Destined for Victory

Paul Sheppard: Jesus loves you better than anybody who has ever loved you. You know why? Because Jesus knew us at our worst. He loved us at our very worst. See, a whole lot of the folk who say they love you don't really know you.

Guest (Male): Jesus doesn't just love you, He loves you anyway. Hello and thanks for being with us for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. Jesus doesn't love you because of your goodness. He loves you in spite of your badness. Through all of our ups and downs and the times when we go sideways, the love of Jesus remains constant.

Today we continue our journey through the book of Revelation with a close-up look at God's love, an unconditional, unwavering love that is beyond our human understanding. Online you'll find us at PastorPaul.net where you can listen to Destined for Victory on demand. Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. The message is called "Jesus in High Definition," and it starts right now.

Paul Sheppard: Revelation chapter 1, beginning in the middle of verse 5. It says this: To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father, to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. Look, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. On the Lord's Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.

In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, but behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

It's just exciting reading the word of God. Jesus in High Definition, that's what we're looking at. We're discovering that here in Revelation chapter one, you get a view of Jesus that is quite in-depth, very much like high definition is in today's technology. People are buying Blu-ray machines so that you can see a film or an animated project in almost multidimensional ways, and it's just wonderful to see what technology can do. But here in Revelation, you see Jesus in High Def.

We get to see the King of Kings and Lord of Lords in all of His splendor. We have spent three installments in this series so far looking at Jesus in High Def. We ended in the last message looking at Jesus as the faithful witness, as the firstborn from the dead, and as the ruler of the kings of the earth. In the last message, I talked about Jesus being large and in charge, the ruler of the kings of the earth. He is not only a king, He is the King of Kings and He is the Lord of Lords.

Jesus is large and in charge. I don't have time to review, but thankfully those messages are available. Now I want to pick it up here in the middle of verse 5 as we continue to zoom in and take a good high definition look at Jesus. Notice what is said here in the middle of verse 5. It says to Him who loved us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us to be a kingdom and priest. Let me just pause right there.

To Him number one who loves us. If you want to get a good view of Jesus, you will have to look at the fact that He is a loving savior. Make no mistake about it, Jesus is the lover of your soul. Jesus loves us like no one else loves you. I don't care how good a love experience you think you've had in your life. Some of you have this story. The first time I fell in love, we write songs about it, "first time ever I saw your face."

We just romanticize, and sometimes it wasn't all that. We just make something much bigger than it really was. But we can really push the envelope talking about some love, the first person you ever fell in love with or all of that kind of stuff. Let me tell you something, Jesus loves you better than anybody who has ever loved you. Because Jesus knew us at our worst. He loved us at our very worst. See, a whole lot of the folk who say they love you don't really know you.

I know that hurts. Pastor, you sent me out here to hurt my feelings. I know that hurts, but it happens to be true. Very often people love you largely out of ignorance. Now there's some things they like about you and they love you because of. But there are other things, if they're really going to love you, they're going to have to get good at loving you in spite of. Let's be honest for a moment. The more a person gets to know you, hopefully there are some things they really like about you.

But if they're getting to know you, there are also going to be some things that make them say, "I didn't know I was getting into all this." And so hopefully they still love you, but I'm telling you nobody loves you like Jesus. Because He found you at your worst and He loves us. The Bible is very clear that Jesus died for us when we were still sinners. Romans chapter 5. In other words, He wasn't waiting to get us straight before He loved us. He doesn't love us as projects.

I tell you all the time, sometimes people will marry a project. They'll marry a person thinking I'll get them changed, I'll get them fixed up, and so I will advance them some love. And they will have to earn that love through change. You never did it, but somebody I know. You never did it. Some people advance love. You know it's advanced love because if you don't meet up to their schedule, they will send you a bill. You didn't come through the way I wanted to, and you will pay in some way or another.

Some of you have been through that, you know what I'm talking about. Now if you're sitting with the person who made you do that, I know you don't want to say amen. But you still know what I'm talking about. He loved us and His love was totally undeserved. When we were sinners He loved us. And not only was it undeserved, but when He gave it to us, it was unlimited. First John in his first epistle, chapter 3, John says, "Behold, now are we the sons of God."

He said, "What manner of love has the Lord bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God." He said, "I can't believe that God gave us so much love that we are His children." We went from sinner to God's own child because of how much He loved us. And I want to say if you are going through a lot of changes in your life, if you are a person who doesn't have a lot that makes you feel good about yourself, you're a person who has been beat up a lot through life.

People have told you what you're not and you feel like you've always been in that left behind crew, I got good news for you. I don't care how they treat you in terms of relationships on your job or personal interpersonal relationships. You might be the black sheep in your family, but you are a son of God in God's family. And I want you to know, no matter who doesn't love you, when you think of how Jesus loves you, it ought to bring a smile to your face.

Because the Bible says if God be for us, who can be against us? If God loves me and you don't, I can say to you, "Oh well, anyway, I'm loved by God." Now it doesn't get any better than that. If God loves you, you have no business hanging your head down, feeling lousy about yourself. You are the object of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who has loved us, He said, and freed us from our sins by His blood. Look at that high def view of Jesus. He's a lover and He is a freedom fighter.

He has freed us from our sins. We were held bondage in sin. Sin had us by nature and by nurture. You know what that means? That means we were born in sin. Ephesians 2:1 says you has He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins.

Guest (Male): Don't go away. The rest of today's Destined for Victory message featuring Pastor Paul Sheppard is coming right up. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." And that's why Destined for Victory's here, to share timeless truth for a victorious life and to show as best we can that Jesus Christ is the only one who can give us that life. You can help keep these messages coming your way all year round by sending a generous gift today.

Stop by PastorPaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. That's PastorPaul.net. Or you can call 855-339-5500. Up next, the truth about the condition in which our condition was when we came into this world, and the truth about how Jesus turned things around. So with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, "Jesus in High Definition," here once again is Pastor Paul Sheppard.

Paul Sheppard: All of us when you came onto the planet, you had no relationship with God through Christ. You were a sinner. You were not worthy of fellowship with a holy God. Sinners by nature. Nature, when you show up. That's why there's no need of you pointing out some other folk saying, "Boy, they really are sinners." You know, they did that even Jesus' day. Sinners called certain people sinners. No, all of us, if you're on the planet, before Christ in your B.C. life, you are a sinner as soon as you show up.

You haven't learned how to sin good yet, but all we need a little time to take care of that. You are a sinner first by nature. You're born alienated from God. That's all that means. Which is why all of us need to be saved. Everybody needs to be saved because everybody's lost. It's just that simple. We come lost, we come alienated from God, incapable of having fellowship with a holy God. And you're a sinner first by nature. So don't think of sin first in terms of what you do or don't do.

What you say or don't say, where you go, where you don't go. That's not what defines us as sinners initially. We're sinners by nature. And we don't know how to sin yet, but we're going to learn. In fact, we learn pretty early because I contend these babies are showing you pretty early that they don't know God. Always hurt the parents' feelings who have brand new infants. Calling my baby a sinner. Well, the Bible calls your baby a sinner, not me. And they're going to show you in a minute.

Sometimes when mine were very young, we have two children. When we had our first child and you know, we'd have her fed and burped and changed and we've played and what have you. And when we've done all our best, sometimes she'd be hollering. And you look at the child and say, "What's the matter?" And one day, I don't know that it was God, but one day something came to me and said the problem is she's a sinner frustrated because she can't sin yet.

Okay, I know that wasn't what was wrong with her, but it made me feel better at the time. A sinner's first by nature. But then as we grow up and live our lives, we become sinners by nurture. And I've told you many times before, you see it very early on. So I won't mess with you who have infants, but you know by time they get around one and a half, two, two and a half, three, three and a half, four, four and a half. You see some pretty clear sin lines. Come on somebody.

They want that cookie you told them no cookies until later on. I will tell you when you can have a cookie, but that cookie is calling them. That cookie is calling them and you leave the room or leave for I'm going grocery, you stay here with your big brother whatever and what have you. And they leave and nobody's in the room and that cookie is calling and they climb up there and get that cookie out the cookie jar or out the pantry and they ate the cookie.

And you come back in and you know something's wrong before you know something's wrong. Because you see on their face the guilt of sin. You see the guilt before you know what the guilt is for. And they're standing right there, too young to know how to sin well. They're just learning. But they're standing there, ate the cookie, and you look at them and maybe you look over and see some crumbs on the counter or something so you're putting this together and you said, "Did you eat the cookie that I told you you can't have?"

"Uh-uh." Eyes all wide. "Uh-uh." Sometimes cookie's still on the mouth. "Uh-uh, I ain't even know we had cookies." So we become sinners by nurture and you grow up and you just pick the brands of sin that get you where you think you want to go. And we become thieves and we become liars and we have bad motives and we hate and all kinds of things are going on in your life. But Jesus, the high def view of Jesus here is He saw all of us were bound in sin.

By nature and by nurture. And He came into the world to be the ultimate freedom fighter. And on that cross, He freed us from our sins. And now He is making us righteous. And I love it because God knows that we have a sin problem on two levels, by nature and by nurture. So when Jesus came, He came to solve it on two levels. And now you are righteous first by nature. What happens the moment you accept Christ as your Savior and Lord, your sin nature is forgiven.

And God replaces it and gives you a new standing in Christ. That's why the Bible says in Second Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone's in Christ, he or she is a new creation." God says, "Now I'm going to make you righteous, I'm going to give you a nature that pleases God, that has right standing with God." You're no longer stamped with the nature of Adam, the first Adam. Now you're stamped with the nature of the second Adam, Jesus Christ. And now I have a nature of righteousness.

So that means if I get saved, when I trust Christ as my savior, if I trust Him as savior one moment and die the next, I have right standing with God. I haven't had chance to go to church yet, read my Bible yet, learn how to walk with God yet, but by nature I'm righteous. Isn't that good news? You can go from sinner to saint just like that because He saves us first by nature, gives us a righteous nature. And then He came to free us from our sins not just the penalty of our sins.

Then He says, "I'm going to give you my Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is going to walk with you and teach you how to live the righteous life." Because you spent all these years learning how to be a good sinner. Now I'm going to walk with you and teach you how to be a good believer. How to trust me better. How to walk with me better. How to be sensitive to my leading. How to obey me. I'm going to teach you. You learned a life of disobedience and self-centeredness. Now I'm going to teach you how to love me and love other people.

And the Lord walks with you. And I'm so glad that He not only loves us, but He freed us from our sins by His blood. We're also told here that He has made us to be a kingdom and priest. A kingdom and priest. Now think about that for a moment. You say, "What's so special about that?" Well, in the Old Testament, you would never see such a thing. Because under the mindset prior to Christ, even in the Jewish community, the Bible is clear that you could be a king or a priest, but you couldn't be both.

So some, Saul, David, etc., were chosen by God to be kings among God's people. And then there were others, Samuel and the like, who were chosen to be priests. But those jobs, those responsibilities, those assignments were non-combinable. You couldn't be a king and a priest under the Old Testament economy. In fact, if you recall in First Samuel chapter 13, the first time God judged King Saul, it was because he tried to act like a priest. You remember that in First Samuel 13?

He was waiting for Samuel the priest to arrive so that he could offer the sacrifice to the Lord and the people could be blessed. But some of his army was flaking out and leaving, and he got scared and he said, "Samuel's running late." So he commanded, "Give me the burnt offering," and he offered up the burnt offering. He was the king, had no business usurping the role of a priest. And when Samuel shows up, he said, "What in the world have you done?"

And he said, "Well, you were a little late and the folk were leaving, so I just went on and handled it." And he said, "You've acted foolishly, and because of this, the Lord is going to not establish your kingdom forever. In fact, the Lord has already chosen your successor." Why? Because he couldn't be the king and the priest. God hadn't called him to be both. But guess what? When you zoom in on Jesus, you see that He has made you to be both a kingdom and a priest.

What that means is in the language of Second Peter, we are not only a priesthood, we are a royal priesthood. First Peter 2, verse 9, he says, "But you are a chosen generation, you are a royal priesthood, you are a holy nation, and you are a peculiar people." I've told you many times before, that means unique, not weird. When the Bible calls you peculiar, it means you're supposed to be unique, not like everybody else. I walk with God, I march to the beat of a heavenly drummer.

I'm not like other folk because I answer to God, I walk with Him, I love Him, I live with Him. That's what makes us unique, not weird. The Bible didn't call you to be weird. When you run into weird Christians, don't blame that on God. And if you are a weird Christian, don't blame the way you act on God. You're messing up your witness being strange. If you're the kind of Christian when non-Christians see you coming they start praying, something is definitely wrong.

When folk who don't even know God see you and say, "Oh Lord, help me Lord." No, it's not supposed to be that way. We are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and we are to help attract people to the grace and the love of God. But you and I are a kingdom and priest. We are royal. That means we have standing with God and that means you're royalty. God sees you as special. You're not ordinary. You're His child and He has crowned your head with royalty because you share in the inheritance of Christ.

The Bible says we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. And we get to reign with Him. Ephesians chapter 2, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. And we get to reign with Him.

Guest (Male): Until Christ returns, we'll never be free from the presence or the power of sin. But if we put our faith in Him for salvation, we're already free from the eternal penalty of sin. That's the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Blessed be His holy name. If you haven't already downloaded our free mobile app, now's a great time to do it. Search Destined for Victory at the App Store and listen to these messages wherever you go. That's the Destined for Victory mobile app. Download it today absolutely free.

Well, we have a great thank you gift to share with you today when you financially support the ministry of Destined for Victory. It's our latest booklet, Clothed in Love: Seven Gifts for the Ones Who Matter Most. In this message, drawn from Colossians 3, verses 12 through 15, Pastor Paul challenges us to direct our best selves toward the ones who matter most. As you learn about seven powerful virtues, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, and forgiveness, you'll discover what it means to truly honor your mother and how giving these gifts can transform your most important relationships.

That's Clothed in Love: Seven Gifts for the Ones Who Matter Most, our gift to you today by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory. You can give that gift by phone by calling 855-339-5500. Again, 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.

Paul Sheppard: Don't let anybody else light up your life. I've told you many times before, if you let anybody else light up your life, they own the light bulb. Oh, you light up my life, you give me hope to carry on. Uh-uh, don't sing that about a person. If they light you up, they own the light bulb.

Guest (Male): And that's next time in our Destined for Victory message, "Jesus in High Definition." Until then though, remember: He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.