Uh Hello, and thanks for stopping by for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard. Coming your way in just a few moments, a beautiful story of friendship and sacrifice from the life of King David. But first, we have an important message to share with you, our listening friends and partners. You know, summer has always been a tough time financially for ministries like Destined for Victory.
Well, I had a chance to talk with Pastor Paul if this was true every summer, and here's what he had to say. Yes, it is. And it's simply because people love us and they want to support us, but sometimes we're so glad to be through the winter and the spring, and we're now in the summer and we're ready to take some vacation time and do some things that we've longed to do for months. And we get to do it, whether it's travel or whatever. But I just want to encourage and remind our listeners that if we're going to keep on preaching the word throughout the year, then the support is absolutely necessary.
Necessary because I have found out that the bills don't take vacations. They keep coming every single month. And so we have to be ready to meet them with the finances necessary. And again, it's not about the money, it's what the money does. Your giving allows us to keep on declaring truth that people need to hear.
Day in and day out, month in and month out, so at every season, even in the summer, we get to keep preaching timeless truths if we have the financial support. I want to thank all of our partners, all of our donors, everyone who makes sure to meet the financial needs so that lives are changed, souls are saved, and people come to know who Jesus is and how important knowing him is in their lives. You know, the great commission needs to be funded to be fulfilled. It always has, and we're so grateful for friends like you who support our media ministry with your prayers and financial support. As you give generously today, we have an outstanding thank you gift to share with you, our brand new booklet, Overcoming Bitterness.
Based on some of Pastor Paul Shepard's best sermons, this message offers a few key strategies for removing bitterness from your heart once and for all. As you follow along, you'll begin to see how letting go of this destructive emotion can help you reclaim the joy of God's salvation. Again, it's called 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 your copy today for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500.
That's 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. And you can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, post office box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. 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. 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. If you're feeling down and out today, you've come to the right place. You're about to hear an Old Testament story, but 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.
Now, let's listen closely to Pastor Paul Shepard's Destined for Victory message: Pay It Forward. Second Samuel chapter 9. I want to read verses 3-7. And verse 13. 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 6. 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 twelve. Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mackai. 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 benefit. 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 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 in 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 gonna 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.
Up next, the second half of today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard, so don't go away. Remember to come see us at pastorpaul.net to listen to any recent message on demand. And when you stop by, be on the lookout for some of the best Christian resources on the market, including books and DVDs that feature the teaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard. That's pastorpaul.net.
Well, any time we're going through one of life's tough seasons, it can be easy to look at a few other people and think they have it made. But things aren't always what they seem.
Now here's the rest of today's message: pay it forward. Look at verse 4, 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.
Mephibbith 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 is 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. 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 done 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 kinds 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 gonna 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're 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 Zeba says, well, actually, they're 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's 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.
Question is, is somebody alive who's in the lineage? And here comes Zeba. Yeah, he got a grandson who lay. 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 don't 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 y'all gotta grow.
Some of y'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 gonna take it the end of the earth? I don't believe coming at me like that.
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, featuring Pastor Paul Shepard.
To find out more about the Ministry of Destined for Victory and the special gift reserved for you when you give generously today, be sure to visit pastorpaul.net. Once again, pastorpaul.net. Came to tell somebody you got to stop identifying yourself by your worst challenge. You 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 next time in our continuing 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.
