Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for Power Walk. The teaching this series is titled God at work. Reverend Paul Canning's, the founder of Power Walk Ministries, brings us this series with a passion to see us as believers walking victoriously with Christ through all of life. There are many causes for fear in our lives today, our health, finances, safety, wars, natural disasters, and many other reasons. But scripture addresses fear very clearly. Here's Dr. Canny's now with the second message in this series titled No Fear.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I understand that the world is crazy. I'm not crazy not to know that. I understand it's crazy. I remember standing in an airport outside of this country, soldiers going back and forth, walking around with M16s fully loaded, ready to fire. I remember traveling in a bus in the countryside, doing missions and training pastors, being stopped in the middle of the night by soldiers with M16s, checking baggage, looking through different compartments of the bus. And I was tired of being stopped at that time, so I was staring at him. I just like not angrily, not maliciously, just kind of like with tiredness in my eyes, I guess.

And he came in that van and he stared me down and started asking a bunch of questions. I learned not to do that again. But we cause of all the different dramatic things that we hear, we become complacent about missions. We become complacent about serving in the church. If you serve in the church, people are going to do this and do that and say this and say that. So what is the point of you doing stuff in the church anyway? People make decisions and are dominated by what God is talking to us about here in 2 Timothy verse 7 that should not dominate our decision making.

When we make decisions from fear, he's not a part of it. He has nothing to do with it. As we ended yesterday's program, I reminded us that in Proverbs chapter 29 verse 25 that fear of a man brings a snare. But whoever trusts in God shall be safe. So in other words, it's safer to be in a lion's den than outside of it. It is safer to be in a fiery furnace than to be outside of it. Being in God's will is safe. Standing in front of Goliath is safe because it's the will of God.

So safe is in the will of God. Going out into a wilderness with scorpions, having babies in a unsanitary situations, going to fight against giants, how is that safe? It's safe because it's the will of God. So the Bible is saying that God did not give us and don't forget what we talked about yesterday. What we talked about yesterday is the first part of this verse is the most essential part of this verse. For God, he didn't say for the Lord, the covenant keeping almighty God that seeks to have a relationship with us that it has full authority and control.

That's not that's Lord. That's the definition in summary form of Lord. God is the creator, the one who sustains everything, the one who's sovereign, and the one who reigns over it all. That's why for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son. He's the one who orchestrated salvation. Even though God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are all of the same nature, God leads the process. God started this whole process when it comes to the creation of the world. He starts off with the supreme being God to elevate the fact that nothing could ever adjust him not being in control is by his very nature he's in control.

Nothing could be above him. That's one of the most powerful things I've read in the Bible is Satan going before God about Job. This is awesome to me. Satan comes into the presence of God and his very nature is sinful and doesn't affect God's holiness. Satan comes into the presence of God which shows and I I love what God does. The sons of men came before God and when God was finished with the sons of men, he looks at Satan and says, Satan, what's up? He Satan had to wait his turn. Now Satan is a powerful angel.

Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 talks about how massively powerful he is. He could turn Job's working partners against him. All his vendors could go crazily against him. He could have a disease. All these different things Satan had the power to bring Job within one day of his life. That's how powerful he is. He could take out his kids in a massive storm. Just take them out. This is how powerful Satan is, but he had to come before God and get his permission. Wow. He had to come before God and get his permission. That's how much control God is in.

That's the reason why Paul starts off with for God. Then he goes on to say that the direct object of this is what contradicts this whole concept and that is he does not put in place anytime in our inner being fear. He never does. So anytime I choose to function in fear, insecurity, I'm making decisions on my doubt. I'm making decisions on the fact I'm insecure in this particular situation. We we're making decisions on our insecurities. We're making decisions on fear. The Bible says that never came from God. This insecurity, the doubt, having an attitude that that is totally controlled and dominated by my feelings.

The Bible says that never came from God. So what does fear mean that took place that doesn't come from God? He's not talking about Holy Spirit here. He's a small S. He's talking about our spirit, our spirit. So what he's saying here because Timothy, as we talked about yesterday, was a timid person. We could see this as we track the life of Timothy. He he's not an aggressive, assertive person that Paul is. Paul, you put him in a temple and he's going to say, okay, let's talk about the unknown God. Let's do this. You know, it just Paul is going to do what he does.

That's why God picked him to go to the Gentiles. He is a philosopher. He's well educated. He knows a bunch of languages. So he can communicate anywhere across the board. Peter had to have the gift of tongues in order to be able to communicate at Pentecost. So Paul is the man out there. That's why he says, you know, I'm going to fight a good fight. Christ literally told him, your ministry in Acts chapter 9 is going to be trouble. And it was trouble. Five times 39 lashes, shipwrecked three times, in prison, I mean, just mess.

