What would happen if we, the body of Christ, just decided we were going to commit random acts of kindness? What would happen if we just decided I'm going to go out and just nice people to death? All too often, we respond to people in kind instead of responding to them in kindness. Hello, and thanks for stopping by for today's Destin for Victory, where we feature the preaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard. When you study the life of Christ, you can't help but notice how kind He was to everyone He met.
He never used guilt trips to coerce repentance. Instead, He treated everyone with love, respect, and kindness, and we, as His ambassadors on earth, would do well to walk in His steps. Today's message is coming right up, and we hope you'll stay with us. But remember, you can visit pastorpaul.net, or you can listen to any of our recent messages on demand, including today's. That's pastorpaul.net.
Now, let's listen into Pastor Paul's Destined for Victory message: Prove It. The child of God has the same message. What we preach is good news. It's not bad news. Y'all believe in hell.
I believe that through Christ you don't have to go. That's what I believe. And so it's time for the child of God to stand up and be godly. And let the world know we represent a Christ who saves us. We're not self-righteous, we're not holier than thou.
The only difference between you and the sinner is that you have received the gift that we're trying to convince the sinner he needs to receive. We have our struggles. We have our problems. But we take them to the Lord. We go to His Word.
We put our lives in his hands. You want to be like the three Hebrew boys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were in a foreign place. But they represented their God. They were away from the city of God.
But they had the values and the relationship with the law of God. That was precious to them. And although they were among heathens in Babylon. They were godly in their hearts. And they refused to bow.
When Nebuchadnezzar built the statue and commanded everyone in the kingdom to bow, all bowed except. These young men. They stood erect. Because they do not bow to false gods. They were godly.
They stood up for righteousness and refused to bow. And you know, and these men had prominent places in the king's cabinet. Let me tell you something. God wants to put you as a child of God in a strategic position.
So that you have influence over certain people. And for all of us, that will look different. But God is strategically placing His people everywhere in the world. See, we've got to understand, once you get this straight, God's liable to do anything with your life. And a lot of people are still trying to figure out: can you be saved and be this or that?
You can be saved and be a whole lot of things if you truly represent Christ. God's liable to put you anywhere. You can be saved and be in Hollywood.
Somebody needs to be saved over there. And I'm finding there are more and more of God's people who are now in the entertainment industry, and God is dealing with them about representing Him and letting their light shine. And God needs you. God needs you in politics. God knows we need some godly people in politics.
God knows we need godly people raising up businesses of integrity, corporations of integrity. We need godly people everywhere in education, higher education, educating the kids in high school, junior high school, elementary school. We need Christians everywhere who will truly represent God. And these young men, these three Hebrew men, the Bible says they stood against the political pressure to bow to this foreign God. And when Nebuchadnezzar heard about it, he called him in and said, Now I like you fellas.
And normally, there wouldn't even be a discussion. When somebody defies me, I know you all aren't from Babylon, you were brought here captive. And so I realize that you all don't understand how a kingdom works. When you defy a king, that's it. But I happen to like you.
So, because I like you, I will have mercy upon you. I have called the band back, and they will play it again, Sam. And when you hear the trumpets this time, You are to bow. When you bow, I will send word. that you all were temporarily insane, but you got your act together.
that you in fact bow and everything will be good. Look at what they said when you get a chance. The Bible says in the book of Daniel, these men looked right at the king and said, We are not slow. To answer you in this matter. The God we serve.
Oh, and by the way, and they paid him respect first. They said, Oh king, live forever. Paid in respect.
Some Christians have learned that.
Some Christians are disrespectful. And you cancel out the validity of your testimony by your disrespect. You got to learn, even if a person is a heathen, if they're your boss, that's your heathen boss. Come on, let me help somebody. And your heathen boss will fire you.
Just because they don't know Jesus yet doesn't mean that you can be disrespectful. In fact, through your s respect, You can begin to set the stage. for your witness to have an impact on their lives. They said, old king live forever. They gave him all his props.
But when it came to bowing and compromising their faith, they couldn't do it. And they said, We're not slow to answer you in this matter. The God we serve is able to deliver us out of your hand, and He will deliver us. I love this part. They said, but if not.
We still won't bow. In other words, if God lets us go to your furnace, We're not crazy about fire. It was just that we love God. And if God lets us burn. If God lets you put us to death, By means of this fire, we still won't bow.
We'll burn before we bow. And the Bible says the king was full of wrath, and he ordered them to be slain by fire. In fact, he commanded that the fire be heated seven times hotter. It was so hot that the men who took them to cast them into the furnace were slain by the heat. And when the king looked, I don't know how he saw it, but somewhere from afar, I don't know if they had some ancient kind of binoculars or what.
I know my man wasn't all that close to it. I do know that. And he was looking from afar. And he looked, he knew he threw in three men. He looked In my mind's eye, I see him rubbing his eyes.
And looking again, then he asked somebody, look in there, tell me what, do you see three men? And they said, no, I see four. He said, So do I. And the fourth one. Looks like a son of the gods.
He said, I don't know who that fourth one is, but he's not from around here. When they stood up for God, God sent supernatural help. and decided that he would deliver them and show Nebuchadnezzar his power. Let me tell you something, God will show people his power through you if you'll stand up.
So you got to add to your faith godliness. He says, and add to godliness. Brotherly kindness. Brotherly kindness. Now, the fact of the matter is, folks, we've got to understand that God has called us to be kind people, treat people with respect.
Now, brotherly kindness, of course, has one inference for life in the church, but it has an expanded inference for life in the world. Because brotherly kindness, the Greek word Philadelphia, the city from which I hail, it's called the city of brotherly love. It's really the city of brotherly shove, but. Go over there, go to the wrong part of town, get your head knocked in. But that's what the word comes from: Philadelphia.
The Greek word, it means brotherly kindness. And so On the one hand, we in the family of God have a unique bond. But on the other hand, we have to recognize that all men at some level are our brother and sister. At some level, if you miss them in Christ, you catch them in Adam. We're all brothers and sisters on some level.
I know if you don't know the Lord, you're not truly my brother or sister in the faith. But we are the human family. You, everyone, is born in God's image, made in God's image. And His plan is to restore them to fellowship with Him so that they can live that out. See, when you're in sin, you're dead in trespasses in sin, which means that God's plan for your life, God's blueprint on your life, will never be executed until you come to faith.
But the fact of the matter is, the way we help bring people to faith is to start out by just treating them kindly. Let me ask you something. How nice are you to people? Every day. No matter who they are.
what color they are, what nationality they're from. How nice are you? Let me ask you another question. How prejudiced are you? Do you look at people and sum them up and decide you know who they are?
And you don't like it? Based on their culture, or based on their dress, or based on whatever it could be. You got to get those things out of the way because God has called us to walk in brotherly kindness. We ought to be the nicest folk on the planet. You shouldn't be trying to represent Jesus mean.
Come on, somebody. Jesus wasn't mean. Do you know that non-Christian people who weren't followers of his yet loved Jesus? You know the people who gave him the hardest time? Religious folk?
Church folk, white robe away and folk. Those were the ones who didn't like Jesus. But the Bible called Jesus a friend of publicans and sinners.
Now, he didn't befriend them by compromising his walk. He befriended them with his brotherly kindness. He treated them nice. He treated them with respect. How well do you treat people?
Do you speak to people, or do you wait and see if they speak to you, or wait and see if you happen to like what they look like, or you think there might be something in it for you? What would happen if we, the body of Christ, just decided We were going to commit random acts of kindness. What would happen if we just decided I'm going to go out and just nice people to death? I'm gonna speak when I get in the elevator. Hello.
You ever get an elevator at a hotel, office building, whatever it is? And you know, four people in there and you walk in, nobody looks at each other, everybody looking up at the numbers. What if you were to go in and say, hello? Hi, how are you? How's your day?
Nah, true, some folk gonna look at you like, what's your angle? Check from a wallet.
Okay, what up here? Sure, 'cause we live in a world where so many people have a gimmick. But suppose you just set out. To be nice for nice sake. Just cause it's nice to be nice.
And especially if you're gonna have a bumper sticker.
Something about Jesus. Being saved, or got the little fish or something. And then you out there on the freeway flipping people off. Doesn't quite go, does it? Um Jesus Finger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can't quite get them in balance. Still ahead, the second half of today's Destined for Victory message featuring the teaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard. If you enjoy listening to Pastor Paul, you may be glad to know that we archived all of our recent messages at pastorpaul. net.
That's pastorpaul. net. You can also listen and subscribe to the podcast at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. You know, it's only through your faithful prayer and financial support that this program comes your way each day. You are the ones that make it possible, and we're so grateful for all you've done.
To give generously today, please visit pastorpaul.net or call 855-339-5500. One of the ways we can prove our faith is to share our faith.
Now, let's get you back to the second half of today's Destined for Victory message: Prove It. Friend of mine, a woman who speaks at a lot of conferences, told this story on herself. She said, I had just spoken at a meeting. And people knew me around, speak at a lot of places. Coming home from a particular trip, got to the airport, they had lost her bag.
Not that uncommon. And they had said, Don't worry, we'll find it and we'll send it to you.
Well, they didn't send it to her.
So next day she decided to go back to the airport. Went back to the airport. She was warm. Went to the Lady who troubleshoots, that kind of thing. and said, listen, y'all promised me.
I flew in yesterday. You promised me you would locate my bag, and somebody would bring it to my address. I need my stuff. And you promised me, and you didn't do what you promised. She was all right at that point.
But the lady was trying to explain, well, we have to locate it, and until we find it, we can't bring it to you. And of course, we're doing our best, and we've got to find it. And we have all these millions of bags, and we've got it. And she was trying to explain her point of view and sort of stand up for her airline. And Terry wasn't having it.
And so they were kind of going at it. And then Terry looked and saw her bag back, you know, in a section behind this lady where they had some of the unclaimed luggage. And she said, There's my bag right there. And she turned around and said, which one? That one right there.
Stand up here telling me that y'all were looking at it. It's right there behind you. By this time she is warm myrrh. And the lady said, Okay, well if you will just fill out this form. Terry went behind the counter.
Told the lady, I'm not filling out a thing. If you touch me, I will break your neck. Grabbed her bag. At which time some of the saints said, Sister Terry. Oh.
They were watching the whole thing. Sister Terry, hi, we know you from the conference. You imagine how she felt? Having just threatened for all to hear. The breaking of the neck of the lady.
We got to ask God to add to our faith. Kindness, brotherly kindness. Treat them right just because they deserve to be treated nicely. And if people disrespect you, you don't have to disrespect them back. And you can draw your boundaries.
You don't have to take anything off anybody, but there's a way to be respectful. And so we've got to find that place. And then, when it comes to the family of God, all the more. Paul said in Galatians 6. We should do good to all men, he said, but especially those.
Who are of the household of faith? Make up in your mind you're going to get along with people in the body of Christ. That you're going to be nice to one another, kind to one another. Coming to church, we're not going to fuss and argue and carry on over parking spaces. Hallelujah.
And give the traffic people and the security people a hard time.
Some of the brothers told me, Pastor, I can't understand how some of the folk can come and sit under all that heavy gospel you preach and then act the way they act when they get out here in this lot. Yeah. All that means is we have some adding to do. Add to your faith. Brotherly kindness.
and to brotherly kindness love.
Now In our language, we typically will use love for a lot of things. Eros, erotic love. We use love for brotherly kindness. We'll use love for friendship. You know, use it for all kinds of things.
But in Greek, they're all different words.
So, here, Brotherly Kindness, you're at Philadelphia. But then he says and add to Philadelphia agape Add to brotherly kindness. That unconditional sacrificial I'm in it with your best interest at heart kind of love. See agape is the foundation. For representing God in the lives of others, because agape is the way God loves us.
The Bible says when we were his enemies, Christ died for us. He didn't wait till we were nice. You know how some of us would have done. Treat me with some respect. Then I'll think about saving you.
Oh, so you want to curse me? You want to use my name in a curse, huh?
Okay, let's see you do that without air. Right? Thank God you're not God. The world would be a different place. Folk dropping like flies.
When we were his enemies. Christ died for us. when we were cursing him, when we wanted nothing to do with him. He said, but I love you. I look beyond your fault and see your need.
And God sent His Son to solve our problem when we didn't know we had a problem and didn't want Him to have anything to do with us. And he sheds that kind of love abroad in our hearts and tells us to love one another that way. That's the love that'll make your relationships. Stay intact. That's the love.
That will help you deal with unlovely people. Unconditional sacrificial. Agape says, I love you, and that's the end of it. Agape says, I love you and there's nothing you can do about it. I dare you to try to make me stop loving you.
Te agape means I am with you, not on the virtue of how much you treat me right. But because God's been good to me, He saved me when I didn't deserve it. I'm going to love you when you don't deserve it. Agape, agape, unconditional, sacrificial. See, you who are newlyweds, who are getting married.
We often counsel, make sure that your relationship is not based on things like eros. Erotic feelings, romantic feelings. Oh, I love his arms. I love his chest. He's so big and broad and strong he just looks like he could carry me through life Yeah, but what when his broadness up top goes south?
Yeah. Now what you gonna do? Come on, somebody. Oh, I love her. She is built.
Just like a Coke bottle. Just Out and in and back out and just But what if when she starts resembling a little more like the Coke truck? You get my point. When there isn't as much honey on the moon. as there used to be.
See, that's feelings, and it's great. I say it at weddings, when I'm performing weddings, romance is a wonderful feature. But it's a poor foundation. Because times and seasons are coming in your life where you don't feel all of that. You know, and they have conferences and now try to get us to fan the flame and rekindle the romance and all the work on it.
Come on, let's. Let's get it going. Come on, don't let that fire go out. Fans, fans, fans. That's because emotions change.
Feelings come and go and they change, don't they? You can't base a relationship on feelings because your feelings aren't stable enough.
So what you have to do is have A foundation that says When I don't like the dynamics of our relationship. I promise to still love you. When we've had a lot of disagreements and difficulty, and we can't see eye to eye on some major issues, and a lot of people are just turning and walking away, I'm going to do my best. If you will stay with me, I'm committed to staying with you because I'm in this for the long haul. A foundation that is not based on the conditions.
Well, if you Here's my list. If you agree, push it across the table. If you agree to these. Terms Then they pick it up and look at it. Do their own writing.
Passing across the table. Here's my counterproposal. Love says, yeah, we can work out the details and all that, but the bottom line is. I'm going to always act in your best interest. That's what we're called to strive for.
Add to your brotherly kindness. Agape, when all else fails. As God has loved me by His help. I'm gonna love you, not only in a marriage context. But in a church context, As a parent with children, As a child dealing with aging parents, whatever it is, whoever are the challenging people in your life, agape will help you to always act in their best interest.
Agape will help you to forgive them when they work your last nerve. When they are doing wrong by you, Agape will help you do right by them. And if we will add these to our faith, he says, if you will add them to your faith in increasing measure. We're to be people on the grill. He said, Two things will happen.
You'll never fall. He uses the word there that means you will never come to utter destruction and ruin. Doesn't mean you won't have a slip. We're all learning and growing. But it means if you have a slip, you will get up, you will learn from it, and you will move forward and become better for it.
But he says, ultimately, you will never fall into destruction, and a rich welcome. will be afforded you into the kingdom of our God. And if you will add to your faith, you will see God one day. You will hear God one day. Say well done.
Good and faithful servant.
So glad you stopped by for today's Destined for Victory message, prove it. If you joined us late, or if you want to hear the full message one more time, or the full series in its entirety, stop by Pastor Paul.net. Pastor Paul.net.
Well, I'm sure you've given good gifts to your friends and loved ones, and as the Bible tells us, God loves a cheerful giver. But He also instructs us to make giving a lifestyle, not only a periodic act of generosity. In our new booklet, Give, Blessed, Repeat, Pastor Paul challenges you to make doing good deeds a regular part of your life. He'll show you how to give wisely, how to help those in need without enabling them, and he'll remind you of God's divine order for all things: God first, families second, others third. That's Give, Bless, Repeat, our gift to you today for your generous donation to Destined for Victory.
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He says, Whatever you sow, that's what you're going to reap. Don't think you're going to be able to sow one set of things and then reap a different harvest. And he, of course, in the context, he's making the point: don't think you're going to live in sin and end up in righteousness. That's next time in our Destined for Victory message, Prove It. But until then, remember...
He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
