Megachurch Pastor Sergio de la Mora Shares Four Benefits of Knowing Christ in 'Best News I've Ever Heard' Sermon Series at Saddleback
Jesus will stand up for you when you do something wrong in your weakness, the pastor told the audience.
Jesus is faithful even when we are not faithful; He will love you even when you cannot love yourself, he added.
Four, I can walk by faith when I'm tempted to walk in fear, the pastor said.
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De la Mora shared how God worked in making the Tijuana Prison Project a reality for his ministry, despite his fears as he chose to believe that God could make things happen. He said the project, a satellite campus at the prison facility in the international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area which would minister to hundreds of dreaded criminals, will be launched in August.
He quoted 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
De la Mora began his church with merely seven people 17 years ago, and it has now grown to be the largest congregation led by a Latino pastor in the city's history.
The pastor then talked about three places God wants believers to speak with strong faith.
"Your faith is activated by what you say. If you want to see it, sometimes you need to say it before you see it. You don't have to see it but you do need to say it, and believe it before you see it," he said.
One, he told the congregation, God wants you to speak to your future, explaining, "What you say is exactly what you're going to receive. 'According to your faith it will be done unto you,' Jesus said."
He quoted 1 Chronicles 17:17: "For all the great things You have already done for me are nothing in comparison to what You have promised to do in the future! For now, O Lord God, You are speaking of future generations of my children being kings too! You speak as though I were someone very great."
When you speak to the future, you begin to change the atmosphere of your home, your office or wherever you are, the pastor explained.
Two, speak to your family, he said. Family is under attack in America, and if ever there was a time to speak to family, it's now, he added.
"The future of the United States of America is in the household of every single address. It's in the heart of every single parent," he stated.
He quoted Malachi 4:5-6: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their father …"
This is the last verse of the Old Testament, and it's about children and fathers, the pastor pointed out. "Youth are not the future of America. ... The future of America is in the minds and hearts of the parents," he said.
Three, De la Mora shared, speak to those desperate to be found.
"Every empty seat is an empty heart God wants to fill," he said, and quoted 1 Peter 2:9-10: "Speak out for Him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference He made for you — from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted. Now you are God's own. Once you knew very little of God's kindness; now your very lives have been changed by it."
