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

I have one announcement to make on Wednesday on the 19th.

We're going to have a special service, so we're not going to have classes,

but we're going to have combined service in here with an evangelist.

He's been here before many times, Daniel Cabrera.

And I'm saying Daniel Cabrera.

His name is Daniel Cabrera, but I'm saying it in English for my English only people.

So you show up.

OK, Daniel Cabrera will be with us and we want you to join us.

It's going to be an awesome, awesome service.

He's an awesome man of God, great preacher.

But I today I want to share something with you that's kind of been on my heart for for a while.

And I really didn't know where to pull from Scripture.

I think there's a lot of places that I could I could go in the Bible, but none that I really felt encompassed everything that I want to say today.

So we're going to read scripture because we're at church and the Christian life is founded on his word.

But I kind of just want to talk a little bit today and we're just going to see what the Lord does.

OK, I gave this completely over to the Holy Spirit and said, Lord, whatever you want to do, do it.

You know, one of the most passionate sermons that I think I've preached recently is a sermon that I preached only a few months ago on holiness.

And I don't think it's by coincidence. I didn't tell the worship song, the worship team what song to sing.

but they sang about holiness.

And so that's something that I'm really, really passionate about right now

in this season of my life because, you know,

Jesus modeled holiness so perfectly for us.

And he desires us to be as he is, which is holy.

Revelation 5, it gives us this idea that because Jesus is holy,

and you've heard me say this, because Jesus is holy,

he was worthy he was the only one worthy in all creation to open up the scroll that nobody else

was worthy enough to open and and John sees this and he begins to weep because there is no one found

worthy to open up the scroll but then behold the lamb of god who because he was holy was worthy but

because he was worthy, he was slain.

And when I think about that, it chokes me up every time.

Because here Jesus is giving us everything of himself,

living a perfectly sinless life

just so he can be worthy enough to die for us.

Doesn't that seem backwards?

Like you have to live a perfectly sinless life on earth

and your reward is going to be your death.

meanwhile the church can't sin cannot sin for 10 minutes with eternal life at the other end of it

and i just think that god not not think i know he deserves so much more than what we give him

if if the church is the bride and jesus is the groom just like in every holy matrimony there are

values that should be shared. You're not going to get married to somebody just because they look

good, but you have nothing in common. There's no values that you share. And so we are the bride of

Christ, meaning that there are values that we should share with Christ. And one of the most

important values is holiness. The Bible says to be holy as your father is holy. Jesus says,

be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. The Greek word that's used there for perfect

is teleos. It means to meet the highest standard. So Jesus is saying, I have the highest standard

for my church. I'm not going to settle for less than what I know I deserve as the perfect and holy

son of God. So therefore you have to be perfect as my father in heaven is perfect. That's what

Jesus is saying. He's saying, if we're going to be a union and if we're going to be of one body,

as I give my body to you, well, this body's got to be perfect. It's got to be holy. It's like when

you get married, you tell your spouse, look, in this house, this is what we're going to do.

This is how we're going to live. This is how we're going to raise our kids. In this marriage,

we're not going to use the D word. We're not going to say divorce. We're not going to quit on each

other. We're not going to run away when things get difficult. We're going to speak life and we're

going to pray together. Marriage is a covenant. It's an agreement and a promise to do things as

one and as believers we have entered into a very new covenant with Christ and that covenant has

implications and and Paul sums it up very nicely in second Corinthians 318 this is what he says

look he says and we all with unveiled face okay he's he's he's comparing the new church the church

of Christ to the Israelites who could not enter the presence of God because of sin but because

of Jesus, because he has torn that veil and offered himself as a perfect sacrifice. Now we have no

veil. Now we can approach the presence of God with confidence. And so he says with unveiled face,

beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the image from one degree

of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is spirit. He's saying we go from glory to

glory to glory as we behold Christ. The more that we as a church look at Jesus, we should become

more like Jesus. That is the win, church, that God celebrates. That's the win that God cares most

about in the life of the believers. This is the glory that this verse is talking about. This is

not talking, glory to glory doesn't mean job to better job. It doesn't mean house to nicer house.

It doesn't mean church to bigger church.

It doesn't even mean anointing to more anointing.

Like this verse is not about your glory.

It's about his glory.

Don't strip the verse of what it means.

This is all about Jesus.

