Choose to Re-Engage (cont'd)

The world is not fair, and believe it or not, God isn't always fair, at least not by our definition of fairness. Coming your way next, Pastor Paul Shepherd talks about the importance of perseverance in his Destined for Victory message, Choose to Re-Engage. But before he gets started, he joins me now from his studio in California. Pastor, we've been asking our listeners during these critical summer months to be as generous as they can in giving, and so many people have become very generous, and we thank God for them. During this post-pandemic time, ministries like Destined for Victory sometimes get forgotten, and it strikes me that's what partnership is all about. Talk about our partners. We look at them as the lifeblood of this ministry.

We need it, and we appreciate it. And I want to encourage those donors who can to step up to the next level and become partners. Those are the people who are the lifeline of our ministry because they give month in and month out. Twenty dollars, twenty-five, some of them give more to make sure that we can continue to bring these messages your way. Those are the people that I am so grateful for. They are our legacy builders. These are people who are committed to giving $3,000 or more every year. That's $250 or more every month so that the gospel goes forth from Destined for Victory.

All three categories are absolutely important. However the Lord leads you, I want to thank you for partnering with me because through your giving, we're able to reach a dying world with the living message and the good news of Jesus Christ. Thank you for your partnership. I look forward to more joining us, and I pray that God will bless you as you bless the kingdom of God through your giving.

Thank you. I'd like to send you Pastor Paul Shepherd's booklet, You're in God's Army Now. That's You're in God's Army Now.

Request it when you make a generous gift this month. We're all going to die physically because of the fall. Sin brought death. Sin brought destruction. The fact of the matter is, we live in a fallen world. Our God called us by His purpose, even in this fallen world.

And if you will choose to re-engage, you're going to see that His purpose will prevail in your life nonetheless. We live in a fallen world, but we have a risen Savior. Today on Destined for Victory, Pastor Paul reminds us that Jesus Christ has overcome the world and that His purpose will ultimately prevail in your life as you choose to persevere through life's challenges.

Now, here's Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message, Choose to Re-Engage. We're all going to die physically because of the fall. When man was created, man didn't have to leave. Sin brought death. Sin brought destruction. The fact of the matter is, we live in a fallen world. Our God called us by His purpose, even in this fallen world.

And if you will choose to re-engage, you're going to see that His purpose will prevail in your life nonetheless. Yes, life has brought you a number of misfortunes. Yes, life has often been unfair. When people stop expecting fairness in this world, you will go to a higher level of effective living. If you're looking for fairness, earth is not it. This world is not fair. God isn't even fair. Pastor, what did you just say?

I said it. Yes, God's not fair. God is just. See, fairness means you get it, I get it. God's not fair, He's just. God will get one person five talents, one two, and one one. That's not fair if you think fairness is the value, but it's not a biblical value. God is just.

He does what's in accord with His will. And you and I need to recognize, yes, I've dealt with a lot of unfairness in this world. I've dealt with a lot of misfortune. Some of y'all feel like that old gospel chorus. I'm dating myself, young folk that never heard this.

But some of us boomers heard a little gospel chorus back in probably the 60s and 70s. I've been lied on, cheated, talked about, mistreated, been butte, been scorned, talked about sure as you're born. I've been up. I've been down, been almost leveled to the ground, and it ended long as I got King Jesus. Oh, one of my young folk knew that song.

One of my millennials sitting here singing it, my stage manager. All right. Fact of the matter is some of y'all been living that, lied on, cheated, talked about, mistreated. You have lived it. You didn't have to sing it. You lived it. Yes, you have. But here's the good news, child of God.

Yes, all that happened, and none of it was fair, none of it was right. But the God who saved you, the God who loved you, the God who called you according to His purpose, He said, yes, I know about all that stuff, but I'm here to tell you that if you will stop living your life based on the fact that Abel is dead and start living your life based on the fact that there's more ahead of you than is behind you, you can see that God's got a Seth coming your way. But in order to get there, you got to reengage. Adam and Eve could have chosen to sit around, never make love again, just sit around mourning, look at pictures of Abel. They could have sat around looking at, look at this, remember that, remember that?

Remember that when he graduated from preschool. At a certain point, you got to say, loved Abel, wish he had lived a good full life, but Abel is gone, and he won't come back to us, but if we do right, we will go to him. And then you got to have the boldness and the clarity, and you got to make the choice to reengage. I know people who died when a loved one died. They didn't die physically like the loved one did, but emotionally, psychologically, in terms of plans and dreams and hopes, they died. I know people who never reengaged after a tragedy or a loss.

My brother, my sister, that should not be. God's got plans for you, and the rear view mirror is where you've been. In the front windshield is where you're going. You've got to make the choice to reengage.

If you don't, guess what? You're going to spend your life in the rear view mirror. You're going to go nowhere good. It will be like you just packed your bag, sit by the door and wait for Jesus, but God's got plans for you. God's got a future and hope for you. Now, in this last 18 minutes, I want you to go with me to Genesis chapter 21, and I want to make a second case study. So Adam and Eve made love again, and God blessed them with Seth. He knew his wife.

That's the Bible version of it, Bible language of it. That means they were intimate, physically intimate, in the same way that resulted in Abel, in the same way that resulted in Cain. Cain became a murderer.

Abel became the murder victim. The enemy or your psyche could tell you, don't bother trying to make another one. You see how this worked out. You can't listen to the worst that is spoken to you and think you're going to get somewhere good. You've got to know that you serve a God who gives you hope and a future. If God were through with you, if God's plans was fulfilled in you, he would take you. You're still here. You hear me tell you many times, but it bears repeating. If you have a pulse, you have a purpose, and you've got to say, okay, my heart's beating.

It's time for me to reengage. Genesis chapter 21, verse 14, Hagar and her son, Ishmael, put out by Sarah. You know that story.

I won't walk you through the whole thing. You know that back in chapter 16, Hagar and Sarah had some issues, because Hagar was the woman Sarah brought into their family to produce an heir for her husband, Abram. You know the story, that she actually engaged this plot.

Let's bring Hagar in. I'll make her your wife. I'm still going to be the madam of the house, but she'll be another wife, because she's young, and she'll produce the heir that God said he was going to give you. That was Sarah's idea.

We all know that. But then Hagar came in, started feeling herself at a certain point. When she got pregnant, she started acting a little attitudinal. She started feeling herself, started acting different, and Sarah started mistreating her back in Genesis 16.

Read it when you get a chance. Mistreat her. She ran out the house. She said, I'm leaving.

I'm starting to run away, not realizing where you're going. The Lord met her. I love God. God will meet you when you've been wrong, when you're licking your wounds, not owning your stuff, just like he tried to help Cain. He did help Hagar in Genesis 16. He said, Where have you been, and where are you going? Hagar complained to God. Well, see what had happened?

And God said, No, you did wrong. You've got to go back, submit, humble yourself. Go back home. My plan is still working out. You've got to go home.

I don't care about your hurt feelings. You've got to go home. And so God sent her back. She went back, begged, pardoned, so sorry.

I was tripping because I got pregnant. Please forgive me. Please let me back. Sarah let her back. Things went on. Now you get down to this passage, chapter 21 of Genesis. By now, the real supernatural work has been done, that Sarah herself has gotten pregnant, and at 90 had the heir, the child of promise, Isaac.

You know the story in the early part of chapter 21. They are having a weaning celebration, which in that culture probably meant that Isaac was about two years old. He was being weaned from his mother's breast. But Ishmael, the child that Abraham and Hagar came up with, is a young teenager, 14, 15-ish.

He and his little teenage buddies, you can just about picture it if you've been around those young teenagers, cutting up and making fun of the little weaned baby. But that little weaned baby is Sarah's baby. Sarah 90 years old.

This her first child. And you little knuckleheads going to sit over there and mess around? Sarah said, oh, okay. Walked over to Abraham. Said, that boy has got to leave this house. Baby, no, no, no.

Can't do that. Hagar, glad you brought up Hagar. She got to go with him. Abraham, read it when you get a chance, went to the Lord and said, what's up with this? Here you are blessing me. I got the son you promised me. I got this other son that Hagar and I came up with, and that was because Sarah brought Hagar to me.

I wasn't hitting on him. And you know, he feeling like, God, how come you put me in this position? And read it when you get a chance. The Lord says, do what your wife tells you to do. Listen to your wife. That scripture is underlined in a number of wives' Bibles.

If you look in their Bible, you will see that's underlined. Listen to your wife. Just listen to her. That's all God said.

God didn't try to explain all this. He said, hearken to the voice of your wife. Do what she tell you to do. She told you, put them out.

Put them out. Don't go away. We're only about halfway through today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd, who is Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. If you love listening to this program, we know you'll enjoy some of Pastor Paul's best video clips. Subscribe on YouTube today, and for more details, be sure to visit pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net, where you can also listen on demand to recent messages, or find a variety of resources at our online store. Well, we've all made mistakes, but any of us, with God's help, have the potential to do the next right thing. Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's message, Choose to Re-Engage.

I'm bringing this up to say, a lot of you have experienced life much like Hagar. Did some stuff wrong yourself. Don't try to act like you've been perfect, but you did right after you did wrong. She submitted, humbled herself, came back, and she and Sarah been getting along good from chapter 16 all the way here. The problem here is her little teenage boy, and he got under Sarah's skin, and she said, okay, time's up for this. I got the child a promise. Here I am, 90 years old, my first baby. She had to be a mother and a grandmother all wrapped up in one. You wasn't coming for my child and getting away with it.

This lady and her son got to go. Some of you all feel like, I've made mistakes, but I've been doing well, and done the best I can in my life, made some bad choices, but made better choices after. I haven't done anything to deserve punishment or banishment.

Some of you could say, all I try to do is help people, and they dogged me for it. Bottom line is, Abraham has to give them rations of food. I don't know how long that food would have lasted, what he gave them, and water, and he had to put his first son, Ishmael, and that son's mother, Hagar, out. You all can't stay in the back house. There is no house back there. You all got to go. Don't know where you're going, but you got to go because Sarah said, you all leaving, and God said, listen to Sarah. Now, some of you all don't understand that about God. Why would God take a woman who hasn't done anything?

Her teenage boy is just a little immature punk. See, a lot of you all think God is supposed to straighten everything out. You still got this fairness thing in your head. God said, let this happen.

Why? Because although it seems unfair, although it seems you haven't deserved what's happened in your life, God says, I'm still at work. They get out there, read this when you get a chance here in Genesis 21.

They get out there, where are we going? This is so unfair. This is not right. Eat the food until it's gone.

Drink the water until it's gone. Wandering in a wilderness. Imagine the day that she's got no food to give her son, no water for him to drink. She has no food or no water for herself.

It's starting to look and feel desperate. God is saying nothing. Imagine the moment when her son is so weak, she's not sure he's going to make it. She puts him under a bush, no doubt to shield the son. And she walks away because she is starting to think, looks like he's going to die. I'm not going to stand there and watch this boy die. And she walks a stone's throw away.

The boy is crying. She walks away disillusioned. I'm talking to some people who are disillusioned right now in your life. You can relate to Hagar. You're like, yeah, I've been perfect. But when I was wrong, God told me to get right, I got right.

Done the best I could since then. My son, he's immature. He mocked a child.

How do you throw out a child for being immature? See, when you keep trying to make life make sense, you just puzzle yourself and frustrate yourself more and more. Because God said, let it happen. Some of you, if you're going to become stronger, wiser, better, you got to stop second-guessing what God allows.

And you got to trust him even when you can't trace him. This boy only created an environment where God could do what he was already planning to do. What do you mean by that, pastor? God had said way back in 16, chapter 16, to Hagar, go back home and submit, because I'm going to make a nation out of your son. God had said that way back.

Here they are in 21, and the boy is under a bush, looks like he's about to die. She walks away so she doesn't have to experience it. And if she was walking away saying, I thought God had said he was going to make a nation out of him, and the boy's about to die.

When God speaks, he's not trying to make it happen. It is so. The Lord spoke to her in that moment, said, Hagar, what's the matter? And he says to her, lift up your eyes. You're not seeing everything there is to see. You see the disillusionment. You feel the pain. You don't understand the unfairness, but you got to keep looking.

You got to keep looking for me in it. And he lifts her eyes, and she sees that God has given them water in a desert, supernatural provision. You don't have to understand how God does it. You just got to know we serve a God who does it. And he blessed them to survive that moment, blessed them to find food supernaturally in a wilderness, blessed them to travel on to a city, blessed them to establish their lives in a new place.

And the next thing you know, they are thriving, and the boy grows up and becomes a responsible young man who takes care of himself and his mother. And God blesses him with a wife, and God makes a nation out of them. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or even imagine. Listen, if you plan to get stronger, wiser, better, quit trying to figure out how God's going to do it. All you have to do is walk in faith and in obedience, and when it doesn't make sense, don't ask God to make sense. Just ask God to be God and do what only he can do. You'll find out that God is able to make a stream in a desert. God is able to make a way in a wilderness. God is able to get you from the jacked-up place you are to the place of prominence and the place of prosperity and the place of blessing and the place of fulfillment that he has in mind for you. Stop asking God to give you what you want and start saying, God, I thank you that you're going to give me what your will is, because in his will is everything you need.

In his will are blessings that you haven't even thought about yet. So you've got to be willing to be like Hagar. Why did I use this second case study besides Seth being born? Because Seth was born because they were willing to say, I'm not going to focus on death.

We still have each other. Let's make love. And out of that came Seth, whom God, watch this, Eve said has appointed.

That's why they named him Seth. He's an appointment. God's got some appointments for you. You don't know what some of them are. I'm sure you're going to be shocked by one or more of the things in your future.

I never saw this coming. God didn't tell you he was going to preview everything. Sometimes we get dreams. Sometimes we get a Joseph dream or two, and oh, wow, here's what God said he's going to do.

Sometimes you're like, I don't know what he's going to do. Either way, you serve a God who knows what he has in mind, even when you don't know that he knows what he has in mind. So you've got to walk by faith and not by sight. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, Choose to Re-Engage. To find out more about the Destined for Victory ministry or to contact us for prayer, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. You don't get stronger, wiser, better automatically. You don't grow just because you get old. The only thing that happens with time is you get old.

It's up to you if you also grow while you're getting older. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, Junk Removal for the Soul. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.