Blessed but Stressed | Promoted | Pastor Derick Amsler

Hey, we are in a series called Promoted. Everybody say promoted. Everybody shout promoted. We're looking at how God builds the builder so he can entrust us with his blessings. Hey, let's start here.

Have you ever found yourself overthinking something in your life? That. That. That is neither a blessing nor is it beneficial. It's just kind of like, why did I just spend the last two hours thinking about that particular subject?

Anybody? Anybody? Where's all my overthinkers at? All my overthinkers. And some of you want to raise your hand, but you're overthinking it right now, aren't you?

Aren't you? And the other day I was laying in bed and I was. I was thinking about this, and I don't know why I was thinking about it. And then I caught myself overthinking about it. And I feel embarrassed even telling you this, but if you laugh at me, I'm going to catch you in the parking lot and I'm going to force you to tell me what you overthink about, too.

And here's what it was, guys, Trees grow in two directions at the same time.

Like what? Trees grow in two directions at the same time. I even looked up what the scientific terminology would be for this diversification of tree growth. Did you know there's a word called phototropic? Phototropic is what you see above ground.

It's what we like to take pictures about or stand in front of. It's what we marvel in the fall season. We like to talk about the size of a tree, the colors of the tree, the leaves of the tree, the colors of the fall, and it's just beautiful. Everybody give me one of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We take pictures of what is phototrophic. Phototrophic is when a shoot shoots up out of the ground and it stretches towards the light. That's phototropic. But opposite of phototropic, there's what's called gravitropic, and that is where the. The root system is driven or influenced by gravity.

Phototropic. Gravitropic. Some of you are like, why didn't I come to the later church?

We like phototropic because of its beauty and its splendor. Nobody takes a picture of the ground and post on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok. Beneath the soil of the surface rests a system known as gravitopic, upon which it. No, we don't even care about it. But did you know, while we're marveling at what is phototropic without a root system, Below the surface of the earth, what is appreciated would not last.

I'm wondering how many times we have been crushed by the blessings that God tries to give us because we have not developed a healthy root system to carry it and our heart.

We want God to bless us. We want God to favor our life. We ask God to bless a new year, a new school year, a new career. But if our heart cannot handle the blessings he put in our hands, it's possible that a good thing becomes a crushing weight. Have you ever been stressed by how you've been blessed?

If you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. You pray for those babies, and now they're stressing you out. You prayed for the marriage, and now they're stressing you. You prayed for the promotion, and now the job and the responsibilities are stressing you.

You prayed for the house. Now the upkeep it is is stressing you. Come on, write this down. You can be blessed beyond what your roots can bear. You can be blessed beyond what your roots can bear.

So you can get the opportunity but not have the character to carry it. You can be blessed with money, but not have the wisdom to manage it. You can secure the relationship that you've been praying for, but make them pay for your insecurities. And suddenly the very blessing that God tried to give you, that you asked for, becomes your very point of pressure. Sometimes the fruit of blessed things reveal roots that need to be strengthened.

So when we're talking about promotion, we're not talking about materialism per se, and we're not talking about a position at work. We're talking about how God forms our soul so that we can manage more appropriately that which he puts in our hands. How God promotes our life. Everybody say promoted. When a tree falls down in a storm, everybody blames the wind.

But the wind simply reveals the weakest part of the tree. That's why spiritual formation is more than us just learning facts about God. Spiritual formation is us learning God and learning ourself and how we can become more like God. Throughout this series over the next three weeks, here's our aim. What are the three major stress factors throughout Scripture that cause people to be crushed under the very blessings they once prayed for and how God forms our heart so we can manage the blessings in our hand.

Tell the person next to you, I don't need this, but I'm glad you're here. Come on, let them go. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here, you need this because here's where we're about to go. If you're taking notes, I want us today look at one of the three things we're going to talk about over the next three weeks and that is this.

Starting today, I want us to look at the inability to handle stress biblically. The inability to handle stress and pressure and anxiety biblically. Let me call a 25 year old king to the stand. His name is Hezekiah. Hezekiah's father was King Ahaz.

If that sounds familiar with you, it's because the Old Testament paints him as one of Judah's worst leaders in terms of leadership decisions, but also wickedness and the evil that he committed amongst many extremely grotesque evil actions that he made as the king. The Bible says that he chained the door to the temple. Now this is more than just he locked the doors and nobody could come in and have church. This was the very resting place of the very tangible presence of God himself. It's where God would meet with humanity and humanity would meet with God.

