Come

(upbeat music)

- Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu

from Pneuma Church in Houston, 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.

(upbeat music)

♪ Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel ♪

- Amen.

Praise God.

Anybody happy to be in the house of God this morning?

Amen.

God is good?

- Yeah.

- All the time.

- All the time.

- Amen.

God bless you.

God bless our visitors this morning.

We're so happy that you've chosen

to be in the house of God today.

And I just, I wanna shout out, man,

the people that are working hard

that aren't able to enjoy the service

because they're out there doing parking

and they're doing ushering

and they're trying to figure it out

and going and get more chairs.

And thank y'all, thank y'all.

Every single one of y'all who serves, man,

we have such an awesome ministry.

And I wanna take a quick minute

just before we get into the word.

I gotta do the whole, I gotta do the pastor pitch

and let y'all know that if y'all don't already have a church,

we would love for you and your family to join us at Pneuma.

Amen.

At the end of the day, we just want you to be for Jesus.

So it doesn't really matter where you go to church

as long as it's a gospel believing church.

But if you don't have a church of your own,

if you're looking for a church,

we would love to be your church.

We are a good one.

Amen.

We have a vibrant ministry.

We're not perfect, but no church is perfect.

I'm not the perfect pastor,

but what I can say is that we are a healthy church.

We are a healthy church.

And I don't say that because I'm the pastor.

I say that because it's true.

We have a church that believes

in the spiritual growth for everybody.

And because we believe in spiritual growth for everybody,

we have an awesome kids ministry.

We have an awesome youth ministry.

We have an awesome men's ministry, women's ministry,

marriage ministry, praise and worship team,

hospitality team, usher team, parking team,

social media team, media team.

We just got some awesome people at our church

because we represent the most awesome God.

We are a church that seeks to be moved,

led and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

That's the mission of our church

and everything that we do inside and outside the church.

We wanna be moved, led and empowered by the PNEUMA.

PNEUMA is the Greek word for spirit.

And because of that, we seek to have a spirit-filled

Pentecostal little crazy services.

But more than that, we seek to be a spirit-filled Christians.

We preach the truth of the gospel

in both love and boldness.

We are a place where your past doesn't matter

because we know that we serve a redeeming God

who redeems us for our future,

who can transform the most broken soul.

So all in all, we are a place for you.

And we welcome you if you're just visiting today.

And also we have an awesome Spanish ministry.

If you have a mama or a tia or a primo

who doesn't speak English,

you can invite them to our nine o'clock service.

We have some amazing Spanish pastors,

Gutierrez sitting right here.

They're not gonna understand the English service

'cause they only speak Spanish.

Just kidding.

And one more thing that I wanna say,

normally we have PNEUMA kids kind of doing their own thing.

They have their own church service in the next building.

But after a huge Easter weekend,

Easter event yesterday,

much of it was sponsored by our amazing kids ministry

and our kids pastors.

They deserve a break.

And so if you're visiting today and your kids are with you

and they're like, I don't like how that guy preaches,

please don't take me back.

Give us one more chance next week

because I know that they're gonna love their service.

Amen.

Praise God.

That was my PNEUMA pitch.

And now I wanna get into the word.

I wanna invite you to stand with me.

We're gonna read a very short two verses

in John chapter 11, verses 25 and 26.

John 11:25

I'll give you more context in a bit,

but this is Jesus saying this of himself.

And you don't even have to turn there.

You can if you want to,

but I'm not gonna wait for you.

It's up here on the screen.

John 11, 25.

Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life.

"Anyone who believes in me will live even after dying.

"Everyone who lives in me and believes in me

"will never, ever die."

I think we could say that one more time

if we can just read it as one body.

I am the resurrection and the life.

Anyone who believes in me will live even after dying.

Everyone who lives in me and believes in me

will never, ever die.

Holy Spirit, I pray, my God,

that your word would speak to your people today, Father God.

We give you this moment, we give you this time, Lord.

I pray that anything that you wanna say, you say it, my God.

I pray that I would be sensitive to your spirit, my God,

and that your words would be on my lips.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

Praise God.

You may be seated this morning.

I entitled the message, I entitled the message today,

one very short word to go along

with my very short passage of Scripture.

