Practical Living

Dale O'Shields: Thank you for joining us for today's Practical Living broadcast. I pray that through this message that you will learn how to apply God's word and truths to any situation in your life. Stay with us as we discover God's truths that will transform us.

Dale O'Shields: And we're going to continue our series together entitled Lifequakes this morning. I want to talk to you, we'll continue to talk about tackling stress and tension in your life. If you're taking notes, you'll find on the back of your bulletin a place to take notes. You can also find more extensive notes at churchdashredeemer.org/info or at our My COR app. Really would encourage you to download the My COR app. It's a great resource for you. As you're able to get notes and archives there for you, and also notifications about different things happening in the life of the church, a great, great resource for you.

Dale O'Shields: Lifequakes, we're talking about things that shake up your life. And very clear that we go through things at times in times in life that really are very upsetting to us and shaking our lives that oftentimes at a very foundational level. Jesus talked about this very clearly, that everyone experiences lifequakes. As I've referred to several times in this series, in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus talked about two men who built houses. One man built his house on the foundation of sand, of course, not a very good foundation, and another man built his house on the foundation of rock. And the storms of life came to both men. Both individuals experienced the shaking storms of rain and the thunder and the shaking that came. And the Bible says that only one house stood firm. And that was the house of the man who built on rock.

Dale O'Shields: And Jesus makes it very clear that you and I need to build our lives on a solid foundation. And that rock represents the rock of his word, the rock of relationship with him. The rock of just not just knowing the word of God, but actually doing what the word of God says, obedience to his word. And so in this series, we've talked about a variety of things that shake us up. We've talked about grief that comes our way through losses, discouragement. We've talked about a lot of different things as we've gone through the series together. And as I said, over the last several weeks, we've been talking about stress and tension. Last week, I talked specifically about tension. Today, I want to talk to you about stress.

Dale O'Shields: I want to start by giving you a very clear definition of the word stress, so we're all on the same page together. And so on the screen, you'll see sort of a technical definition of stress, and I would invite you to read together with me aloud and loudly, let's all read in concert together. Here we go. Stress is the internal response of the spirit, soul, or body to real or perceived pressures, demands, uncertainties, or overloads. Let's read it again together. Stress is the internal response of the spirit, soul, or body to real or perceived pressures, demands, uncertainties, or overloads.

Dale O'Shields: Let me simplify it for you with this next definition. This is what stress really is. Read it with me. Stress is what happens inside us when life feels heavier than our present ability to carry it. That's what stress is. It's when you feel as though life is just too heavy for you to bear in this moment. You cannot bear the weight of it.

Dale O'Shields: And anytime, anytime you have stress in your life, it's going to affect you spiritually. It can affect your relationship with God. It affects us emotionally. We have all kinds of feelings that go along with stress. We'll talk about some of those today. It affects us mentally, the way that we think. Oftentimes stress can affect the relationships of your life. It spills over from you to other people around you. A lot of marriages are destroyed just by stress in the family. And then, of course, stress has an impact upon your body. Your physical body can suffer greatly because of stress. In fact, a lot of ailments, doctors tell us, are really bound up or connected to stress in your life. We often times hold it in and it works against us.

Dale O'Shields: I want to take you to a story in the Bible where the disciples of Jesus experienced some stress and how Jesus ministered to them and some lessons that we can learn from it. Matthew chapter 8, beginning in verse 23. Notice this story of the life of Jesus and his disciples. Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake. That lake would be the Sea of Galilee with his disciples.

Dale O'Shields: Suddenly, key word there, comes out of the blue, was not anything expected at all. Suddenly, a fierce storm, key word there, it's a word in the Greek that emphasizes a very intense kind of storm, not just a regular sort of passing storm, but something that had intensity to it. A fierce storm struck the lake with waves breaking into the boat, but Jesus was sleeping.

Dale O'Shields: The disciples went and woke him, shouting, “Lord, save us! We're going to drown!” Jesus responded, “Why are you so afraid? Why are you afraid? You have so little faith.” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves and suddenly there was a great calm. The disciples were amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked, “even the winds and waves obey him.”

