God has put you in a special place

This morning I am going to be talking about the topic: "God has put you in a special place" using Psalm 118 verses 4 to 6 as a biblical contextual basis. How many of you have gone to a job interview and those days before the job interview you memorize what appears in that job description, what are they asking for? Now in these times we not only memorize what they ask for but also go to the website and see what that company offers, what it does so that when we get to that interview we have everything covered and there is not a question that we do not know how to answer.

And when the interview begins we start with a lot of nerves, right? And if before this interview we see that there are many people applying for that position, we get more nervous because we are going to compete with many people. I don't know about you but I have been in interviews that I not only look at how many people there are but if they are younger than me because I not only have to compete with how many people there are but also if they are younger. So I have also been on that site waiting for the interview.

On one occasion I am waiting in the hospital waiting room to be interviewed for a job and on one of those rare occasions that I take my mother with me for the interview, my brother is going to this city, come with me, I'll take you for a walk and I observe this hospital, right? When I arrive at this particular hospital, my mother tells me sitting in the waiting room: son, what do you see strange in the people who are changing the light bulb in that lobby? this is my mom.

I tell him: well, there are seven, a ladder and a light bulb. So she tells me: son when you go to the interview and they ask you: what can you bring new to this job? Mention what you saw in that waiting room today. So when I got to the interview they give me a waiting number and I get to the question: what can you bring to this company? I smile there from ear to ear very happy, very safe; Here I go with a simple, basic but real answer. I tell him: well, I can save you the work of six employees and I gave my example.

And he said to me: the job is yours, this company has a place for you because you can save this company money. And I felt happy, brothers, I told my mom: I have a job, now I'm going to start as a boss, I have many people, the boss has said that he has that place for me but I didn't read the fine prints, I didn't I knew that there was behind to tell me: we have a job for you and I remember that as the next few days passed in this particular job I discovered that the place they had for me was not so special. It was a job that required three different shifts and on the second shift there was incredible drug dealing inside the job.

I dream of going through an interview very happy: I have a job now having to deal with not very nice issues. Which seemed special and very nice hmph! there was nothing special or pretty about it. But this time I want to bring you to a place that God has given us and that place is special. Say now, we are in Psalms 118 verses 4 to 6: "Those who fear the Lord, His mercy is forever. I called on the Lord from anguish and the Lord answered me by putting me in a spacious place. The Lord is with me, I will not fear what can come to me make man."

What makes this place special first: that it is a place where God has put His Name, so from the moment I can enter that place that God has chosen for me, I am stepping on a place that bears the Name of my God? and what does that imply? that I do not have to enter or take into account my academic preparation, that He has not taken into account how deep or submerged I am in sin, how rejected I am by society, how marginalized my community has me; At the time of our Lord calling us to that special place, heh, I enter not because I have deserved it or for what I have earned or for what I have paid or for what I have done, it is because He has already put His Name of glory .

And when I start to walk through the place that He has for me, which is a name of glory, it means that things can go wrong for me, that things can get complicated, that I can be left alone, that the disease can come into my life but I remind myself that within that circumstance, that within that problem, that within that loneliness, that within that circumstance that they are pointing at me or rejecting me, what I have to do is remind myself that I am in the place that God has called me and that He has given His Name, a name that cannot be removed, a name that cannot be erased, a name that cannot be given delete and the program left, no. That Name is there forever.

And though I am weak, though I am sick, though I am weary, it is a place that I can bend my knees and see His Name. I can raise my head to the sky and I see His Name, I can look to the side and I see His Presence. It's like feeling, do you remember the experience of those three at the transfiguration, Peter, John and James who did not want to leave? they did not want to leave because that place was special. What if I told you that our experience in the special place is bigger than the moment of the great transfiguration? Because they saw Moses and Elijah but you and I heh, in that special place I don't have Moses or Elijah I have the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with me.

How else can I survive the ravages of life if I get out of that place or how many temptations are there to get out of there? How many of us have been given a key at some point in our lives? The key of blessing, the key that opens the doors, the key that chains that which is not positive or spiritual but due to the ravages of life we have hidden or kept, or lost the key and we find ourselves in that special place as if lost, We don't know what we're going to do.

We cry out and apparently they don't listen to us, we cry and no one listens to our crying. Have you ever been through that? that only in your bedroom, in your room, your pillow is the one that knows how many tears, how much pain and sometimes we ask ourselves: gathered together with so many people, who realizes my pain? where is that God of Sundays? Where is that peace that is preached if at that crucial moment I find myself alone, I find myself alone, I find myself dejected?

I want to remind you this morning that you can be knocked down, as Pablo said, but you are not destroyed. You can be saddened or dejected but you will not be able to lose peace because that peace that God has given is based on the Name that has overcome everything that exists on this Earth, a Name above all names. A Name that is not based on a philosophy, a Name that is not an idea because as far as I know the Name of Jesus whom we serve, whom we still adore at this point, on this day, in this year they continue to find graves of Him but they are still empty, which implies that His Name lives on, His Name has power, His Name changes, His name is respected even in hell.

