The message to Nicodemus "You have to be reborn"

I want to invite you to go to the Word of the Lord in the Gospel according to Saint John in chapter 3 where we see an encounter, these personal encounters of Jesus Christ with individuals who reveal a lot about His heart and the priority that Evangelism has in life. of the Lord, and the salvation of a soul, and the way that we should use to evangelize lives. These are meetings that are both good for evangelizing and also for realizing how to evangelize and what are the elements that constitute effective Evangelism.

Last Sunday we talked about the Samaritan woman, about the encounter of that character with Jesus Christ in the Gospel according to Saint John in chapter 4 and we saw that this woman is a woman of dubious reputation, she has a somewhat licentious life, there have been six men in her life, she is a woman who I imagine that in her community the women looked at her with fascination and also with fear that she would choose their husbands for them, she has a past, and yet she is a heart that needs Jesus Christ, and there is something in her that causes the Lord sympathy, and that is why Christ approaches her, ministers to her, speaks to her, appears before her, and it is important that we see how He is gradually leading this woman to a knowledge of Him and to full acceptance.

And this woman, one of the things she does is she becomes a great evangelist, and that's what I say about why it's important for us to bring others to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. He knows that new believers are often the best evangelists because they know others who don't know the Lord.

We Christians many times after a certain time in the Gospel we get into our own bubble, we stop having contact with people who do not know Jesus Christ, but people who do not have a religious background because many times their friends are unconverted and are good resource, and you don't have to have great Biblical knowledge or anything. All this woman had was a fresh discovery of Jesus as Lord and Savior, and she simply said to those fellow villagers: come and see this man who has told me all my past and who is evidently the Son of God, and when she brought them to Jesus, the Lord did the rest and the whole village was converted.

And one of the things that we have to do in our Christian walk is to invite others. But notice also, I believe that many times one of the things we can do is simply invite them to come to Church. Perhaps she could not preach the Gospel because she did not know how, but she brought them so that the Lord would speak to them so that they would know, and you can do that, invite someone to come to a service, invite them to come to a special activity, to a dinner , a women's retreat, are good opportunities for you to invite someone. Tell him: look, I'm going to pay for your ticket or dinner or whatever, but I want you to come and listen, and God can use that means to bring someone to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. A beautiful passage that reminds us of the value that the Lord assigns to a single soul.

And now in chapter 3 of the Gospel according to Saint John we have another personal encounter, Jesus and Nicodemus. Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman could not be more different in their backgrounds and in their reputations and in their importance in society.

Let's look at this chapter, in verse 1 of chapter 3 it says that: "there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader among the Jews" unlike this Samaritan woman, a woman of no importance, on the contrary negative in His figure, Nicodemus is a man of prestige, he is an important man, he is probably a religious man because he is a member of the sect of the Pharisees and has a certain reputation among them, a very big difference, however the Lord reaches out to both of them They have no difference because they both have an eternal soul inside them which is what is important to save.

Nicodemus approaches the Lord, and says that: "He came to Jesus at night." Why does Nicodemus come at night? because he doesn't want his Pharisee friends to know that he is interested in Jesus Christ. How many people are like this? covert evangelicals right? They are like those detectives who open the jacket like this, show the badge, right? and then they come back again and hide it, how many here are undercover detectives, undercover evangelicals? I hope you are not one of those.

Do you know that if there were more evangelicals in Boston who dared to testify of Christ, things would be very different? One goes all the time, goes to the hospitals and finds Christian doctors, Christian nurses, there are Christian teachers kicking around the schools, let me tell you, pardon the expression, there are Christian social workers, many in Boston, there are businessmen who go to the Church on Sunday, there are university professors who are Christians and yet society does not take notice because they are like Nicodemus many times, they love Jesus, they are interested in him but they have not had that frontal encounter that turns them into daring people, people brave who only have one agenda and that is to advance the Kingdom of God.

We have to be that kind of believer. Do not be a Christian at night, be a Christian in the light of day, dare to testify of your faith. The devil has put fear in us with a number of cultural rhetorics of respect for diversity, for people's privacy and many times there are people who want you to talk to them about the Gospel but many times we see them and let ourselves be intimidated by the crust outside, and they are interested. We need to make a decision to be radical Christians committed to the Kingdom of God, amen? Ask God to give you that capacity, that courage to testify of Jesus Christ, to tell others about coming to the feet of the Lord, to be a Christian who is known around you.

