Choosing Relaxation Over Stress – Part 2

Hey podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a non-profit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. (upbeat music) - Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory. - Jesus is not saying we can live in this world without problems, but he said there is a way to live above your problems. And that's what we're going to talk about today, as we continue our series, choose your attitudes, change your life. We're going to talk about the attitude choice of choosing relaxation over stress. - Welcome to Pathway to Victory, with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Jesus said that in this world, we will have tribulation. But our response to those trials, that determines whether or not we experience the abundant life that Jesus promised. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress identifies five causes of unnecessary stress, along with five biblical solutions for choosing relaxation over stress. But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates. - Thanks David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Just before we begin the message, I want to invite you into something that's brought me more joy than almost anything else in my Christian walk, investing in God's kingdom. That's why I'm asking you to become a Pathway partner. It's simple, you commit to a monthly automated gift to support Pathway to Victory. But the impact is anything but simple. You're putting your legacy in motion right now. Your partnership fuels a mission that's delivering bold, biblical, practical teaching to a nation that's starving for truth. And when you sign up today, I'm sending you a brand new book that's going to shift your entire perspective on generosity. It's called The Legacy Life, written by my friend David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby. Here's what David nails. Legacy isn't some legal transaction that kicks in after you die. Legacy is a mindset, a forward thinking kingdom-focused way of living that starts today and echoes through eternity. Whether you become a Pathway partner or you give a generous one-time donation, I'm sending you The Legacy Life as our way of saying thanks. Get ready to write down our contact information because we'll share more details after today's study. Right now, however, let's turn to Matthew 11. I titled today's message, Choosing Relaxation Over Stress. Now first, I think it's important to differentiate between two kinds of stress. There is actually a healthy kind of stress. The stress that you adequately cope with may actually be good for you, whereas stress that you fail to cope with is most probably bad for you. What are the hazards of prolonged or ignored stress? Well, there are physical results of that. For example, we all know the relationship between stress and high blood pressure, but there are also spiritual effects of stress. Now again, some stress can actually be spiritually beneficial to us. I think that's what James has in mind. When in James 1 versus 2 to 4, he writes, "Considerate all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. A certain amount of stress can strengthen us spiritually. As a summarize, some stress is good for us, but stress that is not dealt with adequately can be harmful to us. How do we handle the stress mess? Two ways we do it. First of all, removing unnecessary stress from our lives, and secondly, dealing positively with unavoidable stress in our life. Let's talk about first of all, removing unnecessary stress. Let me mention six causes of unnecessary stress in our life. First of all, stress caused by lack of purpose. The French philosopher, Nicola Belay, said, "He is most fatigued who knows not what to do." Secondly, stress caused by unrealistic goals. Much of the stress we have is when we, and still unrealistic goals that have no basis in scripture at all, we're just imposing these unrealistic goals on ourself. Thirdly, stress caused by unresolved anger. Anger is a negative emotion we feel when our expectations are not met. A fourth source of unnecessary stress stress caused by comparison to other people. We compare our houses, our clothes, our cars, our jobs, our bank accounts, our children. Next, some stress is caused by materialism. And that's why Jesus said in Luke 12, verses 22 and 23, "For this reason, I say to you, do not be anxious. Do not be stressed out for your life as to what you shall eat, nor for your body as to what you shall put on. For life is more than the material. Life is more than food and the body more than clothing." Sixth, some unnecessary stress is stress caused by physical fatigue. There's something about just being physically tired, that distorts your perception of yourself, your circumstances, and your God. Now, we've talked about some stress that is unnecessary and can be removed, but other stress is unavoidable and has to be dealt with. Remember Jesus said in John 16, 33, "In this world you have tribulation, but be a good cheer for I have overcome the world." How do you keep stress from paralyzing you? Let me share with you five keys, biblical keys, four, choosing relaxation, overstress. Number one, gain God's perspective on problems. Remember, stress is basically an attitude. When problems come, stress says you should panic, but an attitude of relaxation responds to problems with expectation. Panic or expectation, to choose relaxation over stress means to understand that God is in control. That's his perspective and that he can use this for some positive benefit in your life. Secondly, live life in the present tense. That's one way to deal with unavoidable stress. When we spend our time dwelling on mistakes from the past that we cannot change, or we spend our time dwelling or anticipating on problems in the future, which we really can't foresee, we're gonna have a stress-filled life. God never intended for us to live in the past, or to live in the future, but to live in the present tense. I think it's significant that when God revealed Himself to Moses and the burning bush and told him to go to Pharaoh and then to the Israelites and say, "Let my people go." And remember Moses said, "Well, who am I to say, "Simp me and gave me this message?" Exodus 3, 14, God said to Moses, "I am who I am." And He said, "Thus, you shall say to the sons of Israel, "I am has sent me to you." That was God's name, Yahweh. "I am," it was the most sacred name of God. The poet Helen Mallicott talks about the significance of that name to us. She writes, "I was regretting the past "and fearing the future. "Suddenly, my Lord was speaking to me. "My name is I am." He paused, "I