It was like I left a good woman for a crazy person who yelled at me, and just was an awful person; and then I went back and called the other one: please take me back; I went through my garage and I talked to my PING golf clubs. I said: please would you have me back? The PING golf clubs said: no, you've left me for another one, and I cannot have you back. So I've just mourned the loss of my PING golf clubs, and eventually I was very nice to them, and they took me back.
But when I saw my swing on video, I realised it wasn't the club at all. It was me! We all need these things in our life, all of us, but it has to come out of relationship. It is not your right to speak to someone else's life, when you don't have a relationship with them; and by the way, everybody hates it when someone does it to you! How do you feel when two guys in the same uniform, wake you up at 9am on Saturday morning, asking you to switch religions because they've got a new book written by Jesus? You don't even know me! Go away!
Don't laugh too hard - we were guilty of that too. I don't know how the church survived the '70s - I don't. It's the pure grace of God. Our entire evangelism model was this: [makes sound of knocking on a door] Hi, I'm Shane, and you don't know me, but I'm from the Bay City Outreach Centre, and I just want you to know that unfortunately you're an abomination under God. But the good news is, I have a magic prayer that we made up, and if you pray this prayer, you could be like me - instead of an abomination under God. That was our whole evangelism model - and people bought it! Why? Because God is relentlessly pursuing His creation, regardless of the flaws of His people.
But slowly, we've got to be careful that our message never becomes: be like us to be saved. It has to be: live like Him to have life. Those are two different things. The message of the church is always: live like Jesus to have life; and not: become like us to be saved. You have to have relationship. We have to have that.
Let's say it a couple of different ways. The person walking in God's light and love, can take correction, and actually learns to love it. A person walking in God's light and love can actually take correction - but actually it goes past that - they actually learn to love it. This way is difficult, and why few find it. It's a broad road versus narrow way issue. The flip-side of all this is gossip. The one thing that will destroy this environment in your life, and in your church, is if you can't keep a secret - if you tend to spread people's darkness after they've shared something.
Listen to this: They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God's righteous decree, that those who do such things deserve death - they not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. I want you to notice that gossip is in the same list as some pretty awful things, like hating God, and murder. Gossip and slander is right there! Why? Because gossip and slander destroy the necessary environment of openness and honesty, for people to become what God designed. They destroy it. It's like the environment necessary for you to realise the kingdom in your life, cannot exist in the presence of gossip.
Gossip makes us consumed with self-preservation. Once an environment is okay with people gossiping and slandering, then we have to be consumed with self-preservation, because people are attacking us. When we are so consumed with self-preservation, that we can't own and get help with our own faults, we can't become people who establish God's kingdom. When we're so concerned with protecting ourselves from being exposed, it ruins the truth that if you have a close group of people, that you're totally open and honest with, and you're open to correction, and they're committed to bringing light to your situation - it ruins it.
Gossip is verbal pornography. It gives you a quick easy hit, with no commitment to engage in the suffering and darkness, in order to bring light. When you engage in gossip, it is no different than you engaging in pornography. Pornography and gossip are the same psychological mechanism. They both give you a quick hit with no commitment. When you gossip, when you see someone engaging in behaviour that ruins their life, and instead of talking to the only person who can fix it, you spread it around the internet, or you spread it to the girls at the coffee shop, or you do whatever you do. When you turn your back on them, and spread it over here - you are engaging in the darkness in a way that can't possibly fix the problem. You're getting the quick hit that comes from engaging the darkness with no commitment to actually fix the problem.