An X-ray of the human heart

Gospel according to Saint Matthew chapter 13. I want to talk about an x-ray of the human heart, an x-ray of the human heart and specifically regarding our reaction to the Word of God and the Gospel.

Chapter 13 that familiar parable, the parable of the sower and the seed. It says that: "That day" verse 1 "Jesus left the house and sat down by the sea. And many people gathered around him, and he got into the boat and sat down and all the people were on the beach."

"And he spoke many things to them in parables, saying: Behold, the sower went out to sow, and while he was sowing, some of the seed fell by the wayside, and the birds came and ate it." First scene, first scenario let's say. Second, it says: "Part fell on stony places where there was not much soil and the seed sprouted soon because it had no depth of soil." It says: "But when the sun came up it was burned and because it had no root it withered up" that is the negative result.

The third says: "The seed that fell among thorns" part fell among thorns verse 7 "And the thorns grew and choked it" fourth seed; "But part of it fell on good ground and gave fruit, which by a hundred, which by sixty, and which by thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Bless the Lord His Holy Word, amen.

We see here the Lord Jesus speaking in parables and it was possibly one of the first times that He used that artifice for which He is so well known of using images and using symbolic stories to express certain deep spiritual truths, truths of the Gospel, of the spiritual life. . And here we see that the Lord is talking about what happens with the proclamation of the Gospel and what are the secret elements that determine the success or not of preaching or evangelistic action. And we see here that there are many factors, there are different factors that sometimes we don't take into account that are sometimes the ones that determine what happens.

It is mysterious, the truth is that it is mysterious. When a person comes forward and accepts Christ as Lord and Savior, he gives his life, whatever we want to call it behind the scenes, behind that moment there are thousands of factors, perhaps even millions of circumstances, not only in the life of that person, not only at that moment but even in generations that perhaps led to that moment. Secret intercessions, experiences that the person has had, divine and diabolical interventions; Culture, a number of different elements that intervene for a person to come forward and receive the Lord or not, is something very mysterious.

And we cannot be aware of all the things that happen, but here the Lord takes a moment to point out a little behind the curtains, many of the things that happen in the proclamation of the Gospel. Not only in that but also I would say that in the very life of each believer and the result if it bears much fruit, if it does not bear fruit and to what extent it bears fruit etc, all these things are portrayed here like this in a capsule way.

And the Lord points out four destinies of the same seed. Note that it is interesting that the seed does not change, the seed is the same; the seed has everything it needs to bear fruit. The problem is not the seed, it is not even a question of various seeds with different internal constitutions or anything like that, it is a single seed. What is the seed? The Gospel, the Word of God, the truths of the Gospel, the mysteries of the Gospel. That does not change, it is the same in all circumstances. Christ is the same yesterday today and forever.

Christ heals, Christ saves, Christ baptizes, Christ is coming soon, that does not change and we cannot change the seed either. It is not up to us to change the content of the seed, that is from God; the sower does not reconfigure the seeds, the sower does not change the genetic composition of the seeds, the sower simply obeys the internal dynamics and the natural constitution of the seed. What he does is he operates within the laws of nature that have been established, it can play a little bit but the laws are.

When you graft and create other species of flowers, other types of bushes or whatever, you don't violate the law of nature, what you do is you find out what the laws are and you learn to work creatively within those laws. laws but the laws are not violated, the seed is the seed. And so what is happening here is that a single seed that is the Word of God, which is sown by someone who is called The Sower, who is the sower? you, me, the Church of Jesus Christ.

We are sowers. The sower simply obeys within a context that has been given to him. The sower wants life, he wants fruit and so he does what he was told to do, what nature requires. To have fruit you have to sow, to have fruit you have to work the land, to have fruit you have to be patient, to have fruit you have to have vision, to have fruit you have to have persistence, to have fruit you have to overcome storms and droughts and pests and sow again if it did not bear fruit the first time. It is a long term issue.

And the Church of Christ that is what it does, continually sows the Word and I believe that we are sowers. And I think one of the things this passage reminds me of is that there are things out of our control. We cannot control the heart of man, we cannot control the culture in which we were born to preach the Gospel. We cannot control God's hour in hearts or the mysteries of how God interacts with people. Our part is to be obedient and sow.

