Hurt Church

Hey this is pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA church in Housto, Texas. Thank you for listening

to the message today i hope that it blesses you and all those that you share it with god bless you

Praise God. It's good to see you in the house of God this Sunday morning. Amen.

There's no better place for you to be, not even that bed of yours.

Amen. Then to be in the house of God.

What a privilege that we have to come in freely and worship God. Amen.

Yeah, I want to I never do this. I never do this.

But because I remember to do it, I'm going to do it.

My brother Mikey asked me this morning if I can give a shout out to a brother.

It's his birthday today.

So brother Art back there.

Right there.

Amen.

Happy birthday, brother.

I love you, man.

I love you.

I love your family.

And man, every time I see your family roll in, it's a blessing for me to see.

Because I remember a struggle.

Struggle that we've all had.

I remember you, brother, being prophesied over there.

Somebody said you should have been dead and you knew it was true.

And now, just like Brother Michael said, you and your family have been revived by the power and the glory of God.

To God be all the glory.

Happy birthday, brother.

Amen.

God is so good.

Oh, man.

Man, I'm still on a high from Friday night.

If you were here Friday night, we had a night of prayer, a night of prayer.

And it was beautiful.

It was we had several churches representing.

I think we have about 140 people here and just just praying intentionally.

It was a beautiful night. We have prayer stations.

We had groups of twenty five, thirty people just kind of rotating.

And it was awesome. It was awesome.

And so I told Pastor Abram, because the Lord had put it on on his heart, that we need to do it again next year.

So his church will get well, they'll join us next year.

We'll do it again. And if you didn't come this time, I encourage you to come next time. Amen.

And Pastor Larry said, man, maybe we should just call it a night of worship to get everybody in the house.

Right. Hey, night of worships are great, but nights nights of prayer.

That's that's where it's at. Right. If you can talk to God without the the emotional aspect of music and beautiful lyrics and poetry, that's that's that's next level right there.

The church needs to learn how to pray. And so to learn how to pray, we have to do so intentionally.

So it was it was a beautiful, beautiful night. I want to go to the word this morning in Mark chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

If you can stand with me as we read. Mark 14.

And if you had a hard time finding a parking today, just be patient, because as as as God continues to pour into the house and into the finances,

I believe that we're going to get that better parking lot and we're going to get some golf carts to, you know, drive people a mile away to their parking spot and all that stuff.

It's a it's a they say it's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem.

Amen. But but praise God.

It's a beautiful thing to be gathered in the house of God.

Mark 14, 22. You have it.

It says this. We're going to read a little bit.

It says,

I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.

But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.

And Peter said to him, even though they all will fall away, I will not.

And Jesus said to him, truly, I tell you this very night before the rooster crows twice,

you will deny me three times.

But he emphatically said, if I must die with you, I will not deny you.

And they all said the same.

And they went to a place called Gethsemane and he and his disciples,

and he said to his disciples, sit here while I pray.

and he took Peter, James, and John

and began to be greatly distressed and troubled.

And he said to them,

my soul is very sorrowful even to death.

Remain here and watch.

And going a little farther,

he fell on the ground and prayed

that if it were possible,

the hour might pass from him.

And he said,

Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me,

yet not what I will,

but what you will.

Down to verse 43, it says,

and immediately while he was still speaking,

Judas came, one of the 12,

and with him a crowd of swords and clubs

from the chief priests and the scribes

and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign saying, the one I kiss is the man,

seize him and lead him away under guard. And when he came, he went up to him at once and said,

Rabbi, and he kissed him and they laid hands on him and seized him. But one of those who stood by

drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them,

have you come out against me as a robber with swords and clubs to capture me day after day?

I was with you in the temple teaching and you did not seize me, but let the scriptures be fulfilled.

Verse 50 says, and they all left him and fled. Let's pray. Heavenly father, thank you, my God,

for this word that you've spoken over your servant, Lord. I pray my God that not, not a word would be

from, from my own lips, my God, but from the mouth of your Holy spirit. I pray father God, that you

would give me the sensitivity to hear what you want to do and what you want to say this morning.

Father God, I pray that you would open up our hearts and our ears, Lord, to receive this word, my God, that we won't we don't just hear it, my God, but we receive it.