Last night I directed the ordination of a very talented young Haitian man, tremendously gifted in the secular world, in the business world but also a man with a very great pastoral and service vocation, and he invited his friends and family, and among Several of his neighbors came, and he brought them to witness his ordination to the ministry. He studied seminary as well, graduated from seminary and is starting a church. But I was struck by the fact that he invited his neighbors to come see him ordained as a Pastor.

And when you see that, it causes me respect for him because this means that he is testifying to his faith and not only that, but his neighbors think highly enough of him to come to his ordination, and that is a way One often takes advantage of special opportunities where people will come and receive, will listen to the Word of the Lord.

I believe we need to tell our neighbors, we can't be covert Christians, the people around us need to know who we are and we need to make sure we give ourselves away so to speak and let people know in our work.

You do not have to be using work hours either, if we are going to testify, brothers, let's testify properly. If you are working, then work your machine, give eight hours of work for eight hours of pay, amen? but in moments, there are moments. Perhaps at lunch time someone comes or approaches you, you can testify of Christ, and perhaps be careful because there are environments that may be very hostile, and I think you also have to be careful. I believe that there are times when you have to be prudent and that's fine, but God will give you opportunities if you look for them.

I know that there are teachers, for example my sister Fanny works in the schools department here in Boston and the schools department is extremely careful that there is no proselytizing as they call it and there are teachers who have been fired because we are in a society very hostile, but she always finds opportunities to testify of Jesus Christ to the children, to the parents, and the parents have come to the Church because she has testified to them of Jesus in appropriate ways, in opportune ways, let's say, there are ways in which we can testify of Jesus.

We have to be radical about it. These sermons are designed to create in us an awareness, these efforts that we are making are to create in us an awareness that we have to testify, we have to be an evangelistic Church, we have a great treasure in our hands that we have to share. We don't have the right to put that light under the bed, amen? we have to put it up high so that others can see it.

Nicodemus is a man with commendable religious interests, he belongs to a very, very religious and very upright sect, and he approaches Jesus at night, he is interested in knowing who Jesus is, he has seen him preach a nice Word, a generous Word , there is something in His preaching that intrigues and interests him.

And then he approaches and says: “Rabbi” that is, teacher, “we know that you have come from God as a teacher; because no one can do these signs that you do if God is not with him.” Nicodemus's first mistake, do you know what it is? of not assigning to Jesus his true position and his true nature.

Nicodemus sees in Jesus a distinguished teacher, he sees a man who has something special that sets him apart from the crowd but does not know Jesus Christ for who He truly is, so he says to Jesus Christ: we know that you have come from God as a teacher, and then he tells him says: no one can do these signs that you do if God is not with him. Do you know that God was not with Jesus? Jesus was and is God, and that marks Nicodemus as someone in need of correction.

One can have Jesus in that way, many of us have known Jesus and even sometimes in the Church we see him as an important being. We see our faith as something, yes, that adorns our life, something that gives us a certain degree of tranquility, of pleasure, but we have not had a frontal encounter with Jesus Christ as who He is, the owner of everything we have and everything we are.

There are people who see Jesus as an accessory, they see him as something that enriches and embellishes, and complements, and adorns, but they don't see him as the total foundation of their lives, and I would say that until a person has a radical encounter with Jesus where the Lord Jesus becomes a whole for us we have not reached as far as we have to go. I'd be surprised if there aren't many of us here who need that head-on encounter with Jesus Christ that Nicodemus is going to have in a moment.

Until the Lord becomes the totality of our life, my brothers, we are going to lack something. You know when a person has had a true encounter with Jesus Christ because there is a passion in them, there is a 180 degree change and I would say, I want to be a little straight here, direct, I said that many in our Congregation today who are sitting here, they need a greater encounter with Jesus Christ.

There are different degrees of compenetration with Jesus, there is a degree of compenetration in which Jesus Christ is something important in your life, but until you give yourself totally to Him and you recognize that everything you are and everything you have belongs to Him You are going to be missing something, I want to take you to that level. Do you know why? for it is at that level of total depth that you taste who Christ truly is, that you experience the real benefits of the Christian life. Until you drink that cup until the last drink you will be only partially blessed.

I remember in my own personal life, I grew up in the Gospel, my mom converted to the Lord when I was only about four years old, about twenty or twenty-five years ago or so (laughs), and I grew up in the Gospel. If you asked me if I was a Christian I would say: of course I am. I went to high school, I went to college and I was more of a Christian than a Christian because there were many things in my life that were not according to the Lord, the world had a hold on my life. Intellectual vanity was something that imprisoned me. The desire to achieve things, to be successful in the world, to be renowned, to have professional achievements, to participate in the attractions of the world. I loved Jesus but I was like Nicodemus at some point, my understanding of Jesus was partial and there was something that had to break inside of me.

I remember that one of the things that broke me, now that my sister Sara is here because I experienced that there in New York, the death of my father was something that broke my alabaster glass, it was pain, a blow to the head. pit of the stomach that destroyed me. And from that pulverization of my emotions, God took advantage of that weakness to enter my heart, and something happened that from that bleeding came a weakening of the world's grip on my spirit and on my life, and something happened very, very deep that It showed the fragility of life and that desire for success and personal fame that I had, engulfed me, and it caused me to turn to Jesus and seek Him with greater dedication.

And from that time of spiritual mourning that I went through later, because about two or three years passed from that process of internal mourning, God took advantage of it to gradually redirect my gaze to Jesus Christ, and then there was a second conversion in me, a second conversion. And that was the time in which I can say: from there I give my Christianity, because I told the Lord, that moment arrived for me to devour the Scripture.

I would get up at 5 in the morning and read the Bible and it was as if I knew it very well but it was like I was discovering it for the first time, there was a passion in me, there was a taste of the Gospel in a very different way. , there was something that God did in me at that moment and I was preparing myself.

And from that dedication of my life I told him: Lord, everything that I have, everything that I am, I place at Your feet, do with me what You want. I didn't know what I was saying, you know? Look where I am thirty-odd years later.

I told him: Lord, I want to serve you as you want, I thought that I could serve him in my own way, an elegant, intellectual way, recognized by the world, but that was not what the Lord wanted for me, and He took me seriously. . When I fell in love with the Lord and saw him for what he was, not an accessory, not something that enriched my life and that complemented it, no, he was everything, he was the center, and that caused a crisis in me, that's why I took a year off the university and went to the Lawrence deserts there, sorry if there are any Lawrence brothers here (laughs), I say desert because it was such an emotional desert time for me. God took me out of the university, it was like I needed to think about what had happened to me, it was a change for me, it was something from within because Jesus was no longer just an accessory, it wasn't like he came from God, He came to be God.

And that is why when we call a person to know Christ we say: do you want to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior? the two things go together, because many people want Jesus as Savior but they don't want him as Lord.

Do you know what the word "sir" means? kairos, kirios The lord is the owner of the slaves in the Greco-Roman image. We are not slaves before the Lord, by the way, God has made us children, He has made us friends, but in a sense it is as if we are slaves of Him. We have used the euphemism of servants of Jesus Christ but when Paul said, what He said he was a "slave of Jesus Christ."

Have you reached the point in your life where you feel that you are, for all intents and purposes, a slave of Jesus? What is a slave? a slave does not have property, a slave does not belong to himself, a slave does not govern himself in any way, even his children and his wife are the property of the lord, of the owner, a slave practically has no personality. Can you consider yourself a slave of Jesus Christ for the purposes of how you view Him?

And that is why many people have difficulty, they come to church, two hours go by and they are already looking at the clock because they made a reservation at the restaurant and made it for two in the afternoon and here is the Pastor talking and talking, and Speaking of, they even leave the beans on, calculating that when they leave here they will be done so they can start mooring or whatever, and they are very aware of the time (laughs). You can spend hours watching a ball game and if the game lasted more than nine ini glory to God, that's good, better, they enjoy it, but if the cult lasted a bit they already feel uncomfortable and restless.

They assign the Lord a little time on Sunday because Sunday is the time that God made for people to go to Church, but there is a service on Wednesday or a prayer time on Friday or some special activity, no man! that is for fanatics, I am too decent, too educated to be a fanatic, they are very restrained in their dedication to the Lord.

Brother: when Christ enters your life it is to be Lord and Savior, to place himself on the throne and until Christ does not become that in your life you have not known him! Now, if your loyalty is to the Church, then I can understand why you don't give loyalty to any human institution, that kind of loyalty, and sometimes we confuse one thing with the other, loyalty to the Church, to the institution, that may be partial, but loyalty to the Kingdom of God and to Jesus, that has to be radical and absolute, your identity is summed up in your Christianity, your Christianity. You live for Jesus, you are an instrument of Jesus. You are a platform for Jesus to stand on and use as He wants, Jesus cannot simply be this man that he was for Nicodemus, a good teacher, a man of God.

