full time christians

Let's go to the word of God, the book of Matthew, the book, the gospel of Matthew, verse 21, chapter 21 of Matthew. Matthew 21. We are going to talk about a parable, and from there we go. Matthew 21, verse 28. Matthew 21-28.

Jesus says the following, “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and going up to the first he said, 'Son, go work in my vineyard today.' Responding, he said, 'I don't want to.' Go figure. Your dad tells you, “Go, work,” and you say, “I don't want to.” tell me this. How many do you have children like that? How many are children like that maybe? No? "I don't want to." At least honest... Right? Said. No? At least this. “But then…” Look what happens next. “But later repented, he went. Approaching the other son, he said in the same way, and answering he said, “Yes, Lord. Go. And you know what? It was not. Which of the two sons did the will of his father? They said, the first, and Jesus said to them, 'Deserts I say that the tax collectors and the pilgrims go before you to the kingdom of God, because John came to you in the way of justice, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the pilgrims they believed him, and you, seeing this, did not repent afterwards to believe him.” Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that your Holy Spirit speak to us today. I want to hear from You, Lord. I want my brothers to hear from you, not from a man of the spirit. Lord, we believe in You. We invite you to your church, Lord. Your girlfriend is in front of you with her eyes on you. Speak to us, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

The Lord sometimes speaks through children. And I want to start with a story that happened here in the Church, and I asked permission to share it, and they said yes, from a conversation between a boy—I think he is 8 years old—and his mother. That family had been in the Church for years, and after many years they decided to start fully surrendering to the ways of the Lord. They changed some things that they do, they were more involved, and they even put certain rules for the children that weren't there before regarding Halloween and other things. And the son said, “Mommy,” and I'm going to say it in English first, because how many… sometimes the children speak to us in English, and we speak to them in Spanish, and they answer in English. How odd. That's how it happens. No? The son said in English, “Mom, before we were part-time Christians, but now we’re full-time Christians.” The son said, “Mommy, we used to be part time Christians, but now it seems like we are full time with the Lord.” And I felt in that, "Lord, how rich as You prophesy through the mouths of children." Jesus tells this parable, "No to the bad people on the street." He is preaching to the Pharisees. He is preaching, Jesus, in this parable, to those who are from the house, those who are religious, those who congregate, but their religious are part-time Christians. Part-time Christians. Let's talk about that.

Because sometimes more dangerous than ugly, rebellious, obvious sin is sin disguised as being religious. No? How many do we know? It is much more deceptive. It is much more subtle. And he grabs us like that when we're supposedly good. But what happens is that... and it's not that we have a double life. I'm not talking about that. We can talk about that another time, because many of us struggle with it. Today I am not talking about having a hidden life, a second double life, although this is also a problem. Today I am talking about those of us who come here, and this is all of us, but we form certain, how to say, compartments in life. I don't know. I said well? It is not compartments. compartments. Oh man, this is going to be a long day, man. Okay. We make divisions in life. We marked a little room for God. And maybe it's a big room in life. No? It is the largest room, most visible, and we also have them there. God, my life is for You. We have room in life for God. Those are our church activities, and we are Christians. But we also say, that room is the forbidden room. Everything is so pretty, but ah, ah, don't touch, don't touch.

