The attitude of grace

Luke 6:27-42. I can't think of a more emblematic text from the Bible, more central, more fundamental to the Gospel message than this passage. This passage kind of exemplifies the core values of Christianity, and it is a fundamental call for each one of us to make these words and the message they contain, the basis of our conduct, our relationship with each other and I hope I can develop that a little more through this message.

I want to talk about the attitude of grace. And the Lord Jesus Christ tells us, "But to you who hear..." How many are listening? All of us, right? "...I tell you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you..."

I already gave up, you know? This is a very high, very ambitious call. But don't give up. You will see that with God we can advance in that wonderful territory that the Lord opens up for us through these words.

“…to the one who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other also, and to the one who takes your cloak, do not deny even your tunic. To anyone who asks you, give, and to the one who takes what is yours, do not ask that it be returned to you, and as you want men to do with you, so do you also with them. Because if you love those who love you, what merit do you have? Because sinners also love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit do you have? Because sinners also do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what merit have you? Because sinners also lend to sinners to receive back as much. So love your enemies, and do good and lend expecting nothing, and your reward will be great, – And here is a very revealing word, he says – and you will be children of the Most High.”

How do we become truly children of the Father and partakers of the Father's nature? Doing these things, manifesting this spirit.

“…Because He, God, is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Therefore be merciful as your Father is also merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged, do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and overflowing they will give into your lap, because with the same measure with which you measure, they will measure you again.

And he told them a parable, “Can a blind man lead another blind man? Wont both fall into the hole? The disciple is not superior to his teacher, but everyone who is perfected will be like his teacher. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye and fail to see the beam that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,” not looking at the plank that is in your eye? Hypocrite. First remove the log from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye."

As I say, brothers, this is the most sublime and most fundamental word, I would say, in all the Scriptures. It exemplifies the very spirit of Jesus Christ. And the important thing is that we are also called to exercise that same spirit in our lives, aim at it at least and pursue that attitude, which is the most powerful attitude to protect us, bless us, prosper us, heal us. This is the very essence of healing.

For several weeks now, actually, I've been contemplating the idea of preaching a couple of sermons at least, on the fruit of the spirit that you know, is recorded in Galatians, chapter 5. Those nine fruits. Yes, that fruit, because it speaks in the singular. That fruit of the spirit that is divided into nine minor fruits.

And I've been turning it around waiting to finish a series and other things until God gave me the freedom to start talking about the fruit of the spirit. This morning I decided, instead of starting directly at Galatians chapter 5, to go back a little bit and lay a conceptual and perhaps theological foundation for this concept of the fruit of the spirit.

I'm still allowing that theme to settle inside of me. And although I'm not ready to preach it yet, I wanted to warm up so to speak by meditating for a moment on this subject of what I call the attitude of grace behind it. When you examine the different fruits that Paul mentions in Galatians:5, for example, meekness, love, goodness, gentleness, they are things that tell us about the spirit of Christ, much like what is here. They are part of the same construction.

I want to lay a fundamental foundation for this. And let's start preparing for that discussion later on about the fruit of the spirit specifically. And I want to talk about these themes of joy, benevolence, goodness, faith, love, all these things.

And I would say that the spirit that is recorded in this particular passage in Luke:6, as I said, is what distinguishes Christianity from many other religions. The great religions of the world contain a lot of ethics, a lot of beautiful, powerful things that bless humanity. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism have tremendous truths, although they are wrong because they are missing the main piece that is Jesus Christ, but still they have many noble and admirable things in them.

But I would say that Christianity, what distinguishes Christianity is precisely this emphasis on grace, mercy, forgiveness, the goodness of God, the heart of the Father. No other religion presents a God as accessible and in touch with the human condition as Christianity. It shows us a God not only outside of creation but also within creation. God is more than creation, but he has also been intimately involved in our lives. A God who makes himself accessible. A God who is generous. A God who is patient, merciful, paternal, with us.

And that emphasis of Jesus on mercy, compassion and grace, is the essence of his ministry. That is why this message of loving our enemies, forgiving those who offend us, being generous with those who ask us for something, not using violence as retribution for the violence received, but on the contrary, overwhelming evil with good. Overwhelm violence with mercy.

Brethren, that is the center of the Gospel. And nothing exemplifies that message of Christianity more than a crucified God, paying the price for our sin, even though He didn't have to. A God who substitutes himself in our place and instead of giving us retribution and punishment, gives us blessing and a path to reconciliation with the Father. And that tells us, "That's what I want you to do."

