MOT Session5 KnowingGodIntro

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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. Hello men, how you doing? It's so good to be with you and welcome to our Men on Target session 5. In our last session, we talked about our ministry's three unalterable facts.

In this session, we're going to start talking about what we have to do to really know this God, the God we've been talking about, the God who is. We're going to do some introduction in this session, and it's probably going to be three or four sessions where we really drill down on how we can have a more intimate relationship with God. I want to start out by asking you a question. What did Peter, Daniel, and Job all have in common? Well, they trusted their God.

Let's take a look. We all know the story in Matthew 14, 28 to 30. And by the way, I don't know about you, but I think Jesus had a sense of humor. The way I pictured this going down, Jesus is walking along the shore, okay? And he sees these guys out on the boat, and he thinks to himself, oh, we're going to have some fun.

I'm going to freak these guys out, okay? And so what he does is he starts walking on top of the water. I believe this is a literal happening, don't you? Watch this. Lord, he says, Peter, in the boat, if it's you, now he sees him walking on the water, he says, if it's really you, I know I can trust you.

Tell me to come to you on the water. Now Peter, if it's really Jesus, Peter says, I want to have some fun too, okay? So what happens? He says, Jesus says, Peter, it's me, come. Then it says, Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus.

But look what happened. When he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, cried out, Lord, save me. Okay? And so what happened here is that Peter was okay as long as he had his eyes focused on Jesus. But listen, what happened?

The minute he took his eyes off of his Lord and focused them on his current circumstances, whoa, I'm on top of the water here. No pun intended, but he began to sink, literally. Let's look at Daniel. In Daniel 6 23, it says, the king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. It says, when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him.

Why? Because he had trusted in his God. Daniel had trust in his God. In Job 13 15, it says, though he slay me, yet will I hope or trust in him. First Chronicles 5 20, they were helped in fighting them, it says, and God handed the Hagrites and all their allies over to them.

Why? Because they cried out to him during the battle. He answered their prayers, it says, because they trusted in him. And then Jeremiah 17 7 to 8, two of my favorite scripture verses, listen to these words, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. And I love this part.

He'll be like a tree that is planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes and heat does come. Its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. Many years ago, I was being discipled by a man in California.

His name is Jack. And he took me under his wing, and we'd meet every Thursday morning in a coffee shop, and he would just talk to me. And he said, one day, he says, you know the problem with you, D'Acchioli? I said, no, what's the problem with me? He says, the problem with you is you don't leave the light on.

I said, what do you mean I'll leave the light on? He says, well, we'll all have this little switch we carry around. It's a little remote control switch we call Jesus. And we can turn Jesus on any time we want to, and he'll illuminate our pathway. But the problem with you is you get comfortable in the darkness, Vince, and you only go to Jesus when you're in trouble.

And I got to thinking about that. And most of us men are so prone toward that. Listen, most of you guys could go home tonight, and you could walk into the place where you live and leave the lights off, and you could probably navigate because you've memorized where the obstacles are. Unless you've got small kids, of course, and then all beds are off. But if I were to sneak over to your home or apartment and put an obstacle in the middle of the floor, and you were to walk in confidently walking through and hit it, and you'd go, the first thing you do is go, whoa, what is that?

Well, you'd go over, turn the light on, and illuminate that thing. But then here's what happens. You can either leave the light on and not trip over those things in the future, or we leave the light off, we go back into the darkness, we get comfortable, and only go there when we're in trouble. And what Jack was saying to me is, Vince, if you leave the light on, you won't be tripping over stuff. See, my wife has been teaching me how to do this kind of stuff.

My wife has learned to go to God for everything. I remember one time we were pulling into a McDonald's to get something to eat, and we're pulling into the parking lot, and there's a perfect parking spot. Of course, you know the perfect parking spot is the one right next to the handicapped spot you can pull right into. But in this parking lot, it's always crowded. We're pulling in, and my wife says, let's pray for a parking spot, shall we?

And I said, what? Pray for a parking spot. Give me a break. God doesn't care about parking spots. You know, she says, no, I do it all the time.

So we're pulling in, and some guy pulls out of the first spot right there. And I looked at her, and I said, this is just a coincidence. And she smiled. She said, no, I do it all the time. My wife has been teaching me, listen, I believe God has a sense of humor, and I like, I think he has fun.

