It is a wonderful thing when you understand the principle of servanthood that you will never graduate from being a servant because contrary to popular opinion, being a servant is the highest calling there is. College students may graduate. Christians don't, at least not on this side of heaven. Hello, and thanks for being with us for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard.
Some of the greatest heroes of the Christian faith have been students of servanthood. Moses, Esther, the Apostle Paul, and of course the teacher is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He modeled servanthood his entire life, and today you'll be encouraged to follow in his steps. Online, you'll find us at pastorpaul.net, where you can listen to Destined for Victory on Demand and find details about how to subscribe to our podcast. But right now, let's get you to today's message from Pastor Paul.
It's called Be Faithful, and it starts right now. As we continue to examine. Paul's letter to the church, his first letter to the church at Corinth. We are in chapter 4, and the theme of this chapter is faithfulness.
So, we're talking about what it means to be faithfulness. Faithful. I want to continue our exploration of this theme from this wonderful chapter of Scripture.
Now, we've already seen that Paul makes the case that we ought to be faithful first as servants. Of God. We are to prove faithful as servants. He described himself as a servant of the Lord. And it is a wonderful thing when you understand the principle of servanthood that you will never graduate from being a servant because, contrary to popular opinion, being a servant is the highest calling there is.
Because there's only one master, and that is God. And we are all called to serve Him.
Now, we serve Him in different ways, we serve Him through different means and all of that. But the reality is, everyone in the body of Christ is called to be a servant, and He wants us to be faithful as His servants. We saw, secondly, that we are called to be faithful as stewards of God's resources. And I began talking in the last message about the fact that we are stewards of our time, of our talent, and of our treasure. That is to say, a steward is a manager of that which does not belong to him or her.
When you are a steward, you manage something that is owned by someone else.
Well, I don't know if you realize it, but your time is not yours, it is God's. One day he's going to call time. And therefore, you must understand that you are to give him a return on his investment of time in your life. The reason why the Bible says the day is coming when all of us are going to stand before the Lord and give an account, each of us of our own lives, you've got to understand that's because he owns the time he gave you, which is why he can call you to account and ask you, what did you do on earth for heaven's sake? What did you do in time that makes a difference for eternity?
Whose life did you help turn around? How did you obey the things I called you to do with the time I gave you? We are stewards of our time. God gives us all, I said in the last message, enough time to do His will. What He doesn't do is give us enough time to do His will and then do a few things we want to do, but He said not to do.
So, when you say you don't have time to do something that's the will of God, all it means is you have got to stop using time to do things that are not the will of God. Because he gave you all the time to do his will. When you say, I don't have time to go to church, burnt, wrong answer. God gave you time, and God gave you the command to go to church. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together.
With other believers, you needed to sharpen your faith, to grow, to worship, to serve. God gave you time to do that. He gave you time to minister to the needs of others, time to give yourself to service in ministries in the church or a parachurch organization or whatever it is, a missions organization, whatever God's called you to do with your time and your talent. But He's given you that time, it is really His, and He wants a return on His investment. You're a steward of a talent.
God gave you talent. God doesn't give you talent so you can sit on it, He gives you talent so you can use it. For His glory. It's our responsibility to pray and to seek ways that we can serve God with the abilities He has given us. He's given us natural abilities, He's given us spiritual gifts, and we must give God a return on His investment.
We said also that we are stewards of our finances, stewards of our treasure, I called it. What that means is that your money is insures. 100% of your money and material possessions belong to God. If you're not sure of that, I dare you to die. Because you're not taking it with you.
It's not yours to begin with. You are a steward of God's resources. You will not own your home 100 years from now. You won't own your car. 20 years from now.
Depending on how well it's built, 15. Whatever. The idea is, it doesn't belong to you in the first place. You are a manager of God's resources.
So make sure that you're doing what He has called you to do with the resources He gives you. He blesses us to enjoy many wonderful things, but He wants us to be kingdom first and kingdom-focused in our living.
So when you say, I can't afford to tithe, You are telling a story. Because just like God gives you time and wants you to do His will with the time, He gives you money and wants you to do His will with the money. When you say, I can't afford to tithe, all that means is you have some money. God's money is going in some directions He doesn't want you to send it in. Oh, this is tight, but it's right.
If the amens get short, I got my own. I don't need yours. I'd like to have yours. If I can get an amen, that's great. If not, let me borrow an amen.
But push, come to shove, I can pull this train by myself if I have to. When you say, I can't tithe, I can't give 10% of my income to the kingdom of God, you told a story. Because 100% of it belongs to God. And when you begin your generous giving by being a tither, you are simply saying, God, you first, because it's all yours anyway. And I'm going to trust you to bless me, to use the 90% in ways that please you and ways that glorify you.
He'll give you many. I found that when you do right by God's resources, He will make sure that every need you have is met. That's what Jesus said. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and everything you need will be added. You can do more with 90% once you have dedicated the tithe to the Lord.
Not as a legalistic practice. I don't tithe out of legalism. I tithe because it's a great starting point for generous giving. The principle is generous giving in the New Testament. Tithing is a wonderful way to begin that.
But the reality is, I found over the years as a tither that God will bless the 90% more when you honor him than he can bless the 100% when you dishonor him. And so we are stewards of God's time, of God's talent, and of God's treasure.
Now, I want to pick it up and say, we are also stewards. of God's calling on our lives. God's calling on our lives. I want to talk about stewardship of your calling.
Now, what Paul does in the remaining part of this chapter is he begins to talk about his calling as an apostle. And he's talking about it in the context of sort of admonishing the church at Corinth because many of them had become arrogant. They had become people who assumed they didn't need Paul. They didn't need his theology. They didn't need his input.
They were fine just like they are. And they really didn't need him. In fact, they didn't want to be too identified with him because of his calling.
Now, Paul was the founder of this church. God used him to raise up this work. You read about it in Acts chapter 18 that he ministered in Corinth. Because God told him, I have many people there.
So he birthed this work with his own sweat, blood, and tears. But now many of the people who got saved because of his ministry have despised him and he is admonishing them. And in the course of that, he's dealing with their arrogance. Look at what he says. Already you have all you want.
Already you have become rich. You have become kings and that without us.
Now he's saying, in your mind, you think you're rich. You think you are kings on top of the world and that you don't need anything and you especially don't need me telling you how to live your life. That's what he's getting at.
Now, look at what he says. How I wish that you really had become kings, so that we might be kings with you. In other words, he's telling them you all are tripping. You think you're better off than you are. And a lot of people today are in that position.
You are self-deceived. We are a generation easily deceived. You can be deceived into thinking that you have it all together. And when you are deceived about that, the problem with deception is you are wrong, but you think you're right. See some folk are wrong and know they're wrong.
You ask them, they'll tell you, I know I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do in my life. Especially they'll tell somebody like me, a pastor, when they run into me, well, Pastor, I know, I listen, I need to confess. You know, you run into them in the mall and they want to set up a quick confessional or something, you know. I know I'm not living right, Pastor. I haven't been to that church in a long time.
I know I need to come back. I said, Well, you know where it is, right?
Alright.
Now that you know, to him that knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin. Get your happy hips back in that church. Don't go away. The rest of today's Destined for Victory message, featuring Pastor Paul Shepard, is coming right up. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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Well, Christians have a unique calling in Christ, and it isn't always a pleasant one.
Now, with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, be faithful. Here once again as Pastor Paul Shepard. When you are deceived, you Think you are right and you are wrong. And it takes the word of God. to turn the lights on and show you deception.
And he is saying to them, You think you're kings, but if you were kings, I'd be reigning with you. He says, verse 9: For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We've been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise. We are weak, but you are so strong.
You are honored, we are dishonored. He talks about going hungry and thirsty and in rags and being brutally treated, being homeless, working hard with his hands, blessing people that curse him, enduring persecution. He talks about answering kindly when people slander him. And he says, we feel like the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world. What's he talking about?
He says, we seem to be placed at the end of the procession. He is talking about, this is the first century AD. He's talking about the practice in the Roman Empire of having games in the arena where gladiators fought, and there were people who were already condemned to die, but the way they would die is they would have to fight for their lives. And when you lost, you died, and it was sport. People would come to watch you die.
You would actually be the entertainment, your death, your blood, you're being cut up and massacred. Later on, they introduced wild animals into the arena practice when they began persecuting Christians. And you would sit and watch believers ripped to shreds by wild beasts for the entertainment of others. And he says, it seems to me that we are like men condemned to die. We're at the end of the procession into the arena because we are the condemned.
We are in last place. We are despised and rejected. What's he talking about? He's talking about his calling as an apostle. He says, we apostles, this is what God put on our plate.
We are the ones who had to give birth to the church. We are the ones who have to make sure that the great commission begins to be fulfilled before we turn over Pastor Baton to the next generation of leaders. And he says, we have a very unique calling and it's not a pleasant one. Circumstantially. He's talking about the fact that he is being a faithful steward of his calling because he knew that if he would be faithful in his lifetime, God was going to give him a crown, an eternal crown of glory.
He talked about it often in his writings. When he wrote his very last letter, 2 Timothy, at the end of it, chapter 4, he says, Son, I am already being poured out like a drink offering. The time of my departure is at hand. And he said, I'm looking forward to that day when God is going to give me a crown of life. Not to me only, but to everyone who loves his appearing.
Paul was looking forward to heaven because he knew that if I'm faithful to God now, he will bless me throughout eternity. And let me tell you something. He's talking about his calling.
Now, his calling is not yours. Everyone has a unique calling. The apostles knew what they were called to do. And here's the thing: when God gives you a calling, he gives you the grace to fulfill the calling. Oh, I love that about God.
I love that God doesn't tell you what to do and then say, okay, go to it. Hope you do well. But when God gives you a calling, He gives you the grace to fulfill the calling. He gives you an endowment so that you can do it and do it well for His glory. You have a calling on your life.
God knows what He wants out of your life. In fact, the reason you're on the planet is to glorify God and to fulfill the calling He has on your life. And so I want you to understand that these words are here to cause you to reflect on your own calling and to say: if the apostles were serious, so serious about fulfilling God's calling and being faithful, how much more should I, who has a calling that is not as terrible as theirs, how much more should I fulfill my calling? These were people who gladly laid down their lives for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Paul had his head chopped off.
The other apostles died various types of deaths. History tells us that Peter, when it came time for him to be crucified, he had a request. They were going to crucify him in the same position as Jesus Christ. And Peter's last request, history tells us, was that he would be turned upside down. And the reasoning was because he did not want to die in the position of Jesus, his Savior, he was unworthy to hang in that position.
So we're told that he said, would you please flip me upside down?
So that no one mistakes me for disrespecting my Savior. They all had the ability to fulfill their calling because where God guides, He provides. And when God guides you in a certain way in your life, He'll give you the provision if you will seek first His kingdom.
Now, that's the issue. There are many of us who are still trying to figure out what our lives are about instead of asking God what He put us here to do. And I want to encourage you that God has a plan and purpose for your life. There is a calling that you are to fulfill. And I want to encourage you to be about your father's business.
I want to encourage you to give God a return on His investment. And I want to let you know that God's calling on your life is irrevocable. If you think you can talk God out of what He plans to do with you, you are sadly mistaken. You're listening to a guy who thought he could talk God out of vocational ministry. I did not want to be in vocational ministry.
I said, God, I love you. I'll be glad to serve you. And I know, you know, I have a speaking gift. I'll be glad to use it on the weekend, do a little youth retreat or something like that. But I want to have a regular life.
See, I grew up in the home of a pastor. I'm a pastor's kid. And I saw my dad's life and lifestyle. I assumed that was the only way you could be a pastor was to be like him. He was my only model.
And he was a people person to his heart. He loved people. The more, the merrier. Always with people, always hanging out, always with folk. We didn't know when he was coming home.
And I thought that was what a pastor was. And I knew I was not that kind of guy.
So I said, God, I don't want to be in vocational ministry. Why don't you let me just have a regular job so when I grow up, I can have a regular family. My kids know when I'm coming home and what have you. And then on the weekend, I do a little something. I had it all figured out.
But I found out when God knows what He wants out of your life, He doesn't ask you what you think about it. You can tell God all you want. Prayer is your opportunity to talk to God. And you might as well be honest with God in prayer because He knows what you think anyway.
So, you might as well tell God what you don't want to do and all of that. But when you get through, He's going to say, Thanks for sharing.
Now, why don't you get about my business? You're not talking God out of his calling on your life.
Now, not everyone is called to vocational ministry like I am called to. But the first thing you have to do is say yes to God before you understand the implications of your calling. And I had to learn to say yes to God, even though I couldn't understand how in the world am I going to be a pastor? I don't have the personality of my dad. He's sanguine, he's a people person.
I like folks sometimes. You know, all depending on the situation and the circumstances, you know what I'm saying? I don't want them all the time. But again, I was looking at his model. I assumed that was the only way to be a pastor, and I said, I don't fit.
But when God let me know, that's what I've called you to do. I said, well, I had to say yes and then figure out how to make this work. But I was trying to convince God you have messed up here. Because I'm not into people like that. I love them, and you know, I love serving, I love using my teaching gift and what have you, but I just don't see that happening.
I didn't see myself as having that pastor instinct. And perhaps it never really came to the fore until I said yes. And when I finally surrendered and began to prepare for vocational ministry, and in 1982, when I began vocational ministry, that's when I discovered that where God guides, he provides. That's where I saw God beginning to make me a pastor after his own heart. He taught me how to love his people, not just the ones that were likable.
You do know he has two kind. He has some that are likable. You know it's true. There's some folks you just like.
So loving them isn't that hard because you already like a lot about them. But I found out God has all kind of sheep in the flock. He got special kids. And that you have to shepherd them. If he called you to be a shepherd, like he called me, that I had to shepherd them.
I couldn't just shepherd the ones I liked. Had to shepherd them all, feed the flock, love the flock, care for the people. I had to learn to sacrifice my feelings for them. Paul talks in one place in his calling about how he had to learn to answer kindly when people are slanderous. I know what that's about.
I've learned that lesson. When people are trying their best to disrespect you. and insult you and God won't let you get them back. And you want to get God, please. Oh, I know just what I want to say.
Jesus, please. Yeah. And God taught me to love his people. Take low in order to lift them up. Yeah.
Jesus put a premium on servanthood, and He invites us to walk as He walked. you might say lowering ourselves is our highest calling. If you haven't already downloaded our free mobile app, now is a great time to do it. Search Destined for Victory at the App Store and listen to these messages wherever you go. That's the Destined for Victory mobile app.
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And you've got to live on your job with integrity. We need people in corporate. We need people in business. We need Christian businesses. We need Christian mechanics who will tell you what is really wrong with your car and fix it for a fair price.
That's next time in our Destined for Victory message: Be Faithful. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
