We Are All a Work in Progress | Pastor Luigi Delima

Today’s message from Pastor Luigi is a soul-level reminder that we’re all a work in progress and God isn’t finished with us yet. Drawing from Ephesians 2:10 and Philippians 1:6, we look at why we shouldn’t put a period where God is still writing a command. This episode unpacks the vision of a church that reaches imperfect people, centers on the grace of the Gospel, and refuses to confuse Christianity with perfectionism.

You’ll hear about the silent second pandemic of apathy, the call to emotional maturity through Luke 2:52 and Hebrews 5, and the challenge to rise above tradition while embracing the messy beauty of growth. This message pushes us to love the Giver more than the gifts, move beyond milk-level spirituality, and let our faith actually show up.

A timely, needed word for anyone who feels stuck, weary, or unsure if they’re making progress. God began a good work in you — and He intends to complete it.

Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Transcript

Welcome And House Updates

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Hi everybody, good morning, welcome to church today. Tell somebody next to you, welcome to church. You guys sound so good during worship. I love that we get to come together every week and lift up our voices and worship together, celebrating the goodness of God, and we get to dig into God's word. Preparing for the week. What a good day in God's house it is. I was so excited to step out of the house today and feel that it's not, it wasn't too humid. It felt great, doesn't it? Isn't it a good day? Come on, somebody. This is some of you need to just elbow your neighbor, tell him to wake up. You're in church, it's okay, you can relax a little bit. We're here to have a good time in the presence of God. We are we're gonna have an awesome day today. I want to actually grab this table. We have a special guest speaker today, and before I bring him up, I want to tell you a little bit about him and tell you a little bit about what's going on, actually. Not a whole lot of announcements uh of things coming, although there are lots of things coming. If you don't, it's actually too much for me to say. So you can go online and uh on either Facebook or on our website and just check out the the stuff that's coming during December. It's gonna be really exciting for the holidays. And uh, I know a bunch of you guys are traveling this week. We're praying for you. And um, those of you who are online watching us, I'm I'm excited that we get to join together through technology. It's an awesome, awesome thing. And uh, we're praying for you as well for God's protection as you travel and as you are on the road and in the skies and doing all the things that we do. Um, my brother Luigi, it is good to have you in the house all the way from Columbia today. Y'all give it up for Luigi, Pastor Luigi. Um uh I'm I'm gonna thrilled that you get to be all the way uh with us today, with your family. And uh it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. I wanna uh before before we get to that though, I want to uh I want to talk for just a moment about um in three weeks from today, where we are having our legacy Sunday. We've been talking about this a little bit. Every year we do one Sunday where we prepare an offering where we're asking everyone who's a part of Relate to prepare a special offering. It's our only real special offering all year long. Um taken on a Sunday where we just say this is gonna be above and beyond our regular giving. We're bringing God a special gift so that we can advance the vision. Just so you guys know, we work really hard to live within our budget. In fact, people ask all the time, Pastor Sean, when are we gonna get this? When are we gonna do this? I tell you that my my answer has been the same for seven years since we started, that we will go and grow as fast as you give and serve. And we do, we stay right in our budget so that we are living well by within our means. We're not putting ourselves in a bad financial position just so we can have something extra. We said we can be more convenient. You guys know that when we moved into the building, the AC wasn't even uh people were complaining, kids were coming down from kids' church, sweating, and we said it will get there, and it did, and right now we are we are living uh with all of the things that we need in this place, and you're seeing all of those things coming up. It's just beautiful. God has provided, and you guys have been faithful, but this is the the one Sunday a year where we're asking, um, we're not asking you to give a specific amount, we're not saying hey, we want everybody to give X amount of dollars. No, we're just asking that everyone would pray about it. That's why I've given you several weeks. This is not the this is not the Sunday where I'm telling you, hey, you gotta give today, and uh it's not no pressure. I want you to go pray about it and uh believe for it and expect God to move. And um Angela and I have been praying about what is the right amount for us to sow into the kingdom of God that can make a difference in other people's lives, um that can advance the vision because we're planning what we can do based on the regular giving, based on our budget. But when the legacy offering comes along, it helps us to just advance the vision. It helps us to jump forward in time, it helps us to jump forward and reach new people. In fact, uh a couple weeks ago I told you about the first thing that we're considering new for this year, something we've wanted to do for a while, and that is to be able to reach into the prison prison systems. I preached many times standing in a prison, but now they have a system where we can, we all of our all of our live streams can be streamed right into the prison system, but it costs about uh to for prisoners to have access to it because they have a limited uh scope of what they can see and what they can access. For us to be a part of that system, it costs about$20,000. But what an incredible legacy we get to live and we get to speak into the lives of people who it is a limited audience, people who are desperate for God, people who are desperate for answers, people who are looking for God's plan for their life, and we get to be a part of saying, hey, here's an answer, here's the answer for your life. And so we are actively planning to put that into our legacy uh campaign this year so that we're able to reach into that area. I would say that by the end of the year, we'll have most of the projects around the church done. If you guys don't know, we were able to recarpet upstairs for the kids within the last month and as well as put a new bathroom upstairs for the kids. Come on, somebody, that's a if you are unaware every week, every service, actually, so sometimes multiple times they have to bring a whole troop of kids down the stairs and into the bathrooms, and that's not when as an adult, you don't want to be in the bathrooms when that happens. But now they can they they they do not have to do that, they can have their own bathrooms upstairs where they are safe and secure and private just for the just for the kids. And so that's uh um that's something that we planned since we moved into the building. So it's been a really long time, but um our goal is to to not use our legacy offering on this place. But the the advanced offering where we're looking for God to um to leave a legacy in our community, it doesn't have anything to do with us. So we don't want to spend it on ourselves, we want to reach out and pour into, like I said, the prison system. We want to pour into our school district, we want to pour into the neighborhoods and the communities around us and make as big of a difference as we can. And so, the legacy offering is not about what we can do around the building, what we can do to make our lives more comfortable as we come and sit on Sunday mornings. It's about how can we do something to change someone else's life that really may not even affect us at all. And if we're able to um, if it's$25,000 or$50,000 or$75,000, it will depend on what the Lord speaks into your heart so that we can pour out when I get to heaven. I don't want God to look at me and say, Well done, you went to church 52 times a year. I want God to look at me and say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. You've done what I asked you to do. You've you made a you've made a difference in the world. You were a light in the darkness, and that's what this church is about. A big part of that is um, and I'm gonna let you tell the the majority of the story, uh, Pastor Luigi. Um, he and his wife Lakey are in Columbia planning a brand new church, and we're excited to partner with them. And today I'm not taking an offering to uh to sow a seed, we've already prepared a seed to sow into uh their ministry. You get to hear all about that as he brings the word in just a few minutes. But we want to partner with them this next year to help that church be planted, so it will be a part of our legacy offering as well, moving into next year. So pray about it and consider how we can make a difference together. So I want to pray for us and then I want to invite my brother up to come and bring us a good word. So let's just pray right now. Lord, we thank you that you have blessed us. God, we thank you that you have put us here to make a difference, not just in our own homes and in our own church, God, but you've you've asked us to be a light in the darkness, to go therefore into all the world. And so we we take that to heart. And we know that means this city and this state and our country, as well as uh countries around the world that are desperate to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, to be made, to be shown a light in the darkness where people are living. So, Lord, we thank you for people with a heart to serve, or people with a heart to touch the untouchable, to love the unlovable. God, we love you. We thank you for reaching into the darkness to save us and we we pick up your heart, we embrace your heart to do the same thing around the corner and around the world. We love you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right, my brother, would you come on up? Y'all give it up for Pastor Luigi. All right, my brother.

Testimony: From Music Dreams To Ministry

Work In Progress: Ephesians 2:10 And Philippians 1:6

Imperfect People And Misread Perfection

Paul Confronts Peter: Truth Over Tradition

Breaking Labels And Redemption Stories

Grow In God: From Hearing To Doing

Grow In Yourself: Emotions And Maturity

Love That Acts: Good Samaritan Applied

SPEAKER_00 11:12

I won't. Give a clap, clap your hands for Jesus, please. You can do it better, you can do a better job. You can do a prophetic clapping, not for what he has done, for what he's going to do. You can put your hands together, say, Thank you, God, for what you're gonna do in the next few years, because God is good when all the time, right? I'm very blessed to be here. Relay, uh Relay Church. What a beautiful building. What a beautiful people. Thank you for the enthusiasm. Well, and I'm very blessed to know your pastors, Pastor Sean and Pastor Angela. Thank you very much for the opportunity. You have incredible leaders, people that are resilient, and I just want to honor them for saying yes to the calling of the Lord and continuing forward, extending the kingdom. Who is blessed to be here this morning? Raise your hand. All right, I'm very blessed to be here as well. So I'm here with my family, my wife Leiki, please raise your hand, baby. And my children, Josué and Salome, every day I pray that they look more like the mother than the father. God is answering my prayers, you know. Thank God, right? And it's very, it's very, very beautiful to be here in Houston. Uh, I'm gonna let you a little bit uh uh uh know about our story, and this is my assignment today. My assignment is to inspire you, not just to give you information, to give you a word that can help you see your life a little bit different, right? And just the best way to start is with my story. My name is Luigi, and I have been a pastor for about 10 years, but I let me just tell you, I never wanted to be a pastor. In fact, I run away from anything that looked like church, that looked like religion, that looked like marriage. I was afraid of commitment. I say, one day, someday, when I'm about 83, I'll get married, and I'll be an uncle, you know, and I just want to be a musician, you know, that's what I used to say all the time. And I wanted to be in big stages, and that was my dream, and I wanted to be on TV, and I got a little bit of taste of it, you know. But um I went through a process. Has anybody here gone through any type of process in their lives? And I was supposed to take a trip down to Colombia for about four months to promote my music, and that turned into seven long years. And I I went to college here, I uh, you know, did a life as an adult here, so I had to reinvent myself all over again in Colombia, but it was there in the middle of my darkest moment where God found me. It wasn't in on a big stage, it wasn't on a concert, it was through my brokenness that he really started working in my life. And I'm just telling you today, by the mercy of the Lord and by the glory of God, testifying that against all odds, me and my whole family we are U.S. citizens, but that's not the biggest miracle. The biggest miracle is that the man that used to say that I will never get married, that I will never have children, that I will never, you know, be in a church today. I'm a pastor, I love God's people, I love God's church, I'm married with beautiful families, and that's only because of the mercy of God. And God has done great things, that He can do great things in your life. But let me tell you, uh, that's a work in progress because against all adds, and you know, it doesn't really make sense logically, God asked us this past June 28th, after pastoring here for 10 years, to move to Colombia, South America, to a city called Medellin. Anyone here from Medellin? No? Okay, uh, I thought so. And we just moved, me, my wife, the two children, a dog called Romeo, pray for Romeo, he's a bad dog, uh, and a camera. And we just moved there to start a life-giving church, and the name of the church is Whip Church, W-I-P, and WIP stands for work in progress, and that's the title of my message today, and it's We All Are a Work in Progress. Tell your neighbor, hey, God hasn't finished with you, you still are a work in progress. And let me tell you, that is uh based in two pieces of scripture that really touched my heart that I want to share with you this morning. The first one is in um Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10, and the New Living Translation says, For we are God's master peace, he has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. And then this verse is beautiful and is powerful because it says that we, everyone here, is made by God, but also it is hard to comprehend. Maybe we read it, but we don't understand that even with all your flaws and all your mistakes, you are God's masterpiece. I was looking through my window the other day in Medellin, it's 75 degrees year around, so it's beautiful, and it's a lot of nature, and I said, Wow, this is amazing, but even though it's majestic, it's beautiful, it's gorgeous, God says that you are his masterpiece, his best creation with all your flaws, with all your past, with all your mistakes. God says you are God's masterpiece, but then he created us anew in Jesus Christ. That means if you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, or if you're gonna receive it today or sometime, he says he's not gonna make a better version of you, he's gonna make a brand new you, and he has plans for you from eternity to eternity. And then we tie this with Philippians 1 6 that says, Being confident on this, maybe you feel insecure, but you can have the confidence that the one who began a good work in you, meaning God Himself, he began a good work in you, a work of faith, a work of salvation, a work of resilience, and brand new things he's done in your life, and he says he will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. From these two pieces of scripture, we can learn that we are all under construction, that we are unfinished master pieces in the making. And maybe you came here today tired, maybe you came here today feeling overwhelmed, maybe you're thinking that your reputation was destroyed, that your love life always ends in failure, or maybe you had started to believe lies from the enemy or labels that you have put on yourself or people have put in you, you're too old, too old, too young, too afraid of commitment, just like the mother, just like the father. But I'm telling you that my Bible says otherwise. My Bible says that you are not your dysfunction, that you are not your past, that you are not your mistakes, you are God's master peace, and he still has plans for you from eternity to eternity. So please do not put a period where God wants to put a comma because you are a work in progress, and you should clap your hands for the Lord and say, Thank you, God, because I am a work in progress. He hasn't finished with you. And so today, my assignment is to give you a little bit of our vision, which is very similar to the vision of relate, which is know God, right? Find freedom, discover your purpose, and making a difference. So it is in different language, right? Different accent, obviously, different culture, but let me tell you the same God, the same cross, the same bread, the same body, the same blood. Um, the vision that we have is to reach other imperfect people like us. Notice that we put ourselves in the mix because God still has to do things in my life, right? And we do that by challenging stereotypes. And then we need to grow in God ourselves. We need to help people grow in God and help people grow in themselves. So I'm just gonna unpack this vision. But my goal today is to help you see that God still has plans for your life to inspire you, to see the vision that God has put into this house so you can extend the kingdom, so you can actually be the church and you can do great things for the glory of God, right? So I'm just gonna unpack this vision, it's five parts. Don't worry, I'll I'll I'll I'll keep the time. You you you let me know who can give me five minutes, five minutes, five more minutes. Raise your hand, five, raise your hand. So it's five, ten, fifteen. So at the end, I'll use that to my benefit, right? So listen, uh, so the first part is to reach, and I'm just gonna explain that at the end, but we reach other imperfect people like us. And when I say imperfect, uh, let me tell you for some reason, when people think about Christianity, they think perfection. They start thinking uh about behaviors. How should a Christian look like, act like, dress like, and for some reason we have built the same checklists within the church, and we kind of have made uh faith look like a performance. So whenever you go out and you tell somebody, you know, the other day I was at the mall, and my wife started talking to me, and I raise my voice, and then she raised the voice back, and then we yell at each other, people look at you like, and you are a Christian, and you go to church and you guys yell at each other. Oh no, because some for some reason people confuse Christianity with perfection. So I used to say, perfect only God, and we are all imperfect, right? No good old Luigi because no none of us are good, bad old Luigi, perfect only God. We are imperfect. So I was looking for a piece of scripture to back this thought that only God is perfect, and I went to the Deuteronomy Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 13, King James Version. Let's go old school, and it says something like this says, Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. When I read that, I say, What do you mean? Because perfect only you, Lord. I mean, I'm imperfect. What do you mean that I gotta be perfect? So I said, This must be symbolic, this must be a metaphor. So I was looking in the Old Testament to see the life of some of these men that went through many things to show that there was no no one, no one is perfect. And then I went to Genesis 6 9 and I read, Noah was just a man, obviously, but then it says, and perfect in his generation, and Noah walk with God. I said, What do you mean, Lord? I don't understand, and that's the reason why you don't need to just read the Bible, you need to study the Bible. So I went to the word in Hebrew, and the word perfect is the word tamim. Tamim means complete, undivided, without hiding. In other words, completely honest, completely transparent, when you're completely undivided in front of the God, and the key of this verse to show us that Christianity is not about perfection, it's not about being blameless, is that Noah walk with God. My question for you and I is are you walking with God in all the areas of your life? When you have to have tough conversations with your spouse or with your children at your job, in your phone. Are you walking with God all the time? Because that's what Noah did. He wasn't divided, he wasn't hiding things from the Lord, he was walking with him with him at all times. But then I said, you know, I still wrestled with this idea because perfect only God, we are imperfect people. So I said, I'm sure Jesus is gonna bring it home, he's gonna explain it to me better. So I went to Matthew 548, Sermon on the Mountain, and I almost called 911. I said, I'm going crazy because I'm reading this by the you know, by the mouth of Jesus, Holy Spirit is saying through the hand of Matthew, but you are to be perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect. I say, but perfect only the Lord, I am not perfect, I'm imperfect. So I went to the word in Greek, and the word perfect in the Greek when Jesus spoke it is the word teleios. Teleios means completed. In other words, tamim is complete, completely honest, but Jesus is saying that he's the only one that can help you be completed. In other words, without Jesus, we are all broken, we are all fragmented, but he's the only one that complete you, make you whole, help you mature and make your relationship right in front of the Lord. You can clap your hands for God and say, Thank you, God, because you complete me, because you're the only one that can do a change, a whole change in my life. But now I was thinking that sometimes we we don't understand and and and we we start acting or appearing as we if we were all like we had we have it all together, but we are a work in progress. But sometimes here's the danger when we start faking progress and we don't show our scars, our vulnerability, we show our reality, we start faking instead of showing, hey, listen, I'm still having uh areas in my life that God has to do things, and that's when people