Bobby Schuller - Brush Your Shoulders Off, God Loves Re-do's
We're so glad you're here. Would you stand with us? We're gonna say this together. Hold your hands out like this as a way of receiving from the Lord. Let's say this together. I'm not what I do. I'm not what I have. I'm not what people say about me. I am the beloved of God. It's who I am. No one can take it from me. I don't have to worry. I don't have to hurry. I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with my neighbor. Thanks, you can be seated.
Today, I wanna talk about the importance of not allowing shame to be seen or experienced in your spiritual life as a good or holy thing. Shame is not from the Lord. No matter how many scriptures we read, how many hymns we sing about saying God has taken away our shame, many of us, when we've messed up, we love to look at ourselves in the mirror and send a curse, send some blame, beat ourselves, "I'm not patient enough. I'm not this enough. I'm not that enough". And although it is so important in life that when we mess up we own it, that we repent, that we take responsibility for our lives, wallowing in shame is not God's plan and not God's best for your life. He did not give up his only beloved Son and only begotten Son that we would wallow in shame and agree with Satan that we are of some bad, horrible thing. No, God has set you free. He's forgiven you. He's made you righteous and holy.
So today, I wanna encourage you to do your best and forget the rest. Do your best and forget the rest. I'm embarrassed to tell you a story. In 2006, I took part in an abs contest. Now, a little backstory. My chiropractor, who was my dad's best friend, we went to him my whole life, My brother and I would go to him all the time, and of course, he was always trying to encourage us to eat well and exercise, and of course, we completely ignored his advice, but every year he had this thing with his friends and some of the people that went to his clinic, where you'd do this abs contest, and the goal was for these men to lose weight, you know, going into the summer.
And so we heard about this, and we decided to join. My brother and I signed up and basically what happens is after Easter, everybody puts 50 bucks in a pot and whoever has the best abs in July gets the whole kit and caboodle. So it was, like, 15 weeks or something where I was working out and I was dieting and I was doing all this stuff because I wanted to win this abs competition, and I remember I asked my friend Chris Jensen, a super athlete. He is diced and shredded. I mean, the guy is like, he does super marathons, which is where you run, like, 100 miles in kind of one sitting, and he said here. He, like, on a PDF and on an Excel sheet gave me all the meals and exercises I should do, and he said basically, for your exercises just do P90X, and I said, what's P90X and he goes, "You know, it's this".
And I got to know this guy, Tony Horton. I do not believe there was any way that a home DVD thing could get me in shape. I always, you know, I'm old school. I like iron, you know. I like dead lifts and squats and bench press, you know, and this guy was much worse. Much harder. And this was back in the days where they had this plastic disc called a DVD that you put into a DVD machine and it plays it, and at the bottom of that, there was, like, a progress bar and right when it was getting really gnarly, right when I felt like my heart was gonna explode, this guy Tony Horton would say, "It's all right, pal. Do your best and forget the rest".
I really fell in love with this character. I'd never heard of him before, but he was always so, like, positive and friendly, and I found out later is a committed Christian, but he would just love to use this phrase, and it was burned into my mind, "Do your best and forget the rest". You'll be happy to know that the way that we judged in our abs contest is all these dudes got together in a gym and we all took our shirts off and took pictures, and then we voted on who had the best, it was a little bit strange. I will give that to you. That was 17 years ago. I wasn't a dad yet, but I got fourth place. So I had a six pack, but it wasn't quite first-, second-, or third-place good, but here's the picture. Just kidding. That is me and my brother eating a 3'-wide pizza. That is the day after the competition. No more salad with no dressing for me. Both of us lost, but we were winners there.
I was curious to find out later I saw, I think, it was a TV show, "Inside Edition," talking about Tony Horton, because years had gone by, and I hadn't seen the commercials anymore. I hadn't heard of people doing P90X much anymore and I wondered what had happened to this guy. What happened to him, and came to find out that he had actually fallen into a terrible sickness called Ramsey Hunts Syndrome, and little backstory on Tony Horton, I believe he was born in, like, New Jersey or New York. Some part of the East coast, and you know, grew up with a heart for God. Went to church with his family, but this is what he called himself a 98-pound weakling with a speech impediment, and when he got to college, he wanted to change his life so he started exercising, working out. He enrolled in a weightlifting class. It as college.
Got nice and buff, and got rid of his speech impediments somehow and moved to California and started doing personal training out of his garage, and the training he did was so effective he started to attract superstars, a long list of famous people went to see him. People like Usher and Bruce Springsteen, but one that really stood out was Tom Petty, and it was free falling when he was doing his exercises. You know, he was definitely in a struggle, but Tom Petty and Tony Horton actually became best friends, which I think is a sweet story, and of course, Tony Horton became very successful in his own right, but as you may remember in 2017, Tom Petty passed away from, I believe it was a prescription drug mishap or something, and it was a big surprise, and Tony Horton says that this was the thing that brought on the illness.
It was a Ramsey Hunt Syndrome, which is like a type of shingles that comes from chickenpox being in your blood, and it caused him to have, it's a shingles that attacks the nerves, I guess. I'm not a doctor, but something like this. Attacks the nerves, and it creates here makes your skin feel I get some fire in certain places, especially around the face, and he had one rash inside I guess inside of his ear, so it affected his eardrum, and it made him feel nauseous and in pain all the time, and this went on for years, and he just couldn't even carry on, and he said that the pain was like an 11 out of 10 all the time, and there was almost nothing he could do for two years, but in a classic story, of course, Tony Horton overcame, and he did his best and he forgot the rest, I guess.
You know, it's a sweet story, and actually Tony Horton, if you're watching, I'd love to interview you and hear that story. What brought you through? But I'm gonna guess that what brought him through was his relationship with the Lord because I don't know about you, but when I go through tough times like that, my mind goes to one place. I cry out to God. "Lord, help me". And God hears us, and although it doesn't always go away right when we want it to, God's there with us. He carries us through. So I just wanna use those words for you today. It's not in the Bible, but it seems like something that would be in the Bible.
Do your best and forget the rest. And I mean this in regards to your discipleship and the progress you have in life. You want to be a better husband or wife or parent or grandparent. You want to be better at the things you put your hands to, the labor of your life. You want to be better in your moral life, and you want to be better in your relationship with God, and in all of these things, there are times when we fall short, and we wanna look in the mirror and say, Of course, you did you're such a mess up. You're such a this or that. Maybe you hear words from other religious people that you heard in your past that just set the worst, meanest, cruelest things to you, and you know, God does not say any of those things to you. He says to you this day, "Brush your shoulders off. Do your best forget the rest". He says to you, you are forgiven. You are redeemed, and most of all, you are loved.
The saving work of Jesus Christ has made you into a new creation, and I say that to you today. How many times will God forgive you? It's a worthwhile question to ask. God will forgive you the same amount that he asks you to forgive your neighbor: 70 times 7 times 7 times 7 times 7. Well, isn't that prodigal? Isn't that reckless? Isn't that unfair? And the answer is absolutely. It's literally a hack. It's a cheat code to your spiritual life. Not that we want to sin or we want to mess up, but we always have this thing we can lean on called the cross. That wipes away our past and gives us a fresh start. So brush your shoulders off because God loves redos. He's into it. God loves seeing you pick yourself up after you mess up. Yes, we gotta deal with the mistakes we've made and we need to take responsibility for our lives, but God is rooting for you.
God always sees your potential. God sees the best in you. What sort of farmer goes out into his field and looks at the crops and doesn't see the potential that lies before him or her? What sort of farmer says, Gosh, I hope that tree doesn't get better. Gosh, I hope that tree doesn't bear any fruit. Gosh, I hope that it just stops growing, right? God, would never say that, and he tells us in so many parables that it, as in a garden, that we ought to bear fruit. That's what God sees within us is fruit bearing beings that carry forth his kingdom and his life. Stop wallowing in shame and live by faith and what God says about you, that you are redeemed, renewed, restored, forgiven. Brush your shoulders off. Do your best. Forget the rest. No one else can see in your life what God sees in your life.
