Insight Into Stress

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Now, I want you to think about this, this gifted man, this great warrior, this wonderful king, this man who wrote and played music, this man who wrote songs that are still in the Word of God.

This man has been used so magnanimously by God, it's absolutely incredible. And he is saying now because of the stress in his own life, I'm useless. See, that's what stress does to us. You feel enough of it and you begin to feel useless on your own.

That's what happens to each and every one of us. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Several years ago, I read a book on the pressures of living in contemporary society and it talked about our needs to take stress management classes and our needs that we have to take stress retreats. And especially they said we need to learn how to meditate even more. Well, today we're learning to deal with stress levels worldwide that wouldn't have even been dreamed of just a couple years ago. This past week, I saw a newscaster and he was talking about how all these stress indicators in our culture are on the rise. The amount of belligerent airline passengers has gone up 10 times and the amount of road rage incidents are still climbing in our society. The amount of marital and child abuse has been on the rise in America as well. All due to this COVID-19 pandemic. And Americans are drinking more than they've ever drank before. And they are medicating themselves at an all-time record level.

In fact, I just heard this morning on the news that not only have consumed more alcohol over this past year than any other year in spite of the fact of so many beer gardens even being closed, but that this New Year's Eve could be the all-time record consumption for alcohol in a single day. The Omicron viruses had a devastating effect on America. Now while all that's true, the idea that human beings find themselves under tremendous pressure, that's not new at all.

It's always been with us. Just imagine if you're an individual and you find this out. That a group of your enemies have conspired to kill you. They have spread slander and lies about you to everybody they knew. In fact, your reputation is ruined even among your closest friends.

No one wants to be identified with you any longer. You are overwhelmed by the guilt of your own sin and you're wrestling with that guilt. You're losing your health. Your body is wasting away.

And you're struggling with depression. And in spite of all of that, you're known as a man after God's own heart. The only one ever described like that in the Word of God.

A man after God's own heart and you are struggling. That's exactly what David went through. I want you to open your Bibles to Psalm 31, a Psalm of David. And I want to look at that together today. The context of the Psalm is Absalom, David's son's, rebellion against his own father.

Just imagine what that would have been like for him. In the midst of all of his depression and all that he talks about in Psalm 31, David is going to give you and me a remedy. We don't need to drink more alcohol this year, take more anti-depressants. David is going to try to remind us of something that can alleviate the stress and the depression in our lives. And so the first thing we see in this Psalm, I'll say it this way.

Stress is normal for everybody, including the best of us. Including the children of God. Notice how David starts this. In you, O Lord, I have taken refuge. Let me never be ashamed. In your righteousness, deliver me. Incline your ear to me. Rescue me quickly. Be to me a rock of strength and a stronghold to save me.

This sounds pretty good. Typical way the Hebrews wrote Psalms. There's a conclusion here at the very beginning.

But he's going to change a little bit as we go on. He goes on then and says in verse 3, he says, for you are my rock and my fortress. For your name's sake, you will lead me and guide me.

You will pull me out of the net, which they have secretly laid for me. For you are my strength. And into your hand I commit my spirit. He says, you have ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth. He's praying to God. And it's a lot like how you and I pray. Whenever we want to be pious or religious, we say the things we know are right, but they're not true. We're just talking to God about how wonderful God is, how great God is, but we have a tendency just to be talking in a situation like this.

In verse 6, he says, I hate those who regard vain idols, but I trust in the Lord. I will rejoice and be glad in your loving kindness, because you have seen my affliction. You have known the troubles of my soul. And he says, you have not given me over into the hand of the enemy, and you have set my feet in a large place. So far, this sounds perfect, doesn't it?

It's interesting. He's going to use three times in this psalm that one word in the English that says loving kindness. That's the Hebrew word hesed. It means loving kindness, but it means grace, mercy, forgiveness, patience.

There's no English equivalent to it. And he says to him, God, I rejoice in your loving kindness. You've seen my affliction. And it makes it sound like, well, there it is. David's facing terrible times. He seems to be really depressed, and he snapped right out of it, except it's not true. It's as though David wrote those verses and then said, you know, I better be more honest here.

I better come clean here. This is an unusual psalm. The first eight verses say one thing, but then when you start in verse 9, David is going to say something else at this time. He wants to say something completely different. So he catches himself, and he decides he's going to say it from a different perspective.

That's what he sets in. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress. My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also. I'm falling to pieces, God. Notice how deep his depression is. My soul and my body are falling to pieces.

They're going to waste. He said, for my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing. My strength has failed because of my iniquity, and my body has wasted away. Now, remember, in the beginning of this, he talked about all of his enemies, all these people out to get him, and that's really bothering him, and his neighbors have turned on him, but something else is bothering David, his sin with Bathsheba. He's overwhelmed with guilt of how bad he feels.

Notice he alludes to that, and he says that in such an interesting way. I've had many years with sighing, and my strength has failed because of my iniquity. It's my own sin. I did this to myself. I feel guilty about it. As bad as COVID is and all the things we're dealing with, for a lot of us, we add to it our own past, how we failed, how bad things went for us, and so consequently we say, I feel so guilty. Now, we know we shouldn't.

God has told us over and over again, look, I've forgiven your sins. I've taken them to sea. I threw them overboard. I buried them.

As far as the east is from the west, I remember them no more, but that's God. For a lot of us, when we have past failures like this, they eat at us. We always feel as though we're still guilty because of it, and that's what he has added to all of this.

Notice he has said this so far. I'm in distress. My eye wastes away from grief, my soul and my body also. My life is spent with sorrow, and I've had years of sighing.

What a picture. My strength has failed because of my iniquity. My body has wasted away. And then he goes on, he says, because all of my adversaries, he said, I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances.

Those who see me in the street flee from me. Now, who is this? David, a man after God's own heart. Do you remember when David slew Goliath as a teenager?

Do you remember his reputation? They sang songs about him. He was like going to yearly hit parade.

Everybody in Israel was singing songs. This is the greatest young man in Israel. Look what he did. He became a hero. Now, notice how his life has changed. Now he is saying, look, because of all my adversaries, I've become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances.

Those who see me in the street flee from me. I am forgotten as a dead man. Wow, out of mind.

Do you imagine what that would be like? Remember, there's not a single person in the nation of Israel as famous as David. There's not even anyone even close to David, and David says, no one even remembers me. Now, I want you to think about this, though. Is that true?

Not necessarily. That's how David feels. Don't you do that? When you're finding a great deal of stress in your own pity party? Oh, no, it's just so bad for me. It's just terrible for me.

I don't know what to do. That's what we end up doing, and that's what David is doing. He said, everybody has turned against me.

I would doubt very seriously if that is true in any real sense of the word. He then goes on and he says, I am like a broken vessel. Don't miss this. What is a broken vessel?

I want you to think of the vessels they use for, like, carrying water, things like that. What's the point of saying you're a broken vessel? Let me say it. You're useless. I'm useless. If you have a vessel that's to carry water and it's broken, what good is it?

Not at all. He says, yeah, that's the way I am. I am a broken vessel.

Now, I want you to think about this. This gifted man, this great warrior, this wonderful king, this man who wrote and played music, this man who wrote psalms that are still in the word of God, this man has been used so magnanimously by God, it's absolutely incredible, and he is saying now because of the stress in his own life, I'm useless. See, that's what stress does to us. You feel enough of it, and you begin to feel useless on your own.

That's what happens to each and every one of us. He said, I have heard the slander of many. Terror is on every side.

He said, while they took counsel together against me, they schemed to take away my life. You see what he is? He's paranoid. The depression and the stress of God that David to such extent, he has now become paranoid. It's just awful. David right there in those verses, he feels shame, he feels guilt, he feels fear, he feels anguish, he feels rejected, and he feels useless. Does that describe any of you? You see, that's what happens to us.

It's just so bad. See how different these verses are than those first eight? The first eight sounded like a spiritual man saying spiritual things, and this sounds just like one of us in a really hard and difficult time, but this section is extremely important because David has now let me know, you know, and everybody else know what it's like to be really, really stressed out in your life, and he is.

He is as stressed out as a person can possibly be, and then he takes his first real positive step, and you can see it in the next word, but in spite of all the things I feel, I feel shameful, guilty, fearful, anguish. I feel rejected and useless, but, as for me, I trust in you, O Lord. The personal name, Yahweh, O Lord. I trust in you, O Lord. In other words, he's saying you are my God, which implies that I am your child.

You see, there's a perspective change. You are my God, and I am your child. What a great line the next one is. My times are in your hand. Boy, don't miss that.

In a general sense, the sovereignty of God applies everywhere, but this is a very specific one. This is my life. My times are in your hand. That's a fact. David said, I know that's a fact. What happens when we get overstressed? What happens when we get depressed? What happens when we're overrun by anxiety because of COVID and all the related things?

We forget this. You see, and what you think is, look, I am under the control of my circumstances. Whatever my circumstances are, that's what's controlling me. That's why I'm so afraid.

That's why I'm so depressed. I'm under the control of these circumstances. David says, but I know that's not true. My times are in your hand. He said, deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me.

That's a specific request. One of the great important things about your prayer life is this. One, if you look at verses nine down to 13, those verses, be honest with God. The idea of being honest with God is so God knows how you really feel. The reason for you to be honest with God is so you understand how you really feel. See, God wants you to say to him exactly how you really feel. Then you're going to see something here. You're going to take what you really feel and compare it to what you really know is true. What's the difference between the way you feel and what you know? That's what David is doing here.

He's comparing the two. He said, my specific prayer request is deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. Do you always get a yes with that?

No. The next thing, though, deals with my relationship with God, a great phrase, make your face shine upon your servant. David's view is I tell you what I would want. I want to be delivered out of these circumstances. I'll tell God what I want right now.

I want COVID in the rearview mirror. I want to be done with this. Now, because I want to be done with it, does that mean we will be done with it? No. Can we be done with it?

Of course. But it doesn't mean we will be done with it. But that's what I want. God allows us to pray our humanity. I say that all the time. You can pray what you want for specifically.

But notice the next one, make your face shine upon your servant. God, bring me in close and tight with you. Will God answer that?

Yes. If you relate with God in the correct way, you'll have that relationship. God said, yes, come closer.

I want you here. He said, save me. Now, I don't think he's talking about salvation here. He's talking about from his distress, his depression, his anxiety, all those kind of things. He said, save me. How? In your loving kindness.

There's the second time. It's there again in the Psalm. Save me in your hesed. Not save me because I deserve it. Not save me because you can weld your power. Save me, God, just as you always save with your hesed, with your loving kindness, your grace, your mercy, your forgiveness, your patience. Save me, God, because of your great attribute, the hesed. That's how I stand before you. He says in verse 17 then, let me not be put to shame. He said, oh, Lord, for I call upon you. He said, let the wicked be put to shame. Let them be silent and shield. Let the lying lips, he said, be mute, which speak arrogantly against the righteous with pride and contempt. That tells me, by the way, David's thrown a lot of emotion. David's probably right, but who is he really blaming his problem on? The wicked, the ones who are plotting to kill him, the ones who want him dead, and he has an emotional response to them.

It's sort of like saying to your favorite dog, sick him. God, get him. Can God get him? Yes. Does he often get him? Sometimes.

Does he always get him? No, not at all. You see, but where do you get your comfort? Not in the change of the circumstances, but in your relationship with God. So he says, look, you be honest with him as you can possibly be, and you trust him. So he's already said to God, you have ultimate control over my time.

That's a fact. Secondly, how great is your goodness? How do you measure the goodness of God? And this word for goodness is intrinsic goodness. How good is God?

Infinitely, correct? How much is God in control of the times of your life, the first thing he said? Totally, completely. So God is totally, completely in control, and he is infinitely good.

You can kind of see where this is going at this point. How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you have wrought for those who take refuge in you. I know, God, you are particularly good to your children, to us. Remember what Paul said in Romans 8, 28? All things will work together for the good to those who love God. All things will work together for the good.

Why? Because he's infinitely good, and he's completely in control. He said in verse 20 then, you hide them, the sons of men, he said, in the secret place of your presence from the conspiracies of man, you keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.

He said, God, I know this. Why has David been so protected so far? You see, why didn't Goliath kill him? Why didn't Saul kill him? Why hasn't Absalom killed him?

