I mean we do this a lot. There's a lot of space in the head. As a matter of fact, subatomic, you know, quantum physics people say that you're actually 96 per cent empty space - so if someone ever calls you an air head, it's actually true. There's a lot of empty space in the head, a lot of room for imagination.
Has your imagination ever run wild? Like if your daughter's 15 years old, and you tell her to be home by midnight, and its 2.15 and she hasn't called - does your imagination go to the best case scenario, or the worst? It gets even sillier, like how active is our imagination? They haven't returned my call! It's been eight minutes. Is there something up? They're late. They haven't returned this email. Are they ignoring me? Maybe they didn't get it. We always assume the worst. They said something mean, and it has to be about me. It can't be the stress from the medical test their daughter is waiting to receive, it has to be that they're mean to me - imagination, assumptions.
Have you ever made a poor assumption about someone, and then your judgement changed when you got more information? Emerson Eggerichs tells this incredible story of a scenario he was in, where he was on a bus. This bus was full, and travelling by bus is not very good anyway, and so this bus was full. It was a long bus ride, and this single dad or - he didn't know if he was a single dad, he was just a dad by himself with three kids - they got on the bus, and these kids were awful. Hey, like awful! Like the spawn of Beelzebub, awful! They're running up and down, and making noises, and it was just horrible - which by the way, let me make an observation. If no one else will tell you this, I will tell you this, because I love you. No one thinks your children are as cute as you do right! Can I get an amen on that right? Nothing worse than a parent sitting there, letting their kids run roughshod over everything, acting like nothing's going on, and the kids are disturbing every single thing in the environment. No one thinks your kid is as cute as you do!
So you're on this bus, three kids running roughshod over everything, screaming, yelling, BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! And everybody's looking at the dad like: when is he going to do something; and dad's just sitting there, sort of glaring into nothing. The kids are throwing food, yelling out, going nuts, its 2am, people are trying to sleep. Everyone's looking at the dad. Now what assumption was the whole bus making about the dad? He's a horrible dad, he lets his kids run roughshod. So finally someone said to the dad: excuse me sir, can you get your children under control please? And the whole bus said: amen! The dad snapped out of it, and he said: oh, oh listen, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Their mum just died and we just came from her funeral, and I'm a bit lost at the moment, and I'm sure they are too. I know they're being annoying, and I'm going to control them, so please forgive me.
Now how many of you, your judgement just changed, just like that? Right, more information - our judgement changes. Jesus is inviting us to a narrow road decision that says: I will choose to investigate the matter, instead of assuming the worst all the time; because when we assume the worst, we almost never keep it to ourself. Before we know it, the problem is roughshod over the entire environment.
Lets look at it another way. Jesus says to them: don't let assumptions and fragments sit. They become something not even close to the truth. Let's say it this way, there's a big difference between: what were they thinking! ...and what were they thinking? I'm actually curious to sit down and understand.
You know what, I know you're going to find this surprising. I spoke in 13 nations last year; two of the nations I required a translator. I did 480 one-hour preaches in 12 months last year. It was unbelievable. Now because I did 480 one-hour preaches, in 13 different cultures, there were occasions where people misunderstood me; and I know that's very surprising, because I'm so crystal clear in everything I say, and here's what I appreciated the most. In three different situations last year, pastors loved me enough to sit down with me, and say: Shane, we know your heart. We know you love God, but this is what some people thought you said. Can you help me understand what you meant by that?
So instead of making assumptions on fragments of information, they loved me enough to sit down over coffee, and have a conversation to fully investigate the matter. And when guys love me enough to do that, I feel comfortable enough with them to openly share what they were looking for. I didn't feel like I needed to protect myself. I didn't feel like any of that. Why? Because they were engaging in behaviour that Jesus is talking about. You do not perpetuate rumours, and fragments of information; you be mature enough to fully investigate the matter. Find out what they were thinking. Find out what they were thinking.