Good Evening Family. It’s is good to be with you. I had a long busy day today just sitting with the family in various context. And I got home just a few minutes ago really and I walk into my house and see that my wife was covered with paint and tell her that “no” you probably shouldn’t come to the meeting tonight . It would defame the character of God. She said good I’m exhausted. I don’t have the energy to fix myself up. But I looked over at my little girl. Now today all the carpet came up and all of the stuff in our apartment was moved out onto the lanai . And our little girl had grace with that as long as some of the people helping us were around . Or not helping us , I wasn’t there as I was dealing with other matters. But then she just looked around at the cement floor, at the absence of furniture at the fact that the TV was turned backwards facing out into the yard and she just burst into tears. And she said “I want everything the way it was”. And you know, I was just thinking of that as I was sitting down there. That often times we find ourselves in that kind of circumstance. Ah, It reminded me of a thing that happened to me a few years ago. I was in Canada, Vancouver Island, and I’d been speaking at a pastor’s conference and there was a young man just graduated from Bible College and he said “What’s the most difficult thing about being in the ministry?” And several glib answers rose to my lips, you know I like to make humorous remarks, especially when people have taken me very seriously . And then I thought, well you know, this guy deserves a thoughtful answer. I need to think about this. What is the most difficult thing about being in the ministry? And finally I heard myself say to him, “It’s relating to authority with tolerance and forgiveness through seeing the hand of God in my circumstances.” What was behind that story? It seemed I was always dealing with the edge of pain and disappointment in Christian Community. Now why is that? And I remember years ago there in the black community in LA where I spent my adult life. I mean, I’m still in my adult life , I haven’t died, I’m here but you know I’m 52 now so I’m feeling spent in my adult life, ha! ha! ha! But anyway I was standing with a group of my neighbors and one of them had spray painted his Volkswagen Bug iridescent pink metal-plate and he was standing around having a few beers with the other guys and he made this comment, someone will probably steal this “Blankety-Blank” thing now! Now imagine if that guy was down in a bar down at San Bernadetto and he came out from the bar and his new paint job and the car with it was gone. There was nothing but an oil spot. Now I know this guy and I know how it would affect his emotions. And the fact is, It wouldn’t affect him very much. He would go back into the bar and order a stiff drink and he would look down the bar at his buddies and say to his buddies “ I knew somebody would steal the “Blankety-Blank” thing. Another words, as pagans are, living in the kingdom of darkness, they begin to understand intuitively, after a while, that Satan has a horrible plan for your life and is working all things together for your destruction. So they develop an attitude. That attitude is what we call “Cynicism”. It’s when you adjust your expectations of your fellow man to such a low point that there never a disappointment to you because you just expect to be hired by, done by or put upon. Now you and I got Saved. Now that is a risky business. Cause that involves being transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of His Dear Son. And we enter into a whole new posture of the heart and we move away from cynicism to the opposite which is a kind of a naive hope, not just in God but we actually project hope on each other. In fact, the Bible has amazing statements in it. Like Love Believes All Things, Hopes all Things and Endures all things. At first glance, that scripture seems to fight against all sound reason, What’d a mean love believes all things, ya know! And I remember one time, one of my kids when he was young bringing home “High Times” magazine. You know. Remember that magazine, you Ex-Hippies! If you’re currently still reading it, “Don’t” in Jesus’ Name. That was a word of knowledge. Alright now, High Times magazine basically is a commercially sold publication that is a rationalization for marijuana and other low-grade organic substances. And so I had to say to my son, “You know, don’t believe everything you read”. What was that a contradiction of that scripture, “Love Believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things”. NO , that’s really talking about the issue the sin of unrighteous judgment and of imputing, you know, or making a decision of the intent of somebody else’s heart. Now this is easier said than done. I was with a couple of pastors, husband and wife, and they had just been with some friends. This was Francis Frangipane and he and I were consulting on the writing of a book on church splits. And he said, John, this couple told me that they had lost two of their daughters in an automobile wreck when a drunk came through an intersection and killed them. But they said to me, “John, the church split that we just went through was more painful than the loss of our two daughters. And you might think , “How can that be”? But I understand that that can be. Because the fact is , in Christian Community we have very high expectations. And the expectations that we have determine our level of disappointment when they are not fulfilled. In fact, disappointment could be defined that way as failed expectations. So the higher your expectations, the more vulnerable you are to disappointment. Now what do we expect of each other in Christian Community? Well you could put it this way, you could say, “Look I love you, all I ask is that you be like the Lord”. Ha! Ha! Ha!, Exactly! I remember one time a person coming to give me a long speech, you know there when I was doing Dave Gustafson’s job, I was a leader of the main base there in Los Angeles. And this person said I’ve been struggling with this and I just really feel I’m to commit myself long term to you through the mission and I’ve come to you as the leader of this ministry and I just want you to know I’m submitted and committed and I wanna just declare that I trust you and all that kind of stuff. And I got very nervous and so I cam out from behind my big authority desk and I knelt beside the couch, asked the person to join me and says “Look let’s both submit to Jesus because at some point, you know, you don’t know me that well but at some point I’m gonna be a disappointment to you and it’s really the Lord who is the leader of this base and I am perfectly, you know, seeking to follow out what he is trying to do here. But let’s transfer those expectations to him. I mean, you gotta give it your best shot. You know, think about what it means to be a mother or a father, well you have to represent the tiny little vulnerable, poopy, squally human being for, ah, you know, a lifetime. You have to represent the faith of God the Father in God in the motherhood and fatherhood of God and all of the character of God that nature and personality of God. I mean, are you gonna do that perfectly ... Your gonna give it a shot but you know the fact is that kid you poured your life out for is gonna end up in a DTS in somebody’s else’s base going through the Plumb line telling some strangers about what you did to him. And what can you do. You know, you just ask for forgiveness and keep going. So I was so busy today, quite frankly, listening to you all that I didn’t have much chance to seek God about tonight so I sort of went down to my house, saw my newly painted wife and thought I got 30 minutes to get up to the meeting and so I thought, “I’ll just show up and God will rescue me.” So I sat down there during the worship time and looked hopefully into my preaching bag and I noticed this one folder, It says, “Jesus is never a disappointment”. Ah, I said that looks good. So let’s see what that says. It actually has some notes here, I asked for two of these so I could get my act together. I’m not feeling very dynamic tonight, as you can tell. But that’s alright. It says here, Jesus is never a disappointment and I’ve got a question here, now “How do you end up with notes like this?” I must have been going through something. You know, all of the stuff I preach on is basically my weaknesses in God’s dealing with me about it and then getting me to confess it to other people. That’s called Bible teaching, that’s what we do. We may not admit that’s what we’re doing but that how we all get our material. So I can’t remember what I was going through but apparently this really ministered to me at the time ‘cause I got here, “Who are we working for?” And then I got five categories of disappointment: Disappointment in Tasks and Visions, Disappointment in Leaders and Models, Disappointment in Flocks and Followers, Disappointment in Friends and Peers and then the last one we’ll get to in a minute.
