So You Want to Get Married, Part 3 (cont'd)

Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Well, today Pastor Paul shares this message, so you want to get married.

But before he gets started, he's joined me from his studio in California. Well, Pastor, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. A time for us to count our blessings.

And if we're being honest, 2020 has been a year when it's tough to see those blessings. Remind us why it's important to be thankful. Yeah, I think being thankful is one of the fundamental values that we learn. And I learned it as a toddler, and I think most people did. You know, your parents teach you very early on, especially being a little church kid and having folks walk up to me and give me something, candy or a nickel or something like that. And your parents teach you from the very beginning, make sure to say thank you. And that lesson is one of those bedrock principles that we should build our lives on.

So now that we're all grown and living our lives, we need to go back and remember no one owes you anything. And so it's good to be thankful just as a matter of lifestyle, but especially as we think about how good God has been to us, even through our trials, even through our difficulties. God has been good. During this year of pandemic, God has been faithful and helped us get through some very challenging times.

And we owe him a lot of thanks. So I think that these are days when we need to take advantage of this built-in holiday of thanksgiving and to make sure we're grateful to the Lord. In fact, in this month's encouragement letter, I mentioned one of 10 lepers who returned to Jesus.

He healed 10 of them, but only one thought to go back and to worship him and give him thanks. I think that's the way we ought to live our lives like that one leper and make sure God knows how grateful we are. And how thankful we are that we have God and the Lord to lean on during a time of pandemic and epidemics, right?

Absolutely true. In fact, one of my favorite three sentence scripture passages is where Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica. And he said, rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks.

If we'll do that, I think God will be pleased and our lives will be richer because of it. Well, thanks for those great words of encouragement, Pastor Paul. Well, today's message is straight ahead, but first a quick reminder. For your generous donation to Destined for Victory, we'd like to send you a book called 30 Days to Taming Worry and Anxiety. Written by Deborah Smith Pegues, this book is a great resource to help you discover how to deal with the stress life often tries to bring 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, California 94538. There's a difference between the cover of a book and a book. There's a difference between the outside and the inside. And you marry who a person is, you don't marry what they look like. You marry who they are. It's been said that if a man loves a woman's soul, he will love one woman.

But if he loves a woman's face, all the women in the world won't satisfy him. Well, today single men and women will be encouraged to learn how to love from the inside out. Learn to recognize and admire the internal qualities of a potential spouse above all else. For a great example of what that looks like, Pastor Paul Shepherd takes us once again to the story of Ruth and Boaz.

So from the book of Galatians, here's Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message. So you want to get married. There's a difference between the outside and the inside. And you marry who a person is, you don't marry what they look like.

You marry who they are. We are spirit. We have a soul. And the spirit and soul make up the essence of who you are.

Your body is just the shell that that comes in. And so it's like a jack-in-the-box. You can have, you remember as a child, the jack-in-the-box, a nice box. Sometimes for children they put the little clowns on them or whatever, something to capture their attention. And they look at it and then you teach them to crank the thing. And they learn to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do. Say, keep on turning.

They look up at you. Keep on turning. Pop! And out comes Jack. Listen, you're marrying Jack or Jackie. You're not marrying the box. That's just a box.

You want to crank until you see who Jackie is. Because that's who you're marrying. Do you know I'm telling the truth? How many of you have run into somebody who was beautiful in appearance, but after you spent five minutes with them, you said, ooh, mm, mm, mm.

Oh, my, my, my. You can be fine and ugly at the same time. You can be beautiful in appearance, but have horrible character, horrible personality, issues coming and going, baggage unreal, attitude stuck up, full of yourself, megalomaniac.

A megalomaniac is a person with a pregnant ego that refuses to give birth. And there are a lot of people full of themselves, wrapped up in themselves, not prepared to live life with you because it's all about me. And so we've got to learn that for these reasons, you must learn to discern who a person is. Notice when you read the book of Ruth that Boaz admired Ruth's qualities and virtues, not just her assets, shall we say. He admired her qualities and her virtues.

Let me show you. Look at Ruth chapter 2. Ruth chapter 2, look at verse 11. Boaz has asked and inquired about her outside of her presence. He got a wonderful take on who she was by the foreman of his harvesters. So now he interacts with her, and in verse 10, she thanks him for giving her such favor. Look at what he says in verse 11 in answer to the question, Why have I found such favor? He says, I've been told all about what you've done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. Notice that he admired.

He said, what? The reason you're getting favor from me is because, first of all, of your faithfulness to your mother-in-law. He noticed that she could be faithful and committed to somebody else. The best proof that a person can commit to you is that they've already practiced commitment by being committed in their family of origin or in their church setting.

Wherever God gives them the opportunity to make a commitment and they learn to live a life characterized by faithfulness. If somebody tells you that they want to marry you, which is the greatest commitment any human being can make to another human being, and they have not practiced commitment, they're not practicing it in their current life, you have no reason to believe that they'll do it. It concerns me when singles want to drag somebody in here out of the streets thinking this is going to make them a suitable spouse. And they've shown no spiritual commitment. They've shown no commitment to anything of substance and value and yet something is telling you that you want to link their life to them.

You are misguided. That's why you need to be in a church like this where we will check you all out before you get engaged. We practice pre-engagement counseling. We frown on pre-marital counseling. We prefer to practice pre-engagement.

Before you have a ring, before you're picking out designs of the invitations and all of that stuff and with the reception hall, before you go down that road, before anybody has put a ring on anyone's finger, that's the time to come and let somebody who is in love with neither one of you talk to you. Because I've seen a lot of people who don't understand the importance of checking out a person's faithfulness. If you're not faithful in ministry and we can't even depend on you to be where you're supposed to be serving the Lord in the house of the Lord, how in the world are you going to be a committed husband or wife? So Boaz said, I noticed your commitment.

I noticed your faithfulness. He said, I also noticed that you're willing to take what I want to call a righteous risk. She took the risk of leaving Moab, moving 60 miles to Bethlehem, to a place she never knew, to serve among a people she never knew. But she sensed her destiny was to be fulfilled there and she took the risk of leaving her comfort zone. And you want to find someone who when God is moving them in the direction of their destiny to become more spiritually aware of what God's doing in their life, you want to see someone who is willing to go with God even if he takes them out of their comfort zone. See, when you find these folks who only want to do what's comfortable for them, they only want to do what they've always done, they can't go with you on God's journey because God's going to take you to some unfamiliar places.

And if you are stuck with a person who insists on familiarity, you got the wrong partner. Oh, this is good. I'm going to get this CD myself. Not only that, but in chapter 3, we see that he admires some other things about Ruth. Look at chapter 3. Now, this is after she has come to him at the threshing floor and she has requested that he be her kinsman redeemer.

Look at Ruth 3, verse 10. God bless you, my daughter, Boaz replied. This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier. Watch this.

You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. And now, my daughter, don't be afraid. I will do all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know, watch this, that you are a woman of noble character. He admired her faithfulness. He admired her willingness to take a righteous risk. And third, he admired her nobility.

How did she express being a person of noble character? He said, you refuse to be desperate and chase men. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepherd. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net.

Or listen and download the podcast at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get yours. Now, once again, here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's message. So you want to get married. You're looking for somebody who, while they are interested in being married, they are not desperate to get married. Desperation is not the motivation for people of destiny. When God is up to something in your life, you got to learn to slow down and trust him that he knows where he's taking you and you don't have to catch the first train coming down the tracks just because you're watching your biological clock. And he said, I noticed that you have not run after men, I love this, whether rich or poor. He said, you didn't run after the poor, fellas. You know, sometimes folk can get so desperate that they'll take somebody and hope they get a job. He said, you didn't get so desperate that you just ran after somebody poor.

And he said, I appreciate the fact that you didn't run after younger men who were rich, who could have provided some things for you, but who you knew were not God's plan for your life. You got to understand, you're looking for a person, brother. You're looking for a wife, and a wife will be one who is able to be with you because she has committed herself to you, to partner with you.

And that means wherever life takes you together, she will go and she will be an asset, not a liability. You're looking for somebody you can count on through thick and through thin. You don't need a fair-weather woman. You need an all-weather wife. You need an all-weather wife.

You need somebody who can go through whatever season God takes you through and she can hang out with you. Let me illustrate it. We were doing good in Philadelphia. I was a full-time associate pastor, church-growing. I was the heir apparent. I was the next in line to when my dad retired to take over as senior pastor. The church had loved me. I finally had earned that respect. I became the associate pastor of a church I grew up in, so I had to end up leading people who knew me all my life.

Talk about unimpressed. When people have known you all your life, they do not impress easily. These folks saw me through every stage, and so they just weren't impressed. It took me a while to build credibility with them, but I had finally gotten to a place where the church understood. They respected the anointing of God on my life, and they saw God moving, and they were anxious for me to stay and to be the next senior pastor and everything going good. Isn't it like God just when things are set up nice?

He come talking about go west, young man, go west. Had this vision in my heart the Lord had put there, and it grew over the years that I was an associate pastor with my dad, and the Lord showed me this church that would eventually grow very large, reaching primarily unchurched people. I saw thousands of people coming into the kingdom through our ministry and all kinds of things. I articulated that to my closest friends and prayer partners, what God was saying to me. I didn't know where this would happen.

I just knew it was a God thing. I told my dad years before, the Lord has already shown me I'm not going to be your successor. He's going to send me somewhere at some point. I don't know where, but meanwhile, I'm connected to you. I'm committed to you to help you fulfill your vision.

You can't operate until you learn to cooperate. And so I was cooperating, and God gave us the signal that it was time to pray about moving, and we started praying about it. Long story short, the Lord led us out here. A group of 34 people called us, and the Lord said, That's the call.

I want you to go. And so we came across the country chasing this vision of reaching thousands of people, but I've learned something about God. When God gives you a vision, He'll show you the end, but He won't show you the journey. And He showed me these thousands of folk and all these unsaved folk getting saved and all this.

I saw all of that, but I didn't see a timeline, and I didn't see a process. And so we got out here, and I'm expecting the thousands to show up. I announced to Northern California I was here. Let everyone unsaved come.

And y'all stayed away in droves. And here I was in the early years pastoring this little church, wondering, God, where are these folk You sent me out here to reach? I'm preaching my best messages, and it's a happy coincidence when one person gets saved.

What in the world is going on? Church, meanwhile, was excited. They had brought the vision. They were believing for it, and they were excited. My first anniversary, they gave me a banquet.

We had grown from 34 to about 45. And they threw me a banquet. They were excited. I remember driving to the banquet with an attitude.

I'm driving to the banquet, and what in the world are we celebrating? But you know, in those years, I learned the importance of not just having a woman but having a wife, because the woman that had come followed me chasing this vision 3,000 miles didn't allow circumstances to cause her to second guess whether God had led us. And through all of my seasons, all of my doubts, she was saying, no, no, we're where we ought to be.

Just stay the course. God's going to do what He said. And she was willing to wait on it. She was willing to wait on it. See, if I had had somebody who had the woman, not the wife mentality, I'd have had somebody say, now, I know you brought me out here a thousand people. We had good salary and all that stuff. And then I'm out here at 34 folks, and they're paying you just a little bit of money.

Hey, I'm going to buy some Louis Vuitton with all this going on. See, I could have run up on that. She had her first time to talk like that. She was building me up.

I'd be driving. How many was the Sunday when I'm driving home from church? Oh, I think I missed it. I don't think I heard from God. I thought, sure, he told me to come out here, but nobody's out here.

I don't know where. Maybe he was sending me some other part. I misheard him.

And I'm second guessing. And she's saying, no, no, we heard right. You just got to wait on God. Sometimes she would come out of her prayer closet with a little word. Lord gave me this, and I thought I'd share it with you. Sometimes I'd get mad at the word, because if it didn't say y'all were coming quick, I don't want that word.

Give me some. But I had somebody who was committed for the long haul, willing to go through the seasons and wait on the Lord. You've heard me talk about that season where we had one car. We were living in Fremont. The little church was in East Palo Alto. I'd go over there every day, have office hours.

I don't know why. Just a few folk, they were all at work. I didn't have anything to do but go over there and pray and cry.

I'm telling you the truth. I had regular office hours, but the phone wasn't ringing. Everybody on their job. The little 50 folk we did have there on their job working and what have you. Every now and then somebody called, wanted to talk to me about something. But I just spent my days walking that little church, praying and crying, often out of a sense of disillusionment. Some days I was full of faith, and other days I was full of disillusionment. And I just walking around there on the faith days, I'm walking around there claiming, confessing souls, calling y'all from the north, the south, the east, and the west.

Come on in here and be safe and all that. And the other days I'm walking around, oh, God, where are the people? Oh, Lord, where are the people? I don't see nobody. Nobody getting saved. They don't want to come over here.

What's the matter with me? But that's what I spent my days doing, either being God's man of faith and power or God's man of disillusionment and doubt. And I'd be over there. And during that season, we only had the one vehicle, so I would drive over to the office and then later in the day go back home. And I didn't realize, but one day we needed groceries for her to make dinner. And to get through the rest of the week, we had little kids. Our kids, when we came out here, were five and three, just starting school, that critical period.

And so she's home kind of keeping things together. And one day I came home from walking the floor, praying and crying over here in East Palo Alto and went back there, and there were groceries sitting on the counter. I said, how'd you get to the store? She said, oh, well, I didn't want to call you back over just to take me to the store, but we really needed some groceries and I didn't want to disturb you, so I just went to the store. And I knew where the store was. It was about a mile and a half from my house. I said, how'd you get there? She said, I walked. I said, but how'd you get the bags back home?

She said, I took the kids' little red wagon. See, somebody have the woman mentality. They're not taking no, I wish I would be out in the street. I wish I would be in the street with somebody. You better bring that car back here. You need to pray. You can pray in the bedroom while I go take this car and go somewhere.

You see what I'm talking about? She took the wagon, went to the store, put the groceries in there and walked it back, not too proud to wait on God. And that's why today she can have whatever she wants because now that God is blessing and the thousands are coming and we can see our way clear financially and all of that, she can have whatever she wants and whatever y'all see her with, leave her alone.

She made her dues. Because when you sow in faithfulness, it's all right to reap. When you sow in tears, it's all right to reap in joy. But when you find qualities, you're looking beyond just something that is on the peripheral. You're looking beyond something that is superficial.

You're looking for substance. And Boaz said, I see in Ruth that this is a woman of noble character. She will be a blessing in my life. She will never make me ashamed.

She will never be a curse. I want to encourage you, brother, recognize the signs and then know a good thing when you see one. Believe God.

Don't try to outlast your season. Move with God. He's trying to bless you.

He's trying to get you to the next level. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, So You Want to Get Married. If you'd like more information about the Destined for Victory ministry or if you need prayer, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. You proved that you're ready to become full grown emotionally when you're ready to move into interdependence. That means you're not only aware of your strengths, you're aware of your weaknesses. You're not only aware of what you can do, you're aware of your need for partnership and support. That's next time when Pastor Paul Shepherd continues to share his message, So You Want to Get Married. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.