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.

All the time.

I hope you're happy this morning.

I hope that you are filled with the joy of the Lord.

And if you're not, I hope that you are ready to receive the joy of the Lord.

Amen.

Because there is joy in this house.

There is freedom in this house.

How many of you were here last night for our men's conference?

Amen.

Praise God.

God is still doing something in the lives of men.

And, um, you know, something that we, we kind of discovered, uh, yesterday

was, was the theme that God wanted to give for this men's conference.

Every time we were planning a men's conference, uh, brother Angel, I

think, I think he, I think he left, but he's always the one asking, Hey,

uh, what's our theme for the, for the, for the conference.

And, you know, guys are guys.

We're like, bro, we don't have themes, bro.

What are you, are you a girl or what?

Um, and you know, that's, that's just love.

That's what we do.

Right.

But every time we have the men's conference, God gives us a theme for the

night and last night, the theme was, was holiness, holiness.

God is calling men to holiness.

We, you know, we, we discovered that a few years ago, there was a statistic

that basically said that men were, were not present in the churches.

They weren't coming in the churches and, and women were the ones

that were, were holding it down.

And we have actually seen an increase of men in the churches,

not just in PNEUMA, but everywhere.

But now, now it's, now it's about not just the men coming into the churches,

but, but having the church go into the homes, holiness going into the homes.

And so God is in the business right now of making the men holy,

making the men priests.

And so I'm, I'm so excited for what God is doing.

And, um, he's, he's so he's just good.

He's good.

Um, I want to, I want to get into the word this morning.

Um, pastor Danny in the Spanish, he, he kind of touched on this towards the end

of his sermon, um, and it, it, it relates exactly to what we're going to be talking

about today.

So I think God is doing something here.

I'm going to pick up kind of where he left off, but we're going to go to the book of

acts.

We're going to be in chapter nine, acts nine, verses 10 through 19.

If you could stand, amen.

You know, I was remembering the other day as you're, as you're going to act chapter

nine, I always remember remembering.

So it was, it was about 10 years ago that we, we started this English service.

We had previous to this, we had one bilingual service.

And, um, it was, it was in our hearts that, that, that basically said, if God is

going to grow this church, we've got to do, we've got to do it with some intention.

Um, and so the first few, uh, weeks and months of, of that brand new English

service with maybe 30 people in the audience, there was a, there was a speaker

that came once and, and he gave, he gave the house a word and he, he had us all

line up right here and he said, I want you, I want you guys to turn around and I

want you to say hello to the people up there that are not present right now.

He said, because one day there's going to be people up there.

So I'm saying hello to the people up there right now.

Praise the Lord.

Um, man, God is, God is good.

Amen.

Acts nine, you there 10 to 19.

It says this, it says, now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias and

the Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias.

And he said, here I am Lord.

And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called straight.

And at that time, uh, and at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named

Saul for behold, he is praying and he has seen in a vision, a man named Ananias

come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.

But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard somebody say, I've heard from many about

this man and how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.

And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your

name, but the Lord said to him, go for, he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my

name before the Gentiles and Kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how

much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

So Ananias departed and entered the house and laying hands on him.

He said, brother, Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you

came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy

Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his

sight. And then he rose and was baptized and taking food.

He was strengthened.

Somebody say amen to that.

Amen. Remain standing for just a moment.

I want you to do something.

I entitled the sermon this morning more than this.

OK, and I want to I want to do something with just with a little bit of intention.

I want you all to think of somebody right now who you don't like very much.

OK, not not that you don't love them.

You do love them, but maybe they maybe they get under your skin.

Right. Or you got some beef with them.

Anybody got beef with somebody right now?

You don't have to raise your hand or you can raise your hand if you want to.

I want you to think of somebody who maybe they're just they annoy you.

They maybe it's not even a person.

Maybe it's like a type of people like gossipers.

I don't like gossipers.

I don't like liars.

I want you to have somebody in mind.

You got them or her now.

And I want you to say some of the others are really uncomfortable for you because you don't want to admit to yourself that you don't like a person.

But somebody came to mind as soon as I said that.

I want you to say they are more than this.

One more time, like you believe it, they are more than this, amen.

No matter what you've heard, no matter what they've shown you, no matter what they've said, no matter what they've done in the past, they are more than this.

Amen. You can take your seat.

I want to speak this morning from a little bit of experience and life and in ministry and just what God has kind of taught me over the years

concerning other people.

God has over the years given me a lot of grace for people, grace that I did not used to have before.

And I related a lot to what Pastor Danny was saying this morning about this.

Before God gave me grace, I would get easily frustrated with people's immaturity.

I would get angry when I heard somebody gossip.

I would yell at people while I was leading worship because nobody wanted to lift up their hands in worship.

I would hear about some petty things that are going on in the church, and I would just get super annoyed.

And I would hear about how so and so doesn't want to offend so and so, and so and so is jealous of this other person.

And I would just get super frustrated and annoyed.

And I would roll my eyes.

And don't get me wrong, these things still annoy me, right?

But I have, I have learned how to lean into these people with these immaturities, with grace and compassion.

Because before I would, I would let the annoyance and the frustration simmer.

And I would, I would let it go to my heart and I would harden my heart for some of these people.

And I would say, man, these people just need to grow up, man.

They need to get over it.

They need to mature.

And I would put it into a sermon and beat the heck out of somebody with the word of God.

And, and, and look, look, it's a beautiful thing to have a passion for righteousness, okay?

It's, it's, it's a beautiful thing to be jealous for the things of God and, and wanting people to do right by God.

It's, that's a good thing.

You should never lose that.

But we also need to be able to see people, listen, the way that God sees people.

God sees people as more, somebody say more than what they are currently demonstrating.

You'd have to repeat that part, but, but thank you.

You did really good in school.

I could tell pastor Heather.

God, God sees people as more than what they currently are.

And as believers, as disciple makers, we are called to see people in the exact same way.

And look, I know that it's hard.

It's hard to see past somebody's immaturity.

It's, it's, it's hard to see past the pain they caused you.

It's hard to see past the things they said about you, but God is looking for people who will see beyond a person's past, beyond a person's present and into the person that God is forming them to be.

So, you know, look, it's very hard to mature people when the mature people can't stand the things that the immature people do.

That makes sense.

It sounded really good.

I wanted to say it just like that, but maybe it was a little confusing.

It's, it's hard to, to, to, to see people grow when the mature Christians can't stand the sight of being around those people with immaturities.

And we are called to disciple making.

And so, you know, God, God has been teaching me, I feel like for the past couple of years, how to be patient with people's immaturities.

I'm going to say that again, because there's power in that.

And I've, I've learned that there's power in that.

You've got to be patient with people's immaturities.

It's something I've shared with, with a few leaders who would come up to me and say, pastor, how do you, how do you handle all the drama?

How do you deal with people who just don't get it and you're discipling them and you're caring for them and, and you're present with them and you're pastoring them and then they just disappear on you like you're nothing to them.

How do you deal with the criticism and the people talking behind your back?

And how do you deal with people failing you?

And how do you handle disrespect?

You have to be patient with people's immaturities, understanding that at one point we were all drinking milk.

At one point, we didn't have it either.

At one point, we were the people that other people needed to have patience for and, and sure, maybe your immaturities weren't as severe as somebody else.

Maybe you got it a lot quicker than somebody else did.

Pastor Danny was talking about, you know, uh, 30, 30 year old veteran Christians who still don't get it.

Sometimes it just be like that and it's frustrating and you're like, man, when are you going to get it?

But at one point, the Lord was patient with you.

The Lord had to send people your way to, to preach to you and to teach you.

He had to make you fall a few times so that you knew how much it hurt so that you knew that you didn't want to fall again.

And he had to send you mentors and disciples so that you could be who you are today.

We can't expect people to change if we don't take the time to walk with them and instruct them and disciple them.

And you know what?

That takes a lot of humility and it takes patience.

The way I see it is there are there are three levels to Christian maturity.

If you're taking notes, you can write these down.

The first one is immaturity.

And that one doesn't really need any definitions.

You can kind of call it when you see it.

You can be a Christian and be immature, right?

There's a lot of those.

You love Jesus, but you're just, you're not, you're not ripe yet.

You know, the fruit isn't ripe yet.

You ever buy like a, like an avocado and you're like, bro, we ain't gonna be ready.

Bought you five days ago, man.

I want to, I want to eat some avocado with my breakfast tacos.

And then you miss a day and then it goes bad.

It's the worst, worst thing ever.

There's a lot of Christians like that.

Like God is ready to use you now, but you still got a lot of things that you got to work through.

Because if, if he uses you too soon, it's probably going to create a lot of damage.

And, and it's going to leave a lot of people with the bad taste in their mouth, like unripe avocados.

And then there's maturity, right?

There's mature Christians.

How many mature Christians got in the room?

Praise the Lord.

These are the, I love these people because these people don't need a lot of handholding.

They're, they're, they're, they can, they can handle things in a godly, in a mature way.

They demonstrate a lot of fruit.

They, they don't cause, this is what I love the most.

They don't cause drama, but they also don't like to be around drama.

I'm going somewhere here, baby.

They, they don't cause drama, but they also don't like to be around the drama.

So because they don't like to be around the drama, they don't like to associate themselves with the Christians that are a little bit more immature because it takes a lot of energy.

It takes a lot of time and they don't have it.

And then there's this other type of maturity that I don't have.

I don't have a name for it.

We'll call it maturity 2.0, but it is not produced from human wisdom.

It is produced from godly wisdom and it is imparted onto people with grace and compassion.

Why?

Because it allows you to see past somebody's immaturity into the person that they are becoming.

And that is the way that the people of God are called to see the people of God.

We're very good at seeing people in their pain.

Can I talk to somebody this morning?

We're very good at having compassion with people who are struggling and they're going through some issues and maybe they're addicted to some things and maybe there's some chains that need to be broken.

We're really good with walking through life with those people.

We have patience for the people that are not causing us harm.

But when it comes to people who demonstrate pain differently and maybe they're a little bit more aggressive and they're a little bit more hurtful and they're a little bit more rough around the edges and they're more annoying and they're more time consuming and they take hours of your day just being on the phone with them, counseling them, and they're a little bit more crazy.

Now, suddenly you don't want to deal with that.

That's when suddenly we stop seeing people the way that God knows they can be.

But God is saying they're more than this.

They're more than this.

And so today the message isn't for the immature Christians.

It's for the mature Christians.

It's for those that God is calling to a new level of divine vision.

And God is saying you need to be patient with that person because they're more than this.

You need to have grace for that person because they're more than this.

You need to keep that person close and stop thinking that you got to keep them at a distance because you might be the only one mature enough to mature them.

I sent them your way and you're keeping them at a distance.

Now, if you're an immature Christian, first of all, I don't think immature people know that they're immature.

So you're like, yeah, that's not me.

We're going to ask the Holy Spirit to convict some some immature hearts.

But I want you to know if you're an immature Christian, maybe you're brand new to the faith and you're still figuring some things out.

And, you know, you are at least you are aware of some things that you've got going on.

I want you to know that you're going to get there, man.

I want you to know that that it's OK to go through this phase of immaturity.

In fact, you have to go through this phase in order to get to the next one.

And I want you to know that if you stay faithful, you will get there.

You might you might be a 15 year old Christian or a 60 year old Christian and you still got some immaturities.

But if you stay teachable, if you stay open minded, if you stay receptive, if you unfold your arms during worship, you will get there.

You will get there.

And I also I want to talk to the immature Christian real quick, because I want you to know you have to understand that it's not the church's job to judge you, but it is our job to correct you.

This is a very common sign of immaturity, spiritual immaturity.

Someone's trying to correct you and you think they're judging you.

It's not the church's job to judge you, but it is our job to push you.

And so, you know, a person who is God given vision will see a person's untapped anointing and they're going to push them into where God wants them to be.

And so they might ask you to open up in prayer.

They might ask you to pick up the offering.

They might ask you to teach a class.

They might ask you to serve because they know who God is forming you to be.

It's not our job to judge you, but it is our job to disciple you.