First of all, Disappointment in Tasks and Visions
You know, ultimately a vision isn’t worth dying for. They’re always imperfectly seen, they’re usually not done by the time you die anyway, you know what I’m saying they’re multi-generational tasks, and there is a tension between that which we see prophetically revealed to us out of eternity into time. You know, what is this thing called “YWAM”? It’s some dream in the heart of Jesus, you see, that we have glimpsed through a keyhole. And you know, we can look back on the Salvation Army and we can say “Ah Yeah, we pretty much understand what that was supposed to be, pretty awesome movement”, see that! But imagine how it looked to the Booths, way there in the beginning and those first two or three generations of the Salvation Army. You know, they were just kind of bungee jumping off into the future without being tied to anything and, ah, then they became what they became and then we now are blessed by that in our generation. But Tasks and Visions by themselves are not a disappointment.
Jesus is our vision, to worship and obey him, really, actually is our main task. And this is kind of a checklist for me, that I give myself, these notes.
There’s also Disappointment in Leaders and Models
You know I think personally, in fact today I said to somebody, Look having walked these many years with Lauren Cunningham and also I’ve have had the privilege to walk with many heroes of the faith of our generation. You know, think of the school of evangelism, some of us went to way back there in the beginnings in Luzon. You know, our teachers were Corey ten Boom, Brother Andrew, Duncan Campbell, you know, these were the people putting the DNA in the foundational generation of YWAM. You know we had all of the staff of YWAM International could fit over in that corner of the stage at that point , you see. And through the years I have had the privilege of walking closely with people. People like Bill Bright and Jack Hayford and all these people. And they’re wonderful, wonderful people. But I believe that as I amateur historian, including a historian of church history, Lauren Cunningham is about as good as it gets. This is a faithful, wonderful Godly man. And yet, there are times, I remember dragging him up the back of King’s mansion sitting on the grass one day and full of the chutzpa of somebody in their Twenties. I was not all worn down to a nub like I am now. And you know in my youthful idealism I tried to rebuke Lauren and told him was a big disappointment to me about something, I can’t remember what the issue was, but I remember Jesus talking to me about it afterwards in my spirit and saying “You know, John, you’ve got an idolatrous trust in Lauren Cunningham’s ability to guide and govern you life anyway. You’ve needed some disappointment because, you know, I am your leader and your model and your finally vulnerable only to me and your not in youth with a mission cause it’s the best mission society in the World, you were just some messed-up kid that began to follow me and I told you to come into this tribe, that’s how you got here. You didn’t carefully, dispassionately examine all the mission societies in the World, Decide this was the best one and the safest one. You see, this is just a circumstance I called you into. Now having been in the circumstance, you started to fall in love with the people and you got married to them . Now you gonna have to stick with it.” You see that. That’s the way the Kingdom of God works. He sets the lonely the lonely and families. He gives them a home in which to dwell. Psalm 68. So we end up in our ministry assignments by virtue of being led through our hearts. Observation, Attraction, Courtship, Covenant, Intimacy, Fruitfulness, Celebration ... Same way we end up in love and having families is the same way we end up in ministries. There is also a disappointment in Flocks and Followers. I mean, if you’re a DTS Leader, isn’t it true that you can absolutely pour out life, you know, no privacy, no salary, one more field trip, you know your P-O-U-R your life into these people and most of them have the appearance of having the audacity of just walking away and doing nothing with what you gave them or completely backsliding . I mean it’s pretty shaky and scarey looking at what happens next sometimes.
Disappointment in Flocks and Followers
You know, the fact is you have to just commit them to God , Trust God that you sacrifice wasn’t wasted and keep praying for them. What is discipleship and pastoring? It’s really just parenting, that’s what it is. I mean, who are you fixing right now? That’s just somebody else’s kids. That’s what you’re working on. You know, I remember once, a publisher approaching me and saying, “Will you write a book on raising teenagers?” And I said to them, “Hah, come see me when I’m Seventy, if none of them went to prison maybe I’ll have something to say. You See! Now as you heard in that inflated resume that came off some website or something tonight, you know, I have three sons that are all Men of God, serving God in different nations. Well, there is a time when they were not doing that, see what I’m saying! I won’t tell you what they were doing but it was not that. And there were times when I was tempted to throw myself on the ash heap of history and now I find myself being congratulated for having self-righteous children. You see what I’m saying! Well Julie and I neither deserved the credit for where they are now nor should we have been flagellating ourselves for where they were at various other times. The fact is you cannot build your whole peace, stability and contentment about where your flock is at any given moment but Jesus is the Shepherd of the flock and He Alone can rescue them and restore them and our well-being is really based on a focus on him even while we are ministering to them.
Now you can also have disappointment in Friends and Peers.
You know, even the best friend you have is not worthy in the same way that Jesus is. He alone is worthy. He is our most loyal friend. The Bible says, “He never leaves or forsakes us”. I mean, just think about the quality of omnipresence. The Holy Spirit is always with you. I mean, I’m not omnipresent which means in that attribute of God I completely fail friends and family all the time. A whole lot of people, that I’m deeply committed to, I’m not with tonight. Perhaps my bigger disappointment is none of those things. My biggest disappointment actually is me. It’s my own character and I take great comfort in that little statement, “Christ our Righteousness”. The indwelling Christ who lives in me and is the only hope for victory. And we just ask you to come, Holy Spirit, just right in the middle of circumstances that we are in right now, there’s many, many circumstances confronting people that are here in this gathering tonight and we just confess our inadequacies, Lord. Now you know what the Bible says about meetings like this . It says, “Unto Him Shall the gathering of the People be”. So really what this should be tonight is kind of a living room. Religious protocol is keeping us from paddling in the pool, here. I’m restraining myself, so far. It’s kind of a hot night but the fact is psychologically, this is, ah, we’d be gathered into the arms of the Lord tonight and we should tremble before him because he’s righteous but we should run to him anyway because he is so loving. I feel like in our circumstances there is also tremendous provision. There are many parables, you can hear Yun Shin’s voice over there, she is translating in Korean. Her life is kind of a parable of this stuff. I hope you don’t mind me telling this story a little bit, Yun Shin. Not that I could hear her answer or see her because the light is too glaring. But this perhaps encapsulized something to me. We’re close friends, ‘cause we have often led and she has often translated together and we’ve been involved as intercessors in a heart for reconciliation issues in the Far East. But I asked her one day, “How are your doing Yun Shin?”. And she told me a remarkable story and she said you know the last time you were with us, Min Young and I said “Goodbye” to you as you were going to the airport and then we went to a little noodle shop and we sat there and we felt sad . And she said, “I began to cry”. And she said , “ I cried , and I cried and I cried”. Even when I wasn’t crying outwardly, I was crying inwardly and it went on for weeks. And I made my way back here to Kona and I began to work again with Lauren and Darlene but this weeping was still in my spirit and so I went to see one of the counselors, which maybe that is someone that is here , somebody involved in a counseling school or a counseling ministry. And that person waited on the Lord and said , “Yun Shin, are you and orphan? I just get that work “orphan”. “No, I have a mother and father. And she said, “That’s strange, cause I just get that word “Orphan”. And Yun Shin said, “Well, my mother died but my father remarried and , you know, I have a mother and father”. And she said “How did your mother die?”. And Yun Shin said, “My mother died of a broken heart”. And something didn’t sit right with the counselor. This may be one of you. I don’t know who the personality is . Maybe you can correct me about this story afterwards, I’m sure Yun Shin will. But anyway I’m going to give my version here cause the “Punch Line”, I think, fits. Even if this is imperfectly told. But she said, “you know, people don’t die of a broken heart. She mus have died of some medical condition.” And Yun Shin became defensive and said “No, She died of a broken heart.”. And there was sort of an impasse there in the counseling session. And the counselor said I want you to call you dad in Korea and ask him, “ how did your mother die?”. And there was some tension about this and finally Yun Shin overcoming some deep reserve within her spirit called her dad and said “How Did Mom Die?”. And her father was amazed and he said, “Well,Yun Shin how could you not know that she died of a brain tumor. I mean, you were there. This is common knowledge. This is, How could you not know that? He was shocked. But then she was shocked because she realized that somehow that terrible information had been pressed away from memory and pushed down. And that there had come a barrier between her and her dad.. And that the counselor’s word of knowledge was indeed, a word of knowledge. That with the death of mother, there had also come within a young woman’s heart, a little girl’s heart, probably, such pain and such grief. Such unbearable agony of loss that she had, as she would now see it, unconsciously projected responsibility for that upon the authority figure who was there. See we can’t see God. We can’t ask God, “Why did that happen?”. and what about this. Give me explanation. You see what I’m saying? And so there is an almost automatic human response to hold responsible for our pain whatever authority we’re in proximity to. The tragedy of that was, is that in that season of life Yun Shin did become “orphaned in spirit” because that separated her from her dad emotionally, see that? And so, she left the campus here for a while and went back to Korea and had a tremendous time re-bonding with her family and with her culture. And when she told me that story, we were both together at a base far from here and the very next person I was speaking to was a YWAM leader who was carrying a real distrust and resentment toward authority that this person was trying to relate to in that part of the world. And I just recounted to her Yun Shin’s story and I said, “You know I wonder how many of us there are who threw the pain that we have gone through have held responsible somebody in our circumstance. And we have in some ways damaged ourselves in that relationship as well. We’ve moved from what could have been the comfort of being a favored daughter or favored son into being isolated. And in carrying hurt because of disappointment.
Now I’ve got a checklist that I want to read to you before I go tonight. You know, I talk about Cynicism is the fruit of the spirit of unrighteous judgment. That’s when we degrade the conduct or performance of another person in our heart and the contrast of that between the statement in 1st Corinthians 13 , “Love Believes All Things, Hopes All Things, Endures All Things”. We know, for instance, the Scripture like “Judge Not, least you be Judged.” which is James 5:9, but obviously that’s not talking about, you know, approaching somebody or some group of people with a spirit of honest inquiry, even confrontation, we see that in Matthew 18. It doesn’t mean we can’t think about or discipline people within our appropriate domain. In 1st Corinthians 4:4, we read these words, “The one who examines me is the Lord; therefore, do not go on passing judgment before the time but wait until the Lord comes who will bring to light things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts and each man’s praise will come to him from God.” Now, I’m gonna a give you a list of 6 or 7 things that I was deeply convicted by and a kind of a checklist for my own heart. So these are statements that I run by myself every now and again.
Have you every come away from a conversation and you felt polluted in spirit? I remember once, I was over at a friend’s house sitting in a hot tub in LA and we were just talking, you know. And I felt everything that I had said was valid an OK and appropriate but I tossed and turned in my bed that night and I felt God just looking at me and in my spirit I was going “What!”. You know, “What!” Ha!, Ha!, Ha!. And I remember turning my light on and started going down my little list here. OK here’s my checklist.
First of all, we tend to judge in the very area of our own weakness. Proverbs 12:6 says, “The Wicked accuse, the Godly defend”. I mean that is so simple and direct. The Wicked accuse, the Godly defend. James 5:9 says, “Don’t grumble about each others brothers. Are you above criticism?” OK that’s not too bad. But each on of these gets worse ok, so that one there, I’m not that threatened by #1.
Number 2. The facts are not always the truth. Now you might say, “Now John, you’ve been watching that old television show, Kung –Fu. What do you mean, the facts are not always the truth?”. Remember that show? How many of you are over 40? Over 30? How many of you know the show Kung-Fu? It was a profound show that would say things like , “When you know, then you will know”. At the time the subculture that I was part of thought that was really deep. Now this sounds like one of those statements; “The facts are not always the truth”. But what I mean is that facts in isolation are not always the over-arching truth as God would see them to be. Now that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to act. For instance, what if you go to the apartment below you, you’re a young mother and you go down to the home where your little kid plays with their little kid, the young mother just below you and you find that through the glass counter top of the coffee table you can see pornographic material. So apparently the night before that stuff was put out, you see, you’ve never seen it before, you become very uncomfortable now about your child playing in that home with that relationship and so what do you do? Is it unrighteous judgment to withdraw your child? No, I think that is probably a prudent thing to do, to be a little more cautious about the spirit and conduct of that household. But it would be unrighteousness judgment to come to a conclusion about that other woman or her husband. It could be that the young cousin who was visiting left that out. You see what I’m saying? You just don’t know that. So don’t come to a conclusion and impute evil intent. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take an action but it does mean you, “Love believes all things , hopes all things” you give them the benefit of the doubt. OK. A classic example to me is I had this.... She was my assistant, my secretary, Linda, was her name and she was a quite old.... all of the way up to about 23 and she was sitting in the outer office and I was sitting in the inner office looking at her and she didn’t know I was looking at her and I could read her thoughts. And her thoughts went something like this... Life has passed me by. I will never marry. Now believe it or not people who are 23 do think thoughts like that but I tell you why I know that’s what she was thinking because I answered her. I said “Hey Linda, what about that young Aussie walking through the courtyard. He’s got a real leadership gift and I’m gonna promote him and she just turned beet red. Which meant basically, you know we were having a conversation. Now their now the leaders of YWAM in Denver . They did marry and their fruitful and that’s another whole story. But long before they married, as a couple that was in love, as an engaged couple, they went to a wedding in San Diego. Now in the great big assembly of God church, Pastor Dick Dresselhouse the 1st Assembly of God Church of San Diego, one of these new magnificent big places at the time. They were in a wedding party and he was best man and she was the maid of honor and so there was a circumstance were the bride and groom knowing the mischievous nature of their friends, put a decoy wedding vehicle in parking lot which was then sabotaged, as predicted, by there friends. So the put “Just Married” and flocking and they tied rocks and hub caps and all of that stuff to the bumper and all of that stuff. Now the bride and groom got away in the real getaway car, unmolested, went peacefully on their way. It fell to my friends, the engaged couple, not the married, couple to drive down Interstate 5, take the thing to the car wash and get it all cleaned up. So here they are pulling out of the church, you know, getting on the on the on ramp, going down the ...... You know those of you who are Californians know Interstate 5 going thru San Diego, you can imagine the scene during a sunny day. You know, and everybody is “Beep, Beep, Beep”, waving and honking and everything but the facts were not the truth. Now can you imagine telling somebody that, though! Yeah, but they’re not married. Look, you idiot, it says , “Just married” on the window. Yes, but there not married. Give me a great, big flaming break!! Look at em, look at em. Have you every seen a couple more in love than that? Yes, but they’re not married. You see what I’m saying. But we’re so sure we know aren’t we? And yet the fact is; A point of view is just a view from a point. We never see things the way God sees everything. We always look through a keyhole at any given circumstance and that’s one of the reasons why we’re to refrain from unrighteous judgment. You know, we are s-ooo confident and s-ooooo sure that we know and we’re so quick to mouth off. And the fact is this , It says in Isaiah 11:1-9, “ He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear but with righteousness he will judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” In other words, in this characteristic of Jesus’ leadership, He was functioning through the greater signals coming from the Father to his heart than just that which was coming from his senses. And we see the Disciples moving into this. We see in the New Testament a little phrase, “From that day on they knew no man according to the flesh”. I don’t think when they exposed Ananias and Sapphira that they’d actually hired a private detective to go through their books. I think that was really Holy Spirit faithfulness. They were just, you know, gratefully receiving the offering and then all of a sudden the Spirit of God came and these people giving dropped dead which is quite upsetting in your pastoral ministry.
