You're in Training, Part 3

You and I are apprentices. God has you as a son, learning directly from him how to live your life because he's got bigger, better plans, things he wants to turn over to you. There's a whole domain that he wants you to operate in, in the rest of your life. Hello and welcome to this Monday edition of Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California.

Whether you're listening on radio, online, or on our free Destined for Victory mobile app, thanks for spending part of your day with us. Well, last week, Pastor Paul compared our training as Christians to the training we received as high school or college students. We have lessons to learn, books to study, tests to pass.

And until we demonstrate a proficiency in those academic areas, we can't move on to the next level. If you missed any of those messages, you'll find them online on demand at pastorpaul.net. Today, Pastor Paul shares another picture of what it looks like to be in training, one of which we trade in our notebooks and pencils for a pair of good old fashioned work boots.

Let's join him now for today's message, You're In Training. Alright, grab your Bible, Hebrews chapter 12, we're looking at verses 7 through 11. The writer to the Hebrews says this, some say it's Paul, I happen to believe otherwise, but it doesn't matter. We know that this writer was inspired of God and says this, endure hardness as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it.

How much more should we submit to the father of our spirits and live? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.

Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. On the last message, we began to understand that discipline has to do with much more than punishment. Sometimes it involves punishment where there's been misbehavior, but I gave you a definition that I want to review now because it's important that we understand what the writer to the Hebrews is saying here, that when you are going through tough times, God says I want to use it in your training program and he says you have to endure it because God is bringing into your life discipline, chastening as a son.

So let's review the definition I gave you last time of discipline. It means to train. It means to instruct. It means to equip. It means to mold and it means to cause to learn. That's what God is up to in your life and mind when you are going through tough times. God says I want to use it as part of your training regimen because I'm making you a full grown son who is able to enter into the kingdom enterprise and to do so with authority and power in your life.

And so you've got to learn to endure the hardness that is coming your way because God is treating you as a son. Now I said that there are three paradigms that provide insight into what is meant here in verses 7 through 11 of Hebrews 12. The first insight I covered in the last message which is school, the school paradigm. I talked about old fashioned school versus this modern stuff we got going on now. In old fashioned schooling, you didn't just go to school to learn academic things. You went to school where they were going to reinforce what hopefully you were getting at home which is how to grow up and be a decent human being. Some of us remember the days where school expected you to act like you had since. Schools weren't places that looked like a zoo. They just weren't going to tolerate it. They weren't going to have it. You got kicked out before you could go in there acting up.

Some of y'all know it's true. I remember the days when you could expect it. If you come in here acting crazy, you're going to get suspended a couple of times and then you may get expelled which means you can't ever come back. And that was a day when they understood that everything in society was supposed to help reinforce what you were learning at home which was it is our job as adults to teach you how to grow up and be somebody decent. And we got to get back to it. The schools are shot. They're done. But we still got to find ways to do it.

Our churches, our communities, we still got to find ways to reinforce truth and help families raise decent human beings. So you got to do it. You modern parents, you got to do it. Get you some help. Get you some support.

Find yourself a village who will help you raise your kids. Find some people who can support and reinforce, who can tell you to tell your boys put your pants up over your butt. They got no business down there below your butt. The pants have a seat built into them.

The reason there's a seat built into them is because you're supposed to put your butt in that seat. Trying to help you now. We're going to turn the world over to a generation. What you think? I mean, come on. You expect that one day we're going to have a president sagging? Pants all down around his ankles? Nobody playing the president's theme song while he comes sagging himself. No, no, no.

Decent human beings got to reinforce it. Don't you let something walk up in there and take your daughter out looking crazy. Tell her he got to come by me. Tell him has he ever read the Gospel of John? I am the door by me if any man enter in. That's what you got to do. Teach your sons to be gentlemen.

So when they go knock on somebody else's door, you don't have to be ashamed. And school used to reinforce that. That's shot now.

Gone now. Schools look like zoos. And parents, a lot of modern day parents support their kids over their educators. I will never forget when I was the associate pastor of my home church in Philadelphia, we had a Christian academy at the church.

And Lord, it blesses with a beautiful building, we had a full blown Christian academy as part of our church. And we had an early morning program so when parents had to go to work early, it wasn't time for the school. We just had an early morning program and you could drop your kids off an hour or two before school started. I'll never forget one morning when I got to the office, they were talking about this parent who had just shown his entire behind early. And I said, well, what happened? And the teacher said, well, pastor, we locked the door for the morning program so nobody could just walk up in the building because I wasn't there yet, staff wasn't there yet.

