Elements of a Powerful Life

I want to sow into the lives of my brothers and sisters principles for living that will bless them not only at this moment and on this journey, but also general principles for life, and I want to take you to one of my signature passages, one of my favorite passages, found in Ecclesiastes chapter 11, verses 1 through 6. This is one of the passages that shapes my life and my ministry, and that I often share when I have the opportunity to speak with leaders.

And I titled this sermon: Elements of a Powerful Life, elements of a powerful life. And it is found, as I said, in Ecclesiastes 11, and it says here: “Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days”—notice what it says there: after how many days, one day, two days? Are you here, my brothers and sisters?—“after many days you will find it. Cast it and trust,” because after many days, after a long time has passed, you will find it again. But the implication is that you will not only find again what you cast out, but you will find it multiplied, enlarged, and grown. After many days you will find it.

It says: “Give portions to seven, and even to eight.” For me, there is a principle there, and if I do not get around to addressing it, I want you at least to hold on to it for a moment now: generosity. Generosity toward everyone. It says that the generous soul will prosper, as we saw last Sunday. Our life is sometimes a life of generosity, of sharing our possessions. That idea that what is mine is mine, and that I am like soil that absorbs everything and shares nothing, is the easiest road to poverty, both spiritual and material. The generous person is the one who gives to different causes, different people, and different needs; that person prospers.

And it says: “Give portions to seven, and even to eight, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the earth.” It is an invitation to say, “You know what? Since I do not know exactly which is best, this or that, let me distribute a little here and a little there.” You know, one of the things I have learned in life is that you should always be sowing in different ways. Whenever there is an opportunity to invest, meet someone, go to a meeting, or share the gifts of the Church with someone—that is why we always believe in sharing.

If some city agency calls us, if some positive cause related to the Kingdom of God calls us and it operates in harmony with our principles, these spaces are available for those purposes. And we sow and distribute because we do not know when the blessing may come. Take this brother who came here today, for example, John Barrows. Well, he may win or he may not win. First of all, we are performing a civic duty, because the Church, besides being an institution that looks toward eternity, has its roots in time and space, in the here and now, and it is supposed to be a life-giving leaven for communities and society, and to shape the world through its values. That is why it is also important for people to come here, hear our worship, hear our passion for the Lord, see what a people who praise and glorify the Lord are like, feel the energy and be saturated with that energy, and be touched by it. That is an eminently evangelistic and radical act.

But one day that person may become the mayor of Boston, or he may simply return to his job as the executive director of a very influential agency in the city, and now he knows us. At some point—not that we do it for that reason, but this is often how it happens—at some point that act, that investment, may come back to bless us. Meanwhile, the shrunken Church focuses only on one tiny piece of the Kingdom and takes its talent and refuses to risk it because: “Oh, we are a holy community; nothing that might defile us can touch us.” No, holiness is made of iron; holiness is made of stainless steel; holiness is made of Teflon—nothing sticks to it. I believe that when our holiness is rooted in Christ Jesus, we are indestructible. The Lord had a conversation directly with the devil, and I believe He came out of it just as pure and holy as He was before the conversation.

I believe in an untouchable, powerful Church that can afford to take certain risks. The alternative is the Church acting like the unfaithful servant: it takes its talent and puts it under the mattress so it will not be lost. The Lord says, “At least put it to work; invest it in something, man.” Churches and lives, brothers and sisters—if you want to live a successful life, take risks. Listen to me: you have to take risks, and sometimes you have to put yourself in situations that will make you afraid and frighten you, and sometimes you will have to ask yourself, “Lord, am I doing Your will? I hope so, because my heart is devoted to You.”

