How to Reason When We Do Not Know God’s Will

Chapter 15 of the book of Acts contains a significant event in the history of the church of Jesus Christ. Believe it or not, this is one of the most important chapters in the Bible—in the entire Bible—chapter 15, and I am going to tell you why in just a moment.

But let us read at least a little bit, because it is far too long a chapter. It says here in verse 1:

“Then some who came from Judea taught the brothers as follows: Unless you are circumcised according to the rite of Moses, you cannot be saved…”

Notice what these people were claiming. Unless you are circumcised—because that was the ritual the Jews used to declare a child a bona fide member of God’s community, of the Jewish community. If there was no circumcision, it was as though there were no belonging to the Kingdom of God; according to the law of Moses, it was the sign of being part of the family of the Kingdom of God. And so these Jews taught the new believers, the Gentiles who were converting to Judaism: Unless you are circumcised, you are not saved.

There was a theological controversy there. That was a theological declaration of great consequence, and this was going to cause serious difficulty among the Christian people, who were only just beginning to emerge at this time, as we see in the book of Acts. It says here:

“…Since Paul and Barnabas had no small discussion and dispute”—meaning a free-for-all, a terrible fight. You know, even in those days Christians fought. That is not a custom found only here at Lion of Judah or in the other churches in the city of Boston. The brothers in the book of Acts consecrated that custom. Because sometimes we romanticize and idealize the people of the early church. Oh, if only we could be like the primitive church. Glory to God. Some churches are called “The Primitive Church.” Well, they were primitive because they were like cavemen: sometimes they clubbed one another; they lived by trading blows.

But there were always disputes. Paul and Barnabas fought over John Mark—do you remember the story? And afterward they did not continue working together, although I am sure they loved each other and all the rest, but they had a dispute too.

Here we see that there was a serious argument. I can imagine those Jews. You can picture them there, all worked up as they argued over something that was absolutely important to them; I am almost certain they were about to come to blows.

“…no small discussion and dispute…” They did not merely have a discussion; they also had a dispute, just to make it clear that this was serious. “…with them, it was arranged”—that is, it was decided—“that Paul and Barnabas and some others among them should go up to Jerusalem to the Apostles and elders to deal with this question….”

Here in verse 6 it says, “…the Apostles and the elders met to consider this matter…”

Let us leave it there. What is happening here? There is an issue that is very, very important. Well, by the way, let me explain so that you have an idea. I did not read chapter 14 because I wanted to skip ahead a little and move forward in the study, but what we discussed the previous week was the Apostle Paul’s first missionary journey with Barnabas. They went out to preach the Gospel in different cities, and now they have returned to Antioch, from which they originally departed. They arrive in Antioch after being away for several months, and they discover… Remember that Antioch was an eminently cosmopolitan city; it was like Lion of Judah. There were Central Americans, South Americans, all kinds of Caribbean people, Africans, Asians, Anglo-Saxons—it was a tremendous swarm of humanity. Antioch was one of those highly varied, highly diverse cities; there were many Gentiles there.

And there, as you will remember, God did something very powerful, and Gentiles were converted to the Lord and also received Jesus as their Savior. And then things became complicated for the church, because until then the overwhelming majority of the first converts had been Jews who had converted and received Jesus as their promised Messiah. Up to that point, everything was just fine, because it was simply a matter of adding one component to Judaism. In reality, for many Jews converted to Jesus, everything would continue more or less the same. The Jews—an ethnic group already accustomed to their laws and customs—would now carry on with Jesus as Messiah. That was all.

But suddenly these Guatemalans and Salvadorans and Dominicans begin to convert, and they complicate the party for the Jews because these people come with different customs; they come with all sorts of complications. Many of them are married, they are polygamists, they have two or three wives and children by different women, they eat pork and all sorts of strange things, they do not dress the way the Jews dress, they do not observe the rituals, they do not have the historical and cultural background the Jews have, and all those people come wagging their little tails into the synagogue: Here we are, we have converted, we are one of you. And then the Jews have to ask themselves: What do we do now with all these people?

