Gregory Dickow - How to Be Free From Stress Forever
Stress is at an all-time high in our world, and whether the stress is economic or the side effects of COVID, there is so much stress and so much breakdown of the health of our mind and the health of our soul. It turns into a breakdown of our bodies, causing sickness and disease. I want to deal with this because these guys came to David with distress, which is stress that has gotten inside the heart and the soul, inside the mind. We’re going to deal with the heart and the mind today because God wants both your heart and your mind to be in perfect peace, and I want you to have that as well.
I’m going to show you how to have that, and it’s really simple-it’s just listening to God’s word and believing God’s word. The mind that is stayed on Him, Isaiah 26:3 says, «The mind stayed on Him, God will keep in perfect peace.» When you keep your mind on what Jesus did on the cross, if you look at that verse in the King James Bible or the New King James, «The mind stayed on You» means «You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on God and on Jesus.» Really, what does our mind need to stay on? Our mind needs to stay on what Jesus has already done for us. Our mind needs to stay on the finished work of the cross. Our mind needs to stay on the love of God. Our mind needs to stay on the promises of God. Our mind needs to stay on the goodness and faithfulness of God.
David said, «I would have despaired unless I believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.» Well, if that wasn’t one of your favorite verses in 2020 and the beginning of 2021, I don’t know what is, but it is certainly one of my all-time favorites and especially encouraged me so much during the last year and throughout this whole crisis that we’ve been in. I would have despaired; it would have beaten me unless I believed that I would see the goodness of God in the land of the living. I want you to believe today that you’re going to see God’s goodness-believe today and expect today. You can expect something good to happen in God’s house; you can expect something good to happen in your house; you can expect something good to happen, no matter whose house you’re in, no matter what’s going on in your life. He said, «I would have despaired unless I believed I would see the goodness of God.»
Boy, negative emotions rule our lives when we believe the bad things, when we believe the bad news, when we believe all that’s going on in the world. When we put our faith in what negativity is being propagated-the negative news and all the stuff that’s out there-there’s so much bad news to depress you, or there’s good news to release you and deliver you and give you peace and confidence. We need to realize that faith and fear are like two sides of a coin. Faith and fear both are belief systems; fear is the byproduct of believing bad news or believing and expecting something bad to happen. Faith is believing in the good news, believing something good is going to happen.
Think about it: faith and fear really work the same exact way; they operate based on expectation. If you’re expecting something good to happen, your faith works, and something good happens. You attract the promises of God, the miracles of God, the goodness of God, the things of God by faith. You attract negativity by fear. Job said in Job 3:25, «What I have feared has come upon me.» He said, «What I have feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has befallen me.» He’s talking about expectation: the very thing he expected to happen-the bad thing-came upon him. So, I want to encourage you to believe God for good things to happen in your life today. One of the things that will deliver you from stress is adjusting your expectations and beginning to expect good things to happen.
But man, the world is stressed out; we’re stressed over here. Look at it this way: Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, «Come unto me, all that are laboring and heavy laden and stressed out, and I will give you rest.» He says, «Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you’ll find rest for your souls.» When people quit in anything, it is in their soul. In any area of life, we quit in our soul. We don’t quit in our body; you don’t quit exercising because your body is worn out; it’s because your soul tells you, «Oh, stop» or «That’s not doing any good.» It’s the mind; that’s where the battlefield is. That’s where we win the battle-with God’s word. That’s where we win the battle by fasting from wrong thinking. We win the battle by believing the promises of God.
He says, «You’ll find rest for your souls.» The Bible says men’s hearts will faint. Jesus said men’s hearts will faint from fear; they’ll faint from fear. The heart faints from fear, or we won’t despair. «I would have despaired unless I believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.» Our hearts faint from fear, or they don’t faint because we believe we’re going to see God’s goodness. Do you believe that today? Right now, like before this service is over-in 20 minutes, before the day is over, whenever your day ends, whenever it’s going to based on when you’re connecting with us — how about if we just believe something good is going to happen in our lives before this day is over? Something really good. How about if we just be expectant, expect God to bless us, expect God to surprise us, expect God to do something unique and truly good in your life?
Do we actively expect? I want to encourage you to actively expect. Now, we have been through a year of expecting viruses to spread, expecting sickness, expecting disease, expecting somebody to give it to you just by walking by them or thinking near them. I mean, we have really become a fearful culture, and I’m here to help you dismantle that fear because we’re not going to live in fear for the rest of our lives. We’re not going to live in fear another day in our life. We’re not going to live in distress; we’re not going to live in stress; we’re not going to live in anxiety. We don’t have to live that way just because a doctor says a virus is spreading.
