called to be saints

Philippians chapter 1. We are meditating, starting from the letter to the Philippians, and God has put us in these weeks to talk about God's call to holiness, God's call to consecration, to give our lives, to the sanctification of our lives, I hope you are receiving this as a Word directly for your life

, and even if you are new to the faith, new to this Church, God is calling you, God is calling our congregation, as one of the sisters who was praying here said, God is calling this Church to cleanse us, to prepare ourselves, to be adequate vessels so that his anointing can fit in us, we have the ambition to do great things for the Lord, to redeem lives for Christ, young people, homeless people, all of this, but a suitable driver is required for the Glory of God in a city like this.

We are in a difficult time for humanity, and if God's anointing is going to make a difference, it has to manifest itself in an unprecedented way, on a scale of miracles and interventions that we see in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, as we have gotten used to lowering our expectations, and we see the miracles of life as metaphors, that's all, as poetic starting points, which we can use to talk about a God of mercy, power, love, but we do not believe that He is still capable of healing the lame, of giving sight to the blind, of healing the deaf, of rescuing the demon-possessed, of multiplying the loaves and fish, of performing those powerful miracles that we see in Elijah and in other great men and women of God, we believe that these things have already happened and we have to get used to different things, I think not, the best is still ahead.

I was saying a while ago that the last wine in the schemes of the Bible is always better than the first wine, and I also believe that in these last times of humanity, the last outpouring of the Holy Spirit before Christ comes, will to be an outpouring like we have never seen before. Say amen even if it's to give a little encouragement here, okay? Are they there, are they awake, amen?, or did they give everything already in praise and prayer, that's the problem sometimes, no, let's continue there until this is over.

So brothers, if we want to see that level of God's intervention in this city and this nation, we have to be holy vessels, we have to be adequate conductors of the Glory of God, the level, if we wanted to get used to it, well, God already did what what did he have to do with us, now we just go there cruising, we put the automatic and we go to 65 miles per hour and that's it, no, I want this to take off, warped speed, to go to another dimension of a spiritual level, and for that we need to give the Lord more of ourselves, we have to live red hot, and God is speaking to me, He is convicting me, He is convicting me, as it is said in English, so that the Glory of God is manifested in our lives. vias He requires a holy people, a clean people, a people crying out to Him, and paying the price brothers, this is God's call for our lives.

If you are new to the faith, if you are just beginning to take your first steps, I encourage you to start well. There are many Christians who have spent 20, 30 years walking in the desert, as Hebrews says, and have not yet entered the Promised Land, because they have not given themselves, they have not consecrated themselves, they have not understood the total call of the Lord to they, you have the opportunity that you are just beginning in the ways of the Lord and you are visiting this congregation to enter strong and be one of those who reaches the Promised Land with little time to go around giving your life.

Enter a demanding Gospel, a heroic Gospel, an epic Gospel so to speak, amen?, enter the faith with a sense of call and commitment that God has for your life, this is the time, let's not let our guard down, no let us falter in what God is doing, and that is why we are issuing this call at this time that God is doing something special in our Church, a call to holiness, a call to consecration, a call to examine ourselves, there is a choir that says let's examine our ways, right?, and let's see what God wants from us, each one has to examine, Lord, what areas can I give you?

So we are there, that call to holiness, I want to strengthen that, looking at the epistle to the Philippians chapter 1, which we are using as a starting point for these meditations, last Sunday we focused on that pressure, servants of Jesus Christ, Paul and Timothy, servants, dules of Jesus Christ, means the children of God we are servants, we are using a less politically correct word we are slaves of Jesus Christ, that is the expression that Paul used, the apostles saw themselves as slaves of Jesus Christ, their level of concentration, of consecration, of surrender to the claims of Jesus, was so great that they considered their condition to be that of a slave, who had no life of his own, had no authority, no autonomy, could not decide what he was going to do, his money was not theirs, time, belonging, life, destiny, it was all of God, and as we have seen the Bible calls us also to adopt a lifestyle of servants of Jesus Christ and servant each other.

So that condition of servants also imposes on us a condition of holiness, a condition of being holy, and that is why Paul and Timothy say here, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi. Note that he refers to the entire congregation of Christians who were in that city of Philippi, he calls them saints. And I was telling the brothers this morning, it is as if I were going on a trip for a while and I sent them a letter, telling them, brother Roberto Miranda, servant of Jesus Christ, to all the saints who are in the congregation of Judah, or to all the saints who are in the city of Boston.

