Dealing with Haters (cont'd)

What do you do when your haters try to humiliate you?

You've got to exhibit stronger character and not give in. Don't allow people to humiliate you. Instead, you practice humility.

You cannot humiliate me if I walk in humility. Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand and He will exalt you in due time. Hello and welcome to Destin for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd who is senior pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. At the age of 17, David was anointed to be the next king of Israel but he waited 13 long years before ascending to the throne. God wasn't delaying him, he was preparing him.

It was during this season of preparation that David developed one of the most critical traits of any great leader, humility. Today's message is straight ahead. Stay with us now or stop by pastorpaul.net to listen on demand. That's pastorpaul.net.

Here is Pastor Paul with today's Destin for Victory message, Dealing with Haters. You're in an environment where people are really aiming at you to destroy your sense of self, your sense of safety, your sense of being a dignified person. You don't have to sit and put up with that kind of stuff. If you can avoid it, if you can elude it, you need to get yourself out of harm's way. You're in a domestic situation and somebody's beating you up. You don't sit there and say, I sure hope this stops.

Oh, I'm trying to help somebody. You help it stop by being unavailable. You say, pastor, but it's my spouse.

What do you do? That's why you have a church family. We have helped many a person get to a place of safety and help find proper advocating so that somebody can talk to the abuser and say, this is not OK. And this precious sister is usually a woman. This precious sister has been removed from you for her own safety. And she has not decided to leave you, but she has decided to leave your behavior.

And it's going to be up to you from here on how much help you get and how much of her company you can have in the future. And you're in a church where we have personally gotten people into safety and stood up to bullies. We've had them run up in the church all big and bad. And I'm here to tell you that a family looks out for itself. You need to be in a church.

You need to be in a place where people care about you and won't let you just sit around and be a punching bag. You've got to get yourself out of harm's way. You pray. You say, but I believe in prayer. You pray as you run. I believe in prayer too. There are some things only you can do, some things God does. But God's not going to run for you. God's not going to put on your sneakers.

You put them on. He sought to harm David and David eluded him. Secondly, he sought to humiliate David. What do you do when your haters try to humiliate you? I began talking about this scenario that Jesus brought up of turning the other cheek.

Here's the principle behind that. You've got to exhibit stronger character and not give in. Now here's what I want you to take away on this second point. Don't allow people to humiliate you. Instead, you practice humility. You cannot humiliate me if I walk in humility.

You say, what's the difference? Humiliation is something you try to impose on me. You try to press me to the ground. You try to make me feel bad. You try to make me feel less than. You try to persecute me and stomp me and beat me down, whether it's physically or psychologically or whatever. You're trying to force me to agree with you that you are greater, that I am nothing. Whatever it is that's in your mind, you are attempting to oppress me. You're not attempting to harm. In this case, you're attempting to disrespect me with the hope that I will have an inappropriate response. That's when you're trying to humiliate somebody. Now you say, well, how did Saul do that?

You might have missed the subtlety of it. When you look at chapter 18, the Bible says that the Lord is with David. So the Lord allows him to elude Saul. And now Saul, verse 12, is afraid of David because the Lord is with him.

So what does he do? The Bible says that he saw his success, verse 15, all of Israel and Judah is seeing it. And so down in verse 17, it says Saul tries to marry him to one of his daughters.

You say, well, that looks like a blessing. Here's the problem. This is subtle attempt at humiliation.

Why? Remember in chapter 17, when David ran out to the battlefield and saw that no one would fight Goliath? And David asked, what's going to be done for the guy who kills him?

What was the response? The response was, well, the king said he's going to give his daughter in marriage to whoever kills this giant. Well, David killed the giant. According to what Saul said to his entire army, his daughter already belongs to David in marriage. The Bible here, though, says that he tries to give him his daughter, Mereb, in marriage. But look at this, only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the Lord. I'll give you my daughter if you go out and kill some more of my enemies. He's already earned the right to be the king's son-in-law.

Now the king is going to make him prove it over again with the subtle hope that either his enemies will kill him or that David will have an inappropriate response and try to stand up for his rights and say, wait a minute now, I already killed Goliath. I don't have to go out and fight anybody else. See, that's where some of us get messed up who don't know how to walk in humility. You're so busy trying to stand up for yourself until you don't see the subtlety of what's going on.

Here is a man in a power position. When a person's in a power position and you are in the position of being subject to their power, that's not the time for brute strength. That's not the time for bravado. That's not the time for you to say, I'm not putting up with this. Do you know what happens in a kingdom when somebody gets in the face of a king?

It doesn't go well. What we have to understand is that people can't humiliate you without your permission. You are not a victim.

