When We Feel Burned Out - Part 1

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, January 26. Do you feel like you are teetering on the brink of total exhaustion? Learn to draw on Jesus Christ as the source of your strength when you feel burned out. Do you feel like you have a sense of comfort, having the feelings of being exhausted and spent and somehow drained emotionally as well as physically or spiritually? And somehow you just want to walk away or just forget it all? And it doesn't go away and somehow it just keeps on continuing no matter what.

Maybe what you're experiencing is not just simply fatigue but maybe you are experiencing burnout. That sense of being absolutely drained and spent in life. It can happen to saints and sinners alike. And it can happen to those who love God with all of our heart and those who don't love Him at all. And it can happen in your job. It can happen in relationships.

It can happen in your schooling. It can happen in your spiritual life and your relationship to God. And that's what I'm going to talk about in this message entitled, The Source of Our Strength When Feeling Burned Out. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 40 beginning in verse 27. Isaiah chapter 40 beginning in verse 27. He says, Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert O Israel, My way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God? Do you not know, and have you not heard, the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth? He does not grow weary or become tired.

His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might he increases power. Though young men shall grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles.

They will run and not get tired, and they will walk and not become weary. When you and I think in terms of feeling being burned out, that can happen, as we said to most anybody, it can happen to a mother who is raising three, four or five children, and she has all the responsibilities during the day of keeping everything in order and preparing for her husband and keeping the house clean and all the rest and no break oftentimes for a long period of time, or it can happen to the president or a corporation or a pastor. In fact, they're literally not hundreds, but thousands and thousands of pastors every year who just walk away from the ministry because they get burned out. Doing the work of God, they get burned out. There are thousands of people who are not pastors, but who are engaged in some type of the Lord's work, and they get burned out in their ministry and they walk away. There are always people coming into the ministry and always people going. Many of those who leave, leave because they get burned out. So fatigued, so weary, so worn, so much stress, so many challenges, they can't handle it all, so they just walk away. Now, at first you may say, well, they ought to be stronger than that.

Well, that's true. But you know, if you don't know the truth about some things, some things can be very, very, very destructive in your life. And so when we think about burnout, let me just sort of give you the process.

Here's the way it happens. We're challenged with something. It may be on your job or it may be in your spiritual life. And I want to narrow this in a few moments to a spiritual life.

It may be in relationships, it may be in your schooling, it may be in your business or whatever it might be. And so you're challenged. Well, naturally what you do is you give it all you've got. And so you expend your energy and finally your energy runs out.

And so you just don't have any more. And the next phase we go through is we deny it. We say, well, you know, you know, I know I can do this. And if it's something spiritual, we say, well, I know that God is my strength and He's my energy and God's this and God's that.

We pray and we just keep on moving. But we deny the fact that we are fatigued and weary and worn and we're spent and our attempts to refuel ourselves does not work. For example, I remember that on Mondays, naturally, most pastors, if they do what they ought to be doing on Sunday, they're going to be tired on Monday. And so what I found out was I was just as tired on Tuesdays as I was on Monday. Then I was just as tired on Wednesdays as I was on Monday. Then I was just as tired on Thursdays as I was on Monday.

Then on Friday. And then when I got down to Saturday, I knew I was in trouble. But you see, when you get on this wheel and you can't figure out how to get off and once you get on some kind of wheels in life, it's hard to figure out where do I get off? And I can remember thinking, well, if I was sick, I'd have to get off.

But I don't want to be sick. You want to get off, you can't get off. You're getting burned out, burning the candle at both ends. And this can happen to you spiritually as well as any other area of life. And so what happens, we deny it. And then after denying it, because we don't want to feel rejected and look like we can't do what we ought to be doing, then we start withdrawing. Because we feel like, well, nobody understands, nobody cares, God doesn't care, God doesn't understand, nobody understands. Then, and of course this didn't happen to me, but then people oftentimes get bitter. They get bitter toward others because they don't understand and they don't care. And the fact is they won't tell somebody, I'm hurting, I'm worn out, I'm weary, I'm frayed, I'm spent, I can't get refueled.

They won't tell anybody. And then they get bitter and resentful and hostile because people don't share it with them and don't care and don't show their caring. And so finally, they can ultimately destroy themselves. But most people, they walk away. Now, one of the things that happens is they'll get involved in church, they're teaching in Sunday school and singing the choir and they're doing this and doing that. And they just do, do, do, and they got their job and their family. And finally, they just get a little spent, a little worn. And after all, they don't want to read the Bible, they don't want to pray, they're just getting sick and tired of the whole mess and just say, hey, I'm quitting, I'm walking away.

So what do they do? They leave the church, go join another church, and they say, I just want to sit. I don't want to get involved, I don't want to do anything, I just want to sit. I just want to enjoy being a Christian. Well, listen, there's something deadly wrong with any faith where you start doing what God tells you to do and it becomes obnoxious and it becomes absolutely a wipeout. But this is exactly what people do. And many people get spiritually worn out.

