I'm actually going to talk tonight about the
peacemaker.
The peacemaker.
The reason is simple.
Last week I talked about Christ bringing division,
right?
That Christ is going to bring division into
our homes, into our workplace.
Everybody left here going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah.
I don't need it.
Yeah.
All the fights I'm getting into, you know,
it's their fault.
Because, it's because I'm following Christ.
And Jesus said, do not think that I
came to bring peace on earth.
I did not come to bring peace, but
a sword.
For I have come to set a man
against his father, a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother
-in-law.
And a man's enemies will be those of
his own household.
People say, Jesus said that?
Yeah, the reason is, once the light of
the world came here, the darkness hates the
light.
People don't like for me to talk about
Jesus.
They don't want to pray in Jesus' name.
They don't want to have anything to do
with Jesus.
So when you stand for Christ, when you
stand for truth, that in and of itself
is going to bring division, right?
And so we left here going, yeah, I
don't care.
I'm on fire for God.
I don't care if it brings division.
I don't care if it hurts people.
James said it.
Well, now we need to stop, and we
need to make sure that's not the case.
Because although the truth offends, right?
The truth is going to offend people.
Our attitude shouldn't.
And I said that last week, and I
actually want to do a whole sermon on
this, because if you look around, conflict is
everywhere.
Or is it just me?
Oh, good.
That was a close one.
Right?
It's in our homes.
It's in the workplace.
It's in our families.
And guess where else it's at?
You knew that already, right?
Conflict is everywhere.
So I didn't want us running out of
here thinking, well, if I'm divided with somebody,
that's their problem.
James said that the truth is going to
bring division.
And it will.
When you stand up for truth, you've seen
this, right?
Those who stand up for truth, they talk
about Jesus Christ.
People say, get out of here.
I mean, look at now the Navy chaplains.
They want to remove prayer.
They want to throw the Army, Marines, everybody
else in there, right?
The whole military.
Get prayer out of it.
You can pray to everybody, except don't pray
to Jesus Christ.
That name offends.
That name upsets people.
And there's no peace.
There's conflict.
Because when the light of this world came
here, and there's now conflict with the prince
of the air, the prince of darkness, it's
a conflict that we cannot escape.
But Jesus says, here's how you need to
act when you go into conflict.
Because that's an important truth to remember, that
the truth will offend, but our attitude shouldn't.
Well, how in the world do you pull
that one off?
Hence the need for this sermon, right?
We desperately need this.
And I want to throw this out there.
There's a recommended, sometimes I recommend a book.
I'm reading one this week.
It's called The Peacemaker by Ken Sandy.
It's endorsed by a lot of people that
we look up to.
It's a very good book on this whole
issue.
And if it doesn't convict your heart, nothing
will.
But I want to draw a little bit
from that, but I want to draw primarily
from Scripture.
And when I talk about this topic of
the peacemaker, I like what his definition is.
He says the peacemaker is someone who breathes
grace into a conflict.
So if you're a peacemaker, you're going to
bring grace into the conflict.
You're going to breathe grace into the conflict.
That's what a peacemaker does.
It doesn't mean that it's void of conflict.
It doesn't mean they're a master negotiator.
It doesn't mean they flee conflict.
It doesn't mean they beat everybody up and
win the conflict.
We actually breathe grace into the conflict.
So when there's a conflict in my home,
right?
Well, it's hard because you've got a pastor
and a pastor's wife.
So they both better be breathing grace into
conflict, right?
Or with my children.
Or in the workplace, you breathe grace into
that conflict.
Not the flesh.
There's a big difference there.
One will get you in trouble.
The other one will help lead that conflict
to the direction it needs to be.
And I want to clarify, I'm not talking
about being a doormat.
I'm not talking about fleeing.
I'm talking about taking conflict to God and
breathing grace into it.
And being the instrument that God has called
us to be.
And the introduction to this message is pretty
short.
I just want to start with this.
Peace must be fought for.
It does not come naturally.
Did you realize that?
If you want peace in your homes, you
want peace in your workplace, you want peace,
it will not come naturally.
If you just say, well, just whatever comes,
it will get ugly, it will get worse.
Because peace has to be fought for.
You have to fight for peace.
The reason is because your flesh wants to
do this, God says do this.
So there's this constant tension.
You've got to fight for peace.
And I want to just encourage you tonight,
if you want peace in your homes, in
your workplace, make a commitment tonight, I'm going
to work on peace.
I'm going to fight for peace because it's
not just going to happen.
And don't we do that a lot?
Well, if I just ignore it for a
few days, that will get better, right?
And then what happens?
It doesn't get better.
In the same way that a fire doesn't
get smaller when you put gasoline on it.
When you allow conflict to grow, it actually
does grow.
It gets worse because days, nights, weeks, it
just grows and grows.
And then you have angry tantrums.
You fly off the handle.
You say words that I haven't said in
15 years.
Where did that come from?
Anger, throwing things, hitting things.
It just explodes because it wasn't dealt with
initially.
That's why this area of peacemaking is so
important.
And Paul doesn't let us off the hook.
Romans 12, 18.
If possible, what Paul is saying here, if
it's possible, because sometimes it's not possible.
You can try to make peace.
You can be the bridge builder.
You can do all you've done, but people
are still going to ignore you, be mad
at you, and not want to talk to
you.
Well, at least you've done all that you
can do.
So Paul says, if possible, so far as
it depends upon you, be at peace with
all men.
So there's no wiggle room here.
Paul is saying, if it's possible, as much
as it depends upon you, be at peace
with all men.
And I found during the studies, when there's
conflict, God isn't necessarily saying that both parties
will be resolved.
Both parties will be filled with the spirit
of God.
Both parties will do things right.
He says, as much as it depends upon
you, not what this other person does.
And I would, man, if I could get
this one point across in marriage counseling more
than anything else, somebody's got to be the
peacemaker.
If not, here's what keeps happening.
No, no, no, no.
I'm not going to do it.
They're going to do it.
Years later.
So God says, as much as it depends
upon you, be the peacemaker.
Be the peacemaker.
Because normally what happens is when you become
the peacemaker, the other person says, you know
what?
I've been wrong in this area, too.
I need to work on that, too.
I'm not good in this.
Can you and you just you just you
just stop the whole argument because you became
the peacemaker.
That's why Paul and Jesus, many times you'll
see you'll see these hard commands in the
New Testament.
Right.
Like as much as it depends upon you
live at peace with all men and submitting
to government and all these things and submitting
to authority.
The reason is the gospel.
And the New Testament tells us to err
on the side of grace.
I have no problem erring on the side
of the flesh.
That'll come naturally.
If I don't do anything, it'll that'll happen.
So that's why I do err on the
side of grace, err on the side of
being the peacemaker as much as it depends
upon you.
You could fill in your name in that
blank.
Right.
As much as it depends upon you and
you and you, you be the peacemaker.
But guess what?
Unless you're different than me, I don't like
that.
They need to say they're sorry.
They need to come to me as I
wait.
Right.
We see I didn't do anything wrong.
No, I sure didn't.
They did it.
They took it wrong.
No.
And we just wait there.
And he says, no, as much as you
go.
And I found if you're going to make
peace, a lot of times you've got to
be the initiator.
Another hard one is this can be a
hard sermon.
I'm telling you up front.
If you don't like it so far, there's
the back.
I can tell anybody.
But you've got to be the initiator.
You've got to initiate peace.
If you wait for it to happen on
its own, it will not happen.
So Paul's crystal clear.
If it depends upon you, be at peace
with all men.
And in Matthew 11, Jesus said, Come to
me, all you who labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest.
Isn't that interesting that rest and peace are
synonymous?
You can't have one without the other, right?
Anytime you think of God's peace, you think
of God's rest.
Anytime you have rest, there's peace in your
house.
If I'm resting in my home while four
little kids are in bed and when they
get up, there's not peace.
They go together.
But listen, that sentence might be for somebody
tonight.
I felt this in the first service too.
Jesus is saying, If you come to me.
See, I don't know where you're at with
God.
I have no idea where anybody's at in
this room.
I know some people are in a fire
for God.
I know that some have slipped away.
I know some are searching.
I know that some just outright reject him.
Whatever it is, Jesus has a promise here.
He says, If you come to me and
you're laboring, you're heavy laden, you've got guilt,
you've got shame, take it to the cross.
Take it to me.
I will give you rest.
Listen, this isn't some pie in the sky
philosophy that we can't come up with.
This is truth.
I like the song that they sing that
God came down from heaven to save us.
And it hit me during the first service
that we're this little blip on the map
of the universe.
