holiness is obedience

We begin this year, New Year's Eve, meditating on holiness and God's call this year, not only this year, but for our church in all its future toward sanctifying ourselves and preparing us for what God has for us.

One of the images that I remember that we used in that call to the holiness of our church and our lives, was the image of Joshua waiting to lead his people, the people of Israel to the promised land. And God calls Joshua, the night before starting his move to finally enter that people, who have waited so long, towards their destiny, he calls them to sanctify themselves. And God says to Joshua, "Sanctify the people, circumcise the people, because tomorrow I will begin to do wonders among you."

That people needed to consecrate themselves because God never moves through impure vessels, vessels that are contaminated by sin. It is not that we need to be perfect, I hasten to clarify, but our hearts do have to be given to the Lord. Our will has to be surrendered to the Lord. We have to purify ourselves.

God does not work unless it is through a people consecrated to him, a fragile people, a people who are willing to do his will, a people who prefer him above all else, a people who are willing to confront the very hosts of hell to honor God, like David, for example, when he confronted the giant Goliath. A people that is willing to walk alone in the midst of a humanity that does not understand or accept it because it prefers approval over the approval of men. How many understand what I'm referring to?

A people that rejoices in the approving gaze of God rather than the approving gaze of those who rule the world and supposedly have the right to assign us value or approval. And that to me is sanctification.

Sanctification is preferring God before everything else. Sanctification is loving God above all things. Holiness is being willing to put aside your aspirations, your preferences, your pleasures so that God is enthroned and that he is pleased with our lives.

And that is what God is looking for, a heart that is delivered to him, a heart that loves him passionately. Perhaps we are not perfect as in the book of Josaphat, that is why I began to write this book, because there is struggle, in the Christian life it is struggle, the Christian life is conflict, the Christian life is agony, it is tension between our aspirations for to please that God and our human reality.

But God has mercy on the heart that is red hot seeking his glory and seeking his approval. The man, the woman who has said, Father, I already die to the world, I die to my pleasures, I die to my aspirations, I die to my desire to have a lot of money, to have a big house, to have a car first year, to have the approval of the people, that the people think that I am the great thing.

I put aside my desire to create a name for myself, for my offspring, and I want your name to be glorified. And I put everything aside. Give me what you want, I give you everything and then give me what you want. That's sanctification, that's turning away for God.

And it is to turn away and then be like one of those vessels in the temple that already had the name of Jehovah written on it and could not be used for any profane thing. That is what God wants from us. That radical obedience of our lives.

You will remember that last time we were talking about some aspects of sainthood and the theory of sainthood. And unfortunately even in that sermon I could not go into all the detail and breadth that we went into in the first 9 o'clock service. And this morning in the 9 o'clock service what I did was base it on a text from the Bible, an account, a narrative from Scripture, to illustrate those principles to which I referred in the previous service.

Unfortunately, in the 12 o'clock service, I could not, as I say, enter fully into those theological, let's say, and theoretical aspects of what is the holiness that God wants from our lives. And so I was debating there, Lord, do I preach on the first sermon that I didn't get to preach in the 12 o'clock service, or do I preach the second sermon that is an illustration of what holiness is?

And I feel from the Lord, rather enter directly and then perhaps I will turn the order around with you and I want you to see firsthand, that is, in life through a narration, because that is why God designed these narrations and these narrative texts and these stories, because stories are capable of embodying and containing a lot, a lot of teaching that sometimes open statements cannot contain. Do you understand what I am telling you?

Sometimes a poem, or a story can squeeze much more teaching than a point by point theoretical statement in a rational, linear way of something as complex as holiness. And that's why these stories are so multifaceted, multidimensional, have multiple meanings, and we can go to them again and again as humanity has done through centuries and centuries and receive new teaching, new content, new inspiration for our walk of faith.

And this story is found in the book of Joshua in Chapter 7. And here we see some ideas, some notes on what holiness is, because ultimately, brothers, God has spoken to me that holiness, when we take away all its complexity to a subject so complex that theologians have puzzled over the centuries giving different definitions and writing books, and books, and books about what holiness is, after all, holiness is this word, obedience .

Obey the Lord. Get in tune with his heart, with his intentions, with his will. It doesn't matter what our preferences are, or what our mind, our brain tells us, but what the Lord says.

And ultimately the answer to that complex question is found in the Holy Scriptures. If we are willing to hold ourselves to the word of God. If we believe that this is the word of God. How many believe that this is the word of God? I hope that if you are here that you believe that this book is the word of God given once for all to the saints, as the Scripture says. And that this is our slogan.

Here we find how to live and how to get in tune with the heart of God. Because holiness is that. Holiness is your living, flowing, acting, developing your career here on earth in affinity with the desire and preference and will of God. If I can adapt my life to the character of God, that is holiness because God is holy, holy, holy, says the Bible.

In several passages we have seen that the Bible says holiness to Jehovah, because God is holy, we have to be holy, because God is holy and we are creation and expression of him, we have to express his holiness. And that is the agony of the man or woman who decides to live according to the word of God. Because the word of God reveals to me who God is, what are his preferences, what are his desires, what pleases him, what bothers him, what he actively wants from me. And then I have to adapt my life, my personality, my feelings, my emotions, my preferences, my definitions, my morality, my ethics, my human relationships, my aspirations for life, no matter what I want or prefer, what God says, that's what I have to do.

And if I have to cut parts of my being and my preferences and my desires so that I can be pleasing to God, I have to do it. It doesn't matter. You know, one of the difficult things about the Christian life, when many of us enter the Christian life, we are already so distorted by the life of the world, that then entering the Christian life and being able to fully participate in the essence of God, requires a process of dying to so many things that have already taken possession of us.

That is why the Christian life is an agonizing life. Because when you enter the ways of God, know that you come to die, you come to be crucified, you come to bleed. Now, he also comes to rejoice and celebrate. That's what's nice. Because to the extent that you give things to God, you lose weight. The devil wants you to think that holiness is to spoil your party. Quite the opposite. Holiness is so that you can enjoy the party. Holiness is so that you can jump and celebrate and dance before the Lord.

Paul says to throw off every weight we have on us so that we can run lightly the race of faith. What's more, I would say, not just the race of faith, because that sounds very spiritual, the race of life. So that our marriages can be blessed, our children can understand what it is to serve the Lord as their parents, our homes are a temple where God can dwell, our lives, our bodies are instruments for the Lord to manifest his glory, that our emotions May they be healed of all the neuroses and all the distortions and all the deformations that the world has created about us so that we can sleep well, so that we can have health in our bodies, so that we can laugh freely, so that we can eat well and enjoy what we are eating without having the anxiety that kills so many times, the uncertainty about life, so that we can be good friends, good husbands, good parents, good worshipers.

That is what God, that is why holiness is not designed to create a number of burdens on you, as happened to the Pharisees, but rather it is for you to pursue it with joy and desire because you know that the more you please your God and the more you conform to it, the more the blessing flows through you and stays in you, and passes to another as well. Holiness is not a call to a neurotic, sad, depressed, anxious, uncertain life, throwing load, load, load on our shoulders every day. No, holiness is so that you can have communion with your heavenly Father, so that when God descends to Eden, as it says in the book of Genesis.

Do you remember the story? God told Adam and Eve, do not eat from this tree. You can eat everything else, but don't eat from that tree. How many know that God has told us, look, enjoy all this, I'll give you a garden, this world is a garden, brothers, this world you can enjoy so many beautiful things. I thank God for being in this time in history because I can enjoy the technology that this time has, I can enjoy the medical care that this time has, I can enjoy the microwaves, and the refrigerator, and the ovens, and the cars. and the planes, and all the beautiful things that are in this time. God has told me, enjoy everything, enjoy the movies, enjoy music, enjoy literature, enjoy philosophy, enjoy art, but that everything be within the framework that I have established. Do you understand the difference?

God has set up this world for us to enjoy, but we have to obey him. That the devil that you think not, that it is that God like that, is simply a bloody fat man who wants to spoil the party, who wants you not to enjoy yourself. No, God made the world for you to enjoy. God made all things, food, sex, sleep, technology, art for you to enjoy. But he tells you, look, but not about that. I have reserved that for myself. And God sets signs to see if we want to obey him or not.

I believe that the tree in Eden was simply a sign. Something that God told him, look, I don't demand much of you, but don't eat me from that. I think one day, you know what? I suspect, when I get to the Kingdom of God, up there, in heaven, I'm going to ask the Lord, God, if Adam and Eve hadn't eaten from that tree after a while, you would have allowed them to eat it ? I think God was going to say, yes, it's true, you hit her, Roberto. I think that, my suspicion is that God at some point, when he saw that Adam and Eve respected his commandment, adhered to it, one day God was going to invite them to a little meal over there, with a good coffee and he was going to tell them You know what, Adam and Eve? Today I decided that now you can also eat from that tree.

But no, the devil came and said, you know what? No, it is that God does not want you to know, God does not want you to use your own thought, he wants to enslave you. And so the world tells us many times, if you obey God, if you stick to this, you are giving him your reason, you are giving him your knowledge, you are giving him away, you are enslaving yourself to him, you are enslaving yourself to this Bible. And the devil tells you, no, play with these words, do what you want with it, change its meaning, put it into archaeological, rational, theological knowledge and put your material into it and make it say what you want it to say. say, because after all you have the right, it is your culture, it is your science, it is your technology. These things change that.

And that's the great thing about holiness. The devil is always saying, no, put your preferences, your definitions, your appetites before what God has told you. And if you do it like this then you will be able to eat everything. It is the problem of modern culture that wants knowledge.

I know that in this idea of not eating from the tree, of science, of good and evil, there is a mystery there because that is the problem of culture through all the centuries. It is the man wanting to eat, to have that knowledge, that dimension of freedom in his reasoning that God has said, no, it is when I say it and how I want it. But the devil says, no, no, exercise your intellect, exercise your human prerogatives, think as you want to think, not as God says.

And then, you know what? Many of us eat from that tree, we forget the call to obey God, to consecrate ourselves to him, to walk as he says, and then we bite into the fruit. And then, instead of blessing comes a curse, instead of life comes death, instead of happiness comes unhappiness, instead of harmony in human relationships comes conflict, as it happened with Adam, with Eve, with nature, with technology, everything then becomes a source of curse.

Because even all the good that is technology, culture, art, science, the pleasures that God has given us to enjoy, all of that becomes a curse. And then food becomes a source of addiction, sex becomes a source of curse, of weakness, technology becomes weapons to kill people and to oppress them and to control their way of thinking. The internet, instead of being a blessing for humanity, becomes a channel for pornography, for the alienation of young people from their parents and their superiors. It becomes the provider of pornography, of so many other things that harm the world. And the government, instead of doing something that is good for man, becomes a source of curses, of oppression, of robbing the poor, of a group establishing its control over the others. All the things that God said are good, become sources of curse.

How are we going to return to Eden? We have to return recognizing that we have sinned and Father, we want you to teach us again, because God wants to have fellowship with us and God wants to have a conversation, he came to Eden but sin had already put distance between men and God, between Adam and Eve, and God. And then they could no longer have fellowship.

So, it is obedience that God wants. It is to stick to his will. It is walking like children. Christ says, if you do not become like children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. You and I have to ask the Lord, Father, make me like a child, teach me what I should believe, teach me what are the pleasures that I have to enjoy and how I should enjoy them, teach me what you want from my life, teach me your what are the priorities that you want, teach me how to know your will through your word and approach your humble word, simply and if you tell me, don't do this, I'm not going to do it. If you tell me, do this, I'm going to do it. If you tell me, walk here, I'll walk there. If you tell me, don't walk there, I'm going to stray from that path because I want your glory, I want to have fellowship with you.

That is holiness. And it means that you have to remove from your life everything that you love, everything that you prefer. Many people wonder, no, and why do I have to leave this, why do I have to leave the other. I define myself this way, I am like this, what's wrong with that? It does not please God. God knows that this is a path of lies and curses. The devil tells you, no, you can enjoy it, but you have to say, no, God says no, so I'm going to do what God says.

In this passage here, give me a little time to develop these points, in Chapter 7 of Joshua we see illustrated all these principles that I have already announced prematurely, but in any case we are going to mix all this together, to make an excellent stilt this morning . Says:

“…. But the children of Israel committed a transgression ─ a sin, a disobedience, ─ regarding the anathema…”

You see that word but the children of Israel… that means there is something before this narrative. And what happened was that the people of Israel had just come from a great victory. The walls of Jericho, that impregnable, impenetrable city had been destroyed and torn down by the power of God, intervening on behalf of his people. The first great victory that Israel experienced upon entering the promised land. And the people of God were joyful, God had given them a city that seemed impossible to penetrate, they were at war and they were seeing the glory of God. It was a moment of great celebration because when there is obedience, there is victory, there is celebration.

The problem with the church in the 21st century we complain, oh the world does not listen to us. People neglect the church and do not pay attention to the word of God. Culture has launched to seek its own priorities and the declarations of the word of God no longer make a dent in the world. The church is fallen. The church is poor. The church has no influence on the culture. Perhaps it is because we have abandoned the search for the glory of God. Perhaps it is because there are things that prevent.

When the church flows, according to the counter-intuitive dictates of God, the blessing comes, the effectiveness comes and the people of God had just had a great victory because they had followed God's guidelines. God told them, you know what? How are they going to destroy those walls? They are not going to do it by taking hammers and hitting it hard. Those walls are impenetrable. No, I'm going to give you a totally crazy recipe. Go 6 times, one every day around the walls, and on the seventh day go 7 times and when you go around the seventh time, shout and the walls will fall.

Go? When God says something, many times it doesn't make sense, but if you obey it, you see the result. The people followed what God told them and around number 13 they shouted. I imagine those poor Jews saying, oh, let's scream. These people already think we're crazy anyway. And let's scream and if we scream and nothing happens? You imagine, right? However, they screamed and the walls fell down.

So, there is a great victory, there is a great victory but it says that they sinned, a sin. Look how interesting also another thing that says:

“…The children of Israel committed a sin regarding the accursed…”

God had told the children of Israel, the people of Israel, when you enter Jericho, when those walls fall down, I don't want you to touch a single thing from that place that I curse. They have given themselves to filth, they have given themselves to worship other gods, what these people represent, what they have, their possessions, are cursed.

The word anathema means curse. The word anathema means something that is dedicated to destruction. That is anathema, geren is the word in Hebrew, and it means dedicated to destroy. God had said, I want you to consecrate all that to me, except the gold and silver because that is mine and use it for my worship. But no one keeps anything that is in that city.

Brothers, we have to be a holy people and there are many things in this world that God says, do not participate in them, no matter how attractive they may be, because I curse it, I do not approve and we have to lower our heads and say, Lord , you are Lord. Amen, if you say so, that's what we're going to do.

But what happened? There was a problem. And it was violated, a man violated the commandment of God. And how interesting, that here it says that the children of Israel transgressed. However, one man committed the sin, Achan. If you read the rest of the narrative, you will see that when Achan entered he took what God had said do not touch him. But here it says that the children of Israel transgressed. All the people say here, why? Because God is an extremely delicate God.

You know what? That is what society sometimes does not understand and the churches do not understand and Christians do not understand. Many times a father who is practicing things that are not pleasing to God can curse his family. Many times a practice that occurs at 3 in the morning, when the wife is in bed and the children are sleeping, that does not please God, can sow a seed of curse in a home. Many times a practice that occurs only in a sector of the nation and that the nation approves and allows, can curse an entire nation.

That is what happens in this case. The Jews were at war and they needed purity especially when you are at war and the church is at war against a powerful enemy, his name is Satan, that devil is in power over culture and many other things. He is the prince of this world, we are at war, this is a time where God wants to bless the church and give authority to the church like never before in history, but the church has to prepare itself and has to be a pleasant vessel in front of God. We are at war and we need the supernatural power of God because those walls of Jericho that constitute the culture out there are not going to fall, unless it is with the power and fire of God, through a people that cries out and worships and live according to the principles of the word of God.

Do you know what is going to cause the power of God to descend on the earth? Do you know what is going to cause the power of God to be released? The crucifixion of the sons of men. The crucifixion is what makes the life of God manifest, cutting us, not in the physical sense of the word, but breaking us and submitting to God's treatment, presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, says Romans, Chapter 12, so that we can verify the good will of God.

If we want the power of God to manifest, there has to be that. And many times there are situations in our lives and we wonder why our children are not learning, why our children are not serving God, why our children are not gaining that love for the things of God. Why our culture, why our young African American Latinos are not learning. Why are they functioning, why are they not going to college, why are they not graduating from high school, why are they mired in promiscuity and mental and intellectual dullness.

On Friday, I was speaking with a young woman from this church who is a teacher, an excellent girl, she has grown in the ways of the Lord and loves God and wants to give of her knowledge and spirituality in the performance of her role as a teacher. And she told me, Pastor, I'm already exhausted. I am going to get out of teaching, from teaching, because it is frustrating. I try and try and try and I can't communicate. I think it teaches art history or art, and these young people are not interested at all. They are dull. It's like throwing seeds on a stone.

Our young people are permeated by a poison that the devil has put into them in so many different ways. And culture has its paradigms and its principles of how education does not talk about God, does not teach moral things because we are going to offend one group or another, does not talk about respect for the authorities, does not talk about discipline. And minimally it is done. So, we have created an artificial society, according to human values and our children are paying the price for that.

And when the church tries to do what it can, they tie our hands, and tell us, no, don't talk about God, don't talk about Christ, don't talk about the Holy Spirit, don't talk about morality because we live in a pluralistic society, supposedly. However, who is paying for that? Our children.

Now, ask African Americans and Latinos, the parents out there on the street, if they want to talk about God and I think 90% are going to say, of course we do, we want to talk about God. But there is an intellectual elite that governs our countries, our cities, our states, which says, we don't want to talk about God.

Where is the dictatorship then? Where is democracy? Do you understand what I'm telling you? The man puts his preferences. There is a curse on the ground. There is a curse in the homes, and he knows that there is a curse in the churches because the churches are not living up to what the word of God says. We ourselves have corrupted ourselves, brothers.

There are practices in our churches, there are attitudes. I am not referring only to easy ways of viewing morality. I am not referring only to adultery, pornography, homosexuality, sexual abuse, pedophilia. No, I am referring to a number of other things, values in our homes, our lives, resentment, backbiting, physical abuse, emotional abuse, not enough praise in our homes, not consecration to the Lord, not seeking the will of God, there are no people burning red hot because the glory of God is manifested.

There is a lot of comfort, a lot of privacy, a lot of being conservative with our gifts, talents, energies. Our money is ours and we give alms to the Lord, a little piece so that he does not say that something was not done. God says, no, give me the tithe, give it to me first.

So, we are in disobedience. We ask the Lord, Lord, bless my finances. Lord bless my body. Lord, bless my house, bless my neighborhood. Both the world out there and the church have lost sight of what God wants. We have offended God.

I want to see the glory of God in my life. And I feel that one of the things we have to do for God to manifest his glory and remove the veil that covers our prayers, our faith, our worship service, so that the veil is drawn, we have to make the Father fall in love again . The Father has been offended by his church. Centuries and decades of living with the world and getting used to our sins, and of offering a Gospel reduced to the basics, to the average, to the average, have wounded the heart of God.

And God is there... he wants to bless, but we have to make him fall in love again, we have to tell him, Father, we have offended you. Father, we have sinned against you. Father, we have not considered your glory enough. We have not understood what it means to say you are holy and we are called to be holy. We have allowed ourselves all kinds of luxuries and liberties because they did not compete with us and now we tell you, forgive us, we grieve, we repent, visit us if you want, and be back in our midst, and make your glory descend. We don't deserve it but if you want, Lord, make your glory descend.

That is why we have to give glory to God. When we gather in our service, brothers, and we say, come forward here, we are going to adore the Lord, and sometimes we take longer than the program says to adore God, it is that these are crucifixions that we have to do so that God be glorified. You have to give glory to God, you have to take time to exalt his name.

Now, it is not only lips that adore his name, but also hearts that do works of justice and love and righteousness, lives given to God that then with holy lips adore the Lord, and the glory of God descends on the Congregations, on the communities, on the homes, on the schools and God does what he has to do and makes the walls of Jericho fall down.

But Lord, show us the way, teach us how to die, teach us how to bring down your glory because only your glory can bring down the walls. There is a long way to go and other ways to go. But it's the only way we're going to see the glory of God. God's heart is wounded and offended. We have to make him fall in love again, like a husband who has been… let's put it in biblical images, like a wife who has been unfaithful to her husband and has hurt his heart and alienated him. The husband is offended and now that repentant woman comes and tells him, I know that I have offended you beyond what is acceptable, if you want to reject me and do not want to see my face one more time, I understand perfectly, but give me a second opportunity and receive me and accept me again as your wife.

That is what the church has to say to God at this time. That is what the culture has to say to him, that is what the creation has to say to God. That is what humanity has to say to God. Man has to humble himself before the principles that God has established and say, Lord, we have offended you, and we have allowed anathema to enter our homes, enter our churches, enter our communities, enter our nation, and we ask you , Lord, come and visit us once more.

If you read yourself, I'm not going to do it now, but read Joel, I think it's Chapter 2, where we see there that the wine has been lacking, the oil has been lacking, the flour has been lacking, the bread has been lacking, the enemies are taking possession of the people of God and God says,

“…Declare a fast, declare a holy Congregation, a holy convocation and who knows if God will repent and visit the earth with blessing and provision and healing. Priests humble themselves and consecrate themselves to the Lord. Husbands and wives mourn before God, cry out to the Lord for God to visit their land again. And he says, and merciful and gracious God, will send early and latter rain, and make the earth bloom again, and pour out...."

And then it is there that the word says “….And the last ones I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and the old men will dream dreams, the young men will see visions, the maids and servants will prophesy, I will pour out my spirit…”

That is the time that we are. The church has to be, Lord, forgive us, heal us, consecrate us, sanctify us, and please visit us because this is crazy. We do not have the solution. And God says, I will bring down my spirit on all flesh.

I believe that God has something powerful for this time in history, a visitation like never before in history. But first the people of God have to make God fall in love, tell him, Father, we repent. We are going to put aside our pleasures, the party, the celebrations, we are going to live for you and I descend, please, and irradiate the earth with your spirit.

Creation is like a battery that is already losing all its power. It is like our cell phones, that there comes a time when it is no longer partially green but red, due to the lack of battery, it is running out. And he tells you, you have 10% left, you have 9% left, you have 8% left, and at the end you hear a very ugly noise, something like that, that says, oh, disaster is coming at any moment.

Such is the creation. The man with his surrender to himself and his departure from the love and the will and the appreciation and the pleasure of God, is like a battery. This creation is already running out of energy. Man, this culture, the United States, the great countries of the great Western world are already losing their lives, and if God does not enter this is going to be a disaster, more than it is. And we have to cry out to God and say, Lord, recharge the battery of this creation. Visit the land.

God wants reconciliation with his creation but he says, come closer to me and not I to you, I already got closer through my Son, now you come and get closer. Convert to me and not I to you. I want reconciliation but not on their terms but on mine.

God wants to visit the earth. Brothers, I believe that God does not want to destroy the earth. I believe that God is there on his throne saying, oh, my creation, my children, if you understood the love that I have for you, I do not want destruction, I want a blessing, but I cannot do it to a rebellious and disobedient creation. . Call on me and I will answer you. Repent, and that has to start with the church, with us, with me, with you and we have to cry out before God.

Tell him, Lord, we need your visitation. I believe that this visitation wants to come. God wants to give the world a chance. Then other things will come, judgment will come, the end times will come, all the things that we see in Revelation will come, in the prophetic documents, but there is a time that I believe is drawing near and that requires the sanctification of the people of God.

And that we understand the mysteries of how God moves, the mysteries of spiritual warfare, the mysteries of a kingdom called the kingdom of darkness, that wants to destroy, kill, steal, that wants to sow discord, disobedience, neurosis, kill everything beautiful, everything that reminds God in this creation. That kingdom is so powerful that it fills the air, it is the prince of this world, it is the most powerful power. It is behind governments, it is behind intellectual movements, it is behind great technological advances, it is behind the world of finance and the world of politics and all these things, it is like a puppet governing and controlling all those who do not take refuge. under the illumination and security of the word of God.

