(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) ♪ Feel, feel, feel ♪ - Amen.

Are we happy to be in the house of God this morning?

Amen.

God is good?

All the time.

Amen.

Praise the Lord.

I hope you're doing well.

And real quick guys, while we're just standing, can we just take a moment to just honor the women in our lives who have dedicated themselves to motherhood, whether she's your mom or the mother to your children or a spiritual mom.

Can we just give it up for them real quick?

(congregation applauding) Let them know how grateful we are.

We thank you for loving and nurturing and fighting and teaching.

Moms are amazing, man.

And someone had a really nice idea to do something.

Just stay standing with me for a moment.

That I didn't think about, I wouldn't have thought about because I have my mom.

My mom's here.

I'm grateful for my mom.

She's a great mother and I love her.

And this woman probably calls me three times a day and just to see what I'm doing.

And she knows this, it's not a surprise, but sometimes that kind of gets annoying a little bit.

Right?

And I often have to check myself and realize that sometimes I do take that for granted because I know that there's a lot of people in the room who no longer receive those phone calls from their mom and you would do anything just to have one more conversation with her.

I'm not trying to make anybody cry, but 100 years from now when my mom goes to be with the Lord, I want somebody to give me the opportunity to do this as well.

And I don't know how well it's gonna work because we have the kids with us today, but I want us to take just 20 seconds of silence to remember and honor those women who made an impact in our lives and in the lives of so many others who are no longer with us today.

Can we just do that?

20, 25 seconds in silence.

Amen.

Can we give it up for them too?

Come on. (congregation applauding) Praise the Lord.

Amen.

I want you to open your Bibles with me to the book of 2 Kings chapter four, verses eight through 28.

If you're visiting here this morning, I wanna welcome you to PNEUMA Church.

We thank you for visiting.

You are already family.

You're already locked in.

You can't go anywhere else.

And just to give you an idea, usually we have our, we have amazing children's program, children's pastors, and usually our children are over there in children's church.

Today they're with us to celebrate Mother's Day.

I hope that's not a burden to you.

But 2 Kings chapter four, are we there?

Amen.

We're gonna read a little bit this morning.

This is a very popular story of the Shunammite woman, and it says this, begin with verse eight.

One day, Elijah went to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food.

So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food.

And she said to her husband, "Behold, now I know that there is a holy man, "that this is a holy man "who is continually passing our way.

"Let us make a small room on the room with walls "and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, "so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there."

And one day he came, and he turned into the chamber and rested there.

And he said to Gehazi, his servant, "Call this Shunammite."

When he called her, she stood before him.

And he said to him, "Say now to her, "see you have taken all this trouble for us.

"What is it to be done for you?

"Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king "or to the commander of the army?"

And she answered, "I dwell among my own people."

And she said, "What then is to be done for her?"

Gehazi answered, "Well, she has no son, "and her husband is old."

And he said, "Call her."

And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway, and he said, "At this season, about this time next year, "you shall embrace a son."

And she said, "No, my lord, O man of God, "do not lie to your servant."

But the woman conceived, and she bore a son about that time the following spring, as Elijah had said to her.

When the child had grown, he went out one day to his father among the reapers, and he said to his father, "O my head, my head!"

The father said to his servant, "Carry him to his mother."

And when he had lifted him and brought him to his mother, the child sat on her lap till noon, and then he died.

And she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God and shut the door behind him and went out.

And then she called to her husband and said, "Send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys "that I may quickly go to the man of God "and come back again."

And he said, "Why will you go to him today?

"It is neither new moon nor Sabbath."

And she said, "All is well."

Then she saddled the donkey, and she said to her servant, "Urge the animal on, do not slacken the pace for me "unless I tell you."

So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

And when the man of God saw her coming, he said to Gehazi, his servant, "Look, there is a Shinnomite.

"Run at once to meet her and say to her, "Is all well with you, is all well with your husband, "is all well with your child?"

And she answered, "All is well."

And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet and Gehazi came to push her away but the man of God said, "Leave her alone, "for she is in bitter distress, "and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me."