The title of my sermon this morning is very simply,

"Come, come."

I love the word of God.

I love to go deep into the Scriptures.

And if you're from the house,

my usual sermons consist of much longer passages

where we dive deep into the text.

And I like to get theological and into the background

and all of that so that we can have a better understanding

of what is being said.

But today I'm not gonna do much of that

because I don't really wanna overcomplicate anything.

I want you to simply understand a very simple truth.

And I'm just gonna ask for your attention.

I know you got your kids there

and they're probably like bugging you ready to go eat.

And do Easter egg stuff.

But if you just give me a few moments,

I wanna get this to you.

Very simple truth about Jesus.

And it's not even that He died for your sins

and resurrected on the third day.

My sermon is not even gonna be very Eastery.

And the reason for that is because I know that most of us,

whether you're a long time Christian

or you're just stepping into the church

for the first time today,

you've probably heard the story about Jesus

dying for your sins on the cross.

The most popular verse probably in all the world

is John 3.16.

I think we could probably all quote it.

"For God so loved the world

that He gave His only begotten Son

that who would ever believe in Him shall not perish

but have everlasting life."

We all know that.

And it's powerful.

And when I think about the undeserving grace

that I have in Jesus,

man, I very often, very often get emotional.

I don't get emotional easily.

Only two things make me emotional,

my two little girls and Jesus.

And when I think about the grace that I have in God

that He gave to me when I didn't deserve it,

I get emotional.

And I think that's why many people across the world

come to church on Resurrection Sunday.

It's the most attended church service of the year,

every single year.

And people come to commemorate the death

and the resurrection of Christ.

But one thing that is often missed

in the ministry of Jesus, a very underrated truth,

is that there is power in His invitation.

There is power in the invitation of Jesus.

So when Jesus says come, He makes a way for you to go,

no matter who you are, no matter what you've done,

no matter what you do, no matter what your past is like,

no matter if you're not good enough,

no matter if you're not qualified enough.

When Jesus makes the invitation,

He makes a way for you to make it.

You know when somebody invites you to church,

or not to church, but anything,

somebody invites you to something

that you don't really wanna go to,

and you start to make them all,

all the excuses that you can think of.

Well, I don't have a ride, well, I don't got a babysitter,

I gotta work early tomorrow.

There's nothing worse than when the person

you're giving the excuse to has the solution

for the excuse you're giving them, right?

Some of you are probably here today

because you said, oh man, I don't got a ride to church,

man, my car broke down, but you have some real friends,

you're like, I'll drive 45 minutes

to go get you and drop you off.

That's the worst, because you were betting

that that was a good excuse.

But Jesus is like that friend,

because you can't give him anything

that he won't have an answer for.

Jesus has an answer for every single one of your excuses

that you have ever made to him,

that you're making to him today,

he's got an answer for that.

And so Jesus tells a group of lowly fishermen,

in Matthew 4, 18, he says, come,

follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

Jesus took a group of 12 men

who were nothing special in society,

in fact, they probably all smelled like fish.

He had some fishermen, he had some tax collectors,

he had some political extremists, he had Judas,

and with these 12 ordinary men,

Jesus shook the course of human history

simply because they accepted the invitation

to follow Jesus.

When you accept the invitation of Jesus

and anything that you do,

whether it be the call to salvation,

or the call to ministry, or the call to leave,

or the call to stay, or the call to start,

or the call to stop, whenever Jesus makes the invitation,

he makes possible for you

anything that you keep telling yourself is impossible.

That's the power of the invitation.

And this goes all the way back to the call of Moses

in Exodus chapter three.

Moses, if you know the story, Moses had left Egypt,

he had fled from Egypt, he was running away from his life,

and he settled in a little place called Midian,

and he became a shepherd, and he got married,

and he had some kids, and he kind of moved on.

And then one day, God appears to him,

and he says, "Moses, I want you to go back to Egypt,

"I want you to go back to the place

"where you actually ran away from,

"and I want you to go and take my people out of Egypt."

And then Moses has an excuse for God.

He says, "Who am I?

"Who am I to go and speak in front of Pharaoh?

"I don't even speak that well," he says.

"I've got a stutter."

He says, "Who am I to lead an entire nation

"out of captivity from one of the most powerful nations

"in the world?"

He says, "Who am I?"

And then God turns it around, and he says,

"Moses, it's not about who you are, it's about who I am.

"I am the one who makes all things possible.

"I am who will park the red seat

"when the waters are in front of you.

"I am the one who will slay Pharaohs."

There is no valid excuse that you can give to God

when he makes the invitation.

And I know that God is speaking to somebody today,

and I said to the church,

I'm not gonna preach a message to the church,

but actually I'm gonna speak a message to the church

and to not the church,

because there's people in the room who are from the church

who have been Christian all their lives,

and you're still making excuses to God.

And you're saying, "Lord, I don't have time.

"I don't have money.

"I don't have energy.

"I don't have my whole family here.

"My husband doesn't even wanna come to church with me,

"and I need help with the kids

"before I say yes to ministry.

"Lord, I don't have the experience.

"I don't have the education.

"I don't have anything."

No excuse you give to God is problematic for God.

We sang a song this past Friday, man.

If you were here, we had a night of worship.

We have nights of worship.

Yeah, they're awesome, man.

We have awesome nights of worship.

And we sang this song this past Friday called God Problems.

Such a powerful song,

because the song talks about these problems

that are too big for us to deal with,

but they're nothing for God.

God doesn't know what the word problem is to him.

It's not, he has no problems.

And many times, the excuses that we give to God

for whatever he's calling us to,

they're not just excuses, they're realities, right?

Because I'm over here preaching,

and I'm sounding all spiritual,

but you're like, "Pastor, I got some valid excuses."

They're not just excuses.

They're reasons.

It's an actual thing.

Sometimes you don't have the time.

Sometimes you're working a full-time job,

you're a single parent, you're a full-time parent,

you're trying to get things ready,

you're trying to raise decent kids,

and God's calling you to minister.

I don't have time to go to church on a Sunday.

Sometimes the reality is you don't have the money,

and God is calling you to start something,

and you're like, "Well, I don't got the money."

And you can prove it with the $6.33 you got

sitting in your bank account.

Like, "I don't have it."

And so, so many times we convince ourselves

that our excuses are valid,

but when you accept the invitation from God,

listen, he takes into account everything that you've got

and everything that you don't have.

I don't know if you've ever gone through the process

of getting like a loan or a mortgage,

but if you have, you know that nothing is final

until it gets to underwriting.

That's the very last step, the boss man.

He's gotta sign off on it.

And you know, the loan officers,

they're just there to make you feel good

and give you hope, right?

They know nothing, I feel.

No offense if you're a loan officer.

But it's when you get to underwriting,

that's where the magic, that's make or break.

And so I remember when we were years ago

trying to get our first mortgage,

and I was on top of my credit at that point

'cause I was really trying to make a plan

to when we can buy our first house.

And so I knew my debt to income ratio,

I knew everything that I needed to pay down,

I knew what my credit utilization was to get it down.

But that didn't stop every mortgage company

from still calling me.

And I had so many bad experiences with these guys

that I eventually told one of them.

I remember having a long conversation.

I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna open up.

It was gonna be like therapy to me.

And so he calls me up wanting to run my credit,

and I said, sir, right now you see me as a shiny object.

That's what I told him.

You see me as dollar signs right now.

And I remember I told him, but I know who I am.

I know what my credit score is,

I know how much debt I have

compared to the money that I make.

I know that the moment I give you my social security number

and you run my credit and you press enter,

you will see the real me.

With all the credit card debt

and with all the student loans

and with the credit score that might as well be

in the pits of hell, that's how low it is,

I know the moment that you recognize

that I'm not really the shiny object

that you see right now, your entire mood is gonna change

and you're gonna have no reason to keep me on the phone.

I told him, I know my situation, sir, better than you do.

And that didn't stop him.

He was like, well, let's just see.

I was like, no!

Hey, Ruthless, train 'em well.

Let's just see.

I said, I remember telling him, no,

I'm tired of getting my hopes up

just to be told I've got stuff to work on.

I said, I know I got stuff to work on.

I know I messed up.

I know I shouldn't have bought certain things on credit

when I had no money to pay for that.

I know that I made mistakes in my early 20s.

I know it.

And that's how we go to God sometimes.

We think that we know ourselves more than God knows us

and we're so afraid of rejection

and so that's why we're so slow to accept the invitation

because Lord, if I say yes to you,

you're quickly gonna see the real me.

You're quickly gonna see that I've got some stuff

to work on.

You're gonna start to see that I'm not the preacher

you thought I'd be.

I'm not the pastor you thought I'd be.

I'm not the servant you thought I'd be.

I'm not the Christian you thought I'd be.

I come with all this debt and a past

and honestly some habits that I don't know if I can break.

But you gotta understand something about God.

He is not like the underwriter who says,

you gotta go and fix yourself before you come to me.

No, my God says, come as you are

and I will fix you right there where you stand.

In fact, I will send my spirit to help you and guide you.

I am calling all of the ugly, says the Lord.

Bring the ugly.

Because with the ugly, that's how I'm glorified.

You gotta see yourself as like an ugly house

that nobody wants.

And you're like, man, that's trash.

But then you see it all fixed up and you're like, wow,

look at what happened.

That's how we are.

God says, bring it, bring it.

Bring the ugly, bring the baggage, bring those chains

because the only way you can be set free

is if my hands are on you.

The gospel of Matthew, you still with me?

The gospel of Matthew records an incident

where the disciples were in a boat.

They were in a boat without Jesus

and at some point in their journey,

they see what looks to be like a ghost

and they're terrified because they see this ghost-like figure

and he's walking on the water towards the boat.

And Matthew 14, 27 says,

"But immediately Jesus spoke to them,

"saying, take heart, it is I.

"Do not be afraid.

"And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you,

"command me to come to you on the water."

Jesus had come.

So Peter got out of the boat and he walked on the water

and he came to Jesus.

If you know the story, Peter begins to walk on the water

and but then he takes his eyes off of Jesus

and he starts to look at his reality.

He starts to look at his situation.

He starts to look at the waves that are crashing down.

And I imagine Peter saying, man, these things shouldn't be.

This is impossible.

And as he's telling himself all of these things,

that's when fear begins to rise up

and Peter begins to sink into the sea.

And this is where Jesus takes his hand and he says,

oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?

And I think Peter in the story represents everybody

who has ever taken a step of faith.

Raise your hand if you've ever taken a step of faith.

You could be a Christian or not.

You've taken a step of faith.

You've done some things that you weren't really sure

what was going to happen on the other side.

Everybody has taken a step of faith.

But this is what I want you to understand

is that when you take a step of faith,

it doesn't mean that your faith is never gonna run dry.

It doesn't mean that if you take a step of faith today,

that tomorrow you're not gonna stumble.

And I want you so badly to understand this

because the reason so many people

never take the first step of faith

is because they're so worried about the second step of faith

and the third step and the fourth step and the fifth step.

You're thinking too far ahead

when God is just telling you to take the first step.

Worry about the next step when the next step comes.

There's people in this room, I'm talking to Christians,

with tremendous callings over their lives

and you know what they are.

You have spoken word.

You have received confirmation.

You have received dreams.

You have received a burden from the Lord,

but you haven't taken the first step of faith

because you're so worried about the fifth step of faith.

Oh man, what the fifth step of faith

is gonna require me to really quit my job

and I'm gonna have to make some real decisions.

I'm gonna have to break some relationships.

I'm gonna have to make some real changes.

And I don't know if I commit,

if I can commit to the fifth step of faith.

Just worry about the first one.

And by the time you get to the fourth one,

you'll be ready for the fifth one.

Stop overanalyzing.

We overanalyze faith.

Logic has no place in faith.

I know it sounds silly

and that's why sometimes Christians are ridiculed

because we're pretty radical in the things that we do

because sometimes we just don't think about it

because when God is saying,

we have no time to think through the logic

and the logistics and sometimes we just gotta take

the first step of faith.

We don't have time to overanalyze what God is saying to do.

Stop overanalyzing your faith

because you'll miss out on the blessings

and you'll miss out on the glory

that could have been yours

if you would have just taken that first step of faith.

