Making the Most of What You Have, Part 4 (cont'd)

God has entrusted a certain amount of time to you. He knows what he expects you to get done in that time.

You insult God when you say you don't have enough time. He created your life. He created your calling.

He would never give you a calling and not give you time to fulfill it. Perhaps nothing demonstrates to God how much we love him than the way we spend our time. Hello and thanks for joining us for today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd. In Christ's parable of the talents, the Master entrusted certain things to three of his servants.

We can think of those talents as money or as unique gifts and abilities, but there was also a time investment required to nurture and grow those talents. As you follow along today, remember, if you want to offer God something of value, there is no present like your time. As always, visit pastorpaul.net to hear any recent Destined for Victory message on demand. That's pastorpaul.net.

You can also subscribe to the Destined for Victory podcast at Spotify, at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your programs. Now, with today's Destined for Victory message, making the most of what you have, here's Pastor Paul Shepherd. Some of us can't get the blessing because we're in disobedience, but if you'll roll that disobedience away and you'll clear the way for God to do something. And the Bible says that they rolled the stone away and then Jesus, after he had wept, you know, folks say he wept because he loved Lazarus. Well, he did love him, but that's not why he was crying. He getting ready to raise the man. I mean, you don't cry when you're getting ready to fix the problem.

You see what I'm saying? He cried over the disobedience and the short-sightedness of the people who thought, I've been with them all this time and they still think death is a problem. And so Jesus wept. But then when he finished crying, he prayed to the Father. He said, I know you always hear me and I don't really have to pray publicly or out loud because you and I have it like that. That's the Paul Shepherd version of the scripture.

He said, but for their sake, I'm going to say this out loud. And Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth. Now, when Jesus did that, he was very intentional. The reason why he called Lazarus by name is because he's at a graveyard. He's at a graveyard. When you are at a resurrection, you can't show up at a graveyard and make the mistake of saying come forth. When you are at a resurrection and you say come forth, every spook in the place would have got up out of there. Not only everybody in that graveyard, but everybody who had ever died would have shown up. Pharaoh's army would have come out the Red Sea. Lot's wife would have come back from a pillar of salt. Everybody would have, Elijah would have got off the chariot of fire. Methuselah would have seen his 970th birthday. Everybody who had ever died would have showed back up.

Somebody call me. But Jesus was just showing them what he can do when people walk in faith and obedience. So he called one man, Lazarus, come forth. Rest of you all, stay where you are. I'll come get you later.

And Lazarus came walking out of there. I'm here to tell somebody, if you will practice faith and obedience, you will see the glory of God in your situation. The third thing though you have to do is practice discipline. Now discipline means delayed gratification.

Discipline means I have to make the right decisions for the season I'm in. When God blesses me, if I'm believing for more, I'm believing God to take me to another level, I'm being faithful over a few things because I'm expecting God to make me ruler over many more, that's fine. It's fine to appropriate your faith in that way, but make sure that you stay in the season you're in. If you're not in designer season, stay out the designer store. You're waiting on God. In the meantime, you stay out of there and you go head on to the other place in Jesus' name and thank God for his provision. If you're not in new car season, stay out the dealership.

Come on. And you do your searching and you find the car God has for you. I'm telling you what I've done. I told you all the story of when we needed a second car back in early days in California. I knew better than to show up at some dealership. I'm talking about I'm a man of God. I'm a man of God.

I deserve to be driving the best. It wasn't a season for anything like that. I had to believe God for something that ran.

It wasn't a lack of faith that I wouldn't believe it was for bigger. I was honoring my season. My daddy had taught me, you live in your season. You be faithful where you are. A lot of us don't want to be faithful over a few things. We want to jump straight to many.

You don't like this, but it's right. Want to jump straight to many. And a whole lot of people now are preaching faith as though that's what you do. You skip your season, just believe God.

Exercise your faith and jump straight over here. No, no, that's not God's way. Because God teaches you things in the little season. God teaches you things in the little season.

I'm glad this church was little before it was big. I learned some little season lessons. Learn how to take care of folk in the little season.

Learn how to pass in the little season. So that later on when I needed a pastoral staff, I was able to share with them, here's the way we do it in this church. We care about people. People aren't numbers here. We care about their lives. We don't cater to big bucks folk and ignore little bucks folk. Why?

You learn those things in the small season. I've had folk come through here throwing bucks, you know, and the clear implication is, you know, I can hook you up now. If you, you know, if you play my game, I can hook you up.

You see how people come through here, fall through, not many, but a few came through kind of waving money. And I told them, I'm like, homie, I don't play that. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Y'all too spiritual.

Never watch them live in color or anything like that. That's all right. Handle your business. Do your thing.

And so what you got to learn to do is stay in your season. I was believing God for a car and I had one of the brothers who knew cars and I was looking in the paper, looking at deals. I need something good.

I just need something reliable. And we found a little escort man wanted $2,200 low mileage. Set us in great condition. I took the brother who knew cars with me because, you know, I'd gone, just looked at it. It would seem great condition to me, but I needed somebody who could go into the hood and ask the right questions. And I asked about the maintenance, you know, and all that stuff. And so he went, he said, pastor, this is a solid car. Twenty two hundred.

I did the blue book and all that. Pastor, this is it. And we identified that as the blessing. And the reason why we knew the blessing, because God had provided the money because he told some folk clear across the country who were putting some money together in a little prayer meeting. And when they got to seventeen hundred dollars, they one night they were in their premier and said, call Pastor Paul and ask him, could he use this money? And then a pastor friend of mine called me and asked me, could I come preach for him? And then I had a couple of hundred dollars. So I put the three hundred from the preaching and the two hundred that I already had. And the seventeen hundred came from Philly. Because the people, they called me and said we were in prayer meeting tonight and the Lord put you in our heart. Could you use seventeen hundred dollars? I said, put it this way. If God is telling you all to send me seventeen hundred dollars, listen to him.

He knows exactly what he's talking about. Down to the penny. They sent me that money and twenty two hundred dollars. I had that car. It was the second worst car in the church. But that was my season to be blessed with a nineteen eighty four Ford Escort and I drove it in Jesus name, thanking God every mile. Was my season to go busting up in the dealership. It was my season try to be a cute preacher. I just had to be a driving preacher and thank God that I could get there. It's the second worst car.

I was glad that one says they had a car worse than mine. Whenever I tell that story, she says, Pastor, I don't know why you put me on blast like that. I don't call your name.

If I was putting you on blast, I'd be telling both exactly who you are. Have you stand up. You know, I love you. I take care of you. I keep you on the down low. Only those original folks knew how I'm talking about.

They do go to her every night and that was you. And I drove that puppy till it dropped because it was a blessing and I was practicing faith, obedience and discipline. So, Lord, I'm a drive this to the bitter end. I did. I drove it until a mechanic made me let it go.

True. Had a mechanic across the street and he saw when it was dying and what have you. And it was just sitting there for a while and what have you. But I was still I was almost trying to believe God for a resurrection. Because I could because, you know, it had been such a blessing. But, you know, he helped me understand that blessings have, you know, a time frame to them. And he came across the street one day. He was so concerned about me. He said, Pastor, Pastor, let it go.

He did. He had to talk me out. He said, no, this is it really is the end. Just let it go. I said, all right. I got out. I said, Earth to Earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You've been faithful.

Thank you so much. And that's what you got to do in your season. Don't try to be cute before your season. Don't try to be fancy before your season. I tell you all the time, don't wear a hundred dollar hat on a nickel head.

You're perpetrating a fraud. You wait on God and believe him. Practice faith, practice obedience, practice discipline. And for some of us, before I get to time, let me tell you something else. For some of us, we have to practice accountability because some of us aren't that good at handling this on our own. And you know yourself because, see, some of us can talk ourselves out of our own decisions. And if you're one of those people who can veto yourself, you need accountability.

Now, not everybody does. So you take it. If this is for you, you take this point. But some of us, you know, and the Holy Spirit is going to confirm whether or not this is you, that you are good at vetoing yourself. You make a decision and then you get somewhere in a little crunch, a little bind, a little mall, whatever it is. And then you can talk yourself out of a godly decision you made, sound decision you made, and now your flesh is talking you out of it. So what you need now is accountability. You need to find a trusted brother or sister and say, here is my financial plan.

Here are my decisions. Here's what God is telling me to do in order to get out of this situation. I need you to stand in faith with me and I need you to hold me accountable. Accountability, let me help you now, doesn't mean I confess after I spent the money.

See, some of us love practicing that kind of in all areas of our life. I hear folks talk about they're in accountability groups and they're sinning regularly. And then all that means is I tell my accountability group most of the sins I recently committed.

That's not accountability. Biblical accountability means that you're going to walk with someone to the level where they know when temptation is setting in. See, that's where you need the help. You need the help when the temptation is setting in. When the enemy or your flesh is whispering in your ear, I know what you said the other day, but here's what we need to do now. That's when you grab your cell phone and you call your accountability partner and say, you know what? You know that decision that we made and you prayed over it and sealed it with me in prayer. I'm now being tempted away from it. I need you to talk to me, pray with me, do something now.

And you need to find somebody who loves you enough. They will stop what they're doing or hold it. Don't you go anywhere. Where are you right now? I'm driving and the enemy's telling me to go to the mall. No, no, turn that car around. Turn that car around. I'm on the job, but I'm going to stay with you a few minutes until I know you're in a safer place.

And I'm going to call you back on my break. We got to deal with this and you let somebody speak into that area of your life because they're doing God's bidding. Remember, our goal is for all of us to hear the Lord say, well done.

So if you need accountability, you get accountability. And in that way, we can get where God's taking us financially. And we'll hear him say about our use of money. Well done. Up next, the rest of today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd. We want to thank all of you whose prayers and financial support help Pastor Paul share the gospel all over the world.

Your donations do make a difference. So as God leads, prayerfully consider making a generous gift to Destined for Victory today. Well, God has given each of us a set of number of hours and days on this earth, and he expects a return on his investment. Here's Pastor Paul with the second half of today's Destined for Victory message, making the most of what you have.

Let me just introduce the concept of time, and I'll let you go and pick it up in the next message. Time is one of the second resources that we got to account to God for. We're called to give God an excellent return on his investment of time in our lives. Pleasing God in time management means we recognize that God has given us all the time we need to do his will.

Stop saying you don't have enough time. I want to ask somebody to never again say that, because if you understand that according to this parable, God has entrusted a certain amount of time to you, he knows what he expects you to get done in that time. You insult God when you say you don't have enough time. He created your life. He created your calling. He would never give you a calling and not give you time to fulfill it.

He would never tell you to do things and not give you the ability to fulfill it. In fact, on a week-to-week basis, not all of us are going to live the same lifespan, but week in and week out, all of us have the same time. Do you know that you have 168 hours every week? Every week you have 168 hours.

You say, really? That much time? That much time. You have no more or no less than the person next to you. You have no less than the person whose life is much more fruitful than yours.

You have 168 hours just like they do. And so, you've got to say, Lord, what am I to do with this? How can I please you with this?

Let me just introduce the concept. First thing you want to do is recognize what are the kinds of things God wants me to use my time for. There are some that apply kind of across the board to all of us. Then there are going to be some specific things that as you pray and seek God's will, you'll hear him say to you. But here are some things that are generally true for all of us. Number one, God gives us time to worship him and to develop our lives spiritually. First use of time for all of us.

Worship and to develop spiritually. Number two, God gives us time to work or to contribute to the welfare of our family even if it's in a non-monetary way. God gives us all time to work and not everyone is to work outside of the home. But everybody has a job in a family structure. Everybody has some sort of job.

And so, whether your job is contributing monetarily or whether it is non-monetary, it's still valuable. If you're, for instance, a stay-at-home mom, don't tell people you don't have a job. You have a job. God gave you kids. God gave you a job. And if your family situation is of such that you're able to stay home and your spouse is supporting the family and you are able to stay home and give dedicated time to your children, don't you dare tell these workaholic people you don't have a job.

You're dishonoring God. Don't let people make you feel like you're nothing unless you have a paycheck. I have more than a paycheck. I have a calling from God. And if your calling allows you to stay home and dedicate time to your family, do not despise it and don't let anyone else disrespect it. We're living in an age now where people are being treated like they're nothing unless they have some high-powered job.

And nothing could be further from the will of God. Some people are blessed to be able to raise their families and work outside the home. If you're blessed to do it, praise God.

If you do it well and do it effectively, praise God. But don't look down on people who are able to stay home and dedicate themselves. And just because they don't have a monetary paycheck coming in, you think they don't have a job. It's not true.

It is not true. Because the fact of the matter is, if you're fulfilling a God-given assignment, that's work. To do it well is work. To raise kids well is work. Come on, parents. And some of you have to work outside the home and then come home and go to work. And others are able to stay home, but when you stay home, you can't just eat bon bons.

You got to go to work. You can't raise good kids by accident. You're not going to look up one day and say, look at this child. Look at this child, well-mannered. Can't believe it. This has manners and sense and know when to come in and how to speak to people. I don't know what happened.

Never going to happen. If your child is well-adjusted and well-behaved, it's because you and some other folks put in some time. People have told us over the years, oh, I so admire your children. Thank you, because we worked. We worked.

It wasn't by accident. We can just look up on having kids that have manners and what have you. Good work ethic and did well in school.

You don't look up on that. You got to put in your time. You got to make some things happen and make them happen well.

That's part of the time. So you worship. God gives you time for worship and spiritual development, gives you time for work, whether it's monetary or non-monetary contribution. Number three, gives you time to minister, to serve others. God's given us all time to minister.

Number four, some of you all are going to like this one. God gives you time to sleep. Thank you, Jesus. But I want you to know, sleep is in the will of God.

It's built in. God says, you can't be everything I want you to do until you go to sleep. There are times when that is God's prescription for your life.

Sometimes we want to get real spooky. You find yourself real cranky and edgy and on edge and irritable and snapping at folks. And some of you all think, oh, I'm not praying enough.

Probably not your prayer life. How much sleep you getting? And especially if you're not eating well and you're not eating regular meals, sensible meals at regular intervals and sleep deprived, here's a formula. Sleepy plus hungry equals cranky.

Nothing more spiritual than that. You get sleepy enough and get hungry enough, folks are going to be like, what's the matter with you? I need to go somewhere and pray.

Pray after you eat and get a nap. Until you eat and get a nap, we don't want to hear from you. God doesn't even want to hear from you at that point. God's like, why don't you just go ahead on to sleep? 1 Kings 19, do you know when Elijah was on the run from Jezebel and he was out there, the Bible says he left his servant. He was in a bad state of mind. He told his servant, stay here, I'm going to go by myself.

I don't need you right now. And he went off on his own. The Bible says he sat under a tree and prayed that he would die. Prophet, man of God, day before he just called down fire and God responded out of heaven.

But today, he's in a very different frame of mind. He's like, Lord, just take me out of this world, please. What did the Lord do? He asked for what he wanted, which was to die. God answered by giving him what he needed. God did that with you.

You ask for what you want and he'll tell her I'll give you what you need. He says, this is my season for you to get what you want. It wasn't his season for Elijah to die. God said, you don't need to die.

And what did God do? When he woke up, disappointed that he was still on earth. You can get there, you know.

You can get there. Disappointed that he was still on earth. Like, oh man, why didn't God take me in my sleep?

He looked over and there was water and bread. God had sent an angel to supernaturally provide. Look at the remedy. It wasn't spiritual. God didn't send the Holy Spirit and zap him like some of these evangelists. And now when I lay my hand, you're going to feel the power of God and you are never going to want to die again. Look what God did. God just left him some bread. It was hot bread so it was rolls and water. And he ate and went back to sleep.

That's what he needed. And the Lord said rise and eat because the journey ahead of you is too much for you to go without taking care of yourself. I'm here to tell somebody God's got plans for you and your time is valuable. And you got to honor what you need to do with your time because the journey ahead of you is too important for you to miss. Time to sleep, time to build and nurture significant relationships, time for relaxation and recreation and time for isolation.

I'll talk about those in the next message. God has given you all the time you need to do his will if you will just understand that we are stewards of time that has been given by God. God has entrusted all of us with unique gifts and abilities. We have varying degrees of financial resources, varying numbers of days on earth, but all of us have the same spiritual mandate to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. That's our mission here at Destined for Victory and you can help by praying for this ministry and sending a special gift when you can. In appreciation of your generous gift today, Pastor Paul will send you his booklet, He's Alive. If you've ever wondered if there's proof for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, this booklet can help.

It offers four compelling reasons why Christians believe the resurrection, reasons you can pass along to friends and family members who may still have their doubts. Again, this booklet is called He's Alive and it's our gift to you this month by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. Please call 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.

Again, the address is Destined for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Take at least a tithe of your waking hours and dedicate it. For many of us we're awake approximately 120 hours a week. I would be encouraging you to take at least 12 hours more if necessary for the purpose of worship and spiritual development.

Now what do I mean when I talk about that area? You'll get the answer to that question next time in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, Making the Most of What You Have. But until then remember, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.