Alright, now lets go to point #3. There are always two sides to a matter. There just always are. It says that in the book of Proverbs, there are always two sides to a matter and partiality is condemned as sin. James 2:9 says, “But if you show partiality you commit sin and are convicted by the Lord as transgressors.” So you either are in the appropriate jurisdiction where you know everything or you are very temperate, very measured, very gracious in your thoughts and your remarks. Proverbs 18:2 in the Living Bible says, “A Rebel doesn’t care about the facts, all he wants to do is yell.” So don’t form a conclusion about the intent or the heart and motive of another person unless they themselves defend evil conduct and desire in your presence or you observe a consistent commitment to willful sin. You know, I mean, if Osama Bin Laden sent us a tape saying, “I hate you all”. So under those circumstances, I think saying that the man was evil and was trying to kill me would not come into the category of being an unrighteous judgment. Now, I told you it got worse. It gets worse ‘cause it gets more convicting cause it gets more subtle.
Point 4 is this. A man is only as righteous as his heart is seen before God at this moment. See, a moral condition or a moral state of a free-will agent , which is what a human being is, is always on a time line rather than a continuity. Let me give you an example. What if you were in church Sunday morning? You were up at David Reese Thomas’ church and after church you had a big spat with somebody. You’re still in the pews you know, and somebody just wounded you bitterly by some inappropriate whatever. So there you are, fresh blood, the dagger still sticking in you. Okay, and of course, one of the most satisfying things when you’ve been deeply offended by somebody is to go and display your victimhood to appropriate religious authority in the circumstances. And so you make your way to the pastor’s office or elder so and so who’s a person of high status within the religious community and then you , with red-rimmed eyes, sob and show, you know, the offense that was against you. Now here’s the problem, there is a person, there is a third party in this relationship. There is the person who sinned against you, there is you ,who is struggling with the temptation that’s come from being wounded. But there is a third party. The third party is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is totally predictable. The Holy Spirit is the convicter of sin, right? So the Holy Spirit immediately starts harassing this person. Now the enemy is there to condemn them. That has no grace in it. But the Holy Spirit is there with this lifting of hope, this persuasion , this wooing that says, “Come Now, you know, that wasn’t right.” The Holy Spirit is coming and interpreting, you know, your life to them in a different way to arouse compassion. That’s how the Holy Spirit works! And what happened, that person, while you were making a trajectory to the pastor’s office, you see, they only made it half way through the narthex, they didn’t even make it to their car. And all of a sudden they were smitten with conviction of sin and they have been searching the building for you the last fifteen minutes while you’ve been assassinating the character and you refuse to take the dagger out cause the effect, right there, looks so good . And now here is the dilemma for God.. God is now looking at both of you , fifteen minutes ago they were the one offending His Spirit. You see that! But now in that fifteen minutes they were smitten with conviction, cried out for mercy, appropriated the Blood of the Lamb which is now sprinkled on the door post of their hearts. They’ve vowed to God they’re gonna make it right with you and they’re searching for you with a heart for reconciliation. You don’t know that but God knows that, see that! So now your actually in role reversal. You see the dilemma for God? Remember that whole time we went through when you know, Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggert were in prison? You know, and we just involved ourselves in an orgy of speculation about their character. You see that? Particularly, Jim Baker. We could say to another believer, you know, “That Jim Baker, Blah, Blah, Blah. He has just embarrassed us and defamed the character of Jesus and what will the pagans think and all the rest of it.” Now, you can go to the book store up here and you can read a book by him. It’s called “I was wrong.” That’s the title. And you can look into his prison cell, retroactively, and you find that while we were using him for a metaphor for darkness he was actually suckin’ the carpet with humility and brokeness and repentance . You know what I’m saying? That guy is one of the greatest examples of somebody in utter brokeness and repentance. Can you imagine the tension in the heart of Jesus where our conversation keeps right on going in it’s momentum with what he’s actually looking at in that prison cell. Now for that reason alone, that arrests me. I can witness some horrendous thing somebody just did. But I realize that as the time line continues I don’t necessarily know where they’re at. I can’t undo what I saw. That looked pretty horrible. And I’m going to be very cautious now . I might even take action. You know what I’m saying to withdraw my trust, not my love, but my trust based on that. But see this is a fine line, this stuff, isn’t it? That’s why I found myself laying in bed tossing and turning that night going, “What, I thought I had been righteous?”. But the Lord was saying, “You know in your conversation with that person the reason you feel polluted in spirit is because you did grieve my spirit and it’s in the refinement of these things”.Now, it gets worse . The bible says, “To that point, Only God knows the time and the level of a person’s repentance”.
Point 5 The Bible says, “That we’re to think of others as better than ourselves.” Philippians 2:3. my note, New King James says ( Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.) “Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble thinking of others as better than yourself”. (I think that is the Living Translation) Now what a in the world does that mean? Now for twelve years, I was the leader of something called, “Centrum of Hollywood”. Now what if I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard and I saw some aids riddled transvestite hooker leaning in a doorway and they were an addict. And so here is this person who is a veritable portrait of the destruction that can come through unwise choices and the domination of, and bondage of habits and appetites. And I’ve got a scripture here that says I’m supposed to think of them as better than me! Well, what kind of strange, weird stuff is the Bible saying to me here? That’s not right! Wouldn’t that be to dishonor all the work of God in my life? No. Because God’s way of measuring righteousness is not a comparative way of measuring righteousness. In other words, there is the most righteous person somewhere in this circle. I wonder who that would be? Now we have ark types. Maybe it’s that aging female intercessor, you know. Or maybe it’s that , you know, pioneer evangelist, Steve Bartell, you know, pouring himself out there in Columbia. You know, we speculate about all of these ark types but there is no way that we would know who is the most righteous person here in this circle. You might say, “Well, is it you John?. You’re the president of YWAM, your up in the front making noise again.” I’m up in the front making noise because I have an aptitude and experience and an anointing. You see what I’m saying? And some information. But that doesn’t make me better than anybody else here. My character had to catch up with my calling just like yours. OK , now, think about . What about if angels of records walked in here tonight and they just picked somebody there in the front row , there with the red shirt. What’s your name? Oh Ray. So Ray , what’s your family name beginning with the letter of what? “F”. Okay, so they look him up in the Lamb’s Book of Life or whatever laptops or whatever they have at this point. Cause the Bible says that there are angels of record. And so they look up Ray and they say, “OK he has been given this much , you see, and he has lived up to this much leaving that little gap. Good Job, Ray” Why do we know that that’s the way they think? Because the Bible says, “To Whom much has been given, much is required of him. He that knows what is right to do to him and does not do it to him, That is sin”. So we’re not all measured by the Ten Commandments. And some, just you know, we are in an ultimate sense but we , are righteousness or unrighteousness depends , it depends on our level of light. Our level of accountability. That’s where the responsibility comes. So the fact is we just don’t know. So what if the angels of record turned to me and said, “John Dawson, look him up, there he is, up front making noise in front of God’s people again”. And they’d turn him up. Thump, Thump, Thump. There he is! They go back to “D” Dawson. There he is . Been 34 years in youth with the mission. Once had a coke with Dean Sherman. Incredible privilege that this young man has had in his life. Godly parents. Fifth generation of believers. This guy has been given This Much and he’s lived up to, I’m not gonna tell you. Because the Bible says that we’re not good at that. “The heart of men is deceitful and desperately wicked . Who can know it? That’s a rhetorical question saying it’s really the Holy Spirit’s job to hold up the mirror and show us who we really are. Conviction is a gift that we’re to really ask for from God. Godly sorrow from God is a favor. Seeing ourselves as he sees us to be is a gift to us. You see that? And so I have no idea who the most Godly person is in this room. And when it comes to ungodliness, I am the world’s greatest living authority on my faults and failures, you see what I’m saying? If I’m walking down Hollywood Boulevard and I see the aids-ridden transvestite , you know, prostitute addict, I can look at them and I can think of them as better than me. I can say, “Look, I don’t know anything about that person’s life. I do know my life. I do know the blessing of my life. I can tell you what. .. I can pretty much assume if that person had been given what I have been given, you know, it’s not stretch for me to think of them as being better than myself. You see that’s the other side of Love Believe all things, helps all things and Endures all things is that thing of not imputing to yourself virtues that belong to nobody else and place you at the head of the class. We’re to think of others as better than ourselves. It gets worse. Point 6. We are measured by our own value judgements of other people. You know that scripture about every idle word. It says , “By your words you’ll be justified, by your words, you’ll be condemned”. Matthew 12:37. So it’s our criticism of others that reveals our true knowledge of righteousness and leaves us without excuse before the Throne of God. I mean, what a fair system. So God, when we come to being judged by God in the ultimate moral judgement, I’m not talking about the judgement of believers, the Great White Throne, but the initial judgement. Can you imagine this God puts up the Ten Commandments on the overhead and some sinner comes before him and he says, “My Dear Child, you violated all of these”. And the sinner folds her arms and says, “Great, those were your rules. I never even believed them or agreed with them”. That’s, you know, and argue with God. What would God then do? He’d say, “I will be totally fair with you. I will only judge you based on your own quoted, verbal, value judgements of other people. Roll the Tape”. Now think of all the people. Remember Nixon’s tapes were played. And the whole nation listened to that. And they said, “Liar”. Remember when Gary Hart took his mistress on a boat, called the “Monkey Business” for some hanky-panky? You know, he was a presidential candidate and the whole nation went “Adulterer”. You see what I’m saying? Every time we point the finger, What are we doing? We are revealing the standard by which we will be judged. Now that is a frightening concept. So my advice to me is “John, Shut Up”. “Shut Up”
Well, there’s actually a few more points, but I am too tired. Let us just go to the whole thing of the categories of people that we judge. Children. You know, moms, just cause there kids doesn’t mean there’s a different standard. And one of the areas, I found myself as a parent, convicted by the Holy Spirit is when you go through exasperating things with your kids , you still cover them, OK. And even if you asking for prayer, don’t dishonor them, don’t, you know, be very careful with your words. Even in getting comfort from other parents. What about troubled and non-conforming youths? Everybody here with purple hair and a mohawk is not necessarily in rebellion. I mean how many of the rest of you are in your fifties? That means we were people of the sixties and early seventies, OK. Now at that point, when I was a teenager, I had long, matted blonde hair. I wore hand-made leather sandals with radial car tire bottoms because they cornered better. And I had a lot of beads. I had a tie-dyed T-shirt and I wore a homburg on my head. No you might ask, “Why did I look like that?”. The answer, quite honestly is, I just wanted to be normal. And for my subculture and my peer group that was normal. You see what I’m saying? And so we can be tempted to unrighteous judgment over these issues of cultural divide.
Troubled or non-conforming youth.
What about associates that we want to confirm into our image. I mean, with Jack Haford, telling a story against himself once. And he said he was watching TBM and Jan Crouch was jumping up and down, behind her eyelashes, and she was emoting and she was doing all of these kind of things. And then Jack said he sat in his study and he looked at and said in his heart, “Oh God, what will the heathen think?”. And says the Holy Spirit spoke right back at him and said, “Jack, she is made in my image and your trying to re-make her in your image. She has a heart full of compassion for the lost”. And he tells this one story against himself and I love honesty of that man, you see, and how that he needed to come to a point of repentance, embrace her in her uniqueness and , you know, you see him on there on TV and quite a lot . Ok, That was for somebody here tonight. Your relatives know who I’m talking about. Ok.
What about couples and families? Your sitting there with your two Godly children and, you know, and you just say to your wife, “Unbelievable, isn’t it. What an unruly failure parental....” And you just go on about this other family. You just sort of huff your way out of the sanctuary. Now the truth may be that God looked at you and your wife and you were kind of , you were wooses , spiritually you were just wooses. You just wanted to be saved and hang out. And so he sent you a couple of prissy little kids that just turned to the right page in the hymn book and they just thrive in church culture. Now he looked at this other couple. Now this couple was sort of made for missions. They were sort of frontier, on somewhere in India, out there, you know, they were just made for pioneering.. So God said, “Look At That!”. And he said, “I’m gonna send them world changing kids”. You see, so there they go, leaping over the pews . And there they just destroyed the organ. Now the fact is that your initial judgement may be exactly right. They may be a veritable portrait of parental failure. Don’t say it; don’t even think it!!. Cause you don’t know it. You see what I’m saying? Impute to them the benefit of the doubt just breathe out a little intercession. Thank you Lord for my lovely, Henrietta, or whomever is beside you, and Lord bless this dear family, give them grace, Lord, for those energetic young people. Some kind of thing like that.
What about Leaders and their lifestyles. Their priorities. Their activities. Their possessions. I mean all the ministry gifts see things differently. I mean , you know, the evangelist sees , Jesus, the evangelist. If you’re a Mark Anderson, that’s what you see. And so, when an evangelistic gift looks at a pastoral gift, they say, “When are these guys gonna get out of their seats and into the streets. When are they going to be like Jesus who left the 90 and 9.... you see what I’m saying? They’ll use a very shepherd metaphor, actually, as a point of temptation to criticize the pastoral gift. And then the prophetic person is not even looking at us. They have their face toward the Lord and everything now and again they turn around and glower at us and say, “Your hurting the Lord. Stop it!”. You see what I’m saying? And it’s kind of like, they see Jesus the prophet, that’s the one that’s illuminated to them in the scripture. His name is Prophet, Priest and King. And you know, a person with a teaching gift their stuck in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the word and the word....” and I can’t even quote it that shows you where I’m at! And their probably sitting in a huff right now during this message , thinking “the mangling of scripture is the problem with the body of Christ. Because they are seeing me through their gift. There is a temptation in the very division of labor that we have. There really is. There’s a whole issue of seeing the privilege but not the price. I mean, I’ll tell you a story that really makes me tremble. It’s a story of Moses and Miriam. Now Cora, and those who were in that rebellion, found some comfort with Miriam. Remember that story? And she just joined with them, and a little bit of murmuring. And really all they were saying was, “Can’t God speak to us too?”. And remember what happened. God smote her with leprosy for the rest of her life. I remember reading that for the first time in my life, as an adult in my twenties, really thinking about it. And thinking, “God, that’s a little harsh”. I mean she’s just murmuring, light fixtures murmur and air conditioner’s murmur and we’re just venting air. She just had a bad day and just said a few negative words , you smote her with leprosy for the rest of her life!!! But as I asked God that question, you know the picture that came to my mind? It was a little baby swirling off down into the Nile flood. And you know what? That, technically, was infanticide. They would do that in those days. An unwanted child was often left out and exposed. Our orphanage in China is really still a result of that practice of unwanted children just being left outside. Now, we know the back story. We know that’s not the intent. As Miriam, as a young girl, put her little baby brother in the Nile flood it was an act of faith. But in terms of the circumstances, as he swirled down stream there was no guarantee of anything. It was an act of faith and obedience. You see what I’m saying? In other words, she saw Moses begin to pay the price for his ministry as he swirled off down that river. And it is so easy for us to forget the price someone’s paying when we see the privilege that is associated with that. And that’s why God smote her. You see the issue there of familiarity is a temptation, you see that? And we gotta be so careful. So careful. Never compare yourself with someone else’s privileges. We don’t know what the price is. We just don’t know. We do not know each other’s stories and so we are to refrain from unrighteous judgements.
Ok what about people who’ve become depressed and discouraged? Does that mean they are just a spiritual looser? What would you have said to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane ? Come on Lord, this is the will of God. Why all of that depression? You know. You see. Sweating as if it were great drops of blood. That would be an unrighteous judgement. You need to weep with those that weep sometimes and just shut up. And try out on them your little angle, your well-worn stuff that you have become confident in. Like a one note piano player.
What about people who are weak or sick?
What about people who have legal or financial or organizational problems? I know a pastor, in fact here in town, where he had about 1/3 of his staff and his congregation quit. You probably heard about it. I don’t know what you think but I think the reason why, you know, they had that split. I could see it coming myself, I think it was . I think the guy was a little overbearing. And you know the church I’m talking about? I hope not cause I’m making this up. My point is this. That’s the way we talk. We think we know. Now let me say this to you. Father God had 1/3 of his staff quit and they war in heaven. And he was perfect in his wisdom. Perfect in his justice. Perfect in his love. So when you observe somebody in their business, in their family or their church going through a big mess you being very careful what you are saying. Because it may not be, that that view from your keyhole of your point of view, is that which God is seeing from his Throne.
Well there is a whole lot more of these but, you know, I feel personally convicted enough. I need to go on to something positive. And I asked God for a promise for us tonight so let me just close with the promise. I was asking the Lord about us. Those of you who are visitors just eavesdrop. I want to talk to my own family, here. I felt the Lord led me tonight to Zechariah 1-5. A wonderful, comforting promise. But I also felt a warning. I also felt God, he took me to Acts Chapter 8 and at first I was reading a little bit over the page where it was talking about Jesus and it says, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, like a lamb, silently, for his shearer. He opened not his mouth. He in his humiliation, his justice was taken away and who will declare his generation. For his life is taken from the earth ”. That’s actually, it was the Ethiopian enuch who obviously was not going to have children reading about Jesus who was not going to have children. That’s the context of that . It says there, “Who will declare his generation. His life is taken from the earth”. So it’s speaking there of a messianic prophecy, he’s reading from the old Testament. But what struck me was, “ he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, like a lamb to the shearer. He opened not his mouth” And I just , that’s actually the passage God gave me in reminding me about that little checklist on unrighteousness judgement here today. Just, I was struck by those words, “He opened not his mouth”. Because Jesus has to be the plumb line in standard for my own attitudes. But I felt led to this over the page. Now this is not for this audience, but this is for someone in this audience. Acts 8:18. Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the Apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money saying, “Give me this power, also that anyone on whom I may lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit ”. But Peter said to him,
“Your money perish with you because that you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. You have neither part nor portion in this matter for your heart is not right in the sight of God . Repent, therefore of this your wickedness and pray God and perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven of you, for I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity”. Now I want to give that as a sold warning to somebody here tonight. I am faithful to God. I do not want your blood to be upon my head. We can aspire to spiritual ministry for motives of self-interest an that classic story, the story of Simon who did get converted and become part of the public entourage following Philip The Evangelist but then approached the Apostles in their ministry seeking to hang out with them and to gain some kind of mystique and empowerment through hanging out with those spiritual leaders. And then found himself exposed in that moment when he tried to trade. And we gotta be very careful to not trade with God. Come before the Lord. Abandon Yourself. Remember when you were a kid in the youth group and you said I have decided to follow Jesus , no turning back , no turning back. Everyone of us needs to go back to that position tonight in God and Lord I have decided to follow you . That’s the deal. Not decided to follow on the basis of Blah, Blah, Blah. We are not turning God into a divine Bellhop. Making him into a servant to our expectations within a religious system. He is Lord and there is mystery in that. We have followed him out the door and whether we are crawling after him or walking after him or jogging up beside him, we have decided to follow him and we are not turning back. And that’s our position. And of course, this apostolic statement goes to the root. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bond by inequity . So the sorcery, the false anointing that his was functioning came because he was functioning. He was a smooth charismatic religious character. That before Philip the Evangelist even arrived, the people that attributed to him the ministry of representing the face of God. It says it right there in that Chapter. So he was part of the religious establishment but actually he was harboring in his spirit offense. And God used the moment of harvest and the visitation of the Holy Spirit to not only bring blessing to the many but to expose false leadership. Now here is the Word of the Lord for all of you. Zechariah 1:16 , “Therefore the Lord says to this family here in Kona tonight, I am returning to Jerusalem, I am returning to Kona with mercy. My house shall be built in it, says the Lord of Hosts. And the surveyor’s line shall be stretched out over this campus, over Jerusalem. Again I proclaim saying, “Thus says the Lord of Hosts, my cities shall again spread out through prosperity. The Lord will again comfort Zion. And I will again chose Jerusalem. I submit that to you tonight by the Holy Spirit as the word of the Lord. A word of hope and encouragement. As I was seeking the Lord, What do you want to say to us? Because we’re tired, the day has been long. We’re assembled in a meeting like this because we hope Jesus will speak to us. There’s lots of interesting people in the world but we came here tonight because we hoped the Living God would speak to us. And so we receive that promise into our spirit, Lord. We tremble before you. We thank you for the plume line of the Scripture of the Sin of Unrighteous judgement. Lord, I need that. I need that every few weeks, it seems. To look again at your standard. Because I’m a mouthy person full of too much to say that often pollutes my spirit. And Lord I just humble myself before you in the midst of my family and say, “Have Mercy Upon Me Lord”. And all of us to us tonight say, “Have mercy upon us, Father. We come before you and we confess..”. In fact, let’s stand to our feet and let’s just say something together cause I can hear a kind of muttering out there that a lot of you are trying to identify with my confession and so I just want to lead you. Lets just say this together before God. “I acknowledge judging as my sin. I acknowledge judging as my sin. I withdraw my accusations. I withdraw my accusations. I ask for your mercy and I receive cleansing. I ask for your mercy and I receive cleansing. Now if you’ve been hurt and of course, that’s part of life, and as I’ve said in Christian Community we are more vulnerable to that than the pagans are in their community, because of our high expectations. But if you have been hurt release forgiveness. And one of the best ways to release forgiveness is to see the other wounded child. It’s kind of like a lot of people have to forgive their parents. Some of you .... I believe there is an adult out there and I believe you’ve been thinking during this message of one of your parents. Now your parent is a person quite late in life and you’ve always looked up at them as a looming authority figure but I want you to now look down at them from the lap of God and release grace to them and see them as who they really are. They’re just another wounded child who was carrying the legacy of the wounds of past generations. Now lets say to all of these sources of pain that our in our life that we associate to certain personalities, lets just say I release you from that. Grace to you. Grace to you. Grace to you. I don’t hold that against you. In an accounting column, I revoke the columns. Grace to you. Grace to you. Grace to you. I thank you , Lord Jesus, for coming tonight. You indeed are our prophet, priest and King. Thank you Lord for taking us in your embrace which is one of kindness and severity. But there’s nobody like you, Jesus. We will always follow you. Thank you Father for having mercy on us. Amen
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