Exalt the name of Jesus

The theme of the sermon that I have this morning fits very well with the theme of worship this morning, which has been to exalt Jesus at all times.

This morning I felt the Lord lift Him up and perhaps sometimes those movements, those currents of the Spirit one day God wants something to be done another day he wants something else to be done and one flows in the prophetic revelation of the Lord and sometimes it is necessary to declare things to the air, to the demons and to the angels and to humanity about Christ; there are poems that have to be declared about who He is and He wants to be exalted sometimes. Who knows how many Congregations right now in this city are doing the same? because that is the theme that He wants to be declared on this day and it is good to flow like this in the Spirit of the Lord.

This passage from John chapter 5 beginning with verse 19 tells us about the authority of Jesus, His Lordship, His divinity, His absolute Power, His sovereignty, His exemplary Person worthy of all praise and glory so think about Jesus, imagine him , visualize it and that is what this meditation is about.

The Son speaks about himself. John says that: "Then Jesus answered and said to him: Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself except what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise, for the Father loves the Son and shows him all the things that He does and greater works than these so that you will marvel."

"For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son and gives them life. For the Father judges no one but gave all judgment to the Son so that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father who sent me."

"Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My Word and believes him who sent Me has eternal life and condemnation will not come, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead They will hear the Voice of the Son of God and those who hear the Voice of Him will live, because as the Father has life in Himself, so He has also given the Son to have life in Himself."

"And he also gave him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of man. Do not marvel at this because the hour will come when all those who are in the graves will hear His Voice and those who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, but those who did evil will rise to the resurrection of damnation." Bless the Lord His Word. What glorious words, right? Do you feel the authority of Jesus speaking, do you feel the weight of His words while speaking? that's what the message is about.

As I look here I see a body behind the column and this sister who is here. I don't know if my sisters want to move here? because I feel sorry that you are looking at a column there, as you want. If you want there great but gosh I wish you weren't looking at that column there during this time, not for nothing maybe the column looks better than me but (laughs) it's okay if someone else doesn't see clearly there's room around here. Sorry for the interruption.

But I really want to talk about the authority of Jesus and I believe that when one listens, I always try to learn not only from the specific words of Jesus but also from His tone, from the balance that He sometimes establishes between Grace and the law, when He speaks in a forceful, clear and direct way and when He speaks with mercy and gentleness as well.

I believe that we have to imitate that same balance in the personality of Jesus. I see that tremendously self-assured personality full of grace and truth as the Word says, grace and truth well balanced in His personality. Here I see that majesty with which He speaks. I believe that this is how the Church has to speak too.

The Church of Jesus Christ has to adopt that tone too. Today there is a weak-hearted Church out there that I think makes the Lord sick with fear about the world and what is going to happen? that if they are going to leave, that if they are going to return to the Church, that if the Church is in decline; Christ has said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. The attitude of God's people must be one of trust, security, and authority when we speak to the world. We have the solution to the world's problems and we must speak confidently brothers.

We must speak with that same mixture of grace and truth with which the Lord speaks and we see it expressed here in His Word. The Lord begins by saying, indeed, the passage itself begins by saying: "Then Jesus answered:" that is, obviously this passage is referring to something that happened at that time, which is why it says that Jesus answered then. Well if you read the passage before this one you discover that the Lord has just done a spectacular miracle: he has just healed a paralytic, the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda.

The Lord heals this man who has been paralyzed for so many years and through this miracle He manifests His Lordship. I always see in passing in that miracle that the Lord performed with this paralyzed man the contrast between the Grace that Christ exemplifies and the law and its works and the effort required to live under the law and the rest that Christ offers through His Person because this paralyzed man, he tried, was looking for healing through a situation in which he saw an angel, moved the water and the one who was more agile and faster jumped into the water first and was healed but this man had no one to help him. cast; he was paralyzed how could he move?

But in other words, the salvation and healing of these people who were there depended on their ability and their effort and that is why this man who was more powerless and weaker could not be healed. But Christ comes and says: hey, would you like to be saved? You don't have to pay me anything, you don't have to do calesthenics, you don't have to do anything but just believe in Me and I do it and Christ heals you. What work and effort could not do, Christ did in an instant.

Now there was a problem: He performs that great miracle that exemplifies His power over the disease but makes "a mistake" in quotes and that is that he heals him, the Lord made the mistake of not consulting the calendar and not realizing that it was Saturday and the Pharisees and scribes as they had problems with Jesus because Jesus was everything that they were not, Jesus was power, healing, life, vitality; they were stiff law, they were rules and dead religion and they hated Jesus they were always looking for reasons to hate and criticize him. Then, since the Lord heals this man on a Saturday, they criticize him.

How horrifying when the Church, religion does not have the life-giving power of Jesus who intuits the heart of God when he says: yes there is a law but you know what? adjust it a little bit because I like this and it is within the love and grace of God. We have to be careful when we do that, but there is an instinct of the Spirit that is in us that helps us understand what God means many times with things that are sometimes not so clear in the Word of God itself.

Then the Lord heals this man, he carries the anger, the annoyance and the accusation of these Pharisees and He knows what is happening in their hearts and so as an antidote to respond to this unfair criticism of these false religionists the Lord talk about who he is. That is why it says: "Then Jesus answered." In other words, note here that these words that we have just read right now are given in the context of a questioning of the authority, the nature, the legitimacy of Jesus and His Ministry on the part of the Pharisees and the scribes.

He is defending His Person. In other words, these statements that the Lord Jesus Christ makes here are not neutral, they are not general, I could not say they are apologetic; they are affirmative, they are to contradict something and to set something against the grain of the religion of His time. It is something very strong what He is saying and we have to pay attention to what He says here.

By the way I also say something: the Gospel according to Saint John is for me the Gospel that most beautifully exalts the Person of Jesus, it is the Gospel that has the longest, most sustained, poetic, graphic statements about who Jesus Christ is and it is no coincidence that this statement of who Christ is and what is His nature and Ministry is given in the Gospel according to Saint John.

If you look at chapter 14 and chapter 15 of John, for example, read it when you can, they are wonderful passages that exalt the Person, the Ministry, the divine nature of Jesus Christ. The Church has to take time from time to time to lift up the Son of man, exalt Him and acknowledge His Presence, acknowledge His greatness and that is what we are doing today.

Remember that this year that we have been talking about Evangelism, I have said that one of the things that we have to do is lift up the Name of Jesus, lift up the Person of Jesus because He is the essence, He is the origin of everything we we want to do; He is the center of the evangelistic mission and that is why this type of message is very important.

The Lord begins here by talking about something and that is that He says that He imitates the Father in everything He does. The Lord is emphasizing something here and that is that He tells the Pharisees: look at what I do, I do not do it on My own account, not because I feel like doing that, to do the other thing, I do it because I observe from the Father, I hear from the Father, I am in continuous intimacy with the Father. My instructions, My Ministry, My ministerial style, My Words, My teachings, My miracles come because I keep My eyes on the Father and My ears attentive to what the Father does and says.

And then from that intimacy and from that fixation on the Father is that I do the things that I do. I do not do them on My own authority, no one can do anything on their own authority but it comes from the authority of the Father. So that's wonderful, isn't it?

In His human nature let us understand something brothers and remember that this is something that is sometimes difficult for us to understand: the mystery of the incarnation. Christ is God and man at the same time, and this coexistence of deity and humanity in a single framework, in a single being, raises contradictions that human language and human reason cannot fully process. That is why we can never fully explain what the Trinity is: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit because it is a mystery. It is something that goes beyond human language, it is something that goes beyond reason because His nature is divine, it is eternal, it is absolute.

Don't let anyone intimidate you because you can't fully explain the incarnation of Jesus Christ or the Trinity because even scientists know that there are phenomena of nature and physics that reason and language cannot explain. The artists understand that the most sublime and deepest experiences of the human being do not obey language either and they go outside the language box.

That's why we Christians, people of the spirit, we are specialists in mysteries, you know? and one of the greatest mysteries is the deity of Jesus Christ and at the same time his humanity. He is the Son of God and at the same time God says that he is the Son of man. And the Lord came into the world and in His being deity and humanity lived together. I believe that they still live like this, I do not believe that the Lord undressed His humanity and left it lying there like a suit lying on the floor when He ascended to heaven, I believe that up there He is God and He is still man.

Maybe I'm getting into theological hot water but I think that's right, He still has the signs on His hands and His side and He ascended into heaven. That's the strangest and most beautiful thing at the same time, I'm not even going to get into it too much. But why do I say this about the mystery? because people say: well if He is God then: why does He have to say like He always has to see the Father and do what the Father does and submit to the Father and that He doesn't know when the Father comes because that is it in the sole provision of the Father? So Jesus is not God and then that is where the false doctrine comes from, for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, may the Lord bless them, I respect them very much, I love them, they are serious and decent people, but they are mistaken regarding the deity of Jesus Christ.

Never let anyone question the equality of the Father and the Son even if you don't understand it. Although many times when the Son speaks on Earth as we see him here in His humanity it may seem like He is making Himself inferior to the Father, because in His humanity yes in His incarnation, in that contradiction that He was God and man, sometimes He spoke as a man and sometimes He spoke as God because language can only run on one channel, it cannot speak on both channels at the same time, it is AM or FM but it cannot be both at the same time.

So the Lord here is speaking in His incarnation, in His aspect as an incarnate man who is God, He also says that He does only what He sees the Father do but remember that He does not lose His deity while saying that either because we will see later about that right?

But I just wanted to show you and then you study, read about it a bit because it's something very important to understand the mystery that Jesus Christ was when He walked on Earth, perfect God, perfect man, but then you kind of also had to deal with it with a Language that is like a small boat that has to contain a huge elephant, cannot. That is the contradiction and limitation of human language and human reason.

So in His human nature, in the mystery of His incarnation, Jesus says that He only does what He sees the Father do, and from this keeping His eyes fixed on the Father comes the legitimacy of His Ministry and the things that He does. The Lord Jesus tells you: even if what I do seems strange to you and seems like a contradiction, I am continually looking at the Father.

You see that the Lord was always praying, he went to a secluded place to look for the Father because He needed it again in his incarnation and we have to do the same, you know? Do you want power in your life, do you want ministry effectiveness, do you want your family to come to Jesus Christ? Do you want that when you speak the authority of the Father is manifested through your words? do you want joy in trials? Do you want authority to pray for the sick and that they be healed? Do you want to grow in the knowledge of the Word of God and have joy in the most difficult moments of your life? stick to the Father, stick to the Word of God.

Become a spiritual athlete, give time to the Lord. The Church is fed up with Sunday people, excuse me my brothers, we have to get out of that. Seek God, fill yourself with the Word of God. Do you know that at the end of the day I always have to plug in my cell phone? because with the use during the day the battery wears out and if I don't plug it back in it already dies, in the morning it dawns on zero, black the little screen is without any life and I have to plug it back in to the power source ; that's how we are.

Life wears us out, problems, conflicts, our own humanity, the losses of life wear out the vitality of the human being and we have to return and plug ourselves into the Father through prayer; do not depend on a moment on a Sunday only my spiritual brothers I beg you. Seek God in your home, seek the Lord, take time to be in the Presence of the Lord, be an athlete, be a militant in your faith, ask the Father, speak to the Father, let the Father speak to you so that you can then do the works of the Father in your life.

The world is going to try to steal our time, the world is not going to give you a single minute of prayer and you have to tear it out with an axe. You have to wrest it from the dishes and the children and the husband who wants you to cook for him and the boss who demands and demands and demands you, you have to find your time. You have to be the one to do, use the authority so that then the Father can speak to you and you can do the works of the Father.

Because that is what the Lord is about, he is not simply saying: ah look, this is what I knit, no. I believe that in this passage we are being told: do the same with the Son and with the Word that the Son does with the Father. In this passage it is implicitly suggested that we should do the same thing that He does, that the Son does. If we do what we see the Father and the Son do through the Word that God has left us, then we are on safe ground even if it seems controversial to the conventions of men.

Do you know that the person who lives in the Spirit is always going to get out of the box? it will be unpredictable, it will flow like the wind that one does not know where it comes from or where it is going because the Father is like that. The person who lives in the Spirit is unpredictable because God is always downloading him, he is always downloading last minute instructions, He's always updating our app so we stay close to Him.