We apply it. I pray that it would be transformative this morning in Jesus name. Amen.

Praise God. You can be seated. You know, this month being the month of love, we're already in February.

I want to I want to kind of focus a little bit on on relationships.

so for the next few weeks unless the Holy Spirit says different

we'll be talking about you know relationships with people

with our spouse that's always a fun one and of course

our relationship with God I don't like preaching the same messages

that I've already preached before for me I don't know it's just lazy

but I was very tempted this week to preach a message that I had preached about

two years ago it was a message that I know was healing for a lot of

people. And so I was just wrestling with God. Lord, should I do it? Should I not do it? I don't like,

I feel like preachers, especially, I don't know, I won't speak for everybody, but I feel like I

got to be original. And the Holy Spirit is like, you don't got to be original. You're preaching from

the word of God. You can say it in so many different ways, but what you need to say has

already been said. All right. There's no, there's no power in me. There's no power in anything that

I've got to say, you preach what's already been written. And so I think the Lord gave me permission

to preach the same message when necessary. And so I want to preach this message that

continues to be timely after two years. It was timely during the time of Jesus. It's going to be

timely for as long as there is a church on earth. Two years ago, I preached a message. It was out of

John 13, where Jesus was washing the feet of his disciples and Judas, the one who betrayed him,

And the sermon was entitled Beyond Betrayal, where Jesus exemplified loving people, not just beyond hate or criticism, but beyond the most hurtful thing that a supposed friend can do to another.

And so today's message is not going to be exactly the same, but it's going to be very similar.

And I'm calling it Hurt Church. Hurt Church.

Anybody been hurt by the church before? You don't have to raise your hand.

Maybe it's not betrayal that you're dealing with,

but it's something that is affecting the way you see God's people,

your own brothers, your own sisters in Christ.

Being hurt by the people in the church,

listen, it doesn't just taint the way that you see people,

it taints the way that you see the church.

And I'll be very honest with you,

I have not always been sensitive to people who have dealt with church hurt.

not i've not been sensitive enough because i think that i i've seen too many people abuse

church hurt as a as an excuse for why they're no longer walking with the lord that's the issue that

i've always had with people who say they're the church hurt i've been hurt by the church that's

why i'm not walking with god that's like me divorcing my wife because her sister hurt my

feelings right doesn't make sense it tells me that you were never rooted in the right thing

or the right one.

You let feelings get in the way of your relationship

with the eternal God.

And so that's why I haven't been super sympathetic

to people who come in saying,

well, I don't go to church anymore

because I've been hurt by the church.

And God has softened my heart a little bit.

But you know what?

He's also allowed me to realize

that not all people who are hurt by the church

leave the church.

There are people who are still in love with God,

but they are deeply wounded by people in the church.

I pick up on it, on conversation.

People get hurt by their pastors.

They get hurt by the people they do ministry with,

by the people that they thought were their brothers,

their friends.

There are people today who are still in love with God,

but maybe you've been hurt by the church.

So church hurt is a real thing in the church,

but a hurt church is also a real thing.

And I don't think that's what's talked about enough.

We talk about how to heal from church hurt,

But we don't really talk about how to keep walking with God and to keep walking with people while we're hurt.

And we need to be honest about something.

I wish more pastors would, and maybe they do, but I wish more pastors would make this normal behind the pulpit.

Because there's so many new people that come into church all the time, and I never want them to get the wrong assumption.

If you're new here today, maybe you don't go to church, but you're visiting, you're trying things out.

Let me just tell you something.

You're going to get hurt by the church.

you're going to get hurt by people in the church i'll say it like that it's it's it's highly probable

if you stay in the church long enough you expose yourself to hurt why because church people are

still people and people don't always do christianity the right way we've got moments of

emotion we've got moments where we're not thinking correctly we say things that we didn't really mean

I do this all the time Melissa like did you just hear yourself I like my bad We hurt people unintentionally And then you got some people in the church who are intentionally malicious like Judas And and you around what you assume to be a safe and holy place

But just like we talked about last week, there is always a spirit of an antichrist in the church.

And so if you're a brand new Christian, I want you to hear me like Christians are beautiful, loving people.

But we've got some ugly moments. OK.

I will misspeak.

I do it all the time.

I will make the wrong decision.

I will forget to call somebody.

I will forget to visit somebody.

I will forget to pray for somebody.

And I'm your pastor.

I'm like trying to do these things.

I will never, I mean, my vow is to never intentionally hurt anybody,

but I might do so by accident.

Ask my wife.

And anything that you do that's worth doing poses a risk of getting hurt.

Right. You fall in love. You could get hurt.

You know. You start a business, you could go broke, you lose everything.

You start to lift weights and you expose yourself to chronic back pain in your lower back region.

I love lifting weights man that's my

that's my outlet that's where I go to just release you know just

stress and all of that stuff but man last Monday those weights crushed me man

they hurt me and I was on my back for like a whole week and I literally

I got out of bed one morning and I almost fell

I felt like a 90 year old man

just because something is good for you or someone is good to you doesn't mean that

you can't get hurt by them

and so I say this to prepare you not for you to put walls up not for you to

just become distrusting of people in the church but so that your soul knows how to take a hit

and keep going and healing as you go what you do after hurt that makes all the difference

some people quit right pastor says something I didn't like one of the members was rude somebody

He cut me off in the parking lot.

I didn't get an invite to the wedding.

Everybody got invited to the wedding.

Or this one happens a lot.

Somebody from children's ministry came and got me like five times and couldn't handle my kid.

And if my kid is that much of a problem, I'll just stay home.

Or spank him, you know.

I'm just kidding.

And so we hear all of these different types of excuses for why people are no longer in church.

but too many people get hurt

and they never give the church another chance

and they leave

but those people aren't here today, right?

Because if you're here today,

you've given the church another chance.

You haven't written the church off.

So if you've got people like that in your life,

I wanna challenge you to go and be the church to them,

show them the love of Christ and the love of the church

and let them know that not all of the negative assumptions

they have about the church are true.

Be that.

Be that person.

But some people choose to quit after church hurt while others choose to stay.

That's what I want to talk to.

That's who I want to talk to.

I want to talk to the hurt church this morning.

These are the ones who, you know, you take the hits, but you keep going.

Maybe you don't quit on the church as a whole, but maybe you quit on the church that hurts you.

Right?

You started coming to Nuba maybe because your previous church hurt you.

Your old pastor didn't appreciate you.

They were too judgmental.

I don't know.

There's so many reasons.

And maybe you're walking around your new church, but you're still angry,

and you're still bitter, and you're still resentful towards your brothers

and sisters in Christ.

And you're going to get to heaven one day,

and you might pass them by the streets of gold.

What are you going to do?

ignore them?

Maybe

you love your church

so much that you decided not to leave

but you wish the people that hurt you would leave.

That's my church. I ain't going anywhere.

But Lord, if I

pray for my enemies, I pray for them to leave.

I want to talk to you today.

Maybe you're here today. Maybe you're not hurt.

You're good. You showed up to church

and you're great.

Maybe you used to be hurt but you got over it.

that's fine, this message might not be for you.

I showed up today full of joy, man,

full of hope, full of happiness, full of energy,

encouraged by what God is doing in this city

and in this church and in this area of town.

I'm not hurt today, but I've been hurt before.

I've been hurt by what somebody said about me

and even more hurt by the fact

that I couldn't confront them about it

because somebody told me about it in secret.

And I tied my hands behind my back.

I've been hurt. I've preached hurt. I've done ministry hurt. I've made phone calls to people who hurt me.

I've had meetings with people who hurt me. I've had to do ministry hurt and not walk away.

I'm not hurt today, but as long as I expose myself to an imperfect church, I'm bound to get hurt again.

And so maybe you showed up today and you're hurt, but you're still here.

You're at church and you're here because you're not here for the church.

You're here to be the church.

You you you're here because your love that you have received from the father is greater than the pain that you've experienced from people.

And so you choose to do ministry in pain.

You choose to worship while being wounded by the person that said something to you at the other side of the sanctuary.

You still got your hands up.

You choose to keep walking with God, but sometimes you walk with a limp because of what they said to you and you didn't appreciate it.

And someone said something to you behind your back or they made you feel like an outcast or they made you feel unappreciated or maybe you were betrayed.

As a mature Christian, any mature Christians in the house? Come on.

What do we do as mature Christians? We take it.

You take the criticism from other people.

You take the ugly looks and you take the hate and you take the judgment and you keep going and you take people tolerating your kids instead of celebrating your kids because your love for God is too precious for you to walk away from.

And you choose not to be a victim of church hurt and instead you're going to walk faithfully and you're going to walk obediently to God, but you are still a hurt church.

you are a member of God's kingdom

but some of us carry so much emotional baggage with us

because you don't know how to heal

from the hurt that has been caused to you

you don't know how to forgive

so you just forget

and they're not the same things

and you're just going through your Christian walk

just always trying to forget

what people did to you

never intentionally forgiving anybody

you're walking wounded and it's not healthy

you've got Christians who don't love other Christians

what did Jesus say by this you will know or they will know that you are my disciples

by the way that you love each other it's not it's not about it's not he didn't say

they're gonna know that you're my disciples by the way that you love the world even though yes

that is something that we as a church have to do.

We have to love the people in the world.

But Jesus specifically said,

they're gonna know that you are my disciples

by the way that you love each other.

Man of God, raise your hand in the room.

Man of God, man of God, come on.

The way that another man comes into this place,

knows that you are a disciple of Jesus

is by the way that you love one another.

women to God come on raise your hand raise your hand

if another woman comes in here and says man these women don't even talk to each other

this woman said something kind of ugly about that other woman over there

Jesus said by this they will know you are my disciples by the way that you love each other

and we have a lot of Christians. Hold on, hold on. Hold the applause.

We have a lot of Christians in the church, maybe not this church, because I do believe we are a

very loving church, but there's a lot of Christians who don't really love each other.

Listen to me. Listen to me. You support them when you don't want to. You smile at them

when you would rather roll your eyes.

You pretend like there isn't this bridge of emotion,

this elephant in the room

every time y'all are in the room together.

We've been told to do these things.

That's what mature people do.

We don't react to the emotion.

We don't say what we really want to say.

We act cordial,

and that might work for people around you,

but it doesn't work for Jesus

because Jesus sees the heart.

He sees behind the fakeness.

He sees behind the smiles,

and maybe you can fool everybody else,

And shoot, maybe you've even fooled your pastor.

That's why I think we're such a loving church.

But you don't fool Jesus.

First John, listen.

First John says this.

This is going to hurt somebody.

First John 4.20.

If anybody says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar.

For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot see the God whom he has not seen.

And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Let's be honest with ourselves, okay?

Because some of y'all are thinking, I mean, I don't hate her.

Y'all are thinking it.

Y'all have got somebody in your mind like, I don't want him to die or anything.

Like, I want him to go to heaven.

Don't confuse that with love, homie.

Don't confuse you not wanting somebody to go to hell with love.

if you can't serve the person

when nobody else is looking,

that's not love.

If you haven't been able to say a prayer

for that person who hurts you,

you go through your prayer list,

you pray for everybody else

and then you just casually skip that one.

If you do that,

you don't love them.

sometimes I wonder how many

not at our church

other churches

prayer team

you know you have prayer teams come up

and there's like a sister over here

and there's one open spot

but she refuses to go to it

because I ain't going to be prayed by that person

and the one on the prayer team is like oh please Lord send them somewhere else If you can pray Jesus says pray for your enemies

Pray for the ones that persecute you.

If you can't intentionally pray for those who hurt you,

yeah, you might not want them to die,

but you don't love them.

And what does Jesus say?

If you don't have love for your brother or your sister,

you can't say you love God

because you don't know the love of God

if you haven't learned the love of people.

The type of love that Jesus represents

is the type of love that everybody,

every single one of us as a church

should carry for each other.

That love is free of pride.

Come on.

It's free of bitterness.

It's free from chronic anger.

and is free of unforgiveness.

How many of us can honestly say

we love everybody like that?

I believe, man, God is searching

some hearts this morning.

God, you know, the perfect representation

of this is found in Jesus.

Jesus walked away all the way up

to that wooden cross

to fulfill the work

that he was called to do all the way up.

Listen, all the way up, taking every beating,

every whip, being mocked, being spit on by people,

having people think that his anointing wasn't genuine,

having people think that his divine power and authority

was a result of demonic influence,

all to die for the sins of people

who would still walk unworthy

even after they had been cleansed.

Jesus died for a church knowing there would be division.

He died for a church knowing that we wouldn't always represent him well,

knowing that we would still flirt with the world and be lukewarm.

Nobody knows church hurt more than Jesus.

Listen, Jesus felt the pain and the hurt of the church before he was even hurt by the church.

I want you to really understand the context of this episode of the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus,

everything that we just read.

We need to consider the whole thing, right?

Jesus is, yes, he's distressed,

he's troubled in spirit,

but think about what just happened.

He had just told his disciples,

you are all gonna abandon me.

One of you is gonna betray me.

Peter, my most loyal servant and disciple,

you are gonna deny me.

All of you are gonna scatter.

All of this is going on in Jesus' mind, by the way,

the same night that he and his disciples took communion.

Listen, guys, listen.

This is so important.

They enjoyed dinner together as brothers.

the same night that Jesus washed the feet of every disciple as an act of

humility and servitude.

The very night that Mark says they sung a hymn together.

The church was having church.

Peter was professing devotion to Jesus.

They were communing.

They were laughing.

They were bonding.

They were fellowshipping.

They were worshiping.

This had to hurt Jesus more than the nails that pierced his hand.

Knowing that these men who called him Lord,

who walked with him for three years,

who did ministry with him will all abandon him in just a few hours.

Imagine the temptation that Jesus must have felt in this moment.

We're singing together, but in a few hours they're going to leave me.

They let me wash the feet that later tonight they're going to use to run away from me.

With the same lips that Judas sings from, will he kiss me to betray me?

With the same mouth Peter professes his devotion, he will say, I don't even know that man.

And he gets to the Garden of Gethsemane and context tells us that he's not just distressed for the physical pain he's about to go through.

He's distressed because of the emotional pain he's already feeling.

It's not just the cup of physical pain.

This cup is filled with feelings of abandonment.

This is the same God, church, who was enthroned by angels who day and night, night and day, sing praises of glory to his name.

This is the same God who said, be light and everything came into existence.

And now for the very first time, he is going to experience something he's never felt in eternity.

Abandonment.

And so he's in the garden of Gethsemane.

He turns to his most trusted disciples, Peter, James and John.

Surely they can, he can at least count on them to be praying.

and he finds him sleeping

in the most troubling hour of his life.

Couldn't even do the most basic thing

that they saw Jesus do.

This would have been the time

any single one of us would have quit.

Why should I die

for somebody who just doesn't get it?

Why should I go through this pain

when I did nothing wrong?

Why should I have to hold my tongue

when they get a pass to say anything?

Why do I gotta keep serving people

who can even pray for me when I was going through something.

Why should I go and visit him when I didn't even get a call from him in my darkest hour of need?

That's when people in the church start to quit on the church.

Yeah, you might not quit going to church.

You might not quit on your walk with God, but you quit on people.

You write people off. You stop saying hello to them. You try to avoid them.

You make sure you don't sit in the same section.

You hope to God you're not in the same small group.

you remove yourself from the chat.

It's very hard to be a healthy Christian

when you are a hurt Christian.

No, you don't have to raise your hand.

But let the Holy Spirit answer this question for you.

How many of you are petty Christians?

and yet i think about all of this that jesus went through and jesus makes it up to that rugged cross

after 33 years of sorrow isaiah says that he is the man of sorrow he endured so much sorrow

during his life culminating intensely the last three years of his ministry even more intensely

the most last few hours of his life.

He gets to the cross.

And this wounded, beaten man,

what does he do?

He looks up and he says,

Father, forgive them.

Forgive them

because they don't know what they're doing.

Nobody knows church hurt like Jesus does.

And maybe you're saying,

well, pastor, that's Jesus.

Jesus is perfect.

I'm not perfect.

yes the perfect one died for the imperfect ones that's what doesn't make sense to me

the imperfect ones owe it to the perfect god to love the church as he loved the church

to get past the beef and the pride and the stupid jealousy and the division and the fakeness i don't

know who I'm talking today. I hope I'm not talking to anybody. But here's the message that we miss.

You know, we all want forgiveness for ourselves, right? And so we read that verse where Jesus says,

forgive them for they know not what they do. And man, I don't know about you, but I get emotional

when I read that. Because it tells me that even in my ignorance, even in my blindness, in my deafness,

When I didn't know what was right, when I didn't know where to go, Jesus had enough patience with me to extend grace to me.

Forgive me when I didn't know what I was doing wrong.

That is the patience of my God.

And so we take the forgiveness of Jesus so that we can heal from the damage of sin.

But yet we struggle to release the pain of the church by not forgiving others the way that Jesus forgave us.

A lot of us have not yet made it all the way up to our cross to say, Father, forgive them.

You know, when Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

He was also saying, I forgive them.

He wasn't just being faithful to the Father.

He was being faithful to the church that hurt him.

We can make the argument that Jesus went to the cross out of sheer obedience.

Nothing else.

Shoot, that would have been enough.

but but this is where we and i if you haven't paid attention to anything i want you to pay

attention to this because i think this is where we as mature christians make the mistake that

keeps us in our hurt the thing that keeps a hurt church going is obedience

stay with me we keep bringing our family to church even though we've been hurt by the church

out of obedience we keep doing the ministry we keep serving other people because god called

us to it and we want to be obedient to God. I'm not undermining the power and the necessity of

obedience, but Jesus didn't just go to the cross because he was obedient. Jesus went to the cross

because he was in love with the ones he was dying for. Jesus didn't get to the cross say, okay,

it's finished. Get me out of here. I'm done. No, he also said, forgive them. Forgive them.

Jesus was saying, Father, yes, this is for you, but this is also for them.

In a moment, we're going to take communion.

And, you know, communion is something that, you know, we do, the church does.

We do here at PNEUMA once a month.

It's one of the two ordinances of the church Jesus commanded the church to do.

And so this is one of those things that we do, again, out of obedience.

but I really want you to think about

that first communion

that was ever taken

Jesus was sitting around the table

with his betrayer

and his deniers

and his fleers

and none of these were his haters

by the way

these were his friends

these were the people

that Jesus did life with

as we say

these were the people

who professed a love

and a devotion to him

who were discipled by him.

That was the first communion.

And with everything in mind that they were about to do

to him, what does Jesus say?

This is my body, which is for you.

We like to make that personal to us, right?

The you is plural though, by the way.

The body of Jesus was given to the church.

so that we would represent the body of Christ So sometime after Jesus Paul writes to the Corinthians You know we talk a lot about the Corinthians

Corinthians are a divided group of Christians.

There's so much wrong in the Corinthian church.

They just don't know how to get along.

They're arguing about every little thing, every spiritual gift.

And, well, I'm going to follow this guy.

Well, I'm going to follow this guy.

And Paul's like, don't we all follow Jesus?

there's so much division in this church and if you read first corinthians you see how bad it really

is and so there's there's this moment in first corinthians chapter 11 where paul is talking to

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

the church about communion because you have this church in corinth that's taking the lord's supper

but they're doing so in an unworthy manner they're gathered together as a church but they're not

really acting like a body. So Paul says you gather for the Lord's supper, but it's not really the

Lord's supper you're taking because by dishonoring the body, listen, somebody listen by dishonoring

the body, by refusing to forgive somebody, by refusing to, to have that much needed conversation

by refusing to, like they used to say, squash the beef by refusing to get past the

division and the ungodly emotion that you're holding onto towards your brother, your sister

in Christ. What are you doing? You are dishonoring the very body of Jesus that was given to you and

for you. And sometimes we miss this when we're taking communion. We think, well, this is, this

is me and Jesus moment. Can I correct some bad theology this morning? We take this little cup

and we take this little bread

and we're like, okay, God,

this is just you and me right now.

This is you and me.

Thank you for what you did for me.

Thank you for your sacrifice to me.

Thank you for loving me.

We fail to remember

what Paul makes very clear.

