[00:00:00] Well welcome central. So glad that you're with us today. Thanks for inviting me into your homes or wherever you're watching this right now. My name is Tyler. I'm the Gilbert campus pastor for central. And I wanted to start before we dive into the message, just with the realization that 2020 has been tough. [00:00:39] I mean, I know that as an understatement, but it's been hard and my heart breaks for what's going on. But I know that there's hope found in Jesus. And so I'm just going to open us this whole thing up with prayer. Jesus, we love you. Thank you for who you are. God. Right now, when the world is [00:01:00] hurting, help us to lean in, to be United, to hear from you, to listen and to love better. [00:01:07] And everyone, even if you're watching on your TV or your computer screen, a man, a man, well, I love this series that we're in. Oh, the places we will go and we're learning from books and we're crafting a message together that you're going to be able to apply to your life. And so the book that I have chosen is how's your soul. [00:01:32] The author is Judas Smith. He's a lead pastor in Seattle. They got a few campuses over there and then one in LA and really they launched an app two years ago. So their whole church is truly global. When this pandemic hit, they were actually prepared for it because of that. I followed his, his teaching a lot and he's just an incredible communicator and leader, and I love how he presents the gospel. [00:01:56] So we're going to dive into this book with such a lofty, deep [00:02:00] question. How's your soul. I mean, what happened to like how you do and they're like, how's the weather? I mean, this is quite the question, but I, I gotta, I got to share with you these past few months, we've been in quarantine and. Now, I don't know what you did in quarantine. [00:02:17] I found myself very, very busy. I was working a lot, but there was obviously some downtime because in the evenings, you know, you couldn't go out to restaurants or see a movie or anything like that. And so I realized Disney land. Is closed, but Disney plus is open and I'm a huge Disney fan. I love all things Disney. [00:02:38] And so I want to do some research. I wanted to go and watch the classic princess Disney films. I never seen them before. I never watched them all the way through. So I literally watched them all back to back to back. The ones that I'm talking about are snow white. Okay. Cinderella and sleeping beauty, those three. [00:02:56] And so when I was watching them, I was absolutely blown away. [00:03:00] Great films, obviously, but they're all the same now. I'm sorry. If you just got triggered right there right now. Trust me. I love you. Jesus loves you, but they're, they're all the same. I mean, literally like there there's always a Prince. There's always a princess. [00:03:12] There's always a castle it's in Europe somewhere, and they always want to find their true love and they always live happily ever after. The part that is just hilarious to me is when the princess, whoever she may be, she's frolicking in, you know, the woods and there's birds and she's singing to the animals and the animals know what she's. [00:03:34] Same in all the movies just saying it's real. And then a Prince comes and then they hang out or they hang out at a ball and don't even have a conversation. I mean, there's no dialogue. There's no like, Hey, how's your heart right now? It's I mean, they're not asking anything. How's your path. Let's talk. No, it's just smiling and Oh, you look beautiful and let's dance and, Oh, there's a bird. [00:03:56] And then they realize. That's my true love. [00:04:00] That's my true love. And at the end of the movie, the only way the princess survives is she has to be woken up by true Love's kiss and true loves kisses from somebody that she met for two minutes without actually having a conversation. But that's their true love, but I'm telling you that's because our culture is such an outside first culture. [00:04:19] We look at the outward appearance and we say, Oh yes, that's beautiful. That's great. We don't care about getting to know someone on the end side. And you might laugh at and say, no, no, no, no. We're not really like that. We're absolutely like that. That is our culture, but we push against it. You know, we have these phrases, like don't judge a book by its cover. [00:04:40] Then why do we spend so much time designing the cover for, for us? Of course, the cover matters. But for God, it does not because God looks within. We see them first, Samuel 16, seven. It says this, but the Lord said to Samuel don't judge by his appearance or height for, I have [00:05:00] rejected him. The Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. [00:05:03] People judge by outward appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart. You could actually place the word, his soul where scripture says heart, many times interchangeable within scripture. But the Lord looks within. We