Armed: Ready For Battle - Leaders' Talks

Oscall chambers has a quick vote.

God will not do any more through you than you first allow him to do what?

In you.

What we were sharing with the men yesterday.

For such a time as this, God is preparing us.

But we've got to get that.

So that God can use us.

Waitfully at this.

In the midst of your struggle, have you asked God to show you your lesson?

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

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

We hope you are encouraged by today's message.

Well, Vince and Cindy, we're so glad you're here.

What a joy to have you here.

And Cindy, you look great.

And I know we're going to hear a story of God healing you in a supernatural way.

It's a really fantastic story that Vince is going to share.

Vince is Italian.

When he talks, you won't be able to tell, but he's Italian and he struggled with the English language much of his life.

And you know, when Italians come over here from another country, they don't learn the alphabet the way we do.

They learn it with their arms.

So this is A.

And this is B.

And this is C.

So if you ever have an Italian who's got one arm longer than the other, it's called a speech impediment.

And a guy who doesn't have any arms is mute.

So Vince, we we had a choice when we brought Vince in, is we could give him a lapel mic, which gave him total freedom, or we could have given him a handheld mic.

And we thought if we gave him a handheld mic, we'd get half of the sermon.

So we're gonna let him have a lapel because he wants a whole sermon.

And it's Vince, see, it's D apostrophe A, capital A, C C H I O L I.

Now you tell me how to pronounce that.

I thought it was D Acioli, Dacioli.

Think of ravioli.

Think of ravioli dacioli.

That's that's how you say his name.

Vince is now uh one of our overseers for the road, along with Dick Eastman.

Dick and Dee are here.

Dick, thank you so much for being here.

And Dee, great to have you here.

Dick spoke a few weeks ago.

Here we was awesome.

So Dick and Dee, and Vince and Cindy go way back to 91, I believe, when they came here from California and were a part of starting uh putting Every Home for Christ in the Colorado Springs area right after uh folks in the family came here.

So there's a lot of history here, you guys.

But Vince has become a mentor and a friend, and I've asked him to be an overseer of our church and love this guy.

He started on target ministries for men.

He spoke yesterday morning to our men, and he's done also our morning fire before.

And so, Vince, come on up.

People are getting familiar with you.

We love you.

So, Father, in the name of Jesus, we just pray for all humor to leave and for our seriousness to come.

In the name of Jesus, amen.

How y'all doing?

I think your pastor has a death wish.

You know, I mean yes, he did it to me yesterday, too.

All these lame Italian jokes.

It was really, really I think he introduced me one time and said, We know why you Italian guys wear all those gold chains.

I said, Oh, yeah, why?

He says, So you know where to stop shaving.

Yes, some of you guys are gonna use that one, I know you will.

Um, I I just real quickly, Pat Maguire is here somewhere, he's our producer, and he we have a table out there, and I I don't want to do any commercials, I don't have time for that.

But if you would like to come visit us, we have some incredible resources, some of them hot off the press, that Pat would love to talk to you about.

And also Cindy and I will be there at the table afterward.

We have a lot of you here this morning that were invited special that were praying for us about seven years ago through a very difficult time in our life.

And so there's a lot of visitors this morning.

So if uh if you see anybody next to you that looks a little strange, well, they they probably came with us.

So we have uh people here, we have part of our families here, and I'll introduce them in in just a little bit.

Uh but yesterday, when we were talking with the men, the title of it was For Such a Time as This.

And it's been occurring to me, I don't know if you guys are aware of what, I don't know how you're not aware of what's going on in our culture today.

I mean, we're in pretty desperate shape.

And uh, depending upon what news program you are tuning into, you can have really two very opposite worldviews today.

I mean, we're and I believe God is desperate for those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ to rise to a new level of seriousness when it comes to impacting our world.

But what is happening is that the very tools that God uses to build us, in this case, we're talking about trials and struggles in life, those very tools that He's using to actually bring about joy and breakthrough, the enemy is also using to keep us suppressed and keep us down so that we cannot be effective for God.

So this is a very, very important message that I want to share with you today, wrapped into a true story of what happened with Cindy.

And the people that are here, and many of you who are part of this church will remember what happened seven years, eight years ago and the miracle that came forth as a result of that.

So I want to share six things that God taught us in the midst of our struggle.

I'm gonna ask you, there are no handouts, so if you would get out a pen and a piece of paper, I want to tell you right up front, this is really, really important stuff, guys.

I'm gonna ask you to write down just a few words.

There is very brief.

Okay, in the in the midst of your trial and your struggle, what you're going through, there are gonna be six different questions.

How are you doing on a scale of zero, not very good at all, all the way up to five?

Boy, I've really got this one wired.

I'm gonna ask you to evaluate these areas.

And later, when it comes to a time of worship and communion, you're gonna have an opportunity to offer those things up to the Lord.

And by the way, I love what this church does and the way they approach a worship service.

I love I I don't know about you guys, but I love it to have the worship after the teaching so that you can process what you've just heard.

Um and and for those of you who may not know, when we're here in the springs, we we live in Temecula, California.

We call it the People's Republic of California, by the way.

But we live in Temecula, California, right now.

And uh when we're in town, this is our home church.

And I want you to know how proud I am.

Every place we get to go to speak, all over North America, typically we'll be in New Zealand uh in a few months.

We are always uh proud of you and we talk about you guys uh wherever we go.

It's it feels so good to have a home church in a and a covering.

Um about let's see, this was at the end of 2009, going into 2010.

It's a it's a very long story of how this happened, but I ended up getting a cold.

We had just come back from doing a couples event in Minnesota, Cindy and I, I got a cold, ended up giving it to her, and a few days later it got so bad that I took her to the emergency room at uh, where was it, St.

Francis Hospital, and they told me in the emergency room that had I not brought her in, she would have not have lived until the next morning.

That's how serious it was.

At that time, they were calling it H1N1.

Remember that?

H1N1 double pneumonia.

They had to do everything they could to keep her alive uh right there.

That began a four and a half month journey.

Most of that time was uh in ICU and in a coma.

Four and a half months.

On Super Bowl Sunday 2010, the doctors brought me into a little room and they told me that there is no possible way that your wife is going to live.

Zero chance for survival.

And uh so they sent her home basically to die.

We came down to a place here in Colorado Springs, where a rehab place, and from the moment she hit that rehab place, it was like a meteoric healing.

It was like six weeks later, she was home, absolutely no telemetry necessary, absolutely 100% healed, and the doctors to this day have no clue why.

Of course, we know why.

And I'd like you to, Cindy, to stand and just wave at the people.

These are the people, honey, that were many of them that were praying for you.

This is my wife, Cindy.

In the midst of that struggle, we had a lot of things to process.

But it occurred to me, uh, in fact, in uh Judges, there's a whole series of uh wars and battles that the nation of Israel had gone into.

And what happens when you get to Judges 3-2, and this is an interesting passage.

Let me read Judges 3-2 uh to you, and this is the context is they've come through all these battles, and Judges 3-2 says this He did this, God did this, allowed these battles, listen, to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience.

Whoa.

So could it be that God allows these things to happen in our life in order to teach us and build us up for the battles yet to come?

The answer is yes.

That's why, and we'll talk about it in a minute.

That's what how do you how do you experience joy in the midst of your trials?

Paul got that.

Okay, so we this is a reminder that God, if we allow him to and don't dig our heels in, will take those struggles and trials and turn them around and use them for his glory.

How many of you have seen that happen in your own life?

It's amazing how he's able to do that.

And I am so grateful that he does.

Okay, but the very first thing that the the our my two daughters, one of my daughters is here today, the other is on our way back actually to Illinois right now.

But my daughter Kristen and her family are over sitting over here.

Uh, but in this very first area, the first thing we had to come to terms with is do we believe this stuff?

You know, hey guys, it's one thing to talk about faith, right?

But it's another thing to challenge yourself in the midst of your struggle.

Is this stuff really real?

Do you really believe this stuff?

Do you have the kind of faith?

I remember my daughter, Kristen, who's over here, she she had she set up this oh ye of little faith jar.

And anytime anybody in our family would say anything negative, they had to put money in the little uh ye of little faith jar.

And so Kristen had probably more faith than any of us during this time.

She was saying, We're believing, we're believing, and listen, in the midst of your struggle, here's your note.

Are you believing and are you expecting?

Are you expecting?

There is a difference, guys.

A woman can believe that she's going to become pregnant someday, but when that same woman is expecting, she buys the furniture.

It's a different attitude, it's a different mindset.

In the midst of your struggle, are you believing and are you expecting?

Do you find yourself asking the question, why?

And by the way, let me just say this right now.

You and I have no business asking God why.

Now I know that may shock many of you, but but let me help you out.

How many of you have ever been mad at God?

Okay?

Here's a uh uh kind of a clue.

God can handle it, okay?

He knows we're human, we're flesh, and it's a very natural thing for us to ask why.

But how many of you also know that God, if God were to tell us why we couldn't handle it, we don't know.

We don't know how to navigate in that area.

So are you believing and are you expecting God to show up in the midst of your struggle?

Well, as I was traveling to the hospital, and here's the scene I would go to the hospital, and by this time she was actually up in uh hospital up in Denver, and with a one-hour drive to the hospital every day, one hour up there, one hour back.

And in those days, because I was so crushed and so burdened, was so scared, didn't know what was going to happen with Cindy, I was very vulnerable.

And it's during those times of intense vulnerability that I don't know about you, but that's the time I can hear God speak to me the clearest.

When I can get myself quiet.

And I believe during those days, God actually lived in the backseat of my avalanche.

Because that's when he would talk to me on these drives up to the hospital.

So on this particular occasion, I'm driving to the hospital and I'm whining all the way to the hospital.

By the way, I consider myself a professional whiner.

Are there any uh other whiners?

Oh, yeah, some of you guys are really, yeah.

Okay, you and I will talk later.

Uh professional whiner.

And so on my way up to the hospital, here's what God says.

Hey, Vince, uh, is there anything in your life that you think you might be grateful for?

Now, that that is not what you want to hear when you're in the middle of whining, right?

So I know that that's not me talking to myself, that had to be God.

And so I said, yes.

I thought I'd get off the hook, you know.

He says, Oh, well, why don't you tell me what they are?

And so I started to go down a list, and I'm rehearsing all these things that I'm grateful for, my family, my wife, and all the experiences we've had, and and all, and for Jesus and all that kind of stuff.

And I don't know about you, but it's impossible to whine at the same time as you're looking at the things that you're grateful for.

And so the the the next thing that he taught us in the midst of all this, it helped me to shift my focus.

It helped me in the midst of your struggle.

Here's the here's the right the one to write down, uh, do you have a thankful heart?

And I know it seems counterintuitive to be able to do that, but that's what God's calling us to do.

To look at the right side of the ledger.

In the midst of my trial, do I have a thankful heart?

And even to this day, I find myself, when I'm getting burdened down with something, I find myself saying, Okay, Lord, let me consider my blessings.

Try it, guys, in the midst of your struggle, count your blessings, it will have a tremendous impact upon you.

The third area was kind of interesting.

This is this now it we're getting to the point where it's now getting worse.

And Cindy is not doing well at all.

And in on this occasion, I'm headed to the hospital, and God starts speaking to me, and he says, Vince, are you sure in the midst of this struggle right now that you are letting go?

And I thought, well, that's a curious thing to say.

What do you mean, Lord?

I mean, how could I not let go?

I mean, I'm not a doctor.

There's no way I can control this situation.

But how many of you know, even though you may not be able to control something, there's still this anxiety that I want to.

And it's just this anxiousness that begins to well up in us.

And I believe there's a spiritual principle involved here that as we become more anxious and we have this controlling spirit that God kind of like says, Hey, you know, uh, there's not much I can do until you get to a place where you can honestly let go.

So on this particular occasion, yeah, in fact, there's a there's an old poem, uh, the the author is unknown, it goes like this.

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 I think that's so true of so many of us.

So I got to the hospital on this day, and I closed the curtain, and they have a curtain there in front of the ICU, and I so I closed the curtain, and it was just me and Cindy.

And Cindy was asleep.

She was kind of in a coma at that time, and I'll never forget what happened.

I I took her hand, and I actually posted this on Facebook.

Some of you may have seen it, uh, with me holding her hand.

I held her hand up like this, and I said a prayer.

Kind of a prayer of letting go.

And I got all done, and in the midst of that prayer, I mean, I was crying and weeping uncontrollably.

In the midst of that prayer, uh, I'm saying all these things, and have you guys ever had the experience where you're praying something and you know it's not you?

It's like the Holy Spirit is kind of praying something through you.

It was kind of one of those moments.

And I got all done and I went, whoa, I gotta remember what I just prayed.

So I went and I got a pencil and a piece of paper, and I wrote, as best as I could recall, I wrote down what I prayed.

And this is what I wrote.

It's close as I can recall.

I said, Lord, you love this precious woman way more than any human can imagine.

Please forgive me for not remembering at times that she belongs to you, not me.

This is a good place to pause, guys, and understand that nothing in your life belongs to you.

Nothing.

You and I will be called to account for how we steward these things at some point, but they're not ours.

Thank you for giving her to me and touching my life through her in ways that are unbelievable.

Lord, I now release her to you.

I ask you to reach down right now, and as I physically let this hand go from mine to yours in the natural, that in the spiritual realm you would have your way.

Your destiny for Cindy is not mine to control.

Whatever future you have in mind for her, I humbly submit to your will.

And I'm sure you realize that was not a prayer to let her go to heaven.

And it wasn't, but and by the way, there are times when that prayer is very, very appropriate.

But I didn't feel this was one of those occasions.

I felt like the occasion here was for me to let her go, let him do his work, and for me to get out of the way.

But I found myself at that point living in what I call a spiritual tweener.

It's this weird place where I know and I trust God more and more that he's gonna be in control, but there are two potential outcomes here.

One that I'm gonna like a lot, and one that I'm not gonna like so much.

You know, guys, I I usually don't share this, but people have asked me after this message, and this message has helped people.

Gosh, so many people have come up to us after this message and said, Man, you just read my mail.

And the question becomes, would your message be any different had God taken her home?

And I can honestly stand before you today and tell you no, it wouldn't be any different.

But it's because of the process that God worked us through.

Because you've got to get to a place where no matter what, where you can say, no matter what, God, I love you and I trust you, no matter the outcome, it is in your hands.

Obviously, one way I'm gonna like, one way I'm not, and I found myself living there.

But in the midst of your trial and your struggle, whatever you're going through now, here's your question: Are you letting go?

On a scale of one to five, have you gotten out of the way in the context of what I just shared?

The next time I'm driving to the hospital, and this was kind of an interesting one.

He said, uh, uh, in fact, this really was a shocker.

He said to me, Vince, I want you to know that you, sir, are not God.

I am God.

What?

I said, Lord, did I hear that right?

Yes, you did.

I said, Lord, you felt it necessary to say that to me?

Yes.

Now, listen, none of us would be so bold as to walk around telling people that we're God.

But I wonder how many of us think it.

Well, Lord, you're sure fortunate to have me in your life.

I mean, look at the things that are getting accomplished here.

And I mean, I mean, come on, guys, you're laughing because we know you look, you know, in in all of life, God is really looking for one thing in us.

