Stormproof Your Life, Part 3 (cont'd)

Before people want to meet Jesus, they may want to see the Jesus in you. Hello and welcome to this Monday edition of Destined for Victory. In just a few moments, Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, Storm Proof Your Life. But before he gets started, he joins me now from his studio in California to share a word of encouragement. Pastor, this has been quite a year, and although there are promising signs on the horizon, the pandemic has left so many discouraged and weary. I'm weary after this thing. Well, I'm weary just like you are, and I'm sure many of our listeners, probably the best way for me to encourage them is to let them sort of eavesdrop on myself talk. I'm telling myself things like this, too, shall pass. That's one of my favorite things I'm saying to myself, reminding myself this. I know it's been long and drawn out, and it's getting on my nerves. It's I'm down to my reserved nerve.

That's that last one. But this, too, shall pass, circumstantially speaking. There are indications, at least from my vantage point, that there's light at the end of this tunnel and I don't think it's a train barreling toward me. I really do believe that things are going to get better for us, even circumstantially. And so I just want people to remember, most importantly, something that's in the life-changing and timeless Word of God, which is God is our refuge and our strength. That's true in good times and that's true in bad times. God is our refuge and sometimes when you're in the midst of a storm, he will be your strength to get you through it. So I hope our listeners will remain encouraged and know that God is with us and he is more than the enemy and the world and the pandemic against us. This scripture is from Psalm 46, verse 1, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

And they are certainly encouraging words for us today. Well friends, if we can further encourage you or perhaps pray for you in these times, let us know. An easy way to do that is to visit our website, pastorpaul.net, and click Contact Us. I would also encourage you to sign up for Pastor Paul's monthly encouragement letter. You'll find it all right there on the homepage at pastorpaul.net. The first place they're going to see Jesus is in you.

Before you can get him to church, before you can get him to hear the Word, they're going to have to see Jesus in you. There's going to have to be something attractive enough that makes them want to see, let me go where you go. Have you ever tried to create a brand new you? Maybe you changed your hairstyle or bought a new wardrobe.

Maybe you decided to hit the gym and get back into shape. But when you did, you discovered that you're still the same you you've always been. On today's Destined for Victory, Pastor Paul Shepherd reminds us that true change, the kind God wants to make in your life, only comes from the inside out. Here's Pastor Paul with his message, Storm Proof Your Life. You ever tried to get God in cahoots with you against your spouse? What you will find is that when you go to God with your complaints about your spouse, more often than not, he will talk to you about you. Because he is making you a new and kind person. He's saying, let me deal with them in my own way, in my own time. But while we're on the subject, sometimes you in there, Lord, they're getting on my nerves.

But God will point out your flaws. I've seen married people over the years. I've been pastor of ministry a long time.

I have people come in, I'm tired of this. I just married a jerk, pastor. And I didn't know he was a jerk.

Now I see it. You take that kind of stuff to God, God will say, why are we on the subject of jerks? Let me talk to you about you. Let me help you see there's some jerkiness in you that I want you to give to me so I can make you a new kind of spouse.

While you're busy looking over in other people's pastures and over in other people's lawn looking at how green the grass is over there, let me help you water your grass. And God will point you in a new direction because marriage can be a way that God grows you and makes you a person who is married to him and married to his will. Because the fact of the matter is your spouse is not as bad as you are projecting them to be. The problem very often is we think the goal of everything is for us to be happy.

And God says I'm going to change your perspective and show you how to deal with real life. Because most folk in real life are going to go through different challenges and different seasons. Everybody, likely they're not, knows a couple or two where they just stayed at that same high level of romance and excitement about each other all through the years and the decades. I've got a couple of married friends who are just up there all the time. I mean, been married 30 some years, still just cooing and gooing and oh, just so excited with one another and just, oh, I just love him. Don't you just love him? You're just looking like, wow, how have you all stayed like that through all of these years, just still excited, just can hardly get your work done for thinking about your spouse. Every day I'm just thinking about, I have to stop in the middle of the day and call him, how you doing, boo, just thinking about you. Can hardly get my work done but thinking about you, I can't wait for you to come home. You know, and most married people look at that and say, wow, because they can't relate. They have days where you're really excited and really connected and really flowing like that and then there's other days where you just say, hey, how you doing?

What's up, you all right? I mean, life takes you to those low ebbs and those low times, there ought to be a love that anchors you, that allows you to keep their best interest at your heart, that says it's okay that there isn't as much honey on the moon today as there was some time before. I still love you, I'm committed to you and will do right by you, till death do us part. Thrill me like they used to.

Well, you're not exactly thrilling either. And so what you got to do is quit thinking, let me go get me a new beetle and realize that God is doing something new in you and making you a person who when he gets through with you, your marriage will be different because you are different. Your spouse will be married to somebody different and it's the same person they were at the altar in terms of physical identity and personal identity but in terms of spiritually, God has made them a new creation.

