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.

Praise God.

It's good to be in the house of God.

You can take your seat for about 30 seconds if you want, but I'm about to ask you to stand as we go into the word We're continuing our series this morning.

It's called Look at Jesus.

Go ahead and stand so there's no confusion.

Um God is good.

Come on, has he been good to you?

Like for real, for real?

Come on.

If he's been good to you for real for real, you gotta you gotta let a brother know that he's been good to you.

God has been good God has been good, man.

We're continuing our series.

Look at Jesus.

We spoke about in a series all about Jesus.

We talked about Jesus as the word that became flesh and dwelt among us.

We talked about Jesus as a compassionate shepherd who's compassionate and gracious towards us.

Even when he's frustrated with us, he's still.

Compassionate with us.

Last week we talked about the receiving Jesus.

And today we're going out of Luke chapter 14.

If you have your Bibles, Luke 14.

Last week we were in Lord Luke 15.

So we're going kind of backwards, but that's all right.

Luke 14, 25 through 33.

The setting here is Jesus.

He's on his way to Jerusalem, and we're going to be looking at that a little bit more next week for Palm Sunday.

As he enters the city of Jerusalem.

And Jesus here begins to really lay it down hard with some hard truths.

Anybody ready for some hard truths this morning?

Amen.

I don't know if you're ready actually.

But it this is what it says.

Amen.

Luke 14, 25 through 33.

Now the crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me, does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost whether he has enough to complete it?

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish.

Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down and first deliberate whether he has uh he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

So therefore, anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Amen.

Heavenly Father, speak this morning.

Speak, Father God, to every heart.

Lord, your word on its own is offensive sometimes, God.

But you say, blessed is he who is not offended by me.

So I pray, Father God, that whatever you want to say to us, Lord, that we would be able to take it.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can take your seat this morning.

I want to speak today using a kind of a controversial title.

Called the conditional Jesus.

The conditional Jesus.

Maybe it's a little controversial because we don't think of Jesus as being a conditional God.

He is a God who Loves us unconditionally, right?

And he absolutely does love us unconditionally, but following Jesus, it comes with some expectation.

See or no?

Yes.

I said I said a few weeks ago, I said when we started this series, I said that this series is for the church.

This is for the church.

Easter is for Everyone who knows Jesus and knows of Jesus and who doesn't know Jesus but knows someone who knows Jesus, they come to church on Easter, and it's a great way for us to introduce those people to Jesus.

If they're not in relationship with him.

But for those of us who come to church before Easter and on Easter and after Easter, I think that we could take a little bit of these more meatier, rougher sermons.

I don't think the Conditional Jesus would have been an appropriate title for Easter Sunday because on Easter we're talking about salvation.

And there's only one condition that Jesus has for salvation is that we believe in him.

That's Romans.

Romans 10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

That's the only condition for salvation.

God, because of his holiness, had a laundry list. of conditions to make us righteous.

But because we couldn't meet a single one of those conditions because of our condition of sin, Jesus says, I got you, fam.

And he comes down and he lives this perfectly sinless life.

Everything that he does is pleasing to the Father.

He gives his life for our sins.

He resurrects To give us life in him, he met all of those conditions that none of us could meet.

And all he asks of us is that we believe in him.

And the perfect example of this is the thief on the cross.

See, to the thief on the cross, or to the world, the thief on the cross, he died on the cross.

He died a thief on the cross.

You know what I mean?

Like he he was never baptized in water, he never spoke in tongues, he wasn't discipled by Jesus, he probably never stepped foot in a synagogue.

He probably didn't know the Old Testament scriptures very well, but he recognized the word that became flesh. that was hanging on the cross right next to him.

And because he professed faith in that man, Jesus, Jesus looks at him and says, Hey, I I see your sin.

I I see that you are a thief on the cross, but today because you have believed in me, You can now enter paradise.

That's the only condition for salvation.

But you know what?

I'm willing to bet that if this man would have Survived the cross that day.

If this man would have lived many, many more years of life, more would have been expected of him.

If he lived a very long life after that day on the cross, he would not have died a thief.

He would have died a disciple.

And so none of us should ever use the excuse that, well, I raised my hand one time in church and I said that prayer of salvation, and now I go to church every now and then.

I'm I'm good.

No.

You see, the thief on the cross died on his cross.

We are expected to pick up our cross and walk with it through this life until the day that we die with that cross.

You know?

And so all you need for salvation is faith in Jesus, but discipleship is gonna cost you more.

It's heavier It's heavier because it comes with the cross that you gotta carry.

You gotta bear every single day wherever you go When you're with believers, when you're in the church and everybody's helping you carry that cross, and also when you go outside and nobody's there to help you bear that cross, it's still required of us.

And I want to say this because it kind of frames the whole sermon.

I have this quote up here.

Where your heart is, that's where your cross will be.

Where your heart is, that's where your cross will be.

So if your heart isn't fully with Jesus, church, you know, maybe you follow him sometimes.

But then you get distracted a lot of times.

You get distracted on this walk and you make all these pit stops and you lag behind because you got all these other things that are that are gunning for the attention of your heart.

Your heart isn't always with Jesus.

And to be a disciple of Jesus, the conditions are that you bear your own cross and follow me.

So This this whole section here, Jesus is speaking to a lot of his followers.

These are a lot of people that do believe in him.

They've got the Jesus hats and the Jesus shirts and all the merch.

All the cool things that make Christianity exciting.

There's some pretty cool things that make Christianity excited, right?

The night of worships, the But the concerts, the production, the stuff that you get poured into, all of that stuff, that's exciting.

The trendiness sometimes, your your friends being around church, all of that's exciting.

But Jesus is looking at these crowds that are following him.

He's on his way to Jerusalem to go to the cross.

Hold on.

I want y'all to stop to count the costs of discipleship and then really decide if you want to come with me.

Because this doesn't this doesn't work when when it's convenient for you.

This doesn't work only when it's easy for you.

It doesn't work when you're just here because it's cool to be here and all your friends are here.

And it doesn't work if you're just here because you want to be impressed by my glory and you want to see some miracles and you want to be a part of some cool things.

So he says you have to detach yourself.

From everything that is important to you, if you really want to be my disciple, turn to the person next to you and tell them, read the fine print.

You've heard this before.

Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you.

So the thief on the cross died a thief on the cross.

He didn't have time to transform his life And become a testimony.

But that's the beautiful thing about grace is that Jesus in a very single moment can transform the soul and receive you But for those of us who are still living this life and walking this journey of faith, we can't die looking like our sin.

We gotta die looking like Jesus.

That's the truth.

Now, discipleship means a lot of things.

I think we can go into a 12-week hardcore series on discipleship, and we're not even scratching the surface because discipleship is a lifelong Process a lifelong lesson.

Somebody uh asked in our life group this past week.

Nelfside, shout out to Nelfside Life Group.

Yeah, baby.

Y'all don't mess with Nelside, man.

We come straight With Jesus, with Jesus, child man.

Somebody asked, do you ever get to a point where you stop learning?

Said nope.

If you ever get to the point where you stop learning, that's where you stop growing.

And that's where pride comes in.

If you're a disciple of Jesus, that means you are a lifelong disciple.

You are always learning from Jesus.

That's what a disciple is A disciple is somebody who is constantly learning from Jesus or constantly learning to look more like Jesus.

That's what discipleship is at its core.

Can I tell somebody today that discipleship is not, I love Jesus?

That's great that you love him.

That's the greatest commandment.

Love him.

If you don't have anything else, you love Jesus.

But that's not discipleship.

Because I know people who say they love Jesus and hate their brother.

You you love Jesus, but you haven't learned how to forgive like this Jesus that you say you love.

You love Jesus, but you you can't release past sin of others like he has.

You say you love Jesus, but you don't have grace like he does.

You don't have compassion the way that he does.

You're not patient the way that he is.

You don't have faith like he does.

You got no peace in your life like he does.

You can love Jesus and not have learned anything about him because you're not actually doing the work of carrying your cross.

I see people all the time sitting, sitting.

And crying at the altar.

They love to worship.

They love being in the presence of God.

But then they go out into the real world and they experience some people and some problems and then they react in a way that looks nothing like Jesus.

