To Win as Many as Possible

I want to read the First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 9. I am going to begin with verse 16. First Corinthians 9:16 says, as the Apostle Paul writes: “For if I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to boast about, for necessity is laid upon me.” I am going to repeat that: “necessity is laid upon me.” In other words, what is it? It is an obligation; it is something that comes from God and that God lays upon us. It is a necessity; it is something imperative. “And woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” Say this: Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! Listen to me, that is a very strong Word: woe to us if we do not share the Gospel.

“For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, a commission has been entrusted to me.” In other words, if you preach the Gospel willingly, joyfully, and spontaneously, do not boast too much about it, but you will have a reward. And if you do not want to do it, you must still do it, because you have received a commission from the Lord.

“What then is my reward? That when I preach the Gospel, I may present the Gospel of Christ free of charge, so as not to abuse my right in the Gospel.” You know what? Paul felt that preaching the Word was such a great privilege for him that he had made a commitment not to receive a salary or anything else, because he felt that preaching the Gospel for free and relying on his own resources for his livelihood, as he did, was such a special honor for him. To him it was a great privilege, and he thought that if he were paid, it would be an abuse of his right. So just imagine—I believe there is much to learn from that, isn’t there?

Then he says: “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the greatest possible number.” That is the title of this sermon: “To Win the Greatest Possible Number.” Remember that. “I became as a Jew to the Jews, that I might win the Jews; to those who are under the law, as though I were under the law, though I myself am not under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as though I myself were also without law—although I am not without law, but am under a law, which is the law of Jesus Christ—that I might win those who are without law. I became weak to the weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people”—wow—“I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. And this I do”—why?—“for the Gospel’s sake, that I may become a partaker of it.” May the Lord bless His holy Word. Glory to God.

Brother, you should read that three times a day with every meal, because it is a beautiful example of what it means to live life on the razor’s edge in order to bring people to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Today we are continuing a series of messages on evangelism that I began a few weeks ago. Through these sermons, my desire is to create in all of us as a church a powerful, all-consuming awareness of the call to be evangelists, the call to live evangelistic lives, and the call to embrace an evangelistic consciousness both as individuals and as a congregation. We have seen that evangelizing, sharing the Gospel, being fruitful, and bearing fruit for the Gospel and for the Kingdom of God is not an option; it is an obligation. We have been speaking about our commitment to becoming a truly evangelistic church.

We have said that throughout all these years—almost twenty years—we have been constructing buildings, renovating buildings, and investing a great deal of the congregation’s money in developing this beautiful physical facility that God has given us, along with the two other buildings we have next door. We have done a tremendous number of things so that we might have a truly suitable place for preaching the Gospel in different ways: our social-service ministries, the offices we have, and the various rooms we use for discipleship classes and for young people. Right now, while we are here, young people are holding their service over there on the other side, and discipleship classes are being held in different buildings and rooms.

We have invested a great deal of money, but now that God has allowed us to have this beautiful physical facility, we must invest our energy, our time, and our money in bringing great numbers of souls to the knowledge of Christ Jesus. We must pour our energies into being a truly evangelistic church for the rest of our existence. Through these sermons, my desire is to prepare our hearts and make us aware, in addition to the other things we will be doing, and to ensure that everything we do is directed toward bringing souls to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We have seen that winning souls is not an option, but an obligation—an expectation from God. As Proverbs 11:30 says: “He who wins souls is wise.” Say there in your heart: “He who wins souls is wise.” Do you know that when you win souls, something precious also happens in your own life, and not only in the lives of those whom you win for Christ?

And through these sermons we have seen that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are for those who bear fruit, those who are involved in advancing the Kingdom of God—that is, those who fulfill that Great Commission: Go into all the world and preach the Gospel, making disciples of all nations and teaching them to obey the things that I have taught you. Those were the last words, recorded in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, that Christ spoke before ascending into heaven. And in Acts He says: “And you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, in Judea and in Samaria, and throughout the whole earth.”

The Christian is called to bear fruit; there is no alternative. Those who use the gifts they receive to do business, as we saw in that earlier parable in which the owner of the enterprise gives each person a talent, gives them an amount of money, and tells them, “Do business until I return”—doing business for the Kingdom means doing everything necessary to make what God has given you yield a return. Do not keep your talent hidden, as one of the servants did, who received a very severe rebuke from his master. Make sure that you use what God has given to your life to bless others and share the Word of God.

We remember that the demon-possessed man from the region of the Gadarenes, whom Christ delivered from his great demonic oppression, wanted to remain with Jesus. He wanted to enjoy the company of this Being who had delivered him from those years in which his life had been so terribly wasted. But the Lord told him: No, you are not called to remain with Me; instead, go to your family and tell them what great things God has done for you. The Christian was not made simply to enjoy and consume, consume, and consume; he was designed to give, give, give, and share the faith with others.

