Pressure Points Part 1

so tonight we are launching into something uh new series topics called pressure points everybody say pressure points pressure points i want you guys to understand this that as a christian you're gonna face a lot of continual pressure to imitate the ways of this world that is a constant pressure and how many guys you admit you feel that pressure quite often whether it's through social media whether it's through friends whether it's just through your flesh or opening text i want to read from it'll be on the screens if you have a bible or if you have notes that you're taking it's a short verse in galatians 1 and 10 and it reads this it says obviously i'm not trying to win the approval of people but of god and and i love how it starts off saying obviously because for every christian everybody who's a follower of jesus christ it should be extremely obvious in your life and it should be obvious to you that your goal as a follower of jesus christ is not to win the approval of people but your goal in life should be to win the approval of god next part of the verse as if pleasing people were my goal i would not be christ's servants i just give up i'd quit trying to be a christian to follow jesus christ if i wanted that was my goal to please people then everything that i'm doing for god it's for nothing but our goal my goal your goal is to win the approval of god so i hope that scripture sticks in your mind to remember that everybody say pressure pressure that moment when you're trying to finish a quiz and it's a timed quiz or a test and you're running out of time everybody say pressure i mean you guys know what i'm talking about for some of you maybe it's the end of a game that you're playing and your team's losing and you may be up to bat or they give you the ball or you have to take a shot that's pressure maybe you're playing jenga with your friends and the tower is double the size and wobbling with every touch and it's your turn to pull that last block pressure that moment after waiting for weeks and weeks and you're finally going to approach that one significant other that you've had a major crush on pressure or when your elbow deep and red blue and yellow wires you're trying your best to disarm a bomb in 30 seconds before it destroys your entire city your friends and your loved ones right unrealistic pressure but but that's what happens right every other action move very that's like that's going to be in there somewhere pressure i want you guys to know they're all types of real pressure that you deal with on a day-to-day basis there's pressure in school there's pressure when you start going to work to college within your family within your relationships friendships when it comes to finances one day maybe you already feel that with your family when they talk about finances pressure many people who are in high pressure situations and experience great levels of stress they see it takes a toll on your physical body not just on your mind but on your body there's all these stress related issues that people encounter like headaches skin rashes infections hair loss lots of stress i've been a youth pastor 15 years maybe that's what it is high blood pressure heart disease back pain muscle aches upset stomachs all because of stress and pressure medical research suggests that up to 90 percent of it all illness and disease is stress related that's crazy to think about up to 90 of illnesses and disease they say it's because of stress into the body that's according to the cdc um prevention the pressure in your life i want you guys to know this it is real and you're not the only one who feels it okay so i want you to kind of sigh of relief you're not the only one who feels that constant pressure in all these different areas of your life as a student you need to be aware though that no pressure is more powerful or more dangerous than peer pressure peer pressure is defined as its social pressure by members of one's peer group your friends those you interact with those you hang out with that pressure pushes you to take certain actions or to adopt certain values or otherwise conform to do whatever that group's doing so that you can be accepted by them the way this works is when you build relationships those friends become an important influence in your life that begins to alter your behavior pressure can have an effect an effect in so many different areas like style if you've seen a friend who dressed one way and then they came back after summer to the end of the school year they started hanging out with new friends they're dressing completely different like what are you wearing like what happened to you anybody ever happened a friend like that they grew out they go through these stages certain tastes certain foods certain appearances certain ideologies certain values from peer pressure unfortunately peer pressure many times it goes to another level is commonly associated with risk-taking in wrong areas and this is documented that it can happen with your speech with customer but what you look at pornography tobacco use crime drug abuse sexual activity all majorly affected not just by your flesh but primarily because of peer pressure if you constantly hang out with friends who engage in these kinds of behaviors it will eventually alter your behavior peer pressure is not only outside of the church but peer pressure is also inside of the church you're not safe within the church of having certain pressures we feel it all the time wherever we're at and the church pure uh church culture peer pressure can go to another level as far as affecting your relationship with god just by who you hang out with just by who you care about that other person or who you sit with it can affect your relationship with god it can affect your treatment of one another it can affect your willingness to worship it can affect your willingness to lift your hands to clap to shout to step out of a seat to dance to leap for joy it can affect your desire to pray to open up to respond to the word of god at the altar or to cry or whatever it may be it can affect your commitment to serving in an area of ministry or giving extra time it can affect involvement