Handling Post-Sermon Blues

00:00:00.000 | It is Monday, and although it may come as a surprise to our non-pastor listeners,

00:00:09.080 | many pastors will know that Mondays can be some of the darkest days of the week

00:00:12.360 | for them. Steve, a pastor, writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, how do you cope,

00:00:16.880 | battle, and overcome post-sermon depression? Every Monday seems like a

00:00:21.200 | dark cloud of depression looming over my head." Pastor John, what would you have to

00:00:25.600 | say to Steve? I don't want to give the impression that there are simple and

00:00:30.760 | quick fixes for deep and complex emotional conditions. I don't know what

00:00:37.600 | Steve is dealing with in any depth or complexity, but we are deep people, and we

00:00:43.380 | are complex people, and there probably are a hundred streams feeding into the

00:00:50.020 | slew of despond, as John Bunyan calls it for Steve. So I would be

00:00:57.160 | hesitant to make decisive pronouncements about all of his therapies. It would be

00:01:02.160 | good for him to talk to somebody who knows him better, but having said that,

00:01:06.920 | there are things that we share in common. I am one of those, right? I know what he's

00:01:12.340 | talking about. I think I mentioned in one of the chapters in Desiring God that,

00:01:16.760 | well, I wrote that book when I was approaching my 40s, and in those days

00:01:21.760 | there were days of discouragement so deep my mind could scarcely recall my

00:01:27.280 | children's names. I think I wrote that. So I have a little bit of empathy at least

00:01:32.160 | with Steve's struggle. He doesn't tell me his age, by the way. I wish I knew, but I

00:01:37.280 | did want to say there is something about midlife issues for men that's real,

00:01:41.880 | and the turning point of 40, you know, those years on either side of 40, can be

00:01:46.560 | a crisis for men for reasons I don't think we fully understand physically and

00:01:52.120 | psychologically. Certainly was for me. So beware, all you men between 35 and 45,

00:01:59.200 | that you're in a season that you will get through, and don't leave your

00:02:03.600 | wife and buy a sailboat or a motorcycle and find another woman. That's a stupid way

00:02:08.120 | to solve the problem. Stay faithful to your ministry. Stay faithful to her. So

00:02:11.960 | here are some of my warfare strategies for Mondays when the plague of

00:02:18.440 | discouragement descends on a pastor. Number one, go out to pasture.

00:02:23.800 | Every pastor is a sheep on Monday. He needs green grass, still water. He needs a

00:02:28.760 | shepherd, and when I say he needs a shepherd, I mean Jesus ministering

00:02:33.840 | through a dead shepherd. I'm talking about Puritans. I mean, it may not be

00:02:38.440 | Puritans for Steve, but it was for me, and what I mean is find the kinds of

00:02:44.800 | books, poems, whatever. Find the kind that feed your weary soul. This is different

00:02:52.840 | from wrestling with some exegetical issue. This is lounging in a field of

00:02:59.120 | incredibly nourishing grass and lounging by a stream of crystal pure refreshing

00:03:08.400 | water with a veteran lover of God and knower of men, and there aren't any

00:03:15.440 | better than Burroughs, Owen, Boston, Brooks, Bunyan, Sibbs, Edwards. I mean, they're

00:03:21.680 | just--these brothers, or I'll add Newton since I'm talking to Tony Rankine.

00:03:27.200 | There are nourishing writers who aren't into controversy. They're into soul food.

00:03:33.960 | So that's number one. Go out to pasture. Know who your shepherds are, your dead

00:03:39.120 | shepherds, and let them feed you. And secondly, recall the words of Jesus, "Do

00:03:46.400 | not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your

00:03:51.000 | names are written in heaven," because we can put so much of our emotional stakes

00:03:56.240 | in the success of our ministry that we forget that Jesus said, "Look, even if demons

00:04:01.480 | are coming out every Sunday morning, don't get up on Monday and feel great

00:04:05.440 | about that, mainly. Get up Monday morning and feel great. My name is written there.

00:04:12.600 | My name is written there," which means you're safe with Jesus. Cultivate an

00:04:18.600 | amazement that he knows you and you know him, and make that relationship the place

00:04:24.760 | of wonder and the place of joy, and let ministry successes rise and fall

00:04:30.680 | as they will, but keep your heart staked right in Jesus and your name being

00:04:36.920 | written there. Here's a third one. Get a prayer team to support you and put

00:04:41.000 | them to work on Monday morning. We required a prayer team support team for

00:04:45.200 | all the pastors. These are lay people in the church who love their pastor, maybe

00:04:49.120 | five or ten of them, and they are committed to pray for you every time you

00:04:53.720 | write to them or any other time. My prayer team has been with me for years,

00:04:58.240 | and I credit them with many rescues and much fruit and much joy and a lot of

00:05:06.560 | survival, and so get one of those teams. Find those who you know would

00:05:10.960 | pray for you. Get them a list. Put them on a group mailing address, and

00:05:15.880 | Sunday night, as you feel it coming on, write to them and say, "Fight for me

00:05:21.200 | tomorrow morning. Fight for me tomorrow morning in prayer," and I think he will

00:05:26.360 | feel the difference. And the fourth thing I would say is hammer your body with

00:05:32.400 | whatever exercise works for you. Don't become a couch potato. It is deadly. God

00:05:37.160 | made muscles for work, and he made the heart to sustain it, and he made the

00:05:42.280 | brain to produce antidepressants in response to vigorous exercise. Don't

00:05:46.800 | spare yourself in this. Get a bike. Ride 20 miles as hard as you can on Monday

00:05:51.840 | morning, or run or swim or do weights or dig in the garden, but don't fool

00:05:56.520 | yourself that you are exercising when you're not panting. I mean, a lot of

00:06:01.200 | people think, "I'm exercising." You're not exercising. You are lolling. Make it

00:06:06.240 | happen. You will be surprised. You will be surprised how closely connected are the

00:06:13.120 | body and the soul. One last thing. Trust the promises of God relating to your

00:06:20.200 | Sunday work just passed. Your preaching was not in vain. Isaiah 55, 10 to 11. It's

00:06:26.520 | not gonna come back vain. It is not going to be in vain. Your suffering on Monday

00:06:31.720 | is not in vain. All pastors suffer because God ordains to turn their

00:06:36.120 | suffering and their comfort into the good of his people, 2 Corinthians 1.

00:06:39.960 | Your darkness is not too dark for God, Psalm 139. "Surely the darkness shall

00:06:46.920 | not shall cover me." If you say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me and the light

00:06:50.640 | about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as

00:06:55.400 | the day, for the darkness is light with you. So no darkness is dark to God, and

00:07:01.120 | your season of weeping will change. Stay at it. Psalm 126, "He who goes out weeping,

00:07:11.680 | bearing the seed for sowing, will come home with shouts of joy, bringing his

00:07:19.120 | sheaves with him." What that says pretty plainly is farming is just plain hard

00:07:25.280 | work, and you can't not go to the field when you feel miserable. You got to go

00:07:31.200 | plant the seed while your heart is breaking, and the promise is it won't

00:07:36.160 | stay broken. It won't stay broken. There will come another season, so I want to

00:07:41.640 | say don't give up, stay with it, fight the good fight, finish your course, keep the faith.

00:07:46.280 | Thank you, Pastor John. And perhaps you're not a pastor, but you have one, a

00:07:51.160 | pastor who expends himself for you every Sunday. Please consider taking time today

00:07:54.600 | on this Monday to pray for him and his heart and for his rest and restoration

00:07:58.200 | today. Also, this discussion reminds me of two episodes we recorded for pastors

00:08:02.560 | in the past, for pastors who are faced with a darkness that will not lift on

00:08:06.560 | Tuesday. Episode number 27, "Fighting for Joy in Pastoral Ministry," and episode

00:08:11.280 | number 28, "Should a Joyless Pastor Preach Joy in God?" Check those episodes

00:08:15.440 | out in the podcast archive. Well, we have recently been talking a lot about

00:08:19.400 | Burger King and what to do with retailers who openly support the sin of

00:08:23.160 | homosexual practice. We talked about this in episode number 394, but Burger King is

00:08:28.120 | not alone. Apple, Subaru, and Target have all done virtually the same thing

00:08:32.880 | recently. So should we buy products from these companies? Tomorrow a podcast

00:08:37.040 | listener named Joe will ask Pastor John. I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for

00:08:40.760 | listening to the podcast.

00:08:43.760 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Handling Post-Sermon Blues

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