July 5 AM - Kevin Shepherd

Kevin Shepherd brings almost 30 years of pastoral experience, including twelve years as Lead Pastor of Glad Tidings Church in Burlington, Ontario, where he led significant growth through community engagement and leadership development. He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Crossroads Christian Communications and YES TV, using media to inspire spiritual transformation, cultural impact, and global outreach through faith-based storytelling and values-driven entertainment. Kevin also serves in leadership within the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) as a General Executive Member and Assistant Superintendent for the Western Ontario District, while remaining active in interdenominational initiatives across Canada. Kevin and his wife, Sherri, are proud parents of Caleb (married to Lauren) and Sadie.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You know, I've just so appreciated in our time together. Just the worship and the entering in, and just as I was uh worshiping there with all of you, um, I was just picturing, and I know I don't know how this is going to sound to you, but I was picturing our entire country. Lift everyone lifting their hands in worship to the Lord. And I know that sounds like a like a maybe an impossible dream. But what you anticipate shapes you before it arrives, right? And it's gotta start somewhere. Why not here? Why not here? Why not with us? What if? I know I just got right into it on you here, but what if from this moment, from this place, God sparked something powerful? And as we go from this last day of camp back to our homes, back to our towns, back to our places, that that spark just started to ignite and light a fire of worship in different churches and different homes and in different regions and throughout the entire province and from this province to all the other provinces. What if, what if God was just about to ignite from this moment a mighty wave of worship across this entire nation and people lifting their hearts to God? Can you see it? Can you believe for it with me? I just want us to pray for our nation right now before we move forward. Would you just lift your hands as a symbol of that to the Lord? Heavenly Father, we come to you right now and we're so grateful for your grace that we know you, that we experience you, that we can gather like this and meet with you, and you can fill our hearts with praise and worship because we know you. We've received you, we've experienced you, we know your grace and your love. And we come to you right now calling out for our towns and our cities and our provinces and our country that desperately needs to experience what we have. So, God, we just ask that you take these open hands and you use them for your glory. You take whatever we do and you'd make it so much more than we ever could, so much more fruitful. And Lord, we just ask that you'd use us, that you take us, and that you would ignite your presence across this land for the sake of the next generations, for the sake of those who don't know you are lost, for those whose minds have been blinded by the God of this age, that God, you would awaken a mighty wave, a revival to take place across this land. For your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you for joining with me in prayer there. That the message that I'm gonna speak to you is um about really uh it's it's a it's a national sermon, I think. It's uh it's something the Lord's been working in my heart uh for a while about, and um so just thank you for joining with me in that as we as we pray through it together. I also wanted to thank you. So many of you have come to me and told me you're praying for Delby. And uh man, that means a lot. And I just believe God's doing something there, and I want you to continue to remember him, and uh he actually lives just outside of Edmonton. So if you are anywhere and you hear the name Delby, just be ready, okay? Because God's at work in his life, I know it. And uh, he may just have him walk into your church or you might meet him in a grocery store or somewhere sometime. That's how God works, amen? God sees the bigger picture. All right, I want to tell you about a pastor who had this kitten that he loved very much, and the kitten got stuck up a tree. How many of you love cats? How many of you like you have more than one cat? You love cats? Okay. How many of you you could take or leave cats? Like you don't mind that they exist, but wouldn't bother you if God wiped them off the face of the earth either. Like, it's kind of one of those things. Got a few more hands in the front here after that comment. I gotta tell you. How many of you hate cats? Like, hate cats, like they cost money, they don't even fetch, like, hate cats. Okay, well, this pastor was not you folks at the end, the the former folks loved his kitten. But the kitten was up this tree, but the the problem was it was too high for him to reach, but the tree wasn't really big enough for him to climb it to get the kitten down. So he had to figure out another way to get the cat down. So what he did was he thought, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna tie a rope to the tree and tie it to the bumper of my truck, and I'm just gonna drive forward a little and bend the tree down so that I can reach the kitten. You're getting ahead of me here. So he gets it all tied up, gets it ready, gets in his truck, he starts pulling forward, it's working. The tree is bending right down, right down. He's like, Oh, it's almost low enough, almost there. He's not, I'll just pull a little bit further. And as he did, the rope broke. The tree snapped up, the kitten went flying through the air. He couldn't see exactly where it went. He was feeling bad. So he went looking all over the neighborhood to try and find this kitten. He couldn't find it. So eventually he just prayed, Lord, I entrust this kitten into your keeping. He went on with his day. The next day he's at the grocery store. And he walks down the aisle and he sees one of his congregation members, Louise. Louise was a known cat hater. Like, hated cats, everybody knew it. And she had cat food in her cart. The pastor goes over to her and says, Louise, like, I just, I thought you hated cats. And I see you've got some cat food there. Can you help me understand? She goes, Pastor, you'll never believe it. She says, My eight-year-old has been bothering me for a kitten for the longest time. She has just been after me, pestering me. Finally, I said to her, Honey, why don't you pray? And if God gives you a kitten, then we'll keep it. She said, Pastor, I watched her walk out into the backyard, kneel down into the middle of the lawn, and a kitten came flying out of the sky and landed right in front of her. I had to let her keep it because the kitten came from God. I think sometimes in life we've been like the little girl. When we just actually believe that God can do the miraculous, that God can do the impossible. There's been moments in our lives where we're just like absolutely full of faith, know that God can do it. Nothing is impossible for God. I think there's also times when we're like the mom. Like we believe in God. We believe that God can do the miraculous. We're just not sure that God's going to do it in our situation or in this circumstance. And then other times we're like the pastor. We mean well, we're trying to do good things, and things just don't go the way that we anticipated that they would go. And as we talked about last night, sometimes the process doesn't look like the promise. And we can be in stages and situations that are difficult and hard for us to understand. And in those times of uncertainty, I've noticed something that people tend to do. In times of uncertainty, in times of pressure, people count. We tend to count things when we're unsure and we're uncertain. We count the money in our bank account when things are financially uncertain. We count our retirement savings. We count our investments when the economy is uncertain. When we're uncertain socially, some people they count their likes and their followers. When there's medical uncertainty, we count the numbers in our health reports. When something is fragile or uncertain, we look for reassurance. In the church, we do this. We count attendance, we count volunteers, we count engagement, we count influence, we count money. And there's nothing wrong necessarily with counting. As we've talked about, God loves numbers. He's got a book in the Bible called Numbers. Numbers matter because numbers are people. I'm a strategist. I love numbers. Numbers can help you make good decisions. Counting can be good stewardship. So don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying counting is wrong or bad, but what I want to address is I think a subtle shift that happens beneath the counting. A shift in our heart where it can end up being that we count for preservation or we count for validation instead of counting for mission. So I want to take us all the way to the end of David's life. We started at the beginning. We're fast forwarding, we're going right to the end of David's life. 2 Samuel 24, I read it recently and it made me pause. I think it should make us all pause. Verse 1 again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, Go and take a census of Israel and Judah. So there's something happening nationally here. The text doesn't spell out exactly what the offense was, exactly what the issue is, doesn't catalog a specific scandal. But notice the word again. It's not the first time. In fact, you go through Israel's history and you could see there's this pattern of following closely to the Lord and then doing what is right in their own eyes. And this pattern, and somehow Israel, in the midst of everything they've been through, in the midst of everything that God has provided for them, in the midst of how good God has been to them as a nation, they are falling away again, and God's anger is burning against Israel again. There had been compromise that was increasing. There was a deviation from covenant life in some way, and it had accumulated. And when scripture speaks of God's anger like this again, it's never impulsive rage. It's covenantal grief. It's the kind of grief that he had when he looked at Saul and the decisions that Saul had made to walk away from the plan that God had for him. It's from a God who's persistently focused on reaching people, grieved with those who are drifting away from trust and obedience and dependence. Now the text says something that's difficult for us to reconcile. God incited or caused David to act against them. Actually, in the first Chronicles portion of scripture of the same story, it actually says Satan incited David. So which is it? Was it God incited David or Satan incited David? I don't think scripture is being contradictory here. It's layers. Because God sees with a different perspective. It's kind of like the Job story, right? Satan tempts, God allows, but David chooses. Our choices matter. God didn't plant this in David's heart. The census didn't create the drift, it revealed it. The pressure of the moment is what was revealed, what was forming and happening in David's heart. And what I've noticed throughout scripture, and I've noticed throughout life, is that sometimes God allows leadership decisions to expose adrift so that correction can happen. It wasn't random harm, it was surgical exposure. The census became the means through which a hidden issue was revealed. Israel had slowly begun trusting in its own strength, and David's senses simply quantified what their hearts had already begun believing. That's what makes this a sobering passage for us as the church in Canada today. I think one of the greatest threats against a movement of God might not be open rebellion. It actually might be subtle self-reliance. I call it the problem of capable people. Now, you might think, well, capable people are not a problem. People who aren't capable are the problem. Like we want capable people, don't we? We want capable people to make our meal at a restaurant. We want capable people to do the maintenance on our vehicle or on our house. We want capable people in our life. We want capable volunteers, we want capable coworkers, we want capable bosses, we want capable pastors, we want capable people in our lives. We want capable people to fly airplanes and get us to camp. And when I finally got on an airplane, I didn't want to get on the airplane and hear the pilot come on. Welcome, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to my first flight ever. But don't worry, I asked Chat GPT how to fly a plane. You know, like we want capable people. So what's the problem of capable people? I think at least one problem with capable people is capable people tend to rely on themselves instead of God. This is how capability tends to work. The more capable you feel in doing something, the less you feel you need to rely on God to do that thing. This is where we need to be careful. Many of us in this room are mature believers. This is where we need to be really careful because we can become so mature that we can become self-reliant. And we stop leading our lives and leading ourselves into a place where we actually really rely on God. The second problem I see of capable people is they tend to rely on themselves instead of others. I think we're all tempted to do this, right? Like when we become capable at something, we know how to do something, whatever it is at work or wherever you are, it's just faster to do it yourself. It's easier to do it yourself. You just know the way you like it, and so you want to do it the way yourself. And you know we should rely on other people, and we know that we should support one another and build leaders and how all that stuff. We know that, but we tend to rely on ourselves instead of other people. And I think this self-reliance is what is being exposed here through this census. There's something that happens here that's it's pretty interesting, pretty fascinating. Look at this, verse 2. So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are. But Joab replied to the king, May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing? Now, at first it just seems like a king just wanting to know how many people they got. Seems strategic, seems administrative, seems fine. Like what's the problem? But what we've got here is Joab. Joab is the one that's going, are you sure you want to do this, David? Are you sure you want to do this right now? Are you sure that this is the right thing to do right now? Because it's a time of peace. They actually don't have really any military threats around them. They don't need to be finding out how many fighting men they have. And this is Joab here. Joab is sensing something's off. Joab is like, I don't know, David, I don't think this is right. This is Joab. Joab is his military commander. He is not, you know, a contemplative monk here that's highly sensitive to the things of the spirit. This is a guy who's ruthless and aggressive. This is a guy that knowing how many fighting men he has would be a good thing. It would be a normal thing. It's not something he would normally resist. It's not because he's afraid of the work or afraid of mobilizing people to do this. There's no issue for him in that way. So what's happening here? Notice what he says. Basically, God multiplies. Why are you measuring? Why are you measuring? Again, I don't think that measuring is the issue. I think the why of the measuring is the issue. And I just can't help but notice that even a hardened warrior can sometimes recognize when a decision is being made by insecurity rather than faith. The most aggressive man in David's cabinet sensed that something was off before David did. And he challenges David about it. But here's the tension. But the king insisted that they take the senses. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out to count the people of Israel. Having gone through the entire land for nine months and twenty days, they returned to Jerusalem. Joab reported the number of people to the king. There were 800,000 capable warriors in Israel who could handle a sword, and five hundred thousand in Judah. Why the census? Why doing this? And I read this text to notice that he's actually counting the fighting men. He's actually counting the military men. The kingdom is established, the enemies are subdued, the borders are secure. He's not counting for war preparation, he's counting in relative stability. Why is he counting? And censuses were not necessarily wrong. Exodus 30, God calls for a census, but with a very specific instruction, each person must give a ransom offering, so there will be no plague among them when you number them. And here's, I think, the theological principle. A census without atonement applies ownership. The problem isn't math, it's motive. Why are you counting? Why are we doing that? Why is David counting here at the end of Of his life, the last thing that he's about to do before Solomon takes the throne. Something occurred to me about the way David is counting in this moment and the way he counted when he was younger. I mean, you think about the way he was counting. We talked about with Goliath, we talked about with the Philistines. It didn't matter how many centimeters Goliath was compared to him in that moment. It didn't matter how many Philistines there were compared to him in that moment. Because he was more focused on the promise of God and the purpose of God and the anointing of God and the calling of God. That's what was motivating him. It seems to me here, when he counts later in his life, he's not motivated as much by the purpose and the promise and the calling of God. It seems as though maybe he's counting for validation. Counting for affirmation. Look at what we've done. Look at what we've accomplished. Look how much we have. Look at where we are. At some point along his life, there's this subtle shift. I don't know if we can point to a specific moment, even though we know more about David's life than arguably anybody else in Scripture. I don't know if we can point out it specifically, but it started to make me look at my own life. Look at my own situation. Again, I'm about to be a grandpa. And I'm thankful for all the things that God has done. But am I counting right now? Am I living my life for preservation? Am I counting for retirement? Am I counting for comfort? Am I trying to put myself in a place of ease? Or am I committed to the mission of God? Am I counting so that I will step up and step out and do what it is that God has called me to do, regardless of what it looks like around me? I think comfort is the God of this generation. And we do everything we can to make ourselves more comfortable. But God has called us to something bigger. God has called us to something deeper. See, David isn't just a king taking a census. David is every one of us. When we're afraid, when we're uncertain, or when we just want validation or affirmation. God has stirred something in you. God has inspired you. God has started dreams again in you. And I just don't want us to lose it when we go from this place and we go back to life, back to the challenges, back to the circumstances, back to the opportunities, back to the comfort, back to the blessings, back to the opportunities. Oh my God. Keep us motivated by his promise, by his purpose, by his calling. We're walking through a moment in Canada where many things feel uncertain. I think the systems and the things that people have depended on and placed their comfort in have been shaken. And there's a fear that has gripped our nation. Because in that moment when people don't know what to trust, they don't know who to trust, they don't know where to turn. But I just want to remind you, Church of Jesus Christ, that we have a firm foundation that will not be shaken. As the Bible says, we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. So when the systems around you are shaken, your God is not shaken. When the people around you are shaken, your God is not shaken. And when the reports give you numbers, you believe the report of the Lord. And you trust in God who is with you, who sees you, and sees the bigger picture. If we aren't careful, our motives shift from expansion of the kingdom to preservation of our own. Are we counting for preservation or expansion? So, what does this mean to us here today at the end of Alberta Beach Camp 2026? I just don't think that this happened to David in a moment. I think it was a subtle drift. That's why it's so insidious. That's why it's so hard for us to identify. It just happened over time, over circumstances. I think that's what happens to nations. It's what happens to churches, it's what happens to leaders, it's what happens to us. And so the call from God to us today is to continue to keep our hearts soft before Him. When finances get tight, and our peace is tending to rise and fall based on our bank account. Be careful what you're counting and make sure you're counting on God. When your children make choices that you never imagined and you don't know how to fix it or what to do, remember to count on God and come to Him in prayer. When we're waiting for God to answer and fulfill the promise that we believe He's given to us, and then we start striving to try to make it happen in our own strength. Remember to come to Him in prayer, to trust Him, to believe Him for His purpose, and His calling, in His way, in His timing to be accomplished. We have a tendency to look for something we can count on. We're looking for something we can trust. And the temptation then is to stop believing in God and start to rely on ourselves. David was conscience stricken after he counted the fighting men. He said to the Lord, I've sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing. You know what I was thinking? Nothing has changed. Nothing has changed here. The numbers are all the same, the army's the same size, the kingdom is in the same position, still secure, the numbers haven't suddenly become wrong. But all of a sudden, David realized the deeper issue. In this moment, it wasn't the numbers in the numbers. The problem wasn't the numbers in the senses, the problem was he was putting his trust and faith in. The only thing that changed was David's heart. This is the beautiful thing about David. This is why Acts 13, 36 says David did the will of God in his own generation. It didn't mean that he was perfect. It doesn't mean that you and I are perfect. We will miss it. We will trust in ourselves instead of God sometimes. God knows that. But the beautiful thing about David is that when he missed the mark, when he did that, he became repentant. He realized and he turned to God. That was the difference between Saul and David. Saul didn't do that, but David did. This is the invitation to you and me. It's not that you got to be perfect, it's not that you strive not to mess up. No, you will. I will. But when we do, let's have a soft heart before the Lord. Let's turn our hearts back to him. Let's go to him. The most important thing in the life of David is not the kingdom that he built. The most important thing in the life of David is not the victories that he accomplished. The most important thing in the life of David was that he listened when his heart was convicted. The most important thing is that when God spoke, David listened. I have sinned greatly in what I have done, he says. So let me ask you, what has God been whispering to your heart? What is the issue that God's been whispering to your heart that he's calling you to? It's not condemnation, it's conviction because he loves you and he has a big picture for your life and a purpose he's calling you to. What is the dream? What is the what is the ministry? What is the generosity he's calling you to? Don't ignore that whisper. God isn't exposing David to shaman, he's exposing David so he can bring him back to himself. Look at this. So God sent a prophet. So Gad went to David and said to him, Shall there come on you three years of famine in your land, or three months of fleeing your enemies while they pursue you, or three days of plague in your land? Now then think it over and decide. I should answer the one who sent me. My dad used to do this when I did something I shouldn't do. He'd give me options of punishment. I hated that. I think it was worse than the punishment itself. Trying to figure out which punishment I should take for the thing I did wrong. You know what my dad was doing? He was helping me understand the weight. The weight of my decisions and the consequences of that. David says, Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great, but do not let me fall into human hands. So God sends a plague. Remember, we talked about the Exodus 30 thing? God actually sends a plague. 