…And I would have said no on purpose, everyone loses. God has called you. We must, and we must have a sense of mission in life, knowing God has called me, and Satan has tried to call that call. In other words, that each person, and I believe that many times, the most degraded people on the street who suffer from the ugliest things, the hardest things in life, sometimes it is because God and the enemy know how much this life is worth. . And that's why the enemy... with everything, because he decides, I have to kill him, because I don't want him to come to fulfill what God has for him. So struggles come, problems come, ugly sins come, but God says, "My power is made perfect in your weakness." If you are willing to recognize that I am not an accident in life. I have a purpose to fulfill. If we are willing to say so, God still uses evil for good. And still uses what we have suffered to be able to minister to others. You have a mission. You see yourself on a mission. Or you look like a normal person. I'm sorry to tell you, the moment you want to be a Christian, you stop being a normal person. You're already weird. You can't escape from it anymore. You are going to be a person… The Bible says, “My peculiar people.” My rare people, set apart for Me in the world. If we want to be normal, Christianity is not this. So God leads us to say, "I am willing to be Your prophet, Your servant, to live a marked life, to be a soldier for You." The first thing they do with the soldiers… So the young people who sign up, they force them to cut their hair, take out their earrings, because they just tell you, “You are a normal person. You don't belong to us, do you? And you will be a warrior.” And in Christ it is so for us too. See us on a mission. The person who is a full-time Christian sees himself as a steward of his life, and he sees himself as a servant in life, and number three, he sees himself as a soldier of Christ.

Let's start with the first one. The first complete Christian sees himself as a steward of his life. What is a butler? That is a very Sunday word that we use, because it is not used anymore, right? Now, butler. Those of you in discipleship 3, you have to know what a steward is or you won't pass the test, so I hope you signed up. Butler. A steward is a steward of his owner's belongings. So the butler is the main servant that you leave the car keys, the house keys, the checkbook. You leave everything of yours to your butler, and you say, “Okay, you take care of everything. You take care of everything. I give you a lot of authority, but if you mess up, then there's another problem when I come back from vacation. No?" But the steward has authority over something, and many things that do not belong to him. And we are stewards in life. First we are stewards of our time, of our time. You know…

I don't know if you've heard that. My time, my free time, I share time with God, there is time for me, and then I have… No. Time for God, time to work, and my time. My time. Don't ask me for my time. I don't know if you think like that from time to time. I think we all think like that, right? God says, you know what? I am the owner of every minute of life that you have. You woke up today because I by My power made you wake up, and get up from this bed. If you live today, it is with a purpose. Is for me. You are mine. There are some here, I would say, dare I say, many here who would not be here if it weren't for God. There are many. There are many. If it weren't for the power of God guarding your life, each given day, each moment is a gift from God to be used for Him. It's His. It's not ours. The time is His. So the question is not, “Well, how can I use my time?” It is, “God, what do You want me to do with the time that You have lent me on this earth? How do you want me to use it?” So take a look. This does not mean that we spend 24 hours a day in the temple. Ok, some maybe called for that like Anna and Simeon in the Bible. Some do. This means that whatever I am going to do, I have to ask myself the question, “God, what do you want me to do?” If you were to arrive, and I was doing that, what would you say to me?

Guess what? It may be here in the Church, but it may be in other things. Our pastor, and I'm going to share that, that he asked me to be here, had to make a decision this morning. It's that your daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime activity, something to do with college, that she's never someone who's going to say thank God. And it was a student-parent day, and he had to say, “Lord, if I don't go to church today, first my associate pastor might have a heart attack. That could be a problem. Everyone complains. Pastor, where were you? But if I don't go, Lord, the question is not what people will say. The question is what would you say. Where do you want me to be? And at that moment, he following God is there with his daughter. And here we are. It's not that bad. Here we are. We survived one day. It's not the end of the world. So… because he was doing… “Lord, what do you want me to do in my life?” The question is not, "What do I want to do." And it doesn't matter, whether it's at church or taking a nap, or walking in the park with your son, studying English, if you know that God has put you to do it, you are doing it for the glory of God and in his name, and You say, “Lord, the time is yours, but if I don't have a sense of mission, then I waste my time. I do what I want. I live as I want." The truth is that everything is God. When I am in the Church, time is God. When I'm at work, time is God's. When I am with the family at home or alone, time belongs to God. When I'm sleeping, when I'm awake, everything, everything, everything, Lord, is yours. Full-time Christians and not making a division, and say, “Well, it's important to be a good person here at Church, but when I'm working, well, business is business, and sometimes you have to lie from time to time.” And people think, well sometimes you have to play tricks, because that's the way business is.