That is why I remember the words of Philippians where he says, “Therefore, let there be in you the same feeling that there was in Christ Jesus, who, being equal to God, did not take being equal to God as things to cling to, but gave himself up. ”

And the Bible says that "...He assumed the form of a servant and became obedient and obedient to the cross..." And it says, "Let there be the same feeling in you."

Christ is an example of what we should live in our lives and in dealing with others, with our families, our loved ones, our enemies, our work colleagues, the brothers of the church, it is that message of grace and mercy.

And we know, brothers, that this call to this attitude of grace is contrary to everything that is known in the world. Right now the situation in Ukraine, for example, exemplifies what the world is and what man is without the spirit of Christ in the middle. Russia is a great nation. Vladimir Putin is a very enlightened man with a highly developed brain, but in his heart is not Christ's message of grace and mercy. Therefore, this man only thinks about making the Russian empire bigger, restoring Russia to its former greatness.

And the nations of the world that are fighting against him right now, against what he has done, have done the same thing on other occasions. England did. Germany did it in terrible ways. The United States has done it throughout its entire history with Latin America, with many other countries where it had a lot of influence, with Afro-Americans here through slavery.

Brothers, the history of the world is a history that declares the complete opposite of that spirit that Christ has called his people to live and to exemplify and internalize. The Gospel message says, "Do not enslave your brother, do not oppress your brother, do not try to make yourself great, bless the weak, enrich the poor." That is the message of the Gospel and that is the message…

And it is so difficult, brothers, because the Gospel is contrary to our biology, to the flesh. Human instincts are for self-preservation, to preserve ourselves, to protect ourselves, to make a protective fence around ourselves, to store things for our own survival, to hoard more, to conquer more, to make ourselves stronger. That is the message of biology, of the flesh, of the carnal man, of humanity.

And that is what we have programmed in our brain, in our biology, it inclines us towards self-preservation and to do whatever it takes to ensure our own safety and our own survival. And here at the moment we have the Gospel that tells us, "Don't live like this, adopt a new way of relating to others." Instead of strength and power, adopt weakness, like Paul. He said, "When I am weak, then I am strong."

Where was the greatest triumph of all humanity and the entire cosmos and the entire history of the universe achieved? On the cross. A man crucified, nailed, unable to act, totally prevented from doing anything, there the Bible says, that Christ defeated principalities and powers and publicly denounced them and achieved freedom and healing for us, unable, in extreme weakness.

And that is the message of the Gospel, brothers, that when we are weak, then we become strong. When we adopt an ethic of self-sacrifice, of not seeking our own victory, of leaving the cause to the Lord, of living obediently according to the values of the Gospel and the example of Jesus Christ, even if it costs us, because at that moment we will become irresistible, we will become powerful, we will become invincible. That goes against everything that we have been introduced by biology and by the world to be.

God is calling us, through the Gospel message, to a life that is counterintuitive, that goes against the current. And he tells us, there, imitating your Lord, that when he was weak he became stronger, when he had all his divinity within him, he decided to strip himself of his privileges, that is where you will find self-realization, victory, and health and reserves for everything you are fighting for. That's where you're going to get rich, making you poor.

That is why it is right there in that passage from Philippians, where we are invited to strip ourselves, like Christ, of all our privileges, he says, "...for which reason Christ having done that - making himself weak, dying for others, giving himself to others, others, taking on the sin of others within his perfect being, he says – therefore God raised him to the highest and gave him a name that is above all names so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of what is in the world. heaven, on earth and under the earth.

You see, the story of Jesus' journey does not stop at the cross. The cross was the prerequisite for Him to be highly exalted. And that happens to us in our lives too. That many times when we abandoned our weapons, when being able to take the sword and cut off the ear of the host's servant, as Paul wanted to do to defend Jesus Christ on the day of his Gethsemane, the Lord told him, "No, keep your sword, Peter because he who kills with the sword will also die with the sword. Do not live by violence, my kingdom is not one of violence, my kingdom is one in which I neutralize the devil through love, grace, kindness, mercy, generosity."

And that is what the Lord is calling us here in this passage to do. He is telling us, “Live against your nature. Live against your inclinations. Live against what the flesh is shouting at you to do and let yourself be impregnated by something different, which is the seed of my Kingdom, so that you can then bear the fruit of the spirit."

The grace, brothers, to which this passage calls us, can only come through the work of the Holy Spirit in us. You have to start by admitting defeat. It has to start us saying, “You know what? I give up, I can't do that by myself, I need the spirit of God dwelling within me to do it."