Today I want to speak about something—one aspect of this calling—and that is the importance of sacrificing everything in order to become an effective winner of souls. Being an effective evangelist requires you to live a sacrificial lifestyle.

Every great, high-quality institution that provides some kind of service knows that the customer is king; the customer is the boss, yes or no? The higher the quality of a business, the more important customer satisfaction is. You go to a great hotel or a great restaurant and you see that they pamper the customer. Everyone who serves in a great hotel is trained to provide five-star service and put up with even the customer’s worst bad behavior in order to keep them satisfied.

Not long ago, I called Amazon, the great supplier of products, to return a computer because a person who came to deliver it from one of those companies—I will not mention its name in case someone here works for it—took the computer and, instead of setting the computer down or ringing the doorbell, threw it toward the door from his vehicle, left it there, and drove on. He did not realize that my wife was watching from inside and saw what was happening. Although it did not seem to be damaged, because it was very well wrapped and had plenty of padding, we still said, “You know what? We are not going to take the risk. This is an expensive product. If it was damaged in any way, they need to be held responsible.” So I called the company and told them that we simply did not want the product, and I explained why. You know what? The person on the other end did not ask me, “Well, how far did he throw it? We’re going to call to see whether this is true or not. Allow us to investigate.” She simply told me, “Do not worry. If you do not want it, return it to us and we will send you another one immediately.” And they did not even wait for us to send the computer back before they sent the replacement. There were no questions—just a very kind and welcoming voice. There was no problem, because that is the policy of that great institution. I was struck by that person’s extraordinary courtesy.

And if you call Comcast or Apple, they follow the same policy. Of course, in the meantime they try to sell you other products, but that is how it is. It is incredible. Sometimes it really becomes syrupy—too syrupy—and every time you say something: “Yes, I understand. Thank you.” They repeat what you said back to you. It is incredible.

I understand that this can reach truly surprising extremes. Two weeks ago, I was speaking with a young Italian man. We were at home talking with him, and I do not know how the conversation turned to Amazon, but he said to me, “Look, Roberto, I live in Italy,” and he confessed something to me: “These people go so far that I have called them”—because he buys many products from Apple and Amazon and all that—“and I have called and told them, ‘Look, I bought an iPhone from you, and I have had it for six months. I am already getting tired of it, and I would like to have a different one.’ And they have told me, ‘Then send that one back and we will send you a new one,’ and they do not ask me any questions at all.”

I had to ask him three times, because I thought either he was a huge liar or he was telling me the truth. And he said to me, “I do that many times with different kinds of products, and they know. I am not telling them that it is damaged or defective, because if you told them that, they would immediately…”

Likewise, my daughter Sonia bought a charger, a battery for her computer. It was not working, so she called them, and they told her, “Keep that one, and we will send you another one immediately.” They did not even tell her, “Send us the other one so that we can see whether that is really the case,” or anything. That is how they are.

Now, I assure you that these institutions always come out ahead. Amazon makes billions of dollars a year and is now one of the most astonishing companies in the world, because they know that winning or retaining a customer is much more valuable. That product cost them two hundred or three hundred dollars; they would rather have the customer write favorably about them. How much free publicity are they receiving from me? In fact, I am going to call them and ask them to send me a commission or something. (Laughter.) But these people have a wise mentality.

Do you know that the secular mind is much wiser than the Christian mind? Sometimes people come here to our church, and instead of saying, “Wow, a new soul—let’s win that person,” they say something we do not like, and we immediately look at them disapprovingly; or they ask to sit beside us, and having them here next to us bothers us, instead of our having the right mindset. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said: “The children of this age are wiser in dealing with their fellow men than the children of the Kingdom of light,” because those people know how to win customers.

It is much easier to be pleasant and flexible than to get your own way in the short term and permanently lose a customer. Who are the customers of the Church of Jesus Christ? They are not us; it is not you. The customer is out there. We exist to bring customers into the Kingdom of God, to get them connected, to turn them into customers of the Holy Spirit, of the Word of God, and of the Kingdom of God. Speaking in a very reverent way, every one of us is a salesperson for the Kingdom of heaven. Every one of us has an exalted, eternal, perfect product to sell, and that product is called Christ and the Word of God.

So whom are we going to serve? Whom do we serve? We serve the people who need to know the Gospel, and whatever is necessary, whatever sacrifice is necessary, we must make it so that many people may come to the knowledge of Jesus.

Paul knew what it meant to be an effective salesperson for the Gospel. In the passage we just read, First Corinthians 9, we see that Paul had a very clear awareness of the importance of winning over his customers. He knew that the most important thing was winning a soul, and that is why he said: If I have to dress up as a clown, I will do it, because the important thing is to win a soul for Christ. With the Jews, I speak the language of the Jews; with the Greeks, I speak the language of the Greeks; with highly educated people, I speak as though I were a highly educated person; with simple people, I speak the Gospel simply; and with sinners, I try to make them feel comfortable to see whether I can win them.

Many times we act self-righteous, and you see that people are often afraid of us. Sometimes, when I am speaking with people who do not know the Lord, they say something and then exclaim: “Oh! Forgive me, Pastor, because I said a word that…” And I tell them: “Relax, do not worry; I have already heard that word twenty thousand times.” But not us—we cover our ears and suddenly become completely self-righteous, and people become afraid of us.

If you want to evangelize souls, be down-to-earth. Tell jokes with them; talk about baseball; talk about movies; talk about music; talk about good food; learn about what is in the newspapers and about what is happening in the world. Many of us live in an evangelical bubble, and all we do is read evangelical books and watch evangelical movies, and we think that is holiness. It all depends.

I am constantly reading because I need to keep up to date, because my job is to sell the Gospel, and I need to speak with modern people, classical people, adults, young people, whoever they may be; and we have to train and prepare ourselves to be good salespeople for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we have to use any means available. If this church is going to be truly evangelistic, it must be a hospitable church; every one of us must feel a great responsibility for whoever walks through those doors.

If you are heading toward the exit and you meet someone you do not know, that person may be a visitor; greet them, give them a friendly smile, and say, “God bless you.” If they are poorly dressed, tell them, “Wow, those clothes look wonderful.” If their breath smells bad, tell them, “Wow, your breath smells like lilies”; get right up close so they do not notice. If they are drunk, give them a hug and say, “God loves you; God has great things for you.” But do not be sanctimonious when you say it; say it respectfully. If they walk in a way you do not like, shake their hand anyway and bless them, no matter what their background may be.

I say that the Gospel is made of Teflon: nothing sticks to it. If something is bad, the Lord will take it away, so do not worry. Some people shake hands by offering only the tips of four fingers because they are afraid that, if they shake hands with someone who is impure, a demon or something like that will rub off on them. I always tell people, “Give me your whole hand,” because they think that if they shake a man’s hand they are somehow being sensual. And really, we have to rid ourselves of such things, brothers and sisters. The Gospel is freedom in Christ Jesus; we have to laugh!

People want to come to a place where there is laughter, where there is fellowship, where there is freedom, where there is dancing, where there is life, where there is prosperity, where there is lightness of spirit, where there is naturalness. Only we think that the more serious and demanding we are, the more people will come in; it is exactly the opposite.

The Pharisees spoke badly of Jesus because He liked being at parties and weddings; the Lord performed His first miracle at a wedding. I believe that although the Gospels mention Jesus laughing, the most beautiful smile ever seen in this world was the smile of Jesus. The most delightful laughter was Jesus’ laughter. I suspect that the Lord was a great teller of good stories and that people liked having Him beside them and being with Him, because that was the way He was.

Zacchaeus, a terrible sinner—the Lord simply saw him up in a tree and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down from there, because today we are going to eat chicken and rice at your house.” He invited Himself to his home, and while He was there eating, Zacchaeus had already invited all his companions, while the sanctimonious people in town were saying, “Oh, look, He is meeting with the tax collectors, with the Pharisees.” And Zacchaeus, moved by the Lord’s warmth, stood up in the middle of that day’s gathering and said to Him, “Lord, I acknowledge that I am a sinner, and if I have stolen from anyone, I will repay it fourfold.” The Lord’s love, the Lord’s warmth, converted Zacchaeus and, I imagine, many of his companions as well.

When the woman poured an alabaster jar of extremely expensive perfume over the Lord’s head and wiped the Lord’s body with her own hair, there was a sanctimonious man who said, “Look, if this man were a true prophet, He would not allow this woman of ill repute to come near Him.” And the Lord said, “Leave her alone, because she is doing this for My burial.”

Do you know that the Lord likes it when people worship Him in spirit and in truth and with freedom? I believe there is nothing the Lord likes more than when a sinner worships Him, seeks Him, and comes to church, sin and all, because then He can deal with them. We have to make the doors of the church wider, not narrower, and we have to live for the unconverted. We have to inconvenience ourselves for the unconverted, brothers and sisters. We have to ask the Lord to give us His sensitive and simple heart, and we must live with a single goal: to bring the greatest possible number of souls to the saving knowledge of Christ Jesus. Saving one soul from eternal perdition is worth any kind of sacrifice.

While I have been preaching these sermons, the Lord has been overwhelming me personally with that sense of passion for souls. I have asked the Lord to make me feel pain. Do you know what it is? The Bible says—and we believe the Word of the Lord—that if you do not have Christ, you do not have the Father; whoever does not have the Son does not have the Father. That is why the Lord sent Jesus Christ, so that no one would perish, but all would proceed to eternal salvation.

As for that gospel which says that people are not lost because God loves too much to allow people to be lost, why, then, did the Lord inconvenience Himself as He did to come to this earth, become a humble and simple man, strip Himself of His glory, spend thirty-some years on Earth, and train an entire group of people for the greatest undertaking of all, which was to preach the Gospel? Why did He climb onto a cross and shed His perfect and precious blood, if it was not because He knew that it was through His sacrifice that humanity would gain salvation and eternal life?

The Word of the Lord says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish”—should not perish—“but have eternal life.” The Word of the Lord also says, “For there is no other mediator between God and men but the man Christ Jesus.” Frankly, I would like it—I would prefer it—if it were not so. I wish everyone could enter the Gospel without any kind of preconditions, but it pleased the Lord that it should be through His Son. On the day of His baptism, the Lord said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And if God said it, that is the way it is. There is no other way to enter the Kingdom of God except through Jesus Christ. Therefore, we have to share, because a soul being lost for eternity is a terrible loss.

God gave His Son so that a soul might be saved, so that no one would perish, and we have to understand this. I ask God to give us an absolute awareness that saving a soul from eternal perdition—and what is eternal perdition? It is spending eternity without communion with God. Somehow, there will be a dimension—I do not understand what that dimension will be like—where the Presence of God will not reach, where the face of God will not shine, where the Presence of the Lord will not preserve life.

I believe that the greatest criminal in this world is recognizable as a human being because, in some way, the grace of God touches him. But one day that criminal will have no access to that preserving grace of God, and then I believe his being will be in total mental and spiritual agony, because the unifying work of God’s grace will make that being eminently schizophrenic, completely divided. To me, that is hell: it is the separation of every thought because the grace of God does not unify and does not preserve. I do not necessarily believe it is a demon dressed in red pajamas poking someone with a pitchfork. I believe it is much more sophisticated than that, but whatever it may be, I do not want to be there, and I do not want my loved ones to be there either. And we must tell them, “Settle your accounts today; today is the day of salvation.”

We must preach that Word, because saving a soul from hell is worth any kind of sacrifice. When we are clear about the value of a soul, no sacrifice is too great. I ask the Lord, “Make us aware of the value of a soul.”

Right now I am reading a biography of D. L. Moody, Dwight Lyman Moody, one of the great evangelists of the nineteenth century. His consuming passion for souls has deeply affected me. When Moody was young, he left a promising career as a merchant, salesman, and businessman who was making a great deal of money in Chicago in his twenties in order to devote himself to evangelism; and the Lord blessed him, and he began by evangelizing children. People called him “Crazy Moody” because he felt such a great passion for young people in a city that was expanding at a frantic pace, as Chicago was around 1865 or 1870. And there were so many children. Imagine: more than two hundred years ago, there was no childcare as there is today, nor were there social-service agencies, and there were many children in the city of Chicago who were abused and mistreated by their parents. There were hundreds and thousands of those children running through the streets of Chicago unattended during the day, and Moody felt a great passion for those children.

And he started a Bible-school class at night, on Saturday nights, and would go looking for children in one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. People would tell him, “Do not go in there, because they are going to kill you,” and Moody would go there with a couple of friends, gathering those children and bringing them along. He opened a place that had been a bar, rented it, cleaned it, and established a Bible school there, where hundreds and hundreds of children came to hear the Gospel. In fact, President Abraham Lincoln came and visited that bar because Moody’s reputation had already spread. There he had to play with them and become like a child, jumping and dancing with them. They would listen for only about three or four minutes and then lose interest, and Moody did everything possible. He gave them little pieces of sugar, and people criticized him because supposedly he was bribing the children with little pieces of sugar to bring them to the Gospel. That is why they called him “Crazy Moody,” because he did whatever was necessary to win those children.

And little by little, those children learned to pay attention, and once they were somewhat trained, he would take them out and place them in an evangelism class. Those children were transformed by the Word of God, and I believe it was Moody’s love and his humility in working with the children first that then allowed God to establish him as one of the great evangelists in the world and in Europe. Moody went on to win hundreds of thousands of souls. He is said to be one of the men who won the most souls for the Gospel, and he established institutions that still exist, such as Moody Seminary in Chicago and other similar institutions, because he loved souls, and God exalted him.

Moody said, “There is no greater honor than to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring a person out of the kingdom of Satan and into the glorious light of heaven.” Another quotation from him says, “We do not need more mountaintop experiences; when a man gets so high and thinks himself so high that he cannot reach down to someone who is still lost, then there is something wrong with his Christian experience.”

If Lion of Judah is to become a truly evangelistic church, it will have to make great sacrifices. We will have to forget about ourselves and our personal comfort so that God can use us as a truly powerful and prophetic church in this city. Many of us say, “I want to see our church evangelizing,” but there is a price to pay: your comfort, your preferences, your privileges.

There are many leaders who do not like other leaders coming to work when more people come to the Gospel, because they see it as though their position were being taken away, and they bare their teeth like a dog whose bone someone is trying to take away; and we alienate people. Many people are very comfortable sitting there with their space, and it bothers them when an usher comes and asks them to move their handbag so another person can sit down, because they like to spread both arms out, cross their legs, rest, and enjoy the service. But if many people come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, you will even have to give up your seat. Are you willing to do that? We have to inconvenience ourselves in order to serve Jesus Christ.

I tell you, many times the Lord has brought to my mind the period when our church was just beginning, in its very earliest days. I was not yet the pastor; I was a layman who was just serving in the church. Pastor Vergara was preaching, and I remember that image in my mind of myself sitting beside Meche, my legs crossed, perfectly relaxed, listening to and enjoying the sermon; and sometimes I long for that. Sometimes on Sundays I walk through the streets of Boston and Cambridge on my way to church, and through the windows of a restaurant I see people reading The New York Times, drinking a piña colada or a Bloody Mary with the newspaper as they wait for a good brunch, while I am heading to church to work up a tremendous sweat preaching there. But do you know what? That is a great privilege for me. I thank the Lord that it is so.

I would like to be there reading The New York Times, but serving Christ is much better. As the Word says, being used by God to bring souls to the knowledge of Christ and advance the Kingdom of God is the greatest privilege I could ever have, and my family has gained much more by being a family that serves the Lord than we would have gained if we had held on to our lives. The Bible says that whoever loses his life will gain it. When you sacrifice your dreams for Christ, the Lord blesses you far beyond your expectations.

I remember the price we had to pay to come here to Boston, leaving the comfort of Cambridge behind. We left a beautiful, lovely building that we did not have to pay for, with an organ that was beautiful to listen to, in an elegant neighborhood with no crime or anything like that, and we left all of that to follow the Lord’s call to come here to Boston so that we would be better located and able to reach our people. I was thinking only of Latinos because that was as far as my faith could reach, and when we arrived here—I have already told you how gloomy this place was—but the Lord has blessed us beyond our expectations.

I thank God that I had the courage to listen to Him and that we dared to sacrifice everything, and not only have we not sacrificed anything, but we have gained much more because we dared to believe God and launch out into the unknown, trusting that the Lord was powerful enough to bless us. You have to leave your comfort zone; you have to believe the Lord.

To many who saw us leave the comfort of Cambridge for a place as difficult as this was twenty years ago, our move to Boston seemed utterly crazy. It seemed utterly crazy to me too, but God blessed our faith far beyond anything we could have imagined, and I still say that we have not seen everything God has for us; we are simply on the verge of seeing the glory of God.

When we do the will of God, even though it may cost us dearly at first, we will always receive much more than we apparently sacrifice. That is the message of Philippians 2:5–11, one of my favorite passages, which tells us: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being equal with God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself and, taking the form of a man, became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him a name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.” It says: let this same mind be in you. In other words, we have to imitate Christ in His willingness to imitate the Father.

Why did Christ come to Earth? Because the Father told Him: You are My only solution; someone has to pay the price for the sin of that humanity so that humanity can be saved. And the Lord said: Father, here I am; let Your will be done and not Mine. And the Lord emptied Himself of His glory, took the form of a babbling, innocent, fragile baby, and then began that journey; and one day He had to climb onto the cross after being bruised, tortured, and shamed, and He shed perfect and precious blood.

And that process of self-humiliation, it says, was the reason God then gave Him a name that is above every name, because when you humble yourself in Christ, you are exalted; when you lose everything, you gain everything; when you humble your pride and vanity, your comfort, your prerequisites, and your dreams, and devote yourself completely so that the Kingdom of God may advance, God never tires of blessing you. I can tell you that from my own experience.

Throughout our lives we have seen the grace of God descend upon us; the more we have given Him, the more we have received. I am indebted to Christ Jesus, and no one should admire or respect me for what I have done, because I have done it out of personal interest, since I have learned that when you give to the Lord, God blesses and rewards you even more; and there is nothing like a believer living as Christ lived, giving himself to Him and surrendering everything to the Lord.

Are you truly willing to pay the price? I say that, and I know that many of us say amen without knowing what we are saying, because if you knew what is in my mind, you would be frightened right now. We have to live that way.

In the passage we read from First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul speaks of becoming like a Jew to the Jews, becoming weak for the weak, and living under the law for those who are under the law, in order to win them all to Christ. That has very practical, very concrete implications for our lives. How can we apply that to our present condition as a church and as individuals?

Growing churches, evangelistic churches, churches that God is using and has used throughout the centuries, generally begin with an evangelistic and enterprising vision, and God blesses them because they are being enterprising, doing business for the Kingdom. But do you know what happens to many of those churches? Over time they forget their original calling and become comfortable, established churches. They fall in love with their properties, they fall in love with the program every Sunday, they fall in love with the program’s predictability and with control. They form boards and governing bodies, and then they choose the best tithers, and those tithers then become an interest group. People no longer want their children mingling with the people from the streets who will come to the church; they do not want them to dirty the walls, and so they become protective owners. Then they stop thinking about those who are outside, those who need to be saved by the Gospel.

Someone has said that the only institution that exists to serve those outside it is the Church, because every corporation works for its customers and its own internal interests, but the Church exists for those who have nothing to do with it, so that they may come and know Jesus Christ.

We have to develop the mindset that anything that enables us to win souls must take priority—anything. Say it with me: anything. It does not matter if it makes us uncomfortable or costs us time or money; if it leads to the salvation of souls, that is what we have to do, brothers and sisters. For us in the Hispanic congregation—and I am going to speak for a moment only to those who speak Spanish—that means God has called us not only to win Hispanic souls, but also to reach people of every race, culture, and language in this city.

Every day our church is becoming more and more of an international church; we are no longer merely a Latino church. When I go to different places and am asked to introduce myself, I say: I am Pastor Miranda, and I pastor a multiethnic congregation. I used to say a Latino church, but I have been retraining myself because that is no longer the case. Our church now has to identify itself as a church that ministers to different races and different cultures, as we saw last Sunday, Easter Sunday, at the nine o’clock service. This place was filled with African Americans, Anglo-Saxons of different European nationalities, Africans, Asians, Cape Verdeans, and mixed families. A microcosm of humanity was here with us, and don’t you think that is a great privilege for us, brothers and sisters? Instead of remaining in the Latino ghetto, God is calling us to evangelize the nations. That is a great privilege.

We cannot become a protective church that says: No, we Latinos were the ones who built this, the ones who gave money, and now they want to take it away from us. This church is neither yours nor mine; it belongs to the Kingdom of God. Believe it and receive it in the name of the Lord. Your glory is to be an instrument for spreading the Gospel wherever it may go. You already have salvation, so be content with that and now serve the Lord.

If the Lord wants to fill this place with every race, culture, and ethnicity, glory to God, because the Lord said: Go to all nations. He did not say merely to go to Hispanics. Everything God has allowed us to do here belongs to Him; it is for Him and for His glory. And do you know what? If you adopt a mindset of distributing the Kingdom, God will bless you greatly. Do not hold on to anything; do not cling to anything, because if you hold on to it, it becomes an ingrown nail that hurts you. Let the Gospel run freely; sacrifice everything, give everything, forget about your privilege.

“Oh, my privilege comes from having been here at Lion of Judah for twenty years.” That is a lie. Welcome the very first person who arrives and understand that this person is more valuable than you are now. You already know where you are going; you know what you are. Devote yourself completely so that this person may reach the same level as you. Make yourself uncomfortable; surrender everything for the Kingdom of God. If you are a leader, look, let other leaders come; give up your position. Do not worry—the Lord will find another position for you. The problem is that people fall in love with what they have and with what they are, and then they stagnate and it rots in their hands. Give, surrender, and thank the Lord for others who are coming.

I remember when God was bringing Lion of Judah into another revival more than twenty years ago, before we moved here, when the Holy Spirit came upon our church and the gifts began to flow at Central Baptist Church. God began to bring in people from outside, people who knew about the power of God and became a help. And do you know who caused a problem? The old leaders, the tithers, the Sunday school teachers, those who did not like the fact that Lion of Judah was beginning to flow in the gifts of the Holy Spirit; and they accused me of having stolen their church from them.

And it reached the point where, after a few months, this church began to become a divided church, and I began to hear here and there about people who were upset and who thought that Roberto had stolen their church from them. One dear sister, one of the women I loved most, an elderly woman, went so far as to say that we had robbed them, that I had stolen her church. It hurt me so deeply to hear that from a woman I loved so much, but our church began to grow bitter because those leaders did not want to move forward.

God was doing things. He was changing the music, He was changing the way I preached, He was changing the time of ministry, He was changing the composition of the leadership, He was changing things. That is why I tell pastors with whom I speak: Look, do not ask for revival if you are not willing to pay the price, because when a church begins to change and there is an effervescence, all its structures begin to be revolutionized, and those who are accustomed to the status quo feel uncomfortable.

The fact is that this reached a point where I had to facilitate an amicable division of the church, and I invited and called the pastor who founded our congregation, who was available at that time. I said to him: Pastor, would you like to come back to Boston? Because I know that many of those people were longing for those gentle, peaceful days of Lion of Judah. And I said to him: Would you like to come and establish a church? We will support you with money and a place, and we will donate all the leaders who want to go with you. And that is what we did.

