Stressed Out

Welcome to Worshiping the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. We're in a new series called Perfect or Perfected, where Pastor Robert challenges our perspectives on perfection and helps us shift our focus from trying to be perfect to letting God perfect us as we walk closely with Him. Today's message is about dealing with stress biblically and without breaking.

Well, let's join Pastor Robert now. So we're in a series called Perfect or Perfected. We talked about perfectionism last week, and it's amazing how many people came up to me this week and said, I didn't realize that the word perfect had become a buzzword with me.

How much we say the word perfect. So we're talking about perfectionism. This week, though, we're going to talk about stressed out. And we're going to talk about stress. Stress is in all of our lives. But let me just say something.

Perfectionism causes extreme and continual stress. So I'm going to give you some examples. You can see I've got some stuff on the stage you'll never forget the illustrations I'm going to use in a moment. But my son James has a little land like five and a half acres. He's actually outside of city limits. And so he can shoot a gun or do whatever it wants to. He raises animals. He has chickens, and he has cows. He's had sheep until one of the rams rammed Bridget, his wife, and so they ate him.

So he got rid of the sheep and then but he's got cows now but before that he actually had deer and a little deer farm. And one day he goes out in the morning and one of his fawns is dead. And so he is very sad, obviously, but he goes out finds his fawn, but he doesn't see any marks on it. Like no bobcat or coyote or anything like that.

No blood, no marks. So he takes it to the vet. The vet does an autopsy because he wants to know if there's a disease in his herd that he needs to vaccinate for. So anyway, the vet does this calls him back and says the fawn died of stress. Stress. And he said, I've seen James like I've never heard of that.

He said, I've seen it a lot. Probably what happened is a bobcat got in the high fence. And James went out found all these prints.

But he said he chased him around. The deer gets away normally. But then it causes such internal stress that they bleed to death internally.

They die. And James got to thinking about, you know, that deer had a heart, had lungs, you know, liver, kidneys, all that say it's a body, a physical body. So if that's what it does to a deer, that's what stress does, what does it do to the human body? So that's what we're going to talk about a little bit.

All right. So first of all, you've got to know the definition of stress. Stress is an outside force applying pressure.

An outside force applying pressure. My father seated down here is a civil engineer. So I know enough about engineering to just get me in trouble.

But I heard a lot of it growing up. But let me just tell you the engineering principle of stress. If the external pressure is greater than the internal strength, it results in a stress fracture. I see some of you shaking your head and you had to study that at some point and thought you'd never use it. Now you can use it. If the external pressure is greater than the internal strength, it will result in a stress fracture. And let me give you now where stress, the word comes from.

And I know I'm laying the foundation for you here. But many people don't realize it comes from the 13th century. And it refers to wood.

It's how they would, before it ever referred to human beings, it referred to how they would shape and mold wood. You would stress a board so that you could use that board in your building project in some room or something like that. So you've got to think about this because stress is an external pressure. So I want you to understand something about stress.

You don't do anything. Well, I guess sometimes you could put yourself under stress if you want to make your credit cards out. But sometimes stress comes from nothing you've done. And we as believers don't like to hear someone say you're stressed out or you're under stress. Maybe we've got back problems or stomach problems or something. We go to the doctor and he says, I think it's stress. We don't like to hear that as believers. You know what we say? No, no, no. It's not stress.

I cast all my care on Jesus for Jesus cares for me. I don't have stress. It's not something you have internally. It's something externally that comes on you. It's not something you have internally.

Are you following me? So you could lose your job, change positions at work, have new responsibilities, move to a new school district, build a house, something breaks at the house, an air conditioning unit or whatever, you're already stressed financially. So it's not an insult or an accusation to say you're under stress.

That's what you need to know. Stress is an external pressure. It's something that happens from the outside.

When it happens from the outside, you need to understand that it's going to cause some sort of reaction depending on your internal strength. So we're going to talk about what you can do, but I want to first show you a little illustration here. So here's what we're going to do. We got a board here.

I'd like you to take some weights there and put them on this board. So I want you to think about you've got a mortgage and you've got job responsibilities and you've got kids activities and you've got a new boss at work. And then, thank you. And then a global pandemic hits. Yeah. Yes. The big one. Yes, I'm sure. A pandemic hits and all of a sudden more weight is put on you, but you didn't do anything to deserve it.

And then you lose your job. Yep. The big one? Yep. You lose your job because this pandemic came and you didn't have anything to do with it. Wasn't something you did.

I'm not sure about this. And then, and then we're also in a presidential election. Might have to put two of the weights on for this one. And then your husband wants to watch the debates. Just drop it.