What happens, brothers and sisters? When a church begins to be effective in evangelism, when a church begins to attract unusual people—some of those people were here in the service this morning—what do you do when you go to greet someone who is a man but has a woman’s breasts and dresses like a woman, and he is standing there and you are going to greet him? What does one do with that person? Do you walk right past him, despise him, and [inaudible], “What is this person doing here?” No, but the truth is that it complicates your life. It is much easier when everyone dresses either as a man or as a woman. Then you already know what to expect. But when those complexities arise, what does one do?

Why? Because if the church is doing its job, those people are going to come, and we must rejoice in their presence, brothers and sisters—let me say that. But they make life difficult for you, because what do you do? There is Mrs. Checha looking at the pastor and saying, “Let us see whether the pastor is a man of God and kicks him out of the church or lets him stay.” There is pressure. Different people think in different ways. They say, “Well, fine, let him come to church, but he should dress like a man and stop that shameless behavior.” And by the very next Sunday they already want that person to be sanctified, with his hair slicked back like Elvis Presley, looking improperly at women or whatever. They would be happy if that were the case, but many times there is a process, and church becomes complicated.

Notice, the only churches that do not have problems with that issue are dead churches where everyone has been in the Gospel for 50 years, and they too are already dead right there in the service, and no one misbehaves or anything because no one new is coming to the Lord with the difficulties, contaminations, and problems of life.

Now, when a church is evangelizing effectively, all kinds of unusual specimens are going to come to the church, and glory to God for that. But the church must be very wise and discerning in how it treats those people while God carries out His work in them.

You have no idea about the things we continually wrestle with here in the church. Why? Because it is a very diverse humanity, and so when one preaches, one has to be careful here and there; one has to be an incredible lawyer so as not to alienate them, while also preaching the Word of God clearly, and so forth. Ours is a very complex community, but because we are evangelizing and new people are coming to the church, sometimes they come while living together without being married, and they have children; some people have problems with sexuality, with sexual identity. Others come with eyes that have not yet been sanctified, along with a tremendous number of other things—bad habits and teenagers with earrings and things in their noses and tattoos and twenty thousand other things. All of that is part of the life of a church that is reaching the community.

But that compels the church’s leadership, and the church itself, to earnestly seek divine reasoning in order to know how to relate to those people, how to lead them toward holiness and a clear understanding of what God wants, but also not to do it like a fish whose line and hook you pull too quickly and it gets away—how to use wisdom as well. It is a science of the spirit, and one must have great wisdom and tolerance and love and mercy and grace, while also remaining committed to the holiness of God, or to the Word of God.

I believe that this is what we always try to do in our church: find a balance. That is why sometimes people do not know whether we are an ungodly church or whether we are holy or what, because they do not know, since there is a little of everything. Some people think that perhaps we are not insistent enough about holiness; others out there do not come because the church is too insistent about holiness. But we must seek balance.

Here in this passage from Acts, chapter 15, I see the first Christian church, the primitive church, struggling in dispute precisely over a problem they did not expect. The Lord did not leave them specific instructions about what to do when the Gentiles arrived. In fact, even the theology was not all that clear. Remember when the Lord gave Peter that vision of the sheet coming down? Of course you remember, because I preached about it, and you remember everything I preach.

The Lord sends an angel to Cornelius, who is a Roman centurion, a Roman soldier. God knows how many heads Cornelius cut off here and there, how many beatings he administered, even to Jews. He was a Roman centurion. You do not become a captain in a Roman army unless you have cut off a few heads and struck a few people along the way. And yet this man was so God-fearing; he wanted to serve the Lord, read the Jewish Scriptures, prayed, gave alms, and did good works. And the Lord was moved to send an angel and have Peter summoned, but Peter did not want to go because they were Gentiles. And the Lord gives him that vision of a sheet with four-footed animals and all kinds of things and says to him, “Kill and eat, Peter.” And Peter says, “No, Lord, because I am a holy, committed Jew. I do not eat anything unclean.” The Lord tells him, “Do not call unclean what I have sanctified.” He was preparing him so that when the people from Cornelius’s household came and summoned him, he would be theologically and mentally prepared to go to that Gentile household and preach the Gospel to them.

