Marcando Momentos Que Importan

rejoice right now in the Lord your God as we rejoice. Welcome! welcome! if yall hear me from jailen, give it up! My daughters, my two little ones, enjoy entertaining me. It's one in which they both pretend that it's Christmas, or that it's my birthday, and they bring me gifts. I'll tell you a little bit. On Saturdays, in general, it's our morning with my wife. We have breakfast, for dessert we're having a coffee. And my daughters start with the idea, I insist, with the game of pretending that it's my birthday or Christmas, and they have to bring me gifts. Of course, the only place where they can get gifts is from the toys that I already know are there. So, the first daughter comes and says, Daddy, Merry Christmas! And she shows me the gift, which is, I don't know, a toy inside a container, a plastic egg, I don't know. Obviously, the part of this game is that I also have to pretend to be surprised by the gift. So, I have to stop my conversation with my wife and say, Oh, my love, thank you! With a hug. She gives me a hug and I say, let's see. And I open it and say, thank you, my love, for this little ball, right? For this thread, my youngest daughter brings me little threads, stuffed animals, as a gift. Thank you, my love, for this pantyhose that you bring me. And that makes them say, OK, now I'm coming, now I'm coming. And they repeat it, multiply it by two because there are two girls, they repeat it six or seven times, bringing me gifts and gifts and gifts for my birthday or Christmas. Naturally, after six or seven times, that's the number I get, I don't know if my wife will confirm it later or not, I get tired of acting surprised. I mean, don't stone me for being a bad dad. I really try, but bro, there's a moment when I can't fake this anymore. Because I already know, these are toys that I put there myself.

So, after the sixth or seventh time, multiplied by two, 12 or 14 times, I have to say, my love, thank you, I loved all your gifts, but why don't you play something else? And that's a sort of parable with which I understand perfectly those who have grown up in a Christian church, or Catholic, serious, Christian, serious too, and who have always heard so much about Jesus that it's no longer a surprising message. Let me tell you a little bit more. When you grow up in this, and I can talk about my own life, when you grow up in this, in a Christian family, or Catholic, going to Mass, baptized, or Christian, going to meetings, Sunday school, whatever you want. You hear this message all the time, it seems unique, and it's true. The only message I have is, God loved you, God sent Christ to die to the world, He died on the cross, shed His blood to forgive your sins, He resurrected, He's coming back a second time. That's all I have to share with you. And always, no matter where the Bible opens, I'm going to end there, because that's the message I have to share with you. It turns out that when you grow up listening to that, and you see testimonies, and you say, no, I was in the crack, I was giving marijuana, and I met Christ. Glory to God, we all applaud. And then another one comes to you and says, no, I had a suicidal spirit, and I wanted to kill myself, I wanted to hang myself, someone told me about Jesus, and my life changed. Glory to God. And you say, well, my worst drug has been a McDonald's burger, the worst thing I've ever done was fight with my little brother over a toy, and you've been waiting all your life for the train of great experience to come with God. When am I going to have my own great experience that is worthy of being told? You say, I don't have anything to tell. What am I going to tell? My testimony is that I grew up listening to this, and they told me about Jesus when I was little,

when they told me later, it's like I already knew, and I still believe it. And you, even though you never said it, I'm going to tell you now. You feel that your testimony is a fiasco, and your life is a fiasco. I don't know what the word fiasco means, but I love that word. You can look it up. It's a big letdown. And my experience when it came. Jesus has a special relationship with people who are like that. And today you will see it in the Word of God, in the life of a guy who also grew up in this, but he needed his own experience with God. His name was Jacob. So if you brought the Bible, I want you to lift it up high. Also, if you are there listening from the prison and you have a Bible, or wherever, and you have a Bible, don't take it down. I haven't said what we say yet. Stop. This is the Word of God. Go to Genesis chapter 28. Genesis is not a very difficult book to find. It turns out to be the first book in the Old Testament. Go to chapter 28 and we are going to study today verses 10 to 22. While you are going there, I will put you in context if this is the first time you come or if you haven't been coming in the last few weeks. The whole story of Genesis is one, and it is how God, through a very broken family, a very manipulative, controlling family, broken wherever you look at it. Even so, that is the family of the Messiah. Jesus, many years later, would be born from a family that began in Genesis. And all of Genesis tells you how unlikely it is that God can use a family like that. But even so, he used it. That is why it is called a great happy family. Obviously, it is almost ironic and sarcastic. This family was not very happy, but God proved that even if your family is broken, he can do what he wants to do in your family if you let him.

So, it turns out that Isaac and Rebekah were married. They had two children called Esau and his twin, what was his name? Jacob. Esau was the oldest because he was born a few minutes earlier. It turns out that supposedly the blessings of Abraham's grandfather should have gone to Esau because he was the first to be born. But God had said something else. He had said that Abraham's blessings would go through Jacob. Jacob, in order to receive these blessings, lied to his mother. A disaster. And the thing is that now Esau wants to kill his brother Jacob for stealing Abraham's grandfather's blessings. So, that is like a great telenovela. I think the title should be a great happy telenovela. La Flor de Guadalupe or whatnot. I have never seen it, by the way. But I know some of you do. The thing is that now you have Jacob. Rebekah tells Jacob, go to my brother's house in Havan because your brother wants to kill you and I don't want your brother to kill you and someone to kill your brother for killing you. I don't want to lose my children, basically. So, get out of here. Go to my brother's house in Havan, Aran, now we'll see where it is, so he doesn't kill you. So, now in what we're going to read, Jacob is running away.

He's running away. To give you a context, look, you'll see the map on your screen. The tremendous journey that Jacob had to make from down there to up there is similar to what you would take walking from here to Houston, Texas. Walking, you would get there in about six weeks if you're good at walking. That's more or less what Jacob had to do. And we find the text today in the second little dot, if you start counting from the bottom, it's called Luz, which is later called Bethel. That's where you find Jacob just running away in the middle of absolute nothingness. And sometimes God has to take you to the middle of absolute nothingness to deal with your life. This text that we're going to study I've divided it into three scenes. If you're taking notes, I ask you to put it there. The first scene is when God, read it with me, when God leaves you, when God leaves you alone. Or at least sometimes it seems like He does. The second scene I've titled a kind of love that I can't understand. Those are going to be verses 12 to 15.

And the last scene, my favorite, is the day that God stopped being a religion for me. Those are verses 16 to 22. So I ask you to get with me to the first scene, which I titled, I insist, When God Leaves You Alone. I'm reading verses 10 and 11. That's what the scripture says. Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba or Beersheba, and traveled to Aran. At sunset, he arrived at a good place to camp, and he stayed there to spend the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head on, and he went to sleep. This first scene seems pretty boring and doesn't give you a lot of information. It tells you that Jacob is running. He started the trip because his mom told him to go to my brother's to find you a girlfriend, and we'll see that next week. Indeed, Jacob found a girlfriend at his uncle's house. So he's on his way, and now he got to this place,

tired, And with mattress soil and a pillow stone. Have you ever used a pillow stone? I'll tell you something interesting, I have. When I was a teenager and we went camping with my friends, and you forgot to pack your pillow, what you used was pebbles. You don't sleep very well when you use a stone as your pillow. You know when you go to sleep at night and close your eyes, and you feel like you closed your eyes but you never really rested? Now imagine Jacob like this. He has his eyes half closed, with the stone that doesn't fit his head well, and he's tired because he was walking, and walking, and walking, and now he's alone, he's by himself. Listen, Jacob wasn't the kind of guy who liked to be alone. When you read the previous story, you see that the one who liked to be alone was his brother, Esau. Esau was the great hunter, the great hunter who spent his time alone, hidden behind the trees, ready to kill animals and take the food plate home. Jacob was also the guy who stayed at home, and, Mommy, how can I help you cook? And playing Play, Xbox. Jacob was the guy who was always at home. And now Jacob is running, and he doesn't know if Esau is behind him, ready to kill him, like Cain and Abel.

Remember that Jacob was good with his tongue, not with his, what? Not with his hands. So now Jacob is desolate. His whole world is falling apart. He doesn't have Mommy either. Remember that Mommy was the overprotective one. Mommy was the one who said, this is what you're going to do. Mommy was the one who thought for him. And now Mommy is not there, alone. Sometimes it seems like God himself is the one who is pushing you to a place of loneliness. And I'll tell you why. Maybe you're there now. Maybe, like Jacob, you're alone because your friends, your family left you. And, legit, you're lying down, alone, right? Or maybe your loneliness is like a blow of depression that you have in your chest. As much as you're surrounded by people, you're surrounded by family, friends, blah, blah, blah. You have your job, your social media, your grades. You're a champion on your Instagram. You're a champion. But inside, you're with relationships that are breaking up, with dreams that you had, and they're slipping through your fingers, full of frustrations, and in situations that you yourself didn't choose to be in. Someone seemed to have chosen for you.

By the way, that's what life is all about. God chooses the situations in which he places you. And you're absolutely alone, and you swear that it can't be God who took you to that place. Because you say, God, I just sang in church that he never leaves me, that he never leaves me alone. And you say, surely I'm here because I made bad decisions. Or surely I'm here because someone made bad decisions, and now I'm the one paying for someone else's broken plates. It can't be God, you say. It can't be God who pushed me here. And I'm going to tell you something blunt. Do I still have you with me this morning, yes or no? And what if it's God who took you to that place of loneliness and frustration? Because there's a question that you've never asked yourself. And the question is this. Who is God for me? I know who God is for your wife. I know what God is for your husband. I know what God is for your dad, for your mom. I know what God is for your son. But that's not the question, is it? The question, and the only question that's worth answering in this short life, is this. Who is God for you? And it turns out that the only place where you can ask that question is when God leaves you alone. Alone. I'll explain that question to you in a little bit.

Jacob had never done it. Jacob grew up listening to Abram, right? Abram was his grandfather, right? His grandpa. He listened to him as a child, saying, oh, your grandfather, the father of faith, we call him at home. Tremendous grandfather. And Isaac said, one day the old man wanted to kill me, but God told him not to do it, right? And then Jacob grew up listening to Isaac and Rebekah. No, I'll tell you how I met your mom. No, let me tell you. It was tremendous. God told the whole story. And Jacob loved, if I can use that word, he loved that milk all his life. Of what God did with his grandfather, of what God did with his dad. But there was never a moment of confrontation. And who is God to whom? To me. God is the God of my family. Check. God is the God of my religion. Check. God is the God of that church that I like to listen to the Argentine pastor. Check. But that's not the question. The question, and the only one that matters, is who is God to you and who are you to Him? Because what do you think God thinks of you? What kind of relationship is there between God and you? That question, by the way, was the one I had to ask myself one day, that Sunday in 2003, when I was 14 years old. In a bus. Alone. I was coming from a trip where I did things that I'm not proud of having done. And God left me alone on a 24-hour bus trip. And that was the first time that I myself, I'm talking about Pablo, that was the first time that I had to ask myself the question, who is God to Pablo? I know what my dad believes. Now I'm telling you my story. My grandparents were pastors. I mean, the balance can't be more inclined in my family. My grandparents were pastors from the year, I don't know, my grandparents are already with the Lord.

My grandparents, I don't know, they were from the year 1700. They always seemed so old to me. And they were pastors since I've had a sense of reason. The question on that bus, for me, in October 2003, was not, what do my grandparents believe? The question on the bus was not, what did my mom always teach me? The only question that I had to answer that day was this, Pablo, what do you believe? And are you willing to give your life for that? When God leaves you alone, and you say, I thought God would never leave me alone. How do I explain this to you? You're not alone, alone. Like in the sense that God abandoned you. You're alone in the sense that God makes your little world collapse so that you have nothing more to do than ask yourself, who is God to me and who am I to him? The only question that matters when God leaves you alone. And that takes you to the second scene in Jacob's life. He's alone, asking himself that question. And in this scene I put a kind of love that I can't understand. Look at what happens in verse 12. As he was sleeping, he dreamed. You can see that at some point, yes, he did palm when he was sleeping on the stone. As he was sleeping, he dreamed of a ladder that extended from the earth to the sky. And he saw the angels of God going up and down for her. At the top of the ladder was the Lord. Who told him? This is the first time that God appears to Jacob directly. Who told him? I am the Lord, God of your grandfather Abraham and God of your father Isaac. Okay, so far so good. The land on which you are lying belongs to you. I give it to you and your descendants. Verse 14.

Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth. They will spread in all directions, to the east and to the west, to the north and to the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. There he is talking about Jesus. Jacob didn't understand, but he was talking about Jesus. One day Jesus would be born from that family. Also, and here comes the praise. Read it with me. I am, what? Ah, I am not only the God of Abraham. I am not only the God of your father. I am with Jacob. And I will protect you wherever you go. The day will come when I will bring you back to this land. And this phrase that has been with me all my life. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you. What do you think? I tell you why this scene is so important to me. This scene makes no sense. It doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't have happened. I want you to follow me and I will explain why. Jacob, as I told you, is fleeing. Jacob is not fasting or doing the walk of prayer for Springdale. Jacob is not seeking God, right? Jacob is only running for his life and doing the only thing he knows how to do. Lying, getting his own little petty way. And running for his life as if nothing happened. No matter how many people are suffering, they leave the path.

