HopeLives365

Guest (Male): Stress impacts our bodies, plays havoc with our minds and damages our emotions. But there is a solution.

This is Hope Lives 365 with Pastor Mark Finley. Today's message: 3 Biblical Principles of Dealing with Stress. Enjoy and remember you can always catch up with past messages and stay up to date with Hope Lives 365 and Pastor Mark by going to hopelives365.com. And now back to Pastor Mark Finley.

Mark Finley: What's the first thought that comes to your mind? Some people it's headaches or nervousness, anxiety, worry, fear. I asked that question to a stress management class that I was teaching on one occasion. "What's the first word that comes to your mind when you think of the word stress? Just raise your hand and give me one word."

One lady said, "A burning sensation in my stomach." Another person said, "Tightness in my neck." Another person said, "That throbbing headache." When I was an administrator in a school in Chicago, I had a secretary there who I could always tell when she was under stress. She would get this red rash, pretty severe, on her arms.

People react to stress in different ways. I call those stress vulnerability points. It's like when you are blowing up a balloon and you get too much air in the balloon. The balloon is going to pop at the place at which it is most vulnerable to pop or its weakest point. So when we have stress that builds up in our bodies, we tend to have symptoms at the place where we are most vulnerable. For some people it's a headache, some people it is tension in the shoulders, some people it's a stomach problem.

Knowing those stress vulnerability points helps you to know that you are under stress. You can take three deep breaths and back up. Is stress always bad? When I ask the question "What do you think of when you think of stress?" many people give me negative responses. But is stress always bad? For example, the athlete under stress may perform better. The student under stress may study harder. The businessman under stress may put in more effort.

So stress isn't always bad. Well, when is stress bad? Let's suppose you're hiking on the Appalachian Trail, not far from where we are here in Haymarket, Virginia. And as you're hiking that day, you're alone and you hear some rustles in the bushes and you look up and there is a bear. That bear is staring right at you. Your heart begins to beat faster. Your respiration is quicker. Your muscles are tense like spring steel, and you begin to run. Now maybe that's not the thing to do if you're facing a bear, but it's just an illustration.

And as you're running, every bodily function has been speeded up. What are you under? Stress. So if a bear is chasing you and you're under stress and you run faster, I think that's pretty good thing, isn't it? But here's the problem. When some people get up in the morning, it's like the bear is chasing them all day. Some people always have an increased heart rate, increased respiration. So stress is not bad if it's short-term in spurts. Stress becomes bad when it's prolonged and it's a constant state that you're under it.

What are three biblical principles that will help us to deal with this matter of stress? The first is concentrate on improving your overall health. The healthier you are, the more you're going to be capable of handling the stresses of your life. The Bible passage that helps us understand that is Romans chapter 12, verse 1. "I beseech you therefore, brothers and sisters, I beseech," Paul says, "I urge you. I exhort you. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God." The only way we can bring our bodies in harmony with God's will is through His grace or through His mercy or by His power. "That you present," notice you present, nobody else can do it for you, "your bodies."

Now the word for bodies there is a very fascinating word. It's the word *somata*. We get the word "sum" from that. *Somata* is a Greek word. The New Testament was written in Greek. "That you present your bodies, your *somata*, the sum of everything you are, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." That expression reasonable service is translated by a modern translation of the Bible, Phillips translation, as an act of worship.

So Paul is saying, "I'm encouraging you, I'm urging you, my brothers and sisters, through God's grace or power, that you present, that you make a conscious choice to place every aspect of your being, the sum of your essence as a living sacrifice, in other words, dedicated wholly to God, which is an act of intelligent worship." When we think of stress, the stronger our physical bodies are, the stronger our minds are, the greater strength we have emotionally, the more we're going to deal with it.

But you say, "How can I do this? How can I have a body that is strong enough to resist the external stresses of life? How can I have a mental state?" I want you to think of a word. The word is DEAR, D-E-A-R. And every time you say to your wife, "Why dear, I love you," or "Dear, that's a wonderful meal," I want you to think of this acronym, D-E-A-R. D-E-A-R are four ways that we can improve our physical health to reduce the stresses.

The D in DEAR stands for diet. If you have a diet that is high in whole grains, particularly the B-complex vitamins, a diet that is high in whole plant foods, it builds the immune system. Where if you have a diet that's high in sugar, what many people don't realize is, for example, most bottles of pop will have anywhere from 24 to 28 grams of sugar in it. That's an exorbitant amount of sugar. Even something as simple as chewing gum has a teaspoon or a teaspoon and a half of sugar in it.

So when you look at the soft drinks, when you look at candies, when you look at highly processed foods that are so high in sugar, how does that impact the immune system? How does that impact our stress? Vitamin B-complex, vitamin C, vitamin D, adequate amounts help us to reduce the stresses of our life. But when we eat high amounts of sugar, it neutralizes the impact of those vitamins. High amounts of sugar produce something called free radicals. The free radicals neutralize what's known as antioxidants. The antioxidants help us to reduce the oxidation in our system and the higher the oxidation and inflammation, the more stress we feel.

One of the great vitamins that really reduce stress is this vitamin of vitamin B-complex. Now you're not going to get that stress reduction impacts through the pill. But if you're eating whole grains that are high in vitamin B, whole grain breads rather than the refined breads, whole grain cereals—but watch your whole grain cereals because many of them will be very high in sugar. When I look at the box of cereal, if it has more than seven to eight grams of sugar per serving, we don't buy it. But look at taking natural whole grain products, natural plant-based products. It will increase your vitamin B-complex, increase your vitamin C, increase your D, and you will be able much better to handle stress. Avoid sugar-laden foods. That's the D.

E is exercise. When we get out and exercise, we breathe in fresh air. We place our muscles under some tense strain that that tension later relaxes the muscles. I remember reading the story of a man, really depressed, under heavy stress, came to his counselor. His counselor was a Christian counselor who knew a lot about the benefits of exercise. And the man came wanting an antidepressant. Now I'm not suggesting that nobody ever needs an antidepressant, but the physician was a very wise one.

His office was not far from a trail and not far from a short mountain, hills. And so he said to the man, "I want to tell you what I want you to do. I want you to go out and walk for the next hour to hour and a half and think about your life and offer up a silent prayer and take some deep breaths and then come back and see me." Well, the man walked out there, spent an hour and a half in nature looking at the beauty of the trees, listening to the songs of the birds, looking to the blue sky, came back and he said, "Doc, I'm feeling better. I don't think I need the pill this week."

Exercise is known as a stress reducer. I know people that are highly professional in the medical profession, for example, that jog every single day, three, four, five miles. They say one of the reasons they do that is because it helps reduce their stress. So the D in DEAR is diet, the E is exercise. The A is air. Learn deep breathing. When I was a college student, which was many years ago, the organist was one of our students. When we came to chapel, the organist who played that chapel period was one of the students. She was a senior organ student, but when she played before 500, 600, 700 students, she really became nervous. She began to shake.

And one of the things she said later that helped her was before going out onto the stage to play the organ for the songs during chapel, she learned deep breathing techniques. You breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. In through your nose, out through your mouth. And then as you do that, you shake your arms and hands to get circulation going. You move your feet to get circulation going. And when that circulation is going, when you oxygenate your bloodstream, the red blood cells carrying oxygen to the brain help you to relax.

D in DEAR is for diet. What's the E for? Exercise. And what's the A for? Air. And what's the R for? Rest. Rest is a stress buster. When you get too little sleep, you can't handle stress well. A person with too little sleep is like a car without any brakes. You're headed for collision. When you are under stress and have not slept well, you cannot control your emotions as readily. You tend to get nervous and anxious more quickly. You tend to lash out at other people. Plan to get seven or eight hours of sleep if you know you're going to be in a stressful situation.

It is far better to get adequate rest than stay up and burn the candle on both ends, as it were, and plan to stay up late and get up early and then go to an important meeting the next morning. So here's your first stress buster. First stress buster is improve your physical health. The stronger your physical health, the more you're going to be able to handle stress. And how do you do that? With DEAR. D is for diet, adequate vitamin B, C, and D in the diet, adequate whole grains in the diet, a plant food diet. D. E, get adequate exercise. When you're feeling under stress, get out, take a walk, head erect, shoulders back, take deep breaths. Next, when you're under stress, learn deep breathing, the air. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. You may need to do that five, six, eight, ten times a day. And the R is for relax, rest. Get adequate rest.

Guest (Male): We'll be right back with Pastor Mark Finley. We thank you for listening and hope you're enjoying today's message. Our mission is to attractively present the Christ-centered biblical truths of scripture in a practical, relevant way to people around the world, so that they may experience the abundant life that Christ offers and effectively share with confidence His life-changing truths with others. You can support this ministry and help us reach even more by going to hopelives365.com/donate. And now back to Pastor Mark Finley.

Mark Finley: Now the second great stress buster is concentrate on improving relationships with other people. Very often, the reason for stress is because we have tension with somebody else. It might be tension with somebody else that we work with. It might be tension with somebody else in our church. It might be tension with a relative. But it is that conflict, that wall between us. So how do we improve our relations with each other? Here's a biblical principle. It's found in the book of Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32. And the Bible here talks about the relationship that we have with others and it talks about ways to improve that relationship.

Ephesians chapter 4, and we're looking here at verse 32. It says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you," that's verse 31, "with all malice. Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." So the law of kindness. What can I do for somebody else to bless them? How can I touch them with God's grace? Who is it that is that individual that I have a conflict with? How can I reach out to them in ways of kindness?

Be kind to one another, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. But you say, "I'm so angry. I'm so bitter." Confucius said once that an angry man is always filled with poison. It's true for an angry woman, too. If angry people are filled with poison, when we're angry, it mitigates against having a positive immune system. It sends negative chemical byproducts into the body, begins to break down the immune system when we become tense, worried, and anxious. Positive relationships help to build our immune systems, help to reduce our stress and reduce our anxiety.

Corrie ten Boom tells the story of being in the prison camp in Dachau and in Auschwitz there, the great German prison camps, Ravensbrück. And she was in with her sister Betsy. And on one occasion, a German guard came and hit Betsy, her sister, in the face. And Corrie just was aghast. She was shocked. Then this guard ripped off Betsy's blouse and Betsy was so embarrassed, knocked her to the ground. And for the joy—did I say joy?—the sadistic joy, the evil devilish joy of hearing her ribs cracked, took his foot and stamped and stamped and stamped on her ribs. And of course, Betsy wailed in pain.

Not long after that, Betsy died. And Corrie came out of the prison camp at the end of the Second World War. And Corrie knew that she had to deal with this bitterness, this anger, this tension. And she said, "Lord, give me the ability to forgive." Now forgiveness does not mean you're justifying what another person has done to you. You don't justify their action. But you're releasing them from your condemnation because Christ released you from His condemnation.

So what is forgiveness? It's releasing another from your condemnation. It's not holding against another person what they did. It's not saying what they did is right or correct. If you were abused as a child, what happened to you was evil. It was horrible. If a husband left you for somebody else, it was evil, horrible. If a drunk driver hit your teenage son and killed him, that was horrible. So, but what does forgiveness mean? It means you release them from your condemnation because you know if you hold bitterness in your heart and condemnation, that'll increase your tension and stress, it'll break down your immune system.

Corrie was speaking in a church in Munich and she was sharing the fact that the people that were able to forgive were able to overcome the tension and anxiety that had taken place and the horror of those prison camps and return to normal life. The people that couldn't forgive were not able to return to normal life, and many of them had nervous breakdowns. As she gave that talk about forgiveness, at the end of the meeting, a man came up to her. Short, stocky, deeply set eyes, serious look on his face. And she recognized him immediately as the guard in Ravensbrück who had been so cruel to Betsy and so cruel to her.

And she said, "I wanted to spit in that man's face. I wanted to slap him across the face." But then he reached out his hand and said, "I am so sorry. Will you forgive me?" And Corrie said, "I didn't want to do it. But I chose to reach out. The Bible says be kind to one another, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. I reached out and said I will forgive you." She said all of a sudden that burden of worry, tension, bitterness, anger was rolled off my shoulders. Is there somebody you ought to forgive? Is there some relationship you ought to repair? Ask God to give you the strength to forgive that person, to go to them and tell them you want to improve the relationship.

How do we reduce the stress? How do we cope with the stress in our life? First, we improve our physical health. And the stronger we are physically, the stronger we're going to be mentally and the better we can reduce stress. Secondly, we improve our relationships with others. Whatever it takes, we go to them. And thirdly, and this probably is the most important and I could have listed it first, we attempt to improve our relationship with God. We attempt to recognize that God is the author of peace, not the author of worry, fear, tension, and anxiety.

He is the author of a calm spirit, a relaxed heart. There are multiple texts in the Bible that promise us that God will give us peace in the midst of the storms of life. Isaiah 26 and verse 3. Isaiah 26 and verse 3 puts it this way. It says, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you." You will keep him in perfect—what?—perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon you. When I feel the tension building up in my life or the anxiety, I say, "God, keep my mind fixed upon you. Take my mind off the things of time and put them on the things of eternity. Take my mind off the things all around me that are bringing stress, tension, anxiety, and fix them upon you."

In the book of Peter, 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 7, the Bible shares this stress-busting principle. It points out that as we come to Christ, as we trust Him, 1 Peter 5 verse 7 says, "Casting all your care upon him because he cares for you." Casting. What does it mean to cast? Another translation there is throw the full weight of your anxiety upon Him because He cares for you. It is this one that knows your name. He's named the stars and He has not forgotten your name.

He cares for you like you're the only one on earth and He says, "Come unto me, all you that are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me," Matthew 11 verse 28 to 30. "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls." True rest, true peace comes from fleeing to the one who gives us that peace. Often the stresses of life are too much for us.

Some time ago I read the story of an experiment on a little lamb. Now I'm not too much for those animal experiments on lambs particularly. Sometimes these animal creatures created by God are treated quite cruelly. But the experiment took place where they were testing the stress ability of lambs to cope. And so they took about ten feeding stations, they put them in this pen. They hooked up every feeding station, the scientist did, with an electrode. And the experiment was that as a little lamb went to the feeding station, they'd shock him, not enough to kill him, of course, but enough to shock him and watch to see what he did.

How much could this lamb deal with stress? And so as the little lamb pranced over to the feeding station, began to eat that hay, they pushed the button. The scientist could observe the lamb, the lamb couldn't see the scientist, and it shocked the lamb. Well, the lamb began to twitch. He ate a little bit more. They shocked him again and he just twitched and ran. He would never go back to that feeding station. Very smart lamb. They shocked him at the next feeding station, shocked him again, twitched again, wouldn't go back to that feeding station. Pretty soon, they had shocked this lamb at every single feeding station. He came to the center of that pen just shaking and shaking and shaking. Had a nervous breakdown, heart attack and died in the center of the pen.

They took a second lamb, the twin of this lamb, put him in the pen. One thing different. They put his mother in the pen with him. They shocked this lamb at the feeding station, just little twitch of course. He was shocked, he looked up, ran over to mother. She said something, don't know what she said. He went right back to that feeding station. They shocked him a little bit again and pretty soon the lamb just wasn't worried about it. He'd step back and stop eating. Why? Because he knew that he had somebody to run to.

He knew that there was a security, a refuge in his mother. He knew that she would not allow anything to happen to him that would cause him undue suffering, hardship, and eventually death. Who do you have to run to in the times of your stress? Who do you have to run to in the times of your anxiety? Jesus' love is a great stress buster. Jesus is our great healer. He is our great stress reliever. He is the pill for stress. The pill for stress is the Gospel. We come to the good news of God's grace that He loved us, that He lived the life we should have lived, that He faced every stress or anxiety we will ever face, that He died the death we should have died.

That forgiveness and grace and mercy is ours when sin and our failures bring us stresses. That the power of God is ours to bring us joy and happiness in the things we have to cope with every day.

Guest (Male): You've been listening to Hope Lives 365 with Pastor Mark Finley. We hope you've enjoyed today's message and remind you that you can find more in our many ministry resources at hopelives365.com. And you can support this ministry by going to hopelives365.com/donate. And now a final prayer from Pastor Mark.

Mark Finley: Father in heaven, thank you that Jesus is the great stress reliever. Help us to keep our bodies in good health as we're instructed in scripture, so that we can face the stresses of life. Where there has been damage in our relationship with others, help us to repair that damage. And where we have tried to bear our own stresses and anxieties and not brought them to Jesus, I pray you'd help us to know the one who said, "Come unto me, all you that are burdened and heavy laden and I'll give you rest."

So today, we lay our stresses and anxieties down. We give them to Jesus. Give us peace just now. If there's somebody listening, watching, viewing, who does not have the peace of Christ, I pray that right now wherever they are, they would kneel and open their hearts to Jesus and receive the peace that only He can give. And thank you for the promise of Your peace. In Christ's name, amen.

One day the resurrected Christ, one day the living Christ will stream down the corridors of the sky. One day the earth will shake. One day lightning will flash. One day Christ will come with ten thousand times ten thousand angels. And because He lives, we also shall live.