That is why the psalmist said: even if they rise like a river, even if they make a lot of noise, a lot of turbulence, he says that Jehovah will plant a flag because it is based on His Name, not on my name, not on what I have but on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My wife told me this morning or last night: Isaiah you have to preach it in two services. Yeah, take it easy. There are times when I think you're going to get a heart attack. I don't know about you but I grew up in this and God called me at an early age to His special place and I have always kept my eyes on my God through all the circumstances, because I have understood that greater than me, heh, greater that I am the one who called me and when I have moved to that special place I have not moved because I planned it, because I searched for it in Google or I put it in GPS, the Lord had already chosen, had defined, had already founded that special place for me and also for you.

The nice thing about that place is that I'm not the owner, hmph. So I don't have to pay rent or sign a list and since I'm not the owner I haven't built it. One of the things that often happens to us in the long walk of the Gospel is that often, being in that special place, despair comes to us due to many circumstances. Sometimes we ask ourselves: how is it possible that if I am fulfilling the Lord, if I have agreed to be in that place that He has prepared for me, if I believe that He has truly called me, if I believe that truth He has put me, why do so many negative or bad things happen to me?

And the one who is my neighbor, my neighbor or co-worker who is not in that special place, who neither knows nor recognizes the glory of the Lord lives a life as if nothing affected him and that creates in us an internal spiritual contention: but? How is it possible that I serve such a powerful God but within that service and walking I see others who do not recognize you, who do not come to Church, who do not open a Bible, who do not know God, who mock the Gospel, who mock religious things, who instead of coming here on Sunday are playing golf, do they prosper? they get promoted in their jobs, they have money, they don't lose their jobs, there are no problems in the family apparently.

So for those of us who are in a special place it is the opposite, it is as a friend of mine used to say: see how illogical about serving God in a special place is that you arrive at the Lord without luggage, without a suitcase, without a backpack and when you leave receive the Lord He gives you luggage, backpack, suitcase, boys, family; praise God too.

oh! so for you the family is a backpack, it is a luggage (laughs). Look brother, one of the blessings of being a minister is that you can see the families in good times and in bad times and in difficult times as Pastor being with them you find out everything that has happened in that family for years. For example, many years ago, that did not happen in Massachusetts nor did it happen here. I am going to do this funeral, right? , the children are there and there are not many people.

So I start to share more with them to find out more about the deceased, I notice that the widow is not talking at all and I assume that she is very sorry for what has happened; It is a family that has served the Lord for forty years so I say these people are in a very special place, forty years for the Lord. So when I finish talking to the children, the widow tells me: Pastor, I want to talk to you. I thought: amen, the sister is there, she can speak positively, she tells me: I am going to ask her for a favor. Yes tell me, just one favor. May you remember that when you preach tonight and tomorrow we go to the cemetery, do not say anything good about my husband.

And I said: Lord, Your sense of humor does not make sense because this place where I am now by faith I know is Your place, so I start to preach keeping in my mind: I cannot mention anything positive but I did not come to preach from dead, do you understand? I did not come to read a eulogy, I came to preach the Gospel message, a message of peace that changes all the time. So when I finish preaching she stops, thanks me and then tells me: Pastor tomorrow in the cemetery remember yourself, nothing.

So we arrive at the cemetery the next day and I do my part and the man who directs the funeral order tells me: Pastor, it is the custom of this family that the oldest speak and I said: well, the oldest is the wife and I did not want to tell her to him that if she speaks we don't know what she is going to speak. My brothers, I keep praying and sweating. Why does God put me in these special places?

She gets up and asks to speak, they've already thrown the rose into the coffin, right? I am in the head where the coffin is so at first I get up, I looked at where my car was parked, very close, I have the key in my hand so there are no problems and she stopped and said: I want to tell the family and the visits that this man who was my husband for 42 years, a deacon of the Church made us live a life of hell. And look at what she said, which is interesting: when she came home from work, my children and I had to watch, okay, the husband arrives in 15 minutes and we had to run and get ice from the fridge and put it on top of the television so that when he arrived and touched the television and found it cold so it meant that the family had been praying.

You know, we laugh now because we are not the family but that happens in the 21st century in the United States. And she said: but that husband's sting made us come together as a family and seek God closer and closer. Sometimes Friday would arrive, well he already preached a message, sometimes Friday would arrive and there was no food and we had to wait for him to arrive at the time he wanted to start cooking at 12 at night. And she says: and do you know what he did? he would spit out his food so we wouldn't eat that food.

In that special place years later two of the sons are ministers. She left with the Lord, saved, but she could always say: in that special place, Pastor, which was hell for me, God was able to keep the most important thing that I had, which was my family, because I trusted that I had set my feet as a woman in a place that had the Name of the Lord Jesus. Tell the person next to you: I am in the special place.

