He who is not born again cannot see the Kingdom of God

Gospel according to Saint John chapter 3. Let us remember that we are on this journey through passages and evangelistic texts, texts that invite us to look at Jesus, His ministry, His Word, His salvific work and through this we want to do various things , infect us with that evangelistic spirit that the Lord embodies who came to save the world with love for the lost, with mercy and compassion.

We also want by focusing on Him to derive from Him and draw from Him strength because He is the source of strength and vitality, He is the source of evangelistic effectiveness. If we are attached to Him we will bear fruit, the Lord says so: "Remain in Me and you will bear much fruit." So when we focus on Jesus, I feel that the Lord has called us, he has called me, he has told us: if you want to be evangelistically effective, lift Me up, put Me up. Don't worry about all the gadgets and scaffolding that men use just give people fresh plain bread: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Invite them to look towards Me, invite them to surrender to Me, invite them to establish a daily, personal relationship with Me and I will do the rest.

So through these teachings and these messages that we are going to be sharing throughout the year and I don't know until when certainly the evangelistic call will not be put aside because the year ends, that will continue but I feel as if the Lord is taking us through a prophetic journey where we are going to be visiting those places and those Biblical theological aspects that have to do with the essential truth of the Gospel, the call to evangelism, to salvation and to travel that prophetic territory as Abraham touring the Promised Land centuries before his people then Israel already formed, out of Egypt entered that land we are marking these places, marking these issues and rehearsing them so to speak for some purpose that God has with them.

I am learning so much by taking this intentional walk through these messages and these passages of Scripture and I feel like I am simply declaring these things in a prophetic way. And you are going to see that it is like part of a whole repertoire that is being assembled that has a lot of internal coherence, these truths, these characters, these themes support each other and we are going to see now, for example, in this figure of Nicodemus in Chapter 3 of John, the Gospel according to Saint John, which is next to chapter 4 that we already saw a while ago when we touched on the subject of the Samaritan woman.

These characters could not be more opposite, more opposite in their personal configuration, and yet, interestingly, they have many similarities, many similarities, and that is what I tell you is that this is the Word of the Lord, it has incredible coherence, and we are going to see a little about this. The two of them even have a lot of affinity with another character that we just studied last Sunday, the rich young man. These three characters are wonderfully similar in their spiritual drama and in the way the Lord deals with them as well so that we can see that there are those underground rivers that run through the Word of the Lord if we have eyes to see and can discern that theme of the Spirit.

So remember the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, and the rich young ruler in this exhibit that we have here. There are many themes that we could draw from this text but I would say that one of the main ones again is this idea of the new birth, the new birth. This is like a bit of spiritual biology.

What is it that constitutes? when a person is converted what is supposed to happen? and Nicodemus, like few others, I would say, exemplifies even more than the rich young man himself that difference between external religiosity, ritual although sincere, and a spirituality that is worth the redundancy, born of the Spirit, born of a spiritual chemistry, born of an intimate relationship with God, born of a confrontational experience, born from an internal explosion that reconstitutes the being and that gives rise to a new mentality, a new identity, a new spirit, a new way of seeing life, a new perspective, a new birth, as I think Second Division says. from Corinthians chapter 5: "If anyone is in Christ" if someone is in Christ, what happens? zero miles, clean slate "it's a new creature."

Why is it a new creature? not because biologically, externally it is new because we continue with all the wrinkles and all the warts of normal life, all the defects of the flesh and the struggles but something starts, something occurs at that moment of regeneration a I find it like when a creature is conceived in the womb of a woman, when the life of the man and the life of the woman come together, and there is a spark that occurs when these two essences of life meet in the womb of the woman and a new life is born. life, there is a spark of life that then proceeds to develop for a few months inside the womb and then outside the womb in a process that never ends.

And that is also why the Lord spoke very wisely about being born again because the birth, I am already getting ahead of myself but that is the issue, there is a birth that is the gestation, it is the explosion of life, it is when God utters a word that says: be the world, be the light and then proceed to order and history comes with all its pieces and everything else, the drama that humanity lives through centuries and centuries but God uttered a vision, a vision with all its pieces and that vision is unfolding through history because that's how God works, God declares things and then he sees them and delights in seeing them process into reality. And between that moment of gestation and consummation there is a series of events and processes and things that all redound to the glory of the Lord.

And this is how the spiritual journey of a person when he is born again. Not by a religious, cultural, or institutional process, but by water and spirit, says the Lord, alluding to a mysterious process. Nicodemus exemplifies that contrast between those two states, the purely religious, very pious but merely religious state and the magical, mysterious, mystical state of the new and mysterious birth through Jesus Christ and through the Spirit.

So we come to the passage here, view it through those lenses that I just developed. He says that there was a man from the Pharisees, this is very important, he belonged to the most demanding sect, the most devoted, the most committed, perhaps even the most enlightened sect of all the different denominations that existed in Judaism because they believed in things that the Lord believed. They believed in the resurrection of the dead, they believed in angels and in things of the spirit, they believed in eternity while the Sadducees, the other sect hostile to a certain point towards Jesus, was the enlightened sect, they were the liberal denomination that was well into the culture Greek and the intellect and therefore, as happens today with those denominations that have gone after culture and science, false science, false wisdom have become liberal and have denied a series of things.

The Pharisees had the virtue that at least they believed in certain things, they were extremely legalistic but they had the virtue of believing in many things but they were crude as the Puerto Ricans say, crude, they still had a long way to go. But Nicodemus was a member of that denomination.

Then it says that a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, another interesting thing: a principal among the Jews, a principal, archon. Archon is not a sucker, archon means, archon is a head, he was a head, a capo say the Italians, he was the head of the Jews, he was one of the people who commanded. Not only was he a member of the denomination but he was one of the members of the elders of the Pharisaic sect so he was a man of a lot of authority, a lot of experience, a lot of scriptural knowledge of the Old Testament, the Scriptures, the commandments, the Jewish rituals. . This man had a history with the teachings of Judaism and he was a man who, to be the head and principal of the Pharisees, had to be a man who behaved well at least in public, we didn't know what he did when he was on the internet (laughs) but At least in public he behaved well, right?

Then he says that: "A chief among the Jews" says that "this man came to Jesus at night" why does the evangelist put there that he came at night? By the way John is the only evangelist who records this drama and the person of Nicodemus, no other synoptic writers mention Nicodemus but Nicodemus appears three times in the Gospel according to Saint John, he appears in John 7:50 later you can see him there and in John 19:39.

But Nicodemus arrives at night. There are different interpretations by which he arrives at night, thank God I adopted my interpretation before reading the others because otherwise I would have been confused so I listened to mine and I don't think I'm the only one who thinks this. I believe that John points out that he came at night to mention the stealthy and secret way in which he wants to approach Jesus, the discreet, exploratory, tentative way in which he wants to approach Jesus. He doesn't want people to see it because he's compromising his religious and social status, right?

He doesn't want people to say: "Hey, do you know who I saw entering the house where Rabbi Jesus is? Nicodemus! Oh!" No. He comes quietly stealthily, I imagine he got out of his car and headlong into the house where Jesus was. He came at night. And it's interesting, isn't it?

Brothers, there are a lot of people, one of the things while trying to get Nicodemus inside, I inside him, of his psychology, one of the things I feel is that Nicodemus is the perpetual seeker, he is the explorer, he is the seeker and I go to talk about churches that are seeker sensitive, churches that are sensitive to those who are seeking, exploring faith. I believe that Nicodemus is like the quintessential example of the person who is in the process of exploring, restlessness, searching and who knows that he has to sacrifice certain things and is in the process of: should I get married or not? Do I throw myself or not throw myself into the waters?

Jesus has undoubtedly impacted him, there are things about this mysterious being called Rabbi Jesus that intrigue and captivate him, but he knows that if he takes a step of total affiliation with this mysterious being, he ended up there, imagine, they take away his driver's license. Pharisee, head of the synagogue, he is cast out of social respectability, many things he was potentially sacrificing by contemplating giving himself to this person and accepting him as Messiah with all the absolute claims this man offered.

So I think that seeing this helps me, right? the person who is in process. I believe that if we want to be evangelistic brothers, if we want to be a truly evangelistic Church and we want to be evangelistic people, one of the things we have to learn is to broaden our parameters and also our ability to be patient and to adopt a long-term attitude. term, to be flexible and to wait for God's timing before pulling the hook because many times since the fish bites we feel: wow how heavy, we feel it's heavy and we fall in love and do so, and the fish's mouth simply comes out because the fish is too heavy and stayed in the water. And sometimes there are fish that have to be tired.

Did you know that big fish like tuna, maji-maji, all these big fish, there is a whole sport of fishing that is fishing for big fish, these and those fish, to catch them you need a very fast boat because those fish when they bite are so strong that if you try to pull them immediately the bait breaks and throws you into the water, it goes with everything so what you have to do is that when the fish bites it gets scared and starts to flee then it lets go the grey hair. I say I've never been in this but they tell me that this is what happens and you hear me speak as if I were an expert. But it's a good image. Listen, believe me, that's how it is, okay?

So these fish have to, a high speed boat is required because they swim so fast. Then the boat goes after the fish and you have to let go of the line until it bucks and jumps, and runs and when it's tired and can't go anywhere, then you can pull it and put it in the boat. Wow this is good give me a round of applause even if it's gosh.

And I think that there are people like that, let me tell you. There are sometimes very educated people, for example, highly educated people. I'm not necessarily talking about lawyers, doctors, businessmen, no. I am talking about extremely educated people, rationally developed, intellectually, culturally highly developed, university professors, intellectuals, politicians, people who have traveled to Europe or the Amazon at least or whatever.

But these types of people who have drunk the milk of culture and intellect in very powerful ways are so hardened, they are so saturated with intellectual-cultural knowledge that they first have to go through a very detoxification process before they can truly begin to process things of the spirit.

And that is why I believe that the churches are sometimes very good at attracting lawyers, doctors, businessmen, these types of people who are already there and have a lot of money, but the intellectual people who are the ones who master art, cinema, literature, the media, newspapers, ideas, the world of ideas and academia, these people are so seasoned in their world that a long-term vision is required, a high-speed boat is required, there it is, alright As you can see, nobody catches that fish so easily. Chacho I ride on him but I don't try to put him in (laughs).

But and I believe that the Church in this time when culture has reached a level of development like never before in all history requires a high-speed boat and even requires a high-speed message, the same message someone is saying amen , glory to God that child is enlightened by the Holy Spirit. The same primitive Gospel, first century but with a highly powerful outfit and a very different gasoline than what we often use.

A Church is required with a much broader vision, an agile and different preaching. People who are willing for that person to come with all their toxins and they sit there and you have to cook them over low heat, add a little water and a very low fire so that all that cultural intellectual poison is released and then maybe they can arrive to understand. And that is why many times, especially us, the charismatic Pentecostal churches, do not serve to attract the type of people that I believe God wants to attract and will attract at this time in history, because we are too impatient. We want to create saints overnight. You don't take a person who has drunk from the waters of the intellect all his life in the same way that you take a worker, glory to God, both are ontologically equal souls and valuable before the Father, but different baits are needed.

The devil knows that and that's why he throws baits of all kinds and we have to do the same too and we have to be very agile, very knowledgeable. Why do you believe for example this Anglican ministry? I know that many of you will say: uh the Pastor is becoming liberal, people with clerical collars, priests who are called Fathers, Father Ryan Morelli. There are people who, brothers, seeing a clerical collar is like seeing the devil see a cross, their eyes pop out of their sockets and they begin to. Brother, study the history of the Church, study the different cultures, study the different countries where the clerical collar is worn, people of God.

