Let me tell you something, folks. God answers prayer. Yes, we have mysteries. I got mysteries. You got mysteries.
All God's children have mysteries. We all have mysteries and don't let your mysteries stop you from praying. The fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. Hello, and thanks for stopping by for today's Destin for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard. With Christmas just a few short days away, it's a great time to go over some of the lessons we can learn from the first Christmas.
One of them is that God answers prayer. He may not do it as quickly as you think he should. He may not even do it in the way you think he should. But he does hear our prayers. And as you'll see today, there's plenty of proof that he will answer.
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Now, let's listen closely to Pastor Paul's Destined for Victory message: Life Lessons from the Christmas Story. Luke chapter one, beginning with verse eight. Once, when Zachariah's division was on duty, he was serving as priest before God. And he was chosen by Lot according to the custom of the priesthood to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zachariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zachariah. Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.
He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to drink wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers. to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous.
to make ready a people prepared for The Lord. I want to continue to talk about life lessons from The Christmas Story. In the first installment of this series, we established the fact that that this record of the Christmas story The event surrounding the birth of Christ is not only historically accurate. But it is so inspired by the Holy Spirit that we can learn lessons From this story, there are principles and precepts embodied in the story. Of the birth of Christ and the circumstances surrounding his birth.
And so we're lifting up some of those life lessons.
Now we've already established life lesson number one. which is that righteous living matters to God. We noted. In Luke 1 and verse 6, that this man Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth were people who were upright. In the presence of God.
That is, they were righteous in their living. They understood that the goal of life is to please God and to live righteously in His presence. And it was their righteous living that set them up. To be chosen by God to bring John the Baptist into the world, who, of course, would be the forerunning prophet for the Lord Jesus Christ. This was a special privilege to bring such a prophet into the world, and they qualified by virtue of their righteous living.
And we talked about the fact that you and I are called to live righteously and that the things God has in store for us, we will see them manifest as we position ourselves to be blessed. I talked about being blessed of the Lord by being in the place of obedience. I likened it to being at a bus stop. If you're believing for a bus to take you where you need to go, you need to be at the bus stop. And when it comes to living, being righteous puts you in the place where God can take you where he wants you to go.
And you don't want to be one of those folks who gets frustrated at the bus stop and decides to start walking your own way. How many have ever been between bus stops when the bus came rolling by? And you can holler, you can yell, you can wave, but the bus driver is not authorized to pick you up anywhere but at the bus stop. If they pick you up, it's just illegitimate. It's probably because you look good or something.
But that's not legitimate. You're supposed to be at the bus stop. And righteous living puts us at the bus stop of blessing, where whatever God has ordained for our lives can come to pass.
So we talked about the righteous the fact that righteous living matters to God. And then we began to establish the second point, the second life lesson, which is that God answers prayer. I want to pick it up there and move forward. God answers prayer. We began looking at the fact that Zachariah and Elizabeth had asked the Lord for a child.
Now, Zachariah is a priest. Elizabeth is his wife who lives righteously, and they are married honorably, and so they have every right to petition the Lord for what they desire. And they desire to have a child. And especially in Bible days, this was an important request because in Bible days it was a disgrace, considered a disgrace, when married people did not have a child. And of course, it was typically blamed on the wife that she was barren because somehow God had cursed her or cursed their family in such a way that she could not conceive.
And so it is understandable that married women would petition the Lord, married couples would petition the Lord to have a child. And this had been their prayer. We don't know for how many years, but we do know by the time you get to Luke 1, they are no longer in child-bearing years, at least the normative childbearing years. They're well beyond that. This text says that Zachariah was.
Old and his wife was well along in years. And that tells you that these are probably not the days when they're still praying about that. They perhaps long since dropped off that prayer request, but God heard them when they prayed. And I want to remind you that God answers prayer. Don't stop praying.
