Even If You Were Perfect, Someone Would Crucify You: Stop Trying to Please People. Start Pleasing God

By Rob Shepherd

“In short, digestible chapters Shepherd shares several truths every human needs to know . . . You’ll enjoy reading and laughing your way through this book!” (Terrace Crawford, nationally recognized speaker & author of Going Social).
 
He should have seen it coming. Anonymous letters are rarely good. On the day after preaching a sermon at his church, Rob Shepherd opened a letter filled with hurtful words and a very strong opinion about how awful his sermon was. On his fourth reading of the letter, Rob heard a still small voice say, “Even if you preached the perfect sermon somebody would crucify it.” That thought began the process of setting Rob free from being a lifelong people pleaser.
 
With humor, personal stories, and great conviction Rob shares his personal story of learning to care less about what people say and more about what God says. Even If You Were Perfect Somebody Would Crucify You uncovers what our real struggle is when it comes to pleasing people. You can be set free from the fear of saying no to people, win the battle with avoiding confrontation, learn the power of confession, and find your true identity in Jesus.
 
“This book will nail you in regards to cutting out the paralyzing noises of life and opinions of others. Be ready for a tugging at your heart to rest and rediscover your identity FULLY in Him.” —Chad Johnson, director of the Catalyst Conference

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781614485148

Rob Shepherd

Born in Essex, UK, in 1978 Rob currently resides in Thurrock, Essex, UK. Rob has featured alongside such legends as Graham Masterton and Jack Ketchum in Terror Tract's October Ezine horror anthologies. Rob has also appeared in several other anthologies including Dark Light 2 (by S.J. Davis), Liphar - Short Stories Vol.1, Unleash The Undead (Collated & Edited by Samie Sands), Kevin Hall's Thirteen 2: The Horror Continues & Thirteen Vol. 3 to name a few.  You find Rob on many of the major social network sites.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

To Monica, you have influenced my understanding of how much Jesus loves imperfect people by your constant love for me. It must be hard being married to a people pleasing, sensitive, incredibly good looking (for an overweight bald guy) pastor, but you make it seem easy. Thank you for loving me well, and for supporting my dream to write a book! I love God more because of you!

To my parents, who faithfully modeled a great marriage and a love for Jesus. I also would like to thank you for allowing us to move back in with you as we follow God’s call to plant a church. You are a huge part of our story. Oh, and Mom, I know that you put in a lot of time editing this book. I greatly appreciate it! Thanks for making my writing look like I paid attention in English class.

To Reese and Hayden, I love being your dad. I know you can’t read this now, but one day I hope that you will read the words that I try to live out every day. You both are more than sermon illustrations and blog material. You are proof that God answers prayer. I love you both!

To Jon, Nicole, Congo, and Brody, you are one of the main reasons why we planted a church in the 757. Monica and I love living life with you. We were willing to go anywhere God led us, but we are eternally grateful that we got the green light to stay close to you guys.

To Sarah, Scott, Selleck, Slade, and Sawyer, thanks for being our Ohio family. I hope that this book makes you proud of your little brother, brother-in-law, and uncle.

To Mark and Dodi, I know that it is scary to have a son-in-law who quits his job to plant a church with no guarantee of insurance or a salary. Thanks for not showing me your fear. I also want to thank you for producing my wife. She’s awesome! Good job.

To Chad Johnson, thanks for being my best friend since eighth grade. Being a military kid, I never had a friend longer than a year. Meeting you at the cafeteria was a God thing.

To Dan and Danielle, your friendship and support mean more to me than you realize. Friends are more valuable to me than money. You bring a lot of worth to my life. I would also like to take this time to thank you in advance for taking the four of us in if the zombie apocalypse ever does happen.

To Courtney Hornsby, you were the first person to tell me to plant a church. You didn’t know what God was stirring in my heart at the time. The fact that you were willing to move with us to plant a church helped me know that I wasn’t crazy for wanting to do the impossible for God. Thanks for being a best friend to Monica, a Co-co to the twins, and a risk taker with me.

To Catalyst conference, you have done more for my leadership and passion for God than anything else period. God uses you each year to rock my world.

To Ben Arment, you will never get me to stop saying thank you for what you did for me. My life was radically changed because you believed in me. Thank you!

To Clayton King, thanks for taking time to invest in me. Thanks for being consistently passionate for Jesus! Thanks for praying that we would have twins. That still blows my mind!

To the staff at Next Level, you are sent from God. Never forget that we are not just doing church. We are the church. Thank you for putting up with a dreamer who lacks administrative skills. Thank you for being more about God’s kingdom than your own. Thank you for taking initiative. Thank you for listening to God and starting a church! I’m honored to serve as your pastor. Oh, and this book won’t be required reading for our staff meetings. And, yes, you will get a free copy.

To all my friends, I know that some of you will complain because your name wasn’t mentioned specifically in this section. My response is, Even if I wrote the perfect acknowledgements, someone would crucify me. I hope that you know that friendship matters to me. Whether we are friends from high school, college, seminary, or church, you have impacted my life. You have been the ones that I’ve worked so hard to please. You are the ones who have inspired so many life lessons. You have influenced my life and are therefore a huge part of this book.

To the readers of robshep.com, thank you for reading every day. Thank you for putting up with my poor grammar. Writing for you every day gave me the stamina to write a book. I am forever grateful for your comments and interactions. Thank you for being my online community!

Finally, I want to thank the wicked awesome team at Morgan James publishing. Thank you for taking a chance on a first time author. Thank you for the hours you spent making this book look way better than anything I could ever do on my own.

Introduction

If you want to make friends, there are a few polarizing topics that you should not bring up in your first introduction.

Politics – unless you are at a Republican or Democratic convention, it is wise to not bring up a preference for Fox News or MSNBC, donkeys or elephants, or your opinions on whether or not universal healthcare is a communist/Muslim/ antichrist plot to destroy the world. Just resist the urge to bring this up within the first 5 minutes of talking with someone.

Religion – religion is very polarizing. Now I’m not talking about being silent about Jesus. If God leads you to talk to someone about Jesus then you should do that. I’m talking about religious debates. If you want to make friends, don’t lead with Hi my name is _________ and I’m a Baptist/Charismatic/ 5 Point Calvinist/the antichrist!

Nickleback – the band. Unless you enjoy getting beat up gang style, you should avoid saying Nickelback is the greatest band ever! There are lots of people who feel like Nickelback is a sign of the end times and thus provides the soundtrack to the antichrist.

Not too long ago, I was talking with a friend about Nickelback, and I encouraged him not to post his feelings about the band on Facebook. He asked, Why? I told him that there are large groups of people who would rather cut off their ears than burn in the fires of Nickelback.

According to Urban Dictionary, the definition of Nickelback is the act of willfully allowing one’s ears to bleed. An example of this is I was Nickelbacking, so the school nurse sent me home early.

I ended up asking my Facebook friends how they feel about Nickelback. I was surprised at what I found. Out of the 28 comments, only 6 hated on Nickelback. Most of those who hated on them were musicians themselves. Those who hated on them really loathed them. At the same time, the vast majority of people said that they love them.

Nickelback has sold 50 million albums, yet if you follow pop culture, they’ve brought about as much to the music scene as William Hung from American Idol. Google him to get the full effect of that statement.

It’s interesting to me how loud a negative voice is. Haters are going to hate and when they do, it’s as if they carry a megaphone.

Think about the power of words. One negative word outweighs hundreds of positive words. In other words, one positive word doesn’t erase the effects of one negative word. In fact, some really smart people who have doctorates have said that it takes 5 positive words to offset one negative word. Studies have shown that the brain actually has a negativity bias. Our brains actually focus on the negative over the positive.

We as humans are fragile, and it doesn’t take much to break us. Words are power. The truth is there are more people that love Nickelback then those that hate them. The hate is so strong because negative words weigh more. Please know that this is not an endorsement for all things Nickelback. I personally think a lot of their lyrics are polished off smut that gets past the radio censors. My point is not that they are a good band or not. My point is that in our culture it feels like they are the worst thing since shoulder pads were in all ladies’ clothes.

Whether it’s Nickleback, the New York Yankees, the movie Titanic, or you, all have something in common. They are very popular, yet someone still found a way to hate on them. I know you might not want to think that you have anything in common with Nickleback, but you do. The truth is no matter how many people like you, someone will find a way to hate on you. You can either let it destroy you or try something greater. That’s the goal of this book. It is not to ignore the ones who will criticize us. It is to find our identity in someone so great that we can overcome even the greatest hater. It is my prayer that every person who reads this falls more in love with Jesus. It’s through Jesus that we can learn to be okay with the fact that even if we were perfect, someone would crucify us.

Chapter One

Even if You Were Perfect, Someone Would Crucify You

You’ve faced it. If you have one of those Twitters or Facebooks, you’ve faced it. If you are reading this in the future, and Twitter and Facebook don’t exist, you’ve still faced it. Whenever you future people picked out your first hover board or flying car, you faced it. If you own 1.21 gigawatts and use it to go back in time and have a copy of this book, you faced it on your MySpace page. If you are a pastor or a teacher, you’ve faced it. If you’ve ever cooked a meal for anyone other than yourself, you’ve faced it. If you’ve tried a new haircut, gone to public school, had a kid, visited a place where there is a different accent, worn a fanny pack, or shown someone your high school yearbook, then you’ve faced it. At some point in life, everyone has faced negative comments from people. When negativity hits you, it hurts like a mother.

The inspiration for this book came from a very hurtful place. I had preached a sermon on relationships, and someone didn’t like it. In fact, this someone didn’t like it so much he/she decided to write me an anonymous letter. I should have known that it was trouble, but I was actually excited to receive a real life letter. People don’t write those any more. I mean it takes time to use ancient things such as pen and paper. Oh, and to send it, you need a stamp, so it costs something.

It didn’t dawn on me that such glorious attention could be filled with negativity until I was well into the first paragraph. The letter was dripping with crazy. It said things about being thankful our local news media wasn’t there to get coverage of the talk. The local media was never at our church. I don’t know where the writer came up with that one. The person wrote that he could tell that everyone around him hated the talk as much as he did. It was four pages of abuse, but I couldn’t stop reading it.

It didn’t matter that I had received close to twenty emails from people telling me that God spoke to them. It didn’t matter that my wife, parents, and church staff liked the talk. It didn’t matter that I did my best, or that I said what I thought God was leading me to say. All that mattered was that some anonymous stranger didn’t like my message. His insults consumed me.

On the fourth reading, I sensed a still small voice say to me, Even if you preached a perfect sermon, someone would crucify it. I immediately balled up the letter and threw it away. I was allowing someone I didn’t know to define me. I was allowing someone who didn’t have the