Walking with God: Vince D’Acchioli at Koke Mill Christian Church in Springfield, IL

Copy Video URL

Now there, that was really incredible. Yeah, the first service she did, I got the same introduction in the first service and I told them, I said, in fact, of all the introductions I have ever had, yours is the most recent. So I wanted to make sure everybody knew that. Those of you who are watching my live stream, welcome, I remembered just now that I had emailed a link to a lot of people, especially in California where we're living now, and it's two hours earlier there, so my wife and others might be tuned in right now, so welcome to you as well. Before I get started, I was flying in here, I got to tell you what happened on the airplane.

I was flying into St. Louis, I got a connection in Denver, so from Denver to St. Louis, I'm on the airplane. You guys, by the way, would be very proud of me when I tell you what happened on the airplane. So I'm sitting at the airplane, and I'm sitting in the aisle seat, and the center seat is open, and there's a guy sitting at the window, and so I pulled out my Bible as I often do on the airplane, you know, and I'm reading my Bible, and I noticed that at the corner of my eye, this guy in the aisle, in the window seat, he looks over at me and he does one of these, he goes, huh, like that.

You know, I was hoping he'd say something, you know, so I could show him the love of Jesus, but he didn't say anything, so we got all the way to St. Louis, and we're landed, and we're taxing over to the gate, you know, and the guy finally gets up to the nerve and says, hey, I noticed you were reading your Bible, and I said, yeah. He says, you know, you don't believe all that stuff, do you? I said, what do you mean? All those stories in the Bible, I said, yeah, if during the Bible they're real, I said, yeah, he said, yeah, I said, yeah, it was a real intelligent conversation, you know.

And so he says, well, what about the story of that guy that was inside that big old fish? I said, well, you're talking about Jonah in the belly of the fish, he said, yeah, what about it? How do you suppose that guy survived all that time inside that big old fish? I said, I don't know, you know, when I get to heaven, maybe I'll have to ask him that. He says, well, what if he's not in heaven?

I said, well, then you ask him. That didn't really happen. I just thought it would be a fun, fun story to start out with. Before I go any further, just real quick, we got some stuff out on the table that's almost all gone, but we got some stuff left that I'm pretty proud of. There are, we gave a thousand of these out yesterday at the Men's Conference.

It's this, the book, The Great Exchange, that just came out recently. They're on Amazon and stuff, but you don't need to go there. I'm giving it to you guys for free. If you just go and get one of these or take a picture of that QR code, if you don't know how to do a QR code, you know, find a 12 year old or something and they'll help you. But I'm really proud of this book.

It's four weeks dealing with fear, anger, unforgiveness, guilt, shame. In 40 years of ministry, I'm finding that these are some of the biggest stumbling blocks, particularly for men of not being able to move on with God. Our inability to release these negative influencers from our past life experiences are powerful. This is done in four weeks. It's really designed to be done in a small group of men because each day is a very short reading.

There are some QR codes from some video clips that are in here as well. And then processed on the seventh day in a small group. So those are available in, we have the actual booklets if you want to go through it with a group, or you can just download them. And then this little book, I'm going to leave with Pastor when I'm done. I'll explain what this is later.

And there's lots more stuff out there for you to take a look at. Now how many of you have heard me before? Quite a few of you because we've been coming to this church for what, 15 years or so? Yeah, we love this church. It's one of my favorite churches because it's just an Italian vibe.

It's really kind of cool. But anyway, so you heard me last time, what did I talk about? Ah, stand up. Look at that guy right there. Do that again, do that again.

Nobody remembers what I talk about. No matter where I go, but what that guy just did, you're going to know what that is in just a moment. Okay, you can sit down now. Everywhere I go, I mean I've done this everywhere, all around the world, New Zealand, Canada, different places. Whenever I go back to those places, nobody remembers what you talked about.

But if you do something by way of illustration that's powerful, and this is not, this illustration is so simple, but yet it's profound. I normally end with this illustration, but I want to begin with it today, and you'll see why in just a moment. But what he's doing is part of what I do as an illustration talking about the secret to life. I have discovered the secret to life. Now I'm not being cute or glib, I'm being very serious.

I have discovered the secret to life. Would you like to know it? Hang on, hang on. We're talking the secret to life here, guys. I have discovered the secret to life.

Would you like to know it? Alright, alright. Now, by the way, do you know the difference between ignorance and stupidity? See, you're very quiet now. Ignorance is when you don't know any better.

Stupidity is when you know better and you don't do it anyway. So the danger of my sharing this with you is that you will no longer be guilty of ignorance. You'll be guilty of stupidity. Good, now that we're on the same page. Okay, here we go.

Ready now. You gotta watch close because you're gonna think it's a magic trick. It's not. There they are. What?

Your circumstances. They're right there. Pressing in upon you. They won't go away. You can't sleep at night.

You're popping pills. They're defining who you are as a man or a woman. What are your circumstances? I don't know what your circumstances. It could be something represented by that wedding ring.

It could be a bad medical report. It could be the loss of a loved one. It could be financial. It could be relational. It could be any number of things but they won't go away.

Where's God? Oh, he's out there. Pastor talks about God. I hear about God every week, every Sunday when I go to church. But now, what's happening here?

I want you to look at what's happening positionally. What lens am I looking through to see my God? Come on, talk to me. I'm looking at him through the lens of my circumstances. You think if my circumstances are a little fuzzy that God might look a little fuzzy too?

Some of you have heard the story of my wife when she was in the hospital many years ago and wasn't expected to live. I don't have time to tell the story. It's probably recorded here and it's on our website. But God taught us some amazing things in the midst of that trial. But a woman came up to me in one of the weeks where she was very critical and she said, Vince, I want you to imagine for a moment that you're lying in bed and God is in your bedroom.

How many of you know God's everywhere, right? God is where? Everywhere. When you're home alone and there's nobody around except you and your electronic devices, God is where? Everywhere.

So, I want you to imagine he's hovering over you and he's got his face pressed upon your face and he's got a great big smile on his face and he can't wait for you to wake up so he can say good morning, Vince. And when she said that, I thought, you know, I was really down and really scared. And I thought, wow, what a great picture. And by the way, for almost every day now when I wake up, that's the first thing I do. I did it this morning.

I woke up very early this morning because I've changed my messages about four times. I got a real challenge trying to figure out how I'm going to work this all in right now. But that's the way God works with me. But I said, good morning, Lord. Let's you and I go and have some fun today.

I don't know what we're going to encounter over at Koki Mill and I don't know what we're going to encounter today or what, where you're going to lead me, but let's you and I go and I'll watch to see what you're doing and I choose to put you in front. Lord, you go. Someone once said, if God is your co-pilot, you know, you might want to change seats. Now, this is profound but pretty simple. Watch, here we go.

Watch close. You ready? The secret to life. Okay. Nah, nah, nah, nah.

Some of you didn't get that. Okay, we have to do this again. Okay, now watch real close. Usually I get a, like a lot of oohs and aws. Here we go.

You ready? Secret to life. Ooh. Yeah, that's better. Now, what happened?

Did my circumstances go away? No. I've been watching some of your messages and to prepare for this. I like to do that, by the way, whenever I'm invited to a church, especially this one, because I want you to feel as though I'm part of you, part of your team, and not just coming in with some, you know, message that's not relevant. So I watched Pastor Stan a few weeks ago, PJ a couple of weeks ago in Matt last week, and I picked up little things, but in PJ's message in particular, if you were here for that, you remember he got very emotional toward the end in talking about his boy.

And what that boy in their life is a couple have meant to them over the years, and he made a comment that as a result of how they processed this little boy, by the way, do you think that PJ was seeing his little boy, or was he seeing God? By the way, do you think David saw Goliath? No, he saw God. If he would have been seeing Goliath, he'd have never gone after him. If you're seeing your circumstances, you're never going to attack it.

You're never going to be not anxious. But what PJ shared I thought was so special. He said, you have no idea what this experience that God let through, by the way, what this experience has done to shape him. I said this morning I said, PJ, I'm not sure you would even be here if it weren't for that little boy. And he said, you're right.

It's very, very possible. But here's the difference. Look, the thing you need to know about this positionally is that first of all, those same circumstances cannot get to you without first going through him. But what the point of this is, will he let some of them through? Will he?

Yes. But you can be assured, just like PJ, that what he does let through is going to be good. It's intended. He will use it to build something that you may not even know about until much later. And that's the reason I'm sharing it up front is because that's so impacted me.

We got to get this, guys. That's why walking with God, your subject matter is so important. We got to know how to do this and how to put God first in order for us to be able to recognize and take advantage of these things in our life. But how do I do this? How do I put God first?

Last week, I think it was Matt was talking about misplaced trust. It begins with trust. You remember the story of Peter out on the boat with the guys and Jesus walking on the shore and then he walks on the water. Remember that story? How many of you think Jesus probably had a sense of humor?

I think he had a sense of humor. He saw those guys out on the boat and he says, I'm going to freak these guys out. And so he starts walking on top of the water and the Peter goes, whoa, Jesus, is that you? He says, that's me. He says, all right, now Peter wants to have some fun.

So he says, okay, if that's you, Jesus, why don't you tell me to come to you on the water? Because I know if that's you, I can trust you that I can do it. He says, you can do it, Peter. Come on. And what does this say?

Jesus, he got down out of the boat and began to walk on the water. But what happened? As long as he trusted his Lord, he had his eyes on his Lord, he was fine until he focused on his current circumstances. Oh, I'm on top of the water here. No pun intended, but he began to sank, literally.

And that's exactly what happens in your and my life when we take our eyes off of Jesus. Listen, guys, trust is huge. But it's not easy to come by. If I had a serious thing, a serious issue going on in my life right now, and I needed someone to come through for me, I don't know your name. What's your name?

Nick. I really don't know him, but if I need somebody I can trust, the likelihood of me picking Nick or even him picking me would be very low. Why? Because we really don't know each other. Here's where I'm going.

Listen carefully. You will never rely upon someone you don't trust. Is that true? Is that fair? And you will never, you're not, you're going to like this part.

You will never trust someone you do not know. And sadly that's the reason many of us don't go to God. We don't really know him. It begs the question, how? That's the question everybody wants.

I want to know how to know God, but I want it to be a quick fix. I want to just snap my fingers and know him and you can't, how do you expect to know anybody or have any kind of intimate relationship like that? The secret to really getting to know God at that level and having him in your life positionally lies in getting close to him, but the first thing you have to come to terms with is letting go yourself. You know, the whole anxiety thing that Pastor talked about a few weeks ago. The anxiousness that I've got to control this situation.

I've got to make it, somehow we get the thinking that we can help God and we can do these things. Paul, he found out that he was an absolute poverty to do anything. In fact, if you look at the verse, I won't have you turn there, but in 2 Corinthians is where Paul says to keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations. They were given me a thorn in my flesh. We really don't know what that thorn was.

A messenger of Satan determined me. He pleaded with God to take it away. That's what we do. He pleaded with him. But the Lord said to him, listen Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

That's counterintuitive, especially to a man. We want to hang on to that power and try to make it happen ourselves, but I love Paul. When Paul gets an idea, boom, he turns it around, he says, okay, therefore I'll boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why now that I know this, for Christ's sake, I'll delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships, persecutions, difficulties for when I am weak I am strong. He understood his absolute poverty.

Okay, there's a poem. The author is unknown. I've been sharing this poem for like 40 years and no one knows who the author is, but it so points to this whole issue. It says, 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 that's what happens with so many of us guys.

We just, we want to cling on to things and we want to make it happen and it's so hard. So the secret to having this walk with God is in getting to know him by scheduling time. Everybody say time. Say it again. Time.

