Dr. Miranda: Moving from Level to Level

God wants an agile church, a new church, a powerful church, a church that can function in the twenty-first century, and there are tremendous resources that humankind has developed in this age, such as the Internet. And we have to enter that new world; the church cannot be left behind.

The church has to evolve with the times, retaining the Gospel, which, as the Word says, was once delivered to humanity, but finding new and more powerful ways to spread it. Remember that the Word says that the Lord will not come until the Gospel has been preached to all nations. And I believe that in this age God is providing ways for that to become possible, because the time of his coming is already near. So I believe that God is using the human mind to develop ways of reaching all humanity, and that includes, for example, this marvelous Internet technology.

Can you imagine that we are here in Mérida, Mexico, and right now there are people who could potentially be listening to us in China or Japan or Canada or Australia? At the very time we are broadcasting here, they could be listening to us in some field over there in Thailand or Africa. The age we are living in is incredible! And the church has to make its thinking more agile so that it can enter that new dimension. We cannot be left behind. In fact, it would dishonor the Lord because, as we have said before, we have the mind of Christ. Amen. And that means that we have to function at a much more effective level than other people.

This morning, Dr. Ernst Diehl and I went to have breakfast at a nearby Burger King. How many of you know what Burger King is? And I was saying to Ernst that we were served by a woman with clearly Indigenous features, but this woman had on her Burger King uniform; she had her electronic device in her ears so that she could hear orders and communicate with the people who were making the food. She had the technology of a North American multinational corporation, and this combination struck me—it intrigued me, you know?—this woman with Indigenous features, representing an ancient culture that goes back thousands of years, wearing her twenty-first-century technology, you know? And that is the new Mexico, which is connected to multinational corporations, and the world is drawing closer together. And the world has become very small through communications and technology. And God has placed in our hands a tremendously powerful instrument that we must learn to use. Amen. And that is why you must also learn to use your computers.

Do not be afraid of those strange machines sitting there, staring at you with a large, glowing eye. Those machines are under your authority, and you can learn to use them. Say amen. And God is going to give you computers, in the name of Jesus, so that you can learn. We declare it in the name of Christ. And you should try to get one somehow, and ask the Lord to give it to you for your children so that they can be trained in this and can use that technology for the glory of the Lord. And God wants to bring his church out of its timidity, and if we do not do it, God will send unbelievers to force us to do it, brothers and sisters. Because when God has a purpose, he even uses the devil to train us against the devil himself. That is how powerful and effective God is in using his children and getting the most out of them. I have not even started preaching yet, but this is free. You are getting this as a little extra, as we Dominicans say.

But there is something else I want to share with you before getting fully into it. I have been thinking here over the past few days, and I believe there is a prophetic word here for you, for this congregation, and for all the congregations represented here tonight. I have been thinking about the process that you have just gone through as a church during these past few weeks, and Pastor Antonio was telling me how you have experienced a certain conflict and tension because of the sound produced by a dynamic congregation like this one, embedded as it is in a residential neighborhood, and how people—well... of course, also because of certain religious opposition and other things—have reacted to this, and how you have had struggles with the authorities and at times have encountered difficulties in opening your church building, among other things. And I was telling Brother Antonio, as we were coming from the airport, that I feel the devil has wanted to use this to destroy this congregation, oppress it, or hinder it, but God has actually used it to bless this congregation.

The Lord Jesus Christ once said, ‘The enemy knows only how to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.’ In other words, the Lord has come to neutralize the enemy’s evil intentions and turn them into paths and instruments of blessing and life for his people. Because that is what happens when you are in the grace of God and the love of Christ is flowing in your life, and that blessing God has declared over your life, which we spoke about last night, is developing within you, and you are moving in that atmosphere of blessing that Christ makes possible. Look, God even uses your enemies to bless you and move you forward.

And the Lord gave me a word about that which is found in Proverbs. It says there in Proverbs 16, verse 7: ‘When a man’s ways are pleasing to Jehovah, he makes even his enemies be at peace with him.’ Look at that: when your ways are pleasing to Jehovah—and they are pleasing because you are in Christ Jesus—God even takes your enemies, tames them, makes them be at peace with you, and uses them to bless you and take you to another level of glory, blessing, and provision. And I believe that this is what has happened in this process and what is happening now: God has used the adversity and difficulties this congregation has been going through to compel it to enter a new level of excellence and ministerial and evangelistic effectiveness. Because through those contacts with the authorities, those negotiations, all that anxiety, and those conversations with various people in positions of authority out there, your leaders gradually lose their fear of those dimensions of dialogue. God forces us to leave the protective cocoon of the church walls and the evangelical world, and he makes us swim; he throws us into the water.

You know that when the eagle wants to train its chicks, it takes them in its beak, lifts them high into the air, and drops them. And that chick either learns to fly, or at some point there will be smashed eggs. Because the eagle is a bird of prey and a warrior bird, and it trains its chicks through pressure and warfare—and God is like that too. God wants to train men and women who are filled with the Holy Spirit, warriors who are aggressive in the spirit and powerful before God, and he uses methods that are sometimes a little harsh to bring us into the greatness he wants us to enter.

So God has been using this to compel this little bird, which is only just testing its wings, to rise to a higher level. And when I look around, I am told that not long ago these walls were not here, and now, look—my brother here was telling me, ‘Pastor, they changed the color of the platform.’ Just a short while ago it was green, and look now at how beautiful this platform looks, very formal now, very lovely, with these gorgeous curtains and all of this. And now I imagine this place looks more like a church than it did before, and you are more protected and more formal. God is taking you to another level of excellence. God has used the problems out there to move the church forward, develop it, and place pressure on it so that it will leap to another level. And he has thus compelled you to give more and commit yourselves more fully to your pastors, your leaders, and the vision of the church so that the church can advance to another level.