We're nothing.
And God came down.
He said, I'm going to save you.
I'm going to redeem you.
But you cannot continue to reject me.
You must turn to me.
And when you do, then I will give
you rest.
Come to me all your week and heavy
laden and I will give you rest.
There's an initiative.
There's something in our part.
We have to do that.
We have to accept that.
We have to embrace it.
And then he goes on to say, take
my yoke upon you and learn from me
for I am gentle and lowly in heart.
And you will find rest for your souls
for my yoke is easy.
My burden is light.
And that tells me there is a there
is a yoke to carry.
There is there is a burden that we
have to carry.
I'm hoping to bring it next week.
But it was in the paper today.
I wrote about does God have a wonderful
plan for your life?
And I spoke about that a week ago.
And we have to realize that sometimes there's
a burden to carry.
It's hard.
Life is difficult.
And we need to prepare people for that.
Listen, but his yoke is light.
If you allow him to carry the burden,
you give him the fear and the doubt
and the anxiety.
You give it to him.
There's a little yoke to carry, but it's
light compared to what you have to do
without him.
But it starts with come to me.
Come to me all your week and heavy
laden, and I will give you rest.
And I've noticed this, that doing it God's
way in regard to peacemaking, doing it God's
way releases the heavy load and brings peace.
Even though it's hard, when we do it
God's way, it brings a lot of peace.
And the load has been lifted.
You know, don't you hate those turmoil that
I've got to make that phone call?
Seems like I do that every week now.
But it's like, you know, you're constantly in
turmoil.
God says, listen, if you give this to
me, if you do it my way.
Yes, there's going to be a yoke.
There's going to be a burden.
But if you do it my way, there
will be a release.
There will be a peace after that.
Because if you just carry around conflict, it
doesn't just go away.
I believe in toxic emotions.
I believe that you can carry anger and
unforgiveness and bitterness and just carry around your
dying inside spiritually.
And one conflict on top of another, on
top of another.
You have people say, I've had it!
I've had enough!
Enough!
Why?
Because of all the conflicts that are not
being resolved.
And they're holding on to it.
That's why when we do it God's way,
we release it, we release it.
I can honestly say that as weeks go
by, when I give the conflicts to God,
when I do it God's way, not Shane's
way, and even though relationships might be fractured
or hurt a little bit, there's peace.
We've done as much as it depends upon
you, live at peace with all men.
And I know what many of us are
doing right now.
I wish such and such was here to
hear this one.
Right?
And it's usually the better half who's not
sitting next to you.
Don't worry, I'll get the video out.
We'll make sure they hear it.
But for now, I think God's speaking to
us in this area.
But we don't want to.
If I initiate, that's what I want to
do, right?
You want to negotiate.
But when you're a peacemaker, if you initiate
it, God will bless that.
He'll bless that attitude.
You'll be filled with the Spirit of God.
You're doing things right, even though the other
person is not.
But we're so worried about the other person
that we don't do things right either.
And what happens?
Nobody wants to be the initiator in this
area.
And honestly, I don't like this part about
forgiveness and peacemaking, but it requires that I
take the step.
If somebody has an offense against me, I
take the first step.
And I don't like that, right?
They need to come to me.
And in the church, it happens a lot.
With this many people, I sometimes offend people.
I know it's hard to believe, so I
have to take that step.
Hey, if I said the wrong thing, if
I did the wrong thing, if I forgot
to say hello, if I forgot to include
you, you know, I have to take that
initiative.
It's a constant thing.
But then the load's been lifted, the offense
has been dealt with, and it's all been
worked out.
So you have to fight against what you
don't.
Because I know nobody wants to do this.
I know this is one of the top
ten sermons that people do not want to
do.
Oh, Shane, tell me about repentance and worship
and faith and trusting God and all these
things, but don't talk about, you know, peacemaking.
That's a hard one.
You know why it's hard?
Pride.
Can we be honest tonight?
Pride is why we don't initiate peace.
God says, I hate pride, I hate the
proud look.
Because you take on, it's funny, in this
area of peacemaking and conflict, you either take
on the nature of Christ or you're playing
into the devil's hands.
One or the other.
I'm either breathing grace into the situation or
I'm adding to the conflict, and the enemy
loves that.
He is the deceiver.
He comes in and brings deception and backbites.
So the next time you're having huge conflicts,
you have to ask yourself, OK, what's coming
out of me?
Because when a vessel's struck, right, what's inside
comes out.
And I believe that conflict shows us the
true condition of our heart.
Who we are is not who we are
right now, smiling, hey brother, how's it going,
good, love you.
Who we are is going to be when
we get home and things aren't going our
way.
That's who we really are.
Then people say, I'm just not myself today.
Oh, that's who you are.
That's who I am.
We just come here and we play.
We play, but then we go home.
That's who we really are.
And I think God wants to help us
in this era of peacemaking.
Matthew 5, 9, I love this verse.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called sons of God.
A.W. Tozer said, whoever defends himself will
have himself for defense.
But let him come defenseless before the Lord,
and he will have for his defender no
less than God himself.
Wow.
Thanks, Matt, for sending me that one this
week.
Whoever defends himself will have himself for defense.
And I think a lot of times we
are defending ourselves.
I mean, do you have battles at work
or with other people?
Nobody's going to give.
You're trying to defend, they're trying to defend.
You don't see my side, you don't see
my side.
And you just go through life that way.
But when you allow the Lord to defend
us, but let him come defenseless before the
Lord, and he will have for his defender
no less than God himself.
And what he means by that is you
don't just come defenseless.
Part of our defenselessness, if that's even a
word, is you give it to God.
You're saying, Lord, I have to conduct myself
in the power of the Holy Spirit.
I have to do this graciously, and I
have to do it the right way, and
I'm defenseless without you.
And let him come in and be your
rear guard.
Let him fix the situation.
And the Bible talks a lot about bearing
with one another, right?
Colossians 3.13. If you bear with one
another.
And that means kind of like put up
with.
I mean, people do things you don't like?
Or is it just me?
Okay, good.
Thank God.
Wow.
But people do things you don't like.
Paul is saying bear with one another.
So if we're supposed to model forgiveness, if
we're supposed to bear with one another and
forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven
us, how can we do this unless we've
been offended?
So look at offense next time as the
way to apply Scripture to your life.
I mean, I think we want to go
through our whole life.
No, I don't want to get offended.
I'm going to try to avoid all this.
But no, God says, listen, when you get
offended, this is the way to exercise the
power of the Holy Spirit in your life.
When you don't like something, bear with one
another.
When you get offended, forgive one another.
So he's telling us how to do it.
So the next time you get offended, just
remember this.
It's going to happen on this side of
heaven.
But how we respond to that is vitally
important.
I want to clarify this too.
Peacemaking does not involve negotiating the truth.
When you make peace, you don't negotiate the
truth.
Peacemaking involves changing our attitude and actions to
match the character of God.
So when I go into a peacemaking situation,
you're not there to negotiate the truth, right?
A.W. Tozer said, God loves the peacemaker,
but he abhors the religious negotiator.
So when churches get together in this ecumenical
movement, let's just all come together and have
peace at the expense of truth, that's not
good.
So peace never means negotiating the truth.
It involves changing our attitude and actions to
match the character of God.
And what I mean by that, I don't
know if I should clarify, but a lot
of times churches come together, you've got interfaith
movements, and a lot of different churches, not
just Christian, a lot of different beliefs coming
together for the sake of peace and unity.
But truth can't be negotiated with.
Truth can't be bargained.
Truth can't be, you know, we'll take out
the cross of Christ and you can have
this.
You can't.
Why can't all religions come together?
Because they're either all wrong or there's one
that's right.
You can't negotiate and be a peacemaker.
Now, I can treat people with grace and
love and forgiveness, and I can show the
character of God in my life to them,
but I cannot be one with them in
regard to truth, if that makes sense.
In other words, if you've got all these
different religions wanting to get together and have
peace and unity, but you've got to compromise
the truth, that's not peace and unity.
That's compromising the truth.
So always remember that.
Peacemaking is about changing our attitude and actions
to match the character of God.
And I've noticed that I want to say
things a lot of times that make me
feel better, right?
In the midst of conflict, I want to
say something that's going to make me feel
better, but it won't make me look better.
We want to get the last word in.
We want a little shot here, a little
right hook, a little left hook.
We want to say things that make me
feel better, but it doesn't make me look
better in the end.
It's all about demonstrating the character of Christ.
And I know this is a hard one,
but I make no apologies because I know
that we can do it, and I know
that you'll benefit from it.
So how can we undo the emotional pain
that we experience from conflict?
How?
First, understand that it's a spiritual battle.
Our mind is where battles are won or
lost.
Those who do not forgive or release bitterness,
anger, and hurt never experience freedom, happiness, or
true restoration.
Did you catch that?
Those who do not forgive or release bitterness,
anger, and hurt never experience freedom, happiness, or
true restoration.
And some people say, you don't know what
they did to me.
You don't know what they did.
I can never forgive.
You don't know.
No, I don't know.
But you have to remember, forgiveness isn't saying
that you were wrong and the other person
was right.
All forgiveness is you're saying, Lord, I release
this.
I can't hold this toxic emotion in anymore.
Lord, I release this.
It doesn't mean they're right.
It means I'm not going to hold it
anymore.
I'm going to give it to you, God.
Yeah, they caused me tremendous pain.
Yeah, they upset me.
I'll never trust them again.
That's okay.
But you can't hold on to all this
unforgiveness.
It'll become toxic and aware on you.
And I think sometimes we forget that.
We think forgiveness means I was wrong.
You're right.
I forgive you.
It's actually the opposite.
They wronged you.
And you're saying, I'm giving that to God.
Let Him be the judge.
I forgive you.
I release you.
I don't want to hold that on anymore.
And then the freedom that comes from that.
Because if God's Word says it and we
don't do it, that's not a good place
to be.
Anytime God's Word says to do something and
we don't do it, there are negative ramifications.
Life is difficult.
Life is a lot more challenging than it
needs to be.
It's hard as it is.
Why in the world would we want to
carry around all these emotions?
I've had to forgive people in some difficult
situations, but I'm so glad I did because
now I've been released.
Because that's how you experience true happiness and
joy.
Ephesians 4, 31, 32 says, Let all bitterness.
It's interesting.
Let all.
That tells me we can do it.
See, as Christians, we can do this.
It's not like, oh, the devil made me
do it.
Oh, I just can't help myself.
Oh, I'm just passionate.
No, you're just angry.
So we can do this.
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil
speaking be put away from you with all
malice.
You might say, what are some of those
words?
Well, clamor.
Do you know what clamor is?
Come to our house and all of our
kids are acting up.
That's clamor.
A lot of noise.
Not productive.
Oh, one's crying.
Like clamor.
He's saying, listen, some of our lives are
like this.
Noisy and loud and unproductive.
He says, put all that clamor away and
evil speaking and with all malice.
Malice is the action of evil.
So you're putting away the action of evil
and evil speaking.
He's saying, put away all this and be
kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God and Christ forgave you.
Wow.
And be kind to one another, tenderhearted.
That would stop a lot of arguments.
In a nutshell, it's saying this.
Remove your cutting remarks, negative comments, arguing and
destructive words and replace them with gentleness and
sensitivity.
Forgive one another quickly and completely as God
forgave you.
Here's the thing to remember.
Conflict will linger as long as we let
it.
Have you noticed that conflict doesn't just disappear?
It just sits there and just waits.
Just waits.
It'll go a week or a month or
a year.
Just sits there and waits.
Thanksgiving might bring it up.
I haven't seen some family members in a
while.
Me and my wife are laughing about this.
The holidays are supposed to be fun and
relaxing, and now it's almost like walking on
eggshells.
I can't say this to that family member.
I can't say this to that.
And you're just walking on all this tension,
all this stress.
A lot of times, unresolved conflicts.
Things that have never been discussed, that should
have been discussed but never have.
So conflict will linger as long as we
let it.
So here's a few points I want to
get into.
Number one, in resolving conflict, you have to
count the cost.
Actually, this is number one.
This is an introduction to the points.
You have to count the costs.
Count the cost of conflict.
First, ask, can I overlook this?
Can I overlook this offense?
Proverbs 19 says, good sense makes one slow
to anger.
And it is His glory.
It's His glory to overlook an offense.
Meaning it's to your benefit.
If you overlook an offense, it's to your
benefit.
So the next time somebody upsets you, welcome
to my life on a daily basis, right?
It's to your glory, it's to your benefit
if you overlook it.
If it can be.
I'm talking about little things, right?
Here's a few examples.
Facebook, right?
People go on there and they saw my
email three days ago.
And they still haven't responded.
Or people get mad at me.
