Resilience: Competent in Christ

I want to preach, brothers, from the Book of Numbers, chapter 13, and I want to continue with this theme of resilience. This word resilience, as I said before, is strange and not very common for many of us. But it is a word that is loaded with relation to our lives, with practical teaching for us. And as you know, I have spent the last few Sundays that I have been able to preach talking about this ability that we, the children of God, have to rebound, to return from times of trial, loss, difficulties, stresses that life throws at us, and the ways in which the word of the Lord can teach us how to live resilient lives, lives that do not allow themselves to be crushed by anything, lives that use trials and difficulties rather to become stronger, for, as the Apostle Paul says, "Before in all these things, we are more than conquerors."

And today, having spent a few weeks in the Book of Ruth, and having explored this theme of resilience, from the perspective and experience of Ruth and Naomi, her mother-in-law, and how these two women were able to get out on the road , getting ahead after losing their husbands, in Naomi's case, her children, her identity in a sense, returning with practically nothing to Naomi's homeland, and there discovering new ways of living life, living powerful and get out on the road, and become exemplary beings, as they have been for us in these last studies that we have done about their lives. Resilience, we could say resistance. But not only resistance, because resisting is like taking blows, but resilience is going on the offensive, going on the counter-offensive and taking advantage of life's trials and difficulties. Now, I want to move on to another element of resilience or another approach because it's one thing to be resilient when we experience loss, when we experience tragedy, when we have setbacks in life that leave us beaten. But there is another situation in which we can also manifest that same attitude of trust, of getting ahead, and that is when we face challenges in life, for example, when we are going to undertake a big project, when we are going to undertake something that scares us. When we face situations in which we feel inadequate, small, when we are going to undertake a financial project, for example, and the challenge seems too big, when we face situations in which we feel deficient, we do not feel up to it. challenge and situation. And a lot of people many times when confronted with situations that seem too big, too challenging [sic], what they do is they rather give up the fight before they even start it, because they think, oh, I know I'm going to fail, so why do it

So, it's also good to see that even in those situations, where it often seems that we can't get ahead, we can. And there are a number of skills and strengths and attitudes that help us undertake anything in life, no matter how big and threatening it seems. And that is also part of resilience in life, or the ability to move forward. I want to title this sermon “Competent in Christ.” A person who is competent is a person who is capable, who is apt to complete a task or to do something. And we are competent in Christ Jesus. And I want to explore this from the lives of two exemplary men in Scripture, Caleb and Joshua, who are found in the Book of Numbers, chapters 13 and 14. And you will remember their story. Joshua and Caleb distinguished themselves because on one occasion Moses, when the Jews were in the desert, before entering the Promised Land, almost ready to enter after 40 years... sorry, it was almost at the very beginning of the time they had in the desert. I am going to explain the 40 years. But Moses sent 12 men, he chose 12 men, each of them the leader of a tribe of Israel, that's why there were 12, for the 12 tribes.

And it says here in Numbers Chapter 13, verse 1, that “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, “Send your men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.” Notice that he gives. God gives. He does not say, I am going to give them, but He speaks in the present, I give you the land. And God sends Moses to send these men to go in as spies to reconnoiter the land, before they enter it. And he says in verse 18, “Observe the land as it is and the people that inhabit it, if they are strong or weak, if few or numerous, how is the land inhabited, if it is good or bad, and how are the inhabited cities, if they are camps or fortified squares, and what the terrain is like, if it is fertile or sterile, if there are trees on it or not. Be strong and take from the fruit of the land, and it was the time of the first grapes.” So, Moses sends these men to spy on the land they have to enter and as a good military leader, who has to lead a large people, to a difficult task, he tells them, "Explore the land, see what it is like, reconnoitering, it's a word in English that they use when the military enters, reconnaissance, a space to… they send people forward to see and reconnoiter what's there, to make sure they have a proper strategy. And that is what Moses sends these men to do. They enter the land, spend 40 days exploring the land as spies, and return after 40 days and that's where the problem begins. It says that, “They returned to spy out the land – verse 25 – at the end of 40 days and they went and came to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran. -And then, in verse 27 it says, – And they counted them saying, "We came to the land to which you sent us, which, it is true, flows with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it."

