Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): This is the Power Walk Ministries broadcast, brought to you by Pastor Paul Cannings. Our current series is titled Why Church. A part of how the church functions is through the variety of spiritual gifts which the Holy Spirit blesses each believer with. While diverse in our backgrounds, personalities, talents, and gifts, how can we stay unified and use these gifts for the common good of those around us? Encouraging us to develop and mature in doing so, here is Reverend Cannings with the message Diverse and Unified.

Dr. Paul Cannings: People are not just physical, they are spiritual, they are emotional, and they are mentally strong or mentally weak. What does that mean? That God has designed us to need the church. What do people lack? Community. What is a church about? Community. People are commanded to love one another. You will know my disciples, John chapter 13:34-35, you will know my disciples by the way they love one another. Who will do that? The church.

People not just need emotional help, they need spiritual strength. Why? The fruit of the Spirit is what? Peace, joy, longsuffering, kindness. It is easy for us to say yes, look at the scientists and all the medical doctors, we need them. That is a gift that God has provided to help sustain us. I totally agree with it. But there are still human beings out there that need food. What did God say? Feed the hungry. Take care of the naked. Help those that are weak.

Why church should never have been a question anymore. The issue that we are dealing with this week, why church, should never be a question, should never be something that we actually go back and have a debate about anymore. Because what we found is that people needed what church is supposed to be about. So if church is not doing this, we need to come back and fix it.

It does not mean that because the church may not have provided these things that God does not need us to go to church. No, the church may need to take a look at itself and say what is it that we need to do in order to be what God has called us to be? Because when we are not those things, He takes His lampstand from the church. So that is why we want to spend this time, because this should not even be a question anymore, when we have looked at the fact that people are not just physical.

If children growing up in the family do not find a place where they feel safe, where their parents will stand by them and love them and nurture them and develop them mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, it is just a house where people go to. It is not a home, it is not a family. So what do you do? You fix it.

You do not throw the family away and try to recreate a whole other structure for a family. We fix it. When our computers break down, what do we do? Fix it. When our health is not doing well, what do we do? We seek to fix it. This is why when the church is not doing what it is supposed to do, the issue is how will we make our presence there more effective than just going, looking for what I get out of it, and then walk out the door if I do not and do not come back? That is very selfish.

He says in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 23 through 26, go to church to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. What do people need now? Love. I thank God for a good team of people as a church Living Word here in Houston. People went out there, fed them. Why? It is not the job of the government to do that first, it is the job of the church to do that.

Paul is dealing with a group of people in Corinth that are struggling with this whole concept, why church. They tried to do it the way they want to do it. They tried to come in and they bring in their paganism where they would have their jumping up and down in the temple, babbling and speaking in different tongues, and they had all of these things taking place in their pagan temples. Then they would come and they would want to have the Lord's Supper their way, so Paul has to fix that in chapter 11.

When they come to church there are all kind of immoral issues because they came out of temples where there is a lot of immoral issues. They had prostitutes in the back of the temples and they come to church and Paul has to address immoral issues in chapter 5. So you have a dysfunctional church that Paul is seeking to organize because they are bringing in their paganism into the church and want the church to be what they believe the pagan structure has dictated that it is.

So when they come to church, let us make the church better. And they bring the world to make it better. Many times people come to church that same way. They come believing because they teach in the school system they could teach Sunday school. No, in the church it is a spiritual gift. The Bible is literally saying that when you come to the church doors, drop the paganism, drop what you believe the world has given you to make us all special and wonderful and great because of all the achievements we have, and come into the church focused on what he is going to talk about today in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 4.

So we understand that when we walk in here we are focused on making a great family. When we walk through the church doors, that is what God has focused on because in heaven what matters is what we brought in and developed to make the church, the body of Christ, the only thing he is the head of, productive. Here is the first thing we find in verse 4. He says now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit.

We have to stop there for just a minute because people sometimes like to make the church what they want it to be in terms of unity. Unity in the Bible is diversity. Unity is not sameness, where everybody wears the same dress or the same suit and therefore because we eat the same foods and like listening to the same kind of music, this is a church that's really a unit. And because people like the same kind of music, we see each other at the grocery store and our kids go to the same schools and all of these different things and we are mostly of the same political party and all these things, so we have unity.

The Bible says no that ain't unity in the Bible because God don't need the political parties in heaven, he ain't got no grocery stores in heaven, and he is not going playing golf. When we come to unity, we have to understand it is about the body of Christ. And since it is the body of Christ, then there is diversity in order for a body to have unity because it is trying to achieve a goal, not just trying to be together.

So the more diverse we are but yet unified we are, is the more proficient, efficient we are to get things done productively. The body has different arteries and nerve endings and fingers and hands and elbows and shoulders, and all these different parts make up one body that is controlled by one mind. That is why Christ is the head of all of this. There is a diversity of gifts so unity is actually diversity.

Unity is not the same thing. Even in heaven, God the Father sent the Son to die for us. Jesus Christ in order to save man, they are all same, they are all holy, all righteous, all perfect, but there is three persons. So they have three different functions. God is the one who legislates what is going to take place. Jesus Christ said not my will be done but thy will be done. Why? He legislate.

Christ is the helper of God in accomplishing the goals and purposes of God. So therefore Christ came and died on the cross. When Christ died and rose from the grave, then guess what? The Holy Spirit is now our helper to get what God needs done in and through us. Since God is a spirit being, he connects to his Spirit in us to connect to our spirit so that together we end up achieving the purposes and goals that God has.

So even in heaven there is diversity but yet sameness. And this is what Christ prayed for in John chapter 17. He prayed that there will be unity from verse 20 on. So a church is actually more diverse. This is a huge statement for the people to hear from Paul in Corinth because there is a lot of different cultures around. There is a lot of different people coming in and out of the church because they are a major port city.

So when he is talking about diversity, is he talking about spiritual gifts? Absolutely. He is saying the diversity as you would see in verse 7, but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. It is for the profit, it is for the common good. So that the people, they are going back with a clear understanding of their purpose and function within the church.

So the first thing we are looking at here is when we come into the church, we need to stop trying to make everybody be the same. No, we have to come to having a mindset that we are dealing with diversity, obviously spiritual gifts, but Paul is also going to talk about as we look at different things here in the book of Corinth, different kinds of people because he talks about that throughout the scriptures.

So there is diversity of people. Now here he is saying, he says it is a gift. Obviously, it is not something we earn. It is something that is provided by the Holy Spirit and we do not bring it to the party. That is the beautiful thing about this. That is what I love about it. So we do not have any reason to be arrogant about what God has given to us. There is no comparison.

The Bible said that is sinful in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. He says to compare ourselves among ourselves and to measure ourselves by ourselves is to sin against God. The issue of teaching, even the word teaching or preaching has a different meaning. The word didasko in Greek literally means a person who was going to live the way they were going to live before they ever heard the teaching, when they are impacted, they now want to change the course of their life to go in the direction that God wants them to go in and when that happens, they have actually been taught.

So teaching is to the person who now power walks, who now goes to a different style of living, a different commitment to do what God is saying, and they feel empowered to do it because the transformation is taking place attached to the renewing of the mind that empowers them through the ministry of the Holy Spirit to go a different way. That is when teaching has actually occurred biblically.

So that is why he is saying we need to stop comparing ourselves among ourselves because the Bible says he is not evaluating us in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. He is not evaluating us on the size of what we bring to the table. He is evaluating us on the quality, not the quantity of what we do. When we buy something what are we looking for? Quality.

So when we come to this whole issue, please remember it is a gift. We do not determine the results. We do not determine what it is. The Bible says in 1 Peter chapter 4 he is the one, verse 10, giving the gifts. So we do not get to walk in the door and say I have this gift. We do not decide it. And it is not for us. It is for everyone else.

Maybe it is time for us to slow down and to make the church what he decides it is. Not what the world decides. Not what our feelings determine. But it is his church that he died for. He has the right to say what and who it is because it is about his glory. And it is about his people arriving in heaven prepared to experience him powerfully. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Amen, Dr. Cannings. It is not the diversity of the gifts, but the same Holy Spirit working in all of us. And it is true, unity in the body pleases the Lord. Now friend, if this message has been a blessing to you and you would like to obtain a copy for yourself or for a loved one, then please give us a call at 281-260-7402. Again that is 281-260-7402. You can also visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. And while you are there, take a few minutes to learn more about our ministry.

As we take the message of the gospel and seek to equip the body of Christ effectively, would you consider partnering with us both in prayer as well as through your financial support? You can do so online at powerwalkministries.org or by giving us a call at 281-260-7402.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I would love for you to go to our website at powerwalkministries.org. Powerwalkministries.org. We have a new book out on prayer, When You Pray, and it finishes that sentence throughout the book and I know you will be blessed. We put a lot of work into that new book coming out, When We Pray. So thank you so much for being a part of the powerwalkministries.org, Power Walk Ministries.

Guest (Male): And if you live in the Houston area and you do not have a church home, you are welcome to visit Reverend Cannings and his congregation at Living Word Fellowship Church. It is located at 7350 TC Jester Boulevard in Houston. Please join us again tomorrow for a continuation of this series as we go further into understanding the stewardship of spiritual gifts.

And now remember, we serve one another with our spiritual gifts and as we mature in our faith, we can be so much more effective in our witness to the world because it is all for God's glory.