The Key to a Life of Power Part 2 - Leaders' Talks

You're listening to this week's edition of the road.

Okay, you're parents and you got little kids.

They come running up to you.

They come jump up in your lap and they go, Oh, daddy, oh mommy, you're such a great daddy, you're such a great mommy.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Oh, you're so cold, you're so cold.

What's the first thing you're thinking?

What do you want?

Right?

I remember I came home one day, and I was on a trip.

I was speaking somewhere.

I remember coming home, coming in the door, and looking down the hallway, and Hunter knew I was coming home.

He called me Papa, and he saw me, his eyes lit up.

He went running down the hallway, jumped up in my arms.

He says, Papa, you're home.

I'm so happy you're home.

I love you, I love you.

And he didn't want anything other than his papa.

Is there anything that feels any better than that?

It is so, so cool.

So crawl up in his lap.

Seek him for who he is.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message.

Two weeks ago, I brought a message, the key to a life of power.

And it was part one of a two-part series that ends today.

I'm bringing part two now on appropriating uh God's power today, appropriating God's power to help us withstand the temptations that are around us and live a righteous life.

Because how many of you know that's what God is calling us to do?

In part one, we unpacked really uh looking at Ecclesiastes, and uh Solomon wrote the entire book.

I think I shared that with you a couple weeks ago, kind of whining about the futility of life, but ends the discourse by talking about the two most important things in life, and they are fear God and obey his commands.

Fear God has the it brings the idea of not fear in terms of cowering in a corner and being afraid, but in terms of revering God, being in awe of God, worshiping God, and then obey.

Uh you've we've heard this theme throughout the entire Bible, guys.

We we we know what it's what it's talking about, but sadly we don't do it or or we don't do it right.

I unpacked two weeks ago the difference between ignorance and stupidity.

Ignorance is when you don't know any better.

Unfortunately, stupidity is when you know better and you still don't do it.

And most of it is followers of Christ are not guilty of ignorance.

We know better, and yet the enemy gets his his foot in there and causes us to slip.

So a couple of weeks ago we talked about being able to have moral courage, like Daniel resisting the royal food and wine.

It says in the New King James, he he resolved in his heart not to defile himself with the royal food and wine.

He made a commitment and he did that in his own strength.

And in our own strength, guys, we can resist a lot of temptations in our own strength.

But how many of you have discovered that sometimes in your own strength it will get you so far, but sometimes it's not enough?

The good news is with God, we have a power made available to us that combined with our own strength, make it possible for us to resist anything that is thrown at us.

And right now, God, right now, is calling his body, especially in our nation, to be righteous, to get out there and live a righteous life so that our prayers will have power and we'll be able to impact what's going on in our culture right now.

God's really desperate to get our attention.

Um, I want to draw your attention to Proverbs 25-28 and remind you that two weeks ago I used this filter to illustrate our soul.

Um as we as we talk about rebuilding the walls, and we're in the Nehemiah series with Pastor Steve.

Last week I talked about how the walls represent our soul.

Our spirit is the temple which the walls are designed to protect.

Okay, so the way that works is the walls are being put up in order to keep bad things out and allow good things to flow through.

In the very same way, uh those walls represent our soul, and we need to be able to resist the things that are coming at our soul from the outside to keep it pure.

And what are those things?

They're the world, the flesh, and the devil, and the Lord.

Those four forces are trying to impact us every day.

And I use this filter to demonstrate that.

The job of a good filter is to filter out the bad stuff and allow only the purest form of that substance to flow through.

In this case, if this is our soul, every day the world, the flesh, and the devil are trying to get in there.

And depending upon, listen, the choices that we make.

And again, a couple of weeks ago we talked about the choices and consequences.

But depending upon the choices we make determines ultimately the power of the flow that comes out the other end.

Oh, on Sunday, a whole bunch of God going through there, but what happens on Monday?

Oftentimes I call Monday moral schizophrenia sets in.

That's moral schizophrenia is truth learned on Sunday that's not applied on Monday.

And sadly that's the case with so many of us, especially us men.

So our job is to filter out the things that are not pure so that more of God can flow through.

Proverbs 25, 28, I came across this verse last week.

It says, Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls.

And I thought, what an appropriate verse for where we're at right now.

In Psalm 81, 13 and 14, it says this Oh, that my people would listen to me, that America would walk in my ways.

Is it uh okay to take that liberty?

That's the NIV version, by the way.

That's the new Italian version.

If you guys didn't know that.

Anyway, that Israel walk in my ways.

I listen what God says.

I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their adversaries.

Do we have enemies, guys?

We do.

We have adversaries.

But what's the prerequisite?

What God is saying is over and over, the theme in the Bible over and over, the prerequisite is if you would listen to me and obey my ways.

That's what we've got to get, guys.

In Amos 5, 51 to 24, I came across this verse many years ago after Cindy emerged from uh being in the ICU, as some of you guys know that story.

If you haven't heard the story, you can go back in the archive.

It's called Armed Dot Ready for Battle.

It's the story about my wife being in ICU and in a coma for pretty much uh four, four and a half months.

And during that time she heard God uh say some things to her, which we recorded, and I'll share it at a different time.

I don't have to share that this morning.

But the essence of what she heard God say was resonating in this particular verse that the Lord drew me to right after she gave her word.

This verse, these verses probably best distill what God was saying to her.

He's saying, I hate all your show in pretense, the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.

I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.

I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings.

Away with your hymns of praise.

They are only noise to my ears.

I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is.

Guys, what God is trying to say to us is not about the loveliness of our music, and it is lovely.

It's not about the eloquence of our prayers, the length of our prayers, it's not about the volume of our prayers, the style of our praying, it's not about any of those things, guys.

What God is interested in is what's coming out of our heart.

Is it being birthed out of a heart that's righteous before me?

What he's saying here is this is what he wants.

I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry.

That's what God is looking for.

So, how do we do that?

We resist all the things that are getting in the way, and we live a righteous life by saying no to the things that are bad for us and appropriating God's power in order to be able to move forward and resist anything the devil can throw at us.

How do I do that?

Two weeks ago we talked about getting mentally tough.

This week I want to talk about trusting God, your relationship with God.

There's some examples in the Bible of trusting God.

I mean, they're they're all over the place.

I can read verses all day long to you.

In fact, if you've got your app, I'm gonna be skipping a lot of the verses that are in your app, but in your app, you're gonna have way more verses than I'm sharing with you right now.

They're there for two reasons.

One to follow along, you can skip through, but the other is to do a further study in your 242 groups if you're meeting during the week.

There's also discussion questions at the end.

But Peter, Daniel, Job, Peter trusted God because he got down out of the boat, didn't he?

By the way, how many of you think Jesus had a sense of humor?

Huh?

I think he had a sense.

You know what really happened in that story?

Jesus is walking along the beach and he sees the guys out there in the boat, you know?

And he goes, I'm gonna freak these guys out, right?

And he starts walking on top of the water.

And he gets out there, and so Peter says, Whoa! Jesus, is that you?

And Jesus says, That's me.

So Peter, Peter wants to have some fun too.

So Peter says, Okay, if that's really you, I know, listen, I can trust you.

If that's really you, tell me to come and I know I can do it.

What does the Bible say?

Jesus said, Yeah, you can do it, Peter.

So you got out, you got down on the boat.

He walked on the water.

How many of you believe that literally happened, right?

Okay, well, he was fine as long as he had his eyes on his Lord.

But the minute he took his eyes off of his Lord and he focused, listen, on his current circumstances, no pun intended, but he began to sink literally.

And that's what you and I do.

Daniel was overjoyed when he was lifted out of the den.

No wound was found on him.

Why?

It says in the Bible, because he trusted in his God.

Okay?

Job, is anybody that was uh more uh hit more hard than Job?

No, but yet he says, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

Trust is the big issue.

But here's how this works, guys.

Let's suppose, uh let me go over here.

And what's your first name?

Stephen.

Stephen.

I I don't we don't really know each other that well, Stephen and I.

So let's suppose Stephen here has a really heavy duty issue in his life right now, and he needs someone to come through for him that he can trust, right?

The likelihood of Stephen picking me to come through for him would be very low.

Why?

He doesn't know me.

He doesn't know what to expect from me, right?

So here's what here's the way this works.

Now listen carefully.

You will never rely upon someone you do not trust.

Is that fair?

Here's the part you're not gonna like.

You will never trust someone you do not know.

That's the reason many of us don't go to God.

Oh, we know about God.

The pastor talks about God every week, but we don't trust him, but we don't know him.

That's what this message is all about.

How can I get there?

Uh the next verse that I'll share is Jeremiah 17, 78, one of my favorite verses.

It says this Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes.

Its leaves are always green, it has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.

I don't know about you, but that's the kind of man that I want to be.

I want to be so deeply rooted, so deeply grounded in the Lord that I can withstand anything.

So how do you do that?

You do that by spending, now here's the operative word, a four-letter word, time.

Everybody say time.

Say it again.

Say it again.

Time alone with God.

Let me reiterate that.

Alone with God.

You must be careful not to allow your times of meeting like this in corporate gatherings to substitute your alone time with God.

Oh, well, today's Sunday.

I I go to church today, so I've done my God thing.

No, that's not your God thing.

Or, you know, Wednesday nights are home group, so uh, I don't have to get up early and do my devotions today.

I'll pray a little bit at the home group tonight.

No, no, no, no.

That's a trap, guys.

How many of you know you cannot develop intimacy in a crowd?

You need to be alone with God, reading the word, praying, and praising him.

Those three things I'm gonna go through quickly.

This is not rocket science, but I hope to be able to give you some tools that you can use to draw nearer to him because it's very, very important.

My wife, in my early years of marriage, she taught me uh that it's okay to go to God for everything, not just when you're in trouble, guys, for everything.

We're pulling into McDonald's one day, and then I'm pulling in, this was a long time ago.

And so Cindy says, uh, let's pray for a parking spot, shall we?

I said, What?

Pray for a parking spot?

Are you kidding me?

I can conquer the parking spot.

I'm a man, I can do this.

It's a man thing, okay?

You ever you ever know you wonder why it takes three million little male sperm cells to fertilize one egg?

You know why?

If you look in a microscope, then none of those guys will stop and ask for directions, man.

They don't know where they're going.

And so it's just it's kind of a man thing.

So, so uh, but she's then then so so we pull in and some guy pulls out of the first parking spot.

I said, That's just a coincidence.

She said, No, I do it all the time.

So we're we're we're going to Walmart one day over here, you know, the big Walmart.

And you can't find a parking lot any parking spot anywhere near the door in Walmart.

So we're pulling into Walmart, some guy pulls out of the very first spot right there.

And so I said, You're praying for parking spots, aren't you?

She said, Yes, I am.

My city's it's it's convincing me that it's okay to go to God for everything.

How many of you know you want to be close to somebody, you gotta talk to them all the time.

You gotta be there.

Okay, the first thing you have to understand is you've got to get out of your own way.

Because oftentimes the reason we don't go to God is because we try to do it in our own strength.

How many of you know how much trouble we can get in that way?

Okay, but how many of you know what Paul says is I uh Paul says that my weakness is is made perfect.

My strength is made perfect in my weakness.

He understood that by me letting God in, I'm gonna have so much more power.

But we've got to be able to let go of our ways of doing things.

I there's a poem, I don't I think I've shared this before, I'll share it again.

It's called Broken Dreams.

The author is unknown, but it goes like this As children bring their broken dreams 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 him back and cried, How can you be so slow?

My child, he said, What could I do?

You never did let go.

And I think that's uh so true for so many of us.

The idea of being able to let go and then draw near to God.

Reading the word, Joshua 1.8, do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth.

Meditate on it day and night.

Why?

So that you may be prosperous and successful.

In 1 Timothy, it says, uh 2 Timothy 3, it says, all scripture.

How much scripture?

All scripture is God breathed and useful.

In Matthew 22, 29, Jesus said, You're an error because you do not know the scriptures of the power of God.

Uh in 1 Timothy 4, 13, Paul says, Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching, and to teaching.

How many of you guys, some of you we're in like we got different age groups here.

We got some young people here that have never seen a computer disc or a software manual.

Some of you are here reckon remember the days when software manuals look like this.

How many of you remember these?

Okay, so the way it would work for the for the younger generation today, you just go online, you buy what you want, and it downloads, and you load it onto your computer, and you can move along and use the software.

And if you get in trouble, they there's a manual that you can access online.

But in the old days it didn't work that way.

In the old days, you went into the store, you bought the program, brought it home, and inside the box, there's a disk that goes in your computer and it comes with a manual.

Now the software programmer, uh the pro programming is amazing.

How many programmers here?

There's a few programmers here.

Okay.

Well, all all software programming is a series of zeros and ones arranged in a particular order.

It's mind-boggling what they can do.

It's so sophisticated.

So, anyway, the software, uh, you put the disk in the computer and it loads itself.

Okay, and it's pretty intuitive.

I know how to operate five, ten percent of the program, so I just go off and start using it.

But the programmer that wrote it knew that I might get into trouble because so he sent a manual with the program.

We're supposed to read this.

And so I uh yeah, if you're anything like me, I don't have time to read that.

I don't need this.

Where's this manual?

It's up, it's it's up in my shelf in my office right next to my Bible.

They're having a relationship.

And so off I go and I start using the program, right?

And all of a sudden, I hit a button and a blue screen pops up.

Bomb! Fatal error 294, and I'm the what in the world is this?

And I'm Italian, you know, I slap the screen a couple times, you know, nothing happens.

And my wife is saying, Who are you talking to in here?

I said, This program's a piece of junk, and so what's the first thing I do?

I go over to the phone and I call the technical support department.

You know, that's the you call and you you you you listen to the music for two hours because the the line goes underneath the ground and it goes over across the Atlantic and comes up over to some guy in India somewhere, and he picks up the phone and he says, Okay, finally, can I help you?

Yeah, you can help me.

This program's a piece of junk.

I he says, What's it doing?

I say, I do this and it does that.

He says, Do you have your manual?

Hang on, hang on a second.

So I go back and get my manual up off the shelf, you know, dust it off, and I come back.

He says, Okay, you got it?

I said, Yeah.

He said, I return to page 974.

Okay, 974.

There yet, hang on, hang on, hang on.

Okay, I'm there.

He says, You see that diagram in the middle of the page?

I say, yeah.

He says, Is that what it's doing?

I said, Yeah.

That's exactly what it's doing.

He says, I want you to read that paragraph underneath.

So I read the paragraph.

He says, Do you understand that?

I said, Yeah.

He said, if you do that, that won't happen.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Computer Prison.

This has really been very helpful.

So the computer guy says something like, No problem, Mr.

Daccioli.

We're just here at APC Computer Company to help.

You just call us anytime you get into trouble, and we're here to help you.

Now, that is not what that guy really wanted to say.

You've been manufactured.

Somebody wrote your code and he plopped you down on planet Earth.

Knowing full well you would not know how every piece of your program is supposed to work.

So he sent a manual.

Oh, but I mean, come on.

I don't need this.

This is pretty long and lengthy.

I know how to operate the first 5-10% of my life.

I know how to do the things that'll get me through.

I don't need this.

You know where it is, it's on the shelf.

And all of a sudden, life ain't working the way it's supposed to work.

There had to be a mistake.

There's no way God could have given me that woman.

What's the first thing you do?

Uh, George Stanke, raise your hand.

You call the technical support department.

There's Pastor George.

He's one of our counselors here.

And Pastor George says, uh, uh, yes, my son.

You don't have to listen to the church music for two hours, by the way.

But he gets on the phone and says, Yeah, I want you to meet me in my office, and I want you to bring your manual.

You what?

Your Bible, Vince.

Bring your Bible.

Okay, George, I'll bring my Bible and I go and I sit down with George.

And George says, Okay, Vince, I want you to turn to Ephesians, the fifth chapter.

Pastor George, is that the New Testament or the Old Testament?

That's the New Testament.

Let me help you.

You might want to get thumb indexes next time, Vince.

Um, okay, there you are.

Now let's read it together.

So I go through Ephesians the fifth chapter with with Pastor.

And he and he says, Vince, do you understand that part right there?

Yes, sir, I do.

Okay, let's read the rest.

Okay, let's get down here now.

Do you understand what God is saying right here?

Yeah, I understand that, Pastor.

Okay, how about this part?

Yes, sir.

I get all done.

And then George says something like this.

He says, Now, Vince, listen, you understand what we just read, and I say yes.

He says, if you do that, that won't happen.

Man.

Thank you, Pastor George.

This has really been really helpful.

And George says, No problem.

We're just here at this church to help you.

Anytime you get into a problem, you just come and see us, and we're happy to sit down and help you.

But that's not what he really wanted to say.

Come on, guys.

Is this stupidity?

It's not ignorance.

Be in the word.

Listen, even if you don't understand what you're reading, somebody told me.

One time, I read the Bible and I don't remember what I just read.

How many of you have had Bible verses come to your recollection?

You don't remember reading them.

Okay?

It's garbage in, garbage out.

What you're putting in will come back.

Whether that's the Bible or porn, it'll come back.

Okay, what are you putting in?

Read the Bible every single day.

It says in Psalm 119, the word is a lamp unto my feet, okay, and a light unto my path.

Two promises there, guys.

Get this.

Not only is God saying, This will illuminate my daily steps, a lamp unto my feet, so I can literally walk through life being blind, but God is going to illuminate my daily steps so I'm not tripping over stuff.

But the greater promise is if you're in the word, he's also a light unto your path.

Some of you are struggling to discover God's vision for your life, your destiny, his purpose.

Could it be you're violating this?

God's promises are powerful, guys, but you've got to be in the word.

Prayer, second thing.

I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this, but it's important.

And we are, how many of you guys know?

Are you so grateful?

Because this is such a praying church.

I mean, the power of prayer, I really believe that there's gonna be real damage done uh in dark places as a result of the prayers that are coming forth from our body.

I really believe that, especially with our team in Washington right now.

But real quickly, six principles for effective prayer.

These are practical principles.

You can write these down.

I think they'll be on the screen.

Principle number one is to schedule it.

Schedule it.

Guys, listen to me.

If you don't schedule it, you're not gonna do it.

I remember years ago reading an autobiography by a guy named Jack Eckert.

Jack Eckert was the founder of the Eckert Drugstore Chains years ago.

Big company.

And it wasn't a Christian book.

But in that book, there was a part in the book where he describes having a meeting that was the most important meeting every day of his life.

And that meeting was on the corporate calendar.

Everybody in his office knew about this meeting.

No one would dare interrupt this meeting.

It clearly stated meeting with God.

And from like seven to eight o'clock every day, Jack Eckard would meet with God.

And it was like I read that and I thought, wow, this is a Christian, he's a Christian man, obviously, and he has a secular company, but he believed in that.

And he says, if it weren't for that meeting, he couldn't do what he did.

And I believe that's true of all of us.

Schedule it.

Number two, find a quiet place.

Turn off your cell phones, turn off your tablets.

Get rid of all the stuff that's a distraction.

Find a quiet place where you can go.

Pick a place in your house and maybe make a prayer room out of it.

If you can't find a quiet place in your house, go sit in the car in the garage.

If that doesn't work, go to a park somewhere if it's a nice day or come to the church and find a quiet place.

Because if you don't find a quiet place, you'll never be able to do number three, which is critical.

Have a quiet mind.

How many of you know that's hard?

How many of you struggle with trying to get your mind quiet?

Because there's so many things to be thinking about.

Okay?

But I shared with you two weeks ago how to do that, how to take thoughts captive.

Do you guys remember?

I said, here's how you take thoughts captive, and I showed you how to do it.

You just start praising God.

Just start spending the uh you know, mentioning the name of Jesus.

Lord, I love you, and I just praise you.

Maybe I'll start singing a little bit or or just being thankful.

And if I begin to do that, I can begin to quiet my mind.

Okay?

And then, number four, seek him first, not what you want.

Seek the giver of the gift, not the gift.

Seek the face of God, not the hand of God.

You know, how many of you, okay, your parents, you got little kids, and they come running up to you.

They come jump up in your lap and they go, Oh, daddy, oh mommy, you're such a great daddy, you're such a great mommy.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Oh, you're so cold, you're so cool.

What's the first thing you were thinking?

What do you want?

Right?

I remember I came home one day, and uh, I don't know, I think it might have been Hunter, he's not here today, but uh he was just a little bitty guy, and he was at our house, and I was on a trip, I was speaking somewhere.

I remember coming home, coming in the door, and looking down the hallway, and Hunter knew I was coming home.

He called me Papa, and he saw me, his little eyes lit up.

He went running down the hallway, jumped up in my arms.

He says, Papa, you're home.

I'm so happy you're home.

I love you, I love you.

And he didn't want anything other than his papa.

Come on, guys, you know what I'm talking about.

Is there anything that feels any better than that?

It is so, so cool.

So crawl up in his lap, seek him for who he is.

And then, number five, ask his will in all matters.

His will, not yours.

He knows what you need.

Jesus, referring to his pending death on the cross and the pain associated with it, says, Lord, can you take this cup from me?

But then he goes on to say, right on the heels of that, here's what he's really saying.

Yet, notwithstanding my pain, Lord, notwithstanding the difficulties I'm experiencing in my life right now, irregardless of that, your will be done.

That's what Jesus says.

In the midst of his pain, ask for God's will.

And God's will sometimes is not taking away your pain, guys.

Many of you have already experienced that.

1 John 5 14, this is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he will hear us.

And then the sixth point is where it all hinges.

As a result of the power and the authority God has given you and I as his saints, number six is we can pray with authority against all the forces that are at cross purposes with God's will.

But if you pray in that order and you take those principles, you can walk away from that prayer experiencing uh prayer experience, not being intimidated, because you've done what God is calling us to do.

Uh prayer is really important, guys.

That's the way we're going to get close to God.

It's by just conversing, just by talking with Him.

I encourage you guys to pray, pray over your homes, pray over the rooms in your homes.

Um I don't usually share this, but uh I've shared it in some settings where we pray around the four corners of our property, and I encourage every man to do this.

In fact, let me just share this.

Years ago, I heard this from Pastor Hayford in California planting spiritual pillars around the four corners of your property.

And I've been doing this for the last 40 years.

Every place we've lived and every place where we work.

These four pillars are around this property, by the way.

I've established them.

And so I walked the four corners of my property and I pray, Lord, give me the names of these pillars as I'm walking.

And he gave me the names of these pillars 40 years ago, roughly.

Now you you can you can use your own names, you can do it yourself and ask the Lord to give you a name, or you can use these.

I don't care.

They're not proprietary.

So I walk, and the first pillar he gave me was a pillar of prayer and praise.

I remember walking to the back of my property and it was outlook looking over Colorado Springs and the whole area.

Lord wanted me to establish a pillar of prayer and praise.

And I get, imagine this pillar is about the size of this entire platform.

Huge, big round pillar, 500 feet in the air, with a huge warrior Italian flaming sword angel on the top.

That's the my vision.

So prayer and praise.

And then I went to the second pillar and it's Lord, I want this pillar to be a pillar of humbleness and humility.

As a result of our being a home that believes in the foundational principles of praying and praising you, as a result of that, may we be a people that would display humility and be a humble people in our home.

And then the third pillar as I was walking up, he said, warmth and welcome.

And I didn't realize it at the time, it also happened to be the point of entry in our driveway.

Lord, would would can our home be a home where where they'll feel the warm and welcome spirit every time they come onto our property?

And then as I went to the last pillar, I prayed for a pillar of uh protection and power.

Protection in the form of a canopy that it would extend to all the other pillars and protect us from the fiery darts of the enemy, and then power that would emanate forth as a result of our obedience that would that would bring people to Jesus and extend the kingdom every place that we go.

Those were my pillars.

I encourage you guys, you men, to do that.

Walk your property.

Uh yeah, you know, you may want to do it when your neighbors aren't watching, but you know, walk walk your property.

Because sometimes they can look at you like it's a little weird, but that's okay, it is weird.

But how many of you know God can be weird?

Huh?

You guys are just staring at me.

Can you say yo?

Okay.

That's a little bit.

Okay, and then and then um praise is the last one.

And I've shared this with you guys a little bit in the past when I've dealt with the subject of worship.

And uh this, I think, is probably the the most important piece of this teaching as I bring this to a close here in a little bit.

Let's talk about praise.

It's mentioned 319 verses in the Bible.

It is one of the most often mentioned concepts in the entire Bible, yet in my mind, one of the most misunderstood in the bodies of Christ.

We just don't understand what praise and worship really, really is.

There are a lot of verses that I could cover with you, but I'm going to draw your attention to one.

This happens to be my favorite verse in all of the Bible.

It's found in 2 Chronicles 5.13.

Let me read it to you.

It says, The trumpeters and singers joined in unison as with one voice to give praise and thanks to the Lord.

Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, they raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang, He is good, his love endures forever.

Now, the trumpeters and singers.

These people on the platform right here are both.

They're the ones that play the instruments, they're the trumpeters.

Who are the singers?

We are the singers.

We're not playing the instruments, but we are together as one.

We don't have a worship team that comes up here and ushers in the presence of the Lord into your heart.

That's not their job.

Their job is to facilitate us as a body coming together, opening up our hearts, and it's our responsibility to praise God and usher in his presence into our heart.

Not sit here and evaluate style or what's going on around us, but to usher into God's presence.

So as a result of what has been described here, they're praising and giving thanks to God, okay?

It says, then, as a result of this, the temple of the Lord was filled with a cloud.

Whoa.

Okay, all you Bible scholars, what was the cloud?

What was it?

It was the presence of the Lord.

Where did God reside in the old covenant?

It was a physical location, was it not?

The tent, the tabernacle, the ark, the temple.

Physically he went into a place that's where God would go on the heels of their praise and worship.

Jesus came.

He died on the cross.

It says the temple curtain was rent.

Well, what happened?

Did the temple leave planet Earth?

Come on, guys.

Where is it now?

Point to it.

Right here.

Okay, let's paraphrase this verse then.

What does it mean for us today?

Come on, guys, you got to get this.

God still enters the temple.

The good news is we don't have to go to a building, guys.

As we pray and worship God, he still comes into the temple.

Now, the rules for keeping the temple clean are still around.

In the Old Testament, it was all the measurements and colors and all that, and all the ways they had to decorate it.

Today, you'll find it in Ephesians and a lot of other places about resisting the temptations to keep our heart pure because God's not going to enter a soiled temple.

That's why this message is so important.

We need God's power to get that crud out of our life so that we can sense his presence.

I don't know anybody in the sound of my voice that wouldn't want to sense God's presence more.

Okay?

Praising God.

I know some of you have been wondering about this little guy.

I see some of you guys keep staring at him over there.

You know why I have this little puppy?

Basically, I'm kind of insecure.

I take him with me.

This puppy has been literally around the world, probably every place I've spoken around the world in the last 30 years.

Never gotten dirty.

I've used this little puppy for this illustration probably a thousand times or more.

This is a true story that happened back in 1994.

I was the executive vice president of Every Home for Christ at the time, and we were praying about whether to start on target ministries, which is the ministry I've been uh running for since that time.

And uh, you know, it was a scary time because we weren't sure how we were gonna do this.

We really felt God was calling us to do it, so we were crying out to the Lord.

When you start a ministry, uh you don't know how it's gonna work financially, you need to get supporters.

When you're the executive vice president of Every Home for Christ, every couple of weeks there's this thing that comes in the mail called a paycheck.

You guys know about those?

Yeah, they they're they're paychecks, and and so no paychecks if you're starting a ministry.

So we were scared.

I'm praying, I'm crying out to the Lord.

We had just lost our golden retriever a few months earlier, and we went and we we found this little puppy.

Her name is Katie.

At the time we took delivery of Katie, she was eight weeks old.

And on this particular occasion, I'm in my basement in my pajamas and slippers, looking out over the golf course we lived on at the time, and little Katie was wandering around down there in the basement, didn't know where she was.

I remember being at the back door, uh, hands raised, praising God, singing out to God.

I had tears in my eyes because I was emotional.

And uh the next thing I experienced was an impression on my left slipper.

This little puppy had come over to my left slipper, she put her little paws on my slipper like that, put her little head on top of her paws like that, and when I looked down, uh that that that's what I felt, and this is what I saw.

And all the women go, a couple of guys that did that too.

So in the middle of that, now I I I don't hear God a lot, but this time I knew it was Him.

He simply said, in the middle of that, I was weeping.

He said, Vince, how does that feel?

And I remember saying, Lord, I mean, at first an odd question, but Lord, that feels so good.

Here's this little puppy.

I love her so much.

This little puppy doesn't care.

I hey she's lying on a foot that could crush her.

It doesn't matter.

I'm as far as the east as the west from her.

She just wants to be near me, she just wants me to cuddle with her.

It's unconditional love.

And in the middle of that flow, he interrupts me and he says, Vince, listen to me.

I want you to know that doesn't come close to how I feel when you do that with me.

It was like, oh man, I just I lost it.

Listen, I I don't know how this works, the guy said.

I don't.

The closest I can come is this silly little illustration, but there's not a person in in here right now.

You don't know exactly what I mean.

But that's what God is saying to us.

That's how much he loves us.

And he wants our attention.

There's a linkage between praising God and hearing his voice.

It wasn't long, it wasn't long after that, that probably about six months later.

I remember this vividly.

Uh Katie's now about about seven months old, eight months old, maybe.

She's still a puppy.

She's out in the front yard, and we live in the woods back then, and uh some neighbors were visiting, getting in, getting in their car ready to leave, and and Katie doesn't know from cars.

And so I'm calling Katie, hey, Katie, Katie, uh, come, Katie, nothing, man.

She's out there, we live in the woods, so there's uh scents everywhere.

She's out there going from tree to tree, you know, just sniffing life.

Okay, and I'm not, Katie, come, get in here.

Nothing, nothing.

I mean, she's just out there sniffing, that's what some of you all are doing.

God, God's calling you.

And what are you doing?

Sniffing life.

Finally, I had to go grab her and bring her in.

Sadly, sometimes that's what God has to do with us.

Sometimes he'll let you get run over.

Now, a couple of years lady, Katie's a two, three-year-old dog.

Katie! Come! Most of the time.

Why?

What's the difference between that six-month-old puppy and a three-year-old dog?

Wanna take a guess?

Listen.

She's tuned to the master's voice.

It's kind of like trying to get a dog you've never met before to obey you.

It ain't gonna happen, guys.

How did that dog get tuned to the master's voice?

What's the word, the four-letter word I had you start with and repeat three times?

Say it.

Say it again.

Say it again.

We spent time together.

You want to quit whining about not hearing God?

And ask yourself the question: are you tuned to the Master's voice?

I want to close with this story.

A true story that happened a number of years ago.

By the way, the verse there, James 4.8, is powerful.

Come near to God, and he will come near to you.

But the occasion was back in the early 90s, and my wife Cindy was struggling with some issues emotionally, physically, in our life at that time that I couldn't help her with other than to pray.

I got permission from her to go away up into the mountains to a place called Praise Mountain and to pray for her and fast for three days.

I went up to pray and fast for three days.

I get up to the mountain, and uh if you're familiar with Praise Mountain, you know when you get there, there's a little shack, and there's nothing in there.

There's a cot, a toilet, and a sink.

That's it in a shower, a little shower thing.

And there's no uh cell phone coverage, there's no television, nothing.

That's it.

So I thought, great, I'm gonna spend time with God.

Opened up my Bible, prayed, read the Bible all the first day.

I got nothing.

Have you ever had a dry period like that?

You got nothing.

I mean, is it like, where are you, Lord?

Nothing.

I felt like a zero.

I felt like a zero with the rim knocked off, man.

That's like a nothing, okay?

So I'm praying, uh, and then the second day comes.

The second day, the first half of the second day, nothing.

Okay?

So I'm thinking, what is going on?

The second half of the second day, God shared with me three sets of four words.

Twelve words.

If you don't hear anything else I'm saying to you, you need to remember these or you need to write them down.

I was asking for a word for Cindy, and here's what he said.

The first four words were, tell Cindy, I love you, Cindy.

I wrote them down.

I knew it had to be God because it was too simple.

I was expecting God to give me a huge theological concept with about 14 subpoints, you know.

And he just said those four words.

So I said, okay, that's got to be him.

Wrote it down.

And then about an hour later, he says, Okay, tell Cindy, my plans are good.

Oh, sure, Lord, I knew that had to be God, you know.

Wrote them down.

Your plans are good.

Oh, the Bible says your plans are for good, not for uh for bad, for a future and hope.

I'm quoting Bible verses to God.

I get this picture of God up in heaven looking at me, just kind of shaking his head, you know.

So anyway, uh, I'm still clueless.

Uh now, uh, about an hour later, he gives me the last set of four words.

Tell Cindy, stay close to me.

That was it.

Next day came.

Nothing.

The entire third day.

I mean literally nothing.

I'm driving home.

I invested three days.

I got a piece of scratch paper on the seat next to me with 12 words on it, and I'm whining, and I'm thinking, what am I gonna tell Cindy I did for three days?

I mean, this is unbelievable.

And so I get home and and then and I pull in the driveway and the garage door opens, you know, and Cindy comes bounding out of the house.

She's got this big smile on her face, and she's saying, Whoa, and I'm so glad you're home.

I can't wait to share with you all the things God shared with me.

This is incredible.

And I'm thinking, man, how am I gonna milk these three sets of four words, you know?

And she says, What did God share with you?

And so I started sharing these three sets of four words, and in the middle of my sharing, she starts to cry.

And when you ladies cry, we men, we have no clue.

Is it something I said, what?

And she says, No, that's exactly what God shared with me.

That is so amazing.

And I'm going, really?

And I'm going.

I mean, I went from a zero to a hero, okay?

And I'm still clueless.

So I started sharing those three sets of four words many, many years ago, different places where I go, and people would start to weep.

Wrapped up in those words, dear ones, please hear me.

Is a very profound message from the Lord for each and every one of you, and in the sound of my voice this morning, this is what God is saying.

I don't care what your friends think about you.

I don't care what the people at work think about you.

I don't care what your neighbors think about you.

I don't care what the people in your church think about you.

I don't care what the people at school think about you.

Listen to me.

I don't even care what you think about you.

I love you with a love that goes so far beyond anything you can comprehend.

Oh guys, if we could only get that.

But then he says this I don't care where you've been, I don't care what you've done, I know about all the garbage.

I know about all the sin.

I know about all those past life experiences.

I know about all the stuff that you're not proud of.

Maybe stuff that happened this morning.

I know about all that stuff.

But listen, I sent my son Jesus to die on a cross for you and to once and for all put a stake in the ground that separates you from your past.

My plan starts today.

My plan.

My plans are good.

Have we made mistakes in the past?

Yes.

Does that keep God from having a new plan for your life that starts right this moment?

Come on, guys.

No.

It's your choice.

You can wallow around in all that garbage, or you can put a stake in the ground right now and saying, Lord, I'm leaving that.

I'm looking for your new plan for my life starting now.

But the key to everything, the secret to understanding how an invisible God can love us like He did, like He does, because I admit it's hard.

And the key to discovering His plan for your life lies squarely in that third set of four words.

Stay close to me.

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