When Fear Takes the Wheel (cont'd)

And you know what happened? Sarai said, Well, baby, the Lord clearly hasn't allowed me to have a child. What she should have said is he hasn't allowed me to have a child yet. Yet. Some of y'all got to get a yet in your vocabulary. Just because God hasn't done it doesn't mean he's not gonna do it. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall walk and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint. Hello and welcome to this Wednesday edition of Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Well, fear and doubt don't want you to wait.

They are on a time schedule, a right now schedule. If you're having trouble waiting on the Lord today, if doubt and fear are competing with your faith, Pastor Paul has an encouraging word for you. If God has promised it, he will deliver it.

It just may not get there overnight. Stay with us now or listen to the broadcast on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net. And let's join Pastor Paul for today's Destined for Victory message, When Fear Takes the Wheel. Thank God for his mercy. Thank God. See a whole lot of folks that God is the God of a second chance.

You kidding me? Y'all don't know when your second chance was. He's the God of another chance. Every time you need one, he's got another chance for you. Now don't take that as permission to keep acting stupid.

Oh, come on, come on. Let's say that to ourselves too. Just because he bailed you out a few times, don't keep pushing it.

Come on, look at your neighbor. Say don't push it. That's right. You got to remind them.

Don't push it now because you don't have any guarantees he's going to keep on bailing you out. All right, now let's get back to Genesis 21 where the verse is that said fear not. Now let's look at the context that leads even up to that.

Now you know what happened. After a while, Abram and his wife Sarai get this specific word, I'm going to give you all a child. And through that child, I'm going to begin the process by which I bring salvation into where all of that.

So they now get the specific word that God is going to bless them with a child. But once again, emotions. In this case, it wasn't fear, but a negative thought of doubt. See, fear is just one of them.

And we're going to talk about fear throughout this series. But there are all kinds of negative things that can short circuit what God is trying to lead you directly to. And so one of them is doubt.

When you get into doubt and unbelief, it can be such a detrimental thing. And you know what happened when they realized they got to have this child? Then they said, Well, all right, so we supposed to have a child. Look at us. Oh, and we supposed to have a child.

And you know what happened? Sarai said, Well, baby, the Lord clearly hasn't allowed me to have a child. What she should have said is he hasn't allowed me to have a child yet. Yeah, some of y'all got to get a yet in your vocabulary. Just because God hasn't done that doesn't mean he's not going to do it. In fact, if he said he was going to do it, then you stop worrying about when it's going to happen and let yourself say God is going to do it because he promised he would.

And she should have said yet. All she said was, Well, you know, God hasn't blessed me to have a child. He's closed up my womb. So I tell you what, since we got to have this baby, then perhaps the way God's going to do this is he's going to give me a child through a woman that I give you as your second wife. This is back in the early days of the Old Testament. You know that and polygamy was never God's will never ever in the history of mankind has never been God's will, but it was permitted in those days through the hardness of people's hearts or whatever. It was permitted brothers. It is no longer permitted. It is no longer.

We're in the New Testament now. And some of y'all need to quit tripping Sunday. Oh, man.

Back then, boy, that was boss. Quit tripping. You know, you got your hands full with one. Come on, somebody. I need some brothers to be honest. You got your hands full with one. If you take care of that one, you're doing real good. I know your ego want to tell you all, man, I can handle three, four of them. That's your ego. Don't you listen to that.

You doing well, just taking care of this one. But look at what happens. I'm trying to show you the negative consequences of letting the wrong things into the driver's seat. So we already saw fear almost got them in trouble in Genesis 12. Now, later on in the succeeding chapters, once God says, All right, it's time for this child to come. They put their thimble full of brain into God's business. And what blows my mind is Soraya is the one who came up with the idea.

Have you ever read the rest of this? She said, honey, tell you what? I'ma give you my hand maiden Hagar. She's young and she's in childbearing years and all of that. And I'ma give you her as a second wife. That way I can have a family through her. Are you out of your mind? But that goes to show you if you let negative emotions drive, they can take you some places where God had to be in heaven. Tell me you got to be kidding.

Soraya came up with the idea. Read it when you get a chance. Abraham said, all right, not now, baby. I won't get this straight. I'm sure he regretted. They didn't have recording things yet.

There was no way to record this. All right. But let me repeat back to you.

You know, they teach you in counseling. Sometimes you repeat back what your spouse said to make sure the communication is right. All right. Now let me repeat this back to you and see if I got this right. You want me to have Hagar as a second wife and you want me to sleep with her for the purpose of having a child that that's the way God's going to give you a child through her sleeping with me. Is that what you say?

But here's the thing. Soraya said yes. Oh, now on the one hand, you can say, boy, she really wanted the will of God. And clearly she did want the will of God. But just because you want the will of God doesn't mean you can get there any old kind of crazy way. And from her very essence of her feminine instincts, y'all know as well as I do, most women would say, well, I tell you what, if God's going to give us a child, he going to do that through me.

He has locked up, closed up my womb to this point. I don't know why I couldn't have one in my twenties, my thirties, my forties, my fifties. Here I am getting on up there.

I'm a senior. And if God's going to do that, I'm going to be his girl. Because if you think I'm giving you this young child, Hagar with her little cute self, I know I'm fine, but this girl young and fine. And if you think I'm going to let you have her so y'all can experiment and see if y'all can come up with a child.

You know, your sisters, come on, just be honest with me. Y'all would have gotten into faith right away. God going to do this. He doing this through me. I'm believing God. Come on, baby. We going to bed right now.

We going to believe God said, first, let me run down to Victoria. Don't tell nobody. Grab me something.

I'll be right back. I'm a have a little something on fire and we go get this done ourselves. Y'all know that's the way that would have gone. This woman so wanted God's will that she said, all right, I'm going to give you Hagar.

And after he confirmed this is what you want, then they went on and they came up with a baby. See, don't get presumptuous. Don't say, well, if God didn't want it to happen, he'd have just blocked it. Don't live like that.

Don't say if God doesn't want me to be with this person, he going to make them leave me alone. Oh, I'm reading fortunes. I'm reading fortunes. When I said that I felt it. Somebody is fooling with somebody right now. You're talking about? I don't know. But God, if you really don't want this, don't put God in that position.

That's being presumptuous. He can break us up. God didn't put y'all together. Why would he break it up? You break us up. You say this is not going anywhere well.

I'm going to leave you, let you do you, and I'm going to do me. Dominoes may promise to be at your house in 30 minutes or less, but God is not delivering a pizza. He's delivering a promise, and the timing often depends on you. Stay tuned after today's message when Pastor Paul joins me from his studio in California.

But first, the rest of today's teaching, When Fear Takes the Wheel. Come on, y'all just got to say no. Say goodbye. Sometimes the most anointed word you'll speak is goodbye. That's it. Stop making God do stuff. He is not going to do it. You do it. You don't go to the top of a mountain and say, Lord, if you don't want me to die when I jump off. No, you don't do that. You walk back down that trail that got you up there.

So I'm going back down to the ground level. They came up with a child. It's a boy. God promised him a son. It's a boy. But it's not the child of promise. It's a child created because of doubt and unbelief. Here's the other thing you understand.

I'm going to get to Hagar eventually. I'm trying to set the stage for you because we got to learn how to live fearlessly. And God has now given them a promise. They've responded horribly, came up with a child. And you would think God would immediately speak up and say, what have y'all done?

What's the matter with you? Read it when you get a chance. You will see chapter after chapter between 12 when he first is called out, down to 21 where we are now, and you will find God said nothing for most of those chapters. God can be more silent than anybody I know.

Sometimes he'll just watch you. So here's this child now. Now he got two wives, was only supposed to have one, and he got two wives, and he got this boy growing up in the house. And this is his son. He's bonding with him.

It's the only son he's got. And he's bonding with him and all that. And you know also, then Hagar and Sarai got into their little thing because now Hagar has something up on the woman in the house. And she got this child.

And so she said, oh, this boy just running everywhere. Look over at Sarai. Y'all know, and I see y'all there. Y'all go pretending. Sisters, y'all know if you want to get under somebody's skin, y'all know exactly how to do it. You sit up here looking holy like you don't know what I'm talking about. See, men, men can't do it like women can do it.

When you want to get under a man's skin, when you get mad at a man, brothers just shoot you and it's done. Don't pow. You out of here.

Get out of here. Women want you to die a slow death. They ain't just popping you right. No, they want you, uh-uh, I want you to think about it while you die. And y'all know, I'm glad for some of my other sisters. Y'all know I want her to think about it. And Hagar was doing her little stuff, getting under Sarai's skin. At one point though, Sarai said, all right, that's it. She says she forgot who is the woman of the house.

Just because she live here don't mean she owns it. Let me show her who's in charge. She went to her husband, said I'm putting this woman out. And she treated her so harshly, she ran her out. Ran her out, just treated her harshly. And Hagar had nerve to leave home crying.

Read when you catch your ass. And God had to chase her down then too. And said, all right, now what's the problem? She said, well, she just treating me so horribly. I don't deserve all that.

Yeah, right. And the Lord told her, go home, submit yourself, act like you got some sense. You started this, now you got to go back and do right. God called her up and she went on back home. Said, I'm so sorry the way I was treating you and I know it wasn't right. Please let me back in the house and I'll do whatever I'm supposed to do.

Came on back in. And so Sarai's feeling like, okay, I let her back in. She know now how to deal with things. But now the next crisis comes when God speaks up 13 years later. Her son, Hagar's son Ishmael is now a teenager. When Sarai, God has now changed their names to Abraham and Sarah, she now has the baby of promise. Now see, here's the thing. If she had cooperated with God, she could have had the baby when she was in her 70s. Now here she is 90, still got to have the baby. Isn't that something? So what does that tell you? Obey God the first time.

Make your life easier. When God tells you what to do, do it the first time. Now here she is 89 just getting pregnant, 90 when she has the baby. But child of promise is here. When you get to this text in Genesis 21, the child of promise verse eight has grown to the place where he's being weaned. In their day that means he was probably right around two years old. So Isaac is two years old. He's being weaned from his mother's breast. Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned.

So look at this. They're having a big feast. All the folk, all their loved ones are coming over.

It's the weaning party. And verse nine, and Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian whom she had born to Abraham scoffing. Scoffing isn't the best translation of the Hebrew word there. A better word would be mocking. Saw him mocking, saw him making fun. You know belittling the little two year old boy.

Because the feast is about the boy and all the celebration about the boy. So here's this little bratty teenager who wants to steal some of the attention. So here he is about 15 years old and so he's over there mocking and acting with his little friends. And you all know how that is.

You used to be teenagers. And he's mocking and Sarah looks up in the midst of all this and she sees that. And she says, oh, uh-uh.

Come on, some of you all, just stop. Don't go to a holy place on me. Verse 10, therefore she said to Abraham, can I see you for a minute? She said, cast out this bond woman and her son for the son of this bond woman shall not be heir with my son, namely Isaac. And the matter was very displeasing. That's another not great translation of a word in the Hebrew.

The better word would be distressing. It was displeasing or distressing in Abraham's sight. Because remember, Abraham now has spent all these 15 years with this boy.

That's his son. He's glad to have the two-year-old, but he's bonded with the 15-year-old. But Sarah is like, that's it. You know what I went through before with her. This is not a conversation with a negotiation in it.

Come on married people, you ever had a conversation, we're not negotiating anything here. I'm telling you what's got to go down. Now you figure out how well you're going to respond to what's got to go down.

If you know what's best for you, then you're going to handle this right. You're going to say, okay, baby. And so she's telling him, but he knows. That's why he's distressed. He knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on here.

And he's distressed. And so the Lord, verse 12, I love this. The Lord said to Abraham, do not let it be distressing or displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bond woman. I'm sure Abraham has. How come she's my bond woman?

I didn't come up with this idea. Next verse is underlined in all the married women's Bibles already. Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice. Look at your wife. She already got that underlined.

Listen to the voice of your wife. For in Isaac, your seed shall be called and look at verse 13. How awesome is our God? Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the bond woman because he is your seed. He's not the son of promise, but because I know how much you love him.

I'm going to make a nation out of him, even though he's not the son of promise. God is better than you think he is. God will do more for you than you think he'll do. Sometime God will just do you a favor. Anybody ever had God just do you a favor? I know I don't deserve it. I know I'm not entitled to it.

I know I've made enough messes where I should have been disqualified forever. I didn't even ask God to do me this favor and he just dropped it on me. I'm going to do you a favor.

I know how this is messing with you and I'm going to make a nation out of this boy. God is a good God. Thanks so much for being here today for Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, When Fear Takes the Wheel. Well, 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 partners. And today, as we do every week here on the broadcast, we'd like to invite you to partner with us by making a monthly pledge of $20 or more. Please consider joining Pastor Paul in sharing the gospel of Christ all over the world. And as our way of saying thanks for your partnership, we'll send you a few welcome gifts, including the latest edition of the Let My People Smile series.

It's actually called The Best of Let My People Smile, and I've asked Pastor Paul to join me in the studio. Pastor, what are some of the reasons why we put this series 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 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 OK 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.

I couldn't agree more. Thanks, Pastor Paul. Friends, when you become a Destined for Victory partner by pledging a monthly donation of twenty dollars or more, we'll send you that CD as a thank you gift, along with a few special gifts. Call 855-339-5500 and become a Destined for Victory partner. That's 855-339-5500 or sign up online at PastorPaul.net.

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Request it today when you give your donation to Destined for Victory. Imagine somebody driving their car and they're spending their whole time looking in the rear view mirror while they're accelerating, moving forward. That's a disaster waiting to happen. And as it is in driving, so it is in your life. You cannot spend another day of your life thinking what if.

Forget your what ifs. That's next time when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message when you need a favor from God. But until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.