Whatsoever things are true, not all of them need to be said. Look at the rest of the list. whatsoever things are true, But also noble, right, pure, loving. Lovely. Admirable, he kept going, excellent, praiseworthy.
Now, so run all your stuff before you go online. Is what I'm about to tweet? Not only true, but noble. You may already know that coming out and speaking the truth isn't always the right thing to do, but how do you know when to keep it to yourself? Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory, where we feature the preaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard.
Well it's true, some things are clearly left unsaid. That's why it's important to think before we speak. Think about the truth, of course, but don't stop there. Set your mind on things that are noble and pure and excellent, and then you can be sure that what you say will be worth saying. Today's message on managing our thought life comes your way next.
Remember to come see us at pastorpaul.net to listen to Destined for Victory on Demand. That's pastorpaul.net. Subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Yeah. Here's today's Destined for Victory message, becoming an excellent steward of your thought life.
Think about positive things. If I learn something about a colleague, a friend, it might be true. But why am I going to rule? Be glad. over somebody else's misfortune.
That doesn't honor God. And it doesn't honor a person I say God loves.
So just, no, I got this. This is not a lie. I got this from a reliable source.
Well, just because you got it from a reliable source. And it's true, verifiably true. doesn't mean it needs to be spoken. Noah got drunk on the eve of reconstruction. God was using him.
to start the world again. And Noah got drunk. His sons When they found Pop is naked didn't want to look at his nakedness. And the Bible says they covered him up walking backwards. Because it's like we are not going to enjoy Watching somebody else in a miserable state.
Why are some of you Christians So eager to talk nonsense about people who are going through something rough. And tragic. And not good, you need to be praying for them if you say anything at all. I know what that's like. I had somebody tell me I'll never listen to you preach another sermon in my life.
And they were so thrilled. to give me that testimony. And I thought How ignorant. Can you be? Because you need to know You had no business.
Expecting me to be more perfect than you are. And in case you have noticed You are quite imperfect. And the fact of the matter is, we need to get up off of other people. The way you want to grow in your faith. It is to become more obsessed with how I'm pleasing God and less worried about how you're pleasing God.
If you aren't pleasing them the way you ought to, you ought to be. Praying and I'll pray for you while you pray for me. But we got to get out of this business of thinking negativity is somehow godly. It is sinful. Whatsoever things are true, not all of them need to be said.
Look at the rest of the list. Whatsoever things are true, but also noble, right, pure, lovely, and Admirable, he kept going. Excellent, praiseworthy.
Now, so run all your stuff before you go online. Is what I'm about to tweet? Not only true, but noble. Some of y'all Sign off right there. Right.
Pure Sign off. Lovely. Definitely sign off. Admirable. More folk just left.
Excellent. Another crew just got off. Praiseworthy.
Now nobody else load everybody off. I was doing a Facebook Live, nobody on there now. Why? Because you had no business saying what you were getting ready to say in the first place.
So we need to learn to think about positive things. All those things about those people's past was true. Yeah. But update it. Or y'all online, hit refresh.
Refresh the old site said harlot. Refresh. Woman of God. Old sight said blind. Refresh.
Now he can see. Old said, doubting, refresh.
Now he's an apostle. leading others to faith. Old sight said leper.
Now he's a man who's been touched by God. Think about positive things. Second lessons from this text. is have quality mentors. Have quality mentors.
Look at verse 9. Whatever you have learned. or received or heard From me, Paul is saying. to his spiritual children. He says, Whatever you have learned, whatever you've received, whatever you heard from me or seen in me, sometimes I taught you by my very example without opening my mouth.
He says.
So that brings me to the point that And I want to especially say this: all generations need this truth. But I want to especially dedicate what I'm about to say to the four generations under me. Gen X Y'all who are born sixty five to eighty Jin Y 80, 81 to into the mid 90s. And Gen Z And now we got a budding gen alpha. 'Cause when they got to Z, they had to go back to A.
So now we got buddy. I want to say something to those four generations out of love. Listen to Papa Paul. You are not Gonna Get where you want to go. fooling with people who don't know what they're talking about.
Your mentors can't just be influencers online. Your mentors, this can't be somebody whose book you read. but whose life you don't know. You've got to learn to invest in the people God has put in your sphere of influence for the purpose. of mentoring you.
When I knew I was called to preach. I was in college and knew I was called to preach, didn't want to be a preacher, but I said, okay, yeah, the call is there. Then I was just hoping, okay, I'll train for ministry and I'll be itinerant and speak around, do conferences and what have you. But Lord, I sure don't want to be a pastor. Jesus, I don't want to be a pastor.
Because I'm a pastor's kid. I've seen pastoring up close and personal, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Cause people Out of something.
So So I'm trying to figure out how to be a preacher without being a pastor. And finally. I realized that's not going to work. That's not the calling. God wasn't going to let me pick and choose Smorgisborg who I ministered to.
And so I ended up having to do it. having to get ready for the pastorate. And I'm in my schooling and what have you, but then I realized that the Lord gave me my dad, not only as my biological father but my spiritual father. And I had many instructors. Paul said this to Timothy: you have thousands of instructors.