Now, let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt like this? Have you ever felt like, God, I've tried to live the Christian life, tried to read my Bible, I've tried to understand it, I try to pray, I go to church, I do my best, and Lord, I try to overcome temptation, I try to be honest here, and I try to take care of that. And God, I just, you know, I have this pressure and that pressure and I have to overcome this and overcome that.

I'm always pushing this down everywhere I turn. I'm trying to get this under control, that under control. And what happens is that after a while, we just get spent.

Have you ever felt like you just couldn't get it under control? What we don't realize is while we are emotionally doing all of this, we are being spent on the inside. Emotionally, we are being drained.

And this can happen to a person physically who's overworked, overworked, overworked, schedule, schedule, schedule, just pack it like that, which I did in those days. And what happens is we get burnt out. Then we want to blame God. So the process begins with a challenge, whether it's in our Christian life or whatever, and oftentimes ends up in disaster. Now, why do we get burnt out? Well, I want you to listen very carefully, and if you listen carefully, this will save you from a whole lot of grief, a whole lot of heartache, a whole lot of mistakes, and sometimes a whole lot of loss.

Listen very carefully. One of the primary reasons we suffer spiritual burnout is we have a wrong view of the Gospel. Now, the Gospel is the Lord Jesus Christ coming into our life. And we would say that the Gospel is believing the Lord Jesus Christ is our personal Savior and trusting him as our Savior. And so a person trusts the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and they believe in him.

They believe that his death at Calvary atoned for their sins, so they're saved. But the idea of the Gospel is not only you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, but then you join a local church, which is New Testament, of course. And you get baptized, and then you get involved in that church, and here's what happens. Before long in that church, you begin to realize that that church or that denomination has certain rules and regulations, and there's certain things you are to do and certain things you are not to do. And before long, you realize after you've been in that church that everybody in that church doesn't agree that you should always do this and shouldn't do that, and they don't always agree on what you can do and what you can't do. So before long, you realize that there's a conflict of what is permissible and what's not permissible. And so what happens is people join a church, and they discover that the Christian life is a formula, and this formula has certain rules and regulations. The problem is when they got saved, they already had enough problems already, enough things they were having to deal with.

Now they've got these rules and these regulations and these do's and don'ts and musts and ought's and shoulds. Well, you must do this, and you must come to that, and you should do that, and you should witness, and you should read the Bible, you should pray, you should give, you should ought, must, all these things, shouldn't do this, shouldn't go to that place, shouldn't participate in that. And so what happens is the image is that the Christian life is a formula of things we do and we do not do. Now that is absolutely foreign to the New Testament. That is exactly what the Pharisees were saying to the people of Jesus' day. And that is, as a Jewish believer, you can only walk so far on Sunday.

If you walk further than that on Sunday, you'd have it. You must not pluck any corn in the field on Sunday. You must do this, you ought to do that, you should do the other, and it was shoulds, ought's, and must.

Jesus came along and said, wait a minute, this is not freedom, this is not liberty. And you see, if you ask the average person today, well, what should you do? Well, I should keep the Ten Commandments. I ought to keep them and I must keep them. How many of you keep all ten of the Ten Commandments? Not a single one of us keep all the Ten Commandments. You know why?

Because you can't. Now, most of us, when we first got saved, what did we do? We got that one down and we got this one and we pushed that one down. I mean, you know, all ten of them.

Well, somehow I'm going to get these things down. And you know what? It's like juggling ten balls. You can't juggle ten balls. Well, you remember what the Bible says? God says you can't keep them. He didn't give them to us in order to save us by them. They are God's commandments, but we will never be able to keep them within ourselves, our energy, our strength, our power to do it. We can't do it.

And he says, if you break one, you're guilty of them all. And so if you look at it, the truth is the average person has the right to say, this Christian life is absolutely impossible. You can't live it. Correct. Well, why should I? Listen, why you want me to be a Christian, join your church and take on all these additional rules and regulations and things I should do, ought, must, and I just can't handle that.

Absolutely correct. Because that's not what Jesus intended. The Pharisees heat such burdens of shoulds, ought and must on people that the Jewish life was absolutely one tremendous burden. And if I had to join certain churches or some churches and be involved in certain ministries that are legalistic and absolutely, I mean, you must do this and you must not do that. And the problem with that is legalism is this, that when you don't live up to these standards, the people who set the rules, they look down on you as being less than, less spiritual than if you don't live up to their standards. And the truth is they can't live up to them either.

But that's the way it looks. And so the Pharisees had all these rules and regulations. They had so many.

They were almost innumerable. And Jesus said, you're heaping burdens on these people. Well, a church that operates on the basis of rules and regulations, do's and don'ts, it's a Pharisaical church because they live by rules and regulations. That is totally foreign from the New Testament. And what happens is people oftentimes get burnt out.

Well, they ought to do this. And, you know, I've heard pastors say that if you don't witness, you're lost. You're going to hell. If you're not witnessing daily, then you've never been saved.

My, what a pressure to put on somebody. If you don't read the Bible so much and you don't do this and you don't do that. And every once in a while, people ask me, why don't you preach more against sin?

I say, I'm going to tell you why. I can preach against sin and name a whole bunch of things. And all that does elevates them in a person's mind. It becomes an object within their minds. What I want to talk about is Jesus Christ.

And I want to talk about how he lives in our life. And if a person's focus is Jesus Christ, they're relating to him and focusing on him, then God is going to free them and liberate them and empower them to overcome sin. If you just keep talking about you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that, you shouldn't do the other. What happens? Those things become the things in their life that become major. And what happens is it's not true. When you are dealing with some temptation and you keep focusing on that, what happens? It gets bigger and larger and stronger in your life.

And what happens is when you get your focus off of that and onto him, something happens to that. But there is a legalism and people are discouraged. And this is why I think oftentimes people, they come to church and the children and they grow up, they become teenagers and then these expectations without somebody explaining to them the reality of the Christian life.

They say, wait a minute, I'm a teenager. I can't live up to this. I can't do that.

I can't do the other. You expect all of these things from me. What is the Christian life all about? It is not a set of rules and regulations because, you see, what we're saying is you must modify your behavior to have our approval. Well, Jesus never said that. He didn't say modify your behavior and then you'll have my approval.

He talked about loving us. So what I want you to see is this, the Christian life is not a formula and a set of rules. It is a relationship that involves a brand new life. That is, when you and I became a Christian, what happened was we received a brand new life that we did not have beforehand. Now, when you became a child of God, you already had life.

You're walking, thinking, feeling your body function. You had life. Somebody asked you, are you alive?

Yes, you're alive. You had life. When you became a Christian, you trusted Jesus Christ as your savior. You received a life that you didn't have.

That was the life of God. Now, listen carefully. This is very important. When you look in the New Testament, you'll find that there are several words for life. Let me just mention a couple of them.

One of them is the word bios in the Greek, B-I-O-S, if you want to write it down. And it means sort of your lifestyle. And that is you live in a certain place and you drive a certain car or you dress a certain way and your family does this and they go to this school.

And he goes to that college and she goes to this university. And you shop here and you've got these friends and these friends. And there are certain things in your life that you don't allow, certain things in your life that you pursued. So that's sort of your lifestyle. That's the way you live. Well, all of us have that kind of life. Everybody has a lifestyle, good, better and different. That's somebody else's judgment.

The other word is the word Z-O-E, pronounced Zoe. And this life is the life of God himself. Now, listen to what he said. Jesus said, I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly. It wasn't a lifestyle, though we will develop a lifestyle as a believer. It was the life of God. I have come that you might have life, the life of God himself, and have it abundantly overflowing in your life.

That's the tenth chapter. The eleventh chapter of John says, I am the resurrection and the life. I am, he says, I am the life of God. Jesus Christ was God in the flesh, walking among men, and the life within him was the life of God. He was deity.

He was God. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. That is, that's why you and I don't fear death. Because we know that we have within us the life that is the life of God.

If God can't die, you can't die. You're enthralled with a very life, eternal life of God. It isn't just eternal life in terms of length of time. It is eternal life in terms of quality. It is divine, supernatural life. Listen, it's hard for us to believe this sometimes, but the very life within the body of Jesus Christ is the same life that is within you and me. It is the life of God. Then he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Not a lifestyle. He said, I am the life. I am divine life. And therefore, when you and I were born again, as we say, and he said in John chapter 3, what happened to us? We already had life. We'd already been born. It was physical life. We had a mental, moral capacity.

And we had a physical life. But he says, you're born again. What happened when you and I were born again is that we received God's life. The new birth is to receive a life we did not possess before our experience of receiving Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Because so now, every single believer has God's life living and abiding on the inside of us. So that the Christian life, listen carefully, the Christian life is not a formula whereby we follow this and therefore we're saved and we follow these instructions, these rules and regulations. The Christian life is a relationship.

A relationship whereby God, who in all of his loving kindness and forgiveness, reaches down and reconciles us, gets us and reconciles us back to himself, and forgives us of our sin, makes us hold in his sight, and does what relates to us. He says, like a vine and a branch. He says, I have placed you as the branch into the vine so that the sap that runs in the vine runs in the branch. And the sap that runs in the branch runs in the stem and produces delicious, luscious, beautiful grapes. So what is it that has the life? It is the vine that has life and Jesus says, I am the vine.

A branch disconnected from the vine laid on a table and it withers and dies. He says, we are branches. We've been placed into Christ Jesus. We now have the life of God coursing through our very being. There is a way to so live our lives. We don't have to get exhausted. We don't have to be drained. We don't have to come to the place where either spiritually, mentally, physically or any other way, we get to the place of being burned out.

Every single child of God is possessed by the very life of God that indwelt the very person of Jesus Christ himself. Thank you for listening to part one of When We Feel Burned Out. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.