waited," he continued. When you live in the past with its mistakes and regrets, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not, I was. When you live in the future with its problems and fears, it is hard. I am not there. My name is not, I will be. When you live in this moment, it is not hard. I am here. My name is I am. Now for you theologians, I understand there's some problems with that. The fact is, God is not bound by time. He's not bound by the past, the present, and the future. I understand that, but we are. We live in time. And that's why when we try to live in the past, when we can't change. or we try to anticipate the future and we really can't foresee it, we are bound to a stress-filled life. Relaxation means living life in the present tense. Third way to deal with the unavoidable stress in life. Ready for this one? Take a day off every week. I hear, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, well, password that's easy for you to say, you preachers only work one hour one day every week. But for the rest of us who have real jobs, that's just not really a possible thing. Well, think again, think again. You know the 10 commandments that God gave in Exodus 20, do you know which one has the most space devoted to it? It's not, thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not lie, or thou shall not murder. These single commandment that receives the most space is this one, Exodus 29 through 11. It's about taking a day off every week. A day that the Jews called the Sabbath, that word Sabbath, Shabbat means literally to cease, to desist from any work. Why are we to do that? Look at verses 9 to 11, six days, you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. And it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, for in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and he made it holy. The reason we're to take a day off is because God took a day off. Now, don't misunderstand. After six days of creation, God did say, "I'm worn out!" This creation stuff, it's hard work. I need to take an app. No, God doesn't get exhausted, but we do. He was setting an example for us. He said, "One day a week, there needs to be a day that you see sure regular activity and devote it to re-energizing yourself emotionally, physically and yes spiritually." And that's what the Sabbath is all about. It's not a bunch of legal requirements of what you can and can't do. As Jesus said, the man was not made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. It's God's gift to us. He knows we were designed in such a way that we can't work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There needs to be a day of rest. By the way, don't confuse a day of rest with a day of recreation. Do you know people who on their day off? I mean, they're just going from one activity to another, one sporting event to one meeting, so forth, that's not what is meant by the Sabbath. It's a time to rest and to re-energize ourselves and most importantly to reconnect with God and other believers. You know, in Luke 4 verse 16, we find this interesting word about Jesus. When he came back to his hometown of Nazareth, and he went to his childhood synagogue, Luke 4 verse 16, and he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. To me, I think that's so interesting. It was his custom one day a week to worship, to reconnect with God as well as with fellow believers in worship. If Jesus took the Sabbath seriously, so should we. Many of you know the name of William Wilberforce, the great Christian abolitionist. He was a man of great achievement, great energy, but to him, Sunday served as the bomb for the stress of his life. In his journal, he wrote, "Blessed be to God for the day of rest and religious occupation wherein earthly things assume their true size ambition is stunted." Taking a day off every week is vital to experiencing relaxation over stress. Fourth, and this is so practical, spend some time every day doing something you enjoy. If you want to get through a stressful day, a stressful week, make sure you have programmed into your day some time to do something you enjoy doing. Everybody needs something to look forward to. Have an interesting book in my library, probably calls you to raise your eyebrows, you just saw the title. It's entitled, "Beware of the naked man who offers you his shirt." It's by leadership guru Harvey McCabe, but he makes an interesting point. He says, "How do you overcome the inevitable drag on your spirits of doing tasks you hate but have to be done? If I have to do something I don't like, I make it a point to especially be nice to myself later by doing something I really do like the same day." Now that's gold as well. To have something you're looking forward to every day. Now I don't want you to misunderstand this. The day I look forward to most every week is Sunday. I mean, I am so jazzed up. To me it's the Super Bowl, I get to play every Sunday. Spend all week getting ready for Sunday. I can't sleep a lot of times on Saturday night. I'm so excited about being with you all and getting to preach God's word. But Sundays are also an endurance contest. I mean, I get up about 4.45, I run three miles, I sit down and look over the message for today, come here and preach twice, meet with our guests, meet with other folks and so forth. And I'll tell you, there's a little bit of time, usually about 10.30 on Sunday mornings, I begin to sag a little bit. But then I remember what I've got waiting at home for me that night. A big bowl of popcorn and a diet coke. And I can just picture myself stretched out on that couch watching an old movie, cramming popcorn down my mouth. But it's something I look forward to on Sunday. And it just gives me kind of the little extra, if I need for the 10.50 service. When I think about that. Now, a fact is, we ought to have something like that every day. Listen to me, this isn't in your notes, it's extra, it won't cost you anything. But you know what, there needs to be a finish line that we have in our life every week. That's what the Sabbath is. It's a finish line. It's a time when you say, "I haven't done everything I needed to do for this week, but I've done everything I should do and can do, and now I'm gonna take a day off." There ought to be a finish line. God had a finish line in his week. After six days of creation, had God done everything he could have done in creation? No, he could have done more. There were more stars, more planets, more galaxies. He could have created more kinds of animals, more kinds of human beings. Why stop with two, male and female? Why not three or four kinds of humans? It's not that God