Spiritual Burnout

How many times have you heard a story using it involves a man, sometimes a woman? They're usually in their 50s, and they've been very successful. They've worked very hard. Maybe they've been very successful with their job. The person has been someone who volunteered a lot at church, someone who seemed to really have it all. Everybody admired. One day, the person just runs off with his secretary to Tahiti and says, but in the same way in other parts of the world because of the different value system. But, in the Western world, we have people that work hard. This isn't the same as someone who is just stressed out over trials. Someone can be stressed out because they have trials, or stressed out because it's sin. They're stressed out because of the world we live in. I'm going to start with a question. Burnout is very interesting because burnout happens to people who are very, very active and usually considered very successful. And they reach this point, they just say, I can't do this anymore, and they walk away from it. Or they have some kind of breakdown, maybe an emotional breakdown.

We see people have these kinds of breakdowns in the workforce. And it's interesting. It's called burnout. It actually comes from a term for jets. When a jet runs out of fuel, just before it runs out of fuel, they call it a flame-out or a burnout. There's a burst of fire, and that's it. There's nothing left in the tank.

So it's a term that means, okay, there's nothing left in the tank. This person just, there's nothing left. You could sit, you could talk to them, you could explain to them, you could say, wait a minute, you're going to throw away 35 years of marriage, you're going to throw away your kids, you're going to throw away this good job, you're going to throw away your house, you're going to throw away all this for what?

And they don't respond in any way that makes sense.

They're emotionally, there's nothing left in the tank.

Is it possible for you and I to suffer from spiritual burnout?

Spiritual burnout.

Where we just were active, where we're serving, we're giving, we're trying to, you know, interact in this world, we're trying to keep our marriages together, we're trying to do all the things, and then one day, it's not just emotional, but spiritually, there's nothing left in the tank.

So the person gives up with God, they walk away, they go back into the world, they might walk out with their marriage, they actually do the same thing as the people suffering from burnout in the business world do.

Only they do it spiritually.

The Midrith Meyer Clinic, it's a very interesting clinic. It's a group of psychologists who try to look at the human condition, and you look at psychology, but they try to find the answers from the Bible.

So I have a number of books I've read over the years from this clinic because they're very good at looking at human conditions, and looking at the Scripture, and that they're finding God's answer to the problems.

We try to look at things through either a host of psychological models that are almost always based on humanism, which don't work, or we just give everybody drugs, which are sometimes needed, but many times, that's not the problem at all. So they create a new set of problems.

So what is the biblical answer to spiritual burnout?

The Midrith-Meyer Clinic gives this definition of spiritual burnout.

One of the most common definitions of burnout describes it as a loss of enthusiasm, energy, idealism, perspective, and purpose.

This is exactly what happens to Christians.

It takes a long time coming, but when it happens, it seems to happen out of nowhere. Everybody's surprised.

I would have never thought that person would.

And what we do is we say, well, I never thought that person was...

Were they acting all these years? Were they pretending? What was wrong with them?

I never thought that person would just walk away.

I never thought that person would end up going and committing adultery, because a lot of times adultery can be a symptom of a spiritual burnout.

I never thought that person...

But when you sit down and talk to the person, as I have in many cases, you find no enthusiasm for God's way.

No spiritual energy at all. No idealism. They just see everything as bad. Just a very negative approach.

They have no perspective. The smallest things seem big, and the big things seem small. And they have no purpose in life.

It's just a very description that they give.

It leads to depression. It leads to illogical decisions.

And, just like the person who will throw away their lifetime's work, throw away a lifetime of relationships, throw away their family, this could lead people to spiritually do the same thing.

Throw away a lifetime of commitment to God. Throw away family. Throw away their congregation.

And I've seen people do this and end up dying, you know, lonely, alone, drunk in a motel room.

You think, how could that happen?

When for 40 years or 30 years, their commitment to God was unquestionable. What happens? So let's look at spiritual burnout. We're looking at symptoms.

Then we're going to look at how you and I have to fight this and how we can.

Now, when I say we have to fight it, if you're actually suffering from spiritual burnout, which probably some of you are in one various degree or another, you know, any group of people, there are people at various stages of almost anything we talk about.

You're saying, fight what? I don't have the energy to fight. That's part of the problem.

You know, cope? How can I cope? I do not have the ability to cope anymore.

And these are all symptoms of spiritual burnout.

Let me give you a few symptoms. Write these down and think about this in your life.

A loss of zeal for Christianity as a way of life.

A loss of zeal as Christianity as a way of life.

It just seems like this is an oppressive way of life. This isn't good.

You don't see good in God's way. You just see it as oppressive, holding you back.

If you do what you do, it could feel like you have to, out of constraints.

And you keep finding ways to not do it.

A lack of desire for prayer and Bible study. This is a really, really red flag.

When you and I get to the place where we no longer find benefit in prayer, daily prayer, and benefit in daily Bible study, something is spiritually wrong.

When we get to the place where we no longer need or find joy in our connection with God through prayer, and His connection to us through Bible study, that's a red flag. Something is spiritually wrong.

At some point we begin to withdraw from Christian fellowship.

We begin to withdraw from church activities. We begin to stay home from church more.

Fourth symptom is we become chronically depressed.

We see nothing but the negative. We see the evil in the world around us.

We start seeing everybody else as sins and problems, and we start seeing a life as a victim. Victimization is one of the great things that happens in the spiritual world.

Hey, why try? I'm just a victim anyways.

Number five, because of this you become increasingly cynical and judgmental of others.

Six, you start to lose your purpose in life. Let's just have fun. It doesn't matter.

Seven, you begin to lose any desire to serve other people. In fact, serving others takes so much energy that it becomes impossible.

You can't help anybody else, at least you can in your mind, because why? No one cares anyways.

It doesn't matter anyways. I'm getting recognition for it anyways.

Besides, I've spent the last twenty years serving and serving and serving and serving, and no one cared.

That's it. I'm fed up with it.

And then number eight, is that you begin to become complacent about personal sin.

Oh, it's the little things at first, like gossip, like slandering other people, like, you know, not watching your language.

And it just slowly begins to deteriorate on the edges of your life.

So what do we do if you look at this list of eight symptoms, and if you have two of them, you're probably in some state of spiritual burnout.

If you have five or six of them, and I did, I understand what spiritual burnout is, I've been here before.

It's like when I usually talk to you about things, it's because I understand enough that I've been here before, that's why I can talk about it.

When you're in spiritual burnout, you say, I don't have the energy to get better.

It's like the sick person that says, I know what I must do to get better, but I don't have the energy to do it.

If you have at least two of these, that's a red flag, that there's things you should do now to stop the situation and to begin the healing.

First of all, you must begin by going to God and asking Him to renew your spirit.

Spiritual burnout is spiritual.

Who is the only one who can give us help in that? People can't. We get help from people. We're going to see in a minute.

There's lots of things we have to do and various things we must do that involve the spiritual burnout.

But the very first place to start is you have to go to God and ask Him to renew your spirit. Your spirit is flaming out. There's no more energy.

You say, well, I'll just get more energy by serving more, getting involved in a new project.

I'll get more energy by, you know, reading my Bible three hours a day.

And of course, you'll fail at that, and then you have less energy.

It always begins with going to God and asking for God to give you something you do not have and you cannot manufacture.

It begins by going to God and recognizing, I can't do this.

Yeah, I think of David in Psalm 51, that statement he says, created me a clean heart. I gave a whole sermon on that about a year and a half ago.

Created me a clean heart. But there's another part of that sentence that I didn't dwell on much.

He says, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

He says, God, you're going to have to create a clean heart of me because I am really messed up.

And you're going to have to renew this spirit. Steadfast means stable. You're going to have to stabilize me.

You know, you have to understand, you know, when we talk about physical illness, we talk about emotional illnesses, mental illness, spiritual illness.

And all illnesses are basically, all of our problems, physical, mental, emotionally, all find some root in a spiritual problem.

You have a problem maybe because of genetic kidney problems because of, you know, you were born that way.

Well, it wasn't your fault, but somewhere along the way, somebody didn't obey God, right?

Because God didn't design kidneys to be what you have.

So everything has a spiritual root someplace.

And what we have to realize is to begin to deal with any kind of spiritual burnout, you start with the recognition that you can't renew your spirit yourself.

It requires God to renew your spirit.

And you go to God and you confess that and you say that and you pour that out and you say, I don't, you know, you say, well, I don't even have the energy to really ask God for that.

You get under these and say, God, I don't have the energy to ask for this. I'm just going to ask for it.

And if you don't help me, I'll just stay here on my knees and won't get up.

Because I can't.

This world will suck everything out of us spiritually. It will.

Satan will take everything out of you. But the power that is in us is greater than the power that's in the world.

And he, God, will give you what you can't do.

There's an interesting set of verses in Isaiah 40.

Isaiah 40 is talking, Isaiah is talking to Israel, but it applies to people at a personal level with God, too.

So we can read this to those people, but we can apply it to ourselves.

And here we have Isaiah is actually writing down something God said to him.

So it's God in the first person. Verse 25 of Isaiah 40.

To whom then will you liken me? This is God saying this.

Or to whom shall I be equal says the Holy One?

He said, who are you going to go find like me? Who are we going to go find like God?

Lift up your eyes on the high. He tells them to do something.

He's not telling them this. The thing will cower down in absolute fear and say, kill me, God, I'm worthless.

He says, look, remember who I am and then come to me and see who has created these things, who brings out their hosts by number.

He's talking about the stars here. He calls them by name, by the greatness of his might, by the strength of his power. Not one is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak of Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and my just claim is passed over by my God. Have you not heard? Have you not known? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator, the end of the earth. Neither fates nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He wants us to remember.

You and I will get tired. You and I will burn out. You and I will be overwhelmed.

But God is never tired, and God is never burned out, and God is never overwhelmed.

And so the point he's making here is, when you are there, there is only one place you can come.

Because the Almighty God will give you what you do not have.

We keep wanting formulas, and we're going to go through a little bit of a formula here of things we can do to deal with these kinds of situations, especially when you're suffering from spiritual burnout. But it all starts with not a formula, but a relationship.

It starts with going to God and saying, Give me what I cannot have, what I cannot do, only you can.

He gives power to the weak. To those who have no might, he increases strength.

Even the youth shall fade and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail or fall.

But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.

He says, I will help those, but notice what he says here. Now, this is very interesting how he says it.

The whole context here is, look at the stars. Look at God's greatness. Look at creation. And remember that God listens to you personally.

When you get on your knees, the Father and His Son are there. And God, you come directly for the thought of God to receive His strength.

And he says, remember that. And what you do, verse 31, Wait on the Lord.

Wait on the Lord.

Okay. I'm exhausted. I burn out. I go to God. And I have to wait.

Some of the times, the reason God has us wait, it is in the waiting that we begin to have the calmness of spirit.

It is in the waiting that we begin to find peace.

It is in the waiting that our faith grows.

It is in the waiting because, remember, part of the solution to spiritual burnout has to be rest.

So we think, I'm waiting. I'm anxious. What's your problem? I prayed 20 seconds ago. I've waited 20 seconds. What's your problem?

How long do you expect me to wait?

Okay, I've waited 10 minutes. I guess God doesn't listen to my prayers.

It is in the waiting that we rest, that we continue to pray, that we continue, and I'm going to show you in a minute why I say this, that we continue now to receive from God what we cannot have ourselves.

We don't want to wait. We must do it.

I must have something. God says, well, you don't have anything. Wait, and let me fill up the tank.

We don't want to let God fill up the tank. We want to ask and drive off, you know, leave it, drive off with the...

When He opens the gas tank and He sticks the pump in, and then we drive off and drag off the gas pump, and there's nothing in the tank. We're just driving off, you know. I asked, He stuck it in there. Yeah, but He didn't pump anything in yet.

In Psalm 27, David talks about this idea of waiting for the Lord.

Psalm 27. The whole chapter is about this, but look at verse...

Verse 7.

Hear, O Lord, and I will cry with my voice, Have mercy also, O Paud the an answer me.

David says, I need you, God. I desperately need that I come before you, and when you said, Seek my face, my heart said to you, Your face, Lord, I will seek. In other words, David said, I understood what God said, if you want this mercy, if you want this love, come seek it. And David said, then I'm seeking it. I'm here before you.

Now give it to me.

I'm here before you.

It's strange about spiritual burnout. The lack of energy will lead you to it's actually hard to pray.

It's a human condition that I don't understand. I can't figure out what it is about us that when we get to a certain spiritual state, we know we desperately need God and we will resist going to get help.

So David says, okay, I knew I couldn't do this myself, so I came to you.

So verse 90 says, Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my help, do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation.

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.

He will take care of me.

Now I've been thinking about, he says, and this will be a sermon sometime in the future. I haven't worked it out yet. He says, I will not leave you to be orphans. I think a lot of times we all have an orphan spirit. We go through life as orphans.

When Christ said, I will not leave you as orphans, I will send the Holy Spirit to you.

He said, no matter who forsakes me, God will take care of me. The Lord will take care of me. Verse 11, he says, Teach me your way, O Lord, lead me in a smooth path because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, as such as breathe out violence.

That verse 13 is very interesting. He says, I would have lost heart. Now, his problem was he just had reached the point where I've got people trying to destroy me as the king.

He said, I just got to lose heart here. I just had to crawl in bed, not get out because of what's happening to me.

Unless I had believed, see, I would have lost heart. Unless I would have believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. He said, I believe that God would give me what I cannot have.

I believe that God would do for me what I cannot do. That's why verse 14 that he says, wait on the Lord.

Wait. I believe he will do it. Therefore, I wait and I rest for him to do it.

Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall what? Strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.

Wait. Rest.

Trust that God will take care of you.

It's the first step in dealing with spiritual burnout.

Wait. Believe. Trust that God will take care of you. And you will begin to foot rest. And here's the thing. Oh, good. I've got a little bit of rest. I've got to get back.

You know, I've had it. It's like if you went 24 hours without sleep, and then got an hour's worth of sleep and said, oh, good, I feel better now. I'm going to go back to work. Wait an hour's worth of sleep is not enough. Wait on the Lord. Wait for God to do what he's going to do.

Rest. Spiritual rest. You know, that's one of the reasons for the Sabbath.

Spiritual rest.

That's why if we're not careful, and we're not careful about our Sabbath-keeping at times, we'll make this such a stressful day, or so much a day like the world, that we won't receive spiritual rest. If you come to church and all you're doing is looking at everybody else and what they do and don't do, or if you rush out, they rush home, and can't wait until the Sabbath's over, so you can go do what you want to do, what we do is we actually miss out on the fact that this is spiritual rest, and we wonder why we spiritually burn out. Now, once we do this, this is where you just start. You start by going to God, and you just say, I cannot do this. You have to, because only you can, and I trust that you will, and I wait, and I'm resting. I'm resting. You say, well, yeah, but I'm worried. Ah, then you're not resting. But I'm full of anxiety, but then you're not resting. We have to spiritually rest because we've taken it to God, and we wait on Him. Once we do that, we have to begin to say, okay, are my priorities wrong? My life's priorities.

I've talked about this a lot, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but usually when we're dealing with our lives are really out of kilter, and things aren't working, and we really have no peace, joy, long suffering, mercy, gentleness, faith, the fruits of the Spirit. A lot of times it's because our priorities are wrong.

If we don't have God's priorities in our lives, we will simply produce what everybody else in the world produces. We will produce money. We will produce broken marriages, alcohol addictions. We will produce untruth, you know, lived by religious beliefs that aren't true. We will produce every kind of sin imaginable. We will break all of our relationships with our friends. We will be selfish. We will end up just like everybody else. Only through God's priorities do we begin to put things back in place. And when you're suffering spiritual burnout, you know what God's first priority is.

God's priority is come to me and wait. Come to me and rest. Come to me and forget it. You know, on Friday night when that sun goes down, all those business problems got to go away. Boom. All those problems with your neighbor have to go away. Come wait on the Lord. Come rest with the Lord. We can go through all kinds of scriptures, and we will. I've got a couple of sermons of the Sabbath I'm going to give here as we continue through the Holiness series after I get back to vacation.

When we talk about the Sabbath, this idea that Christ said, Come rest with me. Come rest. Come find peace. Sometimes our Sabbath observance is just as much stressful and strifle as the rest of the week. If that is so, if it's filled with strife, we're not resting with Christ. Wait on the Lord, and that's the first priority He's going to set. Now, there's other priorities He's going to set. He's going to set physical priorities of rest and renewal. He's going to set emotional priorities of rest and renewal.

If you go before God and He says, Wait, and I'm resting, I'm waiting with God. Prayer, Bible study, even fasting, all become part of what you're doing. As you do those things, you begin to find rest. The third point, and this is true of some people who are in the church, they're very service-oriented. You must reevaluate your concepts of service. The reason I say that is that all of us are commanded to serve each other in the church.

Every person has something vital that they bring. When I see people that live on the fringe of the congregation but don't serve, they're not fulfilling the role that they've been called to do. Because everybody is supposed to serve, in one way or another, as we serve each other.

But then I see other people that serve and serve and serve and serve and serve and serve and serve and serve. Sometimes I watch those people do what I've done in times of my life, because I've done it myself, serve themselves right into a state of spiritual coma, sort of a zombie walking around with people talking to you, you sort of battle. Pastor, can I talk to you? I've got this serious problem. What are you doing? Speaking of tongues?

Sometimes we have to realize that service is to be done for the joy of serving. And that means sometimes you're going to serve, and you're not getting any thanks for it. And sometimes you're going to serve, and for a long, long, long, long time, and people are going to actually take advantage of it. There are people who take advantage of those who serve, people with a big heart. You're going to find that you serve and serve and serve, and all the people who enjoyed it never said anything good to you.

The only people who talked to you were the people who didn't like what you did. Oh, I have to tell you, I got an email this week that was amazing. Now, I always tell you, on Beyond Today, we get all these emails from people that say, you know, why don't you get a haircut? Your tie is ugly.

