For peace I search, for hope I search for love, and one day for
release. God give me strength to accept
the things that I just cannot know.
Even when I lose control, I will not let you go.
Oh, good morning, Rest Church. If you're new here, welcome.
This is where all the weirdos of Rez Church and you can you too,
could be one one of us. My name is Nate.
I serve as one of the teaching pastors here, and I'm also the
creative director. And today is week three of our
Sound mind series. And today I'm going to be
talking about burnout. Yeah, Now I was going to kind of
try to come up with a snappy creative name for this, but I
was really burning myself out trying to come up with
something. So we're just going to call it
burnout. OK, call it a day.
So this message is called burnout and if you have your
Bibles or you have your phone, however you do that, we're going
to be in Matthew 1128 through 30.
Matthew 1128 through 30. I'm going to go ahead and read
it right now and get started. Come to me, all who labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and
lowly and heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Now when we were talking about doing this Series A few months
ago, we get around and we have a planning meeting.
We talked about the messages that are coming up for like the
next six months to a year. And we're going to talk about
mental health. So we're divvying up all the
topics, right? And Pastor Daniels, when we get
to burnout, Pastor Daniel's like, oh, Nate, you'll do
burnout. You're super good at that.
OK, I will, I will cover burnout.
I'm like, what? What do you mean?
I, I know about burnout like
everyone has, you know, times where they burnout, right?
You feel like you've burned out before you're maybe you're
headed towards burnout right now.
We've all kind of had those seasons of burnout.
You know, I, I did have my short season of burnout.
My my season of burnout just happened to last from the years
of 2018 to 2021. But you know, it's not like I'm
an expert on knowing how to burn yourself out.
You know, it's just a it's just a season.
The interesting thing about this series on mental health is it
happened to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Month.
That actually was not planned. That was not planned, but it
does seem providential. As shepherds, we're called to
care for people, and we would be remiss if we ignored the real
struggles that everyone is facing.
And let's face it, mental health challenges touch all of us in
this. Room in some way.
The Bible has much wisdom to offer about mental health, and
today we're going to specifically focus on burnout,
something that affects so many of us in our fast-paced world.
So let me share some practical wisdom that I believe can help
us all recognize and prevent burnout in our lives.
And ultimately, it's going to lead us to Christ, where we can
find true rest. But before we dive into
solutions, we need to recognize first the warning signs of
burnout. Just like the dashboard lights
in your car signal that something needs attention, our
bodies and minds have warning lights as well.
So let me share 3 critical warning signs or warning lights
that you should look out for. I'll write these down and then
we'll jump into them in more depth.
Three of them. OK, here's the warning lights #1
fatigue. Fatigue #2 feeling cynical or
irritable. That's my speciality when I'm
burned out. Number three, loss of passion.
You have a loss of passion. A 2020 report found 45% of
employees are reporting burnout, and it actually is a higher
percentage in Gen. Z and millennials.
So burnout is a real thing. So why has burnout become so
prevalent in our society today? Why are we burning out?
Well, too much work is is part of it.
But I actually don't think that's the main problem.
I don't think it's that we're working too much.
I believe it's because we are not resting enough because our
brains will not shut off. We can't shut them off.
We don't let our brains shut off.
You know that the average person will feel the need to pick up
their phone 144 times a day. That's insane.
And you will spend an average of 4 hours a day on screen time.
That's like almost all the day. How are we doing this?
We can't get away from it. The thing we invented, the
technology we invented to help us manage our lives is actually
burning us out even quicker. I'm so happy, I'm so thankful.
That I grew. Up in the the 80s and 90s, any
80s, nineties babies? Yeah.
OK, so we had these things. You guys are going to love this.
This is history. We had, we had these things
called landlines and corded phones.
Yes, it was a box that lived on the wall somewhere in your house
and it, and when you wanted to call someone, you would pick it
up. And that's where this came from.
OK, this is a phone and we pushed the buttons or whatever.
And then there's this long twisty cord, right?
And then if you're really cool, you had a super extra long
twisty cord. So when you wanted to talk to
your girlfriend, ha ha kissy kissy, you could go around the
corner and and talk to them. But.
It was cool because if you didn't want, if you wanted to
disappear, if you wanted to decompress, if you wanted to be
alone and you don't want anyone bothering you, all you had to do
was go outside. The cord's not long enough.
You're free. We don't have that anymore.
Our phones. How many of you have your phone
in your pocket right now? Don't touch it, OK?
It's there. Even if it doesn't ring, you're
going to feel it vibrate. It's there.
