A well-known shoe company got it right many years ago. Don't brag about it, don't even talk about it, just do it. On today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard, you'll hear all about some of the keys to winning the Christian race. But before we get off and running, our Executive Director Alicia Greer has a few words to share with you during this critical time in the ministry of Destined for Victory. Alicia?
Thank you to all of our faithful listeners and supporters for tuning in and being blessed by these teachings. We're so encouraged and grateful for your continued partnership with this ministry. Your generosity has set us up well heading into what are typically our more challenging summer months. One question I often get is: How can I support the ministry? We've made it easier to find the answer.
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Well, as you heard Alicia say just now, we are committed to continuing to bring timeless truth for a victorious life through Pastor Paul's teaching for many years to come. But the truth of the matter is we can't do that without your help, and your help is especially needed now. When you give today, we have a great resource to send you as our way of saying thanks. It's our latest booklet, More Than Conquerors. You know the Christian life is a victorious life, and it doesn't happen by accident.
It's your birthright already purchased by Jesus Christ at the highest price in history. And yet so many believers live in defeat, selling their birthright for things worth far less. In More Than Conquerors, Pastor Paul Shepard uses the unlikely story of Gideon to outline the path from defeat to victory. If you want to understand how to take on a victor's identity and tear down the idols competing for your heart, you'll want to reserve your copy of this outstanding resource today. That's more than conquerors, yours this month is our thanks for your generous donation to Destin for Victory.
You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's 855-339-5500, or by visiting 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. Mm. God has called us to be winners and that means since we're competing for a crown that will last forever, we must make up in our minds, God, I'm not just going to say I'll be a winner, but I will do what it takes to win the Christian race.
What does it take to win this race? Find out next on today's Destined for Victory featuring Pastor Paul Shepard. He'll tell us how you can run the Christian race in a manner that leads to victory. Today's Destined for Victory message is called Living by the Joy J-O-Y Principle, and it starts right now. I need a few folks.
Here, who have competed at a very serious level in some sport. To help me make the point, let me. I just need to interview you real briefly. I promise this won't hurt. Give me about two or three of you who have competed at the collegiate or professional level.
And come on down, there's one. I need about two or three. Um Two, three, okay, okay. You you all are you all. All right.
Yeah. Come on up, real quick. Stand right here on this stair. I'm just going to ask you some simple questions. It's not going to hurt.
Okay. Come on. All right, you're coming too? You're coming? Four, those four that are walking now.
Come on. Your first name? Terrell, uh what um what Sport, or what were you involved in? The Nike Farm Team is a professional track and field group.
Okay, professional track and field. What was your um What event were you in? 800 meters. 800 meters. Give me an idea in the thick of the training of the kinds of regimen that you were on.
How much, how often, how many hours did you have to practice? About There's probably about a 50 hour week Uh job. 5 o'clock in the morning weight room. Um four o'clock in the afternoon runs Uh probably about six o'clock at night. Uh nice job.
Now, fifty hours, how much of that was what we're talking about? Uh all of it. All fifty hours were dedicated to track. Did y'all hear that? Y'all thought folk just showed up with shorts on.
Isn't that something? Fifty? Hours. How much do you get paid? Not a lot.
Yeah. It wasn't about the paycheck. It was about learning to become a world-class athlete. Weight training. How much time lifting weights every week?
Roughly about twenty hours a week. Twenty out. Come on, y'all.
Now think about it. When we look at the weights in the gym. All we did, we looked at it. We already started moaning. Oh.
Oh my. This man was lifting them for 20 hours.
Now here's another, oh this is gonna bless us. What does weight training have to do with running? See a lot of people don't make the connection You say running, that just means if you're fast, if you used to win races when you were a kid, get on the track team.
Well you get on the track team and he said they gonna send you to the gym Because they know that the building of muscle mass. And the building of your stamina. is important to your running the race. Give this brother a hand. All right, first name?
Ginger. All right, and what um What field are we talking about? I through the discus. Discus, all right? One of the field, one of the field events.