There's people who come to church every Easter Sunday,

every Easter Sunday, I know who you are.

And you walk away without committing to Jesus.

I don't know why, but maybe you say, I'm not ready.

Maybe you say, well, if I say yes to Jesus now,

that means I'm gonna have to tell my family eventually

and my family doesn't believe in me

and they're gonna ridicule me

and they're gonna think that this is just a faith

and I'm gonna go back to my ways.

I don't want to deal with that.

I don't wanna deal with my girlfriend breaking up with me

'cause I became a Jesus freak.

I don't want my close friendships to end it with me

and not invite me to things anymore.

Just take the step.

Just take it.

Man, tell the person next to you, take the step.

Take the step.

It doesn't mean that your faith is gonna be perfect.

It doesn't mean that you won't make mistakes

and have to course correct somewhere along the way,

but take the step.

Peter didn't have the perfect walk on water,

but he still walked on water.

And what I really love about the story

is not even that Peter walked on the water.

What I love about this story is that Peter recognized

the power of Jesus' invitation.

Peter says, if it's you, Lord, command me to come.

Command me to, that's such a weird request, right?

Like, what if it was a ghost?

I mean, if I were the ghost, I'd be like, okay, come, right?

But Peter knew that if this was really Jesus,

the command to walk on water

would have not just been a command for Peter,

it would have been a command to the waters.

The waters had to obey.

It wasn't just taking the step.

It was nature listening and following through

with the voice of my Lord Jesus.

Even though Peter's faith wasn't perfect,

it surpassed everybody else in the book

because Peter knew that if the Lord of all creation

commanded him to walk on water, nature would listen.

When Jesus commands you, church, to do the impossible,

he simultaneously commands the impossible to become possible.

And so if Jesus says, come, come, Peter, walk on water,

that means that the water had to stop acting like water

so that Peter could walk on the water.

And you might be here today

and you wanna take that step of faith.

You've always been like on the fence.

You might want to say yes to Jesus,

but you're unsure of what the next step is gonna look like.

You're not sure if you have the capacity to commit.

You don't know if you can leave a certain lifestyle behind

that you've built in certain relationships that you've made.

You don't know if you can walk away from sin

because it's not that easy.

But if Jesus is inviting you today to take the step,

there is power in his invitation.

There is power when Jesus says the word, come.

Jesus came to give us power to partake in his inheritance.

He gave us power to access the kingdom of the Father.

Jesus came to give us power over things

that we couldn't say no to on our own.

He came to give us power over darkness and over demons

and over afflictions and over addictions

and over bondage and over depression and over fear.

He came to give us power to approach the very throne

of the holy and perfect God.

Jesus came to give you power

over everything that had power over you.

And I just wanna say it again, and I've been saying it,

but I wanna drill it into you.

There is power in the invitation of Jesus.

There's power when he says, come.

Church, I'm almost done.

I'm gonna wrap up soon.

Take all right, sister, I'm gonna take my time.

You know, there is truth that we have no power

to approach God on our own.

We know that.

We're not good enough.

That's the theological truth.

We're not good enough.

I know it doesn't sound spiritual,

and we always wanna lift people up.

Oh, no, you are good enough.

No, you're not, you're not good enough for God.

God is holy and perfect.

It's all right.

(congregation laughing)

There's freedom in the house, amen.

(congregation applauding)

We have no power to approach the perfect God.

We're not good enough.

We fall so short of the glory of God every single day.

And you know what, yesterday, I was talking to a brother,

and I don't know if he's here,

but I was talking to him, and he was so hurt by people.

He's broken, man.

He was so broken.

I mean, within five minutes of our conversation,

he just broke out in tears,

and I saw such a broken spirit in him.

And of course, I told him, hey, bro, come to church.

And I said, all you need is Jesus.

And he said, man, I'm not ready.

He kept saying, I'm not ready.

He kept saying, I'm not good enough.

He kept saying, God is up here, and I'm down here.

God is up here, and I'm down here.

And I said, man, all you need is Jesus.

All you need is Jesus and a group of godly people

to help you stay accountable and to build you up.