And so the glory that we should always be after,

the glory that is celebrated by God himself,

is that when his sons and daughters look more like his perfect son, Jesus,

That is the glory that God celebrates.

And you're not going to start out perfectly.

I say the word perfect, and I know that that is very intimidating for a lot of us.

But I'm not saying it. Jesus said it.

Be perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.

Well, doesn't that automatically disqualify all of us?

Some of you are sitting here, you got saved last week.

You raised your hand last week.

You're like, oh, I don't know if I can come back next week because I'm not perfect.

And nobody starts out perfect. No one really ends up perfect either.

There's Christians who've been saved for several years and you still let a little cuss words about every now and then.

I've heard you.

My God is still working in you.

And that's okay. He's still working in me too.

He's working in all of us.

Nobody lives a perfectly sinless life, but the mission.

Listen, this is critical.

The mission for us as believers is to become more like Jesus with every passing day.

More like Jesus, not less like him.

Tomorrow you should not look less like Jesus.

Maybe tomorrow something hits you.

Tomorrow something happens in your life.

Somebody cuts you off.

Somebody bad mouths you.

Somebody talks about you.

Somebody hurts you.

You should not become less like Jesus because of your circumstances.

No, you should become more like Jesus despite your circumstances.

Why?

Because he's holy.

He's holy.

And so I'm very passionate about holiness, and I think more Christians need to be passionate about holiness.

But my message is not on holiness, at least not directly.

It's on the thing that actually takes us out of holiness.

It's the thing that's completely opposite to holiness.

What do you think that is?

Sin.

And so here I want to read some scripture.

If you would stand with me, Genesis chapter 3.

Everybody knows Genesis chapter 3.

We know this story. We know that God made everything perfect and he put the woman and the man in the garden and it was perfection.

And this is where sin enters the world. Genesis 3, 4 through 13. I have it up here.

It says, but the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.

For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day.

And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord called to the man and said, where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden.

I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.

He said, who told you you were naked?

Have you eaten of the tree which I had commanded you not to eat?

The man said, the woman you gave to be with me.

She gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate.

And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done?

The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.

You can take your seat.

We pray.

So this past Wednesday, Melissa and I got to do a talk on mental health as the Bible defines it.

The words mental and health are not in the Bible, but the Bible does talk a lot about a healthy mind.

Paul tells us to be transformed by the renewal of our mind.

And you can't do that without a healthy mind.

You can't do that without a Christ-like mind.

The Bible also talks about human behavior, things that we do as a result of the way that we think,

like fear and doubt and pride and anxiety.

All of these are results of the way that we think and rationalize and deal with emotion.

And so we call that session sober-minded because that's what the Bible talks about, tells us to be sober-minded.

And there was a lot of good stuff specifically that Melissa brought.

we talked about how to have a sober mind in the midst of adversity many people don know how to do that we deal with adversity or conflict in a very unhealthy way sometimes without clarity without good judgment full of emotion right When somebody confronts you what happens You start your blood starts to boil a little bit

And then maybe you say some things that you shouldn't be saying because you're you're not operating in the right mind.

Well, I think that we also do this with sin.

And the reason that many Christians can't break free from certain sin is simply because they haven't taken the time to deal with that sin.

And maybe the reason that you haven't taken the time to deal with that sin is because you don't even realize it's there.

So you might tend to shut people out when you're in adversity.

And if you're married, your husband, your wife knows exactly how you deal with emotion.

You shut down.

Or you might feel the need to protect yourself and defend yourself during conflict.

And so you start saying some hurtful things.

You might tend to become prideful.

You think everybody else is the problem.

in adversity. And you might not even realize that you handle adversity this way. We often

deal with sin the way that we deal with adversity. So let me just tell you what I want to talk about.

I know I'm already four pages in. I haven't even told you what my sermon is about.

If you're taking notes, I want to talk about sin that seems insignificant. I want to talk about

sin that we barely even acknowledge. Sometimes we flat out ignore sin that we might not even realize

is there, but it kills holiness. So the title of my message is baby sin, baby sin, little,

little baby, little cute sin. How many of us have baby sin? But look, if our goal is to become

holy and pure, then that means we have to remove every ounce of unholiness that exists in us.

And I think that many times Christians, we get stuck as we go through that process of

sanctification where our spiritual growth stagnates. I don't know if you've been there.

I've been there many times. I get to a place where God has taken me from glory to glory to glory.

