Prove It! Part 2 (cont'd)

I want to let you know the only thing that'll make your life different is if you will develop an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. It's the only thing. Going to church won't make you different.

You can be a church-going heathen just like a non-church-going heathen. And so the difference is knowing Him. It's the one thing that will make a difference in your life. And we'll tell you all about it next on today's Destined for Victory.

Hello and thanks for tuning in. I'm sure you've heard it many times, Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. It was established not upon a creed, but upon Christ, the only begotten Son of God who gave His life for the sins of mankind. Today on Destined for Victory, Pastor Paul Shepherd takes us back to one of the greatest heroes of the faith and to the intimate relationship he shared with God.

He knew the doctrine, he knew the law, but above all, he had a deep desire and commitment to know the God behind it. Now, let's join Pastor Paul Shepherd for today's message, Prove It. God will inconvenience your life to bless somebody else's life. He'll make you go through certain things so when you come out and testify as to how you came out, it'll bless somebody else's life.

And that's not just true for leaders, that's for all of us who walk with God. Some of what you're going through is not just for you, it's for somebody else. You say, Lord, why in the world are you letting all this hell break out in my life? Because somewhere down the road, and it might not be long, there will be a divine appointment and God will allow your life to intersect with somebody else who is going through something and they're going to have no hope and no encouragement until you show up. And when you hear what they're going through, you say, take a seat, let me tell you what God can do for you. And so God will teach you.

He'll grow you through some of your experiences. And he just let Moses get between him and the people. And Moses said, remember now, these are your people.

If you destroy them, you're wiping out your own people. And so God responds, verse 14 of Exodus 33, the Lord replied, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. God says, Alright, I'll go. These people are getting on my nerves.

They're full of sin and disobedience. But because you found favor and because you're interceding for them, I'll go. I'll be long suffering. I want somebody here to know God has been long suffering with you. God is not the kind of God who is going to throw you away. Somebody has been praying for you whether you know it. Somebody has been asking God to bless you, to have you hold on, to not have your faith wholly give way.

And I want you to know your life is the product of somebody's prayers. And your God is long suffering. God doesn't throw us away when we make a mistake. A lot of folks say God is a God of a second chance.

I got a better one than that. God is a God of another chance. Because some of us blew our second chance so long ago, we don't even remember when it was. He's not just a God of a second chance because we would be out.

You know, some folks say three strikes you're out. No, not with God. God is long suffering. And He put up with these hard-headed, stiff-necked people and said, I will go with you. Now read on, verse 15. Then Moses said, If your presence doesn't go with us, don't send us up from here. How will anyone know that you're pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?

Did you get that? Moses said, God, the only thing that will make us stand out from anybody else in the world is your presence. I want to let you know the only thing that will make your life different than your neighbors, than your co-workers, than the people in your community, the only thing that distinguishes you from them is if you will develop an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

It's the only thing. Going to church won't make you different. You can be a church-going heathen just like a non-church-going heathen. Isn't that true? And so the difference is knowing Him. Now, I love this part. He said, the Lord said, verse 17, I'll do what you're asking me because I'm pleased with you and I know you. There's that concept again, knowledge.

I know you by name. Then Moses said, see he got happy. He's talking to God and he got that request so he figured he'd shoot for another one. He said, now show me your glory. God, since you seem to be in a given mood, let me see your glory.

Glory is a word that means splendor or manifestation. Moses said, Lord, let me see you show up. What do you look like? I want to see you physically.

Let me behold you. And he didn't know what he had asked, but God straightens him out. Verse 19, and the Lord was in a very benevolent mood, so to speak.

He wants to answer the request, but he can't answer it literally. So look at what God says. He said, I will cause all of my goodness to pass in front of you and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.

I'll have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But you cannot see my face for no one may see me and live. He said, Moses, I wish I could help you, but if I let you see me, you'll drop dead.

Your body is not equipped to handle seeing me. See y'all got to stop thinking God is casual. The man upstairs.

He's no man. His glory is so outstanding that he said, Moses, if you see me, you'll drop dead on the spot. He said, but I want to hook you up.

Paul Sheppard translation. So he says, verse 21, there's a place near me where you may stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I'll put you in a cleft in the rock and I will cover you with my hand.

Oh, this is getting me happy. I'll cover you with my hand until I pass by. Now get the picture. God is saying, you want to see me, but I can't literally let you see me because you'll die. Then you can't go to Canaan. So here's what I'm going to do. I will pass by. I will proclaim my name in your presence. In other words, I will, I will manifest myself, but I'm a put you in a cleft of the rock and I'll cover you with my hand and I'll pass by.

And when I get on the other side and my glory is dissipating, I'll lift my hand and I'll let you catch the last glimpse of where my glory just left. Best, best way to think of it is when a woman has good perfume on. I'm not talking about the cheap stuff now. I'm not talking about what you bought at JC penny. Now I'm talking about the good stuff.

