Why am I stressed? I need to protect my heart.
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Big Idea:
Big Idea:
A protected heart is a peaceful heart.
Intro:
Intro:
Hey Church Online, thanks for joining us.
All month we’ve been in a series titled, “Why am I stressed?” It’s a series I’m basing on a book I’ve been reading titled, “The Stressless Life” by Vance Pitman.
And over the past few weeks, we’ve talked about what stress is...
Stress being the fearful concern experienced when life’s demands seem greater than my ability to meet them.
We’ve talked about things that cause stress, like...
Stressors, which are not stress, but rather the circumstances in our lives that create the levels of pressure, tension, and strain that can lead to stress.
We’ve talked about what God has to say about it...
Philippians 4:6–7 (ESV)
do not be anxious [stressed] about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
In other words, instead of stress, God would rather us have peace, which we can define as...
[Peace is] the sense of divine favor arising from confidence in God and your relationship with Him.
God wants us to experience and live with His supernatural peace. But many times, as we’ve discussed the past 3 sermons, we are still stressed because...
We need to rest (as God commanded).
We may not know God as we should (because rightly knowing God leads to peace).
We may not know what to do, which stresses us out… so we need God’s wisdom for our decision-making.
Btw - if you missed any of these weeks, you can find them on our Facebook page, Youtube page, or podcast.
Today, we’re going to finish the series by talking about one more thing that may be causing stress. It may not even be on your radar, but it’s extremely important… it might just be the BIGGEST REASON YOU’RE STRESSED.
About 10 years ago, I was super stressed out… from playing paintball. Don’t laugh at me. PTSD is a real thing (paintball traumatic stress disorder). That’s when you’ve been playing an intense game of paintball TOO LONG and it gets TOO REAL. You get really STRESSED out from a game!
Btw, this is not a real thing. But just go with me for the sake of the illustration. I promise I’ll tie it to reality.
I was a youth pastor at the time and had taken my youth group to an all day paintball outing. Actually… I think it was airsoft, which is like paintball, but with BBs. Anyways, this was when airsoft was super popular, so kids were taking it super serious. And the youth had invited some of their serious friends… you can see a picture here.
…but… I aint afraid to go John Wick on a middle schooler. If you go serious, I’m going serious. This is a picture of me looking like Snake Eyes from GI Joe.
And you see the kid wearing shorts? Poor kid. I got him good. I was laying prone under a car and he walked by. I shredded those legs up.
But for real… we played too long! For like 6 hrs. And the stress of battle (even though it was airsoft) got to me. I had PTSD the rest of the day. I remember driving home jittery. I was amped up! As I drove under freeway overpasses, I was looking to the skyline to see if anyone was going to snipe me. The battle stressed me out!
Did you know the Bible talks about there is a spiritual battle constantly going on?
A battle for the world.
A battle for our souls.
And even an internal battle against ourselves.
And all this warfare can be a huge contributor to the stress we experience. But... because it’s spiritual (unseen), many times we forget it’s there and then wonder why we are stressed!
But God doesn’t want us unaware. It’s why His Word says this...
Proverbs 4:23 (NLT)
Guard your heart (the unseen part of your personhood) above all else,
for it determines the course of your life.
God specifically gives us instructions to protect our hearts. Why? Because whether you realize it or not, there is a spiritual war for your heart going on. And if your heart is unprotected, you life will head towards destruction.
…and let me clarify this: The two sides at war are not equals.
God and Satan are not equal rivals on the sides of good and evil. God is infinitely greater.
Additionally, both are not competing for your heart in the same way. God and Satan do not want the same thing. God loves you and wants to win your heart. But Satan hates you. His only desire is to attack your heart so he can devour and destroy you.
And he hates you for at least two reasons...
He hates the image of God stamped on your life. Every human is of extreme value because we’re made in God’s image. When Satan sees you, he hates it because he hates God.
Because Satan cannot hurt God (since they are not equally opposing powers), he attacks those they can hurt - us/people… the ones God loves.
Despite what your non-religious friends might say, or what you may have heard in songs, movies, or shows… there is no “party in hell.” It’s not a place where the devil is king and all the fun things that Christians are too afraid to do are happening for eternity.
Hell is an eternal lake of fire created as judgment for Satan and his fallen angels. It’s not a place created for humans. But we can choose to go there if we believe the lies of the devil and reject the salvation freely offered to us in Jesus Christ.
I say all this not because mustering up my inner “fire and brimstone” preacher, but because I want us to know the truth.
