Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 5, 2023 | Beating Burnout - A Six Fix for Burnout Doubt

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March 5, 2023 | Beating Burnout - A Six Fix for Burnout Doubt · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, good morning.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, is this like a new podium?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's at Connor's Height, which is like seven foot two.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Six foot one guys.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're in a lot.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we're in a series, if you didn't know, called Beating Burnout.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a little surprised to find out that burnout is a it's a big issue this week.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's on Thursday, there's a nationwide video seminar for physicians all over our country about it, because as the New York Times uh reports, uh burnout is an academic, ep e academic.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like an academic Larry, stop laughing at me.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Epidemic among physicians, maybe more than any other, maybe more than any other uh group of people.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's actually doubled, nearly doubled from one-third of physicians to two-thirds in the last three years alone since COVID and so forth.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Two-thirds of physicians reporting they have emotional exhaustion at least once a week, and also a they find themselves in front of patients not feeling the sympathy that they used to feel.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a number of reasons for this, of course, but one that everyone agrees on is these EHRs.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're in uh the electronic health records, when you're in a doctor's office nowadays and you want to say, look at me, look at me, I'm talking to you.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's because they're sitting in front of their darn computer, you know, because the regulations say they've got to fill out these records.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And those records are nice for you, you know, on your computer, but they take a lot of time, and so uh doctors are doctors are frustrated by the regulations and so on and so on.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I've talked to a couple of our doctors this morning that I've run into, and um, and they acknowledge it it is a seeming epidemic.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just a story about um to say that burnout is a real thing, and it is on the front pages these days.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and in our series, uh we've come to the place uh in this four-week series where we've uh the last two weeks we've done the two most famous burnout stories in the Old Testament.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago, I talked about Elijah, uh, and uh and then last week Connor talked about Moses in Exodus 18, whose father-in-law helped him, uh prevented him from going into deep burnout.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning I moved to a story in the New Testament, all right?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And my title uh um so as you can see, I haven't borrowed any of this from anybody else.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's so weird.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: A six fix for burnout doubt.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's a little rhyme in there.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of like rap music, so I'm really cool.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So say this out loud with me.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: A six fix for burnout doubt.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're not cool enough, say it with me one more time.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: A six fix for burnout doubt.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in about 20 minutes, you'll understand when I'm talking about the text.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or cell phone, it's Luke chapter 7, verses 18 through 23.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: This text is about a New Testament character who I believe had hit this stage of burnout that I'm calling burnout doubt.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's at the very bottom, it's when you are close to losing your faith.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 7, his name was John the Baptist.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in the context, just before the passage I'm gonna get to, verses 14 through 17 of Luke chapter 7, Jesus is in the middle, up, he's up in Galilee, and he's working these remarkable miracles, and you'll notice everything he's doing is for needy people.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's for desperate people, it's not for wealthy people, it's not for upper middle class people, it's for people who are desperate, who are needy.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we read in verse uh 14, Jesus said, He's at a little town called Nain, N-A-I-N, or Naeen.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Young man, I say to you, get up.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was the only son of his widowed mother, and the dead man sat up and began to speak.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, notice how easy that was for Jesus.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: There are raisings from the dead in the Old Testament by prophets, but they're always involved.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Elijah has to prostrate himself, you know, on the body of the boy, or there have to be multiple breathings and so forth and so forth.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus raises someone from the dead, he just does it casually.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's that easy for Jesus.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Young man, I say to you, get up.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the dead man sat up and he began to speak, which proves that he's now alive.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I guess we do have movies where dead people walk around and speak today, but um, not then.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus gave him to his mother, just like Elijah gave a raised boy to his mother in 1 Kings.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then fear, or the word could be awe, came over everyone, and we're talking about a huge group of followers, a crowd, and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet, notice their conclusion, a great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his people.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, God has come to our aid.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this report about him went through Judea and all the vicinity.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Notice by saying, a great prophet has risen among us, it's clear they do not realize who he is.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: They do not realize he is the Son of God come from heaven to save mankind.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: They do not realize that he is the Hamashiach, that he is the Messiah, the anointed one who's been promised from the beginning, who's going to come and change all of history.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: They don't understand that.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: They remember that a prophet has been predicted, a sort of new Elijah who's going to come.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so they, that's as far as they get.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they're wondering, well, who is this Yeshua?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they called him back then, not Jesus.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And God has, uh that's the Aramaic.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Greek word.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but they know that God's visiting them.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And notice it says this report about him went throughout Judea, and all of a sudden, now Judea is down south, and that's where John the Baptist is, languishing in a prison.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: One of Herod's fortresses, Macarus, just east of the Jordan River, has this prison where he was thrown after he made a comment about the marriage of Herod to Herodias.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: That it was a, it was, he sinned in a lot of ways by this marriage.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was partly incest and it was partly stealing his brother's wife and all of that stuff.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And here's John the Baptist who's been preaching the gospel and baptizing, and he makes this political comment, and that's why he's going to die.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: He was ready to die for preaching the gospel, but he's in prison as a result of that.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why in the next verse we read, John's disciples, verses 18 and 19, told him about all these things, right?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because the news had come that Jesus is just helping out poor people and calling two of them.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: J the bee sent them to the Lord to ask, Are you the one who was to come?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's a technical phrase for the Messiah.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or should we expect someone else?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's a shocking statement to come from the lips of John the Baptist, who, when he was seven months in utero, to an old woman named Elizabeth.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: He was like a miracle baby.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 1.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Elizabeth's cousin Mary, who the angel had said, get out of, get out of Nazareth.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your pregnancy will be terrible.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get out of here for a while.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be talking about you.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: She goes down south to Elizabeth, and when Mary, with newborn fetus Jesus, less than a month old in her womb, walks into the house where seven-month-old baby in the womb, John is.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: The ultrasound went crazy.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It says that John the Baptist leaped, that he skipped, that he bounced up and down.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the last time I had a baby in the womb, I just hate that, you know, when that happens, you know.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, this is when husband or your wife says, put your hand on my stomach, put your hand on my stomach.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so John the Baptist, even in the womb, senses the greatness of his cousin Jesus and loves him.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And even as a toddler, we know John the Baptist knew that his life's work would be to speak about his cousin Jesus and to introduce the world to him and to prepare Israel for him by calling them to understand they were sinners in need of the grace of Jesus.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that was his job.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then as John the Baptist grows up, he you know he becomes a little bit of a weird creature.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he dresses in goat's hair, you know, like Elijah did, and so forth.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he's down by the river, and thousands of people start following him because he's preaching and he's saying, repent, judgment is coming, you guys need something, you guys are sinners, and you're acting as though you're not, and and and you need the Messiah.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be judgment, there's gonna be miracles, you know, and so forth.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he's standing there one day, and some of the people start saying to him, Are you the Messiah?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, No, no, no, no, no, not me.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Messiah is coming.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm baptizing you in water, he's gonna baptize you the Holy Spirit.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not him.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then later, John the Baptist is now in his, he's in his young 30s, and man comes over the top of the hill.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: He recognizes him, he's his cousin.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Look, look, everybody, look at him.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's God's Lamb come to take away the sins of the world.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is John the Baptist whose life has been completely wound up with love for and preaching about and preparing the world for Jesus, this very same person that he now says, uh, guys, a couple of you'd you approach him and say, Are you the one who's to come?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: What, John?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know he's the one to come this whole time, but you know that's what burnout does to you.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It makes you question things that you once knew so firmly they were a part of your DNA.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And John has hit burnout doubt.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's at the very bottom, and I think part of it is I think he was, I uh I have a brother named Rob who, in his first 10 years or so as a missionary in Africa, um uh treating people, he wouldn't be in the main towns.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was out in the villages and there was a lot of opposition, and they were attacked and so forth, and he used to tell me, I'm ready to die anytime.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now he did, he did say, I my I said, I said, and how do you handle that, thinking you're gonna die?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I have a lot of dreams about a spear in my back, but he says, the worst nightmare I have is that they capture me and take me, and I won't have my contacts, and I won't be able to see, won't be able to see what's happening.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine you're prepared to die for the gospel, as John the Baptist was, who spoke the gospel boldly to everyone, to crowds and to criminals and uh and to Pharisees and so forth.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was fearless.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was there are people who stand right outside the Oval Office.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's always a White House rep who stands in the preparation room before people go in to see the president.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Chuck Colson talks about this in his book.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know, he says, what happens?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: These people report that groups of three, four people get in there and they begin to strategize.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you say this to the president, then I'm gonna say this, and then you say this, and then I'm gonna jump on him and we'll get this to happen.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the moment they leave there and they go into the Oval Office, they turn into tabby catch.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're so overwhelmed by the power and the glory of the president that none of them insists on anything.