Prove It! Part 1 (cont'd)

There's a lot of us think Christianity comes in a do-it-yourself kit, and we think, well, I got saved, and so my job now is to try to live the right kind of life. I want to let you know the Bible says, no, you are not asked to try to be a godly person, because if we could be godly on our own power, Jesus would have never come. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, but there's another kind of faith, similar to the first, but slightly different in application, the assurance of things you already have. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. You know, many Christians continually ask God for things He's already given them. It's not a lack of faith, but rather an underdeveloped faith, one brought on by a lack of understanding. Today you'll be reminded that we are not called to be godly on our own. It is He who works through us to make us godly, and the tools for living that kind of life have already been given to us. Stay with us now, but remember, you can always swing by pastorpaul.net to hear any recent Destined for Victory message on demand. That's pastorpaul.net. Now, here is Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message.

Prove it. Now, peace, please know this, peace isn't something you get automatically. Peace is something that is conditional.

It's a conditional promise. We know that because when you look in places in the scripture that talk about it, you will see the conditions. For instance, in Philippians chapter four, you will see that the peace of God that passes understanding only comes after you've done some things that Paul talks about. He said, first of all, that you need to learn to rejoice in the Lord always. In other words, if you want peace, make the choice to rejoice. Some of us make the choice to complain.

Some of us make the choice to blow up all the negative circumstances. Paul says, no, make the choice to rejoice. Find something to rejoice in God about. And if you can't rejoice in your circumstances, rejoice in the God who will bring you through your circumstances.

Make the choice to rejoice. He also says, be moderate, be temperate in your living with Christ. Make sure that you allow God to bring balance into your life, that you don't become overwhelmed by your negative circumstances, but you allow God to bring the fruit of temperance or balance into your life.

And we'll talk about that as we move through the text. Then he also said, you got to learn to pray if you want peace. Because when you have trouble, what are you going to do?

You got to do something with it. When the Bible says, don't worry about it, but instead pray about it. Paul said, don't worry about anything, but pray about everything.

And he said, if you will learn to give your petition over to God. I often say that we who are going through difficulties and tough times cannot afford to be prayerless. You can't afford not to pray if you're having it rough.

A lot of times the devil will make you say, well, you know, you're having it rough. You don't feel like going to church. You don't feel like praying.

You don't feel like going to small group. Well, that's when you ought to go all the more because you got to believe God through your tough times and you got to learn to pray and cast those cares on God. Because if you don't pray about it, you will worry about it.

But some of us have learned if you pray and pray right, God will deliver you from the worry and give you a peace that passes understanding. Now look with me at verse three of Second Peter one. He says here, God's divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. His divine power, look at that, has given us everything we need. Now Peter is encouraging people who are going through some difficulties they've never experienced before. And Peter is saying right off the bat in this letter, I want you to know that God's power has made available to you everything you need to get successfully through this life and to do it while pleasing God. He says God's given us everything for life and godliness, meaning you can live the life God has called you to live because God's power his divine power has made it available to you. Please be encouraged to know my friend that God is the one who has guaranteed your spiritual success that will take the load off of your shoulders when you understand it.

Here's why. Because a lot of us think Christianity comes in a do it yourself kit. And we think well, I got saved and so my job now is to try to be a better person, to try to live the right kind of life, to try to, in the words of Spike Lee, do the right thing. I want to let you know the Bible says no, you are not asked to try to be a godly person.

You know why? Because if we could be godly on our own power, Jesus would have never come. If we could pull off Christianity by ourselves, if you could just say you know what, you just need to straighten up and act right. You just need to live right. You just need to stop lying. You just need to stop stealing. You just need to stop sexual sin. You just need to stop having bad attitudes and murmuring and bitterness and unforgiveness. You just need to cut it out. Well, if we could all be forced to cut it out, Jesus would have stayed in heaven. But how many know he was hung up for our hang ups. He was hung up on that cross because you and I could live right on our own power if you held a gun on us. Isn't that the truth? If you held a gun on us, you couldn't make us live. Oh, we could straighten up certain little areas. But you know, if you try to defeat sin in your own power, it would be like trying to stop up a wall full of holes and water is pouring through them, but with your fingers and toes and mouth and yet there are holes everywhere.

And so you can stop up this hole, but the water is going to shoot through this one. And that's the way sin would be if you were trying to live for God under your own strength and power. You could really, really work hard and strain and try to do right in this one area of your life, but some other area is going to show that you're alienated from God and have no ability to reflect his nature.

Well, here's the good news. Jesus never asked you to try to muster up the power to live the way he called you to live. You know what he asked us to do? He asked us to get to know him. Did you see what Peter said? He said, God has given us the power to do every thing we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him. If you and I will say, Lord, I want to get to know you deeply, personally, intimately. I want to walk with you so that your power is transferred into my life so that your glory becomes manifested in my life.

That power will enable you to do what you can't do by yourself. And Peter knows this better than all of us because Peter knew what it was to have a bad power failure. You all remember? You remember, Peter? The same guy who just wrote that is the guy who told Jesus on the night that he was betrayed. I don't know why you picked some of these disciples because they aren't the kind that can handle what's about to go down. See, they knew that the forces were gathering and it was only a matter of time before Jesus was going to be apprehended.

And Peter, he is so out of touch. He's trying to console Jesus. And Peter says, look, some of these folks are getting ready to leave you, Lord. I just thought you ought to know I don't want you caught off guard.

Now, he's talking to God wrapped up in flesh. I don't want you to be caught off guard. Some of these people are going to forsake you because you picked the wrong button. What you should have done, this is implications not in the text, but it's implied by his attitude. What you should have done is picked me first and let me help you pick a better crew than you picked. He said, but I got good news, Jesus. Although they're going to forsake you, I got your back.

I'm your man. When it goes down, it'll be you and I, back to back defending ourselves against every enemy. They will have run off.

They'll be hiding behind a rock somewhere, but I'll be there back to back with you, ready to defend your honor. Jesus looked at him and said, Simon, Simon. I often say he called him twice because Peter was probably still bragging.

Simon, Simon. He said, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat said, but I prayed for you and my prayer. I didn't ask the father to not allow you to be shaken up because the shakeup is actually going to do you some good when you are self-confident, when you think you can do everything God wants you to do in your own power, you need a shakeup and how many have had, you don't have to raise your hand. I indicated, but you'll know in your heart that all of us sooner or later got to a place where you had a power failure, where your desire and your ability were miles apart. You wanted to do God's will in a certain area of your life. You wanted to have the right attitude against those people who hurt you. You wanted to live right morally. You wanted to stop lying. You wanted to not take what didn't belong to you, but in a moment of crisis, you had a power failure.

And there you were with your Christian self, big Bible and everything. And that's what happened to Peter. Peter not only denied Jesus, but as Jesus predicted, he denied him three times.

Three times. I don't know him. A little bit later they said, no, no, no.

That's one of his followers. Peter said, listen, I don't know him. In fact, the Bible says on the third time he swore that he didn't know the Lord.

Power failure. Oh, but Jesus had promised. I prayed, not that you wouldn't go through the shakeup because you need to shake up. I prayed that your faith wouldn't be separated from you. I prayed that what would be shaken would be your self-confidence. I prayed that your pride would be shaken. I prayed that you would not know which way was up for a while, but I also prayed that your faith wouldn't fail.

And I want to let you know that if God lets you go through a terrible time where you don't have the power you need, as long as God blesses you to hold onto your faith, you can make it. And Peter has a testimony that says, I had a power failure, but my heart was with the Lord. And so Jesus was arrested. Jesus was tortured all night. The next day, Jesus was hung on a cross between two common criminals. He died. And three days later, he rose again. When he rose again, he said to the women, go tell my disciples, watch this, and Peter to meet me in Galilee.

