How can you go from the agony of spiritual defeat to the thrill of spiritual victory? Find out next on today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard. Before we get started, though, we'd like to share an important message with you. As you know, summer is always a tough time for ministries like Destined for Victory. Donations tend to plunge during these few months, and our faith is tested from time to time.
I once asked Pastor Paul to share his thoughts on the subject, and here's what he said It would be great if your mortgage company or whoever you pay your housing bill to would say, Hey, it's summer and I know you got things you want to do.
So that's not going to happen for you and your family life. And it doesn't happen for those of us who are broadcasters of the Word of God. The stations we broadcast, the platforms that we use, they require that we support them financially every month. And for that reason, we need our listeners to be supportive of us. We don't have the ability to broadcast without Thinking about paying the bills.
That's where our listeners, that's where our donors come in. As you consider the fact that. Twelve months. every month without fail. We need your support.
We appreciate the fact that you'll think of us during the summer and realize that the bills are still coming and the word of God still needs to go out. And thankfully, we're able to reach some people on vacation or wherever they happen to be, even some of those who aren't normally listeners, and we're able to reach them with the Word of God.
So thank you to those who help us. And I want to challenge more and more listeners. Would you become partners with us? And would you remember us, even if you're not a monthly partner, in the summer, think about us and drop us a line and put a check in there or contact us with the online platform of giving and say, we want to make sure that you continue throughout the year, including in these summer months. Thanks for thinking of us this year.
Well, as you give generously today, we have an outstanding resource to share as our way of saying thanks. Introducing 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, bought and paid for by Jesus Christ. And yet so many believers live in defeat, selling their birthright for things worth far less.
In More Than Conquerors, you'll see how to go from a victim mentality to a victor's identity. That's more than conquerors, our thank you gift this month, when you make a generous donation to Destined for Victory. You can give by phone by calling eight five five three three nine five five zero zero. That's eight five five three three nine fifty five hundred. 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, nine four five three eight. If you've been trying to do it in the power of the flesh, God has simply been teaching you that you can't change your life. You can't change your life. You can't get rid of your sins by your own power. You cannot clean up your act.
You can't get your attitude pure. You can't stop some of your foolishness until the power of God is introduced into your life. Is there a sin in your life that you're trying and failing to overcome on your own? If you feel helpless to overcome this pattern of sin, it's because you are. On today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepard, you'll discover three keys that will help you walk in spiritual victory.
Today's message is called Dying to Enjoy Victory and it starts right now.
Some of us are in disobedience right now in our lives, and there's no need to say, Lord, why is all this happening to me in my life?
Well, let's take a look at that life, and maybe we'll find the answer. Because if you're in disobedience, it should come as no surprise that you're experiencing oppression. But even when we who are walking by God's grace and obedience are oppressed, we can have a confidence in God, knowing that our trouble will not last because God refuses to let the enemy have the last laugh. And so, they are ready now for change. The prophet comes and tells them the word of the Lord, and God now is ready to move.
So, look at what he does. Verse 11 of Judges 6 says, the angel of the Lord appears on the scene, finds a man named Gideon threshing wheat in a wine press to keep it from the Midianites. I've said many times before, you don't even have to know about their culture or anything like that, agriculture, to understand this one thing. You don't thresh wheat in a wine press. Because you want to get out where the wind is blowing, so that as you toss the wheat to the wind, it will help to separate the wheat from the chaff.
And so, you want to be out. Therein lies their problem. They're under severe oppression. The last thing they want to do is be out in the open where Midian can say, There's one of them. And so here he is, Gideon's in a wine press, a nice sheltered place, threshing his wheat.
And look at what happens. The angel of the Lord finds him there. Verse 12 says, He appeared to Gideon and said, The Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor. Don't tell me I won't buy it.
I know Christians who just think you're just not supposed to laugh, but so much. I really do. There are some that just look like they were baptized in lemon juice. Just sober, just somber. They just believe that's the way of godliness.
Have a straight face, make it rather ugly, and just stay that way. That's your brand of Christianity. God bless you. I won't take it away from you, but don't rub that off on me. I have a salvation that can make me laugh.
I have a joy that makes life worth living. I just don't believe that I've got to be somber. If Jesus gave me life to the full, I ought to be able to crack up sometime. That's why I don't go down there. All that nonsense and carrying on.