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: That they are all, yes, sir, no, sir.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist was not that way.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even as Herod rode by and Herodias, John was fearless, and then this said, and someone says, What do you think about that marriage?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said, That's absolutely sinful.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he gets thrown in prison for that?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Soon to be executed for some for a political moral comment rather than for the gospel?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine how he must feel?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It would be as if my brother had been killed for driving, you know, for for breaking his speed law in Africa.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So so imagine how he feels at this point when he's hearing what the Lord Jesus is doing, his cousin.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: But but imagine some of the things he's thinking.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if he's he's the Messiah, why didn't he come and get me out of jail?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, why isn't there judgment?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: The interesting thing is we need to understand that he is the greatest, godliest God follower in history up till now.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: In this chapter, in just a few verses, Jesus will tell the crowds, I tell you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I say this to tell you that no matter how godly you are, how great another person is that you admire, if they fall into burnout doubt, you cannot say somehow that they're not a Christian.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or that they have no faith and have never had any faith.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because the greatest, godliest follower of history up till that time fell into burnout doubt where he doubted everything he had once believed.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And John the Baptist is locked into that.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so he calls two of his disciples and says, Ask, ask him, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's one of the things we need to stop for just a second and think about that even the best of us can fall into burnout doubt.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you are familiar with C.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis, the great Christian apologist and writer, Oxford professor.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, many of you will know that he wrote not one but two books about suffering.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: The first, which he wrote earlier in life, extremely famous, The Problem of Pain.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about the philosophical problem.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: That book, which I used to teach every year over here at CarePrival, an amazing book, if you ought to read that book, about the problem of pain.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was philosophical, it was theological, it was pastoral, it was wonderful.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: But he wrote another book, A Grief Observed.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: But when he wrote that book, he wrote it under a pseudonym.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is, he refused to allow them to put his name on the book.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because he knew that many people had come to faith because of his books, and he was afraid that reading that book might cause some of them to lose their faith.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: For he wrote that book after the death of his beloved wife, Joy Davidman.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: The backstory is that Joy lived here in America.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: She was a communist, she was an atheist, she was a Jewish woman, she had two teenage boys, and she had actually come to faith by reading C.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis's books.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so when her husband left her, she decided that she would take her two teenage boys and move over to Oxford to be close to this man who had meant so much to them in their lives.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so they did move over there, and for a while she attached herself to him just sort of as a voluntary personal secretary.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly she was struck down in middle-aged with cancer.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she went into the hospital, and her one great worry was that no one would take care of her two teenage sons.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so she asked C.S.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis if he would do that, and he agreed, but she kept asking.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: She was so worried that he wouldn't.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to assure her that he would, he married her while she was in her hospital bed.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's clear that there wasn't much, if any, romance in that relationship, that it it was something that C.S.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis did out of kindness.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: But then, as God would have it, the cancer suddenly went into remission.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And she left the hospital.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so then Lewis and Joy Davidman got married a second time in a Church of England ceremony.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when the romance began.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: They had three wonderful romantic, enlarging years together, and then as quickly as the cancer had gone, it returned.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she was in incredible, incredible pain during those last few weeks, and then she passed away.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And Lewis was inconsolable.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: This man who had assured so many other people about how to handle suffering suddenly realized in his own life that he couldn't handle it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: He had written about it philosophically, but now he's experiencing it personally, and he did the only thing that he knew how to do.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: He pulled out paper and pen and he began writing about his feelings and his thoughts and his experiences.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true in the early pages of that book, he is shrill and he is harsh and he is angry and he is in the throes of doubting his own faith.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is in burnout doubt at the very bottom.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: He expresses clearly that he had expectations of God, that God was not fulfilling.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: He had expectations about how God would treat Joy and how God would treat him as their shepherd and as their father.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And God had let them down.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: But as he keeps writing through that book, he gradually moves from his expectations to his experiences of God.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he comes to the place where he realizes that though he does not himself know the whys, that there actually may be reasons why God is doing this.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, though the valley still has darkness and gloom in it, there is a ray of light at the end of this book.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: But still, he left his name off of it.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And C.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis's name was not put on this book until after his death.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Even the very best of people can suffer from burnout doubt.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: What causes burnout doubt and John the Baptist and then C.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis and us, my history, my years of experience have led me to the same conclusion that C.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: S.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis eventually came to, and that is that we have expectations of God that God has not fulfilled.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it time and again.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Someone whose expectations of God and of life are so lofty that they become sort of illusions.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, when they are not met, they crash into disillusionment, as Haddon Robinson once put it.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: If I live with illusions about God and about how God works, my faith can be in great danger for disillusionment as the child of illusion.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: What were John the Baptist's expectations?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think they were three.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, interestingly enough, oftentimes we have the same three expectations.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: One of his expectations was clearly that the nation of Israel would, at his preaching, turn back to God.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Repent.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands of people repented under his ministry.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he expected that society would continue to repent.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And now he's asking, where's the predicted the hearts of the people will turn back to God, as you predicted in the Old Testament?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Prophets, Lord, as Jeremiah, as Jeremiah 31 predicted.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I'm hearing from my followers who are not in prison that opposition to Jesus is now growing.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: You hear this today, don't you?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in your own heart you say to yourself, where's the in God we trust?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: God bless America, land we love.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, our very own country is turning its back on God.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist also had another expectation which had become an illusion, and that is a theological expectation of judgment.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: He had been preaching the axes laid at the trees.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: God is about to unleash judgment on this land for your sinfulness.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's asking as he's there behind bars, where's the predicted judgment on evil that God told me to preach?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Which he preached in chapter 3, verses 7 through 9.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I got this message from God.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, sin's winning.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you certainly hear this today, don't you?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: People say, where's judgment in our land?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sin's winning the world that we know is totally out of moral control.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you find yourself in your soul sinking into a kind of spiritual burnout.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: The third expectation is personal.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's God care, shepherd care.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the Lord as my shepherd?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I shall not want, John's thinking.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if Jesus is Messiah, why doesn't he rescue me instead my life and my soon death?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, it's very soon after this.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that there's a party upstairs.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Herodotus dances, you know, Salome dances, and Herod says, I'll give you anything you want.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And mother says, Come here.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Go ask for the head of John the Baptist who criticize my marriage.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how he dies.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: It seems so worthless, so meaningless that he shouldn't die for the gospel, that he should die for something so trivial as a dance and a political statement.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: But today, similarly, people collapse into burnout doubt, saying God's not the caring father and shepherd that he promised me he would be.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, as Job says, I search for him, I look to the right and he's not there, I look to the left and he's not there, I look up, I look down.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: God is nowhere to be found.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And John had an expectation of these three things.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I say, Well, hold it.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your timing is bad.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you expect them now, but the revival will come, and the judgment will come, and God will care for you well after death.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, when you're in the middle of this, you timing is it needs to happen now.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to happen in this lifetime.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the great thing is that John the Baptist, and we found this in the two previous weeks, when you're suffering from burnout, the best thing to do is take your problems directly to God.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what John the Baptist does.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so when those two guys, those men came to Jesus, they said, John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, are you the one who is to come?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or should we expect someone else?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's clear from the context that there were all these other people standing around and hearing this, and they too were shocked that John the Baptist, whose life was pointing to Jesus, would ask this question, which is why, after the story that we're preaching today, you'll find a story about how Jesus defends John the Baptist, says he's the greatest man who ever lived, and this is not a problem.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: But they asked Jesus this, and notice that Jesus takes the doubt question seriously.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not always when you take your doubt questions to people do they take them seriously, right?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: You could be forgiven if I said if you thought that God should reply or Jesus should reply, shame on you.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: You've got your doctorate at seminary, John the Baptist.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: You, you know, we've been, you know, my father and the angels have told you who I am since before birth, and now you're questioning it.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: But no, Jesus doesn't do that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: He takes it seriously.