(upbeat music) - Hey, this is Pastor John Ryan Cantu from PNEUMA Church in Houston, Texas.

Thank you for listening to the message today.

I hope that it blesses you and all those that you share it with.

God bless you.

(upbeat music) Hallelujah.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

God is good.

All the time.

Amen.

Man, it's good to be in the house of God.

Take a seat for just a moment, just a moment.

I'll let you rest for a little bit.

I'm excited.

We're back to our normal schedule.

December is that month that everything feels all over the place, but it also flies by really fast.

I believe that we have done our part as a church, as leadership, as pastors, to really set up for what I believe is a great year, but all we can do is leave it in the hands of God.

I'm believing that God is gonna do some amazing things this year.

I am believing that this is a year of harvest.

This is a year of harvest.

This is a year of fruitfulness.

This is a year where prodigals return.

This is a year where so many of our family members, I was telling, we had prayer yesterday morning.

Some of y'all missed it, but we had prayer yesterday in the morning, and I was asking for prayer that everybody would just join me and praying that family members would return to Christ.

So that family member that you've been working on, that it's always awkward to have a conversation with them 'cause it always ends in an argument.

Pray for them because God is gonna do something in their life, amen?

So I want you to believe that with me, amen.

Man, I'm excited to preach this morning.

I'm not gonna lie, the past, the last two Sundays, we had combined services.

We packed out the house.

It's so beautiful to see just both ministries coming together.

And last week, man, the glory of God fell.

And it was a very, very Pentecostal sermon, and I wanted to bring another Pentecostal sermon, but I'm not.

(congregation laughs) I know, I know it.

Pastor Danny was kinda saying the same thing this morning, like, we ended the year with the bang.

You wanna start it with the bang, so you like those Pentecostal fire sermons where you gotta take off the jacket.

I'm gonna leave it on today.

But that's what we want, but sometimes God has other plans.

And I'm gonna tell you a little bit of what God kinda did to help prepare this sermon this morning.

But I'm gonna ask that you stand with me as we go to the Gospel of John, chapter eight, verses two through 11, John eight, two through 11.

And if you're here for the very first time, I'm not gonna embarrass you and ask you to lift your hand, but if you have a church that you're looking for, I would challenge you to look no further, right?

Obviously, we're not everybody's cup of tea, but I think we are a pretty good cup of tea.

So get plugged in, we have an awesome group of people here, and awesome ministries, and we try to be as intentional as we can to preach the truth of the word of God, disciple people, and really just get into the worship, because that's what it's about, amen.

If you have it, say amen.

Amen.

And it says this, it says, "Early in the morning, he came again to the temple.

"All the people came to him, and he sat down, "and he taught them.

"And the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman "who had been caught in adultery "and placing her in the midst.

"They said to her," I'm sorry, "They said to him, "'Teacher, this woman has been caught "'in the act of adultery.

"'Now in the law of Moses commanded us to stone such women, "'so what do you say?

' "This they said to test him that they might have "some charge to bring against him.

"And Jesus bent down, and he wrote with his finger "on the ground, and as they continued to ask him, "he stood up and said, 'Let him who is without sin "'among you be the first to throw a stone at her.

' "And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground, "but when he heard it, they went away one by one, "beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone "with the woman standing before him.

"Jesus stood up and said to her, 'Woman, where are they?

"'Has no one condemned you?

' "And she said, 'No one, Lord.

' "And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you.

"'Go, and from now on, sin no more.

'" Amen, let's go to God in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word that you've spoken over your servant, Father God.

I pray, Lord, that as you've ministered it to me, my God, minister to your people, Father God, that we would receive it and walk out of here, my God, with this word planted in our hearts.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen.

May be seated.

I entitled the message this morning, No Stone, No Stone, because no matter how holy or anointed you are, none of us are actually worthy to throw stones at anybody.

We can correct and we should.

We can preach and we can instruct, but only God is capable of condemning a person.

And here in this passage, he tells us, "Sinful woman, I do not condemn you.

" Thursday night, I had a vivid dream, and I'm not one to usually have dreams and think much of them.

For the most part, my dreams are just pretty standard, silly dreams, right?

Nothing like Joseph or anything like that.

I hardly ever wake up thinking, "Man, that's from the Lord, I need to meditate on it.

" This one felt a little bit different because in the dream, I was sitting in front of my computer.

It was like, I honestly thought it was real.

It was like real life.

And I was sitting at my computer.

I opened up my Logos Bible software, which I used to study, and I opened up the Bible and the text was John 753 through 811.

John 753 through 811.

That's all I saw in the dream was the reference.

I didn't read anything, it was just a reference.

And I woke up literally thinking it was time for church and I didn't have a message prepared, I was freaking out.

And then I was like, "Oh, wait, it's Friday, I got time.

" But I can tell you this, I probably would not have chosen this passage to preach on unless I had that dream that very explicitly showed the reference of scripture.

Right away, I knew the story.

I knew the story because this is a passage that has always fascinated me.

It's a passage of, it's a powerful story of grace and mercy.

But the reason that it's always fascinated me is because this is not a passage of scripture that is original.

This was a story added many years later after John wrote his gospel.

In fact, in your Bibles, you might notice in the brackets or the footnotes, it says most ancient or earliest manuscripts do not contain 753 through 811.

This means that John, the apostle who wrote his gospel, was not the original writer of this particular passage.

It was added sometime later by other scribes.

And tradition holds that this was a story passed down orally from generation to generation, and one day, a scribe decided to insert it into the text.

In fact, I know I'm getting kind of nerdy, but just stay with me.

The earliest manuscripts have this story inserted in different parts of the gospel of John.

And so for Bible scholars, it's always been an interesting portion of scripture because it's not original to John, even though it's inserted into John's gospel.

And I've always loved teaching on this passage, but I've only ever preached on it once, and I've never taught this, I've never told anybody this from the pulpit, because as a pastor, you have to be careful.

You have to be careful what you teach sometimes because this is the type of stuff that can make some people go like, well, if it was not original, why is it in the Bible?

And how can we trust the Bible and all of that stuff, right?

Those are valid questions.

But they're not questions that scare me because thankfully there are answers to these supposed problems, right?

And so I'm gonna teach a little bit.

Again, we're not gonna get super Pentecostal today.

I'm gonna teach a little bit.

This is called a textual variant, a textual variant.

And there's over 300,000 of them in the Bible where one manuscript says one thing and another manuscript says something slightly different.

You have to remember that when the Bible was spreading throughout the ancient world, the people that were making the copies of the Bible were doing it with hand.

I don't even understand my own handwriting sometimes.

And so you have scribes that are copying the text of another scribe as they proliferate the Bible.

And so thankfully, the vast majority of these variants are like single letters.

Like, is that an I or is that an A?

I don't know.

I'll just kind of take my best guess.

There's no textual variant in the Bible that is of any real concern.

And the textual variants that we do have, we all know about, okay?

We've known it for centuries.

Those little footnotes that you have in the Bible you probably never read, it's telling you what those variants are.

And this passage is the biggest one.

And so again, it's not ever really a passage that I go to on my own.

And so I think that's why God very specifically gave me the scripture reference.

I didn't even know what I was going to preach.

I was just being obedient.

I said, all right, well, that's, I got to figure something out.

So I didn't really even have a message to go off of.

I was just kind of studying a little bit.

Now, the reason that this textual variant isn't really a huge deal to a lot of Christians is because this sounds a lot like what Jesus would do.

This story fits the character of Jesus very, very accurately from what we know about him.

And it's also stood the test of church history.

It's a widely accepted passage.

And so whether it was by the hands of John or not, we believe that the Holy Spirit wanted this story to be told.

Maybe just John forgot one day to put in the Bible.

You know, humans, we make mistakes.

And so I woke up and I said, all right, God, I'm a preach on this.

I don't have a message yet, but I'm a preach on it.

And as I went to study the text a little bit deeper, I realized that this is not a story about an adulterous woman.

That might be what the subheading says in your Bible, woman caught in adultery.

But this isn't a story about the woman at all.

