Destined for Victory

Paul Sheppard: We love being blessed, but the question is, will you pass the test? Because there are some blessings that reside on the other side of obedience. And so sometimes you see a blessing you want from God, and you go, "Ooh, that's exciting, oh God, please give me that." And he says, "All right, but now I need you to pass this test. And if you pass the test, the blessing will come into your life."

Guest (Male): All the best testimonies begin with a test. Hello and thanks for being with us for today's Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Sheppard. That's how the nation of Israel began, with a test. God said to Abraham, "Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to a land I will show you."

We'll dig into the story of Abraham and Sarah next, and along the way, Pastor Paul offers some practical application for you and me. Online, you'll find us at pastorpaul.net where you can listen to Destined for Victory on demand. That's pastorpaul.net. Subscribe to our podcast at Apple Podcasts, at Spotify, or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Pastor Paul Sheppard's message is called "Dying To Pass Your Test," and it starts right now.

Paul Sheppard: John 12, beginning with verse 24. Jesus is speaking and says, "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me."

Now our overall theme is dying to live. And we established in the first message of the series that this is an important kingdom paradox, that in order to live you must die. That is to say, if you really want to experience God's plan and purpose for your life, it begins with death to the self. Death to my agenda, death to my will, that we might be in a position to experience all that God has for us.

And so we established that clearly as we opened the series, and we've been looking along the way now at some applications of that kingdom principle of death before life. We saw, for instance, that when it comes to the area of forgiveness, it is very difficult in our self-life to forgive. The tendency, the natural tendency is to hold people responsible for the way they have offended us, trespassed against us.

But the kingdom principle Jesus gave us very clearly is, "I want you to forgive them," that is to send the offense to me, put the offense and the offender in my hands, and then God will give us the life of moving on, the ability to move on and to experience all that he has. He'll bring healing to our hurts. He will bring life where there is death, if we will die to that tendency to hold people in unforgiveness.

We moved on and we looked at a case study of Jacob and Esau. And we looked at the fact that these men teach us a number of things about the importance of dying to sin, to dysfunction, to deceit, to some of those things that are flaws in our character. And we learned a number of principles as we looked at Esau and especially his tricky brother Jacob.

But by the time he wrestled with God and said, "Lord, I'm tired of being the way I am and I won't let you go till you bless me," God was able to turn around and make him Israel. Instead of being tricky Jacob, he was Israel, a prince with God. And God will do the same thing in your life and mine if we'll surrender to him.

And then in the last message in the series, we looked at the case study of Hannah in 1 Samuel chapter 1 and discovered that Hannah is a woman who had to die in order to experience real significance. She was a married woman who bore her husband no children, but her rival Peninnah had lots of babies. And she said, "Lord, I want you to make my life count and make the fact that I'm married to this man count."

And if you'll do it, God brought her to a place of extreme surrender and said, "If you'll do it, if you give me a child, I won't see him as a blessing to me, but I'll see him as a blessing through me. And if you'll give me a child, I'll give him back to you." And out of her surrender, God brought into the earth a man named Samuel, who ended up being one of the greatest leaders in Old Testament history, for he was a prophet, a priest, and a military leader, and he honored God by the way he led in Israel.

Currently, I want you to look with me at another example of this principle of death before life. And I want to look at the fact that we must die to self in order to pass certain tests that God gives us in our lives. To make this point, I'd like you to go with me to the book of beginnings, the book of Genesis. And there we'll look at a man named Abraham. Well, he started out being referred to as Abram.

And you first learn of him in Genesis 12 because God speaks to him in Genesis 12:1 and says, "I want you to leave your country, your people, and your father's household and go to a land I will show you." Then God says, "I will make you into a great nation and I'll bless you and I'll make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

So God speaks to a man named Abram and says, "I want you to pick up and leave your country, leave your father's household and go." "Where am I going, Lord?" "I'll tell you when you get there. I want you to go." And he says, "I'm going to bless you and I'm going to make a great nation out of you." Now as you read on, you discover that this is a man who has no children in his life, but he knows that God has spoken to him.

And so verse 4 says, "So Abram left." With very little information, but yet with an assurance that God was speaking to his heart, he picked up and left. And he is going to show us by his example that God often tests us before he blesses us. We love being blessed, but the question is, will you pass the test?

Because there are some blessings that reside on the other side of obedience. And so sometimes you see a blessing you want from God and you go, "Ooh, that's exciting, oh God, please give me that." And he says, "All right, but now I need you to pass this test. And if you pass the test, the blessing will come into your life."

And so here's his first test. Pick up and go. Very little information. Leave your comfort zone. Leave everything you've ever known and go. Abram passed that first test. And the Bible says he picks up, takes all his folks with him, and he goes. And God eventually establishes him in the land of Canaan, which is the land that God said he was going to give to him and to his descendants.

Now that's Genesis 12. When you get down to Genesis 15, you discover that Abram says, "Okay, now God says that he is going to bless the earth through my seed. Okay, that means that I'm going to have to have an heir." And he makes a recommendation to God. He says, "Okay, God, I tell you what. You said that you want to bless the earth through my descendants, but I don't have an heir.

And you know, we're getting on up in age, my wife Sarai and I. So I tell you what, Lord, I'm going to take one of my servants and he will be my heir. I'll adopt him as my son and he will be my heir." Now we're starting to see Abram have a little difficulty with his exam. Why? Because he is now introducing things that God never said.

He is now beginning to look at the fact that if God spoke a word, maybe I better just jump in here and help him bring it to pass. And he is saying, "Okay, how about I make one of my servants my adopted son and he'll be my heir?" Well, since God's not giving him the actual exam yet, this is still the study period, God goes on and helps him after class and helps him understand, "No, no, I'm not asking you to do that.

Instead, what I want you to do is to believe me for a son that will come through your loins." So God clears him up and says, "No, I'm not going to do it through an adopted child. I'm going to give you a son from your own body." So he clears Abram up. And you're told in Genesis 15, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.

But the problem is, when you get into chapter 16, Abram has been sharing this information with his wife Sarai. And so Sarai says, "Well, listen, you're old, Abraham, and so am I. And okay, God said to you, 'I'm going to give you a child through your body,' but did he call my name?" You see where these folks are? "But did he call my name?"

And Abram no doubt said, "Well, honey, I mean, he didn't say that, but you're my only wife." And in effect, she says, "Well, now if God didn't say my name, it's probably because I'm not to be the one. Do you, Abraham, do you know how old I am?" And although he believed God for a son through his own body, he and Sarah put their thimble full of brains in God's business.

And they decided the way to bring God's word to pass is for Sarai to give her servant Hagar to Abraham as a wife so that she could produce. Sarai said, "I can build a family through her." And so when they did that, I want you to understand they flunked an exam. Now before we're too hard on them, I want us to look at our own lives.

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." That's why Destined for Victory is 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. Visit pastorpaul.net to make that safe donation online. That's pastorpaul.net. Or call 855-339-5500. Are you waiting on a blessing from God today? It could be that he's waiting on you to pass a test. Now with the rest of today's Destined for Victory message, "Dying To Pass Your Test," here's once again, Pastor Paul Sheppard.

Paul Sheppard: I want to suggest there are times when we flunk exams as well. All right, let me just give you one example. There have been times when you were in some intense fellowship with somebody, perhaps a spouse. That's a euphemism for an argument. Intense fellowship with somebody, and the Holy Spirit told you, "I want you to hold your peace.

I want you to hold your peace, let me deal with this. I don't want this to escalate and to blow up into something, so I want you just to hold your peace and watch how I will straighten this out." But by then you were getting worked up and you said, "No, God, that's all right. I don't need you to handle this. I will take care of this."

And some of us, in the midst of hearing God clearly speak to our hearts and say, "No, I don't want you to go there," you say, "I'm going there anyhow." And so you jump in and say everything that's on your mind and what have you. But I want you to know when you do that, you have failed an exam. Whenever we do what God said not to do, whenever we don't do what God said to do, whenever our motive is against the will and plan of God, whenever our action is contrary to God's purpose, we fail an exam.

Now the good news is, God loves us so much he doesn't expel us from school when we fail an exam. I'm so glad that God loves us so much that Philippians 1:6 said he's begun a good work in us and he will bring it to completion. That tells me that God has a 100% graduation rate for his students. That tells us that when God puts you in the school of faith and obedience, he's not letting you out until you graduate.

Now here's the sobering reality. Some folk have been in school longer than they needed to be. Let's be honest with ourselves. Some of us, we got left back a couple of times. But the good news is God loves us and he said, "I'm going to get you where I'm going to get you." Circumstances can change, just like Jonah. "Jonah, I've called you to speak my word in Nineveh."

Jonah didn't want to do it. He thought it was optional, so he took off, ran in the other direction. So God said, "Fine, I'll give him a makeup exam." He's on a boat trying to sail away from my will, but he's caught according to my purpose. And so God created an exam in a storm. It got so bad, you've heard me say it many times, until the pagans on the boat who didn't even know God said, "God is trying to talk to somebody."

And you know the story. By the time they threw him off of the boat and the fish that was prepared by God swallowed him up, he took the first submarine ride in history. And the Bible says finally he cried out to God in the belly of that fish and said, "Okay, Lord, I'll do your will." The fish spewed him up on the shore and God's word came back to him and said, "Now Jonah, go to Nineveh."

Now he could have gone days earlier and he could have gone smelling good and looking good. But he ended up having seaweed hanging off of him, smelling not so great. Had to go somewhere, no doubt, get himself fixed up, but he passed the makeup exam. That's all God wants you to do. Sometimes there are problems we introduce into our own lives when we're slow to obey God.

Now I don't know about you, but I have enough trouble that God allows to happen period in my life. Why would I bring more trouble into my life by fighting God? And so I want to suggest that we consider that the path of obedience is always the best path to take. But God loves us so much that when we fail an exam like Abram did in Genesis 16, God loves us so much that he will give us a makeup.

And so I want to let you know, God, when God's hand is on your life, he means to bring his purpose to pass. And so if you fail an exam, there are consequences that come into your own life. You don't put God out when you fail an exam, you put yourself out. You don't make things difficult on God. You've never made God scratch his head and say, "Oh Lord."

No, but you do bring difficulty into your own life. And so the sooner you give up and say yes to God, the better off you are. Let me say if you're listening to this message and you have been running from conviction and God's been speaking to you about your need to surrender your life to Jesus and confess him as your Savior, I want to tell you, if God has marked you that way and conviction is hounding you, do yourself a favor and give up.

Give up. Some of these folk can tell you it's no fun running from God. You can't even be a decent sinner running from God. Your sins won't feel as good. You know, the Bible says there is pleasure in sin only for a season and it has a paycheck nobody wants. But you know there are some folk who seem to just be having fun in sin for this season of their life.

Well, some of you God has so marked you and so convicted you and is so dealing with you until you can't even enjoy what pleasure there is in sin. And if you're a miserable sinner, why don't you just stop it? You can see God's not going to withdraw his convicting power. You can see that there you are, laying in the bed in the middle of the night wide awake, God speaking to your heart saying, "I want to come into your life. I gave my son. He died for your sins."

And I want to tell you, if you have people praying, you got a bunch of prayer warriors praying for you, just give up. Just give up. But God is one who says, "I'm going to bring my will to pass in the lives of my people." And so in their case, they decided to give Hagar to Abram as a wife, and sure enough, she got pregnant. Abraham was old.