He says that the Lord Jesus

on the night when he was betrayed,

on the night that his friends abandoned him,

on the night that they couldn't even pray with him,

the night that Peter denied knowing him,

he took bread and with it he gave thanks

and he broke it and said,

this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

The this and the do this

is not just the breaking of the bread.

It's not just in taking something to drink.

That's what the Corinthians thought it was.

That's what they were doing.

Oh, we're taking communion, we're breaking bread.

No, you're doing it wrong.

You're not doing it correctly

because you're not doing it with your brother in mind.

You're not doing it with your sister in mind.

You're not doing it as a body.

And that is where so many Christians,

we take this communion and we do it unworthily.

That is so important to remember

the this and the do this

is the communing, is the fellowship,

it's the singing, it's the gathering,

it's the going to church,

it's the serving one another,

it's the praying, it's the laughter,

it's the discipleship, it's being the church.

That's what we do together.

Do this as a body.

Come together and sing songs of praise.

Come together and learn the word.

Come together and serve one another.

Come together and honor one another

as a body of Christ.

Come together as brothers and sisters.

Do this.

Do this.

But more than that is what Jesus did after.

After he was hurt.

It's the forgiving.

It's the healing.

It's the growing.

It's the genuine loving and honoring one another.

I don't know who needs to forgive somebody today.

I don't know who needs to let some things go.

I don't know who needs to release some resentment this morning, but Jesus didn't die so that you could still live your life hurt.

Jesus didn't forgive you so that you would withhold forgiveness from somebody else.

This is something that we don't understand.

You know, if the devil, if the devil can't take away your faithfulness to God, he'll take away your faithfulness to other people.

And that's how he drives a wedge in the church.

And that's how he brings division in the church.

Because you let the hurt turn into something of bitterness and resentment and anger.

And Jesus wants to heal you.

I want to do something very intentional this morning.

I want us to stand.

does everybody have their communion cups?

If you don't have it, I want you to come forward.

I want you to grab one.

Right there where you're at, take your cup.

and I want to challenge you this morning

I want to challenge you to do something that

you might not want to do

out of fear of judgment

if you have something against your brother

your sister

don't do this

don't do it

don't open it

Save it.

Better yet, text that person right now and be like, hey man, I love you.

I forgive you.

Jesus says, well, I'll read from Paul.

Again, he says on the night that he was betrayed,

our Lord Jesus took some of the bread

and gave thanks to God for it

and then he broke it

and he said

this is my body

somebody hold up the bread real quick

when we take communion

we do it to represent

the sacrifice that Jesus

made on our behalf

that his body

was beaten and bruised and whipped and given up as a perfect sacrifice, a sinless body

offered on that cross. This is my body. But I want you to put the bread down real quick.

Because in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 27, Paul says, now you are the body of Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:27

Jesus says, this, this is my body.

Person next to you, your brother, your sister, this, this in the room, this is the body of Christ.

This is what I died for.

This is who I gave up my life to.

This is my body.

Do this in remembrance.

of me.

If you can do so with a good conscience this morning,

you can take the bread.

Thank you, Jesus.

In the same way he took the cup,

he said, this cup is the new covenant

between God and his people,

an agreement confirmed with my blood.

Do this in remembrance of me and take the cup.

Prayer team, can you come?

I'm gonna do a specific altar call this morning.

Everybody else, we can just pray,

we can just worship God from our seats.

Or if you want to come up, you can.

But I want to give opportunity for a very intentional moment.

That if anybody is hurting this morning, you are walking hurt.

And you say, Lord, I want to come to you and I want to give it to you.

I want to release the unforgiveness.

I want to release the anger.

I want to release the jealousy.

I want to release any ill will that I have towards your body.

If that's you this morning, I want you to come boldly as we pray for you.

my prayer this morning was Lord restore whoever needs to be restored

heal whoever has been hurt

that's you this morning come forward

come on

come on amen

amen

Come on.

Can we just praise God for some boldness this morning?

Can we praise God for people that are taking that step?

Can y'all sing?

We're gonna pray.

We're gonna pray.

Thanks for listening.

If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA Church,

visit us on our website at mypneumachurch.org.

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Thanks again and God bless.