Now, we’ve been saying that one of the ways to overcome this for the whole year has been living by faith, walking by trusting God, believing God, and walking in faith and walking in wisdom -it’s been our anthem the whole time. But I really want us to deliberately break out of these negative expectations that we' re going to get this. There are so many germs and viruses. I heard a statistic that there are something like 450 million or 450 billion cells of viruses on our bodies every day of the week, 24 hours a day. But we have something inside of us called an immune system that fights those viruses and kills them. We have cells in our body that actually destroy those cells of sickness or those viruses. Your body is not just fighting COVID; your body is not just resisting it.
Your body is wired-it’s made by God. It’s such a beautiful thing; your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, not only do you have natural sickness destroyers and virus destroyers on the inside of you because of your natural body, but because God made the human body that way, also you have Romans 8:11: you have the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. If you have the same spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, that spirit will quicken life to your mortal body; it will give life, healing, health, and wellness to your mortal body. Now, this is not talking about the bodies that we get in heaven because the body we receive in heaven is called an immortal body. Immortal; it never ends; it never dies. This body we have right now is a mortal body, but it says that he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal body through his spirit that dwells inside of you.
Let me just tell you some of the effects of stress: headaches, muscle tension, chest pain, fatigue, stomach upset, sleep problems-common effects of stress include anxiety, restlessness, lack of motivation, lack of focus, feeling overwhelmed, irritability or anger, sadness, or depression. If I hit home yet? More effects of stress include overeating or undereating and having a bad relationship with food. See, overeating and undereating are both wrong; they’re both unhealthy for you. They’re both the result of a wrong relationship with food. We’re expecting food to make us happy, or we’re expecting food to help us get our minds off of our problems, but we’re not attacking the problem with biblical wisdom. If we build our house upon the rock of God’s word, it’ll withstand any storm. But if we build our house upon sand-not hearing the word of God but not acting accordingly-our house falls when the storm hits.
We have to realize that these are the effects that happen in our body, and we need to have a right relationship with food just like we need to have a right relationship with money. There’s nothing wrong with money; there’s nothing wrong with food. What’s wrong is when we have a bad relationship with money and a bad relationship with food. We depend; we trust in our money, or we trust in the emotional freedom that we think food will give us or the emotional soothing we think food will provide. That’s an unhealthy relationship with money; that’s an unhealthy relationship with food. God wants you to have money, and He wants you to have food. He wants you to enjoy money, and he wants you to enjoy food, but not in an unhealthy way where you’re over-dependent or codependent on those things to feed an emotional need that only Jesus can fill.
The chemicals that are in your body that God designed to produce dopamine and serotonin- the feel-good chemicals-those chemicals were designed by God to be produced through thankfulness, gratitude, and positive words. Our words have power. I don’t have time to get into all the power of our words, but your words have power. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, Proverbs 18:21. So, we need to be speaking positive things; we need to be speaking faith- filled words. Just thinking that thought, «Nothing can separate me from the love of God.» Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Think about what you feel when you hear that: you feel relieved; you feel confidence; you feel peace. These are truly physical feelings that are meant to be enjoyed and that are produced by chemicals that God created. He created your brain to produce; somebody said that the brain is the greatest pharmacy in the universe.
It’s a pharmacy in your brain that produces healthy, positive chemicals that heal your body, that deliver you from stress, and that help your immune system to be healthy and strong. All of these are triggered by what we believe. In the same way, negative sickness, disease, pain, loneliness, fear, and anxiety are released by believing the lie- by believing God’s word won’t work, «I’m not enough, I don’t have the victory, this disease is going to get me, if that doesn’t get me, cancer is going to get me, if that doesn’t get me, heart disease is going to get me, if that doesn’t get me, I’ll probably get in an accident. If that doesn’t get me
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We’re bracing ourselves for negativity, and we’re literally helping create the negativity by our false expectations appearing real, which is fear-F.E.A.R., false expectations appearing real. What do we have to do? We have to reverse this. Look in Philippians chapter 4, verses 6, 7, and 8: «Be anxious for nothing.» Be anxious for nothing! So now he’s giving us the solution for anxiety. Be anxious for nothing. «Oh, I came to church to sit through all of that, and all I get is Philippians 4.» You know what? If all you lived on was Philippians 4:6- 8, you would be fine for the rest of your life! «Be anxious for nothing,» he tells us how: «but in everything,» whatever the issue is, «pray.»
Anxiety is a signal to pray. It’s a signal in your body; it’s a signal in your brain telling you to worry about this thing that you’re dealing with or to pray about it, which will deliver you from the anxiety. So there’s a signal; anxiety is a signal. We need to stop being afraid of anxiety and stop being afraid of fear and stop being afraid of stress and realize these are signals telling us we need to shift our perception of what’s going on in our life. Our perspective of what’s going on in our life needs to be shifted to believe the promises of God, and we need to shift our expectations. We need to expect the goodness of God. As we shift those things, we completely overcome the force of anxiety that people are paying billions and trillions of dollars every year to try to overcome with medicine when God gave our brain and our soul and our spirit the power to release His medicine within us.
«In everything by prayer and supplication,» which is a petition-like taking two scriptures together and saying, «Lord, you said this; you said this,» it’s like a petition to God. «Prayer and petition with thanksgiving; let your requests be made known to God.» Now notice what the ingredients are that release about to release these chemicals in your brain that create spiritual, emotional, and physical peace. He said, «And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension.» Remember, the peace of God is beyond comprehension. He said it surpasses comprehension; in other words, it’s not limited to what you know or to what things are going on in the world. It’s beyond it, the best peace- not limited to everything around you being okay.
That’s not a real peace; real peace is this: the peace of God surpasses all comprehension. Notice what it does: it guards the heart and it guards your mind; it guards your heart and it guards your mind. Now, as I’m wrapping this up, let me show you how this works. The heart and the mind are two different things, but the peace of God guards both. It’s why he includes them both. There’s a reason why God uses these words: your hearts and your minds. So listen, here’s how the peace of God guards your heart: by what’s above it. «Be anxious for nothing.» How do you deal with anxiety? Treat anxiety as a signal to pray.
Now pray about everything with supplication and thanksgiving. «Thank you, Father, for the promise you made that you’ll meet all my needs according to your riches in glory. I ask for those needs to be manifested in some way that is above and beyond what I can ask or think, and I thank you for that.» As I make my requests known to you, Lord, I thank you for that. Now, the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, guards my heart. So, the heart is guarded by what’s above Philippians 4:7, and the mind is guarded by what’s below Philippians 4:7.
So, the heart is guarded by Philippians 4:6, prayer, thanksgiving- make your requests known to God about everything, everything that makes you anxious. Philippians 4:6 guards your heart, and then what guards your mind? Verse 8: «Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good report, if there be any excellence, any virtue, anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.» Let your mind dwell on these things; he says dwell on these things-what is pure? Jesus. What is lovely? His promises. What is of good report? Good news, good report, good news. Listen to the good news of God’s promises; listen to the good news of people’s testimonies-let your mind dwell on these things.
See, now this is how the peace of God guards your mind. The peace of God guards your heart by what you pray about with thanksgiving, and the peace of God guards your mind by what you think about. «So, and the peace of God,» verse 7, «will guard your heart and your mind.» It guards your heart by what it says in verse 6; it guards your mind by what it says in verse 8. You see? Now, you have the greatest stress busters of all time: the promises of God, the power to pray, and the ability to think to let your mind dwell on the things that you decide it’s going to dwell on.
Stress comes from uncertainty-not being certain about things. You’ve got to let go of the things that you can’t control-stop worrying about them, stop addressing them, stop getting your mind off of them. What you can control is what you pray about; what you can control is what you think about; what you can control is how you love and how you respond. We can’t control everything that happens, but we can control our response to everything that happens. We have a reflexive response mechanism in our brain and we have a reflective response mechanism in our brain. We have a reflexive with an X-it’s our reflex; that’s an emotional reflex. And we have the reflective-our mind reflecting on things, thinking on things.
We have to choose to allow our reflective system of our brain to function; then our reflexive system of our brain will not lead to emotional outbursts, but our mind will harness our emotions. When we do these two things-whatever we’re anxious about, pray about it with thanksgiving; make your request known to God. Whatever your mind is stressed about, distressed about, or depressed about, focus your thinking on these things that are good-a good report. Jesus is all of that; His promises are all of that. When you believe that, everything’s going to be all right.