Episode 603 - Live from Maplewood Church of the Nazarene

Welcome to the Maplewood Nazarene podcast. Our faith family meets at 110 Longview Avenue in Springfield, Ohio on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. At Maplewood, we're learning to love God and learning to love others. For more information, visit our website at maplewoodnazarene.org or find us on Facebook. Now it's It's time for this week's message.

I am so grateful to be here. I love my work as a chaplain, and I find that when I am invited to speak in places now, that chaplain side of me comes out a lot more. And I love playing music, and I love being a chaplain, and I actually spend a lot of time doing music in the hospital with people. Sometimes I step in in the morning and they have this beautiful piano. It looks a lot like this one. And I'll just start the day in the lobby of the hospital by playing music because people are waiting on doctor's appointments and I try to bring just a calm into the room and I ask the Holy Spirit to help me in those moments. And then sometimes I'm at bedside with patients and they find music to be a very strong connection in their life. So I've sung that song that we just sang together at patient's bedside a number of times. I've sung it at patient's funerals from time to time and we find that God connects us in different ways. For some people it's through music, through— some people it's through messages like today. Some people you just go outside and absorb nature and you see all that God has done. And sometimes it's better than a sermon for you. You walk out and you just experience creation. So all this today as I begin this, this is an encouragement for you to receive God today in whatever way God speaks to you in this moment. If you are hearing something from the Holy Spirit today, I just encourage you not to ignore that. It may not even be something that I said. I trust that God is speaking at all moments at all times, and God can use my feeble words to do something in your heart that didn't even come from me. It was just something you needed to hear. So I just ask that you keep your heart open to that this morning, okay? We good with that? And I don't plan on keeping you a really long time, but I hope to say some things that'll be helpful today. The best thing I'll probably do is just read scripture this morning, and it's from Mark chapter 5. If you have your Bibles and you'd like to read along, please feel free to do that. If you'd like to just hear the word of the Lord this morning— but I wonder if all who are able, if we could just stand together as we hear the word of God and we just reverence God's word this morning. This story takes place in a land— I never quite know if I'm supposed to pronounce it the Gerasenes or the Gerasenes. It starts with a G. I usually say the Gerasenes, but it's a place that Jesus has gone. He's crossed the lake and he's gone to the land of the Gerasenes. And this is what happens when Jesus arrives. Says, they went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs and no one could bind him anymore. Not even with a chain, for he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and he broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out, and he cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, He ran and he fell on his knees in front of him, and he shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God's name, don't torture me!" For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you impure spirit!" Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, 'For we are many.' And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding nearby on a hillside. The demons begged Jesus, 'Send us among the pigs. Allow us to go into them.' He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about 2,000 in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and the countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there. Dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. This is the word of the Lord, and we are thankful for it. You can be seated.

Thank you.

So let me start with a story today. This is a true story. I don't always tell stories about myself, but it just felt appropriate for this passage today, okay? I was in college decades ago now. I started college in 1995, so you do the math. I'm not going to say anything more about it than that. But I had not really been— I'd been to a lot of places in my life because my parents were ministers and for a while we were evangelists, but a lot of my world took place inside of a motorhome. So I hadn't been to a lot of places even though I'd been to a lot of places. One place I had never really been before was a real gym where you could go to work out. And when I went to Trevecca Nazarene University for college, they had a real gym you could go to. They had weights and they had treadmills and they had everything you could think of. It was like going to Planet Fitness, but it was right on campus. You could use it. So it was great. My roommate in college, he was a big weightlifter. I was not, but I was aspiring to be. So, and as you can tell, I'm not really a weightlifter much to this day except for my own body. But back then I decided I would try it. And so I went with him and for about a week or two we would go to this weight room every night after dinner. Well then my friend, my roommate, he got a job and he couldn't go with me anymore in the evening. But I felt like I'd already kind of had the momentum of a couple weeks going. So I decided I'll go by myself. Surely somebody will be there. If I need a spotter on the bench press, which was the thing I enjoyed doing the most, it was hard but I enjoyed it. I figured I would ask somebody, but I was kind of shy too. So I walked into the gym and I promise you I don't think this was a chauvinistic thing. I don't mind asking women to help me do things. In fact, my wife is here. She's much more knowledgeable about most things than I am when it comes to being handy and fixing things. She's always having to show me stuff. But back then when I was a young freshman in college, I think I was just bashful. I walked into the gym and there was 3 young ladies in there and me. And that was it. And I just couldn't bring myself to ask for help when it went to the bench press. I thought, "Well, I've been doing this, I can do it." So I laid down on the bench press It was probably not a lot of weight. You know, in my mind I want to think it must have been 500 pounds, you know, but it probably was not very much at all, to be honest with you. But I put the weights on each end and I laid down, and my goal was just, if I can just get through 3 sets of 10, that's really all I'm doing that I would need a spotter or help for. I can do that. I've been doing this for a couple weeks now. So I laid down, I got under, and I started lifting the weights.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Clang!