70,000 people died throughout the nation. The Bible says that the angel of the Lord was preparing to destroy Jerusalem. And at the moment the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Arunnah, the Jebusite. And listen to this. Verse 18 of chapter 24. On that day Gad went to David and said to him, Go up and build an altar to the Lord at the threshing floor of Aruna the Jebusite. David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer in behalf of the land and the plague of Israel was stopped. Now this might seem like an inconsequential detail in the story. That they were at the threshing floor of Aruna, the Jebusite, until we realized that that place was the exact place where the temple would be built. The place where the judgment stopped is the place where the worship would rise. And this is how we see that Jesus is the true and better David. See, where David prayed and sacrificed and interceded, so this judgment would stop in that moment. Jesus came and was the sacrifice for us and defeated that judgment of sin and death forever and ever. Can I hear an amen to that? The good news isn't simply try harder not to count the wrong things. The good news is when our trust has drifted. We have a Savior who came and lived a perfect life, who never faltered. We have a king who remained perfectly faithful. And when we have trusted ourselves more than God, Jesus has already made a way for us back to the Father and back to his purpose. So my prayer for Canada is this: in the places where our nation has drifted, may we see God bring clarity. May God bring us back. In the places where we have relied on ourselves and the blessings we have received in this country have made us crave more. May we come back to the place where those things are only tools and gifts for the expansion of God's kingdom and his glory. May the numbers that are good, that we like, that have blessed us in this country not be the thing we count for validation or preservation, but when we actually see that there's so many more numbers of people that need to know the love and the grace of Jesus. May that be what motivates us as we leave this place. The church in Canada is being tempted to evaluate its future by what can be counted: attendance curves, giving trends, cultural influence. We count everything these days. Not against counting. But may we never think that it's our numbers that is what's going to expand the Church of Jesus Christ in Canada. The church wasn't born from what could be counted, the church was born from purpose through what could only be promised. When Jesus said, go to the upper room and wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit. And there was only, if you want to count them, there was only 120 people there that day. There's more than 120 people here today. And from those 120 people who waited with a genuine heart before the Lord for what could be promised. And God fulfilled his promise and sent the empowerment of the Spirit of God. And it gave them boldness to witness, boldness to disciple, boldness to change a nation, to change a world, what could happen if we open our hearts in the same way. We don't just rely on ourselves, but the spirit of the living God that lives within us, the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, lives in you. Empowerment of the Spirit of the Living God to witness, to share our faith with people that God brings along our path in his big picture. You have the privilege and the opportunity to just participate and be part of God's plan for their life. The kingdom of God does not just move forward because we count more things, it moves forward when the people of God count on God again. I'm going to ask the worship team to come back. And I'd like us to stand all across this place and we're going to sing. I'm going to pray and then we'll sing a song called Firm Foundation. And here's just what I want to encourage you to do. Sing this song to your own soul first. In whatever situation you're going back to, whatever situation you're dealing with, the uncertainty of that, that you can rely on God through it all. You know, David, throughout the Psalms, we see him singing to his own soul sometimes, right? He's like, Bless the Lord, O my soul. He's telling his soul what to do and what to feel. How many of you have ever not really felt like worshiping sometimes? And you got to tell your soul what to do and what to feel? I want us to speak to our soul in this moment and declare this truth that God is the firm foundation. He's the rock that we're going to stand on. And it doesn't matter what's going on around us, we believe that God is a bigger picture. God will fulfill his purpose and God will empower us to do what he's called us to do. And then once you have prayed this over your own soul, I want you to sing it over your family. I want you to sing it over your church. I want you to sing it over your pastor. I want you to sing it over the Pentecostal assemblies of Canada. I want you to sing it over our nation. I want you to sing it over your province. Because I believe that a spark can go from this place and can actually take a nation that has been counting on themselves and bring them to the place where they count on God again. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you and we recognize our deep need of you. And in a world that says, Who will show us some good? We say, Lord, lift up the light of your face upon us, O God. Because apart from you, we can do nothing. But with you, all things are possible. We thank you for the way your spirit has spoken into our hearts, has healed, has restored, has renewed our faith, drawn us to yourself. Lord, I pray as we sing this truth over ourselves, as we sing this truth over our families, over our cities, over this nation, that we will see a mighty outpouring and a mighty drawing back to you and a revival that would sweep across this land and become a light to the nations. Lord, help us receive light from other nations who love you. Help us join in unity. It's your prayer, Jesus, for us. That when we are one, as you and the Father are one, then the world will believe. We pray for unity in families. We pray for unity in churches. We pray for unity across our land. As we depend on you and your great work. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Could you sing this with me?