You're in Training, Part 4 (cont'd)

I know the plans I have for you, plans for welfare, not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. That is Jeremiah 29 11 and this is Destined for Victory. In just a few moments, Pastor Paul Shepherd will share his message, You're in Training. But before we get started, Pastor Paul and I want to talk to you briefly about the importance of partnership. One of the reasons Pastor Paul loves being in ministry is that he gets to do it with you, our Destined for Victory friends and friends. In fact, we couldn't do this without you because partnership is and always has been a critical aspect of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with the world. And today, we'd like to invite you to partner with Pastor Paul in ministry by making a monthly pledge of $20 or more each month. As our way of saying thanks for your partnership, we'll send you a few welcome gifts, including Pastor Paul's CD, The Best of Let My People Smile. And Pastor Paul joins me now from his studio.

Pastor, what are some of the reasons why you put this together? I like making people laugh because I think you can laugh and learn at the same time. So I prefer to do that.

I don't think we should bore people with the Bible. And I enjoy sharing my sense of humor. It's a gift God gave me. Now, I'm a preacher's kid. My dad was a crack up in the pulpit. And I tell you, if anybody ever heard him, and then they hear me, they know where my sense of humor came from. It came from my dad, but I'm glad to be able to hear him.

I use something that comes quite naturally and use it just as a tool to engage people so that I can tell them the truth. Some of my listeners and some of the members of my church say, you know, it's not unusual for you to have me laughing and crying all in the same setting. And that's kind of good because we need to be challenged. But at the same time, it's okay to laugh. And I appreciate. In fact, the Bible says laughter is like medicine. And I think we could all use some good medicine every now and then.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Thanks, Pastor Paul. Friends, when you become a Destined for Victory partner by pledging a monthly donation of $20 or more, we'll send you that CD as a thank you gift, along with a few other special gifts. So call 855-339-5500 to become a Destined for Victory partner today. That's 855-339-5500. Or sign up online at PastorPaul.net. And if you prefer mail, just let us know you wish to become our partner when you send your first gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. If you're unable to become a monthly partner today, you can still have Pastor Paul's booklet, Creating a Relational Legacy, a companion guide to the messages you heard earlier this month.

Request that booklet when you give a generous one-time donation today. This is what God was working on all along when he was telling you, shut up and listen to me. I know the plans I have for you. They are plans to do you good and not harm. They are plans to give you hope and a future. And you have to learn to do what he says with no question.

It requires obedience. Hollywood isn't always the best place to go to learn biblical principles, but in this case, the silver screen struck gold. In our last broadcast, Pastor Paul put us in the wayback machine, using the 1980s movie The Karate Kid to explain what it looks like to be a true disciple of Christ. Today on Destined for Victory, he picks up right where he left off.

So let's join him now for his message, You're in Training. Later on next scene, Miyagi is coming back with a fishing pole, been out fishing. Daniel said, how come you didn't tell me you were going fishing?

I would have wanted to go. Miyagi said, you weren't here when I left. By this time, Daniel is done. He is angry. He didn't even get to go fishing, and he complains, and he says, for four days, you've been treating me like a slave. I came to you to learn karate, and you have taken advantage of me and have treated me like your slave.

I'm through, man. And he starts walking a few steps toward home. Miyagi calls him back. Daniel, son, come here. Daniel comes back, and he says to him, show me wax on. And he said, I can't.

My shoulder hurts. Miyagi does something, fixes him up. And he says, what did you do?

Shut up. Show me. And he starts having him show him all the moves that he's been doing over the past four days.

He calls out each one. Show me wax on, wax off. Show me sand the floor. Show me paint the fence.

Show me paint the house. And then he does a dry drill. Then he says again, show me sand the floor. And he shoots a shot at him. He attacks him, and Daniel blocks him with sand the floor. And he says, show me paint the fence.

And he shoots another attack, and he blocks him with paint the fence. Everything he was learning, he didn't know it, but he was preparing for warfare. I came to tell you who are angry with God. Oh, I know you're listening to this message. You're just as mad at God as you know how to be, because you've been a lazy, unproductive, murmuring, complaining, half-hearted, half-committed servant of his. And he's finally getting you now into spiritual discipline, and you have finally taken the deal, and you've taken your first few steps of living the surrendered Christian life.

And you haven't seen miracles and wondrous things. See, Daniel want to go out and learn how to beat somebody up by tomorrow. And that's the way some of y'all are. You ready to deal with your enemies?

You ready to get everything ordered right now? And you don't understand, God is at work in his own timing in your life. And just when you are ready to quit, God sends along this series to tell you if you plan to master what he is doing in your life, you're going to have to learn that he says you do no question. He knows what he's doing. He knows why he's letting you go through the way you're going through. He knows why he's allowing you to be tempted the way you are. He knows why he's allowing you to have delayed answers to prayer.

He knows why everything he's doing is strategic. And you have to learn that when you need it, you will see that God has been developing some expertise in your life. He's been teaching your hands how to war spiritually. He's been teaching you how to walk in spiritual authority.

He's been equipping you with an anointing that's dormant now, but it's getting ready to come active soon. And you're going to see what God was getting at in your life all along. And suddenly you'll be able to speak to demons and they have to listen to you. And you'll be able to lay hands on the sick and they will recover and you'll be able to speak a timely word of encouragement to people in need.

Suddenly you'll see an anointing rise up in your life and you say, what in the world is this? This is what God was working on all along when he was telling you, shut up and listen to me. I know the plans I have for you. There are plans to do your good and not harm. There are plans to give you a hope and a future and you have to learn to do what he says with no question.

It requires obedience. Some of y'all mad at God. And he doesn't care that you're mad. He's not worried about you and your little attitude. He's got bigger fish to fry or you who are healthy to bake.

Salty. You've got to understand, God is up to building world changers. And you have to learn which you're angry with God's self to hit this altar and say, Lord, you win, I lose all to Jesus. I surrender and I'm going to trust you that when I need the anointing, I'll see it pop up in my life. When I need your power, I'll have access to it because I've been walking in your way. All you've got to do is follow God.

He knows exactly where he's taking you. And so you learn that lesson very clearly in the 1984 The Karate Kid. You also learn it in the 2010 version.

They don't do as extensive a training set of scenes. But the one that stands out to me the most in the 2010 is when Dre, who's played by Jaden Smith, when Dre has this habit of dropping his jacket on the ground. Remember that? And he does it at his house and the mother said, pick it up. And he's, you know, he just want to be disrespectful, just want to do it like, what difference does it make?

I'm going to put it back on eventually sooner or later. What's the problem? And Mr. Hahn, his mentor, sees that exchange one time. So when he gets ready to train him, Jaden comes out to the area where they're going to train in his little backyard. And he takes his jacket off and drops it on the ground like he's used to doing in his house. So here's how Mr. Hahn starts the training, unbeknownst to Dre. Pick up the jacket.

Jaden said, what? Pick up the jacket. Picks up the jacket. Hang it up.

He has this little hook right there. Hangs it up. Take it down. Take it down. Put it on. Puts it on. Take it off. Takes it off. Throw it down. Throw it down. Pick it up.

Pick it up. Put it on. Put it on. Take it off. Take it off. Hang it up. Hang it up. Take it off. Put it on. Throw it down. Pick it up. That's what happened the first day.

Over and over and over again. 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. Subscribe to Pastor Paul on YouTube to watch some of his best video clips. For more details, be sure to visit pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net.

There you can listen on demand to recent messages and find a variety of resources at our online store. Now let's tune into the rest of today's message. You're in training.

And once again, here's Pastor Paul. Dre gets home from what he thought was going to be the first day of training. And his excited mother, Taraji, says, Did you learn anything?

What did you learn today? Dre said nothing. He didn't understand that the movements were teaching him. Because Han had him do it a certain way.

Here's the way you do it. And then at a certain point, Han said, There's still something missing. And Dre said what? And he said, Your attitude. And made him smile. When he's putting the jacket on. On the hanger. On the hook. When he picked it up, get ready to put up, he wanted a little smile.

And so Jayden, you know, over Dre, the character started overplaying it. Like mocking the process. But Han said, I don't just want the right actions.

I want the right attitude along with the right actions. Oh, I came because God wanted me to tell somebody you are doing what he said, but you got an attitude that stinks. And God wants to remind you that the word says serve the Lord with gladness. You don't serve God with attitude. You don't serve God like he ought to be glad you are working with him. That you're in the kingdom.

You need a reality check. Do you know you were lost and undone on your way to hell? Do you know you had no capacity to ever please God?

You certainly had no right to eternal life. And God found you. Some of y'all say I found the Lord in 1983. You didn't find the Lord. He wasn't lost. He found you in 1983 when you are on your way to hell with absolutely no remedy.

He reached down and snatched you out of your sins, saved you by his grace, called you his own child. Now he's given an assignment to your life and you have no business walking around with a big fat attitude. Just cause you're not having your way.

Just cause life isn't the way you want in some area. God said don't just live right. Smile while you live right. Praise the Lord while you live right. Show me that you're grateful while you live right.

I'm going to do exceeding abundantly above all you can ask or imagine. But first I need you to check that attitude at the door. She said did you learn anything?

What'd you learn? He said nothing. Some of y'all think you're in a nothing season of your life right now.

Some of you all think God is up to absolutely nothing. You feel abandoned. You feel unproductive. You feel it's futile. You feel you're just getting up, waking up, going through the same motions.

Nothing's happening. But if you are obeying what God is telling you to do in the course of day after day, if you are obeying his word, if you're reading his word, if you're calling on him, if you're committing your way to him, if you're allowing the Holy Spirit to convict you when you are wrong, if you are doing the little things that God is telling you about, you think they're nothing but God says you don't understand. I'm training you. And you got a battle coming up where you're going to need everything I taught you in order to win the battle. Apprenticeship has to do with commitment, obedience, then it has to do with mastery. The goal of an apprenticeship is to become a master. And the result of commitment and obedience is always mastery.

What you need to understand is if you fully commit and if you fully obey, you will become a master. You will become what God is making you to be. I came to tell somebody who now is dealing with a pretty good deal of defeat, God's plan is for you to no longer suffer defeat in these areas of your life where you've been hit and miss and up and down. And sometimes you win and sometimes the devil wins and sometimes the flesh wins. God said, no, when I get through training you in that area, you will always conquer.

After a while, the devil will quit fooling with you in that area because he will know it's no use. I came to tell somebody God's plan is for you to master your moral obedience to Him, for you to master how He wants you to act on your job and in your career. You will master how He wants you to give and sow into the kingdom and into the lives of others. You will master spiritual warfare. You will tell the devil, you got to get out of my family, get out of my home.

You will learn how to kick him out and make sure he can never come back. God's got plans for you to be a master when he gets through with you, when the devil shows up on your block, when he's taking his little trainee demons around touring the neighborhood, showing them how to get into these different families. When they drive by your house, he's going to say, shush, hush, hush, hush. Little trainee demons still trying to shut up. The devil says, shut up. He said, what's the problem? He said, we're about to pass that lady's house. We don't even want her to know we're on the block. Wait till we just get past there. That's what God wants to do with you.

He wants the devil scared to death to even have you anywhere around him. Mastery, more than a conqueror, defeating your enemies, slaying your giants, causing the enemy to tremble, enjoying what the Bible meant when it said we are more than conquerors. You ought to be tired of being defeated. It's about time you get sick of being defeated. I'm sick of this same thing licking me. I'm sick of alcohol controlling me. I'm sick of nicotine killing me.

I'm sick of overeating destroying me. I'm sick of my family falling apart. I'm sick of not being able to pray and get an answer.

I'm sick of all of this futility in my life. I want to see God move in a powerful way. And God said, that is my plan. And if you will fully commit and fully obey, I will make sure that you are a master. I'm going to make sure that the devil knows you're anywhere around.

God's plan is for you to be living so that what we see in Acts 19 applies to you. In Acts 19, these sons of Sceva thought they would take up the job of trying to cast demons out of somebody because they saw some anointed saints do it and they said that looked like fun. So they went and found a demonized person and it's never too difficult to do that in the first century and especially in the 21st century. Not difficult at all.

Just go down the street. And so these seven sons of Sceva looked at this demonized man and said, in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, come out. And the demon looked at him and said, now Jesus I know, Paul I know about. Remember it's two different Greek words, know in that verse. The first one is Jesus I know. That meant personally, the demon said I know him personally because when he hung on that cross, he stripped me of all my authority to act any old way I want to act in people's lives.

I'm subjected to him and I don't like it but I know him. He said, Jesus I know. He said, Paul I know about.

Different Greek word. It meant, the demon meant I've never run into him personally but when I was at the demon convention, one of the seminars was on 12 people you don't want to mess with. I took that seminar at the demon convention. Paul's name was at the top of the list. Paul I know about.

We were told you don't want to fool with him because he'll look at you, you will leave so quick you won't know what happened to you. Paul I know about. God's plan is for demons in your family and in your community and in your sphere of influence when confronted to say Jesus I know and her right there, that man right there, go to destiny, I know about. Never met him by her, heard about, heard about. God wants us to get so that if you are a member of the church, they know our church by now.

I never ran into it but I heard about destiny. You don't want to fool with those people. They are discipled. They are obedient to God.

They have said yes to him. They got rid of their little funky attitude. They got their heart right.

They're not throwing off on other people. They're just focused on Jesus. They want to do his will. They want to see his power manifested in the world.

You don't want to fool with those folk. God's plan for you is mastery but it requires commitment all in. It requires obedient, unconditional, unquestioned. God says you do no question and the result is mastery. Thanks for being here for today's Destined for Victory message. You're in training. For more information about Destined for Victory or how you can request your copy of Pastor Paul Shepherd's booklet, Creating a Relational Legacy, visit pastorpaul.net.

That's pastorpaul.net. Boot Camp is designed to make a soldier out of you. Soldiers are not born.

They are made. It's a change of life. It's a change of lifestyle. And there are things you have to learn when you enlist or are drafted. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's 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.