Oh no, I need somebody to think back on the worst time in your life. have got wrong. To catch you, run to grab you, run to hug you, run to squeeze you, run to Give you more money. Run to give you shoes for your bare feet. Run to give you a robe to cover up your nakedness.
That's the God you serve. He's a running God. Can you live in rebellion and still be a Christian? Find out next on today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard. You know, the prodigal son rebelled for a season, but when he decided to go back home, his father saw him coming and ran out to meet him.
Stay tuned for an important message about the consequences of sin, the beauty of repentance, and a merciful God who sprints out to forgive us before we even make it back to heaven's front yard. But first, a quick reminder: Destined for Victory is always available on demand, both at our website, pastorpaul.net, that's pastorpaul.net. Or you can subscribe to the podcast. Search Destined for Victory at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
Now, let's listen closely to Pastor Paul's Destined for Victory message: Living as children of the light. Anybody ever had God run towards you? Oh no, I need somebody to think back on the worst time in your life. Anybody have God run to catch you? Run to grab you, run to hug you, run to squeeze you, run to give you more money, run to give you shoes for your bare feet, run to give you a robe to cover up your nakedness.
That's the God you serve. He's a running God. And so you gotta get this right. This whole thing, you didn't blow your inheritance in the kingdom of God. Just because you messed up, you just need to repent.
So, when he says you don't have an inheritance, he's talking about you're living in a lifestyle you continue to choose to disobey God as a lifestyle. He said, where that leads is not the kingdom of God. You see? You get this? It's the same thing the Apostle John said in his letter, 1 John.
Go there real quick, just so I can drive this home in your mind, because somebody is practicing the eternal insecurity, and I need you to know you're secure in Christ. 1 John 3, the first of the three epistles of John, toward the end, if you're just getting used to your Bible, start at the back and just go left. Because you'll get there much quicker. 1 John chapter 3. Verses 9 and 10 is where I want you to see what John said, that's right in partnership and in agreement with what.
Paul is saying, verse 9: No one who is born of God will continue to sin. See that? We'll continue to sin. We'll make it a lifestyle. Why?
Because God's seed remains in them. They cannot go on sinning. Because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right as a lifestyle.
Unrepentant. is not God's child. Nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. I love that John ended with that. 'Cause the holiness people were getting happy.
That's right. Tico, we thinking about the sins we always preach against. Not living right. In and out the wrong bed. And we love our little pet P sins.
He said, and the same is true of folk who don't love their brother and sister. Cause you know There are some hateful, holy folk. Wholly in quotes. I met him. You never met any?
I got bunches I can introduce you to.
So saved they can't smile. Holy, quote unquote, holy and hateful. And he said, you cannot. Be a child of God and living not only in ongoing sinning in the top 10 sins that we love to talk about, we love our David Letterman top 10 sins. In the family of God.
I'm going to let you know there's a lot more than that. I have a book in my library called Respectable Sins. And the whole book talks about sins that clearly are sin according to the word, and folks practically a norm in the church. And it's sin. And the Bible says, if you're a child of God, the proof will be you cannot sin indefinitely, unrepentantly.
God is not to be mocked. Just like our parents weren't to be mocked, older folks. Where he said, You're my child, you can't act like that. Y'all remember this stuff? Look, you're going to be looked down on, but go back to some of those practices.
When you had curfew in their house, it was a real curfew. It wasn't a pretend I'm making a suggestion that you be home by 2 a.m. Whatever it was, they wanted you in the house. I remember I was way up in college age, and there was still stuff I was living in my mother and father's house. And they want to know where I was, and I felt like saying, why does it matter to you?
I felt like saying that. I need some folk to help me. I felt like saying that. That was in my spirit. We need to go back there.
Make a curfew mean something. You know, and if you were one of those kids that they knew was devilish, sometimes they would sit up to make sure. You didn't defy it.
Nowadays, we're sophisticated. We got these ring systems and stuff like that. You can check ring and know when they came in. Because the sensor let the ring know somebody just came in. Y'all remember back before Ring, it was just them sitting in the dark.
