We Are Royalty (cont'd)

When it doesn't work out the way you thought it would work out, that just means that wasn't God's way.

That's all it means. Don't get desperate, don't get frustrated, certainly don't get mad at God. He didn't give you the plan, you had the plan. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not calamity, to give you a future and a hope. Hello and welcome to this Thursday edition of Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship, located in Fremont, California. If you've ever made plans and watched them fail, you know just what Pastor Paul is talking about. They were your plans, not God's.

Good ideas perhaps, but not God ideas. Today you'll be encouraged to tap into the plans God has for you, to walk by faith into the destiny to which He has called you. Stay with us now or stop by PastorPaul.net any time to hear today's message or any recent Destined for Victory message on demand. That's PastorPaul.net.

You can also subscribe to or download the podcast at Google Podcasts or wherever you get your programs. Now, let's join Pastor Paul as he shares today's Destined for Victory message, We Are Royalty. Joseph had to do some serious time in jail for a crime he never even committed. But what he had to learn is to practice the presence of God. When you read Joseph's story in Genesis, you find it saying on a couple of key occasions, but the Lord was with Joseph. He was charged as a felon. He didn't do it, but his record said he's a felon.

He tried to rape Potiphar's wife, which he never did. But God said, don't worry about any of that. And Joseph, don't worry about this time you're doing, and don't even worry when the timeline gets delayed.

Because if you recall, the timeline got delayed. In his mind, he thought, by now I should be out of here. You know the story. When he ministered to the king's butler, his aide, his attendant, when that man was coming out, Joseph said, do me a favor and remember me to Pharaoh and let Pharaoh know that I'm really not guilty.

Tell him the kind of integrity and character I have and get me out of here. I'm sure Joseph believed with all his heart. He was on his way out of jail. Soon as this guy gets up there to the throne room, gets his job back, he's going to tell Pharaoh, oh, listen, there's a wonderful man, and tell him the story, how he interpreted the dream, and all's going to work out. But sometimes your plan and God's plan are two different things.

Oh, I came to tell you, don't worry about your plan. When yours falls apart, that just means it wasn't God's. That's all it means.

Somebody needs to take that with you. When it doesn't work out the way you thought it would work out, that just means that wasn't God's way. That's all it means. Don't get desperate. Don't get frustrated. Certainly don't get mad at God. He didn't give you the plan.

You had the plan. Sometimes we give God our deadlines and get mad when He doesn't meet them. Okay, not you, but somebody on your row.

Look on your row and see who it is. Somebody gave God a deadline. You see it on their face.

They got an attitude. Came to church with an attitude because God didn't live up to their timeline. Oh, but God does things in His own way. His ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts.

And so you got to learn to walk by faith. He thought that guy was going to go right up there. I'm sure Joseph could have very well been down this. All right, y'all telling all the other prisoners that he was in charge of trying to keep them encouraged. All right, man, I'll get ready to leave because you know, he about to tell Pharaoh about me. And so somebody going to come. Don't y'all be surprised when they come and call me out because I'm getting ready to go. So I want y'all to be strong.

He walk around all the prisons. Hi, man. Come on. Be strong.

You know, he encouraged it for everything. All right, man, you do this time. Don't let this time do you.

He tried to encourage folk, build them up. Nobody comes that day. All right, tomorrow. Nobody comes tomorrow. Nobody comes in a week.

Nobody comes in a month by month. I bet Joseph's like, I don't believe that. No, he did not go up there. Now I interpreted his dream for him and he don't even have the decency. It wasn't about decency. It wasn't God's will.

God had a Royal plan for Joseph and that cupbearer wasn't responsible for bringing it to pass and the people you're leaning on are not responsible for getting you to where God wants you to be. And so he had to wait for two more years in jail. Imagine that he's already done a lot of time and now he's got two more years to do because he's thinking, I don't understand how that guy could have forgotten me. He forgot you because God only wanted him to remember when the time was right and the time was going to be right when pharaoh himself had a dream and was troubled and said, I don't know what this means. He got to call all the spooky folk in his kingdom.

