Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, January 27th. Do you feel tired and burned out? If you need refreshment, stay with us to learn how Jesus is the inexhaustible source of our strength. All of us experience at times in our life fatigue and weariness and being a little bit worn out. But when that fatigue or that weariness develops into a spirit of being discouraged because you can never seem to get over it, 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 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.
That's what I want 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. So 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. If I should ask you, what is spiritual maturity? More than likely, if we were real realistic about it, we'd say, well, spiritual maturity is coming to the place where you read the Bible every day, and you pray every day, and you tithe and give more than a tithe every Sunday. And the things that used to bother you no longer bother you. The things that used to tempt you don't tempt you. The things that used to get you frustrated and cause you to lose your temper, that doesn't happen anymore.
And what it sounds like is this. It sounds like that spiritual maturity is coming to the place where you have the flesh under control. You've got your flesh under control.
You say it's been crucified. All these things that were popping up, you're able to juggle all the balls easily now. All these things that troubled you, you've got them all in order. Everything is in order. And now you're just sort of living your life, and you've been able to control those things. Nothing could be further from the truth.
And here's the reason why. If you and I had the power to control, suppress, keep everything in order, get the old flesh crucified, and the flesh is that part, listen to this now, the flesh is that part of you and me that absolutely insists on acting independently of the will of God, and all of us have one. Because all of us have the capacity to sin, all of us are tempted at times in our life about different things, and so we all have to deal with these things. Now, so if a person could get to the place in their life spiritually mature where none of those things bothered anymore, you know what that means? That means I wouldn't need God.
If I can get them all under control, then I don't need Him. The Christian life isn't altering my behavior. The Christian life isn't changing my conduct.
The Christian life isn't saying, here are the rules, here are the regulations, this way I'm going to conduct myself, this I'm going to omit. That's not what maturity is all about. Maturity is this. Maturity says that I've come to the place in life that I realize I can't change myself, but that my responsibility is to rely upon Him and depend upon Him every day for every thing, realizing it is not within myself to become or to do or to be better or to become better or to make myself better, to change my conduct, to change my behavior, live up the regulations, live up the rules, be a better person. My responsibility is to trust Him to do through me what He knows I cannot do. Spiritual maturity is walking in the middle of the flesh of this world, walking in the middle of the troubles and the trials and the heartaches and the burdens, seeing all the junk, seeing all the trash, having the world bombard us with all of these things, seeing all the hurt, troubles and trials and sorrow in the world and doing what?
Being able to live in and yet above every single bit of that with absolute confidence that the God who is our God living on the inside of us will enable us. And we don't have to get exhausted, worn and fall in the temptation and yield everything coming and go, but it is not our strength, it's not our energy. He said even young men, He didn't say old men, He said even young men shall become weary, they'll grow weary and tired in the fight, in the battle. Vigorous young men will stumble badly. He says those that you think ought to be able to do it, He says they're going to stumble badly. And I think how most of us grew up thinking that we had to control this and we had to suppress them, we had to work on this and we had to handle this and we had to do this and you know what happens?
It didn't work. I've been there just like you. I'm thinking, Lord, there's got to be more than this and I remember coming to a place in my life in one of my churches and I said, God, there's got to be more of the Christian life than I know because if it isn't, I can't keep doing this.
I can't keep telling people there's victory out there unless I have some victory in some areas that I don't know about. Well, He gave me a great leap forward at that point in my life and showed me some truth, which I'm grateful for, and that moved me along in the life. But the wonderful thing about the Christian life is He keeps moving us. He keeps giving us those opportunities to leap and leap and leap and leap in our understanding and He keeps testing us and trying us and here's the reason He keeps testing us and trying us, because if He didn't test us, He didn't try us and we just believed that we wouldn't really be sure it worked. You see, it's when you and I get thrown in the fire that we believe when He says the fire will not burn you. It's when you and I get thrown in the waters that we believe what He says the waters will not overflow you.
You and I will never be able to have an absolute foundational, irrevocable conviction about it until it gets tested. And so I can tell you that I've lived long enough as a Christian to tell you that I can't live the Christian life. This flesh of mine is not a bit better than it used to be, and I can't do any more in my own strength today than I could the day I was saved at the age of 12. And the wonderful thing about that is I couldn't be happier to discover that, because He never intended for us to change ourselves and improve ourselves. He came, He says, to give us God life in order that God in us would elevate us and make it possible for us to live in and through and above these things we face in life, not in our own strength and energy because He knew it was going to run out.