It is our job to tell you some things that you might not want to hear because it's a little uncomfortable, but it's necessary for your growth.

And so even though I might be praying for a person at the altar and I know exactly who they are and I see a person who speaks foul language and a person who can't stay consistent and a person who's always complaining and a person who's always blaming other people and a person who is full of pride and always angry and always jealous, even though that's the person that I see.

God sees what you can be and who you will be.

Still with me?

Okay.

So I want to come back to the text.

We're talking about Ananias.

And this is Paul's story, but Ananias has a very crucial role to play in it.

How many of us know that God has called us to be a part of other people's stories?

It's not just about you.

Tell the person next to you.

It's not just about you, bro.

God is going to send you to be a part of somebody else's story.

And just FYI, you don't want to be a villain in anybody else's story.

Okay?

You want to be a godsend to somebody else's story.

That's Ananias.

Ananias hardly gets any credit for this, but he was the first Christian who received Paul.

Had Ananias not received Paul?

Had the Christian community not received Paul?

We don't know where Paul would have ended up.

So Paul, also called Saul, was this radical Jew.

He was on a mission, and the mission was literally anti-Christ.

Literally.

I mean, this guy was hunting Christians.

If Paul was doing what he was doing back then today, we wouldn't call him immature.

We would call him the devil.

We wouldn't be praying for Paul.

We would be praying against him.

This is a man who has made himself an enemy of God.

And so chapter 9 opens up.

And I don't have anything on the screen, because the screen went out of this yesterday.

So this is for, hopefully you brought your Bibles today.

Chapter 9, verse 1 says,

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord,

went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus,

so that if he found anybody belonging to the way, men or women,

he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

So Paul was this guy who, you know, he not only witnessed the stoning of Stephen,

he was there to give the thumbs up.

He approved the stoning of a disciple of Jesus.

And so after that, the Bible says that the church in Jerusalem scattered for fear of their lives.

So Paul is on this mission to go and find all of these scattered Christians,

to bring them back and to put them on trial.

And so on his way to Damascus, the Bible says that Jesus appeared to him in a form of a bright light

and knocked him off his horse.

And Jesus asked, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And Saul said, well, who are you, Lord?

And Jesus says, I'm Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

And he says, get up.

And I want you to go and enter the city and you're going to be told what to do.

And verse 8, verse 8 says,

Saul rose from the ground and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing.

So they led him by hand and brought him into Damascus.

And for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank.

And then in verse 10, this is where we just read.

Verse 10, we get to Ananias.

The Lord said to Ananias in a vision, he said, Ananias.

And Ananias says, here I am, Lord.

Can I just stop right there for a second?

Because if you're going to tell God, here I am, Lord.

You better be there.

Man, I can, I can preach a whole message right here, man.

In fact, I kind of wanted to, I kind of almost scratched his message.

But I want you to notice that Ananias says, here I am, Lord.

Before he even knew what the assignment was, right?

Don't miss the importance of the word, Lord.

That we have diluted in all of our songs.

We have diluted the meaning of that word, Lord.

When Ananias said, here I am, Lord,

that meant that anything that followed from the mouth of God,

Ananias was going to submit to.

Didn't matter what it was.

Because whenever we call Jesus, Lord, listen, somebody,

whenever you call Jesus, Lord,

there is an automatic invisible yes attached to it.

You don't get to call him Lord and say no to him.

You don't get to call him Lord and say, okay, but we're going to do it in my way.

Jesus says, not everybody who calls me Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Why? Because you submitted when it was convenient for you,

but you didn't when it wasn't.

A lot of times we want to know what it is before we give God an answer.

We want to know who's going to be there.

Who is it that I'm called to work with?

How many people are going to be there?

Who's going to be there?

Is it going to be Spanish service? Is it going to be English service?

I got to know.

How uncomfortable is it going to be for me?

If you are going to call Jesus, Lord,

that means you are giving him reign over your life.

Rule over your life.

It doesn't matter where he sends you.

It doesn't matter what comes out of his mouth next.

When you say, here I am, Lord, that means you are there.

So much more I want to get into there, but that'll be another sermon.

