What will you give?

I want to share with you a word that has been on my heart for a while now. How many of you like gifts? Let me see, everyone likes presents. And we like gifts when they are gifts that are useful to us, because if they give you something that is useless, then there is no joke.

I want to talk about gifts because Christmas time generally people think it's a time for gifts. Everyone first thinks, what am I going to buy? And thinking about this, about the gifts and all that, I started to think, I said, at Christmas there are always gifts for everyone and one always goes to the stores and buys gifts for dad, mom, siblings, cousins, children I know people who buy gifts for dogs and cats too. Do you know people like that? Yeah? They are part of the family so you have to buy a gift for everyone.

And with this of the gifts I started to think where does this Christmas gift come from? Why is it that people like to give gifts at Christmas? And I said, well, in the Christian tradition it has to do with the fact that the Three Wise Men went to the baby Jesus and gave him something, right? Although that of the Magi, I want to emphasize that they were neither kings nor magicians. They don't know why they call them Three Wise Men? But the church says that they were wise men from the East, and they were people who knew astrology and through them the whole star, God communicated with them through the star, etc. and gave them that.

I started to think about where these gifts come from and speaking of the Three Wise Men I also asked myself, could it be that there were three? I began to read a little and found some commentators who say that there were not three, that in reality it is not known how many there were, but that people assume that there were three, because there were three gifts, which were gold, frankincense and myrrh.

And speaking about gold, incense, and myrrh, I began to investigate. Why did they give gold to the Lord Jesus? And I think that these gifts that were given to Jesus at his birth were sort of prophetic, something symbolic that was behind it. And the gold that they gave to Jesus when he was born was as if to symbolize his lordship and his authority as a king. It was something that was given to kings who had a lot of gold and many things.

After that they gave him incense. I started looking for a photo of incense because I always smell the incense when you go to some churches that have incense, but I didn't know what incense was. I started searching and found that incense is an aromatic resin that is obtained from a tree. When I was little, from time to time we would play in Santo Domingo and we would grab a nail and drive it into a tree and the tree would throw out like a resin that later hardened and that's what incense is, it's a resin that is thrown out when a tree suffer.

And the incense was given to Lord Jesus to reflect his divinity. Incense was used in offerings since Old Testament times to please God during sacrifices. And also myrrh is another resin from another tree that is nailed or peeled, which hardens and was used for that.

So myrrh is very interesting because it is an ingredient that is used in oils when people were going to anoint. The oil they used to anoint kings and prophets contained a percentage of myrrh in it. Because? Because myrrh is something that is also extracted from a plant but it has a good smell, it is something that has a pleasant smell. However, when one tastes it, it is bitter.

In what I was investigating, I also realized that myrrh was what they gave the Lord Jesus to drink on the cross, when he says they gave him vinegar, it was a mixture of well-fermented wine with myrrh, and since it was so bitter that's why he didn't want to drink that. It was something very symbolic what happened with these gifts that they gave to the Lord Jesus, that's why I started to investigate.

When you give a gift to people it has to have some meaning, you give them things that are useful. And I began to investigate about that, I also found that myrrh was what Nicodemus used to embalm the body of Jesus once he had already died and before burying him. I said, then perhaps the Magi or the wise men from the East, when they gave these gifts to God, were prophesying that the Lord Jesus was going to be martyred, he was going to be a person who was going to die and that his death was going to happen. cause something in our midst.

And I started to think about that. But why am I talking about gifts? I want to talk about gifts because we are in the season of advent or advent, and two weeks ago I announced that the children are following an advent calendar that we have in Sunday school, where we are preparing for Christmas day, to celebrate the Christmas how it is and think about what it really means, which is more than gifts, it is the birth of Christ.

And thinking about the advent I began to think about the incarnation, which was when Jesus became a man. And a week ago I heard someone say that we always hear that Jesus became a man when he first became a child, before he was a man, and he lived as a child, and submitted to the authorities that were around him.

And thinking about all that, I said, I would like to speak and celebrate the life of Christ. I think that Christmas should be a time where we celebrate the life of Christ, not only his birth but his whole life, not only his death but his whole life, and see what that implies for all of us.

So, I started to think about all that because year after year we worry about buying gifts for everyone, but in reality we forget what I am going to give Christ this Christmas. We always have all the gifts under the tree for anyone, maybe in Latin America it's not Christmas, maybe it's the Three Wise Men, on January 6, but the fact is that we all think about gifts, we all want to please everyone around us but we never think about what we are going to give to Christ, and if we had to give something to Christ that day, what would it be?

And I started thinking about all these things. And I began to think that Christ was our gift, that the birth of Christ represented that God on Christmas day, or the Three Wise Men, was giving us something. And he gave us his Son, in John 3:16 a very famous verse says that "... because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish and have eternal life …”

This reflects that a gift is something that is born from an expression of love, an expression of affection. When you love someone, you give them something. Then God loved us so much that he gave us his Son.

And we love the Lord, but what do we give the Lord at Christmas or during the year? A gift for Christ? I don't know. I want to talk to you today about a church that serves and I want to try to connect the idea that the best gift that we can give to Christ is our service and that as we think about the Christmas season we think about Christ coming to serve as a child. Because when one loves, one serves and when one does not love, one does not serve.

So, I want us to go to Philippians Chapter 2, verses 5 to 7 and I highlighted some words there that I want to focus on today. And the Bible says:

“…Let there be in you this feeling that there was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to cling to, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made like to men and being in the condition of a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death and death on the cross…”

Lord I ask you to help me speak faithfully to your word, Lord. May it be you speaking through me for the life of each one of us, Father, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

First of all, it caught my attention in this verse that says that we have to have the same feeling as the one that existed in Jesus Christ. And I started to think, what does it mean to have the same feeling? And I realized that having the same feeling is like having a mental attitude equal to that of Jesus, that through all this miracle of his birth and his incarnation is a mentality of service, that he came to serve. And I began to think, having a mentality like that of Jesus and as the text says, who humbled himself, emptied himself and became a servant, I began to think what does it mean to serve?

And I started searching on Google and I found that serving is a person who is subject to someone for whatever reason, doing what he wants or what he wants. It is to take advantage of an opportunity and be worth and be useful. To serve is when one gives a worship service to God and the saints and to serve is to give someone a gift or do something for the benefit of utility. Distribute or supply a product to a client or person. All of this was what came out when I began to think about serving.

And I realized that it's always like it goes from one person to another. It is an initiative that one takes. And with that thing about serving, I also began to think about what it means to be a servant? And I found that it says that the servant is the name that is given to a person, that a person gives himself to another to show him gift and performance. In other words, a service is a gift that one gives to another person for free.

Servant is a person who professes in a religious order or community of those who are called that way out of humility. Servant is a person who serves God and keeps his precepts. And a commentator said that a serf was a slave who renounced, not his attributes as a person, but the voluntary use of them when he submitted his will to that of his owner.

A servant is a person who voluntarily gave up certain things to submit to another person. That is the difference between a serf and a slave. A slave is a person who obliges himself, a servant is a person who voluntarily says, I'm going to do this. And it is very interesting to see that Jesus became a servant and not a slave. It was something that came out of him.

So, I started to see that and I said, this has to do with a sacrificial mentality. It is a true sacrifice to voluntarily say, I am going to put myself below whoever. And I began to think then about the verse of Mark 10:45 that says that "the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

And I began to think, God, the Creator of the universe, he could have come here so that the whole world would adore him, praise him, but no, he said, I am going to serve. I do not come to be served, yes I am the king, but I do not come to be served.

And that caught my attention and thinking about the form and that, I read the passage again and it says, "Who, being in the form of God, did not consider being equal to God as something to cling to, but stripped himself of himself taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men…”

And I began to think about this of the word form, and I realized that the form is like the essence of something, being the form of God, essentially being God within himself, he did not stop being God, he emptied himself same. And the word stripped means that he put aside. He did not stop being God at any time. When he, being in the form of God, says the Bible, that he became in the form of a servant, it was that he put aside his attributes of God, of omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, everything that included being God, the Creator of the universe, but he did not cease to be God. he was still God and he did not stop being God because if he stopped being God he would deny his deity. Being God and man at the same time.

So, as we saw in the definition of a servant, he voluntarily adopted the attributes of a person who serves, the attributes of a servant, and he said, I am going to serve. So this reminded me of an illustration of a king, or a president, who decides to change out of his king's or president's outfit, or whatever, and puts on beggar's rags. Because he put on beggar's rags he doesn't stop being king, does he? I believe that he does not stop being a king, he continues to be essentially a king. And he can go to the park in Boston common and start sitting and talking to beggars or serving, whatever, but he's still essentially king.

And that is an illustration that helped me understand what God did, that when the Bible says that he emptied himself, it was that, okay, I am going to put this aside and I am going to take the form of a servant, I am going to take it voluntarily and I'm going to become like a servant, I'm going to put on the rags of a servant. And being God I am going to go, I am going to be born and I am going to dwell in the midst of people.

And it caught my attention that he became a child and as a child I imagine that he endured a couple of blows from the head, or ear pulls, or people who caught his attention. Because adults generally do what they want with children: lie down, shut up, this and that.

So I started to think, hey, the God of the universe did all that. He became a child, he did not come and become a man, a president, no, he became a child, a boy. Think about your children, how much do you value and esteem your children? One values them a lot but one dominates them too, and when it is no, it is no. and he, being able to disappear to whoever he wanted, submitted and said, no, I'm going to become a servant and I'm going to start as a child, like a child with a runny nose, who cries. I'm going to do all that.

And I start to think, that's kind of strong. Do you think I'm going to wear those? After I've been through so much work? No. And I said, it's incredible what the Lord Jesus did. And his service was such that he washed the disciples' feet and I want to read this passage from John, Chapter 13, to contextualize what he did when he became a servant. And the Bible says that:

“…Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hand… ─he was aware of this ─ and that he had come from God and that he was going to God, ─ he would never be God himself ─ he got up from dinner and he took off his mantle and took a towel and wrapped it around him, then he put water in a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and rinse them with the towel with which he was wrapped..."

The image of the towel is very important because he did not simply wipe their feet, but with the washcloth he dried their feet and after cleaning, he gave care and attention to the feet. That is what the towel reflects for me. Because many times you clean and remove and I don't know what, but you forget to take care of it. And back then people always walked in sandals, that is, their feet had a lot of calluses, all the dust, all the stones, they weren't paved streets. The feet suffered the most. People had horrible feet. And for the creator of the world, I imagine God in heaven as in a 5-star hotel, with clean sheets, white, gold, very impeccable things and coming to wash the feet of the disciples, people with calluses, with their nails long, you know. And I'm like, wow, and he came over with his washcloth, he did that.

“…And after he had washed his feet, he took his cloak, returned to the table, in verse 12, and said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Master and Lord and you say well, because I am." ─ he was clear and aware that he was the teacher and the Lord, and he knew that and everyone knew that. But he said, ─ “If I, the Lord and the Master, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet, because I have given you an example so that as I have done you also do. Truly I say to you, the servant is not greater than his master, nor is the envoy greater than his master. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them…”

And the word you will do caught my attention, because it is not if you know them. We all know this story and we know that, but Lord Jesus emphasized and said 'blessed shall you be, blessed shall you be, happy shall you be, if you do them.'

But many of us know these things but don't do them. And you have to pay attention to that. Then, being in the form of God, he emptied himself and took the form of a servant. That was the gift that God gave us, he gave us the life of Jesus, a life. It was not a gift of a day, that in a year, a whole life of a servant at our disposal, because the Lord came to serve us.

God, imagine the president or someone you greatly admire or esteem, the pastor, making themselves available to you and asking you to wash your feet, right? that was what God did with each one of us.