The person who plays it safe is not going anywhere; that person is like the unfaithful servant who merely holds on to his little talent. For example, there are brothers and sisters—and let me take advantage of this moment; no, our Anglican project—there are dear brothers and sisters who are accustomed to Yiye Ávila, and that is it. Anything other than Yiye and the pre-tribulation rapture is not from God, and they have never ventured beyond their world from 1980 onward. Sometimes we believe that the Gospel spans from 1985 to 2013. The Gospel and the Church of Christ are 2,000 years old, and the Church is all over the world. It has had different streams, and different things have happened within it, but you have to read; you have to venture beyond your little world. Many times, we live with a poverty mentality and never venture beyond our world.

Someday, if you can, go to Europe. Spend your money, let yourself be frightened, go to Europe, struggle a little, discover something new and different, and come away enriched. Do not always go to the Dominican Republic; you already know that. Go to another country, expand your world, take risks, get a few scares, get a ticket—it does not matter—but go, and then expand your life. Expose your children to other things, while always keeping your heart pure toward God.

We take risks as a Church because there is a prophetic vision. If you have a pastor who has a prophetic vision and lives what he believes, then you are going to have some scares with him. And there are things I undertake in the name of the Lord because I believe God gave me a vision, and I do them, but my heart is always seeking to please the Lord. This is not a Church that plays it safe, but I assure you that we are always trying to hear the voice of God and remain close to Him.

But then it is important to give portions to seven, and even to eight, because you do not know where the blessing will be or how it will come. It says: “If the clouds are full of water, they will pour rain upon the earth; whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie. Whoever watches the wind will not sow, and whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.” There is so much richness in this passage. I tell you, I could spend six months preaching on it, but I am going to restrain the impulse to linger there because I simply want to give you an overview.

The verse says: “Just as you do not know the path of the wind or how the bones grow in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you do not understand the work of God, who makes all things.” It would take a long time to explain, but the writer begins with man’s powerlessness, with his inability to control certain processes of human life, and moves toward this vision: precisely for that reason, instead of letting yourself be held back and frozen by fear, precisely because you do not control the world or life, sow; undertake great things; be bold; dare, because that is the condition of the world.

And if you start thinking about what might fail, what might go wrong, the mistakes that may be made along the way, the stumbling blocks you may encounter, and the demons that will appear before you if you undertake something great, you will never do it—never—because there are mysteries in the world, and the more complex each process is, the more mysterious it becomes and the less control you have over the final outcome. But you still have to move forward with a broad, generous, bold, enterprising vision, trusting that your God is with you and that, as the Word of the Lord says, none who trust in Him will be put to shame. That is the hallmark of a powerful and successful person.

It says, returning to its original vision: “In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not let your hand rest, for you do not know which is better, this or that, or whether both are equally good.” Draw power from your powerlessness—that is essentially the point, but that is another matter, isn’t it?

So there are many principles here in Scripture, many teachings that teach us to live a powerful, successful life, full of accomplishments. The Bible is full of those principles. And what is a successful life? you may ask me. Well, I would say it is a life characterized by continual personal growth. That, to me, is success: a life characterized by the individual’s continual development and improvement, always discovering new horizons; a continual development of new skills and new knowledge; discovering new challenges for your life, your home, and your work. It is a restless life. To me, the successful person is just that: an arrow always traveling toward its target. It is a person who is not content to remain where he is, but is always in a continual state of personal improvement.

Notice that I mentioned neither money nor fame, because to me a person can have money and fame and still be a failure. Just yesterday I was reading an article about Floyd, um—ah, I have forgotten this boxer’s name. Does anyone know? Mayweather, yes. You know, the luxury in which this man lived, the way this man squandered money, is unbelievable. The writer says that this man never wears the same pair of underwear twice, and they show him in a photograph buying jewelry for his daughter at one of Manhattan’s exclusive establishments. He always travels with dozens of people, and it says that everywhere he goes there is always this squandering of money; it is something terrible. At that very moment, he was negotiating for a three-million-dollar ring.

And the way this man throws money away is unbelievable. It is excessive and sinful, almost obscene, but I believe it reveals his ignorance. He is a tremendously successful boxer, one of the greatest in boxing history. But to me, living that way constitutes failure, unless there is something else he is doing that does not appear in the article, which is quite exhaustive. Money is not what makes a person successful.

For me, I measure success in terms of significance and impact. The successful person sets goals and remains committed to them until he reaches them, no matter how long it takes or how many obstacles or detours arise along the way. That is why the writer says, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days...” The successful person is someone who has that capacity, who has a vision of greatness, significance, accomplishment, productivity, personal growth, and positive impact on life; of overcoming his sins, bondages, deformities, fears, and defects. And his life is a continual declaration: “I want to be more for God; I want to be more, because being more is the only thing that justifies existence.”

So, to me, that is a powerful life, a successful life. It may be the life of a very poor person, yet there may be a hidden giant within. And that is why you have to conceive the vision and establish specific goals, because every great goal takes time to achieve. No great goal is ever achieved without struggle, setbacks, and small failures—none. Someone has said that no battle plan survives the first battle intact. Great strategists may conceive a complete vision of how the war will unfold, but from the moment the boots hit the battlefield and the first shot is fired, adjustments must be made. Things did not go well; a helicopter crashed and several people were killed, and that changed the entire dynamic.

But then you have to keep moving forward. There is a goal, but there is also a process between that goal and the moment when you begin pursuing it. That is why the writer speaks of this, doesn’t he? Again: cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it. By the way, this image of casting our bread upon the waters is an image that carries a certain meaning, because if you throw bread into the water, it will get wet and fall apart too, right? It is the image of merchant ships in ancient times that traded over great distances and had to travel for a long time, right?

So a ship could leave Israel loaded with wood and precious metals and travel to Turkey or Spain or wherever, spending many months sailing across the oceans and the sea. It would arrive at that other place and exchange the bread—the things it carried aboard the ship—for spices, fabrics, and other kinds of metals, and then return with the profit. So that is the idea: cast your property and your possessions upon the waters. Yes, that is what we have to do with our skills, dreams, and human relationships, with what God has placed in our hearts. We have to cast it upon the waters; we have to cast it out; we have to let it go. Many times, we have to cast out our children. Sometimes we wish they would sink and stay down there so they would not bother us anymore, but we have to let them go so they can fend for themselves and accomplish things, and then grow into capable adults and take care of us in our old age—but that is another matter, isn’t it?

You have to invest for the long term, you have to invest for the long term, you have to take things and risk them. As you can see here, the writer talks about that—things that are beyond our control; we have no control over them. When you cast your bread upon the waters, you will not necessarily be able to control it, because the waters may become stormy, or you may make a navigational error and take longer to reach your destination, or perhaps you will not earn what you expected to earn and will earn less and come back with less than you set out with. There are many things that can happen, but that should not discourage you or keep you from undertaking great and ambitious things in life.

In life there will be gains and there will be losses. No batter bats a thousand, as far as I know—perhaps you can correct me. There has never been a batter who, over the long term, bats a thousand, and if a batter bats .300, .320, or .350, he is a genius, and they pay him $50 million a year or whatever, because getting a hit one out of every three times is an incredible achievement. That means that two out of three times you struck out, were put out, or whatever; nevertheless, if you succeed one out of three times, that is a lot.

In every endeavor there is loss; in every endeavor there are detours, and many times you are going to undertake things and lose your way, but what you have to do is brush off your knees and keep moving forward. Next time you may gain what you needed and recover what you lost.

So do not let yourself be discouraged by failures that are not failures; they are stepping-stones toward greatness. Learn from failure, ask yourself why you suffered that setback, what lesson you can learn, and then move forward stronger, wiser, more dangerous to the devil than ever, and more capable of blessing others.

Without failures there is no greatness, you know? What you have instead is superficiality. Failure, pain, and struggle are what make a man textured, with layers of complexity. Pain is required in order to be great in life; failure is required as well. So do not become discouraged because you did not achieve the goal immediately.

