Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Power Walk Ministries broadcast. We're glad that you've joined us today as Pastor Cannings continues teaching this week's series, Faith That Works. Today he brings us part four in this series titled Faith at its Best. He continues this teaching from James chapter 2, verses 18 through 23, challenging and encouraging us to understand the meaning, the outworking, and the result of faith. Let's listen.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Many times when God speaks to us, it doesn't always make sense. Maybe that's why he says don't lean to your own common sense. Abraham, in this passage in James chapter 2, Abraham is told to leave a family, which he's obviously struggling to leave because it takes a second time for God to move him away from his family. He doesn't do it right away. God has to come back to him again and tell him to move away from Haran, and he did. And where is he taking him? Please understand, it's not like you're going from Haran, and then they're going to go to this neighborhood on this side of town and buy a house, and therefore you could develop a ministry right here. No. Abraham is nomadic. He is moving from one place to the next place as he moves around in the land of Canaan.

Think of his life from just a human perspective. You've left family, you've left relatives, you've left all these people, and you've picked up your tribe, basically just him and Sarah, Eliezer, and some other people that are a part of this group of people that help take care of his sheep and all these different things. Lot, obviously, was there, and they move away and they're just wandering around. God, where are we going? Just keep going, keep moving. And you're going to have a child. Okay, God, could we just do this real quick since this is going to be a big nation that you're going to establish? You got some land out here. We could make this work. No. Abraham even comes to him and says, "Well, since you're not fulfilling what you said, why don't I just use Eliezer and let the inheritance go to him so that all that I've acquired continues forward." God says no.

He waits until Sarah is old and then comes the child. And then there's just one child, then he's going to say, "Go kill the child." Come on, God, would you make a little bit of sense? It seems like that's what makes things even more difficult in walking with God. But the end result, which we will find about tomorrow, the end result is awesome. God is saying he has a new way. He is the way, the truth, and the life. We have to accept his way. In our case, salvation. We have to accept his way. Then we have to let the spirit, the Spirit of Truth, guide and direct our lives before this life and life abundantly works.

So that's the reason why this process has to be completely his way because it's a whole new way of thinking. It's a whole new way of functioning in any aspect we would look at. If we want to look at Moses, a whole new way of thinking. Here is a man that once depended on a sword is now going to depend on a stick. Come on, man, a stick with two million people to get across the Red Sea? Could you just send a boat? You know, just open up the Red Sea. You know we're trying to get through. No, put it at flood stage. Open it up. Why do I have to come and use a stick in order to follow and obey you? Why?

See, these things, when we are trying to follow God to where common sense is the god of our lives, obeying God, experiencing a friendship with God is going to be a challenge. Here is how we get past that challenge. Here's the first thing we would learn as we continue down this road of how faith works. In the first thing we see here is when we look right at verse 21, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works?" In other words, God called Abraham righteous. He said he's a righteous man. But in telling him how righteous he is, meaning that he has an aptitude to do what's right. You see the same thing when he says Sarah is his sister. Technically, that's true. But Sarah is his sister only because he's afraid of Pharaoh.

Now, when we look at this process, the minute Pharaoh comes to him and he is challenged to do the right thing, you don't have to beat it into him. You don't have to force him into anything. Abraham does exactly as he is supposed to do. You see, anytime God challenges Abraham and drives him in the direction he needs to go, Abraham goes ahead and obeys God. And when he obeys God, immediately it shows this aptitude, this desire. The humanity sometimes seems to act like it's erased, but it's already embedded in him to want to do what God says. Now, please understand what that means in his culture. We can't get away from that. Please understand, he's coming from a polytheistic system. What does that big word mean? A polytheistic means that he's coming from a system where people worship a multiplicity of gods. They worship gods. You go to Egypt, they worship anything that moved. Anything that moved, they worshiped it.

So Abraham is not in a culture where everybody's going, "Abraham, you're awesome. We're glad you're our leader. We're glad to see how committed you are to God, and we're going to do as you do." No, everybody else is doing something different. When we see this process take place and we see Abraham maintain an aptitude for that, that's why God looks at his heart and speaks about what Abraham is. You see, we live in a polytheistic system. It may shock you, but we do. There are people that love cars, and they go to car shows from one car show to car show. They miss church on Sunday. They would question giving to God but spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a car.

And what is worship, by the way? Worship is anytime I give something a lot of time ahead of God, more than God. I give money to it more than I do God. And something I serve more than I would ever serve God. That's a god. Anything that I do those three things with, that's a god. That's what God's required. What does Jesus Christ require? That we serve him. That we serve him above everything else. That we give to him, and that's first fruits. That he's telling us that this is somebody we give a lot of time to. He wants us to come to church. He wants us to serve in the local church. He's telling us do not miss church so it doesn't become a habit. So he is demanding time, he's demanding service, and he's demanding talent.

So when we come to anything, some people they worship, this is going to sound crazy now, hold your seat. They worship their kids. Whatever their kids say or do, that's their world. They will be excited about God if their kids are doing well. They are mad at God if their kids are not doing well. There are some people that worship their jobs. There are some people that worship church. They demand that the church be what they want it to be. And if it's not, they're mad at everybody and bounce to the next church because they worship church, not Christ. So there are many people who have many gods, but we are not willing to walk away from those things and adjust our lives to what God is calling us to. That shows that we don't have an aptitude to live righteous before God.

So Abraham ends up justified by his works, meaning Abraham proves to be just based on how you see him respond by the things that he is willing to do that God tells him to do that makes absolutely no sense. Now, works is not just anything. The reason why he's saying works here is because this works is a demonstration, it's an application of the word of God. That's why it's works. When I choose to obey God and go on a mission trip and I'm serving God on a mission trip, that's works. Because despite the fact that there's all kinds of dangers out there, all kinds of things that could go wrong, I've made a decision to take the calling of God and go on a mission trip. The Bible is saying that's works. When I choose to share the gospel, when it may be uncomfortable to even share the gospel, that's works, because I'm obeying God and doing what he says. So therefore it's works.

So Abraham is still willing to do what God says based on what God told him. So therefore his works exposes his faith, and his faith demonstrates that Abraham within his heart, whether God makes sense or not, he's going to go about doing what God says. So therefore Abraham is justified by his works. And that's why you see here, when he offered up Isaac, it shows you the extreme commitment of Abraham's faith, the extreme commitment. He's waited 25 years for a child. 25 years. He's promised a nation. He's over 100 years old now. He's waited all this time. So now he has to take this child, and the Bible is saying this is the subject of the issue in this text, that Abraham for nonsensical reasons goes to offer his son, and it's the only son, and he is older now.

So where's this other son coming from? Sarah's taken 25 years for him and Sarah to have a child. So how in the world is he going to have this baby again? So that by the time he gets to a certain age, he could then give his son the inheritance that God has left? This makes absolutely no sense. He's totally now convinced that whatever God has said to him is definitely going to happen even though he can't see what God is talking about. He can't see it. That's why faith is the substance of things hoped for. But even though he can't see it, he hopes for it. And it becomes the substance of how he's functioning, how he's operating because he expects God to do what he's saying he's doing. So faith is the substance of what I expect God to do even though I can't see how he's going to do it because it doesn't make any sense.

The depth of Abraham's commitment to God is exposed when he takes his son in obedience to God to offer up his son. Folks, think about it for a minute. If God was to ask any of us to do that, would we do it? Because please understand the way this is structured in this text, it means that this is a once and for all decision that Abraham is making. He's not trying to make this decision and then I come back and think about it. Maybe I do this tomorrow. Nothing. No. God tells him what to do. Abraham gets up early in the morning, heads out. He's going to go do it exactly the place that God tells him. He's going to do the offering the exactly the place that pleases God. He's done enough to know what pleases God. He's going to do this exactly how God says, and it's a done decision. He's not debating it. That's how it's structured in the text. He's not debating it. He's not going back and forth in his head. Abraham is immediately, decisively committed to go get this done. That's faith. Faith is that determinative. Faith is that steadfast a decision. Faith is that full a surrender. That's the pure nature of faith, and it's based on what God says to do, whether it may make sense or not. That's what caused Abraham a friend of God, to be a man upon which a nation will be built and become a father, Romans chapter 4, of us all. Because he not only introduces to the Jewish people a nation under the law, he introduces us to a nation under faith.

See, folks, one man God could change the world with, but simply because of one thing. When it doesn't make sense, but I have a clear understanding of what God is telling me to do, go do it. Commitment to God that manifests my full surrender to who he is and what he says. That's being focused.

Guest (Male): We see in Abraham a decision, an unwavering commitment, and a decisive follow-through based on what God has said. Now, that is faith at its best. Thank you, Pastor Cannings. Friend, if you'd like to know what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and what your commitment to faith means to God, then give us a call at 281-260-7402. That's 281-260-7402. You can also visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. And when you're there, look for Pastor Cannings' book, Give Fear a Knockout Punch. Again, that's available at powerwalkministries.org.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Power Walk Ministries is excited to have a partnership with Central Baptist Church and Mars Hill Network for a conference we are doing on September the 19th at 8:30 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon. The conference cost is minimal. It's $25 that includes lunch. We would love for you to be there and be a part of what God is going to do through this partnership with Central Baptist Church and Mars Hill Network and Power Walk Ministries. It will take place at Central Baptist Church. We would love for you to be there. We need for you to go to the Central Baptist Church website in the Syracuse area, or you can go to Power Walk Ministries website or Mars Hill's website, and there will be a link over for you to learn more about the classes that are being offered. We look forward to seeing you. It's going to be an exciting one-day conference where we all learn together for God's glory. Join us September the 19th at Central Baptist Church. See you there.

Guest (Male): Once again our web address is powerwalkministries.org. And if you live in the Houston area and you don't have a church home, you're welcome to visit Reverend Cannings and his congregation at Living Word Fellowship Church. It's located at 7350 TC Jester Boulevard in Houston. And now remember to take time to consider whether your actions expose a reliance on your own logic or on your faith in God.