Then she said, "Did I ask my Lord for a son?

"Did I not say, 'Do not deceive me?'"

Let's go to God in prayer.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for this word that you've spoken over your servant, my God, and to your servant, Lord, I pray that we would be receptive to your word, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would be on my lips, my God, that I'd be sensitive to whatever you wanna do, whatever you wanna say.

And I pray, my God, that this word would impact the depths of our hearts and our spirits and our minds, Father God, that he would equip and encourage, my God, and even convict in Jesus' holy name, amen.

Amen.

You may be seated. (clears throat) I jokingly, I told my wife I was gonna make the joke that the title of my sermon today was Jezebel.

But she said, "I think the only ones who would laugh "are the men."

So I didn't do the joke, but I had to say it because I thought it was good.

No, but this story is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.

I love this story of the Shinnomite woman.

I think it's one of our favorites just as a whole.

This is a story of this woman, this mother, who finds herself in the peace of the Lord in the midst of the most tragic event she has probably ever faced in her life, where her son, that she didn't even ask for, that maybe she had been asking for for a long time, but she kind of stopped asking.

Now he's given to her as a gift and a blessing from the Lord and he's taken away from her.

And she finds herself in the peace of God.

This is a model woman of faith and peace, man, if there ever was one.

And I think that's why we admire this woman, this unnamed woman.

You know, there's people that go through seasons who, man, they seem like untouched by the things that they go through.

And you wonder how they can be so calm and so at peace with everything they're going through.

There's also people who go through things that nobody ever knows or hears about.

And so we just assume that that person is good and they have an easy life and that they're just walking in the blessings of the Lord.

You know, there's some people who are gonna let you know when they're in need, right?

Shoot, they'll post it all over Facebook, right?

They're unashamed to ask for help from anybody that they can get it from.

And these people may carry sometimes a victim type of mindset that needs to break, and that's another sermon, but there is also those people who have a pride mindset that needs to break.

These are those who don't like to let people see that they're bleeding.

These are the ones who always say, I'm good.

They come to church with a mask on and that tells the world, I'm doing okay, I'm blessed and I'm highly favored, and I think we see more of that in the church than anything else.

I preached this a couple of years ago on this text.

The sermon was called Everything is Fine.

I think that is the default response when somebody asks the question, how are you doing?

Is everything okay?

What do you say?

I'm good, I'm fine.

Man, you know better than to accept I'm fine from your wife, right?

You know that if she says I'm fine, she's everything but fine, right?

But this is what we say inside and outside of the church.

It's become such a casual question.

Why would we give such a profound response?

By the way, yesterday I was asked by three different people if I was okay.

Apparently I was looking and acting differently.

And so I appreciate those people, one of them was Andrea, I appreciate those people asking if I was good, because I know that you weren't asking casually, you were asking a real question.

But for real, I was good.

I don't know what kind of vibe I was giving off yesterday, but I'm good.

But as I was reading through this story again, I noticed another lesson that I hope will encourage all of us, but especially moms, who go through seasons where their strength is being tested.

And so today's word is called full transparency, and we're just gonna keep it real, amen?

Can I just have a little bit of your attention?

I know you got your kids there with you, but I just, I want this word, I don't even want it just to encourage you out, my hope is that it heals you.

I want this word to heal, I don't wanna just build you up and pat you on the back and send you on your way.

I believe there are people who come into the house of God that are tired of just being encouraged, they need to be healed.

They need to be restored.

And if you can't be real in the presence of God, if you can't be real in the presence of the saints, of the brethren, that's the problem.

Because the truth is, we all have real problems, everybody in this room has a real problem, and it's not until we're honest about those real problems that real change begins to manifest.

We live in a culture that believes strength is power.

That's what we're told, strength is power.

And so we walk around as if everything is fine, and most of the times when we're going through a season of pain, we do well to cover it up so that people don't know about it.

And if it's too much pain and we can't pretend to cover it up, we just don't show up.

That's what we do.