As that beautiful hymn says: I will sow, I will sow and I will leave the result to the Lord. The apostle Paul also said: I sowed, Apollos watered but growth is given by God. We have to be obedient; God has put us on Earth to sow the Word and we have to sow the Word brother wherever we are placed, we are eternal, constant, tireless sowers. We have to sow in our jobs.

Someone was talking to me the other days about a person he talked to about Jesus Christ, I don't remember who the person was, he was telling me this week I think it was, he spoke to someone on VJ's, he overheard a conversation I think it was Sister Fanny ; she heard two people, two friends, who met at VJ's, that store where so many things are sold, and she was there in an area where they were serving as many things as they sometimes do in these places.

So listen to this conversation between these two men where one says: wow, I haven't seen you in so long! and the other says: yes, I lost my wife recently and I am very sad, I have been very depressed and I am struggling with it, and then the other comforted him, greeted him, talked for a while and then said goodbye and Fanny was there with ear on, planter. We are sowers and we have to look at the opportunities, we have to look at the circumstances.

I believe that one has to create a conscience as a sower. If you do not see yourself as a person who has been called to preach the Word many times, certain situations will pass you by and you will not hear the voice of God saying: hey, go and sow, this is the moment like Philip saying: come closer to that car, because there is a need; everything is set, the stage is set just light the fuse and the fire is lit, just light the fuse and she will do what she has to do.

So Fanny was there as she listened, hesitating, when the man left, the partner left, the other stayed there, the widower, and she says: what do I do, do I talk to him? He's going to think I was fighting, maybe it's something very private I shouldn't talk to him but you know what? she said nothing, in the name of the Lord she was encouraged. He told the man: wow I couldn't stop listening to what he was saying how sorry I am, then the man opened up; instead of being closed and surly and harsh, he spoke to her, opened her heart and told her: yes, I lost my wife recently, I feel very bad and I'm sad.

Look, she was bold enough to, this English-speaking person, double jeopardy, she is an English-speaker, she is Latina, we are a mostly Latino Church, but she dared to tell her: look, in our Church we have a mourning group, it is a group of brothers, something that was born like that, very spontaneous. here in our Congregation, people who have experienced losses in their lives of different kinds, among them the loss of loved ones, and they meet periodically, the group has been going on for several years; Sister Marina started it a while ago and it has always been gathering and people who have had losses of different kinds come, they meet, have a coffee, talk, pray, etc.

And she told him: look, we have this group in our Church, don't worry, we can translate for you, we'll do something. The case was that the man said: of course I need to talk, I need to open up to someone because this is very heavy for me. And the man came and accepted the Lord there in the meeting. And not only that, but he's visiting the English service down there, he's coming regularly (applause).

So I believe this idea, right? that we are sowers and what the sower does is sow, the Lord made it very specific; He's not even a farmer, a farmer in general, he's not a sower, that's what He does. And the Word of the Lord is very clear, the modus vivendi, the reason for being of the Church and of the Christian is to inseminate this world with the Word of Christ, the values of the Kingdom of God, for that we live and for that we are. The only purpose of your life brother in the light of eternity and what God has destined for you is to be useful for the Kingdom of God there is nothing else, nothing else justifies your existence except that you are an instrument in the hands of the Lord and that you help other people to know that Christ and enter into that sublime destiny of an eternal communion with the Father through Jesus Christ.

And I believe that there is no greater calling than that and there is no greater task than that and we have to put everything else aside for that to become a reality in our lives. May the Lord form each day more and more of our Congregation a sowing Church, a Church that always the Gospel and that as Paul says: I have filled everything; I no longer have anything, I have no more place to go because I have already leavened everything with the dough of the Kingdom of God, with the yeast of the Kingdom of God and that is what we have to do.

There is a path, here there is a field, there is fertile ground. This is a fertile time for the proclamation of the Gospel, of the unchanged and unchangeable seed of the Gospel, and if we sow the seed, the seed will do what it has to do, I assure you; the Lord will take care of it, the problem is no longer ours, the problem then is already the seed, the land where it falls and the spiritual dynamics that is out of our control. We just talk to people and let the Lord take care of the rest, okay? That's important in this image.

So I think that another thing that comes out of this very important passage is that there is an element that is out of our control, there are several here. One of them is the person himself who receives the Word and where is that person, in his internal condition at that moment. When we preach the Gospel people are at different stages and different states of receptivity. Some you just throw the seed and like magic it sprouts immediately because they were absolutely fertile and prepared soil, others the seed bounces like a basketball because the person is not prepared and we will see that in a moment.

But there are things that we cannot control and that we cannot make the mistake of wanting to play with the seed or kill ourselves too much so that the seed sprouts in some way and force things. I have learned as a Pastor that I cannot agonize too much either for things that are sometimes out of our control. In the life of a Church the Gospel is proclaimed, many people are converted, they come forward in the course of a year; Many visitors come, people come and hear the Word and are offended, others react lukewarmly, others with great enthusiasm, some stay for a while and disappear permanently, others leave, come back. That is the dynamic of the life of the Church, brothers.

We have no control, we must do everything possible, everything on our part, yes, to retain people, to anchor them in the Word of God, to convince them of the Gospel, but you know what? there is a part in which you can no longer squeeze more than necessary for that person to accept Jesus Christ. And I believe that the Church sometimes in these times, as I shared with the brothers in this speech that I gave, we are in a culture that can sometimes be very skeptical and resistant to the Word of the Lord and the tendency of the Church can be: ok so we are going to change the seed, we are going to play with the seed so that the soil then interacts better with the seed.

And so we began to download the Gospel, we began to accommodate the Gospel to the people. We dye our hair like a woman who is not sure if she is pretty or not, we change our hair after next week we are redheads, next week we are blonde, the other week we are black hair, we men grow our hair mustache, we cut our beards, we lose weight, we go to the gym, we change our trousseau trying to please people and nothing works out because there is something internal many times, depending on how you are on the inside, that's how your beauty will be, that's how it will be your attraction; If you are sure, sure of yourself, that will communicate something.

If you are insecure forget it, the more you try the more insecure you become and the less attractive you become. And I think that also happens with us, right? I believe that we have to be sure of who we have believed in, sure of the sublime Gospel that we have, sure that the world needs what God has given us. And yes we are going to do everything possible to love people and give them in ways that they can receive but there is a time when as the Lord Jesus Christ says: we are not going to throw our pearls to swine.

Once we have proclaimed the Word with love, with gentleness and with goodness and transparency, then we step aside and let the Lord do the work. Nor can we force people more than necessary. There are times when we make ourselves impossible for our family and our friends. We know Christ and we are preaching to people and trying to shove Christ down their throats whether they want to or not and at all hours and making them feel bad and sometimes what they do is they hate us and when they see us they run because they already comes.

I believe that we have to preach the Gospel insistently, as the Word says: in season and out of season, but not compulsively, right? We have to do it wisely, intelligently, knowing when to speak and when to be silent. When can we expect the same person to hang himself by his own rope and then come to us and say: listen to me, what did you tell me three years ago about the Gospel? And I believe that we have to mix that subtle combination of being solicitous but also at the same time being confident and knowing that what we have is something sublime and preaching the Gospel with confidence, that the product that we have to offer is something incomparable.

And if you want to receive glory to God, I am going to rejoice with you, I am going to celebrate and even if you do not want to receive it, I am going to play a little louder, but I am not going to be begging you to receive something that is for your blessing and that is something sublime. The Lord Christ said: do not throw your pearls to pigs. I always see that mixture in Jesus: solicitous, loving; He came into the world, stripped himself of His Glory, suffered the unspeakable, suffered great things so that people could be saved, but I never see Him begging people or crying for them to accept Him. I see that dignity with which He always speaks, that modesty, that self-confidence. Solicitous but also sure in what He has.

I believe that if our Church cultivates that security then we can do the job. A lot of people are going to come to our Church; I have stopped suffering because hundreds of people come and not all of them stay. The preaching of the Gospel is like that, it is mysterious. We sow, sow, sow and leave the result to the Lord. Perhaps that life that came here on Sunday and then spent six months here and then disappeared returns again at some point or goes to another Church and there they bless it and continue to build it or it goes to another country and years later the seed sprouts .

I have seen how marvelous, it is an ecology that we do not have total control of. Our part is just to do God's work to the best of our ability and then let the different dynamics, the devil and the angels and God and circumstances and people's hearts do their work there, have their chemistry and then give it what they want. that God wants it to happen. We have to be like the Church, we are not going to change the Word, we are going to misrepresent the Gospel and neither are we going to continually overexert ourselves and compulsively criticize ourselves because we do not have ten thousand people or because many come, let us do everything we can but then let the result to the Lord.

I see that here because the sower sows and then there are other things that intervene when he sows. So there are three, four kinds of different seeds; different hearts, different sensibilities, different psychologies that interact with the Word, with the message that that sower, that evangelist is proclaiming.

It says that: "The first seed fell by the road and the birds came and ate it." And the Lord then explains to the disciples that they are not used to this modality of teaching and says: What does that mean? So in verse 18 later in that same chapter He tells them the meaning of that first seed that falls by the wayside. It says: "When one hears the Word of the Kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This was the one who was sown by the road."

So that seed that falls along the road is a symbol of the person who listens to the Gospel, does not understand it and then since the Gospel is not grasped then the devil has the power to come, the evil one is the devil, Satan. Look how interesting Christ tasted good; Satan was not a metaphor nor was he a blind principle, he is a being that has a will, a purpose and a sense of intelligence and that he has a strategy and that his desire is that people do not know Jesus Christ. That is the main work of evil in the world, it is to misrepresent and subvert and prevent the Gospel from progressing and that the Word of the Lord finds a foothold in the hearts of the people so that the Word can save them.

Satan is committed to ensuring that nations, communities, individuals, and families do not heal and do not listen to the Gospel, do not retain the Word. When we sow the Word, when the Church moves in the world, it has to understand that we are at war for every soul and that there is an enemy that does not want souls to be saved and healed. We have to understand that we sow in a hostile world; the prince of this world says: "He has blinded their understanding so that the light of the Gospel does not shine on them."

There are people who are lost because the devil is sworn to death to prevent people from being saved. The devil does not want cultures to be saved, nations to be saved, and we preach in that context, which is why we have to put on the full armor of God. Churches that want to be spiritually effective at this time evangelistically, spiritually have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Churches skilled in handling the weapons of the Spirit, churches that know the dynamics of spiritual warfare.

Intercessory churches, churches that pray, churches that cry out to the Lord. Churches of people who have died themselves and who know what it is to fight the devil hand to hand and with the flesh and with the world and who can then preach the Gospel from a perspective: we know the mysteries, we know that this is war against broken arm with the forces of evil.

The Gospel is not preached in neutral terms. The Kingdom of Heaven says: "it becomes strong" means that it advances by force. The Gospel does not advance neutrally like a ship in a placid sea; It advances against the wind of culture and the wind of man and the wind of the devil. And so we have to know that to live lives of prayer, to pray to the Lord and struggle for souls to be released.

A sister spoke to me yesterday about her struggle with her husband, who seems to be hard on the Gospel, he doesn't even believe in God and he enjoys squeezing him in the face that he doesn't believe in God. A good man seems but and that disenchants her. I say: sister, the only thing you can do is cry out to God for your soul, pray, intercede for God. Don't fight him because that obviously isn't going to work; Give it to the Lord, give it to the divine hound and God will chase it and soften it there, that seed will have to be thrown like beans, two, three days there so that it softens with fire and water.

Sometimes we have to give people the divine bloodhound so that it jumps behind them and chases them and makes them go through a few scares to see if that's the case, and even sometimes not even like that sometimes. Then the evil one comes and snatches away, we have to preach the Gospel in a militant and ferocious way and snatch souls away from the devil, and know that sometimes we have to pray, cry out and sometimes it is more: when we are preaching stronger we have to be in the Spirit because the devil is going to throw himself behind us also to neutralize us, to destroy us.

But it is also interesting that there is a protagonist, there is a very strong behind-the-scenes actor in the proclamation of the Gospel that is Satan and the forces of hell and we have to understand that to proclaim the Gospel in an effective way.

The other thing that he says about this person is that he did not understand, he says: "He hears the Gospel and he does not understand it" and that is what makes that person easy prey for Satan's work. What does it mean not to understand the Gospel? For me I believe that not understanding it means well, firstly at a purely cognitive level it means that the truth of the Gospel does not shine. He does not understand the mysteries, the paradoxes, the contradictions, the subtlety of the Gospel because it is a very subtle thing and it cannot be understood with the mind, it cannot be understood with the brain, neither through culture nor intellectual schemes. You have to breathe, let your guard down and let the Word penetrate our hearts like a child. It is not understood through the mind.

If you are fighting: ah, who did Cain marry after he killed Abel and how did he later have children if it was only him and his brother Abel? What if there are flying saucers and if the Martians on Jupiter are going to be saved, if there are other planets and there are people on others, and why are there hypocrites in the church and why didn't they visit you. Look, if you don't, you will never understand the Gospel, you will never receive it because there will always be hypocritical people, maybe you yourself will be one of those one day and there will always be imperfections in the Church, and there will always be There may be something that we are not going to be able to explain, be it the theory of evolution or how the world was finally created in detail, there are a thousand ways and we are not going to understand it.

We have to become like children. The Word says that if we do not become like children we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So don't try to understand the Gospel because you will never understand it or through arguments either because none of them will satisfy you.

I think that another thing that he does not understand the Gospel, this also means that he does not understand the importance of what he is preaching to him, he does not recognize the sublime, the deep and the beautiful and the important that the Gospel is. People often do not understand that they are talking about their eternal destiny; where will they spend eternity, if they will go to heaven or hell. If they are going to be with God or with each other.

And I believe that we have to make them understand that, is that this is your eternal destiny, this is going to determine where you are going. Human life and the time you spend in this world is an infinitesimally small dot compared to that endless expanse that is eternal life and what you decide here regarding Jesus Christ will determine where you are going to be for ever and ever. centuries of centuries multiplied ad infinitum. So I think these people don't understand; There are many people who when you talk to them about the Gospel believe that you are simply talking about another piece of fruit in the market of religions or philosophies.

Another thing but the Gospel is infinitely important and Christ is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him. It is the most important thing, the most important decision that you can make and I hope that you can. understand and that you give importance to it and that you consider it. But there are many people who are so worried about so many different things and do not understand how important this decision is, it should not be left to the last minute because you do not know when your moment will come and you have to do it at that moment.

There's one other thing before we go on about this. We talked about God's action in the proclamation of the Gospel, pardon the devil, but what about God's action? which is something that we cannot control either and it is something that I put there as a dot almost as an extra, an asterisk. Do you know that God is also involved sometimes in a neutral or positive way in the proclamation of the Gospel? There are people for whom God has purposes in the Gospel and for some mysterious reason God chooses them from the foundation of the world and God is going to save them and have dealings with them, and He is going to mobilize all the forces of His Kingdom for that people come to the knowledge of Him and receive Christ as Lord and Savior and be saved.

As in the case of Philip there, the eunuch God wanted to use him and mobilized all His Power so that Philip had an encounter with Him. The Lord had the Samaritan woman there, made an appointment with her, spoke to her, treated her and led her to His ways. . But there are people with whom God may not have plans too, did you know that? That is one of the mysteries. There are people for whom I don't know why, but I believe that in the Word it is clear that there are people with whom God chooses many times, and there are people with whom God simply has not activated His Saint. Ultimately He is the sovereign in any case, no one comes to Christ but because the Lord brings him.

But it's also like there are people with whom God has no dealings. I have met people and perhaps what also happens is that it is not the time for them, perhaps later but there are people who are clumsy for the Gospel. It's like throwing a coin into a deep well and it's so deep that the coin keeps traveling, traveling and it's so deep that you don't even hear it fall to the bottom. There are people who are a black hole and the Gospel just doesn't resonate with them. I think it's partly because God may not have plans for those people.

But you know what? I think another thing about that is that I believe that yes in the mysteries of sovereignty and human freedom we can pray for people to activate and to put them on God's agenda so to speak. I believe that our prayers and our intercession can activate God's grace in favor of people and can put them in God's sight and then we can intercede.

