Whack-A-Mole – Knocking Down Stress

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Today, I'm excited to kick off a new series of messages.

This will carry us all through the month of October.

The series is called Whack-a-Mole.

And this is gonna be a fun series because let's just be honest, there are some things in your life that have a tendency of popping up, and these things rear their ugly heads.

And so the question we want to ask is how can we put down the things that pop up in our life?

How can we knock down those things, those challenges, those struggles that always pop up in our life?

And can we just have a moment of confession before I get started today?

You ever take your kids to the arcade?

Any parent in the room take your kids to the arcade?

There is nothing more frustrating than this, right?

Because even though you're an adult and even though you know the math financially makes no sense, you pay$40 for tokens and you get a dollar and 27 cents worth of Tootsie Rolls on the way out the door, don't you just want to win all the tickets, right?

I'll never forget my kids being little and walking up the skee ball game and putting it in, and I'm like, that's my boy, so proud of you.

Um but when you play the whack-a-mole game, you watch your kids and they're so slow.

Like, what is with this?

Can we be honest?

And so you find yourself, come on, good, good, you just you just help them, right?

It's fun.

And there are just things in our lives that have this tendency of popping up, and how do we how do we put them down?

Today, I want to come out strong with what I believe is one of the greatest needs that we have as a church, that we as Americans have in our country.

Truthfully, this is a global endemic.

This is the problem that's felt all over the world.

Every year for Easter, I do a survey.

I ask our church, what are the things, what are the topics that you would love to hear a sermon or a message or a message series about?

And every single year, this is one of the top ones.

The topic is the issue of stress.

Stress, we we are stressed out, overworked, exhausted, depleted, fatigued people.

How do we stand up under the pressure of this world?

I'll never forget maybe six or seven years ago, I came home from a day of work in one of the most stressful seasons of my life.

And I get home and my son Joey, he was in like fourth grade, maybe.

He's sitting at our counter doing his math homework.

And it's like fourth grade math homework.

Like in the grand scheme of everything happening in the world, socially, politically, internationally, in the scope of everything, this is like no big deal.

This is like four times eight equals.

It's not that hard, right?

And and I come home and he's sitting at the counter and his hands are covering his eyes, and I say, Hey, buddy, and I hear, hey dad.

And I was like, What?

He goes, I just can't do this.

It is just too hard.

And I'm gonna be honest, I have a high capacity to show empathy.

I have a high capacity to understand and love.

I wanted to say to my son, buddy, it's fourth grade math, it's not that big of a deal.

Um, people will tell you you need to learn this stuff.

The truth is, you will always have a calculator in your pocket for the rest of your life.

You're gonna be fine, right?

But I tried all of those things and it didn't matter.

Like it was not registering, it was not getting through to him.

My boy was stressed out, and for whatever reason, I must have been running on empty in this moment, and I just lost it.

I just went off on him.

I said, Are you kidding?

This is fourth grade math.

Let me tell you about my situation.

I pastor a church, and I wish you could know the issues that came across my desk this week with people in our church, a bunch of psychopaths out there.

I wish you knew what they were dealing with.

I have a company that I own that works with thousands of churches around the country, have a huge payroll and staff that are always at it with each other.

On top of that, I was in the middle of a full-time doctoral program.

I was writing papers that were 30 to 40 pages, knowing that there was one coming that would be 200 pages of writing for me.

And on top of that, I gotta come home and deal with fourth grade math.

And I said it just like this, and Joey did this.

He went, and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said these words to me.

He said, We can get through this together, dad.

Stress is real, it is, and stress is indiscriminate, isn't it?

It's funny how stress works.

A student can be stressed about a test, and the teacher is stressed about grading the test.

People are stressed about finding a house to live in, and other people are stressed because they can't sell the house that they have.

People are stressed because they want to lose weight, and other people sitting right next to them may be stressed because they keep losing too much weight.

People are stressed because they so desperately want to get married.

People are stressed because they're having trouble in the marriage that they're in.