The Church of Jesus Christ can and should only do what the Father does as His Word describes it. These words of the Lord constitute a call to stick to what God the Father does and says, therein lies our zone of power and authority. By staying glued to His Word we are safe and full of power and authority.

What does the Lord Jesus Christ say?: "Remain in Me and I in you and you will bear much fruit because far from Me, apart from Me you can do nothing." To the extent that we remain intimately linked to Christ because He is intimately linked to the Father, the power and energy of the Father is transferred through the Son and reaches us. May the Lord that this Church always keep its ear glued to the heart of the Father and that our hearts beat in sync with the hearts of the Father and of the Son, and that our directives, our doctrines, our Word, our practices, our ministry always flow in absolute synchrony with the designs of the heavenly Father and the Word of the Lord.

That is our desire that the Lord always allow us as a Church, that is: Dad, what are you saying, what are you doing today? how can we align with what you are doing in the world and flow in sync with the world? Let's preach brothers what the Word says and suggests even if this is controversial and the power and blessing of God will always be upon us.

Yesterday I was telling you, I was officiating at a wedding and I always in this century, the 21st century and part of the 20th century also when we preached in that century (laughs) listen to me, one definitely gets old, that's how it is, one foot in one century and the other in the other oh my God what is going to be done. The fact is that when I preach I always like to read a passage from Ephesians chapter 5 when I preach in the context of a wedding and I do it as something militant to force myself sometimes.

And yesterday it was a very elegant wedding, our sister Sadel and her husband Daven are young professionals, they have a lot of secular friends, African American, white, Latino cultures, very high class people and it was a beautiful wedding in a wonderfully magical setting almost, very beautiful the place and then, in that context of people of a certain category, one may feel inclined to bear a little bit of the weight of the Word, you know? don't say anything that will make these secular people too uncomfortable.

So that chapter 5 of Ephesians always when I get to that moment the Word crucifies me because there in that passage you know it well especially when it says: "Wives be subject to your own husband as the Lord" and I think of all those professional girls there pretending that, something comes into their minds, the married ones are subject. I'm going to tell you a secret, don't tell anyone among us here.

you know? I have condescended a little to my own discomfort and I confess before God because I am not sure if I am doing it right or not that I have changed the order, I have not changed the content but the order to lighten the weight of women a little. that passage. So lately something great occurred to me, from the Holy Spirit and what I do is that I first read what it says to the man and then I put what it says to the woman and so it kind of loses a little bit of sugar. No? it's a sandwich.

First I read what verse 2 says: "Submit to one another in the fear of God" oh that anyone who doesn't like to submit to one another, beautiful. But then to smooth it out I first shoot the men and read verse 25: "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself to her" and the bride is smiling right now, she's happy (laughs) saying: "yes Pastor give him more, give him more Pastor." And then when I gave her the soft pill, then I shot her, you see? and to those who are sitting and then I say: "Wives, be subject to your own husband as to the Lord" ouch. You see the faces of terror and anger almost, I'm exaggerating a little.

But the fact is that and that is what we pastors do many times, we have to not shock people and not shock the current of culture and I understand that there are different opinions regarding this and I respect but brothers in what personal, the more I search I believe that God has established an order and has established a synchrony and a mechanism between the love of the man who loves his wife as Christ loved His Church and gives himself for her and serves her in everything that can and the woman who graciously accepts her husband's leadership because it pleases God to do so.

So when the man flows into the leadership of the servant of Christ and the woman flows into her equality who submits to the leadership of her loving and kind husband wow that is miraculous what is given who does not like that my sisters? it's really cute. Unfortunately, men often violate this law and women also sometimes violate the law, but when there is harmony between these two rules in a marriage, the blessing flows.

The world cannot comprehend this is a mystery too and we cannot accommodate the Word to the world as well. I would like to be able to do it, I would like my understanding of that text and other texts in Scripture and in the general flow of the Word would allow me to do without it because the truth is that every time I preach it I honestly lose a couple of pounds , in this world. I do not preach it because: ah, the man is the macho and the man of the house and you have to obey him, I preach it against my own desire and will but in obedience to the Word of the Lord.

