Dealing with Disillusionment (cont'd)

Let me tell you something. You serve a God you will never completely understand. Do yourself a favor. Quit trying to figure God out. Quit trying to say, Lord, if you love me, no.

He does love you, and the rest of the sentence may make no sense to you at all. God loves you unconditionally. The challenge for you and for all of us is to learn to love Him the same way.

Hello and thanks for stopping by for this Monday edition of Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Sometimes God will allow you to go through challenges you don't understand, and when that happens, you may struggle to understand Him. Today Pastor Paul wants to encourage you. Instead of asking God, why me, learn to ask Him, what now?

That's a question rooted in faith and trust, and a question he's always willing to answer. Stay right here or visit pastorpaul.net to listen anytime on demand. That's pastorpaul.net.

You can also subscribe to our podcasts at Apple Podcasts, at Spotify, or wherever you enjoy yours. With today's Destined for Victory message dealing with disillusionment, here's Pastor Paul Shepherd. I can't tell somebody who's feeling like a slave, who's feeling like you've been thrown aside or forsaken or done wrong or betrayed or abused, and you know all the gory details of what people did wrong to you. Some of you all are spending your life rehearsing what somebody did, and the fact of the matter is there are going to be such people throughout your journey on earth. You're never going to do the will of God with everybody happy with you. Never.

There's no such thing as the, who doesn't love this person? There are some folk, and if you haven't met yours yet, they're coming. Pastor, don't put that on me. I'm not putting anything on you. I'm telling you the truth. Your enemies are coming.

They lined up off stage. You don't see them because they're off the stage of your life, but just as sure as you get to a certain place, God's going to say, you go out, and they come out there, and they're going to wreak havoc in your life, play their role, and then they're going to go off, and that's what happened with Joseph, finds himself in Potiphar's house as a slave, but because the Lord's with him, he works his way up, and he becomes the chief servant in that house, so what started like a dark and difficult time, at least it's taken enough of a positive turn where he now is in charge of many things in that home, and all is looking good until Sister Potiphar comes off the side of the stage and comes into the picture, so all seems to be going well for Joseph, relatively speaking. I mean, he's a slave, but at least God has blessed him to excel where he is.

That's a word for somebody. You might not like where you are, but if you'll let the Lord be with you in this season, he'll bless you to excel where you are, even though it's not an ideal situation, even though you're not on an ideal job, even though you don't have ideal supervisors, even though you don't have an ideal situation, if you'll let the Lord go with you to work, he'll bless you right where you are. And so Joseph was doing well, head of certain things in Potiphar's house. Sister Potiphar takes a liking to him, says, the Lord is my shepherd, I see what I want, and she goes after him, you know that story, and in order to maintain his integrity, he runs literally out of his clothing, his outer garment. And so when Potiphar comes home, she tells a lie. She accuses him of attempting to sexually assault her. Potiphar gets angry. I want you to see how when you walk with God, things will happen that God makes sure to orchestrate. See, sometimes he will let your enemies go so far, but like the waters of the sea, they go to the shore, but they can't go beyond. And that's what happened. Potiphar got mad and threw him in jail.

You say, well, what's the blessing about that? Because Potiphar could have killed him. This man is not an Egyptian. Their law would have allowed an official of pharaohs to kill this servant who was a foreigner. He could have been killed. There wouldn't have even been a trial. Instead, Potiphar got mad, threw him in jail.

That was God's doing. Bottom line, God blesses him and in jail, and he becomes the head of some things in jail. And although he's a prisoner, he's still got rank in jail.

And so you know the story. He is in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Now, he's charged with what we would call a felony.

He's charged with a sexual assault on an official's wife. Lie. So I want to talk to people who say, when will this nightmare end? And I'm going to tell you, you don't know what God is working out as to why it hasn't ended yet. Joseph had no idea. But here's what I need you to understand about Joseph. Joseph wasn't in jail for the weekend. Joseph wasn't in jail for weeks. Joseph wasn't in jail for months. Joseph was in jail for years. Years. We don't know the exact number of years that he was incarcerated, but we know it was years because when he gets out, it's only a matter of a couple of years after that that he becomes the man who his dream is fulfilled and his brothers come to Egypt looking for food. So we know that his nightmare started when he was a teenager. Seventeen, he has the dreams. When the dreams are fulfilled, it's 22 years later, and much of that time, 10 to 13 years is our best guess as theologians. Somewhere between 10 and 13 years, he's in jail for something he didn't do.

Don't tell me you live right and everything goes well. He was doing right. He was spoiled when he started out, but God said, I'm going to take care of that. I taught him in jail and taught him as a slave in another man's house. He made him grow up, made him mature, and so by the time he's 39 and the dream is being fulfilled, his brothers are bowing before him. He's a mature man. He's bilingual. He has a, you know, things are going real well, and he has two kids. He named them after what he went through.

One was Ephraim, and one was Manasseh. What I'm named is God made me forget all the trouble in my father's household, and the other one, God made me fruitful in the place where I suffered, and if you learn to walk with God, don't worry about when your nightmare's going to end because you don't know. What you need to worry about, concern yourself with, is am I going to please God while I'm waiting for this to end, and I want to let you know that God has your timetable in mind. Quit trying to, oh Lord, when am I getting out? You're getting out when you do. I'm in this furnace. I'm in this oven. I'm sick of this oven. When am I going to get out?

When the door opens and somebody pull you out. In the meantime, just go on and let God roast you real good because he's working something out, so if you all like me, you know, sometimes you don't just go through the little easy, quick thing. Sometimes God will let you go through for a long, slow bake, but he's working out something, and you got to learn that lessons aren't always learned while you're living. Sometimes your best lessons you learn when you look back and say, okay, that's why God let me go through that.

Now I see he let me go through it this way so that he would accomplish this purpose. One more example, and I'll leave you alone. The third example I want to share with you are two women named Mary and Martha. Now the first example, we talked about Job, and it's like I did nothing to deserve this. Second example, Joseph, when am I going to get out of this nightmare?

This third example of people who are disillusioned in Scripture are Mary and Martha. This is for those who are thinking, we ask God for help, yet things went from bad to worse. Keep that up.

Somebody need to write that down because that's right where they are now. Those who are thinking, I ask God for help, I pray. Some of y'all would say, I pray to him, fast it. Ask God for help. Old saints called it, turn your plate.

I turned my plate down. Yet things went from bad to worse. That's been some of our experience, and I want to let you know that even when that happens, that feels like it's disillusioning like God, I don't get it, I don't understand. He says, yeah, some things you aren't going to understand now. You got to walk by faith. Now in John 11, I won't read a lot of the story.

You know a lot of it. Let me just give you the first six verses in John 11, John's Gospel, chapter 11, verse 1. Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister, Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore, the sisters sent to him saying, Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.

Now, Mary loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. Does verse six make any sense to you? When he heard the man they just said he loved was sick, you would think, well, when he heard his boy was sick, he dropped everything he was doing and ran to Bethany to heal him. That verse, you just read it.

When he heard that Lazarus was sick, he said, I'm staying right where I am. Two more days. You're listening to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. And the second half of today's message comes your way next, so stay tuned. Listen to Destined for Victory wherever you go by downloading our free mobile app. The app allows you to select from any of Pastor Paul's recent messages, order resources from our online store. You can even take notes on the sermon right on your mobile device, and they'll be waiting for you the next time you access the app.

Search Destined for Victory at the app store and download it free today. Well, it's one of the most familiar stories in the New Testament. Jesus is asked to come heal one of his closest friends, and by the time he gets there two days later, it's too late.

Or is it? Here's Pastor Paul with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message dealing with disillusionment. Let me tell you something. You serve a God you will never completely understand. Do yourself a favor. Quit trying to figure God out. Quit trying to say, Lord, if you love me, no. He does love you, and the rest of the sentence may make no sense to you at all.

He does love you, so when he hears you're sick, he doesn't do anything. That makes no sense to us. We serve a God who is beyond our comprehension, so stop trying to figure God out. If you could figure him out, guess what? You'd be God. You can't figure God out, so there they are.

These girls have asked for help. Jesus is a day's journey away, so when the person they sent to get Jesus gets back, now two days from when they said, go find Jesus, two days later he gets back, and they say, is Jesus right behind you? No. Did you find him? Yeah. Did you tell him?

Yeah. What did he say? He said, thanks for letting me know.

Does that make sense? I'm his boy. It said Lazarus was a man he loved.

They're boys. It makes no sense that Jesus would stay where he is. That's because you and I, our ways are not his ways. Our thoughts are not his thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth, that's how much higher his ways are than ours and his thoughts than ours, so he stays where he is, and the girls are utterly disillusioned. Talk about disillusionment.

They're like, wait, what? He knew it was Lazarus and did nothing? You ever prayed like that? Now, see, no, be honest.

You ever said, wait, God, did you hear me? I'm the one talking to you. I'm your son. I'm your daughter. You saved me. You blessed me. You helped me, so why are you going to leave me hanging at this desperate time in my life?

That's where these girls are. What do you mean? He did nothing. Lazarus was dead already when the servant got back, but that Jesus wasn't there to heal him, okay. He didn't get word in time to heal him, so now he's dead, so now they got to prepare to have him go to the tomb, but they're still wondering, so why didn't Jesus at least come? He could at least be with us as we weep over the dead body of our brother and of his friend.

He's nowhere to be found. They got to plan the service all by themselves. If they were black, you know how they did it. They had all the condolences and all that, and the people read too many of them at the funeral. I tell them here, Destiny, you can't read everything you got.

Pick out a few to represent. We got to move on. He the one dead. You ain't going to kill all us reading all this stuff.

You know how we do. The earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal, all that. Finally, they go into the graveyard, and they had to go bury him. No Jesus. They got to get back to the house.

If they were black, they eating chicken and potato salad. No Jesus. Oh, but after a while, on the fourth day, Lazarus has been dead four days.

It's officially over. That's when Jesus come down the road. Somebody goes out, runs back in the house, Jesus coming down the road, and I don't know how you read it. When I read John 11, I pick up that Mary had an attitude.

I know y'all want to make her old. She was completely holy because Martha, the one ran out. Mary was sitting in the house. Martha ran out and said, if you had been here, he wouldn't have ever died. She the one that had the conversation with him about, I'm the resurrection and the life. Mary wasn't in on none of that. Mary sitting in the house, and I think, y'all think whatever you want, I think she like, I wish I would run out there. Now, he know we call for him, but he sent for her. He said, where's your sister? Go get her. Let me tell you something.

When you got an attitude with God, he doesn't have attitude with you. I'm glad about that. He said, go get her. She came out, and I'm sure when she saw the love in his eyes, it broke something in her, and then she melted and said the same thing her sister had said, if you had been here, he wouldn't have ever died. Martha said, take me to where you laid him. You know what that means? Take me where you gave up. Take me to where you said it's too late. Take me to where you are through expecting anything good in life. Take me to your sense of hopelessness. Take me there. Show me how hopeless you feel, how hurt you are, and they take him.

You know the story. He prays openly. He weeps, and they say, oh, how he loved him. He wasn't weeping because he loved him. He loved him, but that had nothing to do with him crying. He's crying over the unbelief around him. He's crying because these people don't understand who I am. They know I'm a healer, but they don't know who I am, so they think this is over because they only know me as a healer, so he said, let me show them who I am. You know what he does.

He makes them participate in a miracle they don't think can happen. He said, roll the stone away. No, we can't do that because by now, it's been four days. By now, his body is decaying. It would be a stench we don't want to handle, but somebody said, no, the master told us to roll the stone away, and they did it. When they rolled the stone away, Jesus stood there and declared, Lazarus, come forth.

You know you had to call him by name, don't you? He's at the graveyard. When the resurrection's at the graveyard, he can't just stand there talking about come forth. Every spook in the place would have come out of there. He had to specify Lazarus in grave 367, come forth.

Lazarus came out. Let me tell those of you who are thinking, I ask God for help. Instead of blessing me, he let things go worse. Even if it's getting worse, child of God, the worse is in the hands of a God who can do it, seeding abundantly above all that you can ask or even imagine. So if some of you are saying, this is the worst I've ever been through.

At this point in my life right now, it is as bad as it has ever been. So did Mary and Martha feel that way, but then they saw what Jesus did. I came to tell somebody, you serve a God who is able to do, exceeding abundantly above all that he can ask or even imagine, so you can trust him with the future of what you're going through. And if it doesn't work as you thought it would, you've got to have confidence that at the end of all of it, God's going to get the glory. Because Jesus started out saying, I'm getting glory out of this.

When the servant came to him, he said, this isn't about death. This is about the glory I'm going to get. I want to tell somebody this is about the glory God's going to get out of your life.

You know, sometimes we don't believe Jesus is all we need until Jesus is all we have. If you are going through a challenge today that seems impossible to overcome, he has you right where he wants you to be, crying out for his help so that he alone gets the glory when he brings you through that valley. Thanks for being here for this Monday edition of Destined for Victory and Pastor Paul Shepherd's message dealing with disillusionment. You can listen anytime to Pastor Paul's recent messages on demand at pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. We're almost out of time, but before we go, I want to thank you for all you're doing to help Pastor Paul share the love of Jesus through the Destined for Victory broadcast. Your prayers and gifts have helped turn this into a worldwide ministry with a growing audience. And in appreciation of your generous gift today, Pastor Paul will send you his DVD message Influencers for Christ. We live in an ever-darkening world that needs the people of God to shine his light upon it.

And as Jesus said, we, his church, are that light. In this message, Pastor Paul encourages you to make it a priority to show others the goodness of God and tell them all about his love for them and their need for him. That's Influencers for Christ, a DVD message from Pastor Paul and our gift to you by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. So call 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, California 94538.

Again, the address is Destined for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Does God always give his people a miraculous turn around? That's the question I want you to ask and answer through the course of this message. Does God always give his people a miraculous turnaround? Or to put it another way, are there times when God does not grant the miracle or the request we've made? That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Sheppard shares his message dealing with heartbreak and loss. Until then though, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory.