Video Transcript: The Pastor's Sabbath and Spirit

This is lecture 14 of the practical ministry skills course, the pastor's Sabbath and spirit, the minister's Sabbath and spirit, again, taken from Chapter Eight of  pastoring the nuts and bolts. Our key verse for this one, the seventh day is the  Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. For in six days, the Lord  made the heavens, the earth, the sea and everything in them, but on the  seventh day he rested, Exodus 20:10-11, the Sabbath was an identifying mark  of God's people. It's one of the ways that they were set apart from the people  around them, the Old Testament, much of the new but especially the Old  Testament, was set in an agrarian culture. People farmed for a living and  sometimes it depended on the weather and so on, when they were going to do  their work, when they could do their work, and so all the other cultures, they  worked whenever the weather said so. But the Israelites, they didn't work on the  Sunday on the Sabbath, not the Sunday on the Sabbath. They didn't work on  the Sabbath even if they had already cut the hay and it looked like it was going  to rain or whatever it was. I mean, they, they, they milked the cows and they,  they fed the donkeys, and they did the things that the they needed to do to keep  the animals alive, but they didn't work other than that. They didn't work on the  Sabbath, and that set them apart from the other cultures, because the other  cultures looked at them and said, those crazy people with that crazy religion,  they're they're going to starve to death because they're not working according to the weather, but God took care of them anyway. That was the design. That was  the idea. So because, if you remember God called Israel to be a nation that  would demonstrate the blessings of knowing him and living according to him and following Him that so that it would attract everybody else around, so they would  All be attracted into the family of God today. Resting in God means something a  little bit different. Only we who believe can enter his rest. Now that is a spiritual  rest. It's a kind of an emotional, trusting rest. It's I remember the story about the  old guy that had never flown on an airplane in his life, and he had to fly on an  airplane one time, and he to visit his daughter in another city, something like  that. And she, you know, he was all on, don't like this, but I'll do it. And they he  got there, and she met him at the airplane, and she said, How was the trip, dad? And he said, Well, I got there all right, but I never really let my weight down. And  some of you know what, what's that like? He didn't trust that airplane, so he felt  like he was holding himself up. He never sat quite down and rested in the seat.  He was always tense. Whereas, when I fly, I believe in the airplane, I just sit  back and relax and let it take my whole weight, and I rest, and I tend to fall  asleep in an airplane, because I believe it's going to be all right. It's going to get  me off the ground. It's the same with God, only we who believe can enter his  rest. So the rest now is that God wants us to have the Sabbath. Rest is more of  a spiritual thing. That doesn't mean we don't do physical rest, but it's not only  physical rest. What this means is that we need to set aside. One day every  week for rest and reflection and special time with God. Many ministers can tend 

to have the same kind of an attitude as the unbelieving farmers. Well, there's all  this work that I need to do, and I'm doing it for the church, and I'm doing it for  God, and I'm doing it for the ministry, but it's too much of it for me to take a day  off. I just got to keep on working through and we think that that's a sign of  devotion and how devoted we are to the work and how devoted we are to God.  And actually, you remember what God had Samuel say to King Saul, I require  obedience rather than sacrifice. God doesn't want us sacrificing our mental  health, our physical health by working like crazy. 24/7 He wants us to obey Him  by setting aside one day every week for rest and reflection and special time with God. This is very important to God, but he doesn't want us to get legalistic about it. Jesus said the Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people and not  people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. Paul wrote in Romans 14  Some think one day is more holy than another day, while others think every day  is alike, you should each be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is  acceptable, and that is good news for us who are in ministry, because first we  need to be clear that the Sabbath is a Jewish thing, and it is defined by the  Jews, and appropriately so, because it's their thing, Old Testament and Jewish  as starting on Friday evening at sundown and ending on Saturday evening, at  sundown. It's that 24 hours in the church age, many Christians tend to think the  Sabbath is Sunday. Well, if you're if you are in a Christian who is not working in  a ministry that requires you to be working on Sunday, then you can take Sunday  as your Sabbath. And if you want to say midnight to midnight, as as we tend to  say about that Sunday, and instead of sundown to sundown, you know, I don't  even think God is worried about that kind of thing. I know he's not worried about  it, but I don't think he that's a part of it. The point is, take a day. Take a day rest  your mind and your body by not doing whatever is work for you see, in the Old  Testament agrarian culture, work was physical. There was very, very little, if  anybody, whose work consisted of sitting around and thinking or reading or  writing all day. Nowadays, there are a lot of people whose work consists of  sitting around and what, in the Old Testament might have been considered  resting. It's certainly resting your body. And so if that's you, then on the Sabbath, on your day off, on your time when you're not working, don't sit there in your  chair and look at your computer and stuff. Get out and do something outdoors or something you enjoy, some hobby or something take, rest your mind and body  by not doing whatever has worked for you, and take a full day. It doesn't work  just to say, well, I'll take three hours here on Monday morning, and I'll take an  hour Tuesday afternoon, and then I'll take another couple hours Wednesday  afternoon and add it all up. Your body and your mind need a connected period of rest to let go of the other stuff and to recharge and to rebuild those gauges so  find the way that works for you. Don't be legalistic about it. Again, Paul said, and I didn't put this on the slide, but I probably should have Romans 14:5, some  think one day is more holy than another day. Others think every day is alike. You

should each should be fully convinced that whichever day you choose is  acceptable. So pray about it, ask God to guide you in it, and then go with it. The  Sabbath is one thing, the daily, once a week. But what about vacations? Should  we take vacations? I have known people ministers who proudly stated that they  hadn't taken a vacation in 30 years, or whatever it was. I think that's just sad,  because, for one thing, it implies that they think that nobody can get along  without them. They're indispensable. If I'm not here, this thing, this ministry, is  going to fall apart. And, boy, I don't want to leave God in a lurch like that, so I  won't take a vacation. God can handle it. Okay? God can handle it, even without you. But the thing is, God commanded in the same Old Testament, where he  commanded the Sabbath. He commanded the feasts. There were several times  every year that the Israelites were commanded to take time off and go, basically  have a week of celebration. They would go camping, if you want to put it that  way, the Feast of Booths, they would have a big bull roast, barbecues. I mean, if you look at the sacrifices, especially the sacrifices at the feast, all those bulls  and and things that they killed, what did they do with them? They cooked them  and they ate them. They had a barbecue and a bull roast. Those who study the  mind say that it takes not only a stretch of several hours, a full day, not just an  hour here and an hour there, but it also takes a stretch of days I've read, two  weeks, to really begin to get the the total relaxation and stress out and begin to  get back to have the full benefit of time away the benefit of a vacation. So if you  go on a vacation, go on vacation, don't keep checking your emails, don't be  working from home, all of that. I mean, it's great to be able to do all of this  remote technology, but when you're on vacation, the wife says, for crying out  how loud, Harry, relax. Here's the preacher. He's on vacation, but he can't relax.  He builds himself out of sand. He builds a pulpit, and he's wanting to preach a  sermon. Now, God, you go to the beach and God tells you to witness to the  other people on the beach. That's one thing, but this relax. You need to have  time to relax, so you're not indispensable. As a matter of fact, they call that a  Messiah Complex, the idea that nobody can get along without you, that God  can't get along without you. God can. I was blessed to serve in a situation where every seven years, if needed, and if we could work it out with our local  congregation, we were allowed to take three months off with pay, and I got to a  place where I really needed that. I mean, I really needed that. If I had not done  that, I think it would have driven me out of the ministry. I would have done  something else, but I was able to take my family and my kids. We had almost no money, but we bought an old, used camping trailer and drove and just camped  in various parks for three months. And this was a fairly small church, so I was  the only minister on staff, and so I arranged for other local ministers if there was  an emergency, if they needed to do a funeral or something. Like that, but in  general, the I arranged with the people in the church to do the preaching most of the time, and they were pretty concerned about this. I mean, they could, they 

could see, maybe better than I could, that I needed it. But they sent us off, but  they were kind of scared about it. But when I came back, I had at least two  different people. They had they welcomed us back. And they had this kind of a,  you know, a meal, of course. And then they had people get up and talk and say  some things to welcome us back. And two of those people, separately, both got  up and in in different words, they both said, the greatest thing that ever  happened to my spiritual growth was when the pastor went away. I tell you this  story to tell you that you're not indispensable. Your church, your ministry, won't  fall apart if you take the time off that God tells you you need to take the time off.  We need to rest. We need to take the Sabbath. We need to feed our spirits.  Don't spend so much time taking care of other people's spirits that you neglect  your own. Have some kind of a daily devotional and prayer routine that is not  tied into preparing a sermon or having a service at which you need to be  concerned about other people have regular spiritual retreat times. For me, I  would go a couple times a year. I would take just two or three days and go  backpacking in the mountains. We lived in an area where we were able to do  that. I didn't have the money to go do other kind of stuff, but I could go  backpacking and I got away. And for me, that was so helpful, to be just out in the mountains, away, where I might not see any other person for several days and  just have that time with God. For you, it may be a totally different kind of thing.  I'm an introvert. I'm energized by being alone. It takes energy from me to give to  people, to be around people, other people are the reverse. Being alone drains  them, and they gain energy from other people. So whatever works for you, but  that's what happens some kind of regular time just to devote more than an hour  of your morning devotion to being with the Lord and find a way to listen to other  preachers, read their books, listen to their sermons, visit their churches. If you  can get filled up, you can't just constantly be putting out all the time I mentioned  briefly in the last lecture, and I want to go into this a little more about dealing  with discouragement. And as I said, it's not the same as depression. There is  such a thing as clinical depression that needs to be treated and should not be  ashamed of. It's a physical condition, but sometimes we can just get  discouraged, and being discouraged is not a failure, allowing yourself to stay  discouraged that may be So learn to strengthen yourself in the Lord. Bill  Johnson has a whole book about this, and he bases that off of when it says King David strengthened himself in the Lord after the, I believe, with the Amalekites,  came and raided his city and captured his, his and his, his men's wives and  families and ran off and so on. And it says, David strengthened himself in the  Lord and then led his people out and recovered them. But that's a great book, if  you can get hold of it. I'm not sure I remember the title, but it's Bill Johnson. I  want to approach it from a different passage in the New Testament. And it is one that I hope you're familiar with from Philippians 4. And I'm going from the new,  Revised Standard Version, which is a good, literal kind of a translation. Rejoice 