And I put it back up on the bar and I kind of, oh, that was, that was pretty good. I think I can do the other 2. So I kind of walked around and went to the water fountain and did my best to avoid the young ladies because I was bashful as could be. And I, I went back to the bench press and I sat down and I did my second set and I started lifting. And 1, 2, 3, and I made it all the way to 10. And that last one was a little harder, but I made it. I got it up there and, and I was still Feeling good. So let me ask right now, have any of you been there so far? Have you ever done a workout like this? Okay, I see that hand.

Amen.

So the last set, I sat down, got the bar, one hand here, one hand here. I was gonna do it, so I started pushing. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and I'm shaking a little bit, you know. 10, and I get about here and I can't push anymore, and it starts coming back down and it lands, you know, gently on my chest. And I've got nobody spotting me, and nobody has seen me yet that I'm aware of, and I thought it would be embarrassing to call out anyway, "Help!" you know, uh, laying under here. So I thought there's two options: I can roll it this way way and just end it all, be done with life. I won't have to face it. The other way was just go roll it down my chest, down my stomach, down to my waist, get to a place where I could sit up, stand up real quick, turn around, put it on the bar, and nobody's any the wiser, right? So I tried. I, I'm still here, so I didn't do the first option. So I went to the second option. I rolled it down my waist. Everything was going fine. It, it didn't feel great, but I was rolling it down I got to where I could sit up.

Whew!

Okay, so I stood up really quick and I'm turning around. But there's one thing I forgot to do. And mind you, these are concrete floors in the room. I did not put the clips on the ends. So if you've ever done that, whenever one side gets out of balance, the weight starts sliding and then the other one starts sliding. And I must have looked like a samurai warrior with this staff. Because it goes, "Waboom! Waboom!" You know, like that. Because the weights fell off one end and then the other. And it clanged so loud in the concrete, you know, and the noise. And then all of the young ladies just looked at me and I'm just like, "Heh heh," you know, I didn't know what to do with the bar. It was not my greatest moment, to be honest with you. But sometimes we find that life is like that moment. We try to handle more than we can without asking for help. And we think having strength means that we don't need anybody. But long before the weight comes down on our chest and we can't breathe, we forget something very important about ourselves. See, we don't forget things like— we don't forget that we're Christians, right? When we're Christians and we're living it out— I know I'm a minister, I don't forget I'm a minister, I don't forget I'm a chaplain, I remember that all the time. We don't forget our occupations. It doesn't matter if you're a doctor, a nurse, a mechanic, a teacher, a musician, if you're in the military, you always remember those things about yourself.

Yourself.

What we always forget though is that we are also human. We forget that we are human. We forget that we have the same struggles that everybody else does. I forget that all the time. And Wayne Cordero in his book Leading on Empty, he tells this story about himself. He's the one that first made that clear to me that we forget we are humans. He was a pastor, he still is a pastor, and he says, "It was a balmy California evening. I had gone for a jog before I was about to speak at a leadership conference. I still can't recall how I got there, but I found myself sitting on a curb weeping uncontrollably. I couldn't tell if it took place suddenly or gradually,, but I knew something had broken inside. I remember lifting my trembling hands out and out loud asking, what in the world is happening to me? He says, I had been leading on empty. He had been leading on empty. He later realized that those were signs of burnout, that he had been experiencing signs of burnout for a long time. But he had learned to push past them. They were subtle signs at first, and these are some of the things that I wanted to point out to you because I worry that many of us are experiencing them. I'm learning to notice them in myself. Sometimes I don't do a very good job of it, but this is what he said. His ministry— maybe you need to just put your work in it, okay? His work became more arduous. His tasks began to feel unending. Even small decisions began to paralyze him. His creativity flagged. He found it easier to imitate rather than to innovate. The joy that he once felt in his work began to turn into a drain instead of fuel. Anybody ever felt that way? He began to experience emo— uh, symptoms of emotional and spiritual depletion, a sense of hopelessness. He would cry frequently. He had difficulty concentrating. He became irritable. His decision-making became difficult. He desired isolation. He just wanted everybody to go away. His activity level lowered. Things he used to enjoy doing, he didn't want to do them anymore. And there were these physical symptoms he experienced. He had this erratic heartbeat. He had difficulty breathing. He had insomnia. He would stay up all hours of the night. They were all signs that he was depleted, signs that he was empty. But there was a disconnection between his internal condition and his outward image. On the outside, all looked well. He was speaking at pastors' conferences. He was pastoring churches. But inside, there was a slow-motion implosion that was was happening. Core parts of his life that only he could nurture—his spirituality, his marriage, his family, his health, his creative soul—all these things began to wither because the everyday tasks and the endless to-dos were taking everything he had. And he writes this, and this is very important. He said, if I had been alert, I might have seen the signs before that curbside meltdown. And recognized them for what they were, but for some reason I ignored them. I think a lot of us can relate to that, myself included. My wife is always reminding me, "You're doing too much," and I'm so grateful she does, because if nothing else, it helps me to be alert, to notice the parts of myself and to stop and take a breath. Being here doing things like this today, I love it. I love making music, I love speaking, but I have to be aware that I also have a 40-hour hour a week job on top of it, and that this is extra. And if I don't give myself some extra time and some other things, I can get depleted very easily and not have enough to go on with. So we are trained to keep going though, right? We think it's like a core value. Just keep going. We're trained to keep others first. We're trained to push through until pushing becomes our only way of being. But the truth is The signs of burnout, all those things he experienced, all those things he was saying, those are not our enemies. Those signs of burnout are invitations. Those are our body's check engine light, okay? If you heard any of those things this morning and you went, "Wow, that sounds like me," that's actually good news for you today because that is a check engine light. You know what I mean when I say that? When you're in your car and your check engine light comes on, and something needs to be fixed in there. Well, if you heard any of those things this morning and you said, "I have that, that's in me," that's actually a good thing for you to recognize about yourself because that is your body's check engine light. That's the way God designed you to be able to find that out so that you can do something about it. As Christians, we spend so much of our lives living selflessly, caring for others, pushing through that we forget what? That we are human. Right? Everybody say this with me, will you? I am a human. I am a human. Welcome to Earth. We're all glad you're here this morning. Okay? Some of us need to be reminded of that. Some of us need to be reminded we are human. And the same thing I see everybody else going through I have the capacity to go through that myself too. It's not something for me to judge, it's something for me to notice. Not long ago, just a couple weeks ago actually, it was National Pastoral Care Week, and there was a webinar that happened that was to a bunch of chaplains like myself. And one of the speakers said this, they said, God doesn't call us to self-erasure. Okay? God doesn't call us to erase ourselves. He calls us to stewardship of our bodies, of our minds, of our spirit. And they also said burnout doesn't happen because we're weak and because we're incapable. It happens because we care deeply. We give fully. And sometimes we forget to refill our own cup. Alright? Sometimes we try to pour from an empty container. And what happens if you have a container— let's have a glass here and a pitcher here and there's nothing in the pitcher. What comes out when you try to pour it in the glass? Not a thing. Alright? It is impossible to do activity out of an empty tank. You just can't do it. Try to drive a car without any gas, what's gonna happen? You're just gonna go nowhere. My hope and my prayer, the reason I do things like today, is I want to encourage people in churches to fill up the tank again. We are so bad about putting more things on you. Sometimes as ministers, we take on and we take on and we take on. And sometimes we encourage congregations, "Take on more, do more, do more, do more for the kingdom of God." And what happens is that tank goes, "Zhu, zhu, zhu, zhu, zhu." And you go to work, and you come home, and then you're told, "Come back 3 more times this week, and then come do this thing, and give to that, and then go to another." Sometimes the best thing to do for your soul is to say, "I just can't be there tonight. I can't do it this evening." Because I am what? Human, right? Now all that is to say, I'm not telling you stop going to church, stop doing God stuff, okay? I don't want Pastor Joe and Pastor Vicki to come back and say, "Well, Pastor Rick said I didn't have to come to church anymore." I'm not saying that. But