This is a story about how Jesus responds to sinners.

And I don't believe that I'm talking to sinners this morning.

I'm talking to the church.

Where the church at?

Come on.

I'm talking to some Jesus-filled Christians this morning who carry the grace of God and the love of God who are called to be the salt and the light of the earth.

That's who I'm talking to this morning.

I'm not talking to sinners this morning.

I'm talking to the church.

And so this is a very passage for, not the sinner, but the church.

Because this is not a story that calls our attention to receive mercy.

This is a story that calls our attention to show mercy.

And last week, I preached a message to the whole church.

Man, if you weren't here, I would love it if you would go back to listen to it because it was very pneuma-specific.

And I shared this vision of our church being this church of which the glory of God is seen from all over the city.

It's stuff that is, it's already happening.

People are hearing about what God is doing, right?

And it's not just because our church is special, but I believe that we really care about the glory of God, the manifestation of the Spirit, and we do very well to be sensitive to the Spirit.

And so I described in this vision this pillar-like cloud coming from the building that is visible from everybody to see.

And people are coming, not all at once, but little by little, because they wanna know what's going on in that little Pentecostal church between Samson and York.

What is going on in East End?

I keep hearing about people being transformed and restored and saved and marriages are getting healed.

I hear all about these things.

We got a little testimony last week from somebody.

They sent a message to my wife on Instagram, and they just said, "I love seeing your church's Instagram "because man, you guys are a church "that knows how to worship.

"I can feel the presence of God from here.

" That's that pillar of smoke that is coming from PNEUMA, where the people, where the building is burning, but no one's being consumed.

Instead, we're being consumed by the glory of God, just like that bush that Moses saw that was burning, but it wasn't consumed.

And so in that vision, I shared that there's people coming into the church, little by little.

There's so many people coming, and it's getting fuller, and we're not able to have enough seats for everybody, and we're gonna have to add another service, and we're gonna have to add more seats.

And the past two Sundays, we had those issues, and people are coming to the church.

And so I didn't really know why at first, but I think that the reason that God wanted me to preach on this is to tell the church that we are going to start seeing more and more sinners who need people to respond like Jesus.

Because we're not a church for people that are already churched.

That's not why the church should be the church.

Why is the light going to another light?

The thing that attracts people that are in dark spaces is the light.

And so darkness is gonna make its way this way.

The people who are living in sin, the people who are living in the darkness of their sin, they're gonna see this light on a hill and come in because they hear about what God is doing.

And we've been seeing it happening, right?

We've seen it.

There's people walking in here, and they're coming out of their darkness, they're coming out of their alcoholism, they're coming out of their sexual addictions, they're coming out of their identity crises, their drug problems, and the enemy is going to bring them and accuse all of them before each of us and say, "What are you gonna do about this problem?

" That's what the scribes did.

They bring this woman to Jesus, and essentially they ask Jesus, "What are you gonna do about this problem?

" She's a woman that's been caught in the act of adultery.

What are you gonna do?

Sometimes as a pastor, man, I constantly deal with this.

And I've gotta admit, I don't know.

I don't have the answers.

What do you do about the troublemakers?

What do you do about the ones that are bad influences to the good kids?

We got good kids in here.

Y'all kids are some good kids.

My generation wasn't like that.

The generation before me, they were worse, bro.

I don't know how they did it.

But man, our generation of kids are pretty good kids.

And so sometimes it's uncomfortable when there's that rough kid who's like a really bad influence to everybody else, and it's like, "I kinda don't want him around my kids.

" What do I do?

What are you gonna do, pastor, about that problem?

Let's take it outside the church.

Let's take it into your home.

What do you do?

Mom or dad went home.

What do you do when your daughter or your son says, "I'm struggling with my sexual identity?

" What do you do when your spouse admits that they had an affair, and they feel all of the guilt of their actions, but you're not ready to forgive them?

What do you do when the sinners show up?

What do you do when the sinners show up?

What do we do when that suspicious man comes in, making us feel kind of uncomfortable and unsafe?

What do we do about these problems?

I'm not saying that they're not problems, but how do we react?