The first thing they do is say, look, it's true, Moses, the land is excellent. And do you remember that famous passage where they brought a huge bunch of grapes, so big, so heavy, that it required two men on a stick to bring that bunch of grapes. It was a fertile land. And they say to Moses, look, in fact, it is like that, it is a very fertile land. But in verse 28 they add some negative details, it says, “But the people who live in that land are strong, and the cities are very large and fortified. And we also saw the sons of Anac there.” Those sons of Anac were tremendously tall, tremendously strong men, they were descendants of those famous giants from Genesis. And they say, look, that land is defended by too powerful people. In other words, they bring a negative report. The land is beautiful, very good, very fertile, but it is possessed by people who will fight tooth and nail and are too powerful for us. In verse 30 it says, “Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and told them, it doesn't matter, let's go up later and take possession of it, because we will be able to do more than they.” That is the attitude of resilience, that is the positive attitude to which God calls us. These two men are possessed of a different spirit than their companions. They are not intimidated by these giants. And he tells them, hey, let's go upstairs. How good it is to have a positive attitude in life, brothers. It's good when you're going through difficult situations to find people who encourage you, who tell you, yes, it's possible. I love the people on my team that when you present something to them they say, "Yes, we can, let's go ahead." That encourages me because leaders need people to encourage us too, to support us and inspire us because many times we lack the confidence that we need, and it's good to have people like Caleb and Josué, courageous people. Let us take possession of it, “…because we will be able to do more than they. But the men who went up with him said, "That is a lie, we will not be able to go up against that people, because they are stronger than us."

Here we see two attitudes. A positive attitude, you can, God is with us. And a negative attitude, no, those people are too powerful. This land is too dangerous. And I believe that in the Christian life, brothers, it is like that, there are two tribes: there is the tribe of Caleb and Joshua and there is the tribe of the 10 spies. And the question we have to ask ourselves is, which tribe do I belong to? To which of these two positions? The Bible is full of examples where the same thing happens, where when faced with threatening and difficult situations, men and women of God take a position that it can't be done. There is, for example, that event when the disciples are with that great crowd and the Lord has been preaching to them all day, night comes, and the Lord has finished preaching and the disciples come to Jesus and say, "Lord , the night is already advanced, people have to go. Send them away so they can go home.” And the Lord tells them, “Hey, give them something to eat,” because they were far from their town, they were on a mountain or something like that. "Give them something to eat." What do the disciples say? What do we give them to eat? There are thousands of people, there isn't even a McDonald's around here, where are we going to feed so many people? And even if there was a Stop and Shop or a Market Basket we don't have money to buy so many people. And the Lord says to them, “Hmm, seat them 50 by 50.” And the Lord takes five loaves and two fish, a sign that God can multiply our deficiencies. God can make the little we have grow. He takes in his hands the 5 loaves and the 2 fish, holds them up, gives thanks and says, "Now distribute it." And magically, miraculously those 5 loaves and 2 fish, ridiculously inadequate, are multiplied by God and are capable of feeding thousands and thousands of people. One of the most powerful miracles that shows us that the Lord does not care so much how big, how threatening the circumstances.

In the name of Jesus and with the power of God we can do feats, we can do a lot from little. And that's what we see here, that these men say, "We can't, the obstacles are too great." And I believe, once again, that the people in life who do things, who bless communities, who build structures, who create community programs, who bless the people and, above all, the people of God, are people who can do what they want. Joshua and Caleb did not focus only on difficulties and shortcomings. They say in verse 32, “These ten men spoke evil among the children of Israel about the land they had reconnoitered, saying, “The land we passed through to reconnoiter it, is a land that swallows up its inhabitants and all the people we saw in the midst of it.” of her, are men of great stature. We also saw giants there, sons of Anac, race of giants – and here is one of the most powerful and insightful psychological expressions in the entire Bible, he says – and we were like locusts, in our opinion, and so we appeared to them. ” In other words, these men, their self-image, because they say, in our opinion, we were like little ants, we were insects in front of these great and powerful and strong men. And of course, what happens? When you see yourself as tiny, insignificant, many times others will see you in the same way. The way you see yourself, that's how others will see you. And they say, and we to them also seemed insignificant.

One of the things that one has to learn is to find within oneself, that place of self-confidence. Life depends on the size of the heart. Life depends on the size of the spirit. Life depends on our faith in God. It does not depend on whether we have a very large academic pedigree or that we are very tall, or that we have an important last name, or that we have done great studies. The most important thing is how you see yourself in God, because obviously, we Christians are going to see later, our self-image is in God, but how we see ourselves is important. Have you ever done an analysis in your life of how you see yourself? How has life shaped you? Because the way you see yourself, according to your self-esteem in God, the same way you will act in life. And it is important to break those deficient images that we have of ourselves. He says, "We were like locusts in our eyes, and so we appeared to them." And what happened? When the people heard this negative report from these 10 men, they despaired, they complained. This was a complaining town, it was a complaining town all the time. The Jews, if you read the Scripture, in those times when they were in the desert, they earned the evil will of God. They have always been a people, unfortunately, their own prophets say so, they have been a stiff-necked people and despite all the things they had seen the Lord do. In Egypt, he gave them manna, water from the rock, he performed miracles in the Red Sea by opening it, and yet all that record they had of God's miraculous interventions had not been enough to inspire a strong heart in them.

And when they heard the report of these men, they became desperate, they began to complain about Moses and Aaron. Why did you bring us to this desert? He says they even talked about putting up a captain and going back to Egypt again. Terrible insult against God. This generous God who had blessed them, who had promised them great things, they already forgot and God was so upset with them, he felt so offended by this rejection so quickly from the Hebrews, and they said to each other, "Let's appoint a captain Let's go back to Egypt." And then once again Joshua and Caleb come back to speak to the people. In verse 7, in the middle of the verse it says, “Sirs, the land we passed through to spy out is very good land.” They recognize the beauty and goodness of this land. “And if the LORD is pleased with us, He will bring us to this land and give it to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.” How good it is, brothers, to focus on the promise of something. Many times we focus more on the cost and dangers of things than on the potential blessing. I believe that positive people often look at the positive aspects of a project and the promise of a project more than the negative. And that often depends on what is inside the person. Why do some focus on the negative things in life and others focus on the positive in it? It is because according to what you have inside, so many times you will interpret the events of life.

That is why the Lord says that if your eye is good, everything you see is good. And if your eye is bad, everything you look at is bad. That is why it is so important that we fill ourselves with good things, that we fill ourselves with the word of God, that we consume good principles, an encouraging word, a stimulating word, a word that raises our faith, because as we go programming our mind , and let's fill our minds with positive thoughts and God's promises, so we will be able to look at life from a positive perspective. And that's why Joshua and Caleb say, hey, “…if God is pleased with us, He will take us to the land and give it to us, so don't be rebellious against God, don't fear the people of this land, because we we will eat them like bread,” and even with a little butter – I put that too. "Their protection has departed from them and the Lord is with us, do not fear them." Glory to the Lord. I want to be like Joshua and Caleb.

One of the reasons one of our grandsons, you know, is named Caleb, is because of Caleb's spirit. And one of the things that struck me the most when I read it for the first time, Caleb must have been about 30 years old when this passage is given, but 40-odd years later, 50 years later, when Caleb was 85 years old, it was time almost 40 years had passed since this incident, because they spent 40 years in the desert, and Caleb was already 85 years old and he says that Caleb approached Joshua and said, “hey, do you remember those days when we were coming to earth for the first time? And I am 85 years old and there is a mountain over there that I want to possess that land and I feel powerful and strong at 85 years old like when I was 30 or 35. Give me that land and I am going to possess it for the Lord.” That spirit that Caleb had projected was still with him at 85 years old. Brothers, how many of us aspire like this, when we are 85, 90 years old, to still be dangerous for the kingdom of hell. Amen. Many of us are already planning for decrepitude when we are 60, and children of God, brothers, we have to look forward to a blessed old age. Amen, that's it. We have to believe that God is powerful.

I believe that much of the decrepitude of old age is because we get used to believing that this is how it will happen and we stop keeping our minds, our spirits upright, fed with the word of the Lord. And Caleb had a warrior spirit and that's why he tells them, "Look, if God is with us, we're going to defeat all those people." And the crowd of Jews said, wow! excellent. Thanks Caleb for reminding us of that. We're going to give you a medal. Let's take the land. No, they talked about stoning them rather. They got upset with them and decided to stone them. But God intervened and delivered them from the wrath of the crowd. And as a consequence of that, God said, you know what? All those jerks there who have spoken ill of the land that I have promised, none of them are going to see the Promised Land. They are all going to die in the desert. And that is why the Jews spent 40 years in the desert. That trip to Canaan must have been a few weeks or just a couple of years, because it wasn't a very big space. But because these men and women squandered God's anointing in that way and despised it, God said, "None of them deserves my blessing."

Brothers, let us be careful not to waste and despise the blessings that God has given us. Do you know that the spirit that God has placed in us is a warrior spirit, it is a spirit of power. Within you is an even more powerful atomic reactor. You may not know it, but it is within you, it is the power of Christ. It is the anointing of God, it is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The word says, Paul tells another young minister, Timothy, "I advise you to fan into fire the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my hands, because God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and self-control." You have to believe in it. You have to live your life becoming aware of the great power that is within you. There is no excuse. To waste the power of God that is in us is to practically insult God. Not living an enterprising, enthusiastic, courageous life is a waste of the grace that God has given us, brothers. We have a duty to honor the gift that is in us by living aggressive lives, enterprising lives. We cannot live as others live who do not have that power from God. We have to live lives of excellence. The word 'I can't,' the expression 'I can't,' we must banish from our lives. As children of God we should rather say 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,' that is what the Apostle Paul said.

And there are a number of projects right now that God wants you to undertake. God wants you to take your mind and develop it. How many of us wake up in the morning thinking we have 24 hours to take our minds to another level, to watch a good documentary or read 10 pages of a book, or brush up on our tech skills, or have a good conversation with someone who loves us? illustrious, bless us? How many of us believe that life is a great self-improvement project? Because God has given us such a capacity that we cannot waste God's anointing, that we have to honor God with the greatness of our existence, that by living lives of excellence we are projecting and reflecting God's blessings. We have to live ambitious lives, brothers, lives that go from good to better to better always. Because? Because God has placed greatness within you. The gift is already within you. Everything depends on you using it and developing it for the glory of God. And that's why Joshua and Caleb and these people who did the opposite, represent two ways of using the gifts of the Lord. Success in life, as I said, is often related to self-esteem and the image that we have of ourselves. These 10 spies were seen as small. Joshua and Caleb looked like giants before God. If we consider ourselves, brothers, competent and worthy in God, this will give us the confidence to face great challenges, to believe that everything we undertake in the name of the Lord will be successful and will last.