The most important thing he's looking for for in us, and this is the people we appreciate most in our life, is humility.

Humility.

And and and Jacques Bousseau says this man makes himself God through pride.

God made himself man through humility, if we look at Jesus.

Tyrone Edwards says, humility is not an abject, groveling, self-despising spirit.

It is but a right estimate of ourselves as God sees us.

Oh man, if we could only see ourselves through God's eyes.

Listen, guys, we'd never be the same.

And so, this whole idea of humility, this whole idea, and so not long after this, by the way, I'm driving up to mountain here.

My family said I needed to go do this.

I had an event on my calendar just to a men's retreat at first press.

I had a men's retreat up in Buena Vista, and they said, You need to go.

So I drove up and all the way up the hill.

I'm scared, I'm crying all the way up the hill, and I'm headed up the hill, and uh again, I'm prone to whining, so I'm I'm saying, Lord, uh uh wow, I have nothing to give these people.

I am completely empty.

Why am I even going up here?

Why am I doing this?

I have nothing to offer, and I get this picture of God, you know, he's in my avalanche.

He is head right here with a big smile on his face, and says, Hey, hey, Dak Ellie, when did you ever think you had anything?

I mean, that's exactly what he told me.

Okay, so I'm headed up the hill and he and I'm processing all of this.

He says, It's when you don't have anything.

How many of you have discovered that?

Okay, and so I get up there and I told the men, they all knew about my situation and they were praying for Cindy.

I told them what happened.

And uh and so I said, now I am excited to be with you.

Why?

Because I didn't bring Vince with me.

And they all laughed because they they know it knew exactly what I meant, and you know what I mean too.

You know what it's the difference between when you and I show up or when we get out of the way and let God show up.

Okay?

Listen, Jesus in John talks about my peace I give you.

The world's peace.

Have you ever wondered about how he contrasts those two?

Let me help you.

The world's peace, power, manipulation, and control.

If I can just get these set of circumstances to exist, if I can just get this person to say this to that person, I might not lose my job.

I might get that promotion.

My wife would think better of me.

Power, manipulation, and control.

The world, the Jesus peace, what he's talking about, totally counterintuitive.

Jesus peace, true peace, can only happen, listen, when you and I recognize how little we bring to the table.

That's true peace.

Why?

Because we recognize that you know what?

I don't have to bring a lot to the table.

My God is totally sufficient.

Amen?

That's true peace.

So, in the midst of your struggle, here's the question for you Have you come to the end of yourself?

In the midst of your struggle, and you know what I mean by that.

Have you come to the end of yourself?

The next one, and we've got just two more to go.

On this occasion, I'm going to the hospital.

And by the way, you've got to know that there were probably tens of thousands of people at this time praying for Cindy.

Uh Dick and Dee Eastman are here this morning.

They, because of the nature of the work that we did together, there were people, hundreds of thousands of people around the world that probably knew the story and were praying for us, people all over this area, different places where we've been.

Cindy was getting a lot of prayer.

Okay, and there are people here that were praying for her profoundly that we believe really helped with a breakthrough.

Okay?

So there was prayer going on, but in the midst of this, as I was driving to the hospital, he says, Vince, he says something very curious.

He says, I don't want you to miss what I am trying to teach you in the midst of this struggle.

So I want you to start praying that you do not miss your lesson in the midst of this trial.

That's, guys, a foreign concept to me because my focus was totally on Cindy.

I wasn't thinking about what he was trying to teach me.

And so what happened right after that, this was very interesting.

I got a phone call, I had to rush to the hospital.

The doctor said she probably wouldn't make it overnight.

And I got to the hospital, and what had happened is she developed blood clots in her and her lungs that were preventing air from getting into her lower chamber and were threatening her very life.

She was going to suffocate to death.

I got there and they didn't even have time to take her out of the room.

They brought in a team of about four nurses and a doctor, a woman doctor, who was a specialist in this area.

Cindy was in a coma, she had a trach on, and they go into the trach to go into the lungs with a little TV camera and a little clamp on the end to grab the blood clots.

This was amazing, guys.

They let me stay in the room and watch it up on the monitor.

And it was absolutely amazing.

So they would go in and they would find the blood clots and you'd see them on the monitor and they'd and they'd pick them, pick the blood clots.

I don't remember the doctor's name.

I affectionately refer to her as Dr.

Grabber.

Okay?

So Dr.

Grabber goes in and I'm watching the screen and then she grabs the blood clot and she starts pulling it, pulling it, pulling it, and all of a sudden a little tiny chunk breaks off, and all the people in the room go, Oh, almost had that one, you know?

And then she'd go in again and she'd grab one, and then it would start stretching and stretching, and all of a sudden a big chunk would come out, and they go, Wow, did you see that one?

They were applauding and booing in direct proportion to the size of the blood clots, okay?

So she went in 31 times.

Everybody's sweating.

I'm sitting there not knowing if she's gonna make it.

They get all done, she pulls her mask down with a big smile and says, She's clear.

And everybody applauds.

Now, I'm on my way home.

You know who is in the backseat.

He said, Hey Vince.

I said, Yeah.

He usually says, yo, Vince.

He said, Yeah.

You got a lot of clots.

Excuse me?

You heard me.

You got a lot of clots.

Oh, they're not physical clots.

They're spiritual clots.

But in the very same way that those physical clots were preventing air from getting into your wife's lower chamber and threatening her very life, your your spiritual clots are preventing the wind of my spirit from blowing through your life in the way that I fully intend.

Whoa.

A lot of you are very quiet right now.

Because you know what your clots are.

I get this picture of God up in heaven.

I don't know if this is how it really happens, but God's up in heaven with this big monotron screen, and all the angels are standing around, and God is reaching down in Vince Daccioli's life, trying to get out these clots, okay?

And he's down there and he grabs one and it starts coming in.

I don't know what it might be.

It might be anger, pornography, it could be alcohol, drugs.

He's trying to pull it out, pull it out of a light, and all of a sudden a little chunk breaks off, and all the angels go, oh, almost had that one.

And then all of a sudden he gets in there, and all of a sudden a great big chunk comes out, and then you go, Wow, did you see that?

I don't know if that's how it really happens, but that's the kind of the impression that I get.

That God is trying to listen, Oswald Chambers has a great quote.

God will not do any more through you than you first allow him to do what?

In you.

This was what we were sharing with the men yesterday.

For such a time as this, God is preparing us, but we've got to get the clots out, guys, so that God can use us the way he fully intends.

In the midst of your struggle, have you asked God to show you your lesson?

That's the write down for this one.

And then the final one, finally, as I'm I'm driving to the hospital on this day, here's what I said to God.

I said, Lord, I really am weary of not seeing more of your miracles.

That's exactly what I said to him.

Now, how many of you believe, I believe this is a safe place to say this in this church.

You believe God does miracles.

How many of you believe that?

How many of you would be honest and say, you know, I really would like to see more of God's miracles?

Dick and I have had this conversation several times, and I I've asked, I come back from a trip overseas and say, Dick, why are there so many miracles overseas?

And we don't see so many of them here.

And we really believe it has to do with our belief.

You know, uh, I'll believe it when I see it, or I'll see it when I believe.

That kind of an idea.

So I was complaining to God.

And so, why am I not seeing more miracles?

And this was an emotional experience for me.

I got to the hospital room after have having said that to him or asked that question, and I went in there and he was uh speaking to me.

And he said, Vince, do you remember the time that you walked into the hospital room on that day?

And uh, and I'll never forget this.

He he just uh painted a picture of me walking around the corner, the and the and the screen was partially closed.

She was all by herself, she was in a coma, and she hadn't opened her eyes in about a week, and she was propped up in the bed.

And and you remember when you walked around the corner, and as soon as you turned the corner, Cindy's eyes popped open.

