Classic Sermon #6060: We are the salt of the earth

We are going to go to Luke 13, we are going to read two passages: Matthew 5:16 and Luke 13, verses 18 to 21. There the word of the Lord says in Matthew chapter 5, verse 13: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt vanishes, what will it be salted with? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You are the light of the world. A city settled on a mountain cannot be hidden, nor can a light be turned on and placed under a bushel, but rather it is placed on the candlestick and gives light to all who are at home. So shine your light before men so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

Luke chapter 13 verses 18 to 21: “And he said, what is the kingdom of God like? And what shall I compare it to? It is similar to the mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden and grew and became a big tree and the birds of the sky nested in its branches. And he said again: “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it had all fermented."

Brothers, this passage, I actually wanted to expose it during the night of farewell to the year and today, however, I want to share it with you because I believe that the Lord wants to speak to us through it as a Church. These passages struck me as I pondered them recently because they tell us about who we are in Christ Jesus. Of the new nature that we have received as children of God.

Jesus repeatedly wanted his disciples, his followers, to understand his true nature. Not his but theirs. And by extension that of us as followers of Jesus Christ. That we would understand the special character that we have in Christ Jesus. The new nature that has been given to us, what we truly are, as the word says: 'We are a royal priesthood. A holy nation, a people set apart by God for very special things.

When we enter the kingdom of God, when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, when the holy spirit comes to dwell in our lives and does works of interior transformation, it is imputed to us, a new nature is given to us.

And it is a nature among many other things, of power, it is a nature of influence, it is a nature of grace and that is why Jesus referred to him these different passages, these different illustrations or parables about the church, what the church is and the Kingdom of heavens.

It is like an X-ray of what we are in the spiritual world.

Entering the kingdom of God, brothers, is an excellent thing. It is something exceptional. When we enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the very life of God is imparted to us and the power of Christ begins to move, is activated within us.

The apostle Paul said: "That the same power -in Ephesians- that raised Christ from the dead, is the power that dwells in us." And maybe you look at yourself and say 'but I'm so ordinary and I don't see anything new. I do not glow in the dark, I am not radioactive' and yet the word tells me that God moves with all his power within me and that this gives me reason to live life confident and secure and to have certain expectations of how God is going to manifest through my life.

There is a new nature that lives within you even though it seems that nothing has changed and that everything is as always.

A couple of days ago I was watching a documentary on TV about four children. Three of them Filipinos and one Vietnamese. These children up to a certain age had lived an ordinary life, poor, their mothers -three of them prostitutes- recognized in the community. One of them was just a waitress in a restaurant and these children lived the life of any poor child in eminently poor countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.

But these children, without the community knowing much about them, had something very special. Although they played in the streets and on the ground like any other child, within them there was something very exceptional.

And it is the following: these children had an American father who was a businessman, owner of airlines, of large companies in the world and this man traveled a lot in the Eastern area and it seems that he had a special preference for Asian women and procreated four children with these women and who knows what other children out there who don't know they have such a father. They will be, perhaps, suffering from misery, like so many Christians too who have a very special father but do not perceive it, do not realize it.

But these children, as I tell you, were the children of an eminently wealthy man, multi-, multi-millionaire. And this man died and left a foundation established. He died unexpectedly, drowned, and left behind a fortune valued at more than $600 million. And he left all that money to a foundation that was supposed to just distribute all that money to universities for medical research purposes and so on.

The mothers, not slow or lazy, found out about the death of this man and looked for good lawyers. Lawyers filed paternity suits. They established quite convincingly that these children – and one sees their faces and it is evident that they are the children of this man – but also from a small blood sample that was left in one place from a plane crash he had had before, it was possible to verify with great certainty that these children were the children of this man.

And after many years of struggle and months and months in which the Foundation and his lawyers did not want to give up the money, nor did they want a cent to touch them, they tried to negotiate to give him even a little bit. Because they said, "We want everything we get."