And once you have reached this level and learned to function in it, God will bring you to a still higher level, with greater expectations and greater demands, but also with greater glory, greater reach, and a greater capacity to embrace more people. Because the Lord takes us from level to level, and when a people is being led by the Lord and trained by the Lord, and when the Holy Spirit is moving in a family, an individual, or a congregation, the Lord is the trainer. He takes control and begins to lead us, in a way that is firm but also tremendously gentle, loving, and fatherly, to new levels of effectiveness and reach.

So I want to tell you that the Lord is at work and that the Lord is coordinating the growth and development of this congregation. And the Lord is making sure that you grow organically. He will place certain levels of pressure on you whenever you become comfortable, in order to take you to another level, and then another level. And that is what the Word says. The Word of God says that ‘the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the perfect day.’ And that is how you must see your life, brother or sister. You must see your life as going from glory to glory, as going from growth to growth, as God having called you to become better every day, wiser every day, deeper every day, more dangerous every day to the devil and the hosts of wickedness, and more knowledgeable every day about the mysteries of God; and the Holy Spirit will guide you step by step. And you have to cooperate with the Holy Spirit; you have to pay attention to the movements of the Holy Spirit. You have to be alert to the prophetic voice of God, which will speak to you through the circumstances and events of life and through the people who come into contact with you. And you have to believe that every moment of your life, everything that happens, every conversation you have, and every event that occurs in your life is all part of God’s revelation intended to bring you to the level where he wants to take you.

Do not waste anything. God is always speaking to us. God is revealing himself to us, but sometimes we are dull and rough in our understanding, and we cannot appreciate that subtle voice of God that wants to speak to us through little things and little revelations. And every time you leave your house—in fact, even before leaving your house—you have to believe and say, ‘Today God is going to speak to me, and today God is going to use the events of my life to train me, prepare me, make me more useful for his kingdom, and train and break me so that I can live at peace with myself and with others.’ And God will use every dimension of your life for this purpose.

That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Let anyone who has eyes to see, see,’ because there are many people who have eyes to see but do not see. God’s words and God’s revelations fly a thousand miles an hour over our heads, and we waste those moments that God is using to train us and take us to new levels. That is why we must see that God will always be speaking to us. And God has been speaking to this congregation, and God says to you, ‘Pay attention, because I am training you. Pay attention, because I am leading you, and I have a purpose for you, and I will direct you step by step.’

That is how the Lord has worked in our lives, and he has worked continually in my life throughout all the years I have served the Lord—twenty-something years as pastor of my congregation. I have always been able to see the hand of God coordinating every aspect of my ministry, not because I am some great person or anything like that, but because God wants to do it with anyone who surrenders to the Lord, gives themselves to him, opens themselves up, and wants to be used greatly by the Lord. God will take you seriously and begin a training program designed exclusively for you, according to your temperament, your qualities, your past history, your circumstances, the purpose he has for your life, and the gifts he has placed in you. God will assess all of that and design a training plan specifically for you, as great coaches do when they receive an athlete with potential: they identify where that athlete’s strength lies. If the athlete is a boxer, for example, and perhaps is not very heavy or muscular but is agile, then what he lacks in weight he makes up for in agility or size. So the trainer will examine the boxer’s strength and tailor his training to develop that boxer’s strong area. Because that boxer may not be able to compete with his opponent in strength, but he will be able to make up for it in agility and intelligence. So the trainer uses that to train him.

Likewise, God is able to understand exactly what calling rests upon your life, what gifts he has placed in you, and the area in which you can serve. Then God will design a program, a way of training you, in which he will use every day, every moment, every encounter, and every intervention to develop within you the calling he has for your life. And if you are alert, if you have faith, and if you believe that God works with people in this way, then you will be an observant student, and every day you will learn what God is saying in your life. And your growth will accelerate and develop much more rapidly because you will see with spiritual eyes and be able to interpret what God is doing in your life. And you will be able to enter into God’s flow, and that will accelerate your progress.

It is important for us to learn to flow with God’s dealings in our lives, to quickly catch on the fly the lesson God is giving us, and to run with it before God has to come and hit us over the head with a ten-pound bat. Sometimes God begins with a little feather, and if we do not understand, with a spoon; and if we do not understand, He takes a board; and if we do not understand, He takes a bat; and if we still do not, He takes a steel beam and hits us over the head with it. I would rather listen to Him and understand Him from the moment He picks up the little feather. Amen. We have to be sensitive to the voice of God and understand what God is doing in our lives.

I have seen the hand of the Lord—and I entered into my sermon a long time ago. I have decided that in these times I will simply let the Lord speak however He wants. I have seen how God has intervened in our congregation over the years, and let me share some of that testimony, because perhaps it can be a blessing to you as leaders and to this congregation as well. Because that is how God works. God places a calling on our lives.

The text I was actually going to use—and I will simply recount it—is a text many of you know. It is the passage in which the Lord Jesus Christ meets Peter after Peter has spent an entire night trying to fish and has not caught a single fish. That is found in Luke, chapter 5; you can look it up there if you wish. It says that some fishermen were on the shore washing their nets after a night of trying to fish, and the Lord Jesus Christ was overwhelmed by the crowd that wanted to hear the words of life coming from Him. Suddenly, the Lord found Himself overwhelmed by all those people and understood that He had to use an instrument, something, a platform, in order to speak to so many people, because they were all around Him and His voice could not reach them that way. Then He looked around, saw Peter’s boat a short distance from the shore, called Peter, got into the boat, and asked Peter—it says He pleaded with Peter—to let Him use the boat to preach to the crowd. And after the Lord finished His message to the crowd, He turned to Peter: “Peter, now put out into deep water, put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” And Peter obediently took his boat and put out to sea, and then, when he was there, the Lord said to him, “Let down your nets,” and Peter said to Him, “Lord, we have been fishing all night and have not caught a single fish, but at Your word I will let down the net.” The Bible says that Peter obediently let down the net, and what happened? ... He caught a multitude of fish, so many that the boat was sinking. And when Peter saw this, astonished and filled with holy fear in the presence of One whom he clearly understood had to be God in order to perform such an astounding miracle, he immediately fell down in the boat, afraid, as the prophets throughout history have been afraid, and as everyone who has had an encounter with the deity of God, with His awe-inspiring presence, has been afraid. And as one of the prophets said, “Woe is me, for I have seen the glory of God,” and God always says, “Do not be afraid.” And the Lord Jesus Christ said to him, “Do not be afraid, for from this day on you will be a fisher of men.” The Bible says that Peter left his nets and followed the Lord. What a wonderful passage, isn’t it?

There I see God dealing with a man whom He wants to use, just as God is dealing with you whom He wants to use, just as God is dealing with you, pastor, just as God is dealing with you, leader of the congregation, just as God is dealing with the pastors of this congregation, just as He is dealing with my life and with my congregation. Because when God calls us, He always establishes dealings with us.

This morning I was speaking about the journeys God designs when He calls us, when we accept God’s call. God always takes us on individual journeys in which He gets personally involved with us, as He does here with Peter, and takes us to a place where He wants to reveal something different to us about His glory. And He wants to give us a vision of who He is in relation to us. And then He tells us, as He tells Peter here... He takes us on a journey and tells Peter, “Put out into deep water,” which symbolizes the journey of a clumsy and merely human Peter, a fisherman like any other, anonymous, with nothing to distinguish him. He takes him out of there and sends him on a journey into deep water, but it is also a journey toward his destiny; and when he is far from the shore, He reveals Himself to him, takes off His Clark Kent suit, and reveals Himself as the Superman He is: the Lord Jesus, the Son of God.

And in the same way, God wants to give you a revelation of His glory. God wants you to know Him. The Lord loves for us to know Him. He wants to reveal Himself. He will never be able to reveal Himself in all His glory, but He does want to reveal Himself to you in a different way. He wants you to know Him intimately so that you can then be useful to Him. Only a person who has had a powerful encounter with Jesus can be useful to the Lord. And so, in this passage, I see that there are three levels of closeness that Peter has with the almighty Christ. There are three levels of spiritual depth that Peter occupies in this passage, just as there are different levels of spirituality that we occupy along our spiritual journey.

Notice that at first we see Peter on the beach itself, together with the crowd, very close to the people. He is there washing his fishing nets; he is on solid ground. That is the first level. The second level is when the Lord tells him, “Move your boat a little way from the land so that I can speak to the crowd.” That is the second level: moving a little way from the solid ground where the crowd is. And the third level is when the Lord finishes preaching and tells him, “Now put out into deep water,” which is a level of greater separation and distance from the crowd and from solid ground.

And I believe that there are three different levels of spiritual depth there, three different levels of knowledge of the Lord, three different levels of ministerial development in Peter’s life. We therefore understand that God does not want you to remain static. God does not want you to be the same ministerially, temperamentally, or relationally as you were a year ago, or ten days ago, or five years ago, or as you will be ten years from now. The Christian must always be evolving. Churches must always be developing; ministries must always be in motion, because we are not lakes—we are rivers that must always be flowing. If we become stagnant, we die. We must always be in process; we must always be moving toward the next stage, toward the next level, toward the next goal, and God is glorified in that. God detests the lazy, comfortable person. That is why He tells Joshua, “See that I command you to be strong and courageous,” because God calls us always to be in process, always in motion. When we stop, we die.

We must always be alert: Where will the cloud move? Where will the glory of God move? Where will the pillar of fire go? And when the Lord says, “Move,” you have to move, because if you do not move, you will die. That is why we must always be alert: Where is God taking me? What is God telling me? How is He speaking to me? I want to instill in you a vision of a dynamic God and of a dynamic Christian life in which you must always be alert to what the Holy Spirit is telling you and to where the next mountain is that you have to climb.

Then, in the first stage of Peter’s journey, Peter is there on the land, together with the crowd. And for many leaders, that is the level where we are simply people doing things in the Christian life or in ministry, or perhaps we are simply in the world and are not even children of God yet, and nothing sets us apart from the crowd. We have a religious spirituality; we come to church, we go through the motions everyone else goes through, but there is no spiritual depth, there is no contact with God, there has been no entering into and establishing a personal relationship, a dialogue of communication with Christ and with the Holy Spirit. And unfortunately, most Christians are at that level, where 70 percent, 60 percent of congregations consist of people who simply show up at the congregation. Glory to God because they accepted Christ. Glory to God because they are going to heaven, but what a shame that they are missing the opportunity to be useful to the Lord here on earth, and they are missing the opportunity to drink the milk and honey God has for those who devote themselves to serving Him. And it is a waste—a waste for the church, because the church is deprived of talents and resources it could use to expand, and a waste for the people who live at that level, because they do not receive the blessing and the glory God has destined for their lives. And I tell you not to remain at that level. “Awake, you who sleep, and Christ will shine on you,” says the Lord tonight. May those knees that are paralyzed bend in prayer and fasting to seek the glory of God. May those hands that hang down and are resting on the floor or tucked into pockets be raised to receive the fire that will come upon your life when you cry out to the Lord and seek God’s anointing in your life, when you hunger for God.

God tells you, “Wake up, come out of the crowd, develop hunger and thirst for Me, because I want to use you, I want to bless you, I want to reveal Myself to you, I want you to know Me in a different way. I am not a generic God. I am a personal God, an individual God, and I appear to My children, and I want to speak to My children, and I want My children to know Me as I know them. I want My children to have dealings with Me. I want to speak to them in their dreams at night. I want to use the circumstances of their lives to reveal Myself to them from behind the curtains of time and space. I want My children to see something of My glory and to know My dealings, so that they can pass on to their children the legends and the feats they have accomplished through My power, and can pass on to their children their passion for the Gospel, and can then turn them into instruments as well, into a new generation that has seen the glory of God reflected in their parents.”

You cannot give your children or the people you are discipling—you cannot pass on to them what you have not experienced in your own life. You cannot expect your children to love the Lord and grow up with a passion for the Lord if they do not see that passion reflected in your life. You cannot expect to speak to your neighbors about Jesus Christ if your voice is weak and lacks authority, if it lacks the tone of authority that can be attained only by having battled and fought and tamed the demons and the powers of the enemy, by having suffered much and won much. Then your voice changes from that of a mere private to that of an army officer who, when he speaks, carries the weight of God in his voice, and people fall into line because they understand that someone with authority is there.

You need to come out of the crowd. Tell the brother beside you, “Come out of the crowd.” Tell him, tell him, “Come out of the crowd.” Amen. We have to come out of the crowd. We have to come out of mediocrity. We have to come out of the generic. We have to enter into the specific. Hallelujah! We have to enter that secret place, and we have to go up the mountain so that God can speak to us, so that we can then come down from the mountain with the glory of God manifesting itself on our faces. The word of the Lord says that “beholding the face of the Lord, we are transformed from glory to glory.” If you do not look upon the face of the Lord, the glory of the Lord will not be able to be transferred to your life. You need to spend time with God. You need to come out of the crowd. You need to set yourself apart from what is common and ordinary so that God can deal with your life and reveal Himself to your life. You have to develop an appetite for God. Unfortunately, most of the church is drowsy and indifferent. They think, “God has nothing for me; that is for educated people. Ah, that is for so-and-so, who went to high school. Or that is for that dear brother who prays a lot and fasts a lot. That is for the other person who knows how to speak and is not afraid of people.” Look, the revelation, the gift of God, is for everyone. The Lord has called all of us to develop a plan, a goal in life, and you have to stop thinking of yourself as insignificant, as not called, as not gifted. We all have something to contribute to the Kingdom of God.

The Bible says that God came and distributed gifts to men. We have all received a gift. It does not matter how new you are, it does not matter how small you are, it does not matter how uneducated you are; God can use you if you dare to use His glory, separate yourself from the crowd, separate yourself from what is generic, and begin asking the Lord, fasting, and asking God for a calling for your life. Believe it. And keep knocking on God’s door until God sends His fire down into your life and transforms you into a man or woman filled with the Holy Spirit. But do not remain—do not remain on the shore. Do not remain with the crowd; do not remain among the masses, because there you will die and waste God’s blessing for your life. And you will never enter the destiny God has determined for you. In the name of Jesus, right now I release the minds of God’s people so that they may understand, so that their eyes may be opened, so that the veil may be removed from their understanding, so that they may be awakened to understand that God is calling them to fulfill a purpose, to reach a goal. May they become restless; may they not be allowed to sleep or rest until they seek the glory of God and find God’s calling for their lives. In the name of Jesus, hallelujah! Receive that tonight. God is calling you. God wants you to come out from among the masses and enter a level of power and effectiveness. Dare to do it in the name of the Lord. That is the word of the Lord for your life. Dare to believe that God has a calling for your life, and begin taking steps of faith—small ones at first, but they will become greater and greater, firmer and firmer, more and more confident; and if you are faithful in little, you will be put in charge of much, says the Lord.

But we have to leave what is comfortable; we have to leave what is commonplace; we have to come out of the slumber in which many of us are immersed. And then comes the call to service, and the Lord says to Peter, “Peter, allow Me to use your boat so that I can speak to the crowd,” and there is something wonderful there that reveals something to us about how God works to carry the message to the nations and the multitudes. Notice that there was a great need: the people were hungry for the Word of God; they were like sheep without a shepherd, the Word says. The religious leaders had failed them; they had turned God’s revelation into dead religion. Instead of drawing people to God, the Pharisees had driven them away and alienated them with a pile of commandments and laws, and it was a dead religion, full of the letter, but the Spirit of God had departed from that letter years before, and all they had left, then, were prohibitions. And religion had become something for the privileged, those who had studied, those who were athletes of religion, respectable people, “good” people, in quotation marks, decent people, middle-class and upper-class people; and we know that God is not there, cannot be there, because His revelation is for everyone, for the great and the small. But Pharisaism had failed Him; Judaism had failed God and failed the people.

And when Jesus comes in His power, expressing a living faith, a personal spirituality, and a Gospel of hope and good news, people sense in their spirits that there is something in this being that the Pharisees do not have. You see that there were continually people who passionately followed Jesus because at some point He had touched them with His message of life and hope and love and redemption; and those people who had felt rejected and hopeless because of the religious leaders, and who thought that God neither needed nor wanted them—and, what is more, that He despised them—suddenly had their spirits awakened and felt that there was a possible calling for their lives, that there was hope for them. And when they expected to receive condemnation from Christ, what they received was love and grace and forgiveness and hope.

And that is why, in the pages of Scripture, we see this woman who approaches Jesus. She was a woman of ill repute, a woman whom everyone rejected; when she walked through the streets, they muttered and whispered about her. Women saw her coming, grabbed their husbands, and took them to the other side of the street. And it seems that this woman was touched by Christ and by His message of hope, and that woman felt that there was a possibility for her.

We have to open doors so that people can come. Once they come in, then we teach them, after we have shown them that there is possibility in Christ, that they do not have to do it themselves, but rather the Spirit of God in them, and that God will redeem them, God will change them; it is not you or I or the church that will change sinners. When a church is being eminently evangelistic, it will have some enormous problems for which it will not find manuals telling you, “How do I deal with this? I have never seen this situation before in my life.” Why? Because God will be bringing people with all kinds of problems and strange and difficult situations, and you will need the Holy Spirit and the grace of God in order to resolve them. Why? Because that is what God wants. Christ came to seek what was lost. Christ is not interested in people who have everything resolved and all their papers in order. God wants the people who come with every conceivable problem so that the church may resolve them. Christ says to the church, “You give them something to eat.” A church that is being used by God is a church that will have problems, and glory to God for that. Dead churches are the ones that do not have problems, but a church that has the life of God will have challenges and must be prepared. That is why God says to the church, “Wake up!” because we are living in a time with so many problems, and people will come bound with all kinds of bondage; and if you want a church that is very clean and pretty, where no one breaks a glass and everyone behaves well, you are not flowing in the will of God. Because if you look at Christ, He was always surrounded by people whom respectable people did not want. Zacchaeus, tax collectors, women of ill repute, people with bad tempers like Peter, etc., etc.—the Lord was always surrounded by the kind of people with whom most of us do not want to be seen on the street.

But what I want to say, brothers and sisters, is that this woman came to Jesus because the Lord had given her hope. Instead of rejecting her, instead of judging her, instead of punishing her, the Lord told her, “Look, you can come out of that life. As God uses you and works in your life, He can break your bonds and turn you into a respectable woman, a counselor, a wife.” And that woman felt such gratitude toward Jesus that she sought Him until she found Him in the house of Simon the Pharisee, and she came and brought expensive perfume in an alabaster jar, broke the neck of the jar, and poured the perfume over the Lord; and with her tears she wet the Lord’s feet, and with her own hair she dried the Lord’s feet. Why? Because she had received hope, because the Gospel Christ preached was a Gospel of blessing; and when there is a church that preaches blessing and grace and love and potential and the possibility of transformation, and the power of God to change lives and transform generations and bring prosperity and holiness and power and authority over yokes and bonds, that church will prosper, and people will come to it; they will want to find that church.

And that is why, when the Lord is there, the crowd came to Him and pressed around Him and threw themselves upon Him, because the Pharisees did not preach that way. If you are filled with the glory of God, if you spend time with God, if you are close to Jesus, you will be contagious, and the same thing that happened to Jesus will happen to you: people will seek you out, and you will not be able to have any peace because they will be knocking on the neighbor’s door so that you can give her some advice; the person who has a marital problem will seek you out so that you can pray for him. And they will ask you to take them to church instead of your having to beg them to go, because the power of the Holy Spirit will be manifested in your life. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ says, “Abide in Me, abide in Me and I in you, and you will bear much fruit.”

Brothers and sisters, bearing fruit comes as a result of abiding in Christ, of having intimacy with Him, of getting Christ inside us and our getting inside Christ. And then the vitality of Jesus, the very style of Jesus, the attractiveness of Jesus, is transmitted through us, and we become magnetic people to whom others come. And God makes us fruitful, and we go from being barren, as we were saying last night, to living among a family. Because God delights in turning our barrenness into fruitfulness and blessing. That is why there are so many barren people in Scripture, so many barren women whom God turned into fruitful women, and many of the great leaders we see in the Bible are born of barren women: Samuel, from Hannah; John the Baptist, from Elizabeth; Jesus, from Mary, who, although she was not barren, could not conceive because she was not yet a wife; Isaac, whom Sarah bears as a son. Why does God always use barren women to bring forth His great leaders? Because God says to humanity, “I want to turn your barrenness into fruit. I want to take your barren, unproductive, powerless life, at the mercy of circumstances and under the devil’s yoke, and turn that life into an instrument for My glory. I want to turn you into a man, a woman, who can bless others, who can be used to bring redemption to humanity. I want you to give life. I want you to give birth to spiritual children. I want to change your name from Abram to Abraham, father of multitudes. I want to change your name from Sarai to Sarah, a woman who lives among a family, a mother.”

God wants to change your name; God wants to change your identity, and the Lord is looking for people whom He can impregnate—forgive me for using such a graphic word—impregnating us with His life so that we may give birth to children and bring others to the knowledge of Jesus. But there is a price to pay. We must cling to Jesus. We must be filled with His life. We cannot be used. The Lord Jesus Christ wants us to become impregnated with His personality, which is an eminently fruitful personality. That is why, wherever Jesus went, miracles went with Him, revelation went with Him, comfort went with Him, healing went with Him, the multiplication of resources went with Him, and the word of potential that gave life to people, broke their bonds, and overcame death went with Him; and the Lord is saying, “I want that same life for you. I want you to be like Me. I want to transfer My genetic code to you so that you too may be a giver of life, so that you too may be a transmitter of the Father’s grace, but you have to come out from among the masses.”

And that is why, when the Lord is there preaching, the people come toward Him; the people seek Him because they were hungry and knew that He had something to give them that the institutional, religious church could not give them. Yesterday I spoke with an eminent physician here in Mexico who went to visit Boston; there he came to know the Lord in our church. He lives in Morelia, and when he learned that I was going to be here, he came and honored me with his visit here, and he brought another eminent physician from here in Mérida; and he spoke precisely about his life and all the ways God is now opening up his life, bringing about transformations in him, and drawing him closer to the Lord.

That is the idea: God wants to touch people and bring them to the knowledge of the Lord, stir them up, and turn them into people who, in turn, can bring others to the knowledge of Jesus. And above all he was saying this, because he is a new believer; he was talking... And look, brothers and sisters, I have nothing against the Catholic Church. I believe there are many people of God in the Catholic Church. I do not know what their theology is, and I respect it, but I believe there are Catholics who are going to heaven, shoes and all, because it is not a matter of religion; it is a matter of a relationship with Jesus Christ. But many of their leaders have failed them, and that is why they are having the problems they have. But there are also many evangelicals—many in my country right now—who are supporting abortion and supporting homosexuality, churches that call themselves evangelical and are receiving all kinds of people and telling them, “Continue in your sins.” They do not even call it sin: there is no problem, because God loves you this way. And those people are as far from God, those churches are as far from the will of God, as the Catholics are. Being evangelical does not give them the privilege of violating the Word of God.