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus apparently, I take it perhaps, took those two disciples of John the Baptist with him.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he took them around as he healed people with diseases and sicknesses and cast out evil spirits and gave sight to the blind.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says to the messengers, go back and report to John what you've seen and heard.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: The deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in that, you hear Jesus.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you want Jesus to just go, Yes, John the Baptist, I am the Messiah, but he doesn't, does he?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the way God relates to us when we go to him.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't, he doesn't answer us completely.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there's a hand here go, psst, John.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Think of the prophecies for a minute, cousin.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 35, 5 and 6, when the Messiah comes, then the eyes of the blind shall see.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: No other, he, no, no blind person gets to see.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: No miracle like that in the Old Testament, only the Messiah.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the ears of the deaf open, lame leap like a deer, the mute tongues sing for joy.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Number of prophecies, especially in the book of Isaiah, that when the Messiah comes, he will do these kind of miracles for desperate and poor people.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus motivates him in the last verse of our passage.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he does it oh so sensitively.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: He does it oh so gently.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: He does it oh so positively.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: He motivates him by saying, Blessed is the one who does not fall away, literally keeps from stumbling, keeps from being scandalized, keeps from tripping over me, who does not fall away on account of me.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed is that person.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, come on.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the sixth fix for burnout doubts.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the first two are questions and answers.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: These are what to do if you know someone who's struggling with this and you want to give them advice.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know none of you have ever suffered from this.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, take your doubts directly to Jesus.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: This third week in a row, basically, we've said something like this.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: You take your doubts directly to God, you go.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So remember with Elijah, three parts.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: He needed rest, and then he ran down to Mount Sinai to get a new vision of God, and then he got a companion.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He was trying to go out alone.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: God said, get somebody, he ends up with Elisha.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Take your doubts directly to Jesus.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Go directly to God.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they but we don't, do we?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you're in burnout, you know what you do?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: You you kind of curl up into a fetal position, go in the background, and you don't talk to anybody.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And not even God.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Go to him.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to hear it.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, expect him to take you seriously, right?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: And to answer you sufficiently, but not completely.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And to treat you sensitively.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look at those three S's.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Is that cool?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is that preacher talk or what?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Expect him to take you seriously.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: He won't tell you to shut up.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he'll answer you sufficiently.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: You will come to the place where you have a partial answer where he will have answered you, but he's not in the business of solving all of your needs and treating you like a little baby.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to help you come to the place, he'll tell you, he'll just say, tell John the Baptist what you see me doing.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then John the Baptist, he knows the Old Testament.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: He'll put two and two together.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus didn't say it.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: But and if he reads the context of every one of those miracle passages in Isaiah, there's judgment that will follow.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's an issue of timing.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Answer you sufficiently, and he'll treat you sensitively.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank the Lord we have that kind of a savior.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Third, third and fourth have to do with faith and doubt.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Live with your doubts, but don't fall in love with them.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever met somebody who's who's who's who've fallen in love with their doubts and they're bragging about them, and you know, they they think it's really cool, you know, to have serious doubts and to be questioning God?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's okay to ask questions of God, but when you get when you cross over that line and begin publicly questioning God, and you clutch your doubts and you hold on to your doubts and you embrace your doubts and you fall in love with your doubts, then you're in real trouble.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because you made a decision that you're gonna go the opposite way and you're not still a learner.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Live with your doubts.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and live with them, but don't fall in love with them.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: And related to that, number four, check your expectations.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: To beware that they might be illusions.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Check your expectations.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Plant your feet in what you know, know, know, and in whom you know.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Plant your feet in the person of Jesus, whom you know, and in the fact that you know that he is the Messiah.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hamashiach, Yeshua, Hamashiach, the sin one of God who's going to save the world from their sins.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when you struggle with burnout doubts, say about your own salvation.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Read the word, understand the assurance that God gives those who have believed, who have placed their faith in him for eternal life.