Seismic Shifts
Session 1 “From Doing to Being”
RBW (inspired from “seismic shifts” book)
Introduction:
+ Seismic Promo Video Clip
Congregational Reading:
(Have them stand and read)
+ Psalm 139:13-16 (NIV)
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
+ Q: How was your week? (thumbs up or thumbs down). With 911 it was kind of an emotional week for a lot of us. Did you notice that if we get a lot done, if we did well, if we accomplish what we needed, then it’s a thumbs up. If we don’t it’s a thumbs down. We have to measure up, get the promotion, accomplish the task. We’re driven, we’re compelled to have more value, to have worth by what we do. It’s engrained throughout our culture.
+When we were just babies it was the first thing that surrounded our new baby lives. And right after we were each born our father’s ran to the waiting rooms and announced to the rest of the family and the friends, “It’s a girl!” “It’s a boy!” Just like bagging that 8 point buck or catching that big catfish, the father holds up his hands and says, “my boy was 12 lbs, 6 ounces, and 24” long… High-fives go all around while the new mother sits in shock having just given birth to a purple Alien child, the length of a snake and the head of a watermelon!
+Right after birth we’re measured, sized, probed and tested to see if we measure up, if we’re like everybody else, if we’re “normal”. Heck, I’m normal for a premature child, who had blood numerous blood transfusions in order to keep me alive, for having been dropped on head down concrete stairs when I was 9months old, for having had double vision until I was 25.
+What’s normal anyway? As Barbara Johnson says, “normal is just a setting on your dryer!”
In this society we’re always being judged, critiqued and compared alongside of someone else’s performance. I’m the first to admit that in kindergarten I failed at Nap-time. Today, I’d be put on medication and labeled ADHD. I’m not ADHD, I’m just really excited!
+So, what equation determines your Net worth? It’s simple. Get out your emotional calculator, add up your diplomas, your trophies, your possessions, and all that you’ve done in this life and you’ll quickly discover the painful fact that when we evaluate ourselves according to this world’s standards, it’ll never be enough… It’ll never add up to success, and you’ll never find it multiplying your self-worth… never! The world’s math won’t add up to a place of joy and peace.
+So, throughout our lives we’re examining, comparing, and evaluating. That’s why I asked you when we started today, “How was your week?” because, we’re so trained into believing that our worth is based on how we perform… That I believe we even bring that into our Christian lives. I’m acceptable if I prayed this week… I can hold my head up high because I gave in the offering plate. I didn’t sin this week… too much. I didn’t cuss or yell at the kids or my spouse. I didn’t sleep through the Pastor’s sermon last week (first time). Therefore according to the congregational average, I made it. I passed, I performed.
And it’s easy to see why so many people believe that when they’re doing good God loves them, and that when they’re not, God doesn’t.
+Romans 5:8 (NIV)
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
The world says one thing. God says another. So how do we make the shift? How do we shake off the notion that what we do and how well we do it determines our worth?
+This is what this mini-conference is all about… how to do it. How to actually have biblical joy, peace… wholeness in our daily lives. And our author is quick to point out that it’s the little shifts in life that have big results.
Men, try bringing home flowers and love notes to your wife and see if those little shifts don’t bring about big results.
Ladies, make an extra effort to encourage your man, love on your man, cook and clean for your man, bring him his newspaper and his coffee in bed each day. Spend less on groceries but offer him a bigger menu. When he goes to bed surprise him by washing his car while he gets his rest. Shine his shoes… it’s the little things!
Well, God says that there’s nothing you can do to make Him love you anymore than He already does… and by the way God’s just crazy about you.
And this is the first seismic shift + Seismic Shift #1 (video clip)
My Value is not based on what I do, but on who I am.”
+#1 WE SHIFT FROM DOING TO BEING. (This is too important to forget, so here’s a gift. (pass out dominoes) Each week you’ll get the next, until you can line those up and watch each small shift make a big impact on all the rest).
We must be intentional to make these shifts happen in our lives.
It doesn’t just happen.
+What seismically shakes the old foundations of performance based acceptance is spending time in solitude with God. +What brings down the old mental structures and psychological walls is spending time in solitude away from others’ expectations and spending time in God’s word, letting the Holy Spirit speak to you. Let Him lecture and teach you. That’s what is called Lectio Divina (Divine reading).
Illustration: +Years ago when I was a building inspector during the Northridge earthquake I was given the task of going back into damaged building to assess the structural integrity. We would determine these high-rises to be worthy of demolition, only to find a crew of workers coming right behind us covering up the cracks with a coat of plaster and paint. This would hardly fix the problem, but they were more concerned with outward appearance than they were with inner integrity.
+Information, a coat of pain is not enough to repair the old cracked, damaged foundations of our lives. We must make permanent and intentional shifts in our lives to bring change.
Illustration: +After World War II as all the American servicemen were coming home, a sailor called his parents from San Diego. He said he was bringing a buddy home w/ him. "You see Mom," he said, "my friend’s in pretty bad shape. He was really wounded in battle. Now he only has one arm, one leg, and one eye. So I thought he could come live with us." After a few awkward moments of silence the mother said, "sure, he could come and stay a little while with us until he finds another place to live." It was obvious from the hesitancy in his mother’s voice that his friend wouldn’t feel welcome in his parents’ home. Some two weeks later the son never showed up. The parents received a telegram that their son had jumped from a hotel window. When they went to identify their son’s body it had one arm, one leg, and one eye.
Friends, God doesn’t care what you look like, or if you meet up to the expectations of others.
+ Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
+ Repeat after me: “There is nothing I can ever do / to make God love me any more / or love me any less.”
Watch this and see what I mean. + (Video: Lump 10mins)
So, God sits beside us, pulls back the covers of our shame and embraces us, forgives us, and loves us.
+1 John 3:1 (NIV)
1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
+1 John 4:10-11 (NIV)
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
+1 John 4:16 (NIV)
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
Please stand and repeat after me: + “I am loved by God!”
Each day this week wake up and say, “I am loved by God!”
Throughout each day say, “I am loved by God!”
And each evening before bed say, “I am loved by God!” And watch a small shift make a big change in your life.
