Stress & Burnout | Jerry Harris

All right, cross in church. How are you doing today, doing?

All right. I don't know how we can't be

doing. All right.

When we serve a God, that turns Graves into Gardens, when we

serve a God, who turns bones into a mean and we all know,

hopefully, you know, today he is the only one who can do that.

You can't do that, I can't do that, but he can do that and

he's doing incredible things even now I was I was talking to

Bill twaddle back there who for the Su campus, he's right over

here, but the Vandalia. Oh, It's prison.

I think we have What 80s is it? 8686 baptism schedule.

You know what, you call that in a church, you call that Revival

and you can have a Revival in a women's prison.

And that's pretty awesome. Isn't it?

What God can do? Because he can turn all of those

things into other things. I want to welcome all of our

campuses joining with us all across this region if you're

inside or online. So thankful for each and every

one of you. And we're celebrating Monmouth

is having its fourth anniversary today, awesome.

All those people way up in the north.

Mus and we're so excited for that.

And you think with all the victories that we experienced in

the kingdom of God, and with one another, you think it, we just

ought to be walking around with these dumb smiles on our faces

all the time. But that's really not the case.

Is it many of us are dealing rhyming, all of us right now, at

some level are dealing with stress, And some of us are in a

stage of burnout. We're struggling with that,

that's what this series is about.

It's about mental health weeds in my garden and you know, we

struggle in these various areas. We don't like to talk about it

so much because you know, we don't project weakness or we

don't know project that we're kind of maybe in some way in

some form out of control in our lives.

But we really, really do need to deal with it.

There was a barn study, came out last week about pastors and said

between 2121 and 2022. The incidents of pastors who are

stepping out a Ministry because of burnout had increased 13% in

one year, And if pastors don't have that idea that

understanding of God, you know, and the victories that God's

giving and you know, they have supposedly all the tools and

that's happening how much everybody else is dealing with

this these realities. So I imagine right now, every

single one of us in this room and all the rooms cross everyone

that's listening to me. You're dealing with some sort of

stress right now because it comes, From literally every area

of our life. Let's list them, you might be

under pressure, you might be facing some big change in your

life. You might be feeling a lack of

control. You may be shouldering a heavy

responsibility. You may be feeling uncertain

about the future, you might be because you're facing multiple

issues at once. That's mine one.

I'm good. Give me three or four.

Okay, it's hard for me to deal with multiple issues at once.

You might be feeling The effect of past experiences on present

experiences, you might be having a lack of resources right now or

feeling a lack of support right now.

It might be triggered by illness or injury, or parenting, or

infertility, or bereavement, or abuse, or marriage or divorce or

relationships or caregiving, you might have lost your job.

You might have be dealing with unemployment, long term.

May be retiring feeling the Sure.

A deadlines exams work, Strife, a new job.

You might be moving dealing with difficult neighbors worrying,

about money or drowning in debt. Wow.

Did I find it? One of those hits you you're

going no Jerry about 14 of them did.

Right? Because we're all dealing with

stress and it is an abnormal to experience stress in our life.

We shouldn't expect that. We could avoid it because it's a

part of life. The issue isn't whether or not

we're experiencing stress. The issue is if we're managing

it in a healthy way or in an unhealthy way.

Because if we're not It can lead to a lot of bad things but

particularly it could lead to something else that is far more

debilitating, and that's burnouts.

I know we use that term generically we use a lot of

terms generically but there is such a thing as clinical

burnouts. Let me show you the difference.

So there's a difference between stress and burnout.

Let's look at those today, here's the first one.

Stress is over engagement. You understand what that means?

That's like, where you commit to too many things and you just

don't seem to have enough time or energy to manage them all.

But burnout is disengagement. You might have overactive

emotions. You're getting too passionate or

just really, really strong emotions when you're under

stress but when you're in, burn out your emotions, get blunted

even. You might even describe yourself

as numb. under stress, there's urgency or hyperactivity like

you just, you know, just totally on all the time but in Burnout

the opposite happens helplessness and hopelessness

Under stress. There can be a loss of energy

but under burnout, there's a loss of motivation and a loss of

Hope. Under stress.

You might be dealing with issues of anxiety, but in Burnout you

get detached and you feel depressed.

Under stress. You can physically damage

yourself heart attack stroke. I mean things like that can

happen, right? But in Burnout, you have,

emotional damage, not just physical damage and stress can

be life threatening. As I said, but burnout life

doesn't feel like it's worth living anymore.

Some of us even in positive moments of Our Lives can be so

driven by our purpose and our passion that we can allow

massive amounts of stress into our lives.

But if we're not coming from a position of well-being, we can

spin out and end up in a ditch can really happen.

Some of you right now are relating to what I'm saying.

Way, way more than you want to. Because you fit the description.

I was putting some of those things up and you're like wow

that's oh that it's me too right?

Maybe you're burned out right now.

At this moment I want to give you some Hope on the front end

of the sermon that does not mean that you're done just because

you're burned out because God can help you, he could even use

the negative space that's in your life right now and and

transform it into the part of your testimony.

So I need for all of you to lean into what I'm saying today.

What is burnout? Well, here's the clinical

definition burnout, is a debilitating condition, that our

roads energy optimism, and Effectiveness.

And the prevalence of burnout is far greater than our willingness

to talk about it or to take steps to deal with it.

And burnout is kind of like a train that pulls into stations,

okay. And there's six of these

stations or stages of burnout. This is kind of how it begins,

and this is how it develops until you are clinically burned

out. And I want us to go through

those stages together. The first stage of burnout is

emotional exhaustion, are you feeling that?

And what if anybody's feeling that some emotional exhaustion?

That's when you need to be thinking, oh, am I am I coming?

I'm right. Am I on this train track?

And I'm a headache toward clinical burnout, second stage,

increased frequency, and duration of negative assessment.

So this has to do with how you view yourself, okay?

So if you view yourself in a negative light, if you're in

Burnout or moving in the direction of burnout, there's

more of those times you feel that way and they last longer

than they normally do stage 3. Loss of emotional stability,

personal discipline and resiliency emotional stability.

Means you lose your filters and you your start riding the roller

coaster of emotions personal discipline.

It could be one thing or another thing in ways that you let

yourself go or you disconnect from things that they were

normally rules in your life. And resiliency you just don't

bounce back like you used to bounce back stage for isolation.

Really getting dangerous here. Where we think nobody

understands what? We're, I'm dealing with.

I don't see any way out of this, and no one can help me.

Stage 5, diminish work, Effectiveness.

You just can't do what you used to be able to do as well as you

were able to do it before because of those other four

stages and stage 6, which is clinical burnout is identity

impairment and Confusion. You no longer understand who and

whose you are and you're confused about it.

Now I'm no doctor actually. Most of all that came from a

doctor, but I'm not a doctor or a therapist but I do know God's

word. And there are plenty of examples

in God's word of people that were working through burnout or

dealing with burnout. And I want to use one of those

examples today because I think it's going to teach us how to

Spot those signs and how to manage the stress that is in our

lives, so that we don't end up in a place called burnout.

And if we do how to find our way out of that, or how to access

God to get out of that, and the example I'm going to use today

is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.

It's the story of Elijah Elijah, the prophet of the Old

Testament. Now, God kind of calls Elijah

out of nowhere, you just all of the sudden read about him.

You don't get Any background story, you don't understand like

how he got to where he was, but God just delivers a message to

Elijah that he has to deliver his message.

God's message to the king of Israel, and he was an evil King.

His name was Ahab and his wife was even more evil than he was.

Her name is Jezebel. Now, there's not very many

people that want to say and I want to name my child Ahab.

And even less for have a little princess of a girl to say

Jezebel, that's going to be her name.

You know, those those names are kind of like off the table

because of the story in the Bible.

And Elijah wasn't a guy who delivered good news and because

of that he was not appreciated and that's an understatement.

He wasn't that he just wasn't appreciated, he lived every day

in fear of his life because the people who are angry with the

message that God delivered through, Elijah would take it

out on Elijah. Think about the stress of that.

So, this is a man who lived in this world of stress every day.

He was called out of a simple life to bring bad news about

God's judgment, by the way, most profits delivered bad news.

They didn't deliver good news and then they had to face

whatever response there would be from whatever God said.

Now Elijah's first assignment in First Kings 18 was to declare

that because of the rebellion and the idolatry and the

godlessness of the people of Israel.

God was bringing a drought. Was it going to rain for years?

And that meant there was going to be a famine.

Now, that was going to cause a lot of stress to the people of

Israel, and that was designed to bring them to repentance.

But it was also going to create a lot of stress for Elijah

because he was the one delivering that message.

Well, when that started and the drought began and the famine in

sued, he had to leave the country.

So, there's a lot of stress in that after the pull up and just

leave the country go to a place that you're not used to, he had

to totally depend on God. It's better.

In fact, God had him sit at a brook and he had to be fed every

day by a Ravens. Pretty amazing story about how

God kept him healthy during this time of drought.

In famine. But can you imagine this live in

that every day not knowing are the Ravens coming back are the

is the water going to continue to float?

As a matter of fact, the water did stop flowing more stress and

when the water dried up God said I want you to go to this other

country and live in the home of a widow.

But she was a gentile and Jews, don't do that.

More stress. And then he helped us Widow

along here. God gave him a message to tell

the Widow, take the last little bit of food because she said,

I'm going to take this last a little bit of flour and this

last little bit of oil and I'm going to make a cake in my son

and I are going to eat it. We're going to die of starvation

because it was the last that she had.

And God told Elijah to tell the Widow to make that cake for him

instead of her and her son. How would you like to tell that

two people are starving to death?

And then God worked a great miracle.

But and they were surviving because the oil continued to

flow. Right, that you, maybe remember

that story from the Old Testament, but in the even with

all of this good happening, the sun, grows ill and dies.

And then the Widow's like now, what do I do?

More stress. So God calls Elijah to raise the

boy back to life, which he does. But think about the stress of

just day-to-day life and on top of all of that, a Hab was having

to worry about whether or not ahab's people were going to

catch him, find him and catch him because they were looking

for him to kill him. It says it in First Kings 1810.

As surely as the Lord, your God lives.

There is not a nation or Kingdom where my master Hab has not sent

someone to look for you and whenever a nation or Kingdom

claimed, you were not there. He made them swear, they could

not find you. Every day, every single day, for

three solid years, he dealt with that stress.

I guess I'm just saying that Elijah is a good character in

the Bible to look at if we're dealing dealing with stress or

what can come from stress, which is burnout.

Then God tells him after 3 years.

We're going to have a duel with Ahab a duel.

Like when I think a duel I think of like a western right.

Well, this is a little different than that.

So Elijah challenges Ahab, just going to Ahab.

He's risking his life and Jezebel's profits of the idol

Baal or we might say bail. There were four hundred and

fifty of them to a duel. Now, this is what the Dual look

like. It was going to be on Mount

Carmel, which is by the Mediterranean Sea, it rises up

from the Mediterranean Sea, high mountain top.

And on top of this mountain Elijah was going to meet with

the prophets of Baal and they were going to both build an

altar to their God and they were good, both gonna put a sacrifice

would and a sacrifice on that altar to their God and then

whoever it was God was going to burn up the sacrifice.

Elijah said to the people of Israel.

How long are you going to waver between two opinions?

This Baal is God, Fails. God, serve him.

If the Lord is God serve him. And so the whole nation comes

together to watch this duel between one Prophet Elijah and

the 450 prophets of Baal. They both build their altars.

They both put the sacrifices on the wood on And Elijah said to

the prophets of Baal, you go, first.

So they go first, they start praying to their God, nothing

happens, they pray, louder, nothing happens, they pray,

louder, nothing happens. And then Elijah starts, taunting

them. He goes, maybe you should pray a

little louder. Maybe.

Maybe he just having trouble hearing you maybe he's in a far

country. Might want to pray a little

louder. Maybe he's in the bathroom

literally says that in the Bible.

Anyway, All day long. That cry out to their God and

nothing happens. They become frantic in there.

Crying out, they start cutting themselves with knives, trying

to show their Devotion to their God.

But by the time evening cane, they were completely exhausted

and nothing had happened on that altar.

To bail. And then Elijah said, well,

okay, it's my turn. He goes before I pray to my God.

I want to take the most precious thing we have right now.

I want to douse this altar with water so he he brought this

precious water. Up to the altar.

They dug a trench around the altar.

He covered the altar with water until the sacrifice was soaked.

The wood was soaked. The the stones of the altar were

soaked and even the trench was completely filled.

And then he takes a knee, praise one little prayer and goes.

Let the people of Israel know that there is only one God and

Israel. And fire came down from heaven

and didn't just burn up the sacrifice.

It blew up the rocks of that alter.

It looked up all of the water and evaporated it and there was

nothing left but scorched Earth and all of the people of Israel

that were gathered around that mountain that day said the Lord,

he is God, the Lord, he is God. And then Elijah said, take those

prophets of Baal down to the kai-shan, Brooke and X.

Acute them and all 450 of them were executed that day.

What a win for God, what an incredible moment.

What a win for Elijah. They should hope throw a party.

They should have a parade, you know, it's so good to see the

good guy win. Not so much.

Not so much. What happens next pretty

interesting. First Kings, 19, 125 a Now, I

have told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had

killed all the prophets with the sword.

So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say May the gods deal

with me. Be it ever.

So severely, if by this time tomorrow, I don't make your life

like that of one of them. Molly kill you, dude.

Why she was afraid? Are you kidding me?

What God's done. Look at all the wins.

You kidding me. As a matter of fact, after the

prophets of Baal were killed, Elijah sent someone out to look

over the sea and say, tell me if you see any clouds member hadn't

rained for three years, and he didn't see any.

And then he said, go back and he sent him back.

Seven times. Look seventh time, he goes,

there's a little teeny Cloud right at the Horizon.

He goes better start running because it's going to start

raining. Sure enough that very day.

The rains came and the ground was made fertile again, you

think that Elijah would have begun?

Yeah, but he was afraid, can't believe in Elijah.

You're my hero. How Could You Be Afraid?

Not only was afraid. He ran for his life, the time

when he should be Relish in the victory.

He runs for his life and he went to Beersheba in the middle of

the Wilderness in Judah. And he left his servant there

and then he himself went a Day's Journey Into the Wilderness.

He came to a broom Bush. He sat down.

Under it and he prayed that he might die.

What is going on? Tells God this I have had enough

Lord. He said take my life.

I am no better than my ancestors.

The lay down under the bush. I fell asleep.

Now before you're going, what happened to my hero?

Maybe you should consider this. Elijah is burned out.

He's burned out. Let's go through those stages

again. Number one, is he emotionally

exhausted? You bet he is look what he's

been doing for three solid years.

Does he have an increased frequency and duration of -

self-assessment? Yeah, he said, I am no better

than my ancestors to get to God, right?

Does he have a loss of emotional stability and resiliency?

Yeah, he goes Lord, I've had enough, I quit Does he feel

totally isolated look at First Kings 19 10, he replied this is

talking to God. He goes, I have been very

zealous for the Lord. God Almighty.

The Israelites have rejected, your Covenant, torn down your

altars, put your profits to death with the sword.

Look at this and I am the only one left And now they're trying

to kill me too. He says that the god two times.