We are burning ourselves out. Our jobs are burning us out, our
relationships are burning us out, our technology is burning
us out. So what are the warning lights
for us that we are approaching burnout?
I want to illustrate this with a really fun story.
So I have in the parking lot a beautiful 2010 Toyota Corolla,
told your applause. You don't have to call.
You may have seen it, you know, you may have seen me driving
around town just crushing it in my Corolla.
And if you want, after service, you can come up and you know, I
can show you the car. If you want to take pictures
with it, whatever, that's cool. Just don't touch it.
You know, don't go falling in love with her.
But in this car specifically, I have developed a really bad
habit. For me.
I will wait until the absolute last minute to get gas.
You know, the gas light comes on, you're like, OK, I got
another, you know, couple days, the little thingy, you know, the
pointer thingy. And then there's the line.
I like to make sure they're just really lined up, sometimes even
below the line. And then I think we should
probably get gas. When the gas light comes on, it
should signal that it's time to refuel, but for me it signals
the beginning of a fun game. I like to call how far can I
push it? And this one time few years ago,
I was playing the fun game of how long can I push it?
And I did in fact push it too far.
Guess where I was when I finally ran out of gas?
Who has a really good guess? The freeway.
No, that would be ridiculous. I was in the middle of a
Starbucks drive through. So I remember just, I've never
sweated so much in my life. I, I got in the drive through
and I was like, well, I'm fine, You know, I'll get my drink and
then I'll go immediately to the gas station.
But they were taking forever. OK.
So really it's Starbucks's fault.
It's not my fault. But yeah, sure enough, I ran out
of gas right in the middle of a Starbucks drive through.
Broad daylight, not ideal. It was death by dashboard.
The warning signs were all there.
The light was on, but I just ignored it and kept pushing.
And this is exactly how burnout happens in our lives.
There will be warning signs. The lights on our personal
dashboard will light up, but we ignore them till they're
completely depleted. And by the time we acknowledge
those warning signs, we may be already too close to burnout.
So. Let me explain what these
warning signs actually look like in our lives.
Now, you might think, well, burnout, that's just a feeling,
right? That's just a a modern buzzword
that we use. But science actually tells us
it's much more serious than that.
According to research published by the Journal of Applied
Psychology, burnout isn't just a feeling, it actually changes our
brain chemistry. Researchers at the Karolinska
Institute found burnout syndrome is associated with changes in
brain structure, particularly in the amygdala, which regulates
our stress response. I'm pretty sure I said that
wrong. Whatever stress science
confirms, what Scripture has long taught, our minds and
bodies are intimately connected. So let's look at these warning
signs more closely, and let's see what they look like in our
lives #1 fatigue. Fatigue.
Now, this isn't just, you know, feeling sleepy.
This is chronic tiredness that doesn't go away with a good
night's sleep. How many parents are here?
And you're like. Yeah, dude.
Duh. Fatigue is sort of my base level
of existence. You know, I just kind of, I just
like to keep it right there at fatigue.
No, this is, this is much more than that.
This doesn't go away with a good night's sleep.
You're always exhausted no matter how much rest you get.
That's hell. That's a special kind of hell,
isn't it? Being so tired that you can't
sleep. Oh, so tired.
Why don't you take a nap, Nate? Can't.
Can't sleep, too tired. What do you do?
It's actually. Hell no.
No, it is. It's actually hell.
This is an actual description of hell in the Bible.
Revelation 1411 says the smoke of their torment goes up forever
and ever, and they have no rest. Day or night.
It's hell now. We have our youth in in junior
high. What's up, guys?
This is, we have, you know, Richard's dressed up like, what
are you there a wizard or a Jedi?
Oh, a Jedi. Cool, cool, cool, cool.
So the youth, they do these things.
Have you guys done one of these yet?
It's called an all nighter. So you notice that when.
I ask him. It's not like, yeah, it's like,
Oh yeah, we did that. So if you haven't heard of what
of an all nighter or some people call them lockins, that sounds
more aggressive. But basically you get all the
kids and you say we're going to just, you know, what we're going
to do is going to be so fun. We're going to just stay up all
night, bro, No. Sleep.
Let's go. What?
No. And you drink Mountain Dew, you
eat pizza, you play weird games, and you just, you just stay up
all night. And I didn't grow up going to
youth group, but I did start making some friends from church
my senior year of high school. And they said.
Nate, you should come to our churches all nighter and I said
no, that sounds like hell and but I did go because there was a
cute girl there. So I said, well, you know
they'll. Check it out or whatever.