That is Jacob. And suddenly a dream comes to him. It's more than a dream, it's a vision. In that vision, he says he sees something that looks like a what? A ladder. That ladder is connecting the sky with the earth. Specifically, it's connecting God with the earth where Jacob was. And Jacob, while he's seeing that dream, says, Ah, weird. How interesting. I've been disconnected from God all my life, and suddenly there's a ladder. A connection between God and me. And I didn't make the ladder. In fact, I didn't even know how to make that ladder to get to God. But it seemed like God was the one who made the ladder to get to me. Are you following me or not? Are you following me? Good. Then he says he saw angels of God going up and down the ladder. Have you ever seen kids building? How many builders? There are a lot of builders in this house. Raise your hand. Very good. Well, there were more. It's okay. It's okay. When you see builders going up and down a ladder, it's because they're working, right? They're not sitting and waiting to see what happens. They're working. And Jacob sees angels, which are these spiritual beings created by God, to accomplish what the Master wants, the Master of Work on earth.

And Jacob sees that God is working through the angels for him. And he says, Huh, that's crazy. I'm here alone, trying to catch a sleep on a rock, thinking that God has nothing to do with me, that God is not working. And it would seem like God is working. Like God is doing something in this situation. Okay. The interesting thing about all of this is that no angel speaks to Jacob in this vision. Who is the one who speaks to Jacob? He says he looks up, and at the top of the ladder, who is there? The Master of Work. And God speaks to Jacob. Hello, Jacob. I am God. Okay, hold on. I know that God is not a universal mind, a little wind spirit that is inside the birds and the trees. I know that God is a personal being who speaks and has a lot to say to me. I understand because there is a God who is speaking to me. Got it. Check. But now I have a worse problem. Because if God is really a personal being who wants to speak to me, I don't know if I want to listen to what he has to say to me. Okay, put yourself in my shoes, bro. If God came here and said, Pablo, I have to tell you something. I think I know what he is going to say to me. He knows everything about me. He is going to tell me how hypocritical I was, how badly I treated my daughters,

how proud I was this week. He is going to read me a whole list, a blessed or cursed list, in which are written all the reasons why I don't deserve God to speak to me. I don't deserve the presence of God. And I think Jacob says, okay. You know, the other day I was talking to someone who said, I don't like it. A young man said to me, I don't like my mom to sermonize me. Bro, if you don't like your mom to sermonize you, I don't know what you would expect from God. Okay, now he is coming. Come on. And I think Jacob says, okay, what does God have to say to me? You know, you are a bastard, a liar, you deceived your brother, manipulator, you like to lie, you never connected with me from the bottom of your heart, I have always been the religion of your family, and you never wanted to connect with me. I would expect, are you with me or not this morning? I would expect that God would start to delete all my sins and tell me, and that is why you don't deserve to be spoken to ever. If I were God and I spoke to Pablo,

that is what I would say to Pablo. You don't deserve my presence. You are not worthy of me. And this is what I don't understand. You read this, and everything that God gives you are promises. Promises instead of beatings for having sinned. Not even Jacob is asking for forgiveness, and God is still going down the stairs that Jacob never built, and God is giving him promises. I am with you. This is something that captured very well, you know what? A poet from the 21st century called Alex Zurdo, a rapper. From him I get half of my information, of the Christian raps. In a song he says the following, Hallelujah Father, why do you bless me? Could it be, could it be that you see what I will be, and not what I did? I don't know what it will be, that when I fail, I wait for a whip, but I receive a hug. That is the incomprehensible God of the Bible. This was the moment to give him a whip. And Jacob was tortured, manipulated and manipulative.

And God said, did you see that I am the father, I was your grandfather's god, your father's god? Well, now I look at your face and say, I want to be your god. I'm with you. And not only I'm with you, I know that this will take a long way for you, I know that this will not change your life from tomorrow to the next day, but I can tell you something, I will not leave you until I have finished my work in you. Is there anyone who can tell me amen to that, yes or no? That is the crazy incomprehensible thing about God, that God, even though he could have destroyed me for my sins, tells me, my love for you, listen to me carefully, my love for you does not depend on your performance, it depends on my fidelity. Is there anyone who can tell me amen to that, yes or no? Are you asleep? That is the crazy love of God, and that is why I put a kind of love that you cannot understand. God found me when I was in my loneliness, God found me when my world had collapsed, and God, instead of destroying me, told me, I am with you, and I will not leave you until I finish my work with you. That is God, the father of my Lord Jesus Christ. And when God finds you like this,

you have to respond. You cannot say amen and leave just as you arrived. You have to respond. You have to respond. You cannot say, well, I hope that next Sunday he will speak to me again. God is already speaking to you, he is telling you that this is how he is. He is not like you. And those are the best news you can hear, that God is not like you. And that answer is the one given by Jacob. The last scene, which I entitled, The Day when God ceased to be a religion for me. And I only have time to read you verses 18 and 20, which say this. Look at it in your Bible, verse 18. The next morning, Jacob woke up very early and erected as a commemorative column, to remember, to make memories, that is why commemorative, the stone on which the head had rested, and then poured olive oil over it. Then Jacob made the following vow, Nick, you can go on. If God is really with me and protects me on this journey, if he provides me with food and clothes, and if I return healthy and safe to my father's house, then the Lord will certainly be my God. Look at me for a second. What did Jacob use to remember that moment?

What stone? The same stone that I said, the unfortunate pillow he found in the middle of nowhere. The stone that had witnessed the loneliness, and the fear, and the guilt of Jacob, is now a witness of the God who loved me, and revealed himself with love, when I did nothing to seek him. The same stone that reminds me of how lonely I felt, is now a witness that the love of God for me does not depend on me, it depends on him, on the good news. And even if it would take a lifetime for Jacob, Jacob, by the way, would not see his mother alive again, and it would take him about 20 years to return to the earth. But when all the bonds that Jacob had with religion were broken, his mother, his family, and now Jacob is alone, and he has to decide for himself, the Lord brought Jacob to put this stone, to pour olive oil, it is an ancient way of worship, the only thing Jacob knew how to do at that moment, and say, in this place I found freedom. Yes, I know it will take a lifetime, but it is in this place of my loneliness, where God revealed himself to me,

like the God, not of my grandfather, not the God of my father, but, say it, my God and my Lord. That's it. What is the plan for me if I grew up in this, and it is no longer surprising to me. And my friend, do not worry, God will take care that you stay so alone, so that you have a true experience with the God, not of your grandparents, nor the religion of your parents, but that you have an experience with the living God. Can someone say amen to that, yes or no? I want you to stand up. Let's finish praying. The faith of my grandparents, says Jacob, that day became my faith. And the religion of my family became my God. And I ask you, my friend, with my eyes closed and no one looking, up there and down here, everyone with their eyes closed, no one looking, I ask you something. Could it be that you are alone in that moment of your life? If you are in a moment in which the frustration of a relationship that is not working, of some plans that seem to be breaking, is it that God Himself is using and healing that situation? Because you could not hear His voice, even if you thought He was.

Up to this lonely corner, in which you finally ask yourself, what do I want? I understand that my marriage, my children, my church, I understand that. But do you love God? I wonder if it is God who has taken you to this place of loneliness. Because the only place where God can reveal Jesus is in the moment in which you stop listening so much to your family. And you know what? Listen to me carefully. It is the place in which you perhaps stop listening to your own voice so much. You have fallen in love so much with your own voice and your opinion of things that you have not been able to hear the voice of the God of the Bible. And in that place, the Lord says to you, Yes, I am the God of your grandparents. Yes, I am the God of your parents. Yes, I am the God of that church. But I am with you. I sent Jesus. Listen carefully. And I gave you a ladder that you could never have invented. You could never connect with me. And that is why I sent my son Jesus. Who is the ladder? It is the only way, not in which you know God, but in which God came down to you. You are not the one who can find God, because the lost one is not God. It is God who came down that ladder, called Christ Jesus.

He shed his blood on the cross. He resurrected to look at you with man's eyes and embrace you with man's hands and tell you, I am with you and I will not leave you until I finish my work in your life. Is there anyone who can say amen here? Right now, I want the leaders to come forward who are destined to pray and minister today. To my left and to my right. Come on, come on. I'm going to finish praying, and when I pray, we're going to sing in a moment. And when we sing, if you are that man or that woman whom God had planned to speak to this morning, you come. You come. You come to my left, you come to my right. Let us pray for you. Let us minister to you. Yes, there is a substantial difference when you decide to come and someone pray for you. The word of God says, pray for each other and confess your sins to each other so that you may be healed. Come forward if God spoke to you. Come forward if God is showing you this morning that he left you in that corner to connect with you and that connection is called Jesus. The ladder between God and men. Jesus of Nazareth.

Lord, I ask that in this moment those whom the Spirit has decided to touch, the heart, that woman who is fighting in her heart and in her mind, that man who is in here saying, I cannot be me, and he knows that you are calling him by name. That Jacob who is in that place listening, I ask that you move him to respond to your love now in the name of Jesus. And we all say, Amen.