When Life Gets Messy Because Of Stress Series

TEXT: Various

TITLE: Jesus - How to handle stress

SERIES: When Life Gets Messy…

TOPIC: Stress

OCCASION: Burnside Christian Church, October 6, 2009

PROP.: Jesus was constantly under pressure and yet remained cool, calm and collected. Here are 8 principles we learn from His life!

INTRODUCTION: Good morning!

Today marks a new sermon series. The name of the series we will find ourselves in is this: When Life Gets Messy

Because when life gets messy, life becomes difficult.

All throughout this series, we are going to learn how to clean up the mess by looking at the lives of different people!

The beautiful thing about the Bible is that God teaches us using a lot of different people to bring about His eternal truth and principles.

Today I want to talk to you about stress. Stress makes life messy. Listen to the health problems associated with stress:

Depression Heart Disease Obesity

Pain of any kind Digestive problems Autoimmune diseases

Sleep Problems Skin conditions such as eczema

Anxiety

The list goes on and on…

What is stress exactly? Websters dictionary defines stress this way:

stress  /strɛs/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [stres]

the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another; strain.

I think Bilbo Baggins (from Lord of the Rings), said it well:

“I feel like butter scraped thinly over too much bread…”

Is that how you feel?

What I want you to do is to write down the one thing that stresses you out the most! Write it at the center at the top of your page…

Stress makes a mess out of many people’s lives.

So who will we look at this week to help us clean up the mess that stress creates?

Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ was constantly under pressure. There were grueling demands on his time; he rarely had any personal privacy; he was constantly interrupted. People repeatedly misunderstood him, criticized him, and ridiculed him. He had enormous stress which would have caused any of us to cave in.

But as we take an overview of the entire life of Christ, it becomes clear that not only did Christ stand strong - he lived life with grace and peace.

And believe me, I know the danger of using the life of Christ as an example. As soon as I said “let’s look at what we can learn from Jesus about how to live our lives” some of you checked out mentally.

You are gone. Why? Because you have it in your mind that, “well, that’s Jesus! He’s God! I can never live like Jesus lived.”

And you’re right. You are not going to live a sinless, perfect life like Jesus did! And it’s true that Jesus is special and unique! He lived his life free from the mistakes of sin…that’s what qualified Him to be a sacrifice on our behalf.

But what I think we tend to forget is that just as true as it is that Jesus was fully God, it’s also just as true that Jesus was fully human!

Just like you, Jesus could only be in one place at one time. Just like you, Jesus had emotions that needed to be kept in check. Just like you, Jesus became tired, hungry, hot, cold. And yet, Jesus handled His stress in the right way!

Have you ever wondered why Jesus never used his miraculous power to serve himself? It’s true! Jesus, even though He had miraculous power at his finger tips, never used his power to make life easy or less complicated for Himself. And I believe the reason why Jesus spent 33 years on this earth was to show us how to live. To give us instructions on how to live this life.

And so what do we learn about handling stress from Jesus? We learn these 8 principles:

I’m going to give you four this week and four next week.

1st Principle in handling stress is…

I. Identification: Know Who You Are!

I believe much stress could be avoided if you simply could answer the question: “Who am I?” If you can’t confidently answer that question, you will seek the answer from others. You will let others manipulate and pressure you into believing you are somebody you aren’t!

A lot of stress in life results from our hiding behind masks, living double lives, being unreal with others or trying to be somebody we’re not.

Insecurity always produces pressure in our lives and when we are insecure, we feel forced to perform and conform. We set unrealistic goals, standards, and even though we work, work, work, we still can’t meet those unrealistic standards.

A. Christ Knew! (Confidence of Christ)

Jesus knew exactly who He was. He stated it time and time again.

John 8:12 - “"I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."