In this video, Dr. Bruce H. Wilkinson discusses the topic of handling pressure in modern life. He starts by using the analogy of a clock to represent the time we have had on Earth. He emphasizes that despite being constantly occupied and busy, our souls are not truly at rest. He challenges the audience to rate themselves and the congregation on how much rest their souls experience. Dr. Wilkinson suggests that the solution to finding rest for our souls lies in taking on the yoke of Jesus Christ and learning from Him.

Prepare yourself to be challenged. Dr. Bruce H. Wilkinson is founder and president of Walk Through the Bible Ministries, an innovative international ministry offering video, live seminars, and devotional publications. In this message entitled, Handling Pressure, Dr. Wilkinson offers biblical principles for dealing with the stresses of modern life. Insights that you can put to work successfully in the office or at home. And now, here's Dr. Bruce Wilkinson. I'm going to speak to you about something that I feel would apply to most of us. And to start us off, I'd like you to think of a face of a clock with 60 minutes on it, and I want you to take those 60 minutes as representing all the time that we've had writing in effect. Sociologists tell us it's about 3,000 years, therefore each minute on the clock would last around 50 minutes. And I want just to reflect with you over those past 3,000 years. On this scale there'd be no significant changes until nine minutes ago in that last hour. At that time the printing press came into use. About three minutes ago the telegraph, the phonograph, and the trains arrived. About two minutes ago the telephone, the rotary press, the motion pictures, automobiles, airplanes, and the radio appeared. This is over 60 minutes over the last 3,000 years. One minute ago the talking picture and television has appeared in the last ten seconds. The computer in the last five, the satellite in the last second, and the laser beam, probably the most important of all communication, appeared only a fraction of a second ago. You talk about change, it's remarkable isn't it, about the things that have taken place in just the last few years in comparison to all history. Just take medicine for a minute, put it back in that one hour block of time. They said up until one minute ago all medicine was placebos. You know what a placebo is? It's a fake pill. You say you give somebody who's really a sick if you were a doctor in the 1800s and you wanted to help that person get sick, 90% of all the medicine they gave out was a placebo until the turn of the century. And if a person was really sick you'd give them a really big pill and it's slightly green. It looked like you couldn't quite swallow it. You tell the person this is the pill for you and if you weren't too sick you'd give them a little white pill. But they were all fakes. For 59 minutes of that hour until the last minute that just took place and about a minute ago antibiotics appeared and about 10 seconds ago open-heart surgery appeared. In fact within the past 10 seconds there probably has been more changes in medicine than represented in all the clock put together in the last 10 seconds. This is what some people call the knowledge explosion. You know if you're over 25 years of age you're trying to talk to your children about helping them with their math. I tell you the math that we've been taught in school is old. The grammar that we're taught is obsolete and indistribute. The biology is completely out of date and history is open to serious question the way you and I were taught it. The best way to be said about you and me is assuming that we can remember most of the things that we're taught is that we're a walking encyclopedia of outdated information. You know the amount of change that's going on in our lifetime is probably the number one reason why there's more psychological upset in our society than ever before in history. There are more people in hospitals today because of mental reasons than physical reasons. Did change has taken place in the last five years than probably all of history put together if you put all of knowledge together. And our pace and the complete running on of activity and of demands and of telephone of interruptions of schedules of deadlines of meetings of finances of television programs with all kinds of major problems of catastrophes of children not making it in school of divorces almost as many as marriages of more kids now living with one parent than with two parents. I don't know about you but sometimes life gets rather harried doesn't it? Don't you ever get weary? I remember when I used to teach college right about this time of the year almost all the teachers would think about handing their resignations in. You just can't go another day and sometimes I don't know about you but I want to take out that pole that sticks in the back of my shirt and just ring up the white flag and swing it back and forth and say you know I surrender. I've had enough. Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel like life is crumbling in and it's full of hardness? You know if you were just to stop and ask some people on the streets of Atlanta is life getting easier or getting harder I think you'd find that the average person says it's getting more and more difficult. How do you handle the pace in Atlanta anyway? Many people that you and I know handle it by drinking. Many people we know handle it by drugs. Many people we know say let's try a new marriage and so every two or three years they try another relationship and it doesn't work. Some people try eating and they grow 20 or 30 pounds. Other people try it with television. You lay down, you put up your feet, you turn on the television and you look and you try to forget everything that's going on. There's all kinds of ways we try to escape. You probably have your own way that you've been working on for years. Maybe it's sleep. I wonder if there's any difference the way Christians are supposed to handle pressure and problems and burnout than non-Christians. You think Jesus ever wrestled with burnout himself? He ever came to the situation in which he said you know I'm tired of it and I got to get away. Remember the New Testament where he said it's enough and turned the people away and left. He said it's enough I got to be by myself for a while. How do you handle that? I want you to turn in your Bible with me to Matthew chapter 11 verse 28. Come unto me said Jesus all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Those three verses have a completely different approach to pressure than you and I normally take. Look at that first part. It says come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. That's an invitation that is a invitation from Jesus Christ for all the people who are tired, exhausted, feel like the pressure is just pounding at the sides of your heads. In fact the invitation is only really open to the people who can identify that that's how they feel. It says come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. The invitation from Jesus Christ isn't to just come unto me anyone. The invitation is come unto me if you are in the condition of laboring and are heavy laden. When is the last time you were exhausted from work or children or pressure that you just came to Christ? So I don't think that's a habit of a Christian's life today to come to Christ. I think we come to Christ when people are sick, people get cancer, when there's an accident or I lose my job. But on the whole I don't think you and I have been trained or taught or think about the concept that I am to come to Christ when I'm tired. I mean physically tired. That's the exact picture. I am to come to him when I labor and are heavy laden. Those two words labor and heavy laden are very different from each other in the original language. The word labor is a participle. It really says laboring and it's an active participle. It means I'm doing the working. The other word there that says and are heavy laden, that's the concept that says it's a participle but it's a passive participle. In other words, it happens to you. The dump happens to you. Here it is where I labor and I work. I go to work and I sometimes don't go home to six, seven or eight o'clock at night and I'm tired. That's that first word. Come to me all you that labor. I do the laboring and when I'm weary at the end of it. That's the concept in this verse. When you're at the end of laboring and you're tired, instead of just putting up your feet and turning on the TV or whatever you do to unwind, Jesus says come to me. The second half of that condition says when you are heavy laden, that's passive. That means when something happens to you that overwhelms you. Some major deal you've been working on in your business falls apart and it looks like you might lose your job. It happened to you. One of your children gets in an accident. It happens to you. Totally out of your control and when you feel like your life is pressing in on every direction, you fix, you put your finger in the dike over here and you say I got it and the next thing you turn you put your finger in this one and you put your finger in this one and every time you turn around it's something else that's going on. Until pretty soon you say why keep on trying? That's the second part of it. When I feel overwhelmed because of circumstances beyond my control, Jesus Christ says something that I should do that I don't typically think about doing and you probably don't either. He said to come to him. It's so interesting it doesn't say come to the Bible. Doesn't say that. It doesn't say come to church and you're gonna find it says come to me. I can't come from here down to there by standing here. How do you come to Christ? How do you do it? Do you always come to Christ when you pray? No. If you listen to me pray at lunch today you heard me come. If you heard me pray at breakfast today you didn't hear me come. You heard me do it. What's the difference? It's right here. It's in your own heart when your heart comes away from all the things that are going on all the time and just comes. When's the last time you came, not to