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: For his work on the cross, which we're going to celebrate with communion in five or so minutes.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Plant your feet in those things.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not, however, in what you think you know.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: That you think you know that there's supposed to be a revival in the land of America, or the judgment is going to fall really soon, or such and such can't become president, or such and such will become president, or the whole political scope of the world is going to change, or judgment will fall.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those are things you think you know, but the Bible doesn't, you can't know those because the Bible hasn't promised those.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Plant your feet in what you know and in whom you know, not in what you think you know.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, replay his promise.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Replay it over and over.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: What is his promise?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: These are words that work.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: His promise is I will bless those who stay standing, who don't fall, who don't trip over me.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Say, you know what?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want the Lord's blessing.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's so positive.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord looks down and he says, Every one of you struggle with doubt at times and you struggle with burnout.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't trip, don't fall.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: People are counting on you.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm counting on you.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't fall, don't stumble.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, Jesus, Jesus doesn't say, John the Baptist, you've already fallen.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, that's an even deeper step than John the Baptist has taken, which comforts me that even in my darkest times, and I've had them as you as have you, I still count on this blessing.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Stand strong, stay standing, don't give up, fight the good fight.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, don't go it alone.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, John the Baptist called two friends to him.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Will you go to Jesus for me?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in burnout, what a great thing to do.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Call two friends.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Will you go to Jesus for me?
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: Will you pray for me?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Will you talk to the Lord for me?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm really going through a hard time right now.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you all about it next week, but right now, all I just need your prayer.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I did this yesterday with a with a man who lives on one of the coasts, on the east coast.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know him that well, but um, but uh our hearts have been knit together in the last year or two.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I shared with him deeply yesterday, confidentially, the thing that keeps me awake at night.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: He texted me.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: He texted me early this morning, so early it woke me up.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just to say, I'm praying for you right now.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Praying for your sermon, I'm praying for you know what's ahead of you.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm praying for you.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, oh, thank God.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: I talked to that man and said, Would you go to Jesus for me?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, going to Jesus works because Jesus knows the dark, personally.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's been there.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: He was there in the Garden of Gethsemane, remember?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Crying, weeping great drops of blood, pleading with his father.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: He was there on the cross just before the whole world turned dark.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Quest, who's passed away, a French Christian leader, wrote, has a book of, this is one of his poems in his famous book of poems.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: It could be said by you, could be said by me, could have been said by Jesus.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, it is dark.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, are you here in my darkness?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have taken me far, Lord, trusting I followed you and you walked at my side.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now in the middle of the desert at night, suddenly you have disappeared.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I call and you do not answer.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: I search and I do not find you.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've left everything, and now I'm left alone.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your absence is my suffering, Lord.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: It is dark.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, are you here in my darkness?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you, Lord?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Do you love me still?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Or have I wearied you?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, answer, answer.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is dark.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus went into the dark for us.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: For you.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: As you take the cup and the bread with me now.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Go to him.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus told us to take the bread.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And as we ate it together, realize this is his body.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Broken for us.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as you walked into the darkness deliberately, he thought of us and told us to remember you, identify with you, and accept your salvation.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And after the meal, he also took the cup.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, as you drink this, know that you're drinking the new covenant in my blood.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they drank.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the new covenant that binds us to you for eternity.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because you died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the dead.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for going through the darkness for us.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that as we go through the darkness, we can follow you.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing that one day we will follow you eventually into eternal light.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Father, it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.