Shane, you looked at my email two days
ago and you never responded.
Well, yeah, I was going to.
It was busy.
I didn't know I needed to respond to
an offense.
So we're holding these offenses.
We just hold these offenses.
You know how we get people back?
Well, I'm just not going to email them
back.
I'm just not going to text them back.
They're not going to see my face for
a few weeks.
And we think we're getting them back.
No, we're not getting them back.
You're hurting yourself.
And then pride gets in the way, right?
We get prideful.
So I'm just going to chill down.
But God says release these things.
These are little offenses.
Those are so little.
So little.
The offenses.
I just went to visit John Washington this
morning.
He's a quadriplegic.
I accidentally said paraplegic a few weeks ago.
I told Mike I'd fix that.
He's a quadriplegic.
Can't move his arms and legs.
And I saw him this morning.
I even had to give him a drink
of water, you know, talking to him.
He's got more joy than most people I
know.
And I leave there convicted every time going,
God, what is wrong with us?
In a hospital bed?
For months?
We have the audacity to...
They took my parking spot.
They didn't say hi.
They didn't get back to me.
God, help us.
I mean, this is unbelievable how we can
allow these little offenses.
And that's what the enemy does.
Remember, the Bible talks about, I think it's
Nehemiah, that the small foxes, not Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes,
the small foxes ruin the vine.
It's the little things that get in.
The little things that destroy your marriage.
The little things that destroy your walk with
God.
It's the little things.
And then they get bigger and they get
bigger and they get bigger.
So you have to count the cost.
Can you overlook it?
Can it be overlooked?
Because most offenses, the little ones, I tell
you right now, should be overlooked.
But what do we do?
We put it in a special little compartment
of our heart.
Throw the key away.
And we just hold it right there.
And I'm going to get them back this
way.
I'm going to get them back this way.
And we just hold these things.
And he says, it's to your glory, just
let this go.
And Jesus said in Matthew 5, come to
terms quickly with your accuser while you're going
with him to court.
And he paints this picture of two guys
walking down Avenue M, right?
To the courthouse.
I'm going to sue you.
No, you're not.
And he says, listen, don't even go there.
You don't know what's going to happen.
Just work it out.
Just resolve it right now.
Because if not, he'll hand you over to
the judge.
And the judge might hand you over to
the guard.
And the guard will put you in prison.
So it's about counting the cost.
And if you look at how many frivolous
arguments do we get into for months, whether
money or property, we should have counted the
cost.
We should have never went into that.
I just read in the paper somewhere, I
wish I would have printed the article, a
guy, he won $250,000 on a lawsuit,
but by the time he paid his attorneys,
he ended up with $1,000.
And he said the emotional toll of going
to court and all this, so we've got
to count the cost.
Is it really worth it?
And look ahead.
Look at what this is going to cost
you.
Come to terms quickly with your adversary.
Don't try to fight them.
Of course, I'm not talking about some people.
Somebody's always going to come and say, well,
Shane, what about this?
What about this?
Well, of course, there's some things you can
take to the Lord.
And like Paul said, hey, I'm a Roman
citizen.
Why are you treating me such way?
You exercise your rights.
But a lot of other times, we can
lay our rights down.
It's not worth it.
A couple of examples, I think I've given
one before, but years ago when I first
started in real estate, that's what I did
before I planted this church, is I was
showing my mom wanted a house up in
Tehachapi, a little house.
And I couldn't make it up there, and
she called the agent on the sign and
said, hey, I just want to look in
this house.
My son's a real estate agent.
I'm not going to use you.
I just need to look in this real
quick.
And they're like, oh, yeah, no problem.
I'll just open it for you.
It's her listing anyway.
You think she'd want the business.
So I never hear from her again until
the deal's in escrow.
And now she says, I'm coming down with
the broker of Keller Williams, and we want
full commission.
I'm like, how did this happen?
So long story short, they come down.
We're in this boardroom, and they're going to
take it to the realtor board.
I'm like, oh, gosh, how did this happen,
right?
So I said, well, how can we work
this out?
What do you want?
She goes, well, we'll take $500.
I'm like, okay, here you go.
Bye.
I mean, you could lose the whole thing.
You could be drawn.
Yeah, but Shane, you could have fought for
that.
You didn't.
Yeah, but count the cost.
She knew my stance.
Count the cost.
Was it really worth it to go and
maybe lose this and reputation?
I was the recurring cause, she said, and
I was the reason.
And look at this guy.
So you just lay that down.
Another example, my wife will remember this, is
we sold her a Mazda Tribute car, a
little truck, I think.
I don't know what they called it, a
happy SUV.
And about $5,000, two days later, three
days later maybe, I get a phone call,
and he says, hey, the light came on
this.
I'm like, okay.
I mean, you're in Simi Valley, I'm here,
and you bought it.
I don't know what you want me to
do.
He goes, well, I took you to a
transmission place.
It's $2,700.
You told me this.
I'm taking you to court, you know.
Pastor.
He sells a lemon vehicle on the paper,
you know.
So I said, hey, bring it back.
I'll give you your money back tomorrow.
He said, oh, my gosh.
I can't believe it.
Thanks.
He gave me a handshake.
I gave him one of my books, right?
Talking about God a little bit.
This is what I did.
I said, I'm a Christian.
I want to do.
Okay.
So the whole situation was turned around.
Now, I don't want you to think, oh,
Shane, you're so great at this stuff.
No, I'm not.
Those are just two examples in five years.
But this whole point of counting the cost.
Do you really want to go to court
for that long?
And it's always my right.
It's my right.
Not really.
It's your choice.
Yes, you can go to court.
Yes, you can probably win.
In some cases, court's fine.
That's what it's there for.
But a lot of times, God calls us
to just ask ourselves, does this glorify God?
Can people see the nature of Christ in
me and in my decisions?
And count it.
Is it even worth it?
Should I just reconcile?
And there's so many times, isn't there, where
I just want to be, man, I was
right.
Darn it.
Man.
I just thought of this one, too.
Christmas is coming up.
I think it was the first year we
started.
This church said, we're meeting on Saturday nights
and Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday night.
And they said, I think I've told you
guys this before.
You have to apologize for my repeat stories.
But they said, you know, we actually need
the building on Saturday night for our Christmas
Eve service.
So maybe you guys can move your service
to earlier time.
You know, everything starts, you know, the flesh
comes out, right?
What?
We can't do that.
How are we supposed to know?
So knowing what the Bible says, not with
my flesh.
Hey, no problem.
Sounds good.
Gave us three weeks, I think.
Got postcards out, changed time for just for
that day.
And it was full.
It was a great service.
No big deal.
But the flesh wanted to go down to
the office, right?
Wait a minute here.
This isn't going to happen.
And how would that look?
So laying down those rights, counting the costs.
And I'm just walking through this because I'm
not perfect in this area.
I can think of other times where I
didn't do this and it didn't result in
anything good.
So that's the first thing.
Ask, does this glorify God?
And will it glorify the Christ they see
in me?
Will it reflect the nature of God?
Now, sometimes you have to take a hard
stance and people aren't going to like it.
And as long as your heart's right, you
did what you could do, and you're gracious
and loving, that's OK.
So the second thing is which we all
know this one.
Remove the log out of your eye first.
Jesus said, you hypocrite.
First, remove the plank from your own eye.
And then you'll see clearly to remove the
speck from your brother's eye.
So you see how many conflicts could go
bye-bye if we did the first two?
It's not even worth it.
I'm going to overlook it.
And while I'm removing the plank out of
my eye, because when somebody truly removes the
plank out of their eye, truly, I'm not
talking about, you know, a lot of people
say, yeah, I've done this, and I know
I'm wrong, but, but, and yeah, I've removed
the plank.
Yeah, no, no, no.
It's just a bunch of hot air.
When somebody truly removes that plank, their attitude
makes an entire 180.
Instead of attack mode, they're being gracious and
loving and forgiving and humble.
Instead of claiming this and wanting this, they're
doing the opposite.
They're humbly approaching the situation.
They're breathing grace into the situation.
So you can tell when somebody truly removes
the plank from their own eye first.
If they have to tell you they did
it, they probably didn't do it.
Right?
Like if the husband has to go home
and say, I'm the husband of this house.
Not going in a good direction.
Right?
If you have to tell people that.
If I have to come up here and
slam, I'm the pastor here, you better listen.
Problem.
Big problem.
Because, right?
The attitude is not right.
Same thing with this.
And I hear people say this.
I have removed the speck.
I have removed my speck.
She has it.
Let's camp out there and talk about what
removing the speck is.