God bless you all. The house of the Lord—His presence—is a refuge for us, amen. Out of all the things that are out there: the devil, the world, the flesh, all those things—in His presence we find refuge and peace for our souls, amen.

Everyone is looking for something. We are all looking for something in this life. And as they say, “Everything has a price.” Have you heard that expression? Everything in this life has a price, and it's true in most cases. The truth is we must pay for everything—or almost everything—whether we use it or not. And the worst thing about all this is that it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. If you use it, you still have to pay for it, like it or not. There isn’t a clause where it says that if you don't like a meal in a restaurant you don't have to pay for it. That doesn't exist, does it? You eat it, you have to pay for it. If you buy something in a store, it doesn't matter that when you get home it doesn't work or you don't like it, you still have to pay for it.

That's how most things in life go. Generally, many of us are looking for a deal, something cheap to find out there, something that is a little more accessible to the pockets—and almost everything in life is like that. Sometimes even in the church we are looking for what’s cheap, too. But don’t you know? God has something very special for us. It’s special, but it's not cheap. The Lord's things—some things have a high price and you just have to pay it because it’s something very special; because it is not as the world says, it’s not something to be thrown away, and it’s not disposable. It has a cost and it’s very high.

Most of us have read or at least heard that there are things in our spiritual walk that have a price. In fact, our Bible—in the Reina Valera (or in the International Version) there is a part where the subtitle mentions, “The Cost of Following Jesus” or “The Cost of Discipleship/The Price of Discipleship.”And we are going to be talking a little about that; I will be repeating a few of those expressions—the cost or the price of some things—because that’s how the Bible says it.

It usually talks about the cost of following Jesus—but did you know? Very little is said about the cost of not following Jesus, or the price for not following Him. It is the price paid for deciding to follow our own path—our own desires. The Bible is very clear about this—it talks about the price that you have to pay in the flesh to follow Jesus, and many people say that price is very high. They will come to church until they change their minds—or many times don’t understand the value or feel that it is not worth paying the price. But I want to tell you something today, and it's that it is worth it! Everything that is left, everything that is done, all the price that is paid and the cost of following the Lord, is worth it. And it is worth so much that what He asks of us really is not what it costs—what He gives us in return. We're going to see that, but we’ll also have to talk about the price for not following—the price paid for following our own path and not obeying the Word of the Lord. It seems that the enemy has taken care to close our eyes, stopping us from seeing the price being paid for not following the Lord. People put aside—as if He can just be placed on a shelf—Christ. “Following Christ is too expensive, we have to follow the world instead because it is so much cheaper and easier.” It seems like the real price of things is hidden, but that price still exists; it’s very high and not hidden at all!

So let's see a little in the Bible, we will look at both examples. We’ll do it fast and we’re not going to go into too much depth—we will do that on the weekdays—but I want you to understand today that everything we do here for the Lord has a cost. Everything must be paid for, everything has a cost in life. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 15.

I know someone who has never heard the Gospel, who has never heard the Word of God. One day he said, “It's not my day, it's not my time to follow yet. I don't think today is good. Maybe another time.” If you know someone like that and if you have been in that situation, let me tell you that God is still calling and giving them the opportunity, because the way all the finances and the world are going they are about to change their tune. They are going to change a lot. But today is the day when we have to tell the Lord, “I want to respond to Your call.” Hebrews chapter 12, verse 15 onwards to 17 says “…looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.” Church, bitterness has a price. Living with bitterness has a high cost, and the writer of Hebrews says that it can take us out of grace in verse 15. If we are understanding what the verse says about making sure that no one falls short of grace, we are talking about preventing bitterness from coming in.

How many of us have seen a bitter person? Most of us. But why does bitterness come into our hearts? We are not going to go into too much detail, but in this verse—the story of Esau—why did bitterness come in? Generally it’s because of something that happened to you or conflict with another person; because we feel offended at whatever it is, and that generates a lack of forgiveness. It generates resentment and hatred until bitterness arrives in our lives and sticks to the heart. The truth is that it is something that does not want to leave you, but you can't live with it, and the author of Hebrews says there that you have to be careful to not let this happen—because it pollutes you. He says it causes difficulties and corrupts many; it contaminates the heart. Bitterness pollutes and it can do so many ways: If someone leaves our lives, if someone fails us, if someone offends us, if someone disappoints us, if someone slanders us, if they are talking about you behind your back, if there is violence, or in many cases, if there is absence. When there is an absence—when we feel that someone has left us—we say “They left me, they are gone” or, “I am alone.” Then that bitterness begins to stick to the heart.

The author says that this condition will cause you many difficulties. Let's look at a root. A root is underground and is often not looked at. It's like a seed—you don't know what's there, even though it is, and because it's underground you can’t normally look at it. Until when? Until it sprouts and bears fruit. In this case it is a bitter fruit, but at first you might not even be able to see that. Things don't happen overnight; people don't leave overnight, people don't get bitterness from one bad day. It's something constant; we're holding on to something someone did to us back in the 80s and we kept it in our hearts. We didn't forgive! We said, “Well, this is going to stay and be a part of me, I'm going to keep it. No, I've already forgiven them! I’m not going to talk about it again!” But we've simply kept it in us, and at that moment it becomes a root.

You know what happens when you have a little dirt just lying around outside? In the summer everything is burnt up, but before winter comes you get two or three rains and what happens? It seems that here in this community that we live in the middle of the Amazon, the roots still find a way to take hold in any spot and plants keep popping up. And what do we do to try and fix this? Everyone will say that we shouldn’t go with a machete to cut it; we have to take a shovel to uproot it because if that root remains the plants will always rise again.

"Bitterness is a slavery like many other things, and it's something we can’t always see on a person—they can't see it either."

Hebrews says to be careful that none of those things contaminate us. How many people are enslaved to that? Bitterness is a slavery like many other things, and it's something we can’t always see on a person—they can't see it either. Maybe it's a situation that keeps us in that slavery and that's what the Bible teaches us, that sin enslaves us. When we label it like that we can see it all a bit more clearly. We cling to bitterness, hatred, and resentment as if, unconsciously, we couldn't live without those things. And look how things go: No one says it, no one thinks it, but unconsciously we do not let go of resentment and bitterness because we believe that by keeping them we get to hurt the one who had offended us. “I don't forgive him, do I? I'm not going to forgive him because if I forgive him, he wins. If I forgive him, the one who offended me will not receive his punishment.” And we believe in our minds that, “My resentment, at the very least, is part of their punishment. They deserve to receive my hatred and my resentment.” Right? “At least that's what he'll have.”

But the one that gets hurt in the end is me—we are the ones who are enslaved! Don't let all of this corrupt your life, because we repeat things in our minds that can take us away from the grace of God. How many people do you know who fought with God? That opposed God? I’ve known a few, but how many people do you know who left the church because they even fought with a person; because they fought with their father or with their children, or because they have problems at work. Right then and there, that root is going to take them away from the grace of God. Be very careful.

And then what should we do, cut off from the grace that we have received? The grace we have received allows us to extend that same grace to others and love those who do not deserve it. Brothers and sisters, that is the Gospel of God! That is the power of God! The power that even in this evil heart—this broken heart that has been damaged—the Lord can one day restore the pieces and can love the one who has hurt Him. And may He forgive the one who has hurt Him and may they be restored here in the heart, throwing away that root of bitterness and looking at the examples that keep us.

He gives us the example of Esau, and Esau paid a high price in his life. Why? Because he was immoral and profane. The Bible says that Esau was a rather immoral person—talking about sexual immorality. There are many types of immorality, but he's specifically talking about that. And profane? What does that mean? Profane is describing someone who despises the sacred. “Be careful,” says the Lord regarding that. Here you have an example of someone who paid a very high price for his immorality, for living as he wants, and for having despised God's blessing for a plate of food. He lost his birthright for something earthly, and gave up something heavenly.

How many people change the blessing of God for a moment of pleasure? For any kind of pleasure of the flesh for a man, for a woman, for a vice? How many people lose the presence of God for a moment? For something earthly? That is why it says to “be careful.”

People despise Him. People despise what is from God. God has given us a blessing but one that gets given only once, so Esau said, “Well, what am I going to do with my birthright if I die of hunger? Anyway, I'm going to exchange God's will for a plate of beans, because if I don't eat these beans, I'm going to die anyway.” And you would probably say, “Well, it seems that he’s just stupid,” but this is what so many of us do every day!

How many people despise God's blessing? It's always something along the lines of, “My boyfriend or my girlfriend is pressuring me because if I don't do it, I'll stay single. I'll stay single if I don't do it. My friend is offering me this, if I don't accept it, I'll run out of friends.” We despise God's blessing in favor of the things of earth. “They are offering me this role at my job, and anyone who doesn't take it doesn't get to advance in the business. Everyone does it. I have to be a part of it.” So we despise God's blessing for a moment, for a carnal desire, for a fit of anger. How many people have failed in their lives—how many people have even become murderers because they didn't know how to control themselves during an outburst of anger?