And the case was, listen to this, the matter was recently resolved and this man's lawyers, after much resistance, reached an agreement with these four families, these four women – three of them prostitutes as I say and one of them a very , very humble - and these children, brothers, are probably going to receive 90 million dollars each. OK? $90 million each.

I think it's about 60 percent of this man's entire fortune. They had something amazing inside of them and they didn't know it. They carried the genes of a multi-, multi-millionaire and tremendously powerful man. And they claimed their rights, asserted them, fought against the forces that did not want to recognize their rights, and they won.

And today they are multi-, multi-millionaires. From rags to riches unimaginable for many of us to be multi-, multi-millionaires. Because? Because they had an exceptional nature within them. Something moved inside them, it was invisible but it was there inside them and that something made itself recognized and became something externally recognizable.

Brothers, it occurs to me if the application of the illustration is no longer obvious to you, you need to wake up and have some coffee. Don't do it in the Sanctuary.

But, the idea is that when we enter into communion with the spirit of God, when we receive Christ as our Lord and savior, when we become part of the family of God, we have in our spiritual genes the inheritance of a multi-faceted Father. -, multi-, millo-, billo-, trillo-millionaire: he is the creator of the Universe, the owner of everything that exists. He has all the resources of the universe at his disposal, and we are partakers of heaven's resources.

Perhaps we do not appear externally but within us the divine nature is implanted. It has been activated, that nature of God that had been overshadowed by Adamic sin, thousands of years ago. Now remember that you are a son and you are part of an excellent lineage. You are part of a company and a conquering energy.

The father has inseminated us with a new inner life, a new power. That is what I think the Bible means when it talks about a new birth. There is a new nature that is given to each man, to each woman who enters into direct communion with the spirit of God through Christ Jesus.

And do you know what the problem is, brothers? That many of us are not aware of that, we do not cultivate that awareness. We do not spend time meditating on it, we do not activate it through faith, we do not confess it verbally, we do not dare to undertake things in the name of that new nature that we have that is ours. And we stay like those little children before receiving their paternity acknowledgment, poor, miserable, like everyone else. When God has called us to be a conquering force in the world.

God's arm has not been shortened, His hand has not been withdrawn. The church is the one that has to wake up to its new nature but the ways in which Christ compares the church he says it is “the salt of the earth,” he says it “is the light of the world,” he compares it to a mustard seed that it is tiny but when it grows it becomes an immensely leafy tree and many birds find a nest and a home in that leafy tree.

Compare it to yeast that you add a few seeds or yeast powders to and what happens? That leaven spreads all over the dough and expands it and penetrates it and makes it something big. Something minimal lets you feel its strength in something big and you may consider yourself very small but in Christ Jesus you are a giant because it is not you but Christ within you. The power of God within you. That is the new nature that Christ has given us.

You and I, brother, the church, those of us who are members of the redeemed race in Christ Jesus are made, we are created, we are rebuilt to reconquer, to beautify the world, to fill everything, to establish dominion, to be agents of life, to be a leaven.

Do you know what a leaven is? A leaven gives it life. If a flour dough doesn't have yeast, you know what? It's like a cookie: flat, completely flat. The bread does not rise. What is it that allows a little bit of flour to become big and fluffy? The leaven that is inside it is life, it is what expands, it is what gives life the possibility.

And that is what we are. We are like humble computers that have gotten more memory. We do things faster, we process things more.

I have a computer over there that started out pretty limited in its capabilities. We bought him some small components, but we injected him, we closed the computer. The computer looked the same on the outside, but when I pushed the buttons, things worked fine quickly. She could process so much more because inside of her she had something new, a different power.

That's what we have, the power of God within us. It is the life of God, God has given us a new nature. Like those Asian children, we have inherited the nature of our heavenly Father, all his power, his honor, his prestige, his possibilities, his promise, his ability to influence and change matter. All of this, you and I have received it and it all depends on our daring to do it, on our cultivating the awareness that "I have it, I can do it" and that we believe in the name of the Lord.