need to talk about what's going on inside. We need to talk about though within the true us, the inner us, we need to talk about the soul, the soul. [00:05:33] There's this quote from 1892, George McDonald's. He said this very profound, never tell a child, you have a soul. Teach him. You are a soul. You have a body. Now when I say so I might be losing you, you might be like, Whoa, that's not really how I understand things. I mean, you might be thinking more of like your inner beam, maybe your vibes, [00:06:00] your Zen, your cheek, your Juju, your mojo, your thoughts, meditation, but all of us can agree that there's this inner deeping longing within. [00:06:13] And Judas Smith, the author of this book, he takes us on a journey and he asks all of these questions that we so easily just gloss over because we're fixated on the outward appearance. There's so many self help books. But really the self help books are nothing about what's going on on the inside. It's all about the outer periods. [00:06:35] It's Oh, you got to lose weight. You got to look a certain way. You need to be richer. You need health, you need wealth, you need all of these things. You need to be successful. [00:06:46] Giudice he defines the soul simply as the inner self, the real us, the invisible personality. That is actually more visible than our physical bodies. [00:07:00] So I'm a parent, a parent of two boys. And if you're a parent out there, I mean, seriously, you are going to understand this. And if you're not a parent, this is how your parents thought. [00:07:12] Now wait, when that time comes, where you're about to bring that little bundle of joy home in whatever way that's happening. What we do as parents is we set up the home. We make the setting just right. We nest, we get the perfect crib. We get the blankets, we get the toys, the pictures on the wall. Our nurseries have themes. [00:07:32] I don't even know that was a thing, but it's real. People are like trying to give us gifts and they're like, Oh, what's the theme of your nursery? I'm like, there's supposed to be a theme. I guess I, to have a theme. Now we get all of this stuff. We get the monitors. Oh yeah. Those cameras in there to check on the baby and to see if they're moving and to see if they're crying and check their brainwaves and their heart rate and everything. [00:07:50] And they're connected to our phone. We set all of this up. So they're safe and they're secure when we bring them home. God did the very [00:08:00] same thing for us, for our soul. God, when it all started in the beginning in Genesis, he created a place. He had a setting for us, for our souls to thrive. And these are the four things that God offered us since the beginning. [00:08:20] The first one is rest Genesis two eight, nine says this, the Lord, God had planted a garden in the East, in Eden. And there he put the man formed the Lord. God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground trees that were pleasing easy to the eye and good food. The first thing God wants us to do is to chill is to rest. [00:08:46] And we say, really? Yeah, because. He wants us to realize none of this, you could do. I mean, literally he says to Adam, he's on all of this and, and, and he's put the trees there and it says the trees are [00:09:00] beautiful. They're pleasing to the eye. God could have just made vending machines to feed him, but no, he wanted to make something beautiful. [00:09:05] And these trees gave him food and he was able to sit back and realize, wow, I'm not that big of a deal, but the one who made all of this is I need to rest. In that that's what God wants for us in our culture, in our society right now, rest is something we don't like to do. We think NATO, uh, work really hard and then I'll earn my rest. [00:09:30] I'll do all of these things. And then arrest says, rest first, [00:09:38] Abraham Heschel says this. The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays. The weekdays are for the sake of the Sabbath. It is not an interlude, but the climax of living, it's the climax of living this, this restfulness that we're supposed to have [00:10:00] for our soul. I mean, when you go outside in the great outdoors, right in the woods or anything like that, there's just something about when you just. [00:10:09] You breathe, you take it all in and you say, this is good for my soul. There's a reason for that. That's how God designed it for us. We need to rest. The second thing that God gives us is responsibility. Genesis two 15 says the Lord, God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. [00:10:32] Now, let me address a huge misconception here. See, we think, Oh yeah, the work is so difficult and that happened, you know, because of the curse. No, no, no, no, no, no. The fall of man happened in chapter three. This is in chapter two, chapter three says this verse 17 and to the man, he said, since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not eat, the ground is cursed because of