My wife has been teaching me Psalm 168, where it says, I have set the Lord always before me, always. And for many of us men, that is difficult, because we like to just set our own course. And that's where we get into trouble sometimes. So here's the idea. You will never rely upon someone you do not trust.

But here's the part you're not going to like, guys. You will not trust someone you do not know. And I believe that's one of the big problems we men face. We know about God, but we really don't know him at an intimate level, so we can't trust him for the things in our life. So sadly, we look around for other people, or even ourselves, and we get into trouble.

We have to have the kind of relationship with God. I like to do it this way. It's kind of like, I like to say a hand in a glove relationship. You all know how tight a hand fits in a glove, that kind of relationship with God. And this is an incredible illustration, because this glove represents a particular, it's a particular kind of glove designed for a particular purpose.

This happens to be a utility glove, but we are designed differently as well. Some of you guys are utility players. You can do a lot of different things. Some of you guys are first baseman guys. You got a little extra webbing out in front.

You can really scoop that thing out of the dirt. Some of you have got a catcher's mitt. You got a lot of extra padding. You can really take the heat in life. But in the very same way that this glove is nothing more than a useless piece of leather, unless my hand is in it, designed to go in it and making it work for its intended purpose, your and my life is the same way.

We're just an accumulation of flesh and blood and molecules unless God's hands right inside of our life designed the way He wanted it designed, and for its intended purpose. That's the way the situation has to work. We need to have that kind of relationship with God. So, how do I do this? How do I have that kind of relationship with God?

Let me just tell you two quick things. First of all, we need to let go of our way of doing things. There's an old poem I came across years ago. It goes like this, as children bring their broken toys with tears for us to mend, I brought my broken dreams to God because He was my friend. But then, instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone, I hung around and tried to help with ways that were my own.

At last, I snatched them back and cried, how can you be so slow? My child, He said, what could I do? You never did. Let go. And I believe that's the case with so many of us men.

It's hard for us to let go. Letting go of our way is incredibly important. Look at 2 Corinthians 12, 7 to 11. This is Paul talking. He says, For my power is made perfect in what?

Weakness. Boy, that's counterintuitive to us men. Therefore, Paul says, okay, I love Paul. Once he gets it, he goes on and says, okay, then if that's true, Lord, I'll boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that for Christ's sake, Christ's power may rest on me. That is why now for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and difficulties.

Paul understood that when he is weak, he is strong. He understood his absolute poverty to be able to do anything without his Lord. This is incredible for us to understand, guys, because in our weaknesses and in the insults that come our way and all of our hardships, we need to understand, we need to let go and let God. Whoever finds his life, it says in Matthew 10, 39, whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. So the second thing, draw near to him.

And this is what we're going to be talking about over the next several weeks, drawing near to God. It says, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. Okay, Mark 12, 30. We need to spend, now this is key, guys, listen carefully. We need to spend time alone with God doing three things, reading the Word, praying, and praising God.

And over the next three sessions, we're going to be drilling down on those things. But here, be careful. We have to be careful not to allow our corporate times of meeting together in church services or Bible studies, listen, to substitute for my personal alone time with God. We'll be talking more about that as we draw a conclusion to this series. But you cannot develop intimacy in a crowd, guys.

It just can't be done. So let me share what I do. I have a one-year Bible. I encourage you guys to get a one-year Bible. Look for a journal from maybe Oswald Chambers, My Upmost for His Highest.

You can load these things on your telephone if you want to. There's a lot of different ways you can do it technologically, and I really want to encourage you to do that. Well, in keeping with our promise, let's quickly look at two things, life implication and life application. What is the life implication of not understanding what we're talking about here today? Number one, I will never be able to trust a God I do not know.

Number two, I cannot know God unless I let go of my way of doing things. And then number three, I must spend time alone with God if I'm going to know Him intimately. Now, as we get into our discussion time, this is exciting. Let's talk about life application. Here are your discussion questions.

How would I rate my level of trust in God? How much time and effort do I currently spend alone with God? And then finally, what specific commitment do I need to make to change? I pray God blesses you in your discussion time. And until next time, guys, listen, don't forget about it.