Why is it called the fruit of the spirit? Why is it not said the fruit of so-and-so or so-and-so? No, it is the fruit of the spirit. What God is calling you to do or to be is not going to come from you, it cannot come from you because what you can produce is sin, flesh, pride, selfishness. But when the spirit of God is within you, then that spirit bears fruit through you and manifests itself in that beauty of joy, peace, love, goodness, mercy, generosity, forgiveness, patience. , meekness, temperance, self-control. It is the presence of the spirit of God within you.

And that is why it is important, brothers, that we understand that the first thing that we have to look for is not the external actions of these things, of humility, etc. No, I believe that the first thing we have to seek is intimacy with the Holy Spirit within us so that this Holy Spirit, being so full within us, manifests Himself through these actions of the spirit. It is the fruit of the spirit.

How can we get to what God is asking us to do through this passage? It is living in intimacy with the spirit of God and the spirit of Jesus Christ. And how do we establish this intimacy? How do we maintain it? It is through what we are doing today. I believe that what we do every Sunday or Wednesday, or every day that we plug into the Word through a devotional moment, or when we worship the Lord in our car, or when we have a spiritual conversation, what we are doing is reinforcing that intimacy with Christ that will allow the spirit of Christ to flourish in those manifestations of grace that the Lord points out here.

God wants you to get so involved with Him that His nature manifests through you spontaneously, without your having to think about it. I think that is one of the key things. Don't worry so much about being a generous or forgiving or merciful person. No, worry that the spirit of Jesus is kept alive within you through those disciplines that keep your mind focused on Him. And as you contemplate Christ, the spirit of Christ will be transmitted to you.

Doesn't the Bible say that? That when contemplating Jesus, he says, we go from glory to glory. His grace is manifested in us. This is what we see, for example, when Moses was on the Mount those 40 days in intimacy with God. God talking to him. We don't know in what specific way but Moses was in a unique intimacy with the Father. And what happened? That when Moses came down from that Mount, 40 days later, he did not realize but the glory of God had been transmitted to him and he now manifested the glory of God through his face. It was radioactive, like a person who is in contact with some kind of radioactive material and the radiation is passed on to him or her.

And he didn't realize that when he came down from the Mount, he was reflecting the Shekinah, the glory of God with which he had been so intimate. And I say that one of the ways that we can reach this position that Christ calls us, is by living a life of intimacy with Him. And you know what? That we need to do that every day, several times a day until we die.

I wish I could say, "Well, I was in church a year ago and I was blessed and filled with the glory of God and now I no longer need to live looking for the Lord anymore because I already have everything I need." No, the Christian life is a continuum… we are addicted to the glory of God. We need to inject ourselves each day with a portion of God's glory and grace. Every day I have to return to the disciplines of the Gospel. I have to read my Bible, I have to pray, I have to adore, I have to confess, I have to renew my intimacy with Him, I have to fast. I have to take time to pray in tongues, I have to take time to confess that I need God. I have to make time to confess things that stand between me and God.

That, brother, you are going to have to do until the day you die. We have to be addicted to the glory of God. And that is why it is so important that we do not stop congregating. I wish the Christian life was more economical, that we didn't need to come and congregate and listen to sermons and meditate on the word, and that we were angelic in a spontaneous way. No, we're still on earth and we'll need to plug in like one of those electric cars out there today, that after it's driven 200 miles, has to be plugged in again to have power to keep going. We need to be in touch with God.

That's why I tell you, brothers, let's practice the disciplines that allow the spirit of God to enter us and then be transmitted through us. That is the way to bear fruit. And the other thing that I think is important and I'm not even getting into the sermon itself yet, don't worry I'm going to finish at a convenient time, is the following, and that is that we have to value and give priority to this dimension of the Christian life that is to manifest the grace of the spirit, to manifest an attitude of grace.

You have to give priority to that. That is more important than any work you can do. Because if you value and value the fruit of the spirit and the expression of the character of Jesus Christ, then that will become a priority for you and you will be continually asking the spirit, "Lord, make me more like you." And you then, you will observe yourself and you will analyze your actions and you will criticize yourself in a merciful way, but you will be observing your actions and you will be monitoring your behavior and determining if that behavior is reflecting the spirit of Christ or not. But you have to value that.

What we value, what we give priority to is what we are going to live and express in our lives. It's the same, as I said before, for example, when you name your giants. I was talking about that before, about the renewing of the mind and how to transcend our limitations. If you don't give priority to those aspects of your life, if you don't agonize to be more like Christ wants you to be, you will never get there.