You know what? There are going to be forces that are not going to want to allow us to enter into that new nature. That is the natural inertia of time and space in this world in which we live. This Adamic world, permeated by sin. Like those lawyers of this man, they did not want to give up the money to these children that belonged to him by paternity.

There are diabolic forces in this world, forces of darkness and perhaps simply part of the very matter in which we move that will not want you to enter into the use of your power. And that is why we are not all giants in a spontaneous and natural way.

You have to fight, you have to wrest from the devil the nature that God has given us. You have to go against the wind and against the tide, you have to fight, you have to battle, you have to be willing to fight because the devil does not free any of his captives just like that, unless a greater force comes and forces him to release them. .

Jesus Christ says that "the strong man, unless someone stronger than him comes and binds him, then he cannot plunder his house" but when someone stronger comes and binds the strong man who rules the house and then does what want with your home.

The devil is that strong man who does not want you to enter your inheritance and he will do everything possible so that you do not. And trials will come to your life, struggles will come to your life, but in the name of the Lord if you persist you will win sooner or later.

God gave us the vision but don't think, brother, that you're going to go through a forest full of flowers just picking them up and putting them in your basket. There are snakes, there are wolves, there are terrible beasts that do not want you to enter into the blessings of God. But what you have to do is persist, in the name of the Lord. He who called and He will make you enter into what He has declared for your life. Faithful is the one who promised.

Life does not open up to anyone, brothers, this world does not give anything to anyone unless one does not war and does not battle. That's why when we talk about victory and power and triumph, don't think that I'm promising you a bed of roses. There are struggles in life, tribulation is going to come because we live in a world that is permeated by evil and the Bible says that Satan only knows how to kill, steal and destroy. His powers want you to stay small, you stay in misery, but God wants you to have life and have it abundantly.

Who will win, God or the devil? The Bible says, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you."

If you stand firm in what God has declared, if you persist in the vision that He has placed in your heart, sooner or later, you will have to enter into it.

Everything is that you believe in the Lord and when the first ones come who are going to lie to you and tell you "No, you can't do it" that you simply don't leave with your tail between your legs. 'Okay, well, if they told me that was the case, then that's fine.' You have to keep resisting, knocking on the door: "Knock and it will be opened to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find", says the Lord.

There is an element of persistence, of persisting until the door is opened and the blessing comes into your life. The kingdom of heaven becomes strong, the brave take it away, those who stand firm in the things of the Lord, that is nature.

Brothers, my vision of the world, my concept of the world is a conflicting vision. This world we live in is a world of conflict and struggle. And you know what? My concept of the kingdom of God is the concept of an army. We are warriors, we are soldiers in an army.

When you enter the kingdom of God you enter as a soldier. You come in as a warrior and a lot of us haven't gotten into that warrior mentality, a lot of us still have to go through boot camp, intro to the military, we're out there, we have a soldier's uniform but it's too big for us and the pistol dances to us because we have not been able to really enter into the fullness of the attitude that God wants for our lives.

And God, brothers, wants each one of us to cultivate, continuously cultivate by means of meditation, by force of visualization, by force of verbalization, by force of reading, continuously and of positive conversion, that warrior nature of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said: "I have not come to bring peace, but - what? - to bring swords" and Paul again and again compares the Christian with a warrior. Because? Because this world is inherently troubled, and if you enter this world you know you're going to have to war, you're going to have to fight, and God has given you a conquering nature.

The nature of the church of Jesus Christ is a conquering nature. I tell you, brothers, there is no place of greater peace than in the midst of the struggle for the believer.

I have always said that if I were a painter and they told me: "Paint a picture that expresses peace" I would paint the picture of that biblical storm, when Peter and Jesus were in the boat and the disciples sleeping there in the boat and the waves hitting the boat. And Jesus there calm in peace with his God.

And you know what? Those people were also safe because Jesus was also in the boat. The boat could not sink because Jesus was in it. There was tribulation, there was struggle, yes, but there was security.

Many of us as Christians believe that peace lies in escaping from conflict. Not doing anything for the kingdom, not getting involved in anything because the devil goes and gets mad at me. So I better stay quiet there so he doesn't even know I exist.

