Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): This is the Power Walk Ministries broadcast with author and speaker Pastor Paul Cannings. Because of the importance of this subject, Pastor Cannings brings us this second volume on the topic, Why Church.

Today he takes us to the first moment in Matthew chapter 16 where Christ tells Peter that he will build his church. Pastor Cannings breaks this down for us as to why Christ is committed to the church and how that's supposed to operate today. Let's go now to today's message, The Purpose of the Church.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Some people come to church and their hands are on their watch because it's about their time. We want to time the preacher and time the services and walk out. We don't time anything else. We don't time our ball games. We don't time our movies. We come to God as if he's on our time when we are not; we're on his time. He gives us a time to live and a time to die.

So we even come to God and we decide what time we give him as if we own it. We literally want to influence how the church is structured. we want to buy our way into leadership. What is different between that and the temple that God walks into if that's what we have established church to be? We can't make God rearrange his church. When we get to heaven, he's going to call for this same Bible in heaven. He just said he's going to expose it even more, and we're going to spend eternity learning the scriptures.

So when we come to the whole issue of church, we have made it what it is, and then we spit at it. It is time for us watching the church go through diaspora, just like Israel did. Israel did the same thing. They came to the temple, they did what they wanted. Matter of fact, they even hired preachers in the northern kingdom to say what they want. You had by the time Christ came, a corrupt system that he gets sick of going to and he turns the table upside down, but he still went to the temple because God told him to. He didn't turn the tables upside down and never go back.

Understand when we come to this whole thing, church, we have to remember that it is what he says it is. It's not what our money, our time, our power or influence, or the fact that we were here at the beginning of the church when it got started, that says anything. We're the charter members. No, he's the charter.

When we come to this whole concept of church and we watch the church dispersed like the rest of the world was, we have to ask ourselves like he did with Israel, what's going on? What happened to us? Folks, we have to ask ourselves, where is church and what does it really mean?

That's why when Christ comes to Matthew chapter 16, you would think he would talk about the church. He'd say, "Oh, let me tell you about the choir." He doesn't. "Let me tell you about how when you come, you need to have your set seat." No. He doesn't talk about all this stuff we go on about and then put a clock on the preacher.

He says, "I establish myself as God. I'm sovereign. I decide who the preacher is because this preacher is going to preach what I say as I'm telling him who I am. I'm telling him who Christ is." Christ is the word, and in John chapter 17 verse 13 on, it's through them I will put the word through them to write it to everybody in the New Testament. So I'm going to pick him who's going to preach at Pentecost because this thing starts with the word. When you go to Acts chapter 2 verse 42, he says they were devoted to the apostles' teaching. It started there. That's where it started. Because why? God established Jesus as the word, Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 through verse 3.

So when we started off yesterday, we established the most pertinent thing that leads to the spindle in the wheel that keeps the wheel turning, that allows God to be who he is. It's the transmission in the car that keeps the car moving forward. The first thing that God establishes is the fact that it's a sovereign decision of his. He's not asking for advice.

The second thing he establishes: how sweet are the feet of those who bring good tidings. He gets the preacher involved. Then he says this. The third thing he says to us when he talks about the church that we need to redo. Sometimes when a coach loses a game and he keeps losing, he goes back to the fundamentals.

The church does not have the same impact it once had. The preacher does not have the same respect. The word of God, you sit back and teach it sound doctrine you endure. He does say that. People say, "No, tickle my ears. I've got a PhD. I'm doing well at my job. I'm well educated. I'm doing well, successful in my business. Just give me a word so that I make sure I go to heaven."

The Bible is going, "No." God is not impressed with that. He doesn't need PhDs in heaven. He doesn't need bus drivers and doctors and nurses; nobody's getting sick in heaven. When we get to heaven, is he going to look at our bank account? It doesn't matter in heaven. So it's a whole different structure. That's why he looks at the church of Laodicea that was rich, doing great things, and looks at them and he says, "You're naked, wretched and poor" when I look at you from heaven.

So that's why he's saying the whole concept is different in how he views this. He says in verse 17, the whole construct of the passage, the pericope of this passage starts in verse 13. But he says in verse 17, and Jesus answered and said to him, "Blessed art thou Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven." Not God, my father. The one who began everything is the one who chose you. So I've got to wait for his decision to choose you before I can use you to do what God says.

But he says, "Now you can be productive, blessed. Now you can establish the economy of God on earth, blessed. Now you can create in the church the development of the Holy Spirit so people experience the fruit of the spirit that leads from joy to happiness, blessed." He is saying now that that can happen, now I'm saying to you, now I speak. God spoke, now I speak. What I'm saying, he's saying in the Greek text, it doesn't stop being said. It will never be changed. Nobody can alter it.

That's why he would say, "I build a foundation," 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 10 through 15. Nobody else can change that foundation, absolutely nobody. Whatever I establish, they can do whatever they want with it. I'm not a part of it. He tells us when he leaves the church in Revelation. So he's not impressed with what we bring to it. He just takes his lampstand out because we choose not to listen to him. And you see the evidence of that over and over again. What does it mean when Christ is not in the church? It's all over the Bible.

