How to Keep from Stressing Out

Notes: HOW TO KEEP FROM STRESSING OUT

You Asked To Hear It Again – Part 2

Pastor Rick Warren

September 21, 2014

While Pastor Rick is writing the materials he'll use in 2015, he's repeating 6 messages that were asked to be heard again: "I wish my friends could hear this!”

Pastor Rick is talking about how suicide has surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of death in America.

He is talking about all of the stresses in our lives and how the Bible tells us how to deal with them.

PHILIPPIANS 4:6-13

"If you do THESE THINGS you will experience God's peace which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts quiet and your heart at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus." verse 7 (LB)

Philippians 4:6-13 (NLT)

6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. 8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. 10 How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again. I know you have always been concerned for me, but you didn’t have the chance to help me. 11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ,[a] who gives me strength.

Peace that surpasses understanding is peace during a time when you never thought you could never experience peace.

God promises a more peaceful less stressed mind.

There are over 7000 promises in the Bible, and every promise has a premise. “If you do these things”

5 Things that God says to do in this passage.

1.  Refuse to worry about anything!

"Never worry about anything . . ." Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

Phil 4:6 NLT—Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

Is there any wiggle room in that verse? NO there isn’t!

Jesus said . . .

• WORRY IS  Unreasonable

"Don't worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important thanfood, and the body more important than clothes?" Matthew 6:25

Worry exaggerates the problem. The more you worry about it, the bigger it gets!

To worry about something you can’t change is useless, to worry about something you can change is not what you should be doing.

• WORRY IS  Unnatural 

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:26

You have to practice worrying, you are not born worrying.

If God is your heavenly Father, then you get special privileges.

"And why worry about clothes? Look at the field lilies! TheyDon't worry about theirs. Yet King Solomon in all his glory was never clothed as beautifully as they." Matthew 6:28-29 

In all of God’s creation, only human beings worry. We are the only ones who don’t trust him.

Worry in not natural and not good for you.

Prov 14:30 NLT—A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones.

• WORRY IS  Unhelpful

"Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Matthew 6:27 (NIV)

Worry can not change the past and will not change the future. It just messes up today.

Worry only changes you. It makes you miserable.

• WORRY IS  Unnecessary

"If God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won't he more surely care for you, O you of little faith?" Matthew 6:30 

You are as happy as you choose to be. Happiness is a choice and so is worrying.

"Unload all your worries on God since He is looking after you!" 1 Peter 5:7 (JB)

Let it go!

2.  Talk to God about everything.

"Never worry about anything. Instead in every situation let God know what you need in your prayers and requests . . ." Philippians 4:6 (GW)

Don’t Panic! Pray!

Talking to yourself will do nothing, talking to God will help.

If you prayed as much as you worried, you would have a lot less to worry about.

Pastor Rick said as a kid he would say “Dad I need this” and Rick never worried about where his dad got the money for what he wanted.

Worry is practical atheism. 

"You do not have, because you do not ask God." James 4:2b 

Stress management: Worry less, ask more.

Every problem in your life is tiny to God.

There is no area in your life that God is not interested in. God will care for you and will care for all of your life.

Why say, “God I will handle this” when He can.

"Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't He who gave us Christ, also give us everything else we need?" Romans 8:32 (NLT)

3.  Thank God in all things.

". . . When you ask God for what you need also thank him for all he's done." Philippians 4:6 (NLT)

"...always ask with a thankful heart." (TEV)

You cannot be happy and ungrateful at the same time.

An attitude of gratitude is the most helpful emotion to have. It releases stress and gets the focus off me.

You can always choose something to be grateful for.

There is never a time where everything in your life and nothing is good. Also, there is never a time when everything is all bad.

"In everything give thanks, for THIS is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you!" 1 Thessalonians 5:18 

This is God’s will for you!

Before you can take step 2, then you need to take step 1.

4.  Think about good things.

"Fill your minds with those things that are true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and beautiful and respected. If anything is excellent or if anything is worthy of honor, think about those things." Philippians 4:8 (NCV/NAS)

The war with stress is won and lost in your mind. 

If you want peace of mind, then you need to start controlling what is going in and out of it.

Mind pollution is the most serious pollution!

The Bible give us a test of eight things: Is it true, is it good, is it right, is it pure, is it beautiful, is it respected, is it excellent, is it worthy of honor.

He says TV is getting worse and worse, heroes on tv today are zombies, serial killers, crack addicts. 

Prov 14:9 NKJV—Fools mock at sin, But among the upright there is favor.

"You Lord, will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, and whose thoughts are fixed ON YOU!" Isaiah 26:3 (NLT)

Pastor Rick says if you look at the world you will be distressed, if you look within you will be depressed, if you look to Christ you will be at rest.  

5. Be content with anything.

 "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of contentment in every situation, whether I'm well-fed or hungry, when I have more than I need or when I don't have enough." Philippians 4:11-12 

Contentment is not laziness, apathy or lack of ambition. 

Contentment is enjoying what I have right now.

Contentment is the opposite of coveting. That is when and then thinking.

Contentment is not natural, you have to learn it.

Step 1 of contentment is STOP COMPARING!

The source of all discontentment is comparison. Your stuff is good, until you see something that someone else has that is better.

Your stuff can make you discouraged or prideful, depending on it in comparison to others.

Most of us start as originals and we turn ourselves into carbon copies.

God made you to be you. He wants you to be you!

"Peace of mind makes the body healthy, but envy is like a cancer." Proverbs 14:30 (TEV)

Envy will eat you up!

Contentment make the body healthy!

Stop thinking that having more will make you happy. That is a lie! Having more does not help you.

Your self worth is not based on your net worth.

Find security in something that can never be taken from you, your relationship with God can not be taken from you.

You can not choose what happens to you, but you can chose your response.

"It's better to only have a little with peace of mind, than to be busy all the time with both hands, trying to catch the wind." Ecclesiastes 4:6 (TEV) 

Don’t be possessed by your possessions.

Learn to admire without having to acquire. Learn that you don’t have to own it in order to enjoy it. Pastor Rick is talking about how he decided not to buy jet skies or boats. He has never scraped a barnacle off of his boat, because he has never owned a boat. He will enjoy yours, you can do those things. 

HOW? Because not worrying is not easy!

"I have the strength to face anything and everything by the power that Christ gives me." Philippians 4:13

I can worry about nothing when Christ strengthens me.

We are not talking about a religion, we are talking about a relationship.

"Obey God and be at peace with Him; this is the way to happiness." Job 22:21 (NCV)

The real reason you are not a peace, is because you are at war with God.

To have the peace of God, you must be at peace with God!