I'm talking about the stuff where she saddles up real nice to her man and talks about how she loves a particular fragrance, hoping he will get to him because this is, you don't buy this with the twos and fuse and when she has the good stuff on, even when she has left your presence, she's still there. You ever had that happen? Somebody go, Oh, how are you doing? God bless you. And they walk off. But the glory, the glory is still there. And God said, Moses, I'm going to put you in the class. I will pass by, but I'm going to cover you with my hand.

I'll pass by. And when my glory has dissipated and they'll just be the last little glimmers of where it was, I'll lift my hand and let you see the postlude of my glory. And that was so much. When you look at chapter 34, look at it beginning at verse 29, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. He didn't know, but seeing the afterglow of God's glory changed his very appearance.

It lit up his countenance. Now see, we're used to seeing somebody who's been in the sun. You know, you can tell somebody just came off two weeks in the island somewhere and you look at the wall, child, you've been in the sun.

Where did y'all go? You can tell them they were somewhere because you see the impact of the sun on their face. But here we're talking about the impact not of the S-U-N. We're talking about the impact of the S-O-N, the Son of God. When you get in His presence and spend enough time in His presence, it changes not only what you look like, it changes who you are. And Moses shows up having been in the presence of God. And look at what happened in verse 30. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant and they were afraid to come near him. I want to encourage somebody to get so close to God until folk who aren't living right don't want to fool with you much.

They don't want to bring a lot of foolishness around you. And he said that they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to him. So Aaron and the leaders of the community came back to him and he spoke to them. Afterward, all the Israelites came near him and he gave them the commandments of the Lord. When Moses had finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord's presence to speak with them, he removed the veil until he came out. When he came out, told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant.

Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord. The point is when you spend time in the presence of God, it will change your life. But you can't just spend it weekly hearing about God. You've got to go to spending it daily speaking to God, giving your life to him in full surrender so that when you spend time with God, his radiance, his glory begins to impact your life and you begin to be changed from the inside out. What you need if you are in bondage and need freedom, what you need if you want to let your light shine and see God transform others is a vital relationship with God that goes beyond hanging out with the Lord weekly to spending quality time with him every day of your life. And that's the point Peter makes here when he says that the key to you experiencing God's divine power is having a knowledge, a daily intimate knowledge of the Lord.

And he says through these you actually, look at the wording in verse 4, you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. I want to let you know God's not looking to do a cosmetic quick fix in your life. God's out to do an extreme makeover. You've seen these shows, Extreme Makeover, haven't you? And you've seen these folk in the before and then the after and it's dramatic, not just a little quick fix. These are the folk who went under the knife. So they have some shows where they just grab somebody at the audience and say by the end of the show they're going to be made over. That's cosmetic.

That'll be over as soon as they get home good, right? Because they just put some makeup on, did the hair right quick. But by tomorrow they'll be back the way they were. And you and I can be that way if all we do is hang out with God every now and then. That's not a real makeover.

That's just cosmetics. God is out to change us from the inside. He is out to take what has been a bondage and to break us free from that. God is out to change your attitude from bad to like Jesus. God is out to help you grapple with those issues of your past.

I want to let you know these are days when a lot of folk think that they are bound by what happened to them in the past. But I'm here to let you know you can't help where you've been, but God can change where you're going. God's going to do an extreme makeover.

He's going to get down there where that hurt is and that abuse has been and where those struggles, lifelong struggles have been. And God wants to transform you by His grace and by His power. We don't serve an impotent God. We don't serve a God who says, I wish I could do something for you, but whew, you jacked up. Aren't you so glad that no one can be in a condition that when God sees them, He starts scratching His head? I don't care where you find yourself in life. You'll never make God say, whew, Lord, I don't know.

Let's see if we can do anything. I'll tell you. Oh, I'm so glad that God can take you from wherever you are. Being messed over by people. God, some folk can tell you, God can change you. Some of you have had others define you, others to run your life. You didn't know who you were until somebody loved you.

Walking around looking for somebody to love you and define you and affirm you. I want to let you know in Christ you are a new creation and when you spend time getting to know Him, He'll literally make you a new creation. You don't have to settle for what other folk left you as. You don't have to be, you know Joseph was left in a pit for a while until his brother saw that a band of Ishmaelites were coming down the road. Then they pulled him out of the pit, sold him into slavery. And some of you are in a pit or you're in bondage to something from your past. Let me let you know whether you're in a pit or whether you're in bondage, God wants to set you free.

And He has the power to do it. In fact, it's not a problem with God. You won't even make God sweat.

You think, oh, I'm a pitiful case. I mean, God's going to really have to go to work. No, no, God can change you from the gutter most to the utter most.

God can lift you up out of what you're in. If you'll say, God, I want to give you my whole life. I want to be a testimony of your grace.

I want to be one of the trophies you show off. I want to be one of those people that God shows off and says, look at her. You should have saw her when she first came to me. But she made herself available and she became intimate with me through prayer and through surrender and through worship and she trusted me day by day and now her life is transformed. Look at that man.

He was full of anger and bitterness and had all kinds of hang-ups. But when I got through with him, I made him into the person I called him to be. I want to let you know God's power is available to you. You can be the person He made you to be. You struggle with self-esteem. God can help you identify who you are. You don't have to go around looking for somebody to light up your life.

Jesus is the light of the world. And I've told you many times before, you better let Him in before you let somebody else in anyhow. If you go around looking for somebody to define you and you run into one of these folk who is struggling themselves, it's only a matter of time before they mess you up more. You ever fallen in love with somebody and you were kind of jacked up before the relationship and now that you fooled with them, you are extremely jacked up.

Do I have a witness in the house? And so you think a relationship with a human being is the answer, there's some folk who could tell you who you need to get to know is Jesus. And give Him your life and let Him define you. The Word tells you who you are. Word tells you what you can do. Word tells you how much you're loved by God.

The Word gives you your standards for living and when you have all that in place, then you can prayerfully seek God to bless you with a relationship. And to know whether this is the person, you check them out by the Word. And you see if they're telling you something that's not in here and if they start telling you, you know you're stupid, you say, burnt, wrong answer because I walk in the wisdom of God. I walk with God and God is all the wisdom and knowledge I need. And they tell you, you know you can't do it, you know you'll never be anything burnt, wrong answer.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. In fact, I'm going to prove it, I can throw you out of my life. So in the words of that famous song, hit the road Jack and don't come back no more. And you who have never been able to break up with anybody in your life will find God giving you the power to tell somebody to get to stepping in Jesus' name. I don't know where you're going but you got to get up out of my life because I'm going with Jesus. I'm going to higher heights. I'm going from glory to glory. You're going from mess to mess.

We are not heading in the same direction and so this is where you get off. And I'm telling you folks, you can do it. People who haven't been able to be abstinent as a single people, never in your life have you been, I've always needed somebody. Well if God is the one who is saying, I want you to keep yourself pure until I have brought the right relationship into your life, he's got the power to do it. He would never tell you to do that, to live sexually pure and then he won't give you the power. God's not unfair like that.

Well Lord, how am I going to do it? God said, I don't know. No, no, that's not the God you serve. So you go to him and say, first of all God, I want to surrender to your will. I want to live the way you called me to live.

Until and unless you bring the right person into my life, I do not want to give my body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit to somebody that my spirit is not joined to in a holy union. See we live in a world, we live in a world where that's laughed at. That's part of the evil corruption, the corruption that's in the world through evil desires that this text talks about. And that's a manifestation of the evil in this world. You talk about being sexually pure and see who looks at you like you just came off of another planet.

Here you are in your 20s and 30s talking about sexual purity and you're single. You must be crazy. And folks will tell you, you can't do it. When people tell you what you can't do, all that means is they can't do it. But in Christ, you can do all things because he doesn't tell you what to do and not give you the power. So you go to him and you surrender and say, I've got God, I'm resolved to do your will, but I'm going to need your help here. I'm going to need you to walk with me every day. I'm going to need you how to teach me how to live the life that brings you glory. Teach me how to walk in wisdom. Teach me how not to sight see in temptation's neighborhood.

Can't be sexually pure hanging out in temptation's neighborhood. You don't go to temptation mall and window shop when you're trying to do the will of God. You ever heard these people talking about they're going to the mall not to buy anything just to look? Most of us don't have the willpower to do that.

And even if you do, don't try it with temptation because temptation has a gravitational pull and it'll pull you right in. And some of y'all know that just from shopping. You show up at the mall, I'm not buying anything. And then you see the window clearance, 30 to 50% off. And you say, well, let me go and see what they have in my size. And then you go in there and they got something that just strikes you, just speaks to you.

It's just calling you from the hanger. Grab me. I'm here.

I'm your size. Let's go into dressing room. Come on, be honest.

I want to prove this point. How many of you have gone to a store or mall or something and you did not plan to buy a thing, but you left with something. Put your hand up in there, please.

Thank you very much. Now, if that's happened to you shopping, what do you think will happen to you when it comes to the will of God? The enemy knows how to lower you out of the will of God. And so you need God's help and his wisdom and his power. And it's available to you if you will say, God, I'm going to get to know you and I'm going to tap into your divine power. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message.

Prove it. If you'd like more information about the Destined for Victory ministry or this month's special offer, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net.

Well, one of the ways we can be a blessing to others is by sharing the gospel with them, inviting them to accept the gift of God's salvation, as well as showing them how to live the abundant Christian life here on earth. Our gifts to Destined for Victory help Pastor Paul do just that. And as our way of saying thanks for your generous donation today, we'd like to send you a book from Deborah Smith Pigay called 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety. If you want to know how to deal with the stresses life sometimes brings your way, if you'd like to replace your worry with the joy and peace that only God can give, you'll want to pick up a copy of this great resource today. Again, that's 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety, our gift to you this month by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. Call 855-339-5500 to give over the phone 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. God does what he does, not out of obligation, but out of a heart filled with love. God is love and one of the ways he expresses his love is he has made some promises to us. He didn't have to make them.

We didn't beg him to make them. He just chose to bless us in some way. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message Prove It. Join us to be reminded of some of God's greatest promises, promises he's made to all of his children, including you. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory.