It's OK to Not Be OK - Part 3 - Stress
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Good Morning Church! As you can see I have my bride back, so I’ve had a much better week, but I’ve still got to tell you, God’s got a sense of humor in everything we do. But before we get too far into that, let’s pray
Now I’ve got to tell you, the devil has been applying some pressure this week. Monday I was trying to be proactive in getting things prepared for the new tech equipment that was going to be added to our media team, and so I was looking up information for the sound board and how to wire it in to the system. And the resolution seemed to be simple enough, the only thing I had to do was update the firmware. So I had to update the board, how hard could it be - I simply followed the instructions and thought hey, this will be simple. I mean I’ve updated firmware before on most of the things around the house and office, printers, modems, etc. 5 minutes and it’s done. Nothing extra needed except going through the list 1.2.3.4 - right?
Except when it comes to the sound board, the great people who made the manual and all - they placed one very important detail on a completely different page than the rest of the instructions. The detail that usually tells you to do the backup first. The instructions failed to mention that at all - so the board lost all of the previous settings and had to be completely re-set up. And after about 5 hours on Monday, I had gotten no where with the board. - finish story once I figure out how it works out.
Today we are wrapping up our sermon series It’s OK to Not Be OK with today’s sermon being on Stress. Some of you may be asking why we are talking about stress when the first part of the series was on depression, last week we talked about anxiety, now we’re talking about stress? Well, here’s the thing. Depression can be caused by stress, but depression doesn’t cause stress. Anxiety can be caused by stress, and can lead to depression, but usually anxiety is caused by stress, and there’s not really a good form of anxiety. But the way we define stress is as the “normal, internal, physiological mechanism that adapts us to change”. Now by definition, stress is a normal part of life. And as a normal part of life, stress is meant to be a good thing, in that it can be positive - we can have positive stress - such as getting a promotion, an exciting new home, retirement, graduation, those sort of things - or it can be meant to change to correct a problem area that needs addressed in our lives, such as eating habits due to ailments you didn’t have before or financial changes due to debt.
Recently we’ve been trying to change my diet some because I’ve had some trouble with what I thought was nightly heartburn, and we’ve done some things that have so far seemed to resolve or at least identify the problem - and it turns out my problem may be that I might be developing a lactose intolerance - which I’m a little bit stressed over because I really enjoy milk products.
Now I’m not anxious about how much I enjoy milk, and I’m not depressed about it, and relatively I’m not really that stressed about it. But it still is a stressor in that now I have to watch what I eat and drink more than I used to, or be prepared to face the consequences.
Stress is a resiliency measure that we are supposed to naturally be able to respond to. It’s one of those things that God has placed into our lives for a purpose, and for us to grow through. If we handle stress the correct way, it allows us to handle the next stressor with a little less pressure than we normally could have.
Consider James 1:2-4
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
But stress can lead to negative outcomes as well, and that is the stress we’re dealing with today. If we don’t keep that stress in check, or we remain stressed without remembering to rest from it, we can begin to develop into those areas of depression and anxiety. Or we can begin to have some nasty physical ailments, you know, headaches, blood pressure, problems sleeping. We often times can cause our own negative stress by believing that things need to be a certain way or perfect, often forgetting how it can affect us or others.
It’s said that fifty-two percent of Americans say that they are lying awake at night, and twenty-six percent of workers report that they are often or very often burned out by stressors at their work.
And like anxiety and depression, stress can affect the whole person - mind, body, and spirit. And like those, I am not a doctor, and I have very limited knowledge in reference to counseling on these, but I do know this - if it is affecting you in any of these areas in a way that is more than normal - in other words in a way that you are finding difficult to cope with - see someone. If it’s affecting you physically, see a doctor, if it’s mentally just too much see a counselor, it it’s spiritually affecting you, see your pastor, or even a fellow christian to help you out. Because it’s Ok to not be Ok, it’s just not Ok to stay that way.
Spiritually the prescription is still similar to last week - when we looked at Philippians 4:4-7
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.
Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand;
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Because, realistically, the goal is to prevent anxiety and depression cased by stress before we get to that point. A last week we also talked about prayer and how to pray and how to keep things in a perspective of praise, and those are both important things to remember when it comes to dealing with stress as well.
But there’s another thing to consider when it comes to our perspectives. Today’s key verse that we are going to kind of hone in on comes from 2 Corinthians 10. The Apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church and he’s talking about meekness, and how the letter is coming across, and most importantly who it is we’re waging war against. And he’s talking about our weapon, and look at what he says in verse 5:
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
So what we’re going to look at today is that
Stress is a part of Spiritual Warfare
Look back at verse 4 with me:
v4
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
Paul is telling us that our war, our battle, the overbearing desire to be perfect or to have perfect situations - its a part of a battle that is not physical. The battle in our mind that we have to be something that we are not - that is a war that we fight against ourselves in our own understanding.
If I’m stressed about my job performance, it’s a spiritual battle because I am supposed to surrender to Christ every thought I have. If I’m stressed about how my home looks, it’s a spiritual battle because I’m supposed to hand that over to God. If I’m stressed about a test or a move or my car or anything - it’s a spiritual battle because I’m supposed to surrender to the mind of Christ.
And a lot of that stress is stress we put on ourselves - we look at our own performance at work, or our own home, or our own test scores, and we just place that stress on ourselves by either looking at the situations others are in or how well someone else is doing and we just get so absorbed in the way others live and the way we think we should live and we just stress ourselves out thinking about how we are supposed to be this way or that because that’s what society says.
And sometimes that stress is placed upon us by others, either by the boss telling you your not pulling your own weight or adding project after project to you. Or maybe Social Services has come in and said something about your house or your kids, or you need a good score on that test for college, and the list goes on and on.
And none of this means that the stress won’t be there, and it doesn’t mean that the stress won’t cause physical ailments, but what it does mean is that as a part of spiritual warfare I need to treat it with the respect it deserves and treat it as spiritual warfare and surrender it to God. Remember 1 Peter 5:7 in the Christian Standard Bible
casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you.
and remember last week, if it’s big enough to be on your mind it’s big enough to pray about it.
Because the stress is real, but it doesn’t have to define you. This is why it’s ok to not be ok. Because not being Ok is how we come to the realization that something is there - Something I shouldn’t be dealing with on my own. It’s that signal that it’s time to pray, time to take it to the One who is bigger than all of my stress.
I can remember multiple times in my Naval career where stress just ate at me. I just had to be the best, I had to be perfect. And so, every time I made a mistake I would just lie in bed wondering how bad things were going to be the next morning, what did that person mean when they said this, what am I going to do to be ready for what is going to happen next - I did that for a really, really long time. And then one day I realized that none of hat really matters enough to lose sleep over. None of that is going to stop me from doing my job the best I can and relying on God to see me through.
And then you start to see things from a different angle. You start seeing everyone who gets spun up and bent out of shape and you start to just pray and think clearly, focusing on letting Jesus have control. And then the things you can control, you control, and the things you can’t, you realize it and give it all to God. And the whole world around you loses their minds that you aren’t as stressed out as they are - of course you’re not, you’ve surrendered it to the one who can fight the battle for you!
I can remember one of those times where I was getting yelled at for a good 5 minutes, not by a supervisor but just by someone who was really stressed and needed me to take care of something and at the end of it I just said “copy” which is to say I hear you, but I said it in such a calm manner that then I got “that’s all your going to say is “copy”? That’s it?” And I was like yeah, I’ve got it and I’ll take care of it.
And for some people that works, for others you need to match intensity - but that doesn’t mean that we stay stressed.
And I’ve got to tell you, from a military standpoint, when it comes to the enemy, you should always stay one step ahead of the enemy.
We say we may not win the battle, but we know we’ve already won the war. Now I want you to understand that we don’t have to lose nearly as many battles as we tend to.
Because we know that this entire thing starts out as a spiritual battle. And we’ve already reviewed last week about taking all of our worries and our anxieties to God in prayer. God loves it when we communicate with Him and lay everything at His feet.
And from the military aspect failures in communication are the number one cause of mistakes and failures at any command.
So if we are spiritual warfighters and we are fighting a spiritual battle with stress - because we’re not injured yet - and our number one resource is to communicate with the Commander of the Army of the Lord - we need to have frequent communication checks.
Communication checks with each other - that’s accountability - and communication checks with God -
So number 1 is
1. Connect with Constant Prayer.
Connect with constant prayer.
pray without ceasing,
You want to know the best way to win the battles against stress? Pray without ceasing.
But Pastor Jeremy I can’t walk around with my head down all the time praying, people will think I’m talking to myself and that I’m crazy or something!
Well, good news, that’s not the type of praying this verse is talking about. It’s talking about maintaining an attitude of prayer. In other words, if I am consistently thinking on the things of God and how He wants me to react because I do maintain my relationship to Him with reading the Word and praying to my relational God I will be able to see the perspective and see what God is doing in this situation.
Turn off the TV. Put down the social media. Stop looking around you at the world through the world’s eyes.
I see a lot of other pastors and spiritual leaders discussing our current nation’s state of chaos. And I’m here to tell you our nation has had this coming for a little while. And it’s not because of who is in office or who is going to be in office. It’s not capitalism vs communism, it’s not rich vs poor, the entire thing is a spiritual battle and it has infiltrated our Christian ranks.
I read an interesting thing the other day. It said that in years past the church taught that what we watched and listened to needed to align with God’s word, our language, the nudity and gore and such on TV, you know, the old adage of keeping our minds pure and clean and pursuing the things of God.
The thing is, we never really thought of those other things, like the news or politics being those things. And many of us are a bit stressed out about what has been going on, and what may go on this week as all of the theories are coming about.
And we focus in on the if so and so gets to be in office or if such and such happens or or or - and we begin to worry ourselves about things that are of this world and we have lost focus on the things that are of God.
Pray for our nation. Pray for our leaders, whoever they may be. But do not worry or stress over these things. Place your mind on the attitude of prayer, so that we can focus on the things that are of Christ.
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.
Keep your mind on Him and He will never fail you. Because our hope doesn’t lie in this world or the promises it has. Our hope doesn’t rely on the principalities of this nation or our comfort, our hope comes from Jesus.
Once we have our attitude right and we have put down all of the things that are poisoning our mind with stress we can then begin to
2. Engage in Battle.
a. Put on the Armor of God
Ephesians chapter 6 tells us who our battle is against, whose might we fight in and it reminds us that all of our spiritual battles are against the schemes of the devil. then it tells us to put on the armor of God in verses 14-18
Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;
and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
Truth of God’s word, Righteousness Christ gives us, Gospel of peace, faith in Christ, all of which come by Salvation through Him, knowing the Word, and look at that - praying at all times.
Everything ties back to engaging in our relationship with Christ that allows us to engage the world around us. It keeps our stress in check so that the world around us sees something different and wants to know what’s going on. But even if they don’t, even if the world around us thinks we’re crazy, we know we’ve still won even that battle because
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
And what I want you to understand is that
b. the battle belongs to the Lord!
David knew this when He was going toe to toe with Goliath, and He proclaimed in 1 Samuel 17:47 to the Philistines
and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”
Evidently this was something David was clear on with raising Solomon, or King Solomon got it with his wisdom from God, but either way Solomon was able to realize when he wrote Proverbs 21 that
No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord.
The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.
Once we stop trying to fight our battles on our own and we give them to God, who realistically has won all of the battles too, we realize that all of that stress, all of that worry, all of it - didn’t add any time to us. it doesn’t help us emotionally, or physically, in fact Matthew 6:27 says
Can any of you add one moment to his life span by worrying?
And Jesus goes on to tell us of course it does, right? NO! He says to
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Quit worrying or stressing about things you can control, because those aren’t worth stressing over anyway because you have God on your side. Quit stressing over things you can’t control because God is on your side for those too and it’s His battle.
3. Multiply because you have peace.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
You have the promise of peace. IF we surrender our thoughts, our concerns, everything over to Christ, we will have peace.
And I gotta tell you, peace will change those around you. That peace will rock their world. Because that’s how they see something different. You become that odd person who through every persecution that comes your way, you can still have peace.
And that makes people curious. Sure, some or even many may just think you’re coo coo, but for those that God is working in the hearts of at that moment, well, you may just be the thing that God uses to bring them into a relationship with Him.
You know that old saying, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar?
The world is watching our reaction to stressors. And if we are reacting in the same negative way the world is and not surrendering it to Jesus and the peace he provides, that same world is wondering why they should even consider Christ.
Think back to those verses a moment ago - 2 Cor 4:8-10
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
If we are allowing Christ to live through us because we have surrendered to Him, and we have the peace that surpasses all understanding, He will be evident in us. And it’s Him that draws people to salvation.
If we look back at our past as Christians, to the early church, we see that spark of growth, that huge amount of people coming to Christ in a miraculous way, was in a time of great persecution.
If we look at the areas of the world right now that have the most growth in Christianity, it’s in what’s called the 10-40 window - latitude and longitude coordinates that correspond with an area in Asia that have some of the most negative attitudes towards Christianity. Persecution is something these people understand. And yet they are growing there at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world - isn’t it amazing what God does when we surrender to Him.
These countries see the peace that surpasses all understanding. They live it out, and the battles for the souls of lost people are being won every day - and our battles are being won every day because we give them to God rather than worrying over them. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m excited for next week as we’ll have a guest speaker in here who is a missionary to one of those countries and he’ll be able to give more insight into that next week.
We have to live our lives surrendered to Christ to expand the Gospel - and I honestly believe that the persecution is coming - so we have to be ready for the battle, the stress, everything that is heading our way - so that the battles are won for His Glory.
