Destined for Victory

Paul Sheppard: Folks, agreement is needed today perhaps like never before. Fact of the matter is, discord will disrupt God's power in the midst of His people. Discord will disrupt God's power in your family life, in every area He's called you in. If you don't get a hold of the principle of agreement, you will have a power failure.

Guest (Male): On the night before Jesus paid the debt for our sin, He prayed a prayer for our unity. Hello and welcome to another great day here on Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. Jesus could have prayed for anything, but He chose to pray that believers in Christ would be of one mind, just as He and the Father are of one mind.

Today we'll see just how critical it is for there to be unity in the church of Jesus Christ, not only for its collective growth, but for the personal joy and peace of its individual members. Online you'll find us at pastorpaul.net, where you can listen to Destined for Victory on demand and find details on how to subscribe to our podcast. That's pastorpaul.net. Now, here's today's Destined for Victory message, Learning to Walk in Agreement.

Paul Sheppard: Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth, chapter one. We'll begin our reading at verse one. Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and yours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I always thank God for you because of His grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in Him you have been enriched in every way—in your speaking and in your knowledge—because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

We'll pause our reading there, although we'll refer to some other verses shortly. I want to spend some time in this book of First Corinthians because it has so much important and helpful and, of course, divinely inspired information that the church now, just like the church then in the first century AD, needs to know.

Now, Paul wrote this particular letter to one of the churches he founded as an apostle, as a traveling missionary. In fact, if you want to read about the starting point of that church, you would look in Acts chapter 18. Acts, of course, is the history book of the early church. And in Acts chapter 18, among other things, you will find Paul's journey to the city of Corinth where he and his companions were ministering the word of God. You'll find that he experienced significant persecution there, so much so that he was considering leaving town and going to the next place that the Lord would direct him.

But as he considered doing that, the Bible says there in Acts 18 that one night an angel of the Lord came to him and said, "Paul, do not leave town. No one is going to harm you here. God is going to protect you. Stay here and keep preaching the word because I have many people in this city." God looked at a city that was corrupt, so corrupt was the city of Corinth until its name was used as an adjective to describe gross immorality.

People of that day would say, "We're going to Corinthianize tonight. We're going to do the Corinth tonight." That didn't mean we're just going to have a cookie and Kool-Aid party. That meant we are going to have all kinds of sexual immorality. We're going to have all kinds of drinking and merrymaking, all kind of anything goes. That was Corinth. Anything goes.

And the city was known for its immorality, and it would mix religion with it. It had temples where there were sacred prostitutes and part of their so-called worship was sexual acts. This was some kind of town. But I want you to know something. God looked at that city and told Paul, who was thinking about leaving because of persecution, "Stay there and preach because I have many people there." Right now you couldn't tell it by looking at them, but I have many people there.

That's an encouragement to me because that reminds me that we have no business looking at people's lifestyle to try to figure out whether or not they can get saved. The reality is anybody who comes to Christ can be completely transformed by the power of the gospel. And I want to let you know that you shouldn't give up on your relatives, you shouldn't give up on your wild-living friends, you shouldn't give up on those crazy people that are in your circle of influence.

I dare you to pray for them. I dare you to call their name regularly to the Lord and say, "God, I want you to save them." I dare you to pray those dangerous prayers for months and years like the old saints did. I heard one mother say, "God, put a hook in my son's jaw and drag him into the kingdom." I mean, I dare you to pray those kinds of prayers to say, "God, I don't care what they're doing, I want you to find a way to reach them."

And I want to let you know the gospel can reach anybody. Reach anybody. It's not just for folk who are close to the kingdom. Pray for the ones that you can't hardly see they're so far away. Pray for the ones who are atheists, who are agnostics, who are cursing God and cursing you for believing in God. Pray for them because God is able to turn them around. The gospel has power in it.

And this city is a testament to the power of God to change lives. For when Paul stayed there as a result of that visitation, the Bible goes on there in Acts 18 to say he stayed there another 18 months, a year and a half, and he preached the gospel. By the time he left, there was a congregation of believers sold out for Jesus Christ. And after he left, they continued to grow and thrive in the things of God.

And this is the group of people that Paul writes this letter to. And I want to let you know he is writing because he is interested in their spiritual growth and development because he knew that yes, they're saved, yes, they have a high and holy calling on their lives, but they need to learn how to walk in that calling.

And you know, that's the same truth for the church today. We are called just like they were. Now notice Paul's real clear that these folk are saved. He said "to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy together with all the other saints." And so he describes them as sanctified. That's their positional righteousness. God has set them apart and called them to be holy and distinct.

But the letter is going to teach them how to live up to His calling. See, God has a high calling on your life. And if you're living lower than the calling, God is walking with you by the Spirit to take you where He wants you to go. And I want to let you know that we are going to learn a lot of things as we study this letter because it deals with so many of the issues not only in that church, but in every church today.

Now, one of the issues in particular that he begins to deal with here after complimenting the church—I love Paul's style. He would often write and first say, "I thank my God for you," and then he would give some testimony of why he appreciated that particular congregation because he wanted to make sure they understood that I know you're children of God, I know that God loves you and has redeemed you.

And the things I'm about to write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit don't suggest that you're not saved. In fact, I'm writing them because you are saved and have such a high calling, God wants to take you to higher heights. And the same is true with you. I don't want you to be discouraged wherever you are in your spiritual walk. You might be stumbling and failing, but I want to let you know as Paul said as he wrapped up this section of compliments, God will keep you strong to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. I want somebody to know God is faithful. And He began a good work in you and He is going to finish what He started. Don't you let the enemy discourage you. Don't you let the devil say that might work for other folk, but you will never live the way they're talking about you living. The devil is a liar. If God started it, God can finish it.

Guest (Male): Don't go away. The rest of today's Destined for Victory message featuring Pastor Paul Sheppard is coming right up. In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Our mission here at Destined for Victory is to share that timeless truth, Jesus Himself, so that as many people as possible can be saved.

You can help keep these messages coming your way all year round by sending a generous gift today. Visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. That's pastorpaul.net. Or call 855-339-5500. Now let's go back to today's teaching from 1 Corinthians chapter one. The very first issue the Apostle Paul addresses is the disunity in that particular church. Here's the rest of Pastor Paul Sheppard's message, Learning to Walk in Agreement.

Paul Sheppard: If God gave you a holy calling, God can make you holy. If God called you to be sanctified, God can sanctify you, cleanse you, and set you apart. He can take habits out of your life that ought not be there. He can snatch the taste of anything that doesn't please Him out of your mouth, out of your veins, out of whatever it is that would hinder you from fulfilling God's best plan for your life. There is power for you to be changed because God is faithful.

God is faithful. Don't you lower the standard for yourself and say, "Well, I'm just hoping to cut back." God doesn't want you cutting back on your sin quotient. "Well, you know, I don't sin as much as I used to." Well, that's a good start, but God's not finished with you yet. He has called you to be His holy child. And the good news is He doesn't call you to something He doesn't equip you for. God is faithful.

Now, the first issue Paul tackles in this letter that I want to talk about with you is the issue of disunity in the church. And he wants to teach them the importance of learning to walk in agreement. Learning to walk in agreement. And so when we get to verse 10, we find him saying, "I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought."

So his goal is to point out the fact that he knows there is disunity and discord in the church and he wants to call them to a standard of agreement and unity. And so he says, "I'm making a personal appeal. I feel strongly about this. I appeal to you, brothers, that you will learn to walk in agreement." Folks, agreement is needed today perhaps like never before. Fact of the matter is, discord will disrupt God's power in the midst of His people. Discord will disrupt God's power in your family life, in every area He's called you in. If you don't get a hold of the principle of agreement, you will have a power failure.

Because power with God is dependent upon your ability to walk in agreement. The Bible says when two or three of us gather in His name—and it's not just a gathering, "Okay, we're in the same room." No, in His name. We're gathering with the agenda to lift up Jesus, to glorify Him. We're not coming with our own agenda and "Here's what I want to do and I don't care what you think about it." But when we gather in His name, the Bible says He shows up. There's power in agreement.

In fact, so strong is this principle that you will note in John chapter 17 when Jesus prayed His prayer, He prayed that God would unify the church. He said, "Father, make them one." It's important to God. Anytime Jesus stopped and prayed that the disciples and the church through the centuries would be unified, folks, that means it's very important to God.

He promised us power, but He prayed for unity because he knew without the unity, it would short circuit the power. And so He is calling for spiritual agreement because God knows that we need it in days like these. Marriages are breaking up because of a failure to live by the principle of agreement. Folk are breaking up housekeeping who just barely got married. Months in, already going two separate ways.

And then on the other end, you've got folk who've been living together for a long time in matrimony. And here they are 20, 25, 30, 35 plus years in. Now you put in that much time, given somebody the best of your years, where in the world are you going? Oh, but that's not the way they're thinking because we haven't locked in on the principle of agreement.

If we can get into agreement, business will pick up for the better in our churches, in our marriages, in every place God assigns you as His child. We've got to learn how to walk in agreement. Good relationships falling apart. People who walked together in fellowship for years, bore one another's burdens, held each other's confidences, now finding it difficult to even look one another in the eye.

And I'm telling you, folks, God is calling us out of that and into agreement. I submit you can't afford to throw people away these days in the body of Christ. You need the prayers, you need the support, you need the well-wishes of everybody else who's on this journey to heaven with you. You don't have the luxury of dismissing folk and telling them that you have no more need for them.

You've got to tap into this principle of agreement. And I tell you, it'll bring about a fresh power and a fresh anointing in your life and in your service for God. Now, of course, the Bible is intensely practical and it doesn't call us into agreement without giving us the how-tos. And so we're going to talk about some of the practical ways that you can find this point of agreement.

But I want you to first understand what disagreement looks like. Now, in the case of the Corinthian church, it had a particular symptom at that time. And the symptom was that people were saying, "I have a certain leader who I follow," and the implication is, "I don't follow anybody else." And in so doing that, you had factions in the church instead of everyone seeing what God was doing and flowing together with God.

You had folk broken up. Look at what Paul says in verse 11: "My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, 'I follow Paul'; another, 'I follow Apollos'; another, 'I follow Cephas'; and still another, 'I follow Christ.'" Now look at what's happening. Their particular symptom of disunity, of disagreement, was they were forming factions around their favorite leaders.

Now, it is okay to have preacher preference. He is not rebuking them because they have preacher preference. But notice, he said what I heard from Chloe and them—that's Paul Sheppard translation. I heard from Chloe and them that there are factions, quarrels among you. So these folk aren't content to just prefer a certain style but walk in unity with other folk. They have actually camped out around a certain leader and they are dismissive of everyone else who doesn't follow their particular leader.

They don't just have preacher preference—it wouldn't be anything wrong with preacher preference, everybody has that. And it depends on who you're talking to. And that's why God raises up different people to minister in different ways because sooner or later you're going to be ministered to in a style and in a way that you really resonate with, and that is so that you can really grow.

So God has a vested interest in raising up diversity among leaders. But you notice this is not preacher preference. This isn't just saying, "Well, I happen to like the Apostle Paul's style of ministry; it just really resonates with me." That's not a problem. Or "I really like Peter, who is named Cephas here," or "I really like Apollos" or any of that. They are camped out. "This is the man with the anointing. And I follow what he said. These other folk come through here, I don't even want to hear it. And I'm through with all the people who don't follow my man."

Now notice Paul isn't even congratulating the group that says they follow him. He's not congratulating them because that's not a praise report. "I follow Paul." He realizes that he is merely one person on a team of people God has raised up in the church in the first century to feed that vast body of Christ. And he does what God called him to do. And Paul was Paul, like him or not.

But he is suggesting here: don't camp out around me because God might speak to you through somebody else. So he's not applauding his group. Second group says, "I like Apollos." Now, Apollos was known to be more of an apologist. He was known to be the kind of person who reasoned from the scriptures. And he had, no doubt, a very eloquent style of laying out truth, line upon line, precept upon precept. Many people believe that the book of Hebrews was written by Apollos.

And so this man had a very eloquent style of delivering the word of God, and it resonated with some people. And that's fine. But he didn't need or want followers who then divided from the rest of the body of Christ. Then you had a third group that said, "I follow Cephas." That's Peter. Now you know Peter didn't go to rabbinical school. Peter wasn't one of those people who had a vast educational background.

Peter was a straight-up fisherman that got saved. Jesus found him on the shore. And Jesus said to him, "I'm not even going to change your trade, I'm just going to change what you catch. I'm going to make you fishers of men." Peter said, "Bet," dropped his nets, and went with Jesus. And Peter was definitely what you see is what you get. That brother would just tell you what was on his mind even if he hadn't fully thought it out yet. And some folk resonated with that style. Some people like that. But when you act like he's the only one with the anointing, now you got a problem.

Guest (Male): There are plenty of great pastors and teachers out there. Find one who correctly handles the word of truth and you will have found a good thing. But ultimately, we are followers of those who preach the word. We are followers of the Word Himself become flesh. Remember to stop by our website pastorpaul.net to find out how to listen to Destined for Victory in your favorite digital platform. And while you're there, check out our online store for some great resources to help you grow in your Christian faith and the special gift we have reserved for you today.

For the first time ever, Let My People Smile is available in video format. Let My People Smile has long been a huge favorite among our listening friends and partners, featuring Pastor Paul's unique blend of humor and biblical wisdom. But now, you'll be able to watch these humorous teaching clips in your favorite video format. It's Let My People Smile, available on DVD or a streaming link, and it's yours this month for your most generous gift of $25 or more to Destined for Victory.

You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's 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. Well, the church can never have corporate unity unless it first has individual sacrifice. Here's Pastor Paul.

Paul Sheppard: Number one is the principle of preferring. Preferring. Keyword, preferring. Preferring other people above yourself will help you to walk in agreement. Some of us are used to a my-way-or-the-highway approach to living. That won't get you far in the kingdom.

Guest (Male): That's next time in our continuing message, Learning to Walk in Agreement. But until then, remember: He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion in Christ. You are destined for victory.