The Bible tells us over and over again that we, by definition, the fact of being Christians, of being followers of Jesus Christ, and that gives us the status of saints. Look at another passage, Paul repeated that over and over again, let's go to first Corinthians chapter 3, we're going to read a few verses from the Bible to underpin what we're saying, because I want you like an airplane that's circling over a territory , we can see all the different aspects of holiness, and that we can get a sense of the complexity of this call from God to holiness.

I hope that by the end of this series of messages, we will have a good idea of what this call to holiness entails. There in first Corinthians chapter 1 verse 2, the apostle Paul also takes this idea of holiness and sanctification, and here he says: "Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the Will of God and brother Sosthenes, to the Church of God which is in Corinth," it was a city of the Greco-Roman empire, Corinth, "to the Church of God which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus," see the idea there again, all the Church which is there in Corinth, he also calls those sanctified in Christ Jesus, and then he adds: "called to be saints, with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

So you see this idea here again, right? It's interesting that Paul uses a different expression here, he says, to the sanctified. I was telling the brothers this morning that it would seem that there is a small contradiction in Paul's expression, because he is saying to all those who have been sanctified, but he also says called to be saints, one wonders, well, if they are sanctified, what Why then are they called to be saints as if it were something to aspire to, to aim for? If it is a fact, why aim at it? But precisely there we see a bit of the complexity of this theme of holiness, implied in that expression of Paul.

What Paul is saying here in other words is the following: when you enter the ways of the Lord and you accept the work of Christ on the cross of Calvary, and you receive that work as it was for you, his crucifixion, his death , has assigned you justice before God and has made you a child of God, when you assent to that plan of salvation of God through Christ Jesus, automatically, immediately in an absolute way, it is like lightning comes upon you, a flame of sanctification, and then you are in a definitive, absolute way, you are holy before God, why? Because all your sins are erased, the Word says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things have passed away and, behold, all things have become new.

So there is a sense in which yes, when you receive Christ as Lord and Savior you are sanctified, you are assigned a condition before God of a holy creature, acceptable before God, the blood of Christ washes you, and says that He He takes your sins, casts them to the bottom of the sea and he will remember them no more. So there is a type of sanctification, there is a dimension of sanctification that is instantaneous, definitive, total, and when you enter the ways of the Lord, you walk in that new citizenship, you are a child of God, and by definition you are agios Apart from a lifestyle, you now belong to a line sanctified and purified by the Lord. Now, how many know that as it says in that verse, it is a new creature, how many know that even when we are new creatures, the old man is still fighting within us, right?

Here are very old men who are still alive and kicking, we are, is it the truth, right? God seals us with his seal, assigns us the status of redeemed children, but then a process of increasing perfection is supposed to begin within us. I would say that ontologically, in our absolute state of being, yes, we are saints before God, but in our experiential reality, what we experience every day, our circumstances, the struggle of the mind, of appetites, then there is a progressive reality that will be taking place within us, in that God will be drawing us closer and closer each day and conforming us to the image of Christ Jesus in effect. It's like an identity is assigned, but it's like we have to grow up to fill those new shoes of our identity.

Let me give an example, it's like in the army, a person graduates from officer school, and when they finish they are given a second lieutenant's bars, an army officer goes through soldier training, officer training, and has the day of his commission and he receives his bars that the general or whoever puts them on, and then he is already a second lieutenant in the United States Army, that is his condition, his status, but you know what?, that young man , they are generally young, now he has to begin a process of entering his identity as an officer, he has to start speaking like an army officer, he has to acquire that commanding voice, he has to acquire that style of a man of authority, there is an attitude that he has to cultivate through the years until he fills those officer shoes, and then he will go up through the different ranks, to reach captain, colonel, general of different stars, he grows in authority, in experience , in command, in a c Lots of things, although he's already an army officer, and that's the way it is with us too.

When God sanctifies us, he assigns us an identity, children of God, redeemed by Christ Jesus, destined for eternal life, but then while we are here on Earth, there will be a process of increasing sanctification, we are called to be saints in the sense that we are called to purify ourselves more and more each day until we become like Christ Jesus. So there is an instantaneous, definitive condition, but there is also a process of entering more and more into what I am, my human relationships, my appetites, my flesh, my mind, my emotions, my habits, all of this gradually shapes more and more. more to what I am in the eyes of God, do I explain? And that is what we call when God calls us to a growing holiness, when we enter the ways of God, let us all understand.

And I believe that this is what happens with so many peoples, churches of God, that we have not known how to handle the complexity of holiness, so we fall into excessive simplification, and we do not understand the tension that exists, that dynamic tension, that ok , God calls us to holiness, and we have to aspire to it, but it will be a gradual process, a gradual process, until we reach the fullness of the image of Christ Jesus. So I invite you, I invite myself, in this time of the Church, to conceive of this call from God, to give the Lord everything that He asks of us to become that chosen people of God.

I know that there are things in you like there are in me, that we can identify, that we have to ask the Lord to work on us. I believe that many people are afraid of holiness, or the call to holiness, because they see their current condition, they see how difficult it is to break certain habits, and certain life conditions that they have, that they feel frightened, and for this reason they never they open their minds to the idea that no, I can become a man, a woman of God that truly reflects the character of Jesus, and I must begin that journey, and begin to surrender to the Lord all the pieces of my being, everything what He wants me to deliver, until we become formed according to the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Christian life is a wonderful journey where every day we are giving pieces of our being, and God is doing precious things, as He asks of us, he is giving us himself. Someone has said that the trail that a Christian leaves in life is like the trail of a wounded rabbit in the snow, which leaves droplets of blood as it walks, and he knows that it is the same with us if we have truly accepted the God's call to the authentic Christian life, that means that our life is going to be a growing crucifixion, areas of our life are going to have to be left behind. God calls us to two things, he calls us to great joy, great victory, great sublimity, great joy of being servants of God, moments in which we see the Glory of God manifested in our lives, things that God is doing in our families, in our jobs, financially, God blesses us in many ways, but there are also times when God says come, you know what, I'm going to bring you to my holiness school, I'm going to put you through a time of crucifixion, of trials, of showing you who you truly are so that you seek me more and become like my Son Jesus Christ.

So there will be in your life, situations, difficulties and moments that God will be allowing you to enter into, but you know what it will be for, so that through those experiences you become more like Jesus, and that to Him purify yourself and get things out of you, you can then be happier and more capable of living the full life that God wants you to live. That is why the apostle Paul also speaks of this, stripping us of all weight that besieges us, so that we can run the race of faith with lightness.

Many times we come to the ways of the Lord, and there are a number of imperfections, which are like pounds that we have on us, and when we try to run we get exhausted, when we try to run the race of faith we feel exhausted, the devil gives us hard, we fall over and over again, impediments, things that happen, and Pablo says no, lighten up, get those things off your back, what are those things? Everything that you know does not please the Lord, everything that prevents you from becoming like Christ. When we surrender all these things to the Lord, then the Christian life becomes something glorious, something beautiful, something pleasant, and then we can truly participate in all the blessings that God has for us.

As never before in history, God is calling us to be a people of holiness. You know, when God called the Hebrews to be a holy people, he was speaking to a nation that was surrounded by impurity, by sin, by wickedness. The nations that were around Israel were nations given over to pagan gods, gods of sensuality, gods of violence, gods of the earth, gods of death and darkness, and people who practiced all kinds of unimaginable moral excesses, and then when God calls that people of Israel to be a holy people for Him, that means that they had to be a different people, a separated people, a people separated from that impurity of the world in which they lived, so that they exemplified the holiness of that God whom they served.

Holiness is always lived in contrast to a world that is heading in another direction, and when God calls us to be holy, it means that God wants us to separate ourselves from the filth that characterizes the world in which we live, and He wants us to be different in that sense, and that we exemplify his Holiness.

There's a passage that I'm dealing with, let's go to Philippians 2:15, and I'm going to leave it here more or less because then I'm going to pick up on some of this next week, but I do want to, there's something that I'm thinking is important that we remember. You will remember that two weeks ago I was talking about this verse, verse 12 says: "Work on your salvation with fear and trembling, because God is the one who produces in you both willing and doing, by His good Will." So Paul continues to develop that thought and says here: "Do everything without grumbling or arguing" and here is what I want to highlight "so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, in the midst of which ye shine as lights in the world."

You know that at this time in the history of humanity, the call to holiness of the people of God becomes more urgent, more critical than ever before in history, because we are in a time when humanity has launched, he has plunged into sin. And then God tells us the same thing that he told the brothers in Philippi, that we have to be blameless. That does not mean that you have to be perfect, understand me, although it is good to aim for perfection, but to be blameless means that as far as possible, your behavior, your way of living is such that people cannot find where to throw a stone at you. , where to accuse yourself, because your walk is a correct walk before God and before men, you may have your faults, your things, but there is a level of integrity that God expects of us, so that the world cannot rebuke us, can't criticize us

Today we give the world so much right to throw stones at us wherever it wants, because the people of God are not living at the level that God wants, so there is so much scandal in the people of God, in the pastorate, in the evangelistic world, on television, the lifestyle of so many Christians does not differ much in many cases from the world out there, so we are rather blameworthy, but the Word of God says blameless. The apostle Paul, there is another passage where he says that we live in such a way that when they want to say something bad about us they cannot, and if they attack us it is because we are serving the Lord like Daniel who was put into the fiery furnace because he was serving to God and doing the Will of the Lord, not because I was doing something bad, if we are going to be persecuted, let them persecute us for being good before God and doing the Will of the Lord.

By the way, that other word simple, the word simple in the original Greek, what it means is unmixed, pure, it's like, when gold has been purified that it doesn't have other metals inside, wine that doesn't have water, that's it. one of the expressions that is translated for that word, simple, there is no mixture in them but rather it is an element, a pure specimen. So what Paul is saying is that we be blameless before the world and that we be pure, that there be no mixture. In how many of us is the world still and God still fighting within us? We have one foot in the world, we have another foot in the Kingdom of God, our affections are in the world and are in the ways of the Lord, and one One of the things that God speaks is that we have to die to the world, that idea, as Paul says, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

So God wants a process of death to occur in us, but death to life, it is a process of dying to the affections and appetites of the world, and the apostle Paul says, or John, says that friendship with the world is enmity with God, the Lord Jesus Christ also said we cannot serve two masters, because we love one more or we love the other more, we have to decide who we are going to serve, to whom we are going to give our hearts, our affections, the Lord says give yourself completely , why?, because we live in an evil and perverse generation, wow, it is difficult. Many evangelicals today don't like to talk in those terms because they think you're criticizing people too much.

Now, we have to love that generation, because they need God, we can't despise them either, oh, we are better than them, no, we have to love them and have mercy even when we hate the things they do. Let me give you an example and I'll finish with this, this week I think it was Thursday, yes Thursday, I had to go to a meeting of leaders here in Massachusetts, convened by the Catholic Church, incidentally how sad that, I I love my Catholic brothers, and the truth is that there are many things, frankly I do not throw stones at the Catholic Church, I respect the Catholic Church, on the one hand let me say that the Catholic Church must be admired, because today when many evangelical churches in this nation have stopped fighting for certain important social issues, the Catholic Church bleeding as it is showing its face and is leading many causes that evangelicals have already left aside.

But how sad that the Catholic Church is affected by all this scandal of pedophilia among its priests, and of course they have lost tremendous credibility before society because of this, so they are fighting the battle of moral integrity themselves not smelling very good and they are They have opened up to the accusation of gross hypocrisy, of not having paid attention to this serious problem among their leadership, among Catholic leaders, with the issue of child abuse, and having known that this was happening but not having paid the price to bring this out and discipline these people, horrible, horrible.

However, this is long to explain, but I am going to this, that is why we have to, if we are going to call the world to repentance, we have a great responsibility to exemplify the appropriate behavior, someone out there has said that it cannot be done preach morality in our underpants, we have to clean our own house first. But that is aside, that is not the point, because what happened is that Cardinal Shanon was there, who I believe is a man of God that I respect, upright in many ways, and to discuss a subject, and I want to take advantage of to put that in front of you, because one would think that this is science fiction, 3 years ago you would have told me that Massachusetts was going to be dealing with this and I would have said, no, that is not possible, but already one is cured of horror One has already seen so much with homosexual marriage that anything is possible.

This society, this generation is becoming more and more perverted every day to the point that in November, when the next elections come and there is an opportunity to vote, November 2 I think, I don't remember when it is, well, November, there are several things for which the people of Massachusetts are going to have to vote, and one of them is proposition number 2, proposition number 2 has to do with physician-assisted suicide, that means that in the state of Massachusetts, if God He does not put his hand in, it will be possible for a person who is terminally ill, to ask his doctor to prescribe a poison that he can go to a pharmacy and take it to kill himself with the prescription that the doctor has provided. legally, legitimately

Imagine how many desperate people, depressed by a cancer situation or whatever, who think my life is over and there is no hope for me anymore, who have the medical option of going to a doctor and saying hey, I want you to give me the recipe for me to commit suicide and end my life, and trust a person who is emotionally fragile, that a psychiatric medical evaluation is not even required, that he is in his five senses, no, simply that she wants to say I want to commit suicide, I want finish this, prescribe the medicine, I'm going to go there to Wallgreens, I'm going to go home, I'm going to put on very nice pajamas, I'm going to drink the poison and end my life.