So it was just a couple of teachers who were assigned to do the early program. So the door was locked and the kids had to come and ring a doorbell. It had a rather loud buzzer that went all the way down the hall so you could hear it. And so this one kid got dropped off, his father was sitting, they sat at the curb in the car and just sitting there waiting to see the child go in. And the child, they said, got to the doorbell and said, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

So the teacher came to the door, opened it, blocked it, and scolded the child for behaving like that. Said, you could hear it from outside. You know that's a loud bell. You know I hear it no matter where I am on the first floor. All you have to do is touch it one time for about one second and I know that somebody's at this door. How dare you act like that? Just scolding the child before she let the child in.

The father jumped out of his car sitting on the curb. They said he ran up the wall and said, what are you talking to my child about? And the teacher said, I explained to him that I'm scolding your child for ringing the bell excessively.

Did you notice what they were doing? I don't care what my child, don't you dare fuss at my child. And when I got into the office and heard that, I said, give me his number. And we called him and said, if you want your child in this school tomorrow, you will apologize to that teacher because what you reinforced was everything we don't stand for. And this is a private school, Jack. Your taxpayer don't pay this.

Your tuition pay this and it's non-refundable. Oh, we read him the riot act. How dare you? You're wasting your time paying us tuition to teach a little raggedy.

No count. We got to get back to realizing that discipline is a part of creating a decent human being. And as it is in the natural, in the school paradigm, so it is in your spiritual training. God's trying to grow you up. He won't let you act spoiled and crazy. You can't do any old thing you want and get God's approval on it. He will not pass you to the next grade until you've learned everything you're supposed to learn at this grade in life.

Some of y'all are flunking. You're being left back. You should be way up the cycle of learning by now, spiritually speaking, and you're still on your ABCs and your 123s.

And God is saying, you better get with the program because I'm not changing the way I discipline your life. You're listening to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. The second half of today's message comes your way next.

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You can also subscribe to the Destined for Victory podcast at Apple podcast at Spotify or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. In the body of Christ, leadership comes through succession, handed down from one generation to the next. Pastor Paul explains this idea of apprenticeship in the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, You're in Training.

Let's listen in. Now, the second paradigm is the one I want to cover in this message, and it's the paradigm of an apprentice. Apprentice. If you want to look at what God is doing in our lives, according to Hebrews 12, I want you to think with me about the whole matter of apprenticeship. This was a very important paradigm in Bible times because if you were going to learn a trade or the family business in Bible times, you couldn't do that in a vocational school.

The only way you learned your trade, especially your family business, was you learned it as an apprentice under your father or a father figure. There was no vocational school. There were none of these commercials you see during the day forever at home during the day, and you see they have all these commercials, all these vocational schools trying to get folks to go somewhere and get in there, and they're waiting for you right now. Call this number right now. Go get an education for yourself, and they're just trying to sell people on the idea, come to this vocational school, we can teach you some marketable skills so that you aren't to be sitting here every day in the middle of the day watching TV.

And they're trying to help people. Well, in Bible times, there were no vocational schools. You learned your trade, you learned your livelihood from your father or a father figure, and you did it as an apprentice. In fact, when Jesus was 12 through 30, the only thing the Bible says about those 18 years is he increased in wisdom, in stature, in favor with God and man. Where did he increase?

In what context? He was working with his daddy. His father, earthly father, Joseph, was a carpenter, so it was a given Jesus was a carpenter. Till age 30, he spent time training, learning, growing, gaining insight, growing up physically, getting stronger, getting wiser, learning how to deal with people, continuing to worship God, his father, for 18 years. That's the only thing the Bible has to say about those 18 years is he was on the grow as an apprentice. He worked with his daddy.

He was a carpenter, and he learned the family business. You got to understand that you and I are apprentices. God has you as a son, learning directly from him how to live your life because he's got bigger, better plans, things he wants to turn over to you.

There's a whole domain that he wants you to operate in in the rest of your life. There are lives you are to touch. There are people you are to influence. You're supposed to be a difference maker.

You're not supposed to just stay here and wait for heaven with your bags packed by the door of your life, waiting one day to die so you can go to heaven. You're supposed to make a difference, do something for God, and the only way you're going to learn how to live for him is you got to be his apprentice. So this writer says God is treating you like a son and training you every day of your life as an apprentice. The ancient apprentice had three characteristics.

Number one, commitment. Apprenticeship in Bible times was characterized by commitment, which means you learned your trade directly under the influence of your father or your father figure. You lived with the father. You worked for the father. In all things, you were subject to the will of your father. Your mother was an extension in Bible times of that support, but mama's job was to have you, nurse you, nourish you, and then for all practical purposes, she turned you over to your daddy.

We don't see that in modern days in most cultures today, but if you want to understand your spiritual journey, you got to understand this journey of apprenticeship in Bible times. You learned how to live under your daddy. You didn't grow up talking about you wanted to be an astronaut.

Your daddy, you know, back in those days, nobody had visions of technology anyway, but you didn't come up with something completely off the wall. Whatever your family was known for, that's what you entered into. You learned the family trade, and you learned it under your father. And so it was a given that you were going to spend your life training under him.

And I want you to see that paradigm. It happened in Jesus' life. It happened in Elisha's life. Remember in 1 Kings chapter 19 when Elijah is moving into a new phase of his ministry where he's got to influence some other people. Now, you know, in 1 Kings 17, we meet him, and God uses him to bring judgment on Israel because of their idolatry, and he brings the word that there's not going to be rain or dew for a few years.

You remember that? And how God had to take care of him and other faithful people during that famine. And then you get over and you find the great showdown on Mount Carmel in the next chapter over, and God is using him in a mighty way, and he's declaring the word of the Lord, and he's showing up these false prophets and all of that, and then has them slain. And then you get over into 19, and you find that he's running for his life, scared to death of Jezebel, but God gets him through all of that.

And toward the end of that experience, God says, because he's asking to die, God says, no, I can't take you yet because I have more work for you to do. You've got to anoint some kings, and you've got to anoint your successor. And so when you get over into this part of 1 Kings 19, beginning at verse 19, he goes to anoint his successor, his apprentice. He goes, finds Elisha, plowing 12 yoke of oxen, we're told in 1 Kings 19, 19, and he himself was driving the 12th pair. Elisha, look at this.

At this point, he's working in his family business. Now God has a new assignment for him. Verse 20, Elisha left his oxen, ran after Elisha, because Elijah has thrown his cloak around him. Now in Bible times, when a prophet came and threw his cloak around you, that was a calling. That was to say, God has given you a calling, and the calling didn't come from inside of you, the calling's coming from outside. You know we got to get back to that, we who are apprentices in the kingdom, we got to quit calling ourselves. You can't call yourself to a ministry.

God calls you through a ministry and he does it through others in the body of Christ who can then train you and grow you up and mentor you in the things of God. That's what's wrong with us now. We got all these independent folk running around talking about God's hand is on them.

No, it's not. God's hand's not on you because you haven't even been faithful enough to somebody else to put their hands on you. You can have all the inner witnesses you want until someone authorized, trained by God puts their hand on you, stands in front of you, and says God's hand is on you. And I want to anoint you for this or that. You have no business going out in ministry.

We got to get back to that. We got to get back to understanding that there is a succession in the body of Christ. Leadership comes through succession. God does it from one generation to another through the process of succession.

Somebody else has got to see it other than you. The saints told me I was called for. I knew I was called to do what I've been doing throughout my adult life, leading people, ministering to people in this way. People said it to me. They saw God's hand years before I saw it. I ran from it, ran, ran, ran.

Now we got folk running to it. It's okay to aspire for ministry, but you got to do it lawfully. Well, how do you do that? You're faithful over a few things. You get under a leader. You don't just hop around until you find somebody who will promote you. Sick of these sometimes folk that come to your church as long as you will put them on the stage quickly and give them something conspicuous to do.

Doesn't work like that in the kingdom. God won't give you the next big thing until you're faithful to the next small thing. As Jesus said in Luke 16, 10, whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much. Thanks for being here for this Monday edition of Destined for Victory and Pastor Paul Shepherd's message you're in training. Listen to any of 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 booklet, Creating a Relational Legacy.

Earlier this month, he and his wife Meredith spent a few days talking about the ways we can improve and strengthen our personal relationships. Well, this booklet highlights the major themes in that message. It's called Creating a Relational Legacy, and it's our gift to you this month by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. 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. Once again, our address is Destined for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538.

It's not about what we think. It's about what the Father was. And the Father starts with commitment.

Apprenticeship has to do with commitment. You've got to be sold out. You've got to be all in. If you're going to follow Jesus, you've got to follow him all the way. Tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, you're in training. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory.