Why Am I So Overwhelmed? [32]

Host: TJ Freeman

Summary: In this episode, rural pastor TJ Freeman addresses the exhaustion and struggles many face in their daily lives. He brings encouragement through Revelation chapter 7, emphasizing that faithfulness amidst challenges is not in vain. He likens life to assembling a puzzling and reveals that scripture provides a clear vision of the ultimate picture. TJ reassures Christians of the future victory in Christ and the importance of prioritizing our relationship with Christ over other things in our life.

Connect with Us:

• Website: backtorurality.com
• Social Media: Facebook
• Email: tj@brainerdinstitute.com

Transcript

Have you ever gone to bed feeling like you're carrying the weight of the world? Like no one understands how hard it is to get up for another shift or to face another day? You come home exhausted, the last thing you think about is trying to do anything spiritual. Maybe you've been trying to hold on to your faith, but it feels like everything around you is more like survival.

There's no one really to talk to about the struggles you're facing and it's hard to see the point. When it feels like one thing after another. You're just trying to do your best. You show up at church when you can. You pray when you get a moment. You keep pressing on despite everything that's weighing you down.

And it's not about trying to be noticed. It's just about trying to make it through the day without getting lost in the grind. This is where revelation is so helpful. In fact, in Revelation chapter 7, there is a really helpful passage that reminds us that our faithfulness here, even in the hard moments, is not in vain.

There is a victory waiting that is going to make all of the struggles you're facing today look small. I want to show you how to keep your eyes fixed on that future so that it will help push you through another day. Well, hello, my name is TJ Freeman and I am a rural pastor. And just like you, I know what it means to live in the middle of nowhere. Far from Chick fil a. Far from really good sushi. I know that's the struggle on your mind. You, like me, want the really good sushi. Okay. I lived in a city for a little while. There were a few things that had going on for him, but by and large, I really like living in the middle of nowhere now. Especially because of the responsibility that I and others like me, that being even you, have the opportunity to make God's glory known in a place where not that many other people are thinking about it.

Now, I know you've got a lot going on. I know what that struggle feels like. I think about seasons in my life when I was really grinding. There was a time where I was teaching school and coaching, trying to do some classes, and it was just way overwhelming. And being in a small town, it seems like you wear a lot of extra hats.

That was a season where I felt really particularly buried by the stuff going on in my day to day. And I remember feeling like, I know I'm supposed to be reading my Bible. I know I'm supposed to be praying more intentionally. I know I'm supposed to go to that thing at the church. But I just had so much going on that it was really tough to juggle it all. 

On top of the fact that there just aren't a lot of high paying jobs. You're not making as much money out here. It's hard to make ends meet. You know exactly how I have felt in moments like that, because you've felt like that too. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't like putting puzzles together.

Do you like putting puzzles together? I mean, Whoever came up with the idea of saying, let's take this beautiful picture. And how about we go ahead and just chop it up into a thousand pieces and then we'll sell it to somebody whose whole objective is to put the thing back together.

Puzzles are weird. I don't like sitting there hunched over the pieces going, Yeah, is that part of the sky? Or, no, is that the rear end of a horse? I don't like it when the pieces come up missing. And it seems like they always come up missing. And, despite the fact that I have four kids, none of them took the piece and ran off with it.

I don't know how it got in the couch cushion. I'll find it there months later. Somehow it mysteriously found its way over there. Don't enjoy the puzzle putting together process, but I am thankful that when I do put a puzzle together, I've got the top of the box to look at. That at least gives me a little bit of hope.

I get frustrated trying to force all these little pieces together. And then I look over there at the top of the box and I'm like, Oh, that's what I'm going for. I gotta keep working toward that. Life is a lot like a puzzle. We have all these pieces that it feels like we're trying to fit together.

Sometimes we can't identify them. We're like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. Other times, we try to force them together and they just don't fit and it doesn't work out right. And it would be nice If in all of this work to put this puzzle of our lives together, we just had a box top to look at, that would show us what the actual picture is meant to look like.

Well, actually, that's really what we have here in the book of Revelation. Now let's be honest, the Book of Revelation feels like a puzzle in itself. It doesn't feel like the box top that shows this perfectly clear picture. It feels like confusion and scary stuff. I, at times in my life, have shied away from the Book of Revelation because I don't get it.

Well, I have been studying it lately. And it is beautiful and it's amazing. And as John says, the beginning, it is a blessing to those who read it. And it's much more clear than we realize it's apocalyptic literature. Okay. That's the big 10, 000 word. We don't read a lot of apocalyptic literature, but it's a genre, just like fiction is a genre, and nonfiction is a genre, and poetry is a genre. And you read each one a little bit differently.

Well, apocalyptic literature is like that. And the same reason that a lot of people don't like poetry, because they don't get it, is the same reason a lot of people don't like the book of Revelation, because they just don't get it. But as you start to read it and study it, you start to understand how apocalyptic literature works.

Okay, that was my little theological diatribe. What I want you to know, though, is that John, the apostle, wrote this at the end of his life. Because he wanted to encourage the Christians around him to stay faithful. How's that for something that might be helpful?

You want to stay faithful too. That's what this episode is all about, staying faithful when the weight of life is just bearing down on you and it's really, really hard to stay faithful. When you're trying to squeeze all those pieces of the puzzle in there together and it feels like they're not fitting, maybe something's missing.

You want to stay faithful in times like that. You don't want to have a big hole in the middle of the puzzle that is your life. Well, John wrote this book to help with something just like that. When you read the first six chapters, there's some really neat stuff and there's some really scary stuff. The really scary stuff is really ramped up by the end of chapter six.

 It gets really bad by the end of chapter six. There, God's judgment and wrath has been being poured out on the planet progressively, and there are still some people living on the earth, and here's what they cry out.

They cry out, to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who's seated on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of their wrath has come. And who can stand? That is just a poetic way of saying it's going to get so bad at the end, that people are going to want to to commit suicide rather than face the wrath of God. Which by the way, doesn't help you escape that.

And they ask the question, who can stand? If God is against you, can you stand? And as this text is unfolding, we're expecting to see the judgment just finally overwhelm these people. But there's a break actually in chapter seven, and there's this 144, 000 ain't going to get into that on this episode.

Stick around though. Maybe someday we'll deal with that group. But I do want to jump to verse 9 of chapter 7, where there's a whole bunch of people standing. Listen to this. Verse 9. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude, that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.

What are they doing? They are standing before the throne and before the Lamb. The same one whose wrath is being poured out on those who rebelled against him, and they're saying, we can't stand. Here's a group of people who actually somehow have managed to stand, and here's what they look like.

They're clothed in white robes. They have palm branches in their hands that they're waving around, and they're saying something. They're crying out with a loud voice, Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. This is beautiful. Here's a picture of the end of all things, the top of the puzzle box, when God's plan for creation is all together without any pieces missing, assembled there for all to see.

Here's what we're going to see. We're going to see a God whose enemies have been punished, and a God whose people have been spared through the victory of Christ. Now, those people standing there, though, they're wearing white robes. You know what that's a symbol of? Let me give you a hint. Bum, bum, ba bum.

There you go. Sorry to punish your ears with my little rendition of Here Comes the Bride. Why does a bride wear white? Traditionally, that's to show her purity.

Isaiah talks about this in the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament. Isaiah 118. He says, Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they're red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Think of like a pure, white, spotless lamb's wool.

Somehow, you can go from being stained by sin to being made pure. And how does that happen? Is it by your good works? So if you just do good enough in this life, you'll be pure enough to stand before the Lamb? Absolutely not. One imperfection is enough to take your flawless status and trash it. And you've made more than one little mistake.

So have I. So, we're not wearing those white clothes through anything that we've done. So, is it the Jews? Well, no, it seems that if you read the Old Testament, the Jews are just as guilty as anyone else in the world. Being Jewish doesn't save you. What actually saves you? Well, think about what they're crying out here in the text.

Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb. Salvation is not something we earn, something that we can buy, something that we're born into. It's something that we receive as a gift from Jesus the Lamb. And He's offered it to all who will trust Him by faith. You don't have to stand Opposed to him as a rebel who will be judged in the end.

You can come before him and be made new. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. Think of the hymn, Jesus Paid it All, where our garments are Washed white in the blood of Calvary's lamb. You can stand there around that throne if you're in Christ.

He has won victory for you, which is why those people are holding in their hands palm branches. I used to go to a lot of hockey games. There were great multitudes there, too. And nobody was waving palm branches, but a lot of people had foam fingers and big flags, and they're waving them around like crazy, especially if their team wins.

We know how to wave stuff around when there's been a victory. It's an instinct, and that's exactly what's happening here around the throne, only it's palm branches. Kind of like when Jesus was riding that donkey and people were shouting, Hosanna. And laying palm branches down. We celebrate that or commemorate that on Palm Sunday.

It's a sign of victory. Victory won by the Lamb on our behalf. So what's going on around that throne is there are people from every nation, tribe, and tongue gathered there celebrating the reality that Jesus Christ has spared them from wrath, saved them, and brought them in. Other places in Revelation, it talks about the great wedding feast.

That we get to be a part of as the bride is united with the bridegroom, as the church is united fully and finally with Christ. Hey, that day is going to be more thrilling than anything you've ever seen or experienced here on this earth. I know there's that imagery sometimes that gets in our minds about cherubs floating around on clouds playing the harp.

That is not the imagery you should have when you think about your future. You're thinking about this great celebration. This beautiful wedding feast, this new heavens and new earth that are yours in Christ. It is going to be great and glorious, and if you're in Christ, you get to be there. That's the picture on top of the box.

Now, how does that help you make sense of your life today? Well, God is calling people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. I like to say it this way. He's calling people from every nook and cranny. You live in the middle of nowhere, yet God did not overlook that place. He did not overlook you. He looked upon you with kindness and mercy, and he saved you.

And now, you know what you've got to do? You've got to put the puzzle pieces together for the rest of your life. You're trying to figure out, how can I live for the glory of God in everything I do here on out? That's what you've been redeemed to do. You realize that. You haven't been redeemed just to play the get out of hell free card when you die.

You've been redeemed or saved so that you can do what we talked about in the last episode. You can be a good image bearer who represents the Lord by making Him known in everything you do. And so now as you think about the overwhelm you're feeling, the frustrations you're feeling, the busyness you're feeling, you realize, No, no, no, wait.

I can't prioritize all that other stuff. What's most important is not how my boss feels about me. What's most important is not the reputation I have at school. What's most important is not how many baskets I'm able to sink. What's most important is not the accomplishments. What's most important is not what's in my bank account.

What's most important is not a vacation. What's most important is Christ. And He will satisfy you more than any of that other stuff all put together. He's what's on the top of the puzzle box. And you get to experience and enjoy Him even today. So here's my challenge for you this week. Why not sit down and figure out how to re prioritize your life around the picture on the top of the puzzle box?

Why not just figure out how do I get more of God's Word into my life? How do I listen to more sermons? How do I Read more books that help me understand what it means to live as a Christian in this day, in this culture. How do I get more conversations with other believers? How do I make more Christian friends?

How do I pray more? How do I pray more faithfully for church members? How do I pray more faithfully for the advancement of Christ's kingdom through the preaching of the gospel? Is your life really centered around the kingdom that you've been brought into when you became a Christian? If not, a lot of that nonsense that you're dealing with in your life is, boy, I hate to even say this, but I think it's true, it's self inflicted.

Your priorities are off. And so the Lord in his kindness is like, Hey, I want to get your attention here. You're not feeling great right now because your priorities are out of whack. Now, maybe you're a Christian whose priorities are, you know, In whack? Is that the opposite of being out of whack? And you're going, I still feel kind of lousy.

The Bible talks about that too. There are things that you think about when you get into the blues, or depression, or you're struggling, or you feel like you can't bear what's going on. And it's for another day, but 1 Corinthians 10:13 would be a great place for you to go. Well, I hope this has been helpful. Let's just kind of review what we've covered.

We've realized that the book of Revelation is a little mysterious, but it's actually meant for clarity. It's a blessing to read it. And when we look at something like Revelation 7, we get a sneak peek into what our future looks like. We see the top of the puzzle box. And now, as we start putting the puzzle of our life together, asking how does it fit into the greater puzzle that the Lord is establishing as his plan for all of creation unfolds? We need to make our decisions based on what's on top of the puzzle box, not just on what we want to try to force to fit.

Not just on what we think might go better here then this piece. And you're just working all those pieces together with patience, Trusting the Lord who will bring you home to celebrate the victory that you have in Christ. Be encouraged dear brother or sister in Christ. And I want to give you a song that might encourage you How does that sound? Fire up the YouTube. Fire up the Amazon music.

I like that one. Fire up the Spotify. Type with your thumbs the words on that day, and look for the one by City of Light, and when you get it, just give it a little click, and you'll hear beautiful singing instead of me reading, but I do want to read you some of the lyrics. I believe in Christ, risen from the dead.

He now reigns victorious. His kingdom knows no end. Through his resurrection, death has lost its hold. I know on that final day. I'll rise as Jesus rose. How sweet. On that day, we will see you shining brighter than the sun. On that day we will know you as we lift our voices one. Till that day we praise you for your never ending grace, and we will keep on singing on that glorious day.

It's a sweet song. There's a lot more meat on the bone, but you're gonna have to go check that out for yourself. For now, let's get back to life, back to rurality.