What you give priority to, what you value, that is what will become a reality in your life. So, if you give priority to exemplifying the character of Jesus, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, that will give energy to your life and your life will gradually gravitate towards those things.

I believe that in preaching we must insist, brothers, not only on works but, above all, on the heart, which is the center and starting point of every good work. I believe that many times we put the cart before the horse and we emphasize doing this, doing that, producing this, producing that, when in reality what we have to be doing is saying to the Lord and seeking, “Father, give me a transformed heart, give me a crucified heart, give me a generous heart, give me a generous attitude.” Because when you have that attitude and that heart, everything else will proceed, everything else will manifest.

So it's important. And why do I also say this, because, brothers, I see a lot of people in the Gospel, I see a lot of people in the church. Sometimes I myself have surely made that mistake of being too satisfied with the external and forgetting the importance of what happens within us, how necessary it is to form a cruciform heart.

The Bible says, "Give me your heart, my son." Have you read that passage? He says, "Give me, my son, your heart and let your eyes look through my eyes." And why does God emphasize the heart so much? Because the heart is the driving force. From the heart all things are born, says the Lord Jesus Christ, "From the heart are born all the bad things and all the good things."

And yet, there are many of us who are worrying about washing our hands, doing things outside, putting on perfume, etc., but the Lord says, “No, those things are secondary. It is the health and healing of the heart that matters.” So, we have to be asking the Lord always, "Father, give me a heart, create in me, O God, a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me."

There are many Christians who place too much emphasis on it, although that is also important. The Lord says that it is good to do one thing without ceasing to do the other. There are many believers, especially in the Pentecostal world, for example, with which we identify ourselves, there are many people who are so dazzled by the gifts of the spirit, tongues, prophecies, healings, miracles, signs, these things spectacular of the Gospel, and we concentrate so much on the power of the gifts that we do not give priority to the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which are these qualities that truly, I believe are the most important of all, the fruit, not the gift.

The gift is important but the fruit is more important. And I'm going to tell you why I believe that. The Lord says, in First Corinthians:13, "If I speak the tongues of men and angels and have no love, I am like a tinkling cymbal." I make noise, an unpleasant noise. If I give my body to be burned and I do not have love, I am nothing, it is of no use to me. If I were to say prophecies, I would do all the great signs, but I don't have love, I can't get dressed because I'm not going anywhere. Love, which is the main fruit of the Holy Spirit.

So, we have to prioritize the fruit of the spirit. And on this day the Lord calls you and me to be aware of that, that I must always be yearning, exemplifying, expressing the qualities of Jesus Christ because that is what makes me invincible. That's what's going to make me healthy. That is what breaks the yoke. That's what the devil can't deal with them because he doesn't know that technology.

I have always said that the devil can deal with tongues easily, the devil can deal with prophecy, the devil can even deal with signs. What's more, he makes more signs many times than most evangelicals. But what he doesn't know how to deal with is a heart that expresses the love of Christ, a self-aware life, broken before God, that has mercy on others, that forgives, that gives without waiting. The devil can't get his hands on that.

And therefore we have to be cultivating these dimensions of the Holy Spirit, without leaving the others, because I believe that it is also important to exemplify the power of God. What's more, God wants to give us his power but above all he wants us to be able to use that power in an appropriate way.

I have seen so many people with true gifts of the spirit but many times their heart is not treated and then, what they do is a fool, as we say in the Caribbean, a mess. There are many anointed churches, but there are few churches that exemplify the fruit, this attitude of grace that the Lord is exemplifying here.

The Corinthians were one of the most anointed congregations in the New Testament world at the time Paul was writing. And he says, you do not lack any gift, but nevertheless in you there are divisions, there are controversies, some say that they are from Paul, others say that they are from Apollo, this and that. They are pulling the bows continuously. And that was a congregation filled with the gifts of the spirit.

So, God is calling us, brothers, to a position of grace, mercy, love, goodness. God wants when people talk about you or me, they say, "In that person there is something different, something different dwells, an attitude, an energy, a different fuel." That is what distinguishes us from other religions and from other people.

So, what I am telling you is that we have to value, we have to give it priority and not extol the works so much. Many of us tithe, we serve, we evangelize, we are faithful to our church, we minister in different ways, but we are lacking in the grace of God. And you know what? That what we do with our hands, we undo with our feet. We have to desperately want the Lord to make us carriers of the energy of Christ, mercy, goodness, these attitudes that he outlines in this passage.

So, remember two things: you are going to manifest the fruit of the spirit when the spirit is alive and palpable within you through intimacy with the Holy Spirit and when you begin to give priority to that dimension of the Christian life and asking to the Lord, "Lord, crucify me."

