I recently preached a sermon in Spanish at my home church, Enfoque. I based my sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:1-3. Here are the verses and a few quotes (translated and lightly edited):
(1) Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, (2) To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: (3) Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The death of Jesus satisfied the holiness of God. And on the basis of that we can receive the benefits of his sacrifice. If we believe in Him, we will be sanctified as it says, “those who have been sanctified.”
Not only does He take away our sin, but He gives us His holiness. It is the only way in which we can enter into the Church: those who are part of the church “have been sanctified.”
The first step in entering the Church is to invoke the name of Jesus. That is how you enter. If you haven’t done that you are not part of the Church, including Enfoque. We can talk about Enfoque in a general sense that all who come here are part of Enfoque, but when we talk about Enfoque as a church, if you haven’t been saved you can’t be part of the church. You can come, we invite you to like we said at the beginning, “Your religion, your believes about God, don’t matter to us; we only want you to be able to experience a relationship with Christ.” If you haven’t experienced that, if you haven’t experienced the sanctification of Jesus, your religion doesn’t matter. What you believe about God doesn’t matter. The first, the most fundamental, the basic thing is to invoke Jesus, ask His forgiveness, trust in Him.
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