And not only did he just lock the doors to the temple, he was saying that you cannot serve God, love God, worship God, pray to God anymore. Inside the temple there were lampstands that God told the priest, never let the light go out. Keep the fire burning the light. Was humanity symbols of the very presence of God, the love of God, the truth and the clarity of God, the guidance of God, and the very love presence of God resting on earth. And it was humanity's responsibility to keep the fire burning, to say, my hope is in nothing else but in God himself.

Keep the fire burning within. Don't be distracted by a lot of good things. Be obsessed with the best thing in your life. Keep the fire of God upon burn ablaze on the inside. King Ahaz walked in, snuffed out the light of the temple, chained the doors.

Then all around his providence he set up magnificent altars to pagan gods to prove his devotion to these gods. The Bible says that he sacrificed his two oldest sons to them, threw him in a fire, a sacrifice and homage to their gods. As a result, he made other families and other generals throw their children into the fire as well. What I'm saying is he's a wicked pagan king and this is the house that Hezekiah grew up in.

So whatever Hezekiah is going to know about God or feel the love of God, it's not going to come through as a dad. Some of you know that feeling. You were raised in a godless environment where nobody was forming your soul, but they were leaving an example for you that you wish or you desire and you pray that you will not leave to your kids, which, by the way, that's a form of spiritual maturity to recognize that what's been handed down to you doesn't have to be handed down through you, that you can be a generational curse breaker. And just because you didn't have it doesn't mean that you can't give it away, doesn't mean that you can't obsess over it, and doesn't mean that you can't pray it into existence and you can't get wise counsel and God can turn the situation around. King Hezekiah is 25 years of age, 2nd Chronicles 29.

The Bible says Hezekiah was 25 years old when he became king. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. Now, David lived 300 years before Hezekiah. So, so the Bible isn't saying David's his father. It's saying that it's his spiritual mentor, that he's going to pattern his life over somebody else.

So I just want to tell somebody. Hezekiah inherited Ahaz's house, but he imitated David's heart.

Verse 3. In the first month of the first year of the reign, he opened the doors to the temple. So he's going to do something for himself, his nation and his family that his dad never taught him. He opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and he repaired them. He's putting things in, in their rightful order.

Verse 10 he says aloud, now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel. To make a long story short, in verse 30, he restores the festivals and the celebration of God. And in chapter 31, he restores worship and prayer to the nation. He's putting everything back in a proper order and in alignment with God. But in chapter 32, Assyria shows up.

Assyria was the power military might of their day. In this particular context, they have just had a massive raid on just about every kingdom surrounding Judea. And they are waylaying everybody. They're killing all men, women and children. There is no military force that can stand up against them.

They now in chapter 2 32, they have surrounded King Hezekiah and his nation. They have put siege against Jerusalem. The Bible says that the, that the, that the generals of Assyria walk up to the walls of Jerusalem and they begin to shout in their own tongue, meaning that they have learned Hebrew just so they Could. Just so they could threaten them in their own language. Now it's one thing when somebody insults you, it's another thing when they make it that personal.

They have learned Hebrew and they're walking up and now they're just threatening them. Look at you guys. You guys think that you can defend us with these little walls? Have you not known where we've been? Have you not heard of our exploits?

Do you not remember our sword? You think that you can stand behind those walls? These walls look like their walls. Their prayer sounds like your prayers. They thought their God could keep them from us.

They're not here. Here we are. And then the Bible says that they start going through every king and kingdom that they have already demolished. You think King Hezekiah can protect you from us? Why don't we ask King Arab, here's his head?

You think that your King Hezekiah and your field generals can protect you from us? Let's ask General Arap, here's his head. You think that your silly prayers, your silly walls and your silly God can protect you from us? What's your proof? And then the Bible says that the king of Assyria wrote Hezekiah a letter to add insult to injury and to make his final threat known.

If you don't come out of these walls, we're going to kill you. And everything it.

2nd Kings 19, by the way, 2nd Chronicles and 2nd Kings 19 in Isaiah, they're all sharing the same. They're all telling this the same story from three different vantage points because this actually happened and the Bible's recording what took place. Here's what the letter said. 2nd Kings 19. Do not let the God you depend on deceive you.

Surely you have heard what the king of Assyria has done to all the countries, destroying them completely. And you think you're gonna be delivered. You think that your prayer is going to deliver you out of this season, out of this diagnosis, out of this relational toxic environment? You think another prayer is gonna fix this? You think a new season's gonna fix this?

You and I both know you've been coming down prayer and worship for the past year and nothing's changed yet. You think coming down again is gonna fix it? Haven't you heard other pastors, haven't you heard other churches falling apart? It's only a matter of time. Look at your grandma, look at your parents, look at what you put your faith in.

You think another raising your hand. You think another service opportunity. You think another prairie request is going to fix anything for you? Surely you're smarter than that. This is the threat Hezekiah receives.

2nd Kings 19 it says Hezekiah received the letter. He read it. Now watch this. Then he went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. So picture this.

He receives the letter, he receives the diagnosis, he receives the email, he receives the layoff. He receives another response from a person that's trying to get under their skin. And the Bible says that he goes into the temple that he first unchained.

Remember, he's looking at his adversary eye to eye, face to face, toe to toe. He still has the smell of his breath upon his brow. He's not outrunning this threat. There are some things in your life that you can't outrun from. There are some things that will chase you down.

He gathers his points of fear and the Bible says he goes to the altar and he lays it before the Lord.

Because some things don't need a response, they need an altar. Some things don't need a clap back, they need recognition of God's presence. There are some things in your life that more explanation won't fix. Isn't it true that we think that if we could just explain or defend ourselves more, that person that's mad at us, they would understand us more? That's not always the case, is it?

Because some people don't want to understand. They like the version of you that they've created in their mind. They like that it keeps them big and it keeps you small. And so more explanation isn't going, hey, you don't have to chase down every rumor and you don't have to defend every decision and you don't have to have a comeback or course correction in every conversation. There are some things that you just have to bring into the altar of God's presence and say, I've done all I can do.

I've used all the words, I know how to speak, and I prayed all the prayers. I know how to pray. So from here out, my burden belongs to the God who's bigger than me, greater than me, wiser than me, more patient than me, more kind than me. I don't know what else to do. So I'm just gonna take my anxiety and put it on the altar of God's presence.

He spreads out his points of fear, this letter that is a threat, and he brings it into the presence of God. Which bothers me, because who taught him how to bring the threats to God's presence? Surely not his dad. And yet there's something in Hezekiah's spirit that says somebody's got to go first. I don't got to keep passing down and around that which has been resonating in my home.

Just because it happened to me doesn't mean it's got to happen through me. Something in him said somebody's got to go first. Somebody's got to be first in my family, Somebody's got to be first at school, somebody's got to be first at work. Somebody's got to be first in my career who will lean not on my own understanding or even fall back to my past experiences, but in all my ways, starting right now. He will direct my path and so I will pursue God.

As for me in my house, we're going to serve the Lord this year. As for me and my classmates, we're going to serve the Lord this year. As for me and my, my. My bandmates, my basketball teammates, we will serve the Lord. As for me and everybody in my department, we will serve the Lord.

It happened to you doesn't mean it's got to happen through you. He takes his points of anxiety and he lays it out before the Lord and he says, lord, almighty God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Notice what he's doing. He's moving from internal rumination to external presentation.

What is rumination? It's chewing on a thought to the point where you downwards spiral. Anybody? Anybody? Just wink at me.

It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Me too. Me too. Rumination is when you downward spiral because you're obsessed with a particular thought.

He moves from rumination to external presentation. God, I need you to get involved. Notice how he does it. Lord, almighty God of Israel. And thrown between the cherubim.

So now he's focusing on the greatness of God. Then he says, it is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these people and their lands so he doesn't have to minimize his fear in order to magnify God. You can be a person who spits facts and speaks faith all at the same time. You don't get extra brownie points in heaven by pretending like a big deal is not a big deal. If it's a big deal, it's a big deal.

But notice what he says. This is a big deal. But God, you are bigger. He goes on, now, lord, our God, deliver us from the hand so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are The only God. God, I need you to bless me, but I recognize when you do.

You have more than me in mind. Don't let my burdens become my obsession. I want to be mindful of what you're doing in me so you can do something through me. So you can do something over the land. Here's what I'm carrying.

But great God, who rules and reigns between the cherubim, the angels of heaven, take it. And as you do, let all of those who have seen me carry this burden and heard the words of my complaint, and they know that I'm highly frustrated about the situation. Do something so personal, so profound, they will even give you credit for it. Here's what bothers me. Who taught him how to do that?

Like, where did that come from? Let's be honest. Have you ever had an overreaction to an event? Come on, anybody. You had an overreaction.

Don't act like you're holier than everybody else. We know somebody in the room know you. Somebody knows you. An overreaction like your response did not parallel the actual comment that was said. Can I be honest with you for a moment?

This week was one of those weeks where I did not pass the test, y'. All. I did not pass the test. I don't know if you think that I'm a hypocrite for preaching this or maybe you'll just appreciate that we're all a work in progress, but this week I'm just telling you, I did not pass the test. And so.

And so this past weekend, my son, who's 9, had a bad attitude. It was like midnight, it was way past his bedtime, he was tired, he had bad attitude. Which, by the way, I don't know which one of you leave here and goes into XR Kids and tell him the story that I've been telling on him. But. But you just need to know I have a certain set of skills and I will find you and I will kill you.

And anyways, it was way past his bedtime and he had a bad attitude. So I corrected him and he didn't like my correction. So I corrected the correction of his response regarding my correction and he didn't like that. So I came back at him and we're talking about it for like 15, 20 minutes. And it dawns on me, Derek, you're a 45 year old man arguing with a 9 year old.

Get alive, bro. But did I get a life? No. He needs more evidence on how I'm right. I'm right.

So I'm arguing, I'm arguing, arguing. And we're at a hotel. So I told Jessica, I gotta take a walk. Now I'm a 45 year old man arguing with a 9 year old running away from him. Somebody pray for your boy.

It is out of control. I'm walking down the hall and the dog's on me, bro. Where did that come from? Like, what is all of that? Now I gotta go apologize.

Not because I'm wrong, but because my attitude was wrong. That's embarrassing. And I was like, where did that come from? And it hit me. Sometimes our overreaction is because what's happening on the inside of us didn't parallel the event.

It's paralleling what our heart has been holding for too long.

And from the abundance of the heart, what the heart is full of. Your mouth speaks and your actions follow. And so sometimes God will allow external pressure in our life to reveal roots that need strengthening. We would call those load bearing moments. What is our identity, our sense of peace, security, pride, ego?

Our sense of stability? What is load bearing in our soul upon which we have placed these internal forms of peace? Right pressure reveals what is load bearing in our soul. Which is why, if you remember back in Deuteronomy, the people of God are wandering in the wilderness and Moses is praying for his people because they didn't have food. And so God gives them food and then he took away the food.

And it says this in Deuteronomy 8, Moses speaking, God humbled you, causing you to hunger, and then feeding you with manna. Manna is like a bread, like flaky substance to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. I always thought that verse was funny because God gives them bread and then he says, but man can't live on bread alone. Then send the side dishes. You're the one that sent bread to begin with.

But that's not the point God is making. The point God is making is you can pray for bread, have bread, eat bread, receive bread, have banana nut bread and bread pudding, have cinnamon toast bread, have all the bread you want. Just don't build your life on bread. Pray for blessing, just don't build your life on the blessing. Pray for favor.

Just don't expect favor and opportunities and promotion and provision and money and finances and a reputation to be load bearing to your soul. Because your soul wasn't built to be built under those kind of influences.

How do you know what is load bearing in your life? Are you ready for this? Take it away and see what happens.

Take away someone's approval if you fall apart. Your soul was built upon people pleasing. Your sense of control is gone. And now you become extremely irritable and paranoid. And your soul was built upon knowledge and being in control.

The false illusion of knowing how everything is going to work out. Take away your money and suddenly you don't trust God anymore. Take away success and you don't know who you are. Sometimes God allows pressure to expose what has become load bearing in our heart so that we can course correct where we're placing our hope in our identity. Just to make a long story short, this particular night after Hezekiah prays, by morning, 185,000 of the Assyrian troops are dead.

As an angel of the Lord came down to do what Hezekiah was powerless to do. The army was screaming over the wall. They were inside the wall, scared of those outside the walls. But they never broke through the wall. Hezekiah carried the letter into God's presence and God carried the battle Hezekiah could not bear.

Now, centuries later, before anybody had words for like psychology, a group of theologians, those early desert fathers, they went out into the desert so they could holistically devote themselves into studying one particular subject matter. And their thought was this. We have doctors who understand the body, but who understands the anatomy of the soul. So when we recognize a soul that is out of balance or out of ease, we would call that a dis. Ease, a disease.

When a soul is diseased, how do we get it back in balance with the things of God? And so they coined a phrase in Greek, it's called nepsis. And nepsis is a Greek term and it literally means watchfulness or it means standing guard at the door of your own heart so that you might examine the thoughts that are trying to penetrate the mind. It's this idea. Sometimes you've got to stand outside of the door of your own heart so you can examine every thought and where the thought is trying to go.

You wouldn't let just anybody come into your house, right? Why do we let every thought come into the chambers of our mind? Why do we let every fear and points of anxiety come into the chambers of our own heart? Nepsis says, stand outside the door of your heart and take inventory. You have the power to be your own mind bouncer.

Nope, you don't belong here. Nepsis.

And so these desert fathers give us three practices in how to maintain a mind of peace. Are you ready? Say, let's go. Number one, we trace it, trace the stress what am I afraid of losing? And what has become load bearing?

So maybe I'm not really angry about the particular event. Maybe I'm terrified of instability. Maybe I'm not devastated by that text message. Maybe the comment just triggered insecurity that hasn't been healed just yet. You see what I'm talking about?

We trace the stress. Number two. We name the load bearing emotion. We name the load bearing emotion what our soul is trying to build upon. God, I need their approval too much and I forgot what it's like just to hear your whispers of affirmation.

God, my identity is wrapped up in succeeding or failing. I need to be reminded that first and foremost I'm a child of God. God, I'm asking this relationship to tell me I'm okay. And if they're not okay, I'm not okay. God, I'm codependent upon them when I need to be codependent upon you.

We trace it, we name it. And number three. We replace it. We replace the weight. Here's what the Apostle Paul says in the New Testament.

Philippians 4. Be anxious for nothing. And by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make requests known to God. The key word there is thanksgiving. Help me out.

Everybody shout Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the mechanism that becomes the bridge that stops the downward rumination, that stops the downward spiral because it forces the mind to look for evidence of God's past faithfulness. And when we remember what he's done, we're aware of what he can do right now at the altar of his presence. And so here's how you do it in real time. If approval has become load bearing, then you ask yourself, whose approval am I really living for?

Galatians says, am I trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? See how that prompts the mind to get out of the self and onto him? If control is load bearing, can I trust God when I can't control the outcome? Psalms 46 says, Be still and know that I am God. There comes a time when you gotta stop operating out of your own intellect and strength and a clapback mentality.

And you just start celebrating who God is and what God can do when you cannot do anything about what what is, what is weighing on you. If success is load bearing because you're finding your identity in what you do or in your profession or in your accolades. No. What am I using to tell me who I am? The Bible says, whatever I get on this life, whatever gains that come my way, I now consider it a loss, worthless for the sake of Knowing God, I hope this season you have something to take photos about.

I hope that you succeed. And you're highly favored in every phototropic sense. But at the end of the day, promotion is not about more stuff. It's about gravitropic living in which we are deeply rooted in the identity and in the image and in the favor and in the heart and in the very soul of Jesus himself. For upon Christ is the solid rock we stand, all other ground is just sinking sand.

So watch this. What would it look like then for us to take every letter that has our heart right now? Every threat, every anxiety about the unknown with the school year, a diagnosis, a relational fracture, everything that's keeping you up at night. What would it look like for us to lay it out before the Lord? And we say, I couldn't do it, but he did it for me.

What if we borrow tomorrow's faith for today's frustrations? That there are some things outside of our control, but they're still in the palm of God? I couldn't do it, so he did it for me. Are you stressed out? Worried about something?

I dare you to stand up on your feet and stretch your hands towards heaven.

God who reigns above and between the cherubim, the God Almighty of heaven and earth. May you come down and address the threats of the kings of Assyria. In our life, may you remind us that the battle does not belong to us, but the battle belongs to the Lord. And you are great. Therefore you are greatly to be praised.

The weeping endure for a night. Ah, joy comes in the morning, for great is thy faithfulness.

Are you ready? You're gonna sing it in faith? Here we go. Catch it for me. He who began a good work is faithful to see it on to the day of completion.

It's not by might nor by power, but by the very presence and spirit of God himself.

Look at what the Lord has done.

Never.

It's on the altar.

Look at him shine.

And now, Lord, with our hands up in surrender, we lay our heart on the altar.

We give you the pressures and the burdens of this life in exchange for your peace that surpasses all of our understanding. A strength for today and a hope for our tomorrows. May he who began a good or work in us be faithful to form it into the day of completion. In Jesus name be at peace.