But this man, this physician, was saying about... He says there is an immense cathedral there in Morelia, and everyone goes there, and what they do, he says, is read the Bible for a few minutes, and what the priest does is read it literally and does not even explain it. And everything ends there, and the people leave without having received the word of life, and they leave just as they came in. I hope God brings revival to the Catholic Church. I hope God awakens it and that they may enter into vitality. It is not that we are speaking against them; they are people whom God loves, and there are many people there who love God, but their vision has failed them. And where we need to be is where the word of life is being preached; and wherever that word of life is preached, people will come, and wherever there are people who have an understanding of God and an experience with Christ, with the personal Christ, those people will be effective. And that is why the people come to where Jesus is, and they are there. And then Jesus has a dilemma: How do I reach these people?

You see, when a church is filled with the Holy Spirit, it is going to have problems, and the problem will not be, “We don’t have people,” but rather, “We have too many people, and how are we going to solve the problem?” That is the kind of problem that I, as a pastor, want to have. Right now, back in Boston, we have that problem. We built a church ten years ago, and it enabled us to move to another level, and we had to go to two services. We already have two services, and it is already clear to us that even those two services are not enough, and we have to be thinking and racking our brains about what the next level is. And that is where we are right now. I had a conversation with Dr. Diehl this morning: What do we do? Do we build a new sanctuary—and we are in that process—do we rent, what do we do, do we spend millions of dollars on a new sanctuary, what happens, what are the....? Problems arise when God is using you, when the power of God is in your life, when your church is experiencing the glory of God. You are going to have problems, but they are going to be good problems. I would rather have the problem of what I am going to do with the people than have no people with whom to do anything. Do you understand?

And when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, your problem is going to be, “I have too many people; they are looking for me; I have to hide. Because I get home and they are already waiting there to ask me for advice and ask me to pray with them.” That was Jesus’ problem: wherever He went, the people were already waiting for Him. Do you remember? He sent His disciples out, they had been working, and He said, “Let’s go somewhere on vacation; let’s go to Playa del Mar—or is it Playa del Carmen?—Playa del Carmen; let’s go to Acapulco.” The Lord told them, “Boys...” because the Lord liked to rest from time to time. Your pastors should also have time to rest. Say amen. We have to refresh ourselves; we have to seek that out. But what happened? When they got there, somehow the people had already discovered where they were going to be, and when they arrived, there they all were, smiling and waiting for Him. “Lord, how wonderful that You came! We were waiting for You. Glory to God.”

That is the problem of people who have the anointing of God. People are going to be looking for them because there is need in this world. In your neighborhood there are people stewing in their own juices every day, with problems, financial difficulties, marital problems, problems with their children, problems at work, health problems, existential problems, problems from the past, problems in the present and problems in the future, problems with their boss, problems with their friends and problems with their enemies. And they need counsel; they need a redemptive word, and that word is in your mouth because you know the God who can solve problems. And God wants you to share that word. And when people know that there is a believer filled with the Holy Spirit, those people will flock to where that person is. That is why we need Christians filled with the Holy Spirit. We need people skilled in warfare so that they can wage war on behalf of the poor, the powerless and the defenseless whom the devil has under his yoke in every neighborhood of the city of Mérida. And God needs women like the three I see right here. You sisters, God wants to use you; He is going to use you in the name of Jesus. You represent that humble Mérida which needs God’s voice and His presence in the neighborhoods of this city so that you may preach the Gospel of power and transformation in your lives. God has a calling for you; enter into your calling and let yourselves be used by the Lord. Become counselors, spiritual mothers and teachers of the Gospel. Right now, in the name of Jesus, I release the power, the potential of God into your spiritual wombs; I declare you anointed in the name of the Lord to be used mightily by God. Receive the endowment of God’s power in your life.

Brothers and sisters, God wants a redeemed church, a church filled with the Holy Spirit, a church that knows where there is water to drink and where there is bread to eat, and can then tell others, “Come, there is bread here; there is water here. Eat.” But if we have not gone to those sources, how can we lead others there? That is why we must ask the Lord, “Lord, help me enter into intimacy with You.”

And the Lord had that problem: wherever He went, people followed Him. We see it portrayed there, where this passage begins in Luke chapter 5. He has the problem that the people are flocking to where He is, and He looks around, and His divine mind tells Him what He must do, and He sees a boat. Brothers and sisters, these passages are so profound that one could spend a great deal of time expounding them, and thank God that I am going to respect your time and will not do that. But there are so many things because, look, for example, if you give me a couple more minutes, is that all right?

The Lord saw the boat, and I have always said that the Lord is the Creator of the universe and He could have amplified His voice if He had wanted to. You know that He had the power to do it, yes or no? He did not need this microphone. On one occasion, some people came to collect taxes from Him, and He told Peter, I believe it was, “Go to the sea, take out a fish, and there you will find some coins. Go and pay with that.” I think the Lord was laughing; He was making a joke out of it. Because afterward He said, “Hey, who pays taxes? Is it the citizens, the ordinary citizens, or the sons of kings? Well, obviously, the citizens do; kings do not pay taxes.” The Lord was saying, “See, I do not have to pay taxes.” But so that Scripture might be fulfilled and the law respected, “Go and pay it, all right, boys.” But He winked at the disciples, using a supernatural means to pay the taxes. Do you see? He had the power to do whatever He pleased.

He could have preached the Gospel supernaturally with an amplified voice. In fact, He could have risen ten feet into the air and preached to the people without any problem. But what did He do? He sought a human, natural solution to the problem, and He found a boat, and He found a man who owned that boat, and He asked that man to let Him use it. And do you know what? If God had wanted to, He could have developed a much more economical plan for preaching the Gospel. He could have sent a mighty archangel with a trumpet-like voice, who neither eats nor sleeps nor sins, and sent him to preach the entire Gospel throughout the whole world, and the world would have been converted in a few days, yes or no? Imagine an archangel appearing to you and saying, “Receive the Lord.” Are you going to tell him, “Well, let me think about it”? You would immediately throw yourself to the floor and say, “Where, where, where do I have to go?” But God chose a plan; He chose to use us; He chose a humble way to carry it out, because God always wants to cooperate and work in partnership with His creature, which is man, humanity. The Gospel will not be preached if you do not help preach it. That is the plan God developed. And that is why the Lord looked around, and instead of doing the work supernaturally Himself, He sought a man and a boat so that the man would lend Him his boat and He could preach the Gospel.