He named him because he wanted to make sure if Peter thought he had disqualified himself, he wanted them to be able to say, no, no, Jesus called you by name. See, because Peter was a, well, you know, I blew it. I did all that bragging.

And then I didn't come through. I know Jesus is sick of me. How many know God loves you?

Ridiculous. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Sheppard. To listen to any of Pastor Paul's recent broadcasts, be sure to stop by pastorpaul.net anytime to listen on demand. That's pastorpaul.net, where you can contact us for prayer or make a safe and secure donation to the ministry online. Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message.

Prove it. God loves you so well until when by human standards, there would be no hope of you being redeemed because people would be through with you. How many know God loved you?

He paid too much of a price to throw you away. You can have failed miserably, but he says, I've got a plan to give you power, but it's through the knowledge of me. Now I want to talk to you a little bit about this word knowledge, because this is the key to understanding the passage, and this is the key to you and I tapping into the power of God so that you can live the life God's called you to live.

He said it's through a knowledge of God. Now the word knowledge is found a lot in the New Testament, and there are different Greek words that are translated knowledge. That's why you can't just have an English translation.

You've got to have in your Bible study library some tools that will help you discern what was the intention in the original language, because Greek, which is the language of the New Testament, is a much more precise language than English. English, we have words like knowledge that can mean a number of things. We have words like love. You know that can mean a number of things, but when you look at the Greek, you wouldn't have just the one word love.

You'd have phileo, or you would have agape. You see what I mean? You have specific meanings, and then you can hone in on here is what the writer intended. Same thing with knowledge.

Now the word here is a word that means to know thoroughly and exactly, and this would be juxtaposed against some of the words translated knowledge that would mean to be acquainted with or to know about. Let me give you a classic example. If you go to Acts chapter 19, you will see that there is a story there of these fellas. It's one of the comical stories in your Bible. There is a story there of some fellas who decided they wanted to be exorcists because they had heard that the apostle Paul had the ability to do what Jesus had done, which is to cast demons out of demonized people by the power of their words and by invoking, in the case of Paul, the name of Jesus. So look at this, Acts 19 verse 13. Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon possessed. They would say, in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out. Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. Look at verse 15. One day, the evil spirit answered them.

They ran up on the wrong fella. One day, the evil spirit answered them and look at what he said. Jesus, I know, and Paul, I know about.

But who are you? In this passage, in that one verse, I want you to see that there are two classic examples of how the word knowledge is used differently. On the one hand, the demon said, Jesus, I know, Greek word ginosko.

It means I know him personally. You know why demons know Jesus personally? Because when Jesus hung on the cross, Paul said when he wrote the church at Colossae, every demon was stripped of his authority to do what he wanted to do. Now he was subject to what Christ wanted him to do because on that cross, Jesus triumphed over every evil spirit. That's why you as a child of God, by the way, don't have to take stuff off of the devil. If you will learn to walk in your authority, when the devil tries to present into your life that which is not God's will, you don't have to go around like other folks saying, I didn't want to, but the devil made me because he doesn't have that kind of authority over you. When you learn who you are in Christ, you can tell the devil where to go and draw him a map so he won't get lost.

Why? Because of Jesus. He said, Jesus, I know, ginosko.

It's the same word that you find in 2 Peter, except that in 2 Peter it has a prefix that means to know exactly, to know thoroughly. But this is a personal firsthand knowledge. Jesus, I know personally. You don't have to tell me about Jesus, I know Jesus. It would be like you knowing members of your family that you're very close to, if you're married, knowing your husband or wife, or if you know your children very intimately.

I ginosko. I know them. I know what they'll do in certain situations. I know what they'll say. I know what their values are.

I know what their weaknesses are. See, you can say, I know Paul Shepard because you heard me preach, came to the church. And so you could go and say, and we met one day. So you can say, oh yeah, I know him. But if you ask my wife, does she know me?

She'll probably start chuckling. Because it's like, well, how much time do you have? See? Intimacy, when you've been around a person long enough, seen them through a lot of different circumstances, you have a level of knowledge that's far beyond the average person. And you have friends who other people, you hear them talking about them, and you say they don't even know what they're talking about. That's the way you and I are encouraged to get to know Jesus, get to know him so well that his power becomes yours, that his divine nature bleeds over into your life, that you walk with him so closely until what he wants for you, he is able to just dispense that power to you because you are available to him through a living, working relationship. Jesus, I know. But the demon in Acts 19 also talked about knowledge when it came to Paul. And he said, Paul, I know about.

I know about. In other words, this particular demon and this man had never run into Paul personally, but had heard of his reputation. The demons knew, you don't want to fool with Paul. See, in the world, some of you all don't understand that the spiritual world is as real as the natural world. In fact, if God were to open our eyes and let us see into the spiritual world right now, I think some of you all would be up out of here. If you could see what's going on in the heavenlies, angels guarding over this service, this time of preaching, and demons trying to get at people and get your mind full of other things, if you could see the demons plotting for you in different areas of your life, if you could see them huddled over in the corner, saying, uh-huh, there she is.

And when she leave from church, we need to meet her at the house. And you know God does you a big favor by not letting you see it. Because some of you all can't even handle a horror movie. You know you can't handle demons.

Well, here's the good news. They know whether you walk in authority or not. Even if a particular demon has never met you personally, this lets you know your reputation can precede you. You can walk so that demons in your community, demons in your family, hanging around your family, that is. No. I said hanging around. I corrected it. Don't go home to my pastor said, y'all are nothing but a bunch of demons.

No, I didn't. God said there are demons hanging around your family. But they can know she's the most prayerful one in this family. She walks with God. He believes the Word. He stands in faith.

She walks in authority. They can know you. And I would suggest you ask God to let you have a level of relationship with Him until you have a reputation in hell, until demons know.

They don't want to fool with you because you walk with God in spiritual authority. And here's my point. You can know about Jesus or you can know Jesus. And it makes a world of difference.

And I want to encourage you. If you need power, God's got power. If you need victory, God's got victory. If you need the ability to do the things God's called you to do, His divine power has made that available to you. But it's through the knowledge of Him, not the knowledge about Him. You can't say, well, I know about Jesus because I've been going to church. Well, yeah, you can come to church and learn about Jesus. But you've got to say, Lord, I want to know you for myself, not only in the forgiveness of my sins.

That's where it begins. But now I want to know how you walk with me day by day. I want to know, Lord, how you give me power to hold my tongue.

Oh, we're coming to that. Not in this message. I want to know how you'll give me the power to be nicer to people than I am. I want to know how you'll give me the power to have control in areas where right now I don't have any control. Through the knowledge of Jesus, you and I, Peter says, we can tap into divine power and be partakers of God's divine nature.

It's through the knowledge of God. I want to encourage you to go before the Lord in prayer and to say, Lord, I want to go on a quest to get to know you. I want to get to know you intimately. I want to get to know you in how you will make my life correspond with your plan and purpose.

And Lord, I won't rest until I have an exact and thorough knowledge of who you are and what you'll do in my life. Thanks so much for being here for today's Destined for Victory message entitled Prove It. Before we leave today, just this quick reminder is our way of saying thanks for your generous donation. We'd like to send you a book called 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety written by Deborah Smith Pigay.

This book is a great resource to help you discover how to deal with the stress life often brings our way. That's 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety, our gift to you today by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. Call 855-339-5500 to give over the phone 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, CA 94538. Let me tell you something my friend, a weekly is not enough. You can't just show up and hear a little bit about Jesus, pray a quick prayer and be victorious Monday through Saturday. You're going to have to walk with him every day of your life and let him change who you are. That's next time in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message Prove It. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory.