About This Talk

Russ De Vos has experienced both incredible highs as a successful leader and devastating lows after a moral failure that nearly cost him everything. What he has learned through his failures however have made him the man he is today, and now he encourages men - don't waste your failure.

Transcript

Russ De Vos: It's really a theme I've noticed... the story, the telling of the story. And before I ever came  to this group, to IMPACT one of my life verses, is Psalm 107 verse two. And it says this: "Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story, those he has redeemed from the hand of the enemy." And that word redeemed really has the connotation of recovered; those who he has recovered. So what I'm gonna share with you really is a recovery story,. And the title for the teaching this morning, or the talk is, let's see if I can do this. Is it... which? This one right here is, Don't Waste Your Failure, but I've kind of subtitled it: Six Lessons that I've Learned from Urinating on the Electric Fence. See guys, it's been said that there are three types of men. The the first type, he learns from reading books. The second type, he learns from watching other people. The third type, learns from peeing on the electric fence. I'll give you a three guesses as to which one describes me. Any other hands in here? You guys, I seem to have to learn the hard way. So I'm gonna share six lessons that I've learned from peeing on the electric fence.

And, so let me give you some background. Number one, just to begin, I was a son of a pastor. I grew up as a PK in a family that loved God. It loved the word of God. At age three, I was memorizing scripture all the way up to age 17. I'd memorized thousands and thousands of verses. I hated it, but I couldn't go out to play until my verses were memorized. So I memorized them, and I'm so grateful now. But, at an early age, I had a sense of God's hand and calling on my life. I don't know if you can identify with that, but even at age five, I can remember just a sense that God had his hand on me. There was  a purpose and a calling on my life, but I never, never, never wanted to be a pastor. And I swore and I spoke it publicly many times. I will never be a pastor. Note to self. Note to self, don't ever tell God that you will never do something. I think he just chuckles. I think he's just like, ha ha. Yeah, right.

And so, three things I swore I would never do. Number one, I would never get married older than my dad. He was almost 30. And I, so I'm never gonna wait till 30 to get married. I was older than my dad when I got married. Second thing I swore I would never do, I would never go to this little conservative Bible college up in Canada called Prairie Bible College. I graduated from Prairie Bible College, some of the best years of my life. And the third thing I swore I would never be a pastor. Well, here's the story. I had grown up poor, you know, as a pastor's kid. I remember we were a family of six earning, my dad made $700 a month, and many of my mom and dad's fights were around money. And, we were just at the end of our last pennies every month, every month as a pastor. and so  I, I saw the poverty of ministry. And then when I was in fifth grade, the senior pastor who, under whom my dad served, he had a brutal affair with his foster daughter. And it just shattered the church. I mean it split the church. All my friends, all the young families left. We ended up staying. My dad was very loyal, but I associated being a pastor in ministry with a setup for poverty, for burnout, for temptation, for scandal, and for failure. That is what I saw ministry as. So I swore never . So I went to school, I went to college on a wrestling scholarship. And I was a poli-sci major, gonna be a senator in the state of Oregon.

And in an all night prayer meeting led by our 6' 11" center from the basketball team from Brazil, Eduardo. God, at 11:30 at night in the little prayer chapel called me into ministry. It was as clear as a bell, and I couldn't believe it, but I knew it was the call of God. And so I shifted. I left university and went to that little Bible college. And for three years I studied and that was the direction the Lord took me in. I took my first position as a volunteer pastor, a youth pastor, 1996. And I loved it. My group was third grade through college . And it was quite a mishmash, but it was so much fun. And then I joined the staff of a large growing church in Bend, Oregon in 1999. They needed somebody to corral the wild horses of the junior high.

And they chose me and I surrendered to it. I was scared to death, broke out into a cold sweat when I was asked to do it. But God just flourished that ministry. We saw so many young men and women come to Jesus and really commit their lives to Jesus. And then I was promoted up into the executive team, onto the teaching team and flourished. And in 2004, my wife and I planted our own church in Bend. And it started with 17 people in a gated community. And in three years, we saw it absolutely explode three services. God was doing incredible, incredible, incredible things. I felt like literally I was on top of the world.

And that brings me to my first lesson. And that is that pride will utterly wreck me. How many of you can identify pride will utterly wreck me You guys It says in Proverbs 23:7, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." So I wanna ask the question, how do we know if I'm a proud man? How do I know if I'm a proud man? It's not our words, but our thoughts that will reveal whether we are proud. Our thoughts. And as I have worked with men and as I have coached men, what I've come to encourage men, and that is to become a watcher of your thoughts. Become a watcher of your thoughts, because your thoughts are who you are. And so I wanna share four thoughts that I held in my prideful heart.

Number one was this success is because of me. This success is because of me. John Maxwell, he said this, "When successful, be careful. You're not as good as you think you are. When you fail (or when unsuccessful) be encouraged, you're not as bad as you think you are." And I think that's really the truth, isn't it? Very, very true. Romans 12, three says, "Don't think of you yourself as better than you really are. Be honest in you're evaluation of yourself." And for me, guys, I can tell you as I tried to deconstruct all of what happened in the failure in ministry and we will get to that in just a second. When was it that I began to think that this success was because of me? But it was an ingrained thought that pride led me to. Here's the truth: John 15:5, and I've been meditating on this verse a lot, Jesus said very clearly, "Without me, you can do nothing." And I used to think 'nothing' meant - well, most things. Literally up until just last couple months, I've really been pondering this. I thought, well, sure I can do some things. But from Jesus' standpoint, if he's not leading, if it's not his power, his authority, his presence, his personality flowing through us, whatever we're doing is a lot of nothing.

And I look back on the success and I have to tell you, I don't know how much of it, only God knows, was nothing because it was Russ taking the credit for it. Russ driving it. Russ's personality, Russ's motivation. Russ' fire. Russ' passion. It was about me. James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above." It's from above. Guys, listen, the truth is, I don't believe that it's because of us. It's in spite of us most of the time. We gotta understand everything we have that is good comes from God, everything we have.

Well, that led to the second lie that I was thinking, the second thought in my twisted heart. And that was this: God needs me. God needs me. As the church began to grow, people began to offer to send us on free vacations. We had a journalist from the newspaper who was following our church writing articles, kind of keeping tabs on what we were doing. But the thing that really put me over the edge was when we had a group of men come up and say, we're gonna form a team of bodyguards for you. And when that happened, I can remember instantly in my heart, I thought, now I'm king. God have mercy. God have mercy.

And I began to believe that God needed me and that I'm very important to God. Now, God loves me. I'm very valuable to God, but God doesn't need me. God doesn't need you. In Genesis 1:1 when God said, let there be light, I wasn't there consulting. And in Revelation 21, when he creates a new heaven, a new earth, he's not gonna ask me to come and consult him, then either. God doesn't need me. God doesn't need us. Guys, here's the radical, crazy truth is that he has somehow in an insane decision in my understanding, he's called us to join him in this grand and great thing called building his kingdom. He's allowed us to be part of what he's doing. Can you imagine the honor that that is? But he doesn't need us. He didn't need me.

That led to the third, the third lie.That was in my heart. And that was this. God owes me. God owes me. It was with this mindset of the successes because of me, God needs me, that I stepped my foot onto a path that would ultimately expose me, and it would wreck me. On January 1st, 2007, just after midnight, I sent a text to a young married woman from our church. And so began a covert conversation that ended in disaster. I thought, this will never go anywhere. God is using me to reach the city. We're building something great here. God will intervene. He will keep me from going too far. Nothing will ever happen. This is just about blowing off some steam. And I justified it and I believe the third thought that God owes me. Listen, I'm killing myself for God. I'm working 70 hour weeks. I'm raising up leaders. I'm leading a church that is reaching our city and reaching our world. Listen, I've given 95% of my life to God. The least he can do is let me keep 5%. I operated by the 95/5 rule. I give 95% guys - 95% is a lot. But surely God won't mind if I keep 5% to myself. God doesn't operate that way. It's all or nothing. He wants us all. He wants it all. But I thought God owes me.

And that led to the fourth twisted thought in my prideful heart. And that is this, God will suspend the rules for me. God will suspend the rules for me. My philosophy was dance as close to the fire as you can without actually going into the fire. Get as close to the cliff as you can without actually going over the cliff. There is a powerful story in Proverbs chapter seven about a young man who is infatuated with a, let's say promiscuous woman. And it describes him as walking as close to her house. When he goes home at night, he drives by her house when he comes, when he goes on his walks at night, he walks by her house. He does, he doesn't go up and actually knock on her door, be when he gets as close as he can to her house, hoping to get a peek through the window, hoping to see her, hoping to maybe have her come out. But it says this in Proverbs seven. It says, the young man lacking sense passing through the street near her corner. Then in 7:13, it says, she seizes him. She seizes him. Listen, he didn't seize her, but he was just getting close, just getting close, just getting close. And then she seized him. Wow. And then it says suddenly he follows her as an ox, goes to the slaughter and it will cost him his life. Guys, if we believe somehow the 95/5 rule, if we believe that we can get as close to the fire as possible and not be burned, we need to figure out what God's view on this is.

Because I operated by, I was that same fool in Proverbs seven, in Proverbs five, verse eight. It says, do not go near her house. The remedy biblically for temptation is run, get away. For men, we wanna stand and fight. No, not with temptation. Temptation is kryptonite. The answer for temptation is get out of there, get away. And I didn't do that. I didn't do that. I tried to get as close as I could because God will suspend the rules for me.

There's a scripture that I've really been pondering that it's so, I know that in the aftermath of everything that happened, which I'll share in just a moment, I asked myself, where was God when I needed him? Where was God when I was battling temptation? Where was he? Did he abandon me? And then I realized first Corinthians 10:13 says this, "No temptation has overtaken you, but that which is common to man. But God is faithful. He will never give you or never allow you to be tempted beyond your ability. But will with the temptation, provide a way of escape so that you may be able to bear it." So here's the question. Where is God in our temptation? He's holding the door to the fire escape. He's right there. God is right there with us in the temptation, holding the door open, saying, here's your way. Here's your way out. Here's your way out. God, in his grace, is giving us every opportunity to go out. Guys, if you're battling with temptation around, I want you to understand Jesus is with you in that temptation, and he's opening the door of escape for you. 

But you gotta choose to take that, that way of escape. And I didn't. I didn't. So here's my story. I didn't take the way. On March 1st. I had been texting this woman now for two months, and of course it gets worse and it gets more seedy and more seedy and more seedy. I'm on my way, believe it or not, to Starbucks, to prepare my message for Sunday. And I remembered that we had a video that we had loaned them at her house. And so, what do you think I did? I need to pick up that video. So I drove over to her house and I ended up being there for three hours. And I was there when her husband came home. It's still hard to say that I was there when her husband came home. And in the next 36 hours, everything was exposed and my life completely unraveled, completely unraveled. My belief was that God will suspend the rules for me. The truth is, the rules apply to me. God is not a respecter of persons. The rules apply. So on March 4th, three days later, I preached my last message to the crowd of people that I loved. I'd poured my life into these people. I loved these people, but I preached a message to these folks. I led them in communion. I walked off the stage and I said to myself, this is likely the last time I'll ever see these people. And it was, that was the last time I ever saw 'em.

On March 5th, I resigned and all hell broke loose in my life and my marriage. Psalm 18:27 says this, "You rescue the humble, but the proud you set in a lower place." Get your mind around that one. "You rescue the humble, but the proud you set in a lower place." Guys, listen to this. Two weeks prior to my, my resignation, due to the fact that our church had grown so fast, I was given the largest raise that I'd ever received. Our income over doubled. When I resigned, I was outta work. I was unemployed. And the gracious guy from our, a dear friend from our congregation who ran a landscaping business, offered a job to me for $15 digging ditches for sprinkler systems.

