Second Wind, Avoiding Burnout

I just wanted you to thank me. You know, it's strange when you step up here, and you're actually older than the cumulative age of everyone on this stage. But let's thank, this is the Thursday Night Band. Didn't they do a great job? Thanks. Thanks, guys. Good job. Can we see you now? Thank you. Yeah, I just didn't want you to miss an opportunity to affirm them. They were a little nervous about leading us on the weekend, and they just, I think you caught their passion. They know that their generation needs Jesus as much as our generation needs Jesus, the one that preceded them. And you know what? You know what? We really need them to help us just to keep the fire going, don't we? Those of us that are boomers, our tendency right now as we head into the times when we have, like, more options and more freedom is to get more indulgent, want more stuff for ourselves. I love hanging around with the next generation because they still are hungry to do something about reaching people who they know don't know Christ. Now, I'm not saying you don't care that way, but I'm saying it's sort of a general thing that I see. Well, you know what? This is New Year's weekend. This is the last day, right? This is it, the 31st. And I, years ago, I sort of made a statement that I've never regretted. I'm not a big New Year's resolution person because I have found that I don't, you know, I don't have a lot of willpower to change. And usually by the 5th or so, the 7th of January, I'm already into the guilt mode, and oh, well. You know, there we go. But it is a good time to evaluate what you'd like God to maybe do in your life. This is what we're going to look at today. Because, I mean, certainly to some degree, you've got to engage. As I've been saying this frequently in the last couple of series, that faith, engagement, proactivity, you've got to participate. God doesn't just lay his power on your life. You've got to enter in. I saw two films in this last 10 days or so. I know I lost some of you right there. You'll never come back because you have a pastor that goes to church or movies. But they were two really good films. One was called Happiness. What? Pursuit of Happiness. Thank you. The Pursuit of Happiness, which is just a phenomenal true story, played lead character by Will Smith, and his son plays the other role. It's a great story of perseverance and courage and what it takes sometimes just to make life work. It was pretty inspiring. And then I was under extreme duress to see Rocky Balboa. Scott Stevenson said he was going to quit the staff if I didn't go. So I went to see Rocky. And Scott had seen it five times by that point. You know how sometimes our five-year-old used to memorize all the narrative? Scott knows the narrative now. Everything Rocky says, Scott's got that down. And if you walk into his room, his kids say if you walk into his room now, he still has all the Rocky posters. It's just a little weird for a 40-year-old guy. But I will concur with Scott that this was a good film. Because when I first heard the concept, didn't you just when you heard the concept of somebody like almost 60 talking about going into the ring again and fighting? What a ridiculous premise. But the film is thoughtful because many different times along the way, he makes you think and he points out that the other guy isn't thinking honestly about himself. That's what I really liked about it. And parts of it I was awake. I really, I mean, I was engaged then. And it did speak to that real issue. And so as we come to today, I want to share with you, and I'm going to challenge you today to consider. I'm going to share with you the area in my life. I've learned if I gave God ten, here's ten new things. I know that some people are believers in big long lists. I have one thing I'm saying, Lord, that if I do this one thing really well in 07, I'm going to be very happy. I mean, I'm going to be very encouraged. And so I'm going to challenge you to think about this. This may not be yours, but all of us would do well to do this, whether it's not the one that you pick. Because I feel I'm in a place where I'm doing something not as well right now as I did ten years ago. And I'm almost embarrassed to say this because I'm your pastor. And if you thought that going to the movies was really bad for a pastor, you could definitely quit after this one. But my personal prayer life has slipped over the last few years. Now, a couple of people are saying, you know, I knew that. I could tell just by the way he was. But the reality is you wouldn't know it. You wouldn't know it. And I don't want you to think that I don't spend some time praying. In fact, I've got an amazing communication with God. But there's a difference between that and really what I believe is true biblical, a prayer life that is dynamic with God. I want to talk about that for a little bit today for reasons that are very practical and for reasons that are really challenging because we live in an age when there are things that are going on all the time that are more than I can figure out. People come to church looking for answers. And you know what? We don't have answers to some things. 