But you don't have many fathers. And I learned that. And I didn't want to be like him in some ways. He is a great man of God. Powerful preacher.
Terrific soul winner. All of that, but he has some things about him and the way he ministered and the way he did things I didn't want to emulate. Love and respected him all of his life, and love and respect him in his grave. But there were some things I didn't want to emulate. It's okay.
To say, I love my pastor about this, this, this, this, this I can do without. Nothing wrong with that. But I had to learn, but God gave him to me for a reason, and I am not to let my instructors take the place of my father. And for many of you, I am a spiritual dad. And you need to learn that when you see God moving in a ministry, the second now of two ministries He led me to lead with great effectiveness by His grace.
I'm not bragging, I'm testifying, God was good to me. And when you see God's hand like that, You've got to say, I'm supposed to learn as much as I can. From that guy. and the woman he's married to. That he has put alongside him for a reason.
She doesn't want the title, so she doesn't carry the title. Y'all, some of y'all still try to call her Pastor Mary. She's not. Stop it in Jesus' name. She's a spiritual mama.
And you need her mothering in the kingdom, and you need me to be a father in the kingdom, and you need to learn as much as you can humanly learn. And there's all these instructors out here, and they got gifts I don't have, and do all this stuff. They will never be a daddy. Please don't go away. The rest of today's Destined for Victory message, featuring Pastor Paul Shepard, is coming right up.
Jesus said that if we followed His teaching, we would know the truth, and the truth would set us free. That's why Destined for Victory is here, to teach timeless truth for a victorious life by pointing people to Jesus Christ. You can help. Stop by PastorPaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. That's Pastor Paul.net.
Or call 855-339-5500.
Well, Pastor Paul Shepard's father was a huge influence on his life, and a big reason why Pastor Paul became, well, Pastor Paul. He talks about the importance of that relationship right now in the rest of today's Destined for Victory message: becoming an excellent steward of your thought life. And so the The Lord ended up having me leave my last secular job. to become my dad's full-time associate pastor. And the Lord told me, You're not going to be his successor.
But you are supposed to learn from him. Yeah. And you're supposed to help him fulfill his vision. Take all of your resources and help him succeed. The Lord told me that in 1982.
When the church said all the leaders had been praying and fasting, because Pop said, I got 500 members now, and I can't pastor all these people by myself. He was an old-fashioned pastor. He thought pastor and meant he had to be hands-on with all of his flock, always in their house, always available to them, always all. And when it got to 500, he panicked. He said, I can't pastor all these people.
And so he said, I want y'all to pray. All the leaders were praying, all the local preachers. Ministers in the church were praying, Lord, show who the associate pastor is supposed to be. All of them include the other people on the list, said as Paul. Anytime other people who vying for the job Hear God say, I'm not it.
Paul's it. They came back, we had a meeting and they all came back saying, the Lord said it's Paul. And I'm my pop didn't didn't do it, but I know he wanted to say, oh man. Because our personalities were so different. And I had instincts he would never have, and I this and that and the third.
And he just, you know, he didn't want that. He wanted a nice, easy life. And so he's the one that asked us to pray. We came back praying, and they all said it was me.
So he hired me. And then he spent quite a bit of time proven to the church. I was going to get no special treatment. And the way he did that is he made my life miserable. And he regularly said, I hired him, I can fire him.
And when I'd make my little rookie mistakes, I'm learning how to be a pastor and don't do something right and mishandle people, or whatever, inadvertently and all that. He'd get up. It was practically one of the announcements on Sunday morning. Here's what my dumb son did this week. It di it wasn't that way, but it felt that way to me.
Cause I'm sitting there knowing I'm trying to help this guy. And he is dogging the life out of me. And I'm a new pastor, and I'm a new husband. I became his associate in March of 1982. I got married May 1st of 1982.
That's a baptism in fire. Those two things at the same time of life. And I'm in my mid-twenties. Young, dumb. Brand new wife.
trying to figure life out. and trying to learn how to be a pastor. And he's working me over. I work twelve hour days regularly. And I had a wife, sometimes she'd call, and I'd hear that in her voice, like, when you come?
Y'all stop, you know what that meant. Amen. Get your butt in that car, come home. There's something here waiting for you. That you're not gonna wanna miss.
Got a blessing with your name. All that, and I said, I'm getting out of here as soon as I can. I'm just really. Later on He told me I saw God's hand on you. I knew you were going places I would never go.
My daddy told me this later. He said, I just wanted to make sure. you had learned lessons the hard way.
So you would never forget them.
Sometimes the people who you think, if I could just get rid of them, are the very people you need. To help you get where God wants to take you. Quit. I tell y'all a lot, quit thinking your fans are wonderful. Find your friends.
A friend loves at all times. A brothers born for adversity. Quit looking for folk to sing your praises. You don't need that. Wounds from a friend can be trusted.
But kisses from an enemy. You don't need them. Find quality mentors. Quit taking swimming lessons from drowning people. Quit thinking some flash in the pan that you got exposed to is all that.
Cause you don't know. You see what you see.
Some people, their press releases are awfully impressive, and their public persona is awfully impressive. Go behind the curtain. Y'all ever see the original wizard of Oz? All that all that up there. That's scary.
Little dog went around there. Good. Pull that curtain back. Little old pitiful man. This is what we've been worried about.
Find quality mentors. Finally. Put sound wisdom into practice. Paul said, what you've heard. And seen in me It doesn't mean anything if you just learn it up here.
You gotta then live it out. I'm proud to say there's some things about me that are just like my daddy. Because I got them from him. And they have served me well. You've got to find mentors and then do what they tell you, and quit thinking you know everything when you don't.
And just let God take you along. to another level. And my daddy, I started saying it didn't complete it. He said, I saw God's hand on you.
So when he came out In two thousand We had just built The church that I came here to pastor that had 34 members, my wife and I made 35 and 36. We came. We came telling them God said thousands are coming. Thousands are coming. They were so excited.
Oh, praise God. Few of them sitting here right now. Oh, praise God. Woo! be exciting thousands of people And God had spoken it.
It wasn't my ego talking. And we had this meeting on a Friday night, January of 1989. I met with these folk who were asking me to be their pastor. I said, I'm going to spend a weekend with you all by Sunday afternoon. I'll tell you whether I'm going to be your pastor.
And I shared that night ten points I had written out. Of what I could see about where God was going to take us. I said, I want to make sure y'all buy in because I'm not coming here to fight. I told him I'm not moving across the country to fight with church people. 'Cause I know church people, y'all love to fight over the color of the carpet.
Any of y'all been in them kind of churches? They'll have a knockdown drag out. Over the carpet. I said, I'm not coming across the country to fight with y'all. If you don't want what I'm sharing with you, tell me now.
I'll get back on the plane and go back home. Because the people in Philly wanted me to stay home. But God was saying, go west, young man, go west. My car tried to talk me out of it when I was coming. I tell you, no lie.
The very time I was on 80, I didn't know 80 went all the way across the country until I came here. I discovered 80 in 1989. All the way across the country, and there were places on 80. The car was saying, You're a fool, you're a fool, you're a fool, you're a fool, you're a fool, you're a fool. My tie was saying I was a fool.
Why are you leaving this church of a thousand people? They love you. You're the rare prophet that has honor in his own country. Where? Where in the world are you going?
Fool with them thirty-four people. But God had spoken. It didn't happen quickly at all. You heard me tell the story. First year we grew from 34 to 45.
Eleven people. I didn't even have a new member a month. But God had spoken. Sometimes God will tell you what, not tell you when. Or how?
Or where? Long story short. In 2004, Fifteen years. After I've been doing this work. we were dedicating a sanctuary of twenty one hundred seats.
Having two services. Before I left there, we were having four services. in a 2100-seat sanctuary. God had fulfilled his promise. My father came up on stage.
I said, Pop, I want to bring you up here. He walked kind of slow, but he was. We brought him up. And I said, I want you to look out and see. the fruit of your labor.
Now, because it looked like the fruit of my labor. But I was standing on the shoulders. of that little man. Five feet. For us.
Something like that. But he had prayed. And he had ministered. and he had mentored And the best of who I was. came from him.
And you have to learn to put into practice. What God gives you through others. God puts people in your life for a reason. Find out which voices you need to listen to the most, and then listen. Thanks so much for being here with us on Destined for Victory.
Today's message, Becoming an Excellent Steward of Your Thought Life, as well as any of our recent messages, are available on demand at our website, pastorpaul.net. While you're there, be sure to check out our online store for some great resources to help you grow in your Christian faith, including books and video messages from Pastor Paul. That's pastorpaul.net. Well, when Pastor Paul was teaching the group of messages we're airing now on Destined for Victory, he stopped right in the middle of it. Took a one-week detour and inserted a special message that was weighing heavily on his heart.
The message is called Sometimes You Have to Encourage Yourself. It's filled with practical advice, and as he always did, he delivered that message with his signature humor and down to earth style.
Now, this message is never aired before on Destined for Victory. It's not available anywhere else but right here, right now. But this month, in appreciation of your most generous gift to Destined for Victory, we'll send you this exclusive message as either a DVD or streaming link. Again, that's sometimes you have to encourage yourself. One of the last messages Pastor Paul ever preached, and it's only available right here for your most generous donation 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. You can also mail your gift, of course, to Destined for Victory. Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538.
Do you need prayer today? If so, you're invited to use the contact feature at the top of our homepage, pastorpaul.net, and share your request with us. Our ministry team is always happy to join you in prayer. Start at pastorpaul.net.
Well, if all of us were exactly alike, only one of us would be necessary. Here's Pastor Paul. You can achieve unity without being identical. In fact, you're supposed to achieve unity without being identical. You know why?
God made us different so that each of us can bring our strengths to any situation. The message is called The Call to Unity, and it comes your way tomorrow. I hope you'll join us. Until then though, remember. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.
In Christ, you are destined for victory.
