In any relationship or in any season of your
life you choose what you magnify. I hear single people talking about they're lonely. I hear
married people talking about they're lonely. I heard a married couple the other day talk about
having no friends and it brought them to tears. Well, there was a time where they would have
said to each other, "All I need is you." Then you get with them and you realize, "Well,
they're not a savior, and if I'm going to be happy in this season of my life I have to choose what
I magnify, what I make bigger." What you magnify you get more of. Focus. I'm deciding any given
moment in a relationship what I'm focusing on. I was so mad at my dad. I was so mad at that
man, because he was impossible. In the last two years of his life he was impossible.
He wouldn't let us take care of him, so he moved away. He went to go
live by himself. He was dying, but he wouldn't let my mom take care of
him. He wouldn't let us take care of him. Anytime we'd try to put a plan together he
would just blow it up. I was so mad at him. It got to the point where anytime I
would try to talk to him on the phone, we couldn't have a conversation. This went on for
months. When we would get on the phone, he would go into a rage within two minutes. It would start
here and it would quickly escalate. I was so mad at him. I would send people I would pay for to
go and take care of him and he would fire them. He fired four people I sent
to take care of him because he wouldn't stay here and let us take
care of him. I couldn't see at the time that he wasn't responding out of his own
will; he was responding out of his pain. When you're in something like that,
you don't see the person's intentions or you don't see the place it's coming
from. You only feel how it's affecting you. I was so mad at him and I just
decided, "Well, fine. If he has to die and we can't speak… I can't have somebody
treat me like this." I was so mad about it. In the middle of being so mad about it, my
father-in-law said something to me that made me so upset, because the last thing you want to
hear when you're upset is something like this. He said, "Well, try to remember the good times. He did a lot of things right." "Well, shut up." This is the one time you're
not allowed to say amen while I'm preaching. It was Father's Day of 2012 or 2013.
Forgive me for being imprecise on the date. My memory of it is that I was driving home
from vacation with the family on Father's Day, feeling bad that I couldn't
do anything with my dad, with my father-in-law's voice in my
head. "He did a lot of things right." I came to an idea, and I asked Holly if we
could pull over and switch and she could drive, because we were going through the town where
I grew up, where my dad was living by himself. I had the idea, "Write down one memory
for every year that he was your dad and take it to the house and give it to him. One
good memory from every year he was your dad." Man, I'm telling you, when I first started making
that list my pen was moving so slowly. It was all I could do to get a letter on the page I was so
mad at him. I was so mad at him because all I could see was how he was treating me right now.
When I started writing, I started remembering. The first thing I remembered was when
I played on the Pirates and he was my coach and we sucked. We sucked so bad
he wouldn't let any of us swing at the plate. He made us all bunt every time
we were at bat for the whole season. So I wrote that down: "Bunting." It
was my first word. It got me started. Then I remembered at about age 14 that he couldn't
find a way to connect with me because I was into music and he was into fishing. He took me to
a punk rock concert in Ladson, South Carolina. The worst music you've ever heard in your
life was played in that VW hall that day, but he took me and sat with me. I wrote
down, "Punk rock concert, Ladson." Then I started remembering how after he gave his life
to Christ he wanted me to go to church with him. One of his customers in his barbershop had
invited him to their church revival. This was not like a Code Orange Revival that's uplifting.
This was like a hellfire and brimstone revival. The preacher was preaching so hard. We
went out to this little country church and my dad and I wondered, "What have we
gotten ourselves into?" They seated us on the front row. We were there on the front row in
this independent fundamentalist Baptist church. All the women are in dresses and everything.
We're in tee shirts and we're sitting there in the church not knowing what we're getting
ourselves into. The preacher got so fired up at one point this little boy stood up and
shouted, but he didn't say, "Amen," "Praise the Lord," or "Preach, Preacher." Here's what the
little boy said. He said, "Let the wild hog eat!" I never heard that shout before. So I wrote down, "Let the wild hog eat." I got to the house and knocked on the
door and handed him the list. I said, "Here." I didn't even hug him. I said,
"Here, I made you a list, 32 things." He said, "How did you remember this stuff?"
Because you choose what you magnify. Our story had a happy ending. We reconciled. Not
right at that moment. At that moment I handed him the list and walked out. I didn't want to see him.
But it started something. I know reconciliation is not always possible on that level, and I'm
not even saying that it's always preferable. What I am saying is that whatever you've lost, if you choose to magnify it, you're
going to live in what you lost. Whatever they're doing to you right now, if you
want to magnify that… You can forget the thousand nice things they said because of the one text they
sent that said that one thing they weren't even thinking about, and in your mind you will begin to
magnify. Man, we should use these more in dating, because we don't look for
any warning signs in dating. We don't ask any questions
about their bank account. "Well, they love God." Yes, but
do they have grocery money? You need one of these in a dating relationship.
You need to see as many specks as you can see. Then you have to use it for a different
purpose in marriage. You have to use it in a close relationship where you're committed. If you come to this church
looking for crap to get mad about, let me save you a whole lot of time and searching
effort. You will find what you look for. "Seek and you will find." Isn't that what Jesus said? That
applies to the good things and the bad things. I don't know if we understand the power we have to
magnify things in other people that we can bring out of them, the good stuff. I don't know if we
understand the power we have. I told you at the beginning of my sermon that I've been traveling
a lot lately and preaching. When I do that, I always feel like I'm cheating home. No
matter how much I try… I'm probably not doing as bad of a job as I think I am,
but I tend to be really hard on myself. Wherever I'm giving, I'm feeling guilty about
where I'm not giving. Are you like that? It's like it's never enough, so I'm sitting
there feeling bad. One Saturday morning, I had all of my notes for the sermon that weekend
spread out on the table. I'd been gone somewhere else preaching all week, so I'm feeling kind
of behind and just a little bit distracted. The kids are all around me. They're trying to
get my attention. I'm paying them no attention. They're screaming my name and I'm not
listening. I know I'm not listening and I kind of don't care because
I have to get this sermon ready, but I kind of feel awful about it. I'm just
feeling that thing like I'm stretched apart. If you don't have a lot of little kids
around, maybe this wouldn't apply to you, but I think everybody has felt this way at some
point. "I can't give enough to anybody anywhere." I was feeling really like a
failure. It was a very mild level, but I felt it. I was feeling uptight and
all that stuff. I need to be a good dad, but I also need to be a good pastor,
and I don't know how to be both at the same time. I'm sitting there feeling all this
and the kids are yelling and I'm kind of mad at them and annoyed with them, but it's not
their fault. I'm the one who has been gone. Holly speaks up and she goes, "Kids!
Your dad is a great man. I hope when you grow up that you grow up
to be a hard worker like your dad. He has been gone all week preaching, doing what
God called him to do and providing for our family, and now look at him. He has these notes
spread out all over this kitchen table." Let me tell you something.
In just one little speech she made me bigger. I'm telling you,
ladies, you can make a man bigger. You can. You can make him stronger. You can
make him bring in more groceries from the car. Just tell him how strong he is. I
don't know where she learned this, but when we first got married,
I was carrying in the groceries from the car one day. (I don't do that
anymore. That's what I had kids for.) I was carrying in the groceries one day
and I had a couple of bags, you know, bags around my arms, bags everywhere. I'm coming
in the house and Holly said, "How do you do that?" I said, "Well, it's easy. It's easy for me." I started curling the grocery bags. I put a grocery
bag in my teeth. I put one around my neck. Why? Because she magnified something so small.
You magnify the little thing and it gets bigger. You magnify what you don't have and it
gets bigger in your mind until all you can see is what you don't have. Do you magnify what
they're not or do you magnify what they've got? So what is your focus? Jesus said you can
look at the speck or you can look at the plank. It's interesting to me, because
knowing very little about carpentry I do realize the sawdust comes from the
same material the plank is made of. Usually when I see something in someone else that makes me angry or offended it's because
it represents something that's in me. I told you there were two tools (and there are) when it
comes to the relationships that matter the most and when it comes to the things
that offend us in other people, because everybody has issues and
most of us have a subscription. Do you know what a great dating conversation
would be? "What kind of crazy are you? I can't tell from this distance,
but if I get close to you…" All these issues… You have to decide,
"Am I going to focus on theirs or mine?" I think the key to this thing of loving the Lord
our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength,
and loving our neighbor as ourselves… Sometimes you have to put down this and pick up this and just ask God, "So, Lord,
what is it that you're trying to teach me or what is it that I can change? I tried changing
Charlie and Charlie won't change. So here I am, Lord." In the words of the King of Pop, if
you want to make the world a better place, where are you going to start? Sometimes you have to start with your own self.
God says you can't even help the people you love when you're infected with the very issue you're
trying to solve. It's "Love the Lord your God." That's one half, but it's also, "Love your
neighbor as yourself." That's the other half. You can't have this half right and not have this
half right. You can't treat people like garbage and worship God at the same time. You can't get
this right, though, until you get this right. You can't treat people well if
you don't know God loves you, and you can't love God until you
have received his love freely. That's what makes it a cross. That's what
makes it complete. It's this and it's this. One thing I never noticed, though… Jesus said,
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." We go around trying to love
people and we're not even whole within ourselves. The other thing is that he said, "Love
your neighbor as yourself." I've always known that was a command, but
it's also just an observation. The way you love your neighbor
is the way you love yourself. If you haven't received God's acceptance of you,
you won't be able to accept anybody else as they are, because you don't even love yourself. A lot
of times it starts there. It starts with saying, "God, I can't go into these relationships
anymore half empty and needing people." Sometimes I'm so needy. I was asking God the
other day to help me not be so hard on others, and God said, "Well, first you're going
to have to not be so hard on you." What starts here flows here,
flows here, flows here. I just wanted to begin this series
today asking you, "Where is your focus?" If another person is at the center of your focus
and they're responsible for the fulfillment of your joy, you're going to always be miserable. If
you're trying to do God's job in fixing somebody else and you have a focus on what they
need to become, let me tell you something. There is no worse strategy for your
own personal satisfaction in your life than to place that responsibility
in someone else's hands. For all of us who have been saying, "I need
someone to complete me," or "I need you to complete me," or "I need this," the message I
think God has for us today is, "Give me my job back. I'm a good God. I'm a good Father. I know
what you need." Here's the difference between God and everybody else in your life. Not only does
he know what you need; he has what you need, and he's the only one who has what you need.