Great visions take a long time to achieve. The greater the vision, the longer it often takes and the longer the process lasts. That is why you must equip yourself with long-term vision—write that down: long-term vision. To me, that is one of the great skills of a successful man or woman. If you are not capable of thinking long term, look, do not even leave your house; get on welfare or receive Social Security or whatever, but do not undertake anything great, because every great enterprise, every great endeavor—these words from Habakkuk chapter 2 come to mind: “And the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, so that he who reads it may run. Though the vision will take some time, it hastens toward the end and will not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come.” Hallelujah.

If you conceived a vision, look, you are going to need patience. Again and again, the successful person has to exercise that skill or ability to think in terms of months or years, or even an entire lifetime. Many of history’s great achievements were accomplished by men and women who spent their entire lives pursuing one or two achievements, and they are known for that, but they devoted themselves to one vision all their lives. Right now I am watching a movie about John Addams, a movie that dramatizes the life of John Addams, one of the great patriots in American history.

And how this man became deformed and lost so many opportunities to live a peaceful life with his incredible wife, Abigail Addams, and made many mistakes, and was such a passionate man that at times he was socially awkward and other things, but he devoted his entire life to founding and laying the foundations of this nation. He lived to see it, but he went through so many things; nevertheless, he made it. And we could mention many others—Wilberford and Abraham Lincoln gave up their lives for a vision.

Sometimes it takes a very long time, and you have to think in terms of months and years and an entire lifetime. In fact, sometimes you have to die and pass the baton to someone else so that person can complete it, and you will not see the glory; your children will see it, or a protégé of yours, or someone you mentored, and your glory will be to see yourself carried on in the life of another person in whom you invested.

What does Hebrews chapter 11 say? “That many of these died without seeing what they had longed for, because it was for us and not for them.” They were simply a bridge over which the Spirit of God passed on His way to us, and their glory lay in being that—like the donkey on which Jesus Christ rode, whose glory at that moment was to feel the weight of the Desire of All Nations upon its back, and that moment was its glory. If anyone knows the donkey’s name, tell me, because it is nowhere to be found. And sometimes our life is just that: simply something we leave behind. My desire, my glory, would be for this church to continue until Christ comes, and even if I am six feet underground, for the vision that has been sown and the efforts that have been made to continue in others. I am not necessarily interested in enjoying it myself; it is for others, it is for you, it is for your children. It takes time.

We would like to enjoy it, but it may be for another time, right? That is why you need to see and visualize what you desire in three dimensions and in high definition, and keep it in view all the time until it becomes a reality. When you conceive a goal, whatever it may be—buying a house, learning English, getting your driver’s license, having productive children in society who graduate from high school or college, earning a master’s degree or a doctorate, buying yourself a little house in Guatemala, learning to make a good tortilla, or whatever—you form a goal.

I have been learning to make bread, and I have already ruined several batches of dough, but I have also had some great successes. Poor Meche gets up in the morning and the counter is covered with flour and other things, and there I am kneading bread, but I have set my mind to it. And my goal is to make a good croissant one day. That is the goal I have, because it is not easily achieved; it requires a great deal of attention to detail, a great deal of practice, and all that.

I have not even attempted it yet, because I know it is currently beyond my skill level, and I want to learn how to knead dough. I have said that learning to make bread is one of the most important foundations of every kind of food. If you can make good bread, then you can make a host of other things; you are ready to go to heaven—it is like the foundation. So my purpose is this: I want to perfect that skill, and I practice because one day I want to see that croissant steaming, with plenty of butter inside.

And that is what you have to do in your life with whatever you want to achieve: experiment a lot. If you want your driver’s license, perhaps you will blow three or four opportunities, but keep going until you have it in your hands. If you want to become a lawyer and have to pass the bar, how many times? Perhaps you will have to fail once or twice before reaching the goal—four times if you want to get your medical license or whatever, or have it revalidated.