She the her eyes popped open as soon as I turned the corner, and she got this little tiny smile on her face.

By the way, she she had like total atrophy.

There was no no none of her body worked at all.

Uh the she had no muscle tone, nothing.

She couldn't do anything, and she got this little smile on her face.

I said, Yeah, I remember that.

He said, Vince, do you remember the time that you walked in there?

And I would do this a lot.

I'd go in and I'd take her hand, you know, it would just be me and her, and I put my finger like in her hand, like this, you know, and I she would there would be lifeless, and I put my finger in there, just hoping to have even the slightest feeling of squeeze, anything, just hoping for it.

Do you remember the time he said that you went in there and you did that, and you for the first time felt that little squeeze, and you looked at her and her eyes opened, and she had this little tear coming down?

And he had me, he rehearsed a number of those things, okay, and I'm getting emotional as I'm remembering all of these scenes.

And then he said this.

He said, Fan, just listen to me.

Those are my miracles.

And when you quit looking for me in the sensational, you'll find me in the simple.

Whoa, guys, how how often do we get bogged down looking for God in these big, grandiose things?

And there's miracles in our pathway every single day.

Right next to us sometimes.

So here's your takeaway.

Here's the fill in the blank.

In the midst of your struggle, are you watching for the simple?

Are you looking for the simple?

What's the takeaway from all of this?

You guys remember the story of uh Hezekiah, Sennechereb?

You all know the story of uh Sennachereb threatening Hezekiah.

Hey, I'm coming after you, buddy.

In fact, he even wrote him a letter.

The letter kind of represents the data.

Here's the data, here's what happened before.

You're a dead man.

I'm coming after you, and here's the evidence.

Senatorib is a picture of what the world was trying to say to Hezekiah.

Let me read it uh to you.

In leading up to verse 14, he had numerous warnings, but here's what it says in 2 Kings 19, 14, 16.

Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers and read it.

He went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord.

I love that.

And by the way, uh in those days the temple of the Lord was a physical location.

How many of you know we don't have to do that today, do we?

We can spread it out where?

Anyplace.

Because wherever we are, the temple of God is with us today, which is with great news, okay?

And he says, And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord, O Lord, God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kings of the earth.

You have made heaven and earth.

Give ear, O Lord, and hear.

Open your eyes, O Lord, and see.

Listen to the words Senator sent to insult the living God.

I love it.

Hezekiah went out and laid it before God, and that's exactly what I did.

I didn't realize, I didn't remember this verse when I did it.

But the doctors on that Super Bowl Sunday that gave me that report, all the data, the CT can scans, all the x-rays, all the stuff, and said there's no possible way.

This that was their letter to me.

Here's the data, Vince.

This is what's going to happen to your wife.

She is going to die.

I did essentially this.

I took it, I got on my knees, and I brought it before God.

And I said, Lord, this is what this is what the world is saying.

But you know the outcome that you want, God.

And I'm giving all of this to you.

And of course, you know the rest of the story.

And by the way, you and I have that same access to God today.

Whatever the data you're looking at in your circumstances, you can take that stuff and you can arrange it before God and get on your knees and humble yourself and say, Lord, I provide this for you.

No matter the outcome, you know what's best for me.

Jesus on the cross, Lord, can you take this cup from me?

Wow.

But on the heels of that, he says, What?

Yet not what I will, but what you will.

In other words, notwithstanding that this is going to be painful, and listen, guys, some of the stuff you're going through is painful.

But in the midst of your pain, it's God's will that we need to be looking for.

Now, in all of this, and I'll close with this, and then we'll have a time of worship and communion and really do some business with God.

But in all of this, I have discovered what I call the secret to life.

I'm not being glib or cute.

You, in fact, you will not remember most of what I've just shared with you, but I promise you, if I come back here a year from now, you will remember what I'm about to show you.

Because I've done this all over the world, and people say, I remember you, and they remembered the illustration.

Now, what I'm going to show you is you're going to trust me, it's not a magic trick, but uh it truly is the secret to life.

Would anybody like to know it?

The four guys that said yes, I'll meet you in the lobby afterward.

I am about to share with you the secret to life.

Would anybody like to hear it?

Whoa.

This is actually a Baptist church, I guess.

Okay, here we go.

There they are.

What's that?

Your circumstances.

They're right there.

They won't go away.

You're popping pills at night trying to go to sleep.

I don't know what your circumstances are.

It could be something represented by that wedding ring.

It could be uh a bad medical report, it could be a death in the family or a pending death in the family, it could be financial, it could be any number of things, but they are defining who you are as a man or a woman, and they won't go away.

Where is God?

Oh, he's out there.

The pastor talks about God all the time.

We we know about God, he's out there.

What lens am I looking through to see God?

I'm looking at God what?

Through the lens of my circumstances.

Do you think if my circumstances are a little rough, he might look a little fuzzy?

Someone told me in the midst of Cindy going through this struggle.

They said, Imagine, Vince, that you know, God is omnipresent.

He's everywhere all the time.

Imagine he's lying over you, you're laying down, you're asleep, and his face is 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.

They they they told me that, you know, and I and I went, and ever since then, I've been doing this almost every day for the last eight or nine years.

The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I say, I did it this morning.

Good morning, Lord.

I love you.

Let's you and I go and have some fun today.

I don't know where we're gonna go, I don't know what we're going to encounter, but I choose to put you in front.

Someone said, If God's your co-pilot, you might want to change seats.

And every day I approach life now, since this, uh, with the understanding that I'm out of the way.

I'm gonna follow you, God, wherever you go.

Okay?

So, okay, are you ready?

Here we go.

The secret to life.

Watch very closely.

Huh?

Now, some of you guys in the back back there didn't see that.

I'm gonna do it one more time.

Okay, for you guys that may not have seen it right.

Here we go.

My circumstances, and here's God.

Here we go.

Ready?

You're supposed to go.

Did my circumstances go away?

No.

But what lens am I looking through now?

Come on, guys.

This is not rocket science.

There's a couple of things that are happening here.

First of all, I am now seeing the world and my circumstances through his eyes.

But secondly, those same circumstances can't get to me without first going through him.

Will he let some of them through?

You bet he will.

But when you place God here, and by the way, if I if I have to teach you how to place God here, then you ain't been listening in church.

You guys know how to place God there.

You know how to do it.

There's a theological word for why you're not doing it.

You want to know what the word is?

Stupid.

Ignorance is when you don't know any better.

Stupid is when you know better and you don't do it anyway.

And I'm gonna tell you something, guys.

The reason why we're not having traction in our culture today is because we're stupid.

We're not getting this.

This is important, important stuff.

Okay?

Now, the worship team is gonna come.

And here's what we're gonna do.

Here's what I really like about this is because now there are six things, and I hope you've written them down.

If you haven't, let me just repeat them for you real quick.

On a scale of one to five, you can even think about it in your own mind.

Here's what you need to know God is absolutely crazy about you.

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

And he chooses to use you to win a dying world.

And the very struggles and trials that you're going through is an instrument in his hands that we cannot allow the enemy to manipulate.

We've got to be able to go through it.

When the Bible says to go through it and consider it joy, it's a choice.

Pastor's been teaching, he's going to be teaching on this.

It's a choice.

Consider it pure joy in the midst of trials?

I usually say, yeah, right.

But how many of you know it doesn't say consider it pure joy once you've been through the trial and can look back and see what it produced?

It says in the midst of it.

Wow.

That's what we have to start processing, guys.

So are you believing and expecting on a scale of zero to five?

How are you doing?

Do you have a thankful heart?

Are you letting go?

Have you come to the end of yourself?

Are you asking God to show you a lesson?

And finally, are you watching for the simple in light of all of it?

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