in the Lord always again. I say, rejoice. You say, Well, wait a minute. I said.  Thought you were going to talk about what to do if we're discouraged. How can I rejoice if I'm discouraged? Well, rejoice doesn't necessarily mean feel happy. It  means act joyful. Okay, rejoice. It's something that we can do. God wouldn't  have told us to do it if we couldn't choose to do it. So rejoice in the Lord always,  no matter what is going on in your life, you can find something about God to  rejoice in, to thank him for, to praise him for, even if it doesn't necessarily make  you feel better, choose you remember earlier, we talked some, some lectures  ago, about Romans 10 be transformed by renewing your mind, by changing the  way you think. If you are discouraged, you can transform that by changing the  way you think, by choosing to rejoice. Find something about God to rejoice in.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone. You say, What does that have to do  with it? Well, don't let discouragement make you harsh. That's number one.  Don't. Don't let your discouragement make you harsh with other people. That  doesn't help anything. And then you'll just feel bad about it. You'll say, Oh, my  goodness, I shouldn't have said that, and that makes you even more  discouraged. So don't let discouragement make you harsh, but also be gentle  with yourself. Be gentle with yourself when you're discouraged. Don't beat  yourself up and say, oh, here I call myself a Christian and I'm feeling  discouraged, and what kind of a Christian am I? And that just makes you feel  more discouraged. So be gentle with yourself, like your gentleness. Be known to everyone. The Lord is near. And this is, as you can see, I'm reading right  through Philippians 4-8. The Lord is near. What does that have to do with not  being discouraged? Well, remind yourself God's with me. God is not way off in  some distant place. Often, when we're discouraged, we tend to feel like God is  way off the other side of the universe and not paying any attention to us. Remind yourself that's not true. The Lord is near. God is with you, and he's got this. God  has this. He's got you in the palm of his hand. God is not surprised, as Kenneth  Hagin used to say, God is not up there in heaven, wringing his hands and  saying, oh, no, what are we going to do about this god knows God's got it  handled. Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and  supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Turn  your worries into prayers. Worry is destructive. Prayer is constructive, and it's  just a simple shift. Instead of saying Oh no, what if this happens, you say, Dear  God, please take care of this. Instead of Oh no, what about this? It's please  God, take care of this, and then thank him. Prayer and supplication. That means asking prayer means conversation with God. Supplication means asking him for  something specific, but then with thanksgiving, because Thanksgiving builds up  your faith, right? If you start focusing on the things you're thankful for, find  something to be thankful for, good things the way God has taken care of you in  the past, something that will build your faith, and it will, of course, faith is the key to the answered prayers, and it puts things in perspective for you. So prayer and

supplication with thanksgiving. You don't have to thank God for the problem, but  thank him for something. Let your requests be made known to God. Now God  already knows what you need, but he wants you to ask him, like any parent, you have a little kid, and you know, the little kid needs, it's time for a snack and  they're hungry and they want something, and you want to give it to them, but  you still like them to come and ask you, do not worry about anything we just did.  That one so and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will  guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus, pray through until that  happens. Pray Until the peace comes. Continue until the peace comes and Paul ends this finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is  just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable. If there's any excellence and if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things you've learned and received and heard and seen in  me and the God of peace will be with you. You've gotten yourself out of  discouragement. You've prayed until the peace comes. This is how you protect  against future discouragement. You keep your focus on the good stuff. You don't deny the bad stuff and pretend like it's not there, but you focus on the good stuff  real quickly. A prayer journal, writing down, keeping track of your prayers and  how God answers them can be a terrific way to encourage yourself in future  times of need if you keep a file, especially if you're a ministry leader, a pastor, a  minister, there will be plenty of times for discouragement. There will be plenty of  times people will criticize and complain, but there will be those wonderful times  when somebody says something good, thanks, you. Tells you something that  your ministry has meant to them. Keep those, keep those in a file someplace  where you can go back and look at them. When the devil starts telling you you're no good. You're not accomplishing anything, you're not helping anybody, you  can go back and put the why to that and remind yourself of the truth that God is  using me in this ministry. God is accomplishing these things I mentioned happy  therapy that doesn't just work for my wife. Do whatever makes you happy, find  something that makes you happy, and do it, not to the exclusion of anything  else, but enough to help keep you healthy, and nobody understands the  pressures and stresses on a minister like another minister. So get with some  other ministers, create a little group, not for planning ministry and not for  planning activities and all of this stuff, and certainly not for debating theology, but for praying for each other, for supporting each other. Nobody understands it like  they do. They understand you. You understand them. You can pray for each  other, keep yourself healthy and strong in your Sabbath, in your spirit, so that  God can use you all the to all your potential for a good, long life, and I'll see you  next time