Can't they buy you a decent suit? I mean, it's just amazing. We just get this constant, how bad we look. We got something new this week. I had to tell my wife. She just laughs. I got an email. This woman, she was watching television, and she had the mute button on, and she looked, and she said, she saw this male model talking about something.

And she thought, what's that guy talking about? She turned it on, and she said it was the Beyond Today program. I didn't know what it was, and they were talking about the Bible. Then two other guys came on, and they were dressed so perfectly, and they were so good-looking, there were three male models. And then she said, now finally we get something good.

After five years of never a good comment about the way we look. And then she said, do you think a Christian church should present itself to the average people with three male models? So she asked that we be replaced with guys that weren't dressed so nice. Can't win for a loser. Finally, one good comment.

I know some of you have gone to my wife and asked her to dress me before the program, so I know. But service, we have to serve because we love.

We also have to know that service, if it burns us out, we're no good for anybody.

That means there are times with certain people you have to say no, not this time. There's times, and I tell this all the time, too, whether it's department heads or deacons or elders or their wives that work so much, I'll come up with a new project or new idea. The first thing I say is, if you want to say no, it's okay. Because if I don't say that, then I'm saying, and I know there's times I say, look, I need you to do this.

I'll call one of the elders and say, look, I've got an anointing on this side of town and one on the other side of town. Which one do you want? But when it's not absolute emergency, I preface it with, if you can't do this, it's okay. We'll find another way to do it. Because I know the caliber of people I'm working with, in this congregation, we've never had trouble with people serving. So I feel like, any time somebody serving in the biggest way, the smallest way, I don't care what they're doing, I trust them.

But I also know that it's a tendency of people to burn themselves out. And you have to sometimes say, I can't do that right now. Or I can't participate in this particular project. Or I've got three projects going on, I can only do two of them. Okay? That's okay. You have to reevaluate service in terms of a bigger picture. The bigger picture has to do with taking care so that you do not spiritually burn out. When I say spiritually, spiritual burnout also includes physical and emotional burnout.

When you're spiritually burned out, you have no physical energy. And you sure have no spiritual energy. None whatsoever. So you can't solve problems. You can't fix relationships. To work through relationships, as God wants us to do, takes an enormous amount of emotional energy. Whether it's between Christians, whether it's between husband and wife, it takes emotional energy to do that.

If you are spiritually burned out so that you are not getting help and rest from God, you will not be able to have the emotional energy to heal relationships. You can't do it. You have to receive the spiritual energy from God, or this rest from God, and the energy of His Spirit so that you can now invest emotional energy in people. So we're back to you have to wait on God, you have to rest.

So we have to sometimes reevaluate service to understand there are times when it's okay to say, I can't do that. Or to tell somebody, I can't do it today, I can do it next week. It's okay. Now, if you're doing that all the time, nothing's getting done, we have a whole other problem. But honestly, I've never seen that problem in the 17 years I've been here. It's never been a problem. I would rather deal with this than with a church. I've been in churches where nobody wanted to do anything.

That's a bad place to be, because nothing happens. Well, what happens is there's five or six people who do everything. And then those five or six people get angry and bitter over time, because they do everything. Then the fourth point is, you have to keep God's bigger picture in mind. Usually, when we suffer from burnout, a lot of times it's because we have a good motive. Maybe we're a person with a very strong sense of responsibility. And people have a strong sense of responsibility, take responsibility.

They tend to be leaders, they tend to get things done. But they'll feel responsible for things that aren't even their responsibility. Sometimes people can be driven to do these things because they want acceptance. In which case you will burn yourself out and there's nothing you can do, because eventually how much is enough? How much acceptance is enough? You'll never have enough. So if you're motive for doing things, it's only you need acceptance. You'll never feel that need. You have to go wait on God, get rest from God for a while.

Let's look at Hebrew 6. And then I'm going to go through an example that ties all this together. Hebrew 6. Verse 9. I like the way this is written here. But beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things are the company salvation that we speak in this manner. Now, Paul had just written about the unpardonable sin, and he knew that would be sort of a discouraging thing to tell them.

He says, but you have to understand, he says, we expect something greater of the people of God. For God is not a just to forget your work. God is not a just to forget your service, what you've done, how many people you've helped, even though those people may have forgotten. God is not. This is one of the greatest things we have to do with forgiveness.

Well, if I forgive somebody, no justice will take place because they haven't repented. Now, you forgive them, and like justice, turn over to God. Let God take care of justice. But we have to take care of our emotional state and our spiritual state. For God is not a just to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown towards His name, and that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. You have served. That's what that word minister means. You have served these people.

And he's talking to the church at large, and he says, God will forget what you've done. I just forget how much love you've shown others. And sometimes when we suffer from spiritual burnout, it's because we loved. We loved, and we did not receive love back in the measure that we gave. And as human beings, we're not God. God can give love and not receive love back, and He's okay. You and I aren't that strong.

We give love out, and if we don't give love back, what do we do? We end up, usually, sort of an empty shell. So God says, okay, come to me, God says, and let me fill you up. But see, we forget how much God loves us. We don't go to God to receive love. We go to other human beings. We all need that.

We need to give love. We need to receive love. It is not selfish to have a need to receive love. You're designed that way. We're all designed that way. But if you give and give and give and don't receive anything back, there reaches a point where, what do you do? Well, you go to God and receive His love.

But see, we have a hard time thinking of that, because we tend to only think of God in terms of punisher. He's the one who gives us a spanking when we're wrong. Well, of course He does. But we forget He's the one who gives us the hug when it's over. He's also the one who gives us a big hug just because He's happy to see us. Well, we forget He's the one who every day is personally involved and interested in what you're doing. Nobody is interested in you as much as God is.

Nobody. And He's the last one we go to because we're burned down. He's the last one we go to for this aid and this comfort. For God has not adjusted to forget your work and labor of law, which you have shown toward His name, and that you have ministered to the saints of due minister. And we desire that each of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish.

Interesting. You just slow down until you're just in slow motion. You just wear out. He says, Do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. God's bigger picture. Wait on the Lord. Go to Him and say, I need to receive your love. God, help me experience your love. Help me understand what that means. I know that you say I must love you with all my heart and all my soul.

I have no idea how to do that. Except go ask you to help me teach me. Do you teach me what love is? And then I'll reciprocate as I learn. Receiving the rest of the Lord. Receiving and waiting on God. So that your fuel comes from Him. So that we don't flame out. Now, let's look at a classic example of this. That's how I would have spent the last part of this sermon.

I want to look at a classic example. 1 Kings 18. 1 Kings 18. God comes to Elijah. And He says, Elijah, I want you to do some big things here. Really big things. Now, Elijah had seen God in his life in some very dramatic ways. And Elijah had been used by God in very dramatic ways. So Elijah had a lot of faith, a lot of confidence. Who? Elijah knew, I mean, God came to him and talked to him personally. That would give you a lot of confidence, wouldn't it?

Verse 1, And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on earth. Now, you know what happens here? He sends him to tell him that there's going to be rain because there's been a drought. Elijah was a little concerned because, you know, Ahab has already said, If I ever show up again, he's going to kill me.

Don't worry about that, Obadiah. I'll work this out. You just go. Verse 17, So that happened when Ahab saw Elijah, and Ahab said to him, Is that you, O troubleor of Israel? You're the troublemaker I've been trying to get my hands on for a long time. And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house have, that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed the bales.

Now, you talked about confidence. Here is the king who has an entire army and all the power behind him. And Elijah walks up and he says, Ah, the troublemaker, I finally got you. He says, No, no, no, you're the troublemaker. You're the one who does nobody the commandments of God, and you're the reason that we have this trouble on Israel. He says, I'll show it to you. I want you to gather all the priests of Baal.

Look at the sense of verse 19. Now therefore, send out together all Israel to be among Carmel, the 450 prophets of Baal, and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. Jezebel was the queen, and she was... Jezebel was a diva before there were divas. Jezebel would use her power in any immoral way possible to get whatever she wanted. So any upset for all the children of Israel, they gathered the prophets together about Carmel. Now, Elijah came to all the people and said, How long will you falter between two opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow Him, but if Baal, follow Him. But the people answered not a word. They worshiped Baal, and they worshiped Yahweh. They worshiped both gods. You know, sort of have your cake and eat it, too. We'll worship everybody here. Well, what happens is, of course, you know the story. He says, Well, we'll just have a little contest to see which God is greater. Built an altar. Called out fire from heaven. The prophets of Baal said, That's a great contest.

They built an altar. Put some animals on it. Danced. Screened. Hollered. Cuffed themselves. Took them a bloody mess. And after this went on and on and on, find that Elijah... Now, remember, Elijah is alone in this. That's an incredible amount of energy being expended. Physical energy, emotional energy, spiritual energy, right? And Elijah says, Hey, why did you just yell a little louder? Maybe he's asleep. And then the thing happens. He builds an altar. He puts... Elijah builds an altar, puts a trench around it, puts some wood on it, puts an animal on it, and it has them bring water in the middle of a drought.

All the water they can find and soak this down to where nothing will burn. Absolutely impossible for it to burn. Gives a short prayer. Fire comes out from heaven. Poof! It burns. And then he kills all the priests. Okay.

Pretty remarkable, isn't it?

What do you do the next day? What do you wake up after that and say, Oh, what am I going to do today? You ever notice... Some of you probably went through this last Sunday. You watched the Spurs game. Okay. So you're all game. You're just... At least you're like my wife. You know, it's like settle down.

They're ahead by fifteen. I can think she was just going to explode at some point. You ever notice after something like that, sometime that night or the next day there's this enormous letdown? They've done some studies after Super Bowls. The next day is more stressful on the fans of the winning team than the fans of the losing team. Because the losing team, the fans are saying, we'll put it together next year.

Just wait until next year. The winning teams are like, what do we do now? We've reached the summit. We've accomplished that. And there's this huge letdown the next day. What would Elijah do after a day like this? So, we get into verse 18 here, towards the end of verse 18. And God says, now I'm going to bring some rain. Go tell Ahab. So, Ahab gets in his chariot, that takes off, and Elijah outruns a horse. You can't do that. That's not physically possible. This enormous amount of physical energy, emotional energy.

I can't imagine plugging a log. I mean, I can't run a five-year-old. I mean, to my age. What is it like to outrun a horse? You've got to be on some kind of high after that, right? The energy being expended here, physically, emotionally, spiritually, is enormous. And this is what we do. We don't have experience of this intense. But this is what we can do over five years, ten years, fifteen years, thirty years. This is what we can do as Christians. We can expend this energy without going through renewal on a regular basis.

And we can end up with what Elijah did. His was so intense, it happened real quick. So, we get to verse 1 of chapter 19. Then Abraham told Jezebel all that Elijah had done. And now he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, So let the gods do to me, and more so, if I do not take your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.

You've got twenty-four hours. I'm coming after you. You can't run. You can't hide. I'm coming to get you. Now, he had already outrun a horse, called down fire from heaven, and killed four hundred and fifty guys. It's just one woman. And when he saw that... verse 3... When he saw that he rose and ran for his life, and what the Beersheba which belongs to Judah and left his servants there. He's now not outrunning a horse.

He's probably in some exhausted state, stumbling along, mumbling to himself that God has forsaken him. Now remember, this is only... this is the same day! Well, the next day. It's going to happen very quickly. This is classic burnout. I'm going to run away now. There's nothing left to burn. There's nothing left inside. I'm emotionally empty. I'm spiritually empty. And I'm physically exhausted.

So I'm going to run away. Ever feel that way? I'm just going to run away. Part of that is actually where our brain is designed. When your brain can no longer handle anymore, it says, run away. You can't stay in a certain state forever. You will die. The stress will kill you. This isn't like this man had suddenly lost all faith in God. He had reached an emotional, physical, and spiritual state in which he had to do something. And here's what we do.

We run away. Verse 4, That's the problem. You know, Elijah isn't just a depressed or melancholy personality. You don't see that in his life like some other people. There's nothing left. This is absolute textbook spiritual burnout. Now, what's interesting is what God did with him, because now we do have a formula. We do have a formula. Verse 5, Here. Get something to eat. Arise and eat.

Eat out again. And the angel Lord came back the second time and touched him and said, Arise what you have problem. Get out and do something here. You lazy man. Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you. So he rose and ate a drink, and he went into the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as horror of the mountain of God.

I wish I had some vitamins like that. First thing. First thing. You have to physically deal with the exhaustion. If you're spiritually burned out, it's affecting your body. You must physically. Now, a lot of times this is hard, especially for men, because, Ah, nah, I just work harder. That's all I do. You know, just give me a Gatorade.

I'll be okay. So, it's only a flesh wound. No. If you are physically worn out or physically exhausted, you must deal with it. If you do not, you could damage your body and you will get sick. It's that simple. If you think you are strong enough to resist destroying the organs of your body and being okay, that's actually insane. We have to recognize, and that's the first thing he did. He gave him physical help, for Satan. And he arose and ate Drake. He went straight for 40 days, where it's lying.

He went into a cave and spent the night in that place, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him. And he said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very zealous for the Lord of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, tore down your altars, and killed your prophets with a sword.

I alone have left, and they seek to take my life. I burn myself out in service here, and I just can't do it anymore. And he's probably weeping. He's probably angry. He's probably his sister clenched, and he's weeping. He's emotionally gone. There's nothing left. There's nothing left for Elijah to work with. Well, no wonder he stood up to an entire kingdom, and entire army, slew 450 men, called down fire from heaven, and outran a horse. Yeah. How do you get over that? So, God lets you rest. Wait on the Lord. See how this is waiting on the Lord? Wait on the Lord.

Okay. Let's just take a nap. And let's get some food in you first, kid. You ever do that with your kids? I've heard my one daughter, sometimes she'd come home from... when she was little, she'd come home from school just a wreck. And I hear my wife say, here, sweetheart, eat this, and let's go just sit down for a while. Here, have this little glass of milk. And a little bit later, she was a totally different person. All the stress of school had just reached a breaking point. It was amazing how a glass of milk and sitting down and reading a little book or talking to Mom for ten minutes, and everything was okay.

A hug. Well, see, now we have to deal with the emotional side. We have to deal with the physical side. We have to deal with the emotional side. And his emotions of verse 10 are a little strange in that I killed for 50 of them, but that woman, I can't take her on.

There's one too many. So verse 11, God says, Go out, stand on the mount before the Lord, and behold, the Lord passed by, and a great strong wind tore into the mountain, broke the rocks and pieces before the Lord. The Lord was not in the wind, and answered the wind and earthquake. The Lord was not in the earthquake. What is God doing to him? Remember what it said in Isaiah? Remember who I am? You know, it's like this hurricane and an earthquake, and that's just announcing I'm here.

Okay? This is God. That wasn't God. That was just the announcement. Just to let you know who I am. Now, wait on me. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice. He announced who he was. You're in a cave. Why? I just ran away. No, you're here to wait for me. Now, let's just remember who I am.

Earthquake, hurricane, fire explosion. Okay. And God shows up, and a still, small voice. And it's sort of like implied. Pretty impressive, huh? I'm who you're waiting for. That's what we forget. It's who we're waiting for. We think it's what we're waiting for. Some event that will heal us. Some person that will heal us. So, how do you and me? What are you waiting for? It's who you're waiting for.

Wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord. Get some sleep. Get some rest. Emotionally decompressed. That's what he's doing here. A little entertainment for you. Yeah, that earthquake. That's pretty cool, huh? And when Elijah is just sort of stopped by all this, then he says, verse 13. So it was, when Elijah heard it, they wrapped his face in his mantle, went out and stood before the entrance of the cave.

And suddenly a voice came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? He went again, and he goes on, and he says, I'm the only one. I don't want to do anymore. I'm lost. I'm alone. And it's interesting what God tells him to do, because now God deals with the spiritual aspects.

He deals with the physical aspects. He deals with the emotional aspects. And he says, Elijah, I'm going to paraphrase here. He says, You're my man. You're of me. Oh, I get it. I get it. The next adventure is really amazing, because I'm sending you to the king of Damascus. I get a whole new adventure ahead for you. And I'm going to take care of you. And by the way, you're not the only one. I get seven thousand other men in Israel that obey me.

You're not alone here. There's other brothers and sisters. I'll get you together with them. I hope you find some of them here. You're not alone. You see how he deals with all aspects of it? The physical aspect, his emotional aspect, and the spiritual aspect. Bigger picture. I get a plan for your life. And this was just one adventure, and I get more adventures planned for you. And I know sometimes it wears you out. He never corrects him in any of this. He understands who he is. Elijah just had to go wait for the Lord. There are going to be times in your life that you're going to run out of spiritual fuel, especially if you run through life fast with activity, think after think, and we get tied up in our work and in our entertainment and in our relationships.

We're entertained all the time. We're working all the time. And sometimes even in our relationships, sometimes our service to the church. We're just so busy, busy, busy, busy, that we're not tied in to God. And the result is we're not getting from God what we need every day to function. And one day there's a big flame out. Poof! And you're drifting. You're just drifting. It's like a plane does when a plane does. When you find yourself that way, remember. Remember to just go back to God. That you need rest. You need physical rest. You need emotional rest. And sometimes you have to get away. You notice that Elijah was taken away.

I find it interesting. The angel knew where he was going. The angel said, this is a long journey. You better eat some more. He gets to where he's going, and God says, what are you doing here? And he says, I'm hiding. What do you think I'm doing? Okay, come on. What are you doing here? I'm hiding. He asked him twice. But he didn't even know he was waiting on God. He ran so far, he ran away. Burn out. Until he ran into God. He ran away until he ran into God.

He didn't even know he was waiting on the Lord. God knew he was waiting. He didn't know. Wait. Find that spiritual rest you need. Find the spiritual rest we all need. Because in that spiritual rest, you're going to find the fuel to keep living life, to keep facing life, to maintain your Christian life, until Jesus Christ comes back.

And when Jesus Christ comes back, you will have eternal spiritual fuel. Because of our relationship with God and with Christ, we'll be spiritual and it will be forever.