God doesn't need makeup

Remember that we are talking about the vision of our church, the complexity with which we try to view the Christian life and the different strands, the different extremes sometimes that we try to keep, related to each other. We are a complex church. It's not that other churches are better or worse than us, that's not the idea, but we have a specific heart, a calling that God has given us, a collective personality as a church. And your pastor also has a way of looking at Scripture and sometimes, as I said last Sunday, this lends itself to misunderstandings even from people who are with us, who are members of our Congregation, and who do not understand why the church does the things it does.

I would like to put a video of the service at 9 in the morning and this one at 12, so that you can see how different the two services were. In both of them the Lord manifested his presence. In both of them the Lord did marvelous things, but the first service was very different from this service, the dynamics of worship was very different. And it is because we believe in both things, the one at 9 o'clock was much calmer, the adoration was much shorter, more contained, but there was a beautiful spirit and God did the work there. God moved in that place. And today, here at 12, well the weather is more enthusiastic, the temperature a little higher, the move of God perhaps more obvious, but the same spirit that was at 9 as well.

That is to say, we are a church, we rejoice in the carousing, and we also rejoice in the stillness of the spirit. And that's the good thing, we don't have to force things. Many times we get used to the fact that the temperature always has to be there, full blast, and if it isn't, then we make sure it is there. If the gifts are not in manifestation, we manufacture them, but it is necessary that people leave believing that they had a Pentecostal experience.

We believe not, that you have to move at all times. God is the one who provides things and who does things as he wants and at the time he wants. And so we saw it in the text that we read last Sunday in First Corinthians, Chapter 12, where it says that the ministries of God are different, the movements of God are different, but everything is done by one and the same spirit.

So, what we wanted through this series of sermons that we have started is to give you, and also those who listen to us through the internet and other people, an idea of what we are as a church. Because many times people ask me, well, pastor, what is your vision? What is the vision of the Lion of Judah? What are you? Are they Pentecostals, are they evangelicals, are they liberals, are they conservatives? What are you? Are they fundamentalists? And we say, we are a little bit of everything.

What I want through these messages is to enrich you and do not think that I am only talking about mere theory. No, these are things that have very powerful and very real applications.

Look, I am only going to see a few, I am not going to read all the texts that we had this morning. Chapter 9 of Deuteronomy, verse 1 and 5. Those are some strong passages, but there is a reason why I have chosen them. Where we see here that God tells Israel that he is going to give nations far more numerous and powerful than Israel,

“…great cities walled up to the sky, a great people, tall, sons of the Anakim, of whom you have your knowledge. Understand therefore, today, that it is Jehovah your God, that he will pass before you like a consuming fire that will destroy and humiliate them before you, and you will drive them out and destroy them immediately as Jehovah has told you... "

You see here this image of a destroyer God, a God who is the owner of all the earth and gives it to whoever he wants. These nations had become corrupted, they had given themselves over to sin in an irreparable way and God decided to drive them out of the land of Canaan and give that land, sovereignly to his people Israel, which he had been preparing for centuries before in Egypt, and had given him a promise to Abraham centuries before still.

And that then, not content with removing these nations from the earth, he commands the Hebrews to destroy them, to completely exterminate them. And he says, and he knows that I am the one who does it. What happens many times when there are violent things in the world, things that happen? We kind of always try to excuse God.

I sometimes see many evangelicals trying to make up for God. God does not need makeup, brothers. God does whatever he wants. God gives life and takes life. God gives the land to whoever he wants and removes from the land whoever he wants. God does not marry any political party. God does not marry any political movement. God loves soldiers and he loves pacifists too. What's more, I believe that sometimes God is there, and this may shock some of you, sometimes God is at war and sometimes he is at peace.

What does the writer of Ecclesiastes say? It says, there is time to heal and there is time to kill, there is time to destroy and time to create. There is time to build walls and there is time to destroy walls.

Brothers, God is like the galaxies. God is like the suns in the universe. If you look at the universe it is a tremendously violent thing. Right now, there are entire stars exploding, supernovae emitting an explosive force that anything millions of miles away is consumed, so great is the power of that galaxy when they explode, and suns too.

There are black holes that absolutely swallow everything that is around them, and melts it into the void and compresses it until it becomes a tiny ball that fits on the two fingers of a human hand.