The truth about a spiritual war going on right now and the two sides fight over us.
The truth about Satan’s true intentions.
And the truth about what may be causing us stress.
One reason we may be stressed out is because our heart is under attack! And the remedy for this stress is God’s peace, which comes from a protected heart.
Therefore, in order to discover HOW to protect our hearts, I’d like to first identify 3 things that spiritually attack our hearts. And I’m going to use what we find in Ephesians 2:1-3 as a framework...
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
In this passage, we see three things that can negatively impacting our lives...
Satan/devil - the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work...
The world, which includes not just people who are opposed to the Christian faith, but also cultures dictating the course of this world away from God. That’s because the one pulling the strings behind this rebellion is “the spirit that is now at work (the devil) in the sons of disobedience.”
Finally, our third attack is internal. It’s OUR sin. It’s the “passions of our [sinful] flesh” that willingly follows the devil and the course of this world.
Let’s take a moment to learn a little bit more about these 3 attackers. First off is...
Satan
Satan
You’ve heard the movie line, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” There’s truth to that, especially in the culture we live in. We live in a world that is ignorant of him. But know this… he is very real and active today.
The Bible speaks of him in very real terms, whether it’s his desire to devour like a lion, “kill, steal, and destroy,” tempt Jesus in the wilderness, or lead a last days’ rebellion against God. He’s been around since the beginning, is around now, and will be in the future.
Therefore, if God’s Word treats him as real, we should too.
So… who is he? The Bible tells us he was once one of God’s angels. Some believe he was in charge of worship. The prophet Ezekiel, writing about the king of Tyre, but really talking about the Satan, said...
“Son of man, sing this funeral song for the king of Tyre. Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord:
“You were the model of perfection,
full of wisdom and exquisite in beauty.
You were in Eden,
the garden of God.
Your clothing was adorned with every precious stone—
red carnelian, pale-green peridot, white moonstone,
blue-green beryl, onyx, green jasper,
blue lapis lazuli, turquoise, and emerald—
all beautifully crafted for you
and set in the finest gold.
They were given to you
on the day you were created.
I ordained and anointed you
as the mighty angelic guardian.
You had access to the holy mountain of God
and walked among the stones of fire.
But then, things changed...
“You were blameless in all you did
from the day you were created
until the day evil was found in you.
Your rich commerce led you to violence,
and you sinned.
So I banished you in disgrace
from the mountain of God.
I expelled you, O mighty guardian,
from your place among the stones of fire.
Here’s what I want us to understand: The devil is real.
Here’s something else about him… Jesus said...
John 8:44 (ESV)
…[the devil] was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
The devil IS a liar. Just as we say, “God is love.” Satan is a liar. He can’t do anything but lie. He never speaks truth. However, he does know the truth. Satan knows Scripture. Just read Matthew 4 when Jesus is tempted by him. The devil quoted the truth of God Word. However, when he speaks of God’s truth, he twists them to pervert them. And in doing so, he lies. And he uses lies to attack us.
Think about this through the subjects we’ve already discussed in this sermon series...
The truth is, “God wants us to rest.” Yet, Satan says, “You don’t need to rest.” He’s lying. How do we know? Because if he wasn’t, a lack of rest would improve our lives, but it doesn’t. It leads to more stress.
The truth is, “Knowing God leads to peace.” But Satan lies to us saying, “You don’t need God.” Yet, life without God is stressfully overwhelming.
The truth is we need God’s wisdom. His Word guides us to peace. But Satan lies and says, “Did God really say that?” He lies to us about whether we can trust God. And yet, when we don’t make decisions based on God’s wisdom, we experience stress.
And all of this stress destroys us. Just as Satan planned. Because he hates you. And stress is one of his favorite weapons.
Here’s something else to mention… Satan does not fight fair.
You know who’s good at paintball? Janelle - my wife. She’s a beast. She got that 360 no-scope. I remember one time she played with the youth. Here I am… practicing all of my ninja moves. Rolling in the dirt. Army crawling. All of a sudden - *pew* Paintball hits me in the helmet.
Then, the rest of my team starts getting picked off… one by one. What in the world is going on? Who is this sharpshooter? It was Janelle!
On one of the paintball courses, there was this bunker in the center of the field. It was a half cylinder with a small port to shoot out of. She was planted there KILLIN people.
But then I noticed something... On the sides of the bunker were two more small ports. I slowly crawled to one side. Through the port, I could see the side of Janelle’s helmet. I gave her the triple tap * pew pew pew” I saw her head go like this: tink-tink-tink.
As awesome as that moment was, that’s not my point. What happened next is… Remember two things:
Everyone is frustrated because Janelle keeps getting everyone out.
She’s playing with a bunch of middle-schoolers who don’t follow the rules.
What are you supposed to do when you’re out in paintball? Yea… hold up your gun. It’s the universal signal for surrender. When you do it, you’re SUPPOSED to safely exit the game. SUPPOSED TO BEING THE OPERATIVE WORD!!!
But in this game, every time Janelle tried to get out of the bunker, the kids were lighting her up. They could totally see her gun up in surrender, but they didn’t care. They kept shooting her. She had to book it to the protective net because they weren’t playing fair!
In a infinitely more serious way, that’s how Satan does battle. He does not have ethics, morals, or rules. He seeks to destroy… everyone. Even kids are not off limits. You think it’s random that children today are unexplainably stressed out? That’s a strategic attack of the enemy.
We need to be aware of this because these are real attacks from a real enemy.
Alright… our second attack comes from...
The world
The world
This one is very much connected to the last enemy, Satan. That’s because...
2 Corinthians 4:4 (ESV)
...the god of this world (Satan) has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For the time being, Satan is permitted to exercise a measure of authority over the world.
And when we say the “world,” it refers to people, groups, or cultures that are not surrendered to Lord Jesus and do not live under His Kingdom.
Now, to clarify, Satan’s power is limited. It cannot supersede God’s sovereignty. God is at all times fully in control. As one worship song states, “No power can stand against You, no curse can assault Your throne.”
Remember the things I have done in the past.
For I alone am God!
I am God, and there is none like me.
As I mentioned before, God and Satan are not equal rivals representing good and evil. At any time, Satan can be crushed - and one day will be. In fact, he’s already defeated, but I’ll talk more about that in a second.
However, if this world is controlled by Satan, then we shouldn’t be surprised when the world attacks our hearts. Sometimes, the enemy will use other people to attack us… in what seems to us to be a random attack - like totally uncalled for. Christian - have you ever experienced that?
Paul clearly teachers us where that comes from...
For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
That co-worker or classmate who wrongly accuses you is ultimately a spiritual attack. It’s important that we realize this reality so we can properly respond.
Furthermore, we shouldn’t be shocked when the culture completely goes against God’s word and will. If Satan’s pulling the strings, why wouldn’t it? Don’t you think it’s interesting how biblical Christianity seems to get attacked from our culture? That’s because it’s a spiritual attack, from the world, sourced from Satan.
And it’s one thing for us to encounter a frontal attack from the world, but don’t forget that Satan is a liar. He’s a deceiver. While we don’t want to give him too much credit, the truth is he’s smart. And he knows how to strategically trick us. In likeness to what Paul once said...
2 Corinthians 2:11 (NLT)
[don’t let] Satan...outsmart us. [Be] familiar with (be aware of) his evil schemes.
And don’t be ignorant of this… Satan sometimes uses the world to slowly attack us. What do I mean? Isn’t it interesting that we now accept things that we used to boldly stand against. That’s not because we’ve become more civilized, it’s because we’ve compromised. But we don’t notice because the devil’s plan is to slowly expose us to things until it’s normal. Then, before we know it, we’re now entertained by the very things that break God’s heart.
Lord, forgive me. Lord help us to be a people who...
Psalm 101:3 (NLT)
...refuse to look at
anything vile and vulgar...
But those aren’t the only attacks in the world...
Don’t forget that a portion of the angelic army fell with Satan. There are demons actively working with the devil to destroy our lives too. Actually, when you hear those wicked whispers in your ears, it’s most likely NOT Satan (he’s not omnipresent - can’t be everywhere at once)… we’re not important enough for him… but it IS one of his demons attacking us.
I know this is scary stuff. I don’t particularly like talking about this, but we have to. Because the spiritual attacks lead to stress. And as one of my favorite pastors, Craig Groeschel, says, “You cannot defeat what you do not define.” We must call them out so we can protect our hearts!
And there’s one final enemy that attacks us. It’s an internal one. It’s our indwelling sin. The prophet Jeremiah rightly describes our natural heart as...
Jeremiah 17:9 (ESV)
...deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
That’s why we read earlier that we “were by nature children of wrath.” We deserve wrath because of our natural desire to rebel against God and follow Satan. This attribute has been with us from the beginning, ever since the first humans, Adam and Eve, did the same in the garden. The sin nature they passed down to us acts like a spiritual cancer attacking our hearts.
But there’s hope! When we place our faith in Jesus, we receive a new heart and the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us. However, while we are no longer slaves to sin… as Paul said...
Romans 6:14 (ESV)
...sin will have no dominion over you...
Sin is still present - for the time being. And it still attacks us. Actually now, there’s a war, a battle, inside of us cause internal stress… It’s why Paul writes...
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
Therefore, sometimes you experience stress because your indwelling sin is attacking your own heart.
So, how can we respond?
Response:
Response:
As we close, let me give you four ways to protect your heart, because a protected heart... is a peaceful heart.
Number one) Avoid Spiritual Stressors.
For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
To avoid spiritual stressors, we must live by the the Spirit. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. And the truth is, some of don’t need to be hanging out in some places, with some people, and watching/listening/doing some things. Why? Because those stressors spiritually attack our hearts.
In principle, it’s the same thing James talks about...
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Have you heard the Holy Spirit warn you before? You should listen to Him if you want to find life and peace. He’s trying to protect your heart.
Number 2) Don’t fight spiritual attacks alone.
Ya’ll watched Animal Planet. You know the example. If Satan is a lion don’t get caught alone. Because what’s the first animal the lion goes after? The one that’s alone. If you’re stressed out or under spiritual attack, find your pack! Find your spiritual family.
Listen to what Paul says here...
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.
When Paul wrote this, he was sitting in a Roman prison. And it’s very likely he observed military drills. One ancient military strategy was the “phalanx.” This is when soldiers would lock shields together. In it’s day, opposing armies trembled at this formation because it was unstoppable at the time. The strength wasn’t in the individual, but in the unified pack.
When Paul writes, “I know you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith...” he may have had the phalanx in mind. Connecting the idea of Christians fighting together as unstoppable to demonic armies. Christians spiritually fighting together in the name of Jesus is a sure “sign to them that they are going to be destroyed...”
Additionally, know that your heart is massively under-protected fighting alone. Sure, you may have your personal armor, but it’s nothing like being surrounded by your battalion in a spiritual phalanx.
Number 3) Put your armor on and use your sword.
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,
Time doesn’t allow us to fully break this down today, but I’ll summarize it this way… if you want to protect your heart...
You need to receive the salvation offered by Jesus Christ. Without this, you’re toast. Have you turned from your sin and received the salvation offered by Jesus Christ? Why not? You don’t walk on to a paintball field with no helmet, how much more important is the helmet of salvation for a spiritual war?
You need the belt of truth (God’s wisdom) to hold things together. Without it your life falls apart.
You need the righteousness of Christ. Right living (not giving in to our sinful desires) protects your heart.
You need to be prepared by the gospel - the good news of Jesus - which gives peace in this stressful world.
You need to live by faith. Faith in God and His promises is a shield against spiritual attacks.
Finally, you need God’s word (the Bible). It’s your spiritual weapon against spiritual enemies.
Number Four) You need to look up.
The other weekend I ran the 10 mile race put on by OpenDoors Outdoors (a nonprofit our church partners with that helps veterans and families). It’s course goes through the farms of South Glastonbury. It’s both a beautiful and miserable run (because of the hills).
I was running with my friends Shannon and Lindsay, and at one point, Shannon was like, “It’s so beautiful out here.” And Lindsay replied, “Yes, I gotta remember to look up!”
Because the course is not paved, you must pay attention to the path otherwise you’ll fall (I rolled my ankle. Shannon did fall). Additionally, because it’s exhausting, your head starts to droop in agony. But if you only pay attention to the difficult things, you miss the beauty that surrounds you.
I mentioned earlier the truth that Jesus has already defeated the devil.
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
We need to remember we have a unshakeable hope. That God has already won. He fully defeated Satan, sin, and death on the cross. And if we are in and with Him, we have victory too.
This life can be extremely stressful. It may feel like we are attacked from every side. But, as one of my favorite songs by Upper Room says, “It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by You!”
Don’t forget...
The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the Lord surrounds his people,
from this time forth and forevermore.
When the spiritual attacks come, don’t forget to look up. God fights for you. Put your hope in Him. He will personally protect your heart.
If you’re stressed today, remember, spiritual attacks lead to stress, but a protected heart produces peace. Therefore, have you - or are you - protecting your heart?
Let’s pray...
Father, we need you to protect our hearts. This world and the things in it are trying to destroy me. But You love me. Therefore, I’m looking to You. Save me. And help me to live in the victory won by Jesus. In His name I pray, amen.
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