Lessons from the Pasture, Part 2 (cont'd)

I come to tell you, if you will sow in such a way that pleases God, one day you're going to see the result of your faithfulness. You're going to see the result of God turning your season of preparation into your season of promotion.

Because don't let anybody fool you, promotion doesn't come from man, promotion comes from the Lord. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul. Hello and thanks for being here for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. King David wrote Psalm 23 as a man, but he learned the truth of his words as a young boy while tending the sheep of his father, Jesse. During this season of preparation, David was learning how to rely on the divine shepherd so that he and one turn could one day be a shepherd to the nation of Israel. As we continue our study of David today, remember, do not despise the day of small beginnings.

God uses them to prepare you for something bigger. Stay right here or listen to the podcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. Right now let's join Pastor Paul for today's Destined for Victory message, Lessons from the Pasture. I learned how to bring me back. And if the enemy comes after me, he has a rod. David said, I found out that God has good things in store for me just like I have good things in store for the sheep.

And when I bring them through their difficulties, I make sure that there's a payoff, that I bring them into a place where there is a table prepared in the presence of my enemies, where they can graze in peace and security. And he said, I learned that even wherever I am, goodness and mercy are following me all the days of my life. See, he learned some things about God.

I want to ask you a question. What are you learning about God right now in your life? The season where you are right now is designed to be a school of teaching you about God. There are things you don't learn about God until you practice his presence right where you are. I've told you many times, I believed God could provide for my needs when I lived in Philadelphia, but I didn't have to experience it because I had a good paying job, everything was going well. But when I moved to California, I learned that God could provide because he had many opportunities to do it.

Every single month to be exact. Every month it was like, okay, God, let's see how you're gonna pay the bills this month. You learn things about God in your present circumstances. Some of you believe God can bless you, give you recall, give you the ability to recall to your remembrance what you have learned and committed in study, but you don't know that until you get into college or get into an environment God has placed you in where you've got to trust him. Okay, Lord, I'm taking you in here as I take this exam. We taught our children growing up, we prayed with them the night before any exam, started early in elementary school and they've done it right through college. Let's pray together. Let's believe God to give you recall. Now the qualifier is he can only give you recall of what you studied. See, if you didn't study, that's not a prayer for recall, that's a prayer for mercy. A different prayer. But we taught them trust God that he'll bless you.

Why? Because the Bible shows us that God has a vested interest in causing his people to excel for his name's sake. Those Hebrew boys Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Daniel, they were head and shoulders above their peers in matters of learning and understanding. See, God doesn't just care about the quote unquote spiritual things, God cares how well you handle your responsibilities. God cares how well you work on your job. If you're a Christian physician, God wants you to be the best.

Because folk don't want to go to a physician and you sit up on the table and you somewhere in the corner leafing through a book. Come on, if I'm sitting on the table and I look over and you're like, let me see. I don't know. When you look up, I'm gone out of that office.

Is somebody fooling with my body talking about it? I don't know. You supposed to know. So God will teach you in the season where you are. David learned about God out there on the hill.

He also learned about caring for what belongs to someone else. You see, there's a principle in Luke 16, 12. Jesus said, if you don't know how to take care of someone else's property, who will give you property of your own? Some of you have great dreams and visions about what God might do in your life in the future.

The question is, how well are you handling your responsibilities now? If I can't take care of somebody else's property, God always starts me. Just like David, God always starts me all practicing with somebody else's resources. So that I can learn the lessons I need to learn so that God can teach me and then eventually he'll promote me.

And so David learned how to take care of his daddy's sheep as though they were his own. You've got to learn to do that in your life. You've got to learn to cooperate before you try to operate. See, a lot of folks dream of operating.

Oh, I dream of being, one day, one day I'm going to blow up. Well, before you explode, how well have you helped someone else fulfill their calling? Because God will make you a cooperator to teach you some valuable lesson. Personally, I have learned to distrust people who have never cooperated, but now they're trying to operate. Frankly, I'm scared of you. If you don't know how to follow, you don't qualify to lead.

If you don't know how to take care of what someone else is, I know you're not going to do a good job of taking care of your own. Because it's part of God's M.O. to bring us through that process. I'm so glad that before God turned me over and made me a senior pastor, he made me an associate pastor whose job was to fulfill the vision of the senior pastor. And I'm glad I had that experience for seven years of just doing what was in the best interest of another person's ministry. Because it was in that context that God taught me how to shepherd his flock. It was in that context that God taught me how to deal with things when I disagreed with other people's decisions. I remember times when I thought my dad was my senior pastor, which made it even worse.

And I knew there were times when I had a better idea of how some area of the ministry ought to go. And I'd go tell him to enlighten him. And he would listen to me. And then he would say, now go do what I told you to do.

And the discussion was over. And I had to learn that my job here is to bring his vision to pass, to help him accomplish what God has placed in his heart to do. And as I do that, the Lord is setting me up.

Because if I can't take care of somebody else's property, and there were many times when folk would come to me and say, well, you know, you just need to go and start your own church. And I said, no, God hasn't called me to do that. He's called me to work here to serve here.

He's called me to submit here. He's called me to help fulfill this man's vision. And as I did that, the Lord was slowly but surely setting me up so that one day I knew what it was like to be a leader. Because I have supported and enabled a leader.

So I want to ask you, how well are you handling your current responsibilities? What is happening in your life now matters to God. Give you another case study, not only David, who took care of his daddy's sheep, but look at how much Joseph in the Old Testament learned long before he became second to Pharaoh in Egypt.

Look at the context for learning. He learned what it was like to deal with relatives who turned on him. See some of y'all fussing about and crying out to God about how badly your own relatives are treating you.

Well, that's a wonderful opportunity for you to grow. Joseph had his own brothers throw him physically into a pit and wanted to leave him for dead. But God said, no, not going to let that happen. So the Lord sent a band of merchants down the road and they said, no, no, let's not kill him. Let's not have his blood on our hands.

Let's just sell him. All we want to do is get rid of it. How do you feel when people who ought to love you and treat you right want to discard you? It's an opportunity to learn. It's an opportunity to grow, knowing they don't have your destiny in their hand anyway, but God will use it to grow you. God will teach you how to love people who don't know how to love you.

God will teach you to forgive people who are mistreating you. And Joseph finds himself sold out by his own brothers. There are lessons you can only learn in the pit. Then he gets to Potiphar's house. There are more lessons to learn when he gets to Potiphar's house.

He has to learn how to develop a work ethic and work diligently. Again, God uses him before he gives him notoriety and power. God says, let me see how well you can take care of Potiphar's affairs. Now, Potiphar wasn't even a person who walked with Jehovah. He was a pagan. But see, some of you all think you can work lousy on your job and it doesn't matter because after a while, these people on the job don't know God.

Why should I give all my time and all my effort? These people aren't doing the will of God. No, no. God will bless you to work well and prosper in a pagan situation. The Bible says in Philippians, at the end of the book of Philippians, Paul is giving his last words and he says, oh, by the way, greet the saints who are in Caesar's house. Now, Caesar was the pagan of all pagans. But God had strategically placed Christians in Caesar's household. And they weren't around there protesting, I'm not taking care of this man. He needs to know God.

No, no. God said, just cook his food, give him the best meals. Sweep his floors, make sure his palace is clean. God will teach you how to take care of other people just because they are the object of his love regardless of how they're behaving. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net and there you'll also find a host of great resources at our online store. Well, God gave the young man a test and he passed it, but his reward was something no one would have expected. Joseph's story continues next in the rest of today's message, Lessons from the Pasture. Once again, here's Pastor Paul. And you know what the Bible said about Joseph?

The Bible says God blessed Potiphar's house for Joseph's sake. Do you know your job can be blessed because of you? You are the godly influence and God, if he chooses to, he'll bless your job because of you. God could very well keep folk on your job from getting a pink slip because of you. And he'll keep you from getting a pink slip. So you work as unto the Lord.

It doesn't matter that these people don't know God. You work as unto the Lord. He learned lessons in the pit. He learned lessons in Potiphar's house.

Then later on he learns lessons in prison. Because Potiphar's wife, who tried to hit on him, and God will teach you through all your circumstances, God will teach you if you don't know whether he can keep you in the hour of temptation, as you walk with him, he'll show you. And Joseph found himself being tempted by this beautiful woman who said, let's go to bed. He said, I can't do that. Your husband, trust me, I can't do this great wickedness in the sight of God. Joseph may not have known he had that much integrity until the situation came.

He said, look at that. Because the Lord was with him. See God will give you a testimony, but you don't get a testimony without a test. Everybody wants a testimony, but are you willing to go through the test? And this woman tested him and he passed by the grace of God.

And what did he get for passing the test? He went to jail. See, you can't always tie the blessing immediately to what you're going through.

Sometimes the blessing is delayed because God's got more lessons. God taught him how to wait in prison. God taught him how to keep his attitude right in prison. I know that because when he got out of prison, the Lord was with him, he was still sharp, he was still loving, he was still focused on the will of God. You know as well as I do that some of us, if the Lord had let us go to prison for years for a crime we did not commit, oh, when I get out of here, it's on. Oh, there's some people I'm going to see.

No, no. When you're letting the Lord work in your life, he is using that time to perfect what he's doing in you. So he learned in the pit, he learned in Potiphar's house, he learned in prison so that when the Lord promoted him to the palace, he was ready to handle it. Is that what's going on in your life? Is God teaching you about himself right now? I want you to open your eyes and realize that where you are now matters in terms of where God is taking you.

Don't despise where you are today. Let me put it this way, today's harvest is the result of what was sown in my yesterdays. So what I'm doing today is directly shaping my tomorrow. Now think about it, what you're reaping today is the result of things sown in days before.

And what you will reap tomorrow is directly shaped by what you're sowing today. One time when my son Aaron was very young, I was on a ministry trip preaching somewhere and my wife told me one day I had been gone several days already and he just was really missing me this particular day and he said, Mommy, when is daddy coming home? And on this particular day she was able to say, oh, daddy will be home tomorrow. He is very, very young and so he was trying to grasp that concept, thought he knew what it meant, but the next morning she said when I went in to wake him up, she said he opened his eyes and looked at me and she said the very first thing he said the next morning is, Mommy, is today tomorrow? Is today tomorrow? He meant yesterday she said he's coming home tomorrow. Now what I want to know is, is today the tomorrow you just spoke about?

And of course it was and she said a smile broke out on his face because he realized that today I'll get to see my daddy. Let me tell you something, your today is the tomorrow that was from yesterday. It is directly related. You can't wake up, you can't go to bed a blunder and wake up a wonder. You can't go to bed a failure and wake up a success.

There's a direct correlation. The only way I get success is I have to begin to sow toward success. It is my daily victory, my daily discipline, my daily determination, my daily righteousness that leads to the tomorrow that God has planned for me. Don't expect to have a sudden burst of success when you have a track record of failure.

What you have to do is say, Lord, give me the grace that day by day I will begin to experience your grace for my life. So what are you doing today? Let me ask you some practical questions. Have you aspired to excellence in your career one day? Oh, one day I'm going to be something on my job. You all wait.

Here's the question. How diligent and righteous are you on your job today? Not just diligent but righteous. You want God to bless you on your job?

Stop stealing pens and reams of paper and stealing time. Hey, well, supervisor's not looking so I thought I'd take an extra hour for lunch. Your supervisor is looking. You got the wrong one in mind.

The one you really work for is looking at you, saying you're a little late for lunch, getting back from lunch. It matters to God. It's not about the people. It's about God. Let me ask you a question. You who say one day I want to be a minister, I want to be a missionary, I want to be a musical artist in the kingdom of God, whatever it is. What are you doing in your local church today? I know folk who want to blow up one day. But what are you doing right now?

Before you get paid to serve people, how well are you volunteering to serve people today? Your today matters to God. You want to own property one day? You believe that's part of God's will for your life? Oh, I just see myself one day owning multiple properties that I can use for the kingdom of God or I can use as an income stream so I can really bless people. God may bless you with multiple properties, but let me ask you a question. While you're renting, how well, number one, are you paying your rent to somebody else? Right now that's somebody else's property.

Secondly, how well are you taking care of their property? Those kinds of things matter to God. They matter to God.

You can't trash somebody else's property and believe God to bless you with your own. My goal is to let God bless me and use me and teach me in every phase of my life. So what are you doing today that is setting you up for a brighter tomorrow? I want to challenge you to make some decisions that today I am going to head in the direction of my destiny through diligence, through determination, through discipline. I am going to make sure that what I sow today is directly related to what I hope to receive tomorrow. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, Lessons from the Pasture.

Pastor Paul Shepherd joins me now from his studio in California. Pastor, with Father's Day coming up later this month, I'm curious and I'm sure listeners are as well. When you look back on your childhood, even your young adulthood, what would you say is the most important lesson you learned from your father?

Absolutely. Thanks for bringing that up, Wayne. My dad meant so much to me. I was blessed to be raised by a man who got saved in his teens. He had a godly mother who raised him and his siblings, and she ended up having 10 children, nine of whom survived. And she raised them in church. She had a man who didn't get saved until he was in his 80s.

Is that right? But she learned how to let her light shine, and she raised my dad. She told him later, when I was pregnant with you, I laid my hands on my belly and I said, Lord, I want you to make a preacher out of this one. And he was the only preacher of the nine siblings that she had. And he preached the gospel faithfully, raised his five children in the church along with, of course, my mom.

And I love the legacy, and I think of him often. He died in 2008 as an 81-year-old man, but he was such a blessing to not only to me, but to thousands of people as he shared the gospel. And I thank God this month in particular for the legacy of a godly father. Such a great reminder, Pastor Paul. Humility precedes almost every good thing God longs to give us, including our salvation in Jesus Christ.

Thanks for that great word of encouragement. Speaking of fathers and the wisdom we gain from them, this month we have two very special gifts to share with you, yours for your best gift of $25 or more to Destin for Victory. The first is Pastor Paul's book, Why God Created Dads, an insightful and inspirational look at the subject of fatherhood through the lens of scripture. The second is the audio CD, A Tribute to My Dad, a message delivered by Pastor Paul following the death of his father.

Men and women alike will be inspired by these timely resources. That's Why God Created Dads and A Tribute to My Dad, our gifts to you this month for your best donation of $25 or more to Destin for Victory. Call 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. You can also mail your gift to Destin for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. If you're writing that down, I'll give it once again.

But once again, it's Destin for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. You can't confuse your anointing with your sending. Sometimes you are anointed, you are equipped, you are empowered, but you haven't yet been sent. That's next time in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, Lessons from the Pasture. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.