MOT Session3 WhatHeWants

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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. Men, how you doing? So good to be with you and I want to welcome you to session three of our Men on Target curriculum series. The title is, What Does He Want?

If you remember in our last session we talked about who is this God. Now we want to drill down on what does he really want of us. I believe it really boils down to one thing. It's called the Great Commandment and it can be found in Matthew 22 beginning in verse 37. Follow with me if you will.

Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul, with all of your mind. This is the first and great commandment. He goes on to say, and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, he said, hang all the law and the prophets.

This, I really believe, is what the Lord wants. Let me take you back a ways for me. It was probably about 15 years ago I had the opportunity to speak in another part of the country to an all African American church. I'd never spoken in an all African American church before. A lot of racially mixed churches.

But this was a real special privilege for me. It was a very, very large church. They were pumping overflow into side rooms. I remember the scene. It was a three and a half hour service.

So those of you who whine about an hour, hour and a half service, you need to get a life. I mean, not only was it three and a half hours, but afterward they had lunch together. They came back afterward for an evening service. It was the closest thing to family I think I've ever witnessed. It was a wonderful experience.

But I'll never forget what happened. My message that day was getting to know your very best friend. I came down off the platform and the first thing that I said to them was that I was really struggling with racial reconciliation. Well, you can imagine the reaction of my audience. But I went on to say this.

I said, look, please hear me. We have more laws on the books today to try to bring about racial reconciliation than have ever been on the books in any country in the history of the world. I asked the question, is law working? And of course, most people would recognize that you need to have laws. Listen, there's really only two ways to govern man, God's way and man's way.

God's way is an inside out process. My heart is transformed so that basic laws governing human behavior, they simply work. But without God, it's no longer an inside out process. It's an outside in process because you're going to need more laws and social constraints because man without God is always going to go the wrong way. So you need law.

But is it working? Really not very well. What about talking about it? Well, we've been talking about it for a long time. Back in those days, promise keepers were scaring the banner, break down the walls, is talking about it working?

And of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't talk about it. We need to talk about it. But at the end of the day, talking about it really isn't getting the job done either. So the suggestion is, is it working very well? What do you think the secret that we're missing might be?

I asked that question and here's what I said. I said, do this for me. Close your eyes. In fact, you can do this as you're watching right now. Close your eyes and in your mind, think of anybody that you know, listen, that is radically in love with Jesus.

And when you think of that person, you think, wow, they've got Jesus blood pumping in their veins. And I asked them, I said, look, if you can think of a person like that, I want you to raise your hand really high. If you can think of one person like that, that has a racist bone in their body. And guys, I need to tell you, I've shared that all over North America. I've never had a hand go up.

And so I asked the question, what does that suggest to you? Well, I'll tell you what it suggests to me. Who should we be reconciled with? And I had them say his name and they said, Jesus. I said, say it again.

They said, Jesus. I said, that's right. Why? Because there is no way that I can love you in my flesh the way my Lord and Savior Jesus calls me to love you. But now listen, guys, please hear this.

Once I am so reconciled with my Lord that he allows me to see you through his eyes, there is no way that you are not the most precious human being on planet Earth. So I said, church, listen, we're doing it wrong. We've got to get our eyes off of each other. We've got to focus on Jesus. And that's really the secret to everything.

Listen, guys, God's planet Earth is really quite simple. It can be distilled, I believe, into one sentence. And it's this, an invisible God is made visible in the actions, listen, actions, not words, of those who fellowship with his son Jesus, period. That's it. That's God's way.

That's what God wants. So if the idea is that we need to reflect the life and love of Jesus to a dying world, we need to be reconciled to him. We need to be pursuing the God who is. And you all remember, we talked about that. The difference between a God that I want versus the God who is, is huge.

Now, on our website at otm.co, you can download a list of what I call 20 signs that you are pursuing a God that you want. I want to go through some of them with you. I'm not going to read all of them. But I want to go through some of them with you so you can get kind of an idea. And it might be bad to download these things and on a scale of one to ten, talk about where are you in any of these important areas.

Number one, prayer ceases to be a vital part of your life. I know in my case, that's what happened early on. When I first accepted Jesus into my heart, people kept telling me, you need to read the Bible. And I would go read the Bible and it would seem boring to me. I wouldn't get a lot out of it.

