FAMOUS PASSAGES
STRESS – COME TO ME
DR. JIM DIXON
NOVEMBER 3,1991
MATTHEW 11:28-30
In the last days, there will come times of stress. Those are the words of holy scripture as recorded in 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 1. “In the last days, there will come times of stress.” The Greek word there is the word “chalepos.” This word was used in the ancient world to describe men who tried to tame lions and tigers. They were under stress. Chalepos was also used to describe students in some of the ancient Greek schools. Their work was hard and very difficult, and they were under stress. Chalepos was a word also used to describe husbands and wives whose spouses were difficult to live with. They were under stress. In the last days there will come times of stress. The last days will be peculiarly characterized by stress.
Now, you may or may not believe that we are in the last days, and most of you would agree, however, that there is a lot of stress in this world. Perhaps our generation lives with more stress than any prior generation. There are many causes for stress in our lives, and I would like to examine two of those causes this morning and to explore them in the light of scripture.
First of all, sometimes stress is caused by pace. Some of us are stressed out simply because our pace is too fast. We live in a world that is in warp drive.
Now, there is an old story told of a father and a son who lived in Japan, and they were farmers. Story allegedly took place a few decades ago. They had had a good growing season and the father and son had put the vegetables into this large cart and they were going to take the vegetables to a nearby city in Japan where they would sell their produce.
The city that was nearby was a two day journey away, and the son was in a big hurry because he believed that if they got to the city quickly, they would get a better price for their produce because other farmers at the end of this growing season would also be going to the city. And the son believed the sooner they got there, the better, and the father said to the son, “Relax, we’re going to get there. Things are going to be okay. Don’t be so hassled, you’re going to burn yourself out.”
Boy, they took off, and they began to walk on this journey towards the city. And they came near another farm that belonged to the dad’s brother, and the dad said, “Son, let’s stop and see your uncle.” The son said, “Dad, we don’t have time, man. We’re in a hurry. We have got to get to the city. We want to be some of the first farmers to get there.” The dad said, “Well you know son, we don’t often get to see your uncle. I just want to say hello. We don’t get this way very often.”
And so, they stopped and they talked to the uncle for about an hour or so. The son wasn’t very friendly, and he was highly frustrated and just wanted to get out of there and get on his way. And finally, they did get out of there and they were on their way, and they came to a fork in the road. The son wanted to take the left fork. He said, “This way is shorter. We’ll get to the city quicker.” Father wanted to take the right fork. The dad said, “You know, that’s true, but this other way is more beautiful. Let’s take the right fork.” So they took the right fork, and the son was frustrated because it was longer. But they passed through meadows, and they saw flowers and there were streams and there were lakes.
They came to a particularly beautiful spot. The father said, “Son, let’s stop here. Let’s camp here for the night. It’s so beautiful here.” The son said, “There’s still light left in the day, and we can go further before we stop. We’ve already wasted a lot of time.” Dad said, “Son, it is just so beautiful here. Let’s stay here.” And so, they did. And the son was frustrated and he couldn’t relax and he could not sleep that night because he wanted to be pressing on. The next morning, the son woke up and he said, “Dad, I don’t think I’m ever going to take another trip with you again.” He said, “You’re more interested in meadows and flowers and streams and lakes than you are in making money.” The dad said, “Well, thank you son.”
They began to continue on their journey, and they came to another farmer who was stuck in a ditch with his cart. The dad said, “Son, let’s stop and help this farmer.” The son said, “Dad, we don’t have time and he’s okay. There’s going to be others coming along. We’re already running behind.” Dad said, “Son, someday we might be stuck in a ditch. We’re going to want someone to stop and help us.” And so they did. And the son wasn’t very compassionate because he was tense and he was wanting to get pressing on.
Well, they did press on and they spent that night on the trail, and it was the next day when they came to the top of the hill and looked down on the city where they were to sell their produce. And as they stood on the top of that hill on the third day and looked down on the city, they were stunned to see that the city was in ruins and ashes. The date was August 7th, 1945, and they were looking down on the city of Hiroshima. The prior day, on August 6th, Hiroshima had been annihilated by a thermonuclear bomb. If they had arrived one day sooner, they would’ve been listed among the casualties.
Now, I read that story in a book by Charles Swindoll. I don’t know whether the story is true or not. I do know this: it is true that some people in this world are in an awfully big hurry. They don’t have time to enjoy life. They don’t have time to enjoy a meadow or a flower or a stream or a lake. They don’t take the time to stop and help people, to show compassion to other people. And they don’t even have time for their own families and their own loved ones.
I think it is also true that there are a lot of people in this world who are racing at far too fast a pace. And truly they are racing towards a kind of destruction and a kind of ruin. They’re racing towards a type of burnout. They’re racing towards stress, and they’re in stress.
