4-19-26 Everyone Needs Help Sometimes (Numbers)

Today Pastor Ken looks at Numbers 11 and the need we often have for extra help in our lives.

Transcript

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So when I was a student at Oklahoma University, I worked in the main library for a while. And most of the time it was like a nice, quiet environment to work. But I remember one night all these students were there studying and it had been very quiet. And then all of a sudden, one of the students climbed up on a table and just started screaming at the top of his lungs. He wasn't screaming at anyone. He was just screaming. And we had to call the basically paramedics to come and to get him. It was finals week, and he was a student who had just cracked under the pressure. He was an Asian kid. I'm sure he felt a lot of pressure from family to do well, a lot of pressure from himself to do well. There were too many deadlines. There were too many requirements, papers and exams and things going on, and he just completely lost it. It's burnout. It's the reason that pastors, after 10 or 20 or 30 years, have some huge moral failure or they have some huge breakdown, or they just walk away from ministry. It's why teachers who love their job end up doing something else. Why police officers that have done well for so long end up falling apart? It's why moms and dads sometimes lose it from all the pressure of raising kids and providing for kids and taking care of things and working and on and on and on. Have you ever been there? Have you ever felt the symptoms of burnout, constant fatigue, deep exhaustion, always feeling like there's too much to do and not enough time and energy to do it, swamped by things, bombarded from every side, sometimes even physical symptoms of trying to take care of everything. Make sure everything is done right. Well, we're going to see even Moses, the man of God, struggles with burnout. So please stand as you're able and let's look at Numbers chapter 11, beginning with verse 10 through 15. Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents. Then the Lord became very angry, and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the Lord, Why have you treated your servants so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight that you laid the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them that you should say to me, Carry them in your bosom as a wet nurse carries a nursing child to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they come weeping to me, saying, Give us meat to eat. I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you're going to treat me, put me to death at once, if I have found favor in your sight, and do not let me see my misery. This is the word of God for the people of God. Please be seated. Even Moses has a breaking point. I mean, Moses is the hero of the first part of the Bible, the Exodus, the wilderness where he goes across and takes the people to the promised land. God takes him from being a literal shepherd out in the wilderness with his sheep to leading them. He first has to go and confront Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who has armies and police and support, and all Moses has is God and the staff that he carries. And he does so, confronts him boldly to his face, and they go through this long struggle. And then he has to lead the people across, and they're constantly complaining. From the very beginning, even before they get out of Egypt, they blame Moses for things. They criticize him. They say, You got the wrong motives. You came to cause us problems, to get us killed, to elevate yourself over us. They undermine his leadership again and again, and yet he faithfully intercedes for them. Several times God is ready to wipe them out and start over with Moses. And Moses says, No, God, please don't do that. He prays for them. He goes through all kinds of ups and downs for them. At one point he even says to God, If you must, blot my name out of the book of life, but don't take it out on these people, willing to trade his own future for theirs. His own brother, his own family criticizes him and tries to overcome his leadership at times. Does any of this sound familiar in your life? Do you have any of those kind of struggles with people? I mean, think about those times when it seemed like all the demands were pushing you in all kinds of different directions, and there's no way you can take care of it all. And people are criticizing you, and there's conflict, and there's stress, and there's more to do and more demands. I remember when my daughter went as a 17-year-old as a rotary exchange student to Venezuela. And we didn't realize until she got down there that's when Chavez was taking power. And there was a huge struggle, and the Rotarians tended to be on the opposition side of Chavez. And before long it was getting bad, and they had to take the kids, her and her host family kids, and put them in a safe house at one point because they were having this big plebiscite where he was taking over. And most of the Rotary Exchange students, in fact, all of them, but Bethany came home. And everybody was on me about you need to bring her home. My parents, the other grandparents, my ex, people of the church. But Bethany kept saying, Dad, I don't want to leave. And I knew Bethany and knew that she would not do well, not having a focus and a direction of what to do once she got back. And so Carter and I went down and spent a week with the host family, checked things out, and decided it would be okay for her to stay. And she did, made it through the full year. But I remember how much that pressure with everything else going on in my life affected me at the time. Moses reaches a point of burnout. He experiences the signs, exhaustion, dread of work, feeling detached, irritable, anxious, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like he just can't get enough rest, not caring about the things that he used to care about. On and on. He says, I'm done dealing with these people. These are not my kids. Why do I have to act like they're my kids? Why do I have to lead them and carry them as their mom does a little baby? Why do I have to keep dealing with them? He feels the pressure of their constant rebellions. The rebellions aren't just about against God, they're against him as well. And he doesn't feel like God's going to let him give up his call either. He knows that God wants him to continue in this role and he feels pressure from that too. It's just too much, he says. And so Moses literally gives God an ultimatum. He