Rejoice this morning that you are part of a family that is in a special place, a key place, a place that defines us, a place that is not only to be leaders in name but to make a difference in this world. And I would tell you more: God spoke to this Church years ago and a special place has been built that has not yet seen the maximum of its glory, we are approaching people to a special place that God put His Name as He has put it in this temple. When the time comes to inaugurate that Temple, that Ark, that place of the Lord, think, meditate: I am entering the place that He first placed His Name before building, before breaking, before making a loan, before planning God had chosen that place to put His Name to glorify it, to make it different.

Brothers, this is so special. Do you remember what was there? but the Church arrived at its special place believing in faith, the community changes. People change because they cannot resist the Name that is above all names that comes with His Glory, that comes with His Power. Enjoy this morning that you are in a special place; dance, jump, dance because it is God who has put His Name, it is God who has put His Name.

Some of us may be in the trenches, others are in paradise, others are halfway, but whether in paradise or halfway or in the trenches, we are all in our special place, we are all in our special place.

What would become of us if we were not in the special place? What would the tests be like if God were not sustaining us in that special place? You can think and meditate or reflect on your own life, on your own family, on your community. The moments in your work when it seems that we are going to lose patience or the moments that we do not have that faith. I have had some 19-year-olds in Puerto Rico and I remember this sister who came to our Church, a member of the Church when her husband arrived crying that Sunday morning because their two sons had not appeared for three days.

Imagine the service stopped to console this family, to pray with them and I remember that the mother made an exclamation of anguish and said: Pastor all my life in the Church dedicating my life to God to be in these special places and three days ago I don't know about my two children. What I found out was that they caused a drug bust and are missing. Pastor said, we are going to say a prayer and we all go to the altar.

When we are all in tune and we are all in the same place that God wants us to be, God can do miracles. And I remember that I made a strange, different prayer, I said: Lord, wherever these boys are, I want You to arrest them and bring them here. The prayer ended, the service continued.

Near the end of the service I was working as an usher in the back of the Church and I see this van that comes running running, it opens the door and throws two people out so I ran to see what happened: the two boys. We saw and nothing had happened to them. They say that when they were going to kill them that Sunday morning, the one with the gun pulled the trigger three times and not a single bullet came out. He says that the chief who wanted to kill them took his pistol and when he went to fire the fourth shot he saw a third tall white person, hallelujah next to those two boys.

And he says: I don't even believe in electric light but this is something special, I don't want problems with whoever you serve and do you know what they said? We do not serve God, but my mother, who is in a special place that has been created by the Name of Jesus, I imagine that she will have prayed with special people who are in special places, hallelujah. And when one makes a prayer from a special place, the heavens open, the devil is tied, the demons run because the Name that is above all names has been hailed within that special place. How many praise God this morning? Oh praise God this morning, oh praise your God this morning. It is a special place, it is a place of blessing, it is a place of victory; You suffer, you suffer, but you also enjoy, enjoy, hallelujah (applause). Praise the Lord.

A secret that I want to share with you: every time I preach, my nerves love me, heh, it's incredible and that always reminds me that when I preach from that moment and that special place is not about me, there's nothing about me to do with me, it has to do with the one who called me and did not leave me alone; He is with me in the special place although I cannot see him, although I cannot feel him, although I cannot hold him, I believe that Jesus is by my side at all times in my special place.

Sometimes you have to tell people, Lord, open their eyes so they can see that you are there, that you are there. I want to end this morning with a story. A few years ago, while in a hospital attending the final days of a sister of the Church, she did not want to leave because her family was not converted, they did not know the Lord and her children were completely lost. So after having declared to her that she was going to die in the next few hours, days somehow God endured that cancer for three more years and in those three years she returned home, she had five children and her husband, no one was converted.

I remember that they had a two-story house, she asked the family that they wanted to dedicate a room for the Lord in that house as a special place and she prayed for about three years the same prayer: Lord, before you take me Save my family, that was her prayer, a mother's prayer. Lord, before leaving with you, give me that privilege to see my husband and my children in Your ways.

She says that they were going on a vacation trip driving she was with them in that vehicle, they were hit by a tractor trailer; the vehicle flipped several times, they fell off a precipice of about 30, 40 feet, everyone went to the hospital, no one suffered anything at all and these guys have their husband who while they were circling the vehicle all had the same vision: I am here because I am the God of your mother and I am the God of your wife, you have been saved because your wife and your mother have asked from the special place for you.

When they left the hospital they went directly to a church and the funny thing is that during the service they are sitting in the back and they ask the ushers: we want to convert, we want to convert, when do we have to come? and the ushers: they have to wait for the devotional to pass, to sing, to preach, to make a call. They were only two hours until they spent with their mother; when they passed with her mother who became she fainted and lasted 48 hours. Being in the hospital about to leave, she wakes up and sits on her bed and tells them: I see six of them and they looked at each other: but there are five of us, no. It is that the sixth has come looking for me because now I am ready, He listened to me from my special place. God bless you.