Hey there and welcome to Church online with Mission Growth. Now, before we jump into today's message, I want to start off with a short segment entitled quarantine questions these are questions that I find myself asking this past week while spending time in quarantine with my family. Maybe you've been asking these same questions or maybe you can even help me find the answers. The first quarantine question is Were there really 16 people in the White House briefing that told us that we're not allowed to have gatherings? More than 10 people now, some of you are trying to count right now, so let me help you out. Hmm, interesting. Right next in quarantine, it has me thinking did Chewbacca originally get his long hair after spending time in quarantine on his planet? When asked for comment about his hair. Chewbacca replied. Now, side note, I'm guessing when I did the Chewbacca noise right now that if you're watching with a group of people, somebody in your group tried to also make that same Chewbacca noise. Alright, okay. Side note to the side note, if you did not previously try to make the Chewbacca noise when I just made mention of it? I'm guessing somebody in your group, did I want to let you know That's okay. The next quarantine question is this does it feel a little bit like a reversal of our teenage years? I find myself yelling at my parents for going out so much now, what time will you be home again? No, I don't care how many of your friends are doing it as most of you know by now. The Tokyo Olympics have been postponed to next year. But did you know that the olympics officially changed their logo. You gotta practice safe distancing am I right? And our final quarantine question for this week is being isolated from everybody. How can we have more friendly interactions with people while driving out in public? one guy might have the answer. You see this gentleman taped a coffee cup to the top of his car and now people wave to him everywhere he drives. Wait, hey sir, hey hey, hey how are you? Well this wraps up this week's quarantine questions. If you have a funny story or an exchange of happening during this time in quarantine, I want you to share that in the comments below whether you're watching this on our website on Youtube or on facebook. Let us know if you've had a funny work exchange with zoom conferencing or had trouble trying to work or home school with your kids at the same time. But in all seriousness we want everybody to stay home, stay safe and stay connected. We want you to know that we are here to help. If you have a need make sure you fill out our connect card on our website and let us know how we can come alongside you. You are not alone in this, we will get through this and we will get through this together God loves you, we love you and we are for you, let's pray, Dear Heavenly Father, thank you that we can worship together while separated physically God we are connected spiritually and we pray now that you will challenge us and comfort us from your word for those that are experiencing illness. We pray for healing for those who have experienced job loss. We pray for your provision and for everybody in our community and in our nation in our world. God, we pray for your power and your piece to enter our spirits, we love you got it in your son's name, we pray Amen. We are in week two of a series entitled Breakout, becoming who God has created you to be, you might be feeling stuck on the inside, but spiritually speaking, we hope you can break out and become all that God has created you to be. Last week we talked about a message entitled Finding your spiritual pathway. We shared insights from a book called sacred pathways written by author Gary thomas. A spiritual pathway can be defined as this. Your preferred way to connect with God. It's not about being a cookie cutter christian but rather being a child of God, which means that God wants to connect with you and the way that he made you everyone and I mean everyone has a preferred pathway to God, it's not about cookie cutter Christianity, but rather being Children of God and connecting with God the way he wired you. The seven pathways that we shared with you last week were activism. Contemplation, nature intellect relationships, service and worship. Now, if you took that online assessment last week, whether it was the online or the video version, you might have even gotten more detailed names to your spiritual pathway. If you're watching on our online platform on Youtube or facebook right now, I want you to take a second in the comment section, I want you to chat and share what is your preferred pathway as you're entering your spiritual pathway into the chat or comment section of where you're watching this video right now, there might be some of you have yet to take the spiritual assessment test. That's okay, let me just give a quick reminder of what these pathways are, activism is connecting with God through fighting wrong or injustice. Contemplation is connecting with God and simplicity and solitude. Okay, nature is connecting with God and his creation intellect is connecting with God and pursuing knowledge, relationships is connecting with God through experiencing community service is connecting with God while helping others and then worship is connecting with God through artistic expression if you haven't already done so just pause this video and right in the chat or comment section, what is your spiritual pathway? We'd love to know for me, it's a combination of intellect and nature and a little bit of activism. The activism is what caused me to launch and start this church, we now have as mission growth, but my top two being intellect and nature have really multiplied and its impact in my spiritual walk with God. When I combine the two, when you combine two or more pathways, it's like combining musical notes on an instrument. A song is not created by just strumming the same note over and over again, but rather the right combination of notes in rhythm together with others, in the same way you can do that and combining your pathways and create incredible music and your spiritual walk with God and with others. You see Gary thomas, the author of the book, sacred pathways once said this, God wants to know the real you not a caricature of what somebody else wants you to be. He created you with a certain personality and spiritual temperament. God watch your worship according to the way he made you, I want you to see that last phrase, God wants your worship according to the way he made you. God wired you to connect with him. Now, last week the message was entitled finding your spiritual pathway. Today's message is entitled feeding your soul. It's based off this idea. The best way to fight your stress is to feed your soul. Psychologists have put it this way that your brain creates maps for routines and rhythms in everyday life, for example, you know what to expect when you go to work, You know, the expected route from your living room chair to the fridge in your kitchen and your brain stores these maps so that it uses less and less energy the more you do them. That's why you don't think a whole lot when you shower or when you brush your teeth because it's become a habit. Now, all of us has experienced something that we've never experienced before. No one has a map for how to respond this way. That when we face this global pandemic known as COVID-19, everyone has struggled creating a new map for how we're supposed to function as a society, how we're supposed to function at work and how we're supposed to function at home. So the fact that we're trying to create these mental maps in our mind these days create stress Gary thomas in his book, shared the following story. Two women planted to vegetable gardens with the same supplies on the same day. But with one very big difference, one lady planted the seeds in her garden and then walked away and simply waited for the harvest. The other took care of the garden and worked in the garden daily. Put netting and protection around young vegetables pruned where needed, have extra water and fertilizer when needed. And so when time for the harvest came, her harvest was plentiful. The vegetables tasted amazing. She saved a lot of money because she didn't have to go to the store. She had all this incredible food. And she saw that her investment was worth it. Now the lady who just planted the seeds and walked away came back to find that her vegetables barely grew, the animals came and ate what was there. And so she did not think that planting the garden was worth it when really it wasn't the garden's fault, but it was the fact that she didn't take care of it. This applies to us today because faith has to be cared for, not just simply planted in your life. Being a christian is not about praying a prayer when you were young, but rather walking with jesus on a daily basis. And so what it means to feed your soul is to take care of your faith, to feed your soul each and every day. If you have your bibles open to 2nd Peter Chapter one The Apostle Peter is writing to a group of people who are experiencing difficulties and afraid of the unknown future. We pick it up. And second Peter chapter one verse three, His referring to God, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, and by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become part takers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Now I highlighted two key phrases, because I want you to notice the connection. The first phrase is that God's divine power leads to life and Godliness. That God gives us the power the power known as the Holy Spirit, so that we can live an abundant life and a life of Godliness. Now, how do we do that? Well, it's through knowledge of him, and then God calls us not to our glory, but to his glory, for his own glory and excellence. And so the first thing is divine power leads to life and Godliness. But second, you see his precious and very great promises. So his divine promises leads to a better experience, and we become part acres of his divine nature. Now, what is a part acre of his divine nature? It means that jesus didn't come down to experience your life, is that he came down so that we could experience his, It's not about God entering your story, which is true, but the greater story is that when your life and your heart enters his story, and so I want you to see this connection, that God's divine power leads to life and godliness. And then God's divine promises leads to a better experience as we become part takers in his divine nature, and it gives us the ability to overcome our sinful desires. His divine power leads to life and Godliness, and then his divine promise leads to a better experience. Let's continue reading for this very reason. Make every effort to supplement your faith you could also translate as saying, Make every effort to feed your soul. Remember, the best way to fight stress is to feed your soul. That faith is not something to be planted, but rather to be cared for. Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and with virtue, Knowledge and knowledge with self control and self control with steadfastness and steadfastness with Godliness and Godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love. Now we could do a deeper dive into those specific words. But I want you to notice the growth and the trajectory of someone's spiritual maturity and walk with God. There's always a next step of faith to take because here's where we see the emphasis in verse eight for if these qualities are yours and are increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord, jesus christ. So when you make every effort to supplement your faith, it's not saying that you're going to be perfect, but rather that you are trying. That you're walking in grace and that you are trying to care and tend for your soul and trying to build into maturity. Your walk with God. That if you pursue him daily, that it'll keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful and if those are negative words. So if you flip that if you want to be effective in your life if you want to have a fruitful life. The best thing you can do is to make every effort to add to your faith or in other words the best way to fight the stress is to feed your soul. Okay now what does this mean? What does this look like? How do we apply this teaching of feeding our soul? I want to spend the next couple of minutes and get very practical and I want to share with you three applications that you can apply right now with your preferred pathway. The first one is this monitor your input, not just your output. Let me say that again, monitor your input, not just your output. I put in the words, not just because it is good to see the output. The goal here is not simply to be lazy and not do anything but this is a challenge, especially in Western culture where we have been told to do and to create and to build and to go. And it seems almost un american to be unproductive. When you go out in public. Well when you used to go out in public and you met people for the first time you would say, oh what is your name? And what's the next logical question? Think about it. Oh what do you do? See in our culture, we tend to measure by what we do and sometimes in our spiritual life we tend to measure by what we do. Well in times of stress it can be more difficult to produce higher results. We're stressed about producing at work. We're stressed about producing at home. We're stressed about homeschooling our kids and making sure they turn out okay, we're stressed that we're going to turn out okay. Well it's important to understand that while we're trying to measure output and we're trying to find a new normal, it's important to monitor your input. How exactly are you feeding your soul? Jesus gives us the perfect example in luke chapter five, he just began his public earthly ministry. People are starting to follow him. They're starting to follow his miracles and notice here in this verse luke, chapter five yet the news about him and it was about Jesus spread all the more so that the crowds of people, not dozens, the crowds of people came to hear him to be healed of their sickness. So the ministry of Jesus was growing, his business was growing, his notoriety was growing and how did jesus respond? But Jesus often not one time, but often withdrew to lonely places to pray, Jesus got away to monitor his input or connection with his heavenly father. So before you tell me that you are too busy and life is too hectic to get away and to connect with God. Remember that Jesus and God himself created the world and upon creation of the world, took a sabbath jesus who came to bring salvation to everyone routinely and regularly got away to have input in connection with his preferred pathway to God. Now, what was the preferred pathway for jesus? Well the good news for you and for me is that he actually represents all of the different pathways that throughout the gospels, all the pathways that we've talked about, you can find an example of how jesus connected with his heavenly father in that way. And so it's not just simply that he connected in contemplation, but it's the fact that he went often to monitor, not just his output, but his input and the busier life got and the higher the stakes and the more pressure he felt, jesus connected with God and monitored his input secondly, it's important to avoid the comparison trap, now that you've identified your preferred spiritual pathway, you're gonna experience either pride for the things that you have or pity for the things that you don't have, but Pride and pity are like two sides of the same coin, I'm gonna pull up the seven pathways here, I want to share briefly how each of these can help you experience pride or pity when you make it about yourself? For example, if you're an activist, you get upset when people don't get as heated as you do, do you think that you're passionate about making a difference and that you think other people are just apathetic and lazy at the same time, if you're not an activist and that scares you a little bit, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and sometimes when we are afraid to change everything, we don't change anything and that's wrong too. Now if you are one who leans towards contemplation, other people who don't do that, who don't pray as long as you do, who don't read as much as you do, you might find or be tempted to look down on those people. But if you do that, those type of people are described in the bible as Pharisees, where they really started to judge people for not being as spiritual as they were. That's incredible that you can spend hours praying to God and you take your faith seriously. But just remember that the closer you draw to God the more it should lead you to humility and love if you are drawing closer, but it leads you to feel more judgmental of others. I would argue that you're drawing closer to religion and not a relationship. So that's the pride temptation for those who lean towards contemplation. But the pity temptation is that it's like man, I don't know how to pray that long, I get distracted and again we get overwhelmed and we think we can't do everything. So then we result of doing nothing. Have you ever been home and felt like you had so many things to do, you had so much homework er so much work to do and because you had so much to do, the next thing is you found yourself watching netflix or doing something completely unrelated. Have you ever had a task that you had to do and you didn't know how to do it or it felt too overwhelming. So instead you picked a completely different task and started working on that. That is natural for humans to do that. But that's when we fall into the pity of comparison trap. And so if we think we are amazing at something, we judge others. But then if we are afraid to step into that world, we are unwilling to take even just a little bit. So it looks like this. Maybe you can't pray for an hour, but you can pray for a minute. If you pray for a minute, maybe you could pray for two, three or 4 or five and see where it grows from there. So rather than saying I can't do everything, so I'm gonna do nothing, decided to take one small step today. Now for a naturalist, the temptation and pride is to think that others have a small view of God. If you have that friend that is sharing pictures of nature and you're like, man, how does this not impact you? Isn't God amazing? Remember it? It shouldn't lead us to judgment, it should lead us to connection on the reverse. Have you gotten too comfortable with your surroundings? Maybe nature isn't your pathway, but have you become too familiar with the sunsets to stand in awe with what God is doing in his creation? Let us not fall into a rut of routine and miss the miracles that are all around us. Next. For those that lean towards intellect. These are the people that can be kind of snobby and and talk above everybody else. And we use language that other people don't use. And so we try to show our intellect what it says in scriptures do not get a puffed up head. The Pharisees were the same way the Pharisees A lot a lot of them really memorized the first five books of the bible. We love to show how impressive we are by learning a verse or two, they knew the entire first five books, but yet they missed God. Again, your pursuit of knowledge is really a pursuit of God, not a pursuit of pride. On the flip side. We think, well that's just not me. I'm not a books person, I'm just not a school person. Okay, But if you love someone, are you willing to learn about them. Because if you love someone you want to learn about who they are and when you learn about God who he is, you learn about him through reading scripture. Next you see relationships. There are extroverts and introverts. Well, people that are extroverts or lean towards connecting with God and community really like how, how dare you don't want to be a part of this group. This is the church, the church was always together again. Don't let pride seep into your heart at the same time, I don't think that you have to have a bazillion relationships. Maybe it's about going deep and one on one and connecting on a soul level or how about those who love to serve? It's like the story of Martha and mary, Martha loved to serve. That was her pathway. But she got mad at mary in the Gospel who was sitting at the feet of jesus, jesus corrected Martha, saying not to judge because of that, because Martha was working, sharing her gift, but mary was connecting with jesus on a personal level at the same time again, when people don't know what to do to serve, we end up sometimes at the result of doing nothing at all. So you don't have to change the entire world. But I bet you can change somebody's world and it starts with one text, one act of service. So what is one thing that you can do today and last but certainly not least. I think in worship, you see extremes of pride and pity. You see people in church services that are just going all out and their hands are up and their eyes are closed and they're dancing and they're swaying and it can seem like they are so connected to God, but yet other people are not, maybe that's just not you. So doug don't judge people who are not doing the same things as you. But at the same time, don't mistake hands raised and eyes closed for spirituality, it's easy for people in the worship field to fake it. So rather lean into your pathway, lean into your spirit and connect with God the way that God has wired you, but be careful not to judge other pathways and be careful not to pity yourself when you don't jump into those other pathways, we can all learn together and create beautiful music when we play the different chords that fit together as the body and the bride of christ So how do you feed your soul? Three applications were talking about this morning number one, monitor your input, not just your output, Number two, avoid the comparison trap and finally decide to show up. I know this sounds almost obvious, but the christian walk in the christian life is not about succeeding or failing when we talk about these pathways and connecting to God and tending to your garden and feeding your soul my heartbeat is not to just give you another set of checklists to do or not, do defeat into your pride or to your pity, but rather it's to create the environment and the opportunity to connect with God, the way that he's wired you, we want to create the space for you to refresh and renew your soul. That's so that you can be effective and fruitful in your spiritual life and walk with God? So as simple as the sound, decide to show up, think about your time in childhood. What are the moments, the positive ones that you remember with your parents or with a mentor with a friend? Chances are it was when they were there for you, when they showed up for you, for me in my childhood, I remember the times where my mom comforted me when I scraped my knee or or helped me read or my mom was the one who led me to faith and told me about heaven and hell. I think about the times that I was connected with my father who who taught