Success is doing the will of God. Success Is knowing the will of God and doing it. And so, what you want to find out in life is: Lord, what would you have me to do? The world defines success in many ways, but you'll never be more joyful or more successful than when you're living right in the center of God's will. Hello, and thanks for stopping by for today's Destined for Victory, where we feature the preaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard.
You know, lots of things can make us happy - our wedding day, the birth of a child, building our dream house. But to have lasting joy, to experience a level of peace that surpasses our own understanding, that can only come when we discover and obey God's will. And as you'll see today, knowing God's will is as easy as ABC. Remember, come see us at pastorpaul.net, where you can listen to any of our recent messages on demand, including today's. That's pastorpaul.net.
And if you haven't already, don't forget to download our free mobile app. Search Destined for Victory at the App Store, and listen to Destined for Victory wherever you go.
Now, let's listen closely to Pastor Paul's message. Praise your way through. I want to. Talk to you from the subject. Praise your way through.
Some of us are oriented toward complaining our way through, bickering our way through. Barely aching our way through. But since you're going to go through anyway. We might as well do it the Bible way. And praise our way through.
The Apostle Paul Was in the middle of his second missionary journey. When we find him here in Acts 16, You would recall that in Acts 13, he was commissioned. By the Holy Spirit through the teachers and prophets at Antioch. which was sort of had become the The new headquarters of the church, the early church. Uh when attention Was diverted, as it were, from Jerusalem to Antioch after the revelation became clear that God was reaching not only the Jew, but he was reaching Gentile as well with the message of salvation.
And at Antioch, as those leaders gathered, God spoke to them and said, Separate Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I've called them. As a result of getting that word from God, Paul and Barnabas and other companions struck out and began to go around planting churches directed by the Holy Spirit, preaching the gospel, planting churches, raising up leadership, and then moving on and allowing those churches to begin to develop. You would also recall, if you're familiar with early church history, that by the end of Acts 15, they're preparing now to go on a second missionary journey. And as they do so, Paul gets into a dispute with Barnabas. As they're getting ready to go, Barnabas says, All right, let me go get John, Mark.
And we'll meet you. And Paul said, No, he's not going with us. He left us the first time. I don't fool with people who can't take the heat. Let's get them out of the kitchen.
And uh so they had a sharp contention over John Mark. Paul's the kind of guy that he said, when I'm doing serious business, I want people who are like me. Barnabas is the kind of guy, he's a son of encouragement who says, How can he learn from his mistake if we don't give him a second shot? And they could not get on the same page about how to go about this second journey. And the result was that they ended up deciding to agree to disagree while remaining agreeable.
And before I get into my message, let me say that that's going to be the key for many of us in our lives. There are some issues about which you won't see the eye to eye with your brothers or sisters in Christ, maybe with your spouse, maybe in some other context. And you've got to understand that there's a bigger picture. And there are too many people these days who are throwing away good relationships because of a relatively minor dispute. And what we have to learn to do is say, well, we can't quite see eye to eye on this.
Let's keep praying. If God shows one of us that we're wrong, we'll acknowledge it. In the meantime, let's agree to disagree about this, and let's agree that there's a bigger picture and we need to stay united. I already preached, just in case you didn't know it. That's already a message.
Some of y'all could go home right now, and God spoke to you because you need to know that. You're breaking up all kinds of good relationships over things that you just need to settle. Throw your weapons of war down. We are not at war with one another, we are God's people trying to do God's will. And so they agreed to disagree and remain agreeable.
And they went in two different directions. Barnabas took John, Mark, and Paul took Silas, the man who is his companion, when you get to chapter 16. And they began to go from place to place, continuing to do what God has called them to do. Paul understood that the key to life was fulfilling the will of God.
Some of us must understand that in our day. The key to life is doing the will of God. Many of us are reading success books. Success is not objective, success is subjective. Success is doing God's will for you.
And God's will in your life won't look like God's will in mine when it comes to individual mission or the kind of work you do. You won't end up looking like another person because God uniquely crafted you. You have your own sphere of influence. You have your own calling. God knows what he wants out of you.
And he built into you everything you need to do his will. And I want to let someone know that success is doing the will of God. Success is not making a whole lot of money. If that's not in God's plan for you, then that's not success for you. And even if you get it, money isn't an end-all, it's a means to an end.
And some people have money, and perhaps it is God's will for you to be blessed financially. But until you do His will with what He gave you, you're still not successful. Because success Is knowing the will of God and doing it. And so, what you want to find out in life is: Lord, what would you have me to do? Paul's life really began to take off when he stopped fighting God as he was in the earlier part of Acts.
And by chapter 9, God knocks him down off of his haughty high horse and says, you're fighting against me and my plan for your life. And only when Paul humbled himself and said, Lord, I want to do your will, did life really take on meaning and fulfillment. And life is not successful in objective terms. It's subjective. It depends on what God has called you to do and to be.
Jesus said, it can't be what many folks are saying today, the accumulation of things, because he said a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses.
So success is not having things necessarily. But rather, it is doing the will of God. There are many people who are in other parts of the world doing the will of God. They're in impoverished countries. They're not living high, but they are fulfilled in a way that they can't explain because they understand that success is doing what God put me on this earth to do.
And we've got to understand the American dream is not success. The American dream is the American dream. Success is doing the will of God. Whether God blesses you with a lot or a little, it is doing God's will that will bring fulfillment into your life. If you're listening to this message and you have everything you wanted and you're still missing something, I'm here to tell you: what you're missing is a vital relationship with Jesus Christ that results in you doing the will of God.
And so we've got to learn that success is doing God's will. And it has nothing to do with the trappings, it has nothing to do with any objective definition, but rather you want to focus on the will of God.
Now, a lot of people say, Well, how will I know what God's will is? I know it begins with getting saved, understanding that Christ died for my sins and that He is my Savior and I must put my trust in Him. But once I have done that, how can I know what the will of God is for my life?
Well, let me just briefly give you my ABCs of discovering God's will. I've shared them in different series, but I want to share them just briefly, just the highlights with you quickly on my way to another point. The ABCs are A through G. A stands for ask. If you want to know the will of God, ask God what is His will for your life.
A lot of times, we talk to everybody but God about what God wants us to do, and what you have to learn to do is zero in on prayer. You've got to have a dynamic prayer life. If you want to be in the center of God's will. And so A stands for ask. Ask the Lord to reveal his will to you.
Now, let me tell you an important step here. If you want God to reveal his will to you, if you want him to answer that prayer of yours to know his will, you need to be surrendered to it before you know it. If you're trying to say, God, I want to know your will as long as it fits with my plan, you won't hear from God. You've got to learn to say, Lord, not my will, but thine be done. It's amazing how clear God will get with you when you are fully surrendered.
It's amazing how easily you can discern the voice of the Lord, the leading of the Lord, once you are fully yielded to him. Because God doesn't want to hide His will from you. He wants you to know His will so you can do His will, but you need to be surrendered. I know I was one who was trying to do the will of God as long as it fit my plan. I told God I don't want to be a pastor, but anything else you want me to do, let's talk.
And I was serious. I didn't want to be a pastor. I grew up in the home of a pastor, loved my dad, respect him, and love him to this day. But I saw the lifestyle. I saw how people worked him morning, noon, and night.
I said, I am not into people like that. And I said to God, I want to be saved, but I want to be a regular Christian. I want to be a regular Christian. I want to be one of those pastor types. But I found out God would not reveal his will to me because it wasn't up to me.
And once I said yes to what was clearly his will for me, then he began to work in my life.
So you gotta learn to ask God about his will, but be surrendered. 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've archived all of our recent messages at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. You can also subscribe to the podcast at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
For almost 15 years now, we've been bringing you these Destined for Victory messages from Pastor Paul Shepard, and we have listening friends and partners like you to thank. You're the ones who provide all of our financial support, and we're so grateful for all you've done. To give generously today, please visit pastorpaul.net or call 855-339-5500.
Well, God won't hide His will from you, He freely reveals it to all who ask.
Now let's get you back to the rest of today's message. Praise your way through. So, stands for burden. Look at the burdens God puts on your heart because very often the burden of your heart contains some element of the will of God for your life. I would give you as a biblical example, Nehemiah.
Nehemiah was a man who, like the other Jews, returned from exile to see the ruin of the city of Jerusalem. The wall had been destroyed and burned. The city was no longer fortified against its enemies, and there was no sense of security that the people could have. And many saw it and complained about it, but when Nehemiah saw it, his heart broke and he had a sense of urgency that something has to be done. Pay attention to the urgent matters of your heart when you have surrendered to the will of God and there are things pressing on your heart.
Pay attention because very often that contains an element of the will of God for you. As it did for Nehemiah, that burden said to him, You are called to do something about it. A lot of folks say, point out a problem or point out an area of ministry that's not being fulfilled. But what you've got to do is learn to convert that burden into a ministry opportunity. And Nehemiah prayed and said, God, this is on my heart.
I've never built a wall before, but I'm believing you. Give me favor. I'm going to go to the king, request leave, and request resources. I'm going to try to rally the support of the people. I need you to go ahead and touch their hearts.
But, God, we've got to do something. Many of the world's greatest ministries, not only churches but parachurch organizations, were founded by people with a burden. They didn't have money, they didn't have resources, but they had a burden. And your burden is often an indication of God's plan for your life. C stands for conferral.
Conferral. Notice what God confers upon you through the words and the prayers of praying, spirit-filled people. Because very often, as was the case with Timothy, Paul's spiritual son, God will confer his will upon you through the words and the actions of other leaders and other sincere members of the body of Christ. I put it this way: when praying people talk to you, listen to them. Because very often they have seen you in the spirit and they can pick up what God is doing in your life sometimes before you see what God is doing in your life.
And that happened with Timothy. Paul said, Timothy, you remember when myself and other elders laid our hands upon you and a word came forth telling you that God was raising you up to be a leader?
Now you've got to become proactive and move out in the direction God is leading you in. And the fact of the matter is, sometimes God speaks to you through other people.
Now, He will always confirm it to you. You don't have to take anyone's word for it alone. But when God confers His will by the words and actions of others, He will confirm it in your heart. He'll confirm it in any number of ways that he may choose. But you want to say yes to the will of God in advance and then listen prayerfully and carefully to what spirit-filled people say to you because sometimes they pick you up.
When I was a young boy again, people would pat me on my head sometimes, some of the saints in the church and say, You know what? You're going to be just like your father. I would get so mad. But they saw, and some of them tell me now, years later, I've been pastoring since 1982 as an associate for seven years, and since then as a senior pastor. And some of them to this day, when they sit in an audience where I'm speaking, I see some of those old saints sitting there just smiling.
Because they knew, they saw it when I was a preteen. They saw God's hand on me, and they knew that God was going to do something I didn't know He was going to do. I wasn't even saved yet, but they already saw that God was going to do a work. And so you have to pay attention. D stands for dreams.
When your motives are pure, when you have surrendered to the will of God in advance of knowing it, then examine the dreams that He sanctions in your heart. God may give you a literal dream like he did with Joseph and others in the Bible, or he may give you a figurative dream. That is, you have a vision in your mind's eye of a ministry, of a calling, of a business, of something, of a career, something that God wants you to do for his glory. And so, you want to examine your dreams.
Now, when God gives you a dream, please understand that he is showing you the end or the highlight, the high point of a chapter or a phase or season in your life. A dream never shows you what you're going to have to go through.
So we get excited about dreams, but tempered by knowing you're looking at the end of a process. God won't show you the process because He's called you to walk by faith, not by sight. And so He won't show you the process because if He showed you the process, in many cases, it would scare you away from the dream. If God showed you what you have to go through before you build that ministry, before you build that business, before you enter that career, before he gets his will done, sometimes we would say, no, thank you. I'm not willing to go through all of that.
And so God gets you to sign off in advance. But he will show you the dream. Joseph, at age 17, God gave him a dream where he saw clearly that at age 39, he didn't know when it would be fulfilled, but it was fulfilled at age 39 when his brothers came and bowed down before him in Egypt. He was now the prime minister, if you will, of Egypt. And in another country, at another time, 22 years later, God fulfilled a dream he had as a 17-year-old.
But what he had to go through between 17 and 30 is something he would have not wanted to agree to in advance. But God orchestrated it, God ordered his steps every step of the way, and God will do the same thing in your life. And so dreams are sometimes an indication of what he wants to do. E stands for exposure. Exposure.
Notice the divine appointments God gives you. Understand that when you're a child of God, God begins to orchestrate things in your life. Paul put it this way: God is at work in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And what that means is that God is operating through you. God is orchestrating some things, and He will give you what I call divine appointments.
And you have to begin to notice what happens in your life, the people God exposes you to, especially when you begin to see those recurring themes. And you say, wait a minute, God is up to something here. God will expose you to a certain type of person in a certain type of calling or a certain type of business or ministry. And you'll see it happening over and over because God is drawing your attention into the area where He wants you to serve. And so pay attention to the exposure.
God sets you up sometimes when He has you meet certain people. Or God sets you up when He sends you to a certain church. It's a setup, and you gotta check out what God is doing because He will give you exposure. You can know He's getting you ready for bigger and better things when He starts expanding your vision and bringing you into company with people who think big and who have big faith. Then God is really setting you up.
He's saying it's time for you to get out of the little league, and I'm ready to move you on up. And so you have to watch the exposure. Because exposure is a setup for what God is doing in your life. F stands for faith. F stands for faith.
Now if you want to know the will of God and discover it. Then you want to grow in faith because the will of God has to do with the realm of faith, which means you want to be on the grow in terms of your faith. See, faith is organic. Faith can be weak or strong. Jesus talked about little faith.
Some people having little faith. And he talked about others having great faith. And that's not a deposit from God. God gives you the seed of faith, but you have to grow it. And so some people go all their lives with little faith.
And guess what? People with little faith get little done for God because the just shall live by faith. And if your faith isn't growing, your ministry can't grow. Your sense of fulfillment can't grow. The things God uses you to bless others with cannot grow.
So you want to grow your faith. It's organic.
So you want to intentionally grow your faith. Faith grows according to what it feeds on.
So you want to feed your faith and you want to starve your doubts. Did you get that? You want to feed your faith. You want to starve your doubts. Because what you feed grows.
We have but to look in the mirror to get that revelation. Yeah. What we feed grows, doesn't it? And what you starve begins to weaken. And faith is that way.
So you want to feed on the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing, Romans 10. and hearing by the word of God.
So, you want to read the word, you want to hear the word, and then you want to apply the word, meditate on it, take it in, chew the cud is the old-fashioned expression, and take in the nutrients of the word of God. It'll cause your faith to grow. Also, you want to get around faith-walking people. And now, this kind of points back to the exposure thing. If you want to see God grow your faith, you got to get with people who can help your faith grow.
You're believing God for things you never believed Him for, or in ways you never believed Him. You want to get around faith-walking people. I intentionally hang out with ministers whose anointing and whose scope of ministry dwarfs mine because I want to remain exposed to their faith because I know that God's only doing what He's doing because they've allowed Him to grow them in the area of faith. And so I get around them.
Sometimes I feel really silly, but I hang out with the right folk. Because if you want to be an eagle, you got to quit hanging with turkeys.
Now you can hang out with turkeys to help them. Do turkey stuff. But you gotta hang out with eagles to learn how to fly. After 40 days of fasting, with his body no doubt weakened from hunger, Jesus looked the devil right in the eye and said, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Father. Feed your faith daily with God's holy, infallible word.
It's manna for your soul.
So glad you stopped by for today's Destined for Victory message, Praise Your Way Through. If you joined us late, or if you want to hear the full message one more time, stop by pastorpaul.net. That's pastor Paul dot 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 booklet, Give, Bless, 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, family second, others third. That's Give, Bless, Repeat our gift to you today for your generous donation to Destined for Victory.
You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. Once again, 8-55-339-5500. or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. Or mail your gift to us at Destined for Victory. Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California, nine four five three eight.
If you want to know God's will, re-examine your gifts. If you want to know what God wants out of you, look at what God put into you. Because those gifts are a deposit. And God wants a return on his investment. in your life.
That's tomorrow in our continuing Destined for Victory message, Praise Your Way Through. Until then remember. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