If the pain is too real for me to fake a smile, we just resolve to stop coming to church so that people don't see the real pain.

Because God forbid we come into the house of God with real needs and with real tears and real distress and hurt where the saints can actually pray for me.

No, we think that we have to be strong because strength is power.

Can I tell you that?

That's a lie.

Because as scripture would have us believe, weakness is actually power.

Or at least it leads to power.

Because when we're strong, we're operating in our own strength, which only takes us so far.

But when we know how to be weak, and when we know how to be vulnerable, and we know how to ask for help from the right people, that allows our weaknesses to be replaced with God's strength.

And his strength takes us very, very far, more than our own strength can do.

So as counterintuitive as it sounds, when you know how to be weak the right way, that leads to you being stronger.

You following?

And I'm not gonna lie, I think women often display more strength than men do. (congregation murmuring) Because they know how to be weak.

And some of you are like, is that a compliment?

It is, it is a compliment.

Men, man, it's harder for us to show weakness.

And I'm not saying that it's easy for women either, but it's an admirable quality that I think many women do have.

They have meekness.

And because of this, women are also strong in many ways that men are not.

Spiritually speaking.

I don't know if you know this, but across the board, women attend church way more regularly than men do.

There's been countless studies done over centuries that reveal that women tend to be more religious than men are.

And I think that's true.

As a pastor, I see it.

I see way more women involvement in the church than I see men involvement.

And that's, a lot has changed.

I think it's been done with a lot of intentionality, but still, even at our church, our Wednesday classes, they might average 20 women to about 10 men, maybe.

There are more single mothers in the church than there are single fathers.

Yesterday, we had our first Spanish marriage conference.

It was beautiful.

There was like three single women that showed up to a marriage conference because they wanted to get ready for the time when they entered marriage.

I don't think a single man showed up.

And usually, if a couple is married and one of the spouses is not in church, that spouse is the husband.

There's more women in the church.

And as a result, there's more women coming to God and being vulnerable in the presence of the Lord.

And so if this is true, we can safely make the generalization that women, spiritually speaking, tend to be stronger than men.

See or not?

And I'm not speaking individually.

Some of the men of God in the room are like, she ain't stronger than I am.

She don't pray harder than I do.

I'm talking about just broadly, women tend to be stronger spiritually than men.

And it's not Father's Day, so I'm not gonna dog on the men.

That's for Father's Day.

But listen, this is why women in the church, mothers in the church, wives in the church, are so often tired and restless and that they're not happy and they're in a rush everywhere they go and they're quick to tears if they break a nail, not because they're sensitive, but because they are carrying weight that is so heavenly on their shoulders that is not meant for them to carry on their own.

And I know that I'm not talking to everybody in the room today.

And I know and I thank God for men who carry the spiritual burdens of their home, but can we also just acknowledge the reality that so many women in our churches are going through real issues all by themselves and we don't talk about it very often.

Many times it's the woman at these altars and she's representing her home and she's fighting for her children and she's fighting for her marriage and she's fighting for the salvation of her loved ones and her husband.

She's not afraid to be weak in the presence of God.

And because she's not afraid to be weak in the presence of God, she is strengthened by God constantly.

That's what God does.

He gives us strength for us to go out and endure the battle.

I don't know about you, but when I come out of the presence of God, I am empowered, I am filled, I am replenished with the things that I was running low on.

Even Jesus had to rest in the presence of his Father after a long day of ministry because ministry and faith and holding that tongue when you wanna give somebody all your words takes work, it's work.

And so when you come into the presence of God, he fills you and you're ready for the day again, you're ready for the week again.

But what ends up happening, and I see this all the time, church, is we get to a point where we're tired of always being strengthened.

We get tired of the spiritual maintenance that allows us to keep on operating at such a high capacity.

We get tired of coming to the same spot at the altar, the same time every Sunday to pray the same prayer that we've been praying for years.

We get tired of waiting.

We get tired of listening to the words of the encouragement, oh, that he's gonna change, you just gotta wait a little bit longer.

How many of you are tired of waiting?

We're gonna be real, we're gonna be real because we're humans.

And these are all things that we think in our mind, but we don't wanna say out loud.

But some of us are tired of the words of encouragement.

But what are we to do?

As a pastor, I'm gonna encourage you, I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna preach about faith that moves mountains, but sometimes we're sitting there and like, another sermon on faith?

If I have to hear another sermon about the faith that I've been holding onto for 10 years, we're tired of always being tired.

And so this is what happens, we reach a point that many of us mistake as maturity, where we say this is just how life is, God is going to have a struggle, it is what it is.

I'll just have to stay strong.

And now you can't even be weak at the altar anymore.

You can't even have a weak moment in the presence of God where you're breaking down, and so you cover it up by praying for everybody else at the altar.

'Cause you don't wanna deal with your own weakness.

Now I'm talking to some of the leaders.

I'm talking to some of the pastors, because I know that as a pastor, I have covered up my hurt and my pain and my problems by trying to counsel other people with theirs.

And I tell myself, well, I gotta be strong.

Because I've reached a certain level in my faith where I know how to endure.

And so now when people ask you how you're doing, your default response is I'm good.

And this is the point that I'm making.

When we forget how to be weak, we can never be strong.

It's always gonna be fake strength.

It's always gonna be yesterday's anointing.

It's always gonna be testifying about what happened yesterday when you actually were vulnerable in the presence of God and he took you out of that.

And we're always gonna be operating on yesterday's strength because we don't have new strength because we don't know how to be weak.

I don't know if I'm preaching to anybody this morning.

I don't know if you're getting this.

I know it's a little confusing to be weak and to be strong, and to be strong is to be weak.

But the Bible says that this woman, she was a wealthy woman.

She was married to an older man, she had no children.

She didn't have anything to ask for when Elijah, the man of God, asked her, what could I do to repay your hospitality?

She said she was good.

And so I'm led to believe that this Shinnomite woman, she was a self-sufficient woman.

How many of you were raised by self-sufficient women?

Come on.

They could do it.

They could do it.

They could do all the things.

And so this self-sufficient woman, one day she tells her husband, we're gonna prepare a room for this man of God.

Get it ready.

You know how women do, you know?

And she probably like, we're gonna have some shelves here and some shiplap right here.

Probably made so many Home Depot runs.

She had determined that she was gonna honor God by honoring the man of God, and she wasn't asking for anything back from God.

And as I think about this woman, I think, man, how many women just in this church are responsible for having God in their home?

Because the woman decided to start seeking him.

Because the woman decided that the devil was not gonna have her children.

The woman decided that her home was gonna be set apart and consecrated as holy.

You're strong.

You're strong.

And that's what you tell yourself.

And that's what you believe.

Women have been graced, man, with the ability to multitask and to do things with excellence.

You can be a good mom and a good wife.

You can be a good Christian and a good member of your church, all without the help of anybody.

I'm talking to my wife and I'm talking to my mama.

God forbids something happens to my wife.

I would be a mess.

Something's gonna give.

I can't even figure out how to do Layla's hair the right way.

I'd be doing ponytails all day, all day every day.

And then even then, when I do a ponytail, Layla calls it a prison ponytail.

Like it's like way down low, it's all sloppy, wasn't done with love.

I'm like, girl, give me grace, I don't even have hair.

And your hair's super complicated.

I told my wife, I told Melissa one time, because I think I was on a streak of just messing up as a dad and just, you know, not like I was missing important events.

I was just screwing up here and there.

I think I messed up like the lunches a couple times and sending them to school.

And so, you know, kind of frustrates your wife when she tells you already one time how to do something and you don't do it right.

Amen, amen.

But I had to reassure her, I said, babe, babe, if something ever were to happen to you, I swear I would figure these things out.

Because I think sometimes she's scared for my children.

Like, man, I gotta stay alive, you know?

But I told her, I swear if something, God forbid, happens to you, I would figure it out.

I'd figure out a way to keep these children in the Lord and growing up and on top of their grades and become successful and good, decent human beings.

I swear I'd figure it out.

I'd figure out how to do their lunches.

And when it comes to matters of spirituality, I think that's what a lot of women do.

They just figure it out.

Because they have to.

They have to.

If your husband is a man of faith or not, you're gonna figure out how to be a woman of faith.

And I commend you and I honor the women and respect you for doing that all by yourself, what so many women or so many people cannot do.

I've always admired that, since a little boy seeing mothers, single mothers, dragging their families to church because my children are gonna grow up in the Lord.

Because my children are gonna grow up and find a godly spouse.

I commend you and I honor you and I respect you for doing that on your own.

I don't know that I could do it.

This woman was a woman of faith with or without her husband.

And so she was ready to make this trip after the death of her son.

She's gonna go see Elijah and her husband says, "What's the point?

"Our son is gone."

He says, "Why bother the prophet?

"What is the prophet gonna do?

"He's already, our son is already gone."

And the woman says, "All is well."

Someone say that with me this morning.

"All is well."

All is well.

See, we talk about the good and we talk about the strength and we talk about the peace that the Shinnomite woman displayed.

Those are the messages that we preach in her honor.

But we never talk about the mistake that she was about to make in her attempt to be strong.

This is an admirable quality, the ability to be at peace in the midst of chaos.

I talk about it all the time.

It's an admirable quality.

She's saying all is well.

The word that she's using is shalom.

She's saying I am at peace.

I am at peace.

My son is dead.

I am at peace.

I'm gonna go see the prophet.

He's not gonna wanna see you.

You're not even gonna be able to find him.

I'm at peace.

The ability to declare that in the midst of tragedy, man, that takes maturity.

That takes a woman of faith.

And I know we've got a lot of you in the room today where you can be going through something and be like this woman.

She's not frantic.

She's calm.

She's controlled.

She's not yelling.

She's not causing a scene.

She's not screaming.

She's not making stupid decisions in her desperation.

She is saying shalom, peace over her life.

And I know she believes it.

She knows that even though her son is dead, God is still good.

And all the time he is good.

She knows that even though she's going through this, that God is still in control.

And though she doesn't understand the what's and the whys, she knows who her God is.

Nothing can ever change that.

No situation can ever change who God is in her life.

But while she is saying all is well, something in her spirit is not.

It's not.

This is something we don't catch.

We think man, she's so at peace.

And she tells her husband I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Everything is good.

She tells Elijah's servant I'm fine.

And it's only until she gets to the man of God, Elijah, that she's confronted about it.

He says this woman is in bitter distress.

You're saying all is well, but your soul is troubled.

Did you know that it's okay to declare that God is good while admitting that you're not?

It's okay to dwell in the peace of God while you're outside in a storm and you're getting poured on by rain.

It's sometimes we have to remind ourselves, and we gotta remind the devil because he likes to lie, that my faith is secure.

Listen, my faith is secure.

My love for God is good.

No matter what I go through, I will stand firm in my faith because I know the goodness of God.

I will continue to worship in spirit and in truth just like Job.

Even if everything is stripped away from me, I am secure in who I am in the Lord.

But right now, I'm not okay.

And that's okay to say that.

Church, we have to understand that a moment of weakness does not mean that you're losing your faith.

That's the fakeness that we confront.

That is the hypocrisy that we confront.

You know, I was having a conversation with somebody this week about hypocrisy.

A lot of Christians, or I'm sorry, a lot of unbelievers criticize the church because they're fake.

They're fake.

They act one way, they act holy in the church and unholy outside of the church.

And I think for most mature Christians, we can agree that that is not the way to display holiness.

We can call it what it is.

It is hypocrisy.

But can we also be honest that we are hypocrites in the way that we demonstrate to people that we're okay while we're actually not?

That is also hypocrisy.

You're saying you're good when you're not.

You're a hypocrite.

And if we continue to believe these lies, we're never gonna be strengthened by God.

And we will never, listen, we will never be edified by the body.

I'm preaching now.

I'm preaching on that last point.

Because some people say, well, I'll just go to God with all my problems.

People don't need to know what I'm going through.

The church doesn't need to know what I'm going through.

Pastor doesn't need to know what I'm going through.

And I just wanna caution the man, the woman of God who holds that mentality because the Bible says in James if anybody is suffering, if anybody is sick, let the elders of the church know so that we can lay hands and we can pray and believe in faith for your healing.

He says confess your sins to one another.

And then he gives a reason.

He says the prayers of the righteous availeth much.

Stop letting your pride keep you from righteous prayers that can actually lead to your healing. (congregation applauding) You don't get healed by words of encouragement.

I can present a beautiful, nice little sermon that's gonna puff you up for a moment.

But it's not until you allow healing to take its effect that you will be transformed.

And healing requires a little bit of vulnerability and transparency.

It's hard for me to trust a person who doesn't cry when tears are warranted.

You're either a serial killer, a stone cold, or you're just lying about the way that you really feel.

I just, I know some people are strong and they can hold back those tears.

I just don't buy the image that you're projecting by not allowing yourself to feel what you need to feel so that it can lead to a healing and transformation.

I don't believe that you have no emotion while you're going through a very hard situation in your life.

You know, for those who know me, like know me, know me, you know that I'm not, I'm very slow to anger.

Not a lot of things get me angry.

I'm just wired that way.

I don't know why.

Sometimes I wish I could get a little bit more angry.

I just can't.

I just got the joy of the Lord.

I don't know. (congregation laughing) But those who know me know when I'm frustrated.

I wear it on my face, you hear it in my voice.

And I used to think, I used to tell myself, you're a pastor, don't let people see your frustration.

I used to tell myself that.

You gotta be composed.

Don't let people see that you're frustrated.

But that's a lie.

Can I tell you that's a lie?

And this is why so many pastors quit pastoring because they never confront their frustration with the people that they're frustrated with.

They let it build.

And it grows into bitterness and resentment and chronic anger all because they were afraid to be weak.

Look, I'm not saying that you need to go around sharing all your business with everybody and being emotional with everybody who needs, not everybody needs to hear it.

But if you are in the house of restoration, you can't restore something without honesty.

You are in a house of healing, show your sickness.

Come on, you're in the house of freedom.

It's okay to show the shame.

Before you can be delivered from a demonic spirit, the demonic spirit has to manifest.

It's gotta reveal its ugly face and you have to deal with it and you have to confront it as a man or a woman of God and you have to cast it out because it has to be shown for you to be able to confront it and cast it out.

And sometimes we've got, we're carrying demons and he wants to manifest and we're like, ah, you get in there, don't let them see it.

But if you don't let them see it, you're always gonna be living with it.

You can't be free unless you're vulnerable.

This is a place of rest.

Show your tiredness.

When did we forget that the house of God is like a hospital?

It's not a movie theater, it's not a Broadway show, it's not a place to feel emotion.

This is a hospital, this is a house of freedom, this is a house of miracles.

When did we stop believing these things?

Jesus says it's not the well who need a physician, it is the sick.

He said I came for the sinners, I came to redeem.

You don't need to be strong when you're not.

I can tell you as a man, you still with me?

I'll just be vulnerable.

As a man, I have stressed out about finances.

Maybe many of you have, but for a long time that was something that I was ashamed to even talk about.

I don't want people, I didn't want people knowing that I'm going through financial struggles.

And for a while, shortly after Ellie, our second, was born, I was worried.

So it was a time where Melissa, we just made a decision where she wasn't gonna work anymore and it was catching up to me.

And I was getting worried and I was trying, I was worried without her knowing.

I was trying to find more business and more work, increase our income without stressing her out.

Because there's something about my wife, man.

She's at peace when she's oblivious, when she doesn't know that the sky is falling down because I'm over here like, uh-uh, she ain't gonna know this, she ain't gonna know this.

And for me as a man, that's my way of protecting her and her sanity because I want my wife to be happy, happy wife, happy life.

And so for months, I was just carrying this.

And I was like, man, we're running out of our savings and I don't know if we're gonna be able to make it.

And finally, one day, I just tell her, I said, "Babe, I'm worried.

"I'm scared," I told her.

And I didn't say that because I was indirectly or directly asking her to go back to work.

I was, I don't know, maybe that's my man pride, but I was not intending on asking her that.

I was just, I needed to share it with her.

Babe, I'm worried right now.

We gotta figure something out.

And you know what she does as my helpmate?

She offers.

She's like, "I can go back to work.

"We gotta do what we gotta do."

She offered to help because she saw the strain that I was carrying on my shoulders.

She's a good woman, man, good woman.

And my heart breaks because I know that there's a lot of women carrying spiritual burdens of their families all by themselves.

And they're stressed and they're tired and they're worried and they're on the verge of quitting.

And you might wish that you could just go home and have that same type of conversation with somebody who would understand and say, "I'm worried and I'm tired and I'm angry "and I need some help."

But for whatever reason, many of these women don't have the helpmate to offer to carry some of that spiritual burden.

So they have to keep doing it by themselves.

Maybe this Shunammite woman thought, "My husband doesn't understand."

Maybe she thought that if she allowed him to see her pain, he would wonder if God was really with her.

I'm gonna have the worship team come up.

You know, so many of us, we do that on behalf of somebody else's weaker faith or maybe somebody who has no faith because you talk about how good God is all the time and you talk about the peace that you have in knowing him and you talk about how blessed you are and highly favored and then something terrible happens in your life.

You don't want them to question God's faithfulness in your life and so you keep that pain hidden and you pretend like all is well.

That's what she tells her husband.

All is well, I'm good.

I'm gonna go see the prophet.

In verse 27, I'm just gonna read that again.

It says, "And when she came to the mountain, "to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet.

"And Gehazi came to push her away, "but the man of God said, 'Leave her alone, "'for she is in bitter distress.'"

He says, "And the Lord has hidden it from me."

Man, can I just tell you that, and I don't know, hopefully you don't know who I'm talking about if you're this person, but God has put certain individuals in my heart recently and for the past two weeks or so, well, I'm sorry, two weeks ago or so, I remember being at the altar and I was praying over this person and as soon as I laid my hand over this person, can I just tell you, church, I felt a tremendous burden, like just a massive burden.

It's like God allowed me to know that this person is in pain.

This person is not okay most days.

And I remember my hand was extended to this person and I couldn't even get words out to pray.

That's not normal.

Usually I'm spitting, not spitting fire, like I'm spitting saliva.

I'm just spitting, like I'm just, like I have the words, I know what to pray for people and if I don't know what they're dealing with, I just pray a general prayer that the Holy Spirit would be with them and minister to them, but as soon as I laid my hand on this person, it's like God just allowed me to sympathize and feel all the pain that they were experiencing in this moment.

There was such a huge weight, I couldn't even say any words to pray.

This person who after church and before church walks around with a smile, like everything is fine, and you participate in everything at church and you go around and you look happy and you look healthy and you look strong to most people, but if you're honest with yourself, you're not right now.

And I think I'm talking to more than one person today.

I don't think I'm just talking to one person.

I think there's a lot of you who walk in here and pretend like everything's good when you're not.

And I want you to notice that this prophet, Elijah, everybody knows Elijah, the mighty man of God.

One of the greatest prophets.

Man of God, had a deep relationship with God.

God would show him things and things would happen and he had that anointing of prophetic power to do great things in the name of the Lord.

All he knew when he saw this woman was that something wasn't right.

Why didn't God reveal it to him?

What's wrong?

God didn't allow him to know what was wrong with this woman.

You notice that?

He says, "The Lord has hidden it from me."

I know there's something here because I feel it and I see it, but the Lord has hidden it from me.

And sometimes, and I want you to get this, you're still with me.

Sometimes the power of your healing doesn't come from a result of someone else's word of knowledge or prophetic anointing.

The power of your healing comes from your vulnerability and your humility and your ability to be transparent in the presence of God and in the presence of men.

If this was like any other service where we invite a prophet and he singles somebody out and he says, "The Lord is telling me this, "you're going through this, this, this, and that," that type of revelation was hidden from Elijah, one of the greatest men of God to have ever lived.

Why?

Because she needed to be vulnerable.

She needed to have a moment where she stopped saying, "All is well," and admit that not all was well.

If you look at the gospels, Jesus rarely heals through prophetic power.

He heals when people of faith approach his presence in desperation and fall to their knees, unashamed of how they're gonna look before men.

Like the woman with the discharge of blood who knew that if she could just get to Jesus, it didn't matter how it looked, it didn't matter what everybody else was going to say.

She put her life on the line, her reputation on the line, because she knew that if she could just get to Jesus and let him know the problem, she'd be healed.

Just like the friends of this paralytic man who probably broke the laws, and they were criticized by the bystanders, like how are you just gonna make a hole on somebody else's roof?

They bring their friend down to Jesus, they didn't care what people were gonna say or what people were gonna think.

You have to get to a point where you say, "There's nothing to hide, because I'm desperate.

"I'm desperate."

And finally, this woman, after saying, "All is well, all is well, all is well," the prophet calls her out, he says, "Something, you're in bitter distress.

"I don't know what it is, but I need you to tell me."

She says, "Did I ask for a son?"

She says, "Did I not tell you not to lie to me?

"Why have you given me a son just to take him back?

"Why have you allowed me to go through this season?"

She finally lays it all out before the presence of God, and before the presence of men, full transparency.

All is not well.

Listen, you don't need to share everything with everyone.

That's not my message.

There are people that don't need to know what you're going through, but that's all the more reason to surround yourself with people who do.

Make it known to your leaders, make it known to your pastors, make it known to your circle of prayer warriors, and together, bring it to the feet of Jesus so that healing can begin to take place.

Stop dealing with the same thing, stop going through it.

Stop battling by yourself, because I know you're strong.

And I'm talking to everybody, but I wanna just single out the women of God in this room, because I know you do everything.

I know you do a lot.

I wanna remind you that you didn't come to Jesus without repentance.

You didn't come to Jesus without weakness.

You didn't come to Jesus without being vulnerable and humble.

You came to Christ by saying, "Lord, I need you.

I want you to stand with me."

How many of us have come to Christ by saying those words?

"Lord, I need you.

I am not enough.

I can't do this on my own.

My way is not the way, I know it."

We've come to Christ after confessing our sins, and we were baptized in the water that told the church, "The sin that crippled me is no longer binding me."

But now that you are stronger in your faith, as many of you are, that doesn't mean that you're gonna be okay all the time.

There is more to be strengthened.

There is more to grow.

Don't be afraid to be weak.

Don't be afraid to be weak in the presence of God and in the presence of men.

I wanna just remind you, and I'll leave you with this.

It's for every man, every woman, every mother who's tired, you're fighting and you're tired of being positive.

Jesus says, "Come to me, all who labor, all who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

He says, "Take my yoke."

Take it, take my yoke upon you.

Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

I wanna invite you this morning, if you are in need of healing, can I get my prayer team?

Get my prayer team.

I wanna make a call specifically for those who are in need of healing.

You have been battling something, something that you're ashamed of, something that you don't want anybody else to know about.

I want you to, I'm gonna challenge you to come forward, and I want you to share it with somebody.

And maybe you don't even wanna share it with any of us.

Grab your spouse, grab your mother, grab somebody who's with you who came to church with you today.

I want you to come and begin to be healed, because I'm tired of church services with people leaving unhealed and unchanged.

That is not the intent of the gospel.

The gospel is meant to heal and transform and redeem.

But before we go there, we have to be open.

And we have to admit, Lord, I need you, I need you.

If that's you this morning, these altars are open.

This is the only invitation I'm gonna make.

I'm not gonna force you.

If you wanna be healed this morning, it begins here with an open heart and an open mouth.

Thank you, Lord 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. (gentle music) [MUSIC PLAYING]