But as I ministered to him, my heart broke

because he represents so many people who give up

because they believe that they will never be able

to access the Father because of who they are.

God's up here.

I have no business even looking up.

So broken.

But there's truth to what he said.

But it's also a half truth.

And man, can I tell you that this is where the enemy excels.

It's in the half truths.

Sometimes we can tell where there's a lie,

but sometimes where there's a little bit of truth mixed in,

it convinces us of everything that he's saying to be true.

And the truth is, the theological truth,

and you'll read about it in the Bible,

is that we are not good enough.

And I know that I'm not good enough.

I know that humanity has dug themselves in this hole

that is sin, that is too deep for anyone to come out of

on their own by the human strength or human ingenuity.

There is nothing that man could do to become perfect.

It's called the depravity of man.

I know that we are all dead.

We were all dead in the trespasses of our sin.

But here's the other side of that truth.

I also know that there was a man named Jesus

who stepped down from his throne in heaven

to become like me, to live perfectly and die undeservedly.

And I know that his sacrifice for me on the cross,

it was pleasing to the God that I had no access to.

And because Jesus took my place on the cross,

his power now becomes my power

because he invites me into fellowship with him.

Jesus says, "All things have been handed over to me

by the Father."

This is what he tells his disciples.

"All things have been handed over to me by my Father,

and no one knows the Son except the Father."

See, this is where the enemy stops the verse.

It makes it sound like it's exclusive.

It's always just gonna be God, the Son, the Spirit.

And we're not good enough because there's such a large gap

that we can never fill that hole

to get us out of the bondage of our sin.

But Jesus in the very same passage, he says, "Come, come."

He says, "Come to me, all who labor,

and all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

He says, "Take my yoke upon you, take it.

Take my yoke and learn from me."

He says, "I am gentle and low in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls, your troubled,

your anxious, your dead, your fearful souls.

You will find rest if you just come."

And as beautiful as that is, church,

as beautiful as that is,

the tragic part is that so many people

never accept the invitation

because they don't believe that they have the power

to do it on their own.

Jesus says, "You don't have the power

to do it on your own.

That's why I already did it for you.

I already did it for you."

Jesus paid the price that you could not pay.

He was a sacrifice that I could never be.

And what's so powerful about Resurrection Sunday

and the whole Easter weekend is not just that Jesus died,

but that he came back to life

so that in his resurrection and in his power,

he could visit the place of the dead.

The Bible says that he visited the lowest regions

of the earth so that he could still visit me even today

in my pain, in my struggle, in my fear,

and he can still make the invitation for me to join him.

All you have to do is take the step.

That's all you have to do.

I'm gonna have the worship team come up.

I recently asked my dad to recount his story of salvation

because it's a beautiful story.

My dad wasn't raised a Christian.

And I know that he had hit a pretty low point in his life.

He almost lost his life in a car accident

where he lost his brother, his oldest brother.

He moves from Mexico here to Houston.

He started working to become one of the hardest working men

that I know still is today.

And he told me, I didn't know this part,

he said that I had been sick.

I was sick and so I was going for healing.

He said there was this revival service happening

at some venue in downtown and he went

and he had a moment with God where he said,

"Lord, if you're real, let me know."

He said, "I wanna feel you.

"Touch me, Lord."

And he said in that moment that he felt,

was it on your shoulder?

You felt something on your shoulder.

And he looked around and he didn't see anybody there.

And he took that as God saying, "I am here.

"This is me touching you."

And he gave his life to Jesus right there.

He walked out.

It's funny, he said, "I walked out, I was still sick,

"but my spirit was healed."

His soul found rest and my dad was saved.

But I asked him, I asked him,

well, how were you there in the first place?

Such a small, insignificant detail

that you probably don't even mention

in your salvation story,

but that often has the biggest impact.

He said, "Somebody invited me.

"I'm here today preaching to you.

"My daughters are here today.

"They're gonna grow up in the service to the Lord

"because somebody, who I don't even know their name,

"invited my dad to church,

"where he received Jesus as his Lord and Savior."

There's power in the invitation.

Come on, you already know I gotta highlight you.

I gotta honor you.

I gotta honor you.