you all of your life, you will [00:11:00] struggle to scratch a living from it. [00:11:02] It will go. It will grow thorns and thistles for you though. You will eat of its grain by the sweat of your brow. You will have food to eat until you return to the ground from what you were made. So this means that the curse and work being so difficult, all of that, that mindset that was after Adam already had a job before this took place and he was loving it. [00:11:25] God gave him a job. There was responsibility there. That is for us. We are supposed to actually enjoy boy our work. And you might say, no, no, no. There's no way I can't do that. You might say it's not the job. It's my boss. My boss is the problem. Like if I got a new boss, a different boss than work would be just fine. [00:11:45] Well, let me tell you that scripture is very clear. It says that we should work as we're working for the Lord. Not for man. And guess what? God is the best boss. I mean, I mean, God is the best boss. God's the one that he's going to [00:12:00] lead you so well, and you'll get to understand this purpose and this passion that you can have by working for him, this responsibility, whatever has been put in your hands to steward, do it. [00:12:08] Well, that responsibility that God has given you is a gift for your soul. No, a lot of us, we try to chase a role when it comes to working in our jobs, we say, I'll be okay, I'll be good on the inside. If I get that promotion, if I get that corner office, if I have that view, if I have that car, if I have that parking space, then I'll be good. [00:12:31] Research studies have shown that is not the case. We can't try to achieve so much so that we can be refreshed on the inside. That's not how it works. And we have to understand this quote from John candy from the movie. Cool. Runnings. Yeah. You heard it says this a golden metal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it you'll never be enough with it. [00:12:58] We have to stop striving [00:13:00] so that we can reach a height that will fulfill us in our job and just realize the job alone. And the responsibility is the blessing. The third thing is restraint that God gives us. That's not a sexy word. Okay. You're probably not like, Oh really? Oh, tell us what the scripture says, but here it is, Genesis two 16, 17, and the Lord, God commanded the man. [00:13:22] You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for when you eat from it, you will certainly die. I don't know about you, but those are pretty clear instructions. You will die. I'm probably not going to do that thing, but we all know what happened. [00:13:40] Now. The understanding of restraint is, is the realization that there's harm in access there's harm in X, in too much freedom, Antwan sane. Decent expert. I just totally butchered that name. Excuse my French. He's very French. And his name is [00:14:00] French. And so I didn't pronounce it quite right, but he said this incredible quote, he wrote in a book called the little Prince in 1943. [00:14:06] He says this too much freedom can lead to the souls decay. It's not good for us to have no boundaries. We all know the kid that was never told no growing up. And if you don't know him, you're that kid. Sorry, but it's true. You might not like the word restraint. Maybe, maybe a better word could be secure. We need security for our soul. [00:14:34] It needs to be safe. Loving boundaries are just that they're loving. We need those lines. I mean, literally I was driving the other day on Ray, in Gilbert, in the East Valley and the resurfacing the road. And so all the lines, these are gone, you would think people are like, Oh yeah, I remember the lines used to be, I'll just drive right there. [00:14:54] Nope. Honorary complete chaos. I mean, it's nuts. People are like driving [00:15:00] everywhere because there's not simple lines. They don't know where to drive. Boundaries are good. God gives them to us for our soul. The last thing is relationships, relationships. This is the fourth thing. Genesis two 18. The Lord God said, it's not good for man to be alone. [00:15:21] I will make a helper suitable for him. And before I explained the importance of relationships, let me just focus in on that word helper. So many times where we're told maybe in church, are you. Heard that this word helper is like, Oh yeah. Adam is like super awesome and great. And then, you know, it's like, it's not good that he's alone. [00:15:41] And then Eve needs to come along and just like help Adam be awesome. And just like help out. That's not the case here at all. The original word helper in the original language comes from the meaning to rescue, to save and to be strong.

that's the, that's the word? That's the name helper as her [00:16:00] and God is called this name actually in the old Testament. [00:16:03] When he's helping Israel win a war. Yeah. That's not just some person to come along and just help a little, but here in general, that is a complete, beautiful partnership companion. We need people to do life with. We're not supposed to do life alone. We need people in our lives. This quarantine has been hard. [00:16:24] Need people, we need relationships and we need to be able to pick our friends wisely. Listen to me on this one, choosing your relationships is one of the most spiritual things you can do because your soul matters. There might be people in your life that are just a drain on your soul, but then there's others where you feel like your soul is refreshed. [00:16:50] You don't want to have those people that are, that are tearing you away from what God has originally designed you to have. He wants you to have great relationships. [00:17:00] So that is the home that God created for our soul. So the question is, how's your soul. If you're confused on that, just ask yourself these questions is rest. [00:17:15] Something that you'll get to when you have the time. When your bank account is full, do you still feel empty? Do you fight the urge to control everything in your life? When you're in a room full of people, do you still feel alone? All of these are signs that your soul is not healthy. So what now? Like what, what do we do? [00:17:43] Well, I could tell you to pray and sing worship songs. And fast and read the Bible. All of those are good things. Don't get me wrong. It was a great things, but I'm going to come at this with a little bit different of an angle, going back to how God originally designed it all for us. [00:18:00] So I'm going to give you some practical steps that you can do for your soul. [00:18:03] They might not sound spiritual to you at first, but they truly are. First one is for rest. Go on a hike, go on a hike. Go outside and look at things around you that you could never make gaze up to the stars and realize how big and vast God is. And rest in that maybe you could whistle while you work. [00:18:30] Whistle while you work, have a good time in your job, because it's not about your job. It's about what you bring to the table, how God has created you. He's designed you a certain way with gifts, talents, and abilities to bring into a work environment. So have a good time there. Enjoy it, steward at well that responsibility live live in the framework that God has provided for you. [00:18:57] Stay in the lines. Don't rebel against it. [00:19:00] Lean into the security God has for your soul and relationships. Call up a friend and go out to coffee and have a conversation. Just do that. Just, just, just sit down and look them in the eye, have a dialogue. Don't look at your screens, have a relationship with someone that's helping you. [00:19:26] Ultimately church need to come back home. We need to come back home. And our home is the presence of God. See all that stuff, all that fancy stuff that I mentioned earlier, right? The camera's in the blankets and the cribs and all of that, the toys that we set up and we prepare for our child to come home. [00:19:49] Those things are worthless. If we're not there. See the presence of God is what ties all of these things together. It's what gives these four things meaning [00:20:00] see in the garden in Genesis, God walked with Adam in the cool of the day. His presence was there. It was felt so his soul was secure. His soul was home because our home is with God. [00:20:18] And when our souls can come home, they're healthy. And when our souls are healthy, we can love people better. So let's do that. Let's love people better. Now, follow me on this. God is love and our souls are secure when we come back to him. So when we come back to him, we're able to love like Jesus loves. Now I can go, but you got to read the book, right? [00:20:45] You got, you gotta read the book. They're there. There's more to the story there. Now I've given some spoilers already, but what I will say is this, our soul is healthiest when we can love others. I mean, love like with no conditions, [00:21:00] assume the best. If someone wrongs you, they didn't mean it. If someone didn't text you back, they were in the shower. [00:21:07] When your soul is good and healthy and secure. You're confident in that you are complete, you are lacking nothing because you're satisfied by God. Wholly 100%. That way you can love without limits. That's what Jesus did. That's what Jesus does. It's still hard for us because we focus outside in, we see outside first, not inside, [00:21:46] but. We serve an inside out God. That's the good news church. We serve an inside out God. He does his best work inside out. That's the only way that you can save and [00:22:00] transform a soul. [00:22:05] There's a scripture might be familiar to you found in second Corinthians. It's a scripture that came to life for me. Cause I witnessed this taking place. Second Corinthians five 17 says this means anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone. A new life has begun. [00:22:37] I grew up in a great family. Mom and dad is so loving. Faith-filled took us to church all the time. My brother, I had the same home, right. Physically, same setting. The only difference is my, my brother is much shorter than myself. You might say, Whoa, Tyler. And then now [00:23:00] he is, he's five foot four now, but we're a kids he would get picked on. [00:23:06] And I've never understood why people make fun of each other as high or brag about their highlight. Oh, I'm really tall. You did nothing to get tall. Okay. I'm just saying like, you didn't do anything now. You might be saying Tyler. You're just saying that because you're short. I am five, 10 and a half. Thank you very much. [00:23:20] Okay. But my brother is five, four, and in sixth grade he decided, well, everyone makes fun of me, but the only people that don't make fun of me are the ones that people think are odd or off the beaten path, or maybe rebellious. So we got going with the wrong crowd, if you will. I mean, he got into all types of things. [00:23:40] A lot of sin, there was drugs, there was alcohol, there was girls, he was running away from home constantly. When he was home, he was just fixing another way to get in trouble. It was a dark time and season. I, my brother was just in and out of the house. This lasted up until he was in his twenties. [00:24:00] And one day I came home and. [00:24:02] It's called off from school senior in high school. And I walked through the door. My mom's not there. I'm like, what's the deal. My mom always greets me when I come to the door. Like, what's the, you know, she's so sweet, so nice. But I walk in, I, I realized she has a guest there in the living room. So I go in there and to be polite, I, I go over there and I, they, they stand up. [00:24:20] I put my hand to introduce myself to this guest who wasn't a guest. It was my brother. [00:24:31] by him. I recognize him. I didn't recognize him because, I mean, I'm not kidding you. He was like glowing. I'm not being overdramatic here. It's like glowy. He was wearing. I'll never forget. We wearing like this bright yellow polo by bread bread. And my brother, I love you. What's the deal what's going on? He goes last night, Jesus changed my life. [00:24:55] I was. At the end of my road, I was going to be done with, I was going to kill [00:25:00] myself. I was going to be dealt with life, but I reached out. I called out to God. I said, God, I don't want to keep living this way. I want to live for you, but show up in my life. And God did his soul came home that night. And then the next day he came home to our house. [00:25:19] And I got to watch my older brother, this process of becoming the man got, always wanted him to be from the inside out. That's our God, he's an inside out God. And he went to Bible college and he got married and he got great grades. And he started working at a church and he's a pastor in Washington and he's amazing. [00:25:36] And he's bringing people back to God and changing lives through Jesus Christ because our God is an inside out God. He wants our soul to be saved and secure. [00:25:53] So how's your soul. Like really? I'm not asking you how you're [00:26:00] doing. See, see charts, you can Dodge that question. That's why we revert to it. So often we say, Oh, how are you doing? How are you doing? Because we ask a question that we're okay. Getting asked. Right. Because if someone asks us how you doing, we can, we can fake it. [00:26:19] We're all good. Everything's just fine. Kids are behaving. House looks great. Car just got washed. It's amazing. That's could all be a lie, but how would that person know? But when you ask the deeper question, how's your soul. You can't Dodge that because they're speaking to the true you, the real you. So how's your soul church. [00:26:47] Cause we need to come back home. We need to spend time with the only one who can refresh our soul, knowing that our God is an inside out God. So let's come [00:27:00] home church. That's come home, come home to a relationship with God through Jesus. This way we can love people. Like he loves. Cause we can see them how he sees from the inside out. [00:27:17] So take some inventory right here. Right now. How's your soul in these four areas? How can your soul get healthier in the area of rest? Maybe that's what you need to focus in on maybe responsibility. Maybe it's restraint, maybe it's relationships. But whatever it is, if it's one or if it's all four lean in to what God has given you, the world he's provided for you, the home, which is his presence, come back to God because he wants you to thrive. [00:28:01] [00:28:00] Let me pray. Jesus. Thank you for who you are. Jesus. Thank you for being an inside out God for seeing us, for who we really truly are. And we're loved. We're loved God help us to come home. Help us to just lean into who you are, what you've offered us. [00:28:29] God, we love you. God. The world's hurting right now. But God, your heart is broken. Help us to see people as you see people help us to love like you and everybody said in Jesus name. Amen.