I know a Christian politician spoke to us Friday at Tremont Temple. And he said, "If I can't be a Christian politician, I don't want to be a politician." The truth is that he missed the lesson, but he knows. It doesn't matter. I would rather lose the lesson than renounce my faith in order to succeed politically. And it is so. There are decisions to make. At work, how am I going to treat my coworkers? How am I going to treat my boss? You know that the Bible says that we have to love our neighbor as ourselves, so the person sitting next to you is your neighbor. But also at work, who are some of the neighbors that we have? The boss is your neighbor. I am called to love him, her, but you don't know, God is a bad person. You haven't heard her. Bad person. God says, “She is your neighbor. You are called to be…” If we are not Christians in the workplace, we are part-time Christians. This is not discipleship. At work, at home, as a rest, as I live, all this is for the glory of God. Let it all be for Him. And sometimes God tells you, “My son, I want you to take a nap, because if you do, you're going to be in a much better mood, and you're going to stop being so I don't know what… grumpy. ” So sometimes taking a nap is God's will. But sometimes God says, "My son, I want you to get up this morning at five to pray even if it costs you, even if you don't want to."

The question is what does God want me to do? That is the question. And God tells us stewards of our time. Those who are stewards of His time plan, because we do not live like crazy. Sometimes, you know when we get up in the morning, “Okay. What am I going to do today?" And we improvise, we try. If I know that I have a mission, and God has entrusted me with time, I have to give an account for how I use these days that God has given me, so I will treat each day as something that God has given me to use for his glory. I don't want to improvise. Taking time, I recommend, that you take a little time each week on a quiet day when you can rest, have your cup of coffee, and look at an agenda, and think about the past week. How did I use this week? If Jesus were to arrive today, what would you have done maybe a little differently this week? If Jesus were to come to the end of this week, how should I live and think? How am I going to use my time? How am I going to live in this week?

Sometimes we think of all of life. Look. Think about life week by week. I am going to serve Christian God full time. Number two, we are stewards not only of time, but of, are we stewards of? The money. Wow. The money, the wallet, is the last thing to be converted many times. No? How many know? oh, it hurts Those pastors just want money again. That is. When you let go of your wallet and money, when you take that step, many times that represents everything else. How many have lived that? That starting to tithe, to offer, to start doing these things has been the key point for you to decide, well, if God has my wallet, He has everything else too, because that is what is worth the most, no, in this material life. So money, stewardship of time or money, but to be a good steward we have to do three things with money. One, we have to sow, we have to think, and we have to, that ugly word again, plan. I have money that God has lent me, and He is going to call my accounts, He is going to ask me to account for how I use this, so we have to sow what it is worth in God's kingdom. I buy a car, and what happens to the car here in Boston more than anywhere else. They hit you, it gets damaged by the snow, it looks bad. So we need cars. Don't get me wrong. But if I invest in God's reindeer, there is no snow that can hurt there. There are no bad drivers that can crash me there, because it is already a treasure that God keeps forever, sow in God's reindeer, budget the money, and look at what I have, and think in advance how I am going to use it. How many have had this experience? You start the week with, I don't know, $100 in your pocket. And already Friday you have $5, or maybe less. You're crossing the Tobin Bridge, and you realize, I don't even have the pass. I don't know if it happened to you. me once. And you ask yourself the question. What's happening? I had a hundred pesos in my pocket a few days ago, and now, where is it? Where was? I don't know. You've had the experience. Am I the only one who has had this experience? God asks us to account. He asks us the same question. "Where did everything in your pocket go?" If we don't think, we live like crazy, and God is not actually the owner of what we have. Butlers.

Number two. If I am a full-time Christian, God calls me to see myself as a servant. I want us to go to Luke 17. Luke 17. We're going to start reading in verse 7. It says, “Which of you has a servant who plows or feeds cattle, when he comes back from the field and then says to him, 'Come in, sit at the table.” He doesn't say more, “Make me dinner. Sit down, and serve me until I have eaten and drunk, and after that you eat and drink.' Do you thank the servant because he did as he was commanded? I think no. So also you, when you have done everything that has been ordered to you, say, 'Useless servants we are, for what we had to do, we did.'” Servants what? How ugly. How ugly. Useless servants. In other words, the cells of the church have names, eagle wings, clay vessels, a great commission. Would you like some cells called… We are useless servants here.

That shocks me. It bothers me. Do you know why it shocks me? Because when someone serves me, or someone serves the Church, I am truly filled with gratitude. I look at what they've done, and I feel so grateful that I want to hug them, and say, "Thank you for what you do." And many times when I thank people who serve in inconspicuous ways, they say to me, “Gregory, calm down. I just do what I have to do." Serving for them is like breathing. It's not a big deal. Although it doesn't hurt to say thank you once in a while, no, so let's remember that. But here they say, “I am a useless servant. I'm just doing my duty." That sense of duty. Look, I want us to serve. God wants us to serve out of joy, not out of obligation. He wants us to serve out of gratitude, because God has saved me, and I want to. No?

But know that times are coming when God calls you to do things you don't want to do, to serve in ways you wouldn't rather. There will be moments, brothers, that you will feel that God wants something, and you would prefer to stay in bed or go for a walk, or whatever. In these moments one remembers oneself, one says, “I am not a normal person. I am a full time Christian, and I have no choice. Either I go, or I go. I'm a soldier in the army, and my captain is commanding me, and I'm going. I have the duty, the obligation to do it.” How many here have had to do things sometimes out of obligation, because you have to? I would say that everyone, every Monday morning that they work, the vast majority, do not get up, and do not go to work for joy. They go because they have to. There are moments when one says, "That's my role, and I'm going to fulfill it." But how many of us know that when I serve God, even if I wanted to, even though I do it dragging myself, sometimes even confessing the truth, my teeth grapple? How many of us know that when we do it there is a prize and a joy that is there right now? There you are in the thing. You didn't want, let's say, a morning prayer session. No? Who would like to get up at four, five in the morning to pray. No? Nobody wants at that time. You force yourself, you do it, you drag yourself there, bad mood, ugly, there with the ugly look. You arrive, and then the spirit begins to move, and already the praise, and already the tears begin to flow. And you feel, "Lord, forgive me for complaining so much." No? You know there is a beautiful song by Marco Barrientos, and the title of the song is “Sin Reservas.” With nothing to regret. I am going to serve you, Lord, without reservation, even when I don't feel like it, even when I feel like I want to. I am going to do it, because I am your servant, and I know that there is a blessing that awaits me. Almost always, you will later say, “Oh, why didn't I want to do this? If I had not done that, I would have asked for such a great blessing."

Radical serfs are happy serfs. The most miserable people, I have seen and experienced, are those who try to live with one foot in and the other foot out. If we try to do both, we enjoy neither. Those who have gotten in, who have thrown into the water, who are in there completely full. Wow, there's a joy coming. There is healing coming. And besides this, you see that God uses you. And you know, “God, You have a purpose for me, and I'm going to move forward for you, and I'm going to sing for you. And I am going to sing for you, and I am going to work, and sweat, and even bleed for you, because I know that you will put a new song in my mouth, and you will fill me with your spirit, and you will give the joy of loving others, and seeing them healed and blessed. You are going to use me as a vessel of honor in your cabinet, in the kitchen, a useful vessel in your kingdom, and at the end of the day, I do not say that I have won anything. Useless servant. I have only accomplished what You have given me.” Faithful but cheerful butler, because he sees his master sitting there eating, enjoying the food that you prepared for him. And you love him, because he is Jesus, and you see him rejoicing in what you have done, and the people being blessed.