Esau paid a very high price because he later realized what he had lost. Because at some point in life every man realizes what he’s lost. But it also says there was no more opportunity for him. And do you know what's the worst thing about all this? That not only did he pay the price, but also his family: his children, his wives, and that blessing that was for him? His wife and children could no longer receive it. Their children did not receive the blessing that was destined for them. Why? For a lapse in a single moment. The price is high. Don’t you think it's very steep?

"People think the Gospel is difficult. The price the world asks out there for your life is even higher."

People think the Gospel is difficult. The price the world asks out there for your life is even higher. There is always a price, but what happens is that no one tells us what it's going to cost. No one says what it will cost to enter a life apart from God. We see so much poverty, so much misery, so few opportunities, a lack of value. Many young people are even dying—too many young people! Why? Why do we see all this in our country, in countries in general? Because we give ourselves to perversity! We have given ourselves to the same thing Esau did. To immorality. To the profane. No one sees God's things as sacred anymore. Everyone profanes the things of God. The Lord's Day, the Sabbath? Everyone is thinking only about their own things. Everyone is immoral, no one thinks about the Lord and separating themselves for a second to say, “God is going to give me something, God is going to bless me, I want what God has,” but when the world offers them a plate of beans, “OK, I'm not going to wait for God's blessing.” They’ll grab the plate of beans and then God will tell them to keep those beans. That’s a high price, very high, for what was lost.

In this case, we saw Esau, but there are many other examples. I also want to talk to you about covetousness. The Bible, in the New International Version, says covetousness has a very high price as well, but what is covetousness? It is an excessive desire to have more than necessary. It is not that you don’t need or want things, but covetousness is wanting to have far a whole lot extra—especially riches or material things. This desire always leads to idolatry or even a lack of contentment in the heart of man. Always wanting more, and always seeing what the other has.

I've told you that story about the neighbors who are constantly trying to get better than each other, right? The first was looking out their window and saw their neighbor building—he is adding another floor, so two months later they build two to one-up him. Then the second neighbor looked towards the first house, said, “Look what that one did,” and then they put some spikes or finials on his roof so his house would look higher. Now we’re back to the first, he looks at his neighbor's improvement, so he goes out of his way and buys some trees for his yard because the second doesn’t have them. And as time goes on, the two continue to obsess over what the other one has, and what they can do to be “better.”

That's why the Word of the Lord is specific. In the Ten Commandments, it's all about covetousness: You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, you shall not covet your neighbor's donkey. So, today, do not covet your neighbor's car, their motorcycle, their sneakers, or their house. Just don't covet it. Don't covet anything you see on the street because that will keep you up at night. Many people spend every day with that anxiety. So? That’s partially because they spend their time obsessing over what they see others owning. They waste time on social media seeing people in fancy cars, with luxury items and brand name things and right now you’re probably looking at yourself and saying, “Well, this month I didn't buy anything premium.” But you'll see what I’m talking about. Give it a month.

His logic seemed strange to me, but I knew someone that I appreciated a lot, and most of you have heard him, that commented when he bought his first car, which was one of those fancier cars, he said that in his heart what he wanted was for everyone to see it and say, “Oh, how expensive!” That's how we are as a people.

And the Word says, “You can't serve two masters.” The root of all evil is the love of money, because greed leads one to commit other sins. Out of greed, people lie. To make a bad deal that favors them, or even to just do whatever that will put that money in their hands, people will lie. People get involved in immoral things and will do anything to get ahead. We see it in our society today; Politicians do anything, literally anything, just to have money. Men and women alike, just look at society. That girl is doing something. Why? Whatever it is, she's doing it for money. Another girl is doing something else. Why is she doing it? For money. For greed. Be very careful, because the price is very high. If we let our behavior continue down this path, we will lose friendships, valuable relationships, and ultimately everything.

With all of this comes another important thing that we all know about—not forgiving. Oh brother, that has a very high price in our lives and many of us don't forgive, because we consider ourselves to be the ones offended, right? “I am the one who was offended.” And what is the price that gets paid for this? Generally, when someone says something that offends us, they say, “Well, I didn’t know it would offend you,”—especially if it was with a friend. What about the examples we always see with women? She gets into a bad breakup, and then says, “All men are the same.” Men wind up saying that too, right? “They're all the same.” And then they close off their hearts. That can happen with a friendship too; “Someone failed him. Someone betrayed us. I don't have any friends anymore. I don't tell him my thoughts or have any concerns for him.” Has anyone heard that?

