Destined for Victory

Guest (Male): Jesus has done so much for us that he said, "I want my church to realize that the joy of the Lord is their strength." And I want my people to have every reason and every right to be joyous people.

Here's what Psalm 30:5 tells us: "Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning." Hello and welcome to Destined for Victory featuring Pastor Paul Sheppard. Whether you're listening on radio, online, or from our free mobile app, thanks for making us part of your day.

Well, Jesus came into the world to give us several blessings: life, hope, freedom, a future. He also came to give us joy. And today, we'll take a deep dive into this wonderful gift from God and what it means for you and me. Remember to pay us a visit at 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, "When Jesus Comes."

Paul Sheppard: Isaiah chapter 61 verses 1 through 3. "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor."

"When Jesus Comes" is the title of our series as we've been exploring this passage of Scripture to discover the things that Jesus not only did some 2,000 years ago as he walked on this earth, but the things that he continues to do by the power of his Spirit in the lives of men and women, boys and girls today. For Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And what he has done, he is doing, and what he is doing, he will do until he comes again.

And so we've been exploring this passage. We've discovered that Jesus comes first to give us life, for it speaks of him preaching good news to the poor. That good news is the message that we can have life, that life is in two dimensions. It's eternal and it's abundant. When Christ comes, he settles the eternity question, and the Bible says if we put our trust in him, we will not perish but have everlasting life.

And then he gives us a quality of existence in the will of God that the Bible speaks of as life more abundantly. So Jesus comes to give us life. Secondly, we've seen that he comes to give us hope. And although life beats us up and bruises us, wounds us, and we end up often with a broken heart, Jesus is a binder of broken hearts. He's a healer of the wounds that we experience as we go through our lives, and if we put our trust in him, there'll never be a hopeless time in our lives, for he will give hope to those of us who have been bruised and wounded.

Then we saw that Jesus comes to give us freedom. Freedom from every bondage that prevents us from doing God's will or enjoying our inheritance as God's children. Recently we have looked at keys to overcoming bondage. There are five of them I've shared with you. Let me just rehearse them briefly. The first is to replace Satan's lies with God's truth, for Jesus said, "You'll know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

Secondly, to release those who have wronged you, because if you want God's grace for your present and future, you must release prisoners from the prison of unforgiveness so that you are not held in your past. Remember, whenever you hold people in unforgiveness, the clock of your life stops at the moment of the offense. And in a very real sense, you don't move on with your life. And that's why Jesus said it's absolutely essential that if you want to experience my grace and forgiveness, you must release others who have offended and wounded you.

Third, you've got to resolve to live in obedience to the word. Make up in your mind that you're going to be a Christian, a disciple in the true sense of the word. Jesus said in John 8:31, "If you hold to my teaching, then you are really my disciples." And then fourth, we saw that you must request help from knowledgeable members of the body of Christ, for the church is a body, and there are services and ministries and blessings that come to you only as you discern the importance of the body and join yourself to a family of believers who can minister to you.

And then finally, to remain accountable to others in the body of Christ. We spoke of Ephesians 5:21, which gives us the principle of submission. It says, "submitting one to another in the fear of God." And accountability is to be based on that principle, so that you and I open our lives to one another and then we allow the influence of others so that they speak God's truth into our lives and give us direction so that we'll know how to live in a way as to stay out of bondage.

So Jesus comes to give us freedom. Now, the fourth point we covered in an earlier service is that Jesus comes to give us a future. Look at verse two. It says that he came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. That's a reference to the Year of Jubilee. We established that Jesus stood up in Luke 4 in the synagogue and said, "Today I'm proclaiming, according to this passage in Isaiah 61, the year of the Lord’s favor."

Now, why would Jesus say that at a time when the Jews already knew the commandment of the Old Testament? It's because he wasn't speaking merely of the actual Year of Jubilee, but he was speaking of that which Jubilee is a shadow of. See, Hebrews 10:1 tells you that the law is a shadow of good things to come, not the essence of the things themselves. And so when you look at the law, you're actually looking at a negative.

Now, when you develop a negative and see the full color picture, you understand everything that's in the negative, but you need the realization to get the negative. And that's the way it is in dealing with the law. The law was wonderful and it was holy, but it was a negative to bring us to Christ where we'll see the fulfillment, the development of the picture.

Now, Jubilee was not meant to be just a year, but a shadow of what God was going to do in Christ. Jubilee is mentioned in Leviticus chapter 25. We won't go through it in the interest of time. Read it when you get a chance, but God said, "Every fifty years I'm going to give you a Year of Jubilee." Now, they were used to years of Sabbath every seven years, but he said, "Count off seven times seven, and then at the end of the period of seven Sabbaths of years, I'm going to give you an additional year called Jubilee."

Now, Jubilee had one thing in common with the other Sabbath years, which was it was a time for no sowing or reaping. It was a time when Israel was to enjoy the rest that they have in God. They were to rest from their labors and spend that time basking in the goodness and the glory of their God. Let me tell you something, that's a shadow of the rest you and I have in Jesus Christ.

For Jesus stood up one day and said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And the writer to the Hebrews tells us that there is a rest for the people of God. You rest from your sin, you rest from the trouble of life outside of God's will. Let me tell you something, life is hard as it is, but when you're outside of the will of God, it's even harder. And you need to experience the rest from your labors of sin.

You need to experience the rest that comes with knowing you have peace with God. Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God." We've rested from our labors in sin. And so that was a common feature of the Year of Jubilee with the Sabbath years every seven years. But then there were two distinctives about the Year of Jubilee that were unique. They were not seen at any other time in Israel's life.

The first was that God gave them back their personal dignity. How did he do that? He said, "If you had to hire yourself out as a slave because you were in debt..." In Bible times, when you were in debt to an individual and you could not pay, they would take you as a bond servant into their hire and you would literally have to work off your debt.

They would tell you what to do. They'd say, "I need you to do this yard. When you get through, I have a project in the house. I gotta knock a wall out and extend the house." And they would just work you, and they literally owned you until your work was as valuable as your debt and you had paid them off. Let me tell you something before I move on, we're still doing that today. Now, you don't have to show up at somebody's house, but some of us are working for Master Mastercard. Master's in the name, you know you're in trouble.

Some of us are working for Master Visa. We're working to pay off all these loans and consumer debt that we have loaded ourselves with because we cannot practice delayed gratification. We bought the lie that "I have to have it now." We bought the lie. Your car was running fine. You knew nothing was wrong with your car. Running fine. Sure, it doesn't have all the latest features and all the creature comforts, but it was getting you from A to B. And when you are in debt, you have no business trading up until you get out of that debt.

I'm right, you just don't know it, but I'm right. And what happens is, though, you're doing fine, car's getting you from A to B, and you need to be working off your other debts and getting yourself in a position where you are not owned by these lenders, but you are owned by the Lord. You're free to do what he tells you with your money. You're free to bless somebody. You're free to sow into the kingdom. You're free to take care of various things that God will put on your heart. But as long as you're a slave to debt, you can't do it.

So what happens is we're doing fine, car's getting us around, but we see something go down the street and we decide we have to have it, and we have to have it now. And in your mind, until it gets renewed by the word of God, it will work against you. So your mind suddenly says, "You know what, come to think of it, there is a little funny ping in the car. There's this little noise and this little knock. You know what, it's probably a sign that it's about to drop."

And next thing you know, you have entered into even more debt. And so you and I have to make a quality decision that we will live our lives according to the word of God so that we can be in a position to do with our money what God would have us do. But in the Year of Jubilee, their personal dignity was returned so that in that year, you could walk up to the person that you were enslaved to, shake his or her hand, say, "It's been a pleasure doing business with you, but according to the word of God, this debt is canceled." And you walk out and the debt is done. They can't do a thing about it because it's the word of the Lord.