Many times it is not discernment, it is ignorance that makes us feel those fears. And I think it's important that the Church open different entry points to different faith seekers. Perhaps for many high-speed fish, entering through the door of a Church that happened today, they flee faster than a horse when they open a fence, bucking around to never see each other again, perhaps they need something more aesthetically pleasing, more calm but that has the Spirit and has the Word of God, has openness to the things of God, integrity, holiness, biblical orthodoxy but brothers as they say out there, how come they say? the habit does not make the monk, it is not what is on the outside, it is what is in the heart, in the mind, in the spirit.

So my desire is to open all the doors that are necessary for the seekers to enter and enter the house of the Lord and churches are needed that are willing to understand that and pay the price. I know that for many of us it's a stretch, that stretches us a little but it is necessary if we want to be intellectually or rather spiritually effective and evangelistically effective. We have to widen our parameters.

There are people who will take years even to truly understand the math or physics of the spirit and it takes people who are willing to do that and let the Lord do the work. Nicodemus, returning to Nicodemus, is one of those characters, it is only one of the aspects of this very interesting man because Nicodemus approaches the Lord like this, right? he knows that there is something mysterious and we will see if there is time to explore a little more about it, he has restlessness in his heart.

The rich young man approaches the Lord and also has knowledge of the Bible, he has behaved well all his youth, he is a man who has healthy spiritual concerns but is not yet ready to throw himself headfirst into the sea that is Jesus Christ and His demands for death and crucifixion of all appetite and all material love and give yourself totally to the claims of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I want to think that God rewarded him for being a guinea pig and getting into the pages of the Bible and blessing so many people in a negative way, the rich young man rewarded him in the end with a conversion. Maybe years later he realized it and said: wow what a fool I was and he gave himself to the Lord Jesus and gave up all his goods, I think we could write a novel about the story of this rich young man.

There are people that you make a call and that day they will not enter the Lord but later they will. What's more, there are others who will come on their knees and with tears, and with mucus coming out of their noses, but the next day they forget what happened and never come back. Others may take longer but come back and give it their all. There are others who do not move anything, they do not say anything but they are columns of commitment to the Lord. Others you see dancing and shouting around there and they are like a chameleon, they change overnight, they change color with the light around which they are.

There are many processes in the Gospel. So look at how the Lord deals with each of these people, with Nicodemus dealing in a way, with the Samaritan woman. He does not let this woman's outward garb of bad behavior and sensuality take his eyes off the treasure that is hidden in that heart, that when he truly knows the son of God he will pour himself out before Him and become an evangelist. top notch as was the Samaritan woman.

And the Lord takes her through a gradual dialogue, he leads her little by little in a religious dialogue and she tries to distract the Lord by saying that the well is Jacob's and that we worship here and you worship there, look at nothing of That is why the important thing is that you know that a day is coming when the Lord is going to look for adorers who adore him in spirit and in truth. It is not going to be in Rome or the Vatican, it is not going to be in Tulsa Oklahoma, it is not going to be Guatemala City, Guatemala is in the virtual realm of the spirit where there is no time or space or sequence or anything but it is eternity and we we can live and that is what God seeks.

So God deals with all these people in different ways. I ask you and me to be like this. People take time, there are different ways that people get to Jesus and get to the Gospel and many have to count the price, there is something they have to let go of. A sensuality, a mental life that is too active and rich, a destructive relationship, a habit of talking and destroying, badly acquired money, luxuries that they do not want to let go of, a business that gives them a lot of money but if they leave it they have to start another Instead of nothing, an intellectual reputation that they are going to lose, a position of great influence that they are going to have to sacrifice, but it takes time.

And we have to understand this and I believe that Jesus treats this man so interestingly, right? This seeker, this explorer intrigued by Jesus approaches Him at night. And you'll see that again because I know I'm not going to have time to discuss all of this but Nicodemus is at the end when Jesus dies and has to be buried, Nicodemus who also seems like he was a man with a lot of money, there are secular sources that suggest that Nicodemus, there is a Nicodemus who is called the brother of Josephus who wrote these non-biblical but historical books about the times of the Jews, Nicodemus at the end when Jesus dies donates a significant amount of spices to anoint and treat the body of Jesus Christ. It's there at the end.