Every good goal, every great—every specific thing, conceive it, see it clearly in your mind, draw it in three dimensions, and then let it remain before you, calling you, calling you. Keep your eyes on it and then move toward it. Align your life—all the dimensions of your life, everything you do each day when you get up, what you watch on television, what you read, the exercise you do, how much you eat, how much you save, the friends you have, what time you go to bed, what time you get up, the nature of your conversations—align everything with that vision, and every day live in light of it.

Those who do not know how to live that way will think you are crazy, and because they do not know your vision intimately, they will think: Why does this guy do that? Why, instead of wasting money going to the movies and buying himself a tub of popcorn and an 18-ounce soda, is he drinking a glass of water? It is because you want to buy a house and you are saving money. And instead of spending 20 dollars on a 32-ounce iced coffee at Donkey Donuts that gives you 400 calories every time you drink it, you learn to make good coffee at home and take it with you in your little thermos.

Because you have a goal, and that goal pulls you and determines what you do in life. That is a powerful and purposeful life. You have to see clearly what you desire, keep it in view all the time until it becomes a reality, and that clear and precise vision will keep you enthusiastic. It will allow you to remain motivated when disappointments, detours, temporary failures, inconveniences, and failure come. The goal—the goal invites you to rise again, and then you can get up determined to continue despite the setbacks.

Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, speaks to us about that in a very spiritual way. Christ submitted Himself to that principle, and every great man or woman submits to that principle of long-term thinking, the alignment of energies, overcoming failures and setbacks, and the ability to rise above discouragement and despondency.

Look, here is a little bonus; let me tell you: one of the most powerful skills for success in life is the ability to deal with boredom. Some people think: No, I want to be a hero; I want savages to eat me and throw me into a pot for Christ, and this and that. Look, many times it is simply a matter of taking a discipleship class and getting there at five or six in the evening during a snowstorm and saying: No, I want to make it to this class because I want to earn my little diploma at the end, and no matter how I feel, I do not care; I am going to overcome myself and exercise discipline and the ability to endure boredom.

Because you get there and perhaps there are three brothers and sisters there, and each one says their little bit about it, and you say: Why am I here? No, you are there because you have a goal, and you are going to get something out of it. Even if you feel bored and discouraged, are cold and tired, and have fought with your wife, you go, you stay there, and you finish. That is why you look at many people and see that they never amount to anything: because they do not know how to deal with the everyday routine of life—with boredom.

Every great endeavor and every great career in life has a large dose of daily boredom. You see doctors there and say: Wow, this guy is amazing; I wish I had that doctor’s life. Look, that doctor has to keep opening stomachs and smelling foul things all the time, and on many occasions he is almost a glorified mechanic, unclogging pipes and fixing valves like a mechanic at Toyota Repairs. He makes more money, that is true, but everything is like that: the lawyer has to deal with paperwork; the engineer has to keep checking things after dealing with this or that. It is boring many times.

Every day you have to overcome your discouragement and boredom and act like a hero. A hero is someone capable of disciplining their flesh and being so in love with the goal that they are willing to travel that long stretch of boredom and daily routine until they reach greatness. The violinist who practices scales continually for four hours a day for one moment of glory in a concert hall, with eight hundred people rising to their feet to give him a tremendous ovation at the end of his performance—behind that are some 500 hours of boring rehearsal in his apartment, with his flesh shouting at him: Put on an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and forget all this stuff! (laughter). That is it, right? But you have to hold on to the vision, fall in love with it, and pursue it.

That is why Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2—look at what it says. It says: “Therefore we also”—you and I—“since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”—I am not going to go deeply into that, but they are always watching; they are watching us to see whether we are going to finish this or not—“since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us.” By the way, there you have the life of personal growth.

Get rid of all the trauma. The sexual abuse you suffered as a little girl, the parents who did not affirm you when you were a boy, the girlfriend who left you on your wedding day, the bondage and trap you fell into when someone sent you your first pornographic image on the internet and you became trapped, and now you have spent three years unable to escape that mess—lay it aside, because it will keep you from reaching the glory you have in your mind. And part of the glory is precisely that: laying aside many things. You have to fight, and you have to take an ax and cut through the undergrowth to reach the place from which you want to see the ocean. So you have to lay aside many things in life.