And then I reach a certain level of glory that I'm willing to go because I've already let go of

all the things that I'm willing to let go of. I haven't completely surrendered everything that is

keeping me from that next level of gloryness, which is that next level of Christ likeness.

I call that baby sin.

Sin that doesn't even look dangerous.

It's baby sin that cripples the church.

It's baby sin that causes division because it starts out so small.

It's baby sin that causes Christians not to like other Christians.

It's what keeps us from greater levels of holiness and therefore greater levels of anointing.

And anytime I talk about sin, the church is quiet.

Sin is, what is sin?

It's separation from God, right?

That's what sin is.

Everybody knows that.

It is a deviation from holiness.

Sin and holiness cannot coexist.

That's why man was cast out of the garden when sin came into existence.

Because God is holy and sin is the absence of holy.

So a sinful lifestyle is a life without God.

See on them.

A sinful lifestyle is a lifestyle without God.

A lot of Christians hear that and we're like, cool, I'm safe.

Because I don't live a lifestyle of sin anymore.

I live a lifestyle of Jesus.

I just sin a little bit.

I just, part-time sinner.

How many part-time sinners we got in the room?

Come on, raise your hand.

Hey, hey, I sin sometimes.

And we got to be able to admit that in church because the Bible says that he who says he is without sin is a liar.

Which is a sin.

We all sin sometimes.

We still got some sin in us.

Now, okay, now, for those of us who sin sometimes, when you do sin, how many of you say,

wow, it wasn't that bad.

I mean, it's just a little temper issue.

It's just a little bit of pride, a little bit of jealousy.

It's just a little bit of me not able to let things go

and I hold things on too tightly when I should probably forgive.

It's just a little bit of sin.

It's nothing like Romans chapter 1 sins or Galatians chapter 5.

I'm not out here murdering people.

I'm not looking for the neighborhood orgy.

That's what the Bible. The Bible says it. OK, I'm not out here looking for all of this.

Like I turn from that lifestyle. This is just this is just a little bit of sin.

I don't have unnatural passions and drunkenness. These are baby sins.

We got to be real about this, because the enemy has convinced the church who is called to be holy and pure that God doesn't really care or expect us to be holy.

he has done that so well like he he goes to us like he went to eve did god really say you got

to be perfect you don't have to be perfect you just got to be just do your best just be a good

person go to church give give some give a meal to a homeless person you know volunteer at church

but holiness, perfection, that's only for God.

You can never become like God.

It's so twisted to me that the same serpent who told Eve,

you can become like God is now telling the church,

you can never become like Christ.

He's a liar.

He's a liar.

And he says, you don't really need to work on the pride.

Everybody's got pride.

Pride is all over the church.

You're all right.

You don't need to fix that temper.

You're fine.

You don't need to start forgiving everybody.

You're good.

We cannot, listen church,

we cannot be comfortable with a little bit of sin

just because we're not living a lifestyle of it.

There's no sin in moderation.

We can't be okay with that.

There's cake in moderation.

There's some soda in moderation.

There's no sin in moderation.

and yet there's so many things that the church keeps behind closed doors in those closets and

we haven't even dealt with it yet we might not even see it as a sin we see it as a weakness

oh it's just my thorn in the flesh

no the temptation may always be there but your sins shouldn't always be there

i'm going to say that again because there's a lot of people who have convinced themselves

that their sin is a thorn in the flesh.

No, no, God doesn't give you a thorn in the flesh that is sin.

You might be tempted, and you will always deal with that temptation,

maybe for the rest of your life, but the sin does not belong.

The sin has to go.

And whatever devil is convincing you,

otherwise you need to rebuke him in Jesus' name

because you are called to be holy and pure like Jesus.

The only thorn that was pierced in the body of Jesus

was one that killed him as he gave his life to us.

Other than that, he was perfectly sinless.

And so my prayer today, again, this is not,

I don't even know what this is.

I don't know if I'm preaching or I'm just talking,

but I'm just praying that God would reveal some things to us

of sin that we've allowed to remain in our lives

that maybe because we don't see them as grave sins,

it's nothing like what I used to do,

we're not confronting.

Listen, the things that stand in the way of a pure church are the smallest of sins that we've decided to leave there.

Did you hear that?

Have you ever tried to get rid of like a small stain on a dish?

My girls love spaghetti.