People are stressed because they desperately want to get pregnant and have a child.

Other people are stressed because they don't even know if they want the ones they have, right?

Let's be honest.

Like we're we're just stressed.

And on top of all that, Wall Street Journal came out with an article a couple years ago that said stress is more responsible for death than alcohol, drugs, and the lack of exercise combined.

That they called it an emotional endemic.

We are stressed out.

I read a report that says in our generation, the average American works 181 hours more per year than in the previous generation.

181 hours, that's four weeks at over 40 hours a week.

It's like trying to squeeze an extra whole month of work into the same 12-month calendar year.

We're stressed.

And here's the funny thing: I could spend a lot of time trying to build a case as to why we are so stressed out, but but you know, and you have your own reasons.

And I could list every single thing I could possibly think of.

And the truth is, you would have another reason that you are stressed.

We live exhausted, depleted, emotionally fatigued kinds of lives because we are stressed out.

Statistically, here are the seven top reasons that people tend to stress.

It's it's our job, it's money, it's our health, it's our relationships.

Go back for me, please.

It is our poor diet, it is media overload.

Can we be honest?

This is a big one.

We are so aware of everything happening around us.

It is a lack of sleep.

All of these things add up for reasons we are stressed.

And can I give you one more for me?

Being a Dallas Cowboys fan.

Stressful.

It is so stressful to us.

And this is crazy.

And where does stress come from?

Let's talk about stress for a second.

Where does stress come from?

Because all of us feel pressure in life.

All of us have responsibilities and people depending on us, and all of us have needs to earn money, and we we all have reasons for stress, but here's where stress really comes from: it's when pressure, the pressure we feel, is greater than the capacity we have to stand up underneath it.

I'll never forget in the super early days of access, we were meeting in the YMCA gymnasium, and we hit this season of growth where we went from like 50 people to three or four hundred people like really fast.

It was crazy.

And so we had bought a bunch of chairs, but we didn't buy enough chairs.

And there were some Sundays where we would like go through the YMCA and find every chair we could.

There were people in our church sitting in a desk chair from someone.

We don't even know who they were.

We just took their desk chair and brought it into the church.

And I'll never forget this day where there was this guy who was like, he was one of the leaders in our church, and he was um, he was a little bit of a bigger kind of dude.

And I saw him walking in with the thinnest folding chair I have ever seen in my life.

I'm preaching, and I see this guy in the back of the room walk in with this tiny little chair, and I literally thought to myself, oh Jesus, strengthen that chair.

Give it your strength.

And I start preaching, and I promise you, I get about 45 seconds into my message, and I look back and I hear this sound.

Boom!

Ah!

And I look, and this poor man is laying on the ground his chair in 20 different pieces because the chair didn't have the capacity to hold up to the pressure that it was under.

Doesn't that feel like some of us at times?

Like the weight of the world coming crashing in on us, the pressure to take care of our family, the pressure to take care of ourselves, the pressure to get our job done, the pressure to please people.

We just live under so much pressure and so much stress, and it can get overwhelming.

And if we're not careful, some of us we will find ourselves succumbing to or collapsing under the weight of the pressure.

Now, don't you want the Bible to just be like, and here's the three steps to never feel stress again?

Don't you want that?

Don't you want me to like read a Bible verse today that's like, here is the antidote for your stress, and if you do these three things, you will never feel stress again.

Well, I got bad news for you.

Are you ready?

Number one, the topic of stress isn't actually directly in the Bible.

There are moments when we know people were under intense stress.

I think about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He feels the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Scripture says that he was under so much pressure that the capillaries in his skull begin to burst and he began to sweat drops of blood.

But the word stressed, being stressed out, not in the Bible.

So today I want to look at a principle that helps us, but before we get there, here's what you need to know.

God doesn't promise to take it away.

He doesn't.

Look what Jesus said.

Okay, listen, these are Jesus' words in John 16, verse 33.

John 16:33

Jesus said, I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.

That sounds good.

And then the next line is like a sucker punch.

He says, In this world you will have trouble.

Okay, but I didn't think I signed up for that.

Like I want the like peaceful, no pressure.

I want the like all happy, all joy, sunshine and roses, not the stressed out, overworked, exhausted, depleted life.

And Jesus said, No, no, in this world you will have trouble, but you can take heart, but you can stand up under the pressure.

And here's why Jesus says, I've overcome the world.

He is the Prince of Peace.

And because he is the Prince of Peace, you get to be in relationship with him, and you get all the benefits of the peace that he offers.

So today, what I want to do, so I want to take you to one of my favorite sections of scripture.

In fact, this is, in my opinion, the classic, the best explanation of how we can have peace.

To kind of set us up for this, here's what I want you to understand.

Paul, the Apostle Paul, writes this from a prison cell in Rome.

He desperately wanted to get to Rome.

He wanted to preach on the stage in Rome.

He believed that Rome was the epicenter of culture in the world.

And if he could get to Rome, what got to Rome got out of Rome and it got to the four corners of the world.

And he so desperately wanted to get there to start churches and to preach and to tell people about Jesus.

But he finds himself in Rome, but not on a platform.

He finds himself in a prison.

And he writes a book to a church in a city called Philippi called Philippians.

And this book is called by scholars the book of joy.

The book of joy.

Now listen, I'm not making light of what you're going through, okay?

Let's be honest.

Like you have some massive stress in your life.

Paul writes this letter, knowing that at any single moment there could be a knock on his door, and a guard could lead him out into the wilderness, behead him, and walk back by himself.

I live some stressful days, and you live some stressful days.

I'm not really worried about a Roman centurion knocking on my door.

Are you with me on this?

And here's what he says, okay, from the prison cell to the people in Philippi, here's what he says: this is a promise from God for us.

Philippians 4 7.

If you do this, we'll talk about that in just a moment, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand.

His peace will keep your thoughts and hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.

Pause here for just a moment.

Wouldn't it be amazing if you feel like this could be your story?

That your thoughts and your hearts would be quiet, not in chaos, not in confusion, not weighed down, not stressed out, not overburdened, but your thoughts and your hearts could be quiet and at rest as you trust Jesus.

This is one of the promises of God.

In Scripture, there's over 7,000 promises of God.

And this is the promise, but here's what I want you to understand.

Every promise of God starts with a premise.

It's if you do your part, then you experience the promise of God.

So let's go to the first part of the verse, the next slide says this.

The beginning of verse 7 says, if you do this, what is this?

For the next few minutes we have together, pull your message notes out because I want to talk about what we do so that we can experience the peace of God that Paul says transcends our understanding.

I don't know if you've ever been with someone who's walked through the most difficult of days, and for whatever reason, there's just something different about them.

Like they would have every reason in the world to be stressed, and yet they seem so light and free.

I think it's because the peace of God is a gift available to all of us.

Here's the pathway to it.

If you have your message notes, pull those out.

Let's get to work.

We're going to start in that same section of scripture, Philippians chapter 4, verse 6.

Philippians 4:6

Here's what Paul says, all right?

He says, don't worry about anything.

Okay.

Don't worry about anything.

Doesn't this seem a little superficial?

Doesn't this seem a little like, well, Paul, that's cool, but you don't know what I'm going through.

Paul says, don't worry about anything.

So have your message notes, write this down, okay?

Number one is we have to refuse to worry.

We have to refuse to worry.

Now, let's go to the next slide because this is so important.

Here's how he starts this section of verses.

He says, Don't worry about anything.

Let me ask you a question.

Is there any wiggle room in this?

No.

And this isn't a suggestion.

He's not like, hey, if you'd feel like it, don't worry.

Hey, if things are going really good, you don't have to worry.

He says, just no, don't.

It's not a suggestion, it's a command.

You do not worry.

Don't worry about anything.

Why?

Because worry has this way of devastating our life and stopping us from being able to dream, to see, to have vision for our lives.

The word worry, it's from an old English word, the literal translation of it meant to strangle or to choke.

What does it strangle and choke?

It chokes out your hopes, it chokes out your dreams, it chokes out the capacity to trust God and to step in tomorrow with confidence and faith.

Here's what I need you to understand: worry is actually the greatest reason we stress.

It's not work that keeps you up at night, it's worry that keeps us up at night.

And I want you to see this.

Jesus even spent a lot of time talking about worry.

And what is Jesus' most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, he talks about worry a lot.

In fact, let me show you four things Jesus said about worry.

The first thing Jesus said is worry is unreasonable.

It's unreasonable.

Here's what worry does is it exaggerates everything.

You ever had a night you couldn't sleep because you were tossing and turning, thinking about something?

Didn't you make it way bigger in your mind than it ever actually was?

Think about Mark Twain saying one time, he said, I've lived through many worst-case scenarios, most of which happened in my mind.

We exaggerate everything.

So worry is unreasonable, it's irrational, it doesn't make sense.

So in Jesus' sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6, he says this.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He says, That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life, whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear.

Isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing?

Of course, our lives are more valuable and more important than the temporary things, and yet we get so consumed with them that we exaggerate them in our mind.

And here's what happens: when you exaggerate your circumstances, what you unintentionally do is make God seem smaller.

Here's what I want you to understand.

Every problem you have is a small problem to God.

Might seem like a big problem to you, it might seem overwhelming to you, but every situation is a small situation compared to God.

So worry is unreasonable.

Number two, Jesus said worry is unnatural.

Now, this is so interesting to me because humankind, people, are the only part of God's creation that worries.

We just are.

Dogs don't worry.

Birds don't worry.

Cats are reasons that we worry.

Come on, let's be honest about that.

They seem like murderers.

It is what it is.

Uh cats are reasons we worry, but they don't worry.

Can I tell you something that's so interesting?

Babies don't worry.

In fact, psychologists say that babies are born with only two fears: fear of falling and fear of abandonment.

They don't worry.

Worry is something that is taught.

Worry is something that is learned.

And let me teach you something so important.

If worry is learned, it can be unlearned.

If worry is learned, if it's a learned habit and a learned behavior, then we can learn how to not worry.

So Jesus goes on in his Sermon on the Mount as he's explaining this, and he says this.

He says to the people who were listening, he says, look at the birds, that they don't plant or harvest or store food in barns.

For your heavenly father, pause here for just a moment.

He's talking about the birds and how they're not worried, and then he compares people to them, to those birds, and he says, For your heavenly father, you have a father in heaven who loves you.

You have a father in heaven who's looking out for you.

You have a heavenly father who cares about you.

Can I say something to you?

Children never have to worry about the provision from a good parent because the parent's job is to take care of that.

In the same way, you don't have to worry because you have someone even greater than the best parent to ever walk the face of the earth who is looking out for you.

Children of parents are taken care of.

And we take it a step farther.

Scripture teaches that you are a son and a daughter of the Most High.

Children of royalty are treated like royalty.

And here's what Jesus is trying to say.

If he's going to take care of the birds, your heavenly father's gonna take care of you.

He says, For your heavenly father feeds them.

And he goes, and look, aren't you more valuable, far more valuable to him than they are?

Why would you worry about your clothing?

Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow.

It's like the birds in the air and the flowers in the field.

It goes on, they don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon, who was the richest man to ever live, Solomon in all of his glory, was not as dressed as beautifully as they.

God takes care of birds in the most remote parts of the world that no human eye will ever see.

He takes care of flowers that are at mountain peaks so high that we may never see them or touch them with the human experience.

And if he takes care of them, aren't you so much more valuable?

And then he goes on to worry is unreasonable, it's unit is unnatural, it's also unhelpful.

Now, this is so interesting.

Worry can't make you taller, worry can't make you stronger, worry can't add time to your life, but worry can take time away from your life.

It doesn't do anything meaningful to help any part of your life.

So Jesus says, Matthew 6, verse 27, he says, can all of your worries add a single moment to your life?

Matthew 6:27

Answer the question, can it?

It can't.

Look what Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, said.

Proverbs chapter 12, he said, worry weighs a person down, but an encouraging word cheers a person up.

Proverbs 12 · chapter mention

Worry weighs a person down, it's heavy.

Just a few chapters later in the Bible earlier in the Bible, Proverbs chapter 14, he says, a peaceful heart leads to a healthy body.

Proverbs 14 · chapter mention

Quick side note, this isn't in your notes, but thinking about worry, worry is also unhealthy.

There is a direct link between a person who lives in fear and worry and physical ramifications from it.

Worry can't add an hour to your life, but worry can take an hour or more off of your life.

It's unreasonable, it's unnatural, it's unhelpful.

Here's the last one.

It's just unnecessary.

It doesn't do any good whatsoever.

So here is Jesus at the end of the section on worry in Matthew chapter 6.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

He says, and if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today.

And thrown in the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you.

And then I love this jab.

He says, So, why do you have such little faith?

If Jesus cares about flowers, he created the world with you in mind, not flowers.

How much more is he going to take care of you?

So the first point today is we have to refuse to worry.

But then the first verse, the first verse we read, Philippians chapter 4, verse 6, here's what he says.

Philippians 4:6

He says, Don't worry about anything.

And then the verse goes on.

He says, Instead, here's what I want you to do.

Pray about everything.

Tell God what you need.

Can I tell you something so funny?

We tend to go to God as a last resort.

Like when the bottom's fallen out and we have no other choice, no other hope, we turn to God.

Here's the second thing that I think the pathway to peace, the second step.

So we got to talk to God about everything.

Everything.

Every moment.

Talk to God about it.

I'll never forget being about 17 years old.

I was in New Zealand with my dad on a mission trip.

We were flying on a flight in the back of the plane, and the pilot came on and said, ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seat belts as tightly as you possibly can.

I have been on a lot of flights.

That is not a good sign, man.

And so we did that, and I'm telling you, we hit a palket of turbulence, unlike anything I've ever experienced before.

I'm not talking about like the tray table in front of you shaking.

I'm talking about the plane dropped, and I could feel myself come up off the seat, inches.

It was so, so scary.

And when this happened, can I tell you the funniest thing?

There were little streaks when like the plane would kind of drop underneath us.

But in that moment, nobody was talking.

Nobody was having conversations with the person they were with.

Oh, did you see the cowboys last week?

Nobody was talking about any of those things.

But as I looked around the plane, everybody was looking up for help.

Talk to God about everything, all your good moments, all your bad moments.

Can I tell you one of my personal pet peeves?

Okay, this is this is not the Bible.

This is Jason's personal pet peeves.

I'm I I hate the phrase processing.

I'm just processing.

Everything I got to say, I'm just processing.

I'm just talking about it.

Talking about it to others, talking about it to myself.

I'm just processing it.

There's a word for this.

The word is the word ruminating.

You know what ruminating means?

It means to process or to think through something over and over.

But ruminating is actually also the process that a cow experiences when it eats some grass, like a vegan, right?

Eats some grass, chews it, swallows it, coughs it back up, chews it some more, swallows it, throws it back up again, chews it some more over and over and over and over and over again.

And every time it throws it up, does it get better and tastier?

It gets more disgusting.

This is what happens to us.

We think about it over and over and over and over, and we never take it to God.

We think I can handle this on my own or I can just talk my way out of this with someone else, and all we're doing is ruminating.

Let me come strong and say this to you.

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

If you would just pray about it, talk to God about everything, all of your highs, all of your lows.

Make it your habit not to process everything in your mind, which is just ruminating, throwing it up and chewing on it over and over and over again.

Take your thoughts to the only one who can help you with them.

Third step, the pathway to peace, is we have to thank God in all things.

There is a direct correlation between gratitude and joy.

Here's what Paul says, Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

He says, So don't worry about anything.

Instead, pray about everything.

Tell God what you need, and then thank him for all he has done.

Why do we thank God?

Because when we're thanking him, we're reminding ourselves of his faithfulness.

And if he has been good, newsflash, he will be good.

Sometimes you're just in the middle of something and you can't see, you don't have clarity, you get nearsighted in the moment, and you forget that the God that you are serving has been faithful.

And the greatest indicator of what God will do is what he's always done.

If he has been faithful, he will be faithful.

So we need to be grateful.

We need to be thankful.

Can I teach you another principle?

You cannot be happy and ungrateful at the same time.

The most grateful people are the happiest people.

This is the reason the same author, Paul, who wrote the books that we're reading, Philippians, says in 1 Thessalonians 5, give thanks in all circumstances.

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Give thanks in every situation.

I love this.

We are commanded to give thanks to God in every circumstance.

Notice I said, in every circumstance, not for every circumstance.

There's some things in life that are hard, there's some things that will never make sense.

You are going to sit in some funerals that don't make sense.

You are going to have some moments that destroy your heart.

You don't have to thank God for all things, but you can thank Him in all things.

Thank you that you are faithful and you have been faithful.

You are good and you have been good.

There is a direct correlation even between physical health and a heart full of gratitude.

Number four on the pathway of peace is we have to think about good things.

Think about good things.

Let me ask you this.

You ever stop to think about what you think about?

It's funny to me how we fill our minds with garbage.

And then we wonder why we struggle with our thought life.

We fill our life with trash TV.

We fill our minds with gossip from around the water cooler at work.

It's like our mind is this living room that we allow people to come stomping through with their dirty shoes, their dirty thoughts, and they make a mess in our minds.

And we wonder why we struggle with the heaviness of worry, the pressure and the stress of life.

It's because our mind is on the wrong things.

So here's what Paul says in Philippians.

This is two verses down from what we just read.

He says, and now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing.

Fix your thoughts on what is, and then he's going to give us eight things on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable.

Think about these things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

He says, Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to think on things that are good.

Can I point something out to you?

All of these things that he's inviting us to put our thoughts on are all characteristics of God.

I could summarize it in a different way.

Think on God things, not just good things.

Think on the things of God.

Fill your mind with stuff that is good and watch what happens.

I love the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament.

He says this.

He says, You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you and all whose thoughts are fixed on you.

Here's another promise.

The promise is you can live in perfect peace when your mind is fixed on the goodness of our God.

Final one, number five is this.

We need to learn to be content in anything.

And I think we have a wrong definition of what it means to be content.

I think we think content means I have no drive, just blah, just here.

No, no.

Paul is going to give us a verse in a moment.

He might have been one of the most spiritually aggressive men to ever live.

He was not content settling.

No, being content doesn't mean you don't have a drive.

It means you show gratitude and appreciation for what you have in a moment.

Here's what Paul says just a couple verses down in Philippians 4.

He says, Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.

I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.

I've learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or an empty, with plenty or little.

He's like, I figured out the secret, and it is to be grateful for, content in what I have here in this moment.

So have your message notes.

I want you to pull those out because we're going to end with this.

This is the pathway to peace.

Here it is.

Number one, we refuse to worry.

Number two, I'm going to talk to God about everything.

Number three, I'm going to thank Him in all things.

I'm going to think about good things, which are God things, and I'm going to be content in anything.

Here's the thing.

I wish I could tell you that if you'll go home and do all of this, that all of your stress will instantly go away.

I wish I could tell you that if you'll go home and put these things into practice, you will never feel pressure, you will never feel stress, you will never feel like the bottom's gonna fall out.

I wish I could tell you that.

I can't tell you that, but here's what I can tell you.

When you do these things consistently, the promise that we started with comes true.

We started today with Philippians 4, verse 7 from the Living Bible.

Philippians 4:7

I want to read it to you from the NIV translation.

Here is how we're gonna end.

It says this.

Then, what does then mean?

When you do those things that we just talked about, when you consistently live on the pathway to peace, then you will experience God's peace.

It's a peace which exceeds anything we can understand.

I asked the question earlier: have you ever known someone who's walked through something so inconceivably difficult and you've watched them and thought, how could they possibly do this?

How could they stand up when everything inside of me feels like I would collapse under the pressure?

It's because they've experienced the grace of God.

It's a peace that you cannot understand.

His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Leave this here for me for just a moment.

Earlier I said this.

Paul writes this letter from a prison cell in Rome.

Many years ago, my wife and I went to a place.

If you've ever been to Rome, there is the famous coloss Roman Coliseum.

And then next to it is what's called the Roman ruins.

Those are those tall pillars that you've seen in all the ancient Roman civilization stuff.

Across the street, there is a jail cell that they either believed that Paul was in or could have been in.

And if it wasn't that one, it was one just like this.

We walked into a room and it was scorching hot outside.

But we go into this room and there's a little manhole, and what they would do for prisoners, they would lower them under the ground by a rope.

Thankfully, over time, they added stairs so that tourists could come down and see it.

It's scorching hot outside.

We get inside the jail cell and it is literally freezing.

They told us because there wasn't any sort of like ancient drainage system.

Water would collect when it would rain and it would be so cold, so dark, so miserable, that prisoners would often bash their heads in against the wall to just take their lives to get out of this place.

Chances are Paul would have been chained to a Roman guard, someone standing watch over him to make sure he didn't disappear or he didn't take his life.

And he's standing there, and here's the language he uses.

When you do these things, when you get on this pathway of peace, his peace will guard your hearts and minds.

This word guard literally in the ancient language means to stand watch over.

Okay, here's the promise of God.

When you live consistently on the pathway to peace, you don't even have to guard your own heart, but God Himself stands over it like a Roman centurion protecting your heart.

You don't have to live another day in fear, you don't have to succumb to the pressure of worry, you don't have to have one more night where you toss and turn and don't sleep.

You can live in peace.

I wish there was a Bible verse, John 3 24, that would say something like if you do these four things, no more stress in your life.

There is no promise of that, but there is a promise from God that if we will do what He said, our hearts can be guarded and we can experience a peace that somehow surpasses humans' ability to understand.

So here's how I want to end today.

I'm gonna pray for you, and I'm gonna pray something different.

Today I'm going to pray that you will get supernatural rest.

I'm gonna pray that as we do those things, as we get on that pathway, that God will give you a rest so much different than anything you've ever experienced.

Better than a nap, better than a vacation, that your soul will be at rest.

No longer under stress, but at rest.

Here's how I want to end today.

If you feel like you're dealing with stress in your life and it's become overwhelming, it could be one thing that's weighing down on you, it could feel like death by a thousand paper cuts.

So many things are so heavy on you and you can't sustain it anymore.

I'm gonna ask you to take your hands and just put them out like this before God.

And I'm gonna pray over you.

And as you do the things I believe God asks you to do, my prayer is that you will receive his rest.

Let's pray.

So, God, all across this room, people all across the country who are joining us, church online right now, we ask you to do what you promise, which is to give our hearts peace and rest.

God, some of us we've tried so hard to take circumstances into our own hands.

We've coped in so many ways, caffeine, alcohol, we've filled our mind with other things to distract us.

God, forgive us.

May we experience the kind of peace that Jesus offers, the peace so profound that we can't explain it with human logic or human language.

Peace that surpasses all understanding.

God, I pray that as we take these steps on this pathway to peace, that you will give us supernatural rest.

Lord, I pray for like a breath of fresh air.

God, my prayer is that we will leave our stress behind.

About what the Bible says in 1 Peter we cast our cares upon you, we leave it here, and we walk out different in peace.

Thank you for it, God, in Jesus' name.