You've heard it all in soap operas. Your life becomes what happens in those! “I won't love again.” And what happens there? You close your heart. “Because I don't want to be hurt again! Because I trusted someone before, and that person hurt me, so I'm not going to trust anyone again!” And when that happens, your heart is closed off. But the heart only has one door; It doesn't have several - there's only one. If you close it, everything closes and everything within dies. And then it's not like you just can't trust anyone anymore, It's not like you just can't give yourself to anything anymore, you can't give yourself to anything at all! Little by little, your heart hardens to everything—not just to friendships, not just to men, not just to women, but everything. Eventually these people can't even hear God because if we close our hearts to the people we see in front of us, the Bible says, “How are we going to open our hearts to God whom we don’t see?”

The closure of our hearts is a very high price to pay. We may have been offended but what does the Bible tell us that we lose due to unforgiveness? The Word says—we were studying this months ago, Matthew 5:23-24. Remember, “If you take an offering to the temple, and remember you have something against your brother, you leave your offering, ask for forgiveness, and come back.” So what is the price of unforgiveness? Not being able to worship the Lord.

Imagine—you’ve been coming to church since the 80s but the Lord doesn’t receive offerings from offense. He says, over, and over, “Leave it there, fix your things, heal your heart, forgive the one who offended you, be free. You are paying a very high price, you live in the night, you live enslaved to that hate, enslaved to resentment, enslaved to that thing that happened. Set it free, forgive, go on with your life.” God is the God of the living and all these things lead us to death. The price is very high to follow our own path. It's too high! To be enslaved to unforgiveness, greed, hatred, resentment, bitterness—to live an entire life full of bitterness—that's not life! It's impossible! And those are just some things that keep us enslaved. Wwe could mention many more that have that same high price, yet the important thing here is that we understand that this price is death. We pay with death, however, the price that Jesus asks of us is what leads to life!

The Bible told you this outright. This path of unforgiveness leads you to death, but if you surrender your life to Him, if He places in you what Jesus is asking of you, it will lead you to eternal life. Salvation is free, that is true. Discipleship? No, that's going to cost you everything, absolutely everything. Salvation is free because someone paid a very high price. It's not that salvation isn't worth it, it's that the price has already been paid, and it was very costly. So people have come to look down on grace, and come and go from church as they please because they think grace is cheap. But grace came at a very high price. It was the blood of the Lamb of God.

"That is the price that was paid for you and me to be here….the blood of the Son of God."

That is the value of the grace that you and I have. That is the price that was paid for you and me to be here. That is the value, that is the price of salvation, the blood of the Son of God. But today, people want a cheap gospel. You know that when you want something cheap and pay for it cheap, the results of that are what you expect them to be. When you buy something cheap, you find it’s cheap because it doesn't last, it gets ruined fast, because it's flimsy plastic and because it was always cheap in the first place. That is the modern gospel—a cheap gospel, a cheap grace where you can live however you want, and where people tell you, “Christ loves the sinner, don't worry brother, we are all imperfect; only God is perfect.”

But the Word of God tells me that the Gospel is power. Power to transform man. That is the Gospel of God, the power to transform my life to move from death to eternal life. That is the power of the Word, that is the power of God, of the Gospel. The power we spoke about last week, where the Word tells me, “You have to rend your flesh, you have to subdue your flesh. Do not be led by its desires, submit to God, submit to God, submit to the Holy Spirit, and then you will go down His road.” The road is very narrow, my friends, it is very narrow—but it is the road to life. The wide road is the road of the gospel where people think they can do whatever they want, that they can come to church and continue living as they live and continue to be in chains. But someone has to tell them that they do not have to live enslaved! Someone has to tell them brother, “Friend, you do not have to live in that slavery. You do not have to live in that darkness. You can get out of that prison. You can get out of that mentality.” That is the Gospel of Christ! And that is what Jesus told the people.

Jesus never messed around with people. He was clear. The Word says that the multitudes followed Him—and we see that. I want us to go to Luke 14. Quickly now, we will see a little bit of the other side. This is where people generally become scandalized. Luke 14, verse 25-26. “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them He said: 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.'” I think the King James Version, for those that have it, says, “He who does not hate his father and mother.” The Lord is not encouraging hatred here, He is using Hebrew expressions to show disunity. I want you to understand this a little bit; He is not saying that you have to hate your family, as in Hebrew the expression of “hating” the father or the mother is not putting them before your relationship with God. If you, in any decision in your life, come first and foremost—or if it’s your mother, your father, your children, your siblings, and even your life itself coming first before Him—then you are not doing it right. The Lord is not saying to truly hate your brother or sister. Hate not.

