Don't Go Messing with the Blessing

And I'm here to tell somebody that you have got to get luck out of your vocabulary. I know some of us carried the word over from the world, but now that you're in the kingdom, you got to adapt kingdom terminology. And I'm here to tell you that the concept of luck is not found in your Bible.

Wherever you are and however you may be listening, thanks for spending part of your day with us. Well, some call it luck and some call it fate. But according to God's Word, there's no such thing. All good gifts, every blessing, every promotion, every miracle comes from the loving hand of the living God. And He allows our trials as well, those times when our faith is tested.

As we continue our study of David today, we find him living in hiding from King Saul, abandoned by many of the people he trusted. But in the midst of this burden, God gives him a blessing and the strength to carry on. So stay with us now or visit pastorpaul.net to listen on demand. That's pastorpaul.net.

You can also subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, here is Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message. Don't go messing with the blessing. First Samuel chapter 30, beginning with verse 18. David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken, including his two wives.

Nothing was missing, young or old, boy or girl, plunder or anything else they had taken. Then David brought everything back. He took all the flocks and herds and his men drove them ahead of the other livestock, saying, this is David's plunder. Then David came to the 200 men who had been too exhausted to follow him and who were left behind at the Bezor ravine. They came out to meet David and the people with him. As David and his men approached, he greeted them. But all the evil men and troublemakers among David's followers said, because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered. However, each man may take his wife and children and go. David replied, No, my brothers, you must not do that with what the Lord has given us. He has protected us and handed over to us the forces that came against us.

Who will listen to what you say? The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike. David made this a statute, an ordinance for Israel from that day to this. When David arrived in Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah, who were his friends, saying, Here is a present for you from the plunder of the Lord's enemies. We'll conclude our reading there.

I decided to entitle this message, Don't Go Messing with the Blessing. We've been looking at in the most recent message the fact that David and his men, while during this period of being fugitives running from King Saul, who is murderously jealous of David. And every time Saul hears about where David is, he goes after him to try to take his life. And the Lord has spared David one thing about it. When you are walking with God and called according to his purpose, no weapon formed against you will prosper. Now, please remember, that doesn't mean the weapons won't be formed, but it does mean that they will not prosper.

And what the enemy is trying to do, he will not succeed because your life is not in his hands, but it's in the hands of the God who called you according to his purpose. And so David has been spared, but they're still fugitives. And as such, they just had a period of time where they returned from the Philistines, where they are living in their territory. They returned after trying to align themselves with the Philistine army to help them in one of their battles. But the commanders of the army were afraid that David was just plotting to turn on them so as to look good in the eyes of Saul. And they said, we don't trust this man fighting with us.

Send him home. And so Achish had to send David and his men back to their temporary home in Siglag. And we saw in the last message that when they got to Siglag, they discovered that some raiders from the Amalekites had taken their wives and children, taken their possessions, and they had run off with them. And we saw that David had the fine strength in the Lord, his God. Well, after realizing that they're in this terrible predicament, we saw that David sought the mind of the Lord. He inquired of the Lord, God, what do you want me to do?

Do you want me to pursue the Amalekites? And the Lord said, yes, pursue them because you will overtake them and I'm going to give you back everything that the enemy took from you. And so David and his men now have gone after the Amalekites. And we are told in this passage that God blesses them with the victory and they indeed are able to recover everything. And it is out of this passage that I want us to learn a few things.

When I've studied David's life in the past, I really kind of skipped over the second part of First Samuel 30, not really seen much to focus on there. But this time when I studied his life, my attention was drawn to what happened in the aftermath of this recovery. You know, we tend to focus on and they got everything back. Hallelujah.

And we get happy about those kinds of things and rightly so. But what I've come to realize is that when you look at the word of God, God will show you some nuggets that you missed before. And so never say, oh, I read that before. Read it again, because God has a way of shifting your attention and showing you some other things.

And there are three points I want to lift out of the passage that we just looked at here in the latter part of First Samuel 30. The first point is realize that you are not lucky you are blessed. Realize that you're not lucky you're blessed.

David, it is apparent in this text that David is well aware that this recovery of everything that was taken was not a matter of luck, but it was the intervention of God. And I'm here to tell somebody that you have got to get luck out of your vocabulary. I know some of us carried the word over from the world when you used to live in the world and and live by the patterns of this world. You considered yourself lucky every now and then or on lucky.

But now that you're in the kingdom, you got to adapt kingdom terminology. And I'm here to tell you that the concept of luck is not found in your Bible. The good things that are happening in your life as one called according to God's purpose are not happening because it just happened that way. I don't know. I don't know. Next thing I know, some good just dropped into my life.

No, no. When you walk with God, you are called according to purpose. So everything good that's happening in your life is happening by the designed blessing of God. So you got to understand you're saved on purpose. You're not saved because you deserve to be. I hope you know that you are saved because the Bible says in Ephesians two, you were dead in trespasses and sin.

That is, you were spiritually dead, disconnected from the life source, which is God. The Bible says we were born in sin, shape and iniquity. And Paul said to the Ephesians that we were dead in trespasses and sin. It says, But God, who is rich in mercy, quickened us. That is, he made us alive in Christ. And now he has seated us with Christ in heavenly places.

That's on purpose. You're not saved by luck or chance. You're saved because a good God looked down and saw your helpless, hopeless estate and said, If I don't save him, he'll never make his way into fellowship with me.

If I don't redeem her, she's lost forever. And God intentionally, deliberately blessed you with the gift of salvation. Oh, I'm here to tell you, you're blessed. You're blessed. You might not have wealth in terms of material things, but you are blessed. You might not have everything that your heart desires yet, but you are blessed. And when you have salvation, you have the greatest, most expensive gift the world has ever received.

You're blessed, you're blessed. So you've got to understand, now that I'm saved, now that I'm called according to God's purpose, the things that happen in my life don't just happen in the life of a child of God. Nothing just happens when God is at work in you. He began the good work.

He will complete the good work and he is active. The Bible puts it this way in Philippians two. It is God who is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. What that means is when you see fortunate things take place in your life, you are blessed.

You're not lucky. It is God's intentional blessing in your life. And David is aware of that in this text. He is aware of the fact that he was protected by the Lord. He said that it was God who protected us. It was God who allowed us to not be defeated by our enemy.

Let me tell you something. You are the recipient of the blessing of protection. You're listening to this message right now because God has protected you. The enemy would have taken you out a long time ago.

Circumstantially, you could have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But God said, not so. I'm not finished with you.

I got some things I'm working out in you. And so he made sure that you are alive to see this day. You are protected by the deliberate blessing of the Lord. Let me tell you something.

In the day in which we live, every time you walk back into your house, you ought to say thank you Lord that you kept me. We're living in crazy times. We're living among crazy people. We'll shoot you for no reason at all. Just going out of their minds. All you have to do is just be at a mall somewhere, minding your business. You see it on the news all the time. People just thought they were going somewhere to pick up something. Never make it back to their house when their family sees them again.

It's in a morgue. How come it hasn't happened to you? Not because you're lucky. It's because you're blessed.

Accidents that could have been disastrous and fatal. And God said, not so. I'm not finished with you. You're not lucky. You are blessed. Blessed of the Lord with protection. There are bullets that don't have your name on it, but would have come your way anyway. Somebody was shooting at somebody else, missed them, and could have hit you, but God said, not so.

You are blessed with the protection of the Lord. Still ahead, the second half of today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. We want to take a moment to thank all of you who sustained Destined for Victory with your prayers and financial support. Gifts that help Pastor Paul share the gospel with a growing audience.

Destined for Victory is a listener-supported ministry, and right now during the busy summer months when donations to the ministry tend to decline, your help is very much needed and appreciated. So as God leads, please prayerfully consider making a gift to Destined for Victory today. Give in just a few moments securely at pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. The favor of God is better than any material blessing he could give you. No one knew this better than David, whose story continues now on the rest of today's message, Don't Go Messing with the Blessing.

Once again, here's Pastor Paul. David knew that he was protected as he fought this enemy. He knew that it was God who gave him the victory. If you're experiencing victory in any area of your life, it's not by chance or happenstance. It is because God blessed you with the victory.

And you ought to thank him. When you used to be bound in some area, now you're free. You ought to give God praise because you don't deserve to be free.

You don't deserve to have victory. It's just the goodness of the Lord. You're blessed with protection. You're blessed with God's provision. You're blessed with God's favor. You ever had God give you a favor? Favor is a wonderful blessing. Favor, in many ways, favor is more important than a particular material blessing because favor is that intangible that will open up doors that ought to be closed to you.

Oh, some of us have enjoyed the favor of God. When God gives you favor, he'll just make somebody bless you who really doesn't have any good reason to bless you. Favor will give you a job you don't really qualify for. Favor will put you in a house that you really shouldn't be in. Favor, favor will open doors of opportunity to serve, to be a blessing that would not normally be open to you. Favor, the favor of God will do those things. The favor of God has put me in some ministry context where I looked around and said, what in the world is a dude from Philly doing in here with all these big shots and muckety mucks and folk in the who's who books and folk who I want their autograph and I'm sitting there right among them.

What am I doing here? It's the favor of God. You've been blessed with favor. You've been blessed with the favor of God.

You ought to thank him when you see the Lord giving you favor. I'll never forget when we were believing God to build out this facility so we could reach more people for the Lord. We were a church that didn't have any property but there we were going to lenders anyway saying we need millions of dollars to build out a building we want to lease so that we can do ministry on a larger scale and they say, all right, millions of dollars, huh? All right, well, what do you have in collateral?

We said, what do you mean? What are you going to give us to guarantee that we'll get our money because you say the building you're building out is not going to be yours. It's a lease.

So that's right. So we can't put the loan against the lease because you don't own it. We can't come against you because you don't own it.

And they said, so what do you own? We said nothing. You mean to tell me your church is growing like you described and all but you don't own. It's not a thing. We've been doing it.

All the growing has been in somebody else's building. We don't have our own. We believe in God. Perhaps one day if that's his will right now, we're just looking for a bigger place to lease so we can do the will of God and so there were lenders who say you gotta be can you think we're going to give you millions of dollars and you don't have any collateral and they laughed us out of there, but we knew that God was going to give us favor with somebody. And sure enough, the Lord opened the door. Some folk drove up from Fresno said, I want to meet with you and your elders.

We sat down and they said, tell us your story. And I walked them through how God has worked in over this time and what's been going on. And they said, listen, we are a ministry committed to helping people like you and tell you what you don't have to have property for us to hold against it. If you can just get your people to pledge that they will pay for this renovation. We will lend you every dollar for dollar every pledge. We said, praise God went back told the church we need pledges and we raised several million in pledges, but the folks said, listen, not only will we lend you what you have currently pledged, but if you get more pledges because your costs are probably going to go up when you build on the scale, you're talking about building your budgets probably going to increase over time and indeed it did. And so they said, just keep getting the people to pledge and we'll keep on giving you money. And they started sending money based on the pledges we had.

And after a while, the cost kept going up and we got so focused on building. We stopped getting pledges. And they kept sending money. And they stopped asking us for pledges. They got so excited about blessing us so we could do this every time we send them the new information from the contractor that we need a few more hundreds of thousands of dollars or we need another meal to do something, they would just shoot it on to us. They didn't ask us, do you have the pledges?

Good thing because we didn't have them. Oh, I guess we could have came back and leaned on y'all, but we just after a while, we just stopped. We said the folks are going to pay it. God's going to meet the need.

And we were so caught up in what was going on in the excitement. They stopped asking for pledges. We started asking y'all for pledges and they kept sending us money anyhow.

Now we do need you to pay off the loan. But I'm just trying to show you the favor of God. It's wonderful when God gives you favor.

And the Lord blessed David, and he knew he was blessed. Get luck out of your vocabulary. You walk with God now. You walk with an intentional God who blesses you in intentional ways.

Don't ask for luck. You're not this isn't don't rub on coins and rub on little teddy bears and little rabbits foots and that that got nothing to do with the kingdom. We look to God from whence cometh our help and God responds by blessing his people. And you owe God praise. You're more blessed than you think you are. You've been kept from danger.

You didn't recognize I love it. I grew up around the saints who prayed, Lord, thank you for keeping us from danger seen and unseen. What they meant is we saw you keep us in some ways. We saw you help us avoid an accident or something like that. But we know you well enough to know there's some things we never saw, but you saw it coming our way and you sent it another way.

And we want to thank you. I'm here to tell you, you need to realize you're not lucky. You're blessed. David was blessed and he knew it. Blessed and gave God the praise for it. Realize you're not lucky.

You're blessed. Number two, resist the temptation to be judgmental toward others. Now, this point isn't for you. This is for people on your row. There's somebody on your row.

So start in a seating now. Oh, God, whoever this is for, speak to their heart. Lord, resist the temptation to be judgmental toward others. I want you to notice what happened in the text. The Bible says that when they're returning with this plunder for Samuel Chapter 30, verse 22, they're on their way back. And well, verse 21 tells us that the folk who had been too exhausted to follow them and who were left behind at the Bezor Ravine, they came out to greet David and were all excited to see them returning with this plunder.

Now, get the picture. David had 600 men. And after the Lord gave the word, go after these Amalekites and pursue them because I'm going to bless you to get back everything they took. They began the journey to pursue them. But along the way, 200 men were too exhausted to continue. Now, remember, they've been through a terrible ordeal after they were kicked out of the Philistine territory where they were going to fight.

They had to take a three day journey back to Ziklag. And once they got there, they found out their families and their goods were stolen. And the Bible says they wept until they had no more strength to weep. And so some of them were just exhausted physically and emotionally. And while some were recovered enough to go and to do battle, there were 200 who just couldn't make it. So those 200 stayed behind. And now you pick it up in verse 22, and it says that after David has been greeted by these folk who stayed behind, the evil men and troublemakers among David's followers said, because they did not go out with us, we will not share with them the plunder we recovered.

Get the picture now. While David is greeting these 200 who stayed behind, there are some folk, evil men, the Bible calls them, troublemakers among David's followers. We're not talking about pagans. We're not talking about heathens. We're talking about people of the family of God.

Don't you fool yourself. Not everybody in church is holy. Not everybody in the service is really walking with the Lord in the way they ought to. Some of us God has begun a good work in us, but he's still got some work to do. Talk to me somebody.

Still got some junk, still got some issues, some things that are going on on the inside that need to be dealt with. Before he became king of Israel, David learned one of the most important truths in God's word, mercy triumphs over justice. As we continue to become more like Christ, let us learn to extend the same grace and understanding to others that God extends to us. Well, sometimes God is preparing a blessing for you, but more often than not he's preparing you for the blessing. If you find yourself going through a season of waiting today, that time period between God's promise to you and the fulfillment of that promise, here's a resource that can help. Pastor Paul Shepherd's booklet, Finding Strength in Tough Times.

As you follow along, you'll discover three lessons from David's years as a fugitive that will help you handle your season of waiting in a way that prepares you for the promise God has ready for you. That's Finding Strength in Tough Times, a booklet from Pastor Paul, and our gift to you by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. Call 855-339-5500 to give your gift or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. And you can always mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538.

Again, the address is Destined for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. Do you need prayer today? Visit pastorpaul.net. Click contact us and share your request with us so that our ministry team can join you in prayer. And while you're there, be sure to ask for Pastor Paul's monthly letter of encouragement, yours at no cost or obligation.

You don't have the option of unforgiveness. Yes, the offense was genuine, but God says because of how much I've done for you, I require you to forgive them and then let me deal with their issue. And I'm here to tell you, God is serious about us resisting the temptation to be judgmental. That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, don't go messing with the blessing. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory. You