The Apostle Paul in Second Corinthians, chapter 3, says speaking of the disciples that he was able to create through his ministry, "And such confidence we have through Christ toward God, not that we are competent by ourselves..." Look, Paul says , God has allowed me to do great things, raise up men and women of God, create a flourishing ministry, and it is not because I am competent by myself. Because we Christians, I often see preaching or rather, talks about self-esteem, motivation, etc. but many times the idea is that you have it in you, you have the power, you have the endowment, but they do not mention who this endowment is. Our endowment is not in ourselves, it is in the power of God that resides within us. There is a difference. So, Paul says, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to think of something as of ourselves, but that our competence comes from God." God's children beautifully combine radical humility with radical trust as well. It is a capacity to know that I can, but also that I can do it in Christ, not in myself. And in that balance we find exceptional greatness.

Entrepreneurial people usually have that center within them. It's like a platform or a core, a very healthy inner core that allows them to see themselves as healthy and deserving of God's goodness. Christians know that this internal health does not come from them but from that loving God who has adopted them and has given them that merit that they possess. That is why the Apostle Paul, also speaking to Timothy, says that God saved us and called us with a holy calling not according to our works, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and the grace that was given to us in Christ Jesus before the times of the centuries. What you have received, what you have, God has given you undeservedly and you have it, it is yours. I know that none of us is perfect, we all have mistakes, we all have flaws. None of us can say, "what I have is because God gave it to me, or rather, because I deserved it and because God gave it to me because I deserve it." All we have is by grace. The gifts we have are by grace. Let's not let the devil condemn us, steal our blessing simply because we don't have a perfect record. God's love makes us competent and makes us deserving of his grace.

When we focus on our shortcomings or a poor personal record, or on negative life experiences that have shaped our self-image, then of course we will naturally lack the confidence to take ambitious action. If you have had a past of abuse, of having made serious mistakes, of failures in your life, many times without realizing it our brain is playing that poor recording of the past. And then, when something new comes into our life, when a task comes, our subconscious is saying back there, you can't, you don't deserve, you shouldn't. And we have to get rid of that past record and let the word of the Lord program us. Now, when we see ourselves as Joshua and Caleb armed with the power of God, backed by God, by his promises, by his faithfulness, when we know that we have the wisdom of God within us, then we feel free to undertake great actions with trust. Joshua had this sense of trust and dignity. He had it from a young age because he had walked with Moses, he was a disciple of Moses. Moses had adopted and mentored him, meaning that he already had that positive program within him. But years later, when it was time to enter the Promised Land and finally confront those giants, God appeared to him again and spoke to him to instill confidence. I imagine Josué felt wow! How can I now impersonate? How can I overcome the actions of Moses, my mentor? Because Moses had already died and now he had to enter the Promised Land. And the Lord generously appeared to him and spoke to him through his angel and promised him… And these are words for us too, “No one will be able to face you all the days of your life.”

We have to believe this, brothers, that God is going to support us and that our enemies are going to be put to shame and that we are going to defeat every weapon formed against us. It says, "As I was with Moses so I will be with you." Because? Because many times, brothers, we feel like yes, God is with the pastor, God is with that great deacon, God is with my grandmother who was a woman of prayer and fasting, but not with me. The Lord is with you too. It doesn't matter that you are new to the Gospel. The same power that was with others, will be with you too. “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Strive and be brave." Those words haunt me every day of my life in my ministry. When overwhelming situations come, I believe that God is powerful to get us through. When this pandemic came in, brothers, I think I have told you before, the first days, March, the end of March, I sat down... because it is good to plan, I sat down with the executive of the congregation, Joxmar Rodríguez, he directs the finances and the staff and all that. And Joxmar and I sat down, because I did the math and said, uhm, people can't come to church, how are we going to do financially? We made plans to cut wages significantly. We made projections because you have to do them many times. But I also understood that I couldn't just let myself be threatened by the situation, but that we had to go on the counteroffensive as well. The challenge seemed great, but then, God gave us wisdom. One of the things that we had was that we had good technology. Over the years God had allowed us to develop the ability to live stream our services, so we put that together. I realized that we needed technology to help us so that people could give money through the internet. And we began to encourage the people to send their offerings through the internet. And many of you heard the call, got your act together, started using the church's application to give online, and in this way the church was able to have equality, stability in income. Since we were able, May 31, when the governor gave the churches permission to open, we immediately opened the church and have encouraged people to come.

