God is not just making up. What he wants to do in your life on the fly. God is not saying, well, okay, we're getting some things done, but I'm still sketching out the plan for your life. The reality is, God knew what He wanted out of you before He ever sent you to the planet. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10 tells us that we are God's workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory, where we feature the preaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard. If you are a believer in Christ, you've been called according to God's purpose, a divine plan created especially for you before the foundation of the world. Today, Pastor Paul takes us to the book of Ruth to remind us that God has ordained each of us to carry out a specific plan during our lifetime. Remember to come see us at PastorPaul.net to listen to any recent message on demand, including today's.
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Now, with today's Destined for Victory message getting bitter or getting better, here's Pastor Paul. Ruth chapter 1, beginning with verse 1: In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. and a man from Bethlehem and Judah together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man's name was Elimelech, his wife's name Naomi. The names of his two sons were Melon and Killian.
They were Ephraites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and live there.
Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women One named Orpha. and the other, Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, Both Milan and Killian also Yeah. And Naomi was left without her two sons And Her husband.
I want to Introduce our Examination of the book of Ruth With a question, are you getting bitter or are you getting better? The book of Ruth tells us of God's movements in the life of a woman named Naomi. and in the life of her daughter-in-law, Ruth. The book is named for The daughter-in-law, but Much of the early focus is on. Naomi And that because she, as an Israelite, along with her husband, were chosen people of God.
God sovereignly selected the nation of Israel and said, You are my people. Called according to my purpose. And these folks, the text tells us, were living in Bethlehem among God's people. When a challenge comes in to their lives. The challenge comes in the form of Famine.
But I want to suggest That the famine is not the real problem in the text. The famine is a challenge. But it's not the greatest challenge. The greatest problem I see in the text. is how Elimelech Responded to the challenge.
And I want to examine that with you because I am absolutely convinced. that our problem is not really the challenges we face. Our problem is what we do about. the problems we face. It is our response.
to the challenges that we face.
Now, in the same way that they were called according to God's purpose as the nation of Israel, I want you to know that all of us. Who are in Christ today under the new covenant? Saved by grace, by trusting Jesus as our Savior, all of us are called according to God's purpose. That's what the Bible says. We are called according to God's purpose.
I want you to leave here. knowing exactly what that means. When you are called according to God's purpose, it means. that God has sovereignly begun a good work in your life. And that, although it begins.
According to your understanding, when you accept Jesus and begin to walk with Him, but God so loved you that He ordained what He wanted to do through your life before the foundation of the world was even laid. I can prove it from Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10. It says, We are God's workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus. To do good works, watch this.
which God prepared in advance for us to do. That means God is not just making up what He wants to do in your life on the fly. God is not saying, well, okay, we're getting some things done, but I'm still sketching out the plan for your life. The reality is, God knew what He wanted out of you before He ever sent you to the planet. And you are called according to his purpose, so that God is at work in you both to will.
And the do of his good pleasure. Since we're called according to purpose, You got to know something. Nothing that happens in your life falls outside of the parameters of his purpose. I'm going to take my time and walk through this. Because if you get this, it will absolutely revolutionize your life.
Nothing that happens to you, nothing that happens in you, nothing that happens around you falls outside of the parameter of God's will. Your challenges Do not change God's purpose. God knows what He's going to get done in your life, and He'll get it done come hell or high water. No challenge will ever change his purpose. No inner challenge.
Some of us have some inner challenges. We have, we call them issues. And issues are like belly buttons. Everybody's got one. We all have stuff.
We're born into a fallen world. We're born in sin, shaped in iniquity. And even when you come to Christ, you are still a new creature by position. But now you are beginning to walk out and live out that new life. And in the process, you are having the Word of God confront the issues that are in you.
And so Your issues, sometimes people think, well, their issues disqualify them from God getting anything significant done in your life. Not at all. God's not looking for issue-free people to use. If he were, he'd have nobody. Your issues don't fall outside.
Of the parameters of God's calling on your life. When God calls you, that's the most important factor, that's the overriding. Factor. Let me prove it from scripture. Young man named Joseph in Genesis chapter 37.
He is, when you meet Joseph in Genesis 37, you discover in just a few verses that he is a young, spoiled brat. Absolutely. Young spoiled brat. Here he is. His father loves him more than all of the rest of his children.
When you have a parent loving one child more than the other children, that qualifies as a dysfunctional family. He's in a dysfunctional family, and his daddy is letting him walk around, spoiled as he knows how to be. All the other brothers are walking around and doing work, having to go out in the fields and work. And here's Joseph walking around with a coat of many colors. Read it right in your Bible.