Timothy is struggling with that. Paul has to encourage Timothy as we talked about because Timothy, man, you know, I don't even want to fight with these people in the church. Let's let me quit. He just has to tell him in verse 6, rekindle the gift. In other words, Timothy is just going through the motions. There there's no movement of the Holy Spirit powerfully like it was before working in him as he does ministry. He's just doing the ministry because Paul told him to. Paul said, no, no, no, you have to rekindle it. You got to fire it back up because God put his hands on you.

You have to respect that. So Timothy apparently was a timid person dealing with a person like Paul who could face whatever and deal with whatever. You just stand in front of Felix and say what he has to say. So Paul is encouraging this timid young man and he is trying to explain to him that anytime you pick up fear, you drop faith. God didn't give you that because fear kills faith. It's like oil and water. You could shake it all you want to shake it. It's not going to mix. Oil and water is not going to mix.

Faith and fear don't mix. The minute we let fear begin to dominate us, faith is gone. We're going to function on our emotions. We're going to function on what we think is right. We're going to function on our own system of logic, our own experiences and background challenges that we've come through. And we're going to operate that way in order to do one main thing, protect ourselves from ever having such a situation that will damage us. That's why he tells him that. In chapter 3 he literally would say to Timothy, he said, Timothy, persecutions and afflictions verse 11 will come.

They came to me in Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, persecutions that I endured. But out of them all, the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Timothy, this is the course that you're taking. Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But here it is. But continue thou in the things which thou has learned and has been sure of knowing of whom thou has learned them from your childhood thou has known the holy scriptures which are able to make the wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

All scripture is encourage them. Tell them the scriptures are comprehensive in verse 17 that a man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Timothy, you cannot go fear. You have to go faith. And you have a comprehensive word that can lead you. And this is not another time when the comprehensive word involved all the way to revelation. This is a comprehensive word with the letters that are already out there circulating and the Old Testament and it was still comprehensive. Could you imagine how comprehensive it is for us? So folks, the first thing we must do in a world that is chaotic, we must commit to the fact that God you're working your purposes out even when I can't see them.

I trust that you're at work. You're at work, God. There's never a time you're not working. Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 clearly states that. He's always working. He's always talking. He's always moving. He's always operating because the world if God ever shuts up, the world is a falling star. This earth is a falling star. He sustains it by his word, Hebrews chapter 1 says. So he reminds us in every moment of every day how much control he has. Every time we're making decisions and we're going through the course of a day, we must always remember God is at work.

And one way to remember that is to look around you and you would see the birds flying. You would see when spring comes how things just operate. One of the things I do is remind myself he's in control. He got this. And even if he decides that this is my time, at least I have run the race and this is my finishing of the course. One of the characteristics that fear is present is when we go to our logical reasoning, when we know what the Bible is saying. When situations seem impossible, God is still at work.

When the impossible situations in front of me, I got to trust him even though it's dark, it makes no sense logically, it doesn't fit anything in any perspective that you could Google or research or nothing. Going to be nonsense to man because our wisdom is foolishness to him. So therefore, function by faith and stop looking for sense because it's going to be nonsense. As a result of that, the Bible says, I shift from fear to power. That's how I shift, folks. How we could shift from fear to power is when we operate like a Daniel.

When we don't operate like a Peter on the water, we go back to fishing man sense. When we do that, we sink. What is critical in this process, never compromise the word of God. 2 Peter chapter 1 says he's given us everything we need for life and godliness through his word verse 3 and 4. When we do that, verse 9 through 11 says, we will not stumble. Because when you follow God to man, it looks like you stumble. It looked like Daniel stumbled. It looked like Paul stumbled when he shipwrecked beaten. I mean, looks like he's not achieving nothing.

But the God is working out his purposes because we choose to trust him. So no matter what you face, trust God. No matter what you face and what you encounter, believe him at his word. Get in the word. Open up the scriptures. Pray over it. The Bible promises the spirit will guide us to truth. John 16 13. Walk with him even when it seems dark. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Thank you Dr. Canny's. Now if this message has been a blessing to you and you'd like to obtain a copy for yourself or for a loved one, then please give us a call at 281 260 7402. Again, that's 281 260 7402. You can also visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. There you'll find all of our ministry resources.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Hello everyone. This is Pastor Canny's. It's been a pleasure coming into your home, maybe your car. It's been a blessing to serve you. And I hope that you will become a partner as we seek to continue to serve God in an effective manner. Many times he opens up so many doors, but what we lack is resources to get it done. Oh, you can go through every door, but you know the ones that are great fit for our ministry to touch lives. So I pray that you would become power walk partner as we power walk together to impact lives.

Thank you for listening. It's been a blessing serving you.

Guest (Male): Once again, our web address is powerwalkministries.org. Our mailing address is PO Box 920 517 Houston, Texas 77092. Please join us again tomorrow for a continuation of this series God at work. And remember as we heard, when fear dominates our lives, faith is gone. May we all learn to function more each day by faith alone.