He's saying, "I say unto thee, thou art Peter." We play along with this stuff that's Petros and Petra and all these different things, and so we jump around on this stuff and we become impressed with all of this. I just think that Jesus Christ is just playing with words here. He's just playing with words to establish rock.

What the rock means? He's using the word Peter, which is Petros. He changes it to Peter and Simon Peter Bar-Jonah. He says, okay, he changes it. And now that he changes it, he can use it for what he wants it to be. Christ would say, "I am the bread of life." Christ is not literally bread. He's just using that to explain to them that when you were eating bread in the wilderness, you were constantly receiving bread every day because when you come to me and you feed on me, you will never get hungry.

I'm constantly supplying the illumination of the word of God. I'm constantly letting the Holy Spirit bring it back to your mind. I'm constantly guiding you into truth. I'm constantly because I'm the one that is the word. It's not dependent on you. It's totally dependent on me and the influence of the Holy Spirit driving the process. So I am the bread. He uses those analogies in order for us to be able to understand the concept.

I think sometimes we make too much of a big deal about this as preachers: Peter and Petros and rock. That's all I see that he's saying in the passage. Because you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and you see he's using it as an analogy. In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, he says this in verse 1. He says, "Moreover, brethren, I would not that he should be ignorant how that all of our fathers under the cloud and all passed through the sea."

Watch this carefully. "And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." So they were saved, blood on the doorpost, and then they all got baptized at the same time going through the Red Sea. Then in verse 3 he says, "And did all eat the same spiritual meat." In verse 4, "And did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of the spiritual rock."

So when we saw the rock and he tells Moses what to do with the rock, he's using that as an example for this. He says, "the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." So when he talks about rock, it is this immovable boulder that when the church is built, nothing could move it. Nothing could tear it apart. Nothing could destroy it because it's built on someone who overcame death.

He's built on someone whose word started off in Genesis and continues to be the word that would last into heaven and for eternity. 2 Peter would say it never withers away; it's going to be here forever. You could ignore the Bible, but you're going to end up being accountable to it. If we try to change it and twist it, we only add plagues to ourselves.

So when we come to the word of God, it is the rock. It's immovable. We can't change it in the local church, and Jesus Christ is the one who makes it relevant because the Holy Spirit is his helper who illuminates it. It's that rock that he would build everything on, this boulder. No matter what's taking place, it's immovable.

This rock is a foundation you talk about in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. It's a foundation that once it's established, no one can change how the foundation works. It's a cornerstone he would talk about in Ephesians chapter 2. So he shapes how the church is designed and the church is his body. In Colossians, he's the head of it. So he's the foundation, he's the cornerstone, he's the head of it.

And he is the rubbing stone. In other words, in 1 Peter chapter 2 he says anything that happens in the world, it would have to rub itself up against the church. It's the stumbling stone. So anybody that ever violates the standard of God, the word of God, he says that is going to be the judgment that they face because that's the rock they're rubbing up against.

That's why he says in 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 17, judgment begins in the household of faith. It determines whether a person walks good or stumbles through life. The church cannot allow itself to not display who Christ is about. In Revelation, when there's no love in the church, he wants out. When they have false doctrine in the church, he wants out. When people don't serve because they wouldn't use their spiritual gift, he is picking up his lampstand. The character of Christ comes out or the lampstand is removed.

So even though Peter is the preacher, Peter, upon that rock, I will establish what I'm going to do in the church. And even though you're the preacher, this all depends on me to make it work the way I choose to work. I pick the Jews to get to the world, Genesis chapter 12. I got the church to impact the world, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 23. And the way it does that is when Christ is lifted up, all men are drawn to him. Stay focused as we continue to answer this question: Why church?

Guest (Male): Amen, Dr. Cannings. We lose sight so easily as to what the church is supposed to be and our role in it. Christ himself should be the central focus of our worship. 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.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I had someone walk up to me and said, "Hey, you so blessed me when I listen to the station and feed off the word that God has placed through you." Oh, that means so much. I had a person say to me, "Hey, you save my marriage. I was really going to walk out on my wife. You save my marriage."

Oh man, that moved me to keep pressing on. I pray, folks, that you would support our ministry and become a part of it and share with us in the resources that we have because that goes to the support of this ministry. Pray for us, please, sincerely mean that. Pray for us. You share the word with other people and that you will become a partner, a regular partner with us.

All you have to do is go to our website, powerwalkministries.org, and press the donate button and it would explain in there how you could become a Power Walk partner. God bless you. It's been a blessing serving you.

Guest (Male): For all of our ministry resources including this series, you can log on to powerwalkministries.org. That's powerwalkministries.org. Please join us tomorrow for a continuation of this series that challenges us to see God at work through his church.

In the meantime, remember, while we easily form and share our opinions about the choir, the church program, even the preacher, let's remind ourselves continually that it's all about Jesus, worshipping him, learning from his word, and serving his people.