Pay It Forward

I came to speak to folk who feel like life has dealt you a raw deal.

I came to talk to people who feel like I don't know why other people are having it good. I don't know how this happened to me. I must be cursed.

I must be something wrong with me. I came to tell you the Bible isn't just for the up and in. The Bible is for the down and in. If you are feeling down and out today, you've come to the right place. Today's message might just be what you need to hear. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Coming your way next, an Old Testament story about a young boy who was about as down and out as down and out could be.

That's when a familiar face came on the scene to show all of us what true Christian love looks like. If you can't stay with us, visit pastorpaul.net to hear any recent stories. Please send Destined for Victory message on demand. That's pastorpaul.net. And stay tuned at the end of the broadcast for a special message from Pastor Paul.

But right now, let's join him for today's Destined for Victory message, Pay it Forward. Then King David said, Is there not still someone of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God? And Ziba said to the king, There is still a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet. So the king said to him, Where is he? And Ziba said to the king, Indeed, he is in Lodabar. Then the king sent for him, verse six, When Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, had come to David, he fell on his face and prostrated himself.

Note this. Then David said, Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather, and you shall eat bread at my table continually. Skip down to verse 12.

Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Mekhi, and all who dwelt in the house of Ziba were servants of Mephibosheth, and he dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king's table, and he was lame in both his feet. This message comes to remind you that you're blessed, and it comes to tell you that blessed people have a debt to pay. But it is not a debt to pay God back for how good he's been to you.

It is a debt to pay forward the blessings you've received. So in the midst of preaching about some of the other Do Not Fear passages where we've covered lots of different areas that we need to learn to live fearlessly, I wanted to stop and say here's a Do Not Fear passage that really doesn't have anything to do with some foreboding circumstance that you need to not walk in fear about. This is Don't Fear because God has been good to you, is going to continue being good to you. Do not fear to receive and accept his blessings, and then don't fear to pass them on to other people as you go. So let me just walk you through this passage.

It's just simple yet profound, and I'll be done. Now before we examine the text, I want to point out a couple of impactful occurrences that happened in this man's life prior to our text. So we know now that the man Mephibosheth is the son of Jonathan, who was the covenant brother of David.

Before David was a king, he met this young man Jonathan, and God put them together every now and then. We all have lots of acquaintances, people we've met along the way. They play different roles in our lives.

They have different levels of importance to us, and all that's fine. But I just want to let you know every now and then God brings somebody into your life, and it is a divine connection. Not everybody just shows up. I just happened to meet so-and-so today. No, sometimes it's a divine connection. You just met a divine connection here in our fellowship, somebody who met me in Subway. We about to eat Subway, eat fresh. And I think I'm just going to get a Subway sandwich, and I meet someone who was saying, Lord, I need you to help me. I'm in a difficult place, and I need you to meet me right now.

And here I show up at the restaurant. Every now and then God brings people into your life, either for your benefit or for theirs or for both of your benefits. And I need you to understand, be discerning. As you walk with God, don't just walk any old way. I want you to be discerning.

I want you to be discerning. You know why? Because sometimes you meet someone for God's purposes, and it's not just a happenstance. In fact, when you walk with God, you've got to realize that nothing just happens.

Why? Because we serve a God who takes what would have just happened, but he works it into his purpose. So that's why you get Romans 8 28. All things work together. All people you meet work together. Every circumstance works together.

It's not that God ordained everything directly. It's just that he has the ability to take what happened and work it together so that he fulfills your purpose. And you've got to learn to be discerning as you live your life. And so I want you to understand a couple things that happen in this young man's life before we get to 2 Samuel 9. Number one, in 2 Samuel chapter 1, you hear about the death of King Saul and his son Jonathan. While in battle, both of them are slain. Two different times, but in battle, both of them are slain. What does that mean for this man and this story?

It means he has suddenly lost the sense of being an heir to the throne. He was second generation from Saul. Jonathan was Saul's son, and Jonathan, by all rights, would have been the king after him. But that's not the way God had set it up.

Every now and then God says, no, no, that's the norm, but that's not what I'm doing here. And God had so destined David, who was not in this lineage, to be the king that he even put it in Jonathan's heart. And one day you find them talking about it.

In 1 Samuel 23, when David is on the run because Saul has made him a fugitive, Saul has gotten jealous, is trying to kill his young protege, and he's on the run as a fugitive. But Jonathan meets him while he's on the run, and Jonathan says to him, listen, I want you to know my dad's trying to kill you, but he's not going to have the last word in your life. And I need somebody to know your enemies are trying to kill you, too. But God is not going to give them the last word in your life. Whoever's messing over your mind, your heart, your body, don't let them think they got the last word. I don't belong to you. I belong to God. I belong to God. You young ladies, quit letting some man mess over you.

No, no, no, no. You're not going to be anything without me. Tell him somebody told you wrong. I belong to him. And if I belong to him, if God be for me, it doesn't matter that you decide you want to be against me because I'm going to win.

And your best bet is to leave me alone. I'm his anointed. I'm his chosen one. I'm the apple of his eye. Don't let them mess over you.

Don't let them think that they got the upper hand. No, no, they are just pawns in the hand of God. And if they're not serving a good purpose in your life, do yourself a favor and push them to the side because you got bigger plans. God has a plan, a destiny, a purpose for you. He has hope and a future for you.

And don't let anybody forget it who walks with you and lives around you. And so you need to understand that Jonathan said to David, I know I should be the heir to the throne, but he said to him in 1 Samuel 23, you're going to be the next king, he said, and I'm going to be second to you. He said, I know I should be vying for first place, he said, but I know that's not God's plan.

And so we're going to put you in the place God has put you in and I'm going to be second to you. So Jonathan, Jonathan is dead now and that is the father of this man in this text. Jonathan's gone and his father dies in battle as well. So now the king is dead and Jonathan is dead and now you've got this young man who is five years old when this happens.

Five years old when it happens and he's now got to fend for himself. And then there's another problem that we saw in the text. Let me make sure you understand where that came from. In 2 Samuel chapter 4, you read about the personal injury that changed his life. Pastor Paul Shepherd will be right back with the second half of today's Destined for Victory message, Pay It Forward. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net where you'll find a host of great resources at our online store. You can also listen on your mobile device by downloading our free Destined for Victory mobile app. Search Destined for Victory in the app store and listen to Pastor Paul wherever you go.

Now let's get back to the rest of today's message, Pay It Forward. Once again, here's Pastor Paul. Look at verse 4 of 2 Samuel 4. It says, Jonathan had a son who was lame in his feet.

He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel and his nurse, get the picture now, Mephibosheth is five years old. His nurse hears that the boy's father and grandfather are both dead. And in her hurrying away, you know why she's doing that? Because if the king and his son are dead, that means they're being defeated in battle.

It's only a matter of time before the enemy comes and I've got to protect this boy. And so she quickly gets up and tries to flee and in her haste, here's the way it says, that he fell and became lame. Please understand that that's not just a near like slip out of her arms and he falls to the floor. Whatever was happening, it was such a major fall that when the boy falls, it results in breaking both ankles. And other breaks, obviously, because you can recover from broken ankles. But whatever the multiple breaks were, they resulted in him becoming permanently lame. So look at this, his dad's dead, his grandfather, the king is dead, and now at five years old, he loses the ability. You know what a five year old does, he's running around and prior to that he's having fun and now he can't walk.

Both of those circumstances, the deaths of his father and grandfather and the injury that results in permanent disability has taken place and he's only five years old. I came to speak to folk who feel like life has dealt you a raw deal. I came to talk to people who feel like I don't know why other people are having it good, I don't know how this happened to me, I must be cursed, I must be something wrong with me. I came to tell you the Bible isn't just for the up and in, the Bible is for the down and out.

The Bible is for people who think there's no hope, there's no future, I must have done something wrong. People who get real spooky, there must be past lives, I must have did something wrong in a past life. You know, folk make up a little bit of anything when they're trying to figure out why their life is the way it is. You got these people talking about in a past life, but I've never heard anybody say in a past life, I was a criminal, I was awful, I was messed up. All these folk who talk about past lives, I remember I was a queen.

There's a Greek word for that, baloney. But I came to talk to folk who can't figure out why things haven't shaken out for you the way they shook out for some other folk. First of all, you got to get your eyes off of people that make you envious. Number one, because you don't know the real deal even in their lives. I can't tell you, they might look all wonderful on the outside, might have money, might have fame, might have a million followers on Instagram.

That doesn't mean your life is what it ought to be. Some of the most jacked up folk in the world are in that I'm known by everybody, I'm admired by everybody category. If you don't believe me, explain how come celebrities are taking their lives. In the midst of their fame, in the midst of their wealth, in the midst of the notoriety, why are they killing themselves?

Because all that glitters is not gold. And you need to understand, people are hurting. You can hurt and everybody knows it or you can hurt and nobody knows it. But people all need the Lord. And so I came to talk to folk who say, yeah, I can relate to him. I had all kind of bad breaks in my life.

Loved ones died early or we lost our family wealth or whatever the case may be or a physical injury. If God was so good, how come he let this happen? Let me tell you right now, you need to realize God is good and yes, he let it happen, but you have not gotten to the end of your story yet. I came to tell somebody, yes, God is good.

Yes, you had some bad things happen in your life. We're not going to discount that. We're not going to pretend like that didn't happen.

It did happen. And we should be sorry that you are hurt and we should come around you and love you and encourage you and build you up. Because the fact of the matter is somebody's got to tell you God is still writing the story of your life. Don't you dare put a period where God has just put a comma. You're in a common place and it's not a good place, but I came to tell you, let God keep on writing the story.

And here is a wonderful example of this. So this young man at five years old loses his father, his grandfather, so that whole dynasty, that whole lineage as a result of royalty has now disappeared. And so he doesn't know where his life's going to go from here and he's lame and can't even move around well on his own. He has to figure out life now under these very heavy circumstances.

That's where we are when we get to our text and that's why I want you to see what happens. Outside of his awareness, God is moving on the heart of David. David now is the king. God has brought him to the place of prominence that he already knew he was going to be in.

In fact, when we first meet David back in 1 Samuel 17, you know as well as I do, he was anointed to be the king when he was still a little shepherd boy taking care of his daddy's sheep. But God knows what you're going to be before you ever get there. You need to understand, some of y'all got to stop thinking you are your current circumstances. I came to tell somebody you are not what you look like now. You are not where you're living now. You are not what you have now.

That is not you. What is in you is what God has placed there and you got to start believing in the you that God has ordained and not the you that you see in the mirror or that you hear other people talk about. Don't let people define you. If you let them define you, they get to write the dictionary. Don't let people define you.

You're never going to be anything. Tell them I dare you to just hang around and see what God ends up doing in my life. Hang around a while.

You haven't seen anything yet. You can try to write me off all you want to, but God is still at work. And so you need to understand, this young man seems like he's going nowhere, but behind the scenes, David is asking the question, look at it again. He says, who is still around from the house of Saul that I may show the kindness of God? And Ziba says, well, actually, there's still a son of Jonathan. He's lame in his feet. I'm not sure why Ziba felt compelled to tell him that. The question was, is there anybody still alive in the house of Jonathan? He said, yeah, I got a grandson, but he lame. Isn't that something how people tend to focus on what's wrong with you?

Where do we get that tendency? Nobody asked him, is he well? How fast can he run? That wasn't the question. The question is, is somebody alive who's in the lineage? And here comes Ziba.

Yeah, he got a grandson who lame. Before I go on and make the rest of these points, I want to ask you to teach yourself to stop highlighting the negatives. Just teach yourself until it becomes natural for you to only lift up and accentuate the positive. You can ignore the negative. It's not that you're saying it's not there.

It's just that we don't need to talk about it. You all need to do that in your relationships. You need to talk to people about the positive things. Now, if you've got a covenant friend and they need to challenge you on your junk, that's different. And even that is because I love you enough to tell you the truth about yourself. But when you do that, you're talking to them about things they can change, they can and should help in their lives. You do need people who say, can I see you for a minute? Pull you to the side and tell you something you don't like. They love you. They're trying to help you. And then they usually give you some anesthesia like, you know I love you, right? When somebody says, you know I love you, right? You know you're being set up. When you lead with, you know I love you, right?

Oh man, it's coming. But that's right. That's their job. Don't ask somebody to be in your inner circle and won't tell you the truth. Don't ask people to love you and lie to you.

When your friend speaks to you, it needs to be lovingly truthful. Some of you all got to grow. Some of you all get offended if they hand you a mint. Come on, I'm trying to help you.

You get offended. What you trying to say? I'm not trying to say anything. All I'm suggesting by simply handing you something is, you need a little assistance. Come on, I'm trying to help somebody. You need a little assistance. And if we're going to continue this conversation, this would be really helpful.

Does anybody feel me? Why are you going to take it to the end of the earth? I don't believe coming at me like that. I'm not coming at you like anything. If you pop this in, our conversation will be wonderful. Oh, we're going to talk about the deep things of God. We're going to go to wonderful heights in our discussion.

But first, I need you to take this. Thanks so much for being here for today's Destined for Victory message, Pay It Forward. Look for any of Pastor Paul Shepherd's recent messages online on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. And I'm pleased that Pastor has joined me now in the studio. Pastor, if there's been one thing that has been certain over the past many months, it's been the uncertainty of these times. It's one of the reasons we want to encourage everyone to have this month's offer, a booklet you've titled, Trusting God in Scary Times.

So, tell us about this great resource. It started with me thinking personally about what was it like to be Abraham, having to send your wife Hagar and your firstborn son Ishmael away from the family home. You know, that had to be awfully scary.

Then I thought about, well, what would it be like to be Hagar and to be Ishmael? And suddenly, you are put out of your home and you're going God knows where to do God knows what. That had to be awfully scary. Frankly, sometimes in our lives, we hit scary moments. They might not be what these people experienced, but if you've ever been through some tough times, and my grandmama would have said, if you haven't yet, keep on living, because it's going to happen.

It's going to happen, right. And the result is you're going to wonder, Lord, how in the world am I going to get through this, whatever your this is? And so I wrote this part of the series and I wrote this booklet with the desire and the hope and the prayer that God would help people understand that he is available to us even in scary moments.

His faithfulness is certain, and although it doesn't feel very good, the Lord has promised that he is going to finish the good work he began in us. So I pray that those who receive this booklet, which they can have at their request this month as they donate, I pray that it will be a real blessing and it will help them through the scariest moments in their lives. You know, the Word of God tells us in 2 Timothy 1 verse 7 that the Lord has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of a sound mind. Again, this booklet is called Trusting God in Scary Times, and it's our gift to you this month by request for your generous donation to Destin for Victory. Call 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. And you can also mail your gift to Destin for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538.

Again, our address is Destin for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. I came to tell somebody you've got to stop identifying yourself by your worst challenge. You've got to look beyond your challenge and look at the goodness of your God and realize that he's got a big plan for you. That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd continues to share his message, Pay It Forward. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory. .