Pastor Rick Warren sermon Jesus Secrets of Resilience : What I call Jesus seven secrets of resilience, now maybe you’ve never thought about it but the bible says that we are to look to Jesus as our model for enduring tough times we are to follow his example of resilience and we are to follow his example of stress management and the bible says it this way.
Hebrews chapter 12 says this verses one to three out of the new living translation says, since we are surrounded by such a crowd of witnesses to this life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress and let us run with endurance
underline that run with endurance, the race that god has set before us we do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus on whom our faith depends from start to finish.
Jesus was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterwards and now he is seated in the place of highest honor beside God’s throne in heaven, think about all he endured
Resilience. Think about all he endured when sinful people did such terrible things to him so that you don’t become weary and give up now what does that verse passage tell us nobody experienced greater stress than Jesus Christ, he experienced enormous pressure he was criticized constantly, he was misunderstood, there were constant demands on his life, he had little privacy and there were people who were trying constantly to kill him
Even though that’s not true of you but that’s stress and yet when we look at the life of Jesus Christ, we look at his ministry, we see that he walked and he lived amazing and peacefulness no matter how difficult the situation became he modeled calmness and a resilience in the face of outrageous demands. This is why the book of Hebrews advises us to keep our eyes on Jesus and that’s what we’re going to do.
today we’re going to watch his example of endurance, we’re going to learn his seven secrets of resilience and today we unpack Jesus seven secrets of resilience.
- Remember how much God loves me, is the principle of compassion.
- The second key that we see in the life of Jesus which we need this for your stress resistance is this “remember who I am”, it is the principle of Identification. now why is this important because, if you’re not sure who you really are, you’re not going to be whipped around and manipulated and molded by the pressures and the problems and the other people around you.
- The third key that we see in the life of Jesus is knowing who we are trying to please, in other words know who you’re living for, now this is the principle of motivation.
- The fourth key that we see in the life of Jesus is knowing our individual calling, if you want to be resistant to stress, you need to get alone with God until you know your calling. You must know exactly and believe exactly what God has called you to do with your life. Now this is the principle of vocation and until you clarify this and it becomes crystal clear in your mind, you’re going to be more prone to getting stressed out.
- Focus on what matters most now, this is the principle of concentration. This is when you know where you’re headed and you focus, then you’re not distracted by less important things, it’s a matter of priorities you know what matters most in life and you focus on those things.
- The sixth secret of resilience that we learn from looking to Jesus as our model, this is a big one, spend time alone with God. Now this secret of resilience and this secret of stress resistance may be the secret that you do the least, spending enough time alone with God and yet it is absolutely essential to building a resilient spirit and managing chronic stress, it is the principle of meditation. Prayer is a great stress reliever, it’s a decompression chamber, it’s one of the ways to unload your burdens.
- Get a small group for support, the first thing Jesus did when he started his ministry he formed a small group. you were never intended to handle stress by yourself, if we were to ask to complete this sentence, if you want a job done right we would typically say do it yourself, that’s the motto of a perfectionist headed for burnout. You can’t do every job by yourself, now if anybody had a right to say if you want a job done you right do it yourself, it was Jesus yet even Jesus knew the power of having a small group for support.
Pastor Rick warren wants us to apply this seven keys to resilience to our lives to enable us enjoy the kind of peace Jesus enjoyed while he was here on earth even though he had stress surrounding him.