But I love this.

I love how God did this.

I love how he brought Saul into repentance.

You know, he could have just shined his light on Saul and,

and that would have been enough.

He could have just appeared to him in a dream and convict, uh, commissioned him.

And that would have been enough, but no,

God calls this man Ananias.

Who represents everything that Saul sought to kill.

And he called this man to go and lay hands on Saul and call him brother and

embrace him and pray for him.

Hmm.

How many of you know that God has been calling you to go and just lay hands

and not like lay hands,

lay holy hands on that brother, on that sister who has offended you.

He, he, and you're over here singing songs about yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord.

Don't be doing that.

I'll be doing, don't be taking, that's taking the Lord's name in vain.

I'll be taking the Lord's name in vain.

And you can't do a simple thing that he's calling you to do for your brother,

for your sister.

God is in relationships.

I got your attention still.

God is in relationship.

You hear me talk about this so often.

I'm always talking about loving your brothers and your sisters and loving

beyond betrayal and forgiveness.

And it's not just because I want people to get along.

It's because God gets glory through broken relationships.

And so when you don't allow that relationship to heal,

you are not allowing God to get the glory that he wants to get.

Not a lot of amens this morning.

God is in the relationships.

This is, this is something that we, I don't think we fully understand, man.

This is why we can't fully reconcile relationship with people because we

haven't let God do what he wants to do in our relationships.

The relationship, the relationship between God and man was broken, right?

We all know this.

And so God had to come down and he had to love people in a way that we

didn't deserve to be loved.

He came and forgave people in a way that we didn't deserve to be forgiven.

He came to people.

He came to die for people who wanted to kill him.

Why?

Because God saw people as more as what they were.

Now, listen, we weren't worthy to be died for.

I'm not worthy of the blood of Jesus.

We weren't entitled to his death.

He doesn't owe me anything.

I'm nothing special.

He died for me simply because he loved me.

And so I want to make a challenge to everybody in the room this morning to

invite the Holy spirit to give you eyes for his people.

That's, that's another very dangerous prayer because you know exactly what

that means.

You know exactly when you pray that prayer,

you're going to start needing to see that person with eyes of love.

But that is the way that God has called us to love people.

It's to have eyes of divine vision for his people.

Because if you, if you never,

if you go through life and you never adopt divine vision for God's people,

you're only ever going to see people's unworthiness.

You're only ever going to remember what they did to you or what they didn't do.

You're always going to just allow their reputation to dictate your perception of

them.

And in your eyes they will never be more than what God knows they can be.

Invite the Holy spirit,

invite the Holy spirit to give you his eyes for his people.

That's not going to come naturally. Okay?

You're not going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly like the person that you don't

like today.

I'm going to take some work.

You're gonna have to wrestle with it.

You got to wrestle with forgiveness.

You got to wrestle with,

with genuine friendliness because some people are really good at the fake friend

thing.

You have to wrestle with actually showing true love to people and not giving

them a fake smile. You got to wrestle with it. It's not going to come easy.

You're going to struggle with it.

But this is why I tell people all the time,

one of the best practices for dealing with this is prayer.

Pray for the people you don't like. Don't pray against them.

Pray for them.

That's what Jesus said. He said, pray for those who persecute you.

Not, not against those who persecute you, but for those who persecute you.

That is the call that Ananias had to answer and he wrestled with it.

He has some questions.

You know, you can call Jesus Lord and have some questions for him. That's okay.

That's okay. Jesus did it. It's like, okay, God, I'm going to do it,

but help me understand.

Isn't this a guy who's currently hunting Christians?

Like Christians are running from this man, hiding from this man.

You want me to go find him?

Doesn't this man have authority to arrest anybody who calls upon your name and you

want me to go and lay hands on him in the name of Jesus?

This man has done terrible things to people like me. He's not one of us.

He's against me.

And God says, go for, he is a chosen instrument of mine.

Am I preaching just to myself this morning?

One of the most humbling realities that a Christian can face. Listen,

one of the most humbling realities that we can face as believers is that God will

choose people who are the last people that we would ever choose.