Tell me what your training was in the thick of it. Actually, what he said, I actually sat in a job interview and calculated it out because we had some extra time, and it was 60 hours a week, about 20 hours of waits. and about forty hours of, well, both sprints and uh Throwing. Did you hear that? Yeah.
Now. She had to be in the gym lifting the weights. But she also said she had to run. Have you ever seen a discus? Yeah.
These folk are preaching my message real good. Have you ever seen the discus? How far do they have to go? Right? Would you show, some of them don't know, would you just, would you just show.
Just show the motion so that they'll get an idea. Watch this, watch this. Two spins.
Now the M. your mind says why do I have to go in the gym And when I get through, go out on the track and run, and all I'm gonna do is spin twice. That's because The disciplines have an interplay. And if you don't do all that, the coaches who know what it means and know what it takes to become world class. Know that you're not ready.
If you're not willing to do whatever they tell you to do. You'll never be world-class. Give Ginger a hand. Let's get the lady first. All right, first name?
Sybil. Sybil, and what event are we talking about? I was a competitive roller skater. Everything they can do on ice skates, I could do it on roller skates. Stop what you're saying.
Oh, she said everything. I didn't mind jumping up in the air. If it meant, as an adult, I would have to have a dislocation, I have a deteriorating hip. But it was worth sacrifice. It kept me out of trouble.
My mother knew where I was. I know that's right. It costs her a lot. I know that's right. I mean, I trained like I had a job.
I was at the skate ring seven days a week, but the grades had to be up to go to the skate ring. No grades right, stay home. Had to get the grades so she could go skate for hours on end every day. Monday through Sunday. And she expected me to do something around the house other than clean up my room.
And had to do something around the house. Oh, some of us know about that, others don't, but praise God. That is wonderful.
Alright, so give me an idea of how many hours you would spend at the end. I would be at the ring from like four at night, and I would be at I'd be home by 7:45 at night, 4 in the afternoon.
Now, remember, I went to school in the morning. Go to school. Travel. Come home from school. Get your homework done.
No, I do the homework before I got to the ring. Before you got there, then you could skate for hours and then come back home. And I had to have to keep a 2.0 or higher. D'Zenf, you don't skate. But as a result of that, you were bad on some wheels.
Yes, I could skate. Give her a hand, everybody. First name, Marcus.
Alright Marcus, what event are we talking about? Amateur wrestling. It's not the professional wrestling. It's not choreographed. We don't know who's going to win.
You just lock horns and go. All right. So this is not the WWF E, whatever it is. W-E-T-M-N-R-E.
Okay. That's not me. I grew up watching Jimmy Superfly Snooker. None of this. No, no.
All right. No. Uh Somewhere between 35 and 40 hours of just like, that's with your team. And not to mention somewhere between 15 to 20 hours of your own workouts. Because, like, at wrestling, you have to weight manage and stuff.
So, one of the things you have to do is. Like say for example, and you have no option. If your coach tells you you have to make weight, if you're five pounds over and you have to make weight in two hours, you better make weight in Two hours, that's all it comes down to.
So, by the grace of God, I was able to manage weight at the time very well, not anymore. Good. I'm done competing, you know. But um, like. If I was at the beginning of the week, had was like somewhere between eight and ten pounds over, which I was really good, by that Saturday I would have to make weight at, you know, be on weight.
And uh, and not to mention, again, working out with the team and running on your own.
So you probably spent like somewhere between 35 and 40 hours, you know, just training and getting another 15 hours by yourself, like, you know, running on your own, having to manage weight, extra lifting, and stuff.
Now, that was just to. That was just to crack the lineup, because if you're in a if you're in a good competitive team, everybody's good. If you ever play college sports, you're you're all-star team of a bunch of other all-stars, and you have to make the cracking lineup of a bunch of other all-stars.
So you're just banging at it.
Now, of those thirty-five, forty hours, how much of that was actually on the mat? Oh oh. I would say about twenty of it was on the mat, twenty of it on the mat that we had to actually go run. a lot of running. I don't know how people run for fun.