Are you really committed to being his disciple?

Let's do a little exercise.

Look, there's no judgment here, okay?

No judge everybody's in a different place in their faith.

But just show of hands.

How many in the room can genuinely say, I love Jesus, man?

Come on, raise your hand.

Don't be shy.

All right.

Amen.

We got a good church who loves Jesus.

Praise God.

Put your hands down.

Of those people How many of you say, man, Pastor, I I I love Jesus, but I've got some areas in my life that don't look like Jesus.

Come on, raise your hand if that's you.

Amen.

I feel like I see more hands.

Okay, put your hands down.

Thank you for your honesty.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Okay, here's another one, and I want you to continue to be honest.

Of those who raise their hands and love Jesus and know that you've got some places in your life that look nothing like him.

How many of you can honestly say, I am committed to making sure that every aspect of my life looks like Jesus?

Amen.

Praise God.

Praise the Lord.

That's beautiful.

That's discipleship.

And I believe that if you're really committed to that, the Holy Spirit is going to see you through that.

He's going to guide you.

Transformation doesn't always happen overnight.

I know that you know we're Pentecostals, we like we like deliverance, we like instant microwave transformation.

It doesn't work like that all the time.

Sometimes it's not even about deliverance, it's about development.

And development is a process.

And so I I ask you all of this because I want you to understand that discipleship takes constant humility.

Some of you didn't raise your hands because of pride and I said I wasn't gonna judge and I ain't gonna judge.

But you didn't you didn't raise your hand because Maybe you don't see the sin in you, or you don't want other people to know that there is sin in you.

And so you you try to be holy and good, and you're like, nah, I've been in church all my life.

I'm fine.

That's pride.

And God can't work on you.

He can't fill you when you're full of yourself.

So if it if a disciple is a learner, in order to learn, you have to be open to the idea that you don't know it all.

Now that's easy for all of us.

I think everybody in the room can say, I don't know everything.

I don't know it all.

But humility is really hard when you do know a lot of things.

Humility is hard when you know that you're anointed.

Humility is hard when you know that you live a holy life.

Humility is hard when when you know that God speaks to you.

Or when you're gifted, it's like every gift from the Holy Spirit has to be received by the Holy Spirit in you.

If if if God is gifting you with with spiritual gifts, if that's ever received by your flesh, it's gonna go to your head.

And you're gonna use it the wrong way.

And so that's why humility is so, so important.

You know, as a pastor, I I know I know that God has gifted me in certain areas.

I know that He speaks to me.

I know that He knows me and I know Him.

And I know His word.

I can break it down in a way that's pretty easy to understand.

He's given me wisdom and and many areas of my life to be able to navigate really difficult situations and and help other people navigate through their uh difficult situations.

I don't say this conceitedly, I say this confidently that it's only by God's grace That I could do any of this because I know who I am.

I am Ryan Cito, the guy who who spills the sprite at the Christmas table, and none of his cousins want to sit next to him because he's such a clutch I'm like Kevin from Home Alone, such a disease.

That's me.

I know who I am.

And so, as a pastor throughout the years, as the Lord has graced me with these gifts that I don't deserve to minister to his people and his presence, I know that even in what I know, I don't know it all.

And I and that keeps me learning from other people.

It keeps me learning from people who I pastor.

It keeps me learning from people who I teach.

It keeps me being inspired by what God is doing in the lives of others and how he's speaking to other people and using other people, even though he speaks and uses me.

So that's discipleship.

Takes constant humility.

Now I want to talk real quick about the conditions.

That Jesus himself sets.

Jesus says, if anyone comes to me, look, there's a lot of people coming to Jesus right now.

Praise the Lord.

You know there's a resurgence right now in the church, in church attendance.

For decades, church attendance was on the decline.

For the very first time in several decades, it's it's actually on the up and up.

Praise the Lord.

People are hungry for God.

They're looking for something deeper and something higher.

We see it a lot with the young adults.

It's happening.

People are coming to Jesus.

And just like we saw last week, Jesus is gonna receive you.

He'll receive anybody.

He'll receive sinners, prodigals, your arch nemesis nemesis.

He don't care.

He'll bring he said bring them in and then he'll throw them a party right in front of you and you have to just deal with it He's a receiving Jesus.

That's who he is.

And praise the Lord.

Because none of us deserve to even be in his presence, but he's received us.

I thank the Lord.

I thank the Lord for his unconditional love.

But now he's not talking about receiving anymore.

Now he's talking about staying with him.

He's saying I'll receive you.

I want you to come.

But if you're gonna stay, if you're gonna, if you're gonna journey with me, if you're gonna walk with me, if you're gonna do ministry with me, And be persecuted with me and and and and and take the punches with me and you're gonna commit to me.

There's a few things that you need to know.

He says if anybody comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, even himself.

He cannot be my disciple.

This is why this couldn't be an Easter message.

Be too much to explain.

But most of us in this room know that Jesus does not mean hate in a literal way to hate the people in your inner circle.

This is not about feeling something towards people, it's about detachment from them.

This is about allegiance.

It's about where your priorities lie.

This is about where your heart is.

Where your heart is, that is where your cross will be.

I need you to get this.

See, because some people drop their cross the moment their heart is broken.

And that's when you stop looking like Jesus.

You hear me?

Lock in.

Lock in I'm serious.

That's that when your heart is broken now now you can't forgive.

So you stop looking like Jesus.

You you you stunting your own growth That's when you start to hold on to bitterness, unlike Jesus does.

Your heart isn't fully with Jesus.

If it was, you would have let him change you by now.

Some people drop their cross at the doorstep of the sin that they're unwilling to let go of And I'm not I'm not I'm not talking I'm not talking about you fell into sin.

I'm talking about the sin that you refuse to let God grab a hold of to kill.

You've dropped your cross right there.

And then you pick it up and and you keep on following Jesus when you're done with your sin Your heart is divided, and so you don't carry your cross with consistency.

And the result is that you've got too many moments in your life where you don't like look like Jesus.

You know what I'm saying?

You love him.

But on the way, on your walk with Jesus, you make these pit stops and you drop your cross.

And you're like, you see that man up there, way up there?

I love that man.

Why aren't you walking with him?

Why'd you stop here to tell me about it?

Why don't you keep walking?

That'll tell me that you love him.

Because that'll tell me that you're committed to him.

You know, you know a lot of people do that.

They stop to tell you about how much they love Jesus in their sin.

But they ain't a disciple of Jesus.

That's why I'm saying discipleship is not I love Jesus, discipleship I is I am committed to you.

Even in look Lord, even in the moments where I'm angry with you, I still walk with you.

Even in the moments where everything is telling me not to love you right now because I'm so mad at you, I'm committed to you, so I keep going.

That's discipleship.

And so Jesus is using this very, very intense language to make his point.

He's trying to be very clear with these would-be disciples.

The people that you love the most in your life, even down to your very self.

If you can't pick up your cross from their doorstep, you cannot be my disciple because you're gonna stop learning from me the moment you get to their door.

And instead of me pouring into you, they're gonna be pouring into you.

It'll be pouring into you.

You will be pouring into you.

Am I making sense?

Where your heart is, that's where your cross will be.

Listen, Jesus loves you.

Everybody in this room.

Everybody in this room.

The people that are telling themselves, man, Jesus don't love me.

Yes, he does.

He loves you.

He wants to be with you.

He wants communion with you.

But he also wants you to reflect him to the world.

You can't come with me, Jesus is saying, you can't come with me if you can't align yourself with me.

You you can you can't be a part of this if you just want a piece of this.

You know what I'm saying?

A lot of people just want a piece of the kingdom And I'll carry my cross until I get angry.

And I'll carry my cross until somebody cuts me off.

And I'll carry my cross until somebody curses at me.

And I'll car Free my cross until my desires get in the way.

Then I've got to lay down my cross And pick something else up.

No, you have gotta hate anything that keeps you from looking like Jesus because Jesus is holy and he wants you to be holy because that's the church that he's coming for, a holy church.

These are the conditions to discipleship.

You with me?

Can I tell you something this morning?

Something serious.

I received a letter this week sent here to the church.

It was addressed to me.

And it was pretty troubling.

And I'm not gonna go into the details.

It was very short.

But essentially, someone in the church brought up an issue towards another person in the church.

And the letter basically said, if I don't do this, they will do this.

It was a soft touch of blackmail, to say it politely.

Now, is there is there merit to the person's concerns?

Maybe.

I I have a duty to not be dismissive of people's concerns.

I didn't appreciate the blackmail part.

Because immediately I I I sensed a spirit of division when I read it.

The difficult part of it was that The person chose to remain anonymous, which makes it really difficult to ask questions and check the source and to have conversations and ultimately, you know, get to a place of understanding.

Whenever a serious issue is brought to me, I do my absolute best to get ahead of it.

To handle it with pastoral care, to listen to everyone involved, to not make assumptions, to navigate all the emotions and all the opinions and all the interpretations in the best way possible.

And when I'm hearing this, and when I'm hearing that, and when I'm hearing this, anybody who's worked closely with me in ministry knows that I'm the guy who says, all right, let's all get in the room.

And we're gonna have a conversation, and we're gonna have a confrontation.

Now, a lot of people know that I don't like confrontation, but you know what?

I hate division.

I will have confrontation every single day of my life 24-7 if it means I gotta fight division because I hate division.

I hate it.

It is the weapon of choice for the enemy.

And he has used it from the very beginning of time.

Hate it.

So I I I take seriously the serious things as much as I can, man.

I seek the Lord.

I seek wisdom.

I seek discernment.

I seek counsel.

You can ask anyone who's worked closely enough with me.

I have a heart for people.

I have a heart for the ministry.

And I have a heart ultimately to please the Lord.

That's hard enough to do with all the information.

It's nearly impossible to do when you don't have all of it And so I don't know if that person is here today, but if you're here, it's possible that you have information I don't have.

It's possible that I have information you don't have.

So I would ask that you would please consider making yourself known, having a conversation with me.

I know this is awkward for everybody else in the room.

You're like, what the heck is this drama?

I feel like I have no choice but to address it from here.

And if you're here, maybe you're thinking, what does my identity have to do with anything?

I don't matter.

That person matters.

Go get with that person.

I can understand that logic.

I really can.

But it does matter.

So please come and talk to me.

I shared the letter immediately with uh with our pastoral team.

We discussed it, we prayed about it.

I'm telling you, I don't take this stuff lightly.

And I and I know most of y'all would maybe would never see that.

This is this is the pastor Ryan that you see.

But I mean As as a shepherd, I don't take that I don't take that lightly.

I don't I can't I can't I can't take that lightly But the way that this was brought to me is just it was it wasn't correct.

Wasn't correct.

You know, sometimes when we think something is righteous and we we want to advocate for something that we believe is just We fail to get there because of the way that we handled it.

You know what I mean?

Like if I were to give you a word that was true.

But I didn't deliver it the right way.

I failed to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish because of the way that I delivered that word.

And in the process of seeking justice and righteousness, I actually failed to look like Jesus myself.

You know when the people of Israel this this seems like a different sermon, but I'm gonna I'm gonna tie it back.

When the people of Israel failed to trust in God when they were in the desert and they were complaining to Moses, Moses, why'd you bring us out here?

You're such a dummy, Moses.

Hate you Moses.

We're starving.

We're thirsty.

And Moses goes to God and he's praying and he's complaining to God about the people and then God says, okay, I want you to speak.

To the rock.

I want you to command the waters to come forth.

And what does Moses do?

He doesn't speak, he strikes two times.

He hits it in anger.

He's angry because of the unrighteous people that he is leading.

But he's in the wrong.

If you notice, God doesn't correct the people.

He corrects the messenger.

So the way the letter was delivered to me is not the way, my friend, if you're here.

And um one last thing I'll say.

I love you.

I mean I I care about your heart, care about your soul.

I'm here to listen to you.

I'm not mad at you.

I don't get mad.

That's my wife.

I don't get mad.

But and after prayer and after rebuking my my flesh, because I was a little flustered.

Um After talking to my Proverbs 31 woman here, uh, I'm not angry.

I just I just want to talk So I say that because these are the types of moments that Jesus teaches us how to be more like him.

Preaching, it's easy.

Hearing it's easy.

Taking your little notes, it's cute, it's easy.

Living it.

When you're dealing with hurt and when you're dealing with frustration and you're frustrated and you're angry about all the family drama, that is when we have to really know where our heart is.

I'm almost done.

I I I want to address have you ever heard the the phrase guard your heart?

Man, early on in our pastoral ministry, people would tell my wife that all the time.

Like every every time we had a guest speaker, they would have this word for her to guard your heart.

Random people would come and say, Pastor Melissa, I have a word for you.

Some people would say, hey, uh, I had a dream and God is telling me to guard your heart.

It it was getting ridiculous, man.

And honestly, I was a little scared.

Like, who's coming after my wife?

She's gotta be looking over her shoulder all the time.

I was.

I I felt like I had to protect her from something.

See Through discipleship, God taught us exactly what it means to guard your heart.

I want to share it with you real quick See guarding your heart means to protect the most precious piece of you that God desires.

And many people who talk about guarding their heart I've had a lot of conversations about Gardener Heart, and when I hear it, it's usually in the context of hurt.

Someone betrayed them, someone hurt them.

Their heart was broken.

And now the only human way you know how to cope with that is to keep your heart from certain people.

You guard it, you protect it like this.

And oftentimes that creates very unhealthy coping mechanisms where you isolate and you distance yourself from people.

And you try not to let people in and you not to be you try not to be vulnerable with people and you have to like not have any real friendships because you're afraid that people are going to hurt you and you become guarded and and you don't allow anybody to befriend you and and maybe you get angry and you You stay bitter, and that's when people say, guard your heart.

That's what we were falling into.

We got we gotta just stay in this little bubble.

We can't we can't talk to anybody about our problems.

Even the people that we think have our back.

Nope, can't trust them.

Gotta guard your heart.

But can I tell you that the entire premise of this idea of guarding your heart is not even correct in the first place?

Because for the Christian, your heart isn't yours to guard.

Doesn't belong to you.

As a believer, we are to give our full hearts to the Lord.

Allow Him to guard your heart.

He becomes the protector.

He becomes the defender.

Defender.

He holds your heart so that he can mold it.

Now God is a good and gracious God and God believes in relationships and that's partly why he created us to be in a relationship.

So what God does is what he does.

He allows pieces of your heart to be Shared with people in your life.

That's what he does.

So when a young woman is totally in love with God and meets a young man and falls in love with him and they get married, God allows that man access. to her heart.

He doesn't hold her heart.

He's not the owner of her heart.

He just has access.

I can't be trusted with my wife's heart.

I will hurt her.

Even if I don't want to, I will hurt her.

Even though I am the best husband in the entire universe.

I will hurt her.

I can't be, it's too precious.

Another human should not be able to carry another human's heart.

It's gotta go into the hands of its creator.

And again, That God is so gracious He He allows that heart to be shared with other people And so that same woman she has children and God God allows her heart again to be shared with her children So that she can pour into her children and love her children and shower them with all these sacrifices That she wants to make for them, and then and then she has friends and other loved ones, and there's people in ministry and people in the church, and all these people have access to your heart that doesn't belong to them, it belongs to the Lord.

And so when somebody hurts you.

As they inevitably will.

Can I tell you right now, people will hurt you.

People in the church will hurt you.

They will.

And though your heart may be bruised, it won't be totally shattered.

Because it's in the hands of a God who mends the broken hearts, and so you can you can quickly find restoration in relationships, even though you know some relationships cause heartache.

You know how to.

Keep loving people and trusting people and giving yourself to people and how to keep a healthy distance without isolating yourself.

You know that it's not necessary to put yourself in a bubble to protect yourself from people.

Why?

Because God has taught you how to see people the way. that he does while while not being broken when they hurt you Because they can't break what's not in their possession.

Belongs to the Lord.

Guarding your heart is only done when God is the one guarding it.

Can I be real with you?

And I've been hurt by the church, bro.

I've been hurt by I've been in church all my life.

Think I've been chur hurt by the church?

I don't have the luxury of leaving I have a luxury of saying I'm gonna go to another church.

I don't.

And and and and even as a pastor's kid growing up in the church I was hurt.

Heard rumors said about my dad, about my family.

I heard a rumor once about my dad had another family.

I was like, what?

Where?

You know how damaging that that could have been to a young kid?

I hurt.

I hurt people as a pastor.

Disrespect me.

Disrespect my wife.

As a kid, people in the church doing horrible things to people that I love and my family.

Having to keep going, having to stay.

Think I haven't been hurt?

And every single one of those times, because I wanted to quit, I wanted to go somewhere else As a pastor, I wanted to quit.

As a pastor, I've said about five times, babe, let's just leave.

Let's just go to Colorado.

Let's repeat what my parents did.

I've said it so many times.

It sounds so good.

It sounds so easy.

I love Colorado.

Let's just go there.

Let's just do it.

And every single time, every single time I've had to resubmit my heart to the Lord.

Every single time.

And God said, Ryan, you've got to keep pastoring the people who hurt you You gotta keep praying for them and mean it and like good prayers, not like God strike them prayers.

Good prayers.

You gotta keep fasting for the people who hurt you, you gotta keep loving the people who hurt you, you gotta keep having.

Your arms open to the people who hurt you.

Even in the moments of pain, he has reminded me, your heart isn't broken because it's in my hands and I don't break hearts.

Church, where your heart is.

That's where your cross will be.

I'm gonna say this one last time.

Where your heart is, that's where your cross will be.

And where your when your heart is with the Lord, the only time you drop your cross is when you die with it.

So that same young woman, she she gets, you know, if she's graced with with a long life, she gets to the end of her life, and all the people who've had access to her heart They're gone.

Her friends are gone.

Her husband's passed away.

Her ministry is done.

The church she grew up in doesn't look the same.

Her children have all left the house.

She is still full.

Because her heart has always belonged to the Lord.

Where your heart is, that's where your cross will be.

For 33 years Jesus carried his cross, man.

It wasn't just on the day that he died.

It was for 33 years through every temptation, every moment of human weakness, every emotion.

And then on the last day of his life, he's hung on it.

And he breathes his last breath.

That verse makes sense.

Anyone who does not bear their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Because anyone who does not bear their cross can't know what it means to look like Jesus.

So the condition to discipleship is that he owns your entire heart.

That's it.

So I challenge you today, church.

To count the cost and decide if you really have what it takes to be his disciple.

That's it.

That's the word.

You can clap if you want.

Kind of weird way to end the sermon, but I want you to stand.

And what I want to do, what I want to do, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask the prayer team to hold off.

Specific Altar call that I want to make.

If you're here today and and you're saying man, I I I want to either commit to being a disciple of Jesus Or recommit to being a discipleship, to being a disciple of Jesus.

That's the altar call for today.

That's it.

If you want to reaffirm your disciples, And say Lord, I'm committing everything to you.

I'm committing my whole heart to you.

My whole heart.

My whole heart.

That means detachment from everything that is important to you.

That doesn't mean you leave your responsibilities.

That doesn't mean you you stop caring about About all the other people in your life that you care about because again, He's a good God and He He He graces them with pieces of your heart.

But if you're saying, God, I want to filter everything through you, everything, every relationship, every business. endeavor, every ministry, every call, I want it to go through you.

I want to be your disciple to the day that I die.

I want to carry my cross.

I don't want to make any pit stops.

I want to go all the way until you call me home with that cross.

That's who this is this altar calls for.

That's you this morning and you say that's me.

That's me.

Come forward.

That's it.

Come forward.

Don't play around, church.

Play around.

Don't play around.

Count the cost.

Know what it's gonna mean.

Know what it's gonna take.

Jesus has gotta come first.

God has gotta come first.

Come on, we're giving God our hearts today.

Holy and fully.

From this moment on, it's not divided anymore.

My God, it belongs fully to you.

Teach us, Jesus, to look like you, teach us to be like you, God.

Talk like you God to talk the way that you do, Lord, to love the way that you do, Father.

We need more of you, Jesus.

Come on, come and worship.

Thanks for listening.

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

Thanks again and God bless.

Well uh