Don't fail to ask the Lord. The Bible says in James chapter 1, we have not because we ask not. And sometimes we ask and don't receive because we have wrong motives. But if your motives are pure, be sure to ask the Lord for that which is on your heart. And so they had prayed, and perhaps they're no longer praying, but the power of prayer transcends time.
And although they're no longer praying, God heard the prayers they used to pray. I want to let you know that God hears you when you pray. That's why you want to walk uprightly before Him, because the Bible says the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ear is attentive to their prayer. And so you want to pray. God answers prayer.
The fact that you're listening to this message is probably an indication that God answers prayer. You don't have to go any further than look at your own life. Many of you. No one would have given a dime for you to be sitting up in church or listening to a Christian tape or CD or listening to a radio broadcast, whatever you're doing.
Some folk who knew you back when would not have believed that you'd be doing that today. Why are you doing it? Because God answered prayer. God answered somebody's prayer when they called your name out to the Lord in prayer. Could have been a relative.
Many of us had praying parents and grandparents and relatives. If you had those folks, you know that you're the product of answered prayer. Especially in generations gone by, because those folk prayed some serious prayers. And even if you don't have any Christians in your family, you are the recipient, you are the beneficiary of the prayers of people on your behalf. There were some people who didn't even know you, but God put your neighborhood on their heart.
Or God, put your job on their heart. That's the ministry of intercession. There are a lot of people called of God to pray with intercession on a regular basis. And they don't just pray for folk they know, they pray for folk they don't know. I know folk who walk up and down your street praying for you.
There are people, teams of intercessors, and they target neighborhoods in prayer. We used to have prayer meetings in the young days of this ministry where we called it our power, and we would target different communities in prayer. And you'd go to somebody's house and they would just pray over a certain community. We didn't know the folk, but we knew God loved the folk. And we prayed that God would save them.
And some of y'all are sitting up here now because we prayed over your community. There are some folk who walk the streets. and pray. You think they're just power walking past your house? But they're intercessors.
They're they're incognito intercessors. And they are praying as they walk past the house. Oh God, in Jesus' name, save these people on this block, Lord. Oh, God, show them who you are. Oh, God, bring them to the cross.
You think they walk in and they're praying. I know a group of folks there called the SWAT team, Saints walking around town. Yeah. And that's what they do, they pray. They pray, they walk around and pray, and witness and share the love of God.
The church can be downright militant when we decide that it's important that the will of God come and be done on earth as it is in heaven. And let me tell you something: there's some things that won't happen until we pray. And so I want to encourage you to pray, knowing that God answers prayer.
Some of us knew that. Our parents, our grandparents prayed. They were not about to see us lost. I've told you the story before. My dad said his mother told him when he was a teenager trying to go to Hollywood, he wanted to be a comedian.
You know where I get my sense of humor from. Just my daddy. And he wanted to be a comedian and a comedic actor and what have you, and wanted to go to Hollywood and what have you. You know, and those old saints didn't believe you could be saved in Hollywood. That was a contradiction in their minds.
And so she took that as he was trying to get away from the will of God for his life. She told him one day, Look, boy, I didn't go down to death's door to bring you into this world. That's how the old saints talk. Went down to death's door to birth you into the world. I'm done down there hanging between life and death, trying to get you into this world and then raise you.
Husband gone off, and I got to struggle to raise you and your brothers and sisters. I didn't go through all of that to see you go to Hollywood and act a fool for the devil. She told him, before I let that happen, I'll pray that God will save you one minute and kill you the next.
Now that's what you call a prayer contract. That's when you put a hit out on somebody in prayer. You tell them, God, before I let him be lost, just kill him. Take him out of here. Those old saints were cold-blooded, man.
They meant you were going to get saved. That was the bottom line.
Now you can do this the easy way, you can do it the hard way, your choice. You want to be laying up in the hospital all strung up? That's fine. With them. But they were not going to see their children and grandchildren lost.
And so they bore down in prayer. Let me tell you something, folks. God answers prayer. Yes, we have mysteries. I got mysteries.
You got mysteries. All God's children have mysteries. There are questions I can't answer on this side. Lord, it seemed to me that what I was asking about this would have been your will. I don't understand why you didn't answer this prayer according to my understanding of your will.
But you got to remember, mysteries don't prevent you from being in the will of God. You commit those things to God and say, Well, Lord, based on what I know to be your will here today, I'm going to stay focused on doing those things that bring you glory. We all have mysteries and don't don't let your mysteries stop you from praying Don't say, well, because I don't get what God did in this circumstance, I'm not going to pray anymore. You don't understand. We all have those things.
Paul described it this way in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He said, It is though we are looking through a glass darkly. He said, We can't see, we don't have clear vision. I don't care how super spiritual you are. You have, if you'll be honest with yourself, there are some things you don't understand.
But if you're truly spiritual and truly surrendered to the will of God, you acknowledge I don't have to understand. After all, I'm not God. And like the old songwriter said, we'll understand it better by and by. Right now, we're looking through a glass darkly. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13: we know in part.
On this side, we only know in part. If you have friends who have an answer to every last one of your questions, get away from them. You ever met these people? They have an answer to everything. They know why everything happens in your life and theirs.
Well, then you're more spiritual than Paul because Paul said we know in part. Therefore, we prophesy, we minister out of that partial knowledge we have. And that's why there's coming a day when we ought to look forward to being in the presence of God because then he goes on to say, we'll be face to face and we'll know everything that God desires us to know. All the mysteries will be solved, all of the things we didn't understand in an instant. will be clear.
And we'll be in the presence of God.
Some of you are hoping to take your list and get an appointment with God and get Him to straighten everything out for you. When you get in His presence, you won't need the appointment. In his presence is fullness of joy. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore. And you'll just rejoice in the God of your salvation.
So, what you do with your mysteries is you give them over to the Lord. Say, I don't understand it, but I tell you, I'm going to trust you anyway. And the Bible says don't judge anything before it's time.
Sometimes we want to understand things it's not our time to know. And so you got to wait on God. And in the meantime, be a prayer warrior and decide you are going to talk to the God who answers prayer. And so look at this text in Luke 1 because Zachariah and Elizabeth had prayed any number of years to be blessed with a child. And for most and all of those years, they were not blessed with that child.
But one day, when they're old, well advanced in years, an angel of the Lord shows up to declare good news. And the good news is, God heard your prayer. He heard your prayer, and he is going to answer your prayer.
Now, you've got to understand something. This text also tells us. A third lesson, which is very important. And it is when you pray. Believe and receive.
Because it is possible to pray and not have faith to believe for the answer. There are some people who pray just because that seems to be the religious thing to do, the right thing to do, or because there is genuinely a desire on their heart. And so they want to actually express that desire. But when it's all said and done, they don't have a heart of faith. Remember, faith is organic.
It is a living thing. Your faith can be weak or strong. And the Bible would call us to be people who are growing in faith so that you not only pray, but you learn to believe God and you learn to be open to receive the blessings that He has for you.
Now note what happened in the life of Zachariah. This angel shows up. And says Don't be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy. That'll be for all the people.
And then he goes on to tell him this story that God heard their prayer and that they're going to have a child.
Now, you would have thought this is good news for a man who prayed for years. But did you notice what Zachariah's response was? He said, verse 18: He asked the angel, How can I be sure of this? I'm an old man and my wife is well along in years.
Now, get the picture. He's ministering. He's in. Talk about being in a holy place. He's in the temple.
It is his turn. To offer the offering of incense. He is in there offering it. The people are outside worshiping and praying. as the priest enters on their behalf.
And he's ministering at the altar of incense. An angel appears standing right at the right side of the altar. Not any old angel, mind you, Gabriel. One of only two angels mentioned by name in the Bible. Because they were prominent.
Gabriel's a bad boy. I mean, this is a big-time angel. This is, you know, God didn't send a rookie angel. You know, a little rookie, he hasn't made a trip down, give anybody any news. And why don't you, you know, get somebody off the end of the bench?
Why don't you run on down there and tell him? No, no, he got Gabriel. Who stands right in the presence of God? In fact, that's what Gabriel said. Gabriel couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Look at this. Read your Bible, man. Your Bible is funny. The question is: How can I be sure of this? I'm an old man.
My wife is well along in years. The angel answered, I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. In other words, That's what I do. That's my job.
Do you see this right in your Bible? Gabriel cannot believe what this dude is saying. What do you mean, how can you be sure of this? I'm standing here. I came straight from the presence of God.
My job. When you fill out your resume, you put down priests. When I fill out mine, I put down, I stand in the presence of God. Apples and oranges. You know, I'm not some farmer, some, you know.
Just somebody my job is I stand right there at his throne. Waiting for him to dispense me. And God sent me to tell you. that you're gonna have a child and you're asking me, how can you be sure? Here none believe something.
The angel said, I'll tell you how you're going to be sure. You're not gonna speak until it happens. Oh, Lord. God wanted to make a point for all of us down through the centuries. Don't insult me like that.
When I show up big in your life Don't bring your little Challenges.
Well, I'm old. Zachariah knew the story of Abraham. He knew the story of how God touched quickened someone who was older than him. When God gave the promise for Isaac to be born, When Abraham and Sarah failed the test, Abraham was in his 80s and Sarah in her 70s. And that was the one they failed.
When they finally got ready to take the makeup, Abraham's 99. Sarah is 89, and God is saying, all right, if you all are ready. Let's bring the Son of Promise into this world. And Zachariah's a priest, he knows that story backwards and forward. And so the nerve of this man of God to question the ability of God.
He's standing there ministering to the Lord, but God doesn't just want you singing the songs. God doesn't just want you serving in the ministries or in the mission field. He wants you to believe Him, to love Him, to worship Him, and to know that He can do exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or imagine. Yeah. Thanks so much for being here with us for today's Destined for Victory message: Life Lessons from the Christmas Story.
Always glad to have you with us. Before we leave you today, Alicia Shepard Greer, the executive director of Destined for Victory, has a very important announcement that may impact the future of Pastor Paul's legacy teaching on this station. Pastor Paul's media ministry is at a crossroads, and as executive director and as his daughter, I am sincerely asking for your help. When my father went to be with the Lord earlier this year, you all showed such tremendous support, and we are so grateful for each and every one of you. But recently, we experienced a change in one of our significant sources of funding, and that change has led to a deficit.
So we need your help to keep Pastor Paul's teachings on the air. Every December we do a special fundraising push, but this year, because of the deficit, it's especially important.
So we're asking you to prayerfully consider giving a gift over and above your normal amount to help us keep this teaching legacy alive. And what's so special is that this month we're offering a special thank-you gift. It's a collection of my dad's last year of teaching in the pulpit, and it's called Becoming an Excellent Steward. The family just finished up edits and now it will be going to print. We wanted to make sure it truly captured his voice, and it came out beautifully.
I spent my dad's birthday weekend reading the entire book, and it feels like a book of his best biblical life advice, so I know it will bless you. You can make a donation and request the book by visiting pastorpaul.net. Thank you so much for standing with us and keeping this mighty man of God's teaching legacy alive. God bless you. Yes, thank you, Alicia.
Again, the book is called Becoming an Excellent Steward. We'd love to send you a copy as our way of saying thanks for your best gift of twenty-five dollars or more to Destined for Victory. And you can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. 855-339-500. 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. When you pray, Believe! and receive. Don't pray prayers you don't expect God to answer. Don't waste your time.
Praying in doubt, wavering. James said in James 1: Let that man not think that he'll receive anything. of the Lord. That's next time in our Destined for Victory message: Life Lessons from the Christmas Story. But until then, remember.
He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