And then it says: “And let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” What is your race? What have you resolved to achieve? Do not go too fast or too slowly; run so that you reach the finish line. But look, here is the beautiful part. It says: “Looking unto Jesus.” Do you know that Jesus is one of the things that gives you courage to continue the battle? He suffered everything you have suffered, and a hundred thousand times more. Use Him as your example, as your encouragement; use the people around you who inspire you.

“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, who”—He already accomplished it before you—“for the joy that was set before Him”—you see the vision He had—“who, because of the vision He had, endured the cross, despising”... He said, “Hey, bah, I don’t care about any of it. I’m going to keep moving forward. What do I care if they betray Me, if they don’t understand Me, if they accuse Me, if the devil attacks Me, if I have to go to the cross? I’m going to despise it because the vision I have is so great.” And He reached the finish line; He sat down at the right hand of the Throne of God.

Now, what was the joy set before Him? What was Jesus’ goal? To bring the Father an inconceivable multitude of people redeemed by His blood and by His body; to reconcile humanity to God; to open for mankind a way of access to the Father that sin and the Fall had barred. That was His joy, and every day the Lord got up to contend with smelly fishermen and sinful people and accusing Pharisees, and with His own humanity, which was like a straitjacket for the infinite glory within Him. And every day He put His boots on again and revisited the joy of one day sitting at the right hand of God the Father and looking upon a redeemed humanity, and that kept Him there when He was on the cross bleeding: the joy set before Him.

And that is what we have to do in our lives. My joy will be to sit there from time to time, when no one is around, look around, and say, “Wow, heh.” That is a little joy, because there are other joys greater than that which I have and which matter more to me, but it is a joy I want set before me. Every day I go in there, breathe in dust, contend at times with people who do not understand the vision or whatever, but the joy is set before me. You have to do that in your life.

What is it—is there something you can conceive of that would make you say, “This will give me joy if I go for it,” right? So here we see this idea of always looking at the goal we have and not so much at the agony of the daily struggle. From time to time, we have to consider what we want to accomplish, visualize it, revisit it, stroke it a little, dust it off, put it back on the pedestal, and fall in love with it all over again so that we may take fresh courage.

I’m about to finish; I have five minutes left. It isn’t eleven o’clock yet. Is that all right? You have the goal, patience, work, right? You know, people who do not make progress, who are born and die in practically the same condition in which they were born because they reached a point and became stuck there—generally, those people are incapable of lifting their heads above their immediate circumstances. They live looking downward, right? They live hand to mouth; they can think only about the need of the moment or the possibility of the moment, about what is immediate, about what they have at hand. They think about how tired they are, or how poor they are, or the talents they do not have, or the education they did not receive, or the insignificant country they come from, and they do not think about what the power of God within them can accomplish; about God’s promise that He came to give us abundant life; that “I will be with you wherever you go”; that “Every land on which the sole of your foot treads I have delivered into your hands”; that “I know the thoughts I have for you, thoughts of good and not of evil”; that you must enlarge the place of your tent because you will spread out to the right and to the left, and your children will inherit the nations, and you will restore the ruined and fallen cities.

And they do not think about that; they think only about the Roxbury they live in, full of crime and cockroaches, and that is all they think about. They do not think, “There is a giant of infinite proportions within me, crying out to be released so it can express its power.” That is you—the Holy Spirit of God, whom the Bible says He has caused to dwell within you. And you have to live in that power; you have to dare to lose things. Do not think only about the moment and what exists now.

Small-minded people cannot lift themselves up to think about what they might become, about the vision beyond the mountain or at the end of the sea. They do not invest or set anything aside for the future. They cannot set aside a little of what they have now and invest it in something future, in a goal, in advancing some moral or ethical cause they value; they cannot do it. They think only, “This is my little bank account that I’ve been building up there and guarding like a miser, and if I share it, it will get smaller.” They do not think it will grow larger; they think it will get smaller.

I’m not dropping hints, just in case; this is something else. I’m talking about what the problem is with so many people. Every great achievement, success, or enterprise must include an element of investment: stripping yourself of something you have now and casting it upon the waters so that it returns to you multiplied. You will always have to do that with what you have. If you fall in love with your holdings, whether negative or positive, and do not look toward the possibility of a greater harvest, you will not succeed in your life; fear will freeze you.

A person who wants, for example, to buy a house often has to think in terms of years. They have to begin preparing their credit long beforehand and protect it. They have to find out, “Okay, how is my credit? Do I have 600, 700? Where do I stand? 400?” And if your credit is low, start cleaning it up and repairing it; strip off the weight that besets you and get it ready. Pay your debts, straighten it out—but you have to start thinking well in advance. You have to deny yourself many lesser pleasures in order to save enough.

As I was saying, right? Instead of eating restaurant food, take your little lunchbox with you, and let the others who will never buy a house laugh when you open your little lunchbox there and eat the little meal your dear husband made for you. But what you are thinking is, “One day I’m going to have my house, so I deny myself now in order to get there,” right? “One day I’m going to have an office whose sign says ‘Doctor So-and-so’ or ‘Engineer So-and-so,’” or whatever it may be. “For now I have to stop going to the movies with my friends, or instead of going to the nightclub on Saturday afternoon, I’m going to stay in my cubicle studying, because my goal is to do this.” You have to deny yourself many things, right?

You have to work overtime. If you want a house, you have to overcome unexpected expenses that delay your financial goal. Maybe you had to spend money on a doctor or something; maybe you had to travel somewhere to visit your mother because she was sick. It set you back, but you start again; you stay focused on the goal, you keep moving forward. Every Friday you set aside a little money for the ultimate goal, and you do hundreds of things that you may not even realize you are doing in order to reach the goal.

That is the person who makes it. You have to deny yourself many things; you have to lay many things aside, as Christ did. For a time, He had to put His divine Majesty and Glory in parentheses and said, “Okay, don’t worry; I’ll go back up there at some point.” Meanwhile, He landed here on Earth and entered the flesh of a smelly little baby in order to accomplish His goal, and He went through a great deal of hardship here, right?

What keeps a goal-oriented person motivated is the clear image in their mind—in this case, of a home of their own, an achievement. That person sees and celebrates their house, prays in it and for it, and this encourages them to pay the price each day. I have resolved to acquire a physical facility that will serve this Church until Christ comes and enable it to do everything it has to do missionally. I have spent twenty years working on that with your help and with the help of the leaders of this Congregation, because one day I want our Church to have something foundational that is well made, with spaces in which the Glory of God can be manifested.

That is what a building is. A building is not the brick and the mortar that joins the bricks, nor the steel that gives it structure; those are simply spaces where the glory of God comes and manifests itself in wholly creative and different ways every day. The building being built is the people within it: the talent being developed, the children being inspired, the careers being launched, the community being blessed, the testimony being given to the people, the inspiration people receive when they enter a well-kept place, and the order of the Kingdom of God being manifested in a community like this one.

The continual encounters among men and women, children and adults, professionals and poor people together build something that rises to the Throne of God and brings Him pleasure. That is what all of this is. This is a platform; it is simply scaffolding upon which the Glory of God may rest. So that is the vision.

If you believe the vision is a piece of wood or cement, you do not understand the vision. So that is the vision that personally encourages me, and I share it not because I think it is such a great thing, but because I believe it inspires you a little. Along the path of those twenty years, hundreds of obstacles and some failures have arisen that I would rather not even remember—some that did not even have anything to do with the construction, but that is another point, part of all this.

But I have to remain bound to the vision. That is what keeps me motivated in the face of failures: having to ask people, even though what I ask for is for them and their children; enduring the criticism and unfair judgments of some people, the weariness, and at times the fear and anguish. That is because of the joy set before me, and you have to do that in your life. Whatever you want to accomplish, despise the failures, the inconveniences, and the people who will criticize you and will not understand your vision. Despise it; regard it as nothing compared with the hunger you have to see your life poured into something greater than yourself, because that is what it is in the end.

You know, there is a selfish side to all this. As a human being—this is my personal testimony; allow me to share for a moment—what I want is this: to live a life that has meaning. That is what I intend to do, right? I am not interested in money; what I want is to have an impact—a solid, lasting, structural impact—and for my life to be worth something, to leave a mark on the world, to leave the world a little more illuminated than it was. That is my goal; it is not any of this, right?

And I say that successful people do not live only for themselves, but know that they have to project themselves on a grand scale by completing a great goal or joining something much greater than themselves. If you look at Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett—all those people have donated all their billions of dollars to philanthropic causes because they know that greatness and success lie in significance, in linking their lives and their names to an achievement of extraordinary proportions, not in monetary wealth. Those people have made so much money that if they spent a million—one million—every day, they still would not manage to exhaust their fortunes.

But they have said, “You know what? We understand that, and we have already done all this for ourselves. Our glory is having accomplished great things: having conceived the vision of a great corporation, illuminating the world with an iPad or with a phone that revolutionizes technology.” And every person who picks up an iPhone and puts it to their ear, or searches on Google, or sees the design of that little device that has revolutionized the design of so many other things—that is the glory of that man; he is associated with it. Every person who uses his creativity multiplies him and reflects him. So that man never dies in a sense—although I hope you understand, that is poetically speaking; it is not true that he never dies—but he perpetuates, multiplies, and diversifies himself through processes that last far beyond his lifetime. That is what one pursues in life.

Children who reflect and expand your talent; a community or a Church that somewhere bears the touch of your life and reflects something you did—you made something possible. That is what you can leave there. There is a man here whom I have pointed out a couple of times, Ramón Sanchez, a humble and simple man who works for a company installing carpets. One day he said to me, “Pastor, I have always told my children: one day, when León de Judá and the building are ready, I am going to install the carpets in that building.” And he said it as though he were talking about making ten million dollars, about becoming famous.

For him, his glory was installing the carpets in that building. That man is seeking something greater than himself. In some mystical way, he wants to attach himself to the institution of León de Judá and its achievements, and when he gives something and enters that realm, he steps outside his own skin and becomes something that lasts for decades—for centuries, if Christ does not come first. That is what one should do in life. One must always think in those terms of greatness, and whatever you have in your hand, cast it upon the waters; use it. Be productive, live a creative life, undertake great things.

Live like a gladiator, and there is no greater glory than that. There is nothing more beautiful than a man or a woman living life in accordance with the incredible abilities God has placed in him or her—someone who does not settle for the present moment, but is always living for a vision set before them. Let us live that way. That is what we aspire to, and that is what you see every time I stand here to ask for a little money. I sincerely despise money; I use it because I have to use it, because what gives me life and motivates me is lives, souls, causes, impact, Christ, the Kingdom, eternity, spiritual formation. That is what lies behind it, and I hope you have that vision too, that you share it through your life, and that you can leave that legacy to your children, your friends, and those around you.

Let us honor Him who despised—who regarded the reproach as nothing—for the joy set before Him. God bless you. Brothers and sisters, let us stand for a moment.

Ask the Lord to unfold something from this Word in your heart at this moment. Lord, thank You, thank You, Father, for Your call to greatness, for Your call to honor the incredible God whom we worship by living as He does. May this Word bear fruit in Your people, Lord, and take them to new heights, O God. May this Church be able to live in light of the vision You already have for it and pay the price daily until it is seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

We worship You and give You thanks, Lord, in the Name of Jesus. Amen and amen. God bless you, my brothers and sisters. May the Grace of the Lord be with you.