There are cataclysms, volcanoes explode here in the world and they take entire islands and destroy them. Who is behind all this? Yes, there is evil too, but God allows those things. Who is behind the great movements of nations and of races and groups that move from one place to another. Who was behind the conquest of America. Who was behind the great movements in history in the last 2000 years of the western world? God is behind all those things. Who was behind the arrival of the Puritans in America with all the violence that there was that God did not appreciate that or support it, but ultimately God rules over all history.

God has power to kill and God has power to heal. And he does what he wants. We don't have to be excusing him, as we try to do many times.

So we see here God expelling nations and putting nations in their place, and even commanding the extermination of nations. And he does what he wants. And not only in the Old Testament, we see that in the New Testament there are also very strange things that happen.

Go to Second Kings, Chapter 1, verses 9 to 16, it says here, and this is the case of Elijah, an evil king, he sends for Elijah as a captive because he wants Elijah to appear before him. And it seems that Elijah was not an easy man, he did not like being sent that way and he was a prophet of God and he did not admit that they treated him in one way ─ because ultimately it was God who was being treated with disrespect because he represented the authority of God at that time and this king did not understand that dynamic.

It says that this king sends Elijah, a captain of 50 men with his 50, “…who went up to where Elijah was and, behold, Elijah was sitting on a top of the mountain, and the captain said to him, “Man of God, the king has told you to come down,” and Elijah responded and said to the captain of 50, “Ah, yes, I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume yourself with your 50.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. Then the king sent another captain to him again, ─ he didn't learn his lesson the first time ─ of 50, with his 50 and he spoke to him and said, “Man of God , the king has said so, I am coming down soon." And Elijah answered him and said, "If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume yourself with your 50." And fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50…”

Brethren, what does one do with passages like these? One says, it is only that the Old Testament has already matured a little in the last 3000 years, God is already a little older, he is already a little tamer, calmer, he no longer does that in the New Testament. Or maybe he repented and apologized for doing that and now he doesn't do those things anymore.

That God is the same yesterday, today, forever. Can God do that too and maybe He is doing it somewhere in the world. I don't think we have to make up the dead and give this passage a little bit of spray. There are people who do it like that, they say, well, this is an expression of the non-centrism of the Jews, written here in the Bible and that does not truly represent God.

There are many people who are scholars of Scripture who do that. And they take this passage from the passages inspired by God. and I personally do not believe that we are called to that. We have to get into those texts.

Remember that I am talking about the complexity of our faith, that we are a complex church. That your pastor tries to maintain the balance between these two extremes of Scripture, the God of judgment at times, the God of justice, the God who is three times holy and who says, "I don't like this, don't do it because it's wrong." abomination to me." And the God of mercy and love and grace and forgiveness and tolerance who also forgives the sinner and who gives thousands of opportunities for repentance and who is not content with that, sends his Son Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross .

The God of extremes. Notice how interesting, I didn't have time to deal with this in the 9 o'clock service, but years after this happened the disciples one day met some Samaritans who did not want Jesus to pass through their village and they rejected Jesus, and one of them The disciples said to the Lord, "Hey Lord, what do you think, do you want us to send down fire like God did with Elijah and the 50 and destroy all these Samaritans?" And he said, "You do not know what spirit you belong to, because the Son of man has not come to destroy men but to save them."

How strange, then, on the one hand the power of God does this and also then, what difference was there? There was a difference of heart. These disciples were full of hatred and carnality and the Lord told them, "You do not know what spirit you belong to."

What came out of it was more like partisanship, it was a lack of mercy, of love and the Lord discerned that and said, the one who is encouraging you to say that is Satan. In the other passage he was the servant of God and God had a purpose that his word be fulfilled and God allowed it to be so.

It is the same God manifesting himself in two different ways, in two different situations. And it is not that God contradicts himself or that God has repented of one way of acting or the other. God is at the center of those two passages. And what does one do as a church, as a pastor? We are a church that allows God to move as he wants. Many times we preach grace, love, mercy, forgiveness, tolerance, patience and many times we preach holiness, truth, justice, respect for God's law.