I believe that when the Church obeys the Word, no matter what happens, and we preach it with intelligence, grace, and balance, there is a blessing. And I therefore preach the Word in what I understand; If the Lord doesn't give me the freedom to change the passage, I'm not going to change it, I can't change it, but I believe that the power is there, you see? that is what I am applying, there is the power of the children of God to remain anchored to the Word of the Lord. No matter what the world says, no matter what the cultural currents in which we find ourselves say, what does the Word say? and if the Word says so, I'll go to the bank with it, that's all.

That is why the Lord says in another passage: "Search the Scriptures because it seems to you that in them you have eternal life and they are the ones that bear witness to Me." The Church has to say: Father, we are going to tie ourselves to the Scriptures even if we get gangrene, but the stronger the contradictory winds of culture are, the more forcefully we will tie ourselves to the mast of Your Word and we will preach Your Word even if we are left alone in Earth but we are going to proclaim what You say, we are going to look at You.

The problem of the Church is not that it preaches the Word too much, it is that it does not preach it enough with the right balance, with the right nuance, but when you hold on, when a Church says, when a ministry says Lord: we are going to be faithful to Your Word I am going to search like gold nuggets in a mine for the nuances of Your Word, the secrets of Your Word and when I find them I am going to put them in my bag and I am going to live with them very close to me every day of my life. That is the secret of the power of the Church and the secret of the permanence, the prosperity of a Congregation and a community like ours.

In our crucifixion while we preach the Word against the current, the Lord glorifies himself in our life because we are obeying Him, we are being faithful and even if we are wrong, you know what? Your heart is fine, it is correct, your desire to please Me and glorify Me honors Me and I am going to bless you and if I have to straighten out something I will straighten it out, don't worry.

So with that I think we could even finish. In his human manifestation, Jesus always emphasized his relationship of intimacy and subjection to the Father and He said that His Power came from there. Jesus declares that the Father instructs and trains him, shows him what He must do. He says in verse 19 part two: "For whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise." It says: "Because the Father loves the Son and shows him all the things that He does" thanks "and greater works than these he will show him so that you will marvel."

Do you know what the most spectacular level of Jesus' awesome power is? Of all the miracles and healings that Christ did: which was the most spectacular of all, the resurrection of the dead? No. The power to raise the dead. For example, the Lord raised Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus, among others, and the Lord is doing here a game of concepts about the power that He has to give life. On one occasion the Lord said that: the only one who has the power to give life in Himself is the Son, now that is because he was glued in his humanity to the power of the Father.

It says that: I have the power to lay down My life and to take it up again and Jesus is in a deposit of life in which He can give life to whoever He wants too. So He showed that in a lesser way when He raised the daughter of Jairus, when He raised Lazarus, when He raised the widow of Naim's son the Lord showed that He had power over death just as He showed that He had power over storms, about demons, about disease, about nature, about physical things making coins appear in the mouth of a fish. He said: I am Lord of all that exists and showed His Lordship over all things.

And here He is talking about how His closeness to the Father is so great that He says that He will show you greater things so that you will marvel. The Lord says: more than simply healing the sick and even healing the dead, I am going to do it and you are going to marvel at it. Verse 21: "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will."

Now He is getting into the matter here because not only does Christ give physical life to people who later die as Lazarus died, the son of the widow of Naim died after the Lord raised him up, but He also says: I am going to give definitive life in some future moment "For the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son" He is entering here already in an eschatological tone, with this I am already ending, about the most splendid way in which the Lord is a source of power and of life, His intimacy with the Father is such.

Here Jesus goes further and suggests that He will author a resurrection even greater than the resurrection He did in these people when He raises the dead on the Day of Resurrection. Furthermore, it is Jesus in His death and resurrection that we have hope of personal resurrection and eternal life. This is the greatest ministry of Jesus and the greatest display of His divinity and His Power.

It is interesting what Jesus says in verse 22: "For the Father judges no one but gave all judgment to the Son" the Father has delivered all judgment into the hands of Jesus, it is with Him that we have to deal. God has given Jesus all power to judge the living and the dead. He who does not deal with Jesus cannot have access to the Father because the Father has made an administrative decision and has given him the power to make decisions in the Judgment department of Jesus at the end of time.

Do you know what the Father said? He told humanity: from now on I disregard the task of making judgment, I give it to My Son. If you want to deal with Me in court, talk to Him, if you want to have access to Me, if you want to have rights on the Day of Judgment, talk to Him. He is the one who takes care of all that.

That is why we have to preach Jesus Christ in a militant way, I do not know all the mysteries of this area but I can tell you that the only call we have is to tell humanity: if you want to be calm on the day that If you have to appear before the Throne of God, fight with Jesus and stick to Him because He is the one who manages the entire judicial department of the Kingdom of Heaven, right?

The Father judges no one but gave all the judgment to the Son, it is Christ. Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, that is one of the most important confessions of the Church. Christ says that we must honor the Son in the same way that we honor the Father because by having a power of that magnitude the Lord deserves the same adoration and honor that the Father receives.

What does verse 23 say? "That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him." This is serious, that is why we should not draw differences in our language of worship or in our level of reverence for Jesus with respect to the Father because the Bible tells us that we have the freedom to worship Him in the same way that we do with respect to God. .

That is why the words of Thomas when he puts his hand in the side of Jesus confirm the wounds. Thomas throws himself on his face before the person of Jesus and says: My Lord and My God, and do you know that the Lord does not correct him? The Lord does not say: Thomas, you went a little too far, lower the volume a little, the Lord receives the adoration of Thomas. Receive the confession: My Lord and My God because Jesus Christ is God.

Beware of supposedly Christian religions that make a difference between the Father and the Son, this is false doctrine, brothers, it may be religion but it is not Christianity. Christ is the same image of the invisible God, Colossians tells us, whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father, that is the other side of the incarnation. So, my brothers, do not allow anyone to tell you there: no, Jesus is a creature that the Father made him one day in prehistory or whenever, no. The Son is eternal, the Son has existed. The Son is made of the same substance as the Father.

That is why the Pharisees were upset with Jesus and were angry because they said: He says that he is the Son of God, so he is making himself equal to God, it is in the Bible, of course he is. If someone is born from you, isn't it the same biology as you, yes or no? because you don't give birth to a chicken or a hen or a lamb, no. You are human and you give birth to a human being unless nature erred in some terrible way and then a spawn or evil infusion or something came out of your body.

The human gives life to the human, the animal gives life to the animal, the vegetable gives life to the vegetable, the divine gives birth to deity, divinity, the Father and the Son are the same thing. That is why the Church has always said that the Son and the Father are consubstantial, that means that they have the same substance, and that is why we say: the Son is divine and the Father is divine because they are made of the same substance. I do not know what that substance is but I know that it is divine.

That is why we have to adore the Son, we have to imitate the Son, we have to stick to the Son, we have to adore the Son with the same passion and reverence with which we adore the Father because the Son is the Father, it is a extension of the Father and the Father has delegated all authority to the Son. We have to be fans of Jesus. If they tell you: you are becoming too fanatical, say: it is true because I am a fan of Jesus.

There are people who are fans of people who don't deserve to be fans. Why not be fans of Jesus? He is the intermediary between God and men, whoever does not accept the Son does not accept the Father and whoever does not accept the Son does not have eternal life, you know? That is the last part there that we do not have time but read it later because in this there is an implicit doctrine about hell also speaking of judgment, speaking of the one who accepts it passing from death to life and the one who says that those who do not accept it they will pass into eternal damnation what is that eternal damnation, what is that eternal damnation if it is not hell?

Eternal damnation is not simply that the person disappears, they press the power button and they leave, it is a state and nobody wants to go there. The only way we can avoid going there is through the Son who sets us apart for the Father, with the Father. . The Lord wants all of us here to be clear about who Jesus is for us and that we be a Church that glorifies and rejoices in giving glory to the Name of Jesus, amen? to Him we render all tribute, all honor and all glory this morning.

That is why it is very nice that we could exalt the Son this morning as we did through our adoration, from time to time we have to do that very openly and always do it implicitly.