Faithbase

How are you doing, everybody? It's good to see you all. God bless you. Thank you for your support. I appreciate you watching. If you're watching on YouTube, just hit subscribe. Also, like and share. It helps a great deal. I just pray that everything that God blesses you and everything that you are trying to accomplish, and I thank you for your support. You know, when this world is full of stress, when you think about sin, once sin entered this world, stress came with it. The wages of sin is death. So that's stress all on you right now. You know, this is what we're dealing with, just stress. And when you're trying to navigate through a stressful world, sometimes you don't know what to do. The burdens become overbearing. You don't know how to handle it. But the beauty of the Word of God is God is a love for us, gives us an answer on how to deal with stress. And we're going to look at God's remedy for stress. The title for this one is called Good News for Stress People. Good news. And the best news that you can come to is the Word of God. That's why it's called Good News. So we're going to look in and see what are the good news for people that are stressed. But before that, let's ask the Lord's presence. Heavenly Father, thank you for being with us. Lord, we just ask you for you to be the words that we read, let it be you that we hear, and let it be you that inspires us and blesses us and gives us the strength to move forward. It's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. So again, like I said, good news for people that stress. And as we said in the intro, if I were to ask people to raise their hand about who's who and dealing with stress, I'm quite sure in terms of people, everybody would be raising their hands. You know, when you look at the stuff that you go through in this life, there's nowhere on the planet where people are not dealing with stress. Whether it be America, other countries, you're just dealing with stress in every level. And religious people are dealing with stress. Sometimes they're dealing with stress on a level that's even different than what you would say secular people. And we know as Christians, followers of Christ, the devil is definitely pinning us with a whole lot of stress. And it's the different aspects in their life. And people try to find different ways to deal with the stress. They go to, they look for different remedies, counselors, sometimes time management workshops, sarge ballers, all types of things. And many of these things are good in its place. But the reality of it is, unless you go to God, all these things can't help unless God is the center of it. There's a lot of people that deal with stress and just figure, well, this is just how I have to deal with it. And, you know, I just, this is just part of my life and I just go with it. And the sad aspect about that is if you don't deal with it, it's going to deal with you and it's not going to deal with you in a pleasant way. It's going to break you. It's just like the wind blowing and like a gust of wind blowing and a tree that's being blown with the wind. Unless it's rooted to a strong foundation, the wind is going to eventually break it. And this is where we see the power of nature and stuff like that. Same thing with sin and the stresses of our life. If we don't get a handle on it, it's going to get a handle on us and the handle on us, it's not going to be a good thing. It's going to destroy it. And that's why God's word gives you answers to everything. If we search God's word, it gives us answers. That's why his book, the Bible is a book that lasts throughout the test of time because it's not just a book. It's a divine love letter in showing us how to stay with Christ, connect with Christ and deal with our everyday struggles. And he himself, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost will be with us and help us and give us the aspects of how to overcome. When we look at the way these stresses are, you know, in Job 30, 27, Job 30, 27, it says, the chanting inside me never stops. Days of suffering comfort me. So we see what Job was going through. When you look at that story, and all many other people in the Bible, we see the struggles they were going through, and it's a mirror image of what we're going through. But one of the classic comfort texts that gives us strength and security to know God will be with us is in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, says, come on to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. When we look at that, that text, you know, when Jesus was talking to the multitude and how it carries over, as it starts, it says, come on to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. You know, it was talking about, it is talking about our spiritual struggles, and that connects us with our physical struggles. Because like I said, all the aspects of trying to help, all the means and methods to help somebody overcome struggles and stuff are good. But unless God is the center of it, it's not going to help. Positive thinking, it only goes so far unless you let Jesus be the aspect of your positive thinking. Secular people will disagree with it, but the reality is you can do all the methods to help you try to overcome things. And like I say, I'm not saying you're not supposed to use those things. Those things are needed, but it has to be centered around God. Because here is a twofold aspect. You know, when you're going through things, people just say, just pray about it. That's true, but there has to be actions behind it. Pray without works is dead. You can't, you may need therapy. You may need services to help you because praying by itself is not going to do anything if you're not doing anything. God tells us to pray because he'll give us an answer and show us a direction and way to go in our communication. So we're not saying you shouldn't do these things, but they should be centered around Christ because he will give the answers. That's why he says, come all to me that are heavy laden. Only going to God is going to give you the answer. And through God, he'll show you the people and the methods and the avenues to use to help you. You can't do those first and then get them. Sometimes God will bring them to you so he can lead you to him. But this is how it helps you with stress. He says, I will give you rest. He's the only one that can give us rest from the burdens of this life, the sins of this life, which will bring you calmness through your everyday struggles. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Jesus was the one who dealt everything, took on everything for us. So if we take on his yoke, you know, the yoke is what they used to put on our almanacs to lead it. And in this case, we learn of him and by learning of him, he will help us. I am meek and lowly in heart. There's no self-centeredness in God. His love is so open that he wants us to be part of it. That's why we can't get no pride in ourselves because we see how loving he is that he wants to help us. And I will find rest for your soul for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. As I said with the yoke, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. So this is the aspect we see where God is showing that he can bring ease and tension to us when we're going through the struggles and show us ways and how to overcome the problems that we're dealing with, you know, to overcome the problems that we're dealing with. You know, when we submit ourselves to the Lord, it gives us the avenue to hear him and give us the insight to open our hearts and our minds to hear what he's telling us to do when we're going through these stressful aspects. Now, we're going to look at a couple of passages, but one story we're going to look at that shows how God helped a human being deal with stress is in the book of Exodus with Moses, Exodus 18. We're going to look at a couple of others, but we're going to look at Moses first in the book of Exodus. Now, if you look at Exodus 18, this is when Jethro came to see Moses. This is after Israel came out of Egypt. And you want to talk about stress when you look at the story of Israel all through the Bible, but you know, when they were in Egypt as slaves, and then when God sent Moses to free them, all the craziness that was going on, I say that in terms of the back and forth that was going through, that's just the avenue of sin, the back and forth. But God with his mighty hand, as he said, he freed them. And even when he was, Moses was there, you know, letting them know God was going to free them. They were giving him a hard time. Why'd you come here? Look, now they're putting more burdens on us. You know, a lot of times we look at, you know, prophets and leadership positions in terms of ministry and things of that nature. And we sometimes envy that. But if we look at what some of these leaders went through, many of them, the majority of them, it wasn't an easy task. And even people that weren't leaders, just following Christ, following Christ is the best thing in your life. But because it's the best thing in your life, the devil is going to put the greatest burden on it so he can try to get you to not hold on to the best thing. So what I'm saying is, you know, when we look at some of the struggles, they were going to kill Moses a couple of times and other people. We see where God says, Jesus says a prophet is not welcome in his own town. He said, you killed prophets. And we see the same thing now with followers of Christ and struggles we go through. But yet, God still becomes the saving grace to help us. So I said, let's say when Moses and they were going through all the things in Egypt and then God freed them, they went through the Red Sea, freed them from that aspect. And it was watered from the rock. They were explaining about they were thirsty, forgot about how God saved them. And then he gave them water. The Amalekites attacked them. The Amalekites, you know, they didn't do, the Amalekites just went on them and attacked them when they came out. Only two struggle left, and God helped them overcome, beat them. So now when all this was taken care of, this miraculous event, we read when Jethro came to see his son-in-law, and he brought his, Moses' wife, Jethro's daughter, Zipporah, and the two sons. Because remember when Moses had went into Egypt, Zipporah was going with him, but he sent her back. And it was because he knew the heaviness that was going to go on, the real roughness that was going to go on in Egypt. And he knew how her heart was tender-hearted. He didn't want to have to go through this. And also, you know, so he said it would be safer for her to stay with her father until he comes, until they come out of Egypt. And also because of the tension, the weakness that was going back and forth, God in his wisdom puts, said from, you know, Moses was going to be attacked by Pharaoh and them. So he kept Moses' family in a safe position where they wouldn't be attacked. So now Jethro comes to see them. And we're going to read the first verse where it says, when Jethro the priest of Midian, this is Exodus 18, when Jethro the priest of Midian, Moses' father-in-law heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back, and her two sons, of which the name of one was Gershon, for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land. And the name of the other was Eleazar, for the God of my father said he was my help and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh. And Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife onto Moses into the wilderness where he encamped at the Mount of God. And he said unto Moses, I thy father-in-law Jethro am come unto thee and thy wife and her two sons with her, you know, their sons. And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and did, did absence and kissed him. And they asked each other of their welfare and they came into the tent. So we see where he came and they greeted each other. They were happy to see each other, you know, and they had a, you know, a wonderful time to greet each other. And then it says, and Jethro rejoiced at all the good thing which the Lord had done of Israel. And he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians. And Jethro said, blessed be the Lord who had delivered you out of the land of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who had delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians. So we see how Jethro, and Jethro was a follower of the God. He was a believer of the God. That's why he made those statements of, he makes, as you read the chapter, he makes the text, the statements of how God has delivered them, the true God, the God of heaven. So we see this joyous occasion where, you know, Moses reunited with his wife, his sons, his father-in-law, you know, they're in the camp of Israel, the joy of everybody being together. Now, when we jump down, it says, if we go to verse 13, same chapter, Acts chapter 18, and it came to pass on the morrow, which is the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people. And the people stood by Moses from the morning until the evening. And when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, what is this thing that thou didst to the people? Why sittest thou there thyself alone? And all the people stand by thee from morning unto evening. Moses said unto his father-in-law, because the people come unto me to inquire of God, when they have a matter, they come unto me and I judge between one and another. I do make them know the statutes of God and laws. And Moses' father-in-law said unto him, the thing that thou didst is not good. Thou shall surely wear away both thou and this people, and that is with thee. But this thing is too heavy for thee. Thou art not able to perform it thyself alone. So here we see Moses was dealing with every single matter that the nation of Israel was going through. And I say that because this was a multitude of people, you know, and he at this particular junction was dealing with every single man, every single problem. They came to him and he answered. And Jethro being older, wiser, you know, just because you're older doesn't mean you're wise, but this man was wise and he let God lead. That's why he looked at it and he said, this is not a good thing you're doing. He says it. He said, this is going to wear you and the people out. This is what stress does to people. It doesn't seem like Moses felt like he was better than everybody. This is the way he was trying to operate and help. You know, sometimes we deal with things, not because we think we're all that and almighty and all this on me. No, we're just doing whatever it is we're trying to do, whether it be our job, our mission, whatever it is, we're doing it. But then it becomes very burdensome and we're taking more than we can handle on ourselves. Sometimes you're not even looking for the problems and the problems just hit you. They just come from left and right, death, all types of struggles, and it becomes so burdensome. And if you don't take hold of it, as Jethro told his father, Jethro told his son-in-law, this matter is not good. It's not good for you or the people. This, the stress you're going through is not good for you. or as other people. So when Jethro looked at him, he told him, he said, look, this is what you do. Hearken now unto my voice. I will give thee counsel and God will be with thee. Be thou for the people to God, to God work, that thou mayest bring the cause unto God. So he's telling him, listen to me. And this is how we, this is, I'm giving you some advice and you can inquire with the Lord to show that this is not just my own words, but it's, you know, words that could help you with God. And thou shall teach them the ordinance of the law. So you keep doing that, teach them the ordinance of the law. Thou shall show them the way within. They must walk and walk and work that they must do. Moreover, thou shall provide out of all the people, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and hating covetousness and place such over them to be rulers, thousands rulers, hundreds rulers of fifties and rulers of tens. So here Jethro, the key word, he said, thou shall find able men that fear God and hate corruption, hate lying, hate bribes, hate all these types of sins, but they fear God and are going to be honest. So it's not just picking out, you know, the best men, but you're picking out the best men that are walking in the statutes of the Lord, because then they will act just to the people. If the world were to operate like this, the legal system wouldn't be what it is today. The judges, all this stuff, we wouldn't see biases. We wouldn't see racism, sexism, because we would see people being just and honest in their dealings. And this is why the church is a mirror image of what God wants society to be. That's why racism, sexism, and all these types of things have no place in it. So here Jethro is telling Moses how to delegate the responsibilities. And he saw how to delegate it in the other kingdoms were doing it, but the difference here is, well, Israel had to become organized. And then with the spiritual aspect, what's going to be the lead that will govern everything. That's why I said, when you're dealing with struggles, God will be the one who gives you the answers to help you do the right things to deal with. So here we see it says, and let them judge the people at all seasons, and it shall be that every great matter that they shall bring on to thee, but every great matter they shall bring on to thee, but every small matter they shall judge, so shall it be easier for thyselves, and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all the people shall also go to the place in peace. So Moses harkened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. And when you read later more down, it says he chose out the men. So he listened. And what Jethro was telling him, if you lighten the load and structure it, you won't have to be dealing with all the burden. Later on, we read the same thing in the New Testament with Acts, it's Acts, Acts 6, where the church chooses deacons because of the problems they were going through at the time between, quote unquote, the Jews and the Gentiles, the racial matter, if you want to say, because that's what it was. But, you know, the burdens that they were going through. But it was also the structuring of the church where the apostles said, we can't wait tables. They used that answer. And then we read the introduction of deacons. But then we heard about when he picks elders and different people, it says the same thing, honest men. It talks about not having more than one wife because polygamy was practiced, but all the aspects. But here we see the same thing in the Old Testament and New Testament about a structure of how to deal with things. This shows you that sometimes when you're dealing with situations, you can't carry the burden by yourself. And delegating things helps lower the stress. It also shows you that when you're dealing with things, you have to step back. Stress may be at the point where you have to step back and look at what you're dealing with in order to deal with the matter. You know, many times, you know, we're doing a lot of things and we'll try to say we're jack of all trades. We can do it. We try to multitask. And many times you have to, but you still have to be careful because sometimes when you're multitasking, you're not getting anything done. They can say the same as jack of all trades, but master of none. Because when you're doing so much, you don't get the, you know, the things that you need to get done do not get accomplished. Because if you're doing one thing, then you stop and have to do something else. You don't get that done. So you're not taking care of everything. So that's why sometimes you have to step back and say, okay, look, this is too much. Let me deal with this. Then I can deal with that. It's not always easy because many times people want things done immediately. This has to be done. And if that's the case, here's the other thing. After you get things done, you may have to step back and take a break. So that way you can reanalyze everything in a sense of saying, okay, this was driving me crazy. Now I'm finished with this. Let me take a break. So that way I can reorganize myself, get some calmness, you know, get myself together because if not, this is going to destroy me. They always say, you can't take care of yourself. You're not going to be good. If you're not good to yourself, you can't be good to nobody else. You have to take care of your own. And this is not selfishness. You have to take care of your own little business before you can do anything for others. When you're laying in the bed sick and people come in to give you comfort, you're the one laying there dealing with that problem. So this is why it behooves us to look at our well-being because if not, everybody can give all the empathy and sympathy they love, they want, which can be genuine, but you're still the one dealing with the suffering. So it behooves us to step back and say, this is too much. Let me get a handle on it. Psalms 94, 19 says, in the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comfort delights my soul. That's the King James. In the New International Version, it says, when anxiety was raised within me, your consolation brought me joy. So this is what we're seeing, where God will bring us the aspect where, look, if I lean on you, then you're going to help me remove some of these problems that I'm dealing with, or learn how to deal with it. Philippians 4, 6-7, be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ. Through the peace that has an understanding of Christ, we'll be able to deal with anything. That's why when death comes, as painful as it is, there's a peace that passes all understanding, because we know that when he comes, our loved ones will be raised and we'll be able to see them. Another classic text is John 14, when we look at the first verse, let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. If you believe in God, you're going to believe in Christ, you're going to believe in Jesus, and he's the sustainer of all of us. He's the one that's going to keep us. When you're going through stress, you have to look at the whole situation that you're going through and say, okay, I may need to step back. I may need to delegate. If I can't delegate, it's just you dealing with the situation. You may have to say, okay, there's a point where I need to relax and move away from the situation so I can restructure everything. I may need to put some things away because they are harmful for me. You may not be eating properly. You may not be eating at all, so that's not giving you the strength to deal with the stress, because if you don't have certain nurtures in your body, it's going to become overwhelming. So when you're dealing with stress, there's many ways God is showing us how to deal with it. When you call on to him, he's going to tell you how to deal with these things. He's going to say, look, step back, remove yourself. If there's people that you could talk to, you talk to those that can give you the proper counseling to help you deal with your stress. If there's nobody around and you're crying out to the Lord, sometimes that quiet space. Jesus many times removed himself from the multitude where he could have a quiet time to relax so that he can commune with his Father. And like I said, prayer by itself is not just that. Through that quiet time, he may show you who to go to, to see a counselor, to see stress management, to take a break. All this will help you to remove yourself from the burdens that you're going through. When Job was going through everything, he cried upon the Lord. And when he didn't see no answer, God came and gave him an answer. But many times we have to remove ourselves and give ourselves a chance to just recollect and re-examine everything. So that way things don't just draw us out of proportion. Things don't just take us off the deep end. And that helps us in terms of dealing with stress. That helps us in terms of dealing with the burdens of this life so they don't overtake us. And in that, we can give God the praise because he's the one that becomes a sustainer in our lives. This is what we see when we're dealing with the stress. That's why it says good news for people that are stressed. Good news for stressed people. Good news is God will relieve us of all our burdens. On that note, let's thank the Lord. Heavenly Father, we thank you for bringing the good news to us. Being that good news that will help us in all our dealings. Lord, when we're going through these burdens, help us that we can remove ourselves from them and you can show us the way how to deal with stress and give us the answers that we need. Whether it's talking to people, counseling, whatever it is. Lord, just help us so we can overcome these problems. It's our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, thank you. Please hit subscribe, share, and like. I'll see you again next week.