God Will Provide, Part 3

Get it out of your mind that if I do everything the Lord wants me to do, there'll be sunshine every day.

You know, a whole lot of folks paint that picture. Folks just say, you don't have any trouble, all you need is faith. Well, you do have trouble even though you have faith. But the good thing about walking by faith is faith is built for trouble. Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Is your faith being tested today? Coming up next, Pastor Paul shares how his own faith has been tested and how God led him out of trouble and into triumph. Today's message is straight ahead. Stay with us here or visit pastorpaul.net to listen anytime on demand. That's pastorpaul.net. Now today's Destined for Victory message God will provide. Here's Pastor Paul. We're in a series of messages. Overall, I've been talking about living fearlessly, which is what brought me to this particular passage.

And so far, we've just covered some key points. We've talked about the fact that doing the will of God is not going to prevent you from having challenges and difficulties. Get it out of your mind that if I do everything the Lord wants me to do, there'll be sunshine every day.

You know, a whole lot of folks paint that picture, especially in these days where there's hyper faith. Folks just say, you don't have any trouble. All you need is faith. Well, you do have trouble even though you have faith. But the good thing about walking by faith is faith is built for trouble.

So yes, you're going to have trouble. But yes, if you walk by faith, God has a plan to get you through it and to get you out of it and to give you victory along the way. And so it doesn't prevent, it doesn't exempt you from experiencing difficult things. The other point we've been making is that if you take care of God's business, He'll take care of yours. And that's what I want to conclude, just making sure you understand our job is to do the will of God every day of our lives. God, what would you have me do? What would you have me say? Who would you have me minister to? What is your will for my life? If you take care of God's business, He'll take care of yours. God is the one who told Elijah to pronounce that word of drought.

He did it, and he himself had to suffer because of it along with the other people. The difference is because he took care of God's business, even though the brook has dried up, God still has a provision for him. I came to tell somebody whose brook has dried up. For a while you've been walking in a certain blessing, and it has been wonderful for you, and the ravens were flying in and taking care of you. Isn't it wonderful when you can just see the blessings of the Lord everywhere you turn? But how many have lived long enough to know one day you wake up and the brook is dry?

And you say, I can't drink this, that's dirt down there. And then you look and say, the raven's usually here by now, and no raven flying in. I don't know if you've ever been there. If you haven't been there, keep on doing the will of God and keep on living, and you will find yourself both in the will of God and also there's no raven showing up. But all that means is the God who provides is about to shift the way he resources you. Don't get too hung up on the resource.

Sometimes we get used to our resources, and God will change that just to make sure your faith isn't in your resource. Has anybody ever worked a job that you thought, boy, this is it. The rest of my life, this job is going to see me through, oh, what a blessing this job is, only to show up and a pink slip is on your desk or in your cubicle, or they call you into a conference room or something like that. Next thing you know, that job is no more. You ever had that happen?

And you thought, sure, man, this is it. Well, it was it for a season. And when the season's up, that resource is no more. That brook dried up, no need of rebuking the devil. The devil didn't dry it up. Just life dried it up. The drought in Elijah's case dried it up.

There's no rain, so the brook now is empty. And that just happens in life. Your old heads have heard me tell the story when I was a young single man and I had this job.

It was a blessing. I was running the accounts receivable department of an auto leasing company, had company car. Man, I'm sitting pretty not married yet. I'm gonna marry system, but, uh, I'm working on getting my ducats in a row. And so I'm pulling the money together.

Go make this happen and go to work one day to put up in my company car. And I saw the big Mercedes from the big boss whose office was in Paramus, New Jersey. Why is he down here in Philly? And as I walked in, they said, we all going in the conference room. I said, for what? But I found out we went in there and here he walks in with his Italian suit and all of that. And he began talking about the fact that this division of the company wasn't doing well, that overall the company was fine, but this division of the company wasn't doing well. And so we're making some changes. And I said, okay, okay. So what are we going to be doing now?

How many? No, he proceeded to tell us that we are shutting down the whole auto leasing division of the overall company. I saw, wow, the whole thing. And he said, so all of you are going to have to find other employment. And then somebody said, okay, now when is this going to happen? When are y'all shutting down the auto leasing division of the company? He said, by the end of day today, most of you will not have a job. He said, we'll keep a few of you here because we need you to handle some of the logistics of the shutdown, but most of you will not have a job.

And so different ones started asking, so can I help? And we're all hoping we can be in that little group. As it turns out, I wasn't in the group.

Most of the other division leaders weren't in the group and what have you. So we were done and we just sat there stunned. And finally somebody said, okay, so now those of us who drove company cars, who lead different departments, department heads, we drove in and company cars. Somebody said, all right, now, when do we have to turn our cars in?

How many know the answer was today? We came to work in that. I didn't even know how to get home on the bus from that job. I honestly didn't.

It was in Ardmore outside of Philadelphia and is a nice little relatively short drive, but I had never done it on the bus. And so I'm like, oh my Lord, this beautiful car I drove here, I got to take my stuff out of it. No severance, no nothing.

Done. Y'all not getting severance? We severing you right now. By the time I got back to my desk, I had an act to two.

I know these people didn't do this. I got that job going up there to look into leasing the car. I left my other job and I was on lunch and went there looking for a car. I was just talking to the guy and I told him I do accounts payable at my job. And he said, oh, wait a minute. And he went in and told the manager, there's a man out here looking for a car. They were looking for an accounts receivable guy.

Why don't you go talk to him? And the man came out, started talking to me. I'm up there trying to lease a car and he offered me a job. And I said, all right, I'll leave my job to come to you, but y'all got to give me a car. That's how I got to be department head with a company car.

And now the Brooks drive. I said, what in the world? I called up mad if we were dating. We weren't engaged yet, but she was a finalist. I was young and cocky, you know, and just she knew years before she had said she saw the Lord hooking her up with a preacher. She knew what I didn't know.

Guys always think we like no stuff. You guys who are dating, y'all don't know. She's already figured everything out and she didn't wait for you to get the memo. She wasn't rushing me or nothing. She just like, he'll get it.

I am. She, and so I called her with this attitude. I said, I need you to come get me. She said, what's the matter? So why don't you just come get me? She had to leave her job. Come pick me up.

I'm sitting there jobless and she had to drive me home. Then your resource is not your source. God is your source. Don't ever forget that people of God. God is your source. That job.

If they told you they were going to break you off on a long term basis, they were telling you only what they thought at the time. Your hope can't be built on anything less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. They're not trust the sweetest frame. Holy lean on Jesus name. God is going to take care of his own and one of the ways he does it is through other people and I want to show you why. So after this resource dries up, the Lord sends him to a new city, Zarephath, and he says, I've commanded a widow there to provide for you. Why did God involve the widow?

Here's the answer. Because he wanted to provide for her as well as for the prophet Elijah. He involved her to bless her. I need somebody to get this because one of the things people love to do is listen to the enemy tell you, don't you give all that money to the church. Don't you give all that money to the kingdom.

You got to take care of yourself. The widow out of her own mouth just said, I'm planning to eat the last. I'm going to take this flower and oil and make some, the old folks call them whole cakes.

Any of y'all had grandmas and stuff that talk like that whole cakes and I'm going to make this whole cake here and then my son and I are going to die. That's what she's planning. Why? Because she doesn't know that she's going to be able to survive beyond that day.

And what does God send the prophet to her for? Because he said, no, this will not be your last day. Other folk are dying in the famine, but I'm going to look out for you. And the way I'm going to do it is I'm going to give you a test and the test leads to the blessing. The test leads to the opportunity. I came to tell somebody who is very aware that you're in a difficult situation to see it as a test. It is a test of your faith and your faithfulness. Note that the man of God said, do not fear.

Why? He knows good and well that it's going to be scary to give when you have the very last of what you have had. When you're down to next to nothing, how in the world do you give out of that? The carnal mind says, hoard, consume, use this for yourself. But the spiritual mind says, what does God want me to do with what's left? And I came to tell somebody, the enemy's going to tell you, even from this message, just that church, they always ask. First of all, we're not always asking. That's a little part of the whole long service. Furthermore, if you don't want to give, you don't have to. I don't have any armed guards around here.

What'd you give today? It's the enemy setting you up when you act like the test is always about money. I don't know what church you're talking about. Not this one.

Not this one. I don't even get to watch the people give because they got boxes. If they put something in there, I don't know.

If they didn't, I don't know. Some of y'all could be singing and shouting and dancing every week. I ain't giving a dime. I don't know.

In here using up all our good lights and everything, just... My point is, I don't know why. Because it's really not my business. That's between you and the God you serve, and He wants to bless you, but it's up to you whether you put yourself in a position to be blessed. I love it when they bring it up at the barbershop. The barbershop I go to now, they know, so they don't even do it anymore. Any barbershop you first get to, sooner or later, they're going to bring up the church and money.

And I'll never get the first time I got to do that. I said, well, all I can tell you about is my church. Oh, you go to church? I'm the pastor of the church.

Oh, oh. They say, okay, so how y'all do it, Rev? I'll never forget the first time I was able to say, well, at my church, we have boxes mounted on the wall.

If you want to help support the budget, you can put something in there. If not, you just walk out. They say, wow. They never thought of such a thing. Because in their mind is, here come that basket. Even if the basket's coming, it's up to you whether you put something in it. How many know folk are real good at just pass it on.

But here, nobody's going to watch you one way or the other. Because that was a test of my faith back in the year 2004 when I was passing another church and we were building a worship center. Church was growing and we had outgrown this place. We were having four services in and we were building our worship center that could house the folks and all of that. In the midst of the building, the Lord told me, build tithing offering boxes.

I went to a church and they had boxes on the walls and I asked about them. And they said, this is the way our people give. It was a mega church that has 16,000 people a weekend in five services. And he said, that's the way our people give. I said, huh?

Y'all don't pass it. He said, oh, if they're going to give, they place them in one of these or they give online. And I was a speaker at the crystal cathedral about a week or two after that. I was a speaker in a morning session, went back in the evening to support Bishop Charles Blake, friend of mine.

I wanted to go back and support him, but I'm sitting in the audience and I'm trying to be real discreet. And then often time came and here comes the little plate and I had left my wallet at the hotel and I said, oh, I want to give, but I don't have anything. And I remember how self-conscious I felt and I thought, oh Lord, I want to be able to give.

And they know I spoke this morning, they going to see me not give anything. I just felt funny. And I remember passing it just, oh man, I really did. And I just had left it.

I got home from those two trips. One morning, the Holy Spirit started speaking to me as clearly as I've ever heard him speak to me. I was laying in the bed and I was awake, but looking up and listening to the Lord, my wife woke up, looked over and saw me and she said, what in the world is on your mind? And I said, oh, the Lord's speaking to me.

She said, by what? And I told her what was happening, that he was telling me that what he had shown me at the mega church in Florida and the self-consciousness I had at the crystal cathedral were him telling me when you build that worship center, I want you to build boxes just like you saw in Florida, teach the people how to give according to the word of God, and then let them give in the boxes. And I asked the Lord laying there, do you know how much money we going to need when we get to the new worship center? At that moment, that morning, our church's budget at the time was a large growing church required $75,000 a week.

That's what we needed at the time. When we moved to the new worship center, we had already calculated with the overhead and all of that, we were going to need a hundred thousand a week to make budget. And so I laid there, asked the Lord, did he understand that?

Was he aware of the budgetary needs? See, I'm real with my walk with God. There's no future in front. I said, God, a hundred grand and now you telling me, build boxes and hope they put a hundred thousand in them? And I wanted to say, are you crazy? But I knew it was the word of the Lord. Just like this widow, the Lord had already whispered to her, you're going to have to feed somebody. So it is very believable that this widow could have been out there gathering, sticks to her mind. He tripping, the Lord tripping.

Cause I know what that's like, cause that's where I was. Thanks so much for being here for today's destined for victory message God will provide. You know, every day we ask people to stand with us financially. That's because we are a listener supported ministry.

And let me underscore that for a moment. This means the only way we exist is through the prayers and financial support of people just like you. And in 2022, our prayers that you might consider if you haven't done so already becoming a destined for victory partner. Partners are a special group of people that give a monthly gift of at least $20. If you can make that commitment today, we have some special gifts I'll tell you about in a moment, but Pastor Paul joins me right now. Pastor, take a moment please and tell us why partners are so important to this ministry.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up Wayne. Partners are really the lifeline of this ministry. Without those people committed to giving regularly, we literally could not continue doing what we're doing.

I guess people hear that a lot, but it is really true. Without partners, we simply can't get the gospel out to the world. The gospel is free, but the plumbing costs an awful lot of money and we want to continue preaching. As I've said in times past, we've got generations to reach that have never heard the gospel and they misunderstand when they hear people talk about things like serving the Lord.

We need to make it plain to them. The only way I can do it is with my partners helping us reach them through their generous gifts. I'm so grateful for every single partner and I'm praying in 2021 that God will give us thousands more. There are many more outlets and many more opportunities we could take advantage of in our ministry, but the only thing that holds us back is lack of income. I'm praying that God's going to touch the heart of many more people to realize that with just your gift of $20 or more, you can help us remain strong on the stations and outlets we're on and reach many more with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Pastor Paul. That's what it's all about, reaching more people with the gospel. If you make that commitment by pledging $20 or more per month to help us do that, we'll send you with our thanks a couple of great gifts, including one of Pastor Paul's most popular CDs, The Best of Let My People Smile.

It's a compilation of some of Pastor's most humorous illustrations and stories, something that will be sure to make you laugh and learn at the same time. So call 855-339-5500 or mail your gift, letting us know you wish to become a partner. Our address is Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Now you can also sign up by clicking Become a Partner right at the top of our homepage, PastorPaul.net. And if you're already a partner, we want to say a heartfelt thank you and challenge you to consider becoming a legacy partner. These are special ministry friends that are able to support us with gifts of $2,500 or more each year.

The details are available at the website, PastorPaul.net or by calling 855-339-5500. Now one more thing, if you can't become a partner today, but would like to make a generous donation to Destined for Victory, we'll be glad to send you Pastor Paul's booklet, Trusting God in Scary Times. That's trusting God in scary times. Here's the way to make sure you don't live in fear. The best way to develop a fearless lifestyle is to be faithful. If I want to be fearless, I have to be faithful. I have to be full of faith, so I have no room left for fear. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, God Will Provide. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.