I think that this lesson that Jesus teaches is powerful, and it's something that we need to model.

The story opens up and says that Jesus was teaching in the temple.

He was doing what we're doing today.

We're gathered at church.

We worship.

We're hearing the word of God.

And all of a sudden, while Jesus is teaching, he's interrupted with this problem.

There's this woman.

She's caught in the act of adultery, and the text says that the Pharisees and scribes bring her, and they put her in the midst of where Jesus was.

They get her, and they bring her right here, and they accuse her, and they say, "What are you gonna do about this woman "who just committed the act of adultery?

" So this is a dead giveaway right now that this has nothing to do with the woman and her sin.

This is about trapping Jesus.

Verse six even says that this is a test to bring a charge against him.

If this was really about the woman, you would wait till after Jesus is done preaching, you'd bring the woman to him in private, and you'd get his thoughts, but that's not what they do because they have no concern with the actual sinner.

They just wanna hurt the reputation of the godly man.

That's what the enemy does.

Church, the enemy doesn't care what happens to sinners.

He's already got 'em.

He doesn't need to beat a dead horse.

He doesn't care about what happens to the sinners.

He's more concerned with what happens to the church and how the church responds because he wants to taint the reputation of the church, and I believe that he's been pretty successful in many ways of doing that, and that's why some unbelievers will never think to coming into a church service because I don't wanna be around those Christians.

That's what the enemy is working on, and so I don't believe that the enemy knows or thinks that he can win the battle against the Christians, but what if he can convince the Christians to think so highly of themselves that they actually turn away sinners?

That would mean less people get saved, less people get delivered, less people get Jesus, and it's a good tactic, and I think, honestly, I think it's worked for a long time.

There's a famous quote by Brandon Manning that says, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world "is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips "but walk out the door and they deny him "by their lifestyle.

" He says that is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable because it's hard to believe that people who claim to know the name of love can be so hateful in the way that they treat other people, so in the enemy's eyes, as long as the church can have a reputation of bigotry and judgment, maybe the sinners will be attracted to what God is doing, but maybe the Christians will cause them to go back home 'cause as long as the sinners think, well, the church doesn't want me, they're gonna stay away from the church even when their heart is longing for something more.

Now, at the same time, I don't wanna be so cynical because Christians also have a reputation of being loving.

And I think here at our church, we have that reputation.

I hear that all the time, man.

People feel welcomed and they feel the love of so many people, but I think, you know, what happens when we start getting like next level sinners?

(audience laughing) You know what I'm saying?

Next level, stuff that we haven't seen before.

Like the adultery stuff, like there's some sins that are, I don't know, they're more common.

And there's other sins that are less common and we're not used to confronting them.

So what happens when those next level sinners start making their way into the church, the ones that make us feel uncomfortable, the ones that we actually don't like and we don't wanna invite them to the potluck, the real problematic ones, are we ready for that?

Are we ready for that?

That was the reputation of Jesus, right?

Taking on the ones that no one else wanted to take on.

That was his reputation.

That was what he was known for, for going out there and looking for the least of these so that he could build them up.

A lot of times the church doesn't look for that.

We look for the ones that are dressed well and are educated and have a gift and can sing and make some money so that they can tithe.

That's what we look for.

I always wonder, and I think Andrea had actually asked me this question once and I had already thought about it years before.

I wonder how we would respond if a man walks into this place wearing a dress.

I mean, I'm serious, it's a genuine question.

How would we respond?

It's not an easy answer.

It's not.

Because I don't want our little kids to see that, but at the same time, how would Jesus respond?

You know what I'm saying?

See my dilemma, you know?

And I can hear it now.

I can hear some of the ushers, pastor, I got a man wearing a dress.

I can see some people taking their kids and leaving.

I can see that.

This is why this passage is so powerful because the accusers bring in this woman of Jesus.

They bring them in the temple, in the temple, and Jesus is being seen by everybody else as this leader of holiness.

