Pushed into Purpose, Part 2 (cont'd)

Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Today Pastor Paul talks about the power of human partnership and his message pushed into purpose. You'll be encouraged as you see how God can use others to reveal his plans to you. That message is straight ahead.

But first he joins me now from his studio in California. Your heart has been heavy as you've watched the church divide over political and racial and social issues. But as followers of Jesus Christ, how should we respond in front of a watching world? Pastor Paul tells me that when the church sees darkness rather than decrying it, we need to make sure we're turning on the light. And I think we're spending a little too much time decrying the evils and the things in the culture that we don't like. I get it. We don't like living in a sinful environment. We don't like ungodly decision making and all of that sort of thing.

I get it. But we're not called to decry the darkness. We're called to turn on the light. So I think we've really got to get down to the business of saying, Lord, help me to let my light shine.

During the pandemic, I preached a series and I led it with the thought of get your shine on. That's just a colloquial way to say it. Yeah, I remember that. Yes. Yes, sir. And I think we've got to get our shine on because that's what we're called to do.

So, yeah, it is like Charles Dickens classic book. This is the best of times. It's the worst of times. But we can seize this moment and make sure that the light of Jesus Christ and the light of the gospel is proclaimed throughout the world. Well, Pastor, that reminds me of something you said in a recent letter. It's easy to look out at the world and curse the darkness.

We've got to get better at turning on the light. Thanks so much for those words of encouragement. Today's Destined for Victory message is straight ahead. But first, let me remind you that for your generous donation this month, we'd love to send you Pastor Paul's booklet, Your Purpose is Calling. Again, that's Your Purpose is Calling, a booklet that goes hand in hand with the message you'll hear today and the messages you've heard for the past few days. It's our gift to you this month by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. Simply call 855-339-5500 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.

Once again, the address, Destined for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. See, there are some things you can't do by yourself. I know a lot of us love feeling we're gifted and we're independent and I don't need anybody.

Fact of the matter is you do need people in your life for certain things to be accomplished. Pastor Paul knows from experience how crucial partnerships can be. Our friends and listeners have sown prayer and financial support into the Destined for Victory ministry, and it's allowed Pastor Paul to do things for the kingdom of God that he could have never done alone. Today he wants to remind you that God will very often use the people in your life to help you see God's plan for your own life a little more clearly.

Here's Pastor Paul Shepherd. I want you to know that there are benefits to the kinds of partnerships God wants to bring into your life. Let me just share several with you from various passages of scripture. One passage of scripture is in Ecclesiastes chapter four, where you'll find some of these benefits.

Let me give you seven of them, I think it is. The first is two are better than one, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes four, because they have a good return for their work. The first benefit of you being partnered with the right people in this season is what I want to call greater productivity.

Greater productivity. You need to know the people God's bringing into your life right now, he's bringing them so you can be more productive in doing his will in this season of your life. See, there are some things you can't do by yourself. I know a lot of us love feeling we're gifted and we're independent and I don't need anybody.

Fact of the matter is you do need people in your life for certain things to be accomplished. If somebody says, Pastor, could you move that podium in front of you? Yeah, I can pick this podium up, because it's lightweight and I can move that anywhere in the building.

But if you say, Pastor, would you grab the organ over there, the Hammond B3 over there, and would you take that over to the fellowship hall? I can't, why? Because I cannot be that productive by myself.

I need some other folk to come grab a part of it and a few others grab some others, and collectively we can do that. Same thing in your life. Some areas of productivity you've got to have people involved with you. Ben Solomon goes on to say, if one man falls, his friend can help him up.

But pity the one who falls and has no one to help him up. The second benefit of your key partnerships God wants to bring into your life is what I call restoration. There are some ways you need to be restored. When you're discouraged, you need to be restored. You need to be lifted up. You need to be encouraged, and so restoration is what you need. Sometime when you fall, somebody's got to help you up.

You can't just jump up on your own. Somebody's got to help you up. Some of you have fallen into discouragement. Some of you have fallen into depression. Some of you have fallen into despondency. Some of you have fallen into disillusionment.

Right now in your life, you're saying, God, I don't get it. I've been serving you. I've been doing your will. I give.

I serve. I do all the things I know I'm supposed to do, and all hell's breaking out in my life, and I am just discouraged, and I am just down in the dumps. Well, God wants your partners to help lift you up. There are people God's bringing into your life right now, and you've got to stop shunning them.

You've got to stop refusing them because God is sending them to bless you. When you're down, somebody needs to grab your hand and lift you up. That's a benefit of partnership. Then Solomon goes on, if two lie down together, they can keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? Comfort is the third benefit, comfort and encouragement. Somebody's got to keep you encouraged, keep you comforted when you go through grief, when you go through tough times. Church folk have to be okay with not being okay, but you've got to make sure somebody knows you're not okay. When people ask you how you're doing and God's bringing them into your life, quit saying I'm fine when you know you're not. Quit saying I'm blessed and highly favored when you need to say something else. Yes, we are blessed.

Yes, we are highly favored, but I'm not asking for your confession of faith. I'm asking you for your facts right now. What's going on in your life? And when I ask you that, don't give me some dismissive answer.

Tell me what's going on so that we can get up under that burden and offer courage and offer comfort to you. Another benefit is protection. Solomon goes on to say though one may be empowered, two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly overpowered. He said though one can be overpowered, two can defend themselves. If you grew up like I grew up in neighborhoods where there were gang wars and stuff like that, you walking in the wrong part of the city by yourself, that wasn't a good thing. You could get jumped. If you got somebody with you, Solomon's simply saying you got somebody who can look out. The enemy's waiting for you up there.

Oh, we need to go in this different direction. You got somebody to help you defend yourself. As it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual. And you need spiritual protection.

You need the protection. That's why I tell folks you need to be in a church. You don't just need to watch church. You need to be committed and connected to a church.

In fact, we're going to have to establish e-membership. There are people who have moved away from our area. I'm still their pastor. And especially when they haven't found the kind of church that they can really plug into, they say you're still my pastor. I'm in this part of the country of that.

And we're going to figure out some way to do e-membership to help you until you're in a place where you can be in a physical location and get the direct benefits of that. But the fact of the matter is we all need protection. Don't be out here the devil is seeking whom he may devour. And we have to be prepared with our spiritual armor and with our connectedness with others to fend off every attack of the enemy. So those are some benefits from the book of Ecclesiastes.

There are some also in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity. Here's another benefit of partnership, unconditional love.

Unconditional love. Now let me help you understand something. God wants to give you people who love you despite you. Now, now I know you don't, I just hurt your feelings. So what you saying about me? I'm saying yes, you're wonderful. Yes, you have great things about you. Oh, you got some really good positive features of your life.

I applaud them and affirm them. You also got jacked up-tedness. You got jacked up-tedness. Yes, you, you. Don't look at me in that tone of voice.

You have some jacked up-tedness and guess what? God wants to bring you friends that love you at all times, not just when you're acting right, looking right, behaving right, got the right attitude and all that. He wants to bless you with people who can handle you when your attitude stinks. He wants to bring people who can handle you when you got all the wrong confession, you got all the wrong anger, you got all the wrong issues popping out. God wants to bless you with friends who can love you at all times and who are born for adversity. See, anybody can have friends when the sun's shining and everything's going well, but who's going to be in your life when you're going through hell? And God wants to bring you those kinds of partnerships.

All right, let me hasten on. Look at Proverbs 27, 6 says, wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. Here's another benefit of these partnerships.

Trustworthy input, trustworthy input. What do you mean by that? I mean you got to have people who even when they wound you, even when they hurt your feelings, they're blessing you if you'll receive the blessing. Because they're not hurting your feelings because they just want to come for you.

They're hurting your feelings because you need to be confronted with some things and you need to change. So don't ask your friends to always be in your fan club. A friend and a fan are two different things. Fans love the best of you.

Fans love you when you're performing at your best. Fans love you because of the product they get from you, but a friend who loves you enough to tell you the unpleasant truth, the inconvenient truth. Do you know there are times in your life when something's true but it's very inconvenient based on the way you're feeling? You're not trying to face that, you're not feeling that, and you're really mad at the folk who brought it to you. Fact of the matter is I can't love you and tell you everything you want to hear. I got to love you enough to tell you some stuff you don't want to hear. Everybody needs some people in your circle who will give you trustworthy input even when you don't like it. I've said it a lot of times before.

Let me say it again. You need to have some people say to you things like, can I see you for a minute? You need some, can I see you for a minute? That means they want to walk away because there's other folk around. I don't want to be overheard.

I'm not trying to embarrass you. Let's go over here because I got to tell you off. You need some, can I see you for a minute friends? You need some folk who the first thing they'll say is you know I love you, right?

That's anesthesia because they're getting ready to cut you. And so you need to know partnerships like that are part of God's plan for your life. Let me hasten on. One more thing in Proverbs 27, 17. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

I call that maximized effectiveness, maximized effectiveness. These are the benefits of partnership. If you don't have people serving these purposes in your life, you need to open your heart, open your life. Some of them are already there.

You just need to open up to them and say, look, I've really been kind of to myself and I'm so sorry. I realize that God is pushing me into some purposeful things and I'm going to need key partnerships in order to do it. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepard. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net and there you'll find a host of great resources in our online store.

There's a time for healthy boundaries and there's a time to open your front door and let some people in who want to help. Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message pushed into purpose. My brother, my sister, please know God is trying to bless you.

He is not cursing you. He is blessing you with partnerships, but you have got to be very intentional about allowing those people into your inner space. So leverage your partnerships.

That is, take maximum advantage of the fact that God has brought people into your life. Leverage your partnerships and for some of you, you need to allow yourself to build meaningful relationships. Small groups is the way we do it. When people don't already have connectedness with others in the family of God, we're asking every member of our church, let us help you get into a small group. You all don't have to know each other outside of church. Just for the purposes of walking together in the things of God, we want to bring you into a small group of three to 11 people because once it gets to 12, I want it to split so that you can constantly add more people. But we need to have a church full of life groups, of small groups, of people who do life together. You're not supposed to do life by yourself. You're supposed to do life with others.

Alright, let me share one more thing and then I'll be done. Here's the third directive. The third directive for you who are being pushed into purpose is to let faith, not fear, lead the way. Let faith, not fear, lead the way. You need to make sure that you are going to be a person of faith.

Why? Because you can't be called by God and have everything go smoothly. When God calls you, he never calls you into nice, neat areas.

When God gives you a promised land, there's going to be giants there. When God calls you to start a business, there's going to be every reason naturally why you shouldn't. When God calls you to start a ministry, there's going to be every reason why some folks think that's a really bad idea.

That's just the way it goes. I came to California in 1989 chasing a dream, a vision God had given me very clearly when I was assistant pastor of my home church in Philly. The Lord said, I'm going to send you out and I'm going to bless your ministry to reach thousands of people, but you got to go west, young man, go west.

And I came to California chasing this vision, came to 34 people. How am I going to reach thousands with only 34 people and very little money? The whole church's budget first year was $60,000. The whole budget, $60,000.

How are we going to win thousands? God didn't ask me to figure that out. He just said go. And we grew slowly, but eventually God began showing me how he was going to do it and bringing people and all that. That pastor was 20 years. At the end of that 20 years, we had thousands of people just like God had said. Destiny is a new season in my life and we're now 10 years into our journey as Destiny Christian Fellowship and God only knows what he's going to do the next 10 years. I'm believing God to do more than he's done to this point.

He's done great things, but I'm believing for greater because our God has the ability to do exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or imagine. So you got to let faith, not fear, lead the way. Where do I get that from this story? Look at the last part of what Esther says here in this passage. She said, go get the partners, have them fast with me. We all got to pray and fast together because one can chase a thousand, but two can chase 10,000. So get them to pray for me and look at what she says. After we fast and pray, I'm going to the king and even though it is against the law, if I perish, I perish. I know I could be killed for going uninvited into the king's presence, but I got to believe if God brought me to this seat for such a time as this, he's not going to let this story end and Esther was stabbed to death. It wasn't going to happen, but faith had to lead the way.

So what did she do? She said, I'm going and I don't care what happens. I love that resolve.

I love the fact that she said whatever happens, happens. I'm putting this in the Lord's hands and that's what you got to do. Let faith, not fear, lead the way. If fear stays out front, you'll never experience what God has for you. You'll never start that business. You'll never start that volunteer organization. You'll never do that life-changing thing that is in your heart.