And I have always said that our lives are like Peter’s boat. And the Lord is always looking for our lives so that He can step into them and preach to the hungry multitude. You are Peter’s boat; I am Peter’s boat; and God is continually approaching believers and saying to them, “Will you let Me use your boat to preach to a hungry multitude?” And you can choose to tell the Lord yes or no, as so many do. And when the Lord comes into their lives and calls them, they play dumb and pretend they did not hear, and they continue doing what they have always done in their lives. They think the Lord did not notice that they turned their faces away from Him, and the Lord leaves them alone and continues loving them, but they missed the great opportunity to be used by God.

Twenty-some years ago, the Lord called me and said, “May I use your boat?” I was in the midst of my studies at Harvard University, one of the most selective universities in the world, eager to enter academia, to distinguish myself academically and to live the elegant, affluent life of a university professor in the United States. That was my dream. I came from a poor family, and at last I had the opportunity to do something outstanding and enter an elegant, intellectual life, and I was eager to continue on that course. And then the Lord interrupted me and said, “I want to use your boat.” And the pastor who had founded our church had to leave, and our church was just getting started, and there would be no one to care for that church. At that time, there was no possibility of finding anyone qualified who could manage a tiny little church that did not even have enough money to pay the pastor part-time. And the Lord spoke to me and said, “I would like to use you to shepherd these lives, so that what is beginning so beautifully will not be lost. And I want to use you. Would you let Me use you?”

I thank the Lord, twenty-some years later, that I had the courage to say, “Yes, Lord.” And I left my nets for the glory of God. God gave me the joy, privilege and satisfaction of completing my doctorate in the secular world, but I believe it has been twenty years since I read a book of literature—that was my field—because I devoted myself to the pastorate. And I tell you, brothers and sisters, God owes me nothing; God has been more than generous with me. For every little thing I have given Him, God has given me far more in return, and He has blessed me and made me a father of multitudes. And every time I see a man who was an alcoholic and a drug addict now lucid, sane, well-dressed and living a productive life—and I was used by the Lord so that his life could improve and be healed—I feel glorified, I feel blessed, I feel, “What a privilege that God can use me to redeem a life!” And that man is a book. I may not have managed to write the books I wanted to write, but that man is a living book that I have helped to write.

As Paul says, “You are my open letters.” My books are the people whom God has helped me redeem through the power of the Gospel. And I left what I loved, and I left what I would have liked to do, but that brings me no glory. As I say, God owes me nothing. God has repaid me far more than I ever would have imagined. Perhaps He has not paid me with money, but He has paid me with happiness, satisfaction, a sense of destiny, the privilege of being used by God to bless human beings, of being an instrument through which the blessed, pure and holy grace of God flows. What a privilege that, for an instant, the divine energy that blesses and gives life can flow through you and pause for a thousandth of a second so that you can use it to bless others!

That is why, when Peter sees the glory of the Lord, the Lord tells him, “Do not worry; from now on you will be a fisher of men.” Because when you allow yourself to be used by the Lord, God changes your destiny and elevates it. You could simply be doing merely human things that remain here on earth. I was telling someone today that nothing in this world is going to leave this world, because the Bible says that one day God will set the elements ablaze; the very atoms that compose matter will catch fire, the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll, and the earth will burn in flames. And God will create a new earth and a new heaven, because nothing that has been touched by sin can enter that pure dimension where God has determined that we will live for eternity. And this earth and this universe—the Bible says that “creation itself groans with inexpressible groanings because there is sin within it.” Sin has stained creation, and therefore all the works of this world will remain behind. Nothing you have done in this world will go with you: not the paintings in the great museums of this world, nor the great skyscrapers, nor the shiny cars on the streets, nor the dollars in all the banks of the world, nor the statues sculptors have made throughout all the centuries. None of that will survive. No book that has been written, no great work that has been done, no building that has been erected—nothing will enter eternity. The only things that will enter eternity are those investments you have made for the Kingdom of God.

That is why the Bible tells us to invest in banks where things do not decay, where rust does not penetrate, where insects do not enter, where there are no termites, because those material things will remain here. The only things you will be able to claim for eternity are those works that God allowed you to do to bring others to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And that is why God tells you, “Do not get excited about the things of this world. Let Me use you, because that is what will give you a new identity and raise you to a much higher level. Everything else will remain here.” You could spend your entire life like Peter, catching smelly fish and smelling like fish all your life, or you can become a fisher of men so that, two thousand years after your lifetime, people in Mérida, Mexico, are still talking about you, as we are talking about that humble fisherman. And that is why the Lord, when He finishes..... I will finish with this thought.....

When Peter allows Him to use his boat, having put it out a little from the land—because in order to communicate God’s message, you have to withdraw from the crowd, you have to set yourself apart, you have to seek out times alone, you have to distance yourself from people’s influence, from people’s control, from worrying about what they will say, what they think of me, the prestige we desire, people’s approval. When we withdraw from all that, we put out into deep water and enter into that place of intimacy where the Lord can speak to us, where the Lord can give us His revelation; and there the Lord reveals to us who He is, and there the Lord provides for us.