The fact is that God is always ahead of us, brothers and sisters. There are so many things that sometimes one… That is why I tell you that one must always be very careful about what one says. “No, I am never going to do this; I am never going to believe that,” and we criticize people because they do… Look at how many things we have had to change in our lives—things that before we would not even have dared to think were from God. On the contrary, “That is from the devil.” But over time we have seen that no, it is all right and it is from God, and that although I perhaps may not do it myself, I have to give my brothers and sisters that freedom to think differently.

So the first thing God did was, through Cornelius and his family, begin setting the stage to prepare this Jewish community, now converted to Jesus, for what He wanted to do in the rest of the world. Because remember, Israel is a tiny dot in the world, and God actually came through the Lord Jesus Christ to save all humanity, but the Jews believed they were the center of the universe, the only ones.

How do you change the minds of people who believe they are the only ones on the entire earth? God had chosen them as a starting point, but not as the end of the matter. God wanted them to be a holy leaven that would touch all humanity, but they remained closed in among themselves.

So God wants to change their minds. God is laying the foundations for the history of the church, and so He first does the thing with Cornelius; He also brings about what happens in Antioch, where people begin to convert; in Samaria, Samaritans begin to convert; and then the church does not have the biblical tools to decide what is happening. What do we do with these new people who are arriving with their different customs? Do we turn them into Jews too? Do we force them to observe all the laws of Moses in addition to believing in Jesus Christ, so that they then have to go around with all the Jews’ implements and garments and all their foods and customs? Or do we simply allow them to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and continue with their customs?

It was a problem. Today, in the twenty-first century, we say, “Well, what was the problem? Why were they so concerned?” No—imagine if someone suddenly came and told you that men had to wear skirts, for example, including to preach, that you had to stand here wearing a skirt for the pastor to be able to preach, or some other strange thing. There is a problem, because one thinks, “No, things have to be done this way.”

And these people experienced a cultural, spiritual, theological, and biblical clash; they did not know what to do. And as I say, unfortunately, the Lord Jesus Christ had not… I say “unfortunately” because everything lies within God’s providence, but they had not been told how to deal with that situation. In the same way, we pastors often face situations we do not know how to handle, what explanation to give people, what decision to make in an unusual case, or what is advisable in counseling.

And so they had to make that decision. Now, when Paul and Barnabas return from their first journey to Antioch, they discover, as it says here, that there were Jewish people who, in Paul and Barnabas’s absence, were telling the new converts that they had to keep the entire law of Moses and be circumcised, because otherwise they were not saved. And so this was causing great sadness among the Gentile converts, because they were saying, goodness, but why do I have to give this up, why do I have to give that other thing up? To them, everything they were being taught was completely strange. And it was causing a great deal of consternation.

And so Paul, who already had it clear… Paul was an enlightened man, knowledgeable in the things of God, and Paul knew that Christ—his death on the cross—was what was needed to ensure that a person was saved, not the works of the law.

Here is something very important, brothers and sisters; this is for you and for me. I need you to understand this because it is key in our Christian life, and it is one of the great controversies of the church throughout the centuries. What is it that enables you to hope to enter eternal life? What guarantees that, in this world full of sin where you are going to commit sins, make mistakes, suffer falls, and zigzag along your Christian journey, you have an anchor you can hold on to in the midst of life’s battles? What guarantees that when you die, you will enter the presence of God—what is it? The death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, yes or no? The blood of Christ shed on the cross of Calvary, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. That is what pays the price for your guilt, which all of us bear before God. No one can be justified before God except through the perfect sacrifice of Christ Jesus.

How did the Jews, before Jesus came and died on the cross, obtain the Father’s forgiveness and acceptance and earn their ticket as a good Jew? How did they do it? By bringing sacrifices to the temple, isn’t that right? By offering sacrifices. It was an entire external ritual that guaranteed that the Jewish people, and every devout Jew, could say: I am a member of the congregation of Israel, I can call myself a good Jew, I am acceptable in the eyes of God. Why? Because I practice the rituals prescribed by my religion, and that was what every good Jew thought guaranteed him entrance into the Kingdom of God and membership in the tribe of Israel. That was how it was taught in the law of Moses.

When Christ comes into the world, what God had actually intended from the beginning of time becomes a reality, and the idea was that no one throughout all of history could ever truly be justified through the sacrifice of an animal or through a rite. That was not enough to pay for the guilt.

So what Paul says is: Look, brothers and sisters, everything we have learned from the law and everything else was simply a methodology God was using so that we would understand that no one can be saved through those rituals, and to prepare us to accept Christ Jesus as the definitive sacrifice, once and for all; and that, therefore, the only thing one has to do is plug into, so to speak, attach oneself to the sacrifice Christ made on the cross, cling to the blood of Jesus, and say: I believe that what he did on the cross is what gives me justification and eternal life—not my going to Rome on my knees and climbing through the Vatican with my knees bleeding, or tearing myself to pieces somewhere, or giving up meat for a hundred days, or whatever it may be. None of that justifies a person before God. Why? Because none of those things is sufficient to pay the debt you owe God.

When you sin, you offend God in such a way that a single offense against the Father’s absolute holiness is so great that nothing you can do here on earth is actually sufficient to pay for your sin. Just imagine us, who commit thousands and thousands of sins over the course of a lifetime. And even when we are in the Gospel, we still sin and offend God.

So what guarantees that you can come before the Father, present yourself before the Father, and say, hey, all my sins have been paid for, all my sins have been neutralized? The only thing that justifies that is the blood Christ shed. In a sense, he stood in your place, and when he died on the cross, you were dying in him, and he was dying for you, and on the cross of Calvary he was already paying the entire debt for all the sin of humanity—past, present, and future.

So when we tell a human being, receive Christ, accept Christ, acknowledge Christ as your Savior, what we are saying is that you are saying to the Father: Lord, through what Christ did on the cross, write my name in the book of life. I understand, acknowledge, accept, and affirm what you say: that he is the propitiation, the payment for my guilt. I accept that, and therefore, write my name.

Then you enter into the plan God established, whereby salvation comes through the shedding of the blood of that perfect Lamb who is Christ Jesus.

That is very important because when these Jewish people come and say to those Gentiles, you know what? If you are not circumcised and do not keep the law of Moses, you cannot be saved, logically and theologically what they were saying was that what Christ did on the cross is not sufficient for their salvation. Salvation, they were saying, is Christ plus circumcision and the works of Moses.

And Paul says, that makes no sense. By the way, if you want to study this in greater detail, read the book of Galatians; that is why knowing the Bible is so important. The book of Galatians was written precisely to clarify that matter systematically: whether we are saved by the law and by Jesus, or simply by Christ Jesus.

So all of this was the controversy… Paul tells them: No, do not confuse these people; do not place burdens on them that even we ourselves could not bear when we were under the law. We ourselves knew that the law did not even take away our sense of guilt. We could not keep all the rituals of the law; we always knew that we were running a deficit, always trying to do something more to earn a few more points with God.

And Paul now says: No, now in Christ Jesus… the law was simply a framework, a scaffold; it was there to help us reach Christ. While Jesus was on his way, we were given the law to keep us occupied, so that we would have something to do. But once the real thing arrived, give the scaffold a kick, and then we are left with the real thing, which is Christ Jesus.

Now, do not try to hold on to the scaffold if we have already reached the place we were supposed to reach, Paul says. Now, what happens? Remember, this is at the time… Paul is not the pope of the early church; Paul is simply a great man whom God is shaping. Today we read his writings and say, no, the writing was inspired by the Holy Spirit, but remember that at that time Paul was still a well-known man, yet he did not have that great authority either.

So that is why he says, you know what? Where are we going to go? So that they can decide what is to be done here. Where do they go? To Jerusalem, because the twelve Apostles whom Christ appointed as his authority are there. That is where they reside. It is like Rome today; that also has its history, the reason Rome became the seat of Christianity for many centuries. But at the beginning of the church’s history it was Jerusalem, because the Apostles were there; that was where the Apostles resided. So he says, you know what? Let’s go there; let’s go to the authority. Christ left an established authority, and they are the ones who will decide what is to be done in this case.

How important it is for there to be authority in the church, for us to know whom to listen to and where to go for advice concerning matters in our lives, and for us to respect that authority. So they send a delegation to Jerusalem and present the circumstances of the case to the Apostles in Jerusalem. And then the Apostles listen; it is like a trial. They listen to Paul, they listen to James. I do not know whether Peter was present; it seems he was not, but they refer to what happened with Peter and Cornelius and all these things. Paul speaks about the events they have seen; they have witnessed all these Gentiles being converted in different cities, and they say: This is going to continue, brothers and sisters; a clear decision has to be made. We cannot be here and there, playing at one thing and then another. What are we going to decide? This is fascinating, in a sense.

Let me tell you, if today, after this service, you can go and eat a pork chop, thank God, because this was decided that way right there. Yes, you can go to the [inaudible]; that is because this was decided here. Otherwise, you might be like the Jews in Jerusalem, the Assyrians, not eating. Imagine a world without lobster, brothers and sisters—the Lord rebuke the devil. Imagine a world without shrimp, brothers and sisters. It is inconceivable. There were Gentiles who said, well, a second or third wife, fine, but do not take away my pork chop, because that is essential to me.

So they bring this matter… and with this I am coming to a close, brothers and sisters. What matters most to me in this issue is how the Apostles decide this situation. I think that here we have something, I believe, that shows how, when difficult situations come into your life, you can determine which tools you are going to use to make a decision in your life, some moral or ethical decision, because unfortunately we cannot send Jesus Christ up there in heaven an email saying, Lord, I have this problem; what do I do? And have him send you an email in which the Lord tells you: Do this and that.

We have to use human tools illuminated by the Holy Spirit. And I sometimes wonder why God did not make clear to his church what it had to do. Today that causes us extremely serious problems; today there are so many things, brothers and sisters, that divide the church in so many different ways.

Think, for example, about contraceptives, birth control. How many Christians use contraceptives, feel very comfortable doing so, and thank God for that resource God has brought to humanity? But there are Catholic brothers and sisters, millions of them, and the Catholic Church teaches that no, using contraceptives is not a practice God approves of, while we are happy and giving thanks to the Lord for such a great blessing. Why? Because the reasoning of our Catholic brothers and sisters is very interesting. Something as simple as that, where some Catholic brothers and sisters—because others are already very enlightened and have gone over to the evangelical side because it suits them.

But the point is that many Catholics reason: Well, sexuality was made for childbearing; that is, the sexual act between husband and wife is for procreating children. Then I say, hold on a moment, do not go so fast; wait just a moment. Is that true? Can we say that? The Bible says nothing about it; it is simply human reasoning. They say that every sexual act carries within it, in the meeting of the sperm and the woman’s egg, the implication that life will be generated. Therefore, the sexual act is for creating life, and if one places obstacles in the way of that procreation of life, then one is going against the will of the Lord.

Can you see their reasoning? Isn’t that right? It makes sense in a certain way. And for many, that is the reasoning they accept, and that explains, for example, why so many Catholic families have four, six, or eight children, because they use… but they also use their other method [inaudible]; they have their way of trying to avoid having children, but it is a natural, organic method.

