Unrecognizable, Part 4 (cont'd)

. you in the past, Pastor Paul wants to encourage you. You will never become all you can be in Christ until you forget what lies behind and forgive those who have done you wrong. We see this character trait in many of the great heroes of the faith, including Joseph, whose story continues today. So stay with us here or visit pastorpaul.net to listen to Destined for Victory on Demand.

You can also download the podcast at Google Podcasts or wherever you enjoy yours. Here's Pastor Paul with today's Destined for Victory message, Unrecognizable. God is not after your enemies. God is after executing his will. In the course of executing his will, some enemies fall, others repent and stand. Some enemies stay wrong, others get right.

The day his brothers showed up, they bowed not recognizing him, but he recognized them, which meant he had to have been removed from all the bitterness and the pain and the stuff of the past so that he could serve God's purpose in their lives. And later on, he tells them, I think it's chapter 45, he tells them, listen, don't do yourselves harm. Don't sweat the fact that now that you know who I am, you're thinking you're in trouble because I got all this power.

You're in my country now. I can do to you whatever I want. He said, don't sweat it. God sent me here, not you. God wants to get you to a place where you are so forgetful until the thing that's prominent in your mind is why God let them do what they did.

Because he was setting you up to now do what you'll be doing. And that includes blessing people. So, you got to get past some stuff.

They're just layovers. Think all your enemies. Think all your bad circumstances. Think of all the layoffs. Think of all the injustices.

Think of all the things. I know how I get laid off and I work better than the ones that they kept in there. Let it go. If they kept the wrong folk, let it go.

If they kept the wrong folk, they gonna suffer for that. God's gonna bless you wherever he's taking you because God is with you. It's not about them.

It's about what he's doing in you. Pastor Jenkins and his wife pulled up at a store and ran into a man that sister Jenkins used to date when she was single. And she spoke and what have you, came out the store, got back in the car. Pastor Jenkins said to her, now ain't you glad you married me? Look how you're living. Look how you're blessed being married to me. Look where you live. Look what you drive. Look at the circumstances. Look at all that.

And look at that poor, that pitiful man. Aren't you glad you married me? She said, honey, if he had married me, he'd now be the pastor of First Baptist Church. She said, you got that wrong. If he had had the sense to hook up with me, he'd now be where you are. She was trying to say it's about me.

I would have been a blessing to whoever hooked up with me. That's an ongoing dispute. They haven't settled it yet. My point is the Lord is with you. Quit sweating the circumstances and the injustices and the layoffs and the wrongs and all of that. Quit sweating.

No, that's non-issue. Lay over cities. You're on a new flight now, heading to a God-ordained destination. You can afford to forget some things and some people and some situations. He became forgetful. And then finally, he became fruitful. Look at verse 52 of Genesis 41. It says, the second son he named Ephraim and said, it's because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering. I want to let somebody know that God wants to make you unrecognizable by getting you focused, making you forgetful, and ultimately then that prepares you to be fruitful. When you arrive at the place where God has preordained, you should be equipped to become fruitful. Now, how was Joseph fruitful?

Two ways. First of all, by having these two sons. He didn't just get married and have a couple of kids. He got married and had kids according to God's purpose.

Let me tell you something. I want you as a kingdom citizen to not assume that God doesn't have a specific purpose for every detail of your life. You who are married in the kingdom don't assume God doesn't have a purpose that involves you having or not having children.

You're a kingdom citizen. Pray about everything. Pray about it because you serve a purposeful God. Who knows, but that God may have closed up your womb for one season to open it up later or closed it in one way so that you can adopt some God-ordained kid over here. Who knows what God is up to?

You don't know, so you got to pray about everything. This dude didn't just get married and have a couple of kids. He had two sons who were destined to be part of the 12 tribes of Israel. You do understand that Jacob had 11 sons, but after this season when Jacob got to Egypt because his sons said, Joseph's alive. He's a big shot in Egypt.

They're the only place that got food. He's not mad at us. He didn't kill us as you can see. He want us all to move to Egypt and the Pharaoh said that they're going to take care of us the rest of our lives. So God has moved supernaturally, and when Jacob, his father, gets there as he's getting ready to die, he says, you know what? Instead of the normal process, which would be all of his sons are part of his destiny moving forward and the inheritance and the legacy moving forward, he said, Joseph, I'm going to swap you for your two boys. It was God's purpose. So instead of 11 sons of Israel, there are 12.

Why? Because he swapped Joseph who was his son. He said, instead of you, I'm going to adopt your two kids. That's an honorable thing for a father to do in his culture. I'm going to bless you by making your sons prominent.

I'm going to skip a generation in just in you. His other sons were, the other 10 sons are there, but now instead of 11 with Joseph, he says, son, I'm going to honor you and your faithfulness by adopting your two boys. And they, for purposes of my legacy, will now become my sons as it were. And so we now had the setup for what later became the 12 tribes of Israel.

These were sons of destiny. God has a purpose for everything that happens in your life. Pray about everything. Don't just take the job, pray about the job. Somebody came to me last week, couple weeks ago, said, pastor, I've got an opportunity and I'm not sure what to do. I said, let's pray about it.

I'll be praying about it with you this week. You come back next week, tell me what the Lord said. Last week she came and said, here's what I believe. I took that job. Here's what I believe. I said, I'm in agreement with that. Pray.

Don't just say, well, the money looked good. Pray. Sometimes something look good and God say, nope, not yours. Coming up next, the rest of today's message, unrecognizable with pastor Paul Shepherd, who is senior pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. If you've never stopped by our website, pastorpaul.net, I invite you to do so today. You'll find all of pastor Paul's recent messages on demand, plus a host of great resources at our online store, including books and DVD messages from pastor Paul.

You can also learn more about the ministry and about all the great things friends like you are doing through your prayers and financial support. That's pastorpaul.net. And if you love what you're hearing on Destin for Victory, we know you'll enjoy watching videos from pastor Paul.

Subscribe to YouTube for his best video clips. For more details and links to all of pastor Paul's social media, be sure to visit pastorpaul.net. Well, Joseph never forgot God's promise or his purpose, but he did forget about the past wounds he suffered at the hands of others. And that made all the difference. Here's pastor Paul once again with the rest of today's message.

Unrecognizable. Joseph didn't know where he was going to end up. He just knew I had a dream from God when I was 17. And next thing you know, he is in charge in a country he's not even a citizen of and his brothers are coming bowing to him and he moves his whole family from Canaan to Egypt. And a heathen Pharaoh gives him permission to provide for them.

Take care of your elderly daddy. He didn't know. Pharaoh had no idea who Jehovah was. He had no idea what God was going to do.

He had no idea of the Messiah that was going to come into the world through this family. And I'm telling you eyes have not seen and ears haven't heard. And it hasn't entered your heart what God has prepared for you in some areas of your life.

Quit trying to figure everything out. And just realize that God wants to make you fruitful. And here's what I love about it. He said God made me fruitful right where I suffered. See, a lot of us want to be fruitful somewhere new. God says I don't get as much glory out of removing you from all the trouble and all the people. He said I'm trying to get me some glory.

God said the way I can get the most glory is to keep you right there. I'm sick of the bad. I'm sick of the hard cost of living.

I'm sick of all that. I'm going to Colorado where the air is thin and clear and crisp and where the people are nice. You haven't been to Colorado.

There's demons in Colorado. What's the matter with you? I'm getting out of here. I'm going somewhere. There is no ideal place. The ideal place for you is in the center of God's will. And it's ideal not because of circumstances.

It's ideal because though I'm there, the Lord is preparing a place for me, a table for me, and he'll do it in the presence of the economy, in the presence of the layoffs, in the presence of the folk working against you, in the presence of your crazy family, in the presence. If the Lord blesses you to leave, leave. He's got a plan for you somewhere else. But don't look for greener pastures. God could very well be making you fruitful right where you suffered, right where they said you'll never be anything, right where the economy said this is not the place to be.

This is the least most desirable place. Don't listen to all that. Listen to the Lord. Sometimes God will send his people to a troubled situation on purpose.

Preach a friend of mine said, for a season the Lord had me going to all these raggedy churches, dead as they knew how to be, all of them calling me to preach, coming in and do a few days and preach. He said, I was sick of them. I'm in there. They dead, half sleep, don't care. And he said, I'm in there wearing myself out. And he said, one day I protested and said to God, why do I keep going to these dead churches? He said, because if it wasn't dead I wouldn't have had any need for you to be there. I sent you to that dead place so you could plant seeds of life.

Who knows but that God sent you to your neighborhood, crazy as them folk are. You got to pray for you, Lee. Don't just up and leave. You got to pray. God might have you there on purpose. Minister to some family, minister to some kids.

Get somebody say, do you know God will sometimes inconvenience your life to get one family straight because he has a purpose for them but somebody's got to be faithful enough to be fruitful so that he can use them there. And Joseph said, look at this. I'm having kids where I suffered. I'm now helping a whole country where I suffered and I'm now preserving a posterity in the earth. I'm preserving my daddy's family right where I suffered. I'm preserving the people who tried to destroy me right where they sent me to suffer.

Fruitfulness isn't always fun but it does accomplish the will of God and the good thing about it is when God does the right work in your heart you're not even tripping anymore because you know how his brothers felt when he finally revealed himself. You know how you read the story when you get a chance, how he did a number of things that look shystey on the surface. He wasn't trying to be shystey. He was trying to get his daddy to Egypt because he's starting to connect the dots and he's starting to realize, you know what? I'm here on purpose. I'm here to be fruitful and so it looks like he's toying with them for a while but all he's trying to do is make sure that his family gets there and the day comes when he reveals himself and says, I'm Joseph. He's not so forgetful that he has amnesia because look at what he says, I'm Joseph, the one you sold. Remember me?

Remember my coach all tore up, dipped in blood, went home telling daddy that a wild animal get, y'all remember that? But there's no bitterness. You know that because of what he goes on to say. He says, now, don't sweat it. Don't trouble yourself. I know y'all like, oh, we in trouble. Oh, this is so not gonna go well.

I know they about ready to snitch on one. It was him. He was the first one. Joseph said, don't stand here and try to figure out, oh, it's all good. You didn't send me here. God did. He sent me here to be fruitful, to preserve for my daddy a posterity in the earth. He sent, you all did me wrong so God could do right by you. So you gotta have, you gotta let God put you in a place where if he wants you to be a blessing to anybody, you can bless him because it's really not about you.

It's about him. You know why we've got to be in a position to live that way? Because the only reason you're saved is because God did that for you. God could have sent you to hell. Do not pass go.

Do not collect $200. By the time you were two years old, you had been enough for, done enough for eternal damnation. Come on now. You were born in sin shaping iniquity, stealing cookies when you was young enough. Didn't even know how to lie. You eat the cookie, no, I didn't even know we had cookies. Crumbs right on your face.

Lying, cheating, stealing, young, selfish, self-centered. No, mine, stop, get off. Two years old, sinner. I was on the plane last night with a two-year-old sinner.

I sat there and thought, oh, if he was mine for five minutes. Put that boy in his seat next to me for five minutes. Promise you I'll take him back to your road different than he was ever, because we grew up in the days of where a look did more than actions.

Some of y'all testified right now, flashing back that him only a look. You didn't have to sit with your parents back in the day. They let you be on the other side of the church, because if they heard y'all, they looked over there. That look meant, don't make me get up.

If I have to get up, you won't want to be there when I get there. We grew up in those days, community policing in the church. Anybody could get you. No fear of being taken to court.

Come on, some of y'all. Testify with me, no fear. You aren't going to be taken to court. Your mom wasn't going to get mad that Sister Claxton had to get you. Sister Claxton would grab you by one arm. They weren't even polite. Just grab you by anything they could grab and drag you out of church. And there you go, and your friend's laughing. Because you're about to get wore out. Come back in.

You know you crying hard when you be hiccuping. My point is, you did enough a long time ago to deserve eternal damnation. Why aren't you going to hell? Why are you going to heaven? Why do you have grace? Why do you have joy?

Why do you have peace? Why do you have the blessings of God? Because he looked beyond your fault, and he saw your need. He looked beyond the fact that you didn't care about him.

He cared about you. So it's no big thing when I now am called to be so fruitful that sometimes he makes me care about folk who care nothing about me. All I'm doing is giving God a little bit of a return on his big investment of love and grace in my life.

God's gonna make you unrecognizable, make you focused, make you forgetful, make you fruitful. You know, one of the things God tells us over and over in Scripture is that we should forgive those who have wronged us. That's what he has done for us, and we should do the same for others. It may sometimes seem impossible, but we have the power of the Holy Spirit to help. As Philippians 2 13 says, it is God who works in us to will and to act according to his good pleasure. For your generous gift to Destin for Victory today, Pastor Paul would like to send you his booklet, Turning Your Test Into a Testimony.

God wants to use your challenges, even your mistakes, to draw you closer to him and to equip you to help others who have trials and tough times of their own. That's Turning Your Test Into a Testimony, a booklet from Pastor Paul and our gift to you by request for your generous donation 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, California 94538.

Again, that address is Destin for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. In Psalm 107, King David writes, Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. So if you need prayer today, the Destin for Victory ministry team would like to join you in prayer. From the homepage at pastorpaul.net, use the contact us feature and let us know how we can pray for you. And while you're there, be sure to ask for Pastor Paul's monthly letter of encouragement, yours at no cost or obligation. The pain you've carried, you've carried the weight of what others have done that was ill-advised, but that's not the end of the story. You serve a God who doesn't have to meet you in a good place to take you to the best place. That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, How Do You Spell Testimony? Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory.