The Flip Side of Blessings, Part 1 (cont'd)

But miracles don't mean there'll be no misfortune. Misfortunes in our lives don't mean God doesn't work miracles. You got to understand that both happen in the kingdom economy. Jesus said, to whom much is given, much is required.

Those are the rules. Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard, Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Well, we all want to be blessed by God, to have him grant us mercy and favor, and sometimes he will.

But his blessings also come with responsibility and maybe even a little misfortune or disappointment along the way. Pastor Paul helps drive this point home today as he takes us once again to the story of Elisha the prophet. Stay with us now or listen to any recent message online on demand at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net.

Now with this message, the flip side of blessings, here's Pastor Paul Sheppard. God can bless you with a job that drives you just about crazy. Now you know the blessing was a job, you prayed it up.

But it still is driving you crazy. See, you got to balance this thing. Blessing doesn't mean fantasy. Blessing sometimes means hard work.

So that's why you got to practice the self-care and let other people care for you. It all flows together. And you got to make sure that you know blessings are blessings. Never call it anything other than a blessing. But it'll keep you up at night.

It'll cost you money, cost you time, cost you inconvenience. And you've just got to understand that as you move forward. All right, now let's look at the next practical lesson I want to point out. Look at verses 19 and 20. So the boy goes out, the end of verse 18 said the boy went out to his father, which means he's probably a pre-adolescent, but he's able to go out and talk and go out to where his dad's working and all that. Because he went out, saw his dad, saw the reapers. And while he got out there, look at this, verse 19, he said to his father, my head, my head.

His father told a servant, carry him to his mother. Ooh, that's us, isn't it? Come on, brothers. Let's just be honest. When there's a problem, brother man said, take him to his mama.

That's the way it goes. And y'all know, I know some of y'all kind of want to fuss about it, but you know if he didn't handle it the way you wanted it handled out there in that field, y'all know the kind of... Some of y'all would have been like, why didn't you bring me my baby? The boy walking, talking all out there, how come you didn't bring my baby? Then sitting somebody in here telling me what you did and you didn't do everything right? So a lot of us know.

Something happened, you better give him to mama. And I'm going to fall in line with her. She tell me what we're going to do and that's what we're going to do.

Some of you single brothers, y'all too macho. You better learn this before you get married. Trying to be the king of the castle, run everything. No, bro, you're going to have to learn to run the vacuum cleaner. Run the dishwasher.

You're going to run things, run the dishwasher. So look at this. He says, my head, my head, he has some sort of medical emergency when he goes out to the field. We don't know what it is. I've seen preachers and commentators try to tell me it was a sunstroke.

The Bible didn't tell you what it was. It was a medical emergency. There are lots of ways that you could result with this problem that this boy had.

And so it was a medical emergency. His father says carry him to his mother. Servant lifts him up, carries him to his mother. The boy sat on her lap until noon and then he died.

Now let's zoom in. Point number three, both miracles and misfortunes can occur in our lives. Miracles, his birth was a miracle.

Husband old, wife never had a baby. Miracle, this prophecy resulted in a miracle. But miracles don't mean there'll be no misfortunes. Misfortunes in our lives don't mean God doesn't work miracles.

You got to understand that both happen in the kingdom economy. So please, please just let pastor, I just am determined I'm not going to pastor backwards Christians. I'm not going to lead people who think if God didn't work a miracle every single time you ask for one, something was wrong with your faith. Sometimes your faith is intact, but what you expected and what you believed for didn't pan out the way you believed. And the last thing you should do is let the devil or let pharisee Christians tell you something wrong with you because there was a problem, a misfortunate circumstance in your life.

I'm preaching better than you say an amen. Fact of the matter is both miracles and misfortunes can occur in the lives of faithful people. See, we love the stories where you see the miracle at the end because that's the way we write stories.

That's the way we write movies. There's always that wonderful ending. And sometimes you get it for a certain chapter of your life. You get the wonderful ending for that chapter. But guess what?

There are some other chapters that don't include the wonderful, miraculous end. Don't believe me? Ask David. You remember in 2 Samuel 12, beginning at verse 15, this is after Nathan has come to tell David that God knows exactly what happened. God knows that that man is dead because you took his wife and God didn't authorize you. You remember when Nathan first started talking to David, he said, God has been too good to you for you to act like this. And he said, as if God hadn't already blessed you enough, if you had asked him, he'd have blessed you some more.

But rather than ask him, you took it upon yourself. I want Bathsheba. I'm going to have Bathsheba.

And her husband is in my army fighting for me right now, but he is an inconvenience. So I'm going to use my authority, put him on the front line of a battle and tell the army to withdraw from him. How desperately sinful can we be? Don't y'all look at David. You got some stuff somewhere in some corner of your life. Maybe the people don't know it.