But they reason in that way: We cannot prevent God’s purpose from being fulfilled, so we have to abandon ourselves to God’s mercy and let God determine how many children we are going to have. That is how they reason. One could say to them: Well, yes, but wait just a moment. Do not tell me that the sexual act is purely for procreation, because what about pleasure? Could God not have created the sexual act simply for the pleasure of husband and wife? Did he not also create it to foster intimacy between husband and wife? Could God not also have created it simply so that man and woman would unite, as though we were declaring to the world and to the air the unity of the feminine and the masculine, which is like God… although I know that when people are engaged in that, the last thing they are thinking about is [inaudible]. But it could also be a reflection of the love of Christ and his church, et cetera.

But the idea, brothers and sisters, is that it is not possible to say, well, the sexual act between wife and husband is purely something clinical, simply for procreating children, because then why not use a very large sheet so that neither one can see the other, simply to create a child, and that is all, right?

What was food made for? Was food made simply to nourish the body? Then why don’t you eat it without salt, just boiled, and be done with it, since it is simply meant to nourish the body? We have developed food and we season it; we are Dominicans, so we leave it in the refrigerator for three days with every kind of seasoning, and then we burn it so that no one can recognize what it is, and we do all sorts of things to it because we like it. We have made food into something that—yes, its primary purpose is to nourish, but nowadays it has also become… You invite a friend to your home, prepare the whole dinner, put out your best tablecloth, and you have embellished something. So you cannot say that it is only for one single thing.

I have gone so far afield that I do not even know where I am anymore. You get into these things and afterward you do not know how to get back. What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is that there are so many issues in the Bible, so many issues in spiritual matters, where you can see how different people think in different ways, and sometimes we have to respect their reasoning because there is no clear word. Take birth control, for example. Look, I respect my Catholic brothers and sisters who believe it should be that way, amen. Well, I say, look, I do not agree with your reasoning one hundred percent, but it makes sense to me, and amen, I respect that.

There is nothing in the Bible telling me that it has to be that way. Now, the Catholic brother should respect my point of view that contraceptives can indeed be used, because in reality he can say, well, all right, this man is working through it, and what he says makes sense; he is working through it biblically. Amen. Let us simply live and let live.

Now, there are other cases in Scripture that are very, very clear and that are not so easy to evade. Some things are clearly scriptural, and the Bible says them in twenty thousand different ways; no matter where you approach it, what it says is clear, and in that case you have to believe what the Word says. Do not come to me with the flesh, the world, and the devil and things like that. No, because this is what the Bible says, and we have to stand on that. And do not [inaudible] me, because I will get sidetracked into something else again.

But, brothers and sisters, once again, in this matter of the Gentiles and the law of Moses, there was nothing clear. What they had was the law of Moses and this absolutely extraordinary fact that Jesus had come as the propitiation for the sins of all humanity, and that through his blood and his death we receive salvation.

What does one do with those two pieces? And that is what the Apostles are trying to decide here. And there is one thing they used—again, I do not have all the time… But look, when I see them reasoning with all those pieces, I see that they used some five, six, or seven elements that we would do very well always to use in our lives for any serious decision about which we do not have a clear word from the Lord. If you want to write them down, you may, but what I see here is the church of Jesus Christ trying to use the little light it had concerning a tremendously serious, far-reaching issue. And many times in our lives—with our children, our marriage, our finances, church life, human relationships, courtship, and work—we will find ourselves in situations where we do not have an absolutely definitive word from God about how to act. And what are the tools we should use to make decisions in life?

Look, the first thing I clearly see these people using here is Scripture. The Bible they had was the Law of Moses, the writings of Moses, and they are trying to find in it what the Word says. But Moses had nothing clear about this, especially in light of the event of Christ Jesus and what is happening. That is to say, number one, when we have problems and dilemmas in life, we must first go to the Word: What does the Word of God say? And that is why I insist so much with my brothers and sisters: Know the Bible, study the Bible, become thoroughly acquainted with the Bible, know the Bible from cover to cover, immerse yourselves in Scripture until the Bible colors your way of thinking and you can always use the Word in everything, so that you know where to turn. What does Scripture say about this? What does the Word say about that? What does God say about this?

For me, that is the number-one question. And if the Word of God says something, I have to bank on it, you know? Even if I do not like it, even if I kick and scream, if the Bible says it, I have to believe it, and if it is clear, I have to accept it. Number one: always the Bible.

Second, we have to use the illumination of the Holy Spirit. When the Apostles give their final ruling in verse 28, it says:

“…For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”—that is a scandalous expression—“to the Holy Spirit and to us, to impose no further burden than these necessary things…”

The second thing—I need to understand this; I am trying to arrange these in order of importance—is the Holy Spirit. Brother, within you is the Spirit of God, who enlightens you. The Lord Jesus Christ said that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth. You are not there alone, swimming between the Bible and the world, trying to find instruction and solutions for your problems. Always ask the Holy Spirit: Give me wisdom; teach me what I have to do.

Just yesterday, I had to preach at a September 11 event, and I was not sure how to approach the subject because of the kind of audience we were going to have. I had to say, Lord—I wrestled with it the night before and in the morning—Lord, what do you want me to say? How do you want me to frame this meditation? How do you want me to use the minutes I have been given? If I rely only on my human reasoning, I am lost. No, I have to believe that the Holy Spirit will tell me and give me the answer.

This very morning, how do I take this subject, so vast and so difficult, and fit it within a framework that you can understand and that does not run on too long—although in fact I have already run over, so the Holy Spirit did not tell me everything I needed. But one has to seek: Lord… Always pray to the Lord to give you understanding. Say, Holy Spirit, I need wisdom for this decision I have to make. Speak to me, and wrestle with the angel of God until you receive a word from God. Ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. God wants to give us wisdom.

The Apostle James says that if anyone lacks wisdom, what does he say? Let him ask God, who gives generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. In every situation of your life, ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. Become addicted to the Holy Spirit for every decision. Never leave your house without saying, Lord, I am not sure what I should say to this person at work today, but I ask you for wisdom. Give me understanding. So they relied on the Holy Spirit, they prayed, and finally they said, you know what? It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. Wow! There is a lot to unpack in that.

But again: the Word of God, the Holy Spirit. There is a third thing God has not taken away from you, and that is your human reasoning. You must also use your education, your reason, your common sense. There are many things you possess; God does not take away your ability to reason as a human being. There are many people whose only quest is, Lord, give me a word. They want a little angel to come down from heaven, wagging its little tail, and whisper into their ear what God said. And many people also get lost in those twists and turns. They are always thinking, God told me, and they are waiting for some overwhelming word to come down from above, nicely packaged, telling them what they have to do. It came out of the mouth of God; there it is, like a fortune cookie. That is what they have to do. Not that either.

God uses your understanding; God uses your reasoning. It is good to educate yourself, read good books, and develop your education and intellect, because God will also use your intellect to make a decision. He will enlighten it, but he will also use your intellect.

I believe another thing we also have to use is dialogue within the community of faith. For example, the Catholic Church has the idea that the patristic tradition—the Fathers Augustine, Saint Thomas, Athanasius, all the writings of these great men and women of God, such as Juana Inés de la Cruz, Saint Teresa of Jesus, the Pope’s encyclicals—all of this is a chorus of teaching, which is the church of Christ dialoguing through the centuries in the light of the Word of God. They say this is important too: We cannot ignore these people, enlightened by God, who have dedicated their lives to shedding light on and elucidating these spiritual matters. It is like a whole network of biblical reflection—why would you reinvent the wheel? Let us see what God has told all those people, shake it all together in a sack, and see what comes out. They say, no, also….

And it is important: Never make major decisions by yourself. Talk with your pastors, talk with your cell-group leader, talk with a sister devoted to prayer and fasting, talk with a group of people you trust, talk with your mother, your father, with wise people you trust. Seek wisdom from the people of God. Brother, there are no lone rangers among the people of God. I believe you have to be united with a community of faith that helps you and nourishes you. That is why we all need a church; we need a place where we can go and find the Word of God for life’s decisions. That is important too.

Seek advice; heed advice. There are wise people among God’s people who can… at least they can give you information you can use afterward… You make the decision, but let the reflection of God’s people enrich the decision you are going to make. Seek advice; heed advice. There is a verse in the Bible that says that whoever heeds advice lives to a ripe old age, and that is… if it is not in the Bible, it ought to be.

We have to heed the counsel of God’s people. We have to seek collective wisdom. It is important. Young people today think they do not need it; the Internet solves everything, Google will give me the answer. The spirit of Google is killing humanity today. No, seek wisdom from the spiritual community too. That is very important.

Another thing I also see is… circumstances and common sense. Paul reasoned and said, look, if we ourselves have not even been able to carry that burden of Moses, how can we then throw it onto someone else’s shoulders? He is using common sense. You know what? God does not bypass common sense either. I believe God also works through natural and logical processes to carry out his eternal principles. So observe what is happening around you. I believe there is a lot of charismatic Pentecostal foolishness in this world because there are many charismatic Pentecostals who are not observing with their own eyes the results of that rhetoric and that style. Is it producing wise, mature, profound, stable, biblical, creative people? Is it producing healthy, strong churches that make an impact in the community, that are influential, well-managed, and solid? Instead, no—because so-and-so says it, because seventeen people fell down here at the front, well, then [inaudible].

Look, observe with your own eyes and genuinely ask yourself what result you are seeing at the end of the day. Is it producing healthy, wise, mature, stable, prosperous, blessed people, or simply a lot of rhetoric? Oh yes, God is doing this—but what is actually happening? Observe reality, and if it does not make sense, do not… If the king has no clothes, as the story says, do not try to put clothes on him, because he does not have any; if he is naked, he is naked.

It is important: Observe, use common sense, because God does not take common sense away. So I believe that all these elements together helped the people of God make a decision that blesses us today, and the church is still working on it. We still have not reached a definitive conclusion, but we keep working.

The Christian life is very interesting, brother; live the Christian life. Anyone who gets bored has only his own foolishness to blame. The Christian life is very interesting. There is a great deal of complexity, and God wants to work with us. God did not give us everything there already completed. No, he wants to work with us in the process of sanctification and Christian growth. Many of us would like God to do everything for us, but that is not how it is. God wants you to use your intellect, your human reasoning, your experiences, the reasoning of your community, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, good reading, culture—all of that together. Become a consumer of all these tools and instruments God has placed in your hands to govern the world and so that you may do what God wants you to do.

How good it is that God did not turn you into a puppet. No, God wants to conquer on earth with you. That is why he allows everything happening in the world, because he is too generous to do it all by himself. The Lord wants us to be able to [inaudible]; when we have problems, let us [inaudible], amen.

Let us bow our heads for a moment. I ask the Lord to make sense of everything we have said here. If I said anything good, hold on to it, and forget the rest. But I know there was something good in there that you can take home with you today. As you eat your pork chop and your pork, give thanks to the Lord; give thanks to God, because God is generous, God is good. Everything he created is good: culture, history, politics, finances, the sciences—everything is good. It is all for us to enjoy from a posture of respect and reverence toward the Lord.

Thank you, Father. Make us mature men and women, a complex church. We want to be a church that reflects the richness of the Kingdom of God. We want to raise mature Christians, Father, solid people who use everything you have placed in our hands, people who can rule the earth, Lord, subdue the world you have created, and give you glory through their mature way of walking upon the earth.

We bless you this morning. Thank you for being in your house. We rejoice, Lord, in the presence of your Spirit. Bless my brothers and sisters, strengthen them, send them back to their homes with joy in their hearts and with peace, Lord, and with the assurance that you go with them, that you are with them day by day, that you are their God, and that you accompany them in every struggle and every situation in life. I bless them in their anxieties and their struggles, in their twists and turns, in their falls, in their failures and their triumphs, in their aspirations and their longings. I bless them, and I bless your church, the families represented here, and the communities represented here.

We thank you for the privilege of being members of this family of faith. We bless you, Father, in the name of Jesus. And the people of God say, amen.