Well, going somewhere else. Going to the first church of the frigid air. I'm going to stay here and. Because let me tell you something. When I read my Bible, I find a God who has a sense of humor.
I mean, you know, the scriptures, the Bible tells you very clearly that scripture is inspired of God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, and all of that. But it's also good for a few laughs. And here's one of them. Here's this man in a wine press threshing wheat, scared of the Midianites. The angel looks at him and says, How are you doing, mighty warrior?
When you look at Gideon and what he's doing at this moment, the last thing that comes to your mind is Mighty Warrior. That's just plain old funny. But it also teaches us an important lesson about the way God views us. I want to let somebody know that the way God looks at you is very different than the way you look at you. When God looks at us, when He's called us according to His purpose, saved us by His grace, He doesn't look at you according to the way you are at this moment.
He looks at you as a finished product because of the high price He paid for your salvation. And so when God looks at you, He doesn't look at you and identify you by your current actions, He identifies you by His calling. The Bible says we are the called according to his purpose, and so when he called us, he gave us an identity. The identity preceded you to the planet. Your identity beat you here before you showed up on the planet.
In fact, before there was a planet for you to show up on, the Bible says in eternity past, God made up his mind about you that you would be saved by grace and that you would be called according to his purpose. And he placed an identity on your life according to the calling, not according to your current behavior. The result is, he can look at somebody scared to death and call him a mighty warrior. And so he looks at this man. And says, You are a mighty warrior.
Not only does he tell him he's a mighty warrior, he says, and I want you to know that God is with you. He's with you. You all are living in defeat, but God is with you. The enemy's been beating you up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and a midnight snack, but God is with you. And I've come to let somebody here know that you're living in defeat right now in your life, and you've got some habits and some attitudes, and you've got some sinful behaviors and some besetting sins in your life that are keeping you clearly out of the pattern of God's plan and purpose for you.
But despite all of that, God says, Yes, I will use that to discipline you. Yes, I will make sure you know that this will never fly with me. But I also want to let you know that I am with you.
So you've got to understand that the two concepts can coexist. You are disobedient, but you are also God's child. And whom the Lord loves, He'll discipline. Even His discipline is born of love, and it's a desire to bring you into obedience so that He can give you all that He has destined for your life. And I want to let somebody here know that it is absolutely true that God's been beating you up for your sins, God's been disciplining you, and you will never have peace until you confess and forsake your sins and get in God's plan.
Don't think for a moment you're going to get God to sign off on your mess. But also understand that when the enemy comes along and says, See how you're living, you might as well give up. You're not a saint, you're not a child of God, you're a hypocrite. No, no, God looks on the heart. And you know what's at your heart?
At your heart is the calling he placed in your life. And the reason why you haven't given up on yourself to this time is because God has begun a good work in you. And He has said, Now, look, I'm ready. If you are tired of going through the same changes, if you are tired of being sick and tired of the same things, Now, let's get my will done in your life. And I've come to let somebody know: don't listen to the devil when he tells you to walk away.
Jesus loves you, he paid a wonderful price for you. And I don't care how many ups and downs you have, I don't care how many false starts you've had trying to get your life on track. In fact, if you've been trying to do it in the power of the flesh, God has simply been teaching you that you can't change your life. You can't change your life. You can't get rid of your sins by your own power.
You cannot clean up your act. You can't get your attitude pure. You can't get rid of uncleanness of heart, of unforgiveness, and bitterness and malice. You can't stop some of your foolishness until the power of God is introduced into your life. I've come to let you know sometimes God has to help you get to the end of yourself and you have to run out of personal options.
You have to quit thinking that your solution is in some self-help book, that somebody with a TV show on in the evenings can tell you how to live your life. No, no, they can help you lose a little weight. They can help you get your finances in order. But if you're really trying to get your life changed, a man or a woman cannot change their own life. I'm not talking about merely fruit.
I'm talking about getting down to the root. The root is sin. The Bible says we're born in sin, shaped in iniquity. And until you deal with your root problem of being a sinner and trust Christ for salvation and then trust Him to teach you how to live and to transform you from the inside out, you'll never experience anything but defeat. And so don't even look to these worldly options.
They are not options. You cannot change your life. Only Christ can change your life. You can do some remodeling, but Christ goes to the foundation and rebuilds the house from the inside out. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
And so God wants to do that in our lives, but we have to learn that we can't do it with our own power. And so when he brings you to the point where he brought these folks, then now we are ready to begin to experience what it's going to take to live in victory. I want you to know that God really shows us three important lessons here about going from a life of defeat to a life of victory. And the first is to take on a victor's identity. To take on a victor's identity.
What the angel says to Gideon is, you need to start thinking about yourself the way your heavenly father already thinks about you. Because you can't go into victory thinking that you are a person destined for defeat. You've got to know that God paid too much a price. For you to continue to believe that defeat is to be normative in your life, and so you must take on a victor's identity. It's another world when a person begins to think in victorious terms.
I mean, even look in sports, there are certain competitors, individual competitors, and certainly certain teams that they just have an attitude about them that suggests I am never supposed to lose. Have you seen that type? I mean, folk who, when they step on the track or the basketball court, or the tennis court, or wherever it is, whatever they're playing, their very attitude is, I don't even know why you're standing over there, you know, I'm gonna beat you. And let me tell you something. God's children are called to live not in confidence born of the flesh, but we are called to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
And we are called to say to every enemy in our lives, I don't know what you're standing there for, because in Jesus' name you gotta go. I don't know where you're going, but you got to get up out of here. Not going to hang around in my life because Jesus purchased my victory. And so you got to understand that we are to take on the victor's identity. God calls this man a mighty warrior when he is clearly acting like a wimp.
But I'm so glad we serve a God who doesn't look at you and say, God's with you, you wimp. Ought to be ashamed of yourself. Sitting up here in a wine press. What do you think you're doing in a wine press? You can't even get decent wheat.
Now, God doesn't ridicule his children, God doesn't demean us, he doesn't talk down to us. He says, I love you and I want to call you up to your calling. I don't want to talk down to you, I want to call you up. God is calling somebody up right now, saying that it's time for you to lift your eyes above your circumstances and above your attitudes and above the things in your life that are clearly outside of God's plan, and to understand that in Christ you are a victor. And he says to him, You are a mighty warrior, even though you're not acting like it, even though you don't look like one, even though I couldn't make the case based on circumstantial evidence right now.
You are a mighty warrior.
Well, look at Gideon's response. Gideon says, Well, if that's the truth, then why is all this happening to us? And where are all the wonders our fathers told us about? When they came out of Egypt. See, he's used to thinking in those battered terms, those defeated terms.
Poor me, why is all this happening to us? And I love the angel's response. Verse 14. He says, well, if you don't like what's happening to you. Change it.
In fact, the reason why I came to town is to tell you God's going to use you as the change agent.
Now, when he hears that, He's really mesmerized. He says, I know you can't be talking about me. You must come to the wrong wine press. You supposed to be down there with Jimmy and them. He's hiding over in that other cleft down there.
I don't know you showed up at the wrong address. You can't be talking about me. And look at the case he makes. He says, Because I am the weakest in Manasseh. You know, Israel had the 12 tribes.
I'm the weakest in Manasseh. Manasseh is an all-right tribe, but not particularly strong. He says, and then I am in the weakest clan in Manasseh. And I'm the least in my family. Y'all see what this man is saying?
It's like saying, I'm in the worst division in the NBA, I'm on the last place team in the worst division in the NBA, and I ride the bench on the last place team. I don't even get into the game. When our coach knows we're gonna lose anyway. You see what I'm saying? You know, one of those kind of four weeks, you might as well put me in.
You know we're going to lose, don't you? At least let me get a little sweater on my uniform. I keep putting it on every night. Let me go on out there and run up and down the court. I can't be much worse than these folk.
That's Gideon. Gideon is saying, I am not the guy you're looking for. Oh, but here's the wonderful news: He's exactly the guy God is looking for. You know why? Because when God teaches him how to go from wimp to warrior, he'll never be even tempted to rob God of His glory.
And so God loves taking somebody like this and making him into a person called according to his purpose. Because when you and I read about this, we say, okay, then God can do something with me. See, if God only used superstars, most of us wouldn't have any frame of reference. But read your Bible, God tends to ignore the superstar, and he'll go find somebody who was least likely to succeed. And the other thing he'll do, even those of us who come from some nobility or some place of strength or whatever it is, what's got to do before he can use you right is he'll knock you down several pegs.
Because what he'll do is introduce you to your humanity.
