How to Gain Strength in Stress

January 30, 2011

Matthew 11:28

“Come to Me all you that are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.”

Ever have one of those…a bad day? It seems the longer I live, and net number of “bad days” accumulate, it gets easier to become discouraged. William Ward, a British pioneer and Baptist missionary of the 18^th century, wrote:

Discouragement is dissatisfaction with the past, distaste for the present, and distrust of the future.

Discouragement is ingratitude for the blessings of yesterday, indifference to the opportunities of today,and insecurity regarding strength for tomorrow.

Discouragement is unawareness of the presence of beauty, unconcerned for the needs of our [neighbors], and unbelief in the promises of old.

Discouragement is impatience with time, immaturity of thought,and impoliteness to God. -

When we are over-stressed, over-worked, over-taxed and over-run, we fall to the attitudes William Ward depicts; we basically burnout. Moving from burnout to balance involves shifting our orientation of thought. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me all you that are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.”

Three characteristics of God Jesus is pointing us to in this morning passage.

1) It’s Invitational 2) It’s Personal 3) It’s Mutual

1) It’s Invitational

This is an invitation; a polite invitation. No one is coercing any of us into a relationship with Jesus. The days of the Inquisition and heresy trials were blind to this key character of God . We lost Joan of Arc. We suppressed Galileo Galilei. We beheaded Thomas Moore among countless innocence tortured in the name of orthodoxy and in direct contradiction to Scripture.

My understanding of this characteristic emerged from, off all places, Ephesians 5 during a pre-marriage class. Ephesians 5 deals with marital relationships. For the husband, Paul tells us, “Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” Hence, men, we need to ask ourselves what was it that Christ gave up? Nothing less than life itself, and as such our role is sacrificial for the wife.

But then Paul turns to the wife and says, “Wives, love your husbands and submit to them for the husband is head of the wife and Christ is head of the church.” The brakes go on here when ever this is raise. It contradicts our modern family structure.

I mentioned to the class that I didn’t have a clear understanding of this. But a young bride, not schooled in church life or raised in church school, interjected,

“Well wait a minute. I’m wondering if we women need to ask the same question you poised to the men, ‘How is it that Christ is head of the church?’

“It seems to me that Christ is a voluntary association. I choice Christ,because He chose me and in Christ I see all the goodness that I seek to aspire to. So, shouldn’t I also be seeking a husband in whom I see such goodness reflected that I too willingly accept him?”

So it is with Christ. He waits for us in expectation that in Him we will see all such goodness so as all I want to do is voluntarily submit myself to Him. No one coerces me. It is a free invitation. I don’t have to join a club, attend a motivational conference, pass a test, win any election or prove anything. It’s just an invitation.

Just come.

2) It’s Personal

In the Bible people came to Jesus for many different reasons. Some came for forgiveness. Some came for answers. Some people came for healing. Some came for salvation. Some came for eternal life. And too all these Jesus adds, You could come to Me for rest. Rest from the stress, rest from overload.

Jesus says, “Are you weary? Overloaded? Come to Me.” He says “I will give you rest for your souls.” We’ve overloaded in our mind. We’ve overloaded in our emotions. We’ve overloaded in our spirit. We need soul-rest. Release from worry. Release from tension. Release from stress, from guilt, from fear, from bitterness, from anxiety. Soul-rest.

And Jesus says, “If you’re worn out, if you’re tired, overloaded, come to Me and I will give you soul-rest.” Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to my seminar. Come to my house. Come to the movies. Come to Key West.” It isn’t a call, a place, an activity or vacation. It’s personal.

In our Tuesday study we reviewed meditation passages in the bible. The Old Testament is full of the business of meditating. It discusses meditation as the practice of consciously detaching oneself from the daily grind and going about the business of reflecting upon God.

But we also noticed that when we get to the New Testament, the idea of meditation takes a backseat to another activity: prayer. Jesus prays. Peter prays. Paul prayers. We are taught how to pray. Rather than just meditate on the precepts of God, in the New Testament, we are invited to actually talk with God. “It’s not business, Sonny. It’s personal.”

3) It’s Mutual

Oxen work in a team. They are yoked together to share the load. It is a shared burden. Feeling overwhelmed? Orienting your thoughts and priorities to things holy invites a shared distribution of the burden. We don’t have to go at it alone.

You may turn to food when you’re exhausted. You may turn to video games, or prop your feet up and go numb in front of the TV. You may turn to a drink or a pill. But none of these things can help pull the burden, but Jesus can!

It is as if Jesus is declaring the fulfillment of Isaiah has arrived. (Isaiah 40:31 (New King James Version)

³¹ Those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

How?

If you don’t know how, turn to Matthew 6, or Luke 11

⁵ “And when you pray, ...⁶ ... go into your room, ... and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. .. ⁹ In this manner, therefore, pray:

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. ¹⁰ Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread. ¹² And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. ¹³ And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

That’s all it is. Accept the invitation, know that it’s personal, talk to God and God will share the burden.

Study Leave Report: Encounter with the Lost

Encounter with the Lost:
Today I had an interesting conversation with a frustrated woman who has been looking for a church. Here is the verbatim story she told me, as best as I can recall…

"So I was wanting to go back to church since I hadn’t been there for a long time.. Something was just missing. My husband’s Episcopalian and I’m Catholic, so we thought we would look for something both of us could agree on, and we started looking around. We went to a church and I couldn’t believe what happened. We walked in and a man came over to welcome us, but instead of saying, “Hello,” or “It’s nice to meet you,” the first thing out of his mouth was, “You understand that if you are not a member of this Synod you cannot take communion.” I should have walked out then , but I thought it was so out of line that it had to be just this guy having a bad day or something. So we sat down and then the pastor came over. I thought this was nice for him to take the time to welcome someone he recognized as a visitor. You’d think so, right? Well you wouldn’t believe this. All he said was “I want you to know that you can’t take communion with us. “ I was thinking to myself, “To hell with you.” But it gets worth. We should have just gotten up and walked out, but we stayed around. After church? Someone else came over to greet us, and they handed us a membership card that wanted to know how much money we made. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I gave up looking for a church. Just look at all the crap that goes on, and they wonder why people don’t go to church? Shouldn’t they be living the virtue of the faith, and all they do is tell you you don’t mean anything to them but money and you have no business being there? It’s terrible.

"I left my last church because all they did was fight over one scandal after another. They would just get through with one problem and they would have to deal with another one. All anyone wanted to do there was fight about stupid stuff, and never do anything to help you find peace and virtue. It’s ridicules. I mean I’ve just stopped looking. It’s not worth the fight."

Three things I learn from this that all of us should take into account:
First, this woman made up her mind pretty much within the first 30 seconds of walking in the door. The man who greeted her had all the ability to set the tone for the visit. Think of it, the first person a visitor meets, maybe it’s you, has a great gift to extend the hospitality of our Lord, right then and there. This is not great program. You don’t have to be elected to an office to do this. We just need just a willingness to be a friend to the searching soul in the same way Jesus is a friend to sinners. After all, who of us is not searching for some sense of comfort and care on any Sunday when we also walk into worship.

Second, this woman was not interested in doctrinal barriers or church rules, but that is all her heard. She was looking for a place where the virtues of life would be exhibited and nurtured. How often does the religion, or the rules, or the doctrine (as important as they are) instead of being guidelines for being a church, become barriers to someone’s searching heart from finding God. Maybe it is a good idea to keep church business to the enclaves of committee debates, but when living the church, it is incumbent upon us to live with grace that welcomes, cares, comforts, nurtures and loves.

Third, the failures of this one church have hurt all churches. Simply because the experience was so offensive, this woman and her husband gave up all together on searching for a relationship with God through the church. That is a shame. It tells us that what we do and how we do it may have profound influences beyond the limitations of our walls.

In summary, whatever the program, whatever the denomination, whatever the rules and order, how ever we end up structuring the church for the next phase of our ministry and growth, the most critical component will be the warm and comforting heart of the parishioner who welcomes the lost and suffering soul into the fellowship of our Lord’s praise and glory.