The Road to Our Destiny: Conclusion
Broadcast #1371
January 13, 2019
Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 1371 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text
— Brother Phil Enlow: And you think about the test that God was putting him through at that point. What kind of a man is he gonna prove to be? What is his character under that kind of duress? You know, your character tends to come out—what you really are tends to come out.
And his character came out and he said…he turned to the Lord. He, “…encouraged himself in the Lord.” (KJV). And said, Lord, You are still on the throne! You brought me here! What do you want us to do? And the Lord spoke and He said, go after them. And he did. And how many, was it 200 men who were so exhausted they couldn’t even go? But 400 men completely surprised the raiders, and not only did they get everything back, they got all the other stuff the raiders had been collecting from all around the countryside! So God turned a terrible defeat into a glorious victory!
And he comes back, and of course, some of his men didn’t want to share any of this with the 200 that hadn’t been able to go to the battle. David says, no, God has given us this. We’re gonna share alike. This is gonna be an ordinance in Israel from now on. Those who stay by the stuff get the same reward. So you see his character being prepared to sit on a throne and be able to judge the whole people.
Do you think he would have been ready for that had he not had to go through and his faith not constantly been challenged with all of these…every kind of issue there was, his faith was challenged! I mean, we just scratch the surface of all the stuff he went through. Read the Psalms. You’ll see the desperate times that he cried to the Lord and the Lord heard him and helped him.
But there was one thing. His compass, at every point in his life, his compass pointed north – to use that as an illustration. It never deviated from pointing toward God! He never said, oh, maybe I’m on the wrong track here. Maybe I was a fool to trust in this God! Look what’s happened! Always there was this, I don’t care what’s happened, I know who God is! I’m gonna trust Him! My life is in His hands! I’m looking to Him!
And right at this point is when Saul goes into battle and is killed. God took care of that. It was the time. And David was able to take from the spoils that he had gotten from those raiders and send gifts to people and the Lord began to pave the way for him to be the king. It was seven more years before he actually united the entire nation. And in spite of his wobbles, he was certainly the greatest king that ever lived. I know Solomon had more glory, but it was all a product of what David had been through and what God had done with that man.
But do you see how this relates to what we’re talking about here? Because testing of your faith does what? It develops perseverance. It does a work. If you look at the Greek word there, it involves the word ‘work.’ There is literally work being done. This is the only thing that will produce the quality that will bring us to the destiny for which God has called every single one of us.
And I think we’ve pointed out many times, the number one example of this is Jesus. I mean, you think about who He was, the Son of God! Surely He could simply come into the world, step into the role and do whatever needed to be done! But it didn’t happen that way, did it? He was tested in every point like we are! The one difference is He never sinned. He never failed.
Why did He never fail, by the way? There was a perfect reliance upon God’s strength and energy! It was by the eternal Spirit, we’re told, that He offered Himself without spot to God. There was a total unbroken relationship with His Father where everything that He needed…it was a continual choice to look to God and to maintain His integrity no matter what came to His heart and His mind, no matter what the Devil put in there trying to turn Him aside! He continually made the right choice in that exercising of faith in the face of whatever came against His heart and His mind, and that made Him what He was! He learned obedience, by what?
( congregational response ).
By the wonderful lecture series He sat through.
( laughter ).
No. “…By the things which he suffered.” But then what does it say? “Being made perfect….” You see, God had a purpose for His Son coming into this world. God had a role—the role of all roles to fulfill. But do you see how the same process that He uses with us was used with His own Son? Being made perfect, complete! In other words, He was, “…perfect and entire, wanting nothing,” with respect to the role that God had called Him to fulfill in history!
And so when the time came, He could stand there and say, Satan has nothing in Me. He had no hold. Satan would love to get a hold of me, and he’s tried everywhere he could and I’ve been able to say, no, I believe God—no, I believe God. My faith is still in the purpose for which God has called me. He had to go through what He went through to do what He did for you and for me. You think of the challenges.
I’ll tell you what, we’ve got a God who knows what He’s doing! But you know, again, if you sort of left it here, it almost is like the lecture series. It’s wonderful, vague truth that we can sort of, in a very general way, relate to our lives. But here’s what got my attention when I was thinking about this. Every single one of us who know the Lord, who have been called according to His purpose, we have a role to fulfill.
Now your role might be to stand and take a bullet for the Lord and your testimony be a help to somebody else and God’s gonna finish the work on the other side. I don’t know. But every single one of us is unique—we’re different! You’re not like you or you or you! Every one of us has a unique place.
It may not be a big public place. It may not be a place that the world stands by and says, wow, look at them. But I’ll tell you, it matters! If your place is to live out the faith that God has given you before the world in which God has put you, that matters! You and I have the chance to affect people’s lives, not just for the better here, but with eternal consequences!