There's a statement that I think is very important that we understand. It's this: sin will take you further than you wanted to go. It'll keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and it'll cost you more than you want to pay. Is that not the truth? And pride is the mother sin. Pride is the mother's sin. We were here in Seattle, and I'll get to that in a moment. And I was on a sales call. I was pulling off onto I-405 out of Woodinville, Bothell area. And it was several years after moving up here. And I was still wrestling with God every day, almost every single day in the car. And I remember guys as vividly as possible, as vividly as I can imagine, even to this day. This was like 15 years ago, just screaming in my car. How could this happen? And it's one of the only times God has spoken audibly to me. He said one sentence, "How could it not happen?"

And I never ask that question again. That's exactly the truth. Proverbs 16:18 says this, "Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." How could it not happen? Pride will utterly wreck me. That's the first lesson. Number two, God's discipline is a priceless gift to me. God's discipline is a priceless gift. Andy Stanley made this statement. He said, "I've concluded that nobody plans to mess up their life. The problem is that few of us plan not to. And then that is, we don't put the necessary safeguards in place to ensure a happy ending." And so with me, I had not put in the necessary safeguards. I had not cultivated my character in my heart. And here I was, God asked me to leave the room of ministry.

I wanna give you a couple quotes. This is so, this is so important. John Maxwell said this, "Charisma will will get you in the door, but character will keep you in the room. "Charisma will get you in the door, but character will keep you in the room." Boy, when I heard that, it just absolutely smote my heart. Guys, our culture almost worships charisma. But we don't say a whole lot about character. Character will keep you in the room. Well, I got booted out of the room because I had charisma, but I didn't have character.  And so God went to work on me. He demoted me from the room of ministry into the school of hard knocks, into the school of discipline, into the school of pain. And a verse that so has ministered to me, because that was the first time in my life I ever contemplated suicide. I never dreamed that I would even say that. But there was a moment in the midst of the darkness of that time that I actually thought it would be better for me to take my own life.

Hebrews chapter 12, five and six says this, "My child, don't make light of the Lord's discipline. Don't give up when he corrects you. Don't give up when he corrects you," says, "For the Lord disciplines those he loves. And he corrects those that he accepts as a child." Guys, so often if we're in God's woodsheds, it's easy to say, he's rejected me. He holds me in contempt. He doesn't love me anymore. And our, the enemy can whisper to us that God's discipline is because he has turned his back on us. It's exactly the opposite. God's discipline is his toughest love. It's his most powerful love when he says, I love you enough that I will not leave you in that state. I have created you for something so much higher than this sin. So I'm gonna allow you to experience pain because I love you and I accept you guys that should set us free. The discipline of the Lord is some of his strongest, most powerful fervent love. And I'm so grateful for the discipline of the Lord. I hated it for years. I chaffed against it for years. One of the counselors who met with me not long after I left ministry, he said this, "When God expands your circle of influence, he's enlarging your faith. When he constricts your circle of influence, he's building your character."

And so God constricted my life. And constriction is not comfortable. Constriction is not comfortable. I had a statement that I spoke to our, the men of, particularly the men of our church over and over and over. If it doesn't work at home, don't export it. And I really believe that, that who we are starts at home with our wife and our children. Don't put on a face to guys outside the home when you're somebody totally different  in your own home. Who you are is who you are at home. And so if it doesn't work at home, don't export it. Well, the Lord said, Russ, you're a hypocrite. And I love you too much to leave you as a hypocrite. So he constricted my life from a congregation, a thriving congregation down to four people. And the Lord basically said, if you can pastor four people, your wife and your three children, I may expand your territory again.

Because I preached it, but I didn't live it. And so God said, I'm gonna teach you how to pastor, but you're gonna start at home. There was a news item that was on the news up here in Seattle some years ago of a tree that fell on a car in Seward Park. I don't know if many of you or some of you remember that it crushed the dad who was sitting in it. The little girl in the backseat lived. After the fact they did an autopsy on the tree and found that it was rotten in the core. And when I heard that, the spirit of God spoke to me and said, Russ, that was your life. You looked strong. You looked big on the outside, but your core was rotten. And as men, we so often jump outside of our relationship with God, our relationship with ourself, our relationship with our wife and our kids, the core rings of our life. But we jump outside and we cultivate work because that's where we get our validation. That's where we get our identity. And the Lord is saying, has said to me, Russ, I'm gonna build your identity from the core outwards. You can't live with a rotten core anymore.

And guys, that's why I'm so thrilled with what we're doing here, because what what we're doing here is saying we gotta work on the core. We don't just figure out how to build a good business, how to make money. What I've found in my coaching of men is that when we take care of the inner rings, the money takes care of itself almost immediately. But we're just fixated. We gotta bring in the paycheck. No, we have to build our relationship with Jesus, number one, with our ourself, number two, with our wife, number three, and our children, number four. And then we work on the outer rings. In that order.

And if we get it out of order, we will be like that tree that falls. We'll look good, but one strong wind and down it comes. And I'm watching men's lives all over the place that are falling over in the strong wind because their core is rotten. My core was rotten . So I'm so grateful for the discipline of the Lord that he was willing to put me in his woodshed to build character. So let me move on. Two thoughts about God's discipline. One, it often involves constriction. Number two, it is saturated with compassion. When God disciplines us, guys, it is absolutely compassionate. It is kind, it is loving. It's not punitive and mean. It's loving and kind.

Which leads me to number three. The third lesson - that God's grace is utterly in spite of me. God's grace is utterly in spite of me. It's been said that justice is getting what we deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is getting what we don't deserve. Does that make sense? Justice is getting what we do deserve. Mercy is not getting what we do deserve, but grace is getting what we don't deserve. I was a Calvary Chapel pastor. Our church was basically modeled after Calvary Chapel. We taught grace, grace, grace, grace. But I will tell you from a practical level, I didn't have a clue what grace really meant.

When we moved up here, for the first two years up here, I had spent 30 hours a week in my Bible preparing messages for Sunday. I didn't touch my Bible for two years. It sat on the shelf collecting dust. And for two years going to appointments, I worked for a construction company doing outside sales. I battled it out with God in my car. I will tell you, lightning should have blown me out of the water so many times for the way that I talked to God, I had both middle fingers up against God. I was raging against God. I told you I didn't wanna be a pastor. And I just wrestled it out with God. Meanwhile, the Lord blessed us with a house. He blessed me with awards and all sort my, I flourished in business. It was just God's kindness. God's kindness. God's kindness. God's kindness. I remember driving into the driveway one day and I had just gotten the biggest bonus check I'd ever seen in my life. And I remember parking the car and just sitting in the driveway and thinking, so that's what grace looks like. So that's what grace looks like. I didn't know what grace was. I thought it was because of my performance. I thought it was because I did well. I thought it, I really thought it was payment for what I did.

But I didn't do anything deserve any of this. In fact, I did so much not to deserve it. But the Lord just kept blessing and blessing and blessing and being kind. So God's grace is utterly in spite of me. Lesson four, Jesus is now precious to me. Jesus is now precious to me. You guys, it is when I, as a pastor, if I were to describe to you my relationship with Jesus as a pastor, let me ask you... how much time do I have left? Five minutes. Five minutes. Okay, we'll, we'll make it. We will get there.

The story in the end, at the end of the book of John, Peter has denied Jesus publicly after saying, these all may deny you, but I will never deny you. Peter sits around a fire and as the heat rises and he's... You are with him. You are with him. Peter denies Jesus three times. And then he looks Jesus in the eye and he goes out and weeps bitterly. Fast forward and there's Jesus and Peter sitting across the fire and Peter and Jesus with all the other disciples sitting around the fire, get into another dialogue. And Jesus asked Peter, "Peter, do you love me?" He uses the word agape, which means, Peter, am I foremost utmost in your life? Would you give up everything for me? That's what that word means. Peter says, Lord, you know that I phileo love you. What does that mean? Lord, you're a good buddy. You're a good buddy. I give you five stars on Yelp all day long. And then Jesus asks him again, "Peter, do you love me? Would you give up everything for me?" Lord, five stars, you're a good buddy. You're a great pal. The third time Jesus sassy said this, "Peter, am I even a good pal?" I mean, this is a powerful conversation. He questions, "Peter, do you even consider me your pal? Your buddy, your friend." And Peter, it says, was grieved. And he says, "Lord, you know all things you know that I think of you as a pal." He never got to the place where you could say, I value you above everything else. But he would. He would. And we know that Peter history records was crucified upside down, not willing to be crucified the same way Jesus was 'cause he loved him so much.

Guys, as a pastor, I can tell you, if somebody asked me, "Russ, do you love Jesus above all else?", I would say, man, I respect Jesus. Man, I think Jesus is amazing. But I could have not have looked you in the eye and said, I love Jesus. I was like somebody with a nose up against the window, looking in at all the candy, all the good stuff in the store. But standing outside looking at it, it has been the pain. It has been the suffering. It has been the failure. It has been all of this that has allowed me to stand here to this day and say to you, guys, I can tell you with everything in me, I would give everything up for Jesus. Jesus now is precious to me. Precious to me. And it's taken failure to get there. It's taken failure to get there.

Number five, God is not done with me. Guys, this is where we wanna drive the nail home. And that is this. After all of this happened, I thought for certain, I'm JV. I'm third team. My time has come and gone. God has used me up. I'll just ride the bench till we get to heaven. It's over for me. I had my opportunity. I blew it. It's all done. And I lived with that thought for years, for years. My last message that I taught before I walked off the stage was, believe it or not, on the book, on Abraham. I'd actually chosen the title before the final event happened that disqualified me from ministry. It was called this 'Trusting God with Your Failure' on the life of Abraham, trusting God with your failure. Guys, I don't know if anybody in the congregation really got anything out of it, but it was for me. It was for me. Jack Welch, the CEO of GE, there's a story of Jack Welch, where one of his up and coming executives made a decision. He was aggressive. He was a risk taker, but he made a decision. It cost the company millions of dollars. Jack asked to see that young man actually fly him from Michigan down to home base. The guy came into Jack's office and he handed Jack his resignation. Jack took a look at it to determine what it was. He says, "Resignation? I will not accept your resignation. We've just invested millions of dollars to train you."

Guys get this. Our failure is what God uses to train us. Yeah, our failure doesn't disqualify us. I believe our failure actually, if we will step into God's school, it actually trains us. It qualifies us in a way we've never been qualified before. Our test, literally, I mean guys, this might sound like jargon, but get this, our test becomes our testimony. Our mess becomes our message. When we bleed in failure, it gives us the privilege to bless other people. I get to share my story with you guys right now. I didn't have this story before. My life was kind of a charmed life. I couldn't identify with anybody who was suffering, anyone who had failed. 'Cause my life had just been this charmed life: 39, everything went, blew up. But I didn't love Jesus. I thought it was all about me. Now, I love Jesus and I realized it's not about me.

And that's the the last lesson I learned. This is not about me. Our lives are not about us. My dad said it over and over to us growing up: "Only one life, it'll soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last." Guys, that is, so put that on your tombstone. Only one life, will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. Jesus is the hero in our lives. Jesus is the hero. His kindness, his grace, his goodness, his wisdom in our life, his ability to take our failure and turn it into something that brings glory and honor to him, that helps other people. Guys, if you're here and you've battled with failure, don't waste your failure. That's the last thought here is, is do not waste your failure. Understand that your failure is an opportunity. Romans 8:28, I'll end with this. "All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose." I wanna give you a simple one line that essentially summarizes that verse. There are no problems, only opportunities. That's who Romans 8:28 essentially says, there are no problems, only opportunities. All things work together for good. He turns it all. That's who God is. That's who we serve.