Avoiding Spiritual Burnout

Since our new president took office, I have noticed one matter that is very interesting, and it came out this week in a statement and some of the questions that the press put to his press secretary. And it appears that this new administration no longer wants to call the war on terror the war on terror. That was a point that came out this week. They will define it by different terms, it seems like. And I thought, hmm, since when does a war on terror against terrorists, religious fanatics, worldwide network of people who want to kill Americans in a non-traditional type of warfare no longer become a war on terror? And if you change the name, what does that really change in terms of the threat and the danger? And I thought about that, I'm still thinking about that. I don't like it because when you change the terms of a problem, you try to redefine it by a name, there's always a motive there and it's either to deflect attention, to try to discount concern, or to change the dialogue in whatever it may be. It's just something that it's important to always note when terms are changed to describe a particular situation. And this one to me was particularly troubling because I happen to believe we are in a war on terror. And from 9-11 back and some of the other things that have taken place with the Guantanamo and that whole issue is another issue to discuss, but just the changing of the name of the threat and the problems and the realities of our world today, to me, is rather ominous because it really doesn't change anything. It doesn't change the reality of the problem that is there. And one hopes that it doesn't change the vigilance that is there to protect Americans because none of us want to see, I repeat, what happened on 9-11. Even though former Vice President Cheney said this week in an interview that he expects that there will be another attack and tens of thousands of Americans will die in some sort of a bio-terror or semi-nuclear attack or other direct attack upon American property or American citizens. And one hopes he's wrong, but someone like Vice President Cheney saw all the facts, all the threat reports on a regular basis for eight years and I think knows what he's talking about. But time will tell. To look at the idea of a war on terror has obviously ramifications for our country, for the world, but there's also a spiritual bit of instruction there and this idea and this concept of changing because it redirects one's focus. If we look at this from a spiritual perspective, there is the reality that we are in a spiritual warfare and a spiritual battle that is an ongoing matter for the people of God. And that's a rather stark term as well to describe, in one sense, what it means to be a citizen in advance of the kingdom of God, to be a member of the Church of God, to be the elect and the people of God, but it is the reality.

It is the reality. And Satan would love nothing more than to fill us with distractions, self-doubt, different feelings that would destroy our confidence in what we are and what we've sacrificed for, to get our minds distracted off of that and to fill us with indecision and to fill us with worry.

Satan would love to shut us down as a church, destroying our vigilance for truth, our vigilance for the kingdom of God, for the work of God, for sharing that knowledge with many, many hundreds of thousands of other people. The Church of God has had many close calls in the past, and we will continue to have many close calls for which we need to be on guard.

We get to various periods of the year. This is one of those where you get kind of into the midwinter. There is that danger of being overcome by even the elements around us and causing us to be distracted from a vigilance as to who we are, what we should be doing, and the realities of our own life and our own world.

In John 9, Jesus made a statement in the midst of a very happy event. He had healed a blind man, John 9.

His disciples asked him about this man in the first verse of John 9, a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind. And their question really spoke to the distraction that they had. They weren't on point. They weren't focused. They didn't understand why the man was blind. They didn't understand the nature of life in their own time, why there was sickness, why there were problems such as blindness or other illnesses that they had then, just as we sometimes would ask the same question today. Why does God allow this? You and I might not necessarily ask who sinned, his father or mother, but we might ask why would God allow this? And even that question doesn't get to the point. That can betray a sense of focus and a true understanding. And just as Jesus answered his disciples in verse 3, he said, look, neither of his parents sinned. That's not why this man is blind. It's not because somebody did something wrong one generation, two generations, or three generations back. And he gives this statement, he says, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. It's not my intent to try to explain all of that theologically today, but it's sure not the answer that they thought they would get. And it shows, again, that they were off target. They were distracted. They were off focus. And then he says in verse 4, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. The night is coming when no one can work. As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world. Now, that's a remarkable statement. It doesn't say anything about why the man's blind. It doesn't say how the man's going to get his sight back. How did he get his sight back? Well, the story goes on. Christ spat in the ground, made a little ball of mud, put it on the man's eyes, and said, now go wash in the pool of Siloam. That's another part of the story. The real point Jesus wanted to make was something that none of us would have ever thought about. That he says, I've got to work. The day is coming when no one can work. Night is coming. But the day, there's still daylight. And I've got to work. I'm the light of the world. That had nothing to do with a man being blind. And nothing to do with the reality of his healing.

Now, the healing was part of Christ's work, but it wasn't the totality of his work in that day. In it, there is a lesson for you and I. And that is, we have to be about the work of God in our day and in our time. And the questions that we sometimes ask, the issues we get wrapped up in, the matters of our life and of the world and of the church and of our even local congregation, the larger church, the world, the things that we get caught up in are not always really the issues. And even the things that happen to us, our own life and our own needs and our own issues, that's not what really is what we should be focused on. When we do, we can be distracted from the real mission, which is, if you will, the work that the body of Christ is to be doing, the work that Christ was doing then, as He said, I've got to do the works of Him who sent me while it is day. The night's coming when nobody can work. Now, there's going to come a time when the work will not be done. The Bible uses the description of a time of the famine of the Word. I don't think we're at that point yet. But I do see that we're in a world where it is increasingly difficult to get people's attention to pay attention to the gospel. I think Satan is hurting the world into a trap. He would like nothing more than to stop the voice of any voice of truth, any voice that proclaims the truth of the gospel of the kingdom of God, shut down any growth that takes place there. Night is coming, but night isn't here yet.

It's kind of like twilight. You know how twilight is? The sun is dipped below the horizon, but there's still enough light just to see. It's not dark, and it's not day. It's the twilight. And that is an interesting concept to think about. There is, I think, a twilight on the land today upon the world that presents confusion in many different ways.

And it's important that the church, all of us, understand that impact upon us for our own life and certainly for the greater work that we are to do. Satan is very wily. He is very subtle. And we cannot ignore and misunderstand the spiritual terrorism that he brings about and that he continues to work.

There was a quote that I run across a number of years ago that talks about the art of war. In fact, it's from a book called The Art of War by an ancient Chinese philosopher, military person named Sun Tzu. Like the Sun S-U-N, the second name Tzu. T-Z-U. I assume that's how it's pronounced in Chinese. But he wrote a book that is still quoted today called The Art of War.

It was written 2,500 years ago in China. And this quote says that it talks about knowing your enemy. Because excellence in military war is breaking the enemy's resistance down without fighting sometimes. Causing it to be broke down without fighting.

In other words, breaking down the morale of the enemy. And this is a quote here from this ancient piece. It says, if you know the enemy, and if you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know your enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but you do not know the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer defeat. If you neither know the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

I think it is safe to say that we know our enemy, but we don't always know ourselves. And sometimes we will ignore the enemy. And we will live in the combination of both of those. His solution for the art of mastering wars to know both your enemy and yourself, and the point is, no matter what you come up against, you'll be able to deal with it.

You will need not fear. But you cannot coexist, you cannot function only knowing one without the other. The reality is that God gives us the ability to know both ourselves and the enemy. We have that ability, we have that knowledge, we have that understanding.

It's up to us to keep it all together, to know ourselves and to know the enemy. A lot of times we get into situations, very often, where we know the enemy. We can blame Satan. We can admit, I know that there is the reality of a spirit world in Satan, and his demons are very active. We know that, but we don't know ourselves. And if we can mouth theologically the reality that there is a Satan without fully understanding how we function in regard to that, we're only functioning on one of the two cylinders of this operation here.

We've got to know both. Now, knowing the one is well stated from the Scriptures, let's look at a few places. Turn back, if you will, to Daniel 7. Daniel 7 speaks to Satan's power to work through deception, through forces, to wear down the people of God. In Daniel 7 and in verse 25, this is Daniel having one of his visions interpreted of four beasts. A well-known situation here.

He comes down in verse 23 to talk about the fourth beast will be the fourth kingdom on earth, which will be the Roman Empire that will devour the earth and trample it in pieces. He talks about ten horns and ten kings. And it speaks of another rising up in verse 24 after them. This other horn is speaking about a religious power of the church that rises up and is different from the first ones. And he will subdue the three kings that went before.

That, without getting into it, just to understand that this is speaking of this one that will rise, is a religious power, that of the papacy. In verse 25 it says, he shall speak papa's words against the Most High, in terms of deception, in terms of teaching that denies God, denies the power of Christ, denies the church, the teachings of God. They will speak papa's words against the Most High, and shall persecute the saints of the Most High and intend to change times and laws. Then the saints shall be given into his hand for time times and half a time. So speaking about the impact this power has upon the saints or the people of God.

And it makes a statement here at the beginning of verse 25 that he will persecute the saints of the Most High. Look at your margin. The King James Version in the original Hebrew says that he will wear down the saints of the Most High. The saints will be worn down. They will get weary.

Religious persecution, when you look at the story of it through the histories, inevitably had that impact. We see it from the Bible and we see it from history. That when a great false church arose, it did have to stamp out any remnant of the truth, and it happened.

And the persecutions down through the ages accomplished that. And the people of God were worn down. Now that also speaks to the power behind that religious power, Satan the Devil. And it's speaking to just the incessant power that is there to wear against and to subdue the power, the influence, the energy, the drive, the enthusiasm, the zeal, the dedication, the commitment of the people of God, or the saints of the Most High.

The church, the people within the church. To wear them down mentally, to consume them, to wear people out. Satan would love to demoralize in his war on terror the people of God. In Galatians 6, Paul makes a statement here that is also a warning. In Galatians 6, chapter 6 of Galatians, first few verses, contains a number of practical teachings about doing good, helping one another, standing fast in the truth.

Not being deceived, living righteously. Then in verse 9 it says, let us not grow weary while doing good. For in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Just a warning to not grow weary. Don't wear out. Don't be worn out when we're doing good. When you're helping, when you're standing fast in the faith, when you're obeying God, when you are doing good things. For people in the church, in your neighborhood, in your school.

Sometimes you can get worn out. There's a compassion fatigue that sets in, especially when there are too many hurricanes, too many tornadoes, too many floods. Red Cross volunteers suffer this. They get into compassion fatigue. Not only do they run out of donations, but there becomes a point in the springtime or the summer or the fall, depending upon what natural disaster season we happen to be in, where that sometimes will set in. Paul here is speaking to that. Don't grow weary in well doing. Which means you have to pace yourself, which means you have to understand yourself.

It means a lot of things, but it's just the reality. Again, notice Hebrews 12 and verse 3.

Hebrews 12 and verse 3.

The whole theme of holding fast and enduring, running the race of faith. Looking to the examples of those in chapter 11 that are faithful, the examples of the heroes of faith. Come down to verse 3 of chapter 12, where Paul writes, Weary and discouraged in your soul. You ever seen someone who just fits the description of a weary soul? Sometimes we get that way. We'll sit down and we'll talk and we're just tired. And you realize that's a weary soul. It's more than just physical fatigue. It's a weariness of heart. It's a weariness of attitude.

And Paul here warns against becoming weary and discouraged in your soul. Satan would love to discourage us. He would love to get us tired of doing good. Wear us down, as the prophecy in Daniel talks about. There is always a clear and present danger of this to be aware of. The story of God's people is one of contending with Satan from the very beginning.

If you look at Revelation 12, and I won't go through all of that, but I want to point out something in Revelation 12. Revelation 12 is a whole chapter that talks about the persecution or the development of the church. It's a history of the church from the time of Christ's birth all the way down to the very time of the end in Christ's Second Coming. It's an interesting vision that is an inset chapter in the flow of Revelation.

But it says, A great sign, verse 1, appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a garland of twelve suns. This is a picture of the church, this woman.

Then, being with child, she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth. That is speaking of the birth of Christ. And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great fiery red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads. And he stood before the woman, verse 4, who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born.

And this woman and child do this dance, if you will, throughout chapter 12, all the way down to the very last verse where the dragon is enraged with the woman and goes to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. The point that I want to make without going through the entire chapter here is, God's people have always had to contend with Satan.

And his agents, whether it's a church, whether it's a state, whether it's individuals, whether it's the broadcasting of the prince of the power of the air, God's people, you and I, the Church of God, have always been in a spiritual warfare, spiritual terrorism, and we are to this day involving Satan himself. That's why I don't necessarily like the changing of the words of the war on terror that depicts the reality of our world today, because I know how it is spiritually, if we get off target and get off focus in the church and we don't fully see the spiritual warfare that we're involved with and understand the clear and present danger that we are involved with, we'll lose sight of it.

We'll fool ourselves that it doesn't exist, and the impact that that will have upon us is devastating. It's not a sudden impact in every case. You're not going to become stark, raving, mad, Shiite Protestants. You ever met a Shiite Protestant?

Think about it. You're not necessarily going to just abandon the Sabbath all of a sudden, or start keeping Christmas, or do something that just redefines your whole life, necessarily. Now, Satan is far more subtle than that. He doesn't give one wit, whether you keep Sunday, Friday, Wednesday, or nothing. He doesn't care if you keep Christmas, Hanukkah, or nothing. Super Bowl, Sunday. He doesn't care. He does care when you keep the Sabbath. He does care when you obey the Holy Days. He does care when you take a stand for the truth.

And he is always working consistently to wear us down. And at times we succumb to that. We will get wounded. You know, in the art of war, armies learn at times that it is far better to wound the enemy than to kill him. You wound somebody, and that is going to tie up another half dozen to a dozen people. You kill somebody, slip them in the body bag, head back to Andrews, under cover of darkness, plant them in the ground. But you wound somebody. You've got a whole team of medics. You've got a whole hospital corps. They get evac'd out someplace, and you've got a whole set up.

And resources are then marshaled, and it becomes a whole different picture. And that's been known for a long time. The enemy in Vietnam knew that. That they could wound people and tie up more people than just by killing. It takes time, it takes resources to care for people who are wounded. They're no longer an asset. Now, I know that there's been a big point made about many of the men and women in the Iraq war that have come back to Walter Reed Hospital and to the hospitals who have lost arms and legs, and they are visited by the president or some other individual, and they say they want to go back.

And I no doubt understand their sincerity and believe that. Not that they will, but they want to. But there's also been a concurrent number, larger number, in this particular war of people who come back, who are broken, and commit suicide, and have other problems. And they've had to ramp up to deal with that. War has a casualty rate that is more than just a body count. And it's the wounding that's important for us to understand because we should be careful in our own spiritual warfare not to become wounded. Or if we do, not to stay wounded, to get healed, and to re-engage.

But that's the challenge. You know, just as an army is going to spend a large amount of resources to keep their wounded, to take care of them, and they should, I don't begrudge one dime of veterans' aid for any veteran of any war in American history. I don't begrudge that at all. But a nation should take care of those. And you know when it comes to spiritually, the church has to spend, and will spend, and should spend, a high percentage of its resources in taking care of the people.

I just received some of the budget figures as we are looking at the budget for the next fiscal year. I just did some quick math, and roughly, we spend right now in the United Church of God, about 50% of our financial resources go toward taking care of the church, of the people. And if you take care of everything from hall rentals, to church assistants, to salaries, and expenses, subsidies to international areas, it's a very high percentage, roughly 50% of our budget goes toward taking care of people.

It's obviously the single biggest expense item for the church. And the various programs that we have, everything from camps, to seminars, to everything that we provide as far as part of our church budget in that way, that's quite high. Actually, it's higher than it used to be back in the worldwide church of God. That's a percentage of the total budget. But if you think about it, the biggest resource we have in the church is people.

There is no more important physical asset that the church has than its people. And we do want to take care, and we should and will take care, of the people, of the ministry, and of the people of the church. In one sense, spiritually, we have to have the same idea that a marine has when a buddy goes down on the field of war.

The marines have a creed that they don't leave anyone behind. And they will risk their lives to go back, even if that buddy is dead, and pull them off the field of battle. Story after story after story of military heroics have been chronicled of such examples. When it comes to us in a church, we want to have the same attitude. We don't want to leave anyone behind when someone gets wounded, when someone gets hit by incoming.

And that happens, doesn't it? From all different kinds of sources. We read in Galatians 6 where it speaks of being weary in well-doing. Modern psychology has a different term for it. People who grow weary. They call it burnout. They call it burnout today. Which happens when people who are dedicated, who are committed, come to a point where they get wounded. They've had enough. They get hurt. They decide to retreat, withdraw. They may decide it's all over. They disengage. Their feelings have gone sour. And they don't want to be able to continue to work. There's a book that I had run across some years back talking about burnout.

And it has the classic definition for it. If I can give it to you. It says, a burnout is someone in a state of fatigue or frustration brought about by devotion to a cause, a way of life, a relationship that failed to produce the expected reward. Stated another way, whenever the expectation level is dramatically opposed to reality, and the person persists in trying to reach that expectation, trouble is on the way.

But the expectation is dramatically opposed to reality. Overly high expectation of return, of emotional satisfaction, of reward, of pay, whatever it might be. And it doesn't happen. Reality happens. And yet we persist in that, then there can be trouble. Deep inside, friction is building up, the inevitable result of which will be a depletion of the individual's resources, an attrition of his or her vitality, energy, and the ability to function. Burnout. Interesting. I've been there. You've been there. It takes different forms, different guises. We see it.

Sometimes when we get into either the summer doldrums or the winter doldrums, you will see that. Friction will build up between people and one might blow out or wear out. We're all subject to it. Not one of us is immune to it. It has different symptoms. This book went on to give a number of different symptoms that you can begin to realize and think about. One of them is exhaustion. It's more than just getting tired after a 12 or 14 hour day of hard work. It gets to a mental exhaustion where you're just mentally tired. Have you ever been there?

The body is willing. You slept maybe eight hours and you're up. But there's a mental exhaustion to the task, to the issue, to the job, to the matter that you've got to deal with. There's an exhaustion there. Detachment is another symptom where a person just removes themselves from people, from involvement, distancing, disengagement in that way.

Another symptom is boredom and cynicism. Boredom and cynicism. When I read this, I thought sometimes the whole age is described as an age of cynics in one sense. But just getting bored about doing good things, causes, anything that people begin to question the value of activities. The value of friendships. Oh, you know, what's the use of developing a friendship? They're just going to get hurt, been hurt before. And sometimes that can lead to a kind of boredom with life itself. You get skeptical of people and their motives. Another symptom, I could go through several of them here, but another one I run into a lot, and I see.

And I've had this myself. Another symptom is a suspicion of being unappreciated. Being unappreciated. With a decrease in energy, I'll just read it, comes an increase of effort, but not necessarily a result. The burnout, of course, never sees that, and he feels aggrieved at the lack of appreciation people are showing toward him or her. After all, they're leaving early, and he or she are staying late. The least they could do is say, thank you. You find yourself feeling that way that nobody appreciates me?

The least they could say is, thank you. That leads, and can lead, to bitterness and increasing anger. Depression is another symptom that is listed here, of burnout. And the depression, and they take great pains to explain that there's a different type of depression that is more of a real depression, that is something that is not to be ignored and will take additional, further intensive treatment to deal with. And I do believe and do understand that there is a reality of something, as you could call it, clinical depression or whatever. We all fully understand that and realize that, and that needs to specialize in treatment and care and should not be ignored.

But we all find ourselves getting depressed or discouraged in a more temporary or specific situation. And that's what this is referring to here, but it happens more often and perhaps to one or more areas of life. And this is a symptom of the problem of burnout, not of the disease of depression. So it's important to distinguish between the two. But understand your alert system. He goes on to say that telling you that something is amiss. If you begin to feel depressed about a situation that happens more than once, if you think of those, this is a quote, if you think of those burnout symptoms the way you would think of a sneeze, you can put them to good use.

When you suddenly start sneezing, what goes through your mind? You get a scratchy throat, what goes through your mind? You recognize it as a symptom of something and you can take certain steps to deal with it. If you see the symptoms of burnout, treat it like you would a sneeze in that sense. You know that your body is dealing with something or something is amiss that can be treated and dealt with in a way to either alleviate the suffering or in some cases to head it off before it gets into something worse. Like bronchitis or pneumonia, if you know that you are prone to that.

That's what this particular author here in this book gets down to the point, which is a very practical and valuable point, to recognize the symptoms and to then deal with it. You know, spiritually and within the church, we have so much knowledge and understanding to deal with to help us to understand the struggles and the fights, the spiritual terrorism, the battle that we are in, to keep us from falling prey to weariness and well-doing, bitterness or anger, other problems that we might have. I was thinking, as I had gone through recently with the pastors who are in for a training session at the home office, every year I sit down with them for about an hour and we talk about Revelation chapters 2 and 3 in the story of the church here.

And I had a different insight this time. I've come to realize that Revelation 2 and 3, you could study that for a lifetime and come up with all kinds of understanding. And there's a rich, rich understanding here. In this particular area, I was thinking about it in this particular problem because Revelation 2 and 3 gives abonitions, encouragement and warning to the church of God.

And as we read it today, we can learn from every one of these messages. And looking at the church at Ephesus, it struck me here as it talks about a church that lost its first love. A church that got weary in well-doing for a number of different reasons. You see things wearing thin here. Things were not as interesting as they once were. The message to the church here says, in verse 2, I know your works, your labor.

They stayed late. They worked overtime. They put in more hours than were necessary. Your patience, very long-suffering, very patient. And that you cannot bear those who are evil. They put it out of their life. They encouraged it to be put out of the church in one sense. They moved away from it. You've tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars.

Phony people, lying hypocrites in the guise of religious leaders. He says you were able to discern some of them, and you either moved away from them, put them out, dealt with them, but you found them to be what they are, which is liars. And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my namesake and have not become weary.

They didn't become weary completely in doing all of these good things. But then it says, nevertheless, I do have something against you that you have left your first love. That would be a whole sermon in itself. But if you look at the book of Acts, you see a church that in its first days, months, and years was growing, was vibrant, alive.

People were coming into the church. They were serving one another. They were meeting all the needs of the needy, the widows, the deacons that were deaking. It was always good to have deacons who deek. And they were all with one accord. They were having potlucks in one another's homes. The first few chapters of Acts tell a story of a church that's alive, growing and developing.

That's first love. They were excited to be with one another. And then you begin to see a few hiccups. Somebody like Simon Magus starts to creep in. A couple of people named Ananias and Sapphira popped up, but they were dealt with. He said, go back and remember your first love. Remember, verse 5, from where you've fallen. Repent, do the first works. Or else I'll come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you change.

Unless you understand the symptoms of what you're dealing with and get a grip on it and work through it. This is a very important lesson from this particular message to one of the churches. We can go from thinking about what's oldest. We can start thinking, well, I've sacrificed for years and years and years. What have I got to show for it? We can focus on mistreatment, problems, mistakes that have been made.

And in one sense, that's not the question. It gets back to what Christ said to the disciples when they asked her in John 9, who sinned? Did his mother or his dad sin?

Did an aunt and uncle or some relative that we don't even know about, did they sin? And Jesus' answers show the reality of their irrelevance, of the irrelevance of their question. And who cares? At some point, you have to move on. And issues, personalities, mistreatment, problems of present, near past, ancient past have to be forgiven. There are so many other bits of instruction in the Bible that God gives us as remedies for those. We have plenty of, you know, whether it's Matthew 18 to go to your brother, whether it is to forgive, whatever it might be.

There's an antidote. There's a little pill bottle for each of them to pull off the scriptural shelf to find a remedy and not let it get us down. If we do, we'll develop adversarial relationships with those people speaking in the church or the church itself, the very things that were the most dear to us at one point. You know, there was a time, and if I could just go back for a time, there was a time when a trip to church on the Sabbath was the whole focus point of the week.

And people would drive hours and hours and hours to do that. Some of your parents did it. Some of you did it. I was even just dumbfounded last week that we had people driving three and four hours from north Texas or from southeast Texas to come and listen to me, moi, of all people.

And Robin Weber for our World News and Prophecy Seminar. I mean, when they would come up and we'd start talking, I always make sure I thank them for coming. I don't take that for granted to see that today. And these are members. I understand that. But they wanted to be a part of something.

You'd be surprised how many phone calls and inquiries I get from people who want to know about the church. And they live on the west side or the east side. They want to know if there's a church on that side of town for them. I say, well, no, we're kind of a regional church. We have a church here on the south side. Oh, that's too far. And I say, well, at this point, we don't have anything in your neighborhood. I'm sorry. I try to be kind.

And in reality, I'm thinking, you know, wow, in my day. But that's the way it is today. People want a church right down the street. And the deerness, if you will, of the church and the people of the church, something we never want to take for granted.

And we don't want to get burned out on.

If you see yourself as a wounded person, realize it's okay.

But realize also that you've stepped on one of Satan's booby traps. One of his IEDs has hit you.

But don't stay that way. Do your part to get back in the game. Get an artificial limb.

Get a treatment. In a sense, be like one of those soldiers in our Walter Reed Hospital that wants to get back into their unit with their buddies.

But don't be part of the walking wounded.

Thinking right is a key to overcoming and dealing with being weary and well-doing. The Bible calls that a sound mind.

And that is a symptom and that is something that is a matter of God's Holy Spirit.

Because when we get to the point where we're weary and well-doing, we're not thinking right, we're not thinking on track, we're not thinking objectively at times or soundly.

If it takes us to the point where we experience any of these symptoms and we turn people or the church or even God into an adversary or into an enemy, something that once gave us a reason for living is no longer doing so, then we've got a problem that we've got to deal with.

You know, burnout, growing weary and well-doing will happen to everyone else. I've had to work through it several times.

And one of the things I realize is that it comes when the qualities of strength that we have, upon which we've relied, that have gotten us through, no longer get it done, no longer fulfills our needs. Maybe you're a very likeable person, a very charismatic person, people like you.

And your personality has carried you a long way. You've got a lot of friends in kindergarten, you've got your front seat, the extra milk.

Or if you weren't, you know a person, somebody who was like that. There are some people that are born with a golden spoon in their mouth.

And that will take you a long ways. But we all know that in reality, in the real world, there comes a time when it ends.

Maybe one's humor, ability to just be always smiling, cracking a joke, and making people feel at ease and humorous.

That can be an asset as well. Maybe you're the hard worker. You'll put in the extra hour, two hours.

You'll come in on the weekends. You'll stay late at night. You'll volunteer for the extra credit, the extra work.

And your hard work will take you a long way. I don't discount hard work. I've said before, I learned hard work at the feet of my dad.

And it'll cost you the midnight oil, if nothing else, if you get that as part of your psyche.

That's fine, but understand what I'm building to here. All of these by themselves can be problems that can lead us to burnout.

Maybe endurance is your special quality. You can endure boring people. You can endure rude people. You can endure slackers, people who are lazy.

You can endure mistreatment. You can endure a bad sermon. You can endure and endure and endure.

But sooner or later, with that approach to everything, you miss the joy. We can get to where we can endure anything.

Crummy working environment, bad neighborhood, but where is the joy? Joy is a fruit of God's Spirit.

You can be intelligent, and that can get you a long way too, on your brains. You can have good looks.

And we all know how we can be fooled by people who are good looking.

But good looking people can go a certain distance. It's been scientifically proven. It's been culturally proven.

But good looking people can wind up dead, burned out, thrown aside, found to be frauds.

Think about the good looking people of your grade school, junior high school. If you do know, where are they now?

Money. Money can get you so far. Status can get you so far. Celebrity can get you so far.

These are all good by themselves. But when we make any of those all that we have, and they become our security, they become our carte blanche, our key of entry to a job, to life, to an identity, to success.

When they become our security, they become our all, they become our idols. They become our idols.

And they are nothing by themselves that are the qualities of the Kingdom of God.

When you read the Sermon on the Mount, it says, blessed are the poor. Blessed are the peacemakers.

It doesn't say blessed are the good looking. It doesn't even say blessed are the hardworking.

Read what it says in the Sermon on the Mount. Read what the fruits of the Holy Spirit are in Galatians 5.

Those are the qualities that we have to rely on and look to for our security, our identity, everything that we want and have. If we don't, if we rely on just our good looks, our money, our intelligence, our hard work, our charisma, our ability to manipulate people, if that's what we rely on for our security, they become our idols, and we become blinded. They become our blind spots to us, to what we really are.

We get defensive with anybody that wants to tamper with them.

Look, even our family, our spouse, and our children, if that's our identity, if that is our security, and that's all we have, somebody comes and nudges that, we'll get defensive. We'll get offended.

So stop and think about that, because at times, those are the matters about which people get offended, bitter, angry, detached, depressed, discouraged, paranoid, bored, and grow weary in well-doing.

Because we make all these other matters that I listed, we make them our idols. That's what we look to for security.

Instead of the qualities of God's Spirit, instead of the qualities of the citizen of the kingdom, as outlined in the sermon on the Mount, and we make ourselves more prone to growing weary in well-doing and to being burned out spiritually when it comes to God.

There's a great deal to think about. How do we solve it? How do we move away from it?

A person, a psychologist counselor might tell a person, get a different job. Move. Forget it. Do something else.

Or coach them through a scenario to deal with the boss that they don't like, or the co-worker that they don't like, or whatever.

Those aren't always practical solutions for us in the Church. We can't take that approach. We have a different standard, a higher standard.

We can't just walk away from the Church, although people do. We can't just walk away from one another.

We're not really dealing with a physical job. We have to get to the point where we re-engage.

We're not indispensable, neither are we disposable. We're not a throwaway organization. We're not throwaway people.

Christ can call other people. He made a statement at one time that he could raise up stones to do a job and to replace the people that he had called.

But when you stop and think about it, why should he? Why should he have to call someone else?

It's taken time to prepare and to train each of us in the role that Christ has placed us in.

There's been a big investment made. He doesn't want to replace anyone. He wants us to be about our Father's business.

He wants us to be about the work while there is light before it gets dark and no one can do the job.

That's what we have to do. What God has called us to do.

There was an old gentleman that I used to visit in Fort Wayne. When I came to know him, he lived in a trailer and was alone.

I don't think he'd ever been married. He had no children. All of his family had died. His family was the church.

You'd see him every week. He was like so many that we've had in the church like that. His name was Gordon Miller.

He always had a smile on his face. I remember when I first got to Fort Wayne 26 years ago now.

He was one of the first I remember meeting. You'd see him every week. He'd always make sure he'd talk with you.

From time to time, when I would visit with him in his very simple trailer there on the south side of Fort Wayne, we'd have a nice visitor or whatever. I remember him telling me one time when he started getting sick.

He realized that his life was winding down. Remember one time he just broke down in his trailer crying.

Not big sobs, but like the type of crying that a 78-year-old man would do.

He realized that his physical life is coming to a close.

The one statement I remember from him was, I just hope I've done what God has called me to do.

I just hope I've done what God has called me to do.

He didn't grow weary in well-doing.

Never did.

I've always remembered that because it's a statement that we all need to come back to.

I get caught up in ourselves. I get caught up in all the physical things, looking to them for security, looking to them to give us the identity, the encouragement, and all that we desire and need to have in one sense.

It represents an attitude that is looking to God for those things.

When we do that, we take the people, the feelings, the things, and we move it out of the way.

They don't encumber our view of God and our relationship with God.

He does then become more of our all.

That ultimately is the way through the periods, the moments, the weeks, the months, the experiences that might cause us to grow weary in well-doing, to get back engaged, to get back into the fight, to realize and to find others who are just a little bit worse off, perhaps, than we are, and to pray for them, to encourage them, to write to them, to call them, to help them, and to recognize the blessings that we do have and not worry about those.

Our relationship with God is based on faith.

Knitting together relationships that help each other take care of one another physically and spiritually as an extended family.

Our warfare is a spiritual warfare, Paul tells us.

We never want to forget that. We never want to be distracted from it.

As soon as we are, we will fall prey to these other issues and problems.

Don't let that happen now, next month, or next year.

Understand the times that we live in, understand what needs to be done, and be a part of engagement with God, His work, His people, and let's be working while we have light, because time is coming when we won't be able to.

Let's make sure we are engaged and working for the work of the Kingdom of God.