God the Father, not to God the Holy Spirit. You came to Jesus Christ yourself. I don't mean for salvation. That's not what this verse is talking about. It's you coming to Jesus because you're wiped out. When's the last time you've ever done that? How many of you did that today? Three out of a thousand. And probably half of them are lying. No, I'm only kidding. Please forgive me. I would say it's the habit of the American Christian not to come. We are people who have been trained to be independent, aren't we? That we can do it. And we do it through hard work. And you know what? We do it with hard work. The interesting part of it is is that we feel tired at the end of it. And when I read that passage I wondered to myself, is it wrong to be tired? Is it wrong to be wearied out? And then I read in the New Testament when Jesus Christ came to the woman at the well and he was, what's the word you know? Weary? It's the same Greek word as labor right here. Same Greek word. When I read that I said, is it wrong to be laboring? It's not wrong to be laboring. Jesus labored and the New Testament teaches that the elders are supposed to labor among you. What am I supposed to feel like? What are you supposed to feel like when the laboring is over? How should you feel? You ought to feel tired or else you haven't given it your all shot that day. You ought to feel tired at the end of a good day. And the interesting thing is Jesus doesn't say you can't put up your feet on the sofa or watch television. That's irrelevant. What he's trying to say is, listen, come to me. Just stop. I am tired out and I'm going to come to Jesus. The second half of that is that happens not quite as many times and that is when the dump happens to you. When your boss comes in or your husband is really out of sorts or the children that you've just brought to church and they've just said 103 verses, comes home saying, I think I'm going to take up drinking and smoking tomorrow morning. That's the dump. And you begin to wonder, what on earth did I do wrong? And you go into depression. If you're a normal person, you'll go into depression for a while after you beat your kid. No, you won't beat your kid. But the concept there is when the dump comes upon you, what do you do? Typically what we do is our shoulders become and we become depressed, don't we? Isn't it a totally refreshing thought to say when the dump comes from whatever place it can come, I'm supposed to come to a person. I'm not supposed to do something like put up my feet, turn on the television, go to sleep or eat chocolate bars. I'm supposed to come to a person. Why am I supposed to come to a person? Does God care about my feeling of being overwhelmed? Does God care anything about me feeling exhausted? Do you know I believe there are more Christians per square inch suffering from burnout than non-Christians? We have to go to church all the time. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. That's right. We have all the things that a non-Christian has and we have all Sunday taken up and Wednesday night, plus the other activities that go on. You know what? I bet you more Christians than none give a fair work day, at least I hope to think so, to their employees than a non-believer. The scripture says clearly in the epistles, you who make your master or your boss successful and you work for him as if he was Christ himself. Some of you men, it's the end of the weekend, you're supposed to be ready for tomorrow morning. You'd give anything for a week off, wouldn't you? How many of you would love for a week off next week? Why don't we all call in sick? Listen to this verse. Don't you know and have you unheard the everlasting God, the Lord, I love this passage, the creator of the ends of the earth, does not become tired or wearied. Isn't that good? God never gets tired or weary. He gives blank to the weary. What's the word? Strength. Yeah, but how does he give strength to you and me when we're shot? How does he do it? Just automatically? We're a believer and all of a sudden God gives us strength. I don't believe that that's true, gang. And to him who lacks might, he increases power. Though even the youths grow weary and tired and the vigorous young men stumble badly, here it is, yet those that wait on the Lord. What happens when you wait on the Lord? Yeah, it's Isaiah chapter 40. You will gain new strength. You see that word before strength? What's the word? New. It's not all of a sudden you pray and out of the reserves left somewhere in your life comes a new surge of adrenaline. It's not that. God, the creator of the universe, who does not grow weary or tired, will give you what kind of strength? New strength. They will mount up wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. That is the power of the Lord. Ladies and gentlemen, please catch it. Here's an interesting thing to physical burnout. Come to Christ. Take rest also. Take a vacation. Take a weekend away with your wife. Leave your kids behind. Take your kids with you. Leave your wife behind. She'll probably like that one better than the other one. Can you remember that? Come unto me, all what labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. How do I get the rest of God? I come. Do you know, ladies and gentlemen, there is no other prerequisite. There's no other condition. He just says, come. When you recognize you're weary from working or when you're tired from it being dumped on you, come and I will think about the possibilities of helping you if I'm in the mood. What does he say? I will give you rest. Do you know in the Greek there is no will there? There's no will give in the Greek. It's one word and it says, I like it, I will rest you. That's what it really means. Not I will give you rest. There's no give in the original. It is, I will rest you. You ever remember when your children were growing up and they were just so exhausted they couldn't calm down? You ever remember that? Some of you are enduring it now. What do you do? Tell me. You lay him down, don't you, and you pat him on the back and you lay down next to them and you rub their head on their back and you, if a woman, you hum. If you're a man, you rub their head. You give them rest. You force them to rest. The interesting thing about Isaiah and Matthew when you put it together is God gives you new strength. If you come to him with your hands out, reach for more strength. I wonder if you and I in the past week lost strength because we did not come. Did you fly like an eagle last week? All you had to do was wait upon the Lord and he shall renew your strength and you shall fly like eagles. Take a look at the rest of that passage in Matthew chapter 11. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you shall find rest for your souls. Uh-oh. The first one says, and I will give you rest. That's a gift. And ladies and gentlemen, I believe that's more physical than anything else. But when you get down to verse number 29, it's more emotional and mental and spiritual. And it's not, I'm going to give it to you now. Do you realize that? God doesn't give you emotional rest in this passage. You find it. You see that? And you shall find rest, not for your body, but for your what? Your soul. What is your soul? It's your mind, your will, your emotion. In this context, I think it also includes the spirit. You're going to find it. That means you don't have it if you have to find it. That means you might have had it and you lost it. But you have to go looking for it. What are you looking for? You're not looking for physical rest, I don't believe, in verse number 29. I believe it's when things are just out of sorts emotionally, where you've had it, where you say, I don't think I can be a parent for another day. I don't think I can be married to this person for one more hour. And if my boss comes in and tells me one more time about, I'm quitting, or when the debts rise so high, you don't know what to do. That's the soulish part of us. You know, I could take body physical fatigue really easy compared to emotional fatigue. Can't you? How many of you are emotionally, or spiritually, or mentally, weary for whatever reason? You look around. Come on, raise your hands. Yeah, the rest of you aren't. Wait till tomorrow morning. What does this verse mean? It says, and you're going to find rest for your souls. How do I find rest for my souls? Well, it says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. There's three verbs in these three verses. They're all commands. Come unto me when you recognize you're tired, overwhelmed, and I'll give you rest. That's the first. The second one is take. That's a command. Take this Bible, will you? It's a command. Take it. You understand? It's a command. It's And the other one is, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. That's not an invitation either. That's a command. Learn from me. That means if I'm going to find rest from my emotional part of me, and the mental part of me, and the spiritual part of me, it's not by coming to him, is it? Do you hear that? So many of us mix these things up. We don't think we can ever come to Christ for physical needs. And number two, we think when we have an emotional need, all we have to do is say, God, help me. This verse says the exact opposite. It says you're going to find rest for your souls. And you're going to find it in the midst of doing two things. Number one, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. That means, ladies and gentlemen, if you do not have the yoke of Christ on you now, you probably do not have rest in your soul. Let me say that again. If you do not have the yoke of Christ on you tonight, right now, I don't mean salvation. It's not talking about salvation. You don't have the yoke of Christ, and if you don't understand what I'm talking about, you probably aren't at peace in yourself. You're not at home. You're not anxious-free. You're not experiencing the joy of the Lord if you don't have the yoke of Christ upon you. And if you're not learning of Christ, something very particular about him, you're not going to have freedom from that either. You're going to feel overwhelmed, and circumstances are going to have control over you and me. How do we typically try to find rest for our souls? By not resting. Do you know that? We do the opposite. We say, the way that I find rest for my soul is to do more what? Things. I'm not happy. We need to have a lake house. Then I'm going to be happy, especially if it's on Lake Lanier. I don't like Lake Attuna. So what do you do? You work harder to get the lake house. You know, I would really be happier, sweetheart, if we could put $5,000 every year into the bank for retirement. Then I could relax. You know, what I would really like to do, as soon as I can get that promotion and become a VP, man, my life is going to be really set, and I can just kind of calm down. If I only can go on vacation this year for two weeks in a row, my life will finally settle down. What are we really trying to say in all those things? The way that I find rest for my soul is to do more things. And that's the way you and I typically do it, because that's the way everybody around us does it. How do you find the rest for your soul? This is the way we think we do it. Listen carefully. I should have my finger up when I say that. It's not long enough. The way we think that we can have rest for my soul and your soul is by keeping it so busy we don't know we don't have rest. This is the end of side one. To continue the message, please turn the cassette over without advancing the tape. We keep it occupied. Working, television, reading, everything. And we think we have rest. But it only takes one little click on the side of our glass and all this anger and impatience and frustration and bitterness and fear of failure comes boiling out of our calm, resting soul. And just on a scale of one to ten, how much at rest do you think our souls are during the week? What would you give yourself? Would you give a ten? My soul's at rest all the time. If you need any rest potion, just come see me. Nine? Almost all the time. Eight? Usually. Seven? Normal. Six? I try hard. Five? Half the time. Four? What do you mean, rest? Where would you rate the people in this church together? And we talked about how much at rest is our souls, our mind, our will, our emotion. How much of it is at rest? Where would you rate them? How many would you rate them a ten? Nine? Eight? Vote once. Seven? Six? Five? Less than five. Do you realize what we just said? We've said the answer that I'm working hard to try and explain is a problem that you feel as a congregation is felt by all the people on a scale of one to ten, five and four and less. Do you know why we feel that? Because we don't follow the formula that's right here by Jesus Christ. What do you have to do? You have to take my yoke, or else you're not going to find rest for your souls. You're going to have to learn of me, or you're not going to find rest for your souls. Now, how on earth do you find rest for your souls? Do you already have a yoke? Do you have a yoke? What's a yoke? Somebody explain to me what a yoke is. Say it again. A thing you put over a donkey or a harness. That's right. Take my yoke upon you. That means to say that I have to do that. When I become a Christian, I don't automatically have the yoke of Christ on me. And that's why we don't have rest. It isn't that we don't pray, is it? It isn't that we don't read the Bible. It isn't that we don't want to have peace in our soul. It's just that none of those things will give us that. I'm not going to have peace in my soul until I take the yoke of Christ upon me. What is the yoke of Christ? How do you know when you have it? I went through the Gospel of John and wrote down some verses as they came in order. Just listen. And when you're done, you can't follow in time. I'm just going to read. I must have 20 verses. I'm going to read some little phrases. As I read the phrases, see if you can pick out what you think the yoke of Christ is and at the same time be asking yourself, do you have it tonight? These are all the words of Christ. They answer the question, what is the yoke of Christ? And that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father has taught me, I speak these things. For I always do the things that please him. I honor my Father and I do not seek my own. Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of himself, nothing of himself. But what he sees the Father do, I can do nothing of myself. As I hear, I speak. Because I do not seek my own will. John 6. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will. John 7. My doctrine or my teaching is not my own, but it's his who sent me. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true and no unrighteousness is in him. John 10. Therefore my Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. John 11. Father, I thank you, you have heard me and I know that you always hear me. John 12. He who loves his life will lose it and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. John 12. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command what I should say and what I should speak. John 14. The word which I speak to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works. John 14. Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do I will do also. The greater works than these he will do because I go to my Father. What's the yoke that Christ wore when he was here? What was it? It was total obedience to the Father in everything he said. He said something fantastic. He said, the words which I speak are not even mine. They're from my Father. The works that I do, they aren't even mine. The things that I do aren't even for myself. They're for him. Ladies and gentlemen, what is the yoke of Christ? It is that you lay down your life and everything that you do is for God. That's what it is. When do I become anxious in my mind, in my will, in my emotions and in my spirit, is when something that I'm in control of and that I want and the results that I want to take place in my children, in my home, in my wife, in the husband, in the business, in the investment, if my thing doesn't go right and I'm afraid. And when I'm afraid, guess what happens to the rest of my soul? I don't have any. So whenever you take something that's your own and it's yours, you have a lot to be worried about. But when you give it back to God, literally, do you have anything to not have rest over? Do you understand why the yoke works? The yoke works when you give your wife or your husband to God and say, God, whatever happens to him or her, I give them to you. I don't have to worry about them anymore. My children, God, they're now out of their home and I don't know what they're doing out there in their own apartment. And I'm so nervous about what they're going to do wrong. You only gave them to me for a while anyway. They never really were my children. Sorry for taking them away from you. God, I'm so nervous about my job. I think the boss is going to let me go next week and then what are we going to do? What am I going to do? You're the boss of my boss. I forgot that. And if you want him to fire me, I can't stop him. And if you don't want him to fire me, I can't stop him either. Sorry for thinking my boss is my security rather than you. You are my security. Do you understand what happens to your load when you do that? How many of you identify with that? Sure you do. Have you ever done this? Come on. I thought about taking it and nailing the fingers. Yes, and the issue is we take off Christ's yoke. And what do we do with it? We set it here and what do we go do? We put it on our own yoke. And we sweat it out. Why? Because we think we can get peace better this way than this way. Take my yoke upon you and you will find rest. There's something in our lives tonight. It's either a child or a marriage or part of your job or your future or your financial security that you're like that with. How can you find rest with that? What must you do? You must give it back. The things which I do, I do just because God wants me to do. The things that I say, I do them because God wants me to say. And everything that I am and own and do and think and feel is God's. And therefore I take on, I take off my yoke. God, I'm worried over this thing. The second you realize there's worry, what is it a trigger to tell you about? Do you have his yoke on? Do you have it on? No, you don't. The second I begin to sweat over a given person or event or circumstance or financial problem is the second a buzzer should go off in my head that says, Bruce, you've just set off the yoke of Christ and you put on your own yoke and your yoke is not light. And learn of me, for I am meek and lowly or humble in heart. And you shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Let's start with the end. Remember it starts with a verse that says, All ye that labor and are heavy laden. And it ends with, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Those are the same two parts. All ye that labor, listen, all ye that labor are under your own yoke. All ye that are heavy laden is tied to the fact of the burden that you're carrying. Come to me, all ye who labor under your own yoke and are heavy laden. Come to me with those two things. And when you learn in the middle part of that, you can set your own yoke over here and pick up my yoke, and you're going to find that it's easy. And you're going to take that heavy burden you have, and in verse number 30, you're going to find out my burden is what? Light. What is Christ's burden? It's to do the will of the Father. That's it. Now let's end with that part in the middle there. It says, For I am meek and lowly in heart. What does that mean? It basically says this. It says, I can't find rest to my soul until I do two things. One is, I must take the yoke of Christ. That means I take off the thing I'm worried about. It's a son, a daughter. I take it. I take it off my shoulder. I set it off here. I say, I'm anxious over this thing. That means I don't have a yoke on. I'm laboring under it. I take the yoke of Christ. I put it on. And I have to give up that thing, don't I? The second you give it up, what happens to the yoke? Haven't you ever had to do that? Do you remember how easy it is to walk with your head up? Do you remember the last time you did that? Can you remember it? It gives you a whole new outlook, doesn't it? And some of us tonight don't have one yoke on. We have enough yokes to hit the ceiling. Don't we? What do you need to do? Take it off. How do you do? How do you take it off? You realize you got it on. Anytime you're overwhelmed, anxious, fearful, nervous, you got a yoke on you, and it's not Christ. Why? Because Christ is light. It's easy. It wears differently. Why? Because you trust Him for everything. If you can't trust the Creator of the universe, my goodness, who do you have left to go for? Yourself. But that's just part of it. Take my yoke upon... And then the second part is learn from me. Now, Jesus says if your soul is overwhelmed, you're supposed to do two things. Take off the yoke, put on Christ, second thing. I'm supposed to come to Christ and learn from Him. Here's a whole book I have to learn. Is that what it's saying? No, it's not. I'm supposed to learn two things of Christ. Why would Christ give me two things to learn from Him? You know why? Because of the very two things, listen, that you're forgetting when you're overwhelmed. Do you know that? The reason why we get overwhelmed is we put on the yoke, and the second thing, we've forgotten two things about Christ. And they're so different. You know what they are? They're meek and humble. What on earth is meekness and humility of Christ supposed to do for me as a believer today? So what if Christ was meek and humble? I've got problems. Do you understand? Isn't that far-fetched in your thinking? Why do you say learn from Christ, that He has full authority given to Him by the Father, and that He created all things, and with the word of His power keeps all things together. That's what I've expected God to have said in this spot, but He didn't. See, God doesn't think the way you and I did. It's the opposite. He said think about the opposite side of Christ. Think about Him in two ways, that He's meek and He's humble. Why? Listen carefully. When I don't have rest for my soul, it's because I'm not meek and I'm not humble. The opposite of meekness is self-assertion. I'm going to do it. The opposite of humility or humbleness is pride. I think I can do it, and I want to do it and get out of my way. I don't have rest for my soul. It's because I'm no longer meek and I'm no longer humble. Period. Therefore, if you and I are having trouble inside, when you're not really at home with yourself and you really haven't felt good about your life in a long time, it's because you've got yokes all over you, and the second thing is because you're no longer meek and you're no longer humble, and the two things you better learn about are those two facts. And when you learn those two things, guess what happens to the unrest in your soul? What happens to it? What happens to it? It goes right away. It's like fog in the sun. Why? And we're done. Why? Here's why. Let's put those meekness and humility together into one concept because of time and say it this way. When I have a tough time serving you at work, serving you at home, because there's too much going on, and I want you to serve me and you to serve me and do what I say because I said it, and I'm over here frantically trying to do it, no matter how good it is, even Monday night. Can you go out Monday night without meekness and humility? You better believe it. How do you do that? You do it. And because you're trying to do it, what are you nervous about? Whether or not what? You'll do it okay. When you're busy at work and you're trying to make people do what you want them to do or your kids or your wife or your husband and you're in control of all of it and you're trying to make them take place and happen, you have a lot of balls in the air to keep going. Do you understand? When, however, I go to serve you, what do I have to have unrest about when I'm serving him? What? Can I even have unrest when I'm serving him? I can't even have unrest. I can't have unrest when I am humble. What does humble mean? It means setting aside your rights to meet the needs of other people. And when I'm meeting your needs, no matter what my needs are, guess what happens to my unrest? Where does it go? It goes away. What's meekness? Meekness is the concept that says, I have my rights and I'm going to do them. Meekness takes the opposite point of view and says, I'm not going to serve mine. I'm going to meet your needs. I'm not going to... When you mistreat me, you know what meekness does? It doesn't bow its head quietly and just gets run over. Meekness responds in a loving way back to it. It doesn't try to get even. It doesn't try to master other people. Fulfill ye my joy that you be like-minded. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory. But listen to this now. But in lowliness of mind, there it is, let each esteem the other better than themselves. You know what happens? That's the hard part. Will I esteem you better than me? Am I going to be anxious then when I'm doing that with her? With you? I can't be anxious. I was anxious when I first sat up here tonight. And I was anxious. And I was saying to myself, I don't know how it's going to come over. And then I said, actually God said in a sense, Wilkinson, whose needs are you here to meet? Your own fears or their needs? And the second I got my eyes off of myself and got on where they belonged, on you, guess what happened to my soul? It calmed right down. I was reading the introduction up there. My mouth got dry and I became frustrated and self-conscious. Lack of rest. I put down that piece of paper off to the side and said, God, let's forget the sermon and go talk. Came off down here and sat down and started talking to him. And took his Bible because I forgot my own. You know what happened to my unrest? Where did it go? Right out the window. Why? I got my eyes off myself and got them on you. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but a lowliness of mind. Let each esteem the other better than himself. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of the other. Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. Listen to this verse. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death. How do I humble? You don't humble me. I humble myself. In Greek, it's in the middle. It means, I do it to me. I humble myself. You can humble him, but that's not the biblical way. I humble myself. If you be high and lifted up, what will God do? He will bring everything that's high and lifted up down. And everything that is low, he will exalt. We started talking about being tired, wearied, overwhelmed. We talked about two kinds of being tiredness. Physical. We know that we are to come to him when we're actively tired from working and when we're tired and worn out from things being dumped on us. And we are to come to him and Christ will give it to you. What will he give? New strength. That's all you have to do. Please, help me. Help me. Give me some strength. Sure. I promise that. Here. Here's some new kind of strength. Second thing. When you're out of it emotionally, spiritually, mentally, how do you do that? Don't just come, because he won't give it to you. How do you get it then? You have to find it. How do you find it? You find it in two ways and you must do both of them. They are related, if you've been thinking about it. One is, I must identify. Right there is the thing that's really wiping me out. I'm scared to death that this year we're going to end in the red. And it's chafing right here and right here and right here. You take that thing, God, it's my yoke here. You pick up his yoke, you put it on, and you say, this is your business anyway. And if you want it to fail, you have my permission for it to fail. And if you want it to succeed, you have my permission to succeed. And the second you open your hands, and men and women, sometimes that'll take a month to do, won't it? Won't it? Yes, it will. You can't always do that that way, can you? Some of you have some problems tonight that you could be saying, oh God, I could open my hand. You just keep asking him, God, open it. That's one thing you do. Second thing you do is you realize I've got to learn about Christ two parts. One part, that he was meek and humble. I am not meek and I am not humble if I don't have rest in my soul. If you sit there with unrest in your soul, it's because you're proud and you put yourself first. Don't just take it off. God, forgive me for my pride. Forgive me for always wanting my own way. And in the forgiveness that comes, guess what I will find? Rest for my soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Aren't you sick of it? If you're worn out physically right now, just physically wiped out, would you recognize that the way to get that solution is to rest physically? Firstly, and secondly, to come to Jesus and to wait on him and he will renew your strength. Will you be honest enough to say to him, God, forgive me for wearing the yoke of... and then put your finger on it and ask forgiveness. I've been anxious about... I've been fearful because... Go ahead. Can you tell him? Set that yoke on the floor next to your feet and then pick up the yoke of Christ and say back to the Father, God, I give you the rights to this person, to this business, to my job, to my health, to my future. Just give it away. In giving away your life, you'll find it. Give it away. And then if you've been emotionally upset, anxious, heavy, would you confess your pride to him right now? God, I didn't know it, but forgive me for my pride. Forgive me for always wanting it my way. Forgive me for not esteeming others more highly than myself. You've been listening to Dr. Bruce H. Wilkinson, President of Walkthrough the Bible Ministries, on the challenging topic, Handling Pressure. Walkthrough the Bible offers additional cassette messages by Dr. Wilkinson, including The Christian Employee, The Secret of a Powerful Prayer Life, and How to Handle Rebellion in Your Life. For more information on these messages or any other ministry of Walkthrough the Bible, write us at Post Office Box 80587, Atlanta, Georgia, 30366, or call 404-458-9300. Walkthrough the Bible, called to minister for life change.