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 who are. that you share it with.

God bless you.

My God, it's good.

Amen.

We're live man.

We are.

We're living in a time where we need more than ever to worship in spirit and in truth.

I got a few amens on that one.

We're living in a time.

It's now here.

Where we have to worship with everything that we've got.

Everything that we've got.

Totally surrendered.

And so before any other announcement I make, I want to make this very important one.

We are we're calling a for a corporate. fast a corporate fast to intentionally seek the Lord in our lives and in our church We start every year with the corporate fast in January.

We're gonna do one together in October, the week of the 12th, the 13th through the 17th.

And we want to ask that if you would join us, you don't have to fast the whole week, but if you would Would pick one day to fast out of that week.

We're gonna we actually have signups outside.

You can mark your name for what day you choose to fast.

But I'm I'm gonna I'm calling upon PNEUMA.

If we can pray and fast for the Lord to do whatever he wants to do, that he would continue doing the work that he promised to do in this city and in this house, that we would see those miracles, that that people would come into salvation, into repentance.

That's what we're praying for.

We're not we're not just not eating, okay?

We're fasting, we're seeking.

And so I want to I want to call upon the church, the PNEUMA church, if we could come together that week and and we can fast.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

God is good.

Come on.

All the time.

I want to get into the word this morning and we'll we'll save the hellos for after church if that's okay.

I'm gonna be honest with you, this is gonna be a heavy sermon today, okay?

I just want to warn you.

You can pray. play just for just a as I set this up.

Um if this is your first time here I won't I won't all right brother I see you.

And all right, anybody else first time here?

Praise the Lord.

Come on welcome.

Welcome visitors.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for joining us.

You are now a part of a family that you can't get out of, right?

But um the reason I want to talk to you is because I I uh if it's your first time here, I I want you to I pray that you hear my heart this morning.

I uh I actually had a devotional this week that I shared with a group of people on that very thing.

Which I think right now is super relevant in our culture.

The Bible says that man looks at the outward, right?

But God looks at the heart.

He examines the heart.

He knows the intentions. of the heart.

But man looks at the outward.

And so when we speak, people hear your words without ever really attempting to hear your heart.

And that's one of the biggest issues that we have right now in our world is that people only hear to argue and not to understand.

Now if you know me this morning you you you know my heart but if you're new or if it's your first time hearing me preach you're gonna hear these words I want you to also hear my heart amen I want you to hear my heart So I want to I want to pray before we get into the word Heavenly Father I I thank you Thank you for your presence this morning Thank you for what you're doing my God in this house my God Thank you for what you're doing in this In this city, Lord, and I just pray, my God, that you would minister to every heart that is present here today, my God.

I pray, Father, that you, Holy Spirit Would speak on my lips that you would that you would deliver this word, Father God, that I would just be a vessel, Father.

I pray that our hearts and our ears would be open, receptive To what you want to do, to what you want to say, my God.

Oh, we give you permission, my God, to edify, to correct, to rebuke.

To bring us into repentance, Father.

We love you and we thank you for your word.

In Jesus' name, the church says, Amen.

Amen.

Praise God.

Thank you, my brother Thank you.

Can you give it up for the worship team?

Amen.

Amen.

You can you can take your seat for for just a minute.

Just a minute.

I want you to go with me to John chapter 10.

John chapter 10.

I was, man, I was encouraged to see.

So many of our of our people out uh yesterday on the streets of downtown um on that Jesus march.

I know that there was a lot of people here in this section.

If you were there, why don't you just give me a woo-woo or something?

There we go.

Amen.

Um praise the Lord repres representing Jesus in our in our city.

Um But John chapter 10, I think Pastor Daniel this morning in Spanish also kind of preached on on this same topic.

Um and so I know that God is is is saying something.

Right.

But this is a very popular passage of scripture.

It's the Good Shepherd passage.

Many of us are familiar with it.

What might not be as known is Is that it directly ties into uh the the chapter that precedes it, chapter nine, where Jesus heals a man who was born blind.

And if you're familiar with that story, it's this beautiful and powerful miracle that Jesus uses to bring this man into salvation.

And, you know, in that, Jesus corrects a bunch of bad theology.

The disciples ask Jesus.

If it was because of the man's sin or the sin of his parents that he was born blind, and Jesus says, no, it's not that the man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

And so it's this awesome miracle where Jesus, you know, makes mud in dirt and he smears it on the man's eyes.

He tells him to go wash in the pool of saloon, and then he's healed.

And then we get to the Pharisees.

And you know, the Pharisees, they wish to hijack the glory of God.

That's what the enemy does.

That's what the Antichrist does.

He steals, kills, and destroys.

And so the Pharisees are trying to do just that.

They're trying to steal the glory of God by discrediting the miracle that was just done.

Because it was done on the Sabbath.

According to Old Testament law, nobody was able to do physical work on the Sabbath.

It was the Lord's day of rest.

Now The Pharisees, like any super religious group of people, took what was meant to be sacred and holy and twisted it until it was more of a doctrine of man than a doctrine of God.

And verse 16 is probably the most Pharisaic verse in the whole Bible.

This is that they tell the blind man: This man, Jesus, is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.

Verse 28 says, And they reviled the blind man, saying, You are a disciple of this Jesus, but we are disciples of Moses.

We know Uh what God has spoken to Moses, but this man, we do not know where he comes from.

Man, the enemy, I want you to hear this: the enemy is so good at gaslighting people.

He will convince you he he will convince you that the good you're doing is actually wrong and the wrong that you're doing is actually good.

The Pharisees are these groups of men who claim to be righteous, right?

But they know nothing about true righteousness.

They know religion, but they don't know righteousness.

They they draw their righteousness from their twisted interpretation of Scripture.

They draw their righteousness from their twisted version of God's true. religion from their own traditions.

That is the power of the enemy at work in them.

And so the irony of chapter 9, and Jesus even says it, is that the Pharisees are actually the ones who are blind because they can't see the glory of God. when it's staring right at them.

So with that context in mind, let's go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word.

John chapter 10, we're going to read 1 through 11.

You have it?

It says this, truly, truly, this is Jesus speaking.

I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him the gatekeeper opens.

The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.

This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying.

So Jesus said again, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

I am the door.

If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

The thief Only comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I am the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

You can take your seat.

About three years ago, I preached a message on this same passage entitled, Who's Your Shepherd?

And uh it was it was a call to really ask yourself, like, who is who's leading me?

And it came to mind again, I I think I'm at that pastoral phase in my life where I'm starting to preach sermons I've already preached before.

Uh I've been preaching for 10 years, bound to happen.

Um and you know, I I I thank God, listen, I thank God for new revelation.

I love new revelation.

I love it when God gives me something, shows me something, shows me a new perspective in his word.

I get so excited to share it with the people of God.

I think we're all we all love new revelation.

That's one That's why when there's a prophet in town, everybody wants to go to church because there's going to be a word, a new word for me.

And I praise God for the new revelation.

But more than new revelation, I thank God for his timeless revelation.

I thank God that I don't have to read a brand new Bible every single day.

I thank God that his original word that he spoke thousands and thousands of years ago still stands today and still has power.

We can be talking about sheep. and shepherds and our AI culture, and it still has the power to penetrate hearts.

There's there too many times when we thirst, listen, when we thirst for new revelation The enemy comes and gives us something to drink that is not living water.

And it might be satisfying and satiating, but it does not last.

This is why a lot of times we make dumb decisions in the name of God.

Because we convince ourselves that God is speaking when He never spoke.

You were just so hungry for new revelation that you didn't even consider the timeless revelation that is the Word of God Talking about I think God is calling me to plant a church when the real issue is you can't submit to the leadership at your current church.

That's a different sermon.

There's a lot of people and there's a lot of influences and there's a lot of voices in our world that want to take the place of the good shepherd, but the true sheep, somebody say true sheep.

Hear the voice of the true shepherd.

That's the title of my sermon today.

True sheep.

I want to I want to talk about discerning the voice of the good shepherd in this world that is filled with so many voices.

Verse 8 of the New Living Translation says, All who came before me were thieves and robbers, but the true sheep did not listening, did not listen to them.

And I'm generally wondering how many true sheep we have in the house today.

Like I really I really wonder that Jesus was always very good about extracting the true sheep from the sheepfold.

Uh good about you know extracting the the true disciples, the true followers of Jesus.

A lot of people want to follow Jesus, but when he tells you to pick up your cross, that's when we kind of check out because the cross is heavy.

It costs something.

There's this instance in John chapter six where Jesus he starts talking crazy.

You know, he starts saying that I'm the bread.

And And uh anybody who feeds on my flesh and drinks of my blood abides in me.

And what he's doing there is he's identifying with the bread, the manna.

That God supplied for 40 years in the wilderness to the Israelites.

And Jesus is saying, I am this eternal provision that if you just abide in me, if you take from me, you will have life eternal with the Father.

But he says, but you gotta sell out.

You gotta go all out.

You gotta go all the way.

You gotta surrender everything.

And the Bible says in John 6, 66, after saying all of these things, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

When Jesus got too personal, when he got in your face, when he got too radical, when he demanded more than what you originally thought you were signing up for, that's when people left.

You know why?

It's because so many people who choose to follow Jesus.

And I've seen this as a pastor, I've seen this as a Christian.

So many people who decide to follow Jesus, say they decide to follow Jesus, never actually lock in, as the kids say.

Lock in.

They they never actually they weren't they never actually get anchored to what matters the most.

And so they were more moved by the hype.

And by the emotions and by the miracles that they witnessed Jesus do.

Many of them were probably moved by the message that Jesus spoke.

The Bible says that anytime Jesus would speak, the crowds would marvel in awe of everything that Jesus said.

But when the good shepherd began to use his calling voice to his sheep, only the true sheep responded.

And so I asked myself that question of how many true sheep we have in here because I know that so much of our lives is seasonal.

Like the people in our lives, the friends in our lives, the hobbies that we're into, even the churches that we go to are often seasonal because we don't anchor ourselves into what truly matters.

Can I be honest with you?

Some of you are here today and you're probably not going to be here next week.

Some of you are strolling by for a season.

Some of you are in a faith season and it feels good, but at the rate that it's going, it might not last.

I'm not trying to be negative, I'm not a negative person.

I'm a I'm a glass half-full type of person, but this is what I've seen.

People are hyped up for a season.

But because you weren't anchored, they're no longer here.

Because they valued the ministry more than they valued the Lord.

They valued the church.

They valued the community and the way that the messages and the worship made them feel more than they valued the Lord.

And what I want to communicate to you today is the importance of locking in with the Good Shepherd.

More important than the church you attend, which is very important by the way.

It's important what church you attend, but more important than that, more important than the person that you listen to every week is the ability to discern the voice of the good shepherd.

Not every good voice is a God voice.

Just because it came from a worship song doesn't mean it's your confirmation.

Somebody needs to hear like really hear that.

Oh, that's it, confirmation.

Because they said a word that you were thinking.

And I I don't want to discourage you like because this is a Bible-believing church, by the way.

And we do preach and we teach the truth.

But I'm not the good shepherd.

Pastor Danny, Pastor Brandon, they're not good, they're not the good shepherds.

None of our leaders are the good shepherds.

We don't have the insight that God has into your life.

We don't know the future like God does.

And even if we do our best to give you the best counsel, you have to know that our voices should not be enough.

And that that this is what I see a lot.

I see a lot of phone calls asking for my counsel.

And then going to the next pastor and asking for their counsel.

And then the other pastor and asking for their counsel.

And look, the Bible says there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors.

I get that.

But when you're going from pastor to pastor to pastor, shepherd to shepherd to shepherd, without going to the good shepherd, there is a problem there.

And you're gonna get you're gonna get all these different voices that is gonna cause confusion.

Because you never went to your knees and just asked God, Lord, what should I do?

And the devil, man, the devil Is is so good at using good voices to make you think they're God voices.

This is why this is like the importance of life or death.

We have to be familiar with the Holy Spirit.

And we do that through seeking him.

We do that through humbling ourselves to him.

We do that by knowing his word.

Verse 10 says, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold, but by the door.

And I'm sorry, I messed that up.

Anybody who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way says that man is a robber or a thief.

What does that tell us?

It tells us that there is an enemy in the sheepfold.

He's uninvited, but but he's here.

So just because there are voices coming from within the sheepfold, from within the church, doesn't mean it's the right one.