So you got to let faith lead the way. I'll never forget in 1989, we moved out here. My kids were five and three when we came to California. And in those early years, especially in the summertime, we loved going down to Santa Cruz. And one of the things I loved about Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk was the roller coaster called the Giant Dipper. Old-fashioned wooden roller coaster. You got to understand something, I've loved roller coasters all my life. Love riding roller coasters. The wooden, the old-fashioned classic wooden roller coasters, I loved them.

The taller, the better. I loved that first really steep drop. Always loved wooden roller coasters. I don't like these metal ones so much.

You know, these ones with all these loops and all that stuff and you're going on. You know, I rode them sometimes, but the wooden roller coasters because you kind of rattle while you're riding and up and down and round. That's the ones I loved. Well, I would go down, the family would go down to Santa Cruz in the summers in those early years. And my son Aaron, he loved that. His daddy loved roller coasters. He'd watch me, he'd be down there with my wife because she had the anointing to hold stuff and watch you. That was her roller coaster anointing.

She'd stay down there and hold stuff and watch you going up and down and round and round. And my son saw the thrill I was having and roller coasters got in his heart. And he started really becoming fascinated with roller coasters.

He would start building them at home and he found different ways to really express his excitement, different software and stuff like that. And so he was, theoretically, he was enthusiastic. But in terms of actually getting on one, he wasn't so sure.

And so he watched me. But one year, I don't remember which year it was, but one year in those early years, my son said, Dad, I think I want to go. Oh, man, that's good because I wasn't going to push him past his comfort if he didn't want to go. I wasn't going to make him go. But one year, he said, I'm going to go.

I said, all right, you want to let me go? I went to the ticket thing and got tickets enough for me and him to both ride the giant dipper. I'll never forget that day. We in that line going around and finally you get to the cars and you get in, you get strapped in and that thing, that bar come down over your lap. And my son was sitting there nervous, but he said, I'm going to go.

I'm so excited. And we started up that first hill and that first one is tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And you see yourself going away from the ground and his mom and his sister down there and they're getting smaller and smaller and we're going there. Oh, it had to be terrifying, but he had determined he was going. We went up and down, round, round, round, had a wonderful, I had a wonderful time.

I was hoping he was having a wonderful time. And then when we got off, you get off and you run down that ramp and then you go back out to where the other folk are. He outran me. He ran to his mother and his sister before I got down there and he said to his mom, she said, how was it? He said, it was fun. I want to go again. He wanted to go again.

I said, look at this. This boy got his deliveries for real. He'd been riding roller coasters ever since. Not only does he ride wooden roller coasters, he rides the scariest, biggest roller coasters. Last year, his vacation from his job, he got on a plane and flew somewhere to ride some new scary coaster. That's what he loves.

Why? Because he let faith, not fear, lead the way. He said, I love coasters conceptually, but that's not going to get me where I need to go. So my brother, he went out there and especially since 2007, in 2007, I had a motorcycle accident and when I was recovering, one of the doctors said to me, you will never forget, your body will never let you forget this accident. And I didn't know what he meant, but the first time I tried to ride a roller coaster after recovering from that accident, I said, oh, this is what he was talking about.

Because my body, I messed with my skeletal frame in that accident and it felt so painful and uncomfortable. And as much as I enjoy riding all those years past, I no longer can ride them, but that's all right, my son rides for me. He can go all around the country. I just said, son, ride it for me. Pop would want to be on there with you, but you got to go in my name. And listen, let me tell you something. There's some things ahead of you. Your faith has got to lead the way because your fear will keep you from experiencing it. So you got to make it happen because God is up to something in your life. And he who began the good work in you, my brother, my sister is going to bring it to completion.

You got to let faith lead the way. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, Pushed Into Purpose. If you'd like more information about the Destined for Victory ministry or this month's special offer, a booklet from Pastor Paul called Your Purpose is Calling, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net.

Once again, that's pastorpaul.net. You can make the choice to rejoice. Rejoicing isn't going to happen by you waking up one morning and you just are full of giddiness and full of fun.

If that happens, great. Fun is good. Happiness is great. But joy can be a choice. Happiness exists because of circumstances. Joy can exist in spite of them. Join us next time when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, Make the Choice to Rejoice. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.