He's doing what he wants about the story, about all the elements of this creation. He controls the mind, he controls the air, he controls the communications, he controls the things that make up the sensitivity of the culture. And God wants to cut the strings of the puppeteer and give creation one last chance to experiment.

I believe that God is not going to end history until the world does not function as God designed it in Eden, even for a moment. And that moment is drawing near, but we have to prepare ourselves so that then God visits the earth. And then other things will continue. But I believe that the time that God says sanctify yourselves and do not allow…because, again, ignorance of these things makes us…there are so many well-intentioned people in the church and outside the church who believe that with their definitions of what it is the truth, and what is good, and what is fair, and what is pleasant somehow bribe God so that God forgets what he has declared in his word. And so that's why God can't do anything.

We do not understand what the heart of God is like. God said, do not do this and Achan was dazzled, the Bible says, that when Achan entered Jericho he saw a piece of gold, a gold ingot, well formed, shiny, beautiful, he saw a precious mantle made by the best artist, he saw a couple of other things that dazzled, they say he coveted it. His heart attached to it. They were beautiful things and I imagine that Achan must have said, Wow, what a huge waste! I am sure that God does not want that gold ingot to melt in the fire of the city and to be lost. That cloak, how beautiful! I am sure that I give it to my wife, she will forgive me for all the things that I have done to her in the last 3, 4 months. And Achan was dazzled.

You know what? The things that kill us are the things that delight us many times. There are things that we say, but why does God want me to sacrifice that to Him, it is so beautiful, it is so beautiful. I don't see why, where is the problem, where is the error. I tell myself that many times, Lord, why do you tell me not to enjoy what is so good and tasty? But God tells me, no, it's that you don't understand, I have designed the universe in this way and if you get involved in that operation you are going to destroy the mechanism, you are going to be living forced, contradictory to what I have designed. Your actions will contaminate your family. Your family is going to contaminate the block where you live. Your block is going to pollute your city. Your city will pollute the region. The region will contaminate the nation. The nation will pollute the earth.

America is the great Satan for a large portion of the earth. Because? Because it exports pornography through the internet, it exports rebellion, it exports harmful entertainment. I understand the Islamic, Muslim world why they hate so many aspects of our culture because they are many times holier than us. Misdirected, misdirected, completely wrong, but they live with a degree of integrity. And from here so much crap is exported through Hollywood and through the internet, and so many other things, supposedly because they are beautiful, they are gold bars that communities curse. And our nation, instead of a blessing, as God destined it to be, is being a curse for humanity, and that is why we have to sanctify ourselves.

It has to start with me, I who preach from up here. When I preach these sermons, I say, Lord, have mercy on me because it is a very high Gospel that I am preaching. Cover me and protect me with your grace and help me to live what I am preaching because it is terrible. Because I know that if my life does not respond to what God wants, I contaminate my Congregation, I contaminate my pastors. My pastors contaminate the church. The church contaminates their families. And the curse of God thus begins to run. We have to start with us. We have to sanctify ourselves before God. It doesn't matter what the taste is.

So Achan sinned, no one saw it, no one noticed. I don't think even his wife knew, he went and put all those things under his tent, dug a big hole, put it in aluminum foil and put it in there and closed the hole. And he said, I'm going to wait for 6, 8 months or a year to pass and then I'm going to take it out when they've forgotten everything. But God saw it.

Do you know that a tumor in your body, even if you know it is there or not, will it affect you? Do you know that a little problem in your body, even if you don't know it's there, will have an impact on your life? Do you know that an unrecognized sin defined and repackaged in a way that pleases you but does not change God's mind is going to affect your life? And that that sin, that practice, that attitude that you have not brought to the Lord..., because brothers, I understand one thing. Holiness is a struggle, remember what I told you before? Holiness is not a state, it is a process.

I know that there are struggles between us and whoever tells me no is in the wrong church because this church preaches processes and says this book Feet of Clay there, what called me to write this book is what I know that life Christian life is a life of struggle and agony. And God loves us, but what God wants is for us to desperately want to please him. He knows that you are made of clay, he knows that you are going to sin and offend him, and in this church there is no place, I must tell you, for sanctimonious, self-righteous, legalistic people, there is not. Understand me that. This is a church for people who know that we are sinners and are seeking God's healing. But we desire the glory of God.

We know that we have to cry out and when we sin we do not give it another name, but we cry out and we repent and cry tears before God. And we entrust ourselves to the grace of Christ, because I believe in the grace of God. I believe that in a forgiving God, a God who is compassionate, who, like the Father, is compassionate, the children sympathize with those who seek him or whatever.

He says, because he knows our condition, he remembers that we are dust. I am not preaching a self-righteous, self-righteous, legalistic Gospel. I am preaching a Gospel of struggle, like Paul, in Chapter 6 of Romans, dying, and in Chapter 7, wretched that I am, who will free me from this body of death? Because wanting to please God I discover that there is another law in me that drags me to sin and when I want to do something I don't do it, and when I want not to do something I do it. That is the fight. But he was fighting, the problem is when we give up the fight, when we enjoy what we do, when we give up the fight and give ourselves up and give a different definition to our attitudes, to our behavior.

What God wants is a people that knows that God is holy, and that says, Lord, I adjust to your definitions and although I do not completely fulfill them until the last day of my life, I will try to adjust to them, give to you glory and when it falls, I will take a pill of grace and entrust myself to your mercy and say, ok, and God will tell you, start again, don't worry, I'm with you. I love you, keep going, I'm proud of you, you got your knee dirty, but I'm going to buy you new pants, don't worry. And I'm going to send those to the dry clean so you can put them back on.

God is a merciful God, but he also requires healing and holiness on our part, brothers, the two things, together, united. Achan fell in love with his definition and said, no, it is not possible that God wants that ingot to be lost. It is not possible that God, who gave inspiration to the maker of that beautiful cloak, wants that cloak to end up in the fire. He hid it and, brothers, God has not changed his way. energies.

When there is an evil energy in a Congregation, in a family, in a man, and it is deeply embedded, and we have hidden it, we have redefined it, we have repackaged it, we have put another label on it, we have wrapped it in paper colors, and then we have come to the church to adore the Lord, to dance, to jump, to speak in the tongue, we have given tithes to the Lord, we have served in the body of deacons, God says, did you obey me, did you obey me? No, Lord, but I am serving you, I am giving. But did you obey me? Did you adjust your mind to what I told you? Oh no, Lord, but you know what? I just brought someone to church to convert. But did you obey me? And you look inside and see the gold ingot and the Babylonian mantle tucked into his tent, oh, just like Saul did. God said, destroy all that crowd of people because I don't want them, they are cursed. And let me tell you, these things cause me terrible confusion. Why God calls for destruction. I don't know. But nevertheless I am not going to give it another name, I prefer to live in the tension of things that are strange to me, than to get out of it and give it another name.

The case was that Saul, God asked Saul, because he knew, did you do what I told you to destroy all those nations, all the animals and everything? And Saul says, yes, of course, Lord, I did. And God says, ha, and those bleating of cows and oxen that I hear around there? Are those some dolls that you have on the television or what? Where do they come from? Oh, Lord, we just kept some of those cows because they were pretty and fat and give such good milk, we didn't have the heart to kill them.

I told him to destroy his king, and where is the king? Oh, Lord, we know that you are a God of mercy and forgiveness so we spared his life. I said, I like cows and sacrifices, I don't like that they obey me. And he said to him, that is why your kingdom is taken from you. And he removed Saul, because he was disobedient. A detail, brothers, something, an anathema that was in his behavior in the life of that man and that nation.

God wants obedience. Achan said, no, this is too nice for me to sacrifice. There are things, brothers, with this I am done, as a pastor, there are things that I would like to remove from my preaching and not have to talk about them. And a large part of my agony and my martyrdom, and of many others that we preach, who are committed to the word of God is that we know that by doing so, we are excluding a sector of the culture that wants to enter into the things of God, but his gold ingot and his Babylonian mantle do not want to let go.

And many times my pain is, I believe that we can have a bigger, more distinguished Congregation, many other sectors of the community would have to be there, but, brothers, I am not going to sacrifice the will of God. I have a bet with God and it is that if we are faithful to the Lord, he will give us the land, but there is a price to pay at the beginning.

You have to say no to the Babylonian mantle. I want the hearts of those Afro-American and Latin American youth. I want the heart of my community. I want this city, but God tells me, but I'm not going to give it to you using the devil's strategies. You have to crucify yourself and lose first and die first, and then I give you what I have promised you. That's what I think.

I have bet my life and my ministry on it. When Christ is ready to enter his ministry, he has already been baptized by John, the Holy Spirit has descended on him, he goes into the desert and the devil stands before him and says, you know what? All these kingdoms on earth belong to me and I can give them to whoever I want. The Lord did not contradict him. The devil is the king of this earth for a time, although God has sovereignty in the end. But if you only adore me, I am going to give you everything, you can avoid the cross, you can avoid 3 years of painful ministry, you can avoid the two thousand years that also come from disobedience of your church. I can do everything very easily, I give you everything, but only use my methodology, adore me.

You see? And I imagine that the Lord, not that he thought that, because he knew the answer well, but imagine if you can take a shortcut and avoid years and years of work and effort to get to what you know God wants. And you say, oh, if I do this, if I say this, if I didn't preach this, if I do things this way, it seems very easy. There are 20 thousand methodologies that seem easier to me than the one God has designated me to win the land, but I can't. If I perish, let me perish, brothers. If we stay as we are, glory to God.

When I get there to heaven I will ask the Lord why what I thought was going to happen did not happen. But I am not going to change the methodology, I am not going to keep the Babylonian mantle. God told me, sacrifice it to me and I have to sacrifice it. So you have to do in your life with whatever you love. What you appreciate, your character traits, your personality, habits, things you love. It does not explain why you have to give them to God, they seem good to you, they are pleasant, sacrifice them to the Lord because God says, it is anathema, and I don't want it.