After a while got answers him. He goes you know what Elijah I

have 7000 in Israel that haven't bowed the knee to Baal.

He feels isolated, but he's not. And he's no longer effective.

That's God's assessment of him. This is what it says in 1990.

It says and the word of the Lord came to him.

What are you doing here? A lot Elijah.

Me, he had disconnected from his mission.

He has identity impairment. And confusion, you have to have

identity impairment and confusion.

If you're asking God to take your life to kill you.

What am I saying this for well? Because Elijah is messed up.

He's burned out clinically when you have identity impairment and

confusion, you are clinically burned out.

And some of you right now are relating to him, you may not be

dealing with what he's dealing with, maybe completely

different. But you understand what I'm

saying? So the if that is the situation

and we can all be in this situation and some of us are on

those tracks now and some of us are dealing with high amounts of

stress right now. What do we do about it?

What do we learn from God's word about dealing with it?

Number one, God took care of Elijah physically.

He fed him a see. You may not know this by looking

at me but I'm a stress eater. That's a joke.

Never mind. Anyway.

Elijah went the other direction, he would need it.

All when he was stressed, he wouldn't eat.

He would he would neglect himself in that way.

And so God had to provide food for him, had to provide water

and sustenance for him. And the other thing was he

needed to sleep. And God, let him sleep and when

you read that, he slept quite a while he was wiped out.

So God took care of him physically.

This actually puts Elijah in a position where he can actually

hear God again. Some of us, we are in a position

where we can't even hear God. Right now because we're dealing

with burnout, if you are dealing with burnout, this is what you

need to look at first, you need to look at how are you

physically? Because you need to be in a

position where you can even hear God, right?

Are you eating right? Are you getting enough sleep?

What are the proactive things that you can do to modify your

behavior or your workload? So that you can be in that more

healthy headspace. To be able to listen to God

spiritually. Secondly, God did this.

He reminded Elijah of the big picture.

What he was doing. Remember Elijah wasn't the one

delivering the people Elijah was the one that made the fire come

down from heaven. God did that this was all God's

doing? It wasn't Elijah's doing.

Although I just doing is playing a part that God wanted him to

play in this process of what he the heavenly father was doing,

but Elijah in his mind had really drifted He thought it all

depended on him. He was real specific with God.

That way. I'm the only one left now.

They're trying to kill me too. I have been very zealous forgot

for you God you know he's he's kind of puffing himself up

thinking it was all on him it wasn't on him, it was on God and

so Elijah's Mission had really drifted.

He had forgotten, his priorities, he'd forgotten the

main things. Those priorities in those main

things are really important. Do your priorities and your main

things. fall away because the Urgent in your life can

overpower, can overpower the important things in your life

that true We can give the next thing all that we have and then

have nothing left for the important things.

Let me just tell you. I have had that problem in my

life where I have just poured it out and poured it out and poured

it out for the church and my mission and feeling like that,

all that burden was on me. And then I come home to my wife

and my family, and there's nothing left for them and they

say one little thing and it pops me on, you know, anybody anybody

connecting with this. And I'm hiding behind my

relationship with God. When I'm forgetting the

important things that that my first Ministry.

My first Ministry is to my family and if my family is a

strong and I'm not strong with them, I am not coming from a

place of strength and I'm not much good for anyone.

Number three, got a told Elijah that he didn't need to be doing

this alone that he needed partnership in Ministry that he

needed to go find someone to walk with him in Ministry

because Elijah was under the false assumption that he was

completely alone. And he could do it alone because

of stage 4 of burnout. He was isolated that isolation

took away his resiliency and his accountability.

As I said before, God reminded him that he wasn't alone, that

there were 7,000 people like him, that hadn't bothered to to

bail and one of them needed to be a more constant companion and

a successor. See, we were never meant to do

this life alone. And it's in isolation where

Satan can get to us. Okay.

I don't have time to tell you about the incredible time that

God had with Elijah when he spoke to him on the mountain.