You are a volunteer. When you get suckered in to a fight, you can't win. And some of you have supervisors and some of you have people who are in power positions in your life who are trying to test your mettle, trying to oppress you, disrespecting you, where you have legal right, legal recourse, pursue it.

But in some cases you will discover it is so subtle and so tricky until there isn't anything you can do. But I'm here to tell you, you can refuse to be humiliated because you can walk in a humility that already has you low. So you can't press me down.

I'm down already. Not to you. I walk in humility to please God. This really isn't about you. God has already taught me that my life is not about me, that I'm not the big cheese. It's not about me. It's about him anyhow. And he taught me to love my enemies. He taught me to do good to people who try to disrespect me. And I'm already walking in that. You can't oppress me.

I'm down. And so David didn't fall for it. Now some of us would have failed this test. It had been all over because you would have said, uh-uh, I'm sorry. He promised me his daughter and I'm getting married.

I don't care what he said. You can't do that in a kingdom. And let me tell you something, many of you in your life, you can't do it now and you're messing your life up. Some of us are messing our relationships up with bravado, messing marriages up, messing up dealing with our children or children dealing with their parents. And if we will just follow clear biblical directives, the Lord will bless all of us to live a life of peace. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepard. To listen to any of Pastor Paul's recent broadcasts, be sure to stop by pastorpaul.net to listen on demand.

That's pastorpaul.net. Pastor joins me in the studio after today's message, but first let's rejoin him for the second half of today's teaching, Dealing with Haters. Some of you just need what the old folk I grew up around called shut mouth grace. Shut mouth grace.

We had an old mother in the church. She said, honey, God's given me shut mouth grace. And I grew up thinking, what in the world is shut mouth?

I live long enough to find out. The grace when there's something in you that wants to stand up and fight a battle you can't win, it is the grace to be quiet, to be gracious. Again, I'm not talking about putting yourself in harm's way. I'm talking about when you're in a situation where someone's just trying to disrespect and humiliate you with the hope that you will show out. See, some folk are so good at this that they'll suddenly bait you. And then you have a big nasty explosion and guess who looks like the bad person?

You do. And then they sit back and say, I don't know what happened. He just went off. Oh, some of y'all, I see you had that happen to you. Somebody baited you on the job. You took the bait, start tearing things up, knocking file cabinets over and can't, I ain't taking this no more. And then they come in and say, why all the hostility? And you've got to refuse the bait.

They're trying to press you and disrespect you. God will use that as an opportunity to shine through you. If you'll hold your peace, God will shine through you. It happened with David. He bypassed that all together. And look at the way he responded. He said, who am I that I would be the king's son-in-law in the first place? Instead of saying, I already won her. I don't have to fight any more battles for her. He's humble enough where he says, well, I don't deserve to be the king's son-in-law.

I just come from a lowly family. I'm nobody. See, if you live in the state where you are not full of yourself, God can exalt you in his own way.

The truth is he is the next king of Israel, but in his own eyes, he is not big at all. Some of us, the problem we have is that we believe our own press releases. We believe our own greatness.

When the fact of the matter is, if there's anything good happening in your life or mine, it is the work of almighty God. Come down around the country and doing these radio rallies and what have you and meeting listeners all over the country. And so I always make it a point to meet folks and greet them and talk with them and thank them for listening.

And I'm taking pictures and signing autographs and all that. And one of my members was at one of them in another city one time. They were visiting him on vacation and they saw all this going on and they looked at me. They said, oh, we ain't no pastor was famous. And they told me after when I fell out, I said, well, it's not a matter of fame. It is a matter of God has given me influence in these people's lives. And they're very excited to let me know what God's doing in their lives. I said, but the thing I love about it is God prepared me so that these flashing cameras and signing autographs and books and kissing babies and all of this stuff doesn't go to my head.

Because when I get through, I still know who I am. And I know I got to make heaven just like y'all. And I got to obey the word just like you. Just because I preach it, I don't get a pass. And sometimes when I'm done preaching, I got to get my own CD.

So that word hit, I think I need to take that one home. So you got to live low. Live in a state of humility before God. Don't let people bait you.

When you see them trying to get those digs in and that subtlety and disrespect and try to make you go off and then blame it on you, don't go for it. And David said, no problem. I don't deserve to be in your family anyway. And so Saul went on and gave his daughter to somebody else. And then the third and final thing is sometimes your haters will seek to hand you over to your enemies. The Bible says that Saul had another daughter who was in love with David named Michael in verse 20. And the Bible says that she was in love.