And that does not mean that one day when we preach grace and mercy we are a liberal church, that when we preach holiness and obedience we are a fundamentalist church. We are both, because God moves in both dimensions. But many times God moves in the dark and in the terrible and in the judgment as well.

Look at another passage, Ananias and Sapphira, you don't even have to read it. You know the story. Ananias and Sapphira lied to make people think they were generous, they sold a property for one price and said they sold it for more and kept the excess. And in those times when the spirit of God was moving with power, Peter enlightened by the Holy Spirit, said, "You have lied to the Holy Spirit and right now you are going to drop dead." First it was Ananias who lied and then his wife came the happiest and also told the same lie, and also dripped right there in front of the prophet. The poor young people had to take these two people to bury.

That is the New Testament. And we don't have to make up, I don't need to excuse God and find a reason to try to make it look like it wasn't God who did it. God did it. Do we believe or not? God is sovereign.

Another passage, First Corinthians Chapter 11, where you will see what the Apostle Paul says, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that there are people in the Corinthian church who are not discerning the holy supper with the reverence and prophetic meaning that the sacrament, but rather they go there to eat the turkey and they do not discern the body of Jesus Christ within the sacrament.

And he says that's why many of you are sick and even sleep. In other words, they have died. what does it look like Listen to me brother, if right now we did an x-ray of all of us who are here, will there be someone who could be sick because the Holy Spirit is saddening in some way? I don't know. If you are sick, it does not mean that this is the reason, understand what I am saying.

Remember what we said the other Sunday about sickness and God sometimes works through sickness too and glorifies himself on the cross. But what we want to say is that the mysteries of God are many. There are weird things that happen and we as a church have to stay within the complexity of Scripture. We have to look at the whole word, the whole counsel of God and we have to many times when we find these weird passages, or when we come across doctrines that we can't quite explain, instead of trying to stuff them into our little boxes and trying to tame and control them so that it becomes easy for us to understand them, what we have to do is accept that this is a mystery, we are facing a mystery. And one day God will explain to us the reason for these mysteries, but in the meantime we have to get into Scripture and let it judge us, speak to us, not us to it.

There are people who judge Scripture and when they see something they don't like, or they try to change it or take it out of the Bible in some way, instead of getting into the maelstrom and letting the maelstrom consume them and them. transform into the image of Scripture, not Scripture into our image.

There are many churches, there are many people who try to fit the Bible into the cultural boxes of time or denomination or doctrine instead of letting the Bible judge doctrine, denomination, by culture.

I do not know if I'm explaining myself well? but I want you to understand that we as a church try to get into the complexity and see things that way. Let me say something else here, I say no one can say that one hundred percent read the Bible and understand it precisely as the Bible is.

We have to understand that every time you approach this book, you approach it through the lens of your denomination, your temperament, your culture, no one views the Bible totally neutrally. One is always doing like adjustments. Because? Because you yourself, not even yourself, know and see yourself as you are, physically speaking, we always see things through the lens of intellect and culture.

But there are people who believe that no, we have the perfect, correct interpretation of the Bible and the others are simply distorting and twisting it. And it is not like that. The Bible is tremendously complex and it expresses itself however it wants. I even told him, look for example, this about how we see ourselves and we never see ourselves exactly as we are.

An anorexic person is generally women but there are also men who when they look in a mirror look fat and yet are starving. But they have a psychological problem and when they look in the mirror they think they are fat and then they are always vomiting food, they are practically skeletons but they are never happy, because they are seeing themselves through the eyes of their twisted brain and when they look at Through their eyes, what they see out there is a person who is too fat and needs to be on a diet even more.

I was telling the brothers, two weeks ago, I was interviewing a leader from New England, a man who moves a lot in politics and is a very committed Christian, and we were on television, on the internet and then I was interviewing him him and at one point before the show started, the camera was on him and they were looking for the angles and so on. and this man, who is a very tall Anglo Saxon, ex-army colonel, big boned, typical very strong Anglo Saxon, very tall, with a quadrangular face, they focused on him in profile and he has a prominent nose, and when he saw his nose in profile he made a comment, “Oh, that ugly nose I have.”