Look, this is even interesting because we heard this, because we heard from a well-known firm here in Massachusetts that is trying to help with that, right now in Massachusetts, if the vote were taken today, 70% of the voters in Massachusetts would vote for physician-assisted suicide. There are only about 30% or so of people, mostly Christians, who are willing to vote against this measure, which means that the fight to defeat this proposal number 2 is very, inclined, because this culture, this society has reached that point. like Massachusetts, of highly educated people, with secular values, humanists, far from the Word of God, who are willing to vote for an aberration, for a moral scandal like that.

And you know, what is interesting is this, that the doctors themselves refuse, the North American Medical Association, that there are other things that support it, but that they are against it, because they recognize that doctors are called to preserve life, not to to facilitate death, but still, this culture that has gone headlong into evil and sin is willing to accept this. I beg you my brothers that if you have the opportunity to vote in November, vote correctly, vote morally, vote spiritually, and make sure that we never give our vote to a perversity such as assisted or permitted suicide, facilitated by a doctor .

But my point is, that is why it is so important that we understand the word of the apostle Paul, he says that we have to shine in the midst of an evil and perverse generation, we have to be blameless, we have to be simple in our commitment to the Lord , because this society, where is it going to end?, in a precipitous slide, towards death, darkness, darkness, and the devil has been given freedom in this world, and only those who make a firm commitment to the Lord are going to In order to survive, they will be able to maintain themselves, an exceptional level of purity is required at this time, and we have to understand that this is the world in which we live, and we have to be different, God calls you to be different, God calls me to be different, God truly calls us to be a holy people, pleasing to Him.

We are going to lower our heads now, we are going to reaffirm our call, and if there is someone this afternoon who wants to give his life to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you want us to pray for you, my pleasure would be to present him before the Lord, you can raise your hand , if you wish, or come forward here, if God has touched you in any way this afternoon through adoration or whatever, don't delay too much time, come here we want to pray for you, if you came with someone and he wants to accompany you he can also do it, if you have not done it before come with a brother, a sister, and we would like to present you before the Lord, if someone has not taken that step of faith we would like to pray for you, come here ahead or raise your hand where you are and my pleasure would be to put you in the Lord's hands too, okay?

Meanwhile, there in your heart I beg you, reinforce your commitment to God, not to be a half Christian, not to be a Christian mixed with other things, close all the gaps in your life, tighten the measure of blessing that God gives you. has given, commit yourself to the Lord, we are in truly urgent times, and the time to play evangelical has passed, it is a time of definition, it is a time to believe the Lord, His call, we are going to close ranks and give our whole lives to the Lord, and fill those weak places, strengthen the knees, says the apostle Paul, lift and strengthen the fallen arms, our commitment to the Lord, and that our love for those lost souls is greater every day, and that is why we need to prepare ourselves , purify ourselves to be able to affect that world.

I haven't given the world to the devil yet, you know, this country still has a lot of people of faith who are praying and crying out, I haven't turned this nation over to Satan yet, you know, this is a time in Cairo, a key time, and God can shine in this nation, and I believe that one of the things for which God has sent Latinos to the United States is not to steal money from the IRS, it is to bless this nation spiritually with your prayers, with its clamor, its red-hot spirituality, its spiritual values, its different ethics, a Church that teaches this nation with a spirit of humility what Christ can make possible, we can be that exemplary family.

Father in the name of Jesus, we want to be visited by you, we want to be touched by you, we want You to use this Word that we are sharing as a vehicle to enter the heart of Your people, do not let us go down to a lower level than what we have proclaimed Lord, strongly affirm in us this call to holiness, make it real in the life of this congregation Father, take away everything that is not yours, everything that does not please you Lord. Thank you for this precious time, where we have been able to worship You with ease, Lord, we have presented our requests before You, You have visited us with Your presence, and now take us out of here having been ministered by Your Word. Bless us and that the seed that has fallen into our hearts cannot come to steal it, Lord, cannot come to violate what You want to do in us. Bless this town and get it out of here under Your blessing, Your company, and let nothing interfere, Lord, with the sense of Your Presence, neither on the way to their homes, nor when they arrive there, nor tomorrow when we begin our normal work life, which Your Word and Your Presence be as real as they are at this very moment, thank you Lord, in Jesus name we pray, amen and amen. God bless you my brothers, may the grace and peace of the Lord be with you all, amen.