As that choir says that I love, it says: "I want to decrease so that you can grow." May the Lord wear out the flesh in us so that the spirit manifests itself with more power in our lives.

Let me jump right in, I'm going to skip through some material and focus now on some of the qualities. How can you identify if Christ is doing that work in you? How will you be able to identify when the Lord is building that structure of grace within your life? What are the things to which you and I should aspire? What are the manifestations of that fruit of the spirit within us?

Number 1: A person of grace is well aware of the fallen condition of every human being. Listen to this. The attitude of grace is very aware of the brokenness in every human being. He knows that all of us are warped by sin, and he treats people in that understanding capacity, as the Father treats us.

I have quoted this verse to you, these verses from Psalm 103, “as far as the east is from the west, he has removed our transgressions from us. As the father has compassion on children, so Jehovah has compassion on those who fear him.”

Because? Because He knows our condition. He remembers that we are dust. What allows the Father to have mercy on us? Because He knows that we are fragile beings, we are fallen beings, we are deformed by Adamic sin. We live in a world that is continually militating against the holiness to which we aspire. We live in a world full of traps, of distortions. As much as we want to please the Father, many times we end up doing the opposite.

Paul says, “when I want to do good, I discover that there is another law in me, that while aspiring to do good, I end up doing bad. Wretched that I am,” says Paul, “who will deliver me from this body of death?”

And the Lord knows your condition. The Lord knows the framework of which you are made. He knows that instead of steel beams, what there are matchsticks enduring your life. As He understands that, that you are a fallen being, He has mercy on you. And you know what? That we have to do the same with each other, at work, we have to remember that the people we deal with are fallen people. In the church, we have to understand that we are all broken. We are part of this sad creation that one day the Lord will regenerate.

While we are here the church is a hospital. The church is a place where everyone is crazy and the main psychiatrist is also crazy. Don't be surprised when you find sin and brokenness in the church. Don't be surprised when someone you love, respect, or admire disappoints you, because that's the human condition. And when you have mercy like that, God will have mercy on you too.

So remember that the people you deal with are all broken and you must, by understanding their condition, be able to forgive them and assist in their restoration and be patient with them. Put yourself in the place. He is aware of the fallen condition of every human being.

The Lord, knowing humanity in a very powerful way, wanted to get inside our skin and experience the same thing that we experience from being fallen and being continually tempted. He assumed the form of a man in order to intercede for us in a suitable way.

And that is why the writer of Hebrews says, "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin."

In other words, we have a high priest who is not like those high priests of the Old Testament, there in his own glory, separated from the world, that nobody saw him. No, that Christ got into the mud that is the human condition. And for this reason, when we fall and sin, He can sympathize. And we have to give that same privilege to our loved ones. We have to be a people of compassion and mercy. The attitude of grace is very aware of the fallen condition of the human being.

Number 2: The person of grace puts himself in the place of others before judging them. Before making a decision, he puts himself in the person's shoes to see what that person was feeling. There is an old Indian saying that "we should not judge anyone until we have walked a mile in their moccasins."

The Lord invites us to see, look, how do you act in life? And when you want to judge someone simplistically [sic], try to identify with them and on occasions in which you have done something similar.

Mateo:12 talks about an event there where one day he found himself in a synagogue, on a Saturday, and there was a man there who had a withered hand. The Pharisees, who were not people of mercy, were trapped by legalism and said, “On Saturday the store must be closed. No one is served. That day should not be used to heal anyone or do anything because it is work.” A narrow mindset. And the Lord said to him, "Hypocrite, what man is there among you who has a sheep and if that sheep falls into a hole on the Sabbath, does he not take hold of it and lift it up?"

In other words, he is saying, how many of you in your daily life do not have a cow, a sheep that if it falls into a hole you jump headfirst to get it out because that is your property, and you have invested money in it? that…? You don't think if it's Saturday, if it's Sunday, if it's Monday, you take it out because you value the life of that sheep.

Why don't you put yourself in my condition then, that I have before me a ruined life and that although it is Saturday I must heal and save it? And if you were the person with that dry hand, wouldn't you want me to heal it today, Saturday? So, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand,” and he stretched it out and it was restored, healed like the other.”

That is what God wants, that we see how we…. I believe that if we put ourselves in the place of the people we could understand better. And sometimes we don't. Parents, for example, we reach a certain age and we have already burned many of the stages of our youth and now our son is doing the same thing that we did when we were his age. But we have no mercy or patience with them and we don't even remember where we were. And God says, “No, remember when you were like this. Then mercifully act and call him to a different stance.”

We have to treat ourselves with that sense of... looking at yourself, lest you also fall, says the Word. It's very important. We put ourselves in the place of others.

Number 3: Third thing that is related to the second. A person of grace, the attitude of grace is painfully aware of his own fallen condition. And this governs the way you view others.

We must look at ourselves through our own condition of fragility. And that at all times we know who we are and then interpret others in light of that.

There's a passage in Titus, the Book of Titus, chapter 3, verses 2 through 5. The Apostle Paul calls… Well, Titus, actually, oh, yes, Paul speaking to Titus. Says:

“Tell your congregation not to defame anyone, not to be quarrelsome – in other words, not to gossip – to be kind, showing all meekness towards all men because we too were in another time, foolish, rebellious, lost, slaves to various lusts and delights, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”

We very easily forget where we once were. And so, we adopt an unsympathetic attitude. The Lord says, "No, remember where I got you from." And when you treat someone, treat them that way. It says, “But when the goodness of God our Savior appeared and his love for men saved us, not because of the work of justice that we had done, but because of his mercy, because of the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit."

Let's not forget where God took us from and treat each other with mercy. Let's remember who we are to treat others that way too.

Number 4: The person of grace focuses on the good in others and does not focus on the imperfections of others. He prefers to emphasize the good and the noble in the person than the negative and the sinful.

And that's how God treats us. God saw Saul and did not see a man persecuting the church, he did not see a criminal man who was participating in the stoning of a righteous man, He saw a sincere and jealous heart for Him although misdirected and wrong. The Lord saw the zeal of the man who loves God and who believes that the evangelical church or the Christian church is harming the Kingdom of God and that is why it is doing what it is doing. And seeing the heart of this man, seeing his generosity, seeing his zealous spirit for God, he said, "I want to deal with this man, I even want to use what he has for the glory of my kingdom." And so he took it, changed the engine, lobotomized it, and put it in, reprogrammed it, and used it for his glory. Because He saw the sincere man.

And so it is that the Lord deals with everyone. To David, the Lord saw how bloodthirsty David was. He saw how sensual David was, but he also saw the man with a heart totally devoted to God, who did not admit idolatry against the Father, did not admit giants who insulted the Lord. He was willing to risk his life for the glory of God. And as the Bible says, as the Lord also said to this woman who honored him with her sacrifice, with her perfume, with her beautiful work of adoration, when she spilled the glass of alabaster perfume and dried the perfume with her hair, she kissed her feet, and He said, "As this woman loved much, much is forgiven her."

The Lord sees beyond and we, brothers, have to exercise and exercise that attitude that goes beyond the external and that sees the hearts of the people. How many people are there…? For example, in the morning service, at 9:00, every day I thank the Lord more and more because more and more broken, needy, recovering, drug addicted people are coming who are in their bodies. they manifest the ravages of a sinful life.

Brothers, I am filled with joy when I see you come forward and worship the Lord. I see them crawl sometimes, some of them are still under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Some of them manifest the damage of life and guess what? Forgive me, but I enjoy more with those than with those who behave well and are already very well in the Gospel, many of you. Because? Because that was what Christ came to look for. And He rejoices when He sees a repentant sinner, when He sees these people there fighting, fighting. I am not going to focus on whether they are high or not, if they are drunk or not, if they dress well or not, if they smell bad or not. Inside there is a heart that God loves and treasures and values.

And I say if they are here that means that something has brought them. And I prefer that they are here nodding off in the seat than that they are out there taking drugs or getting dirty with the vileness of the world. So, I believe that the person of grace sees that, sees the heart. You have to see the good intentions of the people around you, don't just look at their bad deeds, see the desire to please God. Better that they be here in the Kingdom of God searching even if it is stumbling than being out there, and love them and forgive them and tolerate them. Focus on the good and don't just look at the imperfections. The person of grace looks at the good and emphasizes that before the defect.

Number 5: The person of grace sees the potential in others. All these things are related to each other. See the potential in others, in what they can become instead of what they are in the present.

Know that God has an incredible ability to see the future in us and focus so much on the nobility that is locked in you, the greatness that is in you, that that is what attracts Him and that is what governs his relationship with you .

The Bible says that God calls things that are not as if they were. Sometimes God sees the barrenness of a man but immediately goes on to see what that man or woman can be in Christ.

Abraham was almost dead, he says, at 75 years old, almost 100 years old, and yet God called him “father of multitudes” because He saw what Abraham was going to become. And we have to see the gold hidden in people. There are so many people over the years in my ministry who have blessed me so incredibly that when you first saw them they didn't seem to promise much.

Mario Ulloa We recently officiated his funeral, when I met Mario Ulloa in Cambridge he was a quiet man, who didn't kill a fly, simple, humble, nothing. When we moved here I began to see the water up to my neck with the first construction, because I didn't know about construction, I didn't know how much it was going to cost, how difficult the reconstruction work of that first building was going to be, Mario He humbly approached me one day and said, “Pastor, - Roberto told me because he called me Roberto, - Roberto, if you want, I know something about construction, I can help you.”

And Mario became our right hand. When he began to work, he manifested a number of skills that I would never have imagined that were within that man, construction skills, mechanics, a generous, dedicated heart. And that man got us out of a big bind.

But I have learned, brothers, that there are many people... and others who here in this church right now are blessing this congregation, the Kingdom of God in great ways, if you had looked at them 15 years ago, 20 years ago, you would not have given a penny for his ministerial capacity. But I have learned that I have to look beyond what the person seems like in the moment and tune in to the greatness that is within them. And when you get in tune with the greatness hidden in people, you arouse, you bring that greatness out.

What many people need is someone who believes in them, someone who sees value in them, someone who sees Peter as a fishy stink, who sees him as a fisher of men. Someone who sees Saul persecuting the church, the greatest evangelist and theologian that has existed in the entire history of Christianity.

The Lord has discernment and sees what is there. Ask the Lord to put you in tune with the hidden greatness of the people with whom you work. And then, so you can grab them before they get too expensive. I have learned that in business one of the most important qualities is to see the value in something that right now seems worthless and buy it while the price is low.

Look at this neighborhood. When we moved here, or when we started working in 1994, this was a pigsty, this area, this neighborhood full of crime, destroyed buildings, holes in buildings that had been undone, a scar running across Washington, an elevated train there that made the whole neighborhood ugly, wandering people [sic] and thank God, we bought the first building for a fraction of what a studio next to us costs today. Today, a studio here costs you $600, $700,000 dollars. We bought that four-story building with this land where this building is for $235,000 dollars. Because? Because we could see the potential of this centralized place in the middle of the city, with access to different roads and under construction.

Today we couldn't get our teeth into a fraction of the first building if we wanted to buy it now. But when one sees the potential, and especially when one wants the glory of God then, sometimes without realizing it, you find yourself sitting on a treasure because you sought the love, grace and glory of God. So, without your knowing, God puts you in places of abundance. That is what the attitude of grace does.

When you see the blessing in others, when you get in tune with the greatness hidden in others, God sometimes gives you treasures that you cannot imagine, because your heart is good, it is noble, it pleases the Lord. And then, God wants to bless you and God gives you things unattainable for others. Focus on the good in others and let that overwhelm your inclination to criticize or speak ill of them. I'm almost done.

Number 6: The person of grace knows and is well aware that sanctification is a process and not an event. Listen. The healing and merciful person knows that we are all under construction, we are all a construction project, and we all have to exercise patience until God completes what He has begun. The person of grace takes a long-term attitude when considering the imperfections of others.

This is a project of a lifetime. And do you know when the construction project in us ends? When we die Then, God finishes the total project and we then enter the Kingdom of God perfected. But while we are here on earth we have to be patient with each other, we have to know that the process of healing and growth and sanctification is a long term thing.

We have to adopt the attitude of a grandfather. Grandparents are merciful to their grandchildren. Now, when they were parents, they were tremendously impatient with them, right? But grandfather has already seen so much and he knows that this boy who looked like he was going to be a serial criminal turned out to be an honest and hard-working and kind man and faithful to his family, and that it is a process. And so, now he has the luxury of giving that understanding [sic] to his grandchildren. And he advises parents, “Look, leave that boy who still has a lot to grow up to do. Be patient with him." Because he knows that growth and maturation is a process.

And that's how we have to treat each other. We have to know that the sanctification process is long and it is a process that takes time, and in this process we are going to fall, we are going to get up, we are going to zigzag, we are going to go two steps forward and one step back, and three times step forward and five steps back. But the Lord will be using all that and will be taking advantage of it.

The sanctification process is not something linear. It's kind of zigzagging. And if you do not have that vision of the process, you will not be able to be a good shepherd of lives and a merciful person. A generous attitude is characterized by that long-term, long-term investment mindset. It's very important.

And finally, say glory to God, Hallelujah! I hope they are not sleeping on me. These things cannot be preached in 20 minutes, brothers, they take time. And if we're not prepared to pay the price then what we're going to be eating is soft-boiled eggs all the time.