But I'll tell you this, Elijah was burnout.

They didn't stay that way. Even though he had this

incredibly dark moment in his life, maybe an extended time of

all of the great examples in the Bible, Elijah actually finished

really really well. He's one of only two people that

never died in the Bible. Did you know that only to Enoch

the Book of Genesis and Elijah? The prophet?

And boy, did he leave in a powerful way?

When God told him, it was time to go, he went to the other side

of the Jordan River, he'd raised up a companion who had been with

him for quite some time Elijah and the two of them made it to

the other side of the Jordan. And the Bible says that a

whirlwind, a tornado came down from heaven, and picked Elijah

up. And he wrote a whirlwind to

Heaven, it says also that a chariot of fire with an angel

was in between that Whirlwind and Elijah protecting Elijah

from the Whirlwind. And the Bible says that Elijah

tore his clothes and he said, my God, my God, the Chariots in the

horsemen of Israel. Just the two of them over there.

What? A way to go.

Never died. and when Elijah, Started to walk across the other

side of the Jordan. He had asked God and Elijah for

a double portion of the spirit of God.

And Elijah said, that's not mine to give, but if God wants to

give it to you, he will. And the mantle or the covered.

The cloak of Elijah came down from that Whirlwind, and Elijah

picked it up. He says he rolled it up when he

went over to the Jordan, and he smacked the water and he goes,

wheres the god of Elijah and the water parted and he walked

across it on dry land. Wow, he left an incredible

successor and he was a faithful prophet.

And he was a faithful Prophet for sixty years in Israel.

Lots longer than Elijah had been.

And when he died an old man in his bed, surrounded by the

Elders of Israel. There was no Whirlwind.

There were no Chariots of Fire. But with moment, he breathed his

last, all the Elders of Israel, toward their clothes and said my

God, my God, the Chariots and Horsemen in his room.

Elijah finish so well. My question to you is how do you

make your story like that? You're going to deal with

stress, I'm going to deal with stress.

There's no avoiding it, but if you want to prevent burnout, the

best thing you can do is Catch it early.

You remember that? First stage emotional

exhaustion, are you feeling a loss in Vitality?

Are you feeling overextended emotionally?

Are you having prolonged stress? This is where you start need to

take, take care of those things. How am I doing physically?

If I'm at my mission drifting? Am I trying to do it by myself?

Where am I in those stages of burnout?

Some of you in all of our locations are here today, and

part of your job is responsibility for the wellness

of others. Not just physical, but

educational emotional, right? And if you're in that position,

you're a much greater risk. You might feel responsible for

outcomes. In their life.

I know I've done that in counseling, I'm counseling a

married couple, they're getting their they're contemplating

divorce and I pour my heart into them and they still get divorced

or you know, or something like that.

And so I start to feel responsible for specific

outcomes when I do not have full control of the inputs, just

because I'm Counseling doesn't mean they're following that

advice. Some of you are a greater risk

because you're dealing with that.

You might have inadequate boundaries for self-care, and

your overriding, your personal needs because you need to come

from a position of strength. For others.

And you might think that's Noble but you're not going to help

them unless you're in a strong Place yourself.

So I would encourage you do a physical assessment, do what you

need to do, to put you in a place to hear and respond to

God. Better number to find places of

personal, emotional, replenishment, a place where you

can disconnect from the stress, and have a moment or maybe a few

moments with God, you need that. Because in that you rebuild the

position of stability, Number three, remember the big picture?

Prioritize the important over the urgent. because that's where

we can Mission drift and sometimes doing that costs you

I've known people and, you know, they, they find a faith at like

our church at the Crossing and then there will be a job

opportunity. It'll be another place and

they're thinking about the money, they're thinking about

the prestige, they're thinking about the better lifestyle and

they'll move. And I'm not opposed to that.

But where are they going to get their spiritual sustenance.