And as we prepare to close today, I want to take a moment right here and just remind everyone that it’s ok to not be ok, but it’s not ok to stay that way. And again, I want to take a moment to remind everyone that if you’re already at a point where it has just gotten so overwhelming that you cant function or see things correctly, it’s ok to seek professional help. If it’s already affecting your physical body see a doctor, if it’s lasted for longer than previous stressors and it’s affecting your relationships, seek help - because even though stress may be a spiritual battle, you’re at a point where you’re wounded and it’s time for you to seek wholistic medics - God, your doctor, and perhaps a counselor - because God has gifted those men and women with knowledge of the body and mind. And we want to prevent further injury and we want to get you healthy again so that you can get back to winning those battles.
Let’s pray.
Lord, we surrender our thoughts and our worries to you. We know, God, that through you we will win those battles that win others to you.
And Lord, we praise You that You are faithful, that You'll never leave us, You'll never forsake us. We ask God for Your presence to do what only You can do. Send Your spirit to give us a peace that goes beyond our human ability to understand. Lord we cast our cares upon You. Hear the cry of our hearts. We present every need before You, we thank You that You care for us. God, even if we don't see the result immediately that we want, we trust in You, our Redeemer. We worship and praise You, God.
And with nobody looking around, those who have something to surrender to God, something that’s stressing you out, your job or your kids or your marriage; whatever it is, surrender it to Jesus. Connect with Him in prayer, engage in the battle with the proper tools, and multiply in peace with others. Trust Him even when you don't see how the battle may be fought.
God, we ask for the power of Your Holy Spirit to minister to us today. Give us the peace, help us to see your peace through our situations and our lives, help us to experience that peace as we go through our stress battles and help us to engage in that battle with your armor that only you can provide. Lord let your light shine through us that others can see that peace and show them that that peace comes from you and bring glory to your name. We cast our cares by faith upon You because You do care for us, God. Because You care about everything, we will not worry about anything. We will seek You, we'll choose to trust You. We pray for healing, we pray for relational healing, God, we pray for emotional healing. We pray for a calming of our stressed lives.
As you keep praying, nobody looking around, there are those of you, you may be a bit confused. What is this guy talking about, how can these people have peace when so much is going on in our world or in their lives? Well, it’s because they have the Good News of Jesus. They know they will have victory.
If you don’t know that peace, if you don’t have that relationship with God, the bad news is that Romans 3:23 tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” and Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death. and we’re not talking just physical death - we’re talking death that is eternal death and torture in Hell.
But the good news is that the second half of Romans 6:23 says that the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And that gift is because God loves us as His creation so much, that Romans 5:8 tells us that He demonstrates that love for us that even though we are still sinners, even though we’re broken, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”.
Jesus Christ died for us! Jesus’ death paid for the price of our sins. And Jesus’ resurrection proves that God accepted Jesus’ death as the payment for our sins.
Now you have information. Now you know that God loves you, more than you could ever imagine. And He wants to have a relationship with you. Romans 10:9 says “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Because of Jesus’ death on our behalf, all we have to do is believe in Him, trusting His death as the payment for our sins - and we will be saved! Jesus died to pay the penalty for our sins and rescue us from eternal death. Salvation, the forgiveness of sins, is available to anyone who will trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
You see, it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter how dark your life is, it doesn't matter how deep your sin resides, anyone who calls on the name of Jesus, your sins would be forgiven. You would be brand new. There may be those of you that realize, I am here for this moment. I'm watching it on FaceBook for this moment. I'm here because I need His grace. I need His forgiveness, what do you do?
Turn from your sins, turn toward Him, call on the name that is above every name. When you call on the name of Jesus, He hears your prayers, He forgives your sins, He makes you brand new. And if you don’t quite know what to say, just pray with me now pray
Heavenly Father, forgive all of my sins. Jesus, save me. Make me new. Fill me with Your Spirit so I could follow You. I cast my cares on You. I want to live for You. My life is not my own. Thank You for new life. In Jesus' name I pray.
If you prayed that today, Romans 5:1 has this wonderful message, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Through Jesus Christ we can have the peace with God.
Now If you are tired, weary or broken, if stress and worry have been eating away at you, as the music continues to play softly for a moment, either right where you are or you can bring it up here to the cross, you can grab someone to pray with you if you want, but whatever it is, lay your burdens at the feet of Jesus.
Questions for the Week
Ask yourself these questions:
1. How’s my spiritual battle with stress going? Am I causing my own self-inflicting wounds? Do I take everything to God in prayer?
2. Have I connected with that constant prayer? Do I maintain an attitude of prayer, or do I listen to the other voices around me?
3. How am I engaged in the battle? Have I put on the whole armor of God, or have I forgotten to pick up something? Have I given the battle to God, or am I trying to struggle with it on my own?
4. Are my actions multiplying believers, neutral, or multiplying non-believers?