Now, there are... And you know this, there are a lot of things that are worth carrying forward in our lives from one season to the next, one year to the next, good friends, good habits, and then there are some things that we should leave behind, things that are not worth carrying from one season to the next. From one year to the next.
So, for the next few weeks, we're gonna talk about one of those things. Because one of those things that all of us should get in the habit of leaving behind are excuses. Excuses. Excuses are like paper walls, that from a distance they look like real obstacles, from a distance they look impenetrable, from a distance they look like we really don't have any choice but to do what we're doing, or not to do what we're not doing, or to not try or to not try again. In fact, from a distance, an excuse looks like an actual reason. Now, there's a reason I can't throw a 97 mile an hour fast ball. But there is no actual reason for me not to... Well, I'm not sure I know you well enough to finish that sentence, but there are some things that I need to do that I have reasons for, but if you were to push a little bit you may discover that my reasons aren't really good reasons, they're really just excuses.
So excuses get passed off as reasons and excuses easily become, in the real world, becauses. Because all of us have some becauses that we habitually hide behind when certain things come up. "Why don't you... " "Well, because... " "Why haven't you... " "Well, because... " " Why don't you just tell him? Why don't you just tell her? Because... Because, because, because. We've got becauses, excuses, pass themselves off as reasons and then in our real world vocabulary, they become becauses.
There's a fine line. We're gonna talk about this for a few weeks. There's actually a fine line between a reason and an excuse. And one always disguises itself as the other. In fact, the way that we talk about or refer to excuses when we're talking about other people, actually underscores this. What do we say when we think somebody's... They're making up excuses. We just say, "hey, you are making excuses."
In other words you don't have any real reasons, you're passing these off as reasons, we hear because, because, because, because, because, because, but the truth is I see what's going on here, you are making excuses, that is you are just making things up. We say quit making excuses. You are fabricating things, you are inventing things. Again, and implication is, these aren't real, you think they're real, you're trying to pass them off as real, but I see what's going on here. Implication, you're just making stuff up, you've created in your mind a paper wall and you're trying to convince me that it's actually a real wall, you've created in your mind a paper wall and you're trying to pass it off as an actual obstacle.
What you're doing is you're dressing up an excuse, you're dressing up an excuse in an attempt to pass it off as a reason. And isn't it true? This is so easy to see in our children. It is so easy to see in our grandchildren, it was so easy for our parents to see in us when we were children living at home.
You had to come up with a reason because you're busted, you had to come up with a reason because things aren't going well, those aren't the actual reasons, those are excuses, and you're disguising your excuses as a reason. In fact this is so easy to see in other people. It's so easy to see in other people, [chuckle] some of you are thinking right now about who you hope is listening to this message. Or how do I get my kids to listen to this one? How much will I have to pay them? It was $20 last time, how much... Has the rate gone up?
In other words, it's so easy to see in other people, we hope everybody will recognize those aren't real reasons, those are excuses that you're disguising as reasons. We can spot an excuse in somebody else a mile away, we can't see it six inches away in the mirror. What we say is the reason... The reason... The reason... What we almost never say is, wouldn't this be refreshing? Well my excuse is...
Yeah. Wouldn't that be refreshing? You know how, you know it'd be refreshing because you would love to hear him or her or your kids to say it, you know Why didn't you finish your homework? Well, dad, my excuse is... Wow, hey, at least we're on this... At least we're dealing with reality. Why are you late? Well, my excuse is... What if we, if nothing else, if you don't get anything else out of the series, what if we just quit disguising our excuses as reasons. And because... What if we acknowledge... You know what? This isn't real. I've just made this up.
And here's the challenge, and here's the question we're gonna come back to for the next few weeks. Because this is emotional, and I'm gonna give you some illustrations, but they're kind of light, I'll admit that up front, but just to kinda get our head in the game. Is it possible... I'm not accusing you because I don't know you.
Is it possible, are you at least willing to consider that perhaps some of your reasons, some of your becauses are actually just paper walls? They're actually excuses, something you've created? And the thing is, you have a reason for why you created the paper wall. Okay. The excuse is we present it as a reason, but there is a reason we make excuses and if we ever get back to the source of our excuses we'll probably drop some of the excuses or acknowledge, "You know what? That's just an excuse for something. It's a paper wall or an excuse."
Maybe yours are constructed of things that someone told you, maybe something someone called you, maybe something someone labeled you in the past, maybe it's something that someone expected of you and you didn't come through. So now you're through and any time that topic or that challenge comes up, it's like, "Oh, no, no, no, because in your mind, I tried that and I failed. No, no, no. Just not gonna do it."
Is it possible... And this is... I think this is all of us at some level, is it possible you've invented reasons to defend certain behaviors, reactions, overreactions? Why do you always overreact? Well, I'll tell you why I overreact and then you present your paper wall. Why do you always... Oh, whenever your mom, whenever your dad, whenever we see them, you just kinda light up. Why? Well, let me tell you why and it's really just a paper wall and you got a reason because we're a rational people. We have to have a because. We can't say, "I don't know. I have no idea, honey, but that's just what I'm gonna... " no it's all because.
Is it possible you have created a paper wall or an excuse for why you procrastinate about certain things? Why you neglect certain things? Why you avoid certain things? Is it possible you've created a paper wall for why you avoid certain kinds of people, certain people, certain kinds of events, circumstances, opportunities? I'll give you a illustration again. This is kinda light I've shared this with some of you before. When I was in high school, our high school went from 8th-12th, we didn't have middle school, 8th-12th grade, and so I was a failed high school athlete. Everything I tried out for, did not make it. Now I'm tempted to tell you why because that's what we do. The reason... As soon as I say that I wanna go, "The reason is because we had a big high school, blah, blah, blah." But the point is, I just didn't make it as an athlete and I loved sports, but I just wasn't good enough. There, I said it. I just wasn't good enough. You gotta get it out there.
So as I started doing ministry and got kind of successful, I got invited to speak to all these sports franchises, college teams and chaplains, do chapel before an NFL game. Teams would come to town, I'd get all these calls and 100% of the time, it's like, "Nope, I'm busy. Nope, I'm busy. Nope, I'm busy, I can't. I would love to." Lie. "I would love to." Lie, lie, lie. I would not love to. I would be so intimidated. I don't even know who you are, I don't even know the rules to that game, okay? "But I would love to, but I'm too busy," and I would pass off these opportunities to some of my friends. "Oh, AS, you're so humble." I'm so humble. It was just an excuse. I was just intimidated. I was just uncomfortable. And here's something. This is huge, okay? You know what is at the root of your excuses? And I know we've never met, but this is true of all excuses. At the root of an excuse is blaming something internal on something external.
This is so insidious. It's something that's wrong with me, but it's so hard to look in the mirror and admit it. So I decide it's not me, it's something out there, and the moment I decide it's something out there, the moment I decide it's something out there, I began constructing a wall. And I think I'm protecting myself, I'm actually hemming myself in and I'm keeping myself out of opportunities, and maybe relationships and maybe better relationships because of something I just won't admit to myself. And you know what happens? "I won't," sounds like, "Well, I can't." The truth is, "I won't," but I'm not gonna say, "I won't." I just say, "I can't." "I'm afraid to try," sounds like, "Well, that's just not my thing. That's just not me. I don't really care about that." The truth is, I'm afraid to try, but I'm not gonna say, "I'm afraid to try," I'm gonna say, "You know what? That's just not my thing." And after a while, this becomes like a reality. Again, it's an excuse, it's a reason I've manufactured. It's a because I hide behind and that you hide behind.
So, back to the sports thing for a second. So, when Andrew and Garrett, my two sons, got interested in sports, I wanted them to be interested in music. They weren't interested in music, they were interested in sports because God's like, "I'll show you." Anyway, so... Which is fine. So they start playing baseball. They're eight, nine, 10 years old. So they always want dads to be the coaches. Well, do you think I volunteered to coach my sons? Are you kidding? I was like, "Nope. You guys got this." They're eight years old. I know, but I'm left... Ready for this one? Okay, don't laugh. See if you can not laugh. I'm left-handed. I can't even borrow a glove.
Get it? Because everybody's right-handed? Okay. You didn't get it. Anyway, I came up with all kind of paper walls. So then the coolest or not coolest, awful thing that turned out to be a cool thing happened. So Andrew, my oldest, is 10 years old, and they just moved up to kid pitch. It's the second game, I'm on the bleachers with my friend Dave 'cause I'm not about... I'm just gonna be the dad fan. Second game, this dad, three bleachers down or three rows down, the umpire makes a call. Now keep in mind, these boys are 10 years old, okay? 10 years old. And this dad goes berserk. He is literally, He jumps down, he is standing behind the umpire, his hands are wrapped around the chain-link fence, and he is screaming at the umpire. They are 10 years old. He's lost his mind. And the umpire turns around and says, "Okay," and he knew his name, he called him by name because he had done this before, he said, "You need to sit down or we'll throw you out of the park." And he's just... He throws this dad out of the park. He says, "Leave the park. We're holding the game until you leave the park." And he's cussing and I'm sitting there going, "What have we signed our kids up for?"
Then our coach, daddy coach, comes out of the dugout and he starts getting on the umpire about the call and throwing his buddy out. So then the umpire, I'm not making any of this up, umpire throws our coach out. "You're out. Leave the park." Then the assistant coach comes out and this is almost a quote. "So I guess if you're gonna throw him out, you're gonna throw me out too." Throws the assistant coach out, calls the game. The boys are 10 years old, they're like... This all happened within a minute and a half, the game over.
So there's Dave and I and we were the only dads there, some moms, and it was an afternoon game. And the coaches come over and say to me, "AS, look, me and so and so, we're out. Would you and Dave coach the next two games?" And I'm thinking, "I know I can at least not get thrown out of the game. I think this is something that if the bar is as low as, 'Don't get thrown out of the park,' I can do this. I got this."
Now my point in telling you is this. Because of some stupid, honestly, just paper wall, I almost missed out on one of the greatest joys of my life because from that moment on, I started assistant coaching my boys' baseball teams. And when I look back on those pictures and when I drive by those baseball parks, it is still emotional because of the joy to be with my sons, to learn... It's just... That season is one of the greatest seasons of my... And I'm telling you, I almost missed it because I thought, "Oh, no, I can't."
Now here's the point. We all have these. And here's the thing, do you know what's on the other side of this? We don't know. We just think we know. And because we think we know, we're like, "I'm too afraid, I can't do that, I'm not talented enough, I didn't get an education, I don't know anybody, whatever, whatever." So is it possible... You gotta think about this. Is it possible you're missing out because you've walled yourself in? Is it possible that a because is actually an excuse? And you don't accept these from your children, you don't accept these from the people that you care about, you don't accept these at work. Why in the world would we accept these in people in the mirror, the person in the mirror?
And maybe most importantly, why are we talking about this in church? Here's why. This is so important. There is a relationship between your ability, not your willingness, I wanna be clear about this. There is a relationship between your ability to follow Jesus and your willingness to push through your paper walls and to acknowledge that your reasons are excuses, your becauses are actually excuses.
And the reason I say that is because our excuses compete for lordship of our lives. An excuse can become your king, an excuse can become your master, an excuse can become your boss because you know what excuses do? Excuses tell you what you can't do. "You can't do that. You shouldn't try that. You shouldn't try that again, you should not talk to him, you should not apologize, you should not acknowledge that, you should, you shouldn't, you should, you shouldn't," and Next thing you know, your excuses are your king, they're sitting on the throne of your life. And if you're a Christian, you could spend the rest of your life singing about King Jesus and serving King excuses.
If you don't like the throne analogy, I'll modernize it. They can become a Board of Directors. "No, don't try that. Don't talk to him. Don't talk to her. Don't show up for that. Don't go early. Don't let them know you're coming. Don't acknowledge that, don't admit that, don't admit you're wrong." Why? Well, because, because, because, because, because, because...
Because let me tell you what's on the other side of this. So, I know the answer to this, you don't have to answer it out loud, and I hope I'm not insulting anybody, but do you want excuses to be the boss of you? I don't, and we've never met, but I know you don't. But they will be the boss of us until we acknowledge they're not reasons and not real, because is they're just the becauses and reasons we give, they're just excuses. We are making stuff up.
You don't wanna get to the end of your life and look back and think, "Good grief, I spent my whole life behind this stupid wall that was nothing other than something I made up based on what somebody told me, something I believe, something I heard, something I read, something I was afraid of." So, in the Book of Hebrews in the New... The Old Testament, New Testament, the Bible's divided two parts. In the New Testament, the new covenant, there's a... We call it a book, it's not really a book, it's a sermon called Hebrews. We don't know who wrote Hebrews, and in the document or the Book of Hebrews, the author is trying to get some Jewish Christians not to use the difficult time they're going through as an excuse to quit following Jesus. Because they were following Jesus, they'd hit some bumps, there were some difficult things going on, so was saying, "Look, please, please, please don't give up following Jesus because of these difficult things, that's not a good reason. That really you're just... You're making an excuse."
And in the midst of this conversation, in the midst of this document, he gives a general principle that whether you're Bible person or not a Christian person or not, this is just great advice. And here's what he says, he says, "Look, look, I know what's going on. I know you got a reason for your reasons, I know that you've got a reason why you're manufacturing, fabricating these excuses, but let us... " This is so good, "Let us throw off everything that hinders." Let us throw... As you think about the future, as you think about moving forward, he says, "I want you to throw off anything that hinders." And the sort of an analogy, it's kind of a sports analogy, strangely enough I don't use 'em much, but if they're in the Bible, I can't avoid 'em.
Anyway, he's talking about running, he says, "Anything that hinders you from running, from racing, from staying in your lane, you just need to get rid of it. Rid yourself of every encumbrance, rid yourself of anything that's an impediment, that trips you up. And... " And this is so fascinating, "And or as an example of, and the sin that so easily entangles."
Now, if you used to be a Christian or you're exploring faith, what I'm gonna say next is so important as you think about moving forward, and maybe if you've been a Christian a long time, this will put some things in perspective. This word sin, if you follow Jesus through the gospels, Jesus is very specific about what sin is, and he doesn't give a list, "Here's five things not to do. Here's four things." He doesn't do it that way. Do you know what sin was for Jesus? It's so consistent, sin was anything that hurt someone, sin was anything that hurt someone, and sin was anything that hurt you, which makes sense, because if God for God so love the world and he loved the people in the world, then he doesn't want the people in the world to get hurt.
So anything that hurts another person, that's what sin is. And if you hurt yourself, from God's perspective, who loves you, that's a sin. Lying is a sin. Lying is a sin, because you know what lying does? We talked about this, lying breaks a relationship, you can't have a real relationship with somebody who lies to you, lying breaks a relationship. Anything that breaks a relationship breaks God's heart because God's about relationship, so lying is a sin. And lying to yourself is a sin. Lying to yourself is as sin because lying to yourself hurts you. An excuse, if you wanna look at it from this perspective, an excuse, is really just a lie we tell ourselves about ourselves. "I can't, I'm not good enough, I tried, I don't... " An excuse, it's just a lie we tell ourselves, we tell the person in the mirror about ourselves. And when we lie to ourselves, we hurt ourselves, and when we hurt ourselves, we sin against ourselves.
So when the author says, "I want you to get rid of anything that's an impediment to you running your race and the sin that entangles you, it includes this." In fact, some of you have lied to yourself, you've got so many paper walls, in fact, before this series is over, maybe before this day is over, maybe we've already gotten there, some things have already come to mind. You've lied to yourself, you've hurt yourself, which means this is odd, but you owe yourself an apology. And you should go home, but maybe this would help you. You need to go home and look in the mirror and apologize to yourself. "You know what, I've been lying to you AS, and I've been holding you back, I've been making up things and calling 'em reasons, they're not a reason, now I've got all these becauses but I've been lying to you, I'm not gonna lie to you anymore, I promise never to do it again." Because those aren't reasons, that's just stuff I made up and I'm standing here behind it like I can't move forward, and it's because I believe in something and telling me something that's just not true.
So he says, "Come on, come on, come on. Throw... " This is great advice, Christian or not, "Throw off, throw off everything that hinders you and the sin that so easily entangles you." In other words, no more excuses. He says, "And once you do, you're gonna be free," back to the running thing, "You're gonna be free to run." He says, "And once you do," this is so... I mean, you can always hear the music in the background, "And let us run," he says, "Let us run with perseverance or endurance, the race marked out for us." Now, this is a fascinating thing. Whether you're a religious person or not may determine how you interpret this. But if you're a Christian and you grew up with a notion or you believe that God has a plan for you, that's your race. That God has a will for your life, for your family, that you do something on purpose and end up with purpose and look back on your life and feel like, "Hey, my life mattered." He says... The author says, "Look, I want you to run the race." There's a race that's been marked out for all of us Jesus followers. And then there's a race that's been marked out for you specifically. And if you're not a Jesus follower, if you're not a Christian, you've got goals, right? You've got some mental picture of what could and should be for your future and your family.
And the author is saying, "Look, don't lose... Come on, don't lose your own race. And don't lose your own race because you blame things that really weren't even real to begin with. Would you just get rid of anything that holds you back so that you can at least run and compete in the race that God has laid out for you?" Yeah. Instead of just making stuff up. Now, what he says next, I wanna tell you what he says next, before I show you how the author says it next. This is such a huge idea. This could be a message in and of itself. But we talk about these kinds of things all the time. So I don't wanna just keep going back and back and back. What he says next, and this is so subtle.
And this is so challenging. He says, "You need to quit focusing on yourself." Do what? He says, "Yeah, you need to quit focusing on yourself." If you live for yourself, you only have yourself to show for yourself, right? Live for yourself and in the end, you only have yourself to show for yourself. Great funerals, you know great funerals, there's so much to celebrate. We run out of time. Do you know what a bad funeral is? Nobody wants to speak for the deceased. "Pastor Stanley, you've got 30 minutes. We got nothing." Well, I don't even know... Well, it doesn't matter because there's just not a lot of talk about, just let's just get through it.
Live for yourself, you'll only have yourself to show for yourself. People who build paper walls... And again, nobody does it on purpose. But people who build paper walls and live behind paper walls, people who make excuses rarely make much of a difference.
Have you noticed that? People who live behind paper walls and make excuses, even though their... We buy their reasons, at the end of the day, they rarely make much of a difference. Because paper walls keep you and keep me from being engaged. Paper walls, they make us small. They make us self- absorbed. Paper walls, they rob you, and they rob others. And paper walls rob the people around you of you. Here's a harsh reality. This is super deep. You may not agree with this. And that's okay. Excuses, excuses, not always, but maybe more times than we wanna admit, excuses are often selfishness disguised as humility. "Oh, that was for me. Thanks for that opportunity, but I'm busy." Liar. You sound so humble. And you let the other pastors have that opportunity. You look so humble. You're just afraid. Sometimes our excuses, they come across as humility when it's really anything but.
So between now and next time, don't miss next time, just acknowledge, start looking for paper walls and decide you're gonna throw off anything that gets in the way of you finishing the race that you have set out for you, whether you think God has set one out for you or not. 'Cause this is relevant to all of us.
So, whether you're a religious person or not, Christian or not, here's what we can all agree on.
We all need to shut down the excuse factory. We all need to get in the habit of saying, "Well, the reason... Okay, my excuse is... Well, because... My excuse is... Well, I've never been... Well, my excuse up until now has been", because they just weigh you down, they hold you back, they rob you of potential, and you know what, they make you small. They make us small. They make us self-centered, and we pass it off or try to pass it off as humility. Some things are worth carrying forward season to season, some things are worth carrying forward year to year. Excuses are not one of those things. They need to be left behind.
And if you choose to leave them behind, you'll be better off. And if you choose to leave them behind, your family will be better off, or your future family will be better off. And if we all decide to leave them behind the world will be a better place because we will be free to follow our Savior instead of saying no for reasons that are no reason at all. So, let's shut down the excuse factory, let's move beyond our paper walls, and in part two, I'll start the process of telling you how. So don't miss part two of paper walls moving beyond the excuses that hold you back.
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