The tithers left me, the musicians left me, the teachers left me, and the church was left with new people. The income fell by half, and it was painful because I issued a call and twenty-five percent of the supposed cream of the crop left, but they were conservatives who did not want to change; they wanted the church to remain a traditional Baptist church.

But do you know what? By the end of that year—and throughout that year, with the sadness of seeing the church reduced, of not seeing in the pews people whom I loved, and of knowing that we were a church in mourning—the Lord began to bring new musicians and worshipers in the Spirit. Those of you who were there at that time, tell me if I am lying. You know I am telling the truth, brothers and sisters. He began to bring anointed people who held up our arms, because I had no experience in the Holy Spirit. The gifts began to move among us, and by the end of that year we had the same number of people we had had before the division and the same budget. By that time God had already given me the vision, the dream of Lion of Judah that brought us here to this church; and if we had still had those conservative people, we never could have come here to Boston because they would have opposed it. But you have to dare to be uncomfortable; you have to dare to go and look into the abyss and contemplate what God wants to be done.

Churches die because they are not willing to die. The Lord says that unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. Nowadays many people complain that churches are not growing and complain about society, but look—look at the churches of our time. I do not want to be critical, but many times we do not listen to the Holy Spirit, because if we listened to the Holy Spirit, we would have to change our style; we would have to do something different, because the wind of God blows wherever it pleases. And sometimes we fall in love with the boat and with the direction in which we are going, and we tell Him: Lord, do not bother us. We are already too old. Just let us live now, retire here in the Spirit, and You go work with someone else who comes after us.

There are churches that do not want to grow because if they grow, it takes away their intimacy, their comfort, and that sense of being a small family. You live to bring souls to the knowledge of Christ, to advance the Kingdom of God; you do not live for your own comfort. Last Sunday at the nine o’clock service, I saw what I had envisioned in my mind for the English-language service. Do you know why we began the English-language service that is held over there in the other sanctuary? Because I have always understood that God calls us not only to serve Hispanics, but that He has called us to be a church that serves the entire city of Boston. And I said: I am going to begin an English-language service because I have known that if that community grows, it will have an extraordinary impact on this city.

And this past Sunday, I don’t know how many of you were here at the 9 o’clock service—were any of you at the 9 o’clock service? Most people come at 12, but I saw that this sanctuary here was full, and the upstairs was full too. But what struck me was that one-third of the people who came were either unbelievers or new people seeking the Lord. I saw African Americans, I saw Asians, I saw Cape Verdeans, I saw Latinos who are fluent in English, and I saw a woman who had spoken to me some time ago about her children, who, for reasons that would take a long time to explain, had not come to church, and that Sunday they came. They are English speakers and speak only English because her son’s wife is American. And I asked them, “So, what did you think?” Because I greeted them, and she told me, “Look, they’re delighted.” They had been hurt by a church that had split some time ago; they had not attended any church for months and months.

And that day, when I saw such a diverse congregation, I said, “Look, wow, this is what León de Judá can become.” And that may mean that we will have to increase the frequency of our English services, and many Latinos are going to feel bad about that and will say, “They’re stealing the church from us.” I hope not. I don’t know how many here are saying, “No, we are a Hispanic church, and now these washed-out gringos are coming to take our church away from us.” Be careful; make the sacrifice. What matters is a soul. A soul is a soul, whether Black, white, homeless, young, or a child. A soul is eternal; a soul is infinitely valuable, no matter what clothing it wears. In God’s eyes, a person dressed in rags is worth just as much as the president of this nation. It is a soul; it is an eternal spirit. He or she bears the image of God, no matter what race, no matter what outward covering they may have. Look at what is inside; look at that divine energy that will exist for all eternity and that, if it does not find a place where it can hear the Gospel, will be lost for all eternity. That is a price you must be willing to pay.

I would love to come to church and preach the same sermon in Spanish. Having to preach bilingually and having to preach in two languages so often complicates my life, but do you know what? What a great privilege that is, brother. Our ministry has broadened, our lives have been blessed. Greatness in the Kingdom of God comes at a cost; the outer shell has to be broken.

Do you know that if a grain of wheat, or a bean, or whatever it may be, does not decay on the outside, the life within cannot interact with the soil and receive its nutrients? It remains alone. Take a chickpea, or any other seed, and place it on a table, then come back five days later to see whether it is still the same seed. It would be crazy to think that the seed you placed on that surface is going to turn into a plant. It cannot. But now put it into the soil and let that seed begin to break open through the moisture, the cold, and the nutrients in the soil. That seed opens up; it splits on the outside, and if it could say, “Ouch!” it would. It would hurt. But then life begins to emerge, and a plant becomes possible, and that plant produces maany grains like itself and becomes something fruitful and beautiful, and that is how your life and mine are.

If we are willing to pay the price and die to our preferences, die to our comfort, die to what we say is ours—“This belongs to me; I earned it. I gave throughout that whole fundraising campaign the pastor conducted, and now they are coming to take away what is mine”—brother, rebuke that in the Name of the Lord.

I feel, don’t I, that I am reaching you with this Word and that you resonate with me, that you understand what I am saying. We are going to pay the price, and the Lord will give us a building larger than this one in the future, without pain, if necessary, so that the Gospel may continue to grow. Because when you give to the Lord, the Lord never tires of blessing your life and multiplying your possibilities. The Lord will exalt you.

I ask the Lord, “Help us pay the price, whatever it may be. Give more money for You—glory to You. Give more time for You—glory to You. Live in a more sanctified way so that the Lord can use you more.” Ask the Lord to turn you into an instrument; that has a price. You are going to have to pray more, sanctify yourself more, sacrifice more, and be a good worker, because the Gospel is not preached in your underwear; it must be preached with integrity. If you are fooling around all the time and wasting your boss’s time, do not expect to evangelize him. Be a good worker, be a good friend, be a good brother, be generous. Live like a salesman twenty-four hours a day, knowing that at some point you will have to offer your product, and you had better have won over your customer. Sanctify yourself, pray more, give more, adopt the mindset of a disciple.

God is not going to use a lukewarm person. God does not use a person who comes to church, punches their evangelical time card, and then thinks they are a disciple. A disciple lives twenty-four hours a day with the identity of a disciple. The Kingdom of God has too many evangelicals; what it needs are disciples who imitate their Lord, who reflect the character of Jesus, who live for Him, who have surrendered everything and laid it all at the Lord’s feet, and who say to Him, “Lord, whatever You want is Yours; whatever You ask of me, I will give You.” Take a blank sheet of paper, sign your name at the bottom, and say, “Lord, write here whatever You please. My money is Yours, my time is Yours, my dream is Yours, my privacy is Yours, my recreation is Yours, my talents are Yours, my marriage is Yours, that house I love so much is Yours. Whatever You want, I lay it at Your feet, Lord.”

And if you live that way, you will know the greatest happiness; you will truly know Jesus Christ, because you cannot know someone who gave everything unless you truly give everything too. Paul says, “I lost everything to see whether I might know Christ in His sufferings and in His resurrection.” If you truly want Jesus, you have to be like Jesus and live like Jesus, and you have to truly make Him your mentor. A disciple is someone who imitates his mentor in every area. If God is going to do something in your life, and if you are going to know the true benefit of the Gospel, let your flesh die; let your shell die. Be like the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies, and dare to throw yourself into that abyss. Believe me, you will not be shattered, because the Lord will send His angels to take you in their arms and give you a truly fruitful and fulfilled life.

If you want personal fulfillment, die to everything that gives you pleasure and to everything you consider important, and live for Him. Hurl yourself into the abyss, and you will see that the Lord will never let you plunge to your ruin. That is the Lord’s call for this church: Whatever it costs, Lord, whatever You want, we will do it.

Stand up for a moment and give the Lord your life; give Him everything. I ask the Lord that in the coming years I have left, I want to be like a cannonball fired for the glory of God. My great privilege will be to live like a soldier for Christ. Frankly, I do not want comfort; I want nothing except to know that I am serving the Lord and that I am at the center of His Will. And I call you to that way of life, my brother.

Renounce it all, surrender it all, sacrifice it all. Your bank account, your dream of returning to your country, buying yourself a little house, and living there until you die—whatever it may be, give it to the Lord. Place it in His hands, like the rich young man to whom the Lord said, “Sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and then follow Me.” Are you willing to do that in order to find happiness? If you are willing to do it, say, “Lord, amen. I give You my life right now. I give You all that I am, all that I have.” Repent; repent of your comfort in the Gospel.

Repent of your desire to gain your life, and give it to the Lord if you dare. If you are doing it from the heart, I am telling you: this is dangerous. I asked Him for it. I remember very well when I was at Harvard thirty-some years ago, I said, “Lord, my life—whatever You want—here it is.” And look at the mess I got myself into! Glory to the Lord for that. When you ask the Lord, it is dangerous. Give your life to the Lord right now.

Young person, give your life to the Lord, and you will see that God will give you your dreams or give you a greater and nobler dream. Give your marriage to the Lord. Man, give your manhood to the Lord; give Him your pride, give Him your masculine vanity, give Him your hardness, give Him your masculinity, and say to Him, “Lord, make me a soft piece of bread for Your glory so that others can eat me.” Sacrifice all your pleasures and everything you love; give it to the Lord.