Christ wanted to be everything in the life of Nicodemus and that is an element that is repeated over and over again. We have to get people to that point where we lift Christ up before them as God, as Lord, as Savior of their souls.

I could say a lot more, now I'm talking to those people, let's say. You have to continually examine yourself, I have to examine myself. How central is Christ to me, how central is He in my life?

When the Lord settles within you and that essence that He releases is released within you, it is transmitted and distributed through all the parts of your being, it colors everything in a different way.

I remember that time of falling in love with the Lord, so many things came from there, the Lord took me seriously because the Lord is real and blessed my life, and the life of my wife, and blessed the life of my family, and walking With Jesus we have seen how everything has been enriched, how everything has changed, and I can say that I understand the difference between having Christ partially and having him at the center of our life, and I still need more, let me tell you, because I want to know him more, as Paul says, and I want Him to know me more, and I want Him to have more of me and I have more of Him because it is a process that never ends, it is an idyll, it is a falling in love. He who gets bored in the Gospel is because he has not known the Gospel, the Gospel is an adventure brothers, the Gospel is a love affair with layers and layers, and layers, Christ has no end.

We get bored because we have fallen in love with the Church or with the pastors, or with a deacon or whatever but not with Jesus Christ, we have to go directly to Him and we have to know Him for what He is and then that changes everything, when Christ it becomes real in your life that releases an essence. That is why there are many of us who enter the Gospel and do not give up, and we continue to make the same mistakes, soaking in the same quagmire, our situation does not change, we do not feel the joy that we are supposed to feel, there is no transformation, there is no change in our environment, the problems remain the same. I suggest that one possible reason is that you need to put Christ inside of you, you need to plant that trunk in your land so that it grows again and flourishes within you, and that is what the Lord wanted to tell him.

Look at the frontal way in which the Lord speaks to Nicodemus, it's almost rude, you know? because Jesus has a beautiful and tender part, but he also has a straight and firm part, and when He is not given the place that He deserves, He gets a little gloomy too, you know? there is no way to approach Jesus and not give him everything he deserves, that causes hostility on his part.

It says: “The Lord responds to this compliment from Nicodemus with a confrontational response; Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I tell you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God." If you look, in a sense the Lord's response is cutting. Nicodemus can say: Lord yes, we know that You are someone special, and the Lord instead of saying: Thank you Nicodemus, I really appreciate that compliment, yes, I am important, not really. He says to him: Nicodemus, if you are not born again, don't dress because you are not going. He is telling you: You are missing something essential. You know me but the transaction has not taken place, the chemical reaction has not taken place so that you truly know who I am.

Conversion is something mysterious, it is something truly magical, that image of being born again is something so important that we understand it so that we can invite others to a true knowledge of Jesus Christ. Knowing Jesus is something that does not go unnoticed in the human system.

When a person receives Christ in his heart, things happen, there are changes, there are transformations, there is impregnation of that individual. It's not just like I met Jesus Christ and added a piece of information to my brain, something magical has to happen, an internal transformation that the Bible defines in such a radical way that it calls it being born again, it's not even being born , is a creation, a recreation of the person.

And it is important that we alert people to the fact that you have to be born again, clean slate. And I think that is why many people find it difficult to understand receiving Christ as Lord and Savior and why it is necessary to do so, because Jesus is the only one who has the power to unleash the necessary reactions in the spirit of the human being so that person can then be acceptable before God.

There is what is called a catalytic substance, I hope I am using the correct term in Spanish, is it that way? a catalyst. A catalyst is, as I understand it, in chemistry, it is that substance or that element of energy that allows a chemical reaction to take place, for example, how? catalyst, thank you, we have a chemist here who can help us with that (laughs), for example: you take an oxygen atom, two hydrogen atoms and you put them together and nothing happens because they are simply two substances that are not related to each other yes, but the catalyst is something that causes something and adds a little bit of energy, I don't know exactly how, but it allows those two things to merge and then create a water molecule, energy is needed then, in chemical reactions it is needed energy, to make it possible for something to sprout, and Jesus is that process.

Jesus is the one who allows the reaction necessary for there to be new life to take place in us. We cannot do it by ourselves, we need energy, we need the essence that Christ provides so that a change of nature can take place in us, because if we are not simply going to create what we are, we are going to continue being the same what are we.

The union between man and God is like uniting two things that are totally different. Totally imperfect, sinful human flesh, prone to rebellion and a pure, perfect, almighty, holy God, how to unite those two things? Christ makes it possible. Christ somehow adds the amount of energy that is required to fuse these two essences and make possible the union between God and man. That is why He says: I am the way, the Truth, the life, Jesus is the bridge, and we have to introduce people to Jesus Christ so that the new birth can take place within them, so that the life of God within them. Jesus is the answer and we have to lift Jesus up before the people so that a new birth can be given.

How can we change our mentality, how can we change our behavior, how can we be radically different? How can we break the ties that enslave our lives? an agent has to come from outside to make that possible and Jesus Christ is the agent, and people have to invite Jesus into their lives for such a change to take place.

I tell them that there was a change in my life when I invited Jesus to come, I remember that experience clearly and what happened in my life, and we have to bring others to that knowledge. And that is what the Lord says to Nicodemus, he says: If you are not born again you cannot see the Kingdom of God.

There are childhood associations with this knowing and accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ said that if we do not become like children we cannot see the Kingdom of God. There is something about childhood associated with birth, with the new birth, and with entering the Kingdom of God.

Do you know that many people cannot understand who Jesus Christ is or the mysteries of the Gospel? paradoxically because they are too intelligent and too sophisticated, and the language of the Gospel is a magical, mythical, mysterious, symbolic, artistic language and it is understood by means of other faculties that are not rational faculties. If you try to approach the Gospel through faculties that are intellectual, rational, you will rebound against the Gospel because the Gospel is reached through another faculty and one has to become like an innocent child, and we see that with Nicodemus.

Nicodemus has a highly educated rational theological understanding and when the Lord tells him that he has to be born again Nicodemus interprets it literally because he cannot understand the language of Jesus Christ. And he asks him: how can a man be born a second time? can he enter his mother's womb again and be born? and the Lord returns and says to him: Nicodemus, I tell you that whoever is not born of water and spirit cannot enter the Kingdom of God, what is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit. .

The Lord is saying to Nicodemus: Nicodemus, put your intellect aside for a moment, stop trying to figure out the Gospel by rational means, don't get into silly disputes with people about intellectual issues, well what if there are Martians are going to be saved or not on another planet? And where do flying saucers come from? Is the Lord also going to announce the Gospel on Mars or on Pluto or other places where there are? don't get involved in such things, who was Cain's wife then if there was no other? stay out of that mess, keep the conversation centered on Jesus Christ.

When people try to figure out the Gospel in intellectual terms, they will never be able to enter, and if you are struggling with Jesus Christ, let your guard down, stop reasoning and simply open your spirit to the Lord, tell him if He is real to speak to you, to enter to your life, make yourself humble, make yourself simple. That is why the Lord says: if you are not like children you cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven, if you try to go through the intellect you will never be able to reach where Jesus Christ is, because the language and the meaning of the Kingdom of God is totally different, another faculty is required.

Put aside your questions, go in to Jesus and introduce yourself, let Him introduce himself and when you talk to Jesus and He with you you will see how easy it is, and then from the inside, all those questions that you had from the outside you will He will laugh at how easy it is to respond to them, because the Kingdom of God cannot be understood from the outside, it has to be from the inside.

It is as the famous theologian Kirkiegaard said, receiving Christ is like taking a leap into the abyss, jump in and believe. Believing is something that is like, I don't know, I don't know exactly how to describe it, it's a leap into the abyss, it's just making up your mind: I'm going to jump in, and when you do, the Lord will be there ready to receive you.

Many people believe that if they surrender to Jesus they will also have to shelve their intellect. Do you know that humbling your intellect before Christ also makes you more intelligent and wiser brother? When you put your intellect in the straitjacket of the Gospel, that straitjacket exercises it and makes it stronger, sharper, makes it more comprehensive. When man humbles his intellect before the greatness and lordship of Jesus Christ, the Lord blesses him and lifts him up, and then gives him a healthy intellect, an intellect for life, not the sharp and cutting intellect that so many people have in this century that what it does is that it poisons and causes as much corruption, and as much damage as we see.

The 21st century with all its intellectual knowledge, all its scientific achievements, all its knowledge of the microcosm and the macrocosm, from human genetics to galaxies and the cosmos, from the depths of the ocean to the heights of space, and yet this world is more terrible and more distorted than ever because there is an intellect that kills and there is an intellect that heals, and the intellect that heals is the one that is subdued and humiliated before Jesus Christ, the intellect like a child, innocence, the intellect that leads to life.

And that is what Jesus is trying to show this great man, this Pharisee who is well educated in theology and knowledge of the law. He tells him: Look, this is not a matter of theological knowledge, it is a matter of a person. and that person is Me, you have to know Me.

Verse 13: “No one ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven; the Son of Man, who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so it is necessary that the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life."

What is the Lord doing? He is changing the terms of the conversation and is saying to Nicodemus: Now let's talk about Me, let's not talk about who you think I am but really who I am. I am the one who descended from heaven, I have come into the world to reveal to man the nature of the Father, the nature of spiritual things, and one must look to Me to receive salvation and eternal life.

And the Lord uses the image of the history of Israel when in a moment of rebellion the people offended the Lord in a terrible way when they were wandering in the desert, and the Lord punished them by sending poisonous snakes that were biting them and were wreaking havoc among them. the people, and the people cried out and repented, Moses interceded for them, and God gave Moses a formula, you can read it in the Book of Numbers, and he said: Okay Moses, build yourself a sculpture in the shape of a serpent and lift it up from all the people, and everyone who looks at the serpent will be saved, will be healed of its poisoning.

And if you think that the Gospel and the Coming of Christ was an afterthought for the Lord you don't understand, God was there erecting an image in the desert of who Jesus was and how he was going to save humanity, because that serpent it was a symbol of Jesus and how one should look at Him. And the Lord now takes that history of Israel's past and tells Nicodemus: Look, I am the one to whom every person must look.

There is something interesting about the Lord using the snake to heal from snake bites, it is like using something that is the same but now has a healing value whereas before it had a death value, why this? because man in his sin, sin entered through a man, through Adam who offended God and death entered through there, and what does the Bible say? that God used a second Adam, another man to bring life and healing to humanity, God and man.

Then man was the instrument of death in the Adamic fall but now through Jesus Christ, as the bronze serpent comes to heal the bites of the original serpent, Christ has now been placed to heal humanity from the fall caused by sin of a man, and then people looking at that sculpture and looking at it with intention could receive healing.

That is what we have to tell people: look at Jesus Christ, don't sell him a system, don't sell him a Church, sell him a person who can make a difference.

I used to tell the brothers in the 9 o'clock service: if they told me that I have cancer and they told me: look at those flowers and you will be healthy, I would look at those flowers, I would eat them with my eyes, I would be like the little dolls! ! My eyes bulge out and they stick to them, I would look making sure that I am seeing them and I would count them one by one to make sure that that look was true, so people have to fix their eyes on Jesus the Son of Man, we have to invite them: set your eyes on the Son of God. Your will, your affections, your hopes, your emotions, all focus on Jesus Christ, and that is what God has wanted us to do, that is what we have to tell people.

Do not set your sights on a Church, do not set your sights on a system. Religions will disappoint you, pastors will disappoint you, Christ will never disappoint you, put your hope in Him, put your affection in Him (applause) and the rest comes in addition, of course, so you have to grow You have to look for it, you have to know it better.

But the magical act occurs when you cling to Jesus, when you recognize him for what he is, when you give him his position that he deserves and that is the only one. Until a man, a woman does not see Jesus in that desperate way, they have not reached where they have to go. That is why He tells Nicodemus: as the serpent was lifted up in the desert, so it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up so that everyone who believes in Him does not perish, but has eternal life. Hallelujah.

There is another passage in which the Lord says: If the Son of Man were lifted up, he would draw everyone to Him, he said, if I were lifted up, and you know? The Bible says that it was referring to the crucifixion, when He was raised up. I can imagine when they took that cross and put it up. First, they nailed Him down and then they raised that cross, and they put Him looking over all those who were there, He was raised as a snake, an image of death, a gloomy image, as a snake is, a gloomy image, the Lord was raised. And today, and through the centuries all who have looked to Him in faith have been saved like the people in the desert too.

Brothers: we have to do everything possible so that many people see the Son of God. Our job is to lift up Jesus before a humanity that is being lost, is being lost here on Earth and is being lost for eternity, and if you are here today I beg you, I want you to feel desperate this afternoon, and I want you to feel that you need to look towards the Son of God and put your faith in Him for that mysterious transaction to take place, for the life of God to be born in you as a woman who is impregnated by a magical encounter between two elements of life. , unite and life begins to throb in her womb, and I want you to have an equal experience, to become pregnant with Christ, pardon the expression, become impregnated with Jesus, that the life of God be born within you because you look at it to Him, set your eyes on Jesus.

And brothers, that we make sure that we take advantage of every opportunity to present this Son of God to the people so that no one perishes but has eternal life. And in the future I want to talk about that image of getting lost and having eternal life. What does that mean? people are being lost, humanity is being lost. I think of all those people who died in Las Vegas, how many of those people had Christ in their hearts?

They were there at one point enjoying good music stuck in the center of vanity in the United States, Las Vegas, the fancy hotels with all their cheap luxury and all their corruption, the shows and all this there adoring people there on the platform and a blind bullet hits them and ends their life. Many were lost, perhaps some knew Jesus but I am sure they did not have the opportunity to cry out to the Lord and to look at Him, let us not let people get lost.

We are going to preach the Gospel brothers, that is what defines salvation or eternal perdition. If you have something of great value with you, may God begin to fill us with that sense. I want each one of us who is here this afternoon to feel clear that their life is in the hands of Jesus. Let's sit down for a moment and please, children, keep them quiet for a moment and if you have to move, move very calmly because we are going to finish.

I want to ask you: if you were one of those people who lost their life there in Las Vegas, would you have gone with Christ? If you lost your life for some reason, an unexpected disaster or whatever, are you sure that you are going to go to heaven, that your eternity is guaranteed, that you have a passport to enter the heavenly realm, are there doubts in you? ? What is it that will allow you to enter eternal life and an intimate relationship with God for all eternity?

It's not your works, huh? It is not anything that you have done nor something that you have exempted yourself from doing, it is nothing that has to do with actions that you can take or not take on Earth. There is only one thing that allows you to enter the Kingdom of God and that is that you have Christ within your heart, that you have looked at Him with despair, that you have invited Him to be the master of your life, and that you have invited him to be Lord and controller of all that you are and what you have.

When the Father asks you: Why should I let you into My heaven? you are going to tell him: Lord, certainly it is not for anything that I have done because I have no right to enter, but Christ died for me on the cross, I have accepted His sacrifice and that justifies me, and I have the right to enter not for me, but for what Christ did for my life, that is the only passport that you can use to enter the Kingdom of heaven.

If you are not sure where your life is right now and your eternal destiny, I want you to invite Jesus into your heart and make him your Lord, your owner, your Savior, make that transaction now. Look there in your spiritual eyes, look at Jesus with despair and let Him make His fruits within you, that look will impregnate you, it will fertilize you with the life of God. Do you want to invite the Lord as your Lord and Savior into your life?

I want to invite you now to raise your hand wherever you are, if you have taken that step in faith, if you want to make Christ your Lord, raise your hand, I want to pray for you this afternoon, I want to surrender you, put you in the hands of Jesus , brother, God bless you. Look at Jesus, look at Jesus, God bless you, anyone else? this young man here too, back there another hand is raised, the Lord is raised, I am raising him right now, He is there, like this, and let's see that he is suspended with His hands outstretched saying: Come to Me all you who are labored and loaded down that I will give you rest, and you are looking at Him with hope, with great desire.

Someone else, raise your hand, stand up for a minute, I want to see you, stand up. Invite the King of kings, Lord of lords, the Son of God to come in. There is no shame, there is no shame in surrendering to the Lord. Remember what you said about breaking, you have to break the glass, your pride has to be broken, until you don't break your pride. Privacy, a sense of personal dignity, those are the things that keep the perfume from coming out, the grain of wheat from breaking and having life and bearing fruit.

Come this way, stop by if you want, stop by for a moment, we want to pray for you, if you want to stay there in your seat that's fine too. There is a verbal confession, there is a public confession, we do not come to Christ at night, brothers, we come to Christ in front of men, in front of the community and what better than a family environment, an environment where others have already done it, we are here.

What a shame that a manly man surrenders to Jesus, wow, glory to God for women, but how good it is when men also break down and say: you know what? I am man enough to give myself to God. A man is never truly a man until he bows down to something greater than himself.

Brothers: we live in times of great danger, there are wild beasts that have been released that are walking this world right now like this character, 500 people injured, 60 nearly dead reveling while destroying lives, don't you think that this is something inconceivably terrible? we have become so used to evil that we continue to eat our cereal as if nothing had happened, these are terrible times.

Our children are being corrupted by demonic doctrines in the schools, marriages are destroyed, the world is turned upside down and only Christ can protect our homes, our families, our communities. Satan only respects one name and it is the Name of Jesus, there is no other Name given to men.

Look, you have to tell people: run for your life, escape, because these are difficult times, these are terrible times. My brothers: figuratively speaking, paint the lintel of your door with the blood of Jesus. Take a brush and symbolically paint the lintel of the entrance door of your house and say: this is the blood of Christ that I put in my home, and in your lives. This is not the time to play with the Gospel.

In a sense, look, I am going to say this very carefully, in a sense I am glad that things are getting worse because the time for little games has passed and we must take the Gospel seriously. Both the Church has to take the Gospel seriously and the people out there have to take Christ seriously.

My brothers, you have come forward, I invite you to eat Christ. Eat of it, put it inside you, take it seriously. Invite him to take ownership of your lives, give your homes to Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, that Name has Power, that Name protects, that Name covers, that Name illuminates, that Name heals, that Name brings hope. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

We have to lift up Jesus before lost humanity. We have to challenge you to make your peace with Jesus, either reject him or accept him but ignorance has to be made impossible for you, and you are walking into something very powerful right now. Do not accept it halfway, I am not inviting you to come forward here and then simply continue as if nothing had happened, no. I invite you to a radical surrender of your lives.

Break the glass, enter a crisis. Go into crisis, go into crisis, go into crisis. Look inside yourself for that delivery center, that center is there, unleash it, unleash that energy within you, unleash it. Fight for your encounter with Jesus, look until you discover it, He is there.

Hallelujah and that Jesus is mighty to unleash power, power for every need, for every situation, everything you are struggling with but fall desperately in love with Him and invite it to spread throughout your entire being. God bless that beautiful young couple, amen, God bless you. Invite Jesus and make him master of your home, give your lives to Him.

I long for the day when people come running to Church to give themselves to Christ. The more handsome and more talented glory to God, the better, the more blessed they will be and the more they will bless others as well.

Christ, let's tell the people, the people out there: only Jesus represents refuge and hope for this humanity. We are going to invite them to bring their families, to make their homes a temple where Jesus Christ dwells so that the Lord can cover them from evil, from those poisonous snakes that abound and will continue to proliferate in the world. The presence of evil will become greater with the passage of time my brothers and only the blood of Jesus will be able to cover, only the Person of Jesus will be able to provide protection. We are not presenting a meek Christ there, all tender and welcoming, He is like that but He is also the Lion of Judah, the only one whose roar is respected by demons and hell, the only one who can protect us and cover us with His fierce love from the attacks of the Devil.

We are going to introduce Jesus, we are going to fall in love with Jesus, we are going to live by and for Jesus, we are going to give our lives to the Lord, we are going to bring others to the knowledge of Christ. This is war brothers, this is, now, things are being clearly defined, this is binary. Yes or no, life or death, hell or eternal salvation and heaven, it's that simple, or subjection to evil and impotence before its ravages or protection from God for your life, for your children, for your home when you live fully stuck to Him, which one will you choose? that's it, the day of decision is now. Today, today is the day of salvation. Surrender yourself like this, desperately to the Lord and we will bring others.

The only one, Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, hallelujah. We adore You Lord, we lift You up, help us rise up to humanity, oh help us find that center of power that is You.

Father: raise up a fierce people, a loving and fierce people, a warrior people, a dangerous people for the devil and his hell. Oh God give us the Word, give us the ability to bring others to the knowledge of Christ. Multiply the numbers of the saved Lord, hallelujah. Release Your essence Father in this time, pour out Your Power Father, that the whole house be filled with perfume, oh. Let this city know the Name of Jesus Christ. May the Son of God be lifted up before the powers of this time, hallelujah.

Release Your Power Lord, hallelujah! Release the mouth of Your people so that they announce the risen Christ, hallelujah, we want more of You Lord, we need You.