Video Transcript: Take a Break

Growing up on a farm, we didn't plow, we didn't cultivate the dirt on Sunday. We didn't bale hay and comb on the grain on Sunday. And you know what? We all survived. And the hay was still there on Monday. It wasn't quite as good a shape. The ground was still there to till on Monday during the spring, you know, the dirt was still there and sort of had to wait another week, but we eventually got the crop in, and God provided. If you work 24/7 just relying on, I've always gotta gotta gotta gotta gotta be working. You've misunderstood something you need a break from busyness. Our farming was not as important as Jesus Gospel. Nothing you do is more important to when Jesus and his apostles were doing, and they need a break from their busyness and so you. In repentance and in rest is your salvation and quietness and trust is your strength. 

Sometimes we Christians who are in a very activistic mindset think, that salvation is do, do, do, do. And we know we are not saved our own works maybe if our theology is right, but we still act like it and we act like the church is only going to survive if we are constantly in activity. Those of us who are Christian leaders need to be aware of this. We need to hear Jesus called come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest. Remember the story of Jesus in the home of Martha and Mary and Martha is very, very busy getting everything all ready for the guests. And Mary is sitting relaxing and resting at Jesus feet drinking in His teaching and enjoying His company. And Martha says, come Mary, help me out. And Jesus, Mary has chosen better part. You need to take time to be with Jesus and take time to get away from all that stuff that keeps you so busy and rest. 

Solitude is a break from people. Some of the great people of the faith are people of solitude, who spent a lot of time alone with God. Moses spent 40 years in the desert before God sent him back to Egypt to deliver the people by the power of God. Moses spent 40 days with God on Mount Sinai when God was revealing the 10 commandments and the plan for the tabernacle and the outline for how to live as God's people in covenant with Him. John the Baptist, the mighty prophet who prepared the way for his cousin Jesus of Nazareth, that mighty prophet was a desert dweller, and people had to go out to the desert to meet him and to hear him. Because he was alone with God a lot of the time. Jesus Himself spent 40 days in the wilderness before he met up against the temptations of the evil one. We sometimes think, “Boy, that temptation must have been really powerful after Jesus was stuck out there alone for 40 days and was fasting and the like. What if Jesus spent that 40 days getting stronger in order to be able to overcome that evil one. His 40 days in the wilderness perhaps were what made him mighty not what we can do and throughout his ministry, we read that Jesus often withdrew to desolate places. There are a number of passages that say that. 

The mighty apostle Paul spent up to three years in Arabia, and we don't know of any preaching or any ministry activity. Maybe he was doing some ministry there. But a lot of that time may well have been just alone in the wilderness reflecting on what it meant to know that Jesus is Lord, and that Jesus is risen. Because Paul was converted dramatically and then preached a little bit right after that. And then he spent some time off and years we don't know much about in Arabia. But when he came out of that, and when he went back in those missionary journeys, he understood things and he had a spiritual power about. In solitude – a break from people is very important in building up spiritual strength. It's important for each one of us and for different reasons and in different settings. 

Sometimes when you're in ministry, you need to be aware that there are some v.d.p around very draining people. And if you spend all your time with a very draining people, you will be drained and you will have nothing left to give. That's true in ministry. Sometimes when you're in church on Sunday and preaching, someone will come up to you afterwards and pastor I need to speak to you. And they are not going to be speaking to you about the latest ballgame or sports competition, or some other fun matter. When they say Pastor, “I want to talk to you,” they either have a weighty spiritual question or something they're really upset about or some difficulty in their life or something they're mad at you about perhaps. But it's not going to usually be a really nice, relaxing, refreshing conversation. Because you're on. You're doing ministry and ministry drains you. Sometimes it is not even very draining people. Just being around all those people and you're serving them on that Sunday you're supposed to, you should feel like power has gone out of you and like you've been drained. But then you need to spend some time either alone or with people who build you back up again. That's what Jesus was doing with His disciples. Okay, we've been around the crowds. We've done all this work, we're drained. Let's go together with just us. That's what God's people are actually doing on Sunday quite often is getting away from the world, getting away from the busyness and be with other people that can build each other's energies again. And if you're Christian leader, you sometimes need to get away from that group of people even to be with either yourself and God or with a few people who re-energize you. 

This is true of moms. Hey, moms are surrounded by very draining people. They're called children. Sometimes, moms need to get away from those kids, not because they hate those kids. It's because they need to get away from very draining people, have some time of solitude time by themselves time to be refreshed. You need a break from the people in your life who drain your energies and you need a mom for example, little children may need to be by herself away from a little bit. She may need her husband or some other adults to just get her away from them for a few hours to have some adult conversation. Your spiritual health and sometimes your mental, emotional health are going to be built up by just taking a break from people.

Take a break from noise. That's what silence is. Be still and know that I am God. For God alone, oh, my soul. Wait in silence for my hope is from Him. The Lord is in His holy temple that all the earth keep silence before him. Sometimes in the Bible that command to keep silence is coupled with a word of judgement. People don't know how to shut up and the King is on His throne and he's about to act. You people better quiet down. Other times it just means listen, listen for God, close your mouth. Just be aware that God is.  Great philosopher, Blaise Pascal, has a statement that I often repeat. He said the problem with the world is that a man cannot sit quietly in a room by himself. To be able to just sit quietly and be in God's presence, to think about your own situation, about who you are, that's hard to do. We don't like silence. I was in radio broadcasting for a lot of years. And during one program I was going to talk about the value of silence. So, I told my producer of the program, I said, “Well, let's just take 30 seconds. I'll say something and then I'll say now let's take the next 30 seconds just for silence. And he said we can’t do that. I said, “Why not?” He said if we do that all the radio stations have equipment that will detect a pause. And if there's a pause of more than five seconds or so of dead air, it will kick in with other programming. Because dead air is something you absolutely cannot have. It's going to be noise 24/7. And that's kind of a parable of what our lives are like, you can't have 30 seconds of silence before something else is going to come and make it noisy again. 

C.S Lewis when writing about the strategies of the devil and of the demons spoke of Satan's efforts to make everything the kingdom of noise. Just noise noise noise noise noise noise noise not silence. That's why sometimes a devotional time among Christians is called a quiet time. It’s time to be still and not move, it's a time to be still, not talk. Take a break from noise and be with God. And the silence and solitude of course are disciplines that often go together because it's hard to have much quiet when you're around a lot of other people. You need silence and solitude together. Those often go together with the other major disciplines of prayer and scripture, where you're quiet before the Lord and then you're able to pray more effectively. There are times of course when you can pray on the go and pray when you're busy. But that time of silence is very important where you can hear God's voice and also find your own voice in speaking to Him. 

Secrecy is a break from publicity. Just getting away from having to be on and this is especially important for those who are spiritual leaders who are in public a lot. One of the hazards of being a pastor or somebody who's up front is you're pretty visible. And you’re pretty conscious of being visible. And you wonder, why do I look like? What do I sound like? What impression am I making? And we need to because we're in the public eye and because people are looking at us, we need to discipline ourselves to take a break from that and to get away from being seen. And all Christians not just Christian leaders need to realize that. Don't do stuff just to impress others. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will, that'll be a reward and you won't have any reward coming from God. And He says when you give to the needy, don't announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by men. When you give to the needy, don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on street corners to be honored by men. They received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen and then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you fast, don't be like the hypocrites because they disfigure their faces to show that they are on fast. They look so sad and forlorn and gaunt, so everybody will know they’re fasting and say oh what a spiritual giant he is. Jesus says, “Don't be like that.” When you fast wash your face, put oil on your head, put some cologne. Make sure your hair looks great. Go out and so nobody knows you’re fasting and then your Father who sees what's done in secret will reward you. 

A great deal who you really are and who you are before God is who you are when nobody is looking, but God. And we all of us who are believers need that and especially those of us who are pastors or spiritual leaders who do so many things where we're trying to affect somebody else or we're concerned what somebody else might be thinking of what we're doing, and we lose track of God. And so, we need secrecy just to stay focused on who really matters, and to keep our lives in tune with Him. The fear of man and the desire to impress people is spiritually sickening. And it is fatal if we get stuck in that. 

Fasting is a break from food. And there are different kinds of fasting and fasting has different purposes. If you read the Bible, fasting has the purpose of strengthening and really focusing our prayers and intensifying our prayers. Fasting is often accompanied by deep repentance and it's a way of expressing that repentance. Sometimes fasting comes when we're really eager to get guidance from God on major decisions. And we don't want to make that decision without really seeking God's Will with all our hearts and seeing if God wants to give us a nudge or a leading that will help make the matter more clear to us. So, we'll fast and pray for his guidance and wisdom. Sometimes it comes during a time of crisis where the people of Israel might fast when they were threatened by an enemy attack. Or in your own life when there's a great illness or a problem or issue that your church might be facing or someone you love is in jeopardy either of the wiles of the devil or of some physical problem and you fast because you're really concerned about them. And so, there are a variety of reasons for fasting. The supreme one is simply that you're hungry for God. And even though food is good, or even though some other thing is good, you're going to give it up for a time to really focus on God and to show God, “Hey don't live by bread alone. I live by you.”

In terms of approaches to fasting a partial fast means you don't give up all food but maybe you give up a certain kind of food. You don't eat any meat for a day or two or you say I'm going to have any treats for this particular period of time. Modified fast might also include, it has nothing to do with food. There are some people in particular medical circumstances where you shouldn't fast. A pregnant woman should be very cautious and probably not fast at all. Sometimes growing kids and teens shouldn't be doing much fasting from food. There may be things that they could fast from. I know a lot of teens who could do very well by fasting from a cell phone for a day or two or fasting from computer games for a week. Things that aren't evil, that aren't bad, but that may be gets too much of a grip and so you let go of it for a while for the purpose of focusing on God. 

So, there are other things you could fast from or take a break from, besides food. But food is the one we're talking about primarily here. You might start with just getting one meal and use that time that you skip the meal, use it to meditate and to think on God and to pray along with the scriptures. You might also use the money you saved on a meal and contribute it to the poor. You know, that's something Christians used to do. They would sometimes just skip a meal because they were kind of poor. But they skipped that meal, they could give it to somebody else and then they still have enough if all they didn't get one meal for themselves or the money they saved, they might use it as a contribution. So you can skip one meal and your main purpose is simply to let go food and focus on your desire for God. But as a side benefit, you say I'm going to use the time for God and I'm going to use the money I saved for blessing God or blessing somebody else. 24 hour fasts basically means you skipped two meals so you might eat at breakfast, then skip lunch and supper and then have breakfast again the next morning. Or you might have your evening meal be the last meal eat for a while and go without eating for that evening, that night and not eat breakfast or lunch and eat again the next evening. So, there's a variety of 24 hour fasts. 36 hours fast just means you skip three meals. You don't eat at all one day and then a night as well. A longer fast, might last three to seven days. Be very cautious about these. If you have any kinds of medical situations you need to be aware of that before you undertake any kind of fasting especially a longer one. So, I want you to be aware you know, just have some wisdom in that area. 

But whatever approach you take to fasting, just be aware that the first time you do it, it might not do anything for you except bother you. You might just kind of feel hungry and a little bit grumpy and say, “Phew, glad that's over.” That might be how your first fast turns out. That's okay. You learned something about yourself. You learned that you're mighty dependent on food. And you want and you want it right on schedule all the time. That's a good thing to learn about yourself and now change that about yourself. Do without a meal. Do without another one next week. Learn to fast as a discipline of controlling your appetite and directing your appetite towards God. And, if you do it a number of times, you'll find that the physical part of it isn't as uncomfortable anymore because you're used to it. And you'll be able to more focus on the spiritual purposes of fasting.

Submission. You take a break from control. Now, in one sense we should be doing that all the time where God is in control of a situation not me. And somebody else's concerns and desires matter, not just mine. But a discipline of submission means I'm going to go out of my way to be submissive. The Bible commands to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And sometimes we just need practice. And so, a discipline of submission might go something like this. Today, I'm not going to do what I want in any case where somebody else wants something different unless it would be sinful. So, you say in any interaction I have with my wife today, I'm just going to do what she wants instead of insisting on what I want unless she wanted something that was just dead evil. But if it's just something that was her preference over mine, we're going for her preference.  If go to work today, and there was something that I could have a preference this way or I could do it somebody else's way. I'm going to do it their way unless sin would be involved. You might do that for a whole day. It would not be a real easy thing now, would it? To go a whole day not insisting on what you wanted in any particular matter. Try it for a week. It might be hard. It might be one of the most liberating things you've ever done. 

Because submission brings freedom. Because you know one of the hardest things in life? It is the disappointment of thinking you should always have your own way and not getting it. The problem is not you don't always get your own way, you won't. The problem is you thought your happiness depended on getting your own way. And it doesn't. Submission, says Richard Foster, is the ability to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way. Our lives will not come to an end, if this or that does not happen. Just think that there's something Oh, I’m so mad that didn't happen. And later on, it turned out to be better for you that it didn't happen. I've had things related to my career to major decisions to things that people did to me even things they get sometimes that were wrong, and it turned out there was a good thing that had happened. And I get in all the dither about it instead of submitting to God in situations where I didn't like what happened. And in all cases that would involve leading me into sin. Submitting to other people where they wanted something, and I wanted something there. 

Now this doesn't mean that you go into permanent doormat mode, and you always give other people their own way all the time. It means that as a discipline of submission you set some periods, where you're just going to say no to yourself and just to others unless it involves sin. And then that you can get back to more normal way of relating where there's some given taking the relationship with your spouse where you kind of negotiate say, “Hey, honey, do you mind doing this?” And you give your reasons for wanting that and she gives her reasons for wanting that you find it a good way to do it. But submission helps you to answer that kind of back and forth and healthy manner, rather than we’ve got to do it my way or I was ruined. Submission as a discipline will be one of the most liberating things that could happen in your life. 

Sacrifice is a break from plenty. In some of our society we have gobs of stuff. We're wealthy even when we think we are we are. Others may have less but sacrifice is given kilohertz or doing something that costs us something we didn't have time for, but we did it for somebody anyway because we cared. The apostle Paul talks about the generosity of some people. He says out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. That's a strange sentence, isn't it? Poverty welled up in this generosity they gave as much as they were able and even beyond their ability. Now that’s sacrifice getting what you're able to get and then even more. Remember Jesus story. It wasn't even a story. It was a real life happening. He was watching people give money, and some of the wealthy prosperous people were putting in vast sums. And then He saw a poor widow toss in pennies. He says, You see that? She gave more than all the rest because she gave everything she had. And they were just giving out of their extra. 

God is so generous with us that when we're discipline givers, we can give out of our extra and we usually have plenty. How many of us if we tithed and gave 10%, we still have plenty from what God has given us. Because 90% of what God gives us is more than enough for what we need. But even for some of those of us who've been given prosperity to give more than we think we can afford for this that is a good discipline. Because we don't want to be cheap with God. And we don't want money to get a grip on our hearts. So, sometimes we give because we want to bless others and to help them and honor God. Sometimes you know what you need to give just for your own health, so that mammon, the love of money doesn't ruin your life. So, take a break from plenty. Give more than you can afford once in a while, and be blessed as you see that happening. 

Take a break. Rest is your break from busyness. Solitude, your break from people. Silence your break from noise. Secrecy, your break from publicity. Fasting, your break from food. Submission, your break from control. And sacrifice your break from plenty. And as you take a break, you're going to find some interesting things happening. When you rest, you're going to find that you're re-energized for work. You might think you're getting less done by taking a break, but actually you might get more done by resting. There's an old story about two people who were going to be in a wood chopping contest, and one of them chopped and chopped and chopped and chopped and chopped, and the other one chopped a while and then sat down and took a break and chopped a while and sat down and chopped a while and by the end of the day, he had chopped more than the other guy. And the other guy said, “Well, how in the world did you chop more wood that I did when you spent part of the time to sitting around, and I was working the whole time.” And the man who rested well, things while I sat there, I got some rest and some energy and I'm sharpening my axe. When you sharpen your axe and when you get your energy, you can get more done than when you're just worn down and never get sharp. So, sharpen your axe. Re-energize yourself for work. 

Solitude helps us actually to relate to others. Getting away from others makes us better people to be around when we are around others. Jesus went off by Himself. His disciples and other great people of faith needed their solitude, but it also made them better at relating. If you don't know how to be by yourself, if you always have to be in a crowd, then you really don't know how to be yourself with others and to be your best of self with and sometimes being by yourself helps you to relate to them in loud and in ways and when you're back with them again. 

Silence improves communication. If you don't know how to shut up, you don't know how to talk well. If you're always running off at the mouth, and you never know, the value of not speaking and of being by yourself to think and what comes out of your mouth isn't all that helpful. But if you're by yourself, and then you're quiet, and you know how to turn it off and not say too much. Then when you do speak, you have something worth saying and something worth hearing. Secrecy helps your public life. If you're always trying to impress people, you might impress them. Then again, you might not because after a while, they may see through you and they say oh, he's just putting on a show. He's trying to impress us when we know what he's like in private. He's just not that way. Or you just come across this feeling phony. But if you are genuinely a kind, caring person, helping others loving them, doing the right thing when nobody's looking, then you actually are in public. Your light is shining before people not even trying to show up and Jesus’ light is shining through you because you're the same person in secret as you are in public. 

Fasting will enrich your feasting. For one thing after a time of fasting that food tastes mighty fine. As the Bible says to the hungry man every good thing is sweet, even stuff that isn't so tasty, taste mighty good, if you're hungry enough. And so fasting can enrich, you're enjoying the food of course but I mean more than that. Fasting, when you learn to control your appetites, then you can also enjoy it when you can feast your appetites in God given ways. When you just always are living for pleasure, it becomes a lot less pleasurable than when you know how to deny yourself pleasure and then take pleasure to ask God's gift. 

Submission builds boldness. That again, may sound like a contradiction, but submission makes me bold because you see there's a difference between real boldness and being a control freak or a self-centered pig who always has to have your way. That's not boldness, that's just being a moron who always wants to get what they want. Submission, on the other hand, when you say you know what I'm going to give other people their way for a period of time unless it unless it would require me actually to sin and just let them have the way you start thinking through what is a sin, what's not a sin, how much of what I do is just driven by my cravings and my desires rather what's right. I just sort that out. Because I know I can give in on a lot of things. And there are some things that I must not give in on because God has spoken. And God calls me to do this. And then you are bold in the battles that really matter. And you don't pick fights that don't matter. And so, submission builds boldness in fighting for the things that really matter. 

And sacrifice when you get more than you can afford. You find tremendous satisfaction in saying you know what, I gave more than I thought I could afford, and God is providing. And He’s providing me with joy just in the act of giving. And he's providing me with all that I need anyway, and you'll find your spiritual life being refreshed. 

So, taking a break resets your life and renews your energies in all of these wonderful ways. Disciplines of abstinence may sound not fun and intimidating but when you find out what's really involved this can be so vital for your spiritual fitness and for your overall flourishing. And remember what it's all about whether it's these disciplines we just talked about are the primary disciplines of prayer and Bible reading or other practices that you put as part of your walk with God, the key is this train yourself for godliness. Godliness is a value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. You want to grow in godliness so you can resist the devil and make him flee and so that you can come nearer to God and have Him come here to you. As you grow in godliness, you're growing closer to Jesus in experience. You're experiencing more and more of the Savior, and it was Holy Spirit at work in your life experiencing more and more of God as your Father. Your character is being changed and you become more like the Lord Jesus Christ in His character and become more like Him, in the impact that you have on others. That's why we want to practice spiritual disciplines and spiritual fitness, not just so we can feel like we are ever so holy and important. But so that we grow in true godliness, a deeper connection and closer connection to Jesus, a greater resemblance to who He is and his holy character and impact and impact where Jesus is really affecting others through the work that He's doing in us.