In other words, God said, "I know you're living in shame because of the mess you've gotten yourself into, but I want to let you know that I am going to provide for your needs so much so that I'm going to give you your dignity back." Now I want to let you know, if there's somebody who lacks dignity because of the circumstances you find yourself in, you're feeling ashamed because of the sin and the junk that characterized your life before Christ, I want you to know you have every reason to hold your head up high now because God has given you your dignity back.

You're a first-class citizen of the kingdom of God. I want to let you know, God doesn't have any stepkids or grandkids. We're all his children and he loves every one of us. And if you just got saved yesterday out of prostitution or drugs, you're just as valuable as the oldest member of the family of God in here. God has given you your dignity back. He's done it in Christ. He has said that I am giving you a future. You can't help where you've been, but now that you're in Christ, I'm going to help where you're going.

And so God gives us personal dignity. He does it in our spirit. He does it by meeting our needs. He does it by getting us on our feet. He does it by giving us a sense of identity and ability and authority in Christ. And you and I have a future in Jesus Christ. The other unique feature about Jubilee was families were restored to their property that God had given them. And so if the patriarch had died and the family had to have their house foreclosed on, in the Year of Jubilee, that family marched on back in there and said, "I don't care who's living here now, God said this is ours. You all have to go."

In other words, God made the haves be a blessing to the have-nots. That's still going on in the kingdom of God today. That was a shadow of the fact that God was going to make the church interdependent, and when God blesses you, it's a setup. And when you're blessed, he blesses you to be a blessing to other folk. Don't you think you're going to spend all your money. God's going to see to it that the needs of all of his people are met, and sometimes he meets our needs through one another in the body of Christ. God has given us a future.

Now, I want to look at a fifth point, which is that Jesus comes not only to give us a future, but he comes to give us joy. Look at the rest of verse three. It says not only he proclaimed Jubilee and the day of vengeance, but it says he came to comfort all who mourn and to provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Jesus comes to give us joy.

Let me tell you something, Jesus has done so much for us that he said, "I want my church to realize that the joy of the Lord is their strength." And I want my people to have every reason and every right to be joyous people. God doesn't want a bunch of sad sacks representing him. He doesn't want us walking around looking pitiful, feeling bad, talking about every problem we have as if we serve no God. But God said, "I've come to give my people joy."

Now let's look at this closely, and you'll see some things here that God has done for you in Christ. It says that he comforts those who mourn by providing for us three different ways. First, he bestows a crown of beauty instead of ashes. A crown of beauty instead of ashes. Now, you're aware of the fact that in Bible times, very often when people were in mourning, they would wear sackcloth and ashes. They would wear clothing that was the antithesis of festive clothing. They would wear clothing that showed something is really wrong here. And so they would be mourners by their very appearance.

And then they would add to that a placing on their head and on their faces dirt and ashes because the idea is that I'm experiencing some very low circumstances, and so I grab some of the lowest elements of the earth and place them on myself so that people will know I'm in a time of mourning. I've gone to a very low place in my life. And let me tell you, to be sure, we've all been there. You go to those low places in life, but look at the God you serve. He says, "I so love you that I'm not going to leave you down there."

Jesus says, "I'm too committed to you to let you stay in that predicament." And so I am going to give you a crown of beauty instead of those ashes. God says, "I'm going to bless your life so that though weeping may endure for a night," as Psalm 30:5 says, "joy is going to come in the morning." Now understand something, when God gives you timelines like what's going to happen tonight and what's going to happen in the morning, understand that God's time and your time are two different things. And so you don't know when God's going to come through, but he promised, "I'm not going to leave my children in mourning."

"I have a vested interest in bringing them out because they represent me in the world. And I can't have a bunch of sad, pitiful folk representing me in the world, so I'm going to bless their lives. And after they've gone through a period of tough struggle and circumstance, I myself am going to make sure that I bestow upon them a crown of beauty." A crown of beauty. In other words, God said, "I'm going to give all of my children such special blessings that what I'll be creating in their lives, even during the tough times, I'll be giving them a makeover."

You ever seen a makeover take place on a television show or something like that? Now when the person starts out, they don't look too good. Hair's not done yet, sometimes it's going every which way, face isn't done, and what have you. But the makeup artist is sure of what the end product's going to be. And so they say, "Just give me some time and you'll see the difference." And then they begin to go to work. And you can't take the picture too soon, you gotta wait until you get the full impact of the makeover.

That's the way it is in your life. God said, "I'm making something beautiful out of your life." And he even takes our trouble and makes it work together so that something beautiful is happening in our lives. That's what James meant in James chapter one when he said, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into all kinds of trouble and trials of many kind." That doesn't make sense, James. Why would I count it joy? He said because God is working something out. The testing of our faith is developing perseverance, and it must run its full course so that we are lacking nothing in the end of the process.

God says, "I'll even take your negative circumstances and I'll make them create a makeover in your life, so that when you come out, you look better than you did when you went in." God's got some of us looking better today than we've ever looked before. And you know why we're looking that way? Because he took us through some places. Some tough places, some hard places, some difficult places. And he is making something beautiful out of your life. God let you go through tough things so you can minister to folk who are going through tough things.

And you tell them not just what the word says, but you can tell them from a basis of experience that I know God is able to bring you out and to bring you to a place of beauty. That's why John said in 1 John chapter 3, verse 2, "Beloved, it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we're going to be like him, for we shall see him as he is." God is working out something in your life and he's making you beautiful. God is making you look good.

When God gets through working on you because you're his child, folk will admire your life. Folk will admire your life just like you admire someone of physical beauty. Someone will admire your spiritual beauty. They will admire your faith. They will admire your reliance on God. They will admire the stability that God's brought into your life. They'll want to hang around you, because you like having beautiful folk in your company. And God is taking all of us and making something beautiful out of our lives.

He said, "I'm going to put a crown of beauty on you. Don't worry about what you're going through now. I'll use it and I'll work it together so that you trade in those ashes for beauty. I'm not going to leave you in the mourning business." You have to mourn sometimes. That's just called life on this planet, that's all it is. Don't make it any more than that. You have to go through trouble and difficulty sometimes, but God said, "I'm going to make sure that you don't stay there because I want my children to be a showcase of the beautiful thing I can make out of somebody's life."

Guest (Male): Happiness is the result of good circumstances, but because of Jesus Christ, joy will exist in spite of bad ones. Well, once again we have the privilege of sharing a great resource with you to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus. It's a thank you gift to all of you who choose to make a donation to our media ministry. This month's gift is a booklet called "Access Granted", and to tell you more about it, here's our executive director, Alicia Greer.

Alicia Greer: One thing I really love about the "Access Granted" message is this idea that there are benefits that we have as kingdom people that God really wants us to know about. You know, my dad had me give a message on a Sunday morning a couple years ago, and in that message, I gave this example from something I saw on television. There was a woman who was feeling insecure because she was married to a man who was famous.

And so her husband reassured her with these words that I thought were so sweet, and I shared them in the message. He said to her, "You're my wife. You can be anywhere that I am." And this "Access Granted" message makes me think about that. God wants us to know that just by virtue of the relationship that we have with him, there are certain benefits that we should never feel insecure about. And that's what this message is all about.

It doesn't mean that our life is going to be all rainbows and sunshine all the time, but there are benefits that the Lord wants us to be confident in. So I really encourage everyone to check out this resource, and I believe it'll be a great blessing to you.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Alicia. Again, the booklet is called "Access Granted" and it's our gift to you by request for your generous donation to Destined for Victory today. Now, if you'd like to give, we've got several options. Stop by pastorpaul.net to make that donation online, call us at 855-339-5500, 855-339-5500, or if you prefer you can mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538.

Paul Sheppard: When God gets through working on you because you're his child, folk will admire your life. Folk will admire your life just like you admire someone of physical beauty. Someone will admire your spiritual beauty. They will admire your faith. They will admire your reliance on God. They will admire the stability that God's brought into your life.

Guest (Male): And that's next time in our continuing message, "When Jesus Comes". But until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.