In all the decisions that we make, we have to decide to do the right thing. But many of us say, “Well, if I do this, they’re going to get angry. He's not going to talk to me. She's going to leave. He's going to get upset.” Yet God is still saying, “Whoever doesn't choose Me over them, no matter the reason, cannot follow Me.” And do you know what the people did? They left. This is a very difficult teaching!

We have to ask, “Jesus, why so extreme?” This difficult path is the one we just saw as the one towards eternal life. He's not telling you to do something that's beyond your capabilities; The Lord is asking you to come and see for yourselves. You'll say, “But isn’t salvation free,” but this is about discipleship now. Jesus told the twelve, “Go and make disciples.” So what the Lord is expecting from us is to be disciples and make them, not to just sit around being “saved.” He's looking for disciples, and Jesus said this on a couple of occasions. Matthew chapter 16:24. “Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.’” Brothers, the true Gospel is self-denial. It's denying ourselves; this Gospel is not about self-realization. It's not about fulfilling my dreams, it's not about accomplishing my things. It's about building His kingdom.

We've been talking about that because everyone wants to use God as an excuse to build their own kingdom instead. They will say, “May God bless my things, my kingdom, my plans, my dreams.” But nevertheless, God's plans are already here! He already has a plan. He already has a kingdom. And blessings be to God, who has chosen to make me a part of it! Who invites me to be part of and collaborator in His kingdom, not mine.

Think of how incredible God is and the mercy He has, that He would say, “If you seek My kingdom and work in it, I will give you everything you need here on earth, all things. Only if you would seek Me.” That in the Gospel, He would instruct that, “If you want to be My disciple, you have to deny yourself, your desires, and everything that calls you.” There are too many things that call us, isn’t that true? And I love the next verse, Matthew 16:25,because it says, “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses it for me will find it,” This is reality; it is literally about losing your life. Many lost their lives in the Roman arena. Throughout history, many Christians gave and lost their lives for the Gospel, and it continues to happen today. We can also lose our lives for Christ—or my life, what I want, what I desire, to Him this very moment—that is what He is also talking about. Whoever wants their life in their own way. Whoever wants to save their life, whoever wants to live their life in their own way to gain only for themselves; they will lose it! “But if for My sake, they give up their life, they will find it.”

It sounds like a contradiction, and people don't understand this. If you give up your life, your desires— then you truly become a Christian. “You're already ruined. You became a Christian, so you're already boring. You're not going to enjoy life anymore.” How many have heard that? And I start to think, “I'm boring? I don't enjoy life anymore?” What “life” are they talking about? The one we talked about at the beginning: that life of bitterness, hate, resentment, suffering, immorality, and all those things that lead us to debauchery. They want me to feel bad that I left that? “Poor me, I’m not selling my soul to be destroyed by the world anymore.” Instead, we give it to the Lord who says to us, “If you give Me your life, then you will find Me, the God of the living.”

I want us to end with Romans 14:7. “For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” It is not about living for ourselves or for our own interests, but for divine purposes. If we live for the Lord, we live! Let's do life differently!

How about if we put a question mark there? Do we live for the Lord? Ask the one next to you, “Do you live for the Lord?” What did they say? Look how beautiful the Word of God is! Look at the end of all things like this—if we live, we live for God and if we die—is anyone ready for that today?—we still belong to the Lord.

Last week we said that the true Christian is not afraid to die; do you know why? It's just the beginning. It's gain for those who have laid up treasures in heaven. Now of course, those who have laid up treasures on earth are the ones that are afraid; they have taken it upon themselves to do things in the here and now—I understand the fear there. If you haven’t laid up treasures in heaven, look at the price you've paid for the world; the enemy took all the time from your life and you have no savings in heaven. When we die, we belong to the Lord, and that's why at the beginning I was so happy for the grace of God that allows us to even be here. Someone might say, “I don't have a penny up there. I have everything in cars, pills, and the world.” And that’s the decaying world they will inherit, but those who invest in the Kingdom will never be defrauded! Those who invest up there in heaven, who work for the Lord, will be well paid.

Do you think that’s a very high price? It seems to me that it’s not. It seems to me that what the devil asks of me is too high—my life, my family, my time—all for him. Many of us are clinging to all these things that have done so much harm.

Within the church the trials of life still happen, but God is a God of life. The life He gives is not to be paid for. If you give your life to Christ, He will give you a new one. We are the Lord's possession. Are you sure you are the Lord's? You need a moment to reflect, to surrender your life and to give Him everything. A moment to deny yourself and say to the Lord, “I want to follow You. I know the cost. I know the price I've been paying to the world, and the cost for following You; I choose to follow You, Lord.” Amen.