Emotional Health and Kingdom Power Week 14: Sustaining The Stuff - Rhythms For The Long Haul

Have you been with us for the last few weeks?

You will know that over the kind of last kind of month, month and

a half, we've been working through a series considering

what we in the Vineyard call doing this stuff, which is in

summary, when we partner with the Holy Spirit in everyday life

to naturally do the supernatural works of Jesus.

As we've worked through this series, we've talked about

things like hearing from God, living in expectation that he

will move, praying for healing, stepping out in faith to

evangelise, and breaking people free of the things that hold

them, which Phil spoke about last week.

And today, as we move towards the last few weeks of the

series, I want us to consider how we create rhythms of doing

the stuff that are sustainable. How we create a life that

doesn't just allow us to do the stuff today or in small group

this week or next Sunday morning.

Which helps us to ensure that we will still be standing

emotionally healthy, serving the Lord, doing the stuff with joy

for months, years, and even decades to come.

For many of us, the first step into doing the stuff is just a

moment where it suddenly clicks in our heads and our hearts.

Hey, I'm called to do this stuff to you.

We have this realisation of the truth that is the foundation of

what we've been talking about in this series, that the stuff

isn't just the job of the leaders or people who've been

Christians for years, the Super spiritually mature.

This is something that every single believer is called to be

part of. Maybe for some of us this

preaching series has been that clicking moment.

And many times there's something in us that feels drawn in and

excited when we realise that. But at the same time there's

often there hesitation. We begin to question whether

we're good enough or ready enough.

We feel the nerves ramping up at the thought of stepping into

everything that God might be asking of us.

What if I get it wrong? What if I pray and nothing

happens? What if I step out and I just

feel awkward? And yet the truth that we see in

Scripture is that this call isn't based on our confidence or

our experience. It's based on God's design and

his invitation to us. Ephesians 210 says For we are

God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,

which God has prepared in advance for us to do.

Doing the stuff isn't an add on or something we do because it's

nice to do or we think we probably should do it out of

obligation. It's an everyday part of how God

designed us to live. It's part of what God prepared

for us in our lives, and what's more, it's part of what Jesus

modelled for us as believers, Mark 1045 says.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve

and to give his life for the ransom for many as ransom for

many. Jesus came and he served his

disciples and those who followed him.

He showed us what a life doing the stuff looked like in real

time, healing the sick, casting out demons, kneeling to serve

his disciples, feeding the hungry, evangelising to huge

crowds of thousands of people. And then in Matthew 20, verses

Matthew 20:26–28

26 to 28, we see that he flips that and also asks this of his

followers. And when we realise this, that

this is something that we're meant to do, that it's what

Jesus modelled and then called his followers to do and that

that was for all of us, we get excited when it really sinks in,

we get excited to partner with God.

This is this is the new kind of new found willingness to step

out for the first time, to pray, to listen, to take the risk, to

serve one another, even if there is still that little bit of

trepidation. And honestly, it is amazing,

right? It's one of the most incredible

parts of how God has called us to live in community with one

another, filled with the Spirit actually doing the things that

we see in Scripture. It's a big part of what first

drew me to the Vineyard when I was exploring faith, because

seeing people genuinely live this out felt so different to

anything that I'd ever experienced before.

And I don't know about anyone else, but I always, still, all

these years later, still just find it absolutely mind blowing

when you see God move, when we see God bring healing, when we

see him speak into someone's life in a way that just can't be

explained by anything else, We realise that this isn't just a

theory. We have a living God who's

active amongst us and working through ordinary people.

And that realisation is just when that really starts thinking

and just so exciting because honestly, who wouldn't get

excited when you see how amazing our God is and all that he's

doing. And that often leads to us

jumping head first in going all in 1,000,000 miles an hour,

serving on 8 teams at once, always saying yes, pitching up

early, leaving late, leaning in instead of running away.

When Phil or Lisa say what would it look like?

So there's some people laughing who've learnt that lesson.

And there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

For a start, most of you will know that I'd be an absolute

hypocrite if I stood here and said that jumping into ministry

is a problem. In fact, it's in our values to

be people who are faith filled and big thinking and risk

taking. And Scripture says that we are

called to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our

soul and all our mind and all our strength, and that we're to

do everything we do in our lives in the name of Jesus.

So I'm not by any means saying that jumping in head 1st and

being totally sold out for Jesus and the gospel is anything but

positive. But I am saying is that because

it's so exciting, because we recognise that we are called to

be those people who do this stuff and live our whole lives

for the Kingdom of God, it's also equally important that we

understand how to do that in a healthy way.

And that's what we're going to be speaking about in Mordack

this morning. Some might remember that in the

first half of this series, both in church and in our small

groups still, we've been looking at emotionally healthy

spirituality, what it looks like and why it matters.

And we've intentionally put that alongside doing the stuff,

because these two things are meant to go hand in hand.

If we're not emotionally healthy, we won't be able to

live out what God's calling us to do in a sustainable way.

But often, without realising it, we split them into two separate

boxes. Our inner life with God goes in

one box. My personal development and our

serving in ministry goes into another.

They're connected, we acknowledge that, but we treat

them separately. But they were never meant to be

separate. Our ministry flows from our life

with God, and our life with God is shaped as we step out and

follow Him in obedience. When we separate them, we drift.

We either stay focused inward and never step out to all the

things He's calling us to, or we serve continually without the

depth of personal faith to sustain it.

And the life that Jesus invites us into is more integrated than

that. Being with him and being sent by

him a part of the same rhythm. And it's that rhythm that makes

it sustainable. Because doing the stuff was

never meant to be a Sprint, a rapid fire kind of Usain Bolt

moment. It's a lifelong marathon that we

have to learn to walk with Him as Galatians 6 verse 9 puts it.

Galatians 6:9

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we

will reap if we do not give up. This is a long, slow paced

process. This is a perseverance and a

promise built into the life that God calls us into.

And it's only when we learn to live in that rhythm, that steady

spirit LED faithful rhythm, that we can find a way of doing the

stuff that we can carry, not just for this season, not just

until it burns us out, but in a way that is sustainable for the

long haul. So what does this look like?

I want to suggest 4 simple ways that we can start building

healthy and sustainable ministry.

The first part of what makes this sustainable right from the

start is recognising that this was never ever something we were

meant to carry on our own. Scripture is really clear that

we are called into this together, each of us bringing

something completely different. In One Corinthians 12, verses 12

to 27, Paul talks about the church as a body.

Many parts, but one body. The first section of this verses

12 and 13 says, For just as the body is 1 and has many members,

and all members of the body, though many are one body, so it

is with Christ. For in one spirit we were all

baptised into one body, Jews, all Greeks, slave slaves, all

free, and we all were made to drink of 1 spirit.

And then later in the passage in verses 18 to 20 it says, But as

it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as

He chose. If all were a single member,

where would the body be? As there are there are many

parts, yet one body. We're not all meant to be doing

the same things or carrying the same weight, but every single

one of us has a part to play, and the body only functions as

it should when every single part is engaged and working together.

And the same idea comes up again in Ephesians 4, where we're told

that God gives different gifts across the church.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the

shepherds and teachers to equip the Saints for the work of

ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we attained

all attained to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of

the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the

stature of the fullness of Christ.

The body is all of us. The church is built up by the

things that Jesus gave for the church.

So yes, we're all called to do the stuff, but we're not all

called to do it exactly the same way as one another, and we're

definitely not called to do it on our own.

We are meant to share the load, to support one another, to build

something together. It remains sustainable for each

of us as individuals only when we recognise this.

Because the moment that we start trying to carry more than our

part or operate as if everything depends on us, we move out of

the way of how God designed the body to function.

But when we understand that we're one among many, gifted,

needed, but not alone, it brings freedom and responsibility.

Freedom from the pressure of trying to be everything, and

responsibility to faithfully play the part that we've been

given. And it's in that shared

dependence on one another and on God that ministry becomes

something that we can actually keep up and sustain over the

long term. Because when life happens and

things get challenging, what we do in the church doesn't have to

fall apart because we're not carrying it alone.

For me, last year, at the start of last year, where I was going

through one of the most difficult seasons of my life, I

didn't need to worry about whether everything I do in the

church would collapse because I'm only one tiny little part of

a much bigger body. And I experienced that body

carrying the weight in really practical ways.

It looked like members of the teams that I LED stepping up and

filling in gaps without anything even needing to be said.

It looked like not making it through a single week for

genuinely I'd say probably 3 months without somebody feeding

me at least once a week. It looked like gentle

encouragement and prayer and people just being present for

me. It looked like extra hugs on a

Sunday morning and a community that didn't question why I was

on all my rotors less during that season.

And I share that not because it's a nice moment or a personal

story, but it's what's the body of Christ is meant to look like.

That kind of support of people stepping in and carrying weight

and noticing needs without anyone anything being said and

simply being present with one another.

That's not accidental, that's intentional Kingdom life.

It's what happens when we stop thinking in terms of individual

ministry and start living as one body where the health of one

part genuinely matters to all the others.

And that leads us into another really important part of this,

because us being together in community, being one body, also

helps in a different but equally important way.

We're also called into community with one another, into the body

of the church family for accountability.

Scripture is clear that we don't follow Jesus in isolation.

In Hebrews 10 verse 24 to 25, we're told and let us consider

Hebrews 10:24–25

how to stir up one another to love and good works, not

neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but

encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day

drawing near. That phrase stir up carries the

idea of actively provoking and helping one another to stay

aware of what God is doing. And not just passively watching,

but gently pulling each other back into God's plan when

someone drifts. And that includes helping one

another recognise when we are things are becoming unhealthy.

In Galatians 62, Paul writes, bear one another's burden and so

fulfil the law of Christ. Part of burden bearing is having

enough relationship and trust with one another to be able to

say, hey, actually I think you're carrying too much or I

think you're trying to do too much on your own.

And I want to be so clear. This is not about control or

correction from a distance. This is not about pointing

fingers or saying to people that we what we think they're doing

is wrong. It's about walking closely

enough together that we can help each other stay aligned with

what Jesus is doing in each of our lives.

Because because of that fact that we all hold different roles

in the body, unless we're in close relationship with someone,

we cannot hold them account to account in a healthy way.

Everyone will have their own individual capacity, their own

amount of weight that they carry.

They're in part of the calling we all share.

And when we try and speak into the lives of those that we don't

know well enough, we can sometimes end up having good

intentions but speaking into a situation that we don't fully

understand. Which is another huge part of

why God calls us into the kind of community where we live life

alongside one another. Because we build the kinds of

relationships where we're able to truly know each other and

understand each other and recognise when those around us

need loving accountability. This kind of relational

accountability is one of the ways that God protects us from

unhealthy striving. It keeps us from slowly slipping

into doing ministry in our own strength or carrying

expectations that were never meant to be ours alone.

And in that sense, the community becomes one of God's main ways

of sustaining us over time. And there's also a longer view

to this. We don't just carry this for

ourselves in our church, family and our community as as we

currently are. We also pass it on, Paul tells

Timothy in two Timothy 2 verses one to two, you then, my child,

be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what

you would have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses

entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

In other words, healthy Kingdom life is always generational.

It's not just about what we do now, but it's also about who

we're investing into so that they can carry it forward.

And that really sits right at the heart of who we are in the

Vineyard. We've always been a movement

that believes that ministry isn't meant to be contained in

just a few hands, but released to everyone, to ordinary people

learning to hear God and take risks and do the stuff in

everyday life. So part of maturity for us isn't

just learning to function well in ministry ourselves, but also

creating a culture where others are encouraged and released and

empowered to do it too. Because what we're stewarding

isn't just activity, it's a way of life in the Kingdom that's

meant to keep growing and multiplying and being handed on.