Sometimes I am driving and I see someone on the road and I feel like God is saying to me: Pray for that person. It is that God needs things to be done for Him here on Earth and then He needs to do them there in heaven. And the mysteries of the authority of the Church are incredible. And sometimes God needs you to pray so that, for example, workers come to His harvest. Well, if God knows that workers are needed for the harvest, why do we have to pray for them to come, why doesn't He just activate them?

It is that God needs action among His people because God is a very ordered God and so we must also pray for the people so that the Lord brings them to the knowledge of Him, so that the iron helmet that covers their understanding is removed, so that God activates His Power and they are healed and come to the knowledge of the Lord and understand the importance of the Gospel.

In any case, it is important that we understand that there are people who will not understand all this and then the enemy will have a free field to do damage. Another thing here, I believe that this parable has two levels. One level is that of the people, the unconverted, but another level is also us. I believe that there are people that God does not use more in the Christian life because they do not understand the importance of the Gospel, they do not give importance to it and so they do not do everything they have to do to work in the Lord's vineyard and to know how important it is. it is their action, and to understand the matter of life and death which is the service to the Lord and advance the interests of the Kingdom of God.

They are not possessed by that urgency of their position and their identity and then the enemy also snatches away their good intentions, the calls that are given in the Church, the invitations to be a servant of the Lord, to work hard for the Gospel and the devil then it takes all that away from them and they go away and forget about it. How interesting that this seed is next to the path where the sway of life comes and the run-run all this, that is separate.

Segundo says that apart from the seed it fell on stony places where there was not much soil and it sprouted soon. Ironically, there is a type of people who receives the Gospel and since they are changeable people and soulful people, how do you say it in English? They are people who are in a place today and change their mood, temperament and conviction rapidly. Fickle who said that to give you a round of applause? oh fickle, hey sister how good that is Colombian vocabulary, fickle exactly.

And so those are people who change so quickly. One day they are Hare Krishna and another day they are Buddhist or Adventist or whatever. For them, you know, everything is possible and the good Gospel is fine. They try it for a while but then they leave it, they are not long-term people and they do not stick to the commitments they make. Then the Lord says here that this type of person says: "It does not have a root in itself but rather of a short duration, because when affliction or persecution comes, the stones, the stony places are symbols of affliction and persecution."

This seed sprouts quickly because the earth is flat and then it is in contact with the heat of that stone and the heat of the stone and the stones around it and since it does not have much root to go to, the process speeds up and sprouts immediately. That is why I like when people take time to consider the Gospel, they are solid people many times and when they convert they are firm. Sometimes a lot of the work is because people have a purpose and want them to go deep so that when they sprout, they sprout with force.

But paradoxically here these people receive the Gospel and they think, wow: the Gospel is a bed of roses, everything is going to be fine for me. These people who invited me to church stuck a button on me here when I arrived with flowers, they introduced me and told me to stand up, they called me when I didn't go to church the next Sunday and when I arrived the Pastor jumped running to give me a hug. But the days go by and the Pastor tells me: hello sister God bless you and keep walking or they didn't call me. Or the problems come.

Do you know that when many people come to Christ then the devil turns against them, he throws himself away? And sometimes they have difficulties and problems and struggles. I have spoken many times with the brothers so I say: wow gosh it seems that they did worse before knowing Christ than before but I admire their determination, I admire the fact that they remain and do not give up and continue to love God . I tell you: brother, persist there until the storm passes, arm yourself with the full armor of God, do not deny your God and stand firm because the Lord one day will make that storm go away and a time of refreshment and blessing will come for your life but don't worry. That the devil wants that, that you turn your back on him and run away.

He knows that sometimes we come to the Kingdom of God through afflictions and difficulties and struggles. The Gospel is not easy, you cannot offer people to come to Christ and everything will go well for you; you will not have problems, you will not get sick, your wife will love you more, your children will be a paragon of virtues. Is it mystery? there is no fight. What we acquire is, God does not change the world, he changes us and gives us power and weapons to overcome and persist and move on, but the Gospel is difficult and is accompanied by many tribulations. And sometimes many tests will come to strengthen us.

Because our scale of values is no longer how much money I have and how many clothes I have in the closet and how much delicate food I can eat, but God's values now are to produce a man, a woman who reflects the character of Christ and sometimes that goes to require arduous training, the training of the soldier, of the athlete. Character. Character becomes more important than food or money and then God's intention is going to be to make a man, a woman who is like Christ and then that is going to cause trials and struggles to temper you, to train you and also the enemy will to want to destroy you and you have to know that this is not what legitimizes or gives its veracity to the Gospel, that God can use all things as the apostle Paul says for good in your life.

Be it trials, be it difficulties He will use it to bless you but don't turn away from the Gospel just because you are having a hard time. Persist, stay This refers both to the new ones who don't know but also to us. Let us not be short-lived in our service, in the Church and in our service to the Lord, in our firmness, in the things in which we commit ourselves. Let's be people that our yes is yes and our no is no. If you put your hands on the plow keep it there; committed to a ministry, don't leave simply because people didn't come the day you called for a meeting.

Keep going, keep persisting in what God gave you, be faithful to what God called you and don't worry simply because one day or another isn't going well for you. No? If God called you, keep going. And if God called you, don't leave simply because things go wrong, continue because God will ultimately give you victory.

The third seed is the seed that fell among thorns. It says: "The thorns grew up and choked her." Then the Lord explains what that seed is, he says: "The one who was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the Word, but the care of this century and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word and it becomes fruitless, it bears no fruit." ." So who is that person? You are the person who hears the Gospel but there are a number of things that compete with your ability to accept what is being said.

That person loves the world more than God. He loves the history in which he is inserted more than the eternity to which God calls him. He loves the indulgence of a moment and the pleasure of a moment more than the inconceivable pleasure of an eternal life with Christ that he cannot see right now, cannot even imagine. A coarse, superficial and vain person; lives in the vanity of vanities. And what matters to him is the latest dress to come out in Cosmopolitan or the latest movie or the latest song one of these singers released or the latest technological toy to come out, the latest game. They are so into the world, so absorbed in the things of the world. He is the businessman who knows that he is doing things that he should not and if he enters the Gospel he will have to leave those things but he is capable of selling his soul to the devil instead of leaving those things that he knows prevent him from entering the Gospel .

It is the person who knows that he is in an improper relationship or does something that he knows is not pleasing to God but loves that much more than the salvation of his soul. There are so many people today who create whole apologetic systems to explain and justify an addictive practice that they're into and they dress it up and garnish it with a whole philosophy and a support system and culture and all the other things, so they say, that's it. what I am, so I am. You can be many different things, because you don't have the courage to put that aside and sell it all to inherit the Kingdom of God.

Brother: no matter what it is that you love, what it is that you love and what it is that catches you, sell it all and give it all away. Lose an eye, a hand, whatever it takes to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Do not love the world or anything in this world more than God's call on your life. Sacrifice whatever is necessary to enter the Kingdom of God. Put aside everything you have to put aside, sell it all. That image of selling everything, of leaving everything; he who does not leave father and mother, brother or sister, son or daughter for Me does not deserve to be My disciple says the Lord.

That is why the Gospel is more difficult, it is because you have to establish a scale of values that is very different from that of the world. You have to examine all the little glass balls that you have in your hands that fascinate you so much and say: what do I do, do I keep them or do I accept the bread of life that is Christ Jesus and leave everything for the incomparable value of knowing Christ as Lord and Savior? And I believe that we also have the same thing at the level of believers. Brother, there is nothing more valuable in this world than being an agent for the advancement of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

What are you doing to advance the Kingdom of God? What is your calling, where is your direct relationship with God between you and Him? What has God called you to do? And are you putting everything else aside for the incomparable pleasure of being used by God and being an instrument in the Lord's hands? What is holding you back?

Thank God there is a fourth seed that we don't have to dwell on too much. I hope that all of us here or the vast majority of us are an example of that short seed. It is the seed that falls on good soil. I hope that all of us are good seed. They are the people who understood the importance of the Gospel. They are the people who did not let the grief or the trials or the vicissitudes of normal life in this sorrow-filled world turn them away from the Gospel. And they are the people who love God more than the appetites of this world and the pleasures of this world and the vanities, and the treacherous offerings of this world and who have lost everything to win Christ.

And I hope that everyone here is a sample of that fourth land, fertile land that bears fruit. Note that it is not land that simply receives the seed, a bush sprouts and that's all. They bear fruit by thirty, by sixty, by a hundredfold. If you have truly received Christ as Lord and Savior, God expects you to bear fruit in some way, in some way that you will be used for the glory of the Lord and the advancement of the Gospel.

Let's lower our heads for a moment brothers and ask ourselves: Where am I on that scale of values? What kind of land am I? At what level am I bearing fruit in my life? Have I received the Word for the first time?

Many people have been sowing; the Pastor preaches in the sermon on Sundays. My friend, my friend who brought me to the Church has told me to accept Christ, to be reconciled with Him, to open my heart for Him to come into my life and I haven't done it yet and I want to be a good land . I want to be open to the Word, I want to understand the importance of the Gospel. Ask the Lord to open your heart, ask the Lord to open your mind right now. Ask the Lord to show you the importance.

The biggest decision you can make in your life is to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior. There is nothing that is going to have a greater impact on your life here by the way; Not only in your eternal life I can think of, but also in the quality of life that you have here on Earth. If you are going to live a superficial and vain life or you are going to live a sublime and deep life managing the most beautiful things that you can imagine. The Word of God, the mysteries of the Gospel. That is what God wants for you and it all begins when you establish yourself in good soil that receives the Word and that Word falls deep in the heart and takes root for eternal life.

I want to invite if there is someone here who has not yet taken that step of inviting Jesus into their heart to do so at this moment, I want to invite them. Is there anyone who wants to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior who has not done so before and wants to step out in faith? And say: Lord, I am good land, I receive you, your seed enters deep into my life, I give you my seed, I give you my heart. Will there be someone? raise your hand we want to pray for you brother or sister where you want you to be is there anyone who hasn't done it yet? If you have come at some point and have not yet given your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, we want to pray for you, raise your hand.

There are two people there, two brothers raising their hands, anyone else? We want to pray for you brothers, do not miss the opportunity to do so. Would any of the brothers, the ushers, want to accompany that sister? Come over here, come here for a little while, we want to pray for you or stand up so it's okay right where you are, don't worry, we understand very well, stand up there and we'll just pray for you. Don't worry, it's okay as you want. What is important is that in the heart there is an opening to the Lord.

Never let that come to the fore or not, tell the Lord, don't worry, God knows how that is treated in your heart, but there does have to be an internal movement in some way for that chemistry to occur there, for let us confess to the Lord actively. Will there be someone else? We open that moment for one more moment for someone else who needs prayer to place you in the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ and then you can continue on your way, then very safe, very clear that the seed of the Gospel is installed in your heart.

And no one can take it from there, you know? If you enter Christ and stay there and say: Lord, I entrust myself to Your Grace, the devil will never be able to snatch the seed from your heart, you know? trust that God will be with you at all times and then begin to walk that Christian life sure that the Lord carries the load. Your thing is to keep the seed there in its place, make it, nourish it with the Word of God, prayer, and the Lord takes care that you reach your destination.

So we're going to pray for these brothers and sisters, these two brothers standing there and this brother here in front as well, reach out your hands to them and we're going to bless them. Lord thank you because these lives accept you. I encourage you to tell Christ there: come into my heart and take control of my life, I surrender to You. Tell him in your own words there internally, talk to the Lord and open your heart and mind for Him to do the work in you.

And tell him: Lord, come into my life, take control of it, I receive you as my Christ, the one sent by God, the anointed of the Lord, the one that you have sent God to be my intermediary and my way of access to the Father and I will I receive it like this and I accept it like this and I believe it like this and I confess it like this, I believe that Christ is my Savior and the one who forgives my sins, and the one who heals all my wounds and the one who pays all my debts. And today I become a servant of Christ, a servant of Jesus; I will follow him until death and I will be faithful to His Word.

Thank you for entering my life Lord Jesus, I receive You and I declare myself Your servant, Your servant, Your property of the Kingdom of God and I renounce all works of Satan and the flesh and embrace the values of the Kingdom of God and eternity. Thanks, Dad.

Lord, I bless Your children and declare Your Presence in their lives, seal them with Your Spirit and thank you Father for the mystery of salvation. In the Name of Jesus and the people of God say: amen. God bless you my brothers, God bless you brother, brothers. Brothers God bless you here.