start thinking that you are perfect or that Christianity is it means to be uh a perfect person. And this happened in in in the Bible in in the times of uh a man named Peter who walked on water, who preached in Pentecost, but he started leading from appearance, right? And he started faking progress or or showing something with one group but behaving with another group in a different way because he was afraid of religion. And if you go with me to Galatians chapter 2, he's gonna read three verses from this moment where Paul has to confront Peter to his face. He wasn't, I correct you in private and I praise you in public. He just told him right to his face, what you're doing is wrong. So in Galatians 2, verse 11 through 14, it says, When Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. First he ate with the Gentile believers, but afterwards he wouldn't eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid, listen, of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers follow Peter's hypocrisy. And even Barnabas was led was led astray by their hypocrisy. When you read something twice in the Bible, you better better pay attention to it. Hypocrisy in Roman times means to be an actor, he was acting one way in front of another, a group, and acting another way in front of others. And then he says, When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, this is very important. I say to Peter in front of all others, since you, a you by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? You and I are Jews by birth, not quotation marks, sinners like the Gentiles, yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by fasting, not by coming to church, not by tiding, but it's through our faith in Jesus Christ and only Him, right? And then he says, Not by obeying the law, and we have believed in Christ Jesus, so we might be right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law, for no one, no one will ever be made right by God by obeying the law. From this, we can learn a couple things. Number one is that we need to rise above the hypocrisy of tradition, tradition or religion. When tradition contradicts the gospel, we don't bow to the crowd, to the crowd, we stand with the cross. So we don't go above the hypocrisy of religion to look cool, to look different. We do it because Jesus always went above man-made religion to reach people broken, like you and I, to show his love, to show that there's still a space for for you guys, for all of us, right? There is no He doesn't make, he's not a respecter of people, he doesn't make exceptions. Number two, we need to center on the truth of the gospel. He said, Paul said, I saw that they were not following the truth message of the gospel. The gospel means the good news of Jesus. He went to the cross for you and I, he lived a perfect life, and then he resurrected and he put us in a right relationship with the Father. Those are the good news, and that's for everyone, right? So that's our message crystal clear. The gospel, the good news of Jesus, his life, his death, his principles are for everyone. And we need to embrace this by grace. It's not by what you do, it's not by your service here, it's not by how much Bible you're reading. Everything that we got we get is because we put our faith in Jesus Christ and we receive that by grace. Number two. So number one, we need to reach imperfect people like us. Number two, we what we do uh we do is we challenge stereotypes. So, what is an stereotype? Stereotype is a label that we put on someone to make them easier to dismiss, to make them easier to forget, to make it easier for you and I to look the other way, to make it easier for you and I to put a period where God wants to use you to remind them that he hasn't finished with them and that he still wants to put a comma. So labels are shortcuts that kill compassion. They tell us who is worthy and who is not, but Jesus broke every label. The woman that was the Samaritan woman, you know, she had a really rocky love life, right? She was married five times, and then she was living with someone who wasn't her husband. And Jesus went through Samaria. He went there to sit next to her to tell her, You are important, you are deserving. I'm going to talk to you, I'm going to explain things that you do you still have confusion about. I'm going to reveal to you that I'm the Messiah. She wasn't just a person that didn't have her love life together. She was a person that was deserving to have an encounter with the living God as you are deserving. Zacchaeus, he wasn't just a thief, he wasn't just a gangster, he wasn't, you know, in the eyes of everybody else, he was somebody that was, you know, doing things to explode people, but he was a guy that was worthy of Jesus Himself going to his house and having fellowship with him, you know. And if you read the life of Peter, Peter, you know, while Tom was Tom the doubter, Peter was the denier. Not one time, not two times, but three times. But still, Jesus came to him three times and said, Peter, do you love me? Peter, do you love me? And he put him in charge to lead the whole group, and that is because. Because God wants to challenge all stereotypes. You are not your mistakes, you are not your past, you are not your failures. All of those stories are redemption stories. The same way as your life is gonna be a redemption story because God is with you, and you better clap your hands for the Lord. I'm preaching over here. Number three, we need to grow in God. You know, I don't need to know you to know that you're gonna face storms. You're either right now in a storm or you're walking out of a storm or you're entering a storm. And Jesus said it, and he says, to you know, to couple different groups of people that are believers that come to church, that sing the songs. And Jesus Himself says, Some of them are fool, some of them are wise. And he made a difference. He said, We were singing today that the storms are gonna come, but some of the houses are gonna fall down, some of the houses are going to stay standing. And he said it in Matthew 7 48 anyone who listens to my teachings and follows it is wise. Like a person who builds a house on solid rock. It's not enough to know the Bible. We need to apply the Bible in our really in our real lives every single day. So faith looks, you