Destined for Victory

Guest (Male): Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. It's our pleasure to study the word of God with you today. Coming up in just a moment, we'll share three key ingredients to spiritual growth that just might revolutionize your walk with Christ.

But first, I want to share a conversation I had once with Pastor Paul. I asked him about the power of partnership and also about what he would say to you, our listening friends and partners, if he could visit with you in person. And here's what he had to say.

Paul Sheppard: I want them to know your partnership is very, very important and necessary. When you think about it, starting way back, I'm thinking about Moses. He could not have been Moses without the partners God gave him. God raised up Joshua. The Bible calls Joshua Moses' minister before it called him God's minister.

And Joshua was one of those key people. Aaron, his brother, was one of his key partners. Every man or woman of God since then, all the way into, of course, when you get to the ministry of Jesus, Jesus himself required partnership. Isn't that amazing that the God-man needed partners?

He took Peter, James, and John farther into the Garden of Gethsemane and he said, "Just stay here and watch with me." And he cried and poured out his heart to get ready for that moment when he would lay down his life for us, and he needed that partnership.

He had Peter, James, and John. He also had Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Then when you look at the apostles, there is no Paul without Timothy, without Silas, without Barnabas, and on and on. All of us need partners. So the bottom line is, I'm so grateful for every man, woman, boy, and girl who has become a partner for our ministry so you can keep on providing this platform so that we can reach even more people for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): And today, your partnership with us is more important than it's ever been. For as little as $20 a month, you can become a Destined for Victory partner today. And we want you to know that every penny of your donation will go towards advancing the gospel all over the world through our media ministry here at Destined for Victory.

When you partner with us, we'll send you a few thank you gifts your way, including one of our most popular CDs, The Best of Let My People Smile. So call 855-339-5500 and find out more about how to become a Destined for Victory partner.

Make that pledge right over the phone or mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California, 94538. You can also become our partner from our website, pastorpaul.net. But if you can't become a monthly partner but would like to send a generous gift to the ministry today, we'd love to send you our latest booklet, Clothed in Love: Seven Gifts for the Ones Who Matter Most. For more information on this outstanding resource, please visit our website, pastorpaul.net.

Paul Sheppard: You need to thank God not only for the folks who always make you feel so very wonderful about yourself. You need to thank God for the people who love you enough to tell you the truth, who will tell you some things that are uncomfortable to hear, but they have your best interests at heart. It's true what Solomon said in Proverbs 27:6, "Better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses of an enemy."

Guest (Male): On today's Destined for Victory featuring Pastor Paul Sheppard, you'll hear about three critical keys to growing in your walk with Christ. As you follow along, pay close attention to how the people closest to you can be an important part of that process if you'll only let them. Now, let's pay close attention to Pastor Paul's message, When Growth Requires Change.

Paul Sheppard: Acts chapter 11, beginning with verse one. The apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them." Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened.

Skip down to verse 17 after he wrapped up his explanation. "So if God gave them," speaking of the Gentiles, "the same gift as he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God?" When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God saying, "So then God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life."

We conclude the series, When Growth Requires Change, by looking at what happened here in Acts chapter 11 as Peter returns from this life-changing encounter he had first with the vision on the rooftop that we talked about in Acts chapter 10, where God began to show him, "If I call something clean, don't you call it unclean, even though that has been your understanding of my will prior to now."

And then God sent him to the household of the Gentile Cornelius. Peter had never darkened the door of a Gentile in his life and had no plans to do so, but God now was in the process of changing not only Peter, but the entire understanding of the early church.

Previously, they understood that salvation was available to the Jews. Now God is showing them salvation is available to all mankind. And it is a major paradigm shift. In fact, it really shouldn't be called a paradigm shift. This was more like a paradigm subversion. God subverted their paradigm. He completely shook up their world and helped them to understand that he loved not only Jews, but he loved all mankind.

Now, what I want us to see as we wrap up this part of our study are three key ingredients in the process of growth. We've established the fact that there's some growth that happens sort of automatically. Given certain basic assumptions, some growth happens automatically. But other growth you have to cooperate with and be very intentional about. That's true in the natural and it's also true in our spiritual growth.

And there are some ingredients to this process of growth that God wants to occur in all of our lives. I want to share three key ingredients with you from Acts chapter 11. The first is exposure. What does God do when he's taking our lives to another level? When he wants to get us to a better position where we can fulfill his plan and purpose for our lives?

You know the plan and purpose for our lives is that all of us would make a difference both for time and for eternity. We're all called to help fulfill the Great Commission, which is to go and make disciples. We're all called to fulfill the Great Commandment, which is to love God with all of our heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

What happens as God positions us to do a better job of fulfilling those commands? The first thing he'll do is he will give you exposure to some things you're previously unfamiliar with. There's a principle Jesus spoke in John chapter 3, verse 11. He said, "We speak that which we know and testify to that which we've seen."

We speak what we know, we testify to what we've seen. So if God is going to take your life to another level, he's first got to show you what you've never seen. He's first got to speak to you what you've never heard because you can't speak about something you've never learned, and you cannot testify to something you've never seen.

And so I want you to know that just as happened here, it'll happen in your life. God will give you exposure. Here in Acts 11, the Bible says the apostles and the brothers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. Prior to this, they never heard any such thing. They were used to hearing reports of people who were Jews receiving the word wherever it was being preached.

But now they get a word that they've never heard before. The report comes back, "Do you know that Peter went to a Gentile's house and preached to them and the folks got saved?" They're now exposed to what they've never been exposed to before. And that's actually God's setup for change. Now he's doing that in our lives as well.

And so I want to encourage you to begin to observe God's movements in your life because if you're saved by grace, God is very much at work in your life both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And so what you have to do is learn to become sensitive to the way he's moving in your life. God will deliberately expose you to certain people, certain places, certain experiences because he's calling you to grow.

And you can't grow anymore in your little world. So he's saying, "No, there's some dimensions I have to fill out in your life and so I'm going to expose you to some things that you've never been exposed to before." And I want you to understand that God is very, very deliberate about getting all of us from where we are to where he wants us to be.

And so what you have to learn to do is watch the movements of God. For instance, you will see God taking you through a season where there's only one real lesson he's trying to teach you. And you'll know it because you keep having the same kind of experience. And all you have to do is stop and say, "Wait a minute. Every time I turn around, the same kinds of things are happening to me."

Well, please understand that when you're a child of God, it's not just happening, but God is at work, Philippians 2 says, in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And so when you see yourself going around the same mulberry bush, know that that bush is calling for your attention. That there's something God wants you to learn about yourself, about your presuppositions, about your prejudices, about your narrow-mindedness, about your lack of love, about your lack of patience. I'll keep saying until you say amen.

I got a longer list if you need it. God will keep on taking you through some of the same things until you see what he's trying to get you to see. Just like he did with Moses. Remember Moses was out walking one day and he saw a bush that was on fire, but what caught his attention was the fire wasn't consuming the bush.

And he could have stood there all day and said, "I wonder why in the world that bush doesn't burn up." It's because God wants his attention. And so as he drew near to investigate, that's when he heard the voice of God. And I want to tell you that God has some burning bushes in your life that aren't being consumed.

You keep seeing yourself go around the same thing and you've got to understand it's because God is exposing you and that exposure is a setup in your life. If you keep having experiences that are pushing your emotional buttons, you've got to look at it because God is at work somewhere. He's making us into the image of his own son, and so he will deliberately put you through some experiences where you keep getting your buttons pushed.

You keep getting the same nerve worked because he is up to something in your life. And the other thing you'll notice is that sometimes there is a holy discontentment, I want to call it. Where you just become very dissatisfied with the status quo. At a certain point, you can't take your life like it is.

And you just say, "Lord, something's got to change." I'm not talking about some form of depression or something like that. I just mean everything else is going reasonably well. We all have troubles and struggles. But what you feel is a holy discontentment that you just can't stay where you are and be in the center of God's will.

That there's got to be something more, and it creates a hunger and a drive in you to go after more of God. That's what the hymn writer meant when he said, "My heart has no desire to stay where doubts arise and fears dismay. Though some may dwell where these abound, my prayer, my aim is higher ground."

And you begin to say, "Lord, lift me up and let me stand by faith on heaven's tableland. A higher plane than I have found, Lord, plant my feet on higher ground." After a while you just can't stay where you are. You get tired of hanging out with the turkeys, you want to fly with the eagles.

Guest (Male): In case you joined us late, you're listening to Destined for Victory featuring the teaching ministry of Pastor Paul Sheppard, and stay with us. The second half of today's message is coming right up. One of the things we love to do for friends and listeners like you is to pray for you when you're in need.

So if you have a prayer request, please visit pastorpaul.net and use the contact feature to share it with us. Our ministry team is always happy to lift you up in prayer. The website again is pastorpaul.net. Now let's get you back to the rest of today's message, When Growth Requires Change.

Paul Sheppard: You have eagle in you and the turkeys are fine, but they're hanging around on the ground. And after a while you just, you don't have to throw off on the turkeys, but in your heart, in your heart, you look up and see the eagles and say, "That's where I want to be." I believe that's where God's calling me. It's time to get out of this barnyard of my preconceived notions and all the things I've always thought.

And you know, that's why God has to expose you because if you stay in your world, you'll only have your prejudices affirmed. You'll only have what you always believed and always thought affirmed because that's your comfort zone. So God will push you out of it and begin to expose you to some things that are designed to help you go to another level.

And so the church here gets their major button pushed when they hear that Gentiles have been preached to and let in the church and that one of the apostles did it. You know these are some unhappy folks waiting for Peter to get back to town. And I want you to understand that God was setting him up and setting them up because they were getting their buttons pushed because growth requires change.

And one of the key ingredients to that process is exposure. So I want to encourage you to be very deliberate about looking at the things that are happening to you because God is very much at work trying to bring us to another level of his plan and purpose for our lives. The second key, and I want to spend some time here, is the key of enlightenment.

The first key ingredient is exposure. God will expose you. But then the second is enlightenment. Enlightenment. Now look at what happened here in verses two through four of Acts 11. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, "You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them."

Watch the enlightenment, verse four. Peter began and explained everything to them precisely as it had happened. And then if you read down, in the interest of time I won't read the rest of the verses, but he simply recaps for them what we studied in Acts chapter 10. He told them the whole account of God visiting him, showing him the vision and teaching him that he shouldn't call unclean what God said was clean.

And then God sent him to the Gentile's house and as he preached the word to them, he understood God was no respecter of persons. And as he preached the word, the Holy Spirit fell on them. In fact, they began to speak in tongues so that Peter would know that the same experience he had on Pentecost God was giving to these Gentiles.

And so he had no doubt in his mind that they were fully received by God because God ordained in that instance that they would have the exact same experience that he had on Pentecost. Now, that's the second key, enlightenment. When you want to be part of a process of growth, God will begin it by exposing you to some things, creating that holy discontentment in you, taking you around the same bush so that you begin to focus on some areas in your life.

And then he wants to bring about enlightenment. He wants to use that to teach you some truths about himself and to teach you some truths about yourself because all of us have blind spots. And so we need to be enlightened. We all have blind spots. We all have things we don't see right now.

And so one of the key ingredients to change and growth is you've got to allow God to show you things you've never seen. And one of the ways he does that, he'll do it by his spirit, he'll do it in your private devotion, but he'll also do it through the body of Christ. He'll do it through other people. And you've got to understand and appreciate the role that God's called others to play in your life.

Because one of the ways we come to know some of our deficiencies and some of our problems is God will set up the circumstances, but then you've got to be willing to evaluate them and you've got to be willing to let the people in your life help you evaluate them. So if the folks who love you begin to tell you about yourself, believe them.

Because there are some of us whose first instinct is to fight and to defend ourselves. Somebody trying to tell you you're too sharp with your tongue, you cut people with your words and you need to develop gracious talk and you need to approach people differently. And your first natural carnal tendency is to say, "No I'm not, you don't know what you're talking about."

But when people who love you tell you about yourself, believe them. One of the proverbs says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." See, friends don't stab you in the back, friends cut you in front of you. Because they're not trying to take a cheap shot, they're trying to help perform some surgery.

Friend doesn't have a knife they'll stab you in the back when you turn around. A friend will pull out a scalpel and give you the anesthesia of some compliments. "You're doing good. I appreciate this about our relationship. Oh, I can't tell you how much I like..." all the anesthesia. You're put to sleep and then they cut you.

That by design because we all have blind spots. Well look at the driving analogy. When you're driving your vehicle, I don't care what mirrors you have, a left mirror, a right mirror, and a rearview mirror, but you don't see everything. Haven't you ever been driving and there was a vehicle somewhere just off to the side of your car and you didn't catch it in any one of the three mirrors?

That's called a blind spot. And if you veer into that lane you will have an experience that verifies they were there. Now you've got to understand as it is in the natural so it is in the spirit. In your life, as you're driving down the road of life, at work, in your life, to will and to do of his good pleasure, there are some things you don't see that he needs you to see.

So he'll bring some other individuals into your life to help you see what you can't see on your own. Don't take it personally. Don't act like anybody who criticizes you doesn't love you. I'd venture to say the people who love you the most are criticizing you because some of them want to see God's best for your life.

True, we all have our negative critics. True, we all have our toxic people. True, every Nehemiah has his Sanballat and Tobiah. But you also have to have those people who stand shoulder to shoulder with you but have the freedom because you've given them the freedom to be honest with you. Don't ask people not to be honest with you and yet to play a significant role in your life. That's not what God has them there for.

Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man or one person sharpens another." You need to thank God not only for the folks who always make you feel so very wonderful about yourself. You need to thank God for the people who love you enough to tell you the truth, who will tell you some things that are uncomfortable to hear, but they have your best interests at heart.

Because that's the only way you'll grow. If you keep getting your prejudices and your stuff affirmed, you'll never grow. And have you ever seen a codependent relationship? That's how it works. One person's jacked up, but they have another jacked-up person who helps them feel okay about being jacked up.

And so the result is you stay jacked up. I'm using technical terms here. What you need are people who have the privilege, who have the right to be honest with you. Some of us are uncomfortable with that for one of the two extremes. See, some of us are fighters and others are flighters.

And the fighters' tendency is when you're criticized you want to fight, and you want to defend yourself, and then you want to attack back. And that's not God's will. When somebody's telling you the truth and their motive is pure, they love you, they have your best interest at heart, but they're telling you the truth, that's not the time to defend yourself. Don't deflect. That's not the time to say, "See, these are just people that I just don't need in my life."

I beg to differ, these are the people you need very much in your life. I've seen folks leave a church like that because two folks rebuked them and suddenly, "You know this just isn't the place God would have me to be." No, you need to park it. You need to stay right here, not for the sake of our membership roll but for your eternal soul you need to stay here and let God work some things out of you.

And so God is very much at work, and so you who are fighters, the tendency has to be put aside and you have to understand no, when people are speaking truth to you, receive it. Receive it with humility and grace. Now the flighters have to learn that you never solve a problem by running away from it.

So you have that tendency to resist confrontation. You don't want any parts of confrontation. You've got to let God give you the grace and the courage to be part of that process. And some of you have to learn that when it comes to things you need to say to other people, don't bottle them up. That's not helping you. Some of you have things you wish you could say, but you're a flighter by nature, by temperament. Do you know Jesus said if your brother offend you, rebuke him? Jesus said that. If somebody offends you, tell them about it in no uncertain terms. He used the word rebuke. That means you let them have it in Jesus' name.

Guest (Male): We're so glad you stopped by for today's Destined for Victory message, When Growth Requires Change. To find out more about Destined for Victory's mission and purpose or about the special gift reserved for you when you give generously today, please come see us at pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net.

Paul Sheppard: All of us have blind spots so that you can grow. See when you identify what's wrong with you, then the word is a mirror. James 1 says the word of God is a mirror, and when God speaks his truth to you, then there's always something in the word of God that will allow you to stand in the mirror of the word, see yourself, and make the adjustments.

Guest (Male): That's next time in our continuing message, When Growth Requires Change. I hope you'll join us. Until then, remember, He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.