2006 for me, friends, was a year that proved that principles and consultants and systems of doing things and strategies are all great. But you know what? They don't really fix anything. At the end of the day, what I really want to be able to do is to walk with God. At the end of the day, I want to be able to know that God and I were closer, that we communed together, that there was a level of intimacy that we share. And the only way I know to do that is through prayer. And there's so many levels of prayer. And if you're new, as Dan was alluding, if you're a new person, maybe you just came back from Christmas, that was your first time here, I can't begin to tell you about the continuum of prayer from the very basics, just like talking to someone, to very profound moments when you sense literally that God is right in the chair beside you talking to you. I've had both of those. But I want to invite you just to consider your own prayer life a little bit with me because the real outcome of this is that we have an opportunity to know Him better. Now, part of it is that we need a lot of help along the way, don't we? We need help to live life. Life is not easy. How many of you need direction and making decisions? I mean, that's a big part of life is making right decisions. One of the ways that our culture has created to help us make right decisions in driving are the new navigation systems in cars. Now, how many of you have either ridden in, driven in, or own a car with a navigation system? Okay, most of you have. Some of you haven't yet. But it's a pretty cool thing. I used to think, what a ridiculous indulgence that is until I got lost one time in Dallas. Ended up in Arkansas somewhere and said, you know, maybe a navigation system is not a bad idea. And the next car I rented had a navigation system in it. And it's cool because you punch in the address where you're going and then this really nice lady comes on and says, you know, take exit 17 in 5 miles. And then she'll come on a few minutes later and says, take exit 17 in 2 miles. Now, take exit 17 in 500 yards. And here's the cool thing. If for some reason you're looking over and you see someone going that way that, you know, waves at you and you miss exit 17, she doesn't yell at you. There's this long pause. She doesn't say, you moron, you missed exit 17. That's what I would do. She says, she says one word. She says, recalculating. That could be my life's word. On my tombstone, just thought of that. He's recalculating. You know, the reality is, isn't it true? I mean, we think we know a lot and then we make a bad decision or we make some things. That's what I love about this church. And that's what you ought to love about it, too, is because we don't always get it right. We don't judge people. I've received several emails this past week from people thanking me for whatever reason for not being inclined to tell people what to do and then judging them if they don't do it. I mean, it's just, why is it? Well, it's because I've received grace and grace is the undeserved favor or merit of God. And therefore, when I miss my exit, God doesn't just come down with a hammer and say, you moron. He just says, well, we need to recalculate. We need to figure out how to get you back on the other side of the interstate so you can get back up and take a 17. And prayer does that for you. Prayer is basically saying to God in the morning, Lord, I'm here to recalculate. Yesterday I had some good moments and some bad moments. And I want to recalculate and I want to know what your heart, what your desire would be. And so let's begin by reading a portion of Scripture where I think the Apostle Paul, who, you know, if there was ever a person who had a prayer, it was the Apostle Paul. Next to Jesus, he was the most powerful prayer. His prayers are read. And just reading the text, kind of like the text that Micah read a little bit ago, it's so stunning in its scope and power that you just sit back and think, if that could only be true. Let's read together. It's in your notes. It's on one side. And our folks up in the video booth will put it up on the screens for us. Ephesians 1. And we're going to read verses 15 through, I think, 17 or so. Here's Paul. He's speaking to the church at Ephesus. This was one of his favorite churches because they were one of the ones that were most leaning into the gospel. Some had more problems, like the ones at Corinth and so on. But here's what he says. For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you. That's a wonderful thing, by the way, to hear from somebody, isn't it? I thank God for you. Remembering you in my prayers. And here's what he said. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you two things. The spirit of wisdom. That's one. And revelation. That's another. So that, read it with me. You may know Him better. What is the outcome of effective prayer? You may know Him better. That's the outcome. It's not about getting answers. It's not about getting guidance. It's not about recalculating. Really, it's about you knowing Him better. And that's what Paul's prayer is for the church at Ephesus. He wants them to know Him better. And so let's talk about three specific... And we'll see another one in a moment. Three specific focal points of prayer. And I'm going to ask you today to choose one. And then we've got a very cool kind of application point for you today. So get ready to do something a little bit different. The first thing he says, I pray that God might give you the spirit of wisdom. If you're taking notes on the flip side of the text you just read, there's a place to write a couple of notes. One level of prayer is the prayer for the spirit of wisdom. Wisdom. What is wisdom? Wisdom simply defined as God's knowledge applied to life's issues. There it is. God's knowledge. See, it's one thing to know what to do. It's another thing to know how to get it done. I was in a conversation some months ago, some believers together, different parts of the city, and an argument broke out amongst them about how to do something. And it was one of those things where you wouldn't think Christian leaders would do, but there was a heated exchange, and it was going south, and I could tell something. It didn't take a lot of knowledge, but I knew that it was not a healthy thing. But I needed wisdom to know how to step in without appearing to be taking control to try to bring a moment of reconciliation, to bring these brothers back together. Wisdom is taking God's knowledge and then applying it. Wisdom, as a parent, how many of you know, as a parent, you know what your kid needs to do, right? Right, parents? I mean, nine times out of ten, you know more than they do. But wisdom is helping them to get it. You may know how to make money, but wisdom is knowing how to take it and apply it in a way that your life isn't full of stress and tension. Wisdom is a key thing in life. Who is the wisest person in the Bible? All right, very good. I knew the 9 o'clock service would know that. 11 o'clock service won't know that. The wisest guy, the wisest person in the Bible, without a doubt, is Solomon. He wrote the book of Proverbs. And by the way, if you want a little, just a little bit of a challenge each day of the new year, read a new, and this is in the Victory Bible Plan, read a New Testament chapter, a psalm and a proverb every day. And what you'll find is this Solomon guy, he had so many things where he knew how to take God's knowledge and apply it to life's issues and just really sort things out. And the reason was, and I won't go into the long story, the reason is God appeared to him one night, just at the, you know, at the end of his bed, and he woke him up and said, Hey, Solomon, what one thing would you like me to give you? I'll give it to you, whatever it is. Name one thing. He said, a red Ferrari. No, he didn't. He said, he said, what? No, he said, I want wisdom, because you've given me this people and I want to know how to lead them. And God actually seems a little bit stunned. He said, you know what? Because you asked for wisdom and not wealth and riches and all that good stuff. I'm going to give you wisdom and knowledge, but I'm also going to give you wealth and honor and riches like no man has ever had. And the Bible says that he was so fabulously successful and wealthy that even the Queen of Sheba came and sat at his feet and said, Man, how did you do this? Remember what I said before? One day of God's favor is worth 10 years of man's labor. It's wisdom. Solomon teaches us how to do practical prayers. Friends, listen. Wisdom is essential. We need guidance in practical life, but be careful about one thing. And this, I don't, I'm a little bit cautious about this because it needs more context. But Jesus warned us about just doing right things and getting real practical. He said, you can do all the right things and think that you're really being godly, but Matthew 7, 23, we're going to put that up for you. He said, you've got to be careful, because at the end of the day, if you don't really know what's going on, he said, I'll tell you plainly, I never knew you. So, you can make a thousand wise decisions, but if you don't know God better, he's going to say to you, I don't know who you are. I don't want to hear those words when I stand before God. So, spirit of wisdom, great way to pray. Number two, spirit of revelation. Spirit of revelation. Wisdom is great, but it's not enough. Having right decisions is terrific, but it doesn't get us where we need to go. Wisdom, the definition of wisdom is, God's truth about himself, previously undisclosed to you, now made known. I don't know if you have time to write that down, but it's a good definition, I made it up. God's truth about himself, previously undisclosed to you, now made known. I used to think the word revelation was for people that were a little like, super spiritual. I've come to understand something. Every single day, we should pray for revelation. God, disclose something about yourself that I don't know. Other people might know it. In fact, I know for certain that some of you know more about God in certain ways than I do, but I want revelation every day. And God, here's the thing, God doesn't give you revelation normally by writing it in the clouds, or having it sort of crystallize on the walls. He gives it to you through circumstances that you hadn't understood before. For example, Saul, the guy that wrote the verses we were just reading, I'm going to get that for me, everything else, I don't want to fall and break this all up, thank you. Saul, whose name became Paul, was a hater of Christians, and actually, one who persecuted them. And he was out persecuting Christians and killing them, and he told a disciple named Ananias, you can read about this in Acts 9, he said, Ananias, I want you to go to this place where Saul's hanging out, and I want you to pray for him. And I love Ananias' response, just like most of you. He said, you know, God, I've heard about this dude, Saul. He kills Christians. I don't think I'm going to do that one. I'll take a pass on that assignment. And it's like, no, I'm not going there. Not that you'd ever do that, but Ananias said that. And God speaks back to him and said, wait, this man is my chosen instrument, and I want you to lay hands on him, because he's going to learn how much he has to suffer, so that he can take my message to the Gentiles and the Jews. And Ananias obeyed, and he showed up, and Saul was waiting for him, and he was already blind and had the scales in his eyes, because he'd already had, see, Ananias hadn't known that Saul had already had this encounter with God on the road to Damascus, so when he showed up, Saul was in this state of like, oh my gosh, what is this? And when Ananias showed up, Saul was waiting for someone to come and explain what had happened. Revelation. Friends, we need more revelation. You need some. I need revelation. And to pray for God to give us that spirit in the new year would be awesome. It comes circumstantially. It may come in counterintuitive things. Abraham received revelation from God to kill his son, Isaac. That doesn't sound like God. And then the last minute, what did God do? He intervened and said, wait, okay, I just wanted to test your obedience. Now there's revelation that you have about me that you didn't know, that I'm faithful. And all that can be done. A long list. Gideon, Moses, Joshua, all different illustrations of that. Revelation is essentially just hearing God's voice day to day, knowing that He's speaking to you about Himself, and that happens through circumstances and through reading His Word on a faithful basis. How many of you would love to know that as you're walking through your day, you're hearing God lead your steps? Wouldn't that be odd? I mean, wouldn't that be like sort of the ultimate way to live life? God, lead my steps today. I don't want to do one thing you don't want me to do. That's revelation. The last one, and let's read on. We're going to have to go back to the text to do that. Paul continues. There's one part of this prayer we didn't read. Let's go on back to Ephesians 1. I think it's about verse 17 or 18. I'd like you to read this out loud with me. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the rich, I'm sorry, the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints and His incomparably great power for us who believe. Let me pause there. Two things. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. I didn't know what to call that. That's the essence of the prayer. Eyes of the heart enlightened, so I call it the prayer of vision. Okay, wisdom, revelation, and vision. Vision is having your eye, the living translation or paraphrase says, having light flooding your heart so that you see clearly. He says, and what is it I want you to see? Two things. The hope to which He's called you, which is the glorious inheritance in the saints. One of the things I'm praying that we all get to see this year is just how blessed we are to be surrounded by so many people who are walking with Christ just like we are. Do you know the Oakland campus is about to start? We're just a little less than three months away from starting it. And if you haven't been over there, I just want to encourage you, take some time this afternoon after the game or go tomorrow in the morning when everyone's sleeping and there won't be anybody in Oakland, and drive over there. It's an easy drive. It's about a 25-minute drive right from here. Less than that tomorrow probably. Get off on Forbes, go up to McKee and turn left, and you'll see this really kind of funky, small-looking building with red ceramic brick. That's the building. You just can't miss it. You can walk out and actually throw a rock and hit the front of Children's Hospital and get arrested, but it's cool. That's how close you are. It's so close. And we're going to be starting right there in three months. But here's what's going to be happening. A community. The hope to which God has called us, the rich inheritance of the glorious saints of God gathered together are going to begin to form there. I just want to go out on a limb and say this. There's almost 100 people, Mike tells me, 100 people that are going to be part of that expression of the love of Christ in Oakland even before we open the doors. What an amazing thing. If you're in a small group, you know something more of that personal rich inheritance. The other part that's there is His incomparably great power. You see, I can't live the Christian life the way it's supposed to be without power. He goes on to say, This power, by the way, is like the working of His mighty strength which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. Listen, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is working through you to change and affect circumstance around you. And loved ones, I don't know about you, but I face some things that I cannot fix in my end. I don't have the power to overcome. I have men come down every single weekend with an addiction problem and say to me, Please pray for me. I can't live with this addiction anymore. And you know, I look at them in the face and say, I can't fix it for you. But I know a power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, that power is sufficient to break your addiction. We had this past week, four things come to our attention. Four things that I don't have answers for. Four things that take the prayer of vision and power to break. We heard on Christmas Eve that one of our 15-year-old students, a long-time family member of North Way, the Ramseys called and said that their son had been having some physical problems. Went in and after extensive testing, discovered that he had serious leukemia. And so we rallied around him. And one of the things you'll find if you're a part of this church for long is if something happens to you, there's a lot of people that come around you and love you. And you don't just sit out there and just suffer. And he's been surrounded by friends and team members and, I mean, just loved. Carol and I even went down on Monday and afterwards I guess he said to his dad, Dad, is it that bad? And, you know, Jay came, and that's really bad, isn't it? And I assured him, no, actually, you're doing just great. You're just great, Patrick. But you know what? Without the power of God, I don't know what his chances would be. On Tuesday we heard about one of our seniors, one of the ladies that comes and makes this bulletin that's sitting here in front of you with, you know, 10 different inserts and cards and papers and all this great information, which I hope she'll take a moment to read. And she faithfully would come and be part of the team every Thursday. There's about, what, 12 or so of them. And these folks just have fun and they serve us by doing this. And she stepped out of her home where she lived, I think it was on the north side, was walking to a convenience store and got hit by a car. And 24 hours later, Bernice Mullin passed on to be with the Lord. Really sad. And several of her grandkids are servants here. Some behind the scenes, and they serve here at our church. But the same power that raised Jesus from the dead has raised her mortal body now, and she's with him. And then we heard on Thursday, I believe it was, that Paul and Kate Carter, and if you're new, I wish I had an hour to tell you about that family. Paul Carter came to North Way several years ago as an upper management kind of guy. He had a really good-paying job. He met Christ here. He came forward after one of the services, met Christ and his wife, and they had four kids. And after a couple years, he came to me and he said, I think God's calling me to be a missionary. I'm thinking, man, maybe we should pray a little bit more. That's really a big stretch. You're already pretty far along. You're not 24. You're pretty much your guy to be taking your whole family off to the mission field. Where are you going? He said, Africa. So he went through all the training, and it was extensive training. Ended up in Senegal in a medical mission team, and then we found out on Thursday that two of his daughters somehow contracted very serious malaria. Not the kind that just sort of gets and you take some antibiotics. It gets into their system, and they had to medevac them to a hospital in Paris. One of them's in a coma. The other one's doing a little bit better. We need to pray for Emma and Abigail that they be completely healed. It's real serious stuff. Someone asked me after Thursday night service, he said, well, why would God allow someone who was being that great of a servant laying down their career and everything and let their kids get sick like that? Because we live in a world where Satan wants to steal, kill, and destroy. And then the last one is, it's kind of hard for me to share because all of you know Pastor JR, and some of you know his wife Rachel. She's just a wonderful gal, just a great supporter of JR. Obviously a woman of amazing patience. And JR will explain this next week, but he asked me to share it with you today. For a couple of months, just before the holidays, she wasn't feeling anything but normal, but she went to the doctors. In physical exam, they found some nodules up in her thyroid. Pretty routine, but the first series of tests didn't come back the way they wanted. Went for a second series, and the doctor finally said, You better really get this checked out, and we need a biopsy. And the biopsy came back that she has cancer in her thyroid. And it's not just a little bit. It's widely spread, and she's going to have to have her thyroid removed. Now, the good news is that cancer these days in the thyroid is pretty curable. But I've got to say, if you're 30 years old and you have cancer at all, that's a shock, isn't it? And you know what? J.R. is not going to come next week, and he's not going to sit here and sulk and say, you know, I just, you know, here I am serving God, and look what happens to me. You know why? Because he's a warrior, and he's going to stand up and say, I'm believing God to heal my wife, and I believe this is all part of the way that Satan wants to somehow distract us from fulfilling the mission that he's given to us as a church. God protect my family, but God more than anything, give me grace. Give us grace to overcome. So here's what I want you to do. In the next few minutes, I'm going to give you an opportunity to pick one of those three areas, wisdom, revelation, or vision, as it applies to your life. And I know this is just a bit of a stress, but I want to encourage you, so I'm going to do it. If you look around, and we're going to turn the lights up as high as we can. If you'll notice on the side, it kind of looks like wallpaper, but it's not. What it is, it's a place for you to go with your spouse or your friend, or if you're by yourself, just walk on over there, and there's hundreds of little sharpie pens all over the place. And I want you... Your number one prayer request for 2007, Lord, I need wisdom from you to know what to do with X. Lord, I need a spirit of revelation to understand who you are through this part of my life. Lord, I need the spirit of vision so that I can have power to overcome this ailment in my life, whatever it is. Now, don't... A couple people on Thursday night started to say, Lord, when I was three years old, and they took half a board. So, we can't do that. We know we have five, six hundred people in here. Just put a little paragraph, a couple sentences, but I do want you to do it. There's places in the back. There's plenty of space to do it. It'll probably take us about ten minutes. Every one of you, and the reason it's important is this. If you remember what Micah read, he talked about this being the place where God wants to hear our prayer. We're going to keep these prayer requests, and we're going to keep them before God and intercessions are going to lift them up before God. Now, you don't have to sign it. Some people are signing them, but you don't have to sign it or put your initials or not. But just say, Lord, this is what I want. Now, while they're doing that, I want the rest of this. We're going to be worshiping. There's a little card. It's not really a three-by-five card as I look at it. It's a little, but it's a plain card, and I want you to write on this card what you wrote on the wall or something like it, and put this card in your Bible or put it in some place where you'll keep it and keep it before God and say, Lord, in 2007, this is the one thing that I want you to do. Lord, I want you to free me to trust you with my finances because I'm afraid that I'll never have enough money to get by. Lord, I want you to give me a new love for my spouse because we're just so dry and dead together. Lord, I want to do something great and reach my classmates for Christ, whatever it is. Put it on this card. And then we're going to close by doing something else together. All right? So we've got time. We're not in a hurry. We'll be out plenty of time, but you need to respond now by getting up and saying, Lord, here's my request. Hear me from heaven because I need you. I need you to touch my life. Let's stand together and find your way over to any one of the places on the walls, and let's worship, and then you can also write your request down, and then we'll come back together again. This is my desire. This is my desire to honor you, to honor you. Lord, with all my heart, I worship you. All I have within me. I give you praise. For all that I adore. All that I adore. Is in you. Lord, I give you my heart. I give you my soul. For you alone. I live for you alone. Every breath that I take. Every moment I'm awake. Lord, have your way in me. Just keep making your way to the wall. Right now in the car that you see. Just join us in prayer and worship.