know, faith doesn't mean you won't face you won't face rain, it means you will be standing when it stops. So when you grow in God is when you start applying the word of God, even if you don't understand it, when you are obedient to what He says, right? Faith looks real when you act as if God is telling the truth. You know, maybe you need to forgive somebody and you don't feel like it. You say, you know, they don't deserve my forgiveness. You know, I'm not gonna do that. You know, they need to apologize first, they need to, you know, make it right first. But God says, you know what? 70 times seven, brother, what are you gonna do? So that's when you start growing. You know, when you really say, Okay, God, I'm gonna trust you. They don't deserve it, I'm gonna release this weight that I have on, I'm not gonna carry it anymore. I'm gonna believe your word. And number four, we need to grow in ourselves. So in Christianity, sometimes we we tend to spiritualize everything, right? Somebody comes with anxiety, let me pray for you, and we're gonna pray for you, we're gonna fast for you, we're gonna come alongside. But maybe you need to also look for ways to grow, right? Uh to seek help, and we're gonna help you in any way we can. We have a saying, we say your quality of life on earth, not in heaven, on earth, doesn't depend only in what you know or what you believe about God, but also in what you believe about yourself. So if you believe that God is great, that God is powerful, that God is kind, that God is loving, but you believe that you are a failure, your quality of life on earth is gonna be impacted, right? So, one of the things that we need to do is not only grow in God, you know, we don't need to only grow in the spiritual arena, we need to grow in all areas. That's why the Bible says that all your being needs to be found uh without uh reproach in front of God, your your soul, your mind, and your body. You are uh uh you know, you got three parts on you, right? And we need to grow in all those areas, right? One of the areas that we don't grow, we can't we we're gonna be expanding our lives growing as a marriage couple, growing as parents, you know, who knows that kids don't come with a manual, right? We so you know, she's 13. We need to learn how to navigate those, you know, teenager years. You know, any advice, please. You can reach out to me. You know, we're we need to grow, we need to grow in many areas, we need to grow in the financial area. We need, you know, because the man that was with the widow, uh there was a widow in the times of uh Elijah. Um, and she said, Hey, listen, my husband served. He was a prophet, he, you know, he was great on preaching, he was great on tightening, he was great on on prophesying, but he was bad with money, brother. And now they're gonna come, they're gonna take the kids, help us out. You know, sometimes we need to grow in many, many different areas, but we sometimes we don't. And one of the areas that we need to grow is in our emotions. Sometimes our intelligence level uh is is high, but our emotional intelligence is really low. And Jesus grew. This says by the Bible in Luke chapter 2, verse 52, he grew in wisdom. That's the word of God applied to his life. He grew in stature. The word stature in the Greek is the word helikia, which means growing in all areas, applying it to this context is your emotions according to your age. Don't look at anybody, but do you know any 50-year-old that act like a five-year-old when they don't get their way? You know what I'm saying? So sometimes, and then you go through the same cycles and the same problems and the same same issues, and the writer of Hebrew talks about two groups of believers again, and he talks about a group that is mature and a group that are still acting like children. And he says on Hebrew chapter 5, verse 13 and 14, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled. He doesn't say uninformed, he's saying there is a skill that you and I need to start developing, is unskilled in the war of righteousness since he is a child. So the writer of Hebrews noticing the reactions, like he's saying they are they should be adults, they've been in church many times, but we need to teach them again the basics of the word. We need to give them milk again because they're acting like children. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have the powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. So he's saying, Yeah, the mature and the immature, we are all gonna feel something, right? But he's saying that there's a skill that you and I need to develop. It doesn't say that we are uninformed, it says that we are unskilled. It doesn't saying that we don't have transformation information, it says that we need to experience affirmation and a transformation. So they hear the gospel, the immature, but they can stand, they can, they they they don't know how to act. When there's a word of righteousness, they don't practice the gospel, and they know Jesus loves them, but they haven't let Jesus let their emotions. So when someone comes and corrects you, most of us we don't like correction, right? But the basketball players place for somebody pay somebody to correct them so they can they can do better, right? But we we we tend to to get upset when somebody comes and corrects you, when someone comes and gives you a word of righteousness, so then you you you get offended, or maybe you start attacking, or maybe you start playing the victim, or maybe you justify yourself. But the matures have discipled their reactions. So the question for you and I is is your spirituality sorry, if your spirituality doesn't change how you respond when you're corrected, you are still drinking milk. If Jesus grew in his emotions, what doesn't why why don't you realize that you and I need to grow in our emotions as well? So he's saying he gives us an answer. This is something practical for you. How do you learn to navigate through offense? How do you learn to navigate through judgment? How do you learn to navigate through criticism through practice? So God brought you to relay church, so you can be offended, so you can be criticized, and then the more you practice, you're going to start discerning and applying the word of God, and you are going to grow, and this is gonna help us all. And then the fifth part of our vision is we reach in Spanish this we alcanzamos, we reach other imperfect people like us. Listen, we are living in a second pandemic that was before the pandemic, and the pandemic is called apathy. We're over-scheduled, we're over informed, but under-engaged. And let me tell you, uh, it you know, we can have a beautiful I I was I give God the glory for this building. Thank you for the enthusiasm. I I say God is good, right? God is doing great things with with you guys, but we need to leave the four walls, we need to go out and reach others because that's what Jesus did. And let me tell you, the best way to talk about this is to talk about Jesus. Jesus is says a story when he's asked a question, and the story ends in a question with a command for you and I. And he was asked, What should I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, Okay, what does the Bible say? What does the law say? And how do you interpret it? Two different things, right? And then the man starts saying, You need to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, with all your soul, and all your mind. And Jesus said, Okay, and then what else? And love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said, Okay, do that, and you're gonna have that so it that eternal life here on earth. But then he then then the man asks, trying to justify himself, who's my neighbor? And Jesus, you probably you read the story or you haven't read it, you can read it later on. Better than Netflix, let me tell you. Luke chapter 10. It talks about this guy who was a Samaritan and a guy that was broken, beaten up in the middle of the street, and two people from church: a Levite and a priest, right? And they all have different reactions. But the Levite and the priest, they were good at church, they were good at lifting their hands, they knew the prayers, but when they saw somebody broken in the middle of the street, they had the right theology, but the wrong love. They couldn't pick him up. But then we see that there was a guy who was a despicable Samaritan, a guy who was from a different race, and you know, he didn't see this as an inconvenience, he saw this as an opportunity to serve. He had the wrong doctrine because the Samaritans had like a kind of crazy mixture of things and that they believed, but he had the right love. Because love doesn't just doesn't sing, love not only speaks, love shows up. You know, the other people say, you know what? I didn't cause this, I just need to keep going with my business. But I'm just glad that God, you know, He fixed a problem that He didn't cause because Adam and Eve, you know, I'm gonna ask him one day when I get to heaven, what were you thinking? You know? But they they they broke it. But God says, even though I didn't break it, I'm gonna let myself be broken for you, for you, for you. So from this story, what we can learn is one thing I'm gonna teach you. I I pray that this does something good in your life. This Samaritan used his money, he used his resources, he used his donkey, he used his skill, he used everything. He went to a hotel, say, listen, I'm gonna take care of this guy, and then at the end he said, Here is my bill, and I'm gonna leave you a little extra. He uses influence. So, what we what we need to learn is that we need to use what we have to be defensers, advocates of others that probably can't help themselves, that are broken in the middle of the street, that are broken in our neighborhood, that are broken within our family. So, the only way that we can do this is by loving more, and you can write this down for me. You need to love more what God gave you, why God gave you what he gave you more than what he gave you. You need to love more why God gave you that business, why God gave you that salary, why God gave you that beautiful family more than what he gave you. Because when you do that, you're going to go out of your comfort zone and you're gonna start living on purpose. You're not gonna say they need somebody to help him. You're gonna realize that you are that somebody. And listen, Jesus asked a question, a question that he is asking us today. He says, Who is your neighbor? He asked the man. The word neighbor in Greek is the word plesion, with me, which means the one that is near. But Jesus extends the concept because he said, Who is your neighbor? And he said, Who was the neighbor of the man that was beaten down? He said, The one that showed mercy. And Jesus says, I command to you and I he said, He didn't say go tweet the same, he didn't say think the same, sing the same. He said, Go and do the same. Me and my wife and the children, against all odds, God has asked us to move to Medellin. Used to be known as the most violent city in the world, not one of the most, the most violent city, 1980s, 1990s. Kidnapping, drug trafficking, human trafficking, anything you name it. 2013 became one of the most beautiful, innovative cities, according to Wall Street Journal. And you know, there's a lot of things going on in Medellin, and God asked us, and we were like, why? Okay, but we're gonna do it, we're gonna believe you, we're gonna go start something. And you know, we see why now. This is a city that is very far from God, disconnected. Lots of people, you know, they are living culture, they're living their dreams, but they're living far from the Lord. But we're believing that the same way this city had a social transformation, we're gonna see many people come to the feet of Jesus Christ. And all I'm asking you is give a big hand to the Lord. All I'm asking you today for the glory of God is to pray for us. You know, we're planting this church through ARC, um, association of related churches. We need to raise$144,000. Anyone wants to pitch in$144,000? No, I thought. But we're believing God. You know, we're we're we're not going because we have figured out, we're going because we are a work in progress. Somebody had to say yes to the calling, and we're doing that. And we are getting leaving the comfort. Our kids were born here. I mean, Salome came here when she was one year old, he was born here, and you know, we're believing God for something miraculously. So you can pray for us at least. If you ever wanted to do missions, we'd be we'd love to host you. Um thank you very much for the opportunity. God bless you.

Medellín Church Plant And Invitation

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Awesome. Wow, love to hear the vision, love to hear where you're going, love to hear what God's doing in you and the work in progress that you are, your family is, as well as the ministry there in Columbia. We are gonna sow a seed into um WIP Church and uh Pastor Luigi, we love you. I want to just take a minute right here at the end of the message and the end of the service. If you today, if you're in this room uh or maybe you're watching online and you look at your life, you may maybe don't know how you got where you are today, but the message today resonates with you that okay, God has a plan for my life. I it's hard to sometimes hard to see from where we are to where we want to be or where we think God wants us to be, or it's hard to sometimes connect our present with that purpose, with the plan. Here's what I can tell everybody in the room today is that you don't need to know the whole plan. You don't even have to know the final destination. All you have to know is the next step. And for many, the next step may simply be just surrendering to God and saying, Okay, I'm not gonna be in control anymore. God, here's my life. Make me, shape me, mold me, use me, send me, take like God, whatever you want for my life, he's our maker. He's he is our father, he's our shepherd, he leads us, he guides us. The Bible calls him the potter, and we're the clay. However, you want to look at it, God's plan for your life only works when you put your life in his hands. And so I'm gonna give everybody in the room an opportunity today to take that single step of faith. For many, it might be the first step in a lifetime. It might be the first step for the rest of your life, the journey that God wants to take you on. So would you just bow your head right where you are, close your eyes? I won't embarrass anyone in the room. I'm not gonna ask you to come forward or stand up, but I will ask you to just repeat after me. By faith, let's take this step together. Would you repeat these words? God, today I give you my life. I choose to follow Jesus. So take my heart, take my mind, take my sin, God, take my past, take everything that I am and use it. Make it new, make me new. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, let's put our hands together for everybody who said that prayer. If you said that prayer today, I'm excited for you, and I'd love to invite you to come and pray with one of our prayer team members before you leave today. Maybe get into our fresh start class. Um, which is actually probably finishing right now, they be right during this first service. And uh you can you can jump right into that next week. I love, love, love that God is working in our midst. We can stand up on your feet, we're gonna go and work if you want to play with someone before you feel today.