Maybe it's not broadcast news. I don't care if it was a little sneaky sin, a little sneaky something, just something there, but God saw it. You looked left and right. Okay, I guess I'm all right. And God said, you all right, huh?

And so look at this. David said, yes, I've sinned, I've messed up. Nathan said, well, God sees your heart.

He knows that you love him. David was a man after God's own heart. And when he broke God's heart, it crushed him. And he said, the Lord has forgiven you, but your son's going to die. Your son's going to die.

No miraculous ending here. Your son's going to die. You know the story here in 2 Samuel 12. David prayed fasted, wouldn't wash up, wouldn't he?

Just laid on the ground, prayed and cried out to God and fasted. Lord, please spare my son. He already heard the word of the Lord from the prophet Nathan.

The boy's going to die. See, that's not a prophecy. We don't want those kind of prophecies. We think prophecy is automatically wonderful.

Sometimes prophecy is just a sad truth. And so he prays and prays and prays. And you know the story. I won't read it in the interest of time.

You know the story. Finally, David looked up from his crying and fasting and he saw a couple of folks talking in the corner. He said, wait a minute. He said, that doesn't look right. He said, is my son alive? You tell him, you tell him, I ain't telling you.

You know how your friends would do that. I ain't saying nothing. Just speak up. You heard him ask questions.

Don't you go ahead. Finally, somebody said, yes, King, he's dead. What happens next? David gets up. Sometimes that's the only word you're going to get. Get up. It's bad, but it's not over. You didn't get what you wanted, but life goes on. Come on, some of y'all don't want that. You want a word that you're going to be a millionaire and you're going to be healthy, wealthy, sexy, and wise.

The reality is sometimes that's not going to happen. You just got to get up, wash up. He anointed his face. He needed a good bath and lay in there crying and waddling.

And then they brought him food. You're listening to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd, senior pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. The second half of today's message comes your way next, so stay tuned. But be sure to listen to Destined for Victory wherever you go by downloading our free mobile app. You can tune into any one of Pastor Paul's recent messages on demand.

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Here's Pastor Paul now with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, the flip side of blessings. Sometimes the best we can do is move forward. It's hard, but move forward. Tears running, but move forward. I can't believe this happened, but move forward. I was too good to that man for him to leave me for some floozy, but move forward.

I was too good on that job for them to cut me loose while the executives are getting bonuses. Get mad, but move forward. Because my God still works miracles. Just because I didn't get this one that I wanted, just because this answer wasn't what I wished it would be, doesn't mean God's done. He's still got blessings down the road for me, but I'll only get to them if I move forward.

Some of you all are like Mephibosheth. You've had a horrible problem that wasn't your fault, and you've been crawling around in life, but you got to keep moving forward. Because what you don't know is that there's an Uncle David who's going to come find you and bless you. You've got to understand that there are more blessings ahead of you than are behind you, but you'll only see them if you move forward. I came to tell somebody before I move in the next message into the meat of what happened here, I just need to make sure you stay balanced in your theology and your faith. I don't want you to believe that faith is some sort of spiritual vending machine, and you just call everything to be. Because sometimes God gives us the ability to call it and make it happen, sometimes it is not what God has ordained.

And you know how we do. Confess it. Oh, I remember decades ago when confession started being, it was back in the 70s actually, late 70s, when I first started hearing the whole confess, confess, confess. What's your confession? Get your confession right. Confession?

I didn't do nothing wrong. No, that's not confession. Confession is when you confess the word and you tell them what's going on. And people did that, and I studied it.

And I found out, yes, there is certainly a grain of truth. Keep your confession lined up with the word, but you don't get to say what God has not said. I can't claim a Bentley if God didn't give me a Bentley. First of all, I don't have Bentley money.

Come on. And I balance out my friends who are kind of hyper-faith. I said, look at how many people drive their favorite cars. You know why they drive it?

95, 96, 98, 99 percent of them, it's because they had the money in the bank before they went to the dealership. They didn't have to go up in the name of Jesus. I'm just trying to straighten people's faith out. Don't use your faith for stuff God didn't give you.

Some of you all need to believe for something that'll get you from A to B. I've been there, done that. I know what I'm talking about. Yeah, you driving nice now. Well, you should have saw me back in the day.

That's all I'm saying. Second worst car in the church. So glad one of the sister's cars were more jacked up than mine. I didn't want to have the worst car in the church.

She's still with me today. She said, Pastor, you're so wrong. I said, I don't call your name. You're the one exposing yourself.

I ain't saying nothing about who you were. Let me close this section of the message and I'll pick it up next time. With a saying that I've referred to from time to time over the years, I learned it decades ago. I don't remember where it originated.

I wasn't able to quickly find it online. And I've tweaked it just a bit. But here's the saying. Put this up on the screen for me. If among many truths you take one and follow it blindly, it will become a falsehood and you a fanatic. Keep that up on the screen.

Somebody might need to write that down. There are many truths. Here's one of the problems we have in the church. Folk will grab a truth they like, like God still works miracles.

I like that truth because I believe it with my whole heart. God is still a worker of miracles. I am not a cessationist.

A lot of the guys I preach alongside on the radio, they're cessationists. Their theology says that God stopped operating the gift of miracles in the body of Christ in the third or fourth century, depending on how they do their timelines. But they say God stopped working miracles as a gift in the body of Christ. And they say he's sovereign, but miracles are no longer normative for what God will do. Well, I respectfully disagree.

I'm not going to fall out with them. You believe that? Then I don't expect you to pray for any. I pray for some. I've expected some.

I've received some. I've seen God work miracles. I've seen him open doors that no man could shut. I've seen him make a way where there wasn't even a way.

So I know he works miracles. When we were building this worship center, Moms McKean was dying. And she had given two bricks.

A brick was $1,000. She had given $2,000. And the doctors told her she only had three days to live. Somebody from the family called and said, they just told Mom she got three days to live. We were 12 days from walking into this building. And so Meredith and I went to the hospital, walked in the room. Moms was completely blind.

She was my oldest member at the time. And I said, Moms' pastor and first lady said, heard you. You just got some news from the doctors.

They don't expect you to live more than three days. I said, what are you asking God to do? I asked her because I wasn't going to contradict her belief.

I said, what are you asking God to do? She said, well, I want to go into my new building. And she said, I gave my bricks. See, at least the first one, I don't remember how she gave the second one. The first one she brought in a sock. $1,000 in a sock.

We were still in the hotels. One hotel she came, handed us a sock. She said, my family around, I need to know where my money is.

Long story short, we laid hands and said, Lord, Mother's asking you. She's ready to meet you. She knows you. And she'll enjoy. She's going to enjoy eternity in your presence. But she's asking you to give her more than this three days because that won't get her in the building. Said, Lord, we're going to unite our faith with hers. Ask you to work a miracle. Long story short, three days later, I called the house.

I said, just checking on moms. They said, she's sitting up here getting her hair done. Long story short, 12 days later, fourth Sunday in June 2014, we had three services on the opening day to get everybody in. She came to the second service.

Pastor Jenkins was our speaker. I looked, I saw them wheeling her in, big old smile on her face. And after the service, I told Pastor Jenkins, I said, that's the woman I told you about. She was supposed to be dead days ago. He walked over to her, kissed her on the forehead. And he said, what a miracle this is.

She's just smiling. Do you know, God not only blessed her to be here for Sunday of June 2014, she was here fifth Sunday of June 2014. She was here every Sunday in July. She was here every Sunday in August. She was here every Sunday in September.

She was here at least half of October before she got too sick to keep coming. Do you know God gave that woman six months beyond what the doctor said? You can believe God doesn't work miracles, that's fine. You can go to heaven not believing in miracles. But I'm going believing in miracles. You say, yeah, but I believe I asked for a miracle and the person I asked the Lord to keep alive, they died.

What you do then? Bury them. Bury them, rejoice that they knew the Lord.

Say, Lord, I wanted them here, but you took them. So just like Job, Job said the Lord gave, the Lord had taken away. I'm not going to stop praising.

You all heard that song. Don't stop praising just because you didn't get what you wanted. God is a miracle working God, but we have to learn not to be fanatics. Don't take one truth, grab it, extricated from all the rest of the truths and follow it blindly. That sets you up to be a fanatic. You want to live a balanced faith walk. I've seen God do marvelous things, but he's God.

I'm not. We've got to keep it straight. Thanks so much for joining us for today's Destined for Victory message, the flip side of blessings. Such a great reminder that the Christian life is not a trouble free life, but it is the best life you could ever hope to live. Our mission here at Destined for Victory is to point people toward that new life in Christ and to help them grow in their faith once they have it.

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That's Caregivers Need Care Too, our gift to you this month by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. Whatever's going on in your life, you need to be a person of faith. Don't just have faith, be a person of faith. Everything I do, I do from a place of faith. In other words, I trust God day by day.

I trust Him when nothing is going wrong, so I'm certainly got to learn to trust Him when things have not gone right. That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message, The Flipside of Blessings. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are Destined for Victory. .