God is preparing a people as He has done throughout the ages, to fill special places and roles in His Kingdom, when we’re living, right now! He has called us not to live 100 years ago. He’s called us to live now. And we’re living in the gathering of the darkness of the end of the age. And I believe with all my heart, God is going to have lights in the world. And I believe He’s called us to be some of those lights.
And God longs for me, for every single one of us, to come to the place where we lack nothing! There is a maturity! We are prepared of God to fulfill the place to which He has called us in a broken world! None of us can look inside and say, I have the qualifications for that. We have none of it! We need God to take broken vessels, to mend them, to fill them, to prepare them, to test and try our faith until it gets strong, until it gets such a persistence about it that nothing can turn it aside!
Oh, you think of some of the lessons, and the way God goes about it…the time element. Every one of the servants of God, you look at the time element in their lives. I mean, even Jesus spent 30 years living an ordinary life, when nobody really knew who He was! His mother had a glimmer. His brothers certainly didn’t have a clue! They didn’t believe in Him until after the resurrection!
I mean, we’re reading from James…when Jesus was crucified, James didn’t believe in Him! The only reason was that Jesus appeared to James after He was raised from the dead. So I mean, here’s Jesus living such an ordinary life in one sense…certainly He was a model young man, I’m sure. But He was willing to subject himself to that!
And of course, we know about the wilderness. And we know about the years of ministry and the opposition He endured and the death He died and all of those things! But you see the time element in that? My God! And yet, here’s somebody who had a complete knowledge. And He certainly knew what God had called Him to do! He knew what He was there for. I’ve come down from heaven to give my life for the world. He knew it! But He had to wait on God. He had to stand fast in the tests. He had to let God prepare Him to fill that role!
You and I may not know all of the things to which God has called us specifically. But every one of us needs to live with the sense that we are a part of His Kingdom. No one else can fill your role. You matter to Him! Jesus didn’t die just for…in general. He died for you. He gave His life for you and for me.
And when He revealed Himself, when He reveals Himself through the Gospel, there’s something like was birthed in Abraham! That’s what makes us Abraham’s children…is that we are born of the same faith that inhabited Abraham, that enables us to see past the world, to see past what’s going on in our lives! I’ll say this again, like I’ve said many times…I sure hope I’m listening to this.
( congregational response ).
Because I experience the same things you do. I guarantee it! I mean, I was sitting over there at the piano this morning, just sort of fighting off this…I don’t know what you’d call it, it wasn’t exactly depression but it was something headed in that direction…just negative. Why are things the way they are? Why do I feel this way? And the Lord says, I want you to practice what you preach!
( laughing ).
( laughter ).
Okay. You know, I can’t stand up here and not be a partaker of all of this. But every one of you has a role to fill! Every one of you affects lives! Every one of you is a testimony! People are looking at you! You have a chance to fulfill something that only you can fulfill! And God is going to build real faith! And real faith perseveres! Real faith doesn’t give up when it’s challenged!
Real faith, when the tide is going one way doesn’t say, oh well, I guess that’s where I’m supposed to go. Your nature is going to be pulled! Everything is going to appeal to some part of your nature to give into that and to choose that over the ways of God! You’re gonna be discouraged! You’re going to be challenged with the idea that you ought to be bitter about something that was wrong…you were done wrong…to say it the country way.
( laughter )
Somebody’s done you wrong. Who do you think is behind all of that, even though the Devil brings it? Who do you think is behind the things that happen in our lives? And why do you think it happens? Is it without a purpose? Or do, “…all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose…”?
( congregational response ).
Yeah. And the purpose is not just that ultimate purpose…it is that. But folks, if we’re living here, there’s a purpose here.
( congregational amens ).
And God wants us to be mature enough to fill the role to which He’s called us. You know, there are some people that we probably would never have heard about had it not been for...well, I’ll give you an example I’m thinking about, Susanna Wesley. Some of you know who she was. She was a lady in the 1600s, I guess…somewhere in there, 1700s I think…and just a godly woman.
But you and I would never have heard of her had she not been such a persistent, faithful Christian that the faith that was in her was ultimately transmitted to John and Charles Wesley…whose names are still with us today. God didn’t call Susanna Wesley to go out and preach to great crowds. But He did call her to live a life of faith in front of her children. It’s not what you tell your kids that matters, it’s what you live!
( congregational amens ).
And the only way we live it is to face things…is to face the obstacles of life, whatever comes, and to have that compass that never deviates from north…that says, I know God is right. But do you see the connection in this passage that we started with? It starts out with, “…Consider it pure joy….” (NIV). Well that doesn’t make a bit of sense unless you measure that by the goal! If you start with the goal that God is going towards, to be mature and entire, wanting nothing in the different translations, lacking nothing, that’s a pretty good goal!
And if we can see all of life in terms of where God is going with it, what He seeking to accomplish in us and through us, then it can become a source of joy! Because we say, Lord, thank You for what you’re doing! I don’t like the process but I know Your grace is enough! If this is what it takes to get there, it’s worth it! It’s worth everything to serve You! Oh God, give me the grace! But help me to see my life through Your eyes! Help me to fulfill my role.