I think he is already convinced but perhaps he is still struggling, he still cannot totally abandon everything but he is already like a converted Naaman after seeing the miracle that Elisha does to heal him with the power of God but Naaman now has to return to his position of general of the king who sent him to be healed with a letter of authority and now Naaman still general of the army of this pagan king has to return, and when this king enters the temple of his god Rimmon many times he asks his main general to accompany him as an act of esteem, and Naaman says to Elisha: look Elisha when I return, my king invites me many times to go to the temple and he bows before this god and I also have to bow because my arm is supporting him him and I also have to lower my head, what do I do?

Eliseo says: don't worry, don't worry, what's in your heart? Many of us would say: no, let them cut off your head, don't be silly, glory to God hallelujah and we shake our heads. Elisha tells him: calm down, don't worry, the Lord will fix those things. And that is why I believe that the Church does not have more people of power and influence in different places today because we put people in a straitjacket, a Gospel that is too narrow for the greatness and magnitude of the vision of God, and we do not I'm talking about liberalism here and, no, no, don't listen to me. There is no one holier than Jesus, however I see that flexibility that breathes, everything alive breathes, expands and contracts, has play. If it's too strict it breaks because it doesn't have flexibility.

So I think that Nicodemus was cooking over a slow fire, he was a deep-sea fish, a big fish needed. The seekers, there are people who are not going to be in the temple twenty-four hours a day but are sometimes going to be in positions of governmental, political, intellectual authority and they are going to do many things in favor of the Church. Your ministry is going to be more powerful, more influential and more beneficial than that of ten or twenty ushers or deacons or pastors limited to a circumscribed, to a very small area.

And those people are needed in the White House, they are needed in the Boston City Hall. The Catholic Church, yesterday I met with three Catholic leaders who are going to appear on the internet at some point when you talk to them and they are evangelicals, more evangelicals than me, more evangelicals than me, however Catholics. And I believe they are there, in part, as undercover agents, although I believe they are sincere Catholics, but evangelicals are still needed in Rome, brothers, illuminating those places, and God has strange things.

Listen to me, I am telling you, I am announcing it so that when it appears in the newspaper you will say: oh no, I already read it in the León de Judá newspaper, the time is coming when God is going to unify Rome and Geneva, Geneva and Rome, Evangelicals and Catholics are going to be unified not by anyone but by the Holy Spirit directly, that comes, that comes and listen to it, that is going to be something from God, not from men.

But sometimes people of influence are needed in different places, people who perhaps haven't gotten their evangelical card but in their hearts they already are and you have to leave them, you have to let them simmer but there are times when that People can be useful, they can exert influence in favor of the Church, they can open spaces.

Take, for example, Nicodemus. When spices are needed to anoint the body of the Lord, is there no money? Well, don't worry, I'll write a check, go to the store and ask for everything you need, no problem. When people are gossiping about Jesus in John chapter 7, the Pharisees are plotting Nicodemus says: hey what is this? Before you judge a man, don't you ask him to come and defend himself? it is in the right place exerting influence in the place of influence.

It is one of the things that I see of this man, right? Many of the things it teaches us. But this dialogue of Jesus, right? This man comes at night, that is what the reflection highlights, that he comes at night and with a very imperfect knowledge about Jesus Christ because he says: "Rabbi we know that you have come from God" first mistake. We know that you have come from God. Look brother Jesus not only came from God but he is God and Nicodemus still sees him through his biased eyes like the rich young man, like the Samaritan woman who says to him: look Lord it seems to me that you are a prophet, it is interesting, the woman goes from rabbi to prophet, to Messiah.

And here Nicodemus is still in the stage, that's why Jesus reacts. Do you remember when the rich young man said to him: good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? He was spilling giveaways everywhere when he spoke, good teacher first and the Lord reacts: why do you call me good? Every time the Lord reacts abruptly with someone it is because there is something that he does not like, there is something that has to be corrected.