Bible says he was 86 when Hagar bore Ishmael. 86 years old. He was old, but he wasn't that old. That little young Egyptian sister was given to him as a wife and, bless God, he came up with a child. But it was not the child of promise. And so guess what happened? God just left them alone for a while because the makeup is always more difficult than the first test.

And so he was 86 when they came up with Ishmael, but this was not the child of promise. And so God said nothing for quite a while. In fact, when you go on and read chapter 17, 13 years have passed from the birth of Ishmael until you get to chapter 17. For 13 years, God said nothing. Ishmael was growing up. The boy's now a teenager.

And 13 years later, God speaks up. And he says, "Now I'm ready to give you the makeup exam." I'm sure Abraham and Sarah said, "What you talking about, a makeup exam? You said that you were going to bless the world through Abraham's seed. He has a son now." God said, "Yes, but that's not the son I promised you."

He said, "You all didn't consult me when you were down there talking about having this child." Abraham and Sarah having this conversation, they didn't invite God in. I want to tell somebody it's time for you to invite God into your plans. There are some of us who are busy making plans. They talked about God's promise, but they talked about God's promise to each other and they came up with the wrong conclusion.

Some of us are at a place in our lives now where God's trying to get you to stop talking about his will and talk to him that he might bring his will to pass in your life. Cause there are times when God calls you to do something that makes absolutely no sense to you. And at that point, he does not need you to figure out how to pull off his will. That's where many of us get in trouble. We think we have to help God.

Well, see, God doesn't understand the economy. He would have never called me to do that if he understood the economy, if he understood what the job situation is here in this part of the country. He would never have called me to do that, so obviously he means I should wait until the tide turns. And you talk to your friends and what have you and you make those kinds of decisions and you fail an exam.

When God gives you a word, if you're not clear about it, all you have to do is go back to him. Rather than to decide Hagar ought to become a wife, they should have said, "God, we're here having a discussion and we think it'd be a pretty good idea to give Hagar to Abraham as a wife. Lord, is that your will?"

If they had done that in perfect faith, God would have spoken up and said, "No, that's not my will." He cleared Abraham up earlier when he told him, "I don't want a servant to be your heir." He'd have sure cleared him up again, but they never consulted him. Some of you God's hand is on you, he's calling you to do something that you think is impossible right now.

And instead of talking to him about what you see as the impossibility, you're on the internet trying to figure out if you can do it. You're consulting with flesh and blood, with people who you think know, and you're trying to figure out if you can do it. And God says you have failed an exam. Because when I speak, there's no one who can second-guess me. When I speak, I don't need you to confirm what I said with some expert. When I speak, it is so.

Guest (Male): You know, if you really want to experience God's plan and purpose for your life, you have to die to your own will and ultimately to your own self. That's when you'll be in a position to experience all that God has for you. If you haven't already downloaded our free mobile app, now's a great time to do it. Just search "Destined for Victory" in 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, the Christian life is a victorious life and it's not a happy coincidence, it's your birthright already purchased by Jesus Christ at the highest price in history. And yet so many believers live in defeat, selling their birthright for things worth far less. In his booklet, "More Than Conquerors," Pastor Paul Sheppard uses the unlikely story of Gideon to outline the path from defeat to victory.

If you want to understand how to take on a victor's identity and tear down the idols competing for your heart, you'll want to reserve your copy of this outstanding resource. That's "More Than Conquerors," yours this month for your generous donation to Destined for Victory. And you can give by phone by calling 855-339-5500. That's 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: Some of you God's hand is on you, he's calling you to do something that you think is impossible right now. And instead of talking to him about what you see as the impossibility, you're consulting with flesh and blood, with people who you think know, and you're trying to figure out if you can do it. And God says you have failed an exam. Because when I speak, there's no one who can second-guess me. When I speak, it is so.

Guest (Male): That's next time in our Destined for Victory message, "Dying To Pass Your Test." But until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.