And if that is even considered, and then they go there and there

is any place, I can't tell you how many times I've seen people

just flameout. Because they were getting that

the sometimes the money or the prestige isn't the most

important thing. Sometimes, the Urgent wins over

the important. Make sure the important wins

even though it costs you. I like to say it this way, find

a place where God becomes bigger and you become smaller.

It's not that God wasn't always bigger.

It's that it's a redirection of our priorities, where you

realize it doesn't all depend on you.

It depends on God and God is going to use you for his glory

and the final one never ever walk alone.

Do you know everywhere Jesus ever went?

He walked he didn't get an Uber. Didn't take a bus, didn't catch

a plane. Didn't have to stay in a

terminal because his flight got canceled.

He walked. Let me ask you a question.

What do you think the most important walk?

Jesus Took was somebody say it. Of all of his walks, which was

the most important one. The one to the Cross.

Me ask you a question. Was he alone?

No. There was someone else carry his

cross, while he walked to Calvary.

And if Jesus wasn't alone, why should you be alone?

We weren't meant to walk alone. Your story can be like, Elijah,

even if you're dealing with burnout, even if you're stressed

out, you can be like Elijah, you can finish.

Well, you can do well, but the first step of that, Is getting

that priority right with the Lord.

I want you to consider that as we move to a time of decision,

so, some of you right now, Are doing life on your own.

You're doing life on your own. You're just like, hey, I grew

up, I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps.

I am not, not asking anybody. I'm I do I can do it.

Like, you're like that. Two-year-old kid, I do it.

And I just have to tell you a hard truth if you're doing life

on your own, I'm not going to tell you might fail.

I'm going to tell you will you will fail.

Because you're not meant for that.

And the person that needs to be the first one in the group that

is, you walking forward is Jesus Christ.

And if you don't have an intimate personal relationship

with Jesus Christ, you are destined for failure, but if you

are in a relationship with Jesus Christ, that's intimate, and

personal you will succeed. Because the Bible says, he who

began a good work in, you will be faithful to complete it until

the day of Jesus Christ. Some people say, well you use

Jesus as a crutch, that's an old saying.

And you know, the answer to that one.

No, I don't use Jesus as a crutch.

I use him as a stretcher. Because I can't even limp in the

right direction without it. You need him first.

If you don't have an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus

Christ, someone's going to be right over there.

By that baptistry rate at talk to you about that, pray with you

about that, they're no better than you.

No smarter than, you know more, it's more experience than you,

they just want to help. We'll settle that first.

Some of you are like cool. Got that settled.

I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.

I got that relationship really good.

Awesome. How you doing?

How you doing? No, not the lie.

You tell, everybody that you said to everybody in the lobby

before you came in fine, that's a four letter word.

Because we're not fine. But you don't want to burden

everybody else with your problems.

I get that. That's why we don't like to talk

about stress and burnout because we don't burn everybody else

right? Cast, all your cares on him.

Because he cares for you. The steps that are up here right

now or up here for one reason not so people can get up and

down from the stage but so that the children of God can come up

here, humble themselves before an almighty God, feel his loving

arms around them lifting them up and give him strength to carry

on. And sometimes in our lives, we

just need God to press the reboot button.

We need to be reminded. I think there's some people in

this room right now. They need to come down here.

And insert your name. God's going to go.

What are you doing here? And he will remind you who you

are. Who's you are, how loved you

are. What it, what he was willing to

pay to set you free and you could get back up on your feet

with the help of the Arms of Jesus and be better than when

you walked up here. And I encourage you to take

advantage of these steps today, whatever God is saying to you.

Listen to The Still Small Voice in your heart.

And do what he says. Would you stand with me in Jesus

name? I pray heavenly father, with all

of the burdens and all of the cares that we carry with us.

That we have that we realize. That not only do you want to

carry our burdens, you're willing to carry us.

So father, I pray right now that we would yield To you into your

arms. And to let you take care of us.

In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.