Peter had spent the entire night fishing, and they had not caught a single fish, but now the Lord tells him, “Look, I am going to bless you spiritually, and I am also going to bless you materially.” When you serve the Lord, God provides for you. I assure you. One of the reasons I did not want to be a pastor was that I thought I was going to starve to death. And I tell you, brothers and sisters, God has been faithful to me all these years; I have lacked nothing, and God has blessed us far more than I would have imagined when I began. Because God blesses His servants. I believe God does not call you to starve to death; God calls you to bless you, but you have to be faithful and you have to pay the price. And God changes your destiny. I want to ask you whether you would like to surrender your boat to the Lord tonight. I am going to ask the musicians to come up here.

God is calling Peters tonight to serve Him and for Him to use them for His glory, to use them as instruments in His glory, and you have the power to say yes or no to the Lord. If you want to be used by God, there is a price to pay. You will have to live as a priestess, as a priest. You will have to be a Nazirite; you will not be able to live like the people in the crowd. There is a price to pay. But I assure you that nothing can compare with the privileged status of a priest of the Lord. Such a person lives in a dimension different from everyone else, keeping and setting themselves apart so that the Lord may speak to them and permeate them with His life, so that they may then go out and give from what they have cultivated in that place of intimacy with the Lord. You will have to exempt yourself from many things. You will have to live the life of an athlete, of a consecrated priest. You will have to orient your life toward your calling, and you will have to align your life with the calling God has given you so that you can flow in the power of God and remain ever attentive to God’s voice and training, but you will be a fisherwoman, a fisher of men. You will see the glory of God manifested in your life, and you will nurse at God’s breasts. You will eat at His table. You will feel the word of God speaking into your life, and what greater privilege could there be than that? It is worth paying the price. It is worth leaving the shore. It is worth going out into deep water, because there is blessing in those places. If you want to be used by God, I ask you to stand up. Do not do it out of courtesy, but do it because you truly feel that the Lord is calling you tonight to be a priest, a servant of the Lord. If you do not feel ready, do not stand up; but if you feel that you want God to do that work in your life and use you, I ask you to stand up tonight.

And I would also like to ask whether there is anyone here tonight—I do not know everyone here, but perhaps someone has come tonight who has not yet taken a step of faith to enter into intimacy with Jesus Christ, who is still with the crowd and does not know Jesus, just as Peter did not yet know who Jesus was. And tonight the Lord has spoken to you and said, “Daughter, son, I want to have a relationship with you. I want you to open your heart and let Me enter your life and accept Me as your Lord, so that I may draw up a plan with you. I want to heal you. I want to cleanse you, and I want to give you a new name. I want you to dwell with Me in eternity, and I want to have conversations with you, and I care about your life. I want you to open your heart and let Me enter your life, because when I knock at the door, if you hear My voice and open the door, I promise you that I will come in and dine with you, and you will dine with Me.”

I want to ask whether there is anyone tonight who wants to say to Jesus, “Come into my life,” and wants to invite Him to be the Lord of their life. I ask you to raise your hand if you have not done so before. I see a hand there. Did you raise your hand? Do not be afraid, do not be afraid. Amen. God bless you. A hand is being raised here too, right over here. Is there anyone else who would say to Jesus, “I receive You tonight, Lord, as my Lord and Savior”? You have not done it before. God bless you. Hands are being raised, hands are being raised.

Dare to do it in the name of the Lord. God has a plan for your life. God is calling you tonight. God wants to turn you from a mere fisher of fish into a fisher of men and women. God wants to give you a new identity. Raise your hand and say to the Lord Jesus, “Come into my life.”

I want to invite those people to come forward. Do not be afraid. If you came with someone, come up here with that person; have them come forward with you. Do not be afraid. This is the family of God. You are not among strangers. This is the Father’s family gathered here, and God wants to bless you tonight, and God wants to turn you into a fisherwoman of women. Come over here right away. Do not be afraid. Come here. You took the first step by raising your hand; now have the courage to come to the front. And we are going to pray for you, and your life will change tonight, and you will be transformed into a different person because the Spirit of God will enter your life. If there is anyone else, do not hold back; come now.

The Word says that today is the day of salvation; now is the moment when Christ wants to do a work in your life. Do not hold back. Come forward, receive, and open your heart to the Lord, and God will do great things in your life. I assure you that you are not here by coincidence or because you had nowhere else to go; you are here because the Holy Spirit brought you, because He has an encounter appointed with you tonight. If there is still anyone else, I want to invite you. Come, come over here. That’s it, young man; do not be afraid. There is still time; God wants to do a work. Even if you may not understand everything, even if everything is not clear in your mind, do not worry. Sometimes we say, “Well, first I have to straighten this out, I have to straighten that out, I have to straighten out my situation.” No, no, the Lord says, “Come just as you are; come with your problems, come with your obstacles, come with your difficulties, and then let us begin working together to take you where I want to take you.”

If you had all your problems solved and everything in order, you would not need Christ. It is precisely because you have obstacles and difficulties that you need to come to the feet of Jesus. And although you do not understand all the theology and all the doctrine involved in this, what matters is that you know that Christ died for you and that He says, “If you let Me in, I will enter your life, heal your life, write your name in the Book of Life, and give you a new identity.” That is all; everything else will be added in due course. It comes through walking with Him, through your dealings with Him, through the conversation you will have over many, many years as you come to know fully what Christ wants to do in your life. But tonight what He wants is for you to make a connection with Him and then begin a pilgrimage that will take you where He wants to lead you.

Say with me: Lord Jesus, I receive You as my Savior and as the owner of my life. I acknowledge my sins, and I thank You because through Your cross I have forgiveness for my sins. I break every agreement with Satan and establish a covenant with You. You are the owner of everything I have and everything I am. Come into my life, transform me, and teach me what You want from me. Thank You, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. Glory to the Lord. Give the Lord a round of applause tonight. Hallelujah! We worship You. We bless You. Now I want you to know that even if you did not feel anything, if you invited Jesus to come in, He came in, He came in, because He says, “I will come in. I will come in. If anyone opens the door, I will come in, dine with him, and he with Me.”

Sermon Archive