Oh, Jesus Christ, we're so thankful that you are the rock upon which we stand. Thank you that you suffered for us. That you came that we might be reconciled unto God. That we might have eternal life and the hope that the psalmist spoke of. Thank you that you gloriously saved us from our sins that we might have eternal life. May the preciousness of that truth never leave us as believers. Father, I pray that you will bless our time tonight as we look to the words of the Apostle Paul and that grace would be given to strengthen our hearts as we, even like the psalmist, At times, find ourselves in what seems to be hopeless situations. God, grant us your special blessing tonight. Encourage us from the strength that we are given from the Apostle Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Bless now our time together, for we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Pastor Tim is traveling in from out of town, and he has not made it back yet. So I am filling in for him tonight, and he should be back soon, I believe, or early tomorrow. So I am here to give you the challenge from the Word of God, and I want to invite you to turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 6. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. I'd like to read the first 10 verses. and seek to glean what we can from Paul's life, as well as the Lord's words, which we will be looking at tonight. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, the Apostle Paul begins, we then as workers together with him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says in an acceptable time I have heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold, Now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. We give no offense in anything that our ministry may not be blamed, but in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fastings. by purity, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well-known, as dying and behold we live, as chastened and yet not killed, as sorrowful yet always rejoicing. as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." What an amazing statement we have here by the Apostle Paul. If you were to do, I think, in one sitting and read 1 Corinthians as well as 2 Corinthians, you would maybe get a glimpse of the pain of the Apostle Paul and the struggles that he suffered from in life. Maybe we tend to think because Paul was One of the greatest scripture writers, of course, and wrote so many books of scripture. That he would be immune to the problems of life. That the difficulties of life certainly wouldn't bother him as much as they bother us. But what you will learn is that he had great love for the church. And the pressures that came upon him were exceedingly great. He loved the church. But there were all kinds of pressures which just ate at him. But he had a secret, and I hope that we will discover that tonight. Life is stressful. Life is hard. It can be joyous at times, but we just have to hold on because life can be very hard. Have you ever had to get up Monday morning and you want to stay in bed because of the pressures of that day? Most of us have had that experience. Life can be very hard. It can be stressful, and so it was with Paul. In fact, if you're still in 2 Corinthians 6, back up to 2 Corinthians 4, notice verse 8. He said there in 2 Corinthians 4, 8, We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. When he said we are hard-pressed, he's saying we're under great pressure. Hard-pressed, great pressure. So we are not the only ones that sometimes feel the pressure and the distress that life can bring, whether it's in the job, in the family, health, financial. It's always something it seems like. that comes around. Well, so it was with the Apostle Paul. But he said in verse 16 of that fourth chapter, therefore, we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. And look at verse 18. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. Paul had this ability to see the invisible. He had this ability to look in the future. He had this ability to see the hope, though he could not see it physically with his eyes, he could see it spiritually. And that was the secret of his keeping on going, keep plugging away, even though life is hard and it's stressful. And at times the walls are closing in and we don't see any way out. Paul had the same experience. But he began to look with spiritual eyes, and he saw that what you see in the physical is temporary, but what you don't see is eternal. And he had that great hope. And it is a hope that we can have, and I want to remind you of that tonight. Have you ever thought about this? Who ministers to the minister? Who ministers to the minister? In most cases, he has to minister to himself. Paul said to young Timothy, in 1 Timothy 4, he said, Take heed unto yourself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them, for in so doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. You see the challenge? Stay in the doctrine. Because you not only benefit those who are going to hear you, you benefit yourself. You see, what we're saying here is if the minister fails to minister to himself, first of all, he has failed to his people. You see, he must be before he can do. But you know what? It isn't just the minister that must be before he can do. The familiar charge to the physician, you know, physician, heal thyself. Could I suppose appropriately be said about the minister? But Paul was very, very careful to watch out for his own life. He understood the need of staying in the word of God, believing in that doctrine, spending time with God and having the integrity of the spiritual life in his Christian life that could get him going every day. And he held on to that. So we must be the same. I don't know how you minister what you minister in every one of us here pretty much is ministering He may not call it that But you are if you're a testimony at work if you're a mother with small children all around Most of us are ministering quite frankly Whether you have an official title or not is beside the point if you are a believer in Jesus Christ you have been given certain gifts and He expects you to minister wherever you're at throughout the day. And so. If we're going to have something to give to others. We have to, first of all, fill ourselves. How can we fill another when we are empty? So that's the challenge, of course, to the preacher. But it's the challenge to all of us. Now, let's look a little bit closer at a few of these verses in chapter six, and then we're not going to go verse by verse through it. But I want to then bring some general application for us and helping us to cope with life just like Paul did. Now, he begins in chapter six, verse one, we then as workers together with him. Also plead or we you know we urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain For he says in an acceptable time. I have heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation Now he begins by talking about the fact that we're workers together we're co-workers and believers in Christ should complement each other's ministry and We should have a common goal to glorify the Lord. You know, one of the sad things is when ministers or people ministering are in competition with one another. The tragedy is that God doesn't get the glory. Let us step back for a minute. We're not competing with each other. We're on the same team. And because we're on the same team, our goal is to glorify God. Why fight with each other? Why be jealous over another? Why do you try to do better than another? The point is, Paul says we are co-workers together. He emphasizes that, and then he goes on and gives his concern. By the way, he says we plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. What was the problem? The Corinthian church, if you know much about the Corinthian church, they had all kinds of problems. You discover it in the first book, you discover it in the second book. In particular, he is referring to the attack of the Judaizers upon the Corinthians. They were coming to say, look, that's fine. You've come this far by grace, but now we want to take you back to law. It's fine that you have grace, but now you need to go back to Moses. Now you need to go back over here. And really taking them back into bondage. And that's Paul's concern. And the Judaizers attacked Paul. And they said, Paul is worthless. They said, Paul is a phony. And some of the people in the Corinthian church were absorbing that and following these false teachers. Paul has a great burden for his people. He founded this church. And I believe his heart breaks when he thinks about that. And so he says, please, don't accept the grace of God in vain by going back to the lost system, which Christ said, I came to fulfill. And in fact, he did. Well, he expresses this concern and he quotes here Isaiah 49.8. which is the prophet Isaiah, where he spoke about there, it's a quotation in which God is going to give help to his servant in the day when salvation is offered to the Gentiles. Pastor Tim was there a while back, maybe some of you remember that. And then Paul's emphasis is, he says now, notice he says it twice, it's a double usage, showing the urgency of the time. Reconciliation should never be delayed. And Paul wanted them to be reconciled to God and himself, because many of them had wronged Paul. Many of them were not appreciating Paul. He wanted reconciliation. And he felt now, today, it's time to do it. You see, Paul's concern is that not everybody in the Corinthian church was a true believer in Jesus Christ. As in most churches in America today, not everybody is a believer in Jesus Christ. And Paul has a genuine concern. He viewed some of the members most likely to be unsaved. In fact, their hostility toward him as an apostle may indicate a lack of reconciliation toward God. So there seemed to be a mixed multitude among the church. And any preacher today that preaches in his church and takes it for granted and that assumes 100 percent of the people in that church are believers is making a grave mistake. And Paul is deeply burdened by this. In fact, you can see it. Again, if you turn back a page or so to 2 Corinthians 4, look what he says here in 2 Corinthians 4 at verse 3. And you get a sense, not only in these few passages I'm going to bring, but as I said throughout it. But he is very concerned. He said this, he said, but even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. Alright, if there's this blindfold, which he talks about in verse 4, whose minds, the God of this age, we know who that is. It's Satan himself. whose minds the God of this age has blinded who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. He keeps the unbelievers blinded. Many of them he deceives into thinking they're believers when their life does not reflect it, their thought pattern does not reflect it, and they are exceedingly selfish in their entire life and have no desire for God or his word other than to play the game. the church game. And so we we discover Paul's very concerned about this because and he says they're blinded. So, you know, all of us have probably unbelieving friends, loved ones. And that should be our prayer. Look at verse six, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The very light, the light of the gospel that needs to come. Isn't it interesting? He takes us back to creation and he says it's the same God who said, let there be light. And there was light is the same God who says, let there be salvation. And there is salvation. You see, we, as you if you've gone to this church very long, you know that we are a church that believes strongly in the sovereignty of God. And we believe that salvation is of God alone, period. It's God who saves. And in fact, the truth is, it's impossible for man. But repeatedly, God says it's not impossible for me. Now, with that strong Calvinistic belief, we understand that in the practicality of life itself, God holds us accountable. Now, I want to take you back to chapter 3, just back up a little bit, where Paul, remember, he talks about the veil. Moses, in chapter 3, verse 15, he said, But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. He's talking about his brethren. Now, verse 16, Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. When one turns to the Lord, the blindfold comes down. That is the practical working out of our salvation. Why, how do you think that we can be such a strong Calvinistic church, believe in reformed theology and still be so missions minded? This is one of the, I don't want to praise the church too much, but I am so thankful for so many of you reaching out in so many ways. This is an evangelistic church. I don't understand it. That seems a contradiction. And most people on the outside think, well, you can't be a strong Calvinist and be evangelistic. But we are because we believe this. Because in practicality, that's what we're preaching. Turn to Jesus Christ. Call on the name of the Lord and thou shalt be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. That's dropping the veil. And so you see, you can see by this the concern that Paul has. Also, let me just read this verse, because he actually ends in the 13th chapter with this verse, verse five, almost to the end. He said, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you are disqualified? Examine yourselves. Paul is very concerned for the church. Now, it's true, if you read chapter 7, without a doubt, he's alluding to their believers in the church that have repented. So he knows there's believers there. So he basically sees this as a mixed multitude. So as you get a feel for the pain that Paul is feeling for this Corinthian church, You realize that they should have been defending Paul. See, the Judaizers were attacking Paul greatly. And really, the people should have been defending him. And I'm not sure they were. But the Judaizers did not start this church. Paul started this church. It was Paul who brought them the Gospel. And now, Paul looks at the church. And he sees they don't appreciate him. He sees that they're not following his lead in many ways. And he's truly frightened for the church. And he cares for the church and he loves it. And that's why he quoted Isaiah and he said, today is the day of salvation. There is no guarantee that any sinner will have opportunity to be saved tomorrow. There is none. And that's why the prophet Isaiah again, boy Paul loves to quote Isaiah. He loves Isaiah. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. That's the message we give. We don't give the message, well, I'm just going to sit at home, do nothing, because if God wants to save my neighbor, he'll save my neighbor. I don't need to do anything. That's not our position. And I don't believe that's Paul's position either. All right. Paul is struggling. Not only is he under pressure, I don't think he's feeling very appreciated, I don't think any of us would. You couple all of this and life's hard. Life can be very hard. And I'll tell you, if you're ministering, and most of us here are ministering in some way, anyone who ministers for the Lord is bound to get weary one day. And finally, after a while, when you keep getting beat down, and you're not appreciated, and you've done the best you can, and somebody says some snide remark, and you just wonder, is it worth it all? And you really wonder, is it worth it all? Preachers are human. Preachers have said it. Missionaries have said it. After one illness after another. After one defeat after another. After not seeing anybody saved. After years of hard work. You think that's not discouraging from a human point of view? And you might in those moments of weakness say, is it worth it all? But I think anyone who ministers for the Lord can get there. And get discouraged. as the pressure builds and mounds, and we have one difficulty after another. So the question really isn't new. It's been asked by many. Hey, Moses. In our scripture reading not too long ago, if you've been going through MacArthur's study Bible, Moses gave the best to his people. And yet they criticized him. They even criticized his second wife. And on a few occasions, and on one occasion he told God, he said he'd rather die than to lead these people. Another case, he said, look, how am I going to give them all this meat? Did I beget these people, God? He got frustrated. And of course, we do know, even at the end, you remember, sadly, he didn't get to enter the promised land because of failure. But he's human, and we are human. Many saints of old have been there, feeling unappreciated, feeling unwanted, constantly struggling. I think great preachers of old would reveal that if they were being honest about their feelings in the last many years of ministry. Even great, wonderful preachers, I'm convinced. So apparently this is an occupational hazard. If you're going to minister for the Lord, maybe it's something we need to learn to expect. and to live with. And that's what Paul did. Learning to live with these things is really the emphasis. Ministry. You may minister in a number of ways. We have so many. Teaching a Sunday school class is one of them. Working in the nursery is one of them. You know, on and on, cleaning the church You know, we take it for granted that we come and the church is clean. Many people are involved in cleaning this church, the nursery workers, sometimes without any thankfulness. That's hard work. You know, you can get discouraged and I don't know how Cherie does it sometimes. All of a sudden, somebody doesn't show up and a great burden falls. That's discouraging when Christians make a commitment to do something and don't show up. You can take it for a while, but after a while it begins to build up on you. Ushers do a wonderful job, but sometimes it's thankless. Shepherding group leaders work diligently, prepare, get their home clean, maybe to hardly have anybody show up. The anchor house. What a ministry that is. What a hard ministry that is. What a discouraging ministry that is. And yet, it's vital. The Rachel House ministry. Wonderful ministry, but oh, is that hard. I just thank the Lord for those of you that work in ministries like this. And mothers of small children. You're included. That's your number one ministry. You may have others, but I can tell you the most important ministry that you have on this earth, while your children are young, is those children. And it can get difficult when you got one in diapers, another screaming, another one hitting the other one over the head with a truck, and you go over here and there, and you got the washing machine going, and the phone's ringing. Aye, aye, aye, aye. How you do it, ladies? I don't know how you do it. So, you naturally get discouraged. Life gets hard. And we wonder, is it worth it all? Well, all of us need to ask this fundamental question. And it will help us get a perspective. Whom do we serve? Before we can answer the question, is it worth it all, we've got to ask, Why am I ministering at all? If we are ministering for any other reason than to serve the Lord, then nothing will make us happy. And we'll never get enough praise. We'll just never get enough praise. Because we're not ministering for the Lord. But if we recognize it is the Lord whom we serve, we do not serve for praise for men. But we do it for the glory of God. and the future reward that awaits us. We serve for Jesus' sake and for His glory. Our responsibility is to obey Him first, no matter what others say or what others do. The prophet Isaiah has God's suffering servants say this, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain. Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord and my work with my God. I that that's so true, and I'm convinced that's the way Paul saw it. I think he took the same approach in dealing with accusations, militant crowds on and on. And the pressures of life George Morrison said this. God rarely permits his servants to see all the good they are doing. I think he's right. Why do you suppose that's true? Because of our prideful hearts. Could you imagine how we would handle 100 percent praise? Have you ever been in churches where every time the preacher says a word, Amen. And he says, Amen. In other words, Amen. I don't know how these guys make it without walking out with a head that big. Is it really worth it all? Yes, if we're doing it for the glory of God. Those of you that have been maybe memorizing scripture with Pastor Tim and Sermon on the Mount, you remember, I'm sure one of them you probably already got to is Matthew 5.12, which says, Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. That was the perspective that Paul had on the future. And why? When you realize that it is Jesus Christ you're serving and not men, There's a glorious freedom there. It takes the burden so much away. And really, it gives it to God and the burden is now upon him. As you go on and read in this chapter, I'm not going to read it, I just read at the beginning and I don't intend to go through it here verse by verse, but you get a feel for it, and you look as you go on reading through that, and he talks about, you know, patience, tribulations, distress, needs, imprisonment, sleeplessness, and so forth, and he goes on and shows the comparisons. He refers to the behavior of world circumstances around, and the believer's life, and it's amazing how, you know, how do you control your emotional responses? When one day you fear for your life, and the next day you have great victory. And it goes on and on like that. And emotional responses is usually what gets us into trouble. You know, I think genuine Christian character, when it's developed, and controlled by the Holy Spirit, will dictate our behavior regardless of external circumstances. And I think that's the key. Because it's easy to rejoice when everything is going great. But can you live in joy when things are going bad? Here he talks about afflictions, tribulations, experiences in which there's great pressure. And you remember Jesus predicted that believers would have suffered tribulation in John 16. He talks about necessities, referring to maybe financial needs. It could be health needs. It could be, you know, various kinds of hardships, food, whatever. He talks about distresses. That's kind of an interesting word. It means distresses means a narrow place. And there you have it, it means there's no more room to turn around, all four walls are closing in is how we'd say it today and life. And where do I go? Where do I turn? I am perplexed. These words indicate great pressure. Paul was under great pressure. You know, we had the old pressure cookers, and some of you may be familiar with them. I don't see them much anymore. I know my grandma used to have one, and they'd use it to tenderize meat, or I guess they use it for canning and stuff like that. But the pressure cookers, I don't know how to make them nowadays, but they always had a safety valve. And you had to make sure that safety valve worked, because if it didn't, what would happen? Boom! Some of us get like that pressure cooker. And it seems like sometimes the pressure builds up inside of us. And if something doesn't happen, we're going to fly apart. The complexity of life conceal our safety valve. And then we get in trouble. Does the word of God have any help here? Does the word of God have any suggestions here? Yes, it does. And you don't need Prozac. You just need the word of God and trust him. Many are under the misconception in regard to pressure and they refer to it as something, you know, that's on the outside that builds up and then pressure comes within us. But wait a minute. Pressure does not come from the outside. It originates from the inside. Now, there's an important principle there. It's generated from within. No person can put you under pressure but yourself. You are the only one who can do that. Because it's generated from within. The pressures you see are our emotional responses to the external circumstance. I'm so busy today. I got all this going on. I'm driving. It's driving me crazy. And because of our emotional involvement, the pressure comes to the inside. You see, we want to blame all the external, but that's not the problem. The problem is our response to the external. You see, I hope you hope you follow me here. Wives should stop blaming their husbands for being under pressure. Husbands stop blaming their wives for being under pressure. Parents stop blaming your children for being under pressure. Students stop blaming teachers for being under pressure. Employees stop blaming your boss for being under pressure. Citizens stop blaming the country. The only one we can blame for the pressure under which we live is ourselves. Well, I'm blaming the government because I'm paying $4 for gas. That's not a good deal. I agree. It may go to who knows what it's going to go to. But wait a minute. I can't do anything about that. But do not I have the promise of the word of God who said he'll provide my needs? Whether it's $5 or whether it's $10. Do you think God's limited to provide? Well, it's all over. At the end of the world, stock market crashes. The world's not over. So often we hear, well, if my circumstances were different, if I had a better paying job, if I could just get a pay increase, if I could have a different wife, a different husband, a different whatever, a different body, a different, you know, whatever it is, then we wouldn't have these pressures. No, the pressure is your personal response to the external circumstance. And I'm preaching to myself here, folks, because pressure does not come because we have too much to do. That's what we think. But that's really not true. Most of us instinctively respond to pressure by saying, you know, if I just didn't have so many demands on my time, if I didn't have so much to do, I wouldn't be under pressure. But this reveals the concept that if I didn't have demands made on me, then I could relax, the world would be great, and then I'd have joy and the pressure would be gone. But wait a minute. I don't believe that that can be supported, that pressure comes from too much to do. Rather, it comes from a person's response to one's obligations, what you have to do. It's not what I have to do, but it's my attitude to what I have to do. You ever blown a fuse? Now we use that, probably our young people don't know what that means. But us old people used to live, we know what a house was like with a fuse. I remember my dad with a flashlight. Lights go out, get this fuse, turn it out, find the right one, turn it back in. Nowadays we have circuit breakers. But you can still overload the circuit breaker, right? And then what do you got to do? You got to flip the switch. That's a good example. Whose fault is it when there's an overload? There are load limits. Designed to carry a certain amount, but when that is abused Something's got to give So don't blame the wiring Because it's the person who's putting the load on not the wire Now you probably bought extension cords for your different appliances or various things and you might have noticed if you go to Lowe's or Home Depot They've got different gauges of extension cords 10 12 what 14 16 you okay some gauges of thinner wire some have thicker so therefore they'll carry a heavier load What I'm trying to point out is this. An individual must know his load. An individual must know his capacity. And that's the first thing in getting victory over this thing of discouragement, depression or pressure. The pressure that we sometimes live under. Know your load. I have learned over the years to gauge my load. And it ain't very big, ain't very much. My wife can do 10 things at one time. I can only do once. I can only do one. If you ask me to do ten things, I'll get nothing done. I'm a basket case. I don't know how she can do it. I know my load. She's got a bigger wire than I do. She's got a bigger extension cord than I do. I know my load. You will learn that in life as you begin to grow and minister. You've got to learn to know your load, not only physically, but also what are your spiritual gifts? God gives us as believers spiritual gifts. Preachers preach without overload. I mean, a preacher can do overload too, but by and large, what I'm saying is this. If you, without the gift of being a preacher, try to preach, you'll be a basket case, right? And I was thinking about our church secretary, Shelley Campbell. And I started thinking about everything she does, and I'm going, I would be crazy if I had to do her job. I couldn't do it. I would literally be nuts. Answering the phone, jumping over here. Well, again, I think women do this better than men, I guess. I don't know. Maybe they don't. Maybe some of you guys can do 10 things at once. I can't. But it amazes me, and I realize I couldn't do Shelly's job. You know, some people just have the ability to minister with ease on things. Have you noticed that? That's because they've got the right extension cord. That's because they've been gifted by God to do it. And you haven't, and that's why you're so worried about it and can't do the job. It's rather a simple thing. One of the first problems to our solution is to know our load. That is, evaluate what you are trying to do in light of your abilities. But another is, really it's found, you remember feeding of the 5,000? Our Lord, in fact, you go to the earlier part in Mark 6, Christ called the twelve and he sent them out two by two. They did all kinds of work. Man, they were just doing all kinds of things and going out days and nights. You know, I mean, they were just really, these men were under pressure, pressure of ministry, responsibility. They had physical demands, spiritual demands made on them. Anyway, the apostles were gathered back together. If you recall the story, they're back together and they told Jesus everything that they'd been doing. In essence, they pretty much told Him how busy they'd been and how exhausted they were from the pressure. And you know what the Lord's first response was? Get this, come you yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while. Not, oh no, go back over there because there's another one who doesn't know the Lord. He didn't get the gospel. No, there's somebody over here who needs to be healed. No, no, no, no. Let it be. You come and rest. Rest. That's the second thing we need to do to learn to live under pressure and to get victory, is to recognize rest and vacation. If you don't come apart and rest, you will come apart. That's what Christ basically was saying. Rest. Come apart before you come apart. You need a vacation? Take it. Frequently in the Gospels when the Lord retreated, remember He would go by Himself and He would pray to the Father. That's a great example of prayer. He was suggesting that not only physical rest is needing a change of environment and all of these things, you've got to get away from it when you're under that kind of pressure. He was suggesting that you need time with the Lord. You need intimate fellowship with your Father in heaven. You need to pray and you need to trust Him. Prayer can be a great therapeutic value. I can remember over the years in personal marriage counseling and different things or otherwise people would come in very burdened and I'd come and I'd listen and they'd start talking and they'd start you know really maybe agitated about something that's come up or something they've got to do and they just keep talking and I keep listening and they just keep talking and pretty soon they just keep talking and talking and all of a sudden the solution comes to them and then they get up and shake my hand and thank me for helping them. That's wonderful. Praise the Lord. Glad I could help. Sometimes we need a listening ear. But you know what? What greater listening ear is there than God Himself? Who is the one who provides the needs? You've got to go to Him. I'm not saying it's wrong to go to people, too, or we want to just sometimes talk to people. But I want you to understand, the Lord Jesus Christ died for us. He is the one who is the High Priest. He understands our feelings. All of those things, right? So let's go to Him. So our Lord was setting an example that we need to turn things over to the Father. Psalm 55, 22 says, Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee. That's where we go with it. We must have that open safety valve. We must have rest. We must have communication with God and a time of prayer. One of our problems sometimes is that we allow the safety valve to get clogged. Maybe sometimes we're willing to talk to everybody, but God. And I just remind you tonight of that importance. One other very quick thing. You remember in the example of the feeding of the 5,000? What did the Lord do though? He had this great, massive, I would call that pretty big job to feed 5,000 plus men, women, and children, wouldn't you? I mean women and children. He divided them up into groups. Remember that? Sat them on the hill and got very, very organized. And he set it all in, and he divided them up into equal companies, equal portions, sent them out. All of this suggests orderliness and discipline involved in getting the job done. They had a plan, they were organized, and they carried out the work. The principle that the Lord lays out here is that if you want to keep from pressure, learn to plan, organize, and be disciplined. Some of us don't like to hear that, but it's the truth. It's the truth. Organize and discipline. This is one area maybe we fail and we put ourselves under pressure. Because we're not organized, we bring ten things in to do today and we don't have the physical ability or the time to do three. Do you see what we just did? We borrowed from the outside and we put pressure on ourselves and we think there's all kinds of pressure. And oftentimes we're the ones guilty of doing it. Sometimes our boss, or ministry or something comes out, here's 10 things I got to do. You know, one of the things that we have to learn is to say no. It's very hard to do for some of us, but sometimes you got to say no. We say, hey, my boss just gave me 10 things to do. If I only get three done, I'll be fired. Now, before I became a preacher, I employed people in construction work. And I had secretaries and things like that and people that work for me, I can't imagine Any boss who knew that a job they had given, they worked so diligently and so hard, and they got past the third one, and they did such a good job, but it was so complex they couldn't finish it? I wouldn't fire you. And in the first place, if you have to say, no, I can only do what I can do, or I'll be a basket case, you've got to trust the Lord for the rest. You see where we're back? We're right back at trusting God. You cannot get away outside of this life without trusting God. So remember your gifts. Remember your load, your capacity. I tell you, you know, invitations or needs will come. But you need a vacation anyway, you need to rest. And you need to recognize that sometimes we have to say no sufficient under the day is its own evil, that's what the Lord said, take one day at a time. You know, many things that we worry about are not even today's problems. They're tomorrows, which we brought into today. And I think we delight. I mean, we do that. Maybe it's just normal. But it's not today's problems that get us down. It's really the other ones. We can almost deal with those today one moment at a time. Listen, the Lord is saying one day at a time, one moment at a time. You see, that's all the Lord ever asks us. One step at a time. Listen. Any person can take one step. Under the pressures of life, take one step and finish that step well. And if you can get to step two, praise the Lord. Don't allow these pressures to so build up. All right, now listen. There's a few things I'll just leave you. Basically, I want to give you six things real quickly, just to kind of review. Solutions to the problem of pressure. Number one, evaluate what you are trying to accomplish in the light of your abilities. Very important. Don't attempt more than you can do. Secondly, rest. Remember the safety valve. Vacation. Get a time away, different scenery. Listen, if you never take a vacation or you never take a rest because of the needs, you'll never take a vacation because the needs never stop. There is always somebody with need. There comes a time when you've got to spend time with the Lord and you've got to get away from ministry and you've got to spend time with your family and with your spouse and you need to get away. You need that time. There will always be needs around you. The poor we will always have with us, Jesus said. Third, don't take on more tasks in a day that you can do. You know, maybe you got 10 things to do. Prioritize them. Do number one. Do it well. If you have time to do number two, go to number two. And you've got to trust the Lord. Number three, Be organized, or rather number four, this would be number four. Be organized and disciplined. This is critical. It really is. It's so important to be disciplined in getting a job done. If you're not organized, you're going to end up with a whole bunch of jobs unfinished. There comes a point when you got to finish that job, get it done, and then go to the next one. Number five, derive your strength from the Lord through prayer and trust in communication with God. And number six is based on verse ten. Let me read that in chapter six. Look what Paul said. As having nothing and yet possessing all things. That seems like a contradiction. What does this mean? As having nothing and yet possessing all things. Well, it's interesting because in chapter 8, I'm looking across, Paul said this. He was talking about giving, you know, they should give like the churches in Macedonia. He said, and not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord. That's the key. Giving everything you have and own, every desire, it's all given to the Lord. Family, job, children, spouse. I can't help but think about Abraham. and his offering of Isaac. What a beautiful story of genuine sacrifice. A beautiful story of getting priorities right. Here was Abraham with his son, who was the promised seed. How could God kill him? But Hebrews tells us he believed that God would resurrect him. And so just as he gets ready to plunge that knife into his son, I think Jehovah said, it's okay. I know now that your heart is with me. and your son is not above me, go home." You know what? Abraham was relieved. But Abraham had at that moment in his life given everything he owned, everything he thought, including his precious son, and given it all to God. And do you know what? When you give it all away, you have nothing, but you have everything. Because you're not a slave to anything. And that's what we're saying. That's what this means. Number six, give all you have to the Lord. Your job, your family, your children, your spouse, your health, your wealth, your church, your future plans, the day's activities on Monday morning. You say, God, I've got 10 meetings today, but I'm giving that to you. You see how liberating it is when I take absolutely everything I own, everything I have, And I mentally say, here they are. You remember what Paul said in Romans 12 1, he said that we're to present our bodies a living sacrifice. That in essence means that everything I have is really borrowed. I don't own a thing. What do I have that was not given me? That's what the New Testament says. So therefore, everything God gave me, I give it back to him. And once I've given it back to him, I'm free. And therefore, I have no idol on my heart. And because Abraham could give it all, he still was rich and possessed all." Well, I don't think I could close without any better biblical advice than this, and I'm just going to read this and close. Paul said this in Philippians. If I were going to give you some biblical advice on, I believe, our subject tonight. And Philippians, I know you know the verse, but it's so marvelous. I just love it. Philippians 4, 6 and 7. Be anxious for nothing, 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 minds through Christ Jesus. I wish I had a dollar for every time in the last 35 years of my life, that I've gone to this verse out of necessity, burdened, overwhelmed, under pressure, and to receive the peace of God. It is the greatest thing in the midst of turmoil that you can experience. Let's pray. Father, we bow tonight to thank You. We thank You for the words and the life of the Apostle Paul We thank You for the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You for Your precious Word. Father, I know that You understand the frailty of our humanness. You understand that we are frail and we're human and that we fail and that we get discouraged and that we get depressed. But You have given us the antidotes. You have given us the things we can do in the Word of God. But it boils down to trusting You and leaving it with You. Thank you, Lord, that you've given us answers to the difficulties of life. Thank you that you died for us, for our eternal life. Yes, you gave us salvation. But in dying for us, you also have delivered us in this life. And though we will have trials, and though we will have tribulations, we can still rejoice and live in joy. That's really what seems like the book of Ecclesiastes is all about. God intended to give us joy in the fruits of our labor. All the while life is hard. Thank you, Lord, that we can take all of our burdens and cast them upon you. For we were not designed to carry these huge burdens on our shoulder. But instead, oh God, help us to roll them off on you. and to have joy today. Thank you for your crews. Dismiss us now with your blessing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.