Dale O'Shields: The question is, what do we learn from this story? There are a lot of different things that we could talk about today, but we certainly learn that stress is real, and we learn that it's a part of life, and we learn that we must learn, we must gain some skills in handling it well in life. We learn this from the disciples and Jesus' approach to them in this very stressful moment. There's one main lesson that I want you to learn today. Only one point that I hope you'll carry away with you. We'll fill in this point with some subpoints that I believe will help you as well. And the main point today is this: stress is something that must be processed properly in your life. It must be processed properly.

Dale O'Shields: Now, last week, we talked about tension. There's a difference between tension and stress. In life, you're going to always have some tension, because tension is the pulling of different things at different times. And tension is all about doing the right thing, making decisions in life. We're always making decisions. Do we do this or do we do that? And how do we do the right thing at the right time in the right way? And so you'll never get rid of tension. Tension has to be managed in your life. And it needs to be managed well. But stress is something different. Stress is not to be managed. Stress is to be processed. I want you to get these two statements with me. Tension must be managed well, and stress must be processed properly. Would you say that with me? Tension must be managed well, and stress must be processed properly. Processing stress.

Dale O'Shields: So today's Bible text, as we read a moment ago, focuses our attention on a very stressful moment in the life of Jesus' disciples. It's a story about a very ordinary boat trip on the Sea of Galilee. Now, these disciples had been on this body of water many, many times. In fact, we know that at least four of them were commercial fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John. They'd fished on the Sea of Galilee multiple, multiple times. It's very likely that they'd experienced storms on this lake before. And most, if not all, the other disciples certainly had traveled with Jesus on the boat before. This was not their first trip on the water. And so they understood something about experiencing sort of difficult situations out on the waterway.

Dale O'Shields: And to understand the story, it really does help us to get a little bit of understanding about this place called the Sea of Galilee, because you'll not appreciate the story fully without understanding something about the geography and the topography of the Sea of Galilee. So let me give you just a few facts. It's in northern Israel, the Galilee portion of Israel. It's where the Jordan River runs into the Sea of Galilee, and it runs out of the Sea of Galilee all the way down to the Dead Sea. And so it's a very central part of the activity, the northern region of Israel, the Sea of Galilee. It's a fairly small lake. It's not really a sea as we think of a sea. It's more like a lake. It's about 13 miles in length. So not very long, and about seven or eight miles at its widest point.

Dale O'Shields: The deepest point in the Sea of Galilee is about 150 feet. And if you know anything about waterways at all, you'll know that that's not extremely deep. It's deep enough, but it's this is the deepest portion. So a lot of the Sea of Galilee is relatively shallow, and so it is very subject to storms coming, coming its way. When you trace around the edge of the Sea of Galilee, you'll travel, if you travel all the edge of that seaside area, that shoreline, you would travel about 33 miles is about all. So it's not a huge place, but it's 700 feet below sea level. And it's surrounded actually by mountains and hills, particularly on the east and on the north.

Dale O'Shields: And so what happens is this, it's located there in this Jordan Valley and the Sea of Galilee is sort of like a bowl sitting in a low portion of the earth. With mountains and hills around it, what happens is the the warm water in the Sea of Galilee emits warm winds that rise up, moisture that rises up, and then there's cold air that comes from the mountainous area above it. And so you have a collision of the warm air coming from the Sea of Galilee and the cold air coming from the top of the mountains. And any time you mix a warm air mass with a cold air mass, you're going to have what? You're going to have a storm.

Dale O'Shields: And so this is how it exists there. This is the the vulnerability of that particular aspect of the water. Let's take a look at the screens and you'll see kind of something about the Sea of Galilee. I took this shot a few years ago. That's the Sea of Galilee. There it's relatively calm. There are boats that sit out there all the time. You can take a nice boat ride on the Sea of Galilee and when it's calm, it's absolutely beautiful. You see the hills around it. Here you'll see just a little bit of a topographical map. And you see how the Sea of Galilee is sort of like a bowl and surrounded by mountains all the way around. And so you see this air that comes down, the air that rises, and suddenly a storm can erupt.