Folks, you and I are not just church-bench warmers, practicing a little religion and then dying one day. We are here in this world to live out His life. Your life matters. Where you live, what you do, how you live your life, whether faith is the driving the principle of your life or not, we have an amazing privilege to serve the living God in such an hour. You are unique! You are special! You are a work of God’s grace, the Master Craftsman! He’s never made another one alike…exactly like you! I was going to say thank God, but I won’t say that.
( laughter ).
No! It’s a good thing! Because every one of us has an awesome place in the Kingdom of God. Don’t you look down on it. Don’t you say, I don’t matter! You do matter! You matter to God! You matter to Jesus, He died for you!
( congregational amens ).
And He lived for you. He went through the process that He calls upon us to walk through. And he demonstrated, as did the heroes of faith, what it means to say, God, Your promise is true. I don’t care what happens to this world. I don’t care what happens to my life. My life here is not what matters. It’s the life that You have promised me. That’s what matters! But as long as I’m here, help me to fulfill the purpose for which You’ve called me! And help me to surrender to the process that makes me fit for that purpose!
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds….” Actually, the original word there is temptations. It’s the same one He talks about down there when he says, don’t say when you’re tempted, that God is tempting me. So this is actually the Devil coming and appealing to us in some way. This is not just negative experiences. This is the voice of the serpent that comes and tries to interpret it and tries to move us in a certain direction because of what’s happening! Whether it’s a direct appeal to our nature or whether it’s simply a discouraging word because of what’s going on, or what someone did to us!
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds…” Why could you do such a ridiculous thing? “…Because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” There’s that quality, there’s that character building that’s going on! So what difference does that make? “Perseverance must finish its work…” There’s a time element, isn’t there? “…So that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
You know, patience is the word that’s used in the King James, and that’s part of it because there’s a time element involved. We need to be patient with God! Every one of us gets aggravated with how He does things. But you know, we need to humble ourselves and get to the point where we can look back and laugh at ourselves and see how ridiculous all that is.
You know, we need to be patient with ourselves. How many have a problem with that? Why am I like I am? Well, it doesn’t happen…the changes don’t happen in our character unless we’re having to fight against something. It’s wonderful to spend time, in the peaceful times with the Lord and draw strength, that’s part of it. Absolutely! But it’s in the storms. It’s in the challenges. And God is going to bring you and me the exact challenges that accomplish the exact purpose for which He is working in our lives.
But we need to be patient with the process and say, Lord, just do what it takes, whatever the time element. I know Abraham was wondering many times through those 25 years, what in the world have I got myself into? What’s going on? When is this gonna happen? How is it going to happen? But he stuck with the stuff, didn’t he? And he just waited on God. And that’s the bottom line every one of us has to come to! You know, we also need to be patient with each other.
( congregational amens ).
Oh, we’re good at looking at the other fellow and seeing their need, and then trying to fix it in the flesh. God, help us to discern and know the difference. There are times to encourage. There are times to speak. But most of the time it’s just us trying to straighten somebody out. And if we’ll go to the mirror, we’ll find the one that really needs to be straightened out!
( congregational response ).
I’ll tell you, the Lord is so awesome and so faithful. Every one of us, I’m sure, wishes there were another way to reach this place called maturity and completeness and not lacking anything. But there’s no other way. This is it. But I’ll tell you, it’s worth everything to serve the Lord! It’s worth everything! Do you think we’re gonna get to the other side and look back and say, man, that was a waste? Lord, why did you put me through that? That had no purpose whatsoever. You were playing games with me!
We’re gonna look back and we’re gonna see the mercy of God! We’re going to be shouting of His mercy and His patience with us! All the reactions that we go through when His hand is upon us for good and for something that’s eternal, and we’re worried about the moment! We’re worried about this and that and the other thing, that’s just so unnecessary, meaningless, because God is faithful.
So how many of you want to be mature and complete and not lacking anything? How many of you want to fulfill the purpose for which God created you in the beginning?
( congregational response ).
Then we just need to learn. But we need to take that learning out the door with us. And learn how to rest in God, how to stand, what to do when the test comes, because it will come! In a thousand different ways, faith will be put to the test. But I’ll tell you, if we will keep pointing north, keep looking to God, keep drawing upon Him, keep believing His promise, we, too, will be among those who inherit the promise. “…Ye have need of patience…” the writer says, “…that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.” (KJV). Because He is faithful. He is faithful who calls us and He will do it. Praise God!
I’ll tell you, He’s called us to something that’s sure and certain, and eternal. But, if Jesus had to go through what He had to go through to fulfill the role that God had called Him, don’t you think there’s a place for us to have to go through that same process? But it will be worth it all when we see Jesus. Praise God!
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