All the sorcerers and stuff called him in. Y'all tell me what this dream means and they didn't have a word and that's when the cupbearer said, Oh, y'all got to stop getting mad at the people in your life. If they're supposed to help you, God knows when they're supposed to help you. He said, Oh King, I'm so sorry. I meant to tell you two years ago.

You know why two years ago wouldn't have mattered? Because the dream hadn't come to the pharaoh. So if the pharaoh hears, Oh, there's a man down there that can interpret and dream and he's good and he's godly and all that, that pharaoh would've said, nice. He's not letting him out. Why would I let him out of jail? But two years later when I'm desperate, when I need a word, cupbearer remembers, tells him about Joseph and gets Joseph out of jail. I came to tell you your timeline is in the hand of your God. He knows what he started in your life. He knows where he's taken you and you got to walk by faith and not by sight and stop getting mad at all the people around you. It's not their job to elevate your life. God is the one who will exalt you in good time.

Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and do season. When the time is right, he will exalt you. I came to tell you that you need to understand your royalty first. Then you learn how to be royalty, which takes you to the next descriptive word in the text. Not only am I royalty, but I am holy. We're part of a holy nation. Now, the reason why you needed to understand the concept of royalty is so that you can plug it in and make sense of this holy thing because instantly, because the way we think, we think holy, we think behavior, holy behavior, holy behavior, but you got to understand it's just like royalty. You're called to be holy before you ever start learning how to live right. I am holy by calling. God calls you a thing, then he teaches you how to be what he called you.

That's the way God operates. Remember back in Gideon's day, the angel shows up and says, hell mighty warrior, and Gideon's like, who are you talking to? Mighty warrior by behavior. Gideon is not a warrior. He's a wimp.

By behavior, he's a wimp. He's scared. The enemy had been beating him up for years, stealing their produce. In fact, when the angel comes, he's in a wine press threshing wheat. That's not where you thresh, in a wine press.

You're supposed to thresh out in the open air where the wind can help divide the wheat from the chaff. No, he's in a wine press scared of the enemy. So he got his little wheat and looking around.

Why? Because he doesn't know his calling yet. So he's acting like what he's always acted like. And the angel shows up, said, let me tell this boy who he is.

Said, you're a mighty warrior. And you know the story. When it came to Gideon, it took a long time to prove to him that it was God. He putting out fleeces. All right, I want you, if it's really you, I'm going to take this fleece here and I want you to make it wet around the fleece but the fleece dry.

Then I want to have the, the fleece wet and everything else is dry. He trying to make God prove this is him. God was so merciful.

He did it. Some of y'all are living on mercy right now. You could have been X'd out. God would have said, Oh, nevermind. Forget you. But God doesn't change his mind about us. Anybody happy when God calls you it, he doesn't change his mind about, he said, well, I was going to use you, but you so disgusting. No, I love God.

His love is an everlasting love. He suffers long with those he loves and I want you to know you are holy first by calling. Then what you have to do is learn how to live out that calling. I am holy by calling. I am righteous by calling.

I am appropriate by calling. I am above the practice of dishonoring God by calling. Now I got to learn like a Royal to live up to my calling. Do you see the connection?

Just like a Royal has to learn how to behave Royal. You are called to be holy. Now you got to learn how to live holy. Stay with us. The second half of pastor Paul Shepard's message is coming right up. We want to thank all of you who support Destined for Victory with your prayers and financial support gifts that help pastor Paul share the joy of the gospel message with a growing audience.

Destined for Victory is supported entirely by friends like you. So please prayerfully consider making a generous gift to Destined for Victory today. You can give online safely and securely from our website pastorpaul.net or give us a call at 855-339-5500.

Again that number is 855-339-5500. When you accept Christ, he takes up residence in you by the power of the Holy Spirit. But what does that look like? Find out next in the rest of today's message.

We are royalty. Once again here's pastor Paul. I got a reason to live holy because I serve a God who has taken up residence in me by his Holy Spirit. And the Spirit came in to purify me and make me who God wants me to be. You know you're saved because you can't do what you used to do without it pricking your conscience.

Come on somebody. You know you're saved not because you instantly clean up your act in every way. We need to get rid of that. I know we have songs of inspiration in our background and people will sing those little giddy up songs. In some of these churches I looked at my hands and my hands looked new. I looked at my feet and my feet did too.

Alright nice little cute song but it's wrong. When you get saved the proof isn't that your hands look new and your feet do too. If you got calluses you still got them after you get saved. You got corns and bunions on your feet you still got them after you're saved. Salvation didn't change your limbs. Salvation changed your life.

Went to your heart. He established his residency in you by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes into us and establishes the relationship Paul said to the Romans whereby we cry Abba father daddy. He makes God your daddy and my daddy is holy so I gotta learn how to act like my daddy. I gotta learn how to be a partaker of my daddy's nature.

I gotta learn to put another analogy how to be a royal. Megan is not now just Megan. In fact over here she come over here you know we still gonna call her Megan cause you know we don't have the etiquette we supposed to have over here. You know we do. Yo Megan. You know her girls from from L.A. but that's not appropriate anymore. We ought to give her honor even based on what she is over in her country.

Whether we do it or not we supposed to. And her title is Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex. Isn't that something? That's not just Megan from round the way. Oh Megan who would grow up over there on 73rd?

Oh yeah I know Reagan. No no that's who she used to be. She now has a new identity. She is Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex. If I run into her I'm gonna say you're you know who you are.

Cause if I'm not reading it I won't remember it. But that's who she is. She's not a home girl anymore.

She's now living out royalty. You've gotta learn to do that with your holiness. God calls you to be holy. He's not gonna leave you disgusting and he's not gonna leave you acting any old kind of way.

Doing any old kind of thing. Speaking any old kind of way. You are now called up to holiness. And where he calls you he gives you the grace and the power to fulfill the calling. So you and I have to learn to discipline ourselves by the help of the Holy Spirit.

And let him cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in us and make us who we already are. And that's where you need to know that you are holy by calling so you gotta live it out. That's what's behind the concept of being sanctified. A lot of holiness folk we talk about being saved and sanctified. What we mean is that we've learned that God through his Spirit will help you clean up your life. And all of us need the Lord to help us clean up our lives cause there can be filthiness of the flesh and of the Spirit. You can have not only wrong practices you can have a wrong spirit, a wrong attitude. You ever seen a church person with a funky spirit?

It's not good. Call their self godly and they're nothing but mean. Meanness and godliness don't go together. And you're supposed to learn how to smile with your holiness. With your sanctification. Praise the Lord. You're supposed to learn how to put up with things you don't like if you're truly sanctified.

Some folk are so sanctified they're disgusted. Don't come nip me with that. Don't you smoke that weed around me. Why?

You don't want to contact? I'm just trying to help you to sift through your own where you really are. You don't have to prove your holiness by what you don't do around me. Now this qualifies if you're in my house.

I got standards in my house. If you want to smoke that, do me a favor. Go on outside, sit on the porch, whatever. We'll walk down the street, whatever, so that that's not in here.

That makes sense. But not just cause you in my midst. No, no. I don't want that around me. I've been a pastor all these decades. I've had folk, people heard me preach, I love sobriety. I believe sobriety is right. I never got into alcohol when I tried it as a youngster. I didn't like it. So that's not a thing for me. And plus I grew up in a holiness tradition where we were taught that you couldn't be saved and drink anyway. That was over.

That was extreme. Cause I grew up and learn that some of the saints drink wine and what have you, they drink in moderation and I learned that I figured that out. And so when I became a pastor, I would teach them, I believe you ought to live in sobriety, but as long as you steer clear of drunkenness, it's between you and the Lord, whether you drink socially or in moderation or not, that's between you and Jesus.

I don't want any, but knock yourself out if that's what you want to do. So if I'm at dinner with you and you order wine or champagne, I'm not going to do like I did when I was a young person. I said, I thought these people were saved. They say, and they sit up here drinking champagne and wine and stuff. I learned it.

I figured it out. But as a pastor, because some folk just don't understand, it's not about what I see is about what's in your heart. And over the years I'd visit somebody's house and they'd see me coming up there, their walkway and somebody looked at the window, pastor's coming, put it, put it up, put it up. Pastor King, come on, he's on the walkway and you hear bottles clinking and I want to tell them so bad. Y'all can keep it out.

I don't want any, but what you got to figure out, it's not about people. It's about you and the Lord. Sanctified means I'm set apart.

Holy means I'm sacred, set apart the sacred uses. That's the core of sanctification. I've told you over the years, if you want to understand sanctification, those of us who grew up with moms that had China, some of us old heads, we grew up and our mothers had China and some of them had a China cabinet. Come on, some of y'all who grew up with a China cabinet in your house, a China cabinet and that's where the China was and China looked like a plate, but that's not a plate. Come on, for the children don't even look in there. Ain't nothing in there for you. You don't come home from school when I grew up and go in your mother's China cabinet talking about you want a bologna sandwich. You don't go get a piece of China and go make a bologna sandwich and put it on there and eat.

Your mother would have said, have you lost your mind? Why? Because China is cleansed and set apart for a specific purpose. That's what sanctified and holy means.

I'm clean and I'm set apart for God's purpose. I'm not set apart where the kids run and grab a plate or something like that. Drink Kool-Aid out to China.

No, you don't do that. You get that regular little plastic cup. Come on, some of y'all. Some of them were yellow. Some of them were orange.

Oh, I need some help up in here. That's what you drank your Kool-Aid out of. We grew up with Kool-Aid. I know y'all got all kinds of stuff. We grew up.

What kind of you want read? That's not even a flavor, but that's how we identified it. My point, I got to let you go. My point is that God has made us his people. He chose us.

He made us royalty. He's called us to be holy and that's why it ends by saying you're a peculiar. King James said you're a peculiar and I'm so glad that I learned that peculiar doesn't mean weird because I've been around church folk long enough know that some of them are peculiar in the positive sense which simply means special, unique. That's what peculiar means, unique. So if you have a translation that says you're God's special people or God's unique people, that's just capturing the better sense of the Greek word because peculiar, the problem with peculiar was that it's special but not necessarily in a positive way in our minds. You ever met folk that peculiar, oh, he's so peculiar and you're not paying them a compliment when you say it? Peculiar as in weird. You ever met the kind of peculiar people you kind of step back from? You're just kind of, I'm not sure.

I won't be too close to them and we still have some today. I need you to know God is making you peculiar but in his own special way and what is the end plan so that we will show forth his praises as we live our life. You are supposed to be a trophy of God's grace and just keep walking with him. He's going to make you a showpiece of his grace. He's going to make you a showpiece of his love. He's going to make sure everybody who knows you will have to see God is at work in your life to will and to do of his good pleasure. Not all of them will like you. Some will resent how you live but don't worry about it.

Love them anyhow. Show forth the love and the praises of God because he is going to glorify himself through your life. Hallelujah.

Thanks so much for being here for today's Destined for Victory message, We Are Royalty. Look for any of Pastor Paul's recent messages on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. And when you stop by, feel free to share your prayer request by using the contact feature at the top of the home page. When you do, ask us to begin sending you Pastor Paul's monthly letter of encouragement, yours at no cost or obligation.

And again, the web address is pastorpaul.net. Well, we have a great resource to share with you today, a DVD message from Pastor Paul called Get Your Hopes Up. You know, the word hope in English often conveys doubt.

I hope my team wins or I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow. But biblical hope has its foundation in God in whom there is never any doubt. Learn more about biblical hope in this DVD from Pastor Paul. That's Get Your Hopes Up, our gift to you this month by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. Please call us at 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.

Again, Destined for Victory Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Of all the goals we can set as individuals, the most important goal is what Paul states here, which is to know Christ in a very intimate way. Why is that the most important goal you can ever have? Because of what Jesus said in Matthew 16, verse 26. He said, what profit is it to a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul? That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, Three Keys to Reaching Your God Given Goals. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.