So that even if you graduated high in your class, even if you got a wonderful set of degrees and you've got a wonderful job or you've got a lot of money, you were born into wealth with a silver spoon and all that stuff, when God gets through with you. You will know that you are uniquely human. You just happen to have a little money, haven't had a nice job, haven't to have some physical skills. You can play a sport well or whatever it is, but you're not full of yourself because God will show you your humanity. He can't use you right until he shows you your humanity.
Until you understand that you are a pot, and he'll put a treasure in a pot. See, if you think you're a vaz. Yeah. He can't use your right. If you think you're an heirloom, if you think you have to be insured and all of that, no, God can't use you.
God's looking for a pot. A clay pot. That's what 2 Corinthians 4 talks about. We have this treasure in an earthen vessel. It means we have this treasure in a clay pot.
So that when God puts His divine treasure in our lives, we'll never be confused as to who is the treasure and who is the pot. If you got it mixed up, God's got some more work to do on you. If you think you're part of the treasure, God's got some more work to do on you. And I advise you to humble yourself. See, the Bible says, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that He might exalt you in due time.
Don't make God have to humble you, humble yourself. If God has to humble you, he might have to put you in the hospital. If God has to humble you, He might have to strip you of your money. If God has to humble you, He might have to let your sins catch up with you, and there you are thinking you're all that and your family's gone. Listen, don't make God have to humble you, humble yourself.
Under the mighty hand of God. Say, Lord, I'm no one and you are everything. And until you pour your grace and power into me, my life is not meaningful. It's only significant when I'm in the center of your will. Don't make God have to humble you.
In fact, I heard my daddy preach years ago.
Some people are so proud, the only way God humbles them is He puts a casket on their back. And let me tell you something. We must learn to humble ourselves before God because that's the place where you can begin to experience victory. And so Gideon thinks he doesn't qualify, but he doesn't understand he is the perfect qualifier because he now knows, God, unless you do this, it won't get done. And so God is teaching him, I need you to take on a new identity.
You think you're the least in your family. You think you come from a weak clan in a not-so-special tribe. But the fact is, verse 16, I will be with you. And you'll strike down all the Midianites together. And let me tell you something.
I want to let you know that God says the difference between victory and defeat is me. It's not you. It's not you reading the latest book, not you discovering some new principles about your personal realities and all of that stuff. No, no, it's you plugging into my power. It's you learning to just simply live in obedience to me.
That's all. Get in, here's the plan. I tell you what to do, you do it. And then my power comes through your obedience, and my power makes all the difference. And so he needs us to be humble so that we're ready to obey.
And so Gideon says.
Well, now, if I'm, I mean, look at this man. He's just had this conversation with the angel. Angels told him he's a mighty warrior and that he's going to go out and defeat the Midianites. He's having a full-blown conversation. And look at what he says.
Now, I need you. Uh if this is really Give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. What? He just had a full-blown conversation with an angel, somebody from another world. And he's saying, prove it.
You know why God put him in this book?
So you and I can say, all right, Lord, I'm in. Yeah. You can use somebody this bad off, I know you can do something with me. This is the most reluctant leader you've ever seen in your life. Prove it.
And so God loves humoring us. And so the angel says, all right, get inside. I'm going to go prepare an altar and give an offering to the Lord. And so he goes, gets the goat, and gets everything ready. And then the angel says, all right.
Fix it all up and put it on that rock there. And when he does, the angel touches it with a staff, and instantly the offering is consumed, and the angel disappears. And finally, Gideon says, oh. Ah Yeah. Verse 22, write in your Bible.
Oh, sovereign lore. I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.
Some of us are slow. And so God wanted to make sure you knew that you were not left out of the plan.
So He put this dude in there.
So if you and I can say, well, If God can make a victor out of him. He can certainly make one out of me. The difference between Victory. And defeat is the presence of God. and our humility so that we are positioned to experience His glory.
And when we do, we'll never be tempted to rob him. of that glory. because we'll know that it was always God. brought about our victory. If you want to walk in the spiritual victory God has waiting for you, you have to be strong enough to admit you're weak.
Thanks so much for being with us on Destined for Victory. Today's message, Dying to Enjoy Victory, is part of our teaching series, Dying to Live. Look for it online at our website, pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. You are not who you act like.
Somebody ought to thank God for that. You are not who you act like.
You are not what's still wrong with you. You are not what your problems would suggest you are. You are not what your background dictates that you would be. You are not who some significant other in your life said you were. You are not anything other than what God said you are.
And that's tomorrow in our continuing message, dying to enjoy victory. But until then, remember. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.
