I come with a word for those of us who are dealing with a stormy situation. Could be a marital storm, could be a financial storm, could be an emotional storm. But God's gonna teach you some valuable lessons about who He is while you're going through your storm. It's been said that adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away everything except for that which cannot be torn away.
Hello and thanks for stopping by for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Always a pleasure to have you with us.
Well, it is often when times are their worst that we see God best and ourselves best. The storms of life reveal who we are, so that God can help us become who we can be. As you follow along today, remember: once you understand God's purpose for your problems, you'll begin to make sense of your storms. Before we get started, let me invite you to visit our website, PastorPaul.net. That's where you can listen for any of our recent messages on demand, including today's.
PastorPaul.net. The message is called "A Miracle in the Midst of Madness," and it starts right now. Matthew chapter fourteen, beginning with verse twenty-two. It says, "This immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side." While he dismissed the crowd, after he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them. Walking on the lake, when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. It's a ghost, they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them, "Take courage. It is I.
Don't be afraid." Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You of little faith, he said. Why did you doubt?
And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, "Truly, you are the Son of God." I want to talk to you from the subject of miracle in the midst of madness. I come to this preaching assignment with a word for you, a word from the Lord. I come with a word for those of us who are dealing with a stormy situation. Could be a marital storm, could be a financial storm, could be an emotional storm, could be a storm related to your work, could be a storm in your family, could be a storm in some other interpersonal relationship.
I don't know what storm you may be going through, but I do know God has a word for you if you're in a stormy situation. And that word is God says you're not going to die in this storm. The storm will not take you out. And not only will you survive the storm, not only will you arrive on the other side of the storm, but God's going to teach you some valuable lessons about who He is. While you're going through your storm, but I want you to know before I get to the heart of this passage, I want you to know you're gonna make it.
Just like the disciples made it, although they were full of fear and and wondered were they going to survive, they made it, and you're gonna make it too. I want somebody to leave here declaring. I'm going to make it through my storm. God has a plan for you, and the plan is not only for your survival but for your growth as a result of going through what He's allowing to take place in your life. I want to start not with the passage we just read, but with the general context.
If you really want to study your Bible correctly, you want to take every text in its context. And so, rather than to look just at this story, I want to walk you back through the verses leading up to the story. When you get to the early part of Matthew fourteen, you will discover that we're told about the death of John the Baptist. We're told that Herod has him beheaded. Like so many of the prophets, this prophet of God knew that his life would end with martyrdom.
He understood that he was here to proclaim the word of God to an unfriendly generation, and anything was liable to happen as a result of that. And he was perfectly prepared. When you look at John the Baptist, his ministry was dynamic. He got right to the point. The man didn't pull the punch.
In fact, the reason. Reason why they got mad enough to want him dead is because he walked up to a man and said, "It's unlawful for you to have this woman," and the man got upset and put things in motion that resulted in his beheading.
Sometimes telling the truth will cost you, and John sealed his testimony with his own blood. But he was a man after God's own heart.
Well, his disciples took his body and gave him a proper burial, and then we're told in Matthew fourteen that they went and told Jesus about this beheading. As a result, Jesus wants to sail to a solitary place, and so he. And his disciples get in the boat and they sail, hoping to have a little time so that, no doubt, Jesus can just sort of process what's going on. This is a sort of turning point.
Now his forerunner is off the scene. Jesus knows that the next substantial thing that happens in redemptive history is going to be his own crucifixion. He knows that after his years of ministry to the people, he himself is going to be the next one to lose his life. But he knows, in losing his life, he will give life to so many others. And so, obviously, Jesus wants to do a little processing.
So we're told earlier in Matthew fourteen that he wants to go to a solitary place. The problem is, the people anticipated where he was going to land that boat, and they met him. Imagine Jesus and the disciples are in this ship, and as they're approaching the dock, as they're approaching where they're going to anchor and get out of the boat, they see a whole. Whole bunch of folk, thousands of people, waiting for him because they long to be ministered to. They brought their sick to be healed.
They brought people who were demonized and wanted to see them set free, and there they are standing there, needy, waiting for Jesus to come.
Now, Jesus wants isolation and solitude for a while because he understands that if you're going to live your life well in the will of God, sometimes you have to do a little processing. We Christians would do well to learn all of the lessons from Jesus' life, not just some of them.
Sometimes you learn from what he did, and some of us need to learn the importance of processing where we are in life.
Some of us have got to learn to stop and take inventory and say, "I'm in a new season. I'm going through a new set of changes. I'm having a new set of emotions that I have to deal with." And get locked in on where you are. The best way to get where you want to be is to know where you are.
Some of us would do well to follow Jesus' pattern and to recalibrate and to assess and evaluate where y'all are when significant things happen, such as happened in his life, where he loses this significant forerunner to his ministry. He needs to stop and pray and think about that and do some emotional processing, and so do some of us.
Sometimes it's not a prayer matter.
Sometimes you need to think about some things.
Sometimes you need to make some changes. When you're in a new season, you gotta change with the season, just like with our clothing. If you're in a cold season, there's certain things you don't wear through your cold season. Put them shorts up somewhere. This isn't short season.
You gotta go somewhere and get some heavy. And you gotta change according to your season, and sometimes we have to do that psychologically and emotionally.
Well, that's obviously what Jesus wants to do, but the crowd is there, having need and anticipating his arrival, so that they can bring their sick and their hurting people to Jesus and have him minister. And I love the fact that Jesus sees them, and out of his compassion, we're told. He puts his desire for solitude on temporary hold. He pushes pause. He's going to get to it, but he pushes pause because he is a man of compassion.
One of the things I love most about the God we serve is that Jesus is a man full of compassion. Full of compassion. You know, there are people who believe they're Bible scholars and teachers and and what have you who believe that there are nine fruit of the spirit.
Now, often hear people refer to the nine fruit of the spirit, and of course, they're referring to that passage in Galatians five. Where we're told the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, etc., and so they think those nine things make up the nine fruit of the spirit.
Well, I respectfully differ from that position. I do not believe it was the intent of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul to give us a definitive list of the fruit or character traits that the Holy Spirit wants to develop in us. The fact of the matter is, when you read throughout the Scriptures, there are any number of Character traits that God wants to develop in us, and they're clearly taught in other passages. In Peter's writing, you'll see a different list that includes some other character traits other than those mentioned by Paul in Galatians 5. And so, I don't believe it is the intent of the Holy Spirit to have us define the fruit of the Spirit merely by nine characteristics.
There are lots of things God wants to cultivate in our lives. And one of them is compassion. Compassion is enlisted among Galatians five, but I'm here to tell you it is a fruit of the spirit. And so, if you come from a school of thought that's real, well defined, and you want to believe in the nine fruit of the spirit, that's fine. You have the right to be wrong.
But while you want to call them the nine fruit of the spirit, at least, at least allow for the truth that there are some other things. Whether you call them fruit or not, there are other things that God wants to develop in your life and mind. And one of them is compassion. Jesus, our Savior, was full of compassion. Still ahead, the second half of today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepard.
So don't go away just yet. To listen to this program on your schedule, don't forget to download the free Destined for Victory mobile app. Search Destined for Victory in the App Store today. For more details or to find out how to listen to Destined for Victory on your favorite digital platform, visit PastorPaul.net.
Well, godly compassion works a little bit like faith. When it's genuine, you won't just feel something; you'll do something.
Now, let's get you back to the rest of today's "Destined for Victory" message: a miracle in the midst of madness. I don't get these Christians who are mean and uncaring. And unkind, and could care less about people in need. Pass judgment when they see hurting people. They probably brought it on themselves, and all of that.
I don't understand how one can name the name of a God who saved you purely by His grace. And then you turn around and lack the very compassion that resulted in your salvation. You lack that as it relates to other people. I want to let you know, discipleship is the journey of becoming more like Christ. Don't call yourself a disciple unless you are a little more like Christ this year than you were this time last year.
See, some folks just have a profession, but discipleship is a journey, and discipleship means I'm learning, I'm growing. When I fail, I'm getting up, learning from my failure, and learning how to be more like Christ. It is a journey, and on the journey, you ought to be becoming more like Jesus. Compassion is one of those character traits that the Holy Spirit wants to develop in our lives. The only way our hurting world is going to know about our loving Savior is if they see Him at work through the Church, which is His body.
We must show the compassion of Christ. He's not here physically to show it, but we are here in His name. And we're called to be compassionate. How dare you be saved and mean? How dare you be saved and insensitive?
How dare you enjoy salvation that was a gift you could never earn, and then withhold blessing and love and provision and help from people in need? How dare you be such a hypocrite? Jesus was full of compassion. And so he stopped, and he put on hold his own desire for solitude, and he began to lay hands on sick people and heal them. If there were demonized in that group, he began to rebuke the devil, and people who came bound left set free.
Cause he was full of compassion. I want somebody to make up in your mind. I'm gonna stop calling myself saved and being proud of being mean, proud of being judgmental, proud of having an agenda other than the agenda you see from your Lord. If Jesus loved people, you ought to love people, and he didn't just love nice people. He didn't just love church folk.
In fact, the people who gave him the biggest trouble were church folk. Read your Bible, and you'll see Jesus had a much better time hanging out with sinners and publicans and streetwalkers and whoremongers and folk that sinners called sinners. You know that's true. When you read the Gospels, you see sometimes people referred to as publicans and sinners in quotes. What that means is they were such sinners that sinners called them sinners.
There were some folk that were so much sinners. You know, any time your unsaved relatives say, "You know what? You need Jesus," that's what I'm talking about. There were people like that in Jesus' world. There are people like that in our world.
Everybody know they need the Lord. Even atheists know they need the Lord. But when you read your Bible, you see Jesus was very comfortable with those folk. Why? Because he knew he came to set them free, to give them light, and to shed light on their darkness, and to let them know you don't have to keep living this way.
Jesus loved people whose lives he could transform. What he couldn't take. Is these mean Pharisees, and do you know that the Pharisee sect by name is not in the church, but the reality is definitely in the church. We got Christian Pharisees like you wouldn't believe, go around with their book of rules and regulation, with their judgmental attitude, with their you're going to hell mentality. And you need to understand something that does not reflect the life or the love of Jesus Christ.
Read your Bible. Don't look at the folks. If you want to be like Jesus, don't look at the people. Read your word. Because it's something about that religious thing that people start tripping and start feeling like their lives are blessed because they are so good, they are so righteous, and they don't get that everything good in their life has come by grace.
Grace, by definition, is unmerited favor. You couldn't buy the best things God's doing in your life. Your righteousness is as filthy rags. Everything good in your life—it's a work of grace. And how dare we, who are products of grace, take the law and apply it to somebody?
And so the church can be out of sync with Jesus. The church can act like the Pharisees who caught a woman in the act of adultery and dragged her out, misapplying the law as they went. Because if you want to apply the law, the law said stone the adulterers plural. You can't commit adultery by yourself. But they went and got the helpless woman.
In that day, you could grab the sister. They waited for the man to get his little shower and get out of there, because they knew they better not run up on that dude. With their little law and their little prissy white robes, when that man got through with them, their robes wouldn't have been white anymore.
So they waited for him to leave, then grabbed the little helpless woman. I told you many times before that was first century A.D. Don't try that now, Pharisees, because these sisters been working out. They've been doing Pilates and carrying on. You can't run up wrong on a sister now.
She will take you out. She end up dragging you to Jesus. Said Jesus, "This man was tripping. You need to do something with him." Notice how different Jesus' reaction was to religious people. Jesus looked beyond this woman's fault and saw her need.
She needed to know God loved her. She needed to know God could change her. And so the first thing Jesus did is cleared out all the Pharisees. He began by saying, "Okay, y'all want to have a stoning, huh? All right, cool, fine with me.
Let him who is without sin, no sin in your life, past, present, no sin, because you know sin. There's no statute of limitations." If you did sin, you're a sinner. Come on now, there's no statute of limitations.
So Jesus said, "Whoever has never sinned, go on, throw the first stone." And just in case somebody was seriously out of touch, Jesus then stooped down and started writing. In the dirt. When I get to heaven, I don't know that we'll be able to take our questions with us into that world. I don't know. I know that in His presence, His fullness of joy.
It could be that everything that was a question in this life, by the time you get to heaven, it's gone, because we're in the fullness now. You got no more. But if we somehow get to give Him our top ten questions from this life, one of mine. I promise you, if we get to ask him ten questions apiece, one of mine is going to be: Now, what did you write? I want to know what you wrote in the dirt.
Whatever it was, those hypocrites started looking at it, and the Bible says they walked away from the eldest to the youngest, the eldest who had done the most junk. He said, "All right," and he cleared all of them out. Then he engages the woman that they want a stone, and he says, "Where are your condemners?" She looked around, said, "No one condemns me," and Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you." Go and leave your life of sin. The good news of the gospel is this: While we were yet sinners, deserving of death, Christ died in our place, so that we might find eternal life in Him. That's our mission at Destined for Victory—to share that message with the world and make disciples of all nations.
And to get that job done, it takes all of us working together.
So today, we're asking all of our listening friends and partners to carefully consider making a generous donation to Destined for Victory. When you do, we'd love to send you our latest booklet, "A Miracle in the Midst of Madness." You know, sooner or later, all believers find themselves in a boat they didn't choose, facing a crisis they can't explain. Based on Pastor Paul's teaching from Matthew 14, this booklet will help you understand God's purpose for sending His people into the storm. It's not to destroy you, but to grow you. A miracle in the midst of madness is a must-read for every believer in Christ, and it's our gift to you today by request.
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What are you full of? You're full of something. Oh, you can bet that you are full of something.
So the question is, what are you full of? What comes out of you the most? Is it hatred? Is it malice? Is it judgmentalism?
Is it anger? If it's not the character of Christ, that simply means you got a lot to learn and to be transformed about on your journey. That's next time in our message. A miracle in the midst of madness. But until then, remember, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.
In Christ, you are destined for victory.