Walking around, not just not doing the chores, not just not having to do the work, but he is sporting a designer coat. While he's not doing the work. Not only is it. He's spoiled, but he's a brat. One day, He comes out to the field.
Because he is used to watching them work. I'm sure he's used to teddling on anybody. Who's not doing something that he thinks they ought to be doing? But here is this young man, as jacked up as he looks. He is called according to purpose.
The Bible says he has two dreams. In the dreams. The picture is he is in a place of prominence and his brothers are bowing to him. In fact, in the second dream, not only is the interpretation that his brothers would one day bow to him, but his parents as well.
Now, in his day, that is the height of arrogance for a child to say, you know, one day I'm going to be in charge of my parents. Because in Bible days, there was no such thing as you becoming superior to your parents. Everything you did brought glory not to you, but to them. They took the credit for all your success. That's the biblical pattern.
Because you can't rise higher than those whose shoulders you stand on without giving them the honor. And so he didn't understand. He was too young to understand that this is audacious for him to say, one day my parents will be bowing down to me. But the fact is, God was the one who gave him that dream. And despite his youth, his inexperience, his being spoiled, and his being a brat.
He's called according to purpose. Don't go away. We have more of today's Destined for Victory message coming up next. But we want to thank all of you who support Destined for Victory with your prayers and financial support, gifts that help us keep this media ministry going. And if you'd like to join us in our mission to take the gospel to all corners of the globe, please consider making a safe and secure donation at pastorpaul.net or give us a call at 855-339-5500.
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Well, he was a con artist, a hustler, skilled in the art of deception, but God still had a plan and a purpose for him, just as he does for you. Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's message: getting bitter or getting better. Example number two. Do you ever meet Jacob in Scripture? Jacob's very name gives him away.
Jacob means trickster. Supplanter, deceiver. In our day, con artist. Jacob is used to getting over on folk. In fact, when you study the scriptures, Jacob comes from a line of tricky folk.
He got it honest. His mama was tricky. Rebecca, read the Bible. When you get a chance, read the Bible. Rebecca was tricking.
Jacob Got it honest. He comes out. He's a twin. His brother Esau beats him out of the womb.
So technically, Esau is the eldest son with all the privileges granted to the eldest. But when they were coming out of the womb, the Bible records that Jacob had Esau by the heel. You already got trouble. And as they began to live their lives, it was clear that Jacob's nature of being tricky and of being a con artist began to work. And one day, his brother came in famished from the field and said, I feel like I'm about to die.
He was out hunting in the open country. I feel like I'm about to die. Give me some of that stew you're cooking. And Jacob said, All right, if you want some stew, give me your birthright. You know, you gotta be some kind artist to make somebody think.
That one bowl of stew is worth a lifetime of blessing and privilege. But do you know there are folk who are that tricky? In fact, do you know there are people listening to this message right now? That oh that tricky?
Some of y'all could sell Evian to a drowning man. You just slick like that. I know I can look at some of your faces. I see it. You just slick like that.
Here's the fact of the matter. Esau buys it. and trades a lifetime of privilege. For one bowl of stew. Then later on Tricky Jacob gets in cahoots with his tricky mama, Rebecca.
And the two of them conspire He's already got the birthright.
Now he's going to get the father's blessing. And they say, before Isaac dies, let's get him to bless Jacob, thinking he's blessing Esau. And so Rebecca Talk about a dysfunctional family. Here's one mother plotting with a son against another son. And they get together and dress him up, put hair on him so he would feel.
You know, Isaac, as he got old, his eyes grew dim and he couldn't see and what have you. And they said, and put some of that animal smell since he's always out there in the open country. And they fixed him up. And Isaac. Felt him and he says, Are you Esau?
He felt something was wrong. But they convinced him, no, no, no, no, no, this is me. And he pronounced what would have been Esau's blessing on Jacob. Let me tell you something. With all of that trickiness, the Bible.
Says God is the father of Abraham Isaac and who else? Jacob. Not Esau. God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and tricky Jacob.
Now, here's what I want you to understand. God never ordains Our sin. He never ordains our junk. He doesn't bless what we do wrong. But here's my point and here's the Bible's point.
Your issues, your stuff. Does not negate God's purpose. When you are called according to purpose. God says, I know what I want out of you. And I am going to be at work in you until I get it accomplished.
You're called according to God's purpose. Your internal challenges don't change that. Secondly, your external challenges. Don't change that. When you're called according to God's purpose, nothing falls outside of the realm of that purpose, not even your external challenges.
So when you fall on hard times, When you hit that financial crisis. When your relationships start going crazy. When things around you start falling apart. The fact of the matter is, you are called according to purpose, and God's promise is: I will take all of that, whatever famine, whatever peril, whatever comes into your life externally, I will take it and I will work it together. For good.
Because you love me and you are called according to my purpose.
So this famine That hits in the day of the judges. does not negate the purpose of God. In fact, the Bible is clear that God takes. Our external challenges And he simply uses them as training tools. If you don't believe me, look at what the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12.
Let me read some verses there for you. See, you know, a lot of us have the habit of reading only the verses we like. And you mentioned Hebrews 12, and folk immediately think verses 1 and 2. Therefore, seeing that we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight. And the sin that does so easily beset us, and let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
That sounds good. And it's true. But you didn't keep reading. Jump down to verse 7. Endure hardness as discipline.
God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined, and everyone undergoes discipline, He's talking about old times now. You are illegitimate children and not true sons. If the father doesn't take the hard times, the real life situations, and use them as training tools, the text said you'll never become a legitimate son.
Moreover. Verse 9: We have all had human fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best.
Some folk can say amen on that one. But God disciplines us for our good. That we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time. But painful.
Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. God will take even your tough Challenges and say. Since you're called according to my purpose, I'm going to get my work done in you, and I'll just take this challenge and teach you how to trust me. Teach you how to draw closer to me. Teach you how to lean on me so that there's nothing that happens in your life, your internal stuff or your external stuff, that negates or changes what God is doing in your life.
God is up to something and he promises he's going to get it done. And he'll use your challenges as a tool. He'll use your challenges to grow you up, to strengthen you.
Some of you remember back in the late eighties In Arizona, They built something called the biosphere. The Biosphere 2 project was this 3.15 acres. structure Built as an artificial closed Ecological system. It was used to test and see how people could live and work in a closed biosphere. while carrying out scientific experiments.
Among the interesting developments they found That the absence of wind, what happened is they created a number of artificial natural conditions. They created a rainforest, they created ocean kind of, there was an ocean element to it. They created a number of things, some desert area. But they could not manufacture the wind. And so, what you had was this closed artificial environment.
But no wind. And they found that there were some trees in the biosphere. Arcadia trees. That typically stand Call. But after a period of time in this artificial environment, They were all leaning over.
And they discovered they were leaning over because They are built. To use the wind. to strengthen their roots and their trunk. And without the wind pushing against them. Their trunk got weak.
And it couldn't sustain the height of the tree. And some of you want a wind free life. You want a life with nothing pushing against you. Nothing bothering you, nothing challenging you. But sometimes God says, Oh, I'll just take the winds of challenge in your life and cause them to strengthen your trunk.
Okay.
So that you can stand up tall and be the person that I have ordained for you to be. James, the brother of Jesus, put it this way in chapter 1 of his epistle: Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Thanks so much for being here for Pastor Paul Shepard's message: Getting Bitter or Getting Better. I hope you've been encouraged to expect the unexpected because in Christ all things are possible and you are destined for victory.
The summertime is a great time for most of us, a time for us to enjoy better weather and enjoy vacations with family and loved ones. But for ministries like Destined for Victory, this can be a difficult season when giving declines. That's why your faithful financial support is so appreciated during these months. When you do give, we have a very special resource to share with you, introducing our latest booklet, Overcoming Bitterness. It's based on some of Pastor Paul Shepard's best sermons, and his message will show you some key strategies to removing bitterness from your heart once and for all.
As you follow along, you'll gain insight into ways to cultivate hope and reclaim the joy of the Lord. Again, that's Overcoming Bitterness, a helpful booklet for anyone who still struggles to let go of past wounds and press on toward his or her victory in Christ. Request a copy today for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. You can give that gift by phone by simply calling A. 855-339-5500.
That's 855-339-5500. Or by visiting pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation there, or by mailing your gift to Destined for Victory, post office box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. Let me tell you something. The reason you have faith is because you're going to have trouble. You don't need faith if you don't have any challenges, no winds blowing against your life.
I don't need faith. I can put it on cruise if I got no trouble. Faith is built for tough times. That's coming up Monday in our continuing message: Getting Bitter or Getting Better. But until then remember He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.
In Christ, you are destined for victory.