Dumping and taking minion form must go hand in hand, and it's a combination. There are many people who get rid of things, they put their things aside, but they don't necessarily take the form of a servant. There are people who say, I am going to put my title aside, my profession, this, that that, and live happily for the rest of my life. And I share with the brothers and that this and that, but they are not necessarily useful. And this caught my attention.

I said, he not only emptied himself, not only put it aside, he voluntarily took the form of a servant. It wasn't that he emptied himself and they told him, look, now it's your turn to serve. No. voluntarily he did not.

And I say, that's one thing is wonderful. Jesus could have stripped himself of all his domains, of all his power and come and be an ordinary person, and one of the most basic things, he did not need to be born in a manger. He could be born like any other child.

You know that the manger was where the food of the animals was kept. In a manger, he was not born like the other children of his time who perhaps have a midwife, who I don't know what, had nothing. He could have decided to be born into a normal, run-of-the-mill family. But no, he came to a family that had nothing, not even a place to stay one night.

Moses lived better than him as a boy, because Moses grew up in Egypt and was a prince. And Jesus came, stripped himself, put all that by his side and became like a servant. He was born in a manger.

All of this tells me that he went the extra mile. And I wonder brothers, if Jesus did all that, what does it mean that we take the form of a servant? What can we put aside to serve the God who came to serve us? Will it be your time? Can we put aside our time? Can we put aside our preferences? Or our social status?

There is a song that I like that we always sing, 'today we bring our crowns before your altar'. Whenever I hear that song I say, what does it mean to bring my crown to the altar? What makes me proud? What gives me stability? Maybe my profession? okay, I'm going to put it on your altar. I'm going to give you the best of my life. It will be much more than a song, my obedience is my best worship.

I think about that every time I sing that song. I say, what am I going to give him? What does it mean that I want to become a servant of God?

With that I began to think, a few years ago I went to Mexico on a missions trip for the whole summer and in the orientation meeting they gave us, they made us sign a contract where it said, 'I surrender my rights.' And I stayed like this, I surrender my rights, what is this? And as I started to read it, it said, 'I surrender my right to a good and comfortable bed.' And I was like, that these people...

'I give up my right to a meal that I like, I give up my right to a number of things like that' I used to say, and what do these people mean by that, that I give up my right? After we signed the contract, they told us, well, look, you just signed a contract where if you get a hard bed, or if you have to sleep on a piece of furniture... because we had to stay with families from the church, which we went to serve. He says, look, this family has two rooms in the entire community house and perhaps you are going to sleep with the children, perhaps you are going to sleep on a piece of furniture, you are giving up your right to sleep in a comfortable bed.

Because generally when one goes on a missions trip, like hey, like we're going on vacation, we're going to serve but they're going to take care of us, they're going to feed us, we're going to be the center of attraction. There they made us surrender all our rights. He said, I surrender my right to have what I say heard. Because a lot of people get angry when you try to say things and nobody listens to you. I surrender my right to teach a Bible class, things like that.

And what they wanted to do is get rid of that mentality that I am here to help Mexicans or the people here. no, I am here to serve the Mexicans. What they want us to do, we are going to do, even if I have a better idea, even if I have more experience, I can suggest but I am not going to impose myself.

And they told us this because when you're a missionary, people all of a sudden put you on a silver platter, and people want to do what you say, by default, per se. And they said, no, when you get there, when they put you on a silver platter, you say, no, no, tell me what do you want me to do? And surrender your rights.

And I got like that, and I wow, what dare I give up for Christ? Maybe my profession. And if I give up my profession, I am not saying that you stop being a professional, because God did not stop being God. When you surrender your rights, you are setting them aside for the time you serve. It is not that he puts aside his knowledge, his experience, or his influence, it is that he becomes a servant and puts those things aside and focuses on serving. Because in essence you will continue to be a very healthy person, very educated, very intellectual, whatever.

And that is the contrast of form versus form. The Bible says that he, being in the form of God, being essentially God, made himself in the form of a servant, essentially made himself a servant. And a servant is a person who serves.

So, he paid a price and when we hear this about Jesus paying a price, one always thinks of the crucifixion. At least I have always thought about the crucifixion, yes, a price was paid. I say, no, I think he paid more than that. The price he paid was more than something, and it was a lifetime of service. The crucifixion was the end point, that's how it ended, that was the climax, right? but he lasted 33 years serving.

If the price had only been that you come, you are born, and they kill you, and they crucify you, that's fine, but a life serving, a life of humiliation. And the image that stays in my mind is that he in heaven, with white sheets, a beautiful smell, came to earth, enduring everything, being the creator of the world.

Imagine right now the social status that you have, that you say, I am going to go to Africa, I am going to put on beggar clothes and I am going to live there for 30 years, having here your house, your car, your profession, here everyone knows you, going to another country where nobody knows you, where nobody cares who you are, to do work.

I say, that was the price Jesus paid. It was a life of service that culminated in death. The worst thing that could happen to him, happened to him and was that they killed him. And not in any way, it was a sacrifice and he did all that to serve us, to heal the sick he came, incredible, all the things that the Lord went through.

That made me wonder what is the price I am willing to pay? And I got to thinking about conditional service and service out of love. Generally when one serves, one brings many conditions. And one of the conditions that one brings is that this is not my gift, I cannot do that because that is not my gift, or I don't like it or I am better at something else, or that morning, afternoon. One puts many conditions. How good Jesus is, he did not set conditions.

Okay, I'm going there, I'm going to incarnate, but I have to be born like Moses, at least like Moses. Although later when I am a teenager I will spend work for a field, but childhood, Lord, please. No, he did not put conditions, he went to the lowest that could have existed and there it was done.

And he did that out of love. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world." God loved us. I believe that when one removes all the conditions and one begins to serve, the Lord equips one and trains one, regardless of their condition or their preference, or their excuse. I think the Lord enables you. You are not born knowing and you learn as you go. I think that.

And one has to serve out of love, not out of fulfillment. I comply but I lie. No, it's true, no, for love. Go with me to First Corinthians 13, from 1 to 8, and I want to talk to you about love, because we are talking about how we have to serve out of love, I began to study what love means, and the Bible says:

“… If I speak in human and angelic tongues and I do not have love, I become like resounding metal or a tinkling cymbal. And if I had prophecy and understood all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I had all faith in such a way that it moved mountains and I have no love, I am nothing. If I distributed all my goods to feed the poor, and if I gave up my body to be burned and I have no love, it is of no use to me. Love is long-suffering, it is benign, it does not envy, love is not boastful, it is not puffed up, it does not do anything wrong, it does not seek its own, it does not get irritated, it does not hold a grudge, it does not enjoy injustice, it enjoys more of the truth. Everything suffers, everything believes, everything is expected, everything is supported. Love never stops being…"

I began to think about all that love. Because God came to serve out of love. That thing that he emptied himself of, took the form of a servant, all of that was because he loved us. And I made a play on words and in this passage I substituted the word love for service and listen to how he says:

“… If I speak in human and angelic tongues and I do not serve, I become like resounding metal or tinkling cymbal. And if I had prophecy and understood all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I had all faith in such a way that I move mountains and I am of no use, I am nothing. If I distributed all my goods to feed the poor, and if I gave my body to be burned and I am useless, it is of no use to me. The service is long-suffering, it is benign, the service does not envy, the service is not boastful, it is not puffed up, it does not do anything wrong, it does not seek its own, it does not get irritated, it does not hold grudges, it does not enjoy injustice, more enjoy the truth. Everything suffers, everything believes, everything is expected, everything is supported. The service never ceases to be…”

And that was what Jesus did. If we make the same pun and put the name of Jesus there it says:

"...Jesus was long-suffering, he was benign, he was not envious, he was not boastful, he was not conceited, he did not do anything wrong, he did not seek his own, he did not become irritated, he did not bear it, etc..."

And I started to think, Jonathan, he's not envious, I stayed there in the first one. Jonathan suffers everything. No. There are times when I feel like hanging people but that happens to us. And those are parts of the conditions that we put to serve. We want to serve in an environment where we get along well with everyone, where I like so-and-so, I like so-and-so, but no. and many times I hear people talking, not so-and-so, not so-and-so, no, no, I can't work with so-and-so, I don't know what. Good thing Jesus didn't say that.

No, look, God, I can't work with those disciples because those people are crazy. You are seeing Pedro and Judas and all the people who… No, I prefer to work alone, I like to work alone.

When one loves, one serves. Spot. And that was what Jesus did, that was the gift that he gave us of a life of service. God loved us and gave us his Son and came to serve, and if we love God, the best thing we can give him this Christmas is a life of service. Make a pact with God and tell him, my gift this December 25 is going to be a lifetime of being.

And a sacrificial service. And when a service is sacrificial I start thinking about Romans 12 which says yes:

“…So, brothers, I beg you by the mercy of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your rational service. Do not conform to this century…”

What is the attitude of this century? Let them serve me. Everyone wants to be served. Look, help me do this, or fix me here, fix me there. At work one is always looking for an assistant, other people, delegating. No, you have to delegate for things to happen, you have to delegate. No. Do not conform to this century where people want to be served.

“… but transform yourselves through renewal, ─ it is a change of mind ─ of your understanding so that you can verify what the good and perfect will of God is. I say then, by the grace that is given to me, to each one of you who does not have a higher concept of himself than he should have, but rather think of himself with sanity..."

Don't have a higher concept of yourself than you should. And it is what he also says to the Philippians in our passage. Before verse 5, Paul says:

“…Do nothing out of contention, out of vainglory, with humility considering each one of the others as superior to himself, not looking each one at his own, but each one also for that of the others…”

One of the problems that I have experienced in teamwork is that everyone wants a position and a title and something, and I get this, and he gets this, and that... and since I don't get it, I I do not do it. That is a conditional service. That is not sacrificial service.

It's good that when it's not my turn, if I can do it, I grab and do it. Because we are a team, we are the same thing. Because if he doesn't do it, the one that is going to look bad is the team. Yeah, he's going to look bad, and look, you saw me, you didn't. You had to put me. No. It's the team that looks bad. And that is a sacrificial service, a living sacrifice, a sacrifice when one cannot take it anymore, when one's feet hurt, that is a sacrifice. And that was what Jesus did.

It was a sacrifice for Jesus to leave heaven, its white sheets, I want you to keep that image, to come and sleep in a manger and that was when he was born. God knows how he slept at home, with María and José, if he slept on the floor. I don't know. That was a living sacrifice that he made.

The higher one reaches in life, I believe it is for one to serve more. I think that the more money God gives you, it is for you to help more people. And I think that the more time one has, it is for one to serve more as well. But no, we live in a century where the more I have, the more I indulge, the more for me.

Another important point in the service is that you have to prepare. It took the Lord Jesus 30 years to start his ministry. He began his ministry when he was baptized and after that he lasted for about three years in his public ministry. It took him a lifetime to prepare to serve.

The service is not something like that either, I go, come, tell me, what is there to do? No. one has to prepare, one has to study, one has to know, submit and be part of a process. When you want to serve, there are going to be people around you who are going to help you to mature, and you are going to grow being part of that process, you just have to be willing and willing. Because there are a lot of people who are willing but not willing, they don't want to do that. There are those who are willing but are not willing. So, it has to be a combination, willing and willing to do it.

And also, keep in mind that it is in community. The Lord Jesus did not serve alone. He was part of a ministry team, he had 12 disciples who were with him throughout. When one wants to serve it is better when one is part of a community. A community that understands you, that sees you cry, that sees you laugh, that helps you. So, the service must be in community as part of a ministry service.

And it is an offering that one gives to the people with whom one lives. There is a person here in the church that impacted me a lot because with all the financial campaign he told me, well, I don't have a lot of money for the temple, I'm going to give a portion, but I'm going to offer my time and my talent and I'm going to do this. I can't give financially but I can offer my time and my talent, and I'm going to do that and we're going to sell this. I was like wow. Perhaps for others it is an excuse, it's that I don't have it, I live with the check, I don't know what. Your time, your talent, there are many areas in which one can serve.

It's not that giving financially isn't important, no, that's very important. Because things are done through these funds, everything that happens here, everything that is seen, everything that is done, is due to finances. With time and talent, that temple will not be built. You can have all the time in the world and all the talent, but if you don't have money, it's not going anywhere. So it's a balance of things.

We must continue to be a serving church. I prayed to the Lord for this church, because here there are many people who serve, there are many people who serve behind the scenes. Right now there are people serving, up there with the children. And it is because of these people that I can stand here today to talk to you. If they weren't there, I wouldn't be here. is part of a team. And how good it is to have people who serve.

And I know there are many of you who serve in different ministries. Some ministries that people may not know about, that of the shelters, on Tuesday nights, the people who go to the shelter to bless those people. The people who go with the children burned in the Shiner. Those ministries that do not stop here, but are people who serve.

And I thank God for that, and I think it is time that our love and our commitment to God is reflected in sincere service. I want to encourage you, brothers, to identify an area. There are many things you can do, but identify one area, you don't have to do it all, that's why we are a big church, so that everyone can do something. Identify an area and serve. And if you are already the person serving, don't get tired, because Jesus didn't get tired until they killed him. It was a life, a sacrificial service that he gave us.

I think that the best gift we can give is a service. And do you know why? Because we have many lives around us that need lives that serve them. If we serve you for a while, the time that we don't serve, those lives are wandering, adrift. And they are going to find other people who are going to serve them but not in the way that Christ is going to serve them.

So, I want to encourage you that if you are one of the people who serve, that you not get tired, that you think about what Jesus did, and that this be your inspiration to give him this Christmas. And if you are one of the people who are useless, then serve. In the good sense of the word, please, it's not working, let's put it that way, it's not working. Join the group of those who serve, is what I mean.

So, identify an area and stick to the training processes. It's not crazy that we're going to serve either. There are rules, there are structures that we are developing, that we are changing, that we are always implementing. Respect that and submit. Lay aside all your judgment and all your stuff and submit. Be part of the team and start serving.

Serving God is serving others. The Lord Jesus when he speaks in Matthew of the judgment of the nations and says that I was hungry, you gave me food, I was thirsty..., that passage, and he told the disciples that when they did that for one of them, they did it for the same. So that's what that means.

Where are you going to serve? There are hujieres, translators, with the children, cleaning, the internet, the audio, decorations, something that irritates me about cleaning is that sometimes we go through the places, we see things, oh, there are people who clean, they They are going to clean up now. They clean around 5. Don't worry. What's that? We are going to be a church that serves, that continues to serve.

And I thank God for the people who serve. Join the team, be of the same mind with us, here in the Congregation. And join the team of people who serve. And if you serve, strengthen the team that serves, I don't know how to complain, try to find the good side of service, and try to attract other people to serve, because the more we serve, the lighter the load.

God will bless you, brother. In Philippians it says that it ends the passage and says, that "... therefore he also highly exalted him and gave him a name that is above all names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven." and on the ground and under the ground..."

God valued the sacrifice that Jesus made serving in our world. And I am sure that God will value his sacrifice and I dare say that we are never going to sacrifice ourselves to the level that the Lord Jesus sacrificed himself. What we do is minimal, I'm not saying it's easy, because I know it's not easy, but it's worth every little thing you do, it's worth it.

I want to invite people to praise, I want you to stand up and we are going to end today in a different way. I looked for another song that I want you to close your eyes and listen to this song, not to sing, but to listen to this song and as you listen to this song you think about what this song is saying and what is in your heart , you go praying and making a pact with God this morning, that you are going to be a person who is going to serve him, that this is going to be the gift that you are going to give him this Christmas. So close your eyes, let's pray and listen to this song.