Say it again. Time. Time. Alone with God. And I like to, when we teach on this with the men, we talk about doing three things.

Reading the word, praying and praising and worshiping God. Those three components ought to be part of your time alone with God. And by the way, before I go any further, let me just go back to this little book, because I'm realizing that in our culture the big mistake that we've made in the church, in my view, in my opinion is, in fact, our logo, it's not up there, but somebody reminded me earlier that that actually looks like a pizza with a slice coming out. I never saw that before. I can't believe that I never saw that before.

Anyway, but you know how they put the swirl on the pizza? It looks like that. But anyway, there are three markers of a disciple. Intimacy, identity and destiny. And then when you get to the center, that little error point says the man God intended, or the true disciple.

But you've got to go through those three to get there. Intimacy is intimacy with God, what we're talking about here. Intimacy with God in order to discover my identity, in order to know his destiny for my life. But here's the problem. Every human being on planet Earth wants the answer to the two questions.

Who am I and why am I here? You don't need to know God. We desire to know who I am and why am I here. And the problem in the church today is we're trying to help people get the answer to those questions, but we're skipping the intimacy. We're not training people like what we're doing right here in this whole service and the services before, and I'm guessing to come, trying to help us discover how to have that intimate relationship with God.

Because listen guys, if you do not know who's you are, you will never discover who you are. Oh, you'll discover who you are okay without God, but that discovery will, your identity will be tied to how many Facebook clicks you get or Instagram messages you get. Or the young people today, that's all their identities, all wrapped up and they can't wait to get there and figure out what people are saying about them. I'm telling you man, you can say what you want, that's pathetic. That is pathetic and that'll ruin your life.

Okay, but who am I? The car I drive, the people I know, the work that I do, I'm sorry guys, you want to go down that rabbit trail? You'll have an identity all right, but it'll be shaped by the world around you and your circumstances and not by God. You want God's pathway for your life? You got to get intimate with him so he can help you understand how he sees you through his eyes, not the world's eyes, and ultimately begin to ask him, Lord, what's the direction from our life, but you're never going to have that relationship with God if you're not willing to spend time with him.

Years ago before I talk about this, remind me to talk about this, because I'm old, I'll forget it. Many, many years ago I was in prayer and with one of those moments where I know God spoke to my heart, how many of you know what I'm saying that God speaks to us? It wasn't an audible voice, I've never heard him with an audible voice, but he whispered something to me that I knew it was him, because there's no way my mind would have ever thought of it, okay? And so I was praying and our ministry subtitle is Becoming the Man God Intended, and so I just casually I asked him, I said, Lord, am I becoming the man you intended? And what I got back from him, I'm sure this was him, was no.

And immediately, you can imagine through my mind, first of all, that wouldn't be me, I would never tell myself that. I would pat myself on the back, say, you know, yeah, no, you're proud of you, no, no. But I didn't get the sense that he was mad at me or upset about anything so much as he was trying to encourage me to listen carefully, I'm trying to show you something and teach you something. And then here's what followed. He actually said these words to me, I have given you a platform, Vince, from which to share the life and love of my son Jesus to a dying world.

And you, sir, listen, have not taken that responsibility seriously enough. Whoa. And as soon as I got that, it hit me. He was absolutely reading my mail. I mean, I wasn't taking it, it was a routine.

By the way, when I share this in pastors conferences, you know, we do pastors conferences from time to time and I share that you can see all the pastors in the room and they go, oh my gosh, Vince, you don't know how true that is for me. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the daily routine of doing church and just, it just becomes a, I don't spend enough time and that's what God was trying to tell me. He's saying, Vince, you're not spending enough time with me to really be able to know my heart, to be able to share it with other people. Now, let me parenthetically say this, please do not misinterpret what I'm saying about platform. It'd be easy for you to think that all he's talking about people like him to get up here and they have a platform.

No, no, no. This is nothing compared to the platform you have. Every single one of you in the sound of my voice right now has a platform and your platform is way more important than this platform. I can talk to 50,000 guys in a football stadium for an hour and feel really good about it, but what did I accomplish? Nothing.

I shouldn't say nothing. There are people that are roused up and they'll go follow on and you hear stories like that, but at the end of the day, that's not where life change happens, guys, but you have a platform. Are you taking your platform seriously? Your platform might be in your living room with your two little boys or with your small group or whatever it might be. That is what God is saying we need to take more seriously and the only way that you can do that is by you taking your relationship with me seriously.

You making sure you're right with me. I was closing a pastor's conference not long ago in Colorado Springs and the theme of the conference was taking new territory. And how many of you know our world's a mess? Are we a mess? I'm sorry, in my lifetime I've never seen anything like what we're going through right now.

It is a disaster. You feel like the enemy is winning on every front. So the church in America keeps talking about taking new territory. Well, it begs the question, if we're not taking new territory, why not? I mean, you want to blame anybody for the condition of our country?

Which by the way, we're not losing it. It's gone. Well, where do you think the blame belongs? What do you think? It belongs squarely at the foot of the church of Jesus Christ.

That's where it belongs. Because God's kingdom needs to come. That's what Jesus tells us we're here for. Thy kingdom come. So taking new territory we're always thinking we're going to go out there and take new territory.

And I told the pastors, I said, your theme is backwards. First of all, you don't take new territory. God does. But God chooses to use you and I to take that territory. So the question becomes, if we're not taking the new territory, should we just blame God?

Who's at fault? Who do you think? It's us. So I told the pastors, I said, why don't you stop worrying about taking new territory out there? And maybe God is saying this, you're not taking new territory anywhere until you first allow me to take new territory in here.

What are the walls of your heart that you were walling up, not allowing God to entry point into that are preventing the wind of his spirit from flowing through your life in an attempt to bring his kingdom in your sphere of influence. And by the way, guys, I believe that's a big challenge for us today. God wants to use us, but are we giving him our whole heart? And for many of us, we're not. And my last news article, or more than news article, my last article was titled Most Christians Are Not.

I don't know, some of you may get my articles, but that was an interesting article because what I'm posturing is that most people who claim to be Christian are really not, in the sense not really truly disciples. In some cases, many cases, Barnard would say, not even saved. It's very easy to just say flippantly, I'm a Christian, going to church on Sunday morning does not make you a Christian anymore than going into a barn makes you a cow. It's about a relationship with the living Lord. And it doesn't happen apart from committing to spending time with him.

So a few years ago, I developed a little getaway, one day getaway for some men in Colorado Springs. We've done it three or four times and I called it the encounter. And this is a little workbook I put together. It's all cut and paste from Bible verses and different devotionals having to do with worship and quiet time before God. And we took him out to the forest and we gave him about a one hour lead in training, some of the information on the lead in part is in here if you can read it.

And then we said you got to get your lawn chair and go out and sit in the forest for four hours with nothing but you in this workbook in a pen and that's it. And you're going to spend time reading the word, praying and praising and worshiping God. That's it. And we trained them how to do that. And I had no idea how incredible that was going to be on these men.

Many of them had a really, really hard time, especially young men have a really hard time spending that kind of time alone with just being quiet. I know for me it's really, really hard. But I want to encourage you, if you want to do that, I'm going to leave this with pastor. In fact, let me give it to you right now if I don't forget. And you're welcome to take it to whatever shop would want to reproduce it and there's no charge for that.

Just make up as it may be a good thing to do on a, maybe have a men's group go up or even a couples group. We talked about that earlier that might work for too. But anyway, so to finish that word for me that you're not spending enough time with me. What I did after I got that word from him, I made a decision, this was a long time ago to now get up every day from at five o'clock. And if you know me, you would know how hard that is.

But get up every day at five o'clock and spend from five to eight o'clock every morning, three hours reading the word, praying and praising God. And if anybody would have told me years before that I would ever commit to doing something like that, I'd say you're crazy. Now, I'm not trying to heap any guilt upon any of you when I talk about three hours. For some of you in this audience, you might be able to do that in a half an hour or an hour. But for me to turn this brain off, it takes that much of an effort for me.

