you can't shine alone

I invite you to open your bibles to the Book of Ephesians. Two weeks ago I was here speaking with you about the teaching of the Holy Spirit to the people in the city of Ephesus, a city full of spiritual warfare. There was a worship of a goddess called Diana there, it was a terrible idolatry and thus, those people had to learn what it was to wage spiritual warfare.

The Lord taught them that now in the spiritual world they now do not have to be afraid, that on the contrary, they are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, that as Christians we are a supernatural people.

We talked last week about how God has raised us from the dead, that we were dead in our crimes and I said: our crimes and fish, but God has raised us from all that sea of death and made us live with Christ, he raised us with Christ, seated us with Him there in heavenly places, and now we shine like diamonds of grace, that each testimony, each person who is a Christian can say: the Lord has raised me up, I was dead and now I am alive, I was in sin and now I am a new creature in Christ, we are diamonds of grace.

I am addicted to this process, of meeting people who walk in the door here broken, defeated and then they know the Power of God and the Holy Spirit transforms them, and they shine with the glory of God in their eyes, and all the glory is for him, amen?

The message that we are going to see today is about the apostle Paul who under the anointing of the Spirit in the Book of Ephesus later begins to teach them that you cannot shine alone, that God has called us to shine together with the glory of God.

Brothers: we live in days when humanity is more divided than ever. Here in this country we see that everyone is against each other: blacks, whites, there is an anti-immigrant feeling as we know, that there are differences between people, conflicts between people, and people need to know that they can there be something different in the world, that there can be a united community not by natural causes, right?

In the world people pass each other, with whom do you have something in common? the people you like, who understand your jokes, right? but in Christ we are not a natural people, we are a supernatural people united by the Power of the Holy Spirit and not by natural affinity. And the Lord is doing something special in Congregación León de Judá, and we are a united prophetic people of many races and many parts of life, and people who have suffered on the street, and the Lord has united us to be a prophetic people in the city of Boston because our people can break barriers.

So I invite you to read with me in Ephesians 2 verse 11, Ephesians 2 verse 11 says the following, it says: "Therefore remember, that in another time you Gentiles in regard to the flesh were called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision made with hand in the flesh; At that time you were without Christ, away from the citizenship of Israel and alien to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world; But now in Christ, you who in another time were far away have been made close, because He is our peace who made both peoples one, breaking down the middle wall of separation, abolishing enmities in his flesh, the law of the commandments expressed in ordinances, to create in himself a single and new man, making peace, and through the cross, to reconcile both with God in a single body, killing enmities in it.”

“And he came and preached the good news of peace to you who were far off, and to those who were near; Because through Him we have access by one spirit to the Father; So you are no longer foreigners and upstarts, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of the family of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole well-coordinated building is growing for to be a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are well built for a dwelling place of God in the spirit."

And Holy Spirit, we invite you to speak to us on this day. You are the good shepherd and You know the Word that we need from You today. I ask you to be the voice of the good shepherd speaking to me and to us, I ask you in Jesus' Name.

Enmity, I don't know if you have a good enemy in life, right? an enemy, I hate him, maybe you're sitting next to him right now (laughs), no, I hope not. Enmity in the world, there is a lot of enmity today as I just said.

At that time there was enmity between Jews and non-Jews, a terrible conflict between them. The Jews thought that the non-Jews were spiritually dirty: they worshiped idols in all their activities, their idolatrous festivals, they did unspeakable things, disgusting things, at their dinner, at their meal it was all meat offered to idols, there at their festivals there was always a ceremony to honor the little god or goddess, so they were a people that the Jews had learned to consider impure, unclean.

Already by the time of Jesus, many strict Jews did not eat with non-Jews, with a Gentile, nor did they enter the house so as not to contaminate themselves, so as not to get dirty, and the Gentiles were not left behind, they also hated the Jews, and God comes and says: no more. My people, the world and the angels, and the principalities have to see that I am the God who can break all barriers between people and I can make a new humanity, a new man, right?

Look at what it says in verse 15, it says: "Abolishing enmities in his flesh, the law of commandments expressed in ordinances to create in himself one single new man making peace" as God took the gold and breathed, and He made Adam a living being, the Lord takes different people, people who hated each other before, and makes them live together as a new being, a new humanity, a new people.

Look what it says: "You are no longer foreigners and upstarts." I don't know what an upstart is, I miss a tea, a relative, I don't know what a relative is but I think it is someone who is not welcome among us, right? Gentiles felt that way, rejected, excluded, separated.

I don't know if any of us here felt that way, you felt at some point in your life that the Church was not for you, the Church is not for me, everyone there is good and I am not good. Do we have any bad girls or bad boys here? that before you felt: no longer, I am not from the Church, that is not my place, they are not going to want me to be there.

Many of us live this, but here in this neighborhood we live it very palpably, right? There are people here in this neighborhood who take drugs, who feel that if I go to Church what clothes am I going to wear? I have no clothes, there are some who sleep outside in the cold, and in fact you can start donating coats.

And I have breakfast for outsiders, I know I've talked about it before, but on Saturday mornings I've been assigned the job of being the doorman, I know, I think it's because I scare any bad guy to don't go in right? I don't know what, they put me at the door, this is my little job, the leaders have assigned me, and my job is to receive all the new ones and by the way, every Saturday out of a hundred there are always ten, fifteen, twenty new ones constantly passing through this neighborhood , and I don't go up to the sanctuary, and they go up to the original sanctuary, and they look and say: wow, what are they going to do to me here, it's like a trap from a laboratory of a bad scientist who is going to do something to me, and they enter there and they look: wow, everything is carved, everything is beautiful, they sit down, and I try to calm them down: welcome, I'm the Pastor, I want to welcome you, take a seat.

I tell them at the beginning: welcome to the House of God, this place is your place. And sometimes some of them who have entered at this moment, at this moment begin to take off their caps and say: wow, I haven't come to Church since I was seven years old when my grandmother pulled me, right? and here I am back, and some people start crying right there. And I have the privilege of saying: welcome home. Maybe you forgot about God but He didn't forget about you, welcome home. And these for me are the happiest moments of my week.

One day I had my son with me, Noa, right? and he helped put the papers that people have to sign, and put the pencils and everything, and he in the middle of the thing said: daddy, I feel something special in my heart, I don't know what it is, and I told him: know what it is? you are feeling the joy of salvation, the joy of the lost that is now found, the joy of welcoming that feels excluded and rejected, you are feeling the joy of God, and I said to him: that is why I do what I do, and he says: okay! now, now I think maybe I get it, right? he starts: okay that's fine, I say: yeah, that's really fine, I'm addicted to that.

This joy of salvation, in the Book of Luke chapter 15 speaks of a shepherd who has a hundred sheep and loses a sheep, and runs, and when he finds it, he brings it back and he throws a party for joy, right?

There is a story of a woman who loses money and searches the house, and can't find it, it's like losing her phone. Have you lost your phone? and the desire to lose my phone, how am I going to live five minutes without my phone? what do I do without that thing, and then you find it and throw a party, a party, I invite you, let's eat, right? This is how the Lord is when a person is found, right? The prodigal son returns home and the father says: this brother of yours was dead and is alive, he was lost and now he is found, we have to enjoy.

Brethren, we are talking a lot about Evangelism these days. There is no joy in this world like the joy of salvation, like an evangelistic Church that opens its arms: welcome to your home, we have been waiting for you, and this is the joy that God wants to share with us because before they feel excluded but now no more, they are no longer strangers or upstarts but fellow citizens with the saints and family members. It is not that they are only hidden here, but God is opening and forming a new humanity, a new nation in the world, a holy nation.

A Church that has members from different nations is a prophetic example of the fact that there is a new Kingdom on Earth that is more important than politics. Democrat or Republican, I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God, amen? And we proclaim to the world: there is a new kingdom and there is a new King, welcome to the Kingdom we say to the people.

It also says that those who were excluded before are now members of God's family, God is forming a new family. Now the person different from you is your brother or your sister whether you like it or not, right? You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family, you are stuck with them, you are obliged, they are family members, you have to live with them because they are family. He's my brother, it bothers me, but he's my brother, what am I going to do? My brothers: the love of Christ is often like that. Okay, I don't like this little brother but he's my brother, what am I going to do? you are stuck with him.

"Family members," of the same family "built" verse 20 "on the foundation of the apostles and prophets." We are not talking about a unit without form, right? I do not believe and in fact, I do not believe that we should as Christians have spiritual unity with people who are not based on the Word of God. We must love everyone, we must express friendship to everyone, but I cannot have spiritual communion with someone who does not believe in Christ and in the Word of God.

There are some churches that have rejected the Word of God and we are not here to judge or criticize, or anything like that, it is between them and God, but I do say that we have to be built on the same foundation, right? although we are very different brothers. There are some churches very different from us that have the same foundation and we are from the same family.

"Built on the apostles and prophets being the main corner stone Jesus Christ in whom the whole building, well coordinated, is growing to be a holy temple to the Lord, in whom you are built together for the habitation of God in the spirit."

What is the temple? Many times we say: this building, the temple, we sweat to build this temple, right? We paid a lot to build, our Pastor lost a lot of sleep to build this building, thank God for the building, it is the ark that we have to have, but the temple, the temple is our brothers. The temple is a living temple with living stones that the Lord is building and it is a temple that is growing so that the glory of Jehovah dwells in this human temple.

Brother: you are a stone. Maybe someone has told you, you have a hard head. Well, we are living stones that the Lord is building to form us, maybe he has to file it and cut parts to join us, but we are a living temple and brother: if a large brick is missing from the temple, the water will enter.

Brothers: there are no disposable people in this Church. Sometimes one thinks: well I'm going or I'm not going and everything is going well, no, no, no. You are a living stone and we are being built together, and the Lord wants to build us up and fill us with His Holy Spirit.

The Lord is doing something wonderful, we say that we are diamonds of grace, right? for there is something even more precious that God wants to do. In Ephesians 3 verse 10 it says the following: "God is doing all this, uniting Gentiles and Jews, people of different religions, of different races" verse 10: "so that the manifold wisdom of God may now be made known through the Church to principalities and powers in heavenly places." Now we are talking again about the spiritual environment.

Brothers: perhaps you look at the Church and see many defects and many problems, imperfect people, right? You see everything human, but once God removes everything that is covering us and the spiritual is exposed, the Lord will reveal that the Church is not a small diamond but a gigantic jewel shining with the glory of God. This Church, the brothers in Christ are more precious than you can imagine. We have a great heritage in the saints.

There is a very interesting Word here that says: so that the manifold wisdom of God may be manifested. Multiform, what a strange word right? I looked it up in the original Greek and it says: the multiple, different, varied, wisdom of God.

The Lord is bringing together many different people, many different relationships, and in each relationship the glory of God shines in a special way. I'm not an expert in diamonds, right? I don't know if we have some diamond experts here, but I understand that diamond is beautiful because it reflects light in a different way because of many facets. The Church together we are a multifaceted, multivariable diamond constantly changing, and each new person, each new relationship in the Church is a new brilliance of the glory of God, and it has no end.

And now we come to the point: here we have to make a decision. If I am going to seek this with all my heart, if I am going to pray for this or as the apostle Paul said: suffer for this not to build more organization but the organism that is the Kingdom of God, if we are going to pay the price. The apostle Paul said there at the end: we are going with me and I am approaching the end now, in Ephesians 3 verse 14: "For this reason I bow my knees before the Father", it means that he is crying out. Brothers, without prayer nothing will work.

On the day of Pentecost, what were they doing? All united praying, and then what happened? the wind and the fire of the Holy Spirit fell on them as if the Lord were saying: the shekinah glory will no longer dwell in the temple, but you will be My temple, those people the glory will dwell in them.

And before humanity was divided into languages, everyone speaking in different languages, but now speaking in tongues at this moment it is as if all that curse is changing, and already God is uniting all the people of the world to do what? a single humanity, a humanity of every race and tribe, and nation, and language in every part of the Earth so that the glory of Jehovah dwells in their midst.

It is by the Holy Spirit, brothers, it is my other belief that I have, to be a diverse Church we have to be based on firm doctrine, and the other thing is: we have to be a Pentecostal Church. Look, I know that some are traumatized and say: oh Pentecostal and I don't know what, they have ideas. When I say this I mean that we have to be a Church filled with the Holy Spirit.

The person with whom you drink wine is your best friend, no matter who, right? If we are all drunk with the same spirit we are family, amen? there is something that unites us. All baptized in one spirit.

And it says: "May the Lord strengthen your heart with the Holy Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith" so that in every Christian human being we can see Jesus shining from his eyes and know that you are very different from me. but I see Jesus in you.

Have you had that experience with people? maybe outside the Church, you are at work or something and a person of another race, but do you see Christ in them? and you know, it's the Holy Spirit shining on them, it's the same Christ, although we are different and we don't even understand each other but we are family. There is neither woman nor man, nor slave, nor rich, nor Gentile, nor Jew, we are all in Christ and Christ is one, we are one through him.