Finally, the person of grace, of that grace that the Lord photographs in that passage…. The person of grace understands what is behind the actions of people and takes it into account. He doesn't watch the in-person act of the moment, but stops the video and freezes the person in their actions and gets behind it to see what's behind that action. He gets into the basement of the house to see the pipes that are broken and old, to see the heating that doesn't work, to see why the water heater is leaking [sic] and to see what is behind it, then he understands what's outside

Because much of this attitude of grace is going down, going to the substructure of men's actions. Many of the things that I have been saying is that, it is the ability not to judge superficially but to see what is deep, what is hidden, what is not easy to observe when we have a superficial look. So, the person of grace understands that many times what the person is doing is the product of past traumas.

When I see many of these people on Sundays who come to church so broken, so hurt, I see people who were born into a single mother's home, saw their mother with several men, go in and out of the apartment. Perhaps on occasion you were sexually abused by one of those men. He understands that he fell into a trap of using marijuana and thought that was it and ends up using heroin or some other terrible drug, fentanyl or whatever. Was caught. It fell into a hole and like an ox that falls into a hole it has not been able to get out by itself.

So, I think that the attitude of grace understands the traumas behind people, it understands why this person is so inclined to criticism and self-righteousness because he grew up in a family, in a home where he was criticized, where there were self-righteous people. who taught him and trained him and programmed his brain to find out who is to blame when something bad happened and criticize it. Perhaps that person grew up in an evangelical home where everything was works and legalism and now what he does is simply what he was taught to be, to be legalistic, to think that when he speaks badly to others he is being prophetic. And they don't know better. They do not know except what they have seen.

And then, we have to get under the hood of the car and see where these crossed wires are and understand and try to help to fix it. That is what psychiatrists try to do when they catch a person who has mental or emotional problems, they try to find where the cause is, whether in childhood, in the past. And they try, exploring them through their words, to get inside them and understand why they do what they do. And that allows the psychiatrist to be generous. If the psychiatrist sees that this person is being aggressive towards him or her, he says, “I know what's going on. It is that he resents the authority that I represent because the authority that he or she knows abused him, was oppressive and now seeing the authority in me, as his psychiatrist, he is projecting himself onto me.”

And then what happens? Understanding what's going on allows you to detach yourself and not take it personally. He understands that he has to become, in a sense, a scapegoat that absorbs all the bad odors of that person and helps him get out of his entrenchment, his quagmire. Because many times wounded and traumatized people need men and women who stand in the gap and become a little Christ who absorbs their defects and their wounds and transmits them to the father, and then they are healed.

He knows that when you do not pay evil for evil, you become an imitator of Christ and then, you become healed. And you know what? That the same reward that Christ received, you receive. God promotes you, puts you on a higher level. It uses you more, it gives you more health, more power, more authority, because you are being a transmitter of the grace of Christ on earth.

And what is most needed at this time is cruciform people, people who become transmitters of God's grace. Make yourself a person of grace.

Let's lower our heads. And if there is something of value that you have heard this afternoon, receive it, get in touch with it, welcome it. Say, Lord, I want to be a pastor. I want to be a pastor. I want to be my brother's, my sister's, guardian; I want to be a health agent. I want to be a man, a woman who is your instrument in my home, with my wife, with my children, with my colleagues at work, with my friends, and even with my enemies, in the street. Help me to exemplify the attitude of grace that was in the Lord.

And right now renounce, renounce, renounce every improper attitude, every attitude contrary to that, the carnal attitude, the biological attitude, the attitude of the world. Give it up. Say, Lord, I renounce that by faith and embrace love, mercy, grace, generosity, patience, forgiveness, seeing the long term, getting in tune with the hurt of others, putting myself in tone with the potential they contain, to be able to see them in the long term, to be able to see myself in my own need to be patient with others. I adopt, receive, that spirit.

And it's going to be unpleasant for you, now I'm talking to you, it's going to be unpleasant at first because you're not going to be used to it. But over time it will get easier. And you will find joy in that attitude, in being like your Master, being a son of God, truly a daughter of God.

Oh, Father, we ask that this become the fundamental value of our lives on this day. Thank you because you are doing this in me and in all of us and you are glorifying yourself in this spiritual family. Help us to exemplify the highest values of the Kingdom of God and get in tune with this Scripture, with this word, these values.

Forgive us because many times we have not lived up to your word but today we say, Lord, fulfill your work in me and install Christ in the center of my heart. Thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. God bless you.