in events and in unity peer pressure is very powerful you should never underestimate its influence and its effect on your life that's why it needs to be this first focus of this lesson it needs to be classified it needs to be identified and dealt with so i want to go over just three points tonight pressure points that's connected to peer pressure the first pressure point i want to talk to you about is your weakness everybody say my weakness the why you're so easily affected by peer pressure point one your weakness simply put you're affected by peer pressure because you're a human being isn't that great feeling pressure and temptation it's a part of your human nature your flesh who you were made to be peer pressure is not something that just developed over time in modern society or culture it is something that is found in the characteristics of the very first two human beings to walk planet earth genesis 2 we read about the story of adam and eve and a serpent pressured eve into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit and then soon eve tells adam to take a bite and fully knowing that it's wrong adam felt the pressure from eve and he took a bite and because they caved in they were punished by god removed from the garden it was also found in the new testament in the life of one of the apostles in galatians 2 11-13 paul talks about how the apostle peter was affected by peer pressure look at this on the screens in verse 11 of galatians 2 says but when peter came to antioch i had to oppose him to his face for what he did was very wrong like whoa didn't know that was in the bible he had to get in his face a little bit you imagine like seeing that paul's like what's up peter like dude give me some space like he got in his face verse 12 says when he first arrived he had ate with these gentile believers who were not circumcised but then afterwards some friends of james came in everybody say peer pressure and then peter because of james friends he wouldn't eat with the gentiles anymore because of his peers the circle of influence that was around him this is one of the disciples he says he was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision verse 13 as a result other jewish believers followed peter's hypocrisy and even barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy isn't this crazy this was all the way back to the early church the followers of jesus christ this is peter that we're talking about the guy who preached in acts 2 on the day of pentecost he's not a weak lightweight christian but i want you guys to understand this that nobody gets a free pass from peer pressure it affects everyone it's affect everyone from the beginning of time until this day this night and no doubt already here tonight before church and now you've felt a little bit of peer pressure the way you look the way you talk the way you act the way you walk the way you worship the way you prayed in pre-service prayer because you were a little bit concerned about a peer and what they thought about you it's easy to classify peer pressure as a human weakness in everyone's lives that need to be dealt with but understand that while we have some weaknesses and pressure points god almighty and his powerful spirit can help us overcome our weaknesses and our peer pressure second corinthians 12 8-9 says paul is speaking about his weakness he says three different times i begged the lord to take it away each time he said my grace is all that you need my power it works best in your weakness so now i'm glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of christ can work through me and i want you guys to hear this in your most high pressure situations when you feel weak when you feel vulnerable remember that is the perfect timing and a great opportunity for you to turn to god for you to recognize you need to kind of classify hey this is a weakness in my life this is something that i'm going through but then to turn to god and allow his power to be on display in your life and in your weakness now the second pressure point we're going to talk about tonight is that i want to look at is your problem everybody say your problem how you're affected by peer pressure a few years ago psychologist ruth brenda and her associates they have this interesting experiment with teenagers just like you guys designed to show how a person handled group peer pressure and this is pretty amazing plan was simple they brought a group of students like yourselves 10 students into a room for a test each group of 10 was instructed you had to raise your hands when the teacher pointed to the longest line on three separate charts okay what one person the group did not know is that the other nine in the group had already been instructed ahead of time to vote for the second largest not the correct answer the second largest line which was the wrong line but that one student who was not in the loop would typically glance around at everybody else kind of frown in confusion and just slip their hand up with the rest of the group the instructions were repeated and the next card was raised and time after time because of peer pressure the self-conscious student would sit there saying a short line is longer than a long line simply because they lack the courage to challenge the group to stand up and to say hey that's wrong and that's right this remarkable conformity occurred in about 75 percent of the cases was true of small children high school middle school students as well since there are many reasons why the power of peer-to-peer relationships can create pressure another social psychologist wendy traynor explains this phenomenon in an article called the identity shift effect she said that a student is disrupted when faced with a threat of external conflict like social rejection your friends no wonder no longer wanting to hang out with you for failing to conform to a group standard so to avoid that rejection they just conform to the new group standard and when they do it it eliminates that internal conflict you guys know that internal conflict what that feels like that awkward moment that that stressful peer pressure moment where you just want to throw up and you're like i will