did everything he could have done, but he was setting an example for us. He did everything he needed to do. He came to a point of closure. He said, "This is enough. We need that every week. We need that every year." That's what vacations are about. When you come to the end of a year and you say, "You know what, I'm gonna take some time for myself "and with my family just to relax." I didn't hit every goal I should have hit for this year, but that's okay. There's next year, but I'm gonna relax and celebrate. But there needs to be that time every day in your schedule as well. It might be seven o'clock at night. It might be eight o'clock, but it's a finish time. When you say, "Maybe I haven't washed every dish. "I haven't made every phone call or written every email "that needs to be written, but I've hit the finish line "for today, and I'm gonna pick it up tomorrow. "And now I'm gonna do something I enjoy." He said, "Well, where is that in Scripture? "I'm so glad you asked me." Ephesians 2.24 Solomon said, "There is nothing better for a man than to eat "his popcorn and drink his diet coke." And tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. You know what, God gave you the gift of life, not just to endure, but to enjoy. God wants us to enjoy the life that He has given us. Fifth and perhaps most importantly, how do you choose relaxation over stress? Spend time with God each day. You know, in my own life, I've discovered how I begin my day and how I end my day governs my stress level throughout the day. You know, I woke up this morning, I was about to bound out of bed, well, crawl out of bed to start the day and I thought, you know, there's something I need to talk to God about. So I made myself stay in bed until I talked with the Lord about that. And just doing that, I mean, it just has energized the rest of my day. How you start, how you end determines the stress you feel throughout the day. Years ago, I came across a plan by the late pastor, Lloyd Oglevy, that I try to follow, a personal devotional plan. It's called 15 minutes to freedom. And this pastor simply says, start your day, spending 15 minutes with God, reading the Bible, praying, maybe writing something down in your spiritual journal, not an hour, not 30 minutes a day, and then in your day doing the very same thing. And when you have those bookings in your life, it tremendously affects the rest of your day. You know, in John 16, 33, again, Jesus said, "In the world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world." I think this was Jesus' primary secret for dealing with the stress he felt, with the assignment that he had in the world, to be the savior of the world. How did he deal with that with the disciples who didn't always do what they were supposed to do, with his enemies? How did he deal with it? I think the secret was he stayed connected to his heavenly father. I find one of the most fascinating verses about Jesus' life comes from Mark 1 verse 35. It says, "And in the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus arose, and he went out and departed to a lonely place, and he was praying there." Now, when you look at Mark 1, you'll discover that this morning that they talk about was the day after the single, busiest recorded day in Jesus' entire ministry. He had started early teaching and preaching and heglling people and gone late in the night, but then the next morning, when he certainly had every excuse for sleeping in, the Bible says, "No." He got up, he went to a lonely place, while it was still dark outside, and he prayed. You see, for Jesus, time spent with God was not just some legalistic spiritual requirement to be checked off. To Jesus, time spent with God was the secret of his strength, the source of his peace. And he offers us the same strength, the same peace if we'll spend time with him. God said it this way through the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 40 verses 29 to 31, "God gives strength to the weary and to him who lacks my key increases power, though youths grow weary and tired and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary." And that's the foundation for choosing relaxation over stress. God's message through Isaiah brings comfort to those who are running ragged today. No matter the issue that's causing you to worry, remember that God is the one who offers peace to the weary. I'm honored to bring this hopeful message to you today, and the fact that you're listening to Pathway to Victory right now tells me something important about you. You're serious about following Jesus with everything you've got. So let me ask you to go one step further with me. Become a Pathway Partner. Here's what that means. You give a monthly automated gift. Whatever amount God lays on your heart, and every single month your gift creates a ripple effect that reaches people you'll never meet in ways you can't even imagine. When you join me as a Pathway Partner today, I'm sending you a book that's going to challenge everything you thought you knew about legacy. It's called The Legacy Life, written by my friend David Green, founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby. In his new book, David dismantles the old idea that legacy is something you worry about in your 70s. Instead, he shows you this. Your legacy launches the moment you deploy what God has already placed in your hands to build his kingdom. Listen, one day you and I are going to stand in heaven and meet people face to face who are there because we decided that leaving a legacy mattered more than leaving comfort untouched. Let's do this together. Become a Pathway Partner today. Here's David with all the details. A copy of The Legacy Life is yours today when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, or when you become a Pathway Partner. Plus, we'll also send you the book, choose your attitudes, change your life by Dr. Robert Jeffress. Request these resources by calling 8669992965 or online, simply go to ptv.org. And when your gift is $100 or more, we'll also send you our current teaching series on audio and video discs, choose your attitudes, change your life, along with a group or individual study guide. Again, call 8669992965 or online, simply go to ptv.org. You could write to us p.o.box223609.000x75222. That's p.o.box223609.000x75222. Society has taught us to believe that contentment comes from money, health, and comfort. But in reality, contentment all comes down to how you think. I'm David J Mullins, inviting you to join us for the message titled, Choosing Contentment over Comparison. That's Monday on Pathway to Victory. 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