But you know what? I told him, “No, man, how do you say that? On the contrary, I see a manly man's nose, I see an eagle's nose, I see a strong nose." The nose suited my understanding very well, but for him that nose was a cause of great agony and great anguish. I personally was like, wow, I wish I had the nose that he has, although I would need other parts of my face to be a little bit bigger as well. But he saw through her interpretation.

How many women look in the mirror and see themselves ugly, and they are attractive and pretty women. But perhaps when they were little girls they were never told, you are beautiful and they have grown up with complexes, and then they already look at life through the lenses of their complexes, the abuse they have received, the traumas they have received. Cultures change. If you look at the paintings of the classical period in Europe, the women were plumper, more robust, that was the ideal of a beautiful woman. Today, however, the punier and thinner the better.

Men 30 years ago talked about a man with hair on his chest and it was tremendous. Nowadays, men shave off absolutely all the hair they have because the new fashion is to be clean. And the girls encourage them in these crazy things, and those who benefit are the beauty salons that are keeping all the money from these boys. Because? Because they are seeing through the eyes of the culture. No one looks exactly the way they are. And even the Bible, we often see the Bible through the eyes, through the lenses of culture.

Today, many evangelicals cannot believe that God is still a God of justice, of holiness, of truth, a God who still has clear patterns of how he wants men to behave. And in the churches many times it is a question of silencing the truth of God, because we believe that if people come and hear a strong word they will not want to stay.

So, each group is convinced of its truth. those who are gentler and calmer and more generous and more tolerant throw stones at those who are more conservative. And those of us who are more conservative also throw stones at those who are a little more liberal. I believe that what God asks of us is that we understand the complexity of Scripture.

I do not mean by that that we do not have values. But what we want to say is that the truth is that each one of us has to approach the Bible with great humility and great tolerance. That is why I enjoy seeing brothers of all different convictions. As I was saying, perhaps I don't remember if I told him at the first service or at the second, but I love those brothers and little sisters with red bones, Pentecostals, with bows on top and long dresses and feverish prayer and full of enthusiasm. and little sisters who inspire one and men of God who emphasize spiritual warfare, fasting, prayer.

I want those people to bless our church. But I also like people on the other side too, people who may not manifest themselves that way, but who also have the Holy Spirit within them. And these groups shade each other.

On Wednesday we are going to have a person here who, frankly, I have never heard of, but I have a good recommendation that God uses him in healing. And you know what? We are going to give it a chance because we want the Holy Spirit to manifest itself in different ways. And that is why we said that people who feel comfortable with these demonstrations come, the visits, other people come for greater service and we also leave room for a less open, less strong demonstration.

But we believe that in all those different places and in all those different manifestations is the presence of the Lord. Each culture, as I was saying, sees the Bible through its own lenses and prejudices. And that is what allows, for example, different people to do things that seem contradictory to others. For example, I was asking this morning, how was it possible that in the 18th century and in the 19th century in England and in the United States, Christians enslaved Africans, and that they went to church in the morning and after services, to worship God and acknowledging his presence, they went to his house to be served food by slaves who were denying him his humanity.

How could those people sleep peacefully? How could they love God and read the Bible and enslave their brothers? Because? Because they were viewing the Bible through their cultural lenses. They were the Bible through their interpretations that allowed them in good conscience, but I know that before God they were responsible, but they had received teachings that allowed them to enslave and deny humanity to those people while they considered themselves bona fide Christians.

The Puritans, when they came here to America seeking freedom of worship, drove the Indians off their land and treated them badly many times. Because? Because they believed that like Israel driving the pagan nations out of Canaan, they, Christian people, were coming to a land commanded by God to settle in this nation and create a new Christian society. And that God gave them the right to occupy that land because these people who were involved in witchcraft, idolatry, human sacrifice and all these things, were not of God and they knew the word, they had the right to occupy the land. So their interpretation of the Bible in light of the Old Testament, allowed them to do those things.

Now, there was definitely sin in all of that, but God was in on it, too. Because look at what has come out, a nation that has blessed humanity with all its mistakes and all its things, but I believe that God was in that project. But sin often also intervenes and God's movements have to pass through the human filter and in this process they are often distorted, but God is in the midst of these processes.

