Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us for today's Power Walk Ministries as Pastor Paul Cannings continues with the series, "What Kind of Love is This?" Christ's love is magnified this week across churches around the world as we thank God for Jesus' sacrifice for us on the cross. Not only has He forgiven us our sins and died in our place, but the most exciting part is His resurrection.

Challenging us to consider all that Christ's death, burial, and resurrection really mean, here's Pastor Cannings with the message, "Grace Treasured." Let's listen.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Years ago, my wife and I worked very, very hard to give our children a great Christmas. And we did that for many Christmases and were always excited to see our kids' faces light up. We eventually decided we need to get them some bikes. My wife and I saved up our money, organized ourselves, and we got these bikes.

My job, when they go to sleep, was to put this bike together. I didn't even read the instructions. I just put that to the side and I am working on this bike, trying to get it all together. It took longer than it needed to take. I got a little bit frustrated and had to get the training wheels on and all that stuff.

My wife looked at me and she says, "You're a little frustrated, huh?" "Yeah, I think I could have whipped this. I used to ride bikes. I used to take them apart and put them back together when I rode them." And she said, "I noticed the instructions are over there."

Many times we seek God, we love the Lord. I've seen the passionate love of many people and their heart for Christ. I was just talking to a friend of mine in Rwanda. When I look at him and I see all that he's been through and see how passionate he is to serve God, it just blows my mind. The things that he would sacrificially do to serve his people just blows my mind.

When the genocide was taking place in Rwanda, the soldiers were in his yard arguing—those fighting to save his family and those that were trying to take out his family. And they would hide under the bed for months. So they knew they had to get out of there and so they left.

While they're heading all the way to the Congo, somebody saw him and goes, "Oh, come on here. You've got to get in this vehicle and we will get a place for you, a home for you and your family. There's no way you're going to go in and live in a refugee camp. We know about you and how well you serve the Lord."

He said, "No, I'm not doing that. Thank you for the ride, but I'm going to go in a refugee camp because many of the people that I've served in churches that I've served are in there." He moved his family into that refugee camp, lived in it, which is not a fun place to be. But his service to God was that passionate. He and his family of four kids would be there and faithfully serve along with his wife.

Passionate love for God is difficult to find many days, but there's many people like that. God took that and multiplied it all kinds of ways because he never gave up in his frustration. He never gave up in his disappointment in what he and his family had to go through. He did not give up.

In this passage today, when love is so amazing, but God's word seems to really not work itself out the way we think it should, or it's not making as much sense as we expected that it should, where does it take us? How do we respond? Because how we respond and where it takes us has a lot to do with how we grow.

That's exactly what is taking place here in John chapter 20, when we look now to verse 14 as we study a love so amazing that is expressive of a person whose love that Christ has placed in their heart is expressive of who He is to them, because they're becoming and expressing what His love really means.

Christ is the one whose love is magnified in this week. Yes, we talk about the resurrection. I've been saying it all week, how important that is because without the resurrection, our faith is dead, Paul would say. The resurrection makes us distinctive. The resurrection gives us hope. All of those things. The resurrection gives us a chance for new life.

The resurrection places the Holy Spirit inside of us and seals us for the day of redemption. It is crucial, it is huge, it is the big thing. But what got us there is His love. And when a person surrenders their life to Christ, it is that love that is in them that comes out. When it comes out, it is such an expressive love that it draws a person so close to Christ there's no place to go but Him.

That's what we see with Mary here in verse 14. When she had thus said, she turned herself back. She's talking to the angels. It is not causing Mary to be distracted in any way. She's saying, "Where is He? You're angels here. You should know where He is. Tell me where He is. Come on, hurry up. What is the deal?" She was that focused on finding Jesus the Christ.

Guess what happened? She did. In verse 14, when she had thus said, she turned her back and saw Jesus standing and knew not that it was Jesus. She doesn't recognize Him. And Jesus said unto her, "Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" Jesus Christ is bringing her back to what the focus needs to be because if you don't grab that focus, you're going to live in your disappointment of Me.

You're going to live that I disappointed you, that I didn't do what you expected Me to do, I didn't come through in a manner that you thought I would come through that drove you to have a relationship with Me. You expected to walk with Me. You expected to see the redemption of Israel. You expected all those things.

I don't want you to be disappointed, so I'm here. I'm going to explain to you. Nothing is going to distract Dr. Faustine from getting what he needs done in changing the nature of a culture and a country. He's more passionate now because he's seeing people kill one another, their own neighbors killing people.

He says, "Man, we went to church. We have a high volume of people that go to church. We consider ourselves a Christian nation and look at what we're doing. We don't really have the scriptures like we think we should." So it refocuses his ministry because he stayed at the cross. He stayed before God. That's what we have with Mary. That's why Christ says, "Let's get back to the instructions, Mary, because that's going to refocus you and you're going to be just fine."

Jesus Christ said unto her, "Woman, why weepest thou?" In other words, what He's referring to is in the tomb when she was there and she's talking to the angels weeping. He is there watching her do that because He is everywhere all at the same time. He is fully in every place all at the same time. He is fully God, fully man.

So Mary, when you were disappointed, when you were feeling hopeless, when you thought that Jesus Christ had left you, when you thought somebody stole Him, when you thought that you don't know how you're going to continue forward now that your life has been totally changed. Many people believe that because she had seven demons, she was a fortune teller, so she made a lot of money.

That's why she was now taking her money and supporting the ministry of Jesus Christ as you would see in Luke chapter 8. So now, she can't go fortune telling anymore. That's not what she does now. She follows Jesus Christ. So she's now fully into Christ. "Where am I going to go now? I've got to find Him because this is my life. This is what I plan to do."

She is perplexed and disappointed, and Christ is going, "You have no reason to. Why weepest thou? Whom are you seeking? You couldn't be seeking Me in a tomb. I told you I'd raise from the dead." Many times the issue in the text is keeping it pure. Our love for Him will find its direction and find its purpose and not be as disappointing when we clearly understand what Christ is doing.

It's like some people could get so frustrated. "Look at what's going on. There's earthquakes, there's all these different things." But if they read the scriptures, they will find out they're birth pains. Birth pains speed up. It will speed up. As Christ gets closer to coming back, it'll get more and more and faster and faster. But we could be at peace because we understand these are the birth pains that are here.

We could understand when we see wars and rumors of wars. We see children turn against parents, see crime increase, all these different things, we could say, "Okay, this is a time when we need to evangelize." Because He says if we go out and touch the world, He'll come back. He wants to get the world to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. He wants the whole world to know that.

As a result of that, we do missions and do evangelism. We will be focused rather than disappointed, perplexed, and not knowing what is going on, why God seems so absent when He's very present. She supposed Him to be the gardener in verse 15. She said unto Him, "Sir, tell me where thou has laid Him and I will take Him away."

What, Mary? How are you going to get Jesus and get Him away? There were some other ladies there, but Mary doesn't care. She doesn't care it's been three days. The body's starting to decompose. She doesn't care. But Mary is upset because in her mind He's dead. He hasn't rose from the dead, He's dead.

Many times we live our lives like Christ is dead. So we've got to go fix our own problems. We've got to communicate and get it done a certain way. We adjust things so that we can take care of things because Christ is just taking too long, or I've prayed and I've prayed, but we need to go out here and fix these issues in our church, our family, and just use common sense. Some of these things are just common sense.

Christ is saying, "No, no, no. Get back into the text. Let your love be where you seek Me because you love Me, because you trust Me. Let your love be you worship Me because you adore Me. No matter how perplexing the word of God is, no matter how sometimes you just don't get it, let it be something you practice so you experience Me."

It's not where you find your way. It's where you trust that the way that Christ has provided is the only way so that you can experience life and life abundantly. Let our love drive us to Him, not to our feelings, our stress, our frustration, so that we end up falling more deeply in love with Him, not disappointed by the things He doesn't do for us the way we think He ought to. That's why, folks, I encourage you each day, stay focused.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Pastor Cannings. Mary doesn't allow anything to discourage her as she pursues Christ. So let's be just as zealous as she was.

Theophilus Berry: Hi, my name is Theophilus Berry. I'm the senior pastor at Greater True Light Missionary Baptist Church. There is no doubt in my mind that there are a plethora of conferences that deal with leadership. But I would tell any leader, this one is one that you should not look over, that you pass up. I would make it definitely a priority to be here.

Serca Duo: Hi, my name is Serca Duo. I'm here from Houston, Texas, Iglesia Fe y Poder. I'm a pastor's wife and also our women's director at our church. I'm so glad I came. I'm taking valuable tools on growth of church, personal discipleship, and growing myself, and then of course, realizing that we're all doing this together in the kingdom of Christ and we're not walking alone.

Dr. Paul Cannings: I am so excited about the conference coming up April 23rd to the 25th. I really am ecstatic about it. Pastors have come together on a committee to help with the process moving forward. Excited about our first conference last year, but this conference this year is going to be greater. There's like about 40 classes here.

Let me give you a taste: the pastor and deacons functioning under the leadership of Christ, a biblical approach to resolving conflict in the church, traits of successful biblical leaders, cultivating a healthy and productive team environment, overcoming the stagnation in the church, discipling leaders, dealing with how do we grow people and do evangelism at the same time.

Despite all the difficulties churches are facing, we can find a powerful, effective way forward. A lot of teachers are coming to teach. They're well-trained, well-educated, practicing these principles within their church. Come be a part of April 23rd through the 25th. Go to powerwalkministries.org so that we could move forward together for God's glory. Look forward to seeing you. You will not be in any way disappointed at this conference.

Guest (Male): Friends, this is a listener-supported broadcast. We're grateful for those who have supported us in prayer and through financial contributions. Would you prayerfully consider joining us in our efforts to share the gospel? Call us at 281-260-7402 or visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. Your contributions are tax-deductible.

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 as we leave you, remember to not be disappointed about unanswered prayers or trials in your life, but let's pursue God with gratitude for all that He's accomplished on our behalf.