And it is not that the Lord does not accept everything either, He wanted to take Nicodemus where he had to take him. There are churches that say: oh let's be welcoming, let's be affirming. No I wanna be welcoming and affirm to hit him in the head at some point because there are people who stay only in: let's welcome, let's affirm people with their problems and with their ties but no, you have to attract people and then remove the restraints. If you leave them in their ties all the time and bless them, forget it, like the monkey, even if it is dressed in silk, the monkey stays, sin is sin even if you welcome it and affirm it, whatever you want.

We don't have to bring people but then we have to disciple them, we have to correct them, we have to confront them. You have to open the door for them to come, sit down, listen, you have to give them time, talk to them about everything, but there is a plan, there is a vision and it is sanctification, it is the surrender of one's being, it is the recognition of Jesus' dominion over sexuality. , about money, about culture, about all these things. In the end, He is the Lord and in the end what matters is that every head bow before the Lordship of Christ, every knee and every tongue confess, every principality, every power, every thought, every system, every cultural movement. , every institution bow before the greatness and Lordship of Jesus Christ. Now we are going to open the door for you to come and expose yourself to the radioactivity of the Kingdom and of the spirit.

Then the Lord begins, he welcomes him, he knows which foot he is limping on, and from the moment the man opens his mouth he is already saying a number of nonsense. It seems respectful: Rabbi we know that you come from God, as a teacher. The Lord was not a teacher, he did not come just to be a teacher. If the Lord were a teacher we would have put him in the rank of Confucius and Buddha and other spiritual teachers of humanity, the Dalai Lama was a great teacher. No, what distinguishes Jesus Christ is what He is. God himself, Son of God, Lord of lords, King of kings, God of gods. Power, baptize with fire. It is not simply a ritual institution. John says: I baptize with water but someone comes who baptizes with fire from the Spirit.

So the Lord incarnated the power of God, we saw him with this woman with the issue of blood who approaches and touching it is like touching a high voltage electricity cable and power comes out of Jesus and runs through her and heals her, energy from Jesus goes directly. He did not have to go to a doctor to be told: look, where do you want Me to act? no, you know there in that flow of blood, it instantly dries it up because that's the power of God, that's the power that was in Christ. Christ is power, I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God.

Paul says: the Gospel does not consist in words but in power. Jesus was power, not words, not merely teaching. The Gospel is an exalted system of truths but it is much more than that. Then: "We know that you come from God as a teacher because no one can do those signs that you do if God is not with him." In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. It is not enough to tell Jesus: God is with you. The Lord has to disassemble and decode and deconstruct that statement by Nicodemus because it is a statement that reveals the fact that he has not had a true frontal encounter with the Lordship and deity of Jesus Christ.

And ultimately, brothers, that is the only thing that satisfies the divine bloodhound that smells heresies from the moment they come out of the intimate. It is a total surrender, an acknowledgment of lordship, a pouring out and melting before the greatness of Christ Jesus, it is the only thing. So Nicodemus is like a soft-boiled egg, he still has a long way to go, he's cru'ito and he already does it, he reveals it with his confession. And that is why the Lord, he does not know this being that is there, he does not know who he truly is. He is into arithmetic and Christ wants to take him to subatomic physics and so He confronts him and stops him cold.

He tells him: look Nicodemo, stop nonsense, I would say another word that should not be used here in this one, the Dominicans who perhaps speak it say it. It says, "Jesus answered and said to him: Truly, truly, I tell you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." Boom, the bullet hits him right in the forehead.

Look how abrupt the Lord is. He doesn't say: oh thank you Nicodemus how good, how courteous you are. He tells him: no, stop fooling around and let's get down to business. This is not going to be resolved with a respectful dialogue between two theologians, I representing one theological system and you another, and then we are going to do theological fencing here, no. You know too much and you're too old to come up with that. If you are not born again you cannot see the Kingdom of God, period, right? It took his breath away by then going back and walking the path forward again.

Brothers: the Gospel is that and time fails me but we have to understand, each one of us here. God is speaking to me clearly, that's why I tell you I learn a lot through these teachings. One of the things that God emphasizes to me so much, so much, is that we have to talk to people about the new birth, about what conversion is, about what a 180-degree turn is, which is the Gospel. The Church is full of people who believe that exposing themselves to the evangelical air is somehow going to make them evangelical. This is not a matter of you exposing yourself to an atmosphere, it is a matter of taking Christ in and exploding within you, undoing and reconfiguring you.

It is a radical sanctification, it is a surrender of being. God wants a Church, God is calling for an unrebuilt Church because when you rebuild you use the existing parts, no. He wants a Church melted down and redone, he wants men and women sold and totally delivered to the Kingdom of God. God is calling us to a total consecration of our being.

There are many of us who come to Church and punch out the card, and we believe that we have already adored, we believe that we already know Christ, we believe that God is already in us and with us. Brother God is calling this Church and His Church in general to a reconstitution of being. God is calling you to die, to surrender everything to the Lord. All your loves, your affections, your dreams, your illusions. Everything that you love the most God tells you: give it to me, give it to me as he told the rich young man. Give me everything that you love the most, God wants people who are brothers with a fire within them passionate for Christ. That people see them and say: look, there goes a crazy evangelical.

People truly sold to the Kingdom of God. I don't mean just walking around with a long skirt and stubbled legs, I don't mean something deeper because again it's the heart, it's the heart brothers. Is that you look at the driving force, the driving force that animates you, okay? the very essence of your being and that it has the seal that says: Jesus there, that you have nothing that you say: this is mine and this is for the Kingdom, but everything that you are, everything that you have , all that you can become is of Christ. You have a seal on your forehead that says: property of the Kingdom of God and what God asks you give it to him and you don't ask questions, what the Kingdom asks you give it to him and you don't ask questions except: Lord, what You want?. If God tells you: jump, you say ok, how high and how long do I have to be in the air? you don't ask him why or anything, no. You are a slave of Jesus Christ.

It is what Paul says: idols, slave. We soften it to be politically correct, we say serf. No, he's a slave. You do not have your own identity, you do not command yourself, you do not decide if you are going to be in one city tomorrow or another day, you are a robot, no, I am not going to say that word because God does not it takes away neither your identity nor your individuality but you have gladly, joyfully, voluntarily handed over the keys to the safe of your life, how nice that came out, write it down for me there so I don't forget it. You have given the Lord the keys to the most intimate part of your being and you have recognized that He is your Lord.

The way you dress, the way you talk, the way you think, the way you entertain yourself, the way you treat your husband or your wife, the vocabulary you use. You are a clown of Jesus Christ and you live for Him and for Him and you don't care what people think of you. The Lord will not be content with less than that, reminds the rich young ruler again. Take everything you have, sell it and give it to the poor and then come and follow me, and he couldn't because he had too much.

Evangelicals from León de Judá looking at their Pastor, God is calling us to a radical commitment to the Kingdom of God, a total surrender. We don't want convenience evangelicals. Well, if you are a seeker, stay there but you know that the goal is that and the call of God is still, in the end you have to end up like Nicodemus, I hope it ended and it seems that it ended up getting you closer and closer to Jesus, identifying yourself with His death which is what he did in the end. You have to be like that, it is what God requires of you, okay?

If Nicodemus teaches us something out of many things, I think that the next time I preach we are going to talk a little more about this implication of Nicodemus: what does it mean to be born again? And we have to invite people to that commitment, to that total dedication of their lives.

We are not going to sell a cheap Gospel, on the contrary we are going to sell a very expensive Gospel, incredibly free but expensive. Free because when you enter it it's free but when you enter it you don't leave a site without touching it and writing, putting your banner on it. The Lord wants the totality of your being like Nicodemus, it is not enough to come to Church on a Sunday. That is why I believe that the Lord is making the Gospel irrespectable at this time because wherever the Evangelical becomes respectable and culturally acceptable comes the spiritual death of the Church, comes decay. Only where there is martyrdom, where it is ridiculous to be a Christian, where it is scandalous to be a Christian, is there that the power of God is manifested.

