Destined for Victory

Paul Sheppard: God uses people to help you. We all have blind spots. Somebody’s got to help you see what you don’t see. It’s like a driver and there are spots on the road the driver can’t see by virtue of his or her vantage point, but another passenger can see. The words of a friend are like a surgeon’s scalpel. When they cut you, they’re trying to cure you.

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory featuring Pastor Paul Sheppard. Well, we all need a fresh perspective from time to time. And when we do, it’s important to have someone or a small group of someones we can trust. Today, you’ll hear about the qualities of a good friend and counselor. Whether you confide in a spouse, a pastor, a parent, or a friend, make sure they have at least a few of these traits.

Remember, visit pastorpaul.net where you can hear any recent Destined for Victory message on demand, including today’s. That’s pastorpaul.net. Now, let’s listen closely to Pastor Paul’s Destined for Victory message, Can't We All Just Get Along.

Paul Sheppard: There are things you don’t do, there are things you don’t say, there are places you don’t go simply by virtue of your address and your last name. It had nothing to do with how you feel, what you think, what your friends do. Some of us know, old-fashioned parents would take a text on you if you fooled with them. They’d start preaching.

"You think I brought you into this world to see you act like a fool?" Don’t fool with a mama, one of those old-fashioned mamas. They’d say, "I went down to death’s door to bring you into this world. I liked to have lost my life trying to get you here. You think I went through all of that pain and trouble to just stand by while you act like some wolves raised you? You must be out of your mind."

And so you’ve got to make up in your mind, it’s unpopular, but oh well. Oh well, I preach like this all the time, and I know it’s unpopular. I’ve got all these modern pop psychology people who just say, "Oh, there goes Pastor tripping again." Oh well. If you don’t like it, turn it off, because I’m going to still be telling this truth. We are ruining a generation in the name of love. People need appropriate love.

But there’s a difference between manipulating people out of guilt or shame, which is not God’s plan, or control, and doing what the Bible here says is appropriate. Rebuke them openly, tell them here’s what you need to know. Now, that’s the way the body of Christ gets along. So it’s not like you can’t express differences and disagreements and debates, and it’s not like you can’t tell people hard truths, but we must learn to avoid arrogance in the process.

Don’t let anyone control you but the Holy Spirit. If somebody speaks to you or tells you something and unless you do it, they want nothing else to do with you, and it’s a non-essential matter, then you know this is not a healthy person in your life. And you cut them loose in Jesus' name. I love you, but I’m not hanging out with you because everybody around you has to do exactly what you want or you are going to be miserable and make them miserable.

And I don’t know about you, but I have enough misery in my own life. I don’t need folks bringing it with them into my life. So you speak your mind, speak your heart, and then if the person doesn’t see it, you pray for them. That’s how your marriage will get better. Tell your spouse what’s on your mind, tell them when you’re upset about something, and hope you get a hearing. Some spouses are learning to do it God’s way, they’re learning how to listen. Others will just turn you off.

So if you get turned off or if you get a hearing but then they don’t do anything about what they heard, you have two choices. You can get bitter or you can get better by saying, "Okay Lord, I said it, I spoke it, it’s out there. You haven’t called me to reiterate it over and over and over and over and over and over again. So Lord, give me the grace to love them and move on." That’s what you do. See, some folks don’t want that kind of grace. "That’s all right God, I don’t want that kind of grace. I’m going to get my point across. Oh no, no, you are not ignoring me."

If you want to grow, there’s a right way for us to deal with one another. There’s an appropriate accountability. And we’ve got to learn to exercise godly influence while avoiding fleshly manipulation. But believe me when I tell you before I move to the next point, you do need people to help you in your life. God uses people to help you. Not to control you, not to manipulate you, not to shame you, but to help you.

We all have blind spots. Somebody’s got to help you see what you don’t see. It’s like a driver and there are spots on the road the driver can’t see by virtue of his or her vantage point, but another passenger can see and can tell you, "Don’t go into that lane, it’s dangerous." Now, if the driver has any sense, they’ll say, "Okay, thank you." But if he says, "I know, I’m the one with—you see me sitting up here, don’t you?" All right, go on and wreck your life.

See, appreciate the people God’s brought into your life. Appreciate them. Singles, when your friends are trying to tell you that you are about to make a big mistake with this person you’re hung up on, listen to them. At least evaluate it. You may end up disagreeing with them, but give them a hearing. If they’ve proven to be friends, they haven’t stopped being friends. They’re not jealous because you have somebody. They’re trying to keep you from ruining your life because sometimes they can see. Because you know, when you’re in love or at least in infatuation, you are blind to things everybody else sees.

Have you ever had that happen? Ever seen that happen? Everybody around them sees it, except them. And so friends, that’s your job to say, "I know you’re in love, I know you feel strongly, but there are some things we need to consider here." We endorse pre-engagement counseling in our ministry because we learn to get to them before that ring goes on the finger. Before they start flashing it around and picking dates and picking out invitations and all that stuff. Oh, by then, they don’t hear you.

When you show up, "We want counseling." "When’s your wedding?" "Six weeks away." No, that’s not counseling. It’s too late. Not too late for you all to make a personal decision, but for somebody to try to speak hard truth into your life, it's too far gone. So what we learned to do years ago was to offer pre-engagement when folks are first starting to think about, "I wonder if we’re meant for each other." That’s the time to come on in there and sit down and talk to somebody who loves you but who is in love with neither one of you.

And I have had as a pastor, and the other pastors on our staff who now do it, we’ve all had the experience of having to look at some folks. You know, some you can confirm, "Oh boy, this is great. It looks like you all have really covered the right bases, and this looks like a solid relationship." But there have been some other folks where I just sat there and just said, "This is not going to work. I love you all, but this—you need to go somewhere and rethink this, and here are the reasons why."

And spell it right out and they leave disillusioned. "I don’t know, I don’t see why the pastor doesn’t see that our love will just make a way. He doesn’t know the power of our love. Sometimes we’re just—we’re so connected, we finish each other’s sentences, we know what each other are going to say before we ever say it, our love is so strong. He doesn’t need a job, our love—" And we’re there to tell you, you can’t eat love. Love doesn’t pay bills. The number one reason in America for families breaking up is financial trouble. And things like that we’re just—just trying to share truth. Some folks hear it, some don’t. But there are appropriate ways to influence without manipulation. And so we’ve got to learn the difference.

But you need people in your life. There’s no question but that you need attorneys to help keep you legal in certain situations in your life. There’s no question but that you need accountants or financial consultants to help you stay liquid at certain points in your life. There’s no question but that you need a physician to help you stay healthy.

Guest (Male): Don’t go away, we have more of today’s Destined for Victory message coming up next. We want to thank all of you though who support Destined for Victory with your prayers and financial support, gifts that help us keep this media ministry going. And if you’d like to join us in our mission to preach timeless truth for a victorious life, please consider making a safe and secure donation at our website, pastorpaul.net, or give us a call at 855-339-5500. That’s 855-339-5500.

All things are lawful but not all things are profitable. That’s 1st Corinthians 10:23, and this is the second half of today’s Destined for Victory message, Can't We All Just Get Along. Here’s Pastor Paul.

Paul Sheppard: And so, parents who are wise keep certain things away, out of the view and purview of their children. And that’s smart. That’s not being a hypocrite, that’s being a smart parent. They can’t know everything, they can’t see everything. "I just believe in totally exposing them." You’re going to totally confuse them. You’re going to totally send them to the psychiatrist. They can’t handle some things. A pre-teen can’t understand some things. A teen can’t understand some things. You remember your teens? You thought you knew everything, knew very little.

And so you’ve got to, as a parent, as a responsible person, you’ve got to decide, "I must limit certain freedoms. I’ve got to make sure that I don’t use my freedoms to place a stumbling block in someone else’s way." And that’s the point Paul is making here. And so here is the plea. He is saying, "You who have these differences at the church of Rome, don’t flaunt it in the face of people who really can’t deal with that." He said, instead, restrict your freedom to help others.

Now, the principle that then applies to all of us is that the strong have got to learn to bear the infirmities of the weak. Look at chapter 15, verse 1. Paul says, "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves." There are times when you’ve got to go out of your way to help strengthen the faith of your brothers and sisters in Christ. And so you have to learn how to accommodate the weakness of other people.

You’ve got to learn not to say, "Well, this is just the way I live my life and if you don’t like it, it’s just too bad." No, instead, we have to learn to accommodate their weakness. And if their weakness means that there are certain things I can’t do in their presence—it’s a freedom for me but it will create a problem for them—so out of love and respect for them, I will refrain.

That’s what Paul says is the right thing to do. He says don’t take what is good in your life but expose it to another person who will see it as evil. And so instead, you take your strength and use it responsibly when it comes to people who are weak. Now, again, this is not to be a point of manipulation. You don’t go around manipulating people and saying, "Well, I don’t understand how you could do that and be a Christian, and so you need to stop doing that because I don’t understand it." No, that doesn’t mean you’re weak. Sometimes that just means you’re bullheaded. Sometimes it just means you’re narrow-minded.

Don’t let people manipulate you. I remember when I was a teenager, there was one of the ladies in the church who, when I was a teenager, afros were the thing in black church and black culture, and so I had a big old afro. I mean, you know, I’d plait it up at night, had those braids and you put that Afro Sheen in there. Some folks know what I’m talking about. Others don’t—don’t worry about it, you’ll be all right. And you braided it at night and then in the morning, you take the afro pick and you pick it out. And you’d have a nice basketball afro.

That’s what I had as a teen. I’ve got pictures of it and what have you, and it was just out there man, and just, you know, you could do some serious dating and macking with that. But so I got saved, a lot of my friends got saved, and we had these afros. Well, we had some old mothers in the church who were raised in an era where it was a shame for men to wear long hair. And so they didn’t like us with these long hairstyles one little bit.

And I’ll never forget, one of the ladies came up to me one day in church and she said, "You know, your hair offends me." And here she was, one of the old saints and I’m a young teenage Christian, and she’s telling me my hair offends her and I need to cut it. And I went to my dad who was my pastor and said, "Mother so-and-so said that my hair offends her. Do I have to cut my hair to be a Christian?" And he said, "No." I said, "Well, would you talk to her then, please?"

Because the truth is, I was the one weak in faith. And for her to impose that on me at that point in my life, I don’t know. I think I would have stayed with the Lord, but I may have been so confused that I said, "Well now, if this is Christianity, I don’t want anything to do with it. If old folks get to just walk around and tell me what to do, I thought I love—I love Jesus, I’m not sure about these people."

And I could have been a messed up brother. But Pastor said, "Don’t worry about it, I’ll talk to them." And he had a little meeting with them, with some of the older saints outside of our presence. Very wise. He didn’t want to dress them down in front of us. "Well the young folks said 'That’s right, yeah, get them, yeah!'" You see what I’m saying? You have to learn to deal with the sensitivities. And he got them alone and I’m sure, now that I’m a pastor and all, I know exactly the kind of meeting he conducted because I’ve had to conduct those kind in my own ministry.

Where you get people in close quarters and you tell them what they need to know without embarrassing them among other people. And then he would get with us young folks and say, "Now you all learn to respect the older saints. And when they say something to you you don’t like, be respectful, and don’t flip them off and tell them 'get out my face.'" And in that way, we had balance, and a younger generation of Christians and an older generation were able to get along together.

And that’s what we’ve got to learn to do in the body of Jesus Christ. So the bottom line is you have to—you have to learn to become what I call a world-class Christian. You have to learn that there’s a broad scope in the body of Christ. And that if we will practice principles of loving one another, of accepting one another, of allowing for honest differences of opinion, of avoiding arrogance and accommodating weakness, we can get along and we can walk together. There’s power in agreement.

Peter and John learned that in Acts chapter 3. Peter and John walking together to the temple at the hour of prayer, and they saw a man who was laid there at the gate. He was lame from birth, and he laid there to ask alms, ask money of people. Peter and John looked at him and said, "We don’t have money, we don’t have silver and gold, but in the name of Jesus Christ, rise, take up your bed and walk."

And they had the power not only of those supernatural gifts the Holy Spirit had given them to be able to speak words of healing, but it came out of the power of their unity. Peter and John were, temperamentally, you would consider them natural enemies. Peter was a fisherman, he was a robust person, he was the kind of man who said everything he thought. When you read Peter in the Gospels, Peter didn’t leave anything unsaid. Isn’t that right? You study the Gospels, Peter’s always "and then Peter said." He’s always speaking up.

He was the one who told Jesus when he was about to be arrested, he told him he knew it was getting thick and he told Jesus, "Listen, I don’t know why you picked some of these people, it’s getting thick, obviously they’re about to get you, and you picked some of the wrong folks because these people not going to stand with you. When the deal goes down, they are going to leave you. See, you been rolling with the wrong crew. These folks about to show you that they can’t stand by, but I got good news, Jesus: you did pick me. And I’m going to stand with you till the end."

Didn’t Peter say it? "If everyone else forsakes you, I’m going to be with you till the end." Just bragging. That was Peter. John was a very different temperament. John was a very affectionate person. You know, his masculinity wasn’t questionable, nothing like that, but he was just temperamentally, he was very affectionate, he was in touch with his inner feelings. John was—John knew who he was. He was a man, but he—he was in touch, he was all right.

And he was so comfortable, he would lay on Jesus. One story in the Gospels you see him laying—the Bible says they were reclined at a meal where they would lay on their side and kind of dine and what have you, and the Bible says that John was leaning on Jesus. He was—he was comfortable. And Jesus was obviously comfortable because he let him. But you know the Peters would look at that. Just a different temperament. A Peter type sees something like that, says, "Hey, hey. Yo man, why don’t you tell him to get up? No, here we are already 13 guys hanging out together. Bad enough we all hanging out together, now this guy going to lay on you. It’s bad for business Jesus, why don’t you tell him to get up?" You know, that’s the attitude the Peters would have.

Temperamentally, they were enemies. And in a worldly setting without Christ, they would never—their lives would never be joined. But Christ has the power to bring us all together at the foot of the cross. And actually, the Peters need the Johns because Peters are so busy being macho and "I can do this and I can do that, and I don’t worry about—they better get out my face." And they need somebody to help them. Pauls need Barnabases, and Barnabases need Pauls. We need one another.

And so the Holy Spirit brought these two unlikely brothers together in Christian unity and there they are going together to pray. I’m sure Peter and John know not to have certain discussions. Like some things we just can’t talk about. But we can pray and we can seek first the kingdom and we can walk in unity. And they had such power with God and such unity between them that God was pleased to use them to heal this man that day.

And I want to tell you, God will do wonderful works through the church today if we will make the commitment to be bigger than our differences and our preferences. To accommodate others, to say, "I don’t like your style of music, but oh well, I’m going to support you. I—I wish this happened and that happened in the church, I wish things would be more suited to me, but as long as the Gospel’s being preached and God is at work, my heart says amen and I’m going to support what God is doing." And I want to tell you something, we will see God do amazing things in our day if we’ll learn to get along in the kingdom of God.

Guest (Male): If you take nothing else away from today’s message, let it be this: we need one another. None of us can accomplish the will of God for our lives on our own. You know, that same truth applies to ministries like Destined for Victory. We could not exist without the faithful prayers and financial support of listening friends and partners like you. You’re a big reason why we can share the hope we have in Christ with people all over the world.

We hope you’ll consider sending a generous gift today. When you do, we’ve got a great new resource to share with you as our way of saying thanks. You know, when you come to faith in Christ, you are immediately made right with God and it’s because of this new relationship that believers have access to peace, joy, hope, even during life’s most difficult seasons. To learn more about the access to blessings you have in Christ, I hope you’ll contact us today and request your copy of our latest booklet, Access Granted.

That’s Access Granted, a great resource based in Romans chapter 5, and our gift to you today for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. You can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. One more time, that’s 855-339-5500. Or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. And you can mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538.

Paul Sheppard: As soon as you got here, you were already wrong because the Bible says we were born in sin, we were shapen in iniquity. We were born with the image of Adam stamped on us, which is an image of death.

Guest (Male): That’s next time in our message Access Granted. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.