And then the apostle Paul says: if they are going to be one they have to learn to love each other. Love brothers is not a honeyed feeling, love is a commitment to accept your brother no matter what with all his patches and flaws, right? learn to understand each other, to tolerate each other, to put up with each other and also suffer all the discomfort of being in a diverse Church.

Brothers: when I went to Honduras for the first time fifteen years ago I went and the first day I visited the Church I was surprised that after the service everyone kissed, kisses, kisses, kisses, and we gringos don't kiss much, only mommy right? nor sister, kisses, kisses, kisses, and then I realized that: wow, in my Church not everyone kisses, and I realized why, because there everyone is the same, everyone is relaxed, everyone they were catrachos from the same town, God bless all catracho here, right? (laughs) but they were all the same and the defenses were lower. But here, being in a different environment, you don't know how the brother is going to receive you, right? and I learned that there are very big differences.

In Puerto Rico I went to McDonalds and the girl says: tell me, and the person says: give me coffee, and that's it. In Guatemala it took me half an hour to ask for a coffee, if you would be so kind as to perhaps please serve me a coffee with, maybe if you would, and I learned that wow, I am totally confused, the gringo more lost than ever, because everything is different. So maybe you are showing respect and the different person thinks that you are cold and distant, right? others who are being friendly and another person from another culture thinks: but how daring, he is taking a lot of confidence that has not been given to him, what rudeness, right?

Look brother: we have "wacked the balls" even more because in the cult in English everything is a revolution now brothers. We have homeless people like I just said, in a group of two hundred, twenty or thirty are from the street, okay? homeless people, we also have european asian people. Today I met a girl from South Korea who wants this to be her Church, we have a little bit of everything mixed up and nobody understands each other.

I remember when I was new here in this Church, I remember my first weeks I met Don Mario and a young woman was talking to me like that (close face to face grimace), and I am a gringo, I am used to a little more space , I was a little close, so I took a little step back, right? do you know what he did? she took a little step forward (laughs) so I took another little step back, another little step forward, and she was a good girl, look, good, good, it wasn't for nothing, but afterwards I was glued to a wall (laughs) sweating like a madman and she there talking to me.

Brothers, it is worth it because this is how the multiform wisdom of God is demonstrated, amen. It is for this, brothers, I am going to speak from my heart, perhaps it is a prophetic moment, it is for this reason that the Pastor felt moved to do the morning service in English, right? We could have sent this group to build a new work, thank God, and this was in our hearts, maybe, who knows, but no, God has called us to complicate our lives, to be a bilingual, multiracial, multi-ethnic Church. We have counted people from almost every country under the sun and yet we can demonstrate that there is a new Kingdom on Earth, a new people, a new family on Earth, it is that the gringos need the anointing that is here brothers and they want , they want, that's why it's here.

Those who have been born here, life cannot be contained, it has to be shared more among many people and in this divided world that is trying to unite people with all political groups we can say that there is a Holy Spirit that unites us . Brethren, this is revival. In the revivals of the past you always see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and different people embracing each other, of different cultures, of different languages, of different styles because in Christ, in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, everything else is erased, thank God, we are called to this.

And I want to end with this prayer "praying that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts, so that, rooted and grounded in love, you may be fully capable of comprehending by all the saints what is the width, length, depth and height , and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God, and the one who is powerful to do all things far beyond abundantly than we ask or understand, according to the power that acts in us to Him be the glory” where? “in the Church in Christ Jesus for all ages, forever and ever. Amen." Glory in the Church, glory in the Church is our calling.

So let's stand up, and in the morning I invited everyone to embrace this call that is not easy because it is accepting being in a Church where no one is completely comfortable because you are with different people with different styles, but embrace the call because it is worth it, because God wants to demonstrate glory not only in Jesus Christ but in His body, in the Church, a diamond Church that shines with the multifaceted power of the Holy Spirit.

Father: In the Name of Jesus, thank you for the headaches we have in this Church for who we are. Father, I thank you for the churches called to be homogeneous, to be all white, all black, all Chinese, thank you for what you do among them, but Lord, I thank you because you have called us to this diversity so that your glory may be reflected in us.

Father, it is good that You are our true Father, that we are a holy people, a new nation under Your Power. I ask you Holy Spirit that it be You uniting us, that we be a temple to receive glory on this Earth, Lord, that we grow up to what You have called us to do. I ask you in the Name of Jesus Father, amen and amen.