And I like sleeping. I think sleeping is cool.
I've only stayed up all night twice in my entire life.
One when I was at junior high and it was the worst decision I
ever made and the second is when me and my friend got locked out
of his parents house and we couldn't wake them up so we
wandered around the streets of Stockton until 6:00 AM.
Both of those times really sucked.
OK, so don't like to stay up all night.
So. But I go to the all nighters, I
could do this, you know, and you have to send a waiver that says
you, you can't leave. You know, you can't leave.
And so lucky for me, I had turned 18 prior to this, even
though I was a senior in high school.
And so it got to be about 12:30 AM, And I was like, I'm, I'm
good, yeah, I'm going to leave. And I go to leave.
And the youth pastor runs. Over here.
Hey buddy, you got to stay. Here, we're going to play Chubby
Bunny. I was like, oh, that sounds
terrible, bud. I'll see you later.
And he's like, hey, you know, seriously, you can't leave.
Your parents are going to kill me.
I'm like, here's the thing, I'm an adult, I'll see you later and
I left the all nighter because not being able to rest
chronically. Is just the.
Worst. If you've ever been there, you
know it is the absolute worst. And I'm not into it.
But that's one of the symptoms of burnout #2 cynicism and
irritability. Cynicism and irritability.
Now during my short season of burnout that lasted for years
and years and years, I was walking one day with a Co worker
here at the church. We had gone through the merger
and all that, this crazy stuff. And he he does the whole Nate.
Hey, you doing OK man? And what's really that means,
Nate, you're not doing OK, man. And I was like, yeah, I'm doing
good. Why do you even ask me that
question? That's sort of annoying that you
didn't even ask me a question like that.
What do you mean? And he's like, well, just notice
that you, it feels like you're being really, really short with
people. And, and before he could finish,
I'm not being short. I'm not, I'm not being short
with people. You're short.
You're the short one. I'm tall and you're short.
You've been short. And at that moment, as this was
coming out of my mouth, I thought I might be burning out a
little bit. I might be burnout.
When you are burning out, your everything is a hassle.
Everything, every text, every meeting, every question, it all
comes across as another thing because you're done.
You don't have the capacity to deal with it.
I would actually get anxiety from my phone because every time
it buzzed, I thought it was someone asking me to do
something else and it was just the worst.
Cynicism and irritability. Now let's look at #3 #3 symptom
is loss of passion. Loss of passion.
This warning sign is basically you're losing passion for the
things that you once loved. During my season of burnout.
I've always loved. Music, love, worship music, all
those things. But during that time I was just
not into it. I was just going through the
motions and it was hard, especially when we had, I don't
know if you remember this, but we had like these lockdown
things, you know, and so during that time.
I had to we. The worship team had to record
all the worship, film it. I had to edit it.
Edit. The service put it all together,
stream it. I had to do that every single
week and, and I was a part of the worship team because I felt
like if I'm not part of it, it's not going to happen.
You know, like I, I have to actually do this and do all
these other things and I just started to just kind of hate
worship. I lost my passion for it.
I. Would still do it.
But I was just going through the motions.
It's, it's just, it's sad. It's something I once loved to
have a passion for was gone. Another fun symptom from that is
I got sick a lot, which is great, but there's a
correlation. The Mayo Clinic has documented
that these exact warning signs in their research show that
burnout actually effects our immune system.
So people experiencing burnout have significantly higher
inflammation markers in their bloodstream.
This creates a dangerous cycle. Stress leads to burnout, which
weakens the immune system, which makes us physically I'll, which
creates more stress and around we go.
The scientific reality actually parallels scripture.
Check this out. Proverbs 1722 says a joyful
heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the
bones. This ancient wisdom perfectly
captures what modern science is now confirming.
Our mental state directly effects our physical well-being.
So. If burnout is the problem, well,
what's the solution? At its core, we need rest.
We need true rest. Not just any rest, but the kind
that restores our souls. So where do we find our source
of true rest? Well, according to our text
today, Matthew 1128 through 30, our rest is not found in
institutions and programs. It's found in a person.
And that person is Jesus. It says, come to me, all who
labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest
for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my
burden is light. I have a picture here of a yoke.
I'm saying this word yoke. And you're like, what the heck
is yoke? The wooden thing?
That's a yoke. Jesus uses the image of a yoke.
That wooden contraption placed between placed on oxen to help
them pull a load together. And typically a stronger, more
mature ox would be paired with a younger one.
The older ox would take most of the load and guide the younger
one until it learned the routine.