Can I talk to some mature Christians this morning? Don't,

don't throw me out just yet.

God may choose to use certain people in ways that may reach more people than you

ever will. People you don't even like,

people who've hurt you, people who've disrespected you,

people who are unqualified today.

God will give an anointing to some people you feel deserve his wrath.

And if we're not careful, we can become like the pouty prophet Jonah.

Jonah was sent to Nineveh to bring a word of repentance,

but because he despised these men, he ran away from it.

And then when he finally acquiesced, he went to Nineveh, he delivered this word,

they got saved and he threw a fit. He got mad.

He got jealous. Jonah was upset.

And it destroyed his own calling. It destroyed his own anointing.

Because he didn't realize that, that, that when,

that when we're committed to people, we're also committed to God.

And when we're committed to God, we're committed to his people.

You can't be against God's people and for God, you ain't doing it right.

I don't need people, pastor.

I just need the Lord. I don't even need to go to church.

That's why I don't have a home church.

That's why I'm always going to all these other churches.

I ain't going to, I don't want to go there anymore.

Stick to my notes, stick to my notes.

So this,

this actually made me realize something about a lot of, a lot of mature Christians,

all the mature Christians I'm talking to today,

more of us are more immature than we actually thought.

Even though we demonstrate fruit, even though we love the Lord,

even though we know the word and preach the word,

even though we have a prayer life,

the moment we're called to elevate or celebrate somebody who is spiritually

less than we are because we know what they've done.

We've know what they've said. We know how they think.

We can't see past what people have been and who they are becoming.

So I believe that if Ananias were to have gotten to that point where he said,

Lord, I can't do that.

Like Jonah, God would have said, you've, you've missed the point.

You don't get it. You're not ready yet.

You're not mature yet.

And so, you know, I, I talked to a lot of people and look,

I'm one, I'm one of these. Okay. God has taught me,

but I talked to a lot of people who get frustrated with other people's

maturities.

But if you're so frustrated with it that you can't see past it,

then you still got some things to work on.

And you're looking at the spec and everybody else's eye while you have a log

in your own.

I forgot how I said it.

You got it.

God is, God is, God is saying,

God is saying to you about them about they, you know,

there's always a day they are more than this.

Don't put labels on people.

Don't put labels on the children of God.

Don't do it. What did, what did Jesus say to Peter?

He says, he says, don't call unholy that which I have made Holy.

And the people of God, when they come into the faith,

the Holy Spirit automatically is filling them and sanctifying them.

And maybe they're not as Holy as you are.

Maybe they're not as committed as you are. Maybe they're flaky.

Maybe they blame everybody. Maybe they got a really poor mentality,

mentality, but God has declared them Holy.

Don't call them anything else than what God is saying. They are.

I believe that God calls Paul's and he calls Ananias.

Everybody loves Paul. Paul, Paul is famous.

Paul took the gospel to the Gentile world.

He wrote 13 letters of the new Testament. He's got a testimony.

Paul was thug life gangster turned into gospel soldier.

Paul is the pastor, the preacher, the evangelist,

the missionary that so many ministers aspire to be.

Paul would have millions of followers on Instagram and Ananias wouldn't even

have a blue check Mark.

But because this man named Ananias said,

here I am Lord and humbled himself to receive Paul as a brother,

despite the reputation and the fear and the past that,

that Ananias saw in this man,

because Ananias was able to see Paul as more than what he was and more than

what he had had been.

Paul received the power of the Holy spirit that was passed on to him from

another brother.

I told a friend this recently, something that again,

something that I've learned myself, I learned this.

God had to teach this to me. You can't be somebody's Holy spirit.

You can't, you can't, you're not, you ain't Holy spirit. You barely Holy,

you're no Holy spirit.

You can teach, you can correct,

you can even rebuke, but you can't be somebody's Holy spirit.

I can't make you feel conviction.

Don't tune me out just yet.

I can't make you right before your time. I can't,

I can't drag you to the altar. If you're not ready, can't do it.

Wives, you are not your husband's Holy spirit.

Stop trying to do what only God can do.

As your pastor, all I can do is present the word. That's it.

I have to let God do the rest. I'm simply a mouthpiece. That's it.

The Lord has to deal with you. The spirit of God has to come upon you.

And so then what is, what is our role as disciple makers? I'm almost done.

What is our role as mature believers? It's to impart the Holy spirit. Listen,

through humility, through forgiveness, through prayer,

and through edification,

when the weaker person of faith sees the stronger ones lifting them up,

humbling themselves to wash their feet, to serve them,

to receive them, to encourage them.

There the Holy spirit will be because you man and woman of God saw them as more

as what they were and their eyes will be open to see what you see and what God

sees. See the end of this story tells us that Paul,

upon receiving prayer from Ananias received the Holy spirit and something like

scales fell from his eyes.

He was able to see later on. Paul,

he recounts the story of his conversion and more detail.

Acts 22 this is Paul. He's saying,

and one Ananias,

I want you to notice, notice how he says it.

He doesn't even say it like he knows the guy.

He says it as if this one man named Ananias,

I don't know where he came from. I didn't know him.

I'd have a relationship with him. He wasn't a friend. He was just a guy.

And I, and I remember this one Ananias,

a demo, a devout man, he says, according to the law,

well spoken of by all the Jews who live there.

This man came to me and standing by me said to me,

this is Paul words, brother,

Saul receive your sight.

He says, and at that very hour I received my sight and I saw him.

The first person Paul saw with his brand new eyes was a man who,

before Paul sought to persecute,

how beautiful,

how beautiful that's that Ananias was the man

standing there, receiving him, calling him brother.

And I love, I love what people say that,

that when Paul was killed for his faith,

he was welcomed into heaven by all the Christians that he persecuted,

welcomed with, with an applause,

welcomed with open arms who celebrated him.

Because even though there was a time where he wasn't ready yet, he wasn't ripe yet.

God saw him as something more than he was.

And if God sees it, church, we are called to look for it.

We are called to look beyond somebody's mistakes, somebody's immaturities,

somebody's anger problem and see them for what God sees them,

a child of God.

Ananias says to Paul, he says,

the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will.

To see the righteous one and to hear the voice from his mouth for you will be a

witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard.

Church, go ahead and stand with me.

Let me get my prayer team up here, my prayer team.

I'm going to, I'm just going to leave you with this,

this commission.

Church, let us begin to speak life into people who have hurt us.

I was hoping for some more amens there.

Now some of you are saying, pastor, that's, that's going to take some time. I get it.

It's going to take some time. It's going to take some time.

I want you, this is, this, this is a pastoral challenge. Okay. You ready for it?

For the people who have hurt you,

the people that you don't even love or like that much,

the people that you have put up walls for and you try to avoid every time you see

them begin, begin to speak life into them,

even if it's not in front of them,

because God might have to work on you first before you present yourself.

To that person.

So today that person you don't like,

I don't know, call her that Lord,

bless her life, bless her children.

God helped me to see the way that you see because she's your child and you love

her. And if you love her, I want to love her. If you love him, I want to love him.

Begin to work through it yourself. And then when you do that,

you go to that person and you begin to speak into their life.

You begin to edify them. You begin to walk with them.

You begin to encourage them. You begin to, to, to counsel them.

You begin to disciple them and see them the way that God sees them.

Heavenly father, I pray over this body this morning.

Lord, I pray father God, that we would have divine vision. My God,

that for those of us who are mature in the faith,

for those of us who have demonstrated fruit, my God,

and are walking lives of holiness. Lord,

I pray my God that we would have patience for those that are just not there yet.

God Lord,

I pray father God that you rid us of frustrations. God rid us of anger.

My God rid us.

My God of,

of anything that would disallow us to see people the way that you do.

My God,

my God, you may be calling Paul's all over this place,

but I also pray that not one of us would fail to be an Ananias

for your glory, for your kingdom and for your people.

Amen.

Thanks for listening. If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA church,

visit us on our website at my PNEUMA church.org.

If you enjoyed the podcast,

you can subscribe or share it with your friends on social media and tag us at

my PNEUMA church. Thanks again. And God bless.

Yeah.