Bobby Schuller - Scrape The Barnacles Off The Boat
Many of us, if you grew up in a place like America, you grew up Catholic or Presbyterian or Pentecostal or something, and when you go to that whatever piece of paperwork that they ask you religion, you check the Christian box or Catholic box or whatever it is. And so many of us, we sort of think of ourselves as Christians culturally, but it's not a way of life for us. It's been amazing for me how many Christians or people I've met that have become Christians who would say to me, well, I didn't really become a Christian, I always was, but now I'm into it, you know?
I'm asking you today to get into it. I'm asking you today to not hover in that weird gap of cultural Christianity where it doesn't affect your life at all, you don't really believe much or pray much or participate, but you would say, yeah, I think I'm a Christian, kind of. I want you today to really believe, to really commit your life, to know with full confidence if today is my day, I know where I'm going. If I'm friends with Jesus, he's gonna let me in. Isn't that a great thing to have, a blessed assurance? You can't just wing it through life, you need a savior, you need a teacher, you need a guide, you need a friend.
If you're asking, like, is he trying to convert me? The answer is yes, hundred percent I am trying to convert you. I want you to make a decision today to become a Christian. I love it, I love my life with Christ. It's the best decision I've ever made, and you can do it, too, today. If you've made that decision today, why don't you text me the word HOPE at the number on your screen. I want to pray for you, I want to know who you are, and I want to think of you when I think of people coming to know the Lord. Hey, here's a good question for you, if you asked Republicans today why is this country so messed up, what are they gonna say? They're gonna say Democrats, right?
Now here's another good question, you go ask a Democrat, hey, why is this country so messed up? What are they gonna say? Republicans, ah. Hey, let me ask you another question, if I were meeting a couple, and their marriage wasn't going so good, and I sat down and I asked the husband when his wife wasn't there, why is your marriage so bad? What's he gonna say? It's my wife's fault. If I meet that lady later in my office, and I say, hey, why is your marriage so messed up? What's she gonna say? That's my husband's fault.
You know, he doesn't buy me flowers anymore, was it Barbara Streisand, right? If I ask a guy who's down on his luck, friendships are bad, relationships are bad, can't meet a girl, can't get married, job isn't going well, hasn't got a raise in five years, barely hanging onto his job, toxic relatives, and all this stuff goin' on in his life, no success, empty account, full of debt, out of possibilities, and I ask him why is your life so messed up? What's he gonna say?
Well, I'll tell you, it's Republicans and Democrats, right? He's gonna say it's my boss's fault, right? He's gonna say it's inflation, it's the fed's fault, right? He's gonna say it's my toxic relatives. You should hear what my mother said to me. You should hear what my father said to me. You should hear what my Aunt Mable said about me on Facebook. It's her fault. A man can't read something like that on line and expect to sleep at night. How do I sleep at night knowing aunt Mabel is saying all these things, I'm gonna sue her, right? Whose fault is it? Everyone else's fault, but here's what we all know when we're talking about this random guy who's down on his luck. His luck will not improve until his life improves. His life will not improve until he improves. We all know of this man that his life won't get better until he gets better.
That's easy to say, isn't it? Until I say that guy is me. That gal is you. It's hard. If you ask this man why, you know, why is your marriage so bad? He's gonna say, well, it's my wife's fault. If we ask him why are your finances so bad? He's gonna say whatever, but his marriage won't get better until he becomes an ideal husband, the kind of husband that his wife truly wants. Here's a good question, ask your wife what kind of husband do you want? Now, all of you just, oh, that's a galling question, right? Why? Because it's her fault. It's always been her fault.
Same thing, that's a great question to ask your husband, what kind of wife you want? Here's a better question, how do you receive love? See, we always give love the way we receive love, but husbands and wives receive love differently. So his marriage will get better until he decides to become a better husband. His finances, when will those get better? Right? He's profligate, he spends 110% of everything he makes. Used to be when you got to zero you were out, but now you can just go skatin' right on by. He's negative 10%, right? When will his finances get better? When he becomes financially smarter. When will his health get better? When he decides to become a healthy person.
You might say, well, Pastor Bobby, what does this have to do with my relationship with God? Everything. They are all threads in the tapestry of what everyone, most of all, you see the tapestry of your life. It is a tapestry you've woven. Your marriage, your finances, your health, and yes, your belief in God, your spirituality, are all connected under one thing: your vision and your plan for who you will become. You say to me, well, I don't have a vision, I don't have a plan. Well, that's a great confession. That's a great start.
If you make a plan, it'll get better for you. But can we say it's not going to get better for you until you get better. It's not going to get better for you until you become the kind of person that attracts into your life the things that you desire most. Hey, if you were to ask Bobby now, can I just say this for a moment, Jesus told us, hey, if you don't have a few people walk out of your sermon, don't worry, Irene's not walking out of my sermon. If have you don't have a few people walk out on your sermon, you are not being interesting enough. Can I say something interesting to you, something that hopefully will get at least one person to really walk out?
If you ask Bobby Schuller why is America so messed up? Forty nine percent of Americans will say it's Republicans. Another 49% will say it's Democrats, but people like me will say something like this, it's not. Turn off the news and look around. My friend, we cannot wing it through life. If you want to become something great, you have to see it first. You gotta write it down, you gotta lay before you the person you wanna become, the things you want to achieve, and the things you want to do. And, my friend, if you do that, your life will never be the same. Wow.
First Corinthians 10, the scriptures say, "I have the right to do anything, you say, but not everything is beneficial". We have a lot of those things in our life, don't we? All sorts of things, it's not a sin, we're not sinning, we're not violating God's command, but is it beneficial? "You say I have the right to do anything, but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good but the good of others". Two amazing points there in that scripture. Here's the first one, there's two types of Christians. I've been both of them, by the way, two types of Christians. There's Lloyd Legalist, that's a legalist Christian, and then there's a reward Christian. There's a legalist Christian and a reward Christian.
Reward Christian wakes up in the day and says I want to be like Christ, because that's the best kind of life I can live. I wanna be full of God's life and power. When I pray for people, I want to see breakthrough. When I speak, I want to speak in a sophisticated way that's full of Scripture. When I do things in life, I want it to be full of meaning and purpose and life and all the good things that come with becoming more and more like Christ. Here's what the legalist Christian says, can I watch that? Probably, right? Here's what a legalist says, can I eat that? Can I drink that? Can I do that? I could probably get away with that. I go over some gray line, I can always pray a prayer.
See, that's a legalistic Christianity that Jesus specifically was trying to prohibit. That's the thing we want to avoid. A vision of doing just enough to stay in and not be an outsider. It's the I have the right. Do I have the right to be profligate and wasteful with my finances? Absolutely, that's not a sin. You can do that. You earned your money, you can spend it any way you want. What about the media I consume? Can I watch this stuff? Can I listen to this music? Absolutely, a lot of the stuff you're asking about's no problem. Except it is a problem. It's not a sin at all, but is it helping you become that person you really want to be? Say, maybe it's not that bad, but if you look at consuming that stuff for hours, you kind of look back and you go, wow, that fried my brain and hardened my heart.
My personal development as a believer is not for me, it's for them. I need to become the man I'm called to be. Even though I'll benefit from it, I need to be that man for? My wife. I need to be that man for? My kids. I need to be that man for? My parents. I need to be that man for? My church. And can I tell you that that is a good thing to have in life? To have people that need you to improve, need you to develop and become who you're called to be. And this is the second thing Paul teaches from the Scripture, don't do it for your own good, do it for the good of others, why? When I do it for my own good, the flesh will kick in, and that's also me. That's also my own good, huh? But when you're doing it for someone else, hey, that's a good thing, that gives it power.
Here's a good goal, I wanna get in shape. That's a good goal. I bet almost everybody in this room has a a goal like that, I wanna get in shape. That's not enough. It won't get you there. Here's a better goal, I wanna be healthier so that when my granddaughter gets married in 10 years, I'm alive to be there with her. I know she loves me, and if I was gone, she would be heartbroken if I wasn't there. I want to be healthy. I want to see my grandson become a doctor. I know that I pray for him all the time, and it's gonna be about 10 years away before it becomes a doctor, but I want to be alive when that... so I'm gonna get healthy so I live to be with him on that day. That's a better goal. There's an even better goal than that, did you know that?
I want to get healthy so I can go to my granddaughter's wedding's a great goal, but a better goal is I wanna become the kind of person that's passionate about treating my body well, that's passionate about being healthy, so that I can go to all my grandkids' weddings and go to my great-grandkids' weddings. Hey, there's a great goal, and if you achieve that goal and look back 20 years, you'll say I am so glad I got up in the morning, that my back didn't hurt as much, that I was able to go upstairs like it was no problem, that my walking was better, that I not only added years to my life, but I added life to my years. That's a good goal.
I stole that quote from my dad, by the way. He wrote a book on that. I'll do a lot of stealing from my dad and grandpa. Being needed is such a treasure, isn't it? Being needed is, we don't understand how important being needed is to achieving what we want to achieve. There was a radio show back in the day, a brilliant clinical therapist would receive phone calls. People would call in with their problems. One of the hardest calls I ever heard, woman called in, she said, "I don't know how I can make it, my child, my daughter died, and I can't get out of bed, I can't go to the grocery store, I can't take a shower, I can't do anything with my life".
Now, when I took clinical therapy in graduate school, they would've taught me back then that when someone says something like that, you ought to empathize, don't give them solutions, don't solve their problems, and this good advice. It would say stuff like, oh, that must be horrible, that must be hard, but this phone call I heard something I'd never heard before, something I would have never thought of, she said to this mother, she did empathize, I can't imagine what that's like, every parent's nightmare, but then she said but don't forget your other kids just lost their sister, and they need a mom. And don't forget your husband also lost a daughter, and he needs his wife. And you could hear in her voice that she got a second wind, not that it didn't hurt anymore, but there was a purpose, a reason to get up and get out of bed. It was the people that needed her.
Wow, that's powerful, that's powerful. So in life when we design our life and prepare our life, we ought to think in our goals about who we are becoming for, and if you don't have someone in your life, get someone, even if it's a cat. It'll improve your life, I promise. But as we go along in life, we take on these things in our life called barnacles.
Now, if you're a SpongeBob fan, you know that that's the appropriate way to swear in Bikini Bottom. You stub your toe or get knocked on the head. SpongeBob Squarepants, a famous cartoon, and you're upset, you say barnacles, you know? Barnacles are these things that grow on ships, and they don't destroy the ship, they don't ruin it, but they don't help. They're the things that kinda grow when a ship sort of sits in the harbor for a long time. This metaphor was used by the reformed doctors years ago when they were reforming the faith. Now, we love our Catholic brothers and sisters, our Orthodox brothers and sisters.
We've had Father Christopher preach here and Henry Nouwen and others, but the reformed doctors wanted a simpler kind of Christianity, one that was only based on the Bible. And they said, you know, as the church went along and it was chugging away and going along through history, it took upon itself these barnacles, in their view, these icons and statues and things we don't want anymore, and we gotta scrape off the barnacles. They're not sin, but they're not good. We're gonna scrape them off. And boy, is that a good metaphor for life or what? As you go along in life to achieve your goals and the things you set out to do, you get these barnacles on ya. They're not destroying you, but they sure are slowing you down.
You might think of, you know, barnacles in your life, they're not sins, but they're not helping. I'm sure you've already thought of a couple barnacles, right, that are hangin' on the hull? You're always gonna have 'em, but there's somethin' about like when a ship sits in a harbor for a long time, that's when it really gets the barnacles. Speaking of Oreos, you know you want to eat less Oreos, and Hannah we'll get a hankering for Oreos from time to time, she eats super-healthy, but then she'll want double stuffed Oreos, and I'll go get them and I'll bring them back, and I'll come to get a cookie, and they're all gone. Amazing, it's a gift. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
And this used to happen on occasion, where you know, once every couple months she'd send me out, and I just didn't feel like going out, and then so I just started buying them, and when I go to the grocery store. She says you can't just buy them and keep around, then I'll eat them all the time. So I came up with a solution, and this is real, whenever I go grocery shopping I buy two packs of double stuffed Oreos and I put them in my safe. We have a safe upstairs, Hannah doesn't know the combo, she doesn't want to know the combo. And anytime she gets a hankering, I go in there and chik-chik-chik-chik, conk, coo-ooh, right? And I pull up, that's a way to handle a barnacle in our lives.
Someone asked me last week, do you have TikTok? And I say I do, I lost my log-in a month ago, and I haven't asked for it back from Dakota, my personal assistant. You know why? 'Cause TikTok is that good. You just sit down and you just start going video after video, and they're all funny and you go, go, go, go, go, and an hour goes by, and I went that was not in line with my goals. I mean, that could've been an hour where I could have helped my daughter with her homework or had a cup of coffee with my wife and asked her how her day was going or read a book on how to improve as a speaker or as a friend or in my profession, or that could have been a moment that I would have spent calling an old friend or visiting with my dad or having dinner with my mom or cooking something delicious, improving my skill as a cook, or any of these other things that I want in my life as I become the person I want to be, but instead, I wasted it on TikTok.
Some of you are saying I don't watch Netflix anymore because I've seen it all. Well, that's good, uninstall Netflix. There's 5,000 movies, it is not helping you become who you wanna be. You say, well, Pastor Bobby, I don't know, who I wanna be. Well there it is. Let's know, let's know, let's write it down, let's think about it every day, let's be obsessive about who we wanna become and work into our lives the kind of disciplines, practices, and people that will make us that way. Never become complacent. If you've had wins, successful victories, you hit those goals, you've achieved what you want to achieve, never become complacent in your personal development. That's when it all starts to fall apart. Yes, we should take rest, but real rest. Real rest. Lean into boredom.
All of history, human beings have been slathered in boredom, everything's boring all the time, not anymore. And I would say that those boring places that we find ourselves in tend to be the incubators of some of the best ideas in the world. A good idea is not gonna interrupt you if you're watching Netflix, or if you're on TikTok. Nothing wrong with it, it's not a sin, but it might be a barnacle in your life. No idea is gonna interrupt you if you're on Netflix, I promise. Being bored is just an invitation to invite all of God's greatness, his ideas, his plans in our lives. I think the real problem is not the boredom, it's that we're in ugly places.
Now, I notice that people are not worried about being bored on the beach in Hawaii. They don't have anything to watch, they don't have any books, they don't have anything to do, and yet they're just fine sitting there on a beach chair lookin' at the ocean, why? Because it's beautiful. Hey, there's something we can learn. There's something we can learn. Maybe it's good to look for some beautiful places, maybe a park, maybe a friend's house, maybe a museum, maybe something nearby if you're near the ocean or a mountain, to go to a beautiful place to be bored to hear from God. If you want it to be better, decide today, where you wanna be in five years, and even more importantly, who you wanna be.
What kind of a Christian do you wanna be? What do you want it to feel like when people are around you? What do you want your bank account to look like? What do you want your friends to say about you? What do you want your employer or employees to say about you? Do you want to be a better leader, a better speaker, a better thinker, better doer? You could become any of those things if you just take a little time every day and wrap into those moments in your life who you want to become. You'll never be the same. Wow, you'll never be the same. It's up to you. My Grandpa used to say if it's going to be, it's up to me. I made it a little different, and of course I'm a Schuller, so it's got to rhyme, if it's going to be, it's up to me to become who I need to be. That's it.
We thank you, Lord, for your life and your promise to us. We are willing, some of us, to pay the price for that promise. We pray that your Holy Spirit would guide us and give us the kind of brilliant ideas that you have for us to become who we need to be. Lord, we love you and we thank you, it's in Jesus's name we pray. All God's people said amen. And now the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift his countenance upon you and give you his peace in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.