And in this time God wants people like that, martyrs who don't care that the world laughs at us and that we say strange and counterintuitive and countercultural things. We are going to have to tell people: do you want to come to Christ? Come with us, we are going to die together with Him so that He can then resurrect us and give us eternal life.

How many of us have some of Nicodemus still within us? I have to raise my hand, look here the principal of the synagogue but there are things that I still have to deliver to the Lord, I'm in the process. I'm not welcoming and affirming myself, I know what I need to let go of, there's a lot of stuff that I don't wanna say welcome to, I wanna say get the hell out of here excuse me (laughs) yeah get the hell out of me, hell is exactly where it needs to go out of us.

No, we have to deliver many things to the Lord and let's not be calm. I invite you to analyze your heart, lower your head for a moment, we are going to die together. Come on brother we are going to have a big party and we are going to die together, we are going to let the Lord kill us. We are not going to say that we are going to commit suicide because that does not sound good but we are going to die together, give your life right now to the Lord.

Tell him: Lord, forgive me for being cheap with you, mean with you. I have put up with a number of secret possessions. Like Ananias and Zafira, I told you that I had given you everything, but no, I still had one piece of property, several properties. Today I give it to you Lord, I give you all my being. My appetites, intellect, mental life, illusions, loves, business, self-image I give it to you, I give it to you Lord. Begin with me up here on this platform, kill me and remake me, take away everything that is not of You, Lord, we give it to You, allow this Church to have the privilege of dying for You and being reconstituted into a new creature, a new being, to be born from of the water of the Lord Spirit through a chemistry that only You can create.

Have mercy, we cannot do it, but You can do it. You, Lord, can recreate us, reconstitute us, and we recognize Your Lordship. Father León de Judá belongs to you in the atoms that constitute its chairs and its members, its vision belongs to You Son of God, Lord of lords. Have Your way in us and through us Lord, kill us then give us life again and then use us and live through us. Help us to die Father, do not let us cheapen the Gospel, do not let us reduce this sublime Gospel that You have given us, Lord.

We renounce every impulse to falsify a single letter of Your Truth, rather we pour ourselves out in surrender before You Lord Jesus. Take control of our lives and help us to die like the grain of wheat in order to bear fruit. This Church, Lord, is dying of desire for You and for You, like Mary, to take our closed womb and open it so that the life of God can be born through us, Lord. Stand on us and give us life Lord and make us new in You Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus.

Brothers, I want to invite if there is someone who has not yet given their life to Jesus, open a moment now to give our lives to the Lord. If someone feels in your heart that God is calling you, God is calling you and you want to give your life to Christ. Please sit down for a moment, don't start moving because people start moving and then it takes away your concentration. Stay quiet for a moment please.

If someone has not given their life to Christ yet, I want to invite you now to take a step of faith and place your hand in the hand of Jesus Christ. Is there someone who has not done so yet and wants to take that step, and say: Lord, I want to be born? back in Christ and you haven't done it before? If you want to do it now, raise your hand, we want to pray for you. Will there be someone who does not want to leave here without taking that step of faith? wherever you are we open this moment for any Nicodemus that may be among us.

Haven't you done it before and want to do it now? we invite. The Lord invites himself to your table and invites you to tell him: come Lord Jesus and come into my life, I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Is there someone who hasn't done it before who wants to do it now? amen, amen

Father we give you our being, we give you our lives, we bless you Lord. Help us to be Father what You want us to be. Thank you Lord because you have a beautiful table prepared before us and we already anticipate it. We praise and glorify Your Name, thank you for Your mercy, Your compassion and Your great love Father send us off with the blessing of Your Spirit in Jesus Name, amen and amen. God bless you my brothers, God bless you.