Dale O'Shields: And when a storm erupts on the Sea of Galilee, it's usually or often times a very violent kind of storm. It happens extremely quickly. Take a look at this video, because this was shot at a time when the storm was happening there on the Sea of Galilee. It's beginning to brew here and start as the waves begin to happen. And then you see the water coming in over the breakwater area. That's the place you saw a moment ago that was relatively quiet. In a short period of time, you have this kind of these kind of conditions there.

Dale O'Shields: And so we have these disciples that were there on the Sea of Galilee at a time when this sudden eruption of a storm had transpired. It's a very intense moment. But the interesting thing about this story is that these men had been on the Sea of Galilee many times before, as I mentioned a moment ago. This was not something new for them. It's something that they'd likely experienced, but there was something unique about this situation that caused them to fear for their lives as water is breaking over the boat and coming into the actual place of safety for them. And they feel as though they are going to die, that they're going to drown.

Dale O'Shields: And so Jesus in the boat is sleeping. He's peaceful there, and he's sleeping. And they wake him up and their words are, “Don't you care that we're about to drown? We need you to do something about this situation. This is not good.” And so Jesus rebukes them for their lack of faith, and then he rises and he speaks to the wind and to the waves and they immediately calm down and the sea, the lake becomes very glassy and calm once again.

Dale O'Shields: What I want you to see here in this story is I want you to look with me today at the stress inside of the disciples. Our focus today really is on the stress that the disciples experienced and how Jesus ministered to them and what lessons we can learn from it. And so I want to first start by giving you some important facts to understand about how stress works in your life. This is certainly from from the biblical understanding of the story, and also from our own practical observation of how stress works in people's lives. Let me walk you through seven things you need to be aware of related to stress.

Dale O'Shields: First of all, stress is an internal reaction to external situations. How do you get stressed in your life? Something happens. Something external transpires, a problem comes up. You get an email that that is very negative or an email that is very troublesome. You get a report from the doctor. You find a bill that you didn't realize you were going to have. And suddenly something transpires, there's an external event that begins to cause internal reaction for you.

Dale O'Shields: The second part of stress is these stressful external situations now reveal to us our internal condition. What I mean by that is this, whatever's happening out there gets inside of us and reveals what's really on the inside of us. See, pressure outside of you will reveal what's inside of you. Just like if I had a toothpaste tube here today and I would open the cap and I was to squeeze on the toothpaste tube, whatever was inside the tube would come out. And the same is true for you and me. When these external events transpire, what's on the inside of us is revealed in that moment. For the disciples, what it revealed for them was their fear instead of their faith.

Dale O'Shields: The third fact about stress is to understand that a certain amount of stress is actually important for you. It's important for your growth. It's important for peak performance. And I believe that Jesus wanted the disciples to learn something, to grow through this experience. But instead of growing, they actually failed this test in that moment. And so you need some stress in your life. If you run from stress all the time, you're never going to grow, you'll never develop. It's very much like tension. You need a certain amount of it in your life to reach your peak performance. And so stressful events challenge us. They it's not always bad, and it does reveal certain things about our lives.

Dale O'Shields: But then when we get overly stressed, and I think we would all agree that the disciples in the boat were not just stressed, they were overly stressed. And when you are overly stressed, something happens in your mind. Your mind starts hijacking your thinking. And you start thinking very negative thoughts. Have you ever noticed how quickly your mind can go south on you? And how quickly you can begin to have all these dark thoughts? This is terrible. I'm not sure I'm going to get out of this. And this is what happened with the disciples. They started thinking because of their lack of faith internally. They start thinking, "We are going to drown." This is all over with now. There's no hope for us to be rescued. We certainly hope that Jesus can help us in this moment. But right now, we're facing certain death. So there's this hijacking of our thinking.

