Respecting the Law of the Harvest (cont'd)

God is not mocked. What a man sows, that he will also reap. That's Galatians 6-7, and this is Destined for Victory. Coming your way next, Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message respecting the law of the harvest. But before he gets started, he joins me now from his studio in California. Pastor, I know your heart is encouraged by so many of our friends who are listening and letting us know that Destined for Victory is having an impact in their lives.

Tell us, remind me, why are you so committed to using media as a part of ministry? To that end. In other words, we've got to realize we who are boomers. I'm a baby boomer, born between 46 and 64. That's our generation.

Me too. And I realized that we were the last generation in American history that was typically raised in church or in some religious training. And we've got three full generations under us. And now there's an emerging fourth generation. They're still being developed. They're known as Generation I. Alpha.

My first grandchild is an alpha baby. And so I realized that with these three, four generations, we've got to preach the gospel to. They're not inclined to come to church and hear the gospel, if you will. But the vast majority of them are probably going to have to be reached where they are before we can get them into the life of a church. And to the end that we can reach them with the good news of Jesus Christ. That's what it's all about, Pastor. Reaching as many people as we can with the gospel. You know, media can often go where missionaries cannot. Into the homes of elderly shut-ins or those who have no way of getting to church.

It goes beyond prison walls and it can even travel into remote areas of the world that are often hostile to the Christian faith. Just one more reason why your gifts to Destined for Victory are so critical to the cause of Christ. If you'd like to donate to Destined for Victory today, we'd like to send you a booklet from Pastor Paul Shepherd that goes hand in hand with his message, Junk Removal for the Soul.

Inside these pages you'll discover practical biblical advice about setting aside some of the habits from your old life in order to embrace the newness of who you are in Christ. That's our gift to you this month by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. All you need to do is call us at 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. And you can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538.

Once again write to us at Destined for Victory, PO Box 1767, Fremont, CA 94538. A lot of people want to believe that they can do wrong and reap right. A lot of people want to believe that they can sow just barely enough and then reap the harvest of somebody who did more than enough.

You can't go to school and cram before every exam and graduate at the top of the class. Sometimes God will bless you for no reason at all, but more often than not there's a condition attached. Today on Destined for Victory, Pastor Paul takes us to the biblical principle of sowing and reaping. As you follow along, remember this is not something that may happen. This is not a probability.

It's a certainty. One that is true for all people, all the time, believers and unbelievers alike. Now here's Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message, Respecting the Law of the Harvest.

Same is true in our lives. Here's how Jesus put it in Luke 16, beginning at verse 10. Those kinds of remarks are based on the part of the principle that says you reap what you sow. And so here's what Jesus is saying. He's saying I can predict what's coming in your future by your current patterns. Because your current actions, your current attitude, your current decisions are sowing a harvest that you will reap. So he says if you can't be trusted and you don't have much, if you ever got your hands on more, we can know you won't be trustworthy with it. That's the principle. Jesus said it. You can't argue with him.

He said today is indicative of tomorrow. A lot of people want to believe that they can do wrong and reap right. A lot of people want to believe that they can sow just barely enough and then reap the harvest of somebody who did more than enough. You can't go to school and cram before every exam and graduate at the top of the class. Not going to happen because you didn't sow that. If you want to be an A student, you have to sow toward an A.

You have to give more time when everybody else is going to party. You say no, I got to study. It's a decision you make young people when you're in college. I choose to study because if you, I want to be a doctor. Nobody wants a doctor who crammed.

You want a cramming doctor? I'm sitting up on the table, my life seemingly in your hands and you over in the corner looking at a book. I know we talked about this at some point in this. I'm jumping down off the table, putting my britches back on and I'm walking out. Take this little pitiful little paper gown with you. Because you are not touching me. Why? Because you didn't sow. You didn't sow enough.

I'm looking for somebody who took their time and did the work and has outstanding credentials. You will reap what you sow. Don't blame your harvest on anybody but yourself. I said don't blame your harvest on anybody but yourself.

Whether we're talking about your schooling, whether we're talking about your spirituality, whether we're talking about your work, your job, anything like that. You will make yourself, your way prosperous if you sow the proper harvest. You reap what you sow.

So be faithful now. Giving, I've learned that principle about giving. I was taught to be a tither as a little boy way back to being a small boy when I got a one dollar allowance.

I was taught to be a tither. My mother would give it to us and she'd say either go to the store and make change or if she had the change she'd give you three quarters, two dimes and a nickel. And she'd say now a dime of this belongs to God. When you go to church you give it. That's God's. And that was drummed into me as a little boy so that when I went to church this is God's money.

The 90 cents is mine but the dime belongs to God. And so as I grew up when I got my first job, paper route. Some of you young folk never heard of a paper route. Back in the day we had paper routes. You were responsible for getting the daily paper to a certain number of homes in your neighborhood.

And I think back and say oh those are about the last days you could walk around especially on collection day. Because you'd then have to go to these houses and collect the money. In America it actually happened. It actually happened in America. Young people would walk around on collection day and go to these people's houses and they'd have someone would have it right by the door.

Oh yeah here it is, here it is. And they'd pay you for the paper. And we actually walked around with that money in our pockets. Before we got to all of our houses depending on what the size of your paper route was.

If I had 85 homes then I'm supposed to come back with 85 payments. And you turn it in and they give you your portion. And yeah we got jumped a couple of times. You know sometimes it was just going to happen. Friend of mine, the gang on the corner saw him come and knew he was the paper boy. And it was collection day and they said give me what you got.

And he tried to act like oh no I haven't had a chance to go get it yet. And they said no we think you got it. And he said they picked me up. And they shook me. He said all the collections came out on the ground.

But we were learning that's our job we had to do it. My second job was working at one of those little neighborhood stores. One of those little small stores you walk in just get your sodas and milk and stuff like that.

No big, just a little store. And I was the stock boy. Second job stock boy. And putting the sodas in when the truck would come and put the bread and all that. I remember my first salary on that job was 85 cents an hour.

I'm old. 85 cents an hour. And then when he saw I worked good I got raised to a dollar. By the time I left there I was making a dollar fitty.

One of them little after school jobs and then do about four hours on Saturday. But we took it. It's work. It gave you money that you could go up on the avenue and spend. Get cute shirts so by the time you hit puberty and you're trying to be cute. You hooked up.

You're hoping the little girls will look at you. But we were learning lessons. And then when I got that I had already learned to be a tiger. So if I got a check for $47 then $4.70 belong to God. My dad would say just round that up. Don't insult God by being exact. Round that up and give him $5. Give him $5. Take that to church.

Bam. I've pleased God. I work.

I'm going to store. And you learn that you can't beat God giving. And so you need to do that. If you can't be trusted with your current salary as a tither. I've heard people say well you know I can't do it right now but one of these days I'm going to be so broke off.

No. Jesus said that's not going to happen. He said because you can't be trusted now. And I haven't even given you a lot now.

You can't be trusted with what you have. So you reap what you sow. If you sow generosity you reap the harvest that generous people reap. And he said you got to look at what you're doing now. Now is indicative of later.

Now is going to be the fruit, the grown up fruit. That's what you'll see later is what you're sowing now. And so look at every area of your life. You're sowing meanness and want to have a good relationship with your spouse. You're not going to because you're not sowing into it. Be nice on purpose. Intentional niceness on purpose. Love them well on purpose. Treat them right on purpose.

When they say or do something that makes you want to react a certain way. But you have responsibility. Responsibility is nothing more than responsibility. I have the ability to not come back at you just because you said or did something I don't like. I could come for you. But it wouldn't be pretty. So I'm going to choose to love you enough to not go there. That's what you do. Now you've sown a harvest of niceness. And you keep on sowing until you see that yeah but see I've been nice for about eight months now. Keep sowing. You will reap what you sow. But don't you know people who never get right?

I sure do. But what this principle says is even if they never get right and stay wrong God saw your sowing. And God's going to bless you anyhow. I said he'll bless you anyhow. He'll give you a peace that passes understanding. He'll give you a grace to be able to ignore their ignorant behavior. He'll be actively blessing you because you honored the law.

Don't go away. We're only about halfway through today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. If you enjoy this program, we know you'll love watching some of Pastor Paul's best video clips.

Be sure to subscribe at YouTube. Just search for Pastor Paul there or for more details visit pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net where you can listen on demand to recent messages or find a variety of resources at our online store and get the links for all of Pastor Paul's social media. Have you ever wondered why you sometimes have to wait on God to deliver his promises? Well, part of the answer comes your way next in the rest of today's message, Respecting the Law of the Harvest.

Once again, here's Pastor Paul. There's no sudden success. You sow and then you have to wait. You sow and then you wait. You sow and then you wait. Nobody goes out and sows today and tomorrow morning they're looking at the ground.

No, no. You sow, then there is a period where what's going on is not going on in a place of visibility. There's something happening, but you can't see it. You reap after you sow. That's why we have to learn the old-fashioned lesson of the best things are still worth waiting on. They always are, and that's why I've told you before, old-style life just taught us that almost accidentally because we didn't expect because the law of technology wasn't in full effect back in those days, and so we knew you just have to wait on some things. You just have to wait on some things. You just had to put more effort into some things.

You just had to give it time. Old-fashioned washing wasn't today's washing. Y'all say you wash and you put it in a machine and walk away. Old-fashioned washing, it was part of sewing. You had to work.

You had to put some effort in it. Drying, y'all put it in a dryer, push a button, walk away. Old-fashioned drying was you take it out of the washer, you shake it, you get clothespins, you go outside, you already have the line up. If you were in some hoods, they had a co-op. They had a line that went across the street, and you could pull your side and your neighbor could pull, and the clothes was hanging. You go down some streets and the clothes is hanging all out there like banners, and you had to let the wind blow on them. Back in the day, we took pictures.

We didn't expect to see anything anytime soon. Take the picture, roll the thing to the next one till it stopped. Take the picture, roll it, and then you had to take the whole roll. Whether you got the shot you want or not, you had to finish out the roll, so you just shoot any old thing, just bam, bam, bam. And when you finished the roll, then you took it to a place, a store, a drugstore, a pharmacy that had a photo area, and then eventually some photo-dedicated places popped up, and you take it over there, and you would put the roll in an envelope, and you would fill out your name and address and phone number, seal the envelope, drop it off, and you waited. And they would call you and tell you it's in.

You go, pay for it, get it. Then you see, then you get to reap. And then when Polaroid came out, oh, we thought we were into something. When Polaroid came out, we thought we were into something because you took the picture, and it would slide out the front. Oh, but when you took it, you didn't see much, saw a gray cloud. That's all right, you knew your harvest was coming, and you'd speed it up by shaking.

Come on, some of you old heads. Oh, I see a hand. Some things you just have to wait on. Just wait on it. It's coming, though it tarry, wait for it.

It's coming, just wait. And I notice that this generation waits when they ought to be walking in this active sewing, and I notice that they don't wait, and they expect your result. Right now, I don't have my broke-off car, the car that I'm sewing toward right now, sewing toward a car that I want.

I used to have it, and then I went through a season. When I first hit my midlife thing, I went through a season, I thought I wanted the smaller, sportier car. So I went and got that, and I said, this ain't it.

So now I'm going back to the larger sedan that I'm sewing toward now. One day, you're going to see me drive up. I'm telling you now, when you see me, don't hate. I'm telling you right now, don't even bother hating.

Look at him thinking, oh, he throws such a much. And then you say, whatever you want, I must be smiling, because I sewed toward this. I worked toward this. I labored toward this.

I waited on it. I sacrificed. I took care of other folks' needs. I gave generosity to the kingdom, helped us get in this building.

I did everything God wanted me to do. So when I'm sewing, don't you even fool with me, and if you fool with me, I'm going to ignore you. My wife already rolling nice.

I'm waiting on mine. She been rolling nice, because you know, that's the rule of old-fashioned marriage. If there's going to be a raggedy car and a good car, the wife gets a good car back in the day. I know y'all don't practice that now.

She got a job, let her get what she want. You who have a two-income family, that's how y'all roll. We didn't do that back then. My wife has not worked outside the home since our firstborn was born by design. When we were engaged, we talked about being a one-income family so that we could have the children the Lord was going to bless us to have, and she be in their lives. And we were sewing into our kids by planning that back then. Oh, I know you can raise good kids with two-income families.

I'm not saying you can't, but our decision back in 1982 and 83 was, as we were preparing for kids, to do it that way. And it's paid great dividends, because she was there in their lives all through those formative early years. She was there in their lives to get them into kindergarten and first grade, and she's there when they came home, and she's there with the, and it was a job. I've never let anybody say my wife doesn't work. I've never in our 32 years at this point of marriage, don't you say to me, oh, so your wife don't work? Don't say that to me.

I'm liable to have a flashback. Your wife don't work. She has worked all of our marriage, because that was a priority for us. We wanted to raise kids who had old-fashioned training and old-fashioned sense, and we wanted to give them the blessing that I had growing up of a stay-at-home mom who could pour into her family. Again, you who have to work, I get it.

I see the economy. I pray for y'all, because you got two jobs. You got to work your job, then you got to come home and work your kids. And I pray for y'all, but we were blessed to do it, and didn't mean that I was making a lot of money, because when we first got married, I was an associate pastor. My dad practiced reverse discrimination, because I was his son and his associate pastor, and he wanted to make sure the church didn't think I was going to get preferential treatment, so he treated me worse than he'd have treated any other associate pastor who didn't have his name, and I was working 12-hour days regularly, and he would tell the trustees, they said, we want to get him raised. No, no, he don't need no raise.

He's all right. And I got this little old wife, but I was sowing, sowing faithfully, sowing into somebody else's property, so that one day when I had a church of my own, I could expect God to bless, because I had sown into somebody else's vision, and my kids were blessed, because they had their mother, and so we've been one income family, but whenever you've seen one nice car and one raggedy car in our family, and there have been several seasons when that's been the case, she was always the one rolling nice, and you see her in her little benzo, y'all leave her alone, because she has sown, and she has stood by her husband, and she has helped raise up this church, and she's sowing into your lives, so when you see her blessed, leave her alone, because she's earned it all, and that's what we have to learn to do. We have to learn to sow.

Sow. You're going to get to harvest, but just keep sowing. Just keep sowing, and finally you reap more than you sow.

That's the good thing about it. God will give you a bumper crop. You sow, you did good sowing, but you didn't expect all this.

That's where some of y'all are. You're going to be surprised by how much God's going to give you a return on your investment of faithfulness, a return on your investment of prayer, a return on your investment of staying in that marriage when you could have walked away. He's going to give you a bumper crop, a return on your decision to do it God's way rather than your way, and you'll experience a bumper crop some 30, some 60, some 100-fold. God will bless you in tremendous ways. Thanks so much for joining us for today's message, Respecting the Law of the Harvest. To find out more about the Destined for Victory ministry, this month's special thank you gift, or to contact us for prayer, be sure to stop by our website, pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. If you want to find the ancient path and the good way where money's concerned, if you want God to bless you, you start by honoring God with your possessions, with your finances, and with the first fruits of all your crops. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, What to Do with Your Money. Until then, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.