at a university. I remember being in his office or remember traveling around with him as he would speak at other churches. I remember all the hours he put in when I would play basketball and he would be an assistant coach, the bus rides and the car rides to and from games. We remember these moments because we are with people and so wherever you are in your relationships, decide to show up at work now, respect the stay at home order. But understand what I'm saying here, show up mentally emotionally, intellectually, give everything that you have. Can you say that your business is better because you were there, Can you say that your family and your friendships are better because you were there. Do you bring light and hope into every conversation or do you bring anger and doubt and questioning and backstabbing the decision to show up is the decision to routinely and consistently be there with God, God doesn't want another checklist, he wants you his child and he created you in a unique way to connect with him just as I connect with my own Children in unique ways God wants to connect with you so that if you monitor your input and not just your output, you take time to take care of the garden of your soul. If you avoid the comparison trap and avoid judging others because they have a different pathway. Rather lean into yours and explore others and then you just decide to routinely and regularly show up show up in your relationship with God, show up in your relationships, in your friendships, in your marriage and parenting and in work, I think you're gonna see that not only will you survive this season of stress, you will thrive and reach a new level and a new normal and a new connection with God that is deeper than ever before. So right there where you're watching, if you're watching with a group of people you can discuss together if you're watching on our website on Youtube or on facebook, you can comment below or if you're watching by yourself, text a friend that you know is also watching this message and I want you to ask these two questions, number one, what's one thing you can do this week Now highlight one thing because I want you to be specific. So for example, if it's nature, say on Tuesday, I'm gonna go for a walk in the morning before work, right? If its intellect say I'm gonna read the gospel of john this week or pick something, pick something very specific. Maybe it's worship and you say, you know what, if I have to drive somewhere to the grocery store and back, I'm not gonna listen to talk radio, but I'm gonna listen to worship music and I'm going to pray whatever your preferred pathway. I want you to take one specific action and whatever that is. I want you to type that in the chat or comment section below and let us know how we can be praying for you and let us help spur one another on to good works as hebrews 1024 and 25 says and let us encourage one another. It's not about bragging, don't go on and say this week, I'm going to read the entire bible. Okay, don't go crazy. Just tell us one thing that you can do and if you're not sure what to do, ask a question, I'm guessing someone will comment below and give you guidance for a step that you can take or maybe you can connect with someone who has a similar pathway and you guys can experience that together. So first thing, what's one thing you can do this week in your spiritual pathway, in your time list. One specific action that you can take to connect with God and feed your soul. And the second question that you can ask right now is name one pathway that you would like to explore more, What is one pathway that you are not familiar with or that's not your strength that you're gonna try to go deeper in. For me, it's contemplation, I I love to pray, but I tend to lean towards scripture, so for this week I'm just telling you right now you can be my accountability partners Is that I'm going to spend 10 minutes every day away from music and really podcast. I tend to podcast because I connect intellectually and talking, I do way too much of that in technology. I'm just trying to try to experience God, not having young kids at home, chances are they're gonna be climbing and playing everywhere. So this might involve walking in some way, but I'm gonna try to take 10 minutes to experience contemplation, which is not so much natural for me. So that's what I'm doing, what are you doing? Which one way that you can lean into your pathways and then what's one pathway that you want to explore or experience this week, maybe for the first time or in a different way than you ever have before. God loves you, I love you and remember the best way to fight stress in your life is to feed your soul. Let's pray dear Heavenly Father give us faith today to fight for today and tomorrow. God help us not just to plant faith in our life, but to take care of and tend our souls and our faith help us to make every effort to add to our faith and to take that next step in our relationship with you. God help us to monitor our input, not just our output when we spend time in our preferred pathways. God help us to avoid the comparison trap. Maybe not lean towards pride or to pity, but rather love and humility and God help us to decide to show up each and every day in our busy schedules and our stressful lives. The best way to be effective and fruitful is to feed our soul through connecting with you, help us to do that this week, we love you God your sons and we pray Amen, thank you for tuning in. If you would like further discussion or connection, you can comment below or on our website. If you're watching on that platform, you can click the live prayer and have a conversation right now, I know that you are loved, know that God loves you and that we're in this together, have a great day and God bless