So the first thing to realise, is that there is two sides to the story; so when you hear one person, you've heard one person, you don't know the truth, and you don't know why they've told you. You just know you've heard one side. Here's the second scripture, it's found in Proverbs 18:13. He who answers a matter before he hears it, it's a folly and a shame to him. So don't come to conclusions without hearing both sides. Now parents would do well to do that. How many parents have had this experience: mummy, he hit me, he hit me. Oh yes, he picked up one of the blocks and bashed me on the head, he hit me. Mum: oh ooh oh. Now, if you could just calm down, you've actually been offended. You've picked up someone's offence and manipulation. They've tried to bring you into agreement, and now you turn to the other child, you haven't heard their story. When you hear their story: oh, well he was continually doing this and this and this, and I asked him to stop it but he wouldn't stop, so then I hit him. [Laughter]
Now the innocent person is complicit in the problem of strife in the home. Isn't that true? You know that. Why would you think it stops when we get older? Are we all that smart? Do we all grow up that much? I don't think so. [Laughter] We just do the same thing when we get older: find someone who'll listen to us, and tell the story; tell our story and they get all upset. Usually they carry an offence. Here's the problem, here's the thing you need to ask is, after you've listened to the person, you've got to ask yourself: have I heard both sides of the story? Have I actually given this thing a fair hearing? The second thing you need to be able to ask is: have you gone to the person and sorted it out yourself? It's the strangest thing, that the one thing people don't want to do, is go to the only person that can sort it out, and sort it out. There's no person can help you sort it out. You've actually got to, eventually, end up either: resolving it before God; or going and talking to the person that needs to be talked to. Have you spoken to someone?
Now this is a real problem in the area of leadership in the church. I'll tell you why. Leaders are no more important than any other person. They just have a different function to other people, but here's the deal. If someone starts to speak, and they have an offence - suppose someone has come to Pastor Lyn and got counsel, and the counsel they got, they didn't like because she saw the problem, nailed it, put the truth out, and they got offended. So usually the next thing they do is, they turn up on someone else's door, another leader, and they don't say that they went to Pastor Lyn. They say: I've got this problem you see, and they get the same response there. Now they're offended, so now what they do is, they go and tell someone else: there's no love here, and they tell them why. That person listens. Now the seeds of division are sown in their heart.
Now here's the problem. If someone divides you against a leader, who God placed in your life for your welfare; what happens is, distrust is sown against all leaders; and you have enough of it in your life, and enough people in church today have come in out of broken homes, where there's been failures with authorities, failures with fathers, failures with mothers, failures in families; they come in already offended. So they become easily drawn into this kind of thing. Leaders make mistakes like everyone, but once you get an attitude of offence, then you're actually affected in receiving from God, through someone He put in your life to help you. Then you go to the next place, it'll be the same thing there. We can't let these things get in our heart, and if there's a resting place for them, we should just come to the Holy Spirit, say: I need help to resolve this thing. One of the first things learned as a leader is, someone comes for counselling, you say: have you been to anyone else? [Laughs] What did they say? Oh, I'm going to say the same thing - you're not going to like me at all either, you know? That's the whole deal. You're all getting real quiet.