Don't Let Trouble Trouble You: 5 Causes of Stress and the Cure

Sermon outline

A believer has more help than the ordinary man, so walking worry-free and stress-free is not God's responsibility but yours: cast the burden on the Lord, deal with the things that cause stress and make up your mind to enjoy life.

1. Do not worry: your heavenly Father knows

   Reading through Matthew 6, he separates trouble people bring on themselves by wrong choices from the life of someone who is living a godly, Word-based life, and to that person he says: don't worry. Worry is negative meditation, while muttering and confessing God's Word is the meditation of Joshua 1:8 that makes your way prosperous. God knows the food, the money and the opportunities you need, and He knows who can supply them.

   Illustration: After the brook Cherith, God had already prepared a widow woman to sustain His prophet. In the same way God has someone who will open a door of opportunity for you.

   “Worry is negative meditation.”

   • Matthew 6:25-32
   • Joshua 1:8
   • 1 Kings 17:8-9

2. Seek first the kingdom and let things run after you

   Many people do not have because their mind is stayed on the having and not on God. 'All these things' means material things: the car, the house, the clothes. It is scriptural not to know how it will be done. The result and your testimony are your business, the how is not. Operate at your own level to its full capacity and you will move to the next, and do not compare yourself with someone whose tests you know nothing about.

   Illustration: There is a big difference between running after something, always playing catch-up, and having things run after you so that your only concern is where to store them. A child of God under the anointing becomes a magnet to material blessings, while things leave a person who walks under a curse.

   “If you run after things, things will elude you. But if you run after God, things will be added to you.”

   • Matthew 6:33
   • James 4:3
   • Philippians 4:19
   • Mark 4:26-27

3. Ten fruits of stress

   God designed you to withstand certain stresses and a certain level is healthy, but beyond that level it is not good. He lists the fruits of stress for those taking notes: forgetfulness, temper, chronic fatigue, a sense of helplessness, never having a sense of accomplishment, feeling like a failure, constant illness, headaches, high blood pressure and heart trouble.

   Illustration: He once told someone, 'You worry too much', and the answer was, 'If I don't worry, what else will I do?'

   “God has not created you to worry.”

4. Make up your mind to enjoy life

   Some believers are too serious and too deep. God loves you as you are, He is still busy with all of us, and we have the greatest coach anyone can have in the Holy Spirit, who guides, convicts and reminds. You have only one life and time is going, so do not let other people put gloom on you or steal your joy.

   Illustration: A car advert he likes: 'Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride.' He adds that some people still feel thirty but are really sixty.

   “Some Christians are so deep that God can't even find him.”

5. Say 'whatever': pressure produces power

   He minds Christians being stressed because they are built to be stress-free. Someone argues with you, the petrol price goes up, the power is cut: can worrying change it? Without pressure you would never know the potential within you, because pressure demands a capacity to be great and shows you what you can solve. God knows you can handle it.

   Illustration: The supervisor who shouts at you, and the management course you are afraid you will fail. You pass top of the class and it turns out to have been your preparation for promotion.

   “You would never know your full potential until you are under pressure.”

6. Cast your burden on the Lord, not on your pastor

   Psalm 55:22 does not say cast your burden on your pastor, because he is casting his own burdens on the Lord too. Take responsibility for what you have: it takes commitment, perseverance and fortitude to stay in a marriage or a job, and you need character to carry the anointing. The Lord sustains you and will never permit the righteous to be moved. If you are in a hard place you will soon come out of it, but have patience.

   Illustration: A couple who have lived with a problem for twenty-five years and want it counselled away in five minutes. A man who resigns to prove a point and then sends an SMS from home asking the pastor to pray for a job. And Joseph: 'there's an Ishmaelite on its way to buy you out of the pit.'

   “You've got to have character to be anointed. Because if you don't have character, the anointing will destroy you.”

   • Psalm 55:22
   • Genesis 37:28

7. Don't let trouble trouble you: it is your responsibility

   Learn the value of a stress-free lifestyle and train yourself not to let things bother you. You will have trouble in life, but joy comes from within, and it is not God's responsibility to make you worry-free: it is yours. Choose peace, seize the moment instead of living too far behind or too far ahead, and trust that God is big enough to take care of your children. Jesus Himself says, 'Be of good cheer', which means be happy, and be thankful for what you already have.

   Illustration: Lots of packages come your way and you do not have to sign for every one of them. In Mauritius everything is 'no problem'. A mother bites her nails for eight hours until her daughter brings the car home safely. And in documentaries he sees people with nothing but a mud hut who are singing while their children run about smiling.

   “It's about time you trouble trouble. Don't let trouble trouble you.”

   • 2 Corinthians 4:8
   • Matthew 24:6
   • John 16:33
   • Philippians 4:4

8. Cause 1: Uncertainty, not being certain about life

   The first of five practical causes of stress. Take control of the seeds you sow so that you can be certain of the harvest you receive. The Word of God gives you an absolutely certain future, and that certainty delivers you from stress. Christians ought to be so happy that people think they are drunk, as on the day of Pentecost.

   “Having certainty delivers you from stress.”

   • Acts 2:15-16

9. Cause 2: Unresolved conflict

   Do not sit with a conflict day after day. Attend to it, because carrying it around will wear you out. You will not agree with everybody, but you can respect someone who thinks differently. At work, have sense enough to keep quiet, show the fruit of the Spirit and pray for the person instead of telling them off. He learnt this himself: he used to tell people off all the time until he realised it was causing him stress.

   Illustration: You let off steam at a colleague, and for five weeks your blood pressure shoots up every morning you walk in and see that face. Then you go home with a migraine and tell your wife you had a bad day.

   “No one's given you that bad day. You chose to have a bad day.”

   • Proverbs 29:11
   • Ephesians 4:26

10. Cause 3: Unrealistic comparisons

    Comparing yourself with a neighbour and trying to keep up with the Joneses only makes you frustrated, so be comfortable with yourself. He then speaks directly about race: many people are not comfortable in their own skin, and prejudice has to be rooted out of the heart. Everyone is fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God, and in the kingdom you are a born-again citizen of heaven. He admits that years back he was prejudiced too, and says his mindset has changed.

    Illustration: If your neighbour buys a red sports car and you cannot afford one, spray your blue one red: the neighbour is not paying your instalment. As a young man at work he went with a white colleague to the man's flat. The mother let her son in, shut the gate, and passed him a cup of tea through it in a jam tin.

    “I look at you as a person. I look at you as God's creation. I look at you as someone special.”

    • Psalm 139:14
    • Genesis 1:26

11. Cause 4: Unconfessed sin

    If there is sin in your life and you keep doing things that do not please God, it will cause stress. The Bible gives the way out: confess it, and He is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse.

    “The Bible gives us a way out.”

    • 1 John 1:9

12. Cause 5: Unusual pressure in finances

    He calls this 'a big one'. Do not let the shops draw you in, do not buy because somebody else has it, and do not run up a credit card and then come to church wanting a miracle. Cut down your debt, close accounts, start to live on cash and learn to say no. Do not sign as guarantor for anyone. Debt is one of the biggest pressures on a marriage.

    Illustration: Years back his own clothing accounts reached three and a half to four thousand rand a month, the size of a car instalment. He told his wife they were cutting up every card, and they did.

    “Start to live worry-free, stress-free, debt-free.”

13. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord

    After a pastoral aside to young people about choosing a partner for character and not only looks, and about listening to their parents, he gives the last scripture. The church reads Psalm 34:19 aloud more than once. Whatever you are going through, the answer is 'but the Lord': He delivers out of them all.

    Illustration: A young woman taken with a suitor's green eyes. Check whether he is a worker and has good character, because 'handsome and lazy is not good'.

    “Have you got afflictions this morning? Say, but the Lord.”

    • Psalm 34:19