says, if this is going to continue, I want you to just kill me now and get it over with because I can't go through this situation anymore. Burnout can lead to depression. It can lead to breakdowns. It can even lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. Now, there's a difference between burnout and depression. One of the big differences is burnout can be dealt with with rest and support and so forth. And depression is one of those things that you can do a lot of rest and it still doesn't make it go away. Often it is a medical condition that needs to be treated very carefully in a number of different ways. Burnout is a temporary thing that can be dealt with. And Moses is experiencing burnout. So let's see what happens next. Numbers 11, 16 through 17. So the Lord said to Moses, Gather for me 70 elders, 70 of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, bring them to the tent of meeting and have them take their place there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you, so that you will not bear it all by yourself. God has a plan to help Moses not burn out. He's not ready for Moses to quit. He's certainly not ready to kill Moses. Instead, he says, I've got a plan to provide you some help so you don't have to bear the burden, the responsibility, the demands, all by yourself. And 70 elders, people that have demonstrated leadership, are chosen. It's interesting that that number 70, it's not as important as 40 and some of the other numbers in the Old Testament, but it is an interesting number that pops up in these places. In Genesis 10, 70 nations are listed. In Exodus 1, 5, the descendants of Jacob that go to Israel are 70 people. The ancient world knows councils of 70. And in fact, there's a couple places where there's revolts and they kill the king and 70 of his quote sons, which may mean advisors, his counsel. And the Jewish Sanhedrin will later have 70 members. God is providing a way for Moses to lead without being completely overwhelmed in the process. He knows that burnout calls for rest, it calls for self-care, sleeping enough, eating enough, getting exercise, the things that our body needs. It calls for outside help and support. It calls for boundaries. Sometimes, in order to avoid burnout, we have to learn to say no. My little granddaughter Evie, my little electric vehicle, she is almost nine months. And she doesn't say no yet, but she does this kind of wiggle thing for no. And my daughter sent a video of her doing it. No. Evie, are you ready to go? No, you know. We need to learn how to do that too. And if my almost nine-month-old granddaughter can tell people, no, you got to be able to do that as well. You can't do everything. You burn yourself out if you try to do so. And often the hard part when it comes to this is that the people that are of danger of burnout are the ones that are very responsible and very active and want to be involved in everything. And they've got that, what does they call it now? FOMO, fear of missing out. So they got to get in the middle of everything and they have a hard time saying no to others because this internal thing in them wants to do it. If only they had all the energy and time and strength in the world. Ever know somebody who complains constantly about what they have to do but isn't about to give it up? There was a lady in one of my former churches who was the head of the women's group. And it was a very active women's group. I mean, they raised money, they did dinners, they did all kinds of things, and she complained about I just, you know, this is just too much. I just can't do this. And so I said, Well, maybe it's time for us to find somebody else. What are you talking about? I said, Well, how about we give you some help? No, they don't do it the right way. They won't do it my way if we do. Sometimes internally, it is hard to do so because it feeds our ego of being needed and being necessary. But Moses, well, let's see how Moses reacts. Because we are going to see that there's always somebody who doesn't get the plan and the memo. So let's pick up again chapter 11 of Numbers 24 and following. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy of the elders of the people and placed them all around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again. Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them, and they were among those rescued, but they had not gone out to the tent. So they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And Joshua, son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, My Lord Moses, stop them. But Moses said to them, Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them? And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. Well, first of all, Eldad and Medad don't get the memo, or maybe they got the email and they didn't read it all, which is what happens a lot of times. You know, we'll send out instructions for some event, and people call and say, Well, what about this? And what about this? And it's like, did you read the memo? The email that's got all those things in it. We're all like in a rush and we all just scam through things. So they don't come to the tent like they're supposed to. They stay at home. And God takes his spirit that he gives to Moses and He spreads it out among them. And even these two prophesy. Even these two do that. This is uh God's spirit qualifies them to lead. It gives them the ability to judge the people fairly, to be there for them, and it's shown by them prophesying, by them being able to speak from God's word, probably predict things, have these kind of utterances about God. But then it says it stops after that. It's really just meant to confirm that these people have been divinely anointed to do the role that they do. Now the rabbis have an interesting story about the selection of these 70 men that I got to share with you. They say what happens is, of course, this isn't the scripture, this comes later, but they say what happened was every tribe gets to suggest six elders. So you end up with 72 from the 12 tribes rather than 70. And Moses makes little slips of paper, and on 70 of them it says elder, and on two they're just blank. And they hand the slips out, and when he hands one out, if it says elder, he says, Since God has already chosen you, what can I do? And the ones that are blank, he says, Since God has already rejected you, what can I do? So he doesn't even have to take the heat for who he chooses and who he doesn't, right? But you know what you see demonstrated here is very much like our call to ministry. You know, we believe that God calls people to be ministers, to serve in different ways in different areas. And when it's a process through the church of calling pastors and ministers and so forth, you have the call of God, but then that person can't just say, I'm called by God, and that's the end of it. They need to demonstrate that God is really working through them. They need to show the gifts and graces of ministry. They need to be able to make a difference in ministry. And then the church puts its stamp of approval in the idea of ordination on someone when they have shown that. So this is God's kind of divine ordination of these 70 leaders so that Moses doesn't burn out, so that he's got help, he's got support, he's got others that are taking care of part of the process. But then the third problem comes up, and the third problem is his assistant Joshua, who gets upset for Moses. Moses, make him quit. Those two that didn't follow the rules, those two that didn't come to the tent, tell them to stop. Have you ever noticed when you need to stop something, there's usually pressure from somebody around you not to stop doing that? Oh, we can't do it without you. Oh, you're absolutely necessary for that. Oh, you quitter. Oh no, you can't rest. We need you here. There's always somebody, and sometimes it's from good intent, but they become agents to facilitate your burnout if you listen to them. Someone who always depends on you doing exactly what you've done before. So, how dare you talk about it being too much? And it becomes destructive. See, Moses is able to realize that God is in control. It's okay to share his power, it's okay to share his responsibility. It's okay because God is with these people just like he's with Moses. It's okay to pass on that responsibility as long as it gets done and it's gonna get done because God is the one that's really in control. Do you know that in your life? Do you trust that God is really the one that you have to answer to, the one that's really in control? It's okay to say no to things because you know who you are with God. It's okay to say, I can't do it at this time. It's okay to stop the pressure of those that demand too much from you. You know, that job that's pushing you to the point it's going to kill you will replace you the day after you die or the week after you die. That job that needs you so much that you can't miss it will do fine without you and you won't be around to see it. You are important. You're important to God, you're important to others, but it doesn't all depend on you. It's true of all of us. It doesn't all depend on us. We are not only given the opportunity by God to rest, we are commanded to rest. To realize the world keeps on running even if we take time off. We are commanded to prioritize. Man, Jesus was great at prioritizing. People would come and say, Here, Jesus, this is the mission that I think you should have, and he'd say no. And go through the gospels and see how many times he tells people no. Some people come and want to follow him, and he even tells them, no. And when they try to distract him with something else, even if it's something really important, he says, No. Because he knows the Father's mission. He's focused upon serving God. He's able to stand up to the pressure, to set the boundaries, and to do what's right. Notice what Moses says here. Moses says, you know, Joshua, you don't have to be worried about God's spirit coming on these, even these kind of rebellious ones that didn't read the memo. I wish God's spirit was on all of his people. And you know what? His wish comes true. What does Jesus do? He goes to the cross, he dies for us, and on the day of Pentecost, he sends God's Spirit to be on all God's people. So that we are all called and equipped to be baptized ministers for Jesus Christ. Nobody has to do it all. We all have a role to play. We all have gifts, we all have opportunities to contribute. We're all supposed to be part of God's people. When burnout occurs in churches, sometimes it's because the people that need to be doing things aren't doing things, and some of the people that need to say no on some things are trying to do it all. It's a shared ministry. And Moses sees that truth. He's able to accept it. His ego's not so big that he can't let go of some of that power. And he's happy to share it. God has dealt with his need and helped to provide what's necessary. He's really saying, Moses, it doesn't all depend on you. You don't have to worry about everything. I got this. I'm able to handle this. I'm gonna end today with the words of Jesus Christ. One of my favorite. Scripture passages that I think applies to all of us that struggle with burnout and trying to do too much and trying to hold everything together, whether you're a pastor or a teacher or a factory worker or just a parent dealing with it. And it's found in Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30. Jesus says, Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. How could Jesus' burden be light? It's because he's focused on serving the Heavenly Father, doing His will, doing His job, doing what God has appointed for Him, and He knows that's the key. When we focus upon Jesus Christ, that it equips us to care for ourselves along the way, to set the boundaries, to say no, to know what's important and what's not quite as important, to know what we have the gifts to do and what we have a lack of those gifts to do, and somebody else needs to do. To be able to be healthy in our service to God, knowing that God loves us. He loves you for who you are, for who he is making you in Jesus Christ. Not just for what you do. He's willing to provide you rest. He wants you to be his healthy servant. Will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you for your incredible love. Thank you for all the ways you showed up, most of all through Jesus Christ our Lord, who calls us to be his people, who puts his spirit upon us, who equips us to be coworkers, co-laborers in the gospel, to have that privilege of helping to bring in the kingdom of heaven, making real differences in the lives of others, blessing and experiencing what that means like. Who calls us to be like Jesus and equips us and energizes us to be able to live that calling. Thank you for that love. Help us to be responsible in our ministries, in our lives. Help us to all do our part, that none get burnt out. Help us to be a healthy people and a healthy community that will demonstrate to the world that Jesus Christ is alive and that we have been with Jesus. We pray this in his name. Amen.