The old has passed and the new has come. That's what God is up to in your life. God is up to changing us from the inside out. He wants to change you so that you can deal with people in the world differently than you deal with them. He wants to help us build different kinds of relationships. Very often, our relationships with others are driven by how they make us feel about ourselves. In fact, people often, when they call themselves falling in love, they're not really falling in love, they're falling in love with the way that person makes them feel about them.

And that's why as soon as it doesn't feel that way anymore, they want to trade them. God says, I want you to learn to deal with people from a different perspective. I want you to love them the way I love them.

I want you to treat them the way I want them treated. And he will change your perspective. That's what you see in Matthew 9, beginning at verse 9.

Note what happened. Jesus was choosing disciples during this period of time and he doesn't go try to find cute church folk. I love that when Jesus built his church on the foundation of the apostles, that he wasn't looking for little, almost holy, almost saved acting folk. He went and found people like Matthew.

Matthew 9, verse 9. Jesus stops by the tax booth of a man named Matthew. Now you need to understand this as you look at that verse, that a tax collector in that day and in that culture was not your friendly IRS agent. It was a person who was despised and hated because they worked for the Roman government and exacted taxes on behalf of the Roman government even though they themselves were not Roman citizens. When they exacted from you the taxes that Rome demand, they could then build their commission into what they exacted from you and once Rome got its money, it let them make whatever commission they wanted. And it was a deregulated practice so that many tax collectors built their wealth on the backs of poor people who were their own compatriots. And the result is tax collectors were known to be cheats and swindlers and you didn't have any recourse because Rome wanted their taxes. So you paid what they told you, you owed. They were hated.

They were despised. And Jesus stops by a tax collector's booth. And notice when he gets there, he doesn't act like a lot of church folk I know. Jesus doesn't go there and say, I just came to tell you, you're going to hell.

Why? Because Jesus is the model of the kainos that God is making us. He modeled that style of living. So people who are despised by the average person, especially people with a sense of morality and decency, Jesus looked at them as the objects of God's love. He didn't love what they did or how they did it, but he loved who they were because he came to save people just like them. So Jesus didn't come preaching to them. He came loving them. He came wanting to befriend them so that they could become familiar with a man who loved them enough that he was soon going to lay down his life for them. And so when Jesus stops by the booth, he doesn't tell him, you're going to hell. He says two words, follow me.

And something in Matthew's heart told him, this guy is what you've been looking for. This guy will give you what your money can't buy you. He'll give you a piece that you've never experienced before. You got money, but you don't have a whole lot of people who respect you. You don't have a sense of purpose.

You have things but don't know how to use them. You have an emptiness in your life that you haven't been able to fill with anything else and this guy is going to point you to a new life. And Matthew got up from his table and followed Jesus. We'll be right back with more of today's Destin for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. And remember, you can always listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net where you'll find a host of great resources at our online store.

God wants to do a brand new thing in you so he can do a brand new thing through you. Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's Destin for Victory message, Storm Proof Your Life. And then when you look at the verses that follow, you see that one of the things Jesus did was he said to Matthew, let's have a dinner at your house. Why don't you call your friends? I'll call my disciples. You call your friends.

Let's have a dinner party. Jesus chooses Matthews because Jesus knows Matthew knew a whole lot of sinners. Now, a lot of church folk, that's the very thing they don't want is to be around a whole lot of sinners. Church folk are often more comfortable in a holy huddle. Now, to be sure, you need holy, godly people in your life to help you walk with the Lord, to help you go strong, to encourage you, to strengthen you, to love you, to build you up in your faith. We need to be committed and connected to believers.

That is part of the foundation God builds in your life when he is making you a kenos, a new person. But to be sure, the reason why we are to be strengthened and supported by one another is so that we can go into the world and we can befriend people who desperately need the light and the love of Jesus. And the first step Jesus shows us is not to holler at them and preach to them. The first step is to befriend them and love them. So Jesus tells Matthew, bring some folk with you to your house.

Invite them to your house. And Jesus is perfectly comfortable at a dinner party with, the text said, tax collectors who were despised, rejected by so many, and sinners. Did you see sinners in quotes? That means these folk that came to that party were so jacked up that other sinners called them sinners. You know, you messed up when folk who don't know the Lord themselves say to you, you know, you need to go to church.

I think you need Jesus. And those are the kind of folk who came to the dinner party. And Jesus was there and he told his disciples to be comfortable there.

The only folk who didn't like it were the church folk. The Pharisees said, hmm. And they called the disciples and said, now, how are you following a teacher who spends his time with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus overheard them and he said, I'll give them the answer. He said, well, people don't need a doctor. Now, what was his point? His point wasn't that they were well. His point was that they thought they were well. These folk, on the other hand, know they need something. They might not know what the something is, which is why Jesus is introducing himself to them. But they know I'm not right.

The best folk for you to deal with are people who don't try to perpetrate. They know something's wrong. I don't do everything right. I got messed up values. I've made a whole lot of wrong decisions in my life.

Yes, I know I am not up for man or woman of the year. Those are the best people to minister to. That's who Jesus came to. He didn't want to fool with these people who think they got everything all together walking around in their little white prissy robes. Jesus looked at the Pharisees on one occasion. He said, y'all remind me of a graveyard.

He did. Right in your Bible, he said, white stones, clean white stones, but full of dead bones. So Jesus came to redeem those who know they're lost. And then John's disciples come to Jesus' disciples, John the Baptist's disciples, and they said, we've noticed that we fast and the Pharisees fast, but you all don't fast.

Jesus answered that question too. He said, the reason why they're not fasting now is because the bridegroom is with them. He said, we're having a celebration.

There is a marriage of God uniting with people who know they need him. And through my shed blood, they're going to reach out and receive him. And this is a party time.

This isn't a time to fast. He said, the day is going to come when I'm taken from them physically, and they will have times of fasting. There are times when we bear down in prayer and fasting, but for the most part, our lives are characterized by joy because we're having a wedding celebration. Jesus has come into our lives. We are part of the bride of Christ, and we have something to celebrate about.

Jesus said, you don't fast at a wedding reception. That's the time to get your cake on. Cut that cake. Give me a slice of that cake. Give me some of that drink over there.

Give me some of that. It's time to be festive and dance and enjoy yourself. That's where we are in Christ. We who are lost are now found. We who were not a people are now the people of God. And Jesus said, it's time to party and celebrate. And so he shows us that when God is doing something new in your life, it'll change the way you treat folks.

You know the people on your job are supposed to like you. If you are so much a Christian that nobody wants to be bothered with you, the problem is you are naos. You are a new Christian beetle.

And they want no part of it. You come Bible first, frown first, holiness first, so righteous you mean. And God says, let me make you the kind of person who is one of the most liked people on your job. Because you know who you are in Christ, you don't compromise for anybody. You walk the walk, but you don't terrorize people with your testimony.

Because you can't win people who don't even like you. If they don't like you, you're not showing them who Jesus is. The first place they're going to see Jesus is in you. Before you can get them to church, before you can get them to hear the word, they're going to have to see Jesus in you.

There's going to have to be something attractive enough that makes them want to see. Let me go where you go. Your neighbors, I notice that you go to church, I see you leaving on Sunday.

After you build a relationship with them and love them well. And come over to their house and socialize and you weren't bothered if they were cursing or doing what they were doing around you. You weren't sitting there, oh Jesus, Lord Jesus. You don't act like that, but Christians I know. Christians I know, that's their testimony for Jesus. I don't put up with any of that foolishness.

Well if you're going to love people, you're going to have to put up with it. It's the only way they talk. Some of them don't know how to talk without using those words. So you've got to let God make you such a kenos, a new creation, until you can handle it without those words entering your vocabulary.

I can be around you, go and talk your talk. I don't like it when I've gone to people's houses and they get all flustered because of the other preachers they know. And they figure I'm just like them and so as soon as I come they all get flustered.

I've seen people putting up their liquor real quick. Oh Jesus, Pastor Paul here, Lord have mercy. Jesus, hey pastor. I feel like saying you don't have to put it up, I don't want it. I'm not going to dry you out, clean out your house.

Neither am I going to make you feel bad that that's part of your life. I've come to love you. I've come to let you know that Jesus loves you.

I've come to show you what it's like to be able to live a life without needing that kind of stimulus. Because the Holy Spirit can come into your life and motivate you and guide you. And it's wonderful when you let God make you a person that other people see something good in. God wants to make you a person that's one of the most well liked on your job.

One of the most well liked in your community, in your neighborhood. And he'll let you rise, he'll bless you to reach heights of notoriety in your career pursuit. Because you honor him every step of the way. And you represent him, you don't act strange. And the Bible says we are to be peculiar people when you read King James. It says we are peculiar people and some folks misunderstand that. That doesn't mean you're supposed to be weird.

Peculiar means not ordinary, unique, a new kind of person but not weird. So when God gets through with you, when people see you coming they won't say, oh Lord, oh here they come. Look at that big Bible, here they come.

They about to pronounce a new doom and gloom on me. No, they'll trust you, they'll invite you. They want you there. Because you can be trusted to love people and respect people. And you don't have to ever compromise anything of importance to you or to God.

In order to love people in a way that draws them to the God you serve. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, Storm Proof Your Life. You know Jesus never promised that we'd avoid life storms, only that with his help we could survive them.

We need to cling to that truth during times like these. And to help you do that, Pastor Paul would like to offer you his booklet, Built on a Solid Foundation. It's a great reminder that when we build our lives upon the solid rock of God's word, we'll be able to withstand any storm that comes our way.

That's the booklet, Built on a Solid Foundation. Our gift to you this month by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. So 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, CA 94538.

Once again, the address, Destined for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. Money matters to God. The Bible says in Psalm 24 one, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. So the first thing you want to understand is when it comes to stewardship, it's because God is the owner. That's next time when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, Money Matters. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.