And what of the conquest of America? The Spaniards came to America, they conquered all these lands and yet with them Christianity also came and the Christian faith came, and these nations here were involved in human sacrifice. The Aztecs, when Cortés arrived in Mexico with his men, he says that the smell of blood could be perceived from miles away because in the flowery wars, the Aztecs and the other groups, they went to war to obtain human sacrifices and they were times tens of thousands of people who were sacrificed to the god of blood, the god of death. They ripped people's hearts out while they were still beating.

That's where the conquerors came looking for glory and I believe that God was in that project too, in a way that we cannot understand, but God moves in history. And the thing is that as Christians I sometimes see that we politicize the Bible and then we want to say no, God, can never be in that. And we try to put God in a box, and what I say is that God does what he pleases.

Now, does that mean that we have to go around enslaving people or conquering and trying to get people off their land? No. What it tells me is that God is simply very mysterious and we have to walk over the pages of Scripture very cautiously, with a lot of holy fear because sometimes we don't know all things.

For example, look at the problem of the Palestinians and Israel. There are many Christians today, especially here in the United States and in many parts of Europe, who cannot understand how God could throw the Palestinians out of that land that God had already given to the Jews thousands of years ago, and that now they reconquered and in God's time, God has brought the Jewish people to Israel again and that land the Bible says belongs to the Jewish people.

Now, there are the poor Palestinians. What do we do with them? I'm not going to say, well, God can't let one country take all the land. Look, God does what he wants. Now, the Jews want to deal with the Palestinians, they want to solve the problem with Palestine, but I try to maintain a balance, a neutrality about it, because who knows what God is doing there. I believe that land belongs to the people of God.

One thing I believe that this land cannot be given to anyone because that land does not even belong to the Jews to deliver it. That land belongs to God. And you cannot negotiate with the holy land, that land belongs to God and that this does not coincide with my values of justice or whatever, that is a problem for God and the Bible, and I have to respect what the law says. Bible. And I have to walk very carefully.

What about dictators in the Bible that God worked with and used to further His purposes? It was revealed to Nebuchadnezzar and Nebuchadnezzar, from what I can see, had an encounter with God in the Bible. What happened to Naaman, this general that God healed of leprosy through the ministry of Elisha and who converted to the God of Israel and returned to his land and when he was going to his land he said to Elisha, look, I am the general that the king has more confidence and many times the king takes me to the temple of Rimmon and leans on my arm and when he leans on my arm to worship this god, I also have to bow down with him. What I do? And what did Elisha tell him? Go in peace, don't worry. God is not going to condemn you for that. And that's what you have to do, amen, but keep your heart towards the true God.

Wow. That thing always complicate my life and those things guide my pastoral behavior, brothers. Because the fact that this general belonged to a pagan nation and that he was attacking Israel, did not prevent God from having mercy on him, healing him and allowing him to return to his homeland healed.

What happened to Naaman after he was healed? Did he go back to being a general? He led battles and killed people? I don't know, possibly. Because it is that God does what he wants, brothers, and we as a people have to create a biblical sensitivity. And biblical sensibility does not hinder the Lord, if one that allows God to be God and we walk within the mystery of what God is.

That passage from Naaman, for example, has always governed my pastoral dealings with people, by the way. What does Pastor Miranda believe? Look, when people are there in the counseling office and they bring me serious problems, I always try to keep that healthy balance that Scripture maintains about how to deal with situations that people often find themselves in. Sometimes people find themselves in a bind and don't know how to get out of it. And we are so blunt in our interpretation of the Bible, and we say, no, you have to do this, you have to do that, there is no going back.

But I see the Bible, the complex God, who deals with people's situations and gives them a little space. And I could give you so many texts. The Pharisees could not understand Jesus for example, because Jesus dealt with people like Plunder, for example, and he went to his house, and sat down with Plunder. Looting hadn't repented yet, all Looting had was a heart ─ he knew there was something special about this man and he wanted to know it and Jesus knew this man's heart. And he did not wait to explain the 12 spiritual rules for Plunder to accept Jesus as Lord and savior. No, he said, Plunder, prepare yourself a good meal today because tonight I'm going to have dinner at your house. And the Pharisees who were there could not understand Jesus, because how is it possible that this man eats with a sinner and with his companion. But that love of Christ converted Plunder and all his companions, it was stronger than the legalism of the Pharisees.