So Monday night, spaghetti night.

And if you've ever cooked spaghetti, you know, like my Tupperware is like, I'm tired, boss.

Like, please, no more.

Plastic bowls, you just want to throw it away.

And I'm there sometimes, and I'm scrubbing it.

I'm like, I'm going to get this stain out.

I'm going to make it shine again.

It's a plastic bowl, so it doesn't shine.

But I'm going to get rid of this stain, and it doesn't go away.

So at some point, you're like, you know what?

It's not worth it.

But we can't do that to ourselves.

because if we are being conformed to the image of Christ,

we have to allow the Holy Spirit to continue scrubbing.

We can't get to a point where we just say,

Holy Spirit, you know what?

I don't think it's going to go away.

Just leave it there.

We'll be okay.

Listen, we have Christians who have, by the grace of God,

conquered addictions, conquered sexual addictions,

drug addictions, alcoholism.

You have conquered some real things,

but you haven't conquered anxiety.

You haven't conquered pride.

You haven't conquered jealousy.

You haven't conquered gossip.

You haven't conquered division.

It's not the lifestyle that is keeping the church unholy.

It's the habits and the mannerisms and the things that are so small and insignificant that you are keeping in your company that is crippling you from going to one level of glory to another.

It's not the lifestyle.

Praise God.

Your life has changed.

but it's the little things

and I can't tell you what those little things are

only you know

I was telling God look pride, fear, doubt

anxiety, jealousy

I was telling God the other day

I'm always talking about those things

like there's probably not a sermon where I don't

say pride

jealousy, anger

division, I'm always talking about

I feel like I sound like a broken record

but I think those are the stains

that have been left on the hearts of so many of God's beautiful people.

I still struggle with these things.

But not, you know what, not nearly as much as I used to.

You know why? Because I decided to face it.

And some of you are sitting here today and you're like,

preach it, pastor. Tell them. Tell them.

But you don't realize that you too might have some baby sin in your life.

It's such a hard thing to diagnose because it's like,

it's microscopic, it's invisible to the naked eye.

You know what?

It takes the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you.

You don't see it without the Holy Spirit.

Without the Holy Spirit, you're good.

I got saved last week.

I'm good.

No, no, no.

With the Holy Spirit.

When you have the Holy Spirit,

when I have the Holy Spirit in my temple

and he begins to grieve,

that does something to my spirit I feel it And I might not even know what it is all the time And so I telling God what is this that I am feeling Why am I feeling this way

Why is my spirit troubled?

It's because the Holy Spirit is grieving in me.

That's why you need the Holy Spirit.

To reveal these baby sins to you.

I was telling Pastor Danny the other day that I learned so much about myself when I became a pastor.

Like I learned about weaknesses that I didn't even know I had.

And I would tell God, why am I feeling this?

What is it even that I'm feeling?

I don't understand it.

And I said, God, I need you to reveal these things to me so that I can deal with it.

And little by little, the Holy Spirit began to show me some things that I needed to deal with.

And I believe that we have to do that today.

We need to go deeper with the Holy Spirit.

so that he begins to reveal some things that are hurting him.

You have to have some conversations.

You know how you have to have some conversations with people?

Like you have to ask them, hey, are you okay?

Are you good?

And if they don't open up, that's on them.

But at least I asked.

The Holy Spirit will open up.

Holy Spirit, what's going on?

What am I doing?

Search my heart.

What is grieving you?

What is causing you pain?

The Holy Spirit will pour himself out.

He will tell you exactly what's going on.

but you can't do that without having a conversation with the Holy Spirit.

This week, Melissa was, you know, she shared a four-point model in that session that we did.

Four unhealthy ways that people deal with adversity.

And there's two that I really think relate to how we deal with sin.

The first one is flight.

Flight.

So this is when you don't deal with the problem, you run away from the problem.

That might solve it for a little bit, it's not going to solve it forever.

It's always going to catch up to you, right?

This is the way that Adam and Eve dealt with their sin.

The Bible says that they hid themselves from the presence of God as God was walking.

They hid themselves.

They ran away so that he wouldn't see them.

And we do this a lot in church.

You know, when somebody sins against somebody else or when this scandal comes out, what's the first thing that happens?

You stop seeing that person.

They delete social media or they limit comments on Instagram.

You don't know where they went because they're hiding themselves, because they're ashamed of what they did.

Or maybe it's private sin and nobody else knows about it.

It's only sin that you deal with.

And so the way that you deal with this is you let it go.

You just keep on getting over it without ever giving it to God.

Listen, you flee temptation.

You have to deal with your sin.

you got to face it

and then you got to repent

and then you got to turn from it

you don't run from it

because sin is just going to keep chasing you

and you can never outrun it

because your flesh wants it

some people have to have some tough conversations

with their sin today

today

you got to have some real tough conversations

like I can't see you anymore

sin

I'm in relationship with somebody else

I can't do this anymore

You know, like, in second grade, I had a girlfriend.

Her name was Holly.

My wife knows.

And so I was seeing Holly for a little bit at school, you know, when I was at school during class.

But she was my girlfriend.

I asked her to be my girlfriend.

She said yes.

And then we moved to Colorado.

So we left for two years.

We spent our time in Colorado.

And then when we came back, I went back to the same school, and Holly was there.

And I remember a little friend of mine told me, hey, you're technically still with her

because you never shut that down.

You know?

You got to shut some things down.

You got to break up with your girlfriend before you get into another relationship.

Because then the ex-girlfriend is going to be texting you, hey, can we hang out?

And you're like, oh, crap, I haven't told her that I'm in a relationship with somebody else.

And it's going to keep turning into this thing.

That's how we deal with sin.

Because sin is like, hey, you want to hang out?

Hey, you want to come do that thing again that you were doing last night?

Oh, I'm at church right now.

And you have to deal with it now.

You have to confront it.

You have to have a conversation and tear yourself from it.

Or else it's going to keep coming back to you.

stop running away from the sin

face it

you cannot kill what you will not

what you will not confront

you have to

confront it to kill it

you need to grab that sin

by the neck man

bring it to the altar

bring it to a friend bring it to somebody

who is holy somebody who is going to pray with you

bring it to a pastor bring it to a leader

bring it to a spouse

bring it to life so that you can kill it

And all of your other friends can help you kill it too.

Stop running away from the thing that is killing you little by little.

The other one is fight.

Fight.

I know that sounds good.

Like, yeah, prayer warriors, fighting demons.

No.

Thank you.

This is not fighting your sin.

And this is fighting everything else as if to protect your sin.

Like some people deal with their issues by fighting everybody else around them.

You can't tell them anything because they just want to box.

Because you feel like you have to defend yourself.

Because you feel like everybody's always after you.

I'm always a problem.

And so you fight because you got to defend yourself.

You know, this is kind of what Adam did to Eve.

And a little bit to God.

What did he say?

He said, God, it was the woman you put.

There was no I in it.

It was the woman.

I was here.

Cool.

Naming my animals.

And then the woman comes.

She's like, are you sure you want to name that a giraffe?

Are you sure?

Hounding me every little decision I make.

It was the woman you gave me.

And then the woman said, it wasn't me.

It was a serpent.

It was that disgusting thing that you created.

God, why would you even create a snake?

And even though there's probably a little bit of truth in all of that,

Adam and Eve never fought the sin.

They fought each other.

I've seen this.

I've seen people fight to protect their sin.

I've seen it literally in my office.

When it's time for that pastoral correction,

hold on, pastor.

don't come at me

did they tell you what they did

do you know why I did this

I had to do it

I dread conversations like that

I dread it when I know it's going to be a fight

it's one thing

when you know you can confront somebody

who's mature

and you can have a grown up conversation

but it's something else when you know it's going to be a fight

which one

which one are you

are you the one that runs away from your sin

You never actually deal with it or you're the one that fights everything else to protect and make excuses for your sin.

Because one of the biggest sins that nobody ever talks about is the sin of not dealing with sin.

And maybe we call it pride.

Maybe we call it a hard heart.

But a bigger sin forms in our refusal to deal with the smaller ones.

You still with me?

You got to nip it at the bud.

You got to stop it while it's still small.

because sin grows.

And nothing good grows in the dark.

You have to take care of it at the outset

because then it becomes this bigger problem.

I'll give you an example.

Men, when your wife tells you

to fix something around the house,

I speak from experience, okay?

Because you might say,

yeah, I gotta, let me see what I need, right?

And then a few weeks go by,

and this is my wife, like,

did you see what you needed yet?

I'm like, let me see what I need.

So go see what I need.

Let me go to Home Depot now.

Come back.

Bought all the wrong stuff, right?

And so now there's this construction site

in my house for a few weeks.

And then, this is like my,

literally my experience.

And then Melissa's like,

well, you really need to fix that thing.

I know, I'm gonna do it.

I gotta do it.

This weekend, I'm gonna do it.

Weekend's really busy.

Doesn't happen.

More weeks go by.

Then she's like, can you at least call somebody?

Now, look, I don't know if this is just my man pride,

but when she says that comment,

that is a direct hit at my manliness.

You want me to let another stronger,

more capable male in my house

to fix this thing that I should be fixing?

That's what you want me to do?

No, no, I'm going to do it.

So I confront it myself and I start to deal with it

and then I break it.

And then I'm like, you know,

the word says where two or three are gathered.

So I'm going to call that brother up.

And after, by the time all of that happens, the thing I'm actually referring to is our, is my wife's sink.

My wife's faucet.

No, no, no.

It was, well, there was two actually.

Dang.

Anyways, it took me four years living in this house to finally fix.

I didn't fix it.

Somebody else did.

To fix this sink.

And then it gets to the point where it's like, man, it's more issues are created, more fights and more bickering and more, you know, accusing me of not being able to fix it, even though she was right.

And it's this bigger problem just because you didn't confront it at the outset.

You have to deal with the things that you know are present.

You know, Nathan, the prophet Nathan confronted David.

Now, David didn't have baby sense.

He had massive big boy sense.

David commits adultery.

And some commentators say that,

David, this was actually a power play.

This was more like rape

because he's the king of Israel.

And this is this woman in the ancient Near Eastern world

who has no voice, no power.

And he calls her to him and sleeps with her,

gets her pregnant.

And then he has to devise this plan

where he gets Uriah, Bathsheba's wife,

her husband, drunk

so that he can make sure

that he sleeps with his wife

so that they can think

that the baby belongs to them.

Well, that doesn't work.

So then David puts Uriah

on the front lines

where he killed in battle And then David takes Bathsheba to be his wife and live with him It like a gangster movie And the prophet Nathan because David he living his best life

Time has gone by, and he's living life with his new wife.

Nathan says, David, you're the problem.

You are a problem.

You haven't dealt with this issue that has escalated into this mountain and lifestyle of sin.

had you just dealt with it at the first sign of it.

Maybe there still would have been some consequences,

but you would have stopped the bleeding right away.

Now, now you had to create one sin

to try to fix another sin and then another sin.

And now this man who was called a man after God's own heart,

holy and anointed by God himself,

has given his life to a lifestyle of sin.

You have to deal with the things that are crippling you.

Listen, every sin, every sin, please hear me today.

Every sin, no matter how big, no matter how small, has the potential to kill you.

Every sin.

But if we're honest, if we're honest, too many Christians, we're okay with those odds.

Because it's just baby sin.

I'll be okay.

It's just a little bit of pride.

It's just a little bit of bitterness.

you might still be able to make it through life

and see Jesus at the end of it.

I'm sure that there are so many people that died

with so many things that they needed to deal with.

But the thing that gets compromised

is the thing that God cares so deeply about

and that's your holiness.

Are you hearing me today?

We should not say I can get through life

and still get to heaven with all this pride that I got.

Salvation isn't the problem.

You're already saved by grace.

Praise the Lord.

Holiness is at stake here.

I don't want Jesus coming back for a church

to which he has to say,

she's ugly, but she's mine.

She ain't the prettiest, but she's mine.

Like, is that really what we want?

Do we want Jesus to have to settle for less than he deserves?

I want him to say, look at my bride.

Look at how she radiates.

Look at how beautiful she is.

Look at how she looks at me and every day becomes more like me.

I want Jesus to be proud to introduce the church to his holy God, to his father, and say, look at my bride.

This is whom I died for.

Look at how pure and spotless she is.

That is what Jesus wants.

And he's worthy to have it.

I think this sermon might be too much for some people.

Because we're fine having our salvation, but not everybody wants holiness.

Give me the blessings of eternal life without the cost of being holy.

Come on.

God desires more from you.

That's why he gave his son for you.

And I'll tell you this, man, the closer I get to God, the more I hate the things that separate me from him.

The church doesn't have a salvation problem.

The world has a salvation problem.

The world needs Jesus.

The church has Jesus.

