Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): This is the Power Walk Ministries broadcast, and our current series is titled Relationships, Marriage, and Family. Our speaker, Reverend Paul Cannings, brings us this teaching with a keen desire to help us develop homes that are God-fearing by understanding the concept of headship. There are many homes that we see with extreme dysfunction when God's established order is jeopardized. Perhaps you come from such a home, but it's never too late to make changes and follow God's order to experience His blessings in our lives.

Today Pastor Cannings continues his teaching from Ephesians chapter 5. Here he is now with the second part of the message Guidelines for Families. Let's listen.

Dr. Paul Cannings: So headship, you go back to chapter six where we just read it, had to do with discipline and instruction. It's more of I have to function on headship. Here's the third thing. Somebody qualifies that for me. Just like the woman has to submit as to God, so God is saying I'm going to help you learn who I am, so when you get to look at who I am, you now know who this husband is. Because I'm the one qualifying who this husband is.

So now that you've done this and you've brought your life under Me, and you've disciplined your life to do what I say, you're willing for Me to work out your salvation in fear and trembling. So now you're walking in the Spirit. Matter of fact, let's go back there for just a second. You're walking in the Spirit. When you come to your husband, you see that he can teach the Word, you see that he can walk with God because you are walking in it.

Let's look at chapter five. He says in verse 16, it's to man and woman he's talking about. He's talking to the church here. But I say walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. So hold on to your Bible right there and let's read the flesh. One book back to your left. Here is the flesh. If I choose to walk in the Spirit, this will prevent me from being in the flesh.

The flesh is defined this way: the deeds of the flesh are evident. You never have to ask if a person's in the flesh. It's immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying. He's saying in order to cut this flesh out, you've got to decisively, with a deep commitment, choose to practice what I'm giving you the power to do.

If you don't practice it, then you're not walking in the Word, walking in the Spirit. And when you don't do that, the flesh is attached to you. You're going to fight, you're going to argue in your marriage, you're going to fuss, you're going to say this is my kids, you're going to go to the next room. Dissension, factions, it's the flesh. Because God is no longer head of your life, you are. The flesh will always be lord. The flesh is not trying to come up under nothing.

So watch this carefully. Back to Ephesians. This headship, chapter five, he says making the most of your time for the days are evil is why I tell you watch how much television you look at. You must make the most of your time. You only got a time to live and a time to die. Make the most of your time. Verse 17: so then do not be foolish but understand the will of God. And do not get drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. Then worship will take place. Look at verse 21. And then you'll be subject to one another.

So what is he saying? Before I say husband and wife, let's get in the Spirit because this whole conversation of second part of headship, submission, is not a problem because what I'm talking about you've been doing with Jesus. Because you're not walking in the flesh. What I'm talking about, the Spirit of God is my helper, so you're going to want to be as a wife, a helper. So just like the Spirit helps me, you will want to help me because you're walking in the Spirit. That's what He does. The issue first starts off with: Is He Lord? Before you talk about who's the head.

Look at chapter one of Ephesians. In Ephesians chapter one, this is what he says in verse 22: for He put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him as head. So head is not the first time mentioned in chapter five, it's the first time it's mentioned in chapter one. He's given Him head over all things to the church. He didn't give it to the house first. He gave it to the church first because Christ is the head of the church.

But then he says this. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 11. Look at verse three. He brings up head again. He says in verse three: but I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, whether he's saved or unsaved, Christ is going to rule this thing. He's saying the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. Everybody's listening to the person who's in charge: God.

So headship does not mean because of my gender I'm head. Headship means because I accept His direction that I'm head. If a person is the president of a company, but when they come to the company as the president they don't really care what the policies are, what happens is the chairman of the board moves to fire the person. Because what they're looking for on this board is a president that would carry out what this board wants to do.

If you're in a school system and you're principal, you go, "I'm the principal of the school, I tell you what to do, y'all listen to me." There's a superintendent. And the superintendent has a board. So everybody's in a structure and they are working in that structure to produce a child that is doing well academically.