You know, this morning in New York City, the 22nd New York marathon is taking place, and the participants started at 8:30 Denver time. And some of them are still running at this moment. Most of those 25,000 men and women running in that New York marathon this morning are not trying to win. Very few of them are trying to win. Most of them just want to finish. If they’re going to finish, they’re going to have to run at a proper pace. If the pace is too fast, they’re going to stress their ligaments, their tendons, their joints, their musculature, their respiratory system, and their cardiovascular system, and eventually they’re going to burn out.
Life in this world is a kind of marathon. For some people it is 70 years long, three score and 10. For some it is 80. For some it is more, for some it is less. God is very much concerned with our pace. You belong to Jesus Christ, and you have invited Him to be the Lord of your life and your Savior from sin. He wants you to live a life pleasing to Him, and He’s concerned with pace. We live in a crazy world.
Physiological psychologists are actually speaking today of a new kind of addiction that they call adrenaline addiction. Have you ever heard of adrenaline addiction? You see, one of the ways the body reacts to stress physiologically is to produce adrenaline, and millions of people in the American society are kind of addicted to adrenaline. And as they run at a fast pace and they are constantly under stress, the adrenaline is released in their body, and they’re addicted to adrenaline and the adrenaline buzz.
They don’t want to slow down. And when they do slow down, it seems to kind of stress them to slow down, makes them restless, frustrated, because they’re going through a kind of adrenaline withdrawal. What a crazy world that we live in.
I think the message that God would have to many of us is slow down. Of course, God realizes that we all are different. We can’t all live at the same pace or walk at the same pace. Some people need to move at a faster pace than others. I mean, there are type A people and there are type B people, and supermarkets understand this. It’s why they put type B people in charge of the express lanes to frustrate all the type A people who are in the line.
But I think for many of us, God’s message would be slow down a little bit, slow down a little bit and enjoy the flowers. Enjoy the creation. Live one day at a time. Find time for your family and for those who are in need. You know, when you look at the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Bible, you see many things about His life. I mean, we’re told that our Lord Jesus walked. We’re told he talked. We’re told Jesus slept. We’re told Jesus wept. Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus ran. You ever noticed that? It never says Jesus ran. And if you look at the synoptics, if you look at Matthew, Mark and Luke, and if you look at the Gospel of John, I mean, you have to be impressed with the serenity, the pure tranquility, of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He always seemed to have things under control, and there was a peace. There was a peace that was contagious. And I really believe people were drawn to Him because of the peace of His person.
And He had times when He took breaks. You notice that, when you go through the gospel, Jesus took breaks when He was in the region of Jerusalem. He would go to the garden, He would go to Gethsemane. He wouldn’t just go there to pray and to converse with His Father, but the Bible says He would go there to get away from the crowds. And you read how when He was in the region of Galilee and Capernaum He would sometimes get into the boat and go to the eastern shore to find a grassy place. The Bible says, “to find a place apart.”
See, God wants us all to understand that we need our own Gethsemane. We need an eastern shore. We need an experience up on the roof. We need to take time to get away from the hustle and bustle of life and really the insanity of the world in which we live.
I know there’s a lot of you here who would rather burn out than rust out, but when you stop to think about it, neither option makes a whole lot of sense. God has called us to a balanced life, and He would remind us to not let the world squeeze you into its mold, to live a life that honors Christ.
Well, I think that there are some people who are under stress because of pain. Some people it’s because of pace, some people it’s because of pain. See, pain causes stress. All kinds of pain causes stress. Physical pain causes a type of stress. My wife Barbara has had a kind of unusual month where she’s had physical pain. It was about a month ago she was walking out of our house and the door to the garage and she closed it on her finger. I mean, she just slammed it shut on her own finger. And it really hurt and it just devastated the finger. And then two weeks ago, as she was walking out of the Crestwood Restaurant on Littleton Boulevard, she opened that big heavy door and opened it right into her big toe and just smashed her big toe. I mean, her toe is still black and blue. And then Tuesday night Barb was doing me a big favor because she was making me (it was about 10:30 at night) rice pudding. I love rice pudding. Barb had kind of dozed off, and the oven alarm rang about 10:30. And she went to pull the rice pudding out of the oven. The rice pudding sits in a larger pan of boiling water, and she pulled that out and just spilled it on her leg and it just fried her leg with second degree burns. We rushed her to the emergency room at the hospital Tuesday night from about 11:00 to 12:00. Barb said she’s never had that kind of pain—even when Heather and Drew were born, she never had that kind of pain.
And you know, when she closed the door on her finger and when she slammed the door into her toe, she was jumping up and down. You know how you do when you have physical pain. I mean, your body is stressed. Your whole body is stressed. And then when she spilled that boiling water and she had all these second degree burns on her leg, I mean, she was writhing in pain. The body was stressed.
Well, you see, doctors, psychologists, tell us that there’s another kind of pain that also stresses the body, and its emotional pain. This stress is perhaps more subtle. It is both internal and external. And the stress comes from cumulated emotional pain. Some of you are in the midst of a lot of pain right now. Some of you probably read the book by Dr. Thomas Holmes and his report on stress. He determined that the average person cannot take any more than 200 life change units. 200 life change units was the most anybody could take without going into critical stress. He weighed various life change events in a person’s life. There were 100 life change units given for the death of a spouse, 73 life change units given for going through a divorce, and 12 life change units for experiencing Christmas and the holidays. But most of the life change units had to do with emotional pain. A person can only take so much emotional pain and then their stress goes critical. There’s a lot of people that are under a lot of emotional pain and some of you have more pain than perhaps you think you can bear. And some of you have had pain in years past that has left scars in a kind of chronic stress internally. I think sometimes we look at people, and we don’t understand why they have to go through so much pain.
Some of you’ve probably read some of the books by Joseph Bailey, and he and his wife experienced the death of so many of their children. Their first child died at 18 months after an emergency surgery, and second child died at the age of five of leukemia. The third child died in their teenage years through a sledding accident. You look at lives like that, and you say, “Why?”
Some of you were at the seminar we had at the church yesterday, and Barbara Johnson spoke and you saw and perhaps experienced by way of empathy some of the pain that she’s gone through in her life. It’s not possible to take away someone’s pain or even to explain it or fully understand why some people have to go through so much pain.
But you see, as Christians, God has given us to each other. If we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, then we’re called into community, and we’re called into a community of believers. And here at Cherry Hills Community Church, we’re meant to be a community. God’s charge to us, His call to us, is to reach out to each other in love and to embrace each other and to seek to comfort and encourage each other in the midst of our pain, because there’s a lot of pain in a fallen world and God’s given us to each other. And if we’re faithful to do that—to really love each other, to really hold each other, to really comfort each other—the stress is going to be minimalized, and the power of the Holy Spirit for healing is going to be released in our lives.
Now, I think there’s a certain amount of emotional pain we’re all going to have to go through. Even if we don’t experience the death of a loved one, even if we don’t experience tragedy, there’s a certain amount of stress. There’s a certain amount of emotional pain that all of us as Christians bear by simply living in a world that has so fallen—a world that, as Bob has said on Wednesday night, is upside down. And sometimes we feel upside down because we’re living in a world that’s upside down, and we’re different than the world (or we should be). And there’s pain that comes.
Our daughter Heather goes to Littleton High School, and two weeks ago in Heather’s psychology class the teacher asked the students how many of them wanted to live supremely for themselves, how many of them wanted to live for self. And he asked them to stand and line up against one wall in the classroom, and a lot of them got up and stood there. They want to live for self. The psychology teacher asked, how many want to live for people? How many of you want to live for others? Line up against this second wall. And some of the students lined up against the second wall. Then the psychology teacher said, how many of you want to live for planet earth? You want to live for the ecology, you want to help the environment, and you want that to be kind of the purpose of your life. And some of the kids went to the third wall. Then the psychology teacher said, how many of you want to live for God? Line up on the fourth wall. And Heather was the only one left.
She had actually said she wanted to live for others, but they had the chance to switch walls and when she saw the chance to live for God, she wanted to live for God. And she’s the only one that went to that fourth wall, the only one. And so, she’s standing there all alone, and then the psychology teacher says he wanted the four walls to debate each other. He turned it into a debate. Now, I mean, I got to say, there’s a certain amount of pain that’s involved with just being different and the only person in the class that wants to live for God or is willing to say so. That’s painful. And Heather said later, you know, that she was really nervous and, she said she hoped that she did a good job in terms of the debate. But she said, you know, she felt good that she had done it, and she felt stronger about her faith and her commitment that she’d been willing to take that stand.
And yet, what a crazy world and how hard it is for Christians to stand and be different. If you’re really living for Christ, you’re going to be different. And it does cause stress. I don’t know about you, but I get stressed just reading the newspapers and reading about this crazy world we live in. It is upside down.
I mean, just this last week, you probably saw that, right here in Denver, a major corporation is now considering withdrawing all of its financial support for the Boy Scouts of America just because the Boy Scouts of America has taken a stand against the practice of homosexuality. So, this major corporation says, we may withdraw funding because the Boy Scouts of America has taken a stand against the practice of homosexuality. And a quote in the newspaper indicates that this major corporation is suggesting that the behavior of the Boy Scouts is immoral in taking a stand against the practice of homosexuality.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I read stuff like that and it hurts. It’s kind of an emotional pain, and there’s some stress that kind of goes with it. And I hope you understand. I mean, I know God loves everybody. I mean, God loves straight people and God loves gay people. God loves everybody. And Christ died for everybody and God so loved the world. I don’t know about you, but I really have a heart for gay people who for whatever reason have this orientation towards homosexuality, and many of them really struggle, particularly those who are Christians. They really struggle and it’s hard, but we never want to reach the point where we take what Christ has called wrong and we call it right.
The reality is that we who are Christians living in this world, as time goes by, we’re just going to stand out like a sore thumb no matter how loving we try to be. If we stand on biblical morals and ethics, there’s going to be emotional pain and some measure of stress. I think God says to us, you know, in the midst of the stress, fight the good fight. Seek to make the world a better place, and seek to serve the kingdom of Christ. I think God also wants us to know that in the midst of all of our trials and our tests and our hardship and our pain, God is able to use some of these things for personal transformation in our lives, to make us more the people Christ wants us to be.
You know, I’ve been reading this last week about the codfish industry. Now, I know most of you don’t spend a whole lot of time reading about codfish. It was a few years ago that I first read about the commercial business in the northeastern portion of the United States that relates to codfish. It’s a massive industry, and it’s a massive business. And in the northeastern portion of the United States, the codfish is prepared to be distributed and then marketed all over the United States.
In years past, the codfish industry has struggled with how to deliver that codfish in good condition to places that are great distances away, and for a while, they froze the codfish. They discovered as they did that that, generally speaking, the codfish lost much of its flavor. So, they decided to send codfish in salt water tanks to these places that were great distances away, and it was a tremendous expense. Their hope was that sending the codfish alive would retain the flavor, but it didn’t. The codfish still lost much of its flavor and its texture became very poor. The codfish became kind of soft and mushy, just kind of existing in those tanks as they were being shipped. So, someone came up with a brilliant idea. Someone decided to put a catfish in every tank with a codfish. Now, the catfish is kind of the natural enemy of the codfish. The catfish would chase the codfish around the tank the whole time the codfish was being shipped. An amazing thing happened when the codfish would arrive. It was in great shape, and his texture was still good. And when it was prepared, its flavor was great. Well, I know this is an incredible reach by way of an analogy, but I have to say, I think we all need a little tension in the tank. I really do. I think God knows we all need a little tension in the tank, and He’s a loving God. I mean, I know sometimes it seems like the pain is more than you can bear, but the Bible promises He will not allow us to be tested beyond what we’re able to endure. And He is seeking to transform us and mold us and make us to all that we are meant to be.
You know, A.W. Tozer once said, “It is doubtful that a Christian can be greatly blessed until he has been deeply hurt.” Perhaps we wouldn’t choose to admit that, but I think it really is true. It really is true. We need a certain amount of pain. If you could script your life, you wouldn’t put any pain there, would you? I mean, if God just gave us today a notebook and a pencil and said, write the script for the next 365 days, you’d put a lot of things in there, but you wouldn’t put any pain. I’m sure you wouldn’t write any painful experiences or any painful events, and yet we need a certain amount of pain for the sake of transformation. That’s why the Bible says, “Count it all joy when you experience various trials, for you know the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. Let steadfastness have its full effect that you might be complete, lacking in nothing.”
We live in a world that has fallen, a world where sometimes the pace is too fast and sometimes it seems the pain is too great. And in the midst of this world, I think to many of us, Christ would say, “Slow down. Take a look at your pace. Take a look at your life. Stop and smell a flower. Enjoy this world I’ve made. Live one day at a time. Find time for people, for family.” And I think to all of us, the Lord would say in the midst of the pain, I think the Lord would say, “Reach out and love each other. Embrace each other. Comfort each other.” The stress might be lessened and the Spirit might move and work. I think God would say, “Take comfort in the fact that I can use your pain. There’s no meaningless pain in the life of the Christian. I can use your pain to make you more the person you’re meant to be.”
“Come unto me,” Jesus said, “all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, learn of Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be trouble neither let it be afraid.”
Let’s close with a word of prayer. Lord Jesus, we come to You this morning, Lord, in the midst of very different circumstances. You know each of our lives, You know the struggles that are there. You know the pain, Lord, You know the pace. Lord, help us to examine our lives with a discernment of Your Holy Spirit. And Lord, if our lifestyle is kind of out of control—if we’re moving too fast, if we don’t have time for friends, don’t have time for compassion, don’t have time for family—Lord, if we don’t have time just to enjoy this world You’ve made, help us to slow down, rearrange, and reprioritize our life. Lord, help us to be a loving people that embrace one another because the pain is great and it is hard. Use us to comfort each other and give us strength, Lord Jesus, to carry on. Thank You for Your promise that all things work together for good for those who love You. Lord, we love You. We commit ourselves anew to You this day. We pray these things, Lord Jesus, in Your great name. Amen.