do anything to get out of this moment right now you guys know what i'm talking about anything not to be embarrassed anything does not stand out to take this pressure away from me the student is doing something that they know is wrong and this creates conflict because that person becomes a person who violates their own personal standards so to resolve that conflict they must have an identity shift where they adopt the new group standards as their own eliminating that eternal conflict this is your problem what we're talking about our second point through this process of constantly caving into peer pressure a person leaves with a new identity time and time again caving into peer pressure not saying what is right not standing up for what is true you have believe with a new identity the result of a student that's two k's into peer pressure proverbs 29 25 says this fearing people it is a dangerous trap you fear more what other people think but trust in the lord that means safety so if you fear people you fear or worry about their opinion their feedback before you long you're gonna compromise your biblical principles before long you're gonna compromise your apostolic identity and ultimately you'll compromise your relationship with jesus christ but hear the word of god it gives us some helpful instructions to overcome this weakness in romans 12 2 it says don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world but you students in those moments depend on god you let god transform you into a new person by changing the way you think then you will learn to know god's will for you which is good and pleasing and perfect so students it is extremely important that at an early age you surrender your life to god and you tell him lord here are my weaknesses here are my struggles here are these pressure moments that i am dealing with this is the moment this is a scenario god that gets me every single time my adequacies my struggles and you take them god say here take them and through the power of the holy ghost god as i'm praying as i'm reading your bible renew my mind god change the way i think about this pressure and help me lord to overcome it i have with me tonight something um called a bench vice and some of you who four or five years ago will remember this fun device a bench vise and most often it's used in different types of workshops and it's a simple mechanism where you can make the sides of this tool come together or open and apply great amounts of pressure onto something and just because i'm curious and this is supposed to be a small group night i want your help uh to have a little bit of fun tonight how many guys would love to choose something from this right here and try to pressure and break it just to see what happens okay all right so first one up we're just going to throw this ball and whoever gets it you get to pick something all right oh [name redacted] says my turn let's go all right let's just pray the the braves have strong hands like that tonight all right [name redacted] come on up here bud let's get [name redacted] a hand all right so there's all kinds of weird stuff and each night if you guys have some suggestions we can we're gonna do this for the next three weeks so if you have some stuff to up our game please let me know it can't be flammable so we have a coconut that could be pretty hard we just have a bottle of water we have play-doh a birdhouse an apple a ball um airplay a candle a car whatever you want just the can of uh vienna sausages perfect you get to be official here all right i'm gonna step back all right so stick it right here we'll get it started which way should you want to go you want to go straight up or you want to go sideways sideways [Music] all right it's no it's all you man you you caught the ball all right here we go [Music] oh oh you're gonna smell like vienna sausages all the way home [Laughter] it's like a fountain he was a vienna sausage nobody wants to get under the vienna sausage all right give it a couple more turns [Music] ugh [Music] [Laughter] that looks something that came out of nora's diaper earlier today okay all right listen you guys see this angle all right we're gonna undo this one one of our ladies all right here we go one two three all right all right [name redacted] come on up persecuted under pressure man that's how we do it all right you're gonna have to have your superhero arms this could be the strongest one to do but you can give it a try all right coconut all right here we go oh that was quick keep going keep going [Music] that probably smells better than vienna's sausages to be honest so let me get a little bit of that [Music] [Applause] hey get her in very nice you sure can all right here we go um i'm gonna go ricochet off the wall here we go i don't know if that would do anything cool or not an apple it's almost christmas time we can put him in there i don't know if this would do anything it's just a bottle of water that could be fun [Music] all right here we go let's see what happens just keep going all the way again [Music] let's put it [Music] all right here we it's gonna go boom morris gonna go [Music] already all right keep going boom no all the way that's it it withstood the press test good job all right impressive [Music] wow all right here we go [Applause] all right come on down all right what do we got the apple all right all right righty tighty go ahead give it yep all right ladies any ladies want to go any ladies on the go front row ladies only all right now you can't do it twice all right here we go keep going keep going you gonna go all right come on up man [Music] i don't know what this is a candle a car bird house water bottle all right water bottle nice [Music] here we go all right here we go crank it ugh [Music] oh [Music] [Laughter] good job that was awesome all right here we go just kidding just kidding all right [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right [name redacted] what do you want the nutcracker [Music] it's beginning to look [Music] we're gonna try both the ways a little bit higher isn't it all right ladies ladies want to go oh the poor nutcracker he's met his match we shall see [Music] destroyed all right last thing what do you want to do candle all right we'll do one girl one guy all right you wanna go that way you're gonna go right we'll do one girl one guy all right go go stops feels like all right [name redacted] come on down pick one more thing here we go all right all right here we go last one last one [Music] it may not boom [Music] that is so satisfying it feels like it's never gonna all right let's let them let's give them all a hand good job everybody everybody go back to your seats back to your seat so once again if you have some suggestions for next week um let us know all right so everybody back to your seats everybody listen up couple more things to talk about tonight before we wrap it up so when each of these scenarios hopefully you had a little bit of fun um but in each scenario two things happened either something was revealed of what was in the inside or something was revealed of what that object was really made of the point of this entire illustration for us and this is the big focus of this series is that when peer pressure comes into your life is the ultimate test there's one thing that you realize that you'll learn that you'll study that students deal with when it comes to school when it comes to peer groups when it comes to worship when it comes to church is your response to peer pressure peer pressure is the ultimate test of christian character and it is revealing of what you are made of it reveals what is really inside of you as a christian it reveals what you are made of and in relationship to your walk with god in relation to your walk with god peer pressure is going to reveal one of two things as a follower of jesus christ everybody listen up first it's going to reveal if you care more about what man thinks about you or two if you care more about what god thinks about you because your response in a peer pressure situation when it comes to compromise your beliefs your apostolic identity you're going to respond in a way that shows i care more about what man what this person what my friend cares about me and i'm going to respond in a way that's going to be pleasing to them or i'm going to respond in a way that shows that i care more about what god thinks about me and no matter what this peer pressure situation is trying to get me to do to conform to compromise i ultimately know no matter the pressure or how uncomfortable it is i care more about what god thinks about me so i'm going to ultimately do what god wants me to do our focus scripture and our opening text for this peer pressure point series is galatians 1 10. it says obviously i'm not trying to win the approval of people but of god if pleasing people were my goal i would not be christ's servant and hopefully after a little bit of this that scripture has a little bit more meaning students peer pressure will make or break you the outcome depends on who you depend on peer pressure reveals the status of your relationship with god peer pressure reveals the contents of your heart so i want to make sure that we don't fail this pressure point test so far we talked about two things your weakness your problem and the last thing in response to this my final point for tonight is simply your god your god peer pressure really does reveal a lot of things but one of the main things is if you know god and if you have a good relationship with him first corinthians 15 33-34 says don't be fooled by those who say such things for bad company that corrupts good character says don't be fooled by those peer pressure situations it says verse 34 you think carefully in those moments about what is right and stop sinning for to your shame i say that some of you you don't know god at all but i pray that's not the case for you today i urge you to wake up to the fact of who god is and start caring about his opinion of your life more than anybody else because that's what it really comes down to revelation 1 8 says i am the alpha and the omega the beginning in the end says the lord god i am the one who is who always was and who is still to come the all mighty one since god is so much more than a peer his reaction to your decision should matter most when you stand up to your peers they may react and there may be some temporary effects on your social status but god's reaction has a lasting effect on your soul status god is the ultimate authority in this earth his opinion should be the only opinion that matters and he will help you students as i mentioned overcome the pressure points if you learn to look to him rather than to look to them psalms 1 18 5 says in my distress in my pressure moments i prayed to the lord and the lord answered me and he set me free second corinthians 4 8-9 says hey we are pressed on every side by troubles hopefully that verse has a little more meaning when it comes to peer pressure so we're we're being pressed on every single side but because of the relationship with god the power that is within you caring more about him than about them you can say we are not crushed we are perplexed but we are not driven to despair last scripture of the night james 1 12 says this god blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation and afterwards they will receive the crown of life that god has promised to those who love him amen let's all stand because i want you guys to simply know tonight we had a lot of fun and kicking this series off it doesn't matter who you are no one here is free of feeling peer pressure and it doesn't change from middle school to high school to college to being a young adult to having a family you're always going to feel some sort of peer pressure in whatever phase of life the pressure points in your life are powerful and they can have a controlling effect on your life on your decisions on your actions but tonight with the help of god i simply pray as we start this off that you would get your focus off of your peers off of fear off of rejection off of possible isolation off of your need to be accepted by your friends and simply make your decision that your focus is going to be on jesus christ and with his help you can beat peer pressure with his help he will give you that strength to endure to help you in the time of peer pressure