Bobby Schuller - Don't Let Anyone Disqualify You
All right, whoever you are, would you stand with us? We're gonna say this creed 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, that's right. Yeah, I almost messed it up. Hope it goes without saying today that if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are called. God loves to call people that everybody else thinks is unworthy of whatever calling it is they've received.
So many of us want to disqualify ourselves, many of us who feel called have others disqualifying us, but I want you to know that God does not disqualify you. Failure does not disqualify you. And I wanna encourage you today, I want to repeat the words that Jesus gave in his last commandment to his disciples, to go. "Go therefore into all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples. Go and set captives free. Go and heal the sick. Go and pray for the hurting. Go and feed the hungry and quench the thirst of those who are thirsty, and free and visit prisoners. Go and do the things that God has called you to do". God doesn't call us to do just one thing, he calls us to do many things.
And as we do those things, our ability to achieve more grows, so I wanna encourage you today, don't let anyone disqualify you, but instead get out there and do things. Living is the best education you can have. Living and doing is the best thing you can have. Whenever you apply for a job, what's the number one thing they're looking for? Is it your education? Ninety percent of the time it's not. It's your experience. Go and get some experience. Go do stuff, and trust that this will help you in life. Now, my daughter Haven, who's My favorite daughter, by the way, out of all of them, she stands alone. She recently went with our good friend Tatum to New York City, my favorite city in the whole world, and they got to see all sorts of places, but one of the highlights we enjoyed talking about was a visit to the Nintendo store.
How big was it again? Wasn't it multiple stories? It was, like, multiple stories, and all sorts of cool stuff, and she and her friend were able to get some cool Nintendo stuff, and of course this reminded me of when I was a kid and I open my first Nintendo Entertainment System at Grandpa Persley's house. It was a huge moment in my life, and I remember us, you know, sitting there and playing Nintendo, but for a long time, but, you know, I was thrilled, but first we opened up the package. None of us had played video games before, and what do you do when you open a new electronic thing in 1985? Well, you grab the manual and you start reading. You know, and it shows you what each piece is, and you read what the controllers do, and now you're trying to remember A is the button you press to jump, and B is the button you press to run, and so on, and so forth. And you're going through, reading through it, and finally we just got frustrated, and we said, "Let's just play the game".
And what you found in the '80s, and I think this is still true today, is you never read the manual before you play. You start playing, and then you read when you need to figure it out. If you've ever played video games as a kid, everybody knows this. Every game comes with a manual that nobody reads. I think there's something to say about life, that in life there is something about reading directions after you start. There's something about getting an education in the field after you have experience in it. But so many of us are afraid of life. We're comfortable with what we've been doing in our organizations, in our families, in other things, we fear change, we fear growth. And living, living is the best education you can get. New experiences is the best education you can receive.
Of course, in this job market many Americans, I don't know if this is true in other countries, but many Americans are questioning the power of the college degree. More and more Americans today are educated than ever, but they also have crippling debt, and many of them are finding that their degrees, even though they were arduous and took a lot of work, are not helping those graduates find good paying jobs as they thought they would. And so, now there's more of a discussion of not is a college education good or bad, but rather which degrees are better? And now we're starting to realize, well, maybe it's not the college education, maybe it's the degree. Here's a recent study that was done of graduates who were asked, "Are you glad you got your education"? And they broke them down by, you know, what their education was, and here you will see on the very bottom you have all of the fun degrees, all at the bottom.
You know, you've got fine arts, design, psychology, history, politics, media, communication. You know how you get a communication major off your lawn? You pay 'em for the pizza. No? How do you get a communication major off your porch? You pay them for the pizza. Well, anyway, okay, yeah. So, you see all the fun degrees that everybody wants when they go to college, those graduates with, interestingly, psychology, I almost got a psych degree. I was very interested in it. Sixty seven percent of those who have a psychology degree say they regret doing it. And then you go to the very top with the people that have the least regrets, and you have things like chemistry, computer science, mathematics, business, and statistics, and all those people are thrilled that they got their degrees.
So, we're starting to see the only interesting thing there was the literature degree. You know what we used to say, what's the difference between a literature major and a pizza? Pizza can feed a family of four. Still no, wow, am I insult...are you all lit and com majors? What is going on here? Hannah had a lit degree, so I can make that joke. Now anyway, well, we find that the degrees that many people are getting are not useful in the marketplace. And I even found out that when I went to graduate school, you know, and I got one of those what many people will call useless degrees, I got a degree, a masters in divinity, which sounds great, but it has a very niche thing it can do. You can basically be a pastor, and that's it.
And I remember going there and meeting many students and feeling like so many of the people there in some ways were the most intelligent people I'd ever met. I mean, if there was a conversation about parsing Greek, about something that John Calvin wrote in some obscure volume somewhere, or if you ask somebody what does DNA stand for, most of the people in the room, they're gonna have answers to these questions. But if you ask them how do you intend to pay for the $100,000 you just borrowed to get this degree, many of 'em shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't know". So, it's interesting to find out that in the world of academia, which is full of intelligent people, this is my group, right, you'll also find that a lot of people are lacking a lot of the basic skills about life. A lot of them don't know how to write a check or read a financial statement or how to apply for a job or how to work well with others, simple tasks.
And I found that many of the people in seminary were there for really good reasons, they'd had a call from a church, very often a church, you know, was sponsoring their degree, but a lot of other people, their main goal was to have their nose in a book and then throw frisbee and eat ramen noodles. And I noticed how many of those people, I believe, many of them who are my friends and colleagues I think were there because they didn't know what to do. They didn't know what else to do. They applied for a couple of jobs, didn't get any, maybe didn't try very hard, or maybe they felt pressured by a parent or whatever, but they didn't really, they had a sort of aimlessness about life, and sort of found their way into graduate school.
And this is my own theory, and I don't mean to criticize, but I think there was a fear of life. There was a fear of being out there. There was a fear of taking a job that didn't pay well because I was afraid I would get stuck there. But what was really happening was they weren't getting any experience. They were getting a lot of debt, and in some cases a useless degree. So this is what happens, is when we get anxious in life, we like to, we as human beings, and Bobby Schuller is at the top of this list, there's a temptation to sit around and chat. When we get afraid and we know that something needs to be done, especially if we know what needs to be done, many of us are not prone to action, we're prone to chatting. We like to sit around, we either chat online, we chat on our phone, we chat with each other. It feels like action, but it's not.
We're wasting time, and we're entrenching ourselves in the thing that we're afraid of. There's a new meme online right now of a guy who, I'm trying to figure out what this video is, but I'm pretty sure there's a tourist place in Australia for people that are afraid of bungee jumping and want to be forced to do it. So what they do is they go in, and they strap you up, and they put you in a chair with a bungee on it, and then push you off the ledge. And you notice that this guy, when he gets nervous, he tries to chat his way out of getting pushed off the ledge. Check this out.
Sina: Keep my mind busy. Can you double check please?
Male: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. We can. No, we can. We could, but we're not doing a thing.
Sina: No, but I'm serious!
Male: No, seriously, we could, we could double check, male 2: Hold this one.
Sina: This one? This one?
Male: Hold that one, right there!
Sina: Yeah?
male: We're a bit behind on time, so I'm just gonna take your safety off. So your safety's off. Wait, wait, listen, let me tell you something, let me tell you something let me tell you something. Wait, no, wait. Wait, wait, wait.
Male: What did you want to tell me?
Sina: Both of you guys, double check, double check, safety first, double check ahhhhh!
Male: Hello mate, how was that? Sina, you made it! Oh, what's that noise?
Bobby: So, that whole thing, "Let me tell you something, let me tell you something," as they're leaning the chair, "Let me tell you something"! This is human nature, right? And that's why it's funny, is because when we feel like we're on the edge of doing something in life that's scary, human nature is to chat. And very often that chatting leads to us being disqualified by others. As we chat with other people, sometimes we're looking for discernment, but what sometimes what's really happening is people are talking us out of our calling. People are disqualifying us either by saying it's unsafe or you shouldn't do it or it's too big of a risk or you're not qualified or you need to do something else first, and this is what brings us to our passage today, Paul is writing to, in the book of Colossians he's writing to a people who are dealing with an influx of different spiritual people who on the outside seem good, but on the inside are trying to invalidate the gospel that Paul preached.
In Colossians chapter 2 he says, "So then just as you received Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live your lives in him". You know what that means, right? That means that in every moment Christ is a part of it. When you wake up, when you go to sleep, that Christ is at the center of all you do, and that God's love and grace and accomplishment on the cross and resurrection, that that is the core of your life, and it's not just the core of what you think of as your religious life, it's the core of your business life, it's the core of your social life, it's the core of what you watch on TV and the music you listen to, that Christ is at the center of everything you do, and that your value in life is not based on what people say about you, it's based on what God says about you. That Christ died for me that I could be made holy, set apart, a special treasure in God's eyes. And that's what he says, "Rooted and built up in him".
Think about those words, rooted and built up. So, there's this strength that comes, "Strengthened in faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness". Gosh, I love thankful people, don't you? Like, people that are just oozing with gratitude, and it's really hard to be unhappy and thankful at the same time. It's amazing how much science and wisdom there is that supports the idea of a grateful life that leads to happiness. And then he says, "Therefore don't let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to religious festival, a new moon celebration or Sabbath day," what's that?
That's all of the religious rules that were in place by the Old Covenant that they were trying to impose on new gentiles that had come to faith. It says, "These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; and they're puffed up with idle notions about their unspiritual mind. They've lost connection with the head," that is Christ, "from whom the whole body is supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow".
Paul shows us that when we're called by God, there are people that want to disqualify us. There's people that want to disqualify you, people that maybe you don't want to, they just, it just kind of comes out of who they are. Here's three people that you might have experienced disqualified you when you shared your dream or your calling or your vision from God with them. The first one is religious people. There's just a certain type of religious person that just says that's not religious enough, or that's not within the lines of our tradition. Sometimes that's good, but sometimes it's not. This was clearly happening in the church that Paul was writing to. A second type of person is the person that Paul says delights in false humility. You know this person, don't you? You probably have at least one of these people in your family.
"Oh, Jan, let me just tell you, I tried that, and it was the worst decision, and I'm just wanna live for the Lord, and I just want to be humble in all that I do, Jan. You don't want to do that". I had a guy once who...so it's a false humility, right? It's a failure mindset that someone's trying to impose on what you feel God is calling you to do. They're imposing their own false humility on you. I remember when I had big dreams in ministry back in the day, I used to look at some of the amazing ministries that had done either great things as a church or great things for the world, and I had this good friend who is sort of like not a mentor, but somebody I would go to for advice, and it seemed like every time I mentioned one of these ministries, that I was like, man, I could learn from them, I'd like to do something like them, he would always be like, "That leader is narcissistic. And that's not," you know, it was almost like they're not, they don't really pay attention to whatever the de jure thing was, you know?
They're not this enough, or they're not that enough, and so there was this feeling of, like, I was getting this feeling like if I want to do big things for God, well, that must mean I'm a narcissist. And that was effectively the message that this friend of mine was sort of giving to me, and I had to kind of create some space between that, because I was realizing that that was a false humility, that what was happening was this is assumption that if you do something big for God, you're a narcissist. Or if you do something big for God, you've forgotten the gospel. Or if you do something big for God, somehow that's not biblical enough. This is false humility, it's not something that is taught in the scripture itself.
Am I right or wrong, did Jesus not say go and do greater things than I did? I think Jesus did some pretty amazing things. I think having bold faith doesn't mean you're a narcissist. Having bold faith and being a big dreamer doesn't make you prideful or arrogant. Sometimes those things can go hand in hand. Successful people for sure struggle with arrogance and narcissism and these things, but if you watch your heart and delight in the Lord, forget those people who try to impress in their false humility this kind of dream crushing message. And finally the third one that Paul mentions is this person who's a worshiper of angels, and we don't have that a lot, but he goes on and on to see these people puff themselves up. What is that person? That's that's the kind of person that's overly, I think is overly spiritual, you know what I mean?
That everything is like, you know, they even talking in a spiritual voice, and everything is very airy. You know, maybe it's the type of person who you tell them, I feel like God's calling me to do this or that, and they say, "I just don't know in my Spirit if that's right for you". And it's like, well, God, I'm praying, and I feel like it is something God, just, like, "Let me just, I just feel", it's like, "I just have a check in my spirit". And you're like, I don't need a check in your spirit, I need a check in my mailbox. I need, I have, need, God's called me to do this thing, and so the confusing thing about these three types of people is they're caricatures of good things. Can we say, I believe tradition is a good thing, that not all tradition is bad. I'm grateful for the hymns and the creeds and the confessions and a lot of the things that work well that were passed to us by our ancestors. I think humility is a good thing, right?
It's good to be a humble person and not make it all about yourself. And it certainly is a good thing to be a spiritual person and to hear from the Lord. But this is how Satan deceives people, he uses good things, and just twists them ever so slightly so that we're easily fooled by something we think is good. So, the question is, well, what do we do? And the question is you discern, you weigh it. You know, never just cast the person away, weigh it, pray about it, ask the Lord, and you can just let it go with peace of mind. Can we get an amen? Do not allow religious, spiritual, or falsely humble people to disqualify you. And finally, most of all, don't disqualify yourself. Don't disqualify yourself. You know how you disqualify yourself? You do it by over thinking. You know how you overthink? You don't ever take action.
You know, there is something to say about preparing and having a strategy and having a plan. There is something to say about going to school. There is something to say about going to work, going to groups and talking with people, but if this has become a place in which you've entrenched yourself when you no longer take action towards the thing God has called you to do, then you are starting to disqualify yourself. God is calling us to do great things for him. We can do that. Don't disqualify yourself. Like Peter, remember Peter? In Jesus's day, the idea of a disciple was not just a student. A disciple was supposed to do everything the rabbi did. So, when Jesus teaches them, after he gives them a lesson, he says, "Okay, now all of you go out and pray for the sick and watch them be healed" in Luke Chapter 9 and 10. Or after he had, before he ascends into heaven he says, "Okay, go into all these places and make disciples".
And there are other things that he does that the disciples are called to do. One of those is when Jesus is walking on water. We know in this famous story Peter says to himself, I am a disciple, that means I'm supposed to do it too, and Peter begins to walk on water. But as he begins to look around and see the waves and become scared, he starts to sink slowly, which I still think it's an amazing feat. If I was walking on water and then sank slowly, that would still be pretty close to magic. I mean, that would be pretty sick. I'd be like, pretty awesome. But Jesus takes his hand and grabs him, and he says, "Why did you doubt"? Doubt what? "That you could do what I called you, that you could do what I" do.
I hope I can get to a place in my faith where I can believe that I can really do the things that Jesus does. And God's teaching me and he's teaching us how to be that way. But in order to get to that place, and this is the last thought I really want you to carry with yourself, we have to have a new relationship with failure. We have a very international ministry here. Americans are bad at a lot of things, but there's one thing that they're pretty good at, and I've noticed when I've traveled to other nations, there is a huge fear of failure that in some cultures you fail once or twice in your business, you're done forever.
We need to gain a new relationship with failure culturally and in life to recognize even in our walk with God, even when we sin and addiction therapy, when you fall off the wagon, and you maybe you've been clean and sober for years, and you just messed up, and now you think, I'm never gonna get over this, or whatever it is you're struggling with, we need to recognize that failure is...if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the road to heaven is paid with failure. The road to the life we want to get to is paved with failure. You have to have multiple failures in your life to become the person you're called to be. Maybe I've lost you.
Let me say it this way. I promise you, LeBron James has missed more free throws than I have. I promise you. I promise you Tiger Woods has messed up more easy putts than I have. Anybody? I promise you Elon Musk has had more failed business ventures than I have. Do you understand what I'm saying? There is a time under tension way of living, there's a process behind every successful person, especially in God's kingdom. And what walking in God's kingdom does, it gives you a resilience to say, it doesn't matter what people say about me. The only thing that matters is I have been redeemed by the Lord. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.
Lord, I am redeemed, and I might fall, and I may make mistakes, but I thank you that in the same way you've called me to forgive 77 times 7, you forgive me like that, and even more so, that when I've messed up or fallen short, whether it's morally in my life or professionally, or maybe I just did some knucklehead stupid thing and I lost my, whatever, business or practice or whatever, thank you, Lord, that in your kingdom, it's never over till it's over, that you can call me to keep failing until I succeed. So, Lord, help us to have that kind of mentality.
Living is the best education you can have. The best education in life is constantly moving in the direction of scary things that you want to do, and sometimes that means read the manual after you start playing the game. Sometimes you just got its start playing the game and start doing the thing that God's called you to do.
Can I tell you, I was a pastor before I went to seminary, and thank goodness for that, because there were so many lectures I started sort of giggling at, and I thought, this has nothing to do with being a pastor. And I would say that on occasion. This discussion we're having about whether the Holy Spirit flows from the Father and the Son or whether it just flows from the Father is pretty much irrelevant in ministry when someone has just lost a child or someone has just lost their job or is going through a divorce, and it helped me because I had some experience as a pastor to pull from the educational experience what I needed and leave the rest that was just people having fun.
Okay, the scriptures teach us to be the kinds of people that are doers of the Word rather than hearers, that when we hear what God's called us to do, we become adaptive, always setting out to do God's work. So, here's the encouragement to you. I want to encourage you today to make sure that all of your thoughtfulness according to the calling that God's given you is tied to some kind of action. I want you to be asking yourself, am I actually going out there and taking first steps to what God's called me to do? And if you're doing that, you'll see that incrementally over time as you have some wins and some failures, you're gonna become a hugely successful person in what God's called you to do.
And that's my request for you, is to just box out all of the voices that would disqualify what God has called you to do and just listen to him and ask him for his wisdom and stay humble and allow him to develop in you the kind of person that can thrive in every environment, no matter whether markets are going up or down or whatever. You can become the kind of person who is so intrinsically valuable to the people around you because you have become a good leader, become a good partner in work, you become the kind of person that is sensitive to the needs of others. I'm just gonna believe that for you. Today you'll take that as a word from the Lord, let it be true.
So, Father, we come to you in Jesus's name, and we ask, first of all, that you would give us a new fresh wind, God, for the callings that you've poured out on us. Lord, every single person in this room is called to set the captives free, to bring life and bring healing to a hurting world. Lord, all of us are called in different ways, but all of us are called to your kingdom, so help us, Lord, to walk in that. Give us faith, we pray, and of course, we pray it in the strong name of Jesus. And all God's people said, amen.