only money, fame, influence, and sensuality is already growing old, what does he have left? Simply a dead end, emptiness, darkness, anonymity, silence, loss—unless there is a hope of eternal life, where a marvelous valley of possibilities then opens up. Human life is a dead end; we are heading downward. And we have to tell people that. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?

We have to tell people that what matters is that eternity with Christ. With God all things are possible; without Him, we are heading downward. So it says that this man was going down. Secondly, it says that he fell into the hands of robbers who stripped him, wounded him, and left him half dead. When you have Christ in your heart and know the Word of God, that Word gives you defenses for life; it helps you walk along this dangerous road that is the world. I do not know, but the longer I live, the more I realize that the world is dangerous and that there are many traps. There are many holes in the night into which you can fall; there are many wild beasts; there are many doctrines of error; there are many things that can seize a man or a woman and drag that person into an addiction to gambling or liquor.

This morning there was a sister here whom one day I want to have share her testimony, a precious person who spent many years of her life as a victim of gambling. Do you know that gambling is one of the most terrible addictions there is? People talk about drugs, crack, or heroin, but some people have a gambling addiction that is eating them alive. And this sister tells how, when she was addicted to gambling, she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year—a professional woman—sometimes going 24 hours without eating because she did not want to leave the gaming table, and how she lost so much money. She did not lose her house because her children took it away from her ahead of time so that she would not lose it. And finally, she came to know Jesus Christ, who set her free from her gambling addiction.

And I want her to share that word with you one day. But how does a beautiful professional woman, with children and a reputation to protect, fall into the trap of addiction? You raised your hand—stand up, sister. Look at this beautiful woman and how she lived that way for so long. And I commit myself to having her bring her testimony one of these days, because I know she is an evangelist. But we are going to do it sometime, sister, and we are going to arrange it very soon. But that is how people live.

It is so good that you are there. Were you at the nine o’clock service, or was it that we spoke earlier? Okay, but she now serves the Lord; she has been set free. But brothers and sisters, just like her, there are people who have professions, have money, are corporate executives, are owners of vast fortunes, but are secretly addicted to alcohol, pornography, alcohol, adultery, fear, depression, and anxiety. Why do you think so many people commit suicide nowadays? Why do you think so many artists live in crisis, continually going into detox? Because, brothers and sisters, that is the way it is—and there are so many Christians who fall into so many things because they do not live out the Gospel as it ought to be lived.

But when the Gospel is lived as it ought to be lived, it is a protective fence around you. It delivers you from so many things because either Christ delivers you directly through His blood, or the wisdom of the Word of God teaches you how to live and how to avoid the mistakes you make and the things that continually assault you. There are thieves. The Bible says that the devil knows only how to steal, kill, and destroy. The world is a forest of wild beasts watching you from behind the brush, and all you can see at night are their glowing little eyes.

And the man without God is like a defenseless little rabbit walking through the brush, waiting for a wild beast to swipe at him and eat him, because he has no defenses; he does not have Christ, he does not have God, he does not have the wisdom of the Word. And likewise, there are many Christians who do not know the Word. I tell you, one of the most important things we must know is how to possess that wisdom of the Word of God: how to live, how to make decisions, whom to marry, how to manage my money, how to resist temptation, how to cope when I am sick and someone tells me, “You know what? You have a heart condition that will affect you for the rest of your life.”

How do I deal with those things? How do I deal with it when I suffer heartbreak, or with so many other things that happen in life? The Word of God is a refuge, a defense, a support. That is why you have to know it and study it. That is why the Bible says: Wisdom—above all things, acquire wisdom, because with that wisdom the thieves cannot come into your life and rob you and kill you. And we have to tell the people out there: Look, come to the Gospel so that you may gain that knowledge which can save you and help you walk rightly through life.

We have to tell the community out there: Look, in Christ and in the Gospel lies the solution to humanity’s problems, and there is refuge for our community. This man, a symbol of lost humanity, falls into the hands of thieves; they strip him, wound him, and leave him half dead. And now comes the possible response: a priest passes by, a religious professional; a Levite passes by, another professional; neither of them stops. Why are they examples of this Pharisee, this Levite who has just questioned the Lord? Why did Christ put that there? He was delivering a thrust at this man who did not understand the love of God. And that is why He says a priest passed by. Today He might say that an evangelical pastor saw this man lying on the ground and said: Oops, I am very sorry, but I have an appointment at 12:30 and it is 12:25. I cannot miss my appointment, so I hope someone else comes by here and helps him.

And a Levite, who was a lesser figure than the priest, also passes by, because there was no love in his heart either. The first thing we must be as a church is a church of love and mercy. We have to ask the Lord to break our hearts. I know what I am asking the Lord during this season of my life, now that we are dedicating ourselves: Lord, break my heart with what breaks Your heart.

May the souls out there who are perishing and going into the abyss of hell give me no rest while I sleep. May my church become a church of fishers and hunters for the Kingdom of God, bringing souls to the knowledge of Jesus Christ—farmers who sow the seed of the Gospel in the city, people who grieve over the suffering of the fallen.

There are many people who are half dead like that: single mothers who need the Word of God to teach them how to cope with loneliness and with their teenage children. A man who is here struggling desperately, working sixteen hours a day, needs someone to tell him: “You know what? You can come to the House of God on Sunday, take refuge there, receive the Word, and keep moving forward.” We need people who invite others.

We have to be a church of mercy, inviting one another into our homes. For how many people is Christmastime a time of loneliness? No, Christmas is a time of loneliness and depression for them; they have no one. How many people have nowhere to go after the service except to a lonely apartment? And we go home: Yes, we will see each other there; we will meet at such-and-such restaurant; let’s go there. There are people whom you need to notice and on whom you need to have compassion.

The way we are going to be an effective evangelistic church is by being a church of mercy and love. I see my sister Mayra Rodríguez here nodding her head, and Mayra is a person who truly has a missionary heart; I thank God for her. God knows it: He honors those who honor Him. There are some very special hearts here, and when I or one of the pastors cannot visit someone at home or in a hospital, Mayra and her team—who are incredible women warriors, and men warriors too—are there visiting people and informing me: “Pastor, so-and-so died; give her daughter a call,” or something like that.

And how good it is to know that there are compassionate people doing the work of the Gospel in different ways; glory to the Lord for that. Amen. In front of her is Marta Garzón, working with the people from Shriners—what a blessing that is too. That is evangelism, brothers and sisters; that is spreading the Word of God in every possible way, not merely handing out a tract and saying, “See you someday.” You have to make friends; you have to work. I thank the Lord for those brothers and sisters who work on Saturdays. Is anyone from the team that distributes food on Saturday mornings here—the ones who go over there?

Perhaps they were at the nine o’clock service. But there are brothers and sisters who are downstairs in the basement at six or seven in the morning preparing sandwiches. One person takes the bread and opens it, another takes a slice of ham and puts it on top, another adds the cheese, another adds a little mayonnaise, another puts it together, and they wrap them and take them there to Albany Street and Mass Avenue, where there are sometimes hundreds of homeless people wandering around, and they stop there to eat because the brothers and sisters bring a cup of hot chocolate or coffee, which they make here and take over there. What a blessing—evangelism.

They pray with them and bring them to church. Do you know how many homeless people are coming to the English service? A large group. Transvestites and transgender people are coming to the English service because brothers and sisters are bringing them a piece of bread, and I want that to continue more and more every day, becoming the norm in the church. There are brothers and sisters who, for years and years, have been quietly going to the shelter there on Albany Street—what is it called?—the Woods-Mullen Center, and they go faithfully and quietly on Tuesday nights, without anyone finding out, also taking the Word of the Lord, sometimes bringing food, and evangelizing people.

That is what it is all about. God wants you to be one of those good Samaritans who does the whole work. It is not merely a matter of telling someone, “Christ loves you”; your entire life must also become deeply involved with those people, you must proclaim the Word, and you must feel that God wants you to do that work. Because we have to be that kind of church, brothers and sisters. Each one of you is a spearhead in your neighborhood; we are the salt of the earth, and you are one grain of that salt. Lion of Judah has to become a saltshaker, and you a grain in the saltshaker. What a lovely image, amen.

And when we leave here, it is as though the Lord takes the saltshaker and shakes it like this over Boston: some go to Roxbury and others go to Hyde Park. That came out really well—write it down somewhere so I do not forget it. That image is good; we have to remember it. Some go to the South End, others go to Hyde Park. Some go to Chelsea, some go to East Boston, others go to Waltham, Watertown, Salem, Lawrence, Providence, carrying a little of the salt. You are the light of the world. A light is not hidden under a bed; it is placed on the ceiling so that it shines down from above upon the entire room, the whole hall.

And we have to be compassionate people, people of mercy, people committed twenty-four hours a day—twenty-four hours a day—to proclaiming the Gospel and doing works of justice wherever we may be. We must preach the complete Gospel, a 360-degree Gospel. If someone needs food, we give food; if they need counseling, counseling. If they need deliverance, deliverance. If what they require is the bare Gospel, we preach the Gospel to them. If they need a phone call, we are there. If they need an ear to listen to their problem, we simply give them that moment of empathetically listening to their pain.

If they need a plate of food in our home on a winter night to ease their loneliness a little and make them feel part of a family, we give them that too—lodging them, opening our homes. Sister Reina used to say, “You know, the hardest thing is for a person to offer their home for...” Listen, how difficult that is: my home, where I take refuge in winter, when people arrive home at four in the afternoon and the snow is falling; they get home and immediately make their food and sit down to watch a soap opera or something like that, with a plate of food in front of the television. Nobody had better come into my house, because this is my refuge, because tomorrow I have to go out into the cold again.

Isn’t that true? How difficult it is to say, “No, I am a soldier of the Kingdom of God.” And whether it means going to a cell group somewhere else so that others may come to know the Lord, or opening my home and inconveniencing myself. Because one day the Lord is going to give me a ten-thousand-year vacation up there in heaven. Here I am going to work for the Lord; my house, my money, and my family are for the Kingdom of God.

So we have to inconvenience ourselves. This good Samaritan inconvenienced himself. He put his schedule on hold, got down from his mount, and got himself dirty with this man’s blood—forgive me for being so graphic. He treated his wounds. He got down from his mount and put the man on it. He inconvenienced himself in every sense; he became deeply involved with him. I imagine that while this man was falling off the horse, or whatever it was, his body was pressed against the man’s body. That is what we have to do. In many ways, our lives have to become deeply involved with a community.

And I tell you, brothers and sisters, that what God is waiting for is for us to take Him seriously. I feel that God is backing this message of evangelism like nothing else I have proclaimed in all my years as a pastor. Because I see the blessing; I feel the electricity in the air. I feel that God is backing our messages.

This morning I was not expecting Pastor Eliu Camacho to be here. He is a man who travels throughout the United States and Latin America organizing campaigns like the one we are going to have throughout the city in November with the Billy Graham team. And here he was: he came because he was here this weekend, and Pastor Eladio Álvarez brought him to be with us, just as the director of YWAM was with us last Sunday. It has been as though God said, “You know what? I am going to send you prophets of Mine to sit there and listen to that message and endorse what you are saying.”

And I feel the electricity in the air. God tells us, “Everything you do in My Name, I am going to back you; you are not going to fail. If you cast the net, the fish will come.” Peter said to Jesus Christ, “We have been fishing all night and did not catch a single fish. How can You expect us to cast the net now, during the day, when it is impossible? The fish do not come out during the day: there is too much noise, too much movement in the water. They come out at night, and yet we tried and could not do it.”

Peter said, however, “All right, but if You say so, I will cast the net.” The Lord says so. It says that when he cast the net, a multitude of fish came. When Peter obediently cast the net, it says that it was as though an electronic summons went out to the fish: “Come, there is a net that you have to get into,” and those fish had no choice; they went over there and got into that net (laughter). I believe that is going to happen when we begin to take steps of faith: the sea will open before us, and the people will come. That is what I believe; let us dare to do it in the Name of the Lord.

I am doing my part. I am going to prepare you; we are going to train ourselves; we are going to talk about it every Sunday in many different ways. We are going to give you tools; we are going to develop strategies. I ask the Lord to mark my heart in such a way that there will be no retreat, no turning back from this, because I believe that God now finally wants to honor us with the harvest for which we have longed for so long. God has allowed us to grow and be blessed, but we have merely been standing at the edge of the Promised Land.

Now is the time; let us cast the net. Let us dare, like the good Samaritan, to reach the people in the city. God will put them in our path; God will bring them. Let us obey—or let us obey—and God will bring them: one of the two ways, or both. This man took the wounded man and brought him to the inn.

To me, what is the inn? If you were reading this as a work of literature, what does the inn represent? The house of God? The Kingdom? The hospital for souls, isn’t that right? All of those things. The House of God is the refuge. It is the Word of God, the Gospel, the Spirit of God who keeps people safe—the church. I prefer the interpretation of the inn, in one limited sense, as the church in this evangelistic context. Why? I am going to tell you why, although it does not necessarily have to mean that.

But when we evangelize people, we have to tell them, “All right, you accepted Christ; you gave Him your heart, but now the work of coming to know the Gospel more deeply begins.” People have to be discipled; they have to be consolidated; they have to be taught the truths of the Gospel; they have to be instructed in doctrine. They have to be taught how to keep themselves clean, how to use the authority God gives a child of God; who Jesus is; what a life of holiness is; what the life of gathering with the church is; why gathering with the church is important; why it is important to give to the Lord; why it is important to share the Word with others and to serve, which is how we grow, become strong, and learn the joy of the Lord.

There are a number of things that people have to be taught. When people come to Christ, they are saved, but they are wounded, they are deformed, they have wounds from the past, and they have addictions. The Lord touches all that with a magic wand, and it disappears the instant they accept the Lord.

They have to go through a process of restoration, of physical therapy, right? When someone has suffered a serious accident and broken a number of bones, they are taken to the hospital and put in a cast to restrain and correct the deformity somewhat; but then what happens afterward? They have to undergo long-term therapy because those bones are all stiffened up, as we Dominicans say; the muscles have deteriorated from lack of use, from lying in a bed; many things have to be stretched, and they have to learn to use them again.

In the same way, when people enter the Gospel, they now have to be taken to the inn, where they must be taught the Word and instructed in doctrine, and you have to walk with them, right? Do not wash your hands of them. “Okay, Pastor, now I am handing them over to you. Good night, bye-bye.” No; now you have to walk with them. They are your spiritual children; you have to work with them. Learn to be a spiritual mother or father; cover them with your protection and care.

This Samaritan went to the inn with this man, and it seems that he stayed there for a few days. It does not say that he left the next day; it says that on another day he left. And look at what he did: he left money so that the man could be cared for for a while, and then said, “You know what? I am going to come back, and if anything remains to be paid, I will pay the debt.” That is the aspect of discipling, caring for, instructing, strengthening, and rooting people so that they put down roots in the soil of the Gospel. Because when a baby begins to walk, the baby is still weak, fragile, and ignorant of many things, and we have to teach them how to be strong, robust Christians who can defend themselves and know how to skillfully use the Word of Truth. We must have churches that teach people, and that is also what we have to be.

What a beautiful drama, yes or no? Those from the worship team, please come up here. Brothers and sisters, it is beautiful; the Gospel is precious; it is complete. There are beautiful things that we have to learn. May God help us to be a church of mercy, of love, a church that proclaims the Gospel. Let us leave here this afternoon committed to being spearheads for the Army of God. We are the salt of the Earth; you are a grain of salt in God’s saltshaker, with which we are going to fill the entire city with that rich flavor of the Gospel.