Bible is saying you can't just walk around saying I'm head. Head don't mean you're heading up nothing because this is My institution. I created male, I created female. You had nothing to do with the body design. I did. I designed this, I designed who gets kids, I designed the whole thing. So you coming into My institution, you can't tell Me in My institution how to run it.

I am the boss, I'm the chairman of the board. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. And I tell you what to do. And until you're willing to listen to what I'm saying, don't be coming in My institution talking about you head of it because you are not. So please understand, headship matches the woman who is going to Christ as head. So therefore if you've got a husband that is watching the headship of God and you're committing to God, you've got a match. That's why in verse 21 he says be subject to one another.

So listen up carefully. I want us to learn this because I had to learn this as a husband. I just had the advantage of Dallas Seminary. And this is what a professor said to me at Dallas Seminary, Dr. Howard Hendricks. This is what changed my life when it came to marriage. He looked at all of us and he said in the class—he's talking about the home—and it changed how I did everything. He said, "If you don't take what I'm teaching seriously, you'll be just like your parents. And you'll come to your marriage the way your parents did. Here's the problem with it: your wife is not your mother."

It literally revolutionized my life. And that's why I am walking through this passage because I had to. I had to learn how to be a husband when I thought I came to marriage knowing how. I honestly did. I didn't. My mom said, even though she did it for my dad, she would say, "No, you come in this kitchen." I have four sisters, so they went in the kitchen with Mom learning how to cook. So therefore, guess who they kicked out the kitchen? Me and my brother. And we had no problems with it. We were glad that they kicked us out and my mom was always kind to say, "Well, here's something to eat in the meantime." So we were getting stuff.

Sometimes we showed up to get stuff. We didn't show up to learn to cook, okay? Me and my little brother, that's what we did. "Hey man, let's go, she's going to give us that thing." She'd give us stuff, you know when they cook cake from scratch? You get the batter. So me and my brother will go, "Alright, alright, alright, let's go man, they look like they got the cake pretty much done." And we'll go and get the batter and we'll sit there on the back steps just eating and talking. So we didn't go—when they kicked us out the kitchen, we went with a plan.

But my mom would bring us to the kitchen and she would say, "No, let me show you how to wash dishes. Let me show you how to put them up." We didn't have no dryer in them days. No, you're going to learn how to wipe these dishes. You're going to learn how to put them up. I learned from her saying those things that even though she was a submissive wife, until she got mad. When my mom got mad, which is a weakness of mine. I have to work at it because I take, take, take. I have to learn in relationships when to say enough.

So what I'm saying is I learned that side. But in that class, I started studying: who is a head of a house? As I heard that so many times while my mom was teaching me the real structure of headship. She still walked with her husband for the sake of her kids. So I'm not teaching you something I didn't have to learn. But I don't want to rush through headship because women, if you learn what God is calling a man to be, you would really get up under him because it's a whole lot more than you would ever dream.

And I want to teach you that so that you're not submitting or coming under. He didn't say obey, he used the word submit. It's a different word. It's not the word obey. The man is not giving orders and you're going, "Yes, sir." It's not like that. He's not saying the word obey. He is saying the word submit purposefully. You come under your boss because that's his job or her job to get something done. You go to the doctor, you come under them so they can do the surgery or whatever they need to do to get it done. So you're coming under for an agenda. You're not coming under because they're better than you. So we have to learn the agenda of headship when we talk about coming under. You're trying to achieve something.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Pastor Cannings, for clearly explaining the structure of Christ as the head and the positions of the husband, wife, and children in the home. Please visit us online for all of our ministry resources at powerwalkministries.org. In particular, look for Pastor Cannings' book, Giving Fear a Knockout Punch. It provides clear strategies to help you say goodbye to the fears that you long to overcome. Again, you'll find that at powerwalkministries.org.

And while online, would you also prayerfully consider making a one-time or ongoing contribution to our ministry? Again, our web address is powerwalkministries.org, or you can call us at 281-260-7402. Again, that's 281-260-7402. We'd love to hear from you. And if you live in the Houston area or you're planning a visit, please join Reverend Cannings at Living Word Fellowship Church this Sunday. For church location and service times, visit lwfellowshipchurch.org. And now remember always that the family is God's institution. So we must adhere to His guidelines in how we function within it.