Mm-hmm. But a lot of running and like sprint work. A lot of sprints for endurance. About 20 hours actually on the mat. Another 20 was off the mat.
Isn't that something? Now, there it is again. A lot of work outside of what apparently you are focusing on doing. Give Marcus a hand. You see, we love to see somebody's glory, but you need to check out their story.
You see the glory, but you don't know the story. You got to see them in moments when the cameras are off and people aren't in the stands where no one is shouting their name or asking for their autograph. They're somewhere sweating when you are sleeping. They are in routines that would break the common person. Because they have the mindset of an athlete who has decided to win.
Now, brothers and sisters, let's take a good look at this because Paul is giving us this analogy not because he has interest in talking about sports. He's giving the analogy because he's saying, if you and I want to win. That's the kind of life we live. In case you joined us late, you're listening to Destined for Victory, featuring the teaching ministry of Pastor Paul Shepard. Stay with us.
The second half of today's message is straight ahead. One of the things we love to do for friends and listeners like you is to pray for you when you're in need.
So if you have a prayer request, please visit pastorpaul. net and use the contact feature to share it with us. Our ministry team is always happy to lift you up in prayer. And of course, when you stop by our website, remember that's where you can listen to the broadcast on demand at your convenience or find out how to download our free app. It's all at pastorpaul.net.
The sanctification process is a marathon, not a sprint, and it takes hard work and discipline to win it.
Now, let's get you back to the rest of today's Destiny for Victory message: Living by the Joy principle. If you want to win your Christian race. He says it has to be your decision to do so has to be coupled with discipline. And look at what the apostle says. He says, now they're doing all of that.
For a crown that's going to go away. They're doing all of that. For a glory. That will not last forever. I can't tell you who won the Super Bowl seven years ago.
Now, whoever won it, they worked like crazy to be the championship team that year. But a few months later, there was another season, and at that point, the ground was level, and if they wanted to repeat, they had to do it all over again. And the reason why you don't see most teams repeat and repeat and build a dynasty is because the other teams just get hungrier when they see somebody else win. And they say, you might have won this time, but I got you next year. And it makes it difficult.
Brothers and sisters, you've got to understand that God has called us to be winners, and that means that we've got to understand that since we're competing for a crown that will last forever, we must make up in our minds: God, I'm not just going to say I'll be a winner, but I will do what it takes to win the Christian race.
So A lot of folks Say, I can't pray. It's just challenging to pray, to build a regular prayer life. Christians typically say one of the hardest things to do is to develop a regular time with God. Welcome to the world of discipline. Welcome to the world of discipline.
Athletes don't get up.
Somebody said, Got up 4:30 in the morning because you got to be a soldier first. When you're a soldier, talk to people who've been in the military and ask them: well, what if you didn't feel like waking up at 4:30? And see what kind of look they give you. Because it had nothing to do with how they felt. You're asking me the wrong question.
I'm a soldier, and you're asking me, Did I feel like getting up? Of course, I didn't feel like getting up. But all of them knew, you knew better than to tell somebody, tell Sarge, I'll catch him later. I'm not coming out there today. He's tripping if you think I'm coming out there today.
Are you kidding me? Do you know what would happen? Athlete, ask somebody who was on a varsity team or a professional team. I would have interviewed some of the 49ers that come to this church, but they're not here because they are somewhere getting ready for a game. Ask them what would happen if they violate curfew.
What would happen if you do something against the team rules? It has nothing to do with how you feel like. What you feel like, it has to do with the disciplines it takes to win.
So plug that principle into prayer. Prayer is challenging, all the more so because the devil hates believers who pray. He hates believers who are plugged into a power source.
So he's gonna fight you, throw everything at you, including the kitchen sink, keep you from developing a prayer life.
So, what do you have to do? You have to not only decide I'm going to have a prayer life. But you have to then discipline your mind and body. You have to say, I'm going to do it. Whether I feel like it or not, it has nothing to do with feel-liking.
Feeling like praying? It has to do with the decision coupled with the discipline to spend time with God. And so I make my mind up, and Paul describes it very vividly. He says, sometimes you gotta beat yourself up. Beat your mind up, beat your body up, get out of that bed and go do what you need to do.
No one who is becoming excellent at any level in their life got there because their feelings got them there. You got there because your discipline pushed you when your feelings said no. I don't feel like doing this. And the discipline says, shut up. And do it anyway.
Because after a while, if you push long enough in discipline, you'll break through the various thresholds. I'll never forget when I was running track. I was probably in the eighth, ninth grade on a community track team. And we were practicing, and one day, and he had us, even us sprinters, running long distances in laps. And I was so mad.
I'm like, I'm running a short race. Why do I have to run? I'm not trying to run two miles. But the coach knew what I didn't know and so we are all there running and complaining. Yeah.
And I got the most horrible cramp. And I thought this will get me out of it. I mean, that thing was killing me. And I grabbed my side and I told the coach, I said, man, I'm hurting. I'm telling you, I can't take it anymore.
I gotta stop. Because he said, anybody who stops is off the team. I wanted to be on the team, but I was hurting, and so I thought I could get some sympathy. Yeah. I said, man, I gotta stop.
I'm serious. I can't make it anymore. I can picture him while I'm telling the story. His name was Mr. Anderson.
He had a big afro. He drove a purple challenger. I'm dating myself.
Some of y'all know a challenger. Don't even try it. Don't even try it. You know what a challenger was. Yeah.
He drove a challenger, had an afro, had a whistle around his neck, said, You're off the team if you stop. And I told him about my cramp, and he said, Shut up and run. He said, You're expending energy talking to me. Shut up and run. And then he said.
If you keep running, that's just your second win. You'll have a breakthrough. And I said to myself. Yeah. He is seriously tripping.
Trying to psych me out. Does he know how smart I am? I know mess when I hear it, talking about some breakthrough. You can't run that little psychology game on me. Said this to myself.
I thought he's just messing with my head. You know what? The man knew what he was talking about. He made me run even though everything in my body was screaming stop And since I had to keep running, I ran until I broke through a threshold. And before I knew it, the pain was gone, my energy was renewed, and I picked up my pace.
And I said, what in the world is this? I had heard about a second wind, but I had never experienced a second wind because you don't get a second wind till you run all the way through your first wind. Yeah. And I'm here to tell somebody who has your tongue hanging out spiritually. You don't know if you're going to make it.
Devil has been beating you up. You're feeling discouraged. You're thinking about giving up. God says, shut up and run.
Okay. He says, run on through the pain, run on through the trouble, run on through what you're going through, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. You see him standing there saying, come on, you can make it. The Holy Spirit is a coach on the sideline saying you can make it. Come on, I see you.
I'll give you help. Come on, you can make it. Here to tell somebody you can make it. The only one yelling you can't make it is the devil. Devil's the only one standing over there saying, ah, you might as well give up.
You're not gonna make it. This is not gonna work. I got you right away. I want you. But the Holy Spirit is another voice.
And you have to learn to listen to him more than you listen to the devil. And that's why you want to spend time in the word and spend time in the discipline of prayer, because that's where the coach will get to talk to you. And he'll tell you, and he'll discipline your life. He'll tell you, like my coach told me: shut up, you're talking too much. Oh, y'all don't have the Holy Ghost talk to you like that.
He talks to me like that. Shut up, I'm about tired of your complaints. I'm about tired of you bellyaching about everything in your life that you don't like. Just run your race. Nobody asked you how you felt.
Just run your race and let me renew your strength. Thanks for being with us for today's Destined for Victory message, living by the Joy J-O-Y principal. To find out more about Destined for Victory's mission and purpose, or about the special gift reserved for you when you give generously today, please come see us at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. If you have a bumper sticker that says God is my co-pilot, Either tear it off.
Or get some light out. And white out cold. One of the two. Because God is no one's co-pilot. He comes in to be in charge.
And that's next time in our message, Living by the Joy Principle. Until then, remember: he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