Oh, I need some folk whose parish set in the dark. Back in the corner. Or if they weren't sitting downstairs waiting on you, they're upstairs, but they're still listening. And you thought you were sneaking in all late past curfew, but even the floor cooperated with them back then. Oh, I need some folk that had floors that cooperated with your parents.
You thought you could tip just right and the floor says ski He's out here. Shut up. You trying to find the places on the stairs going up? That don't creak. You get just almost to the top stair.
And they call your name. And you begin to intercede for yourself. Father, in the name of Jesus. Come on, somebody. Other in Jesus' mighty name.
Some of y'all got immediately baptized. Father, I stretch my hand to thee. No other help I know. I think we got to go back there. I think we got to go back there.
Teach your children, this is a household of faith. And so God wants us to clean up not only our actions, but Paul said, clean up your mouth. And let's teach our families, these generations coming, there is such a thing as decency and decorum. And you don't just say any old thing to any old body.
Now, let me quickly give you two more things. Children of light, go to verse 15. And look at verses 15 through 17. Be very careful then, we're back in Ephesians 5, of course. Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. I'm calling that point number three. Children of light must live carefully and wisely. Live carefully and wisely. Paul said, be careful how you live.
You're a child of God. Be careful. Don't be careless. Don't be frivolous. in your living, in your decision making.
Be careful. The word is circumspectly. You live circumspectly. That means live, when you walk circumspectly, you're walking carefully, you're walking looking around. You're aware of your surroundings and your direction.
Circumspectly, any of you who grew up like me, if you grew up anywhere other than these hot places, California, there's some folk who, unless they go up to the mountains, they don't know what snow is. But some of us grew up in Midwest or East, some different places. When it was winter, it was showing off winter. And you ever have one of those mornings you wake up and it was snow that turned to ice? And it gets all in the porch outside, and then the sidewalk outside.
You couldn't just go bounding out the house. Walking all fast and just careless. You had to be careful because it could be a sheet of ice. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. That's Psalm 34:15, and this is Destined for Victory featuring Pastor Paul Shepard.
Stay with us, the second half of today's message is coming right up. You know, fulfilling the great commission takes all of us working together. It always has, and God has commissioned pastors and teachers and missionaries to do their part. But He also encourages listening friends and partners like you to do yours. And we're so grateful for what you've done in His name.
Your prayers and donations reach 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. What is the relationship between knowledge, wisdom, and understanding?
Well, let's find out next in the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, Living as Children of the Light. I remember going down the stairs. going down to the ground level to go to the car. You couldn't just walk like it was summertime. You had to go because you saw this.
Oh, Lord, that's icy. And you walk like this. Holding on to everything you can hold on to. Cause you about to break something you need. Oh, come on, somebody.
You ever have one that, if you're not careful, you're gonna break something? Had to be careful. You have to drive carefully in those Conditions. You can't just go just Gunn at it? Are you kidding?
There's black ice out there.
So that's the way Paul is saying: live carefully, live deliberately, live intentionally. Be carefully and look at what else he says and live wisely. He says, you've got to not be unwise, you've got to be wise. What is wisdom? Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge.
Which means you have to live with the knowledge of what is right and wrong, he's given us that earlier, and you've got to learn how to apply it every day to the way you live your life. Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge. So the Bible calls us to be people of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And here's the understanding word: He says, Don't be foolish, but understand what the will of God is. You gotta understand some things.
Knowledge, I know it. Wisdom, I know how to apply it. Understanding I live it. I practice it and I have developed it as a habit. and a lifestyle.
And I live according to understanding.
So live carefully, saints. Live wisely. Don't be dumb We're children of God. We serve an omniscient God. He knows everything, so we ought to know something.
Come on, God knows everything. You can't be God, but you can sure know something. Be intentional. I call myself a lifelong learner. I'm trying to learn every chance I get.
Even if you mess up. Figure out what happened. Make sure you know how to avoid that moving forward. Be a lifelong learner. Ask questions.
Jesus was the youngster asking questions. He's sitting among the doctors and and the learned men. asking questions, listening to what they said. We've got to live like that, live carefully and wisely. The last thing he says in this section.
In verse eighteen and nineteen, do not get drunk on wine. which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.
Verse 20: Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I call that the fourth point. Children of light must stay under the influence of the Spirit. You know these folk driving under the influence. D U I But that's not the spirit's influence.
That's something they bought. and drank, and had no business getting behind the wheel. But we are called to live under the influence of the Holy Spirit. He's the one. Who is to influence our lives?
That's why he says you ought to sing, you ought to constantly keep the things of God going in your heart, in your mind, whether you're in corporate worship or not. He's not just talking about corporate worship. You need to learn to sing and manifest the presence of God wherever you are. You know, I grew up in a neighborhood. There were men who always had a brown bag in their hand.
We call them winos. Winos. Why did we call them winos? Because they always had a bag in their hand, and what was in the bag could be held by its neck. And they didn't even have to pull it out the bag.
You would just see them pretty much putting a bag up to there, and they turn it up. And they were drinking wine constantly. That's what made you a wine O, you usually drank wine. And so, you need to be somebody who imbibes the Holy Spirit on a regular basis. Constantly drinking in the spirit, constantly drinking in the things of God, constantly worshiping, constantly magnifying his name.
I have playlists. It's just soaking in the spirit. It was a day I know I need to be in the spirit, stay in the spirit, everything that's going to happen today. I better be in the spirit. I put that playlist on while I'm driving to the appointment, whatever it is.
This is not the time for my foolishness and all the crazy stuff. I love, I got a broad playlist. I got a little bit of everything in my library. But when I need to be drinking in the spirit, that's not the time for my secular stuff. That's not the time for my jazz.
That's not the time for any of the stuff I love. This is the time I got a playlist. I had it on coming to church. And I told my wife, I said, oh, this one is the one where I need to go in seriously. I need to go in.
Jen stay in there a while. And you better find the way to do that. Paul said you need to do that instead of drinking wine.
Now he said don't get drunk.
So I'm not I know some of y'all said, but Pastor, you said it's okay to drink. I yeah, I'm not saying you can't drink a glass of wine. I'm not saying you can't drink reasonably, drink and keep sobriety. I'm not saying you can't, but you need to know what you can do. I don't drink alcohol.
I chose years ago not to do it. It's just a decision I made. It's not, you know, it doesn't make me better than anybody else. I just choose not to do it. And I grew up in holiness.
At first, we were taught you couldn't do it in holiness, period. You couldn't drink wine, you couldn't drink champagne. If you were at a reception and they were passing around champagne for the toast, the saints would be messed up. Because Saints are what I'm gonna do now. Like they would not allow themselves to sip the champagne.
Okay, if that's you, that's you. Don't put that on everybody. I told you all years ago, when I first started preaching as a young man, I preached at one place and these folks sang and they sang really well, and I preached and we went out to eat afterwards, and they had sung so well, and I preached, and man, we had a wonderful time. And we at the table and they ordered wine. And I was panicked.
I thought these people were saved. They sang so well. They were saved. I had been taught You can't sip. and be saved.
I was taught sipping saints are tripping saints. I just. And I had to learn. Those are my early days.
Now I've become a world-class Christian. I can hang anywhere, any culture of saints, anywhere. You go to Germany, some of the saints drinking beer. And they're not getting drunk, not getting wild, and all like that, but that's just their drink of choice. And they still saved.
I'm saying, hmm. Y'all need Jesus in Germany. No, you just. You can't do that. To their own master they stand or fall.
Not to you. But we have to learn that we need to be under the influence. He said, don't get drunk. Drunkenness is what we need to avoid. He said, but you do need to be high on something.
He said, be filled with the Spirit. Joel chapter 2, the prophecy of Joel chapter 2. In the last days, saith God, I will pour out my spirit. Upon all flesh. Do you know that's what Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost?
When the Holy Spirit fell on those folks in that upper room in Jerusalem, and they started speaking in tongues they had never learned, spilled out into the streets, speaking the wondrous works of God. And the people who looked at them and started mocking them said, They people are drunk. Peter got up and said, No, they're not drunk on what you think they're drunk on. In fact, he said it's only 9 o'clock in the morning. The taverns aren't open yet.
They're not drinking what you think. He said, but they are drunk on something. This is that, he said, which was spoken by the prophet Joel: that in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. And that's what's happening then, and it's still happening today to everybody who will drink.
Drink up. The Holy Spirit is still available to you. And to tell you the truth, you know, good and well, where you live and where you work, you need to be on something. Come on, let's just be honest. You need to be on something.
Some of y'all are too sober for your own good. You are way too sober to deal with the foolishness you have to deal with.
Some of y'all need to say, okay, God, I want that. Fill her up with that. And you need it over and over again. One infilling. Oh, I remember when the Holy Spirit filled me.
Yeah, that was the first time. But you need an infilling, a fresh one. He fell in Acts 2, but guess what? In Acts 4, persecution broke out. The saints got together, said they're starting to beat us up now.
They're threatening our lives. They started praying, and the Holy Spirit fell on them in a fresh way. You need a fresh import. Don't tell me, ooh, I met God, honey, 13 years ago. I'll never forget it.
Do you know how empty you've been in the last 13 years? You better get before him and say, fill me up. I need you over and over again. I need your power today. I'm getting ready to deal with them tripping people, Lord.
I need you to fill me. Yeah.
Some of y'all need a good old outpouring. You need to get so spirit-filled, you're staggering a little bit, look like you are a little bit drunk. Quit trying to be cute.
Sometimes you just got to go ahead and get drunk in the spirit. And let God have his way in your life.
So there's a way, children of light. Or to live, or to speak. Or to behave. And if we will. Walk in the Spirit.
You'll lead us. into some wonderful thing. Thanks so much for being here with us for today's Destined for Victory message: Living as Children of the Light. You know, Pastor Paul often used to say that even after his preaching days were over, he wanted the Destined for Victory media ministry to keep sharing the gospel all over the world.
So, when he went home to be with the Lord just a year ago, his daughter Alicia Greer already had a clear idea of her father's wishes. The first order of business was to express those wishes to you, our listening friends and partners. She's done that many times in the last few months, but today, as we find ourselves at the beginning of a brand new year, Alicia wants to talk to you about the future of Destined for Victory and our commitment to keep Pastor Paul's legacy alive.
So, Alicia, I'll let you take it from there. Pastor Paul's media ministry is at a crossroads, and as executive director and as his daughter, I'm sincerely asking for your help. When my father went to be with the Lord earlier this year, you all showed such tremendous support, and we are so grateful for each and every one of you. But recently, we experienced a change in one of our significant sources of funding, and that change has led to a deficit.
So we need your help to keep Pastor Paul's teachings on the air.
So we're asking you to prayerfully consider giving a gift over and above your normal amount to help us keep this teaching legacy alive. You can make a donation and request the book by visiting pastorpaul.net. Thank you so much for standing with us and keeping this mighty man of God's teaching legacy alive. God bless you. Thank you, Alicia.
We're so grateful for how you, our listeners, have responded to this urgent need and thank you in advance for what you can do to help Destined for Victory continue to share the gospel all over the world on multiple platforms. As you give today, we have a great thank you gift to share with you, one that will challenge you to persevere through life's challenges or unwanted changes. Introducing our booklet, Keep Moving Forward. Drawing from Israel's transition from Moses to Joshua, this booklet will remind you that God has promised to go before you as your leader and your protector even when you're facing new challenges. It's a great resource for anyone who wants to be more fully equipped to move confidently into the future God has prepared.
Again, that's Keep Moving Forward, our thank you gift for your generous donation to Destined for Victory today. 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 to Destined for Victory, post office box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538.
God knows exactly where He has pointed your life toward. In fact, he's already at the destination. That's why I love serving an omnipresent God. God is already where he's taking you. He's with you, but he's already where you are going.
And that will be next time in our Destined for Victory message: No Matter What Happens, Keep Moving Forward. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