How do I know that? He wouldn't have put that passage in the Bible if it were not true. He says, listen, I'm telling you, even the finest of young men, they're going to get weary and tired and worn out. He says the finest trained athletes are going to stumble and fall.
You know why? God never made these human bodies, these minds, these spirits of ours, to function and to face life as God knows it's going to be in our own strength because He knew our strength was going to run out and we would stumble and fall badly and get burned out. And I'm here to tell you, God can do something dramatic in your life.
It doesn't make any difference what you face. And you say, well, pastors only work one day a week. I'd just have you follow me any week you want to.
That'll be fine. You'll take your job ten to one any day because there is pressure. And I want to say this to all of you folks out there who are listening and you give your pastor two weeks vacation. I want you to think about something. This is straight to you.
Listen to me carefully. I want you to think about a man studying and praying and seeking the mind of God. That's an awful lot of pressure in that. Awful lot of stress in that to know that he's doing what God wants him to do. Studying, praying, oftentimes having to visit hospitals. And especially if you've got a pastor in church who has 100 members or 200, a smaller church.
Sometimes doesn't have much of a staff. You give him two weeks vacation. You expect him to come up with a good sermon three times a week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. You expect him to go to the hospitals, visit all these people, hold hands, meet everybody's problems, counsel everybody, do a thousand things, be a good husband and a good father. I'm here to tell you, he can't do it. God never intended for him to do it and to try to do it.
And then you only give him two weeks vacation. No man alive is going to last long in the ministry. And so I want to say to you deacons and you people who out there have a wonderful pastor, don't burn him out, don't wear him out. Because oftentimes, just out of seminary and just into the ministry, he doesn't understand what I'm about to share with you.
You ought to love him, support him, be there to help him, give him time, give him breaks, let him know that you love him and you want the best out of him, but you want to give him the best and give him the opportunity to renew his own physical, mental and spiritual strength. Now, how do we avoid this whole idea of being burnt out? Well, if you'll notice he says here, he says, Yet those who wait for the Lord, they'll gain new strength, man up with wings like eagles, run and not get tired, and they will walk and not become weary. Well, listen to this promise. He says he will do these things. They'll gain new strength.
They'll be able to do the same work, but they won't get tired. Run at the same speed even faster, and somehow they won't run out. Now, what is the solution according to what he's saying here? Well, one thing I love about this passage is this. This passage is being in the Bible says to me, God knows I'm weak. He knows we're weak. He knows we're frail.
And he knows that you and I will never learn enough. We'll never get old enough. We'll never get strong enough.
We'll never get smart enough. That our energy and all that we need for life won't run out. He didn't make us to be sufficient within ourselves.
He made us to be sufficient within himself. And so he says in this passage, he says, Even the finest and strongest of young men, he says it's going to run out. But he says, Here's what I will do. He said, You will gain new strength. Now, I want you to look at two words here. If you'll notice, first of all, he says, will gain new strength. That word gain.
Look at that. Gain. The word here is exchange.
And you can write and it's flatly for your Bible. Exchange our weakness for his strength. That's what that means. He says they will exchange their weakness and gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like an eagle.
Run and not get tired. They won't walk, he says, and not be weary. Now, another thing I want you to notice here when he says, They that wait upon the Lord. That word wait means to pause for further instruction. But here's what the word literally means in Hebrew. Here's what it means. It means to braid something. To braid together like a woman can braid three or four strains of her hair. You can braid three or four strains of cord. Because, you see, braiding means two things become one or three or four things become one. When you and I are braided with God, when we receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we became one with him. We have the life of God within us. He says those who wait, those who are braided together, those who pause for further instruction, those who are one with him, he says, they are the ones who will mount up with wings as eagles.
They're the ones who have the strength and the energy that is tireless. Now listen to what he said. He said, concerning God up here in verse twenty-eight, Do you not know and have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does it become weary attire?
Now watch this. If I have the life of God within me and I am not to get burned out doing the work of God or living the Christian life or carrying on whatever it may be, then if the source of my strength is God, then if he ever gives out, then I'm going to give out. And what he's saying is this. When you and I tap into his inexhaustible resource of his divine life within us, we're not going to ever give out because he's not going to give out. This is an inexhaustible source of energy and strength and wisdom and knowledge and understanding. It's inexhaustible because it is God. As we said in the very beginning, it is a quality of life that is the very life of God himself. And therefore, if it is God's life, we are walking in his will and tapping into that energy and that strength and that resource, we will never give out. It is flowing in us and flowing through us. And so when we think about the causes, why we get weary and tired and worn, it can be sin, it can be our work, it can be relationships, whatever it might be, but something causes it and whatever it might be that causes it, what we have to ask is, God, what are you saying to me?
Let me just say this. Sometimes to be burned out can be the doorway into life's greatest lessons. And I can tell you my own, listen, you know how I learned the most? Not reading books, I learned the most by failing.
Because when failure hits me in some area, the first thing I do is go to the Word of God and say, okay, what do you say about this? How did I miss it? What did I miss?
What am I to do at this point? The best way in the world to learn the truth is to fail. Now, I'm not promoting failure, because you have the privilege of coming on Sunday and listening to my failures. And so if you're smart and you're wise, you will take advantage of somebody else's failures and learn and apply the truths to yourself.
And I'm saying, even though I was committed to God, do anything in this world God asked me to do, absolutely burned out. Because there's some things I didn't know, and one of the things I didn't know, I remember hearing Bertha Smith, who has been a missionary for 40 years over in China and for Mosa. I remember the first time I ever saw her, she was about 81 years old the first time I saw her. She got off the plane. I met her at the gate.
I'm thinking, now, wait a minute. You know, I'm about as long on my leg as she is tall, and she is three paces ahead of me. So when we got home, I said, Bertha, I said, why do you walk so fast?
I said, don't you get tired? She says, I don't ever get tired. She says, I just walk in strength of the Lord. I watched this woman. She demonstrated to me this awesome sense of inexhaustible energy, went through all kind of attacks and bombed and machine guns, you name it. She said, I was going to strength of the Lord.
When she died, her schedule was about five years out and you know the things she was going to do. Well, I want to tell you, I think I am learning what it means to tap into that inexhaustible resource of God no matter what. It doesn't make any sense what the responsibility is. The troubles, the trials, the heartaches, the burdens, the worse it gets, sometimes the more excited I become. I think, Lord, you just have to demonstrating your power. And how will I ever know how much you can do? How will you ever know how much energy God can give you? How will you ever know how much strength and power? How much will you ever know your capacity to endure unless He pushes you and pushes you and pushes you and pushes you and you walk on the edge and the edge gets closer and closer and closer to disaster? You only learn it by being there. And I want to tell you, I've learned so many wonderful, exciting things that's so blessing my heart.
He says, young men shall stumble badly, but those who wait upon the Lord, those who by faith just say, Lord, I can't handle this. This is yours. He is delighted to provide everything I need at that moment to take care of it. I can tell you, my friend, I wish God would show me how to say it better.
Everything I'm telling you, I know it works. I know that God has done something in my life that is so wonderful and so exciting. I don't even know how to say it except to say He is everything He says He is. And when He says you don't need to run and be weary and walk and faint and get discouraged and worn out and fragile, you don't have to try to keep this down, suppress that and lock this in, shut that out and don't do this and do that. Just do three things. Surrender all, depend totally upon me and trust me. And friend, life changes.
Something happens. The struggle, the fretting, the exhaustion, the weariness, the tiredness, the drain, all of those things somehow is just not there. And the reason it's not there is because Jesus is your life. And He doesn't get worn and weary and tired and exhausted. He's there to supply every single thing you and I need.
And that is my desire for you because I know how it feels to be on the other end when you're wiped out hopelessly, helplessly, nothing. And then I know what it means to listen, have worse battles, greater battles, more pressures, more responsibility, more stresses and tensions from the world's viewpoint with a greater sense of tranquility and peace that I could ever describe. When Paul said, who went through things like you and I would never have to go through, sitting in a prison with perfect assurance and confidence, the apostle Paul never burned out.
You know why? Here's what he said. He said, there is a peace that passes all human understanding and is to be found in a relationship, not a formula. And that relationship is a loving relationship between you and God through His Son, Jesus Christ, acknowledging and recognizing that God loves us absolutely, completely and perfectly. And with His love comes the power to become, the power to be and the power to do. Thank you for listening to part two 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.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-06-17 07:39:34 / 2023-06-17 07:48:07 / 9