A wise man once said anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the apples in a seed. You know what that means right? You know what that means, that the one little seed, when you open up an apple, cut it open, you count eight, nine, ten seeds, you'll get a seed. God can see that thing and say, "Wow, there are tens of thousands of apples in my little hand right here". God can see you like that. He sees a seed so full of apples, all it must do is go into the ground and die and be nourished by the soil that it's in and be tended to buy the farmer, and it will bear fruit, thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. Isn't that good news? That's what God wants from your life, is to die to your old ways, not to wallow in it and to be made into a new creation.
God is for you. He wants you to have a fruit-bearing life full of joy and compassion for your neighbor and not wallowing in shame. It's in Isaiah chapter 1 we're gonna read today. This is one of hundreds, literally hundreds, of passages that just say, "You're completely new in God's eyes". Calls us to do what is right and calls us to see ourselves as God sees us, pure as snow, wash and make yourselves clean, take your evil deeds out of my sight. Stop doing wrong. Learn to do right. Seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow. Come now. Let us settle the matter. Let's take care of this, right. Let's let's sit down at the table and discuss, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land. I love that passage. When the Bible talks about "white as snow," it's not talking about some virtue about the color white, or of course, it's not about race or anything like that. It's about the experience that you have when you see snow fall and its laying fresh and powdery before you. Maybe you've gone up to Big Bear or Yosemite or one of the beautiful mountains we have or wherever you're from, you've been to a beautiful mountain, and in the morning, it's been dry and there's nothing there, and then use a windy sound over the night as you're sleeping and you wake up and you see the sunrise on fresh, white snow. Did you know it snows in Jerusalem, by the way? Jerusalem is on a mountain, you know.
Short mountain, it's about 6000 feet, and I'd love to go sometime and see the snow on Jerusalem, but of course, white snow means that it's flawless. It means that it's clean because you can scoop up a hand of it and eat it. It means you can take it and throw it as a ball into your sibling's face and it's not gonna get anything dirty in their eyes, but if you're walking around and you see snow that's a different color, say, yellow. "Monsters, Inc.," there is the adorable snowman. He's be supposed to be the abominable snowman, but he crosses this out and puts adorable, and he serves yellow snow cones, but he's like, "No, no, they're lemon".
Very funny joke. Right, so if you see snow that has any color, whether it's red or yellow or anything else, it's not clean, but God says your life, there is something about snow, isn't there, like even the way it's the...everything sounds, it's just, it's lovely, and this is the image that God has for us. Totally fresh like a brand new, like a baby that he creates a new life inside of you. You're forgiven, you're loved, and it really did happen for you. This is the importance and the difference between what the world offers and what the Lord offers. The best the world can do is say, "You know, process it and move on". Well, move on, move on with it, and the idea is that if you've done something bad or you have some trauma or something, you just sort of maybe talk it out and move on, and there are some benefit, of course, in talking about it, but that's not what the gospel is.
The gospel's more than that. The gospel doesn't say just move on. The gospel says atonement, atonement the gospel says what you did really was bad. It's not denying that maybe some of the things from your past that bother you, something you said or did or stole or whatever, that it's not that it wasn't bad, that it was bad, but it's saying that all of that and more died and was crucified with Christ. You literally traded places by faith in your baptism with Jesus, where he became all of those things that you don't like, that all of those mess ups, all of those things that you did and you treat it, and you became a new creation, and literally was killed on the cross.
It literally died and was hung up there so that you could be afresh and new creation, and what this does for us in our soul that's different than what the world offers is if you just move on as a secular person or whatever, you still have it in an unconscious place. Outside you're smiling, but you know you've got this thing inside, but as a believer by faith. You can literally say that person is gone. Dead. It's dead. Even if it happened yesterday, even if it happened in the parking lot, here at church as you are walking in, you just give it to the Lord, and he forgives. Isn't it amazing? What an amazing gift that is. What an amazing gift. It doesn't say, of course, that we should have contempt for that and just do whatever we want, but rather it says don't feel shame.
Feel God's forgiveness, and then do your very best to live like Christ and to forgive your neighbor in the same way Christ forgave you. I want to tell you a story that's not very Presbyterian is that okay? I was with a good friend. of mine as it very good friend with him and his daughter out of state, and I was visiting with them, and he told me a story about demon possession and he said back in the '80s, you know, at this time the guy today's a successful businessman, but he does a lot of, like, parachurch-type ministry things, praying for people, and helping people that don't have a place to stay. He'll give 'em like sometimes give him rooms in his house, but he was having this gathering worship service in his home, and there was a man who came in that he claims was a demoniac, a demon-possessed person, and that in the middle of this worship service, this person began to manifest, am I freaking anybody out yet?
This man began to manifest this demonic spirit to the point where he was writhing and screaming and foaming at the mouth, and it took for grown men to hold him down, and they were gonna pray for him, and just before they did, this man that I was talking to said a little prayer over himself. He said if I'm going to face this dark thing, the Lord forgive me of my sins. He just wanted to go before this challenge a forgiven man. Said, Lord, forgive me of my sins, and as they began to pray for the man, the demon inside of this man began to call out all of the secret sins of the men that were holding him down, and this guy told me he had secret sins of his own that are now out in the open, but the time, nobody knew about. It would've been humiliating and embarrassing.
And so this man that was being held down and being prayed for began to point at each of the three of the four men and started to call out specific, hidden sins in their lives. But when he got to the fourth man, this man I was talking to, he didn't say anything. And so, what he said, and his adult daughter was there with him, what he says is, "I think because I prayed that way, he couldn't see my sin anymore". But his daughter rightly reached over and said, "No, Dad, it's not that he couldn't see it anymore. Instead, it didn't exist". It didn't exist. Gone, like that. That's the gospel. You see, that's the gospel. So simple just a simple prayer, Lord forgive me and he just dying to forgive you, he just, like, that's all, boom, no problem forgiven. That is the heart of God.
Isn't that such a gift? And it's no wonder you're God's beloved treasure. You're his child. It's no wonder he cannot wait to make you into a new creation. Fresh, fresh snow, full of life. Completely clean, completely forgiven, blank slate. Your whole life before you. That's what God offers you. That's what God offers you. Once you accept that, he has nothing stopping you from right now just saying that prayer in your own heart right now. There's nothing nothing stopping you from just quietly, in your own way, saying, "Lord, forgive me. I'm dead to that old life. Make me a new person".
Nothing stopping you from doing that right now, and if you do that, something radical changes in the spiritual world that has an impact on the material world that we can see and measure. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He who knew no sin became sin that you could be called the righteousness of God. Wouldn't it be weird to look in the mirror and say, "I'm the righteousness of God". It don't feel right, does it? Makes it sound like because of what we do, our actions, or were perfect. Nope, I am the righteousness of God, because it's almost like a spell was cast over me, that all sins and chains and burning have just broken and washed away in an instant, in the blink of an eye, made completely new by the power of the resurrected Jesus Christ. You are holy, holy.
Now, we don't like that word today. It's not a very modern word, is it? Holy? I am holy? Can I just say first of all that the word "holy" actually, if we're splitting hairs, holy does not mean righteous. Do you know that? Holy does not mean righteous. The word kadosh does not, that's a Hebrew word that we often translate as "sacred" or "holy" does not mean righteous. Dennis Rodman, remember him? Dennis Rodman is holy. All right, well hold on. You remember Dennis Rodman? Talkin' about NBA players, if you don't know Steph Curry, you don't know Dennis Rodman, I suppose, but he's a guy that has, like, piercings all over, and he's, you know, he's got crazy hair and tattoos that he wears.
It's like dresses and cusses a lot and, and he's like friends with Kim Jong Un, and he's just got, he's weird, right? He's just got a messed up life. Dennis Rodman is holy. You know why? The word "holy" doesn't mean necessarily righteous. It means separated. It means different. If you had one word for Dennis Rodman, the word would probably be unique or even weird works. You know, the scripture calls us a peculiar people, a weird people, all right. So "holy" does not necessarily mean righteous. It means that you're obviously different than everyone else. You're cut away. They know that you are different. This is why the Jews were commanded to do so many things that didn't really have a moral sort of feeling to them.
Like, why do I have to wear weird clothes and silly hats, and why don't I have to do my hair a certain way and why do I have to do all these things that don't necessarily make the world a better place? And the reason is because God wanted them to look different than the culture. He didn't want them to blend in. He wanted them to be different. That's what it means to be holy. And so "holy" in a biblical way does mean righteous, but it means that the righteousness you live, that the life you live, obviously, everybody knows. Everybody knows you're different because who else would forgive their enemies in such a way? Who else would be full of so much faith and confidence in God's Word. You see it is so important, we live in a world, by the way, where I think everyone wants to be holy, you know?
What the problem is, so like, you see it in fashion and everybody wants to stand out. Everybody wants to be unique, but if you want to be unique, just trust in the gospel. You're already unique enough in God. You don't need what the world has to offer. You've already got it all, and you don't need to beat yourself up anymore. See yourself the way God sees you. Testify to the fact that this thing given to us by our ancestors, this 2000-year-old document is true for you today, just as it was thousands of years ago, and it always will be. Depend on it, and trust on it. So you say, "Bobby, you still don't know me. I messed up, and I just keep messing up. I just keep messing up, man".
Don't beat yourself up. Yes, it is good that we have these moments in life where we face the music. We do have moments in life where we weep and we beat our chest and we cry out to God and we say, "Forgive me. I'm a sinner". And these are important moments, but they're meant to be only moments. That's not meant to be the way you live your life. You're not meant to live constantly in a state of shame and beating yourself up. If I read the Bible right, you're supposed to live in confidence and faith that what Christ said happened for you really did. It really did happen for you. I wrote down some things here that the Bible says about you and in no place does it say you should keep beating yourself up every day.
Rather, it says we should confess we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, that we should see ourselves the way God sees. You know what God sees in you? He sees a new creation, a partner in the glory of heaven. Abraham's seed, you're a soldier of Christ. You're led by the spirit. You're the body of Christ. You're an heir to the promise of the covenant. You are God's beloved workmanship. You're a steward of the mysteries of the most high. You are the house of the Holy Ghost. You are a king's child. You are the righteousness of God, and you are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men and believe that it is true for you. It is. God has not ever called the accuser of the brethren.
That name is reserved for the enemy. You're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and I just wish there was a way I could communicate to you how much God just loves, loves to forgive and loves to pick you up and loves to see you making progress in your discipleship and in your life and all the things that matter. He loves you so much. He does not love to withhold good things for you. He loves faith. He loves it when you trust him. He loves it when you do just so simply just do the next right thing. He is so for you. His heart swells with life and love for you, and that is the good news. What good news that is. What good news it is that the truth has been veiled from us by dark things, but God has even telling you now, my friend. God loves redos, to brush your shoulders off, do your best, and forget the rest.
Lord, we love you. We ask in Jesus's name that today we would really feel it. First, we say just forgive us, we ask. Forgive us and help us to forgive our neighbor the same way you forgave us. Help us to let go of our unforgiveness and bitterness that we have towards whatever and to live free from that, and help us to know how much you love us, Lord, and help us know we don't have to figure it all out. Father, we love you and we thank you, and we're grateful for the good work that you did for us, and it's in the strong name of Jesus we all pray, amen. Well, thank you all so much for being here with us. Way to go. You put God first in your life by gathering with his people at the beginning of the week. I just think your week's gonna go better because you did that, and I'm so, so glad you're here. Come back again next week 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.