Here's an important announcement now from Meredith Shepard. Hello, Destined for Victory family. This is Meredith Shepherd, Pastor Paul's wife. This is the first time you're hearing from me since my beloved husband went home to be with the Lord. And I want you to know your prayers have carried me.
Your letters, your messages, cards, books, the ways you've reached out during these months, they've strengthened me through the shock and the grief in ways I can't fully express. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You know, Paul often said that he wanted to be the black J. Vernon McGee. He'd say it with that grin of his, but behind the humor was something deeply serious.
A vision to create a teaching library that would outlive him, that would keep speaking biblical truth long after he was gone. And that's what he did. For decades, Paul poured himself into buildings destined for victory. not just as a radio program, but as a legacy. He wanted to make sure that timeless truth would be available to help people live victorious lives no matter what generation they're in.
That's why I'm talking to you today, because what Paul worked so hard to build needs your help to continue. Recently, we experienced a change in one of our major funding sources, and for the first time in this ministry's history, we're at risk of losing radio stations, of having to pull back from communities where people depend on this teaching. I don't want my husband's voice silenced. I don't want the work he dedicated his life to building to disappear because of funding. We need to preserve what Pastor Paul poured himself into creating.
So I'm coming to you, this family that's already been so supportive, and I'm asking. Will you help us? if destined for victory has encouraged you, challenged you, or helped you grow in your walk with God, would you consider giving to day? A monthly gift would especially help us stabilize our funding and keep Paul's teaching on the air in every community that needs it. You can give at pastorpaul.
net. And as our thank you, we'd love to send you Paul's hardcover book, Becoming an Excellent Steward, a collection of his last year of teaching that our family just finished editing. It's a beautiful reminder of his heart and his wisdom. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for standing with us.
And thank you for your generosity in helping to preserve this legacy. God bless you. The goal of living is to fulfill divine purpose, not your personal agenda for life, not what you think your life ought to be like. If you want to know the purpose of a thing, don't ask the thing, ask the creator. The Creator knows what it wants out of everything that it creates.
And God is our Creator, and He knew what He wanted out of us before He sent us to the planet. Hello, and thanks for being here with us for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard.
Well, if the goal of living is to fulfill our divine purpose, the question becomes: how do we go about doing it? It's an important question to ask, and if you embrace and apply the right answer, it will be the best decision you ever make. We just so happen to have the answer for you today, so stay with us. But if you're short on time and can't listen to the entire message, be sure to stop by pastorpaul.net when you get a chance. That's where you can listen to any of our recent messages on demand.
PastorPaul.net. You may also want to subscribe to the podcast at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
Now, let's listen closer to Pastor Paul's Destined for Victory message: Life Lessons from the Christmas Story. We have been looking at the Luke's narrative of the events surrounding the birth of Christ.
So as to not only remind ourselves of the Historical reality of His birth. but also to glean the wonderful truth. That we find in even narratives such as this that helps us know how to live our lives. One of the things I love about the Bible is that it is profitable not only for historical information, redemptive history. But it is profitable for life application.
And so, even when you're looking at a narrative that tells you here are the events that led to and surrounded the birth of Christ. You can learn from the characters and from their lives things about how God would have you live your life. That's why the Bible is so divinely inspired. It is unlike any book in the world. Remember that when you talk about ancient writing and all of that, the Bible is in a category all by itself.
Don't dare put it in the category with other ancient writings. They are not in the category. The Bible is the only book in history that was written over a period of 1,500 years. Written, God used more than 40 authors who lived on three continents, who wrote in three different languages. And yet it reads as one story because it is God-breathed and inspired.
And it will tell you how to live your life.
Someone has rightly used the word Bible as an acronym for basic instructions before leaving earth. And you want to know that your Bible is your owner's manual for living. And so we've been looking at life lessons, and I can't do any appreciable review in the interest of time, but let me just hit the lessons themselves. Number one, we learned that righteous living matters to God, as we looked at the example of Zachariah and Elizabeth, who were chosen by God to be the parents of John the Baptist. And we understood that they qualified themselves to be used by God because of their righteous living.
And we talked about the fact that if you want to experience God's best for your life, you've got to be at the place of blessing. I called it the bus stop of blessing. And what puts you there is living the way God would have you live.
So that when God has something for you, you are in the right place doing the right thing. Righteous living matters to God. Life lesson number two was that God answers prayer. And we looked at the fact that Zachariah and Elizabeth, for years, had asked God to give them a child. And for years, that prayer had gone unanswered.
All during their youth and all during their middle-age years. They did not conceive. But God sent an angel when they were old, well advanced in years. God sent an angel to Zachariah one day as he was ministering as a priest at the altar of incense. The angel stood at the right side of the altar and said, I am Gabriel, and I've got good news for you.
God heard your prayer. And we said don't give up praying, don't stop praying, because the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much. Life lesson number three was that when you pray, believe and receive. We looked at the fact that Zachariah had not only stopped praying about having a child, but he no longer believed that God would do it.
So that even when he heard from this angel, This good news that God had heard his prayer. By this time he had a heart of unbelief. And the Bible says that his response to Gabriel was, How can I be sure of this? Here you are looking at an angel. Who's telling you God heard your prayer, and you're going to have a child, and you want confirmation?
Unbelief is something, and we want to keep it out of our hearts because it'll really mess us up. When you pray, you got to learn to believe and receive because our God is a powerful, all-powerful God. And then life lesson number four is where we left off. And I want to pick it up there and then move on with some other lessons. And that is this.
When you're pregnant with divine purpose, choose your company wisely. When you're pregnant with divine purpose, choose your company wisely. We looked at the fact that both the pregnancy of Elizabeth, who was the mother of John the Baptist, and the pregnancy of Mary, who of course was chosen to bear Jesus and to bring him into the world, both of them were pregnancies of what I call divine purpose. What I mean by that is, all of us are people called according to God's purpose to do some things that he has determined for us to do. Here's the way it's put in Ephesians 2:10: You are God's workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And that simply means before you got to the planet, God knew what He wanted out of your life. And that is called divine purpose. And the goal of living is to fulfill divine purpose, not your personal agenda for life, not what you think your life ought to be like. If you want to know the purpose of a thing, don't ask the thing, ask the creator.
The creator knows what it wants out of everything that it creates. And God is our creator, and He knew what He wanted out of us before He sent us to the planet. And so the goal of living is to discover and fulfill divine purpose.
Now, when you accept Christ into your life, that's the first step in the right direction. And then, as you begin to walk with Him, you'll see God through your faith, through your obedience, through your righteousness. You'll see Him begin to give you divine appointments so that you can fulfill divine purpose. When you are full of God's purpose for your life, what we learn from Luke 1 is you got to be careful about your company. There are some people who will make you have an abortion of divine purpose.
There are some people who, if you try to talk to them about what God is doing in your life, what God is saying to you, they have no frame of reference for it. They are carnal in their thinking. They only think natural things. They only think selfish, fleshly things. And so, when you talk about divine purpose, you're speaking a foreign language.
And if God is telling you to do some things or to go in a certain direction, you can't just talk to anybody. You've got to understand that Mary, when she heard from Gabriel that God had chosen her, of all the young virgin girls, Mary was but a teenager in all likelihood, and of all the virgin girls in the land who were walking uprightly before God, she was chosen when she understood she had a divine mandate. She didn't talk to just anybody. She headed to the hill country and found Elizabeth. Why Elizabeth?
Because Elizabeth was more pregnant with divine purpose than she was. And you want to hang out with folk who are further down the road of following God's plan for their lives than you are. They can help you get somewhere. They can help you discern some things. They can pray you through your tough spots.
They can strengthen your faith. And you want to find someone who, when you tell them, I'm pregnant with purpose, they say, Praise God, so am I. She didn't even talk to her fiancé. The Bible says she hurried. and ran out of town.
You know why? Because There's no point in her trying to convince Joe. That I'm pregnant and God did it. You see what I'm saying? She leaves that to the Lord.
She said, if this is a supernatural thing, God knows how to speak to him like he spoke to me. No need of me trying to convince him. I believe that's a word, but some of you all are messed up because you're going around trying to persuade everybody in your life. To believe what God is doing in you, and they're just looking at you like you're crazy. Lead those folk to the Lord.
Find the right spiritual mentors, the right people who can speak into your life and strengthen you at the place of your faith. She was pregnant with divine purpose, but Elizabeth was six months more pregnant than she was. And so she went and found this other woman of God, a relative of hers, the Bible says, and went and spent time with her. And you've got to watch your company. If God is calling you to be an ego, you've got to limit the time you spend with turkeys.
Now no, that's not politically correct. Oh, you're calling people. We're all the same. No. God loves us all.
But some of us have aspirations to do God's will, and other folk are just fine doing whatever they feel like doing. And you've got to learn to discern the two. You can't learn to fly like an eagle if you spend all your time with turkeys. Because turkeys love hanging out on the ground. Turkeys are like, what's all this flying stuff?
Looks overrated to me. I can get where I'm going. You may be able to get where you're going, but to get where God wants you to go, you may have to learn to fly.
Now, don't go away, the second half of today's message is coming right up. As you may know, Pastor Paul always wanted the ministry of destiny for victory to continue long after the Lord called him home, but to fulfill that vision it takes all of us working together. Your prayers and generous giving reaches people all over the world with the love of Jesus Christ. Let's keep that momentum going, and let's do it together. To make a safe and secure donation online, go to pastorpaul.net or call 855-339-5500.
Well, if you want to fulfill God's divine purpose for your life, you need help from other people. Just make sure you choose the people wisely.
Now, let's get you back to the rest of today's message: Life Lessons from the Christmas Story. You gotta Understand that when God is speaking to you, calling you to higher ground, taking your life to new levels of divine purpose, you can't just spend time with anybody.
So you got to choose your company wisely. Because your crowd determines your course. And you're going to become more like the people that you spend the most time with. At least that's going to be a real challenge. And therefore, you want to learn that when you're pregnant with divine purpose, choose your company wisely.
Don't spend time trying to address all your haters, we're all going to have haters. That's not a word in the Bible, but they're in there. Modern times the kids call them haters. And those are people who don't want to see good things happen for you. Those are people who oppose God's best for your life.
And they're stream all through the pages of the Bible and all through history. There have been, show me someone who wants to do something and be something for God. I'll show you that they got some people who oppose that. You show me a Joseph, and I'll show you Joseph's brothers. You show me a Nehemiah, and I'll show you Tobiah and Sam Ballet.
There's always somebody looking to pull you down, looking to destroy what God's doing in you, looking to make you abort divine purpose. And so you've got to choose your company wisely. And you've got to surround yourself with people who speak the language of faith and trust and obedience in God and can help you get where God's taking you. See, by Elizabeth being more pregnant than Mary, Elizabeth could help her. Elizabeth could give her the practical encouragement she needs.
When she begins to have morning sickness, Elizabeth can assure her everything's all right. Don't sweat it. When she goes through various stages, Elizabeth can walk her through that. And say, and here are the practical lifestyle changes you need to make in order to accommodate what God is doing in you. You ladies probably remember, as you who are mothers, the first time you were pregnant, that's all you knew.
You didn't know how to have a baby. You just knew you were pregnant, and it took some other folk who were experienced in the baby business to help you. Make the adjustments. I'll never forget when Meredith got pregnant with our first child, Alicia. I was the associate pastor of the church, and so they just had a real interest in everything about our lives.
And all the women in the church were just telling her what to do and how to do it. Worked her nerves. There were Sundays she couldn't even go to church. Every now and then didn't happen much, but every now and then she said, Babe, I can't take it today. You just bring me a tape back.
Yeah. Every time she'd show up, there were folk who were telling her now, What are you doing this? What are you eating? You got to remember, you got the baby, and you got to do this. And they're touching on her for, you know.
And I remember at one point in her pregnancy, she was still looking cute, had her heels on, and one of the mothers said, Darling, this ain't cute time. You got to come out those heels. Got to come out those hills. You can get cue from Pastor Paul later on. Right now, we got to have this baby.
Get out those hills. See, you need some folk who can walk you through the practical steps. of giving birth. And when God is at work in you, It's very much like a pregnancy, and you need to talk to folk who know how to have a baby. And so, when you're pregnant with divine purpose, you want to choose your company wisely.
Now, let me move on and give you another point, and that is this. Life lesson number five. We are blessed to be a blessing. We're blessed to be a blessed scene.
Now, I want to look at this same scene of Mary going to Elizabeth's house, and I want to flip the script. Instead of looking at it from Mary's perspective, let's look at it from Elizabeth's for a moment. Elizabeth was blessed with the Promised that she would bring the forerunner of Christ into the world. Here she is at this point. In the narrative in Luke chapter 1, here she is now, six months pregnant with John the Baptist.
And the Bible says that Mary shows up at her house. And then Elizabeth understands that I've been blessed in order to be a blessing. Let me tell you something. When God blesses you in any area of your life, you've been set up. You've been set up.
God doesn't bless you just so that you can go around talking about how blessed you are. God doesn't bless you just so that you can finally say, I have what I've been asking from the Lord. But you got to understand, the blessings of the Lord run in a cycle. God blesses you so that you're equipped to be able to bless somebody else.
So, just as sure as God does a powerful work in your life, you can know that part of His divine purpose for you is to not only fulfill what He's calling you individually to do, but part of that calling is to turn around and help somebody else. When you've been blessed financially, you've been set up. It's not when God gives you money, it's not all for you. Oh, that's not good news to some folk. That's not good news to some folks, but some of us have learned that is good news.
That is good news. Once you understand the kingdom principles of giving and receiving, you understand it is more blessed to give than to receive. Because the giving shows that you know why God gave it to you.
Now God will bless you to enjoy some of it. But listen, there are times when God will try you, God will prove you in the area of even your financial stewardship to make sure you know whose money it is. In fact, there have been some blessings God gave me, and I was only the conduit.
Soon as I got it, He wouldn't even let me look at it hard. He said, No, you know that's not yours. You're just a conduit. I'm sending it through you into the life of somebody else. But if you pass those tests, you'll find that God then can trust you as a steward.
See, the Bible says we're stewards, which means God owns it. We only manage his portfolio for him. You have a portion of God's portfolio. I have a portion of it. All of us have a portion of it.
And we are managers of God's portfolio.
So, when you look at your bank statement that comes in the mail, or if you like, you go online, do online banking, when you pull up all your finances, some of us don't have a lot to pull up, but when you look at what little you got. Understand that that's God's money. Not 10%. All of it is God's money. And so the question becomes: Lord, how much of this will you give me?
And how much of this is designated for other people or the kingdom of God? Yeah. Thanks so much for being here with us for today's Destined for Victory message: Life Lessons from the Christmas Story. Always glad to have you with us. As you may know, it has been a challenging year destined for victory.
We lost our dear friend and teacher, Pastor Paul, who went home to be with the Lord in January. We don't always know why the Lord works the way He does, but the one thing we do know is that Pastor Paul wanted to keep the media ministry of Destined for Victory going long after he was gone. And with that in mind, we're asking all of our listening friends and partners to prayerfully consider sending your best year-end gift of $25 or perhaps more to help us close out this year in a strong financial position. And when you do, we have a very special thank you gift reserved for you as our way of saying thanks. Because during the final year of his life, Pastor Paul preached an excellent series on stewardship, and we've put these messages together in a hardcover book, and we'd love for you to have your very own copy.
It's called Becoming an Excellent Steward. It's yours today as our thank you for your best gift of twenty-five dollars or more. Your gift will help us fulfill the vision Pastor Paul had for the future of Destined for Victory. You can give that gift by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's eight five five three three nine fifty five hundred.
Or visiting pastor Paul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. And of course, you can mail your gift to Destined for Victory. Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. I would rather give God the tithe and anything He calls me to give beyond the tithe and trust Him to stretch the 90% than for me to say I can't afford. And later on, I hope when I get a little better situation where I get my ducks in a row.
Some folk have lived that way only to realize that the ducks never line up because you don't have the favor of God resting on you. That's next time in our continuing Destined for Victory message: Life Lessons from the Christmas Story. But until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory. Uh
