MOT Session #2

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This is On Target Institute, building men of character, men who will live a life that demands an explanation. And now, founder and president, Vince D'Acchioli. How you doing? And welcome to our Men on Target, session two. In our last session, we talked about godly character.

In this session, the title is going to be, Who is this God? I think that's a good question. A lot of people are confused about who this God really is. I like to use an illustration that I think most of you will resonate with. This, of course, is a cell phone.

Almost everyone today has a cell phone. But I don't know that you really sat down and thought about all the different incredible things that this cell phone could do. It is amazing. I mean, with this phone, I have every appointment that I've ever had for the last probably 10 years, every appointment I ever will have for the rest of my life, are on here. I've got thousands of contacts.

I can go to a contact. I can look up a person's phone number. It'll dial the phone for me, and I can talk to that person. I can FaceTime the person, which means they could be anywhere in the world, and we can have a conversation eyeball to eyeball. It is amazing.

If I'm hungry for a certain type of food, it's not a problem. All I've got to do, I can actually talk to it. I can say, Hey, I'm interested in some Italian food. It'll find Italian restaurants. It knows where I am on the planet.

It'll tell me where the restaurants are. If I want to go to it, I can click on it, and it'll give me directions. If I want to walk there, if I want to drive there turn by turn, I don't have to think of very much. It is absolutely amazing what this thing will do. I'm attached to the internet, where of course we know any piece of information you could ever want about anything in the history of the world is available to me right here on this little tiny device.

When I was in the business world, I had a computer that ran 150 store retail chain back in the 70s. The computer that ran that organization would probably be twice as big as a cargo container on a ship. Yet this little device probably has more power than that entire computer had in the 70s. It is nothing short of amazing. Now, imagine for a moment you're walking down the street and it's 1984, 85, and you're walking down the street.

Of course, we didn't really have cell phones back in those days. This little thing that I just described is laying in the gutter. You pick it up and you look at it, and you think, what in the world is this? You intuitively discover what this thing would do. What is your first thought?

Whenever I share this with a live audience, someone usually says, what alien being left that behind? Well, I'll tell you, the alien being wasn't an alien being. The alien really was man. You and I, we produced this. Mankind produced this.

Now, if I were to take a hair out of my head, let me just do that. I just pluck a hair out, and I take this hair out of the head of a man, and I hold this little piece of hair up against this phone. Let me tell you, this one little piece of hair that you can't even see blows this away technologically. We're still trying to discover at the cellular level how this works. So, if just this little bitty hair off this being who created this blows this away, it begs the question, where did man come from?

Where did that being come from? Wow, it is absolutely amazing. Let me draw your attention to Job 26 verses 7 to 14. Let me just read that to you, because these are powerful, powerful verses. In Job 27 verses 7 to 14, it says this, he stretches out the north over the void and hangs the earth on nothing.

He binds up the waters in his thick clouds, and the cloud is not split open under them. He covers the face of the full moon and spreads over it his cloud. He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astounded at his rebuke. By his power he's still to see.

By his understanding he shattered Rahab. By his wind the heavens were made fair. His hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways. In the New King James it says these are the mere edges of his ways.

The Living Bible translation says some of the minor things that he does, and the good news says only hints of his powers, only whispers. Who can know how truly great God is? This is the being that started it all, and it behooves us to have a great understanding of how awesome our God really is. But here's the problem. In our culture today, what I like to say is that we are really pursuing, most of us, the wrong God.

There is a difference. There are two Gods really. Over here I like to say there is a God that we want, and over here is the God who is. And guys, let me tell you, they are not the same God. This is the God who says, hey, you know what, I'll help you if you help yourself.

This is the God who says you'll make it if you're a good person. This is the God who says you can change that Bible verse and make it say anything your little heart desires to suit your unique lifestyle. You pursue that God at your peril. Maya Angelou has a great quote. She says, I find it interesting that the meanest life, the poorest existence, is attributed to God's will.

But as human beings become more affluent, as their living standard and style begin to ascend the material scale, God descends the scale of responsibility at a commensurate speed. Logan Pearsall Smith says it another way, those who set out to serve both God and mammon soon discover there isn't a God. Let me tell you a little bit about what I did in my life. It wasn't that many years ago. I was in the business world.

I really had come to a place where I allowed God into my life by saying the words. I said, Lord, I want to invite you into my heart, but listen, here's what happened with me. I accepted God as my Savior, but not my Lord. And guys, I want to tell you something. There's a big difference there.

I had heaven insurance, I guess, depending upon how you might look at that theologically. But I wouldn't let him become the God of my life for eight years. I was pursuing a God that would agree with me. I was pursuing a God that understood that if I had a hard day at work and I just needed to feel mellow, that I would justify being able to go out and take drugs or drink alcohol. And I would even say, surely God would understand.

That wasn't the God who is. That's a God I wanted. My wife was pregnant and we weren't able to be intimate. And I would say, I just need to have release. And I found all sorts of dysfunctional ways of getting release, including being unfaithful.

And I would find incredible ways to justify it. And even in my company, I would say, well, obviously my company has lots of money. And I would justify that. I could take some things or steal, literally. I'd work my expense account.

For personal reasons, I would use the expense account for stuff that had nothing to do with business. I lied, I cheated, I stole. And oftentimes I would say, surely God would understand. But guys, that's not the God who is. Listen, the God who is is real.

He lives in heaven. And please hear me, he has an opinion. And guess whose opinion don't count. We don't like that. We've been raised that everything is about us.

Okay, so this is very, very important for us to understand. The God who is really wants us to get this. Now, as we conclude these programs, each time we're going to do a couple of things. I told you before, we're going to talk about life implication and we're going to talk about life application. In the life implication area, let me just say this.

I've discovered that an elevated view of myself will always minimize my view of an appreciation for God. I like to say that recently I've come through some tough stuff and I've said oftentimes that I find that my proximity to God is in direct relation to my distance from Vince. The more I focus on me, the less I consider who God really is. For most of my life, I had a hard time understanding the awesomeness of God. Where does my life begin and end?

I think God has been trying to remind me for years, Vince, you're not God, I'm God. You have to understand that true peace can only come when you recognize how little you bring to the table. The reason it's true peace, guys, is because true peace comes when I recognize that it really isn't about me and that God is totally sufficient and he can bring everything to the table. But if I have an elevated view of myself, it's very, very difficult for me to have the proper view of God. The second thing is if I am pursuing a God that I want, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome sin in my life.

You heard my story or at least a brief portion of what happened to me back in the days when I was pursuing the wrong God. It was very difficult to deal with sin in my life. I would even justify the sin in my life. I look back at that now and it really obviously was not a good thing. Life implication.

Well, what about life application? This is the part where you can now enter in. Life application. Here are some discussion questions for you to really drill down with. Number one, what has my view of God been?

It would be a good time for you to really think about that and talk about that. Number two, give an example of something you justified in pursuing the wrong God. In other words, look at my story and think about some things from your past that you may have done that were similar and talk about it. And then finally, number three, how has this session helped me better understand who God is? Guys, I pray that God blesses you in your discussion time.

And until next time, don't forget about it.