That is God's call to his church. I want the musicians to come through here quickly, please. A call, brother, radical, terrible. Achan did not understand the spiritual dynamics. This culture, many evangelicals and in the western world and in all the nations of the earth, in reality, this is a problem of the whole church charismatics, pentecostals and liberals, we are all in the same problem. And it is that we want to put our methods before God's methods because we do not understand the principles of the spirit world, that there are demonic forces with which we are at war and those forces will only be neutralized by the power of God that will only be channeled through a people who have the skills and qualities and characteristics that can make it possible to channel the power of God.

If you didn't understand everything I said, look for the recording next week, there is the summary of this there. It's power, it's power. If the strong man is not bound, the house will not be looted. And the only one that can bind the strong man is the spirit of God. And only the spirit of God dwelling in a people that surrenders to the values of the Kingdom of God and that exemplifies the character of Christ.

And brothers, it is not only, I say it again, what happens from the waist down, as a missionary friend of mine used to say, but also what happens in the heart and in the mind, the way we speak, treat each other, we feel, sacrificing all those characteristics, those qualities of character also that offend God, that hurt our homes, our relationships, and be like Christ.

Do you want to ask the Lord, Father, sanctify me, make me like Christ. I want to be what you want me to be. I am not going to define religious life as I want to define it, but I am going to define it as you tell me to define it. I want to flow in perfect affinity with you, Lord, I want my life to please You, I want my thoughts to please You, I want my dreams to please You, I want my words to please You. And I'm going to give you everything you ask me for, and I'm going to lose everything, and I'm going to sacrifice everything, and I'm going to put everything aside, so that you then give me what I give you. win, what you want, Lord. I sacrifice my dreams, my aspirations, everything and I want to legitimately fight the battle of faith, not using other methods, but the method that you have defined. And if I die, let him die. If I don't get to everything I wanted to do, it doesn't matter. But my only wish is that you like me and my life, Lord.

Stand up this afternoon and ask the Lord to fulfill his purpose in my life, your life, your church, your family, León de Judá Congregation, God calls you to something extraordinary. You who converted yesterday, last week, God calls you to something extraordinary, do not settle for a mediocre religious life.

We are going to ask the Lord to send his rain. But it starts with you. God wants to send early and latter rain, God wants to do things in his people. God wants to do great things that make people's ears ring, but he is not going to give such a great treasure to a people that is not consecrated and delivered to him. That begins with me, it is the weight that I carry on my head at this time, Lord. I need to prepare myself, I need to lead your people, I need you to remove the last thorn to be able to serve you and do what you want.

Lion of Judah, God calls you. consecrate yourself. Live up to your name. God calls you to do feats, conquer nations, channel the power of God in this time, but he says, pay the price, use my method, do not use Saul's weapon, use the sling and the stone that I have given you, with that you will bring down the giant. I don't need big gadgets, I don't need big technologies, I don't need big marketing procedures. What I need is a people that loves me and that receives my strategy and with that strategy go to war and destroy peoples and nations, and principalities and powers that want to govern this land that I have said is mine.

But we have to sanctify ourselves. I beg you not to leave here without a commitment to continue meditating on God's call for your life and commit yourself, that you are not going to live according to anything ordinary.

Ask the Lord, send the rain. I love this anthem, because it says we are not going to settle for anything ordinary. These are not ordinary times, these are times to ask the Lord to send his blessing.

We are going to sing that version, then at another time we will sing the other one. Alright. That's the idea. Send the rain, Lord. Send the rain And one thing, before we begin, if you have not given your life to Jesus Christ, I am not going to dwell on that call for long.

But if you feel that God is calling you, perhaps you still haven't surrendered your life to Jesus and everything begins there, surrender our lives to Jesus Christ and tell him, come into my life. I want to invite you where you are, raise your hand and tell the Lord Jesus, come into my life, first. I give you my life, Lord. Raise your hand high up so it can be seen and move it a little bit. If you haven't done it yet, if you haven't done it I invite you this afternoon, tell him Lord, I give my life to you. Enter my heart. Own my life. I consecrate myself to you, Lord, I receive Christ as my Lord and my savior. I recognize that he is the Son of God, he is the only mediator between God and men, he died on the cross, through his death my sins were forgiven. I declare it my Lord. Say it there in your heart right now, confess it with your mouth. If you want to come forward, come forward. If not, stay there, but remember that you made a vow of dedication to the Lord this afternoon. And then live.

If you want to consecrate yourself to God, come forward too, then, whether you are a Christian or not, come here and tell him, Lord, I give my life to you. I vow to die, I vow to make a living sacrifice before you, Lord. I give my life to you, Lord. We adore you, Lord. Receive the offering, the sacrifice, the offering of your children, Father. We dedicate this church to you, we consecrate this church to you, Lord. I consecrate this people, I consecrate myself to you, Father, send your spirit, send your spirit, Lord, send your spirit, Father. We surrender our resources to you, oh God. We surrender our lives to you, Lord.