And I can show you so many different passages of Scripture where I see the Lord dealing with people and many times his verdict is not as clear as people would think. And that we have to discern God's moment in pastoral counseling and sometimes we have to give people a little more time to cook a little more before hitting them with the slap of the word and leaving them for a little while for God to try with them.

That governs my pastoral style. A little while ago, I don't know if the sister is here, but I'm not even going to say her name, I was sitting up there with her in a counseling session and she ─ I'm going to confess something to her if she's here, it's that she does like 20 years ago I went to her house to visit her because she asked me to. Frankly, sister, I didn't even remember that you had been in Cambridge with us. She had a serious problem, a family problem and she invited me to her house, she had a question. She had just converted, and she wanted some pastoral advice from me.

The situation was an unconventional situation and required a bit of creativity in the advice that I had to give her. So, she told me, and you gave me a word, such wise advice and I took your advice and everything worked out for me. Now, I asked him and what was it that I told him? I didn't even remember. Because I wanted to know if the answer that I gave her 20 years ago is the answer that I would give her now. And that's why I smiled and told me, you told me, look, sister, I don't judge you, do what you feel in your heart, pray to God and entrust yourself to his mercy and his grace.

And I could hear myself today, in the year 2011, saying the same thing to people who are ─ in that sense I have not changed my attitude. I always see that there are times when God is God and sometimes like Jesus, I have to tell people, look, I don't condemn you myself. Go away and sin no more.

How do you deal with people who are undocumented, who are in church, and who are serving in the church? How does one deal with couples who are not married and have just converted to the Lord? I tell them, hey, they have to separate and go live, one for one place and the other for the other. They already have children. They are already used to living together 10, 15 years ago. You have to deal with it. You have to take them towards the holiness of God and in their time they do it.

But you also have to provide them with space, as Naaman was provided for God to do the work in their lives. And what I want to say is that God's truth is often uncomfortable. So, people often don't know why we advise in a certain way and why we say, look, do this. Why we allow certain liberties. Because it is that I see the complexity of Scripture, I see the complexity of the heart of God.

Why did God choose Cornelius? A centurion that how many sticks Cornelius will have given in his life as a Roman centurion. But a man who was fearful of God too. You know those colonels and those captains in our countries who are also people who are a bit bloodthirsty many times, but a God touches them, they appear in a church, God converts them and then there has to be a process so that this bloodthirsty and violence go little by little being tamed and entering the ways of the Lord. You can't take away the revolver and the baton right away, overnight. You have to give them time and God has worked like this through all the centuries.

And God uses who he wants and he sometimes deals in incredible ways and deals with peoples, nations, individuals and we as a church, we have to be patient, merciful and look at ourselves first. As Jesus Christ said, do not judge so that you will not be judged. Look first at the beam that is in your eye before looking at the speck that is in someone else's eye.

Now, does that mean we are not a holiness church? Of course. We believe it, but there are also other passages in the Bible that teach us that we have to handle things with a certain amount of care, with a certain amount of caution, with a certain amount of patience. And that is one of the things that governs my pastoral style and the style of this Congregation.

And we have to be careful how we handle these complexities. I want to ask the musicians to come here. This sermon came out very different to me this morning, because that's how God works. If you want to see the other side, see this morning's sermon. And next Sunday we are going to continue dealing with these truths.

What I want, brothers, is that through these studies we can understand what we are as a church and I want to create in you and in myself a complex faith, a faith with many nuances and great balance so that the Lord can do the work he wants to do in our lives.

We are going to celebrate the sacrament in a moment and I ask that we prepare ourselves to go before the presence of God in this most sublime way. And God willing that these things, instead of being a source of confusion for you, be a source of enrichment for your lives.

What I want is to clarify things, not obscure them. Throughout these next few weeks I am going to be talking about many different topics and pray for me that the Lord gives me wisdom to, as I say, be a blessing to your lives and to bless our Congregation.

Father, we deliver this sermon to you, Lord, and we ask that you enlighten us, that your grace be with us, that you help us to be people of your word, Father, to be complex people, that they see the totality of your revelation in all the passages of the writing. Help us to be a people as you want us, a truly pastoral community, of love, mercy, justice and truth, in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.