She told her daddy and he was pleased. And he said, all right, I'll give her to him because he thought she may be a snare to him so that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. So Saul said to David, now you have a second opportunity to become my son-in-law. Then he said to his attendants, speak to David privately. Say look, the king is pleased with you and his attendants all like you. Now come on and become his son-in-law. They repeated these words to David, but David said, do you think it's a small matter to become the king's son-in-law?

I'm only a poor man and little known. But now you see Saul's real intent. Then he goes on and says, listen, she's in love with you.

Man, y'all gonna have a good marriage. All you got to do is go out and pay the price for your bride, which is a hundred Philistine foreskins to take revenge on your enemies. The plan, look at this, Saul's plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistine. Some folk don't want to kill you, they just want to set you up so others will kill you. Have you run into folk? They're not gonna fire the bullet, but they will arrange to have you in the crosshairs.

They will station you right here. It's the Judas syndrome, where Judas left the fellowship, sitting and dining with Jesus, pretending to be his disciple. But evil had entered his heart and for money he sold out his Savior. And the Bible says he set Jesus up. He told Jesus enemies, the one you see me plan to kiss on, that's the one you're to get.

Don't think everybody kissing you loves you. Some folk are setting you up. What do you do when they try to harm you? You elude them. What do you do when they try to humiliate you? You walk in humility. What do you do when they try to hand you over to your enemies? You trust God to give you the victory.

What happened this time? This time David can't refuse it because the king has set him up. He's got other folks saying no no this is right, this is good, there's gonna be a blessing David.

Go on and marry this girl. And so David now is in a position where he cannot deny the king. There's too much pressure for him to marry this girl. What does he do? The Bible says he goes out and by the hand and the blessing of God. Verse 27 he killed those Philistines. 200 of them. Now did you notice the price was 100? God blessed him and he brought back double for his trouble.

Presented the full number to the king so that he might become his son-in-law. Listen there are some battles you can't fight. There are some times when you are set up to be destroyed you can't elude it but yet they're trying to kill you. That's when you say Lord I'm in your hands. I'm believing you to give me the victory and I want to close by reminding you of a scripture that says no weapon formed against you will prosper. All you got to do is keep your hand in the Lord's hand. All you got to do is walk in humility and in obedience. All you got to do is trust God day by day by day and no weapon.

Now listen don't misquote it. It doesn't say no weapon will be formed. It said no weapon formed will prosper.

All the weapons will be formed. You'll see them aimed at you but you trust God. You elude when you can. You walk in humility and obedience but when it's all said and done you trust God. And watch God give you the victory. Watch God turn your enemies out.

Watch God put them at your feet and give you the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks so much for being here for today's Destined for Victory message dealing with haters. We have a special resource for you this month titled Finding Strength and Tough Times but before I give you the details and how you can receive this as a thank you for your generous gift during these critical summer months Pastor Paul has joined me from a studio in California. Pastor we've all gone through some tough times during this past year and here's what we know from Scripture.

There will be more won't there? Tell us about the booklet and why finding strength and tough times is so important to everyone listening. Yes sir I don't know anyone who would argue against the idea that we have endured tough times over the past year and a half that none of us would have predicted. I said it last year but I'll repeat it again when I went into 2020 I was so geeked about the idea of going into a new decade. Man I couldn't wait for the 20s to get here and I was so excited but boy three months later we were scratching our heads saying what in the world is going on and the bottom line is tough times have always existed.

We've experienced unique tough times over the past year and a half and there are going to be more in the future of one sort or another. So the bottom line is I believe that we must take the Word of God as our lamp to our feet and a light to our pathway. One of the people who helps us do that in the Word is a man we're all acquainted with named David because boy did he go through some tough times. The very king he was trying to serve was trying to kill him and so in the book of 1st Samuel we read about David being on the run. He's a fugitive from a man he's done nothing but love and it's not for days weeks or months.

He's a fugitive for years and all he's done is try to help this guy talk about tough times David went through them and he tells us how to get through them just by his very example. So this booklet I'm really excited to share this month because I want people to understand there is strength we can find in our tough times. If you donate this month I'd love to send it to you and I know it'll be a great blessing in your life. Well that booklet is called Finding Strength in Tough Times and it's our gift to you by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory this month. Your prayers and financial support are absolutely critical during this season of the year so as God leads please be as generous as you can as you give today. Call 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538.

And I'll repeat that again it's Destined for Victory Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. David now enters into a period of time where he is a fugitive from the very king he is supposed to succeed on the throne. For years David is on the run. For years David is dodging and hiding.

He's doing all the right things but seemingly getting all the wrong results. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message when destiny seems delayed. Until then remember he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ you are Destined for Victory.