The enemy has done a very good job convincing the people of God that if it looks good, it can be from God.

If it sounds good, it can be from God.

That's the difference between good and God.

Now the danger, are you you listening, right?

You got this is life or death, okay?

The danger of that is that it can be confusing and dividing for the people of God because as a sheep we're hearing all these different voices that we think are God, but they're not God.

And the proof of that isn't the proof that this isn't just a theory that I'm preaching, this is a reality, is the fact that Christians still can't agree with what righteousness looks like.

That that man if there's anything that annoys me is is two Christians one calls something good the other one calls it evil Are we that confused?

There's anything that the past two weeks have proven Especially after the assassination of Charlie Kurt, is that not just people, but Christians.

Can't agree on what righteousness looks like.

I've heard people question other questions question other Christians saying, well, how can how can you praise this man who said this, this, and that And he's evil.

And other Christians saying, oh, you're taking that out of context.

How can you call this man evil?

And that's just one example.

That's just what's relevant to today.

But we see this all the time among Christians.

We can't agree on what love and what compassion and what boldness and what truth should look like.

And I'm like, are we even reading the same Bible?

Don't we all pray to the same Jesus Shouldn't we all be able to discern the sound of truth as the people of God?

There are too many sheep in the sheepfold.

Who can't recognize the sound of the true shepherd when he speaks?

That is concerning to me.

That's concerning, especially in these last days that we are living in.

Like has our own upbringing and our own culture and our own political affiliations influenced so much of the way that we read God's word The answer is an unfortunate yes, it has.

It has.

Have you ever taken a hermeneutics class?

Hermeneutics is just the The study of textual interpretation, in our case, the study of biblical interpretation, you will quickly discover that everybody reads scripture in light of their own presuppositions.

Everybody has a starting place when they open up the Bible and they begin to read.

Nobody starts at ground zero.

I don't care if you don't know anything about the Bible, you know something about something.

And that's the starting place when you read the Bible.

Some people start from a place of skepticism.

And so everything they read, they read with the skeptical perspective.

Some people start with conservatism or liberalism.

Some people start from a place of church hurt or religious trauma or tradition or a different religion.

Nobody starts at ground zero when they open up the Bible.

And so we have to learn how to intentionally strip away everything we thought we knew about what is good. and what is truth and what is holy and allow the word of God to actually teach us something.

Not to affirm what we think we know, but to challenge our innermost self to become more like Jesus.

You hearing this?

Hear my heart.

This this is not this is not what always happens.

This is not what happens There's so many voices that influence our worldview.

There's so much content that we consume.

I I I heard a statistic that says the in all the information that is in the world is doubled every 13 hours.

Like there's so much things, so m so so many voices that we consume And and if we allow it to, it has the power to influence us.

So many podcasts and preachers and reels.

And people online with political commentaries, so many voices that we have allowed into the sheepfold to have the power to influence and lead us.

And the enemy knows that we give ear to everybody freely.

I'm one of them.

I'm one of those voices.

Every week you come in here and you sit here and you listen to what I've got to say.

Some of you take notes.

I appreciate it.

Pastor Danny's another one.

Pastors are our people, every every week somebody comes in and and they.

They get fed whatever words they have.

And of course, like I said before, I believe that we pre- we preach straight gospel from this pulpit.

And this is why every Sunday I'm praying, Lord, let it not be me, because I've got nothing valuable to say.

Let it be your spirit speaking through me.

Because I know the power that words have on people who choose to listen.

And sometimes sometimes we could be listening to good words, but we use those good words to hurt other people.

You tell your husband, Pastor Ryan said you need to be holy, and you are anything but holy.

He said you need to be a man of God.

I don't even know how you call yourself a man.

I know I know some of y'all have done that.

And we use what's good to be destructive, thinking that what we're doing is good.

The enemy has gotten so good at deception, man.

And I'm not just talking, I'm not even talking about the world today.

He's gotten very good at decepting, uh deceiving the the believers, the sheep.

Because the enemy knows that the people who claim to be Christian have a desire to do what's righteous, right?

The Pharisees were doing good in their own eyes.

The apostle Paul, when he went around persecuting Christians, he was doing good in his own eyes.

The devil knows that you're just doing your best, doing your best.

You're just doing your best to be good.

And so that's why he comes in and he calls good evil and evil good to confuse the sheep.

To where we can't even agree on what righteousness looks like.

We can't even agree on what love looks like.

We can't even agree on what compassion should look like.

We are living in that time that scripture speaks about where people are calling evil good and they're calling good evil.

This is not just happening in the world.

This is happening among those who claim to follow Jesus.

Now look, y'all know me.

I I hardly ever criticize any pastors or any churches who might do things a little bit differently than we do.

I don't go around calling everybody a goat because they don't speak in tongues.

That's not edifying to the body of Christ.

And I believe that most of these people are are good God-fearing people.

But lately, I have been seeing more churches do some radical things that are clearly not gospel.

And it breaks my heart, man.

I don't know if it's my Instagram algorithm, but I've been seeing a lot of it.

Heresy.

Straight up evil from the pulpits all around the world.

I'm not talking about oh I don't really like that style of preaching.

No, I'm I'm talking about affirmation of sin.

Happening from behind the pulpit.

I was watching a video this week of this lady preaching nonsense.

Not like it wasn't like she just needs to take a couple Bible classes.

No.

This is she was preaching another gospel.

From the gospel, she was speaking another Jesus while claiming the name of Jesus.

It was sickening to me.

And and usually what happens when I see videos like this, I kind of face palm and I'm I'm just disappointed and angry and I kind of just shake my head.

But for the first time I started to weep because I felt the Holy Spirit saying the devil is preaching in churches.

He's got access to pulpits.

And people are listening.

And that's what really got me.

It's the fact that I know there are clearly people with hungry spirits.

There are people who are going to church in masses.

There is an entire new generation coming up that that has gone to church more than millennials and more than boomers.

There are people who are hungry.

For something that is real and something that is deeper and something that is profound.

And yet there's shepherds who are leading these people further and further away from the truth because they call good evil and evil good.

And that breaks my heart, man.

So what I want to pass on to you today is that Man, you would just know the sound of the Good Shepherd.

You would know his voice no matter where you go, no matter what season you find yourself in, no matter how hurt you are, no matter how much trauma that you're in, you stay locked in.

With the sound of the Holy Spirit, so that He can lead you through every moment that life hands to you.

That you don't become confused.

And and twisted in the way that you read scripture because of the other voices you've allowed into your life.

Don't allow the devil to convince you that your pride is justified, that your bitterness is understandable, that your temptation is normal.

Because Jesus is trying to extract the true sheep from the sheep folk.

And so when he calls, no matter whether you're at this church or another church, you know the sound of his voice.

And when somebody comes to try to emulate his voice and impersonate him, when there is an imposture in the body of Christ, the true sheep can be able to discern it.

You still with me?

I I do I do um I do some work for this nonprofit.

Oh we're str are we streaming?

Yeah, okay, I won't say the name or the details, but it's a it's a Christian-based nonprofit, and basically we we connect churches to their communities to impact those communities.

And when I started working with them a couple years ago We worked with pretty much any church that claimed to be a Christian church, all denominations, as long as you were a Bible-believing church.

Well what started happening was that we were reaching out to these churches that preach Jesus but didn't really preach Jesus all the way.

And I had a I had a meeting with one pastor that was already in our network.

I called him up to just kind of develop the relationship a little bit and met met with them.

There were night nice nice people.

Seemed like a good church.

They had a they had a heart for people.

When I hung up the phone with that pastor, I went to their website to learn a little bit more about the church where I discovered that the pastor was in a same-sex marriage.

I said, what I do.

Now, I feel like this is a good pausing moment real quick.

I'm gonna keep going with the story, but let me just say this.

If there's I want you to hear my heart, if there's anybody in here that struggles with a homosexual lifestyle, we want you here.

I want you here.

I promise.

Like I want you to experience the love of God in his presence.

I want you to feel the love of his church.

I want you.

I want you to get discipleship.

I want you to get the truth.

I want all of that for you.

Don't go anywhere.

If that's you, and and I just struck a nerve because I said homosexual, I want you here.

I want you here And I want all of those good things for you that God wants for you.

But here's also the truth.

I can't affirm that lifestyle.

I can't do that.

I can't tell you that it's in alignment with holiness because it's not.

And what happens so often, and this breaks my heart too, because now you have denominations who cater to sin.

There is a demand for Jesus and sin.

And so there's entire denominations popping up saying we can include your sin in here.

And so what might happen and what often happens is when a pastor's preaching and you're in agreement because there's there's some really good parts of the Bible that you agree with, but when the pastor talks about The identity that you identify with.

It causes so many people to find these other churches.

And what do they tell you?

That church down the street, they're hateful.

That Pastor Ryan, he's hateful.

And I want to get ahead of that today.

If that's you, this is not hate.

This is love.

This is compassion.

I feel for you.

I love you.

I want Jesus to totally shade you like he's done to so many people in this room.

And we will have patience for you.

I promise.

We will have grace for you.

We will have love.

You will have community in this place.

And I know if you fully open up yourself to Christ, He will give you that identity.

Back to my story.

So I find out this church is an affirming church.

They and uh I call up the executive director.

I let her know what's going on.

Turns out this is an isolated, it's a it happens pretty often because people use the word Christian in church very loosely.

And so the executive director felt very strongly about the board of directors needing to kind of adopt some new tenets of the faith to offer some direction on what type of churches we're going to work with or not work with.

But there was disagreement in the board.

There was a disagreement on what righteousness looks like.

Now, I I don't I don't have access to the board meetings, but I told the executive director if I if you would allow me to write a formal letter to the board of directors, just sharing my heart as a Christian and as a pastor, I would very much like to do so.

She said, go ahead and do it.

So I wrote my letter.

And one of the main arguments from the board, they said, look, any type of church could still have an impact on a community.

And as it turns out, I I agree with that.

Any type of church or non-church can do nice things for their community.

Any type of organization can do charity work, can can feed the hungry, can impact lives.

I believe that.

Got no issue with that.

My argument was if we claim to be a Christian organization.

We cannot partner with churches who don't fully embrace the gospel.

Not because they can't help their community.

But because if the ultimate hope is that the communities who are impacted by these churches would eventually find their way into these churches, if we connect these communities with the wrong churches, we will have effectively led the sheep to the slaughter.

I said, as a pastor and as a believer, I will not be responsible for pointing a lost community to a lost church.

I can't do that.

I can't be a bridge to apostasy.

They might be able to do nice things.

They might have the resources to help the communities.

They might make an impact, but the sheep need the right voice in their ears.

The board revised the tenets of the faith.

Point for Jesus.

And I I'll tell you this, man, there there's been times where I've I've reached out to a church.

And I had to send them our tenants of the faith.

And I said I had to say, hey, make sure you agree with this because you know we we we want to partner with churches that that affirm these these beliefs.

And I've had to have conversations with pastors.

Saying the same thing.

So we can't partner with your organization because we can't help communities?

No, no, that's not what I'm saying.

You can help your communities.

But you have to understand we're trying ultimately to lead communities to these churches.

And brother, I don't I don't believe what you're teaching.

Now when I was thinking about this, verse five came to mind.

You're still with me?

I'm almost done.

Verse five came to mind.

It says, A stranger, they will not follow, but they will flee from him.

For they do not know the voice of strangers.

When we were going through this process, like I said, the main argument was any church can help a community.

And so one of the voices that I was constantly hearing. was do you really want to strip communities from churches who have the resources to help?

The enemy was gaslighting me.

Ryan, you really want us there's a community in need here.

There's a church right there.

Just because they believe a little bit differently, they they can't help their community.

Oh man, that lying devil man.

That lying devil He's so good at confusion.

He told Eve, Did God really say you can't eat of it of this tree?

He knows if you do, you're just going to become like him.

Don't you want to be like God?

Aren't you created in the image of God?

Doesn't it make sense that you would be like God?

The Pharisees told this boy that this man that was born blind, we follow Moses.

We don't know who you follow.

This man that you follow breaks Old Testament law It almost makes you think that the voice that you're hearing is the voice of the Good Shepherd.

And this is one of the reasons that I believe in our age, right now, Christians cannot get on the same page when it comes. comes to righteousness because there's too many voices.

So my challenge to you this morning church is to get to know the sound of his voice.

Maybe that means nothing to you right now.

I I was thinking about this and I and I and I have a lot of conversations with people about this.

Like, man, you just gotta get closer to God.

You gotta hear his voice.

You have to know what he's saying.

And I've realized that that is very high spiritual language that some people don't understand.

Until they really get into the presence of God and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to them in his presence.

I can tell you.

From experience.

I don't know how it happens.

There's not an audible voice.

Some of you are asking, like, okay, do you actually hear a sound?

No, I no, I don't hear a sound.

But when you're tuned into the Spirit, the Spirit begins to break your heart for things that break his.

He begins to give you joy for the things that he rejoices over.

He begins to give you wisdom.

He begins to give you discernment.

That's what the Holy Spirit does.

But you can only be led by him when you are intentionally seeking him in his word.

This word has got power.

Let's be honest.

You open up to Leviticus, you might struggle a little bit.

But this is the good word.

And when you posture yourself To surrender to God, Lord, take everything from me.

Strip me of the way that I've been taught.

Strip me of the way that I've that I've been thinking all my life.

Strip me, my God, of everything.

That other voices have influenced me on.

The Holy Spirit will begin to lead you.

And he will begin to guide you.

That's my challenge this morning.

And I want to close with this verse.

I'm going to ask you to stand with me.

Verse 12.

The passage continues.

This is what Jesus continues to say in John chapter 12.

He says, He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not know, who does not own the sheep.

He sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.

And the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd, he says.

I know my own, and my own know me.

Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I will lay my down life.

I will lay my life down for the sheep.

So in these days, the shepherds would hire young men.

To assist with shepherding duties.

And these young men, these hired hands, would watch over the flock at night, making sure that no sheep went astray.

But you know no one's gonna go head to head with the wolf for seven bucks an hour Know what I'm saying?

I gotta watch them for you.

I ain't gonna fight.

I ain't gonna fight a wolf So so so this is what Jesus is saying.

Even the most trusted people to whom the shepherd has given authority do not have the same vested interest in his sheep.

Even the most wise and godly voices that you listen to, I'm not saying don't listen to them.

Please hear my heart.

But even them, even I, as much as I love you, as much as I want you to win, as much as I want I want to see your faith increase As much as I will answer the phone for you in the middle of the night, brother, when you're calling and you need somebody, I'm gonna be there with you and I'm gonna fight with you.

And I'm gonna pray with you.

And I'm gonna open myself up to you because I love you and I am a steward of his sheep.

But you're not my sheep.

And I've got my own wolves to fight.

I've got my own devils to cast out.

And so when you're coming to me, when you're coming to Pastor Brandon, when you're coming.

To anybody else but the good shepherd, I want you to understand that we're trying to help you while trying to help ourselves.

We're trying to help you survive while trying to stay afloat ourselves.

To Nobody can do it on their own.

We need to be led by the good shepherd who is there.

He prepares a table in the presence of my enemies.

He's the one who leads me.

Me and guides me, but you gotta know the sound of his voice.

We're living in days of confusion an identity crisis and we see it in the world and but it's it's it's it's it's in pulpits it's in bible studies and it sickens me and the people of God You need to know when to flee.

God wants to speak into your life this morning.

He wants to lead you.

He wants to guide you Church, it's time for the true sheep to unite and get bold and get loud.

And cast out the thieves and the robbers who only want to steal from the glory of God.

It's time for us to become anchored in the Word of God and not so confused as to what good and evil looks like.

Because if we're looking at a good God we know what goodness looks like holy spirit i i i thank you my god for this word Holy Spirit, lead this moment right now.

My God, I pray, Lord, that your the sound of your voice would be discerning. to your sheep because you are calling us you are calling us towards you you are calling us to leave certain things leave certain people my god you are you're calling us to to to to shut off certain voices my god so that we can lock Into what you're saying, Lord.

I pray right now, in this moment, you, my Jesus, would call your sheep.

And the true sheep would respond.

I want to open up these altars in this moment.

If you just need to have a moment.

With the Lord, if you just need to talk with Him, if you need prayer this morning, we want to pray with you.

But come and be ministered by the Good Shepherd, by the Shepherd who loves you.

These altars are open.

Come on.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thanks for listening.

If you'd like some more information on PNEUMA Church, visit us on our website at mypneumachurch. org.

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Thanks again and God bless.