En Espiritu y En Verdad

So this summer, God challenged me to preach. Now speaking is not something foreign to me; I sometimes do the message for the high school ministry at my church. However, I have never preached a sermon for a whole church, let alone in another country. I was very nervous. I even called home to have my mommy pray for me.

Back story: Before the trip, Pastor Jesus asked me who would be preaching on Sunday for the two services. Actually, to be more honest he asked if I was going to preach on Sunday, which translated to me as "Who are you going to find, because if you don't find anyone, it's you." So I arranged that our bus driver for the week (another pastor friend) would deliver the Word. It turned out, though, that we had a staffing change and would have to find another speaker. That's when I contacted the group leader of the team who would be coming. He graciously agreed to do Sunday morning, and after I reminded him that the evening service would be at a different location, he said he would take care of that one as well. I was off the hook..

 ..Until Tuesday.

While driving to our ministry location, Pastor again asks me, "Who's preaching tomorrow?" At this point, since we have a great relationship, I say to him that we only discussed a guest preacher for Sunday, so HE would be the one preaching Wednesday. He just laughs and says, "No, I guess you get to!" Ha. No way. His church, he's preaching. But I ask him questions about the community, to know it better/in the back of my mind, forming ideas for a sermon because even though I've said no for the time being, that's just how I work. I don't say yes until I'm sure. Not with something like that. That night during devotional (I don't even remember exactly what it was on), I remember feeling this weight, like Okay, I'm preaching tomorrow, aren't I, God?

So all day Wednesday, I'm brainstorming and asking questions and letting Scripture come to mind. I found out that there was much duplicity in the church, that people weren't really living or walking in integrity. So that became a main component of my sermon.

I based my message on John 4:23-24, where Jesus says that God is seeking people to worship him in spirit and in truth. I talked about the freedom we find in the Spirit but that we shouldn't use it to satisfy our flesh (Gal 5:16-21) and that Satan uses our weaknesses to tempt us. And sometimes we try to justify our actions, but that cheapens grace (Rom 6:15). So how do we live well in the Spirit? We add in the truth part. We are to live one life, Sunday-Saturday, not one life at church, one life at home, one life at school/work. One life. (Gal 6:7-9). But how can we live one life? How do we get away from the sin that so easily entangles? We are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2). If we've given our lives to Christ, we are new creations (2 Cor 5:17). That's how we live in truth. We let God change us. And then as a check to see if we are living in Spirit and in Truth, we see fruit in our lives. We see love and joy and peace and patience, etc. And we seek to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal 5:22-25). I left them with 3 steps. 1) Commit yourself fully to God. No more double lives. 2) Ask the Spirit to cultivate in you the fruit of the Spirit and let him transform you. 3) Refuse to go back to the way things were.

Now my group told me that I did a great job, but I will never forget the look that Pastor had on his face. This was not at all the kind of sermon they were used to. Generally during service, they will read a short passage and hear a message based on one of those verses. I made them get out their Bibles (and if they didn't bring it, we passed them out) and flip to all of these verses. I had them read aloud, in both English and Spanish. Pastor's face said "What in the world are you doing??" To this day, I'm not sure what he thought of it, but it seemed to go over well with those who attended service. They even had a response time at the end, where they all prayed to rid the duplicity in their lives. I asked the sound guys to play a specific song that had a pre-chorus that matched my message. That pre-chorus says "I don't want to conform; I've tasted and I want more." And The chorus says "I want to fall more in love with you. Teach me how to love you and how to live. Mold me to your justice and your love. With my life I want to worship you. With all that I have and all I am, everything I've been I give to you. That my life would be for you, perfume at your feet."

I have no idea if Pastor will ever ask me to speak again, but here's that song I just told you about (ironically performed by a band called En Espiritu y En Verdad):