Winning Over Stress

We live in the day of quick cash, the mad dash, and a lot of Stress. We have all sorts of self help books that talk about reducing stress, but as smart as we think we are, all we have done is to add speed and noise to our society. We get there faster, but we don’t know where we are going. Stress and Anxiety have caused millions of Americans to be hypertensive and to go onto blood pressure medication.

Look at the difference.

Stress is caused by external pressures

Stress is more the external things that put pressure on us.

Thomas Carlyle was an anxious, serious, searching type of person. He had a soundproof room built in his London residence so he could work in unbroken peace. However, a neighbor had a cock that crowed rather vigorously during early morning. Carlyle complained to the owner about it. Whereupon the neighbor replied that the rooster crowed only three or four times at most. “But,” answered Carlyle, “if you only knew what I suffer waiting for that cock to crow!” Like Carlyle, many harrassed and suffering people spend their days waiting for something dreadful to happen!

Stress hits us all. a woman told a pastor one time, I tried to call you on Monday, but you didn’t answer. He replied that Monday is his day off. She said, the devil never takes a day off. He said, “Yes, and if I didn’t, I would be just like the devil.

On the other hand,

Anxiety is caused by internal struggles.

Anxiety is more the internal struggle. Everything might be going ok, but you feel anxiety. We are going to deal with Anxiety in two weeks.

Why are we dealing with so much stress?

Other than being a Saint’s fan… why do we deal with so much stress?

No, it’s not what a popular bumper sticker used to say…

Write this down…

It’s always something.

When we put one fire out, another one pops up. It’s like Whack-a-mole.

Kids won’t stop screaming...

Your boss is pressuring you to do more…

You owe the IRS money…

Maybe your job is dangerous - construction workers… police… fire… EMS...

Discrimination or harassment at work… racial… sexual…

No room to advance on the job...

Getting a promotion…

Getting married… divorced…

Taking care of an elderly relative....

Any kind of Trauma....

There are always these external forces that impact our lives. While some of our stresses are self inflicted, but there is a great majority of stressors that have nothing to do with us or our decisions. It’s hard right now.

Someone said,

You are either coming out of a problem; or you are currently in a problem or you are about to be in a problem.

You say, PR, can’t you be More positive? … OK, I am positive you will have problems.

God created the world perfect, but sin came into the world and destroyed that paradise. God fixed it by sending Jesus to fix it. He paid the price for our sins.

Jesus will sometime intervene in the happenings of this world, but the majority of what He came to do was a seek and rescue plan. He cam to rescue us from the world.

It will be paradise once we are in heaven, but int he mean time, Earth is not perfect and we have to navigate our way through and endure this world.

Pressure >Capacity = Stress

Stress in life is when the pressures of life are greater than your capacity to endure it. That’s stress.

Good News and some bad news.

Boudreaux - Boudreaux went to the doctor for an exam. The doctor called him a couple of days later and told him, I have some good news and some bad news. Boudreaux said give him the good news first so the doctor said, the good news is that you have 24 hours to live. Boudreaux went, dat’s the good news? What’s the bad news? I tried to call you yesterday.

Bad news first. This is not going to change. Most of the things that cause pressure are not things we have any control over and we will have to learn to endure it.

The good news is that’s the business God is in. Empowering us to make it through.

Philippians 4:13 NLT

For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Paul wrote this from a prison cell. Read it again with me…

I can’t control what happens to me, but with God’s help, I can choose my response

I don’t like that I can’t control things… but with God’s help, I can choose my response.

How can we find the strength?

We are going to look at 6 responses we can take and when we choose these 6 responses God will use them to get you through this life of pressure.

We are going to look at the anatomy of stress. Rick Warren put this out there years ago when he went through the worst thing anyone can go through… his son took his own life. He had struggled with mental illness, and it led him to susicde.

After Rick went though this he came up with this teaching.

In each one there is a “can do” or a “choice” we can make in each of these stages. If these are in our tool box of how to respond on your worst days and when you are under stress.

I’ll do a quick run through the stages as Rick Warren labeled them.

Shock

I can’t believe this happened.

Sorrow

You are deeply sad or crying or even depressed. You just can’t get past it.

Struggle

This is where you get mad and ask why didn’t someone do something… or do more. You begin to question life and even God.

Surrender

It begins to flip when you begin to surrender to God.

Sanctification

When you begin to realize that God is teaching you something through this tragedy.

Service

This is where yo begin to realize that you can help others.

1. Shock

I can’t believe this happened. You are overwhelmed.

story of when you have been overwhelmed. When My dad died… I was here and could not get there…

Everyone responds differently, but most often we respond with needing to have a minute. We isolate for a short time so we can process it, and that’s not bad.

But it becomes bad when you remain isolated. You are in a place of loneliness and you are alone in your thoughts and in your pain and isolation. When you are alone like that it’s very dangerous. It hurts you and everyone around you.

One of the decisions we have to make is found in...

Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 NLT

Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

When Life falls apart, don’t run from God and people, run to them.

Even if you don’t feel like it, and many times you won’t feel like it.

Some of you are isolating yourself while you are going through a stress and you need people in your life to walk it with you. There are practical things you can do in different situations to help.

Loss of loved one - First, allow God to help you forgive yourself for any regrets you have. Get with a group of people.

Bro Radke care - we had to get sitters to care for him so we could keep him at home.

Accept help … seek out help.

You have to have people in your life to help.

2. Sorrow

You are deeply sad or crying or even depressed. You just can’t get past it.

Shock is a human emotion. God can’t be shocked. We can but he can’t.

Sorrow is a godly emotion because when Lazarus died, Jesus wept.

Look what Isaiah said about Jesus…

Isaiah 53:3 NLT

He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.

Grief is not all bad. It’s a process that you have to work through. If you don’t work through the grief and if we get stuck it can be overwhelming. Some of you either are or have been stuck and the Bible addresses that.

Psalm 61:1–2 NKJV

Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

Some of you have an overwhelmed heart and you need to know what to do as you face that kind of stress in your life. This is why so many of you put this on your list.

How do we go to that rock? That happens in worship. In worship we elevate God. My problem is big, but when I worship, I elevate God. And God becomes bigger than my problem.

Worship reminds me how much bigger God is than whatever I’m facing.

Maybe you get some news and become discouraged… It’s eating at you.

Turn to God and get it into some worship. One songs comes to mind… all my life you have been faithful… all my life you have been so, so good... It’s the power of worship.

Don’t be alone in your struggle, but you also need to get into a place where you can put on some praise and worship music and worship.

You will get the victory because worship elevates your God to a place that’s bigger than your problem.

3. Struggle

This is where you get mad and ask why didn’t someone do something… or do more. You begin to question life and even God. Where are you??? You want to blame someone else…

Jeremiah 20:18 GNB

Why was I born? Was it only to have trouble and sorrow, to end my life in disgrace?

Jeremiah was having a bad day…

Even Jesus questioned why…

Matthew 27:46 NLT

At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

God let us not only see the divinity of our Savior, but the humanity of our Savior. Even Jesus questioned God.

Listen. This side of heaven, there are some things that you and I will never understand. That’s why we have a generation that’s questioning everything and deconstructing God. They are basically making up their own God and a new way that’s based on their experience, and not on the WOG… that’s dangerous.

God is at work in ways we cannot see. You may have to say, I may never know, but when I know, I’ll be ok with what I find out.

In 1 John he talked about when we see Jesus face to face, and at that point, we will see that He has always been at work in our life and that He has always been in control and that He always did the right things in my life.

tv shows… 24… describe it… end of every show was a cliff hanger… at the end of the episode you think he is fixing to die, but there are more episodes … so he can’t die. You don’t know how he will get out of it, but you know he will because there are more episodes.

That’s what need to bring into our walk with God. We don’t know how he will do it but we know he will get us through it. We win.

Sometimes we think that God has obligated himself to make things better here, but the reality is that God is working out things way better than we realize.

Heb 11 goes through all the people of faith…

Hebrews 11:35–40 NLT

Women received their loved ones back again from death. But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground. All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.

These others were commended for their faith but none of them got a better now on earth. It says that all these people died while still believing and looking for what God had promised, but God had something better and they saw it in the distance.

This world will hurt you, but if you know that God is working something better, you will get through it.

When it feels like this life is falling apart, I can remember the life to come

I will live with an eternal perspective.

I can call someone, I can worship, I can know there is a better life coming.

4. Surrender

Jesus asked why God he had abandoned him but then he also said, into your hands I commit my spirit. He surrendered to the Father.

Proverbs 3:5–6 NLT

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.

We need to trust God and surrender control to Him.

When I choose to trust God , I am on the pathway to peace

It’s not when all the situations work out the way I want that gives me peace, its when I choose to trust God that I will experience peace.

We have this American version of following God where we are used to God bailing us out of trouble, and I have seen God do miracles. But God is working on something better and bigger for us. And in this life, suffering is part of serving God. The Bible talks about it as much as it does God’s miracles.

Look at the Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

That’s where most people stop, But there is more to the prayer

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen

That’s what peace is. I can call someone, I can worship, I can know there is a better life coming, and I can surrender to God.

5. Sanctification

There is a stage where God is trying to work something inside of you. He is forming you to become more and more like himself.

God didn’t give you the problem… he doesn’t cause the problem, but He will use it to teach you something. Sometimes I want to say, “I’m ok with being dumb” … God is commited to your growth and if you don’t cooperate with it, you will be stressed, but if you do cooperate with it, you will grow.

And now we can do all things…

Romans 5:3–4 NLT

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

I have yet to meet the person who does that… rejoicing when trouble comes. But that’s what Paul says to do. We we learn to rejoice, we can say…

My situation isn’t a jail that imprisons me, it’s a school that shapes me.

If you cooperate with that, you will learn what you God wanted you to learn. You can then say, I can’t control what happens… what my kids do or don’t do… what the boss does or doesn’t’ do… what the government does… what whomever does… but I can control how I respond to it.

If you think back to some of your greatest lessons you have learned in life, they didn’t come from the good times, they came as you went through the struggles.

6. Service

This is where yo begin to realize that you can help others.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 NLT

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

When I realize this, I know that…

There is always purpose in my pain

Victor Frankel - After the war, he went back to Vienna to continue his practice. None of his trauma patients ever committed suicide.

He was at odds with Freud and others who said life is all about pleasure. Frankel said,

Life is about purpose.

He devised a therapy that had three parts to it. Logo Therapy

Everyone needs some type of meaningful work.

Everyone needs a Community of friends to do that work with.

Everyone needs to Learn how to take their pain and help someone else.

That’s been in the bible for years.

Not one of Frankel’s patients committed suicide. That’s why the 6th step of service is so important to help someone else who is going through the same thing… to help them. That’s what Frankel did. He helped others who survived the concentration camps…

We cannot control what happens to us, but there are some things that we can control. We can follow God’s way by doing these taking these actions.

I can’t control everything, but

I can run to God and others

I can worship

I can focus on eternity

I can trust God

I can learn from life’s situations

I can use my pain to help others

I can’t control what happens to me, but with God’s help, I can choose my response.

Wrap up

Someone here or listening may be at the point where you know you are not right with God. If that’s you… pray this.