Galatians 2:20
Dr. Roberto Miranda
(Audio: English, Spanish) ->Alternate
SUMMARY: The speaker shares his recent trip to Medellin, Colombia and the need for the gospel in the Latin American community. He talks about the extreme poverty and wealth in the city and the spiritual need of the people. The speaker also emphasizes the need for credible churches and pastors to provide a refuge for those in need of shepherding. He poses the question, "who will go?" and encourages living minimally and giving all to the Lord, like Paul did in Galatians 2:20. The speaker emphasizes the need for a new identity in Christ and dying to our old selves.
The speaker urges the congregation to die to their old selves and live for Jesus Christ, to be purified and sanctified so that they can be used as worthy vessels for God's work in a world full of need and impending cataclysms. He points to the story of Baruk in Jeremiah 45 as an example of someone who was too concerned with their own dreams and priorities instead of focusing on God's work. The speaker also highlights the need for the congregation to give generously towards the building of a new temple for the church, as part of their Christian walk and soldierly living. The message ends with a call for the congregation to consecrate themselves to God's purposes and allow Him to transform them.
The speaker urges the congregation to die to their old selves and live for Jesus Christ, to be purified and sanctified so that they can be used as worthy vessels for God's work in a world full of need and impending cataclysms. He points to the story of Baruk in Jeremiah 45 as an example of someone who was too concerned with their own dreams and priorities instead of focusing on God's work. The speaker also highlights the need for the congregation to give generously towards the building of a new temple for the church, as part of their Christian walk and soldierly living. The message ends with a call for the congregation to consecrate themselves to God's purposes and allow Him to transform them.
Galatians 2, verse 20, and repeat with me in Spanish when I read in Spanish. It’s just verse 20, and just a rough translation here: “with Christ I’m jointly crucified and I no longer live, but rather Jesus Christ lives in me, and that which I now live in the flesh, I live it the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me”, so that’s the English, the Lion of Juda translation, Galatians chapter 2, verse 20.
I’ve taken this verse as a point of departure really, and I hope to go from there to other verses in scripture for the meditation that I want to carry out with you this morning. As I said earlier I just returned from visiting the city of Medellin in Colombia. I thank the Alsate family who took me up there and there’s a brother here that belongs to that family was sort of the instrument that God used for me to be there and were wonderfully hospitable to me and just gave me a wonderful time there and I thank the Lord for them. I thank them as well. Medellin is a quintessentially Latin American city, it’s like a microcosm of Latin America. You know you can see through that city all the wonderful aspects of Latin American culture and at the same time the brokenness of Latin American culture as well and of Latin American continent. You know if you can imagine like a big mount made of putty and a thumb pressed from the top into that mount and makes a deep indentation. The city of Medellin is in the center of that indentation and then from that depression it just flows to all the different sides of the mountains that surround the city. It’s a very spectacular site. All over the sides of those mountains where the population has grown you have the extremes. You have the very wealthy people with large expanses of lands, living in very luxurious houses and also large condominiums. You also have very large extensions of poor people with extreme needs and living in very crowded small spaces. You know in Latin America you can see those extremes living right next to each other. Any country that you go in Latin America including my own, the Dominican Republic you can see this. You can be living in a very upper class neighborhood and you walk 2 blocks down the street and you’re in the middle of extreme poverty. All of a sudden a huge extension of poor neighborhoods, one after the other. And I think, I see July saying: yes, and that’s the way it is also in Asia and in Thailand, in Indonesia, in these places.
I’ve taken this verse as a point of departure really, and I hope to go from there to other verses in scripture for the meditation that I want to carry out with you this morning. As I said earlier I just returned from visiting the city of Medellin in Colombia. I thank the Alsate family who took me up there and there’s a brother here that belongs to that family was sort of the instrument that God used for me to be there and were wonderfully hospitable to me and just gave me a wonderful time there and I thank the Lord for them. I thank them as well. Medellin is a quintessentially Latin American city, it’s like a microcosm of Latin America. You know you can see through that city all the wonderful aspects of Latin American culture and at the same time the brokenness of Latin American culture as well and of Latin American continent. You know if you can imagine like a big mount made of putty and a thumb pressed from the top into that mount and makes a deep indentation. The city of Medellin is in the center of that indentation and then from that depression it just flows to all the different sides of the mountains that surround the city. It’s a very spectacular site. All over the sides of those mountains where the population has grown you have the extremes. You have the very wealthy people with large expanses of lands, living in very luxurious houses and also large condominiums. You also have very large extensions of poor people with extreme needs and living in very crowded small spaces. You know in Latin America you can see those extremes living right next to each other. Any country that you go in Latin America including my own, the Dominican Republic you can see this. You can be living in a very upper class neighborhood and you walk 2 blocks down the street and you’re in the middle of extreme poverty. All of a sudden a huge extension of poor neighborhoods, one after the other. And I think, I see July saying: yes, and that’s the way it is also in Asia and in Thailand, in Indonesia, in these places.