Dale O'Shields: To hijack means to step in and take over. And that's what your mind will do. It'll grab you and begin to pull you in very dark and negative places. And then what happens is your hijacked thinking results in what I've called here, hyper-emotions. Your emotions begin to rise up and you begin to feel fear and anxiety. Once you begin to start to fear and anxiety, it feeds on itself. And before long, there's this downward cycle that happens. And then you start making decisions. And out of your hijacked thinking and your hyper-emotions, you will make very unwise, foolish actions and decisions in your life. In fact, some of you can testify today that there was a time in your life when you went through a huge amount of stress, and out of that stress, you didn't handle it so well and you're now regretting some of the decisions you made in those moments of your life because you made decisions out of stress, out of fear, out of anxiety, instead of out of faith.

Dale O'Shields: And the last thing I'll mention here in this section of the today's message, to understand what's happened here is this. In the disciples, what started out as stress now has become distress. And there's a difference because stress is good for you, but distress will destroy you. And the stress has now turned into something that is very, very destructive for their lives. And now they're living and reacting out of not just stress, but distress. Finding themselves making, about to make some very bad decisions.

Dale O'Shields: So here's the story, the storm that's happened. What do we learn from the storm? How do we deal with it? And not only do we do we recognize what stress does to us, but how do we actually handle it the right way? So here's the main focus of today's message. I want to teach you today from God's word, how to handle stress so it doesn't become distress in your life. Now, what I'm about to share with you, as I often will say to you, are things that I haven't perfected. I'm still working on these things as well. None of us have arrived there. But this is something that you can set as goals for your life and your spiritual journey to learn how to handle stress much better so that you're not distressed by the external situations that come your way.

Dale O'Shields: So are we ready to walk through those principles? Here we go. Number one, you've got to acknowledge the presence of your stressful situation. What I mean by that is recognize it. You'll never deal with stress and you'll never overcome distress until you recognize when something is ramping you up on the inside. And so this is called self-awareness. You have to be aware of something transpiring that's about to result in you responding or reacting the wrong way.

Dale O'Shields: The Apostle Paul gives us a tremendous lesson in this in 2 Corinthians chapter 1. I've fallen in love with this passage recently. I'm not sure, it's been a long time since I taught on any of this particular passage, but it's come alive in a fresh way for me as Paul talks about a very stressful time in his own life. Listen to his words. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse number 8. “We think,” writing to the Corinthians, “we think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble, the stress, we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure.” So here's this moment that Paul is acknowledging a time in his life when something was stressing him.

Dale O'Shields: See, I've found in my life that you can't deal with anything until you name it. You can't deal with something until you put a label on it. I can't deal with something in my life until I recognize what it is. And so you have to recognize this is something that could very easily cause me stress. Paul said, “I need to tell you about a time in my life when we were in Asia and we were troubled. In fact, we were crushed, we were overwhelmed, and we got to the place that we were beyond our ability to endure.” It was very, very stressful.

Dale O'Shields: The second thing that you must do to deal with stress is to then pay attention to your thoughts revealed by your self-talk. We'll see this in Paul's life in just a moment. Let me explain what I mean by that. When something stressful happens to you, you start talking to yourself. Some of you jabber at yourself all day long. You have a a dialogue that goes on between your ears, and that dialogue oftentimes is very negative. This is terrible. This is horrible. I'm not sure we're going to get out of this. For the disciples, we're going to drown. And so we begin to talk these negative kind of scenarios, catastrophic scenarios in our mind, and we begin to speak this to ourselves.

Dale O'Shields: And it gets in your head. Have you noticed how things can get between your ears, okay? And so it's back and forth this dialogue. And so the way you know how your thinking is by listening to your self-talk. This is a key ingredient for your health, to learn to listen to what you're saying to yourself. Because if you don't pay attention to what you're saying to yourself, you'll be telling yourself lies all the time. Because your thoughts lie to you. Do you notice that? Ever noticed that in your life? And your thoughts lie to you a lot, okay? Your thoughts are always lying to you. And so if you don't filter these this this self-talk that's going on inside of you, you're going to be buying in to a lot of lies, and lies always bind you up. Truth sets you free, but lies will bind you up.

Dale O'Shields: Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 8, he says, “Yeah, we were in the province of Asia and we were overwhelmed, crushed beyond our ability to endure.” And then he says in verse 8, “We thought we would never live through it.” We what? Thought. This thought got in his head. We thought, “We're not going to live through this.”

Dale O'Shields: The third thing that you have to do now if you're going to deal with stress is to interrupt your negative thinking. You've got to stop the downward mental and emotional cycle. You've got to stop it. By intervening in your thought process. One of the things that's valuable for you to learn, for us to learn together is that we are in charge of what we think. Let me say it a different way. I hope you'll hear me this this morning. You are in charge of your own mental health.

Dale O'Shields: I'm getting a scattering of a-mens here and there, okay. But I want you to grab that. You, who's in charge of your mental health? Your husband? Your wife? Your boss? Your neighbors? No. Your pastor? No. Who's in charge of your mental health? You're in charge of your own mental health. I'll prove this to you. Who's in charge of your physical health? This guy says my wife, okay? That's probably true in a lot of cases.

Dale O'Shields: If I were to wake up every morning, every day of my life, and all day long all I eat is hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, potato chips, ice cream, cake, cookies, pie, and then say, “Oh, Lord, give me divine health,” okay? Now, that would be silly, would it not? Right? Okay. Now, could God give me health? Yeah, God could supernaturally still give me health. There's no no issue related to the ability of God. That's not even in question. But I to have health, I need to treat my body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, right? I have a responsibility. The same is true with your mind. You are responsible for what goes on in this head of yours, okay?

Dale O'Shields: Now, God will help you with his grace and power and with the truth of his word. We'll get into that more in just a moment. But you have to realize, I am in charge of my thinking, okay? I can't just sit back and allow my mind to be passive and allow every thought that comes in to not be, to go unfiltered. I've got to choose to filter some stuff out of my thinking process. Because the Bible says that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, okay? And so how your life is transformed relates to the the the the change that is renewing, being changed in your thinking, how your mind is being made new by the right kind of thinking.

Dale O'Shields: Notice Paul here, because we're still on Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 1. What did he say? He said, "I got to tell you guys about the stressful event that happened for us in Asia. We were overwhelmed, we were crushed. In fact, we didn't know if we were going to be able to endure." And we thought we were going to die. It got in our heads that we were going to die. Now let's pick up the story. In fact, verse number 9, he says, “In fact, we expected to die, but as a result,” what are the next two words? “We stopped.” We stopped something. We stopped doing what? What? “Relying on ourselves and learned to rely on God who raises the dead.” Let's stop there for a moment.

Dale O'Shields: Paul says, "I, we thought we were going to die, but we stopped thinking that way. We started relying on God. And we realized that even if we die, God is able to raise us from the dead again, okay?" He changed his thinking. He changed his approach to things. And so his reliance moved from himself to the right kind of thinking, relying on God. Verse 10. “And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us.” Do you see the shift from the stressful moment to stopping his thinking and getting back on the right track again? This is how stress is overcome. This is how you avoid moving from stress to distress in your life.

Dale O'Shields: So you recognize it, you acknowledge this happened. I've got to be careful. Now I've got to check my thinking, my emotions, and now I've got to make sure I step in and interrupt those negative things that are happening, get truth there. And then here's some truth to remember, some truth that you need to put into yourself, into your thinking. Always remember, fill your mind with this truth, remember who is with you. That whatever you're going through, remember who is with you. Who was with the disciples on the Sea of Galilee? Jesus. Jesus was not absent. He was there in the boat. He was with them. And you need to remember that in any situation of life, you are not alone. God is with you.

Dale O'Shields: Romans 8:38 and 39. Let these words get deeply into your spirit today. “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love, no power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

Dale O'Shields: Paul says, “You've got to realize this. Death, life, angels, demons, fears today, worries about tomorrow, even the powers of hell cannot separate you from the love of God.” And so in any situation you're going through, remember who's with you. Remind yourself, God is with me. And then recall the faithfulness of God in your life. This is so much help to you. When you're going through a moment where you're slipping from stress to distress, you're trying to intervene in your thinking. Remember, recall the faithfulness of God in your life.

Dale O'Shields: Let me ask you a question this morning. Have any of you ever gone through some stuff in your past? Let me see your hand, right? You've gone through some stuff, okay? Anybody gone through some stuff in your life? I want you to notice that you've gone through stuff, but you're still here today. Amen. You've gone through some stuff, but you're still in the house of God today. You're still worshipping God today. You've made it through some stuff. And I will tell you that if you've made it through some stuff in the past, it's because God was faithful to you in the past, and he got you through the stuff that you went through. And that means that God indeed is faithful today to get you through whatever stuff you may be facing today in your life. And it also means this, that whatever stuff you may face tomorrow, he's going to get you through that as well. That he is a faithful God. He never fails on delivering in his promises to us.

Dale O'Shields: Paul writes to Timothy, a man who was oriented toward timidity. He was a man that leaned toward fear himself, Timothy did. And Paul writes and reminds him and us as well, “Even when we are too weak to have faith left, he remind he remains faithful to us and will help us, for he cannot disown us who are part of himself, and he will always carry out his promises to us.” What is Paul saying? Paul is saying that even when you don't have any faith, God remains faithful. That God will never cease being faithful in your life.

Dale O'Shields: The next thing you do is in these moments where you're moving, you tend to be moving from stress to distress. Make sure you call on God in prayer. So often I've seen this certainly in my own life and in many people over the years that I've tried to work with as a pastor and just intervening, working with people and helping them through the process of dealing with stuff in their life. There's so many times when something happens that's very difficult to deal with, we want to talk to everybody else but God, okay? We want to tell everybody in the world our problems. Just if you give a half a minute to them, they're going to tell you, “Well, this is going wrong and that's going wrong. This is terrible. This is horrible in my life. I'm going to drown.” Okay? And before long, they're spitting out and communicating this negativity to anyone that will listen. Can I just encourage you that when something happens in your life that's hard to deal with, I'm not saying you should not seek support from others, we need the support to carry one another's burdens. But your first court of appeal needs to be to God himself, okay?

Dale O'Shields: Go to God in prayer. Take your needs to God in prayer. Call on God in prayer. Why? Because he listens to you. You say, “Well, I'm not sure God will listen to me.” Yes, if you sincerely go to God in prayer, he will listen to you. He's he's promised over and over and over again through his word, “Call to me and I will answer,” saith the Lord. So we go to God in prayer. Notice Philippians 4:6. “Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.”

Dale O'Shields: How do you avoid moving from stress to distress? Number seven, you need to trust the promises God has given you. You need to know the promises of God and believe them. Let me talk to you about this just for a moment. To believe the promises of God, you have to know them. If you don't know the promises of God, you have no no ammunition against the enemy. It'd be like sending a soldier into battle, they might have a gun but no ammunition, okay? That would be useless against the enemy. And so you need to build up some ammunition in your life. That when you're going through a stressful moment, and those negative thoughts begin to find their way into your thinking and that's hijacking your thinking and your emotions are going hyper on you, you need something to intervene with, some truth to intervene with. And that truth is is the promise of God. The promises of God is what you need to know.

Dale O'Shields: So I would ask you, do you know the promises of God? And the right time to learn God's promises is not in the heat of battle. You don't need to learn them when you're already in the warfare. You need to learn them before the trouble comes your way. Because will trouble come your way? Yes. It's going to come your way. Jesus said, “The storms of life are going to come to everybody.” So you need to have something that has equipped you to battle when the storms come your way. Do you know the promises of God? And so you need as a Christian believer, to learn what God says about you, what God says about himself, what God says about the circumstances of your life, the promise that he has for you. Do you know them? Do you believe them?

Dale O'Shields: Now there are many resources. We have some available here in our resource center that will help you to learn the promises of God. But there's all kind of books that you can get and and you can study the Bible on your own. Every time you go through the Bible, find the promises of God. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you promises for your life. And God will give you promises to hold on to in the midst of your challenging circumstances. I love Isaiah 26:3 and 4. “You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts,” notice that, “whose thoughts are what? Fixed. Fixing your thoughts on you, the promises of God. Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal rock.”

Dale O'Shields: I've got two more for you. How do you avoid moving from stress to distress? You've got to believe that there's purpose in every problem. Whatever problems come your way, there's a purpose somewhere in it. You say, “Well, pastor, what's the purpose of my problem?” I have no idea, okay? I'm not wise enough to tell you what that purpose is. You may go through a problem and you may not yourself even understand the purpose of it. What was that all about? But God can bring about a purpose out of every problem. Ask Joseph in the Old Testament, who was sold into slavery, and he ends up in prison. And his brothers have now sold him and tried to murder him, were thinking about murdering him. And he found himself in that Egyptian jail cell for 13 long years, wondering if he would ever become the man that God called him to be. And that dream being drifting away from his life slowly. But God accomplished the purpose, and Joseph held on to the reality that even though his brothers meant this for evil, God meant it for good, okay?

Dale O'Shields: And we have a promise clearly in scripture in Romans chapter 8, verse 28. You know it. You've heard it, many of you have. But I want you to listen to it like you've never heard it before. Would you try to do that with me today? Listen to this like you've never heard it before. If you're in a stressful moment right now, a challenging situation for you today, I want you to hear this verse. And I want you to tuck it away in your heart for when those moments will come in your life. “And we know,” Paul writes, “we know that word know is a solid assurance. You can't shake this away from me. There's no doubt about it. We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God.” Do you love him this morning, okay? Do you love God this morning? “For those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

Dale O'Shields: The Bible is very clear that whatever you go through in life. I'm not here to say that God is causing your problems. Problems happen for lots of different reasons, okay? That God is not there trying to make your life miserable. He will bring challenges and trials along the way. But not every problem is something God sends. But every problem, God can turn into a purpose for your life, okay? Every scar can turn into a star in your life. Amen. Every broken place can turn into a restored place for your life.

Dale O'Shields: And the Bible says we know. We don't have to doubt about it, wonder, question. We know that God causes everything to work together, not for the bad, but for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Last point, we'll be done today. As you need, as you're going through problems and challenges in life, to keep the stress from becoming distress, you need to mine the lessons from every situation. The word mine there is to dig in and draw out. That's the idea. We understand that from mining gold or silver or precious stones. You've got to get in there and you got to find where it is, you got to pull it out. And the same is true in every situation you walk through in life, that there's something there for you, a lesson for you to learn, wisdom for you to gain. But you have to mine it. You have to go in and find it. You got to draw it out of that situation.

Dale O'Shields: If I told you today without any doubt at all, there's several million dollars of buried gold in your backyard. And you trusted and knew that I was telling you the truth. Several million dollars of gold somewhere buried in your backyard. I tell you exactly what you would do. As soon as I I could not say amen fast enough right now, okay? You'd be in your car, heading to to Home Depot, to buy every shovel and pick you possibly could, okay? You'd find somebody with a backhoe, somebody with a bobcat, somebody with something to help you get in your back in your backyard as quickly as possible. And you'd go to work, looking for that gold like like it was the last thing you needed to do in life to find the very thing that had been promised to you, okay?

Dale O'Shields: How much more should we realize that this book right here is gold, okay? This is gold right here, okay? And the experiences that God brings you through in life, they're gold. Don't let them pass you by. Why go through life and experience tough stuff and not learn something from it? I mean, after all, you're going through the pain, why not learn a lesson, right? You're going through something in life that's difficult. Learn something from it so that you have wisdom for whatever it is will come your way in the future. You gain something that you can carry with you from his word and from the circumstances you're experiencing in life. You mind it out. You learn something from it.

Dale O'Shields: It's so sad to me to see people go through the same stuff over and over again and they never learn a single lesson from it. That should not be the people of God. We should be people that are hungry for wisdom. Listen to Proverbs chapter 2, verse number 2. “Tune your ears to what? Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding.” Some of you in the room are old enough to understand what it really means to tune. Most of you have digital radios and that's all you've ever known in your life. I feel sorry for you because you don't really understand what tuning is all about. But in the old days, when you had a radio, you had a little dial on it. And you had to tune in the station. And sometimes you'd get a little bit to the right of the dial and it'd be a little fuzzy coming in. And then you'd go back to the left of the dial and you'd get a little bit there, a little fuzzy there. And then finally, you get it right on there and you tell, “Don't anybody move right now!” because we're tuned in, okay?

Dale O'Shields: Don't move the radio. Don't move the antenna. Don't even you move, okay? Because I'm getting the signal right now. And God says, “Would you tune, come on. Tune, come on. Tune, come on. Tune your ears, your heart. Tune it in. You've got to find that frequency. Find that spot on the dial where God's talking to you and saying, ‘Hey, this is what you need to learn in this situation.’” And that means you have to put out some distractions, put off some distractions around you. And tune in and say, “God, what are you trying to say to me through this?” What am I, what do I need to learn? And the disciples, did they need to learn something in the boat that day? Did they? Oh, Jesus made it pretty clear, did he not? “Oh, you of little faith.”

Dale O'Shields: Didn't you realize that I was in the boat with you? Didn't you recognize that the Lord of the universe is sitting right here with you? The Lord who created the wind and the waves. Didn't you realize that I'm the one that spoke and the world came into existence? Don't you know that I'm the Lord of all the earth? I'm certainly the Lord of the Sea of Galilee. Don't you know who's with you? Oh, you of little faith, tune in and let your faith be strong. What is God trying to say to you through the problems of your life? Are you tuning your ear to the wisdom of God? It takes some effort, but it's worth the effort. Don't let your stress become distress. Process it properly. Amen. Stress will happen, events transpire in life. But your stress does not have to become distress if you process it properly. Would you bow your heads with me as we as we pray?

Dale O'Shields: Lord, we thank you for the amazing story of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee and the stress they experienced, your words to them and the lessons we learn, not only from that story, but so many of the stories of the Bible. How people walk through very difficult circumstances, but Lord, those that trusted in you came out on the other side. I think about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. Now they went through that seemingly stressful moment, but the Bible says they came out, they didn't even smell like smoke. You brought them through.

Dale O'Shields: And I pray for people in this room today, those watching online, those in our Frederick campus. We ask, O God, that in this moment by the grace and power of your Holy Spirit that you would help us to grab hold of our thinking, O God. Lord, those those thought processes and that self-talk that is leading us down a pathway of of catastrophic thinking, of believing the worst instead of the best. God, would you help us to step in and grab hold of those thoughts and interject in the promises of your word? The confidence that we have with you. And Lord, we pray that you'll help us to be protected from moving from stress to distress. Let us be people who truly trust in you. Teach us your promises. Help us to gain your wisdom, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Dale O'Shields: I would like to close today by giving you an opportunity to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life. Would you pray with me right now? Right where you are to simply bow your head with me and I'm going to give you a prayer to pray. And you can simply speak this prayer out, whisper this prayer out. And from the sincerity of your heart, call upon God, and I promise you that he will hear and answer you. So let's pray together. Start by simply whispering the name Jesus. Let there come uh from your heart just the declaration of his name. Say, Jesus, I know that that I am a sinner, that I have fallen short with you. I'm sorry for all of my sins.

Dale O'Shields: Jesus, I believe in you. I believe that you are God's son. I believe that you are the savior of the world. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. And I believe that you rose from the grave, that you are alive today. Now pray these words. Say, “Lord Jesus, come into my heart. Come into my life. Forgive me of my sins. Give me a new start in you. I commit my life to you in Jesus' name. Amen.”

Dale O'Shields: Now, if you prayed that prayer with me, I want to encourage you with a promise from God's word that says that when we call upon God's name, we call upon the son of God, there is salvation that comes to our lives. He changes us from the inside out. And you become a new creation. All things pass away, all things become new. And that's exactly what has happened to you today. Your next step really is to make sure that you get into a good, Bible-believing church. And you begin to study God's word, get God's word in you. And to make sure that you get a copy of the Bible if you don't have one and begin to read it. Spend some time every day in prayer. And I would encourage you also to check out the resources on our website that will help you to get going in your relationship with Jesus. You can find them at church-redeemer.org. Get those into your hands. Get started in your new life with Jesus Christ. Thanks again for joining us today. May God bless you and we look forward to seeing you next time.