And that means that we're sharing the load when we pull

all of that together, being one body with our different roles,

carrying one another, keeping each other accountable, ensuring

that we all stay healthy, and then passing it on to others.

It shapes how we think about ministry at every level, not

just as something we do on a Sunday or in moments where we

gather together, but as something that's woven into the

everyday reality of our lives. It becomes about just as much

about the little moments on the phone, around dinner tables, in

the car on the way home as it is about Sunday services.

The final two simple ways that we can build something

sustainable and more personal. But they're just as important.

Because sustaining doing the stuff over the long haul isn't

only about how we live together. It's also about how we learn to

live individually, day by day. The small, often unseen choices

about how we look after our hearts, our faith and our

emotional health in the middle of our ordinary lives.

If we want to sustain this life over the long term, we have to

understand that looking after ourselves on this journey is not

about occasional moments of self-care or the odd break when

we feel completely worn out. It's about building a way of

life that we return to every single day.

In other words, this isn't about treating ourselves to a spa day

once every four months and calling it self-care.

It's about how we live our lives day-to-day, What keeps us

connected to God and able to carry what He's asked of us.

Jesus put this puts this simply in John 15.

He says abide in me, and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in

the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me, and I in Him, he, he it is that bears

much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

That word abide, which in the Greek is meno, can also be

translated as to continue to be present or to be held or kept

continually. Jesus asks us to stay connected

to him, not just in big occasional moments, but

consistently to be continually present and held by Jesus

because unless we do that, we cannot bear the fruit that he's

asking us to bear. And this is where the idea of

daily rhythms that we've talked about a lot through this series

becomes really helpful. What we're talking about is

building really simple, intentional practises into our

everyday lives that keep us healthy.

Things like taking time to pray, creating space to rest properly,

keeping a weekly Sabbath, looking after ourselves

physically as we've been talking about in Revelation Wellness

Wellness class, slowing down enough to hear God and regularly

stepping back from activity to be with him again.

Peter Scuzzaro, who's a pastor and the author of the

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality course that we've been doing in

small groups, calls this practise Developing a Rule of

Life, which sounds formal and maybe even a little bit kind of

rigid, but it just means thinking about the regular

habits and boundaries that help us to stay close to Jesus and

live well. It's not a rigid set of rules,

it's more like a framework that helps us to stay steady in the

middle of a busy life. For some of us, this might look

like an early morning moment with God before you do anything

else in your day. For me, I'm naturally a night

owl. And if any of you have ever seen

me first thing in the morning at the church retreat or any of my

there's a couple of youth in the room, Any of those who've seen

me at Dreaming the Impossible or the team who've joined me,

Suzanne's laughing over there. Early morning.

Like really early morning. Not when I'm at my finest at

all. I also leave really early for

work every morning, so I choose to set aside time later in my

day because that's a rhythm of life that works for me and it's

sustainable for me. And this will look completely

different for all of us. There's no strict set of rules

to follow. But this is also not just extra

spirituality for a few people that we can kind of either take

or leave. It's central part of what it

means to follow Jesus. Psalm 46 says be still and know

that I am God. Throughout the Bible, God

invites us into a way of living where we regularly pause, slow

down and recenter ourselves on him.

And we have to be intentional about this.

We are not just going to casually drift into healthy

spiritual lives. We have to build them

consciously and deliberately if we want to keep doing what God

is calling us to do over the long term.

We have to have daily rhythms that keep our hearts connected

to Jesus, not just moments where we try and recover when we're

already running on empty. This is not like the petrol

station. We're not filling up at that

stage. It's about constant top UPS.

So as I said, going to a spa or on a big retreat to recover

doesn't replace the lack of daily routine in between times.

It might help, it might make us feel restored.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with any of those things,

but it doesn't replace the daily rhythms.

There is no shortcut. And this is hard.

I don't want to imply it isn't. In a world that constantly tells

us that our productivity is connected to our worth and where

there's always something else to be done, it can feel impossible

to slow down like this. And sometimes our instinct when

we're busy is to stop doing the stuff of ministry and stop doing

our personal time with God. It often becomes the first stuff

that goes straight out the window and I've absolutely been

there. When I was first found faith, I

was a student, I was in medical school and whenever I was

struggling or busy, my serving, my attendance at church, my

attendance at small group, my personal prayer time was the

first thing straight in the bin. But what I learnt from that is

that that really isn't good for us.

When the first thing that drops off is time with God is time

engaging with our church family and partnering with God, we're

not solving the problem, we're removing the very thing that

sustains us in our busy periods. And what this really comes down

to is paying attention, noticing what stuff in our lives is

drawing us closer to God, and what stuff, if we're honest, is

quietly pulling us away. For me, that could be something

like doom scrolling on an evening.

And there's nothing wrong with being on my phone.

But when it starts to take over a space that could be spent

resting or being more present or connecting with God, it starts

to have an impact and it will look completely different for

everyone in this room. But the question we need to be

asking ourselves isn't is this activity allowed, but rather is

this activity helping me stay connected to God or not?

And this is a process of personal reflection of building

good rhythms that we have to continually do.

This is not a one off thing. We can't build good rhythms once

and then assume that that will carry us forever.

Life changes, seasons change, pressure increases, our capacity

changes and without realising it, we can slowly drift off

course. And that is why one of the most

important parts of sustaining a life of ministry and this final

one that we're going to consider this morning is learning to

regularly pause and honestly check in with how we're actually

doing, not just spiritually, but emotionally, physically and

relationally as well. In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul

writes, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith

test yourselves or do you not realise this about yourself,

that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to meet

the test. In other words, Paul is asking

us to take a second to look at our lives and ask how am I

really doing with God right now? And this is done with gentle

correction of ourselves. This is not about guilt about

what we have or haven't done, it's about maintaining the

self-awareness that we talked about right at the beginning of

this series when we talked about the pillars of emotionally

healthy spirituality. Because the danger is usually

not a sudden breakdown of all our rhythms and patterns.

We don't just wake up 1 morning thinking can't be bothered.

It's slow. It's a slow drift.

It's slowly getting busier, becoming more tired, losing

rest, slowly serving without joy and doing good things, but

without noticing that something in US is running low.

So part of following Jesus well is learning to regularly ask

simple but honest questions to ourselves and to God.

Like, am I resting well or am I just constantly pushing through?

Am I still connected to God or mainly just doing things for Him

as we've spoken about in previous weeks?

Am IA human being or a human doing?

Am I carrying more than my part or am I in a healthy rhythm?

Do I need to adjust anything before this becomes

unsustainable? And this is what we mean when we

talk about intertwining our emotionally healthy spirituality

without doing the stuff. Following Jesus is not just

about what we do for Him, it's also about paying attention to

what is going on inside of us whilst we do it, and building a

life where we don't wait until we're already burnt out to make

changes, but we regularly check in and adjust as we go.

Because wisdom in the Kingdom is not just about how much we can

do, it's about whether we can keep doing what God has already

called us to do in a healthy life, giving way over time.

So as we start to come to a close this morning, I think that

what this really comes down to is quite simple.

Doing this stuff isn't meant to be something that we just throw

ourselves into for a period and then burn out of.

It's something that we are invited to live in and to make

part of our lives for the long haul.

So it's not just the big moments that matter, it's the everyday.

It's the rhythms we build, it's the choices we make.

It's the way we stay connected to God and to one another to

allow us to continue doing His work because we were never meant

to carry it alone. We need that shared life, that

accountability, and at the same time, we also have a

responsibility to pay attention to how we're doing, to build a

way of life that actually sustains us.

And when those things do come together, we find something that

lasts. Not just a burst of activity for

a month or this year, but a steady, joyful life of following

Jesus and doing the stuff not just now, but also for years and

years to come.