what I hope you hear from me today is my heart telling you I don't want you to be like that person in the gospel passage we read, breaking every chain, going beyond boundaries that were put there for you, staying up all hours of the night, howling like a mad person, not having a chance to rest until finally the only thing that can be done is Jesus has to stop you, put you back in your right mind so you are clothed and breathing again and once again being welcomed back into your humanity. We don't want that kind of burnout for anybody. We truly don't. Jesus says, "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden." and I will give you rest. He doesn't say, I'm gonna give you 6 more burdens on top of the burdens you already have. If it's not providing your soul with something that is bringing you to flourishing, it is not from the gospel. Even difficult things— and Jesus does call us to difficult things, I'm not saying God doesn't do that— but I am saying that the gospel is good news for souls that are empty. It is good news to replenish us. It is good news to renew us, for the gospel is rest. In Genesis 2, we read these words: By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing, and on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and he made it holy. Think about this. If God needed to take a rest, then how much more do we, made in the image of God, also need rest? And maybe it's not so much that God needed the rest, but God chose to rest. Rest for us is actually a choice. It's a choice today what you are gonna do. It's a choice to rest or not. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but Sabbath is a word that is about rest and joy. It is about rest and joy. We come to receive, we come also to give to God of our lives, but that brings us to a place of rest and joy. There was a health study that was done recently, and I found it interesting because I did my residency at Kettering Health in Kettering, and that is a, a hospital run by the Seventh-day Adventists. Denomination. And I made some wonderful friends. They actually worship on, on the Sabbath day, Saturday, and then Sunday is the Lord's day. So their denomination does it a little differently. They are very health conscious. I learned a lot from them. But there was a study that was done about Seventh-day Adventists, and it said this, that most Seventh-day Adventists live about 7 years longer than the rest of us who are not Seventh-day Adventists. Adventists. Isn't that interesting? And the thing that the study found— and it wasn't like a Christian study, it was a medical study that was done about most people in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination— the thing was they ate healthier because it's a very big thing for them to eat better, and they had such an emphasis on rest on the Sabbath day. Rest and joy. And it's interesting because some have noted that that 7 extra years is about the amount of time a person spends resting over a lifetime of Sabbaths. Isn't that interesting? It raises this deep spiritual question: What if the time we think we are losing when we rest is actually time being given back to us? It's good stewardship of our bodies to do that. When we forget the rhythm of work, rest, and joy, we start living out of order, and we become like that man in Mark 5. In the tombs who was restless and wild and crazy and hurting, and he spent his day and his nights among the tombs. I don't know what he was trying to do—revive dead people? There's only one who can do that, and it's not us. Amen. And one thing that I find so interesting about that study about Seventh-day Adventists, it was almost universally true of every person who rested that way But you know who didn't live 7 years longer in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination? The pastors. The pastors do not live longer because they never seem to get a rest. It's a good warning sign for all of us. What if that time that we take to rest is actually time God is giving us back? 7 extra years. Literal medical studies have been done to show this. So earlier, and I'm almost done today, earlier we read about this man with an unclean spirit. The man was possessed and the unclean spirit has to be fully healed. His full humanity had to be restored to him by Jesus and Jesus slowed down to be with that man. And I love how Mark 5:15, it says, now he is sitting there clothed and in his right mind. That's the gospel. Jesus meets violently busy people like us. We are violently busy. And what I mean by that is violence is something that is done physically that causes harm to people. We are violently busy people. We are violent to ourselves. And when Jesus says rest, when he says, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest," he's not saying go take a nap. He's talking about being made whole again, about restoring you to your full humanity. "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," Jesus said. "So the Son of Man is Lord even over the Sabbath." There is a theologian, his name— he's passed away many years ago now, but his name was Kosuke Koyama from Japan. And he's the one that actually coined that phrase that we become violently busy. And he wrote this book called The 3-Mile-an-Hour God. It's a wonderful book. I'm only a short way into it because I'm reading it so slowly and I'm absorbing it and actually reading it, I feel like is giving me rest when I read it. And this book, 3-Mile-an-Hour God, is called that because 3 miles an hour is about the pace that most humans walk. When they can walk and talk and have conversations and discuss. And imagine passages where Jesus is walking with people and he invites people to come with him and he slows down. Think about the God of the universe becoming human and actually slowing down to be with us and then reminding us that we need to slow down. Jesus literally became nailed down, immobile, stopped moving on behalf of us. Think about this example in our lives, and I wanna ask you today, because we have this God who never rushes past us, if anything, God slows down to us. God invites us to slow down at the pace of love that God walks. It's a loving thing to slow down for others. I want to ask a few questions of you as I close this morning. Where is God inviting you to slow down right now? Where is God saying to you, "You don't have to lift that heavy weight alone," right? In what part of your life might God already be walking beside you yet you've been moving too fast to notice or to match God's pace. And into what is God inviting you to slow down to right now? It's not a question I can answer for anybody in here but me, but I just wonder what God is inviting us into in this moment. I wanna close with just a song of reflection today. The song is actually called "The Gospel Is Rest." It was written by an acquaintance of mine named Elias Dummer, and Elias is a, a good Canadian singer and songwriter, and he writes beautiful music. And I just want you to reflect on the words of this song this morning as I close today.

And whatever is the best way for you to receive this morning, whether it be at your seat, that's fine. Maybe you're a person that likes to kneel and pray. Maybe you just want to spend some time just listening in quiet prayer. I just ask you to be open to whatever God might speak to you in these moments. Maybe God's been speaking about, you know what, I need you to slow down. I need you to let your cup be filled up again today, that you would just receive this morning. You spend so much time— the Bible said it is blessed, it is more blessed to give than to receive, but the Bible does not say it's not blessed to receive. Some of us spend so much time giving to others, we're empty. So just hear the words of this song this morning. Allow yourself to be filled.

Lord, I've got the world on my shoulders, but you've been saying, child, put it down. I prayed and prayed that you would take my burden, and you just say, "Child, put it down." Maybe I'm addicted to the worry. Maybe I'm a slave to holding on. Help me put it down. Help me put it down. I've heard it said the gospel is rest. Oh, how I need it. Say it again until I believe it. Oh, how I need it. Lord, you took the world upon your shoulders. Now all I have to do is put it down. I'm living like some weary beast of burden. While you keep saying, "Child, put it down." Well, maybe I've been trying to be the hero, fighting wars that you've already won. Help me put it down. Help me put it down. <LYRICS>I've heard it said the gospel is rest, and oh, how I need it. Say it again until I believe it, oh, how I need it.</LYRICS> That peace that passes understanding, how I need it. That peace that passes understanding, how I need it. I've heard it said the gospel is rest, and oh, how I need it. Say it again until I believe it. Oh, how I need it. Oh, how I need it. Oh, how I need it.

So let's spend a moment just in prayer.

Our gracious God, we trust you are here today.

I believe that you love every person in this room, no matter who they are, no matter what age they are, no matter what their occupation is. Lord, I pray that you would invite them back into their humanity this morning. Remind each of us, myself included, that we are humans made in the image of God, and that you have called us to times of rest and replenishing and refilling our cup. Lord, I pray that today your Holy Spirit's presence would flow over this room. Go to the brokenhearted. Go to those who are dragging today, those who are weary. Begin the process, I pray, of just restoring and refilling those empty vessels. Help all of us, Lord, to once again, like that man in the story in Mark, that at the name of Jesus we would be again clothed and in our right minds. Us today. Let your Holy Spirit breathe on us this morning, we pray. We pray all these things in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thank you for listening to the Maplewood Nazarene podcast. Maplewood Nazarene is affiliated with the Global Church of the Nazarene, a Wesleyan holiness denomination with congregations all across the If you are in Springfield, look us up at 110 Lawnview Avenue, or you can find us on Facebook or at www.maplewoodnazarene.org.