I call this man, street preacher Mike,

because he has a gift of loving people.

That's his gift.

That's the most evident gift that I see in you,

is the way that you love your friends and your family

and everybody in your past,

no matter if there's bad blood, there was beef,

you love 'em.

That's the gift that I see in you.

I don't know if you're called to pulpit preaching, maybe,

if you can get some of those,

you know what I mean, out the way.

You gotta minimize that.

You know what I mean, know what I mean.

Hold on, my bad, I didn't mean to embarrass you.

But, I want you,

if you are here at PNEUMA,

because Brother Mike invited you to church,

can you just stand?

Can you just stand?

(audience cheering)

(gentle music)

And as I, y'all can take your seat,

as I told Mike, told Mike the other day,

I don't know if you realize it, man,

but it's not just them.

It's the generations after them.

It's the people who are never even gonna know your name.

It's people that you're never gonna know.

And you're never gonna get to meet.

That's the power of the invitation.

Thank you.

(audience applauding)

Jesus says, "I am the resurrection in the life.

"Anyone who believes in me will live even after dying."

In context, Jesus said this after the death of Lazarus.

Lazarus had been dead for four days.

He said this to Mary and Martha

as they grieved over their brother.

He says, "I am the resurrection."

There's the word again, I am.

That's how God introduced himself to Moses, I am.

And he just left it blank.

And throughout scripture, you'll see Jesus saying,

"I am this, I am that, I am this, I am that."

Because Jesus, God, is anything that you need him to be

in any moment that he wishes to manifest himself as.

And so here in this occasion, he tells Mary and Martha,

"I am the resurrection in the life."

The Bible says that the resurrection of Lazarus

was done to demonstrate the glory of God,

but I also recognize that it was done

to demonstrate the power of the invitation.

Earlier, I said that no excuse you can give to God is valid.

Funny enough, Mary and Martha couldn't even say,

"But our brother is dead."

Jesus is like, "That's not an excuse."

Jesus says in John 11, 40, he said,

"Did I not tell you, if you believed,

"you would see the glory of God."

They took the stone away and Jesus lifted up his eyes.

And he said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

"I knew that you always hear me,

"but I said this on the account of the people

"standing around, that they may believe that you sent me."

And when he said these things,

he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come, come out."

The man who died came out and his hands and his feet

were bound with linen strips and his face

was wrapped in a cloth and Jesus said,

"Unbind him and let him go."

Church, there is no power.

There is no one, there is no devil,

there is no chain, there is no mountain,

there was no valley, there was no situation,

there was no debt, there is no chaos,

there was no storm, there was no sin,

there was no lifestyle, there is no glory.

There is no lifestyle, there is not even a dead spirit

that won't fall at the feet of Jesus

when he makes the invitation and he says,

"Come, come, come, I am the resurrection, I am the life."

God is calling you by name today.

He's calling you to salvation today.

He's calling some of you to take that first step.

Stop overanalyzing the first step and just take it, take it.

There is power, I'm gonna ask you to stand.

There is power when Jesus says, "Come."

And if you didn't hear me at all today,

I just wanna just listen to this last bit.

When Jesus says, "Come," demons have to stop working.

Demons have to stop working.

Demons have to stop pursuing you

in a moment when Jesus says, "Uh-uh, you come."

Nature has to bow.

Physics has to stop being physics.

Doors have to be opened.

Giants have to fall.

That's why we call him the King of all kings

and the Lord of all lords,

because everything is subject to the very voice

of Yeshua, Jesus Christ, the King of kings,

the Lord of lords.

And he's calling you today to come.

Prayer team, come, come.

Prayer team, if you wanna take that step of faith,

come on, this is the place right now.

Stop overthinking.

Come on, give your life.

Give your life to the service of Christ.

Give your life to Jesus.

Give your life to the ministry.

Whatever God is calling you to, there is an invitation.

He's saying, "Come, come, come, come."

Stop overanalyzing, stop overthinking.

And come to my feet.

Come on.

Thanks for listening.

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

visit us on our website at mypneumachurch.org.

If you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe

or share it with your friends on social media

and tag us @mypneumachurch.

Thanks again and God bless.

(gentle music)

(gentle music)

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