Destined for Victory

Paul Sheppard: Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. That's 1 John 4:4 and this is Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. Coming up next we'll share today's message, "When Jesus Comes," but first, if you are a faithful listener to this program, you know that recently we shared with you the news about the unexpected financial need. Before we get started today, our Executive Director, Alicia Greer, has an update. Alicia?

Alicia Greer: Thank you so much to everyone who responded to our appeal. We are so grateful for your support. We're not all the way out of the woods yet, but I can say that your support has helped, and we're so grateful for all of you who are continuing to support the ministry.

My dad often quoted Philippians 1:6 that talks about God being faithful to complete the work that he has begun in us. I just know that God is faithful to complete the work that he began in Destined for Victory. That work did not end when my father passed, and I have every hope and confidence that God is going to see the work through. So we're excited to continue to move forward and we're so grateful for your support.

Paul Sheppard: All of us here at Destined for Victory are so thankful to all of you who listen to these messages and who so generously support our media ministry with your prayers and gifts. And as you heard Alicia say just now, with your help, our plan is to continue to bring timeless truth for a victorious life for many years to come.

Today when you make a generous gift, we have a great resource to send you as our way of saying thank you: our latest booklet, Access Granted. Based on the first eight verses of Romans chapter five, this great resource examines what it means to be justified by faith and the blessings we receive at the point of salvation. Again, it's called Access Granted and it's our gift to you today by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory.

If you'd like to give, we've got several options for you. Stop by pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. Call us at 855-339-5500. That's 855-339-5500. Or if you prefer, you can mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538.

Jesus made all the pieces. He knows where they go. And although life has shattered you, people have disappointed you, Satan has oppressed you, Jesus says, "My power is greater than anything you face." God has never met a problem or a person he couldn't help, and he's never come across a situation and called it hopeless because God is hope. He's the healer of the brokenhearted and the one who sets the captives free.

If you are listening today with a heavy heart, if you're caught behind enemy lines and see no way out, then stay with us now on today's Destined for Victory featuring Pastor Paul Sheppard. The message is called "When Jesus Comes," and it starts right now.

Have you ever felt like, "I'll never get it together. I don't believe I can ever get my life in order." Life can get you there sometimes. It can get you to the place where you just feel like it's over. There's no hope. There's no need of even thinking about trying to live a productive life from here on out. It's just over.

But this passage comes to let us know that Jesus not only comes to give us life, but he comes to give us hope. Jesus has never yet seen a hopeless situation. He has never yet looked at somebody and said, "I love you and all, but I haven't run into a person yet whose life was so messed up that I love you, can't do much for you, but I'll just be like Job's friend and just sit here and look at you."

Jesus hasn't seen the person yet who is beyond the reach of his ability to bind up what has been broken. I don't care if your life has shattered into a million pieces. Jesus made all the pieces. He knows where they go. He created you. He formed you. And although life has shattered you, people have disappointed you, Satan has oppressed you, Jesus says, "My power is greater than anything you face."

First John chapter four is the verse that says, "Greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world." Now, yes, that's a comparison, God versus the enemy of our souls, but let me tell you something. Not only is God greater than the enemy, but he's greater than anything the enemy can do. So your trouble might be great, and church folk need to quit acting like you don't have great trouble because you're in Christ.

We need to quit practicing this unrealistic, unbiblical faith that denies trouble when it comes. No, you're in trouble. You can't get out until you admit you're in. Don't let somebody with poor theology try to get you to act in denial about where you are. No, you are in trouble. But God is our refuge and our strength, and he is a present help in trouble.

The Bible talks about trouble in different ways. Sometimes it talks about the day of trouble. You have a day of trouble, just a little season of trouble. Sometimes it talks about the time of trouble. That's a little longer. And sometimes it doesn't even assign a day or time or any time factor. It just says, "trouble." God is a present help in trouble. You're in trouble. Don't know how long it's going to last, but you do know that greater is he who's in you than he who's in the world.

So he's greater than all your trouble. And so Jesus comes not just to give us life, but he comes to give us hope. He comes saying, "I am not just the healer of your sin problem, but I will heal your soul problem." Some of our souls are in trouble when we come to Christ, and some of them are in trouble after having come to Christ. We have some stuff that's messed up. We have some issues that have to be worked through.

You know they do because they keep popping up. They keep showing themselves by the way you live your life. The psychologists and counselors call it acting out. You keep on acting out and you know something's going on inside of you. You want to live one way, but you find yourself living another way because something or someone has robbed you of a hope and a sense of security and a sense of wholeness. You're now acting out of your brokenness.

And you say, "Lord, will I ever change? Lord, will I ever get on my feet? Lord, will I ever be able to close this chapter and open up a new chapter of living?" And this part of the verse says yes. For Jesus, if you'll let him, won't just give you life, but he'll give you hope. Jesus will give you the belief that it's going to get better, the belief that the problem's going to get solved, the belief that the issue will be taken care of, the belief that times will get better.

Because as you walk with him, he will do a work of binding up and then healing those hurts that have been created. Jesus is a healer of wounded spirits and wounded souls. Sometimes people have crushed you. People have disappointed you. People have hurt you deeply. And so some of your acting out is you're trying to figure out a way to live your life and not let anybody into it because you don't want to run the risk of being hurt anymore.

And yet you come to the scriptures and Jesus says, "Now, I've called you not to be a solitary people, but I've called you into a family." And you say, "God, I don't want that." There's some folk won't join a church because they're scared of folk. Some old mean, nasty religious people have hurt them and so now they're scared of all church folk. I'm here to tell you Jesus wants to heal that so that you can live and you can love and you can experience his life and you can experience the hope that he gives you.

And you can even learn to give that limited part of trust that he calls us to give to one another. Now he never calls us to trust each other in the unlimited sense. The Bible is very clear. It says, in fact, "Woe to those who put their trust in man." When you trust people in that ultimate sense, when you are counting on folk to come through for you and if they don't come through you are in trouble, let me tell you, you're in trouble now.

If you have that much faith in people, don't you put your life in these folk's hands. I don't care how much they love you, how much they said they'd always be with you. You know the songs. I don't care if they told you, "If you need me, call me, no matter where you are, no matter how far. Just call my name, I'll be there in a hurry. On that you can depend and never worry." I don't care if they bring the sopranos in, "No wind, no rain."

Don't you put your unlimited trust in man. I don't care if they sing along with Dionne Warwick and them, "Keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, for sure. That's what friends are for. In good times and bad times, I'll be on your side forevermore." I don't care how pretty the song is. Don't you put your trust because they mean it.

The problem isn't that they don't mean it. See, sometimes, especially when you've been burned once or twice, you start assigning the worst intentions to everybody. The fact is folks who really love you have your best interests at heart. They mean well by you. They don't want to harm you. They don't want to do you wrong. What's the problem? The problem is they are H-U-M-A-N.

That's the problem. They're just human, and humans can love you and hurt you at the same time. They don't mean to. They're sorry it happened, but it's too late. You can apologize all you want, but once you've run me over, I'm still hurt. So what does the Bible say? You've got to put that trust, that ultimate trust, in God.

And what that means is, "Lord, I'm going to let people play the role you've destined them to play in my life. I'm going to refuse to assign the worst intentions to everybody I know because not everybody is the same." Just because one person hurt you doesn't mean everybody's going to hurt you. There's somebody who will love you and love you right.

You bring all that baggage into your life and you're brokenhearted, and when people have been messed up by folk and then they tend not to trust folk, but because they have this psychological thing going on, they're still gravitating toward folk. So I've been hurt by a person, I don't want to deal with any more people, but I can't help it. I keep fooling with people.

Look at the woman at the well in John chapter four. Jesus said, you remember the whole conversation, getting ready to pull her in to show her who he was and what he offered. So finally when he said, "If you knew who was speaking to you, you'd ask me and I would give you living water." And when she found that out she said, "All right, give me that. That sounds good." He said, "All right, go get your husband." She said, "I don't have one."

Jesus said, "That's right. You've had five of them, and the man you're with now is not your husband." Now look at this. Here's a woman who obviously has the gift of attracting scandalous men. And even if she attracted one or two good ones, by the time she got finished reacting to the scandalous ones who had messed over her, that first one she married all happy and, "Oh, we just going to have a wonderful life," then he got through fooling with her and not coming through for her and not dealing with her correctly, and they broke up.

She is hurt, but not so hurt that she doesn't want anymore to do with men. So she grabbed number two. And then when he got through being who he was and that broke up, she has even less trust and less confidence. So it didn't matter even if three was a nice guy. If three was a nice, wholesome guy, by the time that you've been messed over that well, you can't see nice when it's coming.

And if you see it, you can't deal with it as nice because something has gone wrong on the inside of you and you started believing you don't deserve nice. Now you tell yourself just the opposite on the conscious level. You tell yourself you want nice, but on the subconscious level, something has gone wrong. There's a broken heart that hasn't been healed, and so you're acting out of that pain. Even when you have nice, you mistreat it so it will mistreat you so you'll feel happy.

And you say that doesn't make sense. That's why Jesus comes because we can all live lives that don't make sense, make decisions that don't make sense. Intelligent people, been to college and everything, and living your life, folk looking at you, "What's the matter with you?" Have you ever seen people? I mean they're intelligent, have an important job, make big million-dollar decisions, and you see them live their life. Nice guy comes along, but because she's messed up, she says, "Oh, no, I don't want no nice guy."

But run somebody raggedy by her, no aspirations in life, not going anywhere, not thinking straight, not acting straight, and she'll say, "Oh, just something about him. Oh, now see, that's my type." So by the time the woman at the well went through all of this, she's been through five men, working on number six, and she doesn't understand the problem isn't in relationships.

You can't keep switching off on people like, "As soon as I find the right one, I'll be happy." And Christians better get this good because the latest statistics are now that we are out-divorcing people who don't know Christ. We're divorcing at a higher rate than people who don't know the Lord. What's it tell you? It tells you that we're not letting Jesus bind up our broken hearts.

Because when you let Jesus deal with the issues of your life, you realize that the solution is not the next person. Your problem isn't who you married. Your problem is who they married. And you'd better get who they married on the altar so that Jesus can do a healing work, a binding work, so that they can come to be at peace within themselves. When you get peace on the inside, you can put up with a whole lot on the outside.

"They just not meeting my needs." Get before Jesus and let him be the need-meeter of your life before you assess anything else. And you'll find that there is hope for you once you let Jesus have the broken areas of your life because he not only gives life, but he gives hope. There's hope. David, going through the worst trouble of his life, had to talk to himself.

He said, "Why are you downcast, oh my soul? Why are you disquieted within me?" He had to talk to himself. He said, "Don't you know who God is? Don't you know that the God you serve is the lifter of your head? He's the lifter of your countenance. He's the one who can do a work in you that will address your deepest needs." You have no business being in despair. He said, "Put your trust and your hope in God, and God will meet you at the point of your need."

Now folks, as I wrap it up, here is where the church has to understand that we must be a place where brokenhearted people feel safe enough to heal. One of the worst things you can witness in Christendom is people coming to get healed of a broken heart and running into Pharisaical church folk who are holier than thou on the outside, know that they got all kinds of junk on the inside.

Jesus looked at them one day and said, "These folk will gag at a gnat and swallow a camel." That's how hypocritical they are. They'll look at your problem and say, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Something's wrong with you." But then their problem, they don't even identify it as a problem. Ever see these Christians who don't have problems? They don't have sin. They have a few faults. I have a few little issues I'm working through. I'm not saying I'm perfect or anything.

No, you have to understand that part of your healing is to help embrace other wounded people and to help them to see we're all in this thing together. We're all hurting people in need of the Divine Physician. He is a binder of broken hearts. He is one who heals us where we've been hurt, where we've been wounded, where we've been disappointed.

He is one who says, "I've not just given you life that's eternal, but I want to give you hope for your right now." Some of us can't even move into our future until we get some things settled now, get some healing now, get on a healing track. Let God bind us and set some bones, reset some bones that have been broken, and re-establish a hope that's been shattered.

Get the will to live. Some of us have lost the will to live. Oh, you're still living, existing from day to day, but you've lost your will. It doesn't matter anymore. Do you know that that's a survival mechanism? When you pretend like nothing matters anymore, that's your psyche trying to work through its pain and you just move out of touch with everything and you just say, "Nothing matters anymore. I don't care. I just don't care."

No, God wants you to care. Care is good. Care is normal. But you have to trust enough to care, and you have to get healed enough to care. And so God says, "Come to me with your brokenness. Pick up all the pieces and come and present them to me." And say, "Jesus, I want to be healed." And he, you'll discover, is a healer of broken hearts.

Paul Sheppard: You may remember the miracle when Jesus fed five thousand men and their families with five loaves and two fish. Then he picked up all the broken pieces and made twelve baskets of leftovers. That is the perfect picture of the God you serve. He's always gathering up the broken pieces. We're so glad you stopped by for today's Destined for Victory message, "When Jesus Comes." 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.

He comes to give us freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from every bondage that prevents us from doing God's will and enjoying our inheritance as children of God. He is come to set you free from anything that would prevent you from doing the will of God. That's tomorrow in our continuing message, "When Jesus Comes." Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.