Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): Thanks for tuning in to the Power Walk Ministries broadcast with pastor and teacher Reverend Paul Cannings. This week, Dr. Cannings will continue teaching on the series, "Don't Run Aimlessly." In a constantly evolving, fast-paced world and culture, we expect technology to deliver things quickly. Yet, in our spiritual lives, it seems like God has us waiting, and we wonder why some prayers are still on hold. Encouraging us to consider that God is still moving on our behalf, here's Reverend Cannings now with the message titled, "Against Hope." Let's listen.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Have you ever come to the Word of God and find these words like, "I will come to you quickly"? "Do not worry or fret, God will let this situation wither like a grass and it will go away quickly." And you want to know what "quickly" means to God, because it doesn't seem quickly.

It's like taking the pan—the dog is hungry, and you keep moving the dog food away, and the dog is just sitting there looking at you. You just keep moving it away. The dog comes closer, he's hungry, and move it away. It's constantly like that. You're praying and you're saying, "God, you know I'm about to just get dried up on deals." Frustrated no matter how you pray, fast, you give, you serve, you're committed to your family, and it seems like you just don't seem to get past that scenario that you know you can accomplish. And God is saying "quickly."

You want to know, "God, what are you doing?" God is already taking care of us. He's doing all kinds of things that many times we don't know. It's like a child who doesn't understand what the parents are doing, but every day you're up, you're making sure they do homework, you're making sure they have a place to sleep. But to them, they just can't see why you're taking so long. "Why can't we get this? Why can't we get that? How come we can't buy this? Why do we have to live here?"

No matter how you explain it, no matter how you try to make it simple for them to get, they just don't. You're pressing, trying to teach them, but to them, you're just leaving them in a bad situation, and this is a mess. He's our Father, and many times we approach Him that way, rather than try to learn and to grow so that we mature through the journey, so that in this process we get better. We become more efficient and our relationship with God becomes greater.

We become more frustrated, more angry. We become complacent and start to wonder if this Bible really means what it says. We don't need to go in that direction. It's not good because the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10, it leads to destruction. He finds no pleasure with us when we do that. The folks in Hebrews, that's what they were doing. They got tired of their struggle and their pain and their difficulty. The writer of Hebrews says, "By now you should be teachers, but you still have need to learn."

You don't eat solid food. You just want baby food all the time because you just want to have church and go home because life is not changing. Let's just do church, go home, and try to be the best we can in the situation that we're dealing with. I want us to today focus more on the journey, not on fixing everything and getting everything in place because many times it's the journey that eventually makes all those things irrelevant that we once thought was significant and important.

Paul stayed the journey, and everything that God wanted to accomplish through him, He accomplished despite the fact that nothing in his journey got better. It ended as bad as it started out. He was beheaded. What is this journey? I want us to turn to the book of Romans chapter 4, in verse 18. We walk through the steps of this journey as we continue to grow in whatever processes we're experiencing.

We think all these different things, but we're at the solution. We're fixing it and getting it right, in a nice cookie jar situation, everything neatly laid out. We're not focused on the journey. God wants us to focus on the journey because this journey continues through eternity, and eternity's eternity. He's more into the journey because in His mind this is temporary. We're in the airport basically as we live our lives.

We're not going to be here forever. We came in, we landed, and we're going out. The focus is the journey, not whether or not everything is solved in the process. In the end, whether we solve the health issue or not, it's solved in heaven. There's nobody sick in heaven. If it's a financial issue, we don't need no money in heaven. If it's a marriage issue, there's no husband and wife in heaven.

It's the journey as we go through this process. What is this journey that leads to such joy and brings God such glory that it doesn't matter what we face anymore? It matters just who we face it with. In verse 18 he says this: "Who against hope believed in hope." Abraham, let's talk about his journey. That's what he's talking about in this verse. Instead of just jumping into this verse and moving down the track, let us first just walk through—you may have heard this before—Abraham.

Abraham's life started out in Haran. It was a pretty good life because he doesn't leave Haran hurting, broke, struggling to get through Canaan. He could sustain himself for a while. He did for a while as God continued to bless him. Yes, he did for a while. He continued to grow in servants and grow in his flock. He continued to grow and mature and develop to the point where he was a wealthy man.

He even said, "I don't need you to bless me," because he didn't need this stuff from Sodom and Gomorrah. He wanted for God to be the one who blesses because he saw God do this in such productive ways. But he's waiting 25 years for a child, and he's wandering around in Canaan, settled in a home most likely, functioning from day to day in a city. It's still a city where he has things available to him. Not walking around in Canaan like a nomad going from one place to the next, picking up his tent and moving in order to take care of his flock.

For him to come now and follow this God that promises him a great nation, he's waiting 25 years and his wife is barren, and God is the one who gives a gift of children. If this God sends him and then allows his wife to be barren when He's the one that gives children, then what is the deal here? God is saying one thing, but on the other hand, he's not having any kids.

Abraham struggled, Sarah struggled, because this is just going on. It's not like they're getting any younger. He's now 99 years of age, she's 75 years old. How in the world is God going to do anything with this? But that's where we are today and focusing more on the journey. When Abraham became more committed to the journey, the one child he had, he had such commitment to God at that point that he could pick up a knife to take that one child out and still believing God has a nation for him.

Because he was so into the journey, it became more about who he was with, not what he needed. That is everything. When my relationship with God has become all that my life is about, that's everything. Solomon tried everything, but at the end of it he says, "Man, this is vanity and it made me vexed in spirit." It just led to frustration. It did not lead to the joy and the happiness I hoped to accomplish from it.

There's a journey here that many times can bring the quality of life rather than the quantity of things stealing the quality of life. Here are some principles as we begin this process throughout this week. Here's the first one: in verse 18 he says, "Who against hope believed in hope." That sounds so subjective when we look at it, so let's analyze it. We looked at the "who" in summary form, and then we said "who against hope believed in hope."

The word "against" here, it is like me believing that I can run down the runway at the airport and I will take off and fly at 30,000 feet and land. It's not going to happen no matter how fast I try to run. When we are going to this situation, it doesn't make any logical sense. That's what he means by this. His wife is 75 years of age, he's 99 years of age, and he's going, "Hold up a minute, this doesn't make any sense."

That means against hope. In other words, from a human perspective, if I'm hoping to have a nation right now—not just one child, but a nation—at least there has to be a bunch of kids happening, and those kids need to have more kids, and those kids need to have more kids. What are you saying? I'm going to live for 500 years? If you look at it from just having a nation, that's not going to happen, doesn't fit logically. If you're looking at my wife having a child at 75 years of age, that doesn't make any sense. Guess what? This is not happening. It's against all human expectations of anything happening for it to ever happen. That's what he's saying.

He says, "Who against hope believed in hope." What does he mean? The word "belief" is different than the word "faith" even though it has the same root word in Greek. It's not different in Greek. The word *pistis* means basically faith, but the context determines whether you use belief or faith. He says "believe" first. Why?

When Abraham leaves Haran, he sees God's hands many times over and over and over and over again functioning productively for him. God protected him against Pharaoh when he was afraid and lied and said that Sarah was his wife. God blessed his flock. God, when he went out to fight for Lot, brought him back safe, none of his men were dead. He sees God over and over and over again functioning and operating despite the fact this great nation isn't coming.

In his heart he's saying, "When I look back at this journey, I may not have seen what I expected to see, and I've not seen what I hoped to see, but at the end of the day everything tells me that God is with me. That God is continually taking care of me, that God is continually watching out." It doesn't mean that I'm not having struggles. There was a drought, I had to go to Egypt. There was the Lot situation. There were all kinds of issues. The Hagar situation popped up and Ishmael. There's issues in our marriage that took place. All of these things happened.

But at the end of the day when it all happened, I saw the hand of God in it, so guess what? I can believe because I see the evidence that is functioning every day in my life. I understand that I can expect God to do what He said He's going to do. That's what God is teaching us today. He is saying, "Look at the evidence." You wake up, who keeps this ball floating around out in space? Look at the evidence.

God gives us, constantly serving us, constantly watching over us, constantly taking care of us, finding ways to bless us. And the evidence says that whatever I'm expecting God to do, I can keep pressing, expecting Him to do it. I can expect Him to do what He promised in His Word based on the evidence. That's why He would look at Philip and He would say, "Philip, you believe because you see. Blessed are those who believe that don't see." Philip believed because he saw the holes in His hands.

Sometimes we get so focused on what is going on now, how important it is to operate now, and God is saying focus on the journey. "Now" may sometimes disappear as important because He opens our eyes to see how He will bless us in the long run. Just focus on the love He has for us as He carries us through the journey. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Amen, Dr. Cannings. Hope against all hope because we believe in God and trust in His timing. Now friend, if you're listening today and you have questions about trusting in God and His timing and having a personal relationship with God, then please give us a call at 281-260-7402. Again, that's 281-260-7402. To learn more about our ministry, visit us online at powerwalkministries.org. That's powerwalkministries.org.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Power Walk Ministries is excited to have the partnership with Central Baptist Church and Mars Hill Network for a conference we are doing on September 19th. From 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 your Syracuse area or you could 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 19th at Central Baptist Church. See you then.

Guest (Male): Once again, our web address is powerwalkministries.org. 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, think about this: as we just heard about Abraham and Sarah, God works according to His time and He's pleased when we extend our faith in what seems like impossible situations.