All these things. One reason, God hit him. He goes on and he says, blessed be the Lord, for he has made marvelous his loving kindness to me in a besieged city.

There it is the third time. Loving kindness, hesed. Wow, your loving kindness, your grace, your mercy, your forgiveness and your patience.

It's right there. Notice what he calls his life because he's a king, a besieged city. He said, you know why I'm still here, God? Because of your loving kindness, because of what you have done for me.

I get that. He said, as for me, I said in my alarm, I am cut off from before your eyes. What was making David's life so depressing?

Same thing that makes yours. David is saying, where's God? Where's God during this pandemic? Where's God during my stage four cancer?

Where is he? David said, that's what I said. He's under so much stress and I love the way he said it. As for me, I have said in my alarm, I am cut off from before your eyes. You know what God said to him when David said that? He said, son, you know better than to say that. When are you and I ever cut off from the eyes of God?

Somehow under stress in the right circumstances, that's what we believe. I am cut off before your eyes. He said, nevertheless, you have heard the voice of my supplications when I cried to you. What David is saying is, nevertheless, God, I know I talked to you stupidly when I said I'm cut off from your eyes. But in spite of me, nevertheless, he said, you heard my prayer. Nevertheless, you heard me say, you heard me cry out to you. That's how faithful God is, even when we are faithless.

We all forget this very important truth. Stress can blind you against the reality of God in your lives. Instead of understanding and embracing the reality of God, you allow stress to push God away and then you become totally under the prisoner of the circumstances of your life. David says, in spite of that, you listen to me.

That's such a wonderful thing. As the writer of Hebrews says, come boldly to the throne of grace where you will receive grace and mercy. No matter how difficult you've been, no matter how misguided you are, God says, I'm right here.

Come here and I'll give you grace and mercy. Now, before I hit these last three verses, I want to say this. This psalm rings so true that it's kind of an amazing psalm. Jonah quotes this psalm when he's in the belly of the great fish. He quotes Psalm 31. Jeremiah, the great prophet who no one ever listened to, he quotes in several places in Jeremiah Psalm 31.

It's amazing how this works. Not only does Jeremiah do it, and we know that Jonah does it, but Jesus quotes Psalm 31. He's trying to get support as he's facing these incredibly difficult circumstances of life, and he gets it from David in Psalm 31.

We all need this kind of help. So then he says this in conclusion to the psalm. He said, O love the Lord, all you his godly ones. Notice he's not talking about himself now.

Who's he talking about? He said, all of you love the Lord, you his godly ones. The Lord preserves the faithful. He always preserves us. Let me say it one more time. How do I know I'm always preserved by the Lord? The first thing that could happen to me can't happen to me.

You see, that's it. I will always be preserved. I am sure of the surety that I will forever be with the Lord. It's such a wonderful peace. I don't know where the circumstances in my life go at all, but I know where I'm going, and I know what that means to me, and that's the peace that it brings about.

He says, and fully recommences the proud doer. Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the Lord. David is saying this, be strong like I wasn't.

Let your heart take courage. You see that all through the Bible, the incredible courage that men of God have. When you see people like Joshua going into that promised land, the courage that he has. And he said, and all you who hope in the Lord, what an amazing thing to say.

He says, look, you love God, he will preserve you, and he will be just in the end. Be strong and let your heart take courage. That's the message for the new year for all of us. Be strong and take courage and hope in the Lord. See, this year is another new challenge for us. Omicron seems to be adding something completely new, and for some of us, we'll end up getting more depressed over it. We'll allow the circumstances to put us under more and more stress, but it doesn't have to be that way. You could actually face this next year with your life full of hope, future certitude for the future.

Why? Three things he said in this psalm. God sees your affliction. Secondly, God is in control of your times, and he is infinitely good.

Do you see that? No matter what's going on in your life, I have a God who's completely in control of my times. I have a God who has seen my affliction. He has heard my prayer, and he's infinitely good. And if I believe that for the year 2022, this next year is not going to be filled with depression, anxiety, and stress with me.

It's going to be filled with peace and hope, and the same thing can happen to you. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you'll find a link to our website at oneplace.com.

And if you're interested in that, you can go to our website at oneplace.com. At that website, you will find only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org. That's F-B-C-N-O-L-A dot O-R-G. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.