I know that some brothers of this church who serve in ways that nobody looks at times. Nobody looks at him, nobody, nobody, nobody, and they serve, but God gives them gifts. God gives them the gift of seeing the blessing that is coming. Maybe your job is to pray at night. And no one knows that you are praying for the service at two in the morning, and then on the day of the service, there are people healed, people crying out with joy, being released, saved, and you there God tells you, "My son, that is your reward. See that I hear you. See that I answer." And no one else knows. It is your secret between you and God. Only you know. But how nice it feels. No? … it worked. God used me. And God looks at him. One day there will be public rewards in heaven, but here is the joy of knowing that God has used me. I am a useless servant, but a joyful servant, a full-time blessed and joyful servant, so God calls us that, he calls us to be people who look to all of life for God, and not for me.

And to finish it off, God calls us to be soldiers. For full time it is to be a soldier, to decide that my time is over, time for freedom. I already died to the past. The pastor is going to preach about it next week. I died to my normal life. I'm a weird person, a Christian person. Whatever it is, whether I want it or not, I belong to God, and He is my captain. But do you know what is done with soldiers to train them? We have some here that have been in the military. I think we have several who have gone through that. First of all, what they do to prepare a soldier is to break him, break his pride. An independent soldier, a soldier who feels that he knows better than the captain, does not stay with his head for long in the field of war, because captains know what to do in war. And if they tell you, “Look, run over there, and you say, “Look, Captain, why? Explain to me. Explain to me why. Give me reasons, captain. Before I do something, I want to understand your strategy, and maybe I don't agree." And pah, the place where you are is exploited, because the captain knew something that we did not know. Being a Christian used by the Lord, we must first be trained and broken by Him. Those that God calls, He breaks, He trains. It's like a horse. I don't know if you've seen a horse movie. No…something like that. The most rebellious horses are useless to the person who tries to ride them. They have to be trained and tamed to be used. A wayward horse is a dangerous horse. But the rebellious horse after being broken, becomes the most beautiful and useful horse of all. And God is like that with us.

Moses was the most… He had a special title. He was the most something man in all the land. Someone knows? Moses was the meekest, humblest man on all the earth. Moses, Moses who with his rod made war against an entire nation, a pagan nation. He with his rod that parted the Red Sea. Moses who had more authority than any other man in human history besides Jesus, Moses was the most, let's say it together, meekest man on earth. Being meek is not being, I don't know. There is a saying, meek not menso. Meek no... You guys know it, so you think of it. Think about the saying. Being meek is not being weak, it is not being soft. It is being strong, but being submitted to the captain, and saying that you are in charge here and I am not. Thank God. Go ahead. Thank you.

God says… You know a discipleship question is, “Who is the main leader of the Lion of Judah Congregation?” And many... it's a question... You know. It's a trick. It's a trick question. Some say, “Ah, the Pastor, you know, Roberto.” The main leader of this church is the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the truth. Brothers, it's not just a cute saying. Our pastor does the things that he does because he feels that God wants God to do it. There are things, many things that I know he would rather not do, but he does, because he has decided, I am a full-time Christian. My church belongs to God and not to me. So if God tells me to preach something that I don't want to preach, I'm going to preach it, even if it doesn't go well with some, even if it's difficult, he decides, we're going to do what God commands and not what I decide to do. The captain is in charge and not that sailor. God sends things. And we have to align ourselves with the authority of God, and decide in 2007, we are not going to settle for a lower level of Christianity. We are not going to settle for a part-time, half-time Christianity. I am going to be a dedicated Christian, a disciple of the Lord this week. So good, I invite the musicians and those who are going to prepare the sacrament. Let's go now, brothers, to take the sacrament. The sacrament is a deeply sacred act to God. It's not that the elements are magical. We don't believe in this. But when we take the sacrament, we are celebrating the blood covenant between Christ and us. It is a time to examine ourselves, and say, "Lord, I have examined myself, I recognize that I have failed, and I want to confess and surrender everything to You, and make You the Lord of my life." I encourage you in this act of participating in the sacrament, giving yourself to Christ, to decide, I want to be a follower of Jesus. I receive him as my Lord and my full time savior.