Because I'm capable of, I did it this morning. I'm in my hotel room and I'm reading the Bible and the entire Bible section that I read I didn't absorb anything because the entire time I was actually reading, I was thinking about a change I wanted to make in this message. Probably none of you are guilty of ever doing stuff like that. But I'm perfectly capable of compartmentalizing and doing the reading is just like a thing to check off on my check off list and then thinking about something totally different. And no, that's not how you have an intimate relationship with God.

It takes practice, it takes focus in order for you to tune in and to really hear his voice. So now, back in those days I had an office to go through so I had to get up that early. Today I don't have that. But I still spend two to three hours, sometimes four, every single day. Our pattern is I get up before Cindy and she gets up and does her devotions probably around seven or eight.

But I'm, when I finish my time, I read the Word, I go through a read through the Bible in a year program, which I highly recommend. I've been doing that for 40 years. And then I have a bunch of devotionals that I read. Oswald Chambers is very favorite streams in the desert. There's a lot of them out there.

I lead like four or five different devotionals. And sometimes if you do that, there are certain things you're going through and it's interesting how God uses the devotional for that day to really nail it. And you go, wow. And I got about 20 young people on my family mailing list and every once in a while I'll cut and paste that devotional and send it out to them. So it actually ministers to a greater group.

And then I spend time just being quiet. I might put on some worship music and just praise the Lord and worship. The Bible study ladies at home, my daughter and my wife are going through a thing in their Bible study called taking thoughts captive or taking your thoughts captive. How many of you would say, I would love to know how to take my thoughts captive? Raise your hand.

Most people would say, by the way, I have discovered how to do that. I have a foolproof way for you to be able to take your thoughts captive. Would you like to know it? Yes. I have discovered a way to take my thoughts captive.

Would you like to know it? Yes. Okay. Now again, if I teach you this, you will no longer be guilty of ignorance. You will be stupid.

Some of you say that pretty good. Okay. Now watch and listen. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. I just love saying your name, Lord. I love you. You are such a good God. You are so glorious.

You're so beautiful. Thank you Lord for everything that you allow and don't allow in my life. I love you so much. I just want to praise you and honor you. And by the way, if I'm with other people, I will be whispering that in my spirit.

I won't say it out loud. If I'm all alone, I might shout it. And all I'm doing, by the way, praise and worship, it's not difficult, guys. It's not difficult. Yeah, there's a difference between praise and worship.

I won't get into that. But basically, essentially, they're saying you're honoring God. You're placing honor on God and you're focusing on Him. And by the way, you cannot do what I just did. Listen to me and entertain that thought at the same time.

It doesn't work. Now the choice is whether you want to do it or not. Because for some of us, the thought may be the pathway I want to go down. And that's unfortunate because that's the pathway to danger. But there's no excuse for going down that pathway when you know as a follower of Christ that you have all the tools that you need.

The Holy Spirit lives in you that you can avoid all of that. So praise, you know, prayer and praise, all these things are extremely important. But the time factor is what I really want you to get. In fact, another word that I got from God, how many of you would say I would love to have God's perspective on what's going on in my life right now? Who wouldn't want that, right?

So I was crying out to God one day and it was actually an emotional time. Well, let me tell you this part first. On one occasion I was praying and I was sitting on my couch in the living room and I have a golden retriever, puppy. His name is Bo. And I think at this time was Bo.

We have had three or four of them. And Bo was laying on my lap and I was kind of emotional time. I was crying a little bit and trying to hear God praising him and all of that. And Bo was laying there and looking up at me. And so I would say words to him that would get his attention.

Like, you want a bicky? We'll go for a walk and then they go, you know how they perk up and they tilt their head? They're so cute, you know? And so I'm trying to get him to do it more. You know, you want to go outside?

You know? And I'm saying these words to him and then I said these words. I said, I said, Bo, I'll bet you're trying to figure out what your daddy is saying to you, aren't you? And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, I just broke. Are you getting this?

It was as though God, listen, biologically I'm closer to him than I am to God. I mean, he's so far beyond anything we can comprehend, okay? This is a dog, okay? And I sensed that's exactly as I was saying them, hey Vince, or you put your own name in there. I'll bet you're trying to hear what I'm trying to say to you, aren't you?

And you would say, yes, Lord, please help me. Please get rid of all these distractions. Please let me hear your voice. And when I was praying for his perspective on that particular day, he said these words to me, and I know this is him because they're too profound for me to have come up with. He said, Vince, you'll never have a greater understanding of my perspective until you first experience a greater awareness of my presence.

And I thought, wow. Okay, Lord, I need some of you that are hearing this right now on the sign of my voice. You need to be talking to yourself about doing whatever you need to do to hear God to sense his presence in your life. And I want to close with this verse found in 2 Chronicles 5 13. And then Pastor's going to come up, and I got one closing illustration that you're not going to want to miss.

It's one of the most important things that you need to hear before you leave here today, and that will be at the very end. But in 2 Chronicles 5 13, I want you to see what's being set up here. It says, the trumpeters and singers joined in unison as with one voice to give praise and thanks to the Lord. The trumpeters are people like, they're on this platform, and we'll be back up here in just a moment. Who are the singers?

Singers are them too, but all of us. The trumpeters are singing in unison. That's why we do this, our worshiping and praising God. And we were praying for the worship team at the event yesterday, and we're all reminding ourselves that what we're doing on this platform during worship is more important actually than what I'm doing. Because if the Holy Spirit is not here, if the Holy Spirit is not in us, then nothing the speaker says is going to make any difference.

But the good news is, if the Holy Spirit is in us and it is going well, then nothing I say is going to make any difference. Because it's not about what we say. It's all about how the Holy Spirit interprets it in your life, amen? So the whole idea is, get the scene. They were accompanied by trumpets, symbols, and other instruments.

They raised their voices and praised the Lord and sang, He is good, His love endures forever. Okay? The very next word is the word then. I love it when then appears in the Bible. It's a transitional word.

It means as a result of what has just been described, here is what happened. Then the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud. Whoa. Okay, all you Bible scholars, what was the cloud? It was the very presence of God, was it not?

Where did God reside in the Old Covenant? It was in a physical location. You can name them the temple, the tabernacle, the ark, you know, the tent. It was a physical place. Jesus came and He died on that cross.

What does the Bible say? The temple curtain was what? It was rent. It was ripped. What does that indicate?

God no longer is confined to a temple. God now has entry point into a new temple. Where is it? Point to it. Now listen guys, we live under the New Covenant.

If you paraphrase this verse for today, it's literally saying this, as a result of your praying and praising and worshiping me, my very presence still comes into the temple. Only the good news is now He comes into it. The Bible says He inhabits the praises of Israel. Are you allowing God into your temple? It's not difficult guys.

We just need to commit to what it's going to take to get that done. Now, Pastor is going to come and I've got a final thing that I want to leave you with that you're going to be, I think, I'm really excited about. It'll only take a few minutes, but Pastor, I'm going to invite you to come on back up and then we'll do that here in just in closing. Alright, well I want to thank everybody for coming tonight. I've known Vince for probably 15 years from Iron Sharpen's Iron.

We've had him at the church several times and gosh, it's so, it's always so rich when he talks because he really relates to right where we are and what we're going through. And then of course, Roseanne has a good time teasing him back and forth. So thank you again for coming. I want to give you an opportunity to give today. If you'd like to give to Vince's ministry, you can give online to on target ministries or if you want to give in person you can give in the offering as you leave.

But I want to pray and we're just going to believe that God takes what we've heard today. Some of the simple truths that are truly profound on having that relationship with God and we begin to put them into practice because we can hear about it and not do anything about it or we can hear about it and start a new journey with Jesus. Amen. Father God, we just come before you today and we thank you for the message that Vince has given. We thank you for the illustration that's going to happen in just a moment or two.

I thank you for the generosity of this church, Lord God. I thank you for the people and I thank you, Lord, as we give to you, we will receive back from you multiple times over. Be with them, bless them, help us remember these words, hide them in our heart, Lord God, that we might become more like Jesus Christ and everyone said amen and amen. Thanks you again. Alright, it's a true story.

It happened many, many years ago at a place called the Louvre, I believe, in Paris, France. There's a very famous painting hanging on the wall there. Some of you may have seen this painting before. I'll describe it to you. Obviously in the center there's a chess board with a lot of chess pieces arranged on it.

To the right is a man who is a dejected look on his face and to the left is the devil himself with kind of a smirk and the caption which you cannot see there underneath simply reads, Checkmate. Well, you get the idea. The devil has kind of won the game. On this particular day there were a group of young people touring this museum and they came upon this painting and one of the young men was a Russian man who was a very famous international chess champion and he was drawn to the painting for obvious reasons. He was looking at the painting for a very long time when his friend grabbed his arm and said, come on, we gotta go finish the tour and the chess champion said, no, you don't understand.

I need to study this painting. Why don't you go and come back and get me later? So his friend did. He left and he came back later to discover about 15 minutes had gone by. Not only did he not leave, he now is not only observing the painting, he's up against the painting.

His hands are moving, his eyes are moving. He's like almost nose to nose with this painting and moving all around and he's drawing a crowd. People are watching him. He's acting bizarre and his friend was embarrassed for him and said, come on, we've gotta go. Come on, let's go.

He says, no, no, no, I can't go. I need to find the artist. He says, you can't do that. He says, yes, his name is here. Let's go to the counter and see if we can find who the artist is.

He says, why? He says, because the painting is wrong. It's flawed. He says, what do you mean it's flawed? The painting, I've got to talk to somebody.

Why? He says, because it's not over. It's not over. Right here. The king has one more move.

The king had one more move. Can you imagine when Jonah wasn't the belly of that big fish? What he thought? Any moment now, the regurgitative juices are going to flow and I'm going to be nothing but mush. But when Jonah didn't know, now come on, you say it like you really mean it and say it loud.

What he didn't know is say it with me. The king, come on, the king had one more move. When Daniel was in that lion's den and all the people around thought they were, you see, bloods and guts and legs and limbs flying everywhere. What they didn't know, come on, like you mean it, the king had one more move when Jesus was hanging on that cross and all the people around thought there's something wrong with this picture. The devil himself was standing by with a great big grin on his face.

What he didn't know and aren't you thankful for. Come on. The king had one more move. And dear ones, please hear me. No matter what you're going through right now, no matter what obstacles you may see in your life, no matter any difficulties that you may be confronting or anticipating or any anxieties that you may feel, this is every bit is true and every bit is real for each and every one of you.

In your life and in your circumstances, say it with me, the king has one more move. Lord, thank you so much. Thank you so much that you are the king. And what we're talking about in these weeks and perhaps many more to come is how we get to know you in a deeper way. But Lord, in order for us to be available, to receive the moves you have in our life, we need to get to know you deeper.

We need to know you more. Lord, in the desire of our heart that we do so. Lord, I pray that not a single person in the sound of my voice this morning leave this message without taking with them the one or two precious little nuggets that you intended just for them. For some, it may be a first time decision to ask you into their heart. For others, it would be a wake up call that would say I need to spend more time every day with you, Lord.

For others, maybe you're not spending any time at all and you're expecting that your life is just going to be a good life as a Christian, but you're missing so much that the Holy Spirit wants to do as you become more intimate with him. I pray, Lord, that you would water the seeds that are planted and that we stand and look ahead with great excitement at what you're going to do. And each and every one of the multiple hundreds of stories that are represented here right now. We love you and honor you for what you do and it's in Jesus' name that we pray and all God's kids said, Amen.