And over time, it ceased to be a vital part of my life until I really had to pray and seek God. I said, Lord, help me. Help me really to understand. Speak to me through your word. It's very important that you're in the word of God.

Number four, earnest thought about eternal things ceases to be a regular and gripping part of your life. You know, I'm only thinking about the temporal. I'm only thinking about the things that are right in front of me right now and the things that I'm doing right now. And I'm not thinking about what implications are there for the things that I'm doing now for eternity. And that needs to be a very, very important part of your thought process.

Church services lose their delight and there is no music in your soul or song in your heart. And I know that has been a trap I've fallen into as well, where I'll go to a church service and it's more about how do I look. I'm going there to be seen more than to really get there and really enter into a worship time where I can really sense the presence of God. You know, where are you in that area? That's a sign.

Number eight, sin in your life can be indulged without an uproar in your conscience. And we talked about that before, how we tend to justify sometimes the sin that's in our life instead of looking at it for what it really is. Where are you in that area? Aspirations for Christ-likeness do not dominate your life or thinking. When you go to work, are you really concerned about whether or not you are reflecting Christ-likeness to other people that may be around you?

These are important things for us to be drilling down into and considering. Are you pursuing a God that you want or the God who is? And let's look at number 12. You hear the Lord's name used in vain, spiritual concerns mocked, and are not moved with pain and indignation. When I was a new believer, I would go to work and people in the back room or in the locker room at the gym or wherever it might be would start telling jokes that were very, very off color.

Or start profaming the name of God. And I would find myself sometimes, well, what do I do? Do I enter in and I say I'm just offended by that or do I just allow it? And I actually got to a point where I got calloused about some of those things. And even today I hear some Christians using language and I would really, really question, where are you in that area?

It's a sign that you may be pursuing the wrong God. You allow yourself to watch degrading movies and television and read literature that is debilitating. And I know this is a huge area. We're going to be getting more into this as we talk about obedience down the line. And we talk about the hideous impact that pornography has, especially on men today.

What are you allowing yourself to enter into in this area? Again, a sign that you are pursuing the wrong God. You're pursuing a God that you want, a God that says, surely that's not so bad. And that is a very, very big trap to fall into. You are content with your lack of spiritual power and do not seek the Holy Spirit for renewal.

This is an important area. Do you have spiritual power? Are you going to God every day and saying, Lord, please send your Holy Spirit into my life and infuse me with the power I need to not only live a righteous life, but that your power may flow through me into the lives of others that I encounter? Are you really pursuing, again, the God who is? You pardon your own sin and sloth by saying, the Lord understands that I am dust.

Again, this gets into the area of justification. Surely, Lord, you must lower your expectations because I am just dust. No, the Lord says that when I am in you, you are a new creation. I have given you the power to overcome. And we need to remember that and understand that.

Your tears are dried up and your cold spiritual condition cannot unleash them. You don't feel really a sense of deep conviction about who God is. I get to the point sometimes, guys, when I start to think about my Lord and Savior and the passion begins to well up in me about how awesome He really is, I can't hold back the tears. Listen, James 4.8 is an incredible promise. It's a really simple but profound verse.

It says, come near to God and He will come near to you. And that's what we need to be doing every day. I encourage you to download that list, rate yourself, and let that be an important part of your discussion time here in just a little bit. As we've promised, at the end of these sessions, we're going to talk about two things, life implication and life application. Let's talk first about life implication.

If I am not passionately in love with God, which is what we've been talking about this whole session, I will not have the proper view toward others. If you want to have the proper view toward other people, it really is important for us to have a passionate view of who God is and an intimate relationship with Him. Number two, if I am pursuing the wrong God, I will become callous in every area of my life. Now, let's talk about life application. Life application now is the point where you're going to go into your discussion time.

Here's discussion question number one. Which of the 20 signs am I struggling with? On a scale of one to ten, go back through those and let's talk about that. And then number two, what are some practical things that I can do to change? What are some practical things that I can do right now to start pursuing the God who is?

Guys, I pray that during your discussion time, God blesses you richly. And until next time, don't forget about it.