In engineering. What an illustration. All right. So let me give you three things and then we're going to come back up in a minute.

We're going to look at this a little bit more. So let me give you three things you can do if you're under stress. Here's number one, check your weights. For instance, there are weights on you that you can't remove and then more weights put on you, but look and see if there are some weights you can remove. In other words, can you take a leave of absence from the PTA? Can you not sign up for 11 activities for your kids?

Have them just do one or two. Can you stop volunteering for something extra? Can you, can you pull something back? It is not a failure to pull back some.

And that's what we think. And that's when you break is when we think I just can't stop. And somebody else put this on me. There's nothing I can do about it. Yes, you can. You have some weights that you can take off.

Are you following me? The second thing you can do under check your weights is don't put more weights on your board when you're already stressed out. Don't take on a new project. Don't volunteer for something else when you've already got your plate full. Many, many people talk about time management. I don't hear a lot of talk about energy management though. It's not how much time it takes. See, when I'm looking at sermons and speaking and things like that, I can tell you how much time it takes, but it takes a lot more energy. So I have to manage my energy. There's not a once in a lifetime opportunity for a believer because it's either God's will or it's not.

And even if you think it's a great opportunity, if it's not the season for it, God can bring it back around. So number one, check your weights. Here's number two. Strengthen your board. Strengthen your inner man. Now I'm going to show you a couple of ways we can do it. So we may need some stagehands to help us. Kim, come back up. We got to put the saw horses back up. You want to grab that one? So how do you strengthen your board?

Well, we're going to talk about it spiritually, but I just want to give you the example here. Yeah, I'd be good to get others. All right, let's grab these. And we clamped them together so you could see. And in our rehearsal, we put all the weights on there, just like that. Think about when you get in a group, when you get in a good church, when you get in community, think about how you strengthen yourself. But the other thing is that when you get in a good church and you get in God's Word, He can give you some God ideas.

All of the inventions that have improved us have come from His wisdom. So one day a guy was looking at boards like this and thought, how do I strengthen those? Well, obviously you put more like this. And then one day he got an idea to do that. Now put some weights on there. Now you've probably seen even in homes beings like this. So God gives someone the idea to simply turn the boards vertically instead of horizontally.

I'm just looking, there's no bend, no movement at all. And we're putting every weight we have on there. Okay, so how do you strengthen yourself?

Obviously get in a group and spend time with God, spend time in His Word. But let me just make a statement here. You ever thought about this statement that we make a lot as believers? I want to go from victory to victory.

You ever heard that? Okay, you have to have a battle before you can have a victory. So some of you might not make that statement ever again. Because what you actually said is, I want to go from battle to battle.

But here's what I need you to know. It's fine to say I want to go from victory to victory, because you are going to go from battle to battle in this world. You're going to have tribulation. John 16 33. In the world, this Jesus speaking, you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer, I've overcome the world. This word tribulation, by the way, means pressure, outside pressure that hems you in.

Romans 5, 3 and 4, tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character. So when we go through problems, characters produce their life. Now, I've got some good news for you. When you learn to handle small problems, you get a reward from God. Big problems. I know you're not thinking that's good news. But here's what people say a lot of times.

They see someone who's successful, someone who has some employees or has built a business or something. And I say I'd like to have the problems that he has. Well, he started solving small problems.

And he got bigger problems. Scripture says if you're faithful with least or little, then you'll be given much. So if you're faithful with little problems, you get big problems. And by the way, if you ever get perfect at handling problems, then God will let you solve the biggest problem of all, which is sin. But none of us will ever get perfect, but the perfect one came.

Handled every problem perfectly and handled the biggest problem this world's ever known. Sin. You only learn when your brain is aroused. The more stress in your life, the more you learn. You just have to learn how to deal with it. Every person falls, please hear me because we're talking about strengthening your inner man, your boards. Every person falls to his or her level of training, skill and preparation. When you get a big opportunity at work, you're not going to rise to the challenge. You're going to fall to whatever level your skill, your training, your preparation is. But the good news is you can do something about your skill and your training and your preparation. So when the big opportunity comes, that's your level.

Are y'all following me? I'm just really trying to help you in this area of stress because stress comes no matter what we do. But what are you going to do when it comes? What are you going to fall back on? Before COVID, so before mask, because you're going to see some pictures and I don't want it to get out the newspaper. He didn't have a mask on.

Okay, it's just before COVID. I got to play golf with this guy named Jack Nicklaus. I'm going to show you a couple of pictures. There's Jack and I on the green and then we're looking at a putt here and then actually here is Jack telling me the line. And I made the putt by the way, just so you know, 20 footer.

Not to bring that up though, but I did. I had lunch with him, played golf, had dinner with him. At dinner, there were several of us that got to play with him that day that played golf that day. And so we were asking him questions and he said, under pressure, every golfer reverts to his natural swing.

That's the problem. And so we're talking about it and then he tells us this story. Now he didn't go into all the backstory, but I know some of the backstory and I looked it up to make sure I was right. So for 17 years he wins an average of four tournaments a year.

He told us this story. And then he goes, 1979, he doesn't win one tournament the whole year. So he goes back to his coach and he said to him, I've never played golf.

Never in my life. I've never seen golf. I've never held a golf club. Teach me to play golf. Teach me the stance. Teach me the grip. Teach me the swing. Teach me golf.

And the next year Jack won two majors in one year. I just want to say as believers, we go along and we know we need God. We know we need the word. We know we need each other.

We know we need worship and prayer and we get down the road after 17 years of winning all sorts of victories and we forget to do the basics. So here's number three. So number one, we talked about is check your weights. Number two, strengthen your board. Here's number three, soak your board.

So actually the way, and they did, they've been doing this for centuries. The way they would stress a board so that it wouldn't break is they would soak it in one of two substances, water or oil. Can you just think about it as believers? Water being the word of God and oil being the spirit of God.

The father is seeking those who worship in spirit and truth. Soak your board. I got some pictures of some boards that they soaked in water. Look at these pictures here, how they bent these boards and they didn't break. It's pretty amazing when you think about it, that they could bend these boards simply by soaking them in water.

And this last one, I almost didn't show because I think my wife's gonna want to buy that now. So soak your board. Spend time in the presence of God. Spend time in the word. So on sabbatical this past summer, God convicted me of something that I used to do that I'd quit doing. I took a seven-day time of just prayer and fasting and I was worshiping and praying and spending time in the presence of the Lord and the Lord corrected me.

I used to, now I preached on Sabbath and taught on Sabbath, wrote the book on Take the Day Off, you know. But because I had stopped doing this, I didn't even put it in the book. It's like God had to remind me about this. By the way, God has a real sense of humor. He said to me, I wish you had talked to me before you wrote that book. So anyway, but there will be a revision now.

I'll add this. But the Sabbath, I wanted to, I focused on in my teaching and in the book, I focused on rest and I forgot the most important part. And I could show you a bunch of scripture, but we don't have time, but let me just show you one. Exodus 31, 17. This is the Lord speaking, talking about Sabbath one day off a week.

It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever, forever. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. So this summer the Lord convicted me because I used to on the Sabbath, one day a week, not only rest and stop work, but I had what I called an extended time in the presence of God. I did it for years and then I just got too busy, I guess.

Just quit it. But I, that for me, that's normally one to two hours and I put on worship and I just spend time in the presence of God and just come at His feet. Now, I have a quiet time every day.

It's 15 to 30 minutes. I pray and read my Bible every day. That's a, that's a spiritual discipline. For most people though, you can't spend two hours a day in the presence of God. You probably heard the stories about people say, I pray three hours a day. Okay.

They don't have jobs or small children. Unless their prayer is, God, please help me not kill this child. Okay. But you just can't do that normally. But one day a week, He said, I want you to stop your work and worship me.

And I was so focused when I taught on this for years to get people to stop working one day a week, at least stop your emails one day a week, please. But because it wasn't a part of my life I'd forgotten about that I used to just spend time in the presence of the Lord. So as I begin to spend time with the presence, in the presence of the Lord, the Lord spoke to me.

I told him, I entered His presence the very first day I remember saying to him, Lord, I need a word. I really need a word. And he said to me, you do, but it's not the word you think. It's the word repent.

That's the word you need. Because you used to do this every week. You used to set aside one day a week and you would take one to two hours of that day. Now you can do stuff the other rest of the day, have fun, just don't work. But if you've never had an extended time, or if you haven't had many extended times in the presence of the Lord, it'll change your life. This is the only way we're ever going to handle stress.

You got to check your brakes, you got to strengthen your board, and you got to soak your board. We want you to take a moment to think about what Pastor Robert shared today and really listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. If you want to connect with us or check out some of Pastor Robert's other messages, visit pastorrobert.com. And if you haven't already, go follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so we can be a part of your community. Thank you so much for joining us today. Next time, Pastor Robert will be talking about being good enough. We hope you tune in then. Have a blessed week.