We are all yoked to something, whether you realize it or not.
Even if you're not a religious person, you're not a spiritual
person. You are yoked to something.
So we need to ask ourselves. You need to ask yourself, what
am I actually yoked to? If your season of burnout is
lasting years, maybe you're not yoked to Jesus.
When you're yoked to Jesus, He does the heavy lifting.
When we're yoked to anything else, we do the heavy lifting
and it is exhausting. Now, I'm not saying we don't
need to, you know, like do stuff.
Obviously we need work and all those kind of things.
We're designed to work. But yes, we are also designed to
rest. Got himself rested on the 7th
day after creating everything. OK?
It's built into us. I like the way Alan Cohen puts
it. He says there's virtue and work,
and there's virtue and rest. Use both.
And overlook neither. Think about burnout.
It's sneaky. Because once that warning light
comes on, you really, really don't have much time until you
run out of fuel. So let's talk about the three
safeguards against burnout. Because the best burnout
treatment is actually prevention.
So I'm going to give you 3 safeguards to help you prevent
from burning out. You write these down #1 renew
your mind with the truth #2 hang up your Cape and #3 refuel.
Don't escape. All right, number one, renew
your mind with the truth. Well, what is truth?
The truth is the word of God. Renew your mind with the word of
God Romans 12/2 says do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you
may discern what is the will of. God, what is good and.
Acceptable and perfect. I read a 2021 study from
Frontiers in Psychology and it showed that mindfulness
practices focused on gratitude and positive thought patterns
literally rewire neural pathways.
Participants who spent just 15 minutes daily focusing on
positive thoughts showed measurable changes in brain
activity after only four weeks. So when Paul is writing here in
Romans and he's saying be transformed by the renewing of
your mind, he's actually describing what neuroscientists
now call neuroplasticity. That's our brains ability to
reorganize itself by forming new neural connections.
Focusing on what is good and true has not only spiritual
benefits, but physical benefits. You guys ever get into an
argument with someone that's not there?
They're in your mind, you know, you tell yourself a narrative
like, well, they gave me a dirty look the other day, so they must
be thinking this or whatever. And then now you're having a
conversation with that person in your mind, like, oh, then they
come this step to me. I'm going to say this to them.
Whatever you guys do that just me.
I'm the only one that's crazy. OK, cool.
So for me, it's these these debates take place in the
shower. OK, in the shower and I maybe
there's someone I'm mad at or there's some issue.
I just disagree with them and I'm like in the shower, like,
and then I would say like, da da, da, da, da to them.
And then they would say like, oh, Nate, you're destroying me
with your intellect. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I get the
shampoo bottle. I listen to this dude, you're
dumb or whatever. And having this full on
conversation with a person that's not there.
They're not there. They probably don't even know
that we have a problem. But I am just.
Destroying them with my mind, yes, we do that because the mind
is a battlefield and one of the greatest battles we will have to
fight. Is with the.
Lies that we tell ourselves. You ever believe something for
years and years and years, I thought it was the truth, only
to talk to someone about it, like, out loud and realize it
actually wasn't true this whole time.
You know that person that you're intellectually destroying in the
shower and they're like, what's your name?
Do we have a problem? Yeah.
You've told yourself a lie. A fun story that I have about
this is growing up, my mom's sort of a clean freak.
Love you, Mom. I respect it.
But it did get out of hand at times.
So growing up, we had chores every day after school.
We had chores even during summer vacation.
I had chores every single day. I actually had like, a list of
chores to do. And I remember it was time for
me to become the dishwasher. We didn't have a dishwasher.
I'll be the dishwasher. So she's teaching me how to
clean, you know, what sponge to use, you know, the Dawn soap and
how much to put and then how to dry the dishes.
OK, So drying the dishes, like, OK.
And then you just circles. OK, Good, good.
And she's like, now, little Nathan, she didn't call me that,
but little Nathan, just so you know, if you don't dry the
dishes completely, we could all get cancer.
I don't want my family to die. It's going to be my fault.
Someone coughs at the dinner table like, Oh no, was your dish
dry? Was it dry?
You know, now years later, I, you know, somehow found out.
I found out it wasn't true. I Googled it last week and it
turns out it it's not true. So you can scratch that off your
list. It's just something that I
believe for a while that's just like, what the heck is that?
It's not even true. But in my mind, that's what she
told me. So that's true.
You have to renew your mind with the truth, the word of God, and
this is a daily thing, this is a process.
So it's a choice. You don't become an optimist
overnight. You know what I'm not saying is
OK, I have all these problems and Nate says if I read a Bible
verse. I'll be good.
That's no, I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's, it's a daily
thing. It's a process, it's a choice.
When you become a Christian, you're saved and all those
things. It's not like your problems go
away. Anyone you know can can relate
to that. Become a Christian.
You're like, oh this is actually harder now, but you know how to
navigate it. So.
If you don't have a regular practice of reading the Bible,
like where the heck do I even start Lamentations?
Maybe not there. We're going through the Bible in
a year app like you've seen the QR codes.
Before. Boom.
And I should just check it out and you could scan that code.
You could it's on your phone. You know, you, you have your
phone, you pick it up 144 times a day.
So one of those times could be reading this Bible app.
And that's a great place to start.
They tell you what to do. You don't think about it, You
just jump right in. So that would be my homework for
you. Some of us, the, the God thing
is sort of new to us. Maybe the church thing is new to
you and you have lived for years believing a lie about God
because someone told you, well, God is this way or someone who
claimed to be a Christian live their life a certain way.
And so you think God is like that.
Maybe growing up you didn't have the best father, so when you
hear, well, he's your heavenly Father, you think, well, I don't
like that because my father wasn't so awesome.
These are lies that we've been told and we believe.
So I want to take just a second and tell you something.
Some of you probably need to hear this.
God loves you, full stop. There's nothing you can do to
earn His love. There's nothing you can do that
will make Him love you more or less.
You can rest knowing that He loves you as you are.
You can come to God as you are. You don't have to clean up.
You don't have to put on a buttoned up shirt.
You don't even have to give up your addictions.
You come to Him with all those things.
He'll meet you where you're at and you don't have to save the
day. Some of us really want to be the
superhero. You want to save the day.
I'm a guy who likes comic books and superheroes.
I literally have a Cape in my closet.
OK, it's not weird. And sometimes you just, you got
to hang up your Cape and realise you don't have to save the day.
The day has already been saved #2 hang up your Cape.
Something I've been working on specifically this year, I'm, I'm
working on incorporating a new word into my vocabulary.
It's a 2 letter word. You guys are like, uh oh, what's
he going to say? You got the sensor button ready?
The word is no, it's no. For me.
I like to put on the Cape, like to be the guy.
I like to save the day. But if I keep saying yes to
everything because I feel like maybe I'm the only one who can
do this, or I, I have to, or God, you know, is going to be
disappointed in me or something like that, maybe I want the
credit of being the guy who does the thing so I don't ever say
no. That's such a great way to burn
yourself out. Some of us need to learn how to
say no. Now listen carefully.
I am not trying to put pressure on you.
Yes, we do want you to serve. All the Wrest Mania leaders like
Nate, what have you done? Everyone's deleting their sign
up forms. No, we we do want you to serve.
Serving is good. Serving is healthy.
Serving is biblical. Going and doing something for
someone else, You'd be surprised what wonders that does for your
mental state. It really, really does.
You are concerned about yourself and you're so in your own head.
Go do something for someone else.
Guarantee you you'll forget. Serving is great, but if if you
come home at night to your family and they call the police
because they don't recognize you, you might want to start
saying no to some things. All right, I'm going to get I'm
going to get cash short for casual.
You guys want to get cash. Let's just wrap, let's wrap it
out. Hear my knees popping?
So. For me, my formative Christian
years when I got saved and got really involved in church, they
were all in a high control, spiritually abusive environment
and my mindset was can't miss anything.
Got to be at every event, got to serve at everything, got to be
in the front row a Manning, got to do all the things.
Whatever the leader told me to do, we had to do it because they
were the voice of God. That's spiritual abuse.
I lived in that for years and it pretty much killed me
spiritually. I had in my mind that I have to
do something huge and big and great for God.
You know, like all these things were for God and the whole time
God's like, you're just my son. You just want to hang out.
Like how many of your parents are like when your kid comes to
you and wants to hug, you're like, well, what did you do
today? Did you?
What did you build? How have you contributed to the
Kingdom today? Son, when I get to heaven, I
don't think that God's going to be like, well, Nate, you did a
good job, raised your kid. You loved your wife, but you did
run out of gas on the freeway. That's why you're here.
But I'm looking at the books. Here and I notice you did miss 4
Sundays. So I hope you like warm weather.
You know there's no rest down. There, by the way, but that's
not going to happen. Yes, we should serve at the
church. We should serve.
Serving the church is not the same as serving God.
I think you should hear that Jesus did not die for programs.
He died for people. He died for people.
The church is not these walls. The church is the people.
That's who we're serving. OK, so I'm actually talking to
myself right now because this is something I still, I'm still
working through all these years later, kind of wading through
all that and detangling all those feelings of guilt and
religious oppression and all those things.
They still kind of are there. And so I have to daily renew my
mind with the truth, with the word of God.
And the truth is Jesus did not die for our programs.
He died for you. And if unchecked, your hero
complex will make you the villain.
Here's something beautiful about me personally saying no is my no
actually gives someone else their yes.
So Michael here, this is where you know I would normally stand,
right? Every Sunday, don't miss a
Sunday. Years, years, years, years,
years. And standing in this spot,
Pastor Daniel comes to me and says, hey, you need to take a
Sunday off a month. And I was like, no, you're
short. You've been short.
I'm tall and you're short. No, I got to be up there because
what happens if I'm not? Everything will fall apart and
it will catch on fire. No, you need a break.
OK. So reluctantly start saying no.
And because of that, no. Michael is a great example of
someone who gets to say yes because I'm not freaking
standing there every Sunday hogging up all the space, right?
Your know may make room for someone else's.
Yes. That's actually a beautiful
thing. I love coming to church with
Bishop and checking them in and just watching our worship team.
And it's just awesome to see all these new people get an
opportunity to say yes. Wouldn't happen if I didn't hang
up my Cape every now and then. So.
Also, I'm not saying that you should just, you know, say no to
all your responsibilities, OK? Do you know kids, you know,
don't go home, kids, young people don't go home.
And your mom's like, hey, I need you to take out the trash.
You're like, no, I need to sort of take time for me.
I need to take care of my mental health.
Mom and I hang up my Cape. I'm just going to have to say
no. You know, why don't you do it?
Remember what we talked about? We talked about going to heaven
and stuff. You'll go straight to heaven.
After all. I'm not telling you to go say no
to everything. If you're go home and your
wife's like, hey honey, can you take out the trash and you go?
Here's the thing. Pastor Nate said I could say no.
So I just sort of. Well.
Why don't you take out the trash?
You won't have to take out the trash anymore because you won't
be living there. So that's not what I'm saying at
all. What I'm saying is I'm giving
you permission as if I have the authority to do that, to just
consider the possibility that you can say no.
Because I know in church sometimes it gets hard, right?
You're like, I don't want to. They need me or what?
It's like dude. If your family is is falling
apart, your marriage sucks. All these things just say no
dude. And go do something with your
family. It's OK, Resume is like.
Typing Oh, we got. To he's, he's ruining it #3.
Refuel, don't escape, refuel, don't escape.
When my car is running low on gas, if I just pull over and
stop, it doesn't actually do anything.
So you know the lights on because you know it's always on.
I say, well, she's tired, she need a rest.
So I pulled over to the side of the road and she's like, you
just take your time, sweetie. You take a rest and when you
when you're ready, we'll fire it up again and we'll be good.
No, that doesn't do anything. It just delays the inevitable
that I will run out of gas. I have to do something.
I have to go to the gas station and get gas.
I have to refuel. Don't just escape.
So let me ask you a question. What refuels you?
You don't have to answer like out loud, but.
What? Refuels you?
Do you even know what refuels you?
Have you ever actually thought about that?
What do I like to do just to have fun, relax, get filled up?
What? What awakens your affection for
Jesus? What refuels me may not be what
refuels you. It's not what refuels my wife.
And that's OK. We all have different ways.
For me, I really like writing music and making art and all the
artsy farty stuff. I like doing all that stuff.
And my wife will tell you I would be content just not even
leaving my room and just writing music all day and I'll go to
home. I'll go go to bed and and just
sleep happy as a clam, whatever that means.
Why are clams happy? Don't know, but that's that's
what I will be like a clam. I also love working out.
We have any gym Bros, gym gym girls.
Yeah. I love working out because it
gives me a chance to listen to music to decompress.
No one's going to bother me. It's just there.
You just sort of stare into the, you know, the the gym stare when
you're like in between sets and you just stare and someone
thinks you're staring at them. They're like, you're not, you're
just, you're just into the void, just decompressing.
I love it. And the thing about working out
is you might think that, well, the lifting of the weights is
what makes you stronger. It's not, it's it just gives you
microscopic tears in your muscle fibers.
You actually gain muscle from sleep.
That's when you gain muscle from rest.
So whatever your way to refuel is, some some people like golf.
Good, no one wooed you're going outside.
I like to go outside and be a smell the fresh cut grass and
and and hit this little ball around and it's like no thanks.
But if that's you, do it. Golf it up because we need to
refuel because life just keeps going.
Life goes on. And so in our verse, when Jesus
says take my yoke upon you and learn from me, notice what he
doesn't say. He doesn't say take off your
yoke. He says take my yoke.
There's still a yoke saying yoke a lot.
There's still a yoke. There's still stuff we're going
to have to do. The difference is he's the one
pulling the weight. So what can we learn?
He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
What can we learn from Jesus about refueling?
Like how did Jesus refuel? Well, there's a few instances of
this, but a particular one I want to read is Luke 515 through
16. It says.
But even now more the report about him went abroad and great
crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their
infirmities. But he would withdraw to
desolate places and pray. Sometimes even Jesus needed to
get away from the crowd and pray.
And yes, that meant he would actually leave people unhealed.
Because Jesus understood that to complete his mission, which was
a difficult mission, he needed to take time to refuel.
And he did this with prayer. A University of Pennsylvania
study tracked brain activity during prayer and meditation
using MRI, and researchers discovered that regular
contemplative prayer strengthens the prefrontal cortex.
This is the part of the brain responsible for emotion
regulation and decision making. So when Jesus would withdraw,
draw to pray, he was engaging in what science now confirms is one
of the most effective ways to restore cognitive function and
emotional balance. Prayer has spiritual and
physical benefits. If you are here and you're
running on empty, don't. Just push through it.
Press into him. We do this with prayer.
OK? So we have our three safeguards
#1 renew your mind with the truth.
That's the word of God #2 hang up your Cape.
Sometimes it's OK to say no. And #3 refuel.
Don't escape. And you may be thinking, wow,
Nate Bravo, you did it. You saved us, saved us all from
burnout. You're never you're not even
dealing with this anymore. You've done it.
Well, let me show you a picture from this morning.
This is literally this morning. Check it out.
Got in the car and I was. Like, Oh yeah, I need gas, so I
had to go. Get gas this morning because I'm
still learning, still dealing with that stuff, still
procrastinating simple tasks like putting gas in your car.
What the heck man? Still dealing with it.
So you might be hearing your and you're saying to yourself, well
cool story bro. What happens if I'm already
burnt out? Like what happens if I'm?
Done. Well, if you remember early I I
told this really cool story about me running out of gas in
the Starbucks parking lot. And the thing that was fun about
it was I had to push my car and steer because, you know, the Dr.
Thrus are like curvy and it's just, you know, I looked
awesome, I'm sure. But broad daylight trying to
push and steer my car through a drive through and people are
like, well, don't you know that you can drive it or whatever.
The only way I got out of that situation from that burnout, if
you will, was someone had to come rescue me.
So thank God I'm doing that. And my friend Chris drives by
and he sees me and he's. Like, oh, that's odd.
And pulls into the parking lot, comes up and say, hey, Nate,
what's up? Are you good?
Oh, no, actually, I am out of gas.
Can you help me And so I believe he pushed while I.
Steered I did get my drink, though.
People were asking me after first service like, well, did
you get your drink? I'm like yeah, come on of course
I of course I, you know, pushed it and stuck it in there keep
pushing me. I'm not going to forget my drink
come on. The only.
Way I got out of that was. Someone had to come rescue me.
It. If you're already burnt out,
like if your soul, your mind, your body are depleted, the only
way out is rescue. You need help.
So I ask you, do you do you have?
Anyone in your life really think about this?
Do you have anyone in your life that's allowed to call you out
on stuff? You got to have at least one.
If you don't, do you have anyone that's actually close enough to
you that can notice when you're burning out?
You know, at Rez, we focus on groups a lot.
We're always talking about groups.
We have a giant wall dedicated to groups.
It's not because we think, oh, groups.
It'd be really fun to have a. A.
Wall for groups or in a ton of groups.
That's not the point. The point is because we, we know
that you, you have to do life with other people like someone
has to know you. We've seen too many people
disappear because they've burned out and they did not have a
support system. Now, as I shared earlier, I, I
suffered A brief season of burnout for a few years.
And, you know, I would love to say that I took these three
warning lights, then I took these three, you know,
preventative practices and I got myself out of burnout.
It's not actually what happened. I had to be rescued from my
burnout. And God in all his wisdom sent
me this little guy first service.
I cried a lot so I'm doing better now.
But I'm like, why don't I keep showing pictures of my son?
Look at that face, dude. So sweet.
This little guy saved me from my burnout.
God saved me by sending me a son.
There it is having this little person to care for.
It got the focus off of myself and it, it actually helped me
see things the way God saw them. So the way I saw this little
guy, you know, he was born, he was super red.
He was covered in unknown foreign substances and screaming
and just just, you know, just like a alien.
But but I've I've never been more proud of anything that I've
been a part of ever. I was like, this is it.
I did it. You know, my wife did it.
I'm sorry. I would though.
The jokes are going. I'm cycling through all the
jokes to like cut them out. No, don't say that.
Don't say that. OK, But this little guy, I saw
him and was so proud and loved him.
Would do anything for this kid. I'm like, I wonder if that's how
God sees me. He's I'm his son.
So Bishop, when he was born, he didn't do anything to earn my
love. He just had it because he was
mine. And with God, you don't have to
climb this ladder of religion. It's too high.
You can't even get to the top. That's religion.
Gospel is Jesus comes down the ladder to us.
That's the gospel. This week, Bishop, take that
picture down, dude. Thank you.
Thank you, media team. You can take that down, please.
This week, Bishop graduated preschool and.
Yeah, Yeah, he can like count and and go to the bathroom and
the toilet and do all kinds of cool stuff.
And during this ceremony, they interviewed all the kids and
they asked them, what do you want to be when you grow up?
And so we're sitting there and all the kids and there's.
When I grew up, I want to be a firefighter.
It was like, yeah, dude, and that's noble.
I want to be a police officer, yeah.
I want to. Be a ballerina.
That's cool. One kid was like.
I want to play for the Raiders. And everyone's like, you want to
pick something else or and when it got to Bishop, we go, and I'm
I'm not even exaggerating this. So the kid is supposed to
repeat, when I grow up, I want to be whatever.
He doesn't do that. He stands there like this.
And the teacher goes, what do you want to be when you grow up?
And with straight face, he goes Boba Fett.
You know what? I've never been more proud in my
entire life. My son wants to.
Be a mercenary, a bounty hunter for hire.
It pays well. I.
Freaking love that moment. It was so great.
So proud. He doesn't have to do anything.
He's not going to have to, you know, obviously I want him to
grow and thrive and, and all these things, but he doesn't
have to do that for me to love him.
And I feel like for us, religion actually is the biggest source
of our burnout. Even for people who say they're
not religious, You're religious. There's things you do, there's
gods that you create, there's things that you bow to.
That. Don't create anything for you
but a heavy yoke. The ladder's too high to climb.
We can't earn His love. And the reason I know this?
It's because the simple fact that while we were yet sinners
and while we were enemies of God, He sent his Son to die for
us. That's salvation.
That's the gospel. It's a simple yoke exchange.
We give God our extremely heavy yoke, burden of sin, of
religiosity, of work, all these things.
We give it to Jesus, and in exchange we get his light yoke
of salvation, and all we have to do is trust Him.
That's the gospel. He does all the work and He
gives us all the rest. So if you're here today, this is
new to you, you maybe you haven't heard this before or, or
something you've been pondering. If you haven't put your trust in
Christ and you want to do that today, I want to give you an
opportunity right now. I want to lead you in a prayer.
All you have to do is repeat after me.
You can say it out loud, you can say it in your head, but I want
to lead you through this prayer of salvation.
So would everyone just do me a favour?
Would you close your eyes and bow your heads just for a
minute? I want to give you an
opportunity to make that yoke exchange.
Give him your yoke of religious effort and let him take the
lead. Take his forgiveness and make
him the Lord of your life. If that's you, repeat this after
me. Jesus, I know I am a Sinner who
can't save myself. I want you to save me and adopt
me into your family. Forgive me of my sins.
I surrender everything to you. I receive your promise of
forgiveness, adoption and eternal life.
Jesus, will you be my Lord now while your eyes are still
closed? If you said that prayer right
now for the first time, would you just do me a favour?
Would you raise your hand with no one looking around?
I just want to actually see that.
Thank you. OK.
Amen. You guys can look up here if you
just committed your life to Jesus for the first time.
Welcome to the family of God in just a moment.
We're going to take communion and and we're going to sing, but
we're going to have people up here that want to pray with you.
If you if you want prayer for anything, if you're feeling
burnt out and you're just done and you want to talk to someone,
please come up here. If you raise your hand or you
said that prayer or both, go to those tables in the back that I
raise my hand tables is going to be someone back there going to
give you a Bible and some stuff and just kind of help you
connect you on your next steps. But yeah, so we're going to
respond with singing and if you need prayer.
Please please please. Come up front.
Love you guys. Amen.