And if today our sanctuary is as it is, full of people, and the other on the other side, it is because we believed that God is with us, that we had to keep social distance, that we had to wear our masks. I assure you that I am the first to hate having to wear masks, but I know that it is important, that we must be responsible before our city, our civil authorities, before each other, and therefore we have kept all the rules. But we did not allow this crisis to hit us. That is resilience. That is believing that God is powerful. And we have seen, brothers, so many blessings from God. We have learned to use technology, we have learned to use Zoom, we have learned to have meetings in other ways. And all this has allowed us not only to survive, but to overcome the crisis. I sincerely believe that León de Judá today is stronger as a community than we were a year ago because that is what happens when one trusts in the Lord. One sees the crises, one sees the giants, it is not that one denies them. Joshua and Caleb knew that there were giants in the land, but they said, in the name of the Lord we will overcome it. And that is what you have to do in your life too. You have to believe that no matter what situation happens, no matter how difficult the enemy is, you can get ahead and you can use the tests and the losses and the challenges as something that will get you ahead, because God does not abandon you. God tells you, strive, be brave. Don't be hypnotized by the snake. Look around you, see what you can do, and get ahead. Be strong and brave.

God gives you the word of blessing but you then have to take care of doing your part. He says, “Strive and be brave because you will distribute to this people for inheritance the land of which I swore to their fathers that I would give it to them. Just make an effort and be very brave to take care to do according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded you." And there is a series of very important instructions that God gives Joshua: be based on the word of the Lord, be obedient to the word, fill yourself with the word of God. "Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may prosper in all that you undertake." Brothers, you know that there is something... many times we have a deficient program playing in our subconscious. It is the program that life has instilled in us through losses, through abuses we have received, through poor childhood training, through hurts, abuses, mistakes we have made, sins we have committed, and that has instilled in us a negative program, a program of discouragement. But we have to change that program. How are we going to do it? Reprogramming ourselves through the word of God, consuming good word, listening to the word of the Lord, reading it, listening to good sermons, attending church, studying as many of us do, discipleship, staying active in the things of the Lord. This changes our mental program and then infuses us with a program of success, of hope, of endowment of power, of capacity. And that is why that word should not be separated from us, we must consume it. I celebrate many of you who are… How many are still reading your Bible in a year? Many. 160 people from the congregation are reading and we have seen, I have seen after decades of ministry, how to read the word of the Lord like this in a persistent, systematic way, every day, every day, in a coherent way, he does an incredible job In us.

Joshua and Caleb saw the giants, recognized them but chose to focus on the beauty and fertility of that land to which God had called them. And they said, if God is with us, we will win. The children of God do not worry so much about the circumstances around us, we worry about the promises that God has given us. We worry to make sure that we are pleasing to God, that our lives are pleasing to the Lord, that we are doing our part. We examine ourselves and recognize that we are not perfect. There are many things in us that need to improve, but we know that we have a merciful, compassionate, but faithful, committed God, who has told us, “Enter the land, possess it, I am with you. Strive. Start new things, new projects.” I tell you, at this time in my life I am also undertaking a project that... Meche knows, we have not spoken much in public about it, it is a personal project but I have said, I am going to undertake it in the name of the Lord for our own family life. And I believe that God is more than powerful to bless us in this project and give us success.

What is your project in life? Where is what you want to achieve? It may be a personal improvement project, it may be some defect, some bad habit that you have in your life, some power or some mental, emotional principality that you have in your life. It may be that you want to improve your marriage and take it to another level, or it may be something that you want to undertake, a new job, a new skill, a child that you want to bring to the knowledge of the Lord, perhaps you want to get closer to God and surrender your life more to the Lord and take steps of faith, be more consistent in your devotional life. There are many things and many of us have become accustomed to saying, no, I can't. That's too hard for me. I have tried in the past and can't. But today is the time that you can look at that land that is in front of you. Today is the time in which you can say, although those giants are great, in the name of the Lord I am going to defeat them. Never assume that nothing in this world is too threatening for you, because all you need is the power of God on your behalf. If God is pleased with you, the Lord will give you victory. We are going to live excellent lives. We are going to honor that God of greatness and excellence that we have. Let's honor the blessings He has placed on us.

I invite you. Let's stand up in the name of the Lord now. And we are going to make a covenant with God that we are going to live victorious lives in the name of the Lord. And name your giant, imagine that land that is in front of you, imagine that project that you want to undertake, imagine that challenge that you have ahead of you, but also imagine that God goes with you as a powerful giant by your side and that He says, " I will never leave and I will never forsake you. I have given you all the land that the soles of your feet can tread on.” When you reach 85 or 90 years of age, you will be, as the word says, "they will be vigorous and green to announce that Jehovah, my strength, is upright, even in old age they will bear fruit." Believe that God has good things for you. Believe that the best is ahead. Believe that if God is with you, who against you. Believe that if God has justified you, who can condemn you. Believe that even if you go through fire or stormy waters, the waters will not drown you and the fire will not burn in you. Believe that you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in accusation. Believe that the Lord will be faithful to not allow you to be ashamed. Because the word says that those who trust in Him will not be ashamed. Join the tribe of Joshua and Caleb this afternoon.

Father, in the name of Jesus I declare victory now. And Father, endow your people this afternoon with a great commitment and confidence, and a sense of calling that you are with us and that therefore, we can enter the Promised Land, because the thoughts that you have for us they are thoughts of good and not of evil, to give us the end we hope for. Thank you because so far Jehovah has helped us. Thank you because until now you have kept this family of León de Judá healthy and strong. Thank you because we have gone through fire, and we have gone through water, but here we are victorious, here we are hopeful, here we are with a glorious future that you have for us. Here we are with our medals, here we are with the wounds we have acquired, but we are also like decorated warriors who have experienced victory, not because of ourselves, but because we have a merciful God. And I bless this town, I bless this congregation, Lord, and I pray that 20, 30, 40 years from now, if Christ has not come yet, this town will continue stronger than ever, Father, that we have weathered the storms of life and we have come out better than ever. And we believe that the best is yet to come, Father, that you have great things for us, that we will see your glory, that we will see your power, that we will overcome all trials. We remove the defeatist mind, Lord, we remove the failed spirit. We shed that cloak of sadness, mourning, defeat, and we dress in the armor of God. Fill us with courage, a new courage this afternoon, Father. We settle in you. People of God I invite you, raise your hand now as a sign of receiving from God.

Say, Father, I receive your grace in me. I receive your power in me. I receive new strength. I declare victory in the name of the Lord. And if you have not known Christ as your Lord and savior, I want to tell you that all these promises require Jesus, so I invite you this afternoon to make your pact with the Lord too, there where you are. Invite Christ into your heart. Invite the power of God into your life. Tell him, Lord, I receive you. I receive your power in my life. I recognize that I am a sinner, I recognize that I need your grace. I acknowledge that Christ is my Lord and my savior and I confess it this afternoon, and I invite him into my heart and my life, and I accept and receive your gifts and your power. I invite you to continue seeking God. Don't try to fight your battles alone. Like Joshua and like Caleb, invite the power of God. In Christ Jesus you can win. We thank you Lord. We adore you, we exalt you. Take us out of here full of confidence, Lord. Forgive us for doubting, for looking around us and seeing the giants instead of looking at Almighty God who tells us, come into the earth and possess it. Thanks, Dad. Thank my Lord. Thank you because you have given us victory in the name of Jesus, and the people of God say, amen. Be blessed my brothers. I bless you.