It's not a salvation problem we have.

The church has a holy problem.

are you hearing me?

We're so quick to get into the gates of heaven

because we want better for our family.

We want the blessings of eternal life.

We want a better life.

We want one that's filled with hope.

We don't have a salvation problem.

We've had over 30 salvations this year alone.

Praise God.

Praise the Lord.

Since January, over 30 salvation,

people saying yes to Jesus.

How many of us are going to answer the call to holiness?

How many of us are going to say, God, search my heart?

How many of us are going to say, examine me so that I can get to greater levels of holiness and greater levels of anointing?

Because I'm tired of being stuck where I'm at.

I want sanctification to continue to have its full effect in my life.

Church, it's time to fine-tune ourselves.

it's time that we start looking less like religion,

more like Jesus.

It's time to rid ourselves of even the smallest pieces

that grieve the spirit of God.

But listen, listen, listen, listen, listen.

You're not going to chase holiness unless you chase God.

please don't

don't leave

don't leave God where he's at

pursue him

pursue him

go

go

go deeper

let your prayers

become

heavier

or you say

Lord

search

search me

why did I feel this

this week

Why am I feeling this for my brother in Christ?

Why am I feeling this?

Why do I have this animosity?

What is wrong with me?

The Holy Spirit's trying to tell you something,

man of God, woman of God.

Don't leave it there.

Because it's separating you

from the Holy God.

The closer I get to God,

this is what I've learned.

This is what I've learned.

The closer I get to God, the more I hate my sin.

Because as I dial in and as I focus more on Jesus and I attempt to become more like him,

every time I miss, I notice.

Every time.

But I'm in the presence of God.

And I'm seeking him.

But there's a distraction.

Something's not right.

What's going on?

I believe that God is trying to wake us up to become aware.

Make us aware of the things that are grieving his spirit.

Can I tell you that God wants you to be spotless?

Can I tell you that it's a lie to think that, no, that's not for me.

I can never be.

Yes, you can.

Because Jesus made it possible for you.

And if he commands you to it, he expects you to be able to do it.

You may never achieve perfection.

Not in this world.

But you can, every single day, become more and more like our Savior, Jesus.

I want to be more full of compassion.

I want to be more full of love.

I want to be more full of humility.

I want to be more full of gentleness

more full of peace

if some of you entered the room today

and you're not in peace

there's something troubling your spirit

that's something that's getting in the way

from holiness

are you hearing me today?

is God speaking to somebody today?

I just wanted to have this

conversation with you today

because this is something that God has been ministering to me on.

And I believe that his church is called to be holy.

His church is called to look like him.

And so I want to challenge you, church.

I want to challenge you to get closer with God.

Get closer with God and you will naturally become closer to holiness.

That's the truth.

don't even

don't even

don't even

don't try to be perfect

listen

no hold on

I got one more thing

don't

don't try to be

if

again

I don't

this is not in my notes

I'm just kind of

speaking off the cuff

I don't

I don't want you

to take away

that you have to

pursue perfection

that's not what I'm saying

that's what the Pharisees did

they had

they tried to abide

by the letter of the law

to the T

we got to do everything like the law says that well that's that's impossible

you don't chase perfection you don't chase religion you chase god and the more you chase

him the more the more of the world you need to let go of because it grieves you and it creates

baggage and it's weight because you just want to get closer to god but you've got so many things

that are weighing you down so you you start to release it as you get closer to god pursue god

Pursue God and you will see holiness.

Pursue God and you will love him more

and you will hate sin so much more.

Pursue God, church.

That's my challenge to you today.

I want you to stand.

Prayer team, I'm gonna call you up.

If there's anybody this morning

that is in need of prayer,

I want us to pray with you.

If there's some things that you need to release,

if there's some things that you need to confess,

If there's anything that you say, I'm tired of dealing with this little thing.

It's keeping me from becoming more holy.

I want to give it to God.

If that's you today, I want to invite you to receive prayer.

And maybe that's not you.

Maybe you just have to have a one-on-one with God.

You can come forward.

You can stay there where you're at.

But I want us to just have a moment in his presence.

With the holy God, you are holy.

You, my God, are worthy of everything, of everything good that I could possibly give you, my Lord.

And we pursue you today, my God.

Your church pursues you today.

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 at My Pneumachurch.

Thanks again and God bless.

Thank you.