You know what, brother? That is not the place of security. The place of safety is following the Lord, the place of safety is giving to the Lord. The place of joy is investing in the Lord, the place of Glory is sacrificing yourself for the Lord. The place of glory is suffering and battling and bleeding and crying for the Lord. That's where the joy is.

Where is peace, where is the height of life. Not living life crawling on the floor. We dishonor our Father, because our Father is a warrior.

Our heavenly Father is a sovereign, he is a king. He rules and he wants us to rule too. That is why the Lord wanted us to understand that and makes us those comparisons of being the salt of the earth. Salt flavors everything it touches. The light of the world, the light conquers the darkness.

Have you ever seen a light turn on and the darkness stay the same? The light where it enters illuminates and establishes its nature. We are like that, brothers, that is what Christ wants us to understand and that is why He told the church.

Brothers, over and over again one sees passages that invite us to be militant as Christians. Christ said: “Go into all the world. Preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations." What did he mean by making disciples? What do you do? When you have a disciple, that disciple obeys you, that disciple follows you, that disciple adopts your mentality, that disciple sees through your eyes, that disciple becomes a reflection of his teacher.

There are no disciples if there are no teachers.

[Conclusion audio]

Then Christ said "Turn the nations into his disciples as a church" that is, conquer the nations. Impart to the nations your faith, impart your belief, impart to the nations the vision of the kingdom of God. Rule over the nations. Establish the values of the Kingdom of God. Inseminate the culture in society with the values and vision of the Kingdom of God. Make disciples of the nations." That is what Christ meant.

And the apostle Paul -I remembered- what he says in Second Corinthians, chapter 10 verse 4 and 5 where the apostle Paul says: 'Because the weapons of our militia are not carnal', that is, our weapons, brothers, are not weapons limited. They are not those little pistols that they use over there that although they have a lot of power, no. The weapons of the Christian are much more powerful weapons.

It says: 'they are mighty in God for the destruction of strongholds. Overturning arguments and all haughtiness that rises against the knowledge of God and taking captive every thought to the obedience of Christ.

That certainly applies to the human, individual level that I have to bring my thoughts, my emotions, the impulses of my being to obedience to Christ, but you know what? It also applies to the macro cosmic level. At the level of nations and culture and society. As a Christian and as a servant of God I feel committed, brother.

I know that everything I do here on earth, is aimed at taking captive all thought and lowering all haughtiness to reverence for Christ. I am going to do everything that is on my part and on the part of this church, while we are here so that this church is an influence in the culture and in the community to lead it to the knowledge of Jesus and to the obedience of the principles of Christ .

We have to be a warrior church. We have to be an aggressive church, we have to be a visionary church, we have to be a church that understands that we are here not to be dominated and to get into a corner so that no one sees us, but to enlighten the entire community and that people know that this church is in this community.

What does the Lord say there? He says that if one takes a light and puts it under the bed, for example. You take a candle and put it under the bed. When he comes to see, he is jumping out of bed because he has been burned. He says that a city is on a hill, everyone when he comes and sees it.

One of my memories is the city of Acapulco. One night a group of students were traveling, twenty-odd years ago, longer than I care to remember, in a van full of mattresses. We were traveling through Mexico and as far as we could go in the dark, we could see the lights of the city of Acapulco, everywhere. The lights of Acapulco, beautiful, we had been walking through the mountains and we were not sure where we were, if we were going to arrive or not. But our hearts were filled with encouragement when we saw all those lights of a big city in the distance. The city of Acapulco. And that was what Christ meant. A city settled on a mountain no one can stop seeing it.

He says: 'A light is not taken and put under the bed or under a desk but is put in a place from where it spreads its influence and illuminates everything that is around it.' You know what, brother? The church of Christ has been called to be like that too. We have been called to shine our light on all around us and for the world to feel our influence.

God has called us here to this city to establish the dominion of Jesus with other churches that are trying to do it. But at least we have a part that touches us. I don't know what portion other churches get, but I am concerned about what we get as God's people.

You and I come here to Boston to establish the light of Christ. We are not going to put our light under the bed, we are going to put it up high so that everyone knows where the León de Judá Congregation is. May they come here and be healed, may they come here and declare the blessings of God, may they receive hope, may they make their peace with the Lord Jesus Christ.

All these things we want our church to be able to do because that is the calling of the church. The call of the church is to be aggressive. The calling of the church is to be a conquering force. The call of the church to be an animal of prey, of hunting that goes to take the prey, that puts the vision and throws itself on the prey and conquers in the name of Jesus. And I want you and I to cultivate that aggressive mentality in the name of Jesus.

You are a believer, you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have a sublime calling. Your call is to conquer and to establish your influence, not to glorify yourself but to bring blessing and life to those who need the knowledge of Jesus. The church was called to establish with power and wisdom the dominion of God on earth. That is the call.

And when Christ left here, it was very clear that he was leaving an entrustment to the church: “Conquer, negotiate while I come. Invest, make an effort, work hard because I want this world to be submissive and for the world to know that I am Lord of Lords and King of Kings”.

That is our call, brothers, and for that we are here. It is not to create a reputation and put us to sleep. It is to live our life so that the kingdom of heaven may be established here on earth and the nations may know the name of Jesus Christ.

Know what? The church went so far as to establish its dominance over the culture. Politically, socially, culturally in the first centuries of this post-Christian era. When Rome through Constantine recognized the dominion of Jesus Christ, in the fourth century after Christ. The greatest power in all the earth humbled itself before the cross and recognized Jesus as Lord. But he recognized it imperfectly. But from there began a process in which the Christian church came to exercise dominance.

The church of the Middle Ages, throughout the West, was a tremendously powerful church, the Catholic Pope came to force the strongest King of the Western empire to humble himself in his courtyard and spend a whole day on his knees and he gave himself the place of see if he received it or not so that they would recognize that the sovereign was actually the religious power.

But you know what? The church was corrupted because power corrupts. And as Israel became corrupted and fell in love with the world, and the world imparted its nature to it because the serpent is the most subtle thing in the universe. And little by little it was co-opting and subordinating and making the church fall in love and the church fell in love with power and then the men of God began to dress in luxurious clothes and have mansions and to be filled with arrogance and pride that they dominated.

And you know well, the Bible says that pride comes before the fall and if God did it with Israel, it is not true that he was going to stop doing it with the church.

And as the church became inflamed and lost its true nature, it simply became one more power and over time it was declining, declining and over time the Enlightenment came in the 18th century, the 17th century and the church was losing power.

And look today, for example, what the church in Europe is, it's irrelevant, it's not even a force for conflict. Not exceptional. In this country, the church has lost so much power. Because it is that, brothers, when the church moves in the nature that belongs to it, the church is irresistible. When you and I move in the power of God, no one can beat us. I assure you of that.

If the church of Christ awakens to its power that it has and moves in the way that God has established that it move and guards itself against the temptations of the world, the church easily in a short time, goes back up again and establishes the can. That is why I am not so concerned about this question of the problems that exist today: the influence of the homosexual group or the growth of abortion or humanist and secular attitudes. Brothers, when the church is in the ring and is against the corner is when it has the most power.

If the church rebounds and establishes biblical ways of warfare, no one can stop it. The church again naturally returns to its attitude of power.

And that is what we have to be cultivating, may the Lord help us to enter into what God wants us to enter into and what we will want as those first primitive believers fought, who were as Paul says: “you are nothing. There are not among you very well-known, very exalted, very professional people”. However, those people, a little later, had conquered the Roman Empire because the power of God was with them because they were the salt of the earth, because they were the light of the world.

Salt is a beautiful image and we are not going to linger much longer, but there is a lot we could say about salt. Salt among other things is used to preserve, salt preserves. Have you eaten a good cod with tomato and onion and all this? And they have bought it in the salty store, that cod does not have to be in a fridge or anything, because the salt preserves it. Salt was used in ancient times on ships when there were no refrigerators to preserve meats and foods.

In the ancient world, salt was widely used to preserve. In other words, salt prevents the natural processes of corruption of matter. Salt slows them down, rather. Spoilage, the natural decay of dead things, salt tends to arrest and preserve the life that remains in them. We can visualize it that way.

Brethren, and when Christ said 'you are the salt of the earth' he was alluding to the church as that preserving agent. That agent that preserves culture, that agent that maintains, that prevents that natural process of deterioration that exists in humanity.

Everything that exists tends to deteriorate, that is one of the thermodynamic laws. I think it's the second law of thermodynamics and it says that all systems go through a process of increasing disorder and incoherence. The universe itself says the physicists is little by little losing energy.

But don't worry because it's going to take 5 to 10 billion years for the gasoline you have to run out. I believe Christ is coming long before that, so don't lose sleep. But they have done experiments and the same galaxies and the same universe say that it is losing energy little by little.

Salt is what stops, what prevents the world from deteriorating. If man were left in his natural decay processes, this society would already be completely destroyed. Demons - not long - they were already walking the streets and ruling in a total way. Men would have been totally corrupted.

Do you know what has prevented the culture from completely deteriorating? The church of Jesus Christ that is still here on earth. As long as the church of Christ is here on earth it is salt. Salt that penetrates the realm of the spirit and prevents the powers of the devil from taking complete possession of humanity.

We, brothers, preserve this world. Sepal. We are the ones who keep this world there enduring. May the beasts that are in the heart of man not completely go out of their boxes, the church, the influence of the church.

And that, brothers, historically, the church has played that role. When the Roman Empire was attacked by the orders that came from the north – these tremendously primitive but very powerful tribes, full of warlike force – and those tribes invaded Rome, many have compared it to a night that fell on the entire West. They simply had a lot of warlike power and Rome with all its strength but it had already declined a lot, it could not resist the onslaught of all those powerful tribes that came and it was conquered.

Do you know who kept the knowledge of Greek and Roman culture that had accumulated over hundreds and hundreds of years before? Church. The monasteries that arose in the Middle Ages.

Who were the ones who maintained culture through illustrated manuscripts, scientific research -the little there was- preservation of knowledge, experiments and other things that were done in the Monasteries? The Christian church maintained knowledge, enlightenment.

Many monks were taken from their monasteries to be advisers to Kings, because there was wisdom. Something of the word of God was still preserved and the church was the one that kept western culture alive during its great night of centuries.

The cultural, intellectual, spiritual vitality was in the church and from there came what kept the culture alive in the West. A good part of music, art, classical literature, where does it come from? Biblical reasons.

Go to any museum, go here to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and look at the great paintings of the centuries of the Middle Ages and you will see that their motifs were almost exclusively, even sacred motifs taken from the pages of scripture. Juan Sebastián Bach one of the great musicians of all history, a genius like few geniuses, that humanity has produced. A man who dedicated all his musical production to Christ Jesus.

The church, brothers, the West has developed the scientific method that has allowed humanity to send men to the Moon and into space and I discovered the secrets of bacteria and viruses and make great scientific inventions, advances in all areas of technology . Where have these great advances been made? In the West where the Gospel, where Christianity has prevailed.

Not in India, not in China with all the advances they had and all the advances they invented in the area of mathematics and philosophy and all those things.

But where technology, science has advanced is in the West where Christianity has had an influence. And many philosophers of science say that what has made the West virtually monopolize scientific progress is the fact that behind scientific investigations there is a truth that the Gospel has always preached and that the word of God says that the universe was created. for a coherent God who put a system that put design in the universe and who revealed himself to humanity and then this belief that man can discover this reason that God instilled in the universe is what has encouraged men in the West investigate the secrets of nature and matter and that has allowed us to create this culture that we know scientifically.

In India with all its research and all its great genius that India has philosophically but science took root there, not even the Arabs who invented zero and certain areas of mathematics, no.

In the West where the spirit of belief God created the universe and God wants us to know. The psalmist says: the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament announces the work of his hands. That belief has encouraged us brothers to bless the world with scientific research.

The church, the word of God, is a preserving source. The word of God is a source that illuminates, strengthens, blesses, and feeds. And you are part of that glorious heritage, my brother, you belong to that tradition that humanity has preserved. You are part of that salt of the earth and we have to live with that aggressiveness, when other elements have fled from places that are decaying, the church has remained because the Church has felt that call to be salt on the earth.

I was recently reading the history of this community here in Rockberry and South Boston. Do you know, brothers, that just 30, 40 years ago these places here were flourishing places? There were many families. Travel, get into those streets, over there and you will see large closed buildings still with the names and posters of large factories that were in this area just 30 years ago, 40 years around here. There are huge buildings that are closed right now where a few years ago you could still hear the clash of machines and the life of the industry.

But what happened? Deterioration began and the flight to the suburbs began and all the elements that preserve a community began to drain from South Boston and Rocksberry only the hollow places were left where there was life before.

And the middle-class families since the children already studied, went to the university, what did they do? They were moving to the suburbs, they no longer wanted to stay here with the rabble of the area. And they bought their little house wherever they went and what happened? The neighborhood gradually fell into disrepair. Industry is gone, services are gone, stable families are gone.

The working people, the professional people and this whole area became a ghost town, a ghost town. Because the salt is gone, the light is gone, in disobedience. And even the churches, unfortunately, joined this flight, disobeying their call to be salt and to be a preserving power, to be an agent of life. Running away from the call, running away from nature.

The churches were not made to flee from the deterioration, the churches were made to come to where the deterioration is and inseminate it and put the life of God and say: "Stop" to the powers of darkness and death. Because here the salt entered and the salt has to be where the tasteless is, where there is what has no salt.

We need a little struggle to stay vigorous. Our nature is a warrior nature. The warrior has to keep exercising, fighting so that his sword does not wear out. His sword has to be kept always sharp, his mind, his eyes, his vision, his understanding, everything, has to be in the warrior's posture.

That's why we've come here to be salt in this Boston community. To be salt here, to preserve. Because our life is not comfortable, our life is not inertia. Churches die, do you know why? Because they reach a certain level of prosperity, because God blesses them. If they move according to biblical principles, a church will inevitably be blessed, it will reach a certain level of life and blessing.

What's going on? We fall in love, we fall in love with the prosperity that God has given us, then prosperity becomes our God. Prosperity is no longer a result but a goal. So the churches already fall in love, they reach a certain point and we already look at each other well dressed and pretty and we say “Ah! Here we have to stay. Nobody change this! Nobody move. Don't do anything, don't change anything."

All like that. We took a photo and stayed there forever.

But you know what? At the moment the photo was taken, the decay begins. The curve is already starting to drop. Because the church is not made to stay at a given point. The church is a living animal that is in process, dynamic, constantly changing, it has to be doing something new. He continually has to be looking for new areas of conquest, new areas of struggle, new incentives, new challenges, and he cannot love his life because Christ says that "he who loves his life loses it."

Do you know that? If you love your comfort you will lose it. You have to despise your comfort in order to have comfort. That's what we said at the beginning: the paradoxes of the kingdom.

If a church wants to grow and prosper and be blessed and reach new levels of life, it has to hate its life, hate all its achievements, hate its comfort, hate its prestige, hate its security, and plunge into the abyss in the name of the Lord.

In the name of the one who has said 'He will not let your foot stumble on a stone, for he will command his angels near you to guard you in all your ways'. When you launch yourself in the name of the Lord believing in the God who has promised, forget all the safety ties.

If God calls you, jump in the name of the Lord. Be like Abraham, let the motto of your life be like Abraham: 'Where the Lord sends me there I will go. Leave your land and your relatives and go to a land that I will show you. None of us know what God has for us in this place.

Actually I don't know. In specific terms I don't know. Now I do know one thing that is a blessing. Whatever it is and however it comes is a blessing because God was the one who commanded us to leave our land and our relatives and come to a new land with new challenges, new sap, a land flowing with milk and honey.

There are a few giants out there, but those giants have already had their teeth and nails pulled out. With a good stone in the forehead they will fall. There is no need to fear them because the Lord is with us.

I tell you: I had never felt, brothers, that we had come here to Boston to suffer. I have never seen myself like a goat tied there with all four legs with a rope that they have thrown us here in Rocksberry to suffer and to be victims and to be martyrs. I come here to enjoy this place that God has given us.

I come here to be blessed, I come here with great expectations that God is going to take care of us, he is going to keep us, he is going to bless us. Because when God gives a harvest, when God gives a miraculous catch, the boat threatens to sink from so much that is harvested and so much that is collected. And we have to call others to help us because God gives us so much.

That is the expectation, brothers.

Know what? God has already begun to show his power and his positive influence in this place. When we got here, that alley there, we were working and you saw there drug addicts injecting drugs and prostitutes doing their business, back there in that alley. But you know what? No one has been seen there for months and months and months. Because when the Church of Jesus Christ entered order, life entered, grace entered, the coherence of God entered.

And this place has been improving and has been rising because the church is order. The neighbors here next door said "it's good that you come, because I know that with you this is going to be fixed."

Look, someone who doesn't believe in Jesus Christ sometimes knows more than us believers. I have seen in this time, this place begin to breathe the peace of God, brothers. And I continually pray that this place be a place of peace and blessing. That Christians do not have to enter this place with anxiety in their hearts, looking in all directions, to see who is throwing a stone at them. No! We are going to enter, we are going to enjoy, we are going to rejoice, we are going to celebrate what God has given us.

I do not come here to suffer, I come here to conquer in the name of Jesus. Our prayers, I believe that when we have been here, we have prayed, we have interceded, we have spent hours in prayer in this place, we have blessed the community. I believe that there are already principalities, there are powers that have already packed their bags and have already gone to another part of Boston, perhaps out of the country.

They already told him out there 'Flee because there is a community that comes that way. Those people don't want to be angry. Look, they even eat the children raw' and they already packed up and left for other places a little more favorable for their activities. I hope that with the passage of time, we will see that God honors those who believe in Him and dare to undertake great things. We cannot be afraid, brothers.

Let me tell you: the devil only respects those who look him in the eye. Demons don't like to look a child of God in the eye. Know? I tell you from my own experience. They hate because they see the grace of God in believers and they hate to see the grace of God and the name of Jesus in their eyes. But if you get scared, he'll jump on you and forget it, they'll never leave you alone.

They are like dogs. You have to look dogs in the eye, because if you look them in the eye, they run away and run away... some, at least.

I advise you not to try that at home, okay?

Brothers, the world is made, even at the level of nature, for those who dare to undertake things in the name of the Lord and if you have any struggle in your life, I don't care what struggle you have, It can be a family fight, it can be a health fight, it can be a fight at the level of emotions, brothers, I want to tell you that in Christ Jesus there is fullness of life.

After this baptism of fire during these years that I have been here, I can say that with my mouth full: In Christ there is victory. In Christ there is power, in Christ there is triumph and problems are simply steps that we take to get closer to the presence of God.

That's all. God allows us to exercise.

How are we going to create muscles if not through exercises? The test is an exercise, the test is simply a riddle that God gives you to solve it and feel happy when solving it.

If you are going through trials, give thanks to God in the certainty that victory is inevitable because Christ says that in the face of these things we are "more than conquerors". Glory to the Lord and in that we trust. That is our faith, that is our confidence, our confession on this day.

You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, you are yeast that leavens the whole mass with the life of God. You have been called to be an agent of light, of grace, of life, of blessing. Live as a child of the King. Live as a son of one who has all the power and in his hands are kings, in his hands are the doors of this world and he opens them to those who fear him and to those who bless his name.