And so the Pharisees and the scribes, they think, well, surely to protect his position, because sometimes they're more about the position than anything else, Jesus is probably gonna say that this woman needs to be put to death because if he really believes that he is the son of God, he's not gonna stand for this wickedness and he's also gotta protect his image.

That's a trap.

That's the trap.

Jesus was damned either way in the way that he answered because if he says no, this woman does not need to be condemned, you should not stone this woman, well then that's kind of him disregarding or lessening the law, but if he says yes, the trap is he's not allowed as a Jewish man to issue punishments of death.

That's only reserved for the Romans.

So either way he answered, they were looking to trap him.

You see how the accusers do it, man, they're so sneaky, man.

They had no regard for this woman.

Most commentators believe that this whole thing was staged because the Old Testament law actually says that the man and the woman need to be presented.

So they staged this whole thing, they bring this woman out and they accuse her and they try to trap Jesus.

Now as a Christian, I think, as a Christian, we should be able to relate to this because sometimes it feels like we're being trapped.

When everybody else is casting stones on social media, everybody's casting, everybody got something to say, there's always a post to post and you're like, dang, should I post it?

I'm that only Christian that hasn't posted anything.

Should I say something?

When everybody's given their two cents on some type of controversy, sometimes it feels like a trap.

Should I condemn or should I show mercy?

And I believe that Christians still haven't learned how to do this effectively because there is absolutely a place for condemnation but in the same breath, a place for mercy.

It doesn't have to be one or the other.

I'm gonna say that again because sometimes you think that you have to choose.

I have to either condemn this person or show mercy and be seen as weak and not a real Christian.

There's a place to condemn but also show mercy in the exact same breath.

And the answer that Jesus gives, it surprises everybody because essentially the question is, Jesus, doesn't this woman deserve the punishment for her actions?

And the answer Jesus gives is, well, doesn't she also deserve mercy?

In fact, if we're gonna ask, doesn't she deserve to be put to death, let's ask the question of everybody in the room.

Let's make it general.

If you are worthy to hold a stone and inflict judgment, he says, throw it.

You're right, that's what the law says.

They kind of twisted the law a little bit but he's saying, yeah, you're right.

According to the law, she deserves the punishment.

And so he says, if you're worthy to hold that stone and inflict the judgment, go ahead and do it.

In Old Testament law, the person who brought the accusation against a person had to be so sure of their accusation that they had to be willing to throw the first stone.

I think it's in Deuteronomy, I don't know the exact reference, but it's somewhere in Deuteronomy that it says, if you are the one who brought the accusation against somebody else, you have to be the first one to throw the stone.

You don't just hand it off to the authorities.

You don't just bring it to your pastor, let him deal with it.

Bring it to your leaders, they'll take care of it.

I did my part.

No, you have to be willing to throw down and get dirty.

Come on.

So Jesus says, okay, well let him who is without sin be the first to throw the stone at her.

He's sanctioning it.

He's like, all right, you're right, you're right, you're right.

So those who are without sin, go ahead and do it.

The answer that Jesus gives is yes, stone her, but it comes with a caveat.

Let him who has no sin cast the first stone.

See, Jesus has always understood what it means to separate the sin from the sinner.

We don't do that very well.

We look at a person and we look at them with sin and we call them sin and we condemn the whole person.

Jesus looks at the sin as a cancer that needs to be out and needs to be cast out and needs to be taken out.

They need to be set free from this thing that is crippling them and killing them.

And once they do that, the person can be free.

That's how we need to see people.

People are not cancer.

The sin is the cancer.

And Jesus is saying, if you have sin, you have no stone to throw.

You're out of ammo.

We have to remember that, church, when the worst of the worst come into this place.

We have to remember that when the ones at all the other churches sent to this one, go to PNEUMA.

We have to remember that.

We have to remember, and it's so, I mean, it's something that we know, but it's so easy that we, it's something so easy that we fall into.

We're not a social club, right?

This isn't about people fitting in to social groups.

This is about healing and restoration.

I don't care if somebody doesn't fit into your circle group of friends.

I don't care if they don't get invited to your birthday party, but show them the love that Jesus showed them, and stop treating them like an outcast just because they're not like you.

I don't care, man, if they look weird, if they smell bad, they got all kinds of issues.

If this is a place where the glory of God fills, we have to know how to respond to the sinners.

And not just me, and not just the pastors or the leaders, I'm talking to the Christians.

I'm talking to you, homeboy, homegirl.

I'm talking to you this morning because none of us, none of us has a stone to throw.

The only person in that room who was worthy enough to deliver such a punishment was Jesus.

And he says, "Woman, where are they?

" He says, "Has anybody condemned you?

" She says, "No.

" He says, "Well, neither do I.

I don't condemn you either.

" Go and sin no more.

That last verse is key to this whole thing because Jesus condemned the sin, but he did not condemn her.

He rebuked the sin, but he didn't rebuke her.

Look, we have to be bold enough to condemn the sin when we see it.

We can't tolerate it.

That's a rebuke.

That's a constant rebuke from Paul.

You can't tolerate sin in your midst.

You have to call it out.

You have to rebuke it.

We cannot shy away from it, but we also need to learn how not to condemn the people while we're doing it.

One of the mistakes that I made as a pastor, and I still think about it all the time, I'm ashamed to even say it because it makes me look bad, but it helps the sermon, so anything to help the sermon.

(congregation laughing) A few years ago, we were doing water baptisms, and it came to my attention that one of the people who was getting baptized was a man who was openly living with his girlfriend, obviously unmarried.

And so there's the implication there that there's sexual intimacy that is outside of marriage.

That is sin.

And so he was signed up to get baptized, and this came to my attention.

It was like out in the open, and nobody was asking the question, but it was like that big, unasked question, what are you gonna do about this problem?

Yeah, shouldn't we address it before baptizing him?

If this was him signing up for ministry, then absolutely, we have to have standards for our leaders and our ministers.

What about water baptism?

Can I, in good conscience, baptize someone who I know would continue in their sin?

That was my dilemma.

That, I felt trapped.

Man, I felt trapped.

And I was not wise enough to seek out counsel.

I didn't call my dad.

I didn't ask him how he would do, I didn't ask.

I just kinda dealt with it on my own, and ultimately, I made the decision that maybe he wasn't ready.

You know, confront the issue in love, but let him know that maybe he needs to wait.

And he received everything well without any issue, but suddenly, we stopped seeing him at church.

And I haven't talked to him since, but I just can't shake that thought that maybe I did more harm than good by not having the correct response.

This man wasn't trying to be in ministry.

He was trying to be baptized.

And the pastor told him no.

Man, I remember having conversation with God, crying.

Lord, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I felt immediate guilt, like Lord, I'm sorry I didn't respond the right way.

In my attempt to correct the sin, I turned away the sinner who was just trying to get right with you.

Don't fire me.

That was a few years ago.

Look, honestly, I was trying to do the right thing.

I was trying to do right by God, right?

My heart was in the right place.

Y'all know me.

I'm not malicious in anything that I do.

And I think most of us are, right?

Most of us, we have the good intentions, but how many times does the church lose opportunities of seeing people truly transformed and restored because we don't have the proper response to those that are seeking answers?

God may have allowed people to come into your life, into your life, into your midst, and they have a distorted view of what love is, or they have these identity issues.

They may have, maybe they caused you personal harm, and you don't care for them too much because of what they did to you.

Who have you stopped befriending, and is it for good reason?

Who have you given up on because their beliefs are a little bit different from you, and every time you have a conversation with them, it always leads to an argument.

How are you responding to the sinners that come into your life?

We read this passage, and man, we're so in awe of the powerful response of Jesus, but the reason he responds this way is so that we would respond this way.

Jesus says, "Forgive those who sin against you "so that your Father in heaven will forgive you.

" It's so easy to say show grace when the offense isn't done towards you.

See, oh no.

You gotta show grace.

They didn't hurt you.

They didn't hurt you, but when the sin is against you, oh, it's a lot harder.

Pastor, I'm still dealing with it.

And you know what I think?

This is what I think.

If you live a life of sin, that is not an offense towards me.

I'm sad about it.

I don't want you to be in sin, but that's not an offense to me.

That's an offense to God.

If you are walking in sin, every step you take is against the holy God because you are living in a way that is contrary to who he is.

He has every reason and every stone to throw, and yet every time he receives us with his grace and with his mercy and with his love.

And yet when somebody hurts your feelings, you're crying about it.

Church, we have to be ready.

We have to be ready for the sinners, for the sinners who not only come into this place, but come into your life.

Because look, man, the same people, I'm gonna ask the worship team to come up, the same people who are tasked with building the church, us, are the same people who have the power to tear it down.

PNEUMA is a house of healing.

Right?

PNEUMA's a house of healing.

It's a house of restoration.

But before you can get healed, you gotta walk in sick.

We are a house of freedom.

Man, freedom.

But in order to be free, you have to have some change on you first.

We are, yes, we are a house of holiness, called to be sanctified.

But before you can get to holy, you gotta go through filthy.

And most important of all, we are a place of righteousness.

But in order to be righteous, Paul says that you are a sinner.

Nobody is righteous without first being a sinner.

And I believe that God is saying this morning, man, that we need to make room for those who don't know how to do church.

You need to make room for the people that don't smell good.

Oh, and we've had 'em come.

(gentle music) And they want prayer too.

I mean, it's funny, but it's not funny, like they do.

They need the filthy people, the ones that you don't wanna touch.

Sometimes you gotta lay hands on them too.

God is saying make room for the ones that don't look like you.

Because if you make room for the ones that don't look like you, maybe tomorrow they'll start to look a little bit more like Christ.

And that's the whole point.

Because the glory of God is gonna continue in this place.

I believe it with all my heart, all my heart.

This is a place where the Spirit of God, He resides in every single one of us.

I know you, I'm friends with many of you.

You are, man, you guys are a holy priesthood.

And that's what God abides in.

And every time we're together, the glory of God falls.

And it's only gonna become bigger and thicker, and that presence is gonna be able to be seen.

There are so many areas of the city, but we have to make room for the people that need it the most, the people that need healing, the people that need freedom, the people that need salvation.

Like I said, I didn't plan to preach this message.

I didn't have anything.

God just gave me the reference.

I was like, all right, I'll figure it out, I guess.

But this is what He's saying.

We are a house of His presence.

We are people of the presence.

But we have to make room.

We have to make room for the sinners.

If you believe that with me, I want you to pray.

That God, this will be the year of the Father.

This will be a year where your family members will think and say, I want you to believe that we're the culture of prayer every day, that person that's who your prayer is, that person that you like or don't even like them that much, and maybe I'll pray for you, but hopefully you'll become your archer.

That's cool, that's fine, but pray for them.

Pray for them, and begin to believe that this is the year of salvation and harvest.

Harvest!

We need more Jesus in the world.

We need more Jesus.

We need more Jesus in the culture.

And we need more Christians to make room.

Look, some of you are gonna leave here today.

You're not gonna remember a single thing about this message, but I want you to remember one thing, one thing.

Too many Christians walk around with a bag full of stones.

And you've gotta remember that Jesus never gave you stones.

He gave you grace.

He never gave you a single stone.

Even when you were in the center of it.

Even when everybody else wanted to throw them against you.

Even when you wanted to pick up that rock and get yourself with it because you know that you deserve it.

Jesus never gave you a stone.

He gave you mercy.

And if he gave you mercy, that means you got no stones to throw.

But you've got all the mercy to share and spread with everybody else who needs it.

The only one worthy to cast a mercy on you and cast a single one.

He gave you a center of grace.

Second insurance.

As deep as that cut of sin was, baby.

As enslaved as you were, he gave you freedom.

He never gave you a stone.

And I'm challenging you today, New York, to drop every stone you've got against your family member.

When some of you are waiting to get out of here to rebuke somebody, stop, drop the stone.

Drop the stone.

Stop writing that comment on social media.

I know you're mad, drop the stone.

- Thanks for listening.

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

org.

If you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe or share it with your friends on social media and tag us @mypneumachurch.

Thanks again and God bless.

(soft music)