SoulShift, Part 3

This is part 3 in our SoulShift sermon series. It's called Slave to Child. Enjoy.

 

            There are a few words from a wife that can send a chill up every man’s spine. These words are so terrifying that they can make even the toughest man crumble.

            The words are: “We need to talk”

            Immediately we know what’s coming next.  Something in the relationship isn’t what it should be.

            While things may be fine in a man’s world, something isn’t right in the woman’s world and she will want to discuss it, and make a change in the relationship.

ILLUSTRATION- I’ve learnt from experience that when my wife says “it’s time talk”, that it’s time to talk.

She is telling me that something in our relationship isn’t quite right and it needs to be addressed.

            If we never talked about our relationship, it’s doubtful that we would be in the relationship today.

       These talks can be good, because there is almost always a change that comes from having one of these discussions.

            Believe it or not, we actually need to have these kinds of conversations with God. We need Him to assess our relationship and help us move forward in our walk with Him.

            As we’ve been discussing over the last couple of weeks, the disciples were with Jesus, but they weren’t minded like Jesus.

            They even went as far as debating their positions in His kingdom; they wanted positions of power.

They were with Jesus, but weren’t minded like Jesus. 

            The disciples had been with Jesus day in and day out for two years—that’s the equivalent of you coming to church each Sunday for 14 years, they had seen Jesus do great things for other people, but they were still curved inward; they were still thinking primarily about themselves.

            As the disciples were arguing amongst themselves as to who was the greatest, Jesus says to them: “fellas, we have to talk...”

He proceeded to tell them that “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." (Mark 9:35, NIV)

            Then, Jesus does something interesting: “He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me…” (Mark 9:36-37, NIV)

            Matthew puts it slightly different. Using the same little child as His illustration, Jesus said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3, NIV)

            Jesus is laying the groundwork for a change in our nature.

       Remember, this is what a SoulShift is. It’s a “change in the deepest part of our being… that makes us more like Christ and less like our old selves” (DeNeff)

            Jesus was reminding His closest followers that unless there was a change deep inside of them—deep in their soul; they would never enter heaven.

            One chapter later, the matter of Children comes up once again. We can read about this in Mark 10:13-15:

            “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.

14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

16 And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.” (Mark 10:13-16, NIV)

Among the Jews, it was customary for parents to bring their children to great men to have them blessed, but the Disciples were trying to prevent parents from bringing their children to Jesus.

At this, Jesus becomes “angry with his disciples” (Mark 10:14b, NLT2) and invited the children to come to Him; and He used this moment to explain a SoulShift…

“…anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:15, NLT2)

Most commentators suggest that Jesus was telling us to “act like children”, but I don’t think that’s what Jesus is saying.

He was, especially in Matthew 18, saying that we are to become like children.

Jesus is describing something about our Nature and the way we approach God.

He said that unless people change and become like children we will miss the kingdom of God.

Once again, Jesus and His disciples are of 2 different minds.

The disciples were worried that children were getting in the way, and Jesus was worried that the disciples weren’t like children.

            What Jesus was implying was the 2^nd SoulShift- a shift from Slave to child.

            It’s actually an amazing thing; as you read the Gospels, and the rest of the New Testament, you’ll see this shift.

        If we have surrendered our lives to Jesus, we are not slaves; we are actually Children, children of God.

            Allow me to give you 2 quick examples.

            Jesus, in Matthew chapter 6 reminds us that when we pray, we are not to broadcast it to the world, but are to find a quiet space, and “…close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” (Matt. 6:6b, NIV)

            Calling God “our Father” isn’t exactly the language of a slave, now is it?

            Or how about this example from the writing of Paul, as found in Galatians 4:

            “…when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.

       5 God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.

6 And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

7 Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.” (Gal. 4:4-7, NLT2)

God wants us to move away from thinking like a slave to thinking about what we really are: Children of the Living God.

But, if we’re telling the truth, there is a problem. The problem is we sometimes don’t see ourselves as His children.

ILLUSTRATION- I find this to be true each time I do something that I know to be wrong. I feel guilty; broken, abandoned, but regardless of how I feel, I am still His child.

Just as my daughter is still my daughter when she does something I don’t want her to do. She is my child for life…

            Want an example? Look at Luke 15. This is a story of a father and his two sons.

            The younger son, whom we’ll call Bob, decides that he’s sick of being at home and wants his share of his inheritance.

       Once his father gives him what he asked for, he jumped on the 6 o’clock train and headed for the city.

            After a few months of wild parties, Bob runs out of money and decides that in order to eat, he has to find work. The problem is that a recession has hit town, and the only work Bob is able to find is feeding the pigs.

            When he finally clues into his predicament, he decides that he needs to get back on the same 6 o’clock train that brought him to town, and get out of town.

            As he is on the way home, he takes out his iPad and begins writing an apology to his father.  

            As he’s working out this apology, he sees someone off in the distance running toward him.

            When Bob realizes it’s his father, he tells his him that he’s sorry, and is no longer worthy to be called his son.

       But his father responds, not by treating him like a slave, but by treating him like a son.

            It didn’t matter what Bob had done. All that mattered was that Bob came back home.

            This, of course, is a picture of what God does for us. While we might be a slave in our minds, He calls us sons and daughters and treats us as such.

            Steve DeNeff says: “When you don’t know who you are you’ll always act like someone you’re not—a person who is less than what you are meant to be” (DeNeff, 2011, 51)

            Church: God did not send His Son to die the death that we were supposed to die so we could live like a slave; God sent Jesus to die the death we were supposed to die, so we could be free:

            “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1, NIV)

            God doesn’t intend for us to be wrapped up in bondage, to have a poor self-image, or even to wallow in fear; God intended us to be free; to live, not as slaves, but to live as Children.

            The Bible says: “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!” (1 John 3:1, NIV)   

            Do you need this SoulShift to overtake your life? If Christ has set you free from your sin, you are not a slave; you are a Child of God! 

            How do we make this transition? How do we move from thinking like a slave, to thinking like a child?

            Listen to the right Voice.

ILLUSTRATION- The world is constantly speaking. It’s constantly sending out messages—messages like: “you’re too fat!” “You’re too thin”. “You don’t make enough money” “you make too much money…”

If we want to move from slave to child, we have to listen to the right Voice.

In order to listen to the right voice, we’ve got to spend time in God’s word. We need to memorize all that God has to say about us.

We need to know that:

è “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (Jn. 8:36, NIV)

è We need to know that nothing will ever separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (See Romans 8:37-39)

è We need to know that when we are weak, He is Strong. (See 2 Cor. 12:9)

You see church, God doesn’t view us as a slave, He views us a child, a child that He loves and deeply cares about.

ILLUSTRATION- In his book, Capital of the World, Ernest Hemingway, wrote about a father in Spain who had a son named Paco.

            Because of his son’s rebellion, Paco and his father were estranged. The father was bitter and angry with his son and kicked him out of the home.

            After years of bitterness, the father’s anger subsided, and he realized his mistake.

            He began to look for Paco with no results.

            Finally, in desperation, the father placed an ad in the Madrid newspaper.

            The ad read: “Paco, all is forgiven. Meet me at the newspaper office at 9 A.M. tomorrow. Love, your Father.”

            Paco is a rather common name in Spain, and Hemingway wrote that when the father arrived the next morning, there were six hundred young men named Paco waiting and hoping to receive their father’s forgiveness.” (SS sermons. Week 3)

            Friend, it matters not what you have done, God still views you as a child, as His child; He died for you; He paid your ransom; He loves you and He calls you His child.

            Do you need to experience this SoulShift? Do you need to move from being a slave; a slave of sin, a slave of guilt, a slave of your past, a slave of someone else’s opinion of you, to a child of God?

            Jesus said “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3, NIV)

            Do you need to experience this change deep in your soul? Do you need to move from Slave to child?

            The Good News is that our God is mighty to save! He is able to rescue you and help you move from slave to Child.

But we have to make that first step, we have to acknowledge that  by nature we are slaves, but we need to beleive that we don't have to remain a slave.

We don’t have to let our past determine our furture; because of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we can be free.

If you want to make that shift from slave to child, will you consider doing it today?

Will you consider leaving your past as a slave, and take your present and future as a child of God.

If so, then I invite you to stand and come to the front, and claim your true identity; not of a slave, but of a child of God.

 

SoulShift, part 2

This is post is the second in our current series, SoulShift. Enjoy!

 

 

Last Sunday we began a new sermon series called “SoulShift”.

A “SoulShift is a change in the deepest part of our being, usually after we are saved, and before we die, that makes us more like Christ and less like our old selves.” (DeNeff) 

As the name implies, this shift begins in our souls, because the soul is the place where God wants to meet us, so, again, I come back to the question that I asked last week: How is your soul?

Is there a way to adequately answer that question?

After all, it’s a little deeper than “are you at peace with yourself?” and “Is your heart right with God?” because both of these questions simply require a “yes” or “no” answer.

To adequately answer the “how is my soul” question, we’ve got to look deeper; and we need to answer this question with another question: “What do I do when no one is looking?”

Or better yet: “What do I think about when I allow my mind to wander?”

As we ponder the answer to these questions, it will give us a glimpse into

the state of our soul, which is at the core of who we are; because our soul determines what we think and what we do.

This is why Jesus spent a great deal of time focusing on the soul.

On one particular occasion, He asked: “…what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul?” (Mark 8:36-37, NLT2)

The place to begin a shift is deep in our souls, because this is the place where God wants change us.

We learnt last week that it is possible to be a follower of Jesus and still not be minded in the way He is.

You can be saved and still not have the mind of God. It’s not recommended, but it is possible.

Let’s look at a time in the life of the disciples to see how they were with Jesus, but did not have the mind of Jesus…

The Bible tells us that as Jesus and His disciples left Galilee and were heading toward Jerusalem, “He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead.”

32 They—the disciples--- didn’t understand what he was saying, however,

and they were afraid to ask him what he meant.

33 After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house, Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?”

34 But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.” (Mark 9:31-34, NLT2)

As Jesus and His disciples were travelling along the road to Jerusalem, He began pouring out His heart to them, telling them that He would be handed over into the hands of the Enemy, He would be beaten and killed, and He would rise again on the third day…

Apparently, this goes in one ear and comes out the other ear of each of the disciples, because when they arrive at their destination, Jesus turned and “asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" (Mark 9:33b, NIV)

Jesus wanted to know what they were talking about as He was pouring out His heart, but “But they didn’t answer…” (Mark 9:34a, NLT2)

Of course they didn’t answer!

They probably were ashamed “because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.” (Mark 9:34b, NLT2)

These men had been with Jesus but they didn’t hear Jesus because they were busy arguing amongst themselves as to who was the super disciple.

ILLUSTRATION- I’m sure that at one time or another those of us with siblings have thought this way before. I know I have.

There were times when I was growing up that I thought that my parents favored my brother a little more than they did me, there were other times when I figured that my parents liked me more than Trevor…

While we don’t know what the Disciples were arguing about, we can be sure that they argued for themselves. You can be sure that Peter didn’t stick up for Andrew, and John didn’t stick up for Matthew.

One meaning of the word “argue” in the Greek is “to dispute”. The disciples were discussing quite heavily amongst themselves as to who among them was the greatest.

Even after being with Jesus day in and day out for two years, the disciples argued as to which one of them was the greatest, because that was their nature, it was how they were wired.

The irony of it all was that they argued while they were following Someone with a completely different mind. They had no concept of what was going on around them; they were just wrestling for their own favor.

A little while after this, as Jesus was again talking about His sacrifice for the world; two disciples approach Him with a request:

“When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” (Mark 10:37, NLT2)

The disciples are, once again, obsessed with themselves. They were following Jesus but were wired another way.

They were on the same road as Jesus, but were in a different world. They were in the same Church as Jesus, but in a different pew.

Even though they had followed Jesus for two years, they needed a SoulShift.

They had to shift from thinking primarily of themselves to thinking primarily of others; they had to shift from ME to YOU.

Martin Luther said that man is born with “his heart curved inward upon itself. (DeNeff)

ILLUSTRATION- I experience this every time my wife tells me that the vacuuming needs done… I’m quick to tell her that I’ve got someplace to go….

            Each one of us has a genetic flaw toward self-centeredness. Some of these flaws include:

è A critical spirit- We think our ideas are better than someone else’s ideas just because we like our ideas better;

è Another flaw is that: We look out for ourselves first. “If you doubt this, pull out an old yearbook or a photo of a group you’re in. Who do you look for first?”(SoulShift, page 37)

è We can’t forgive ourselvesà Even though God has forgiven us, our own opinion of ourselves is still more important;

è We talk about ourselves all the time. We like to dominate the conversation. We like to talk about our accomplishments, about our achievements…

            Each one of us is hardwired with a bent toward self-centeredness; we don’t have to practice it, because it’s second nature. 

            But not so with Jesus. He, unlike us, is curved outward.

When Jesus heard His disciples arguing about who was the greatest, He turned the tables on the conversation:

“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them.

43 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else.

45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and

to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42b-45, NLT2)

Life with Jesus should be fundamentally different than life without Jesus. We are to be transformed, not modified.

The Bible says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17, NIV)

Jesus wants there to be a change deep inside of us; Jesus wants there to be a SoulShift.

So the question becomes how we do move from thinking primarily about me to thinking about YOU?

How do we- who are wired more like the disciples-, get to the place where we are curved outward?

Frist of all, we need to understand that this won’t happen overnight. As someone once said: “It took a while to get you into this mess, it will take you a while to get out of this mess”

It will take time for God to re-wire you, but there are some simple steps that you can take to get the process started:

1.     Open Your Eyes to reality.

If we want to move from Me to You, we have to admit that we have a problem.

We have to admit that we are curved inward. We have to admit that we, by nature, focus more on ourselves than on others.

But simply admitting that we have a problem still won’t change anything; we must want to change… we must want to become like Christ.

Remember: “Discipleship has, as its goal, nothing less than the rewiring of our instincts and the reprogramming of our nature.” (DeNeff)

We must ask God to open our eyes to see things as they—we-- really are.

The second step we can take is Make time for people.

ILLUSTRATION- Sometimes the phone in my office will ring and the caller will apologize for interrupting my day.

I will remind them that it’s really no bother because I’m in the people business, and if I don’t have time for people, then I’m in the wrong business…

            (Please don’t call me at 2:30 in the morning!)

            If you want to experience a shift in your soul, you have to make time for people; you will have to get involved in someone’s life.

Find someone who hasn’t been to church for a few weeks and give them a call and ask how they are doing.

Paul said in Philippians 2: “Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.” (2:4, NLT2) This will help us shift from Me to You.

            Finally, we can Carry Each Other’s Burdens.

            Galatians 6:2 says: “Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (NIV)

ILLUSTRATION- This past week, God placed on my heart the name of a couple in our church in the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t know anything was wrong, but I began praying for them anyway. I asked God to work in their lives.

            Getting involved in the life of someone—even if it’s only through prayer--- will help you move away from the curve inward, to having a mind of Christ which is curved outward.

            These are 3 of the many ways that you can begin moving from Me to You; but remember it’s a process, and it will take work.  

            It’s not something you can do on your own, you need help to think less of yourself and to think of others more.

ILLUSTRATION- Many years ago, when the members of the Salvation Army gathered for a conference, they were saddened to learn that their founder, William Booth, was too sick to come.

            Booth was expected to deliver the keynote address to the conference but was unable to travel.

            Instead, he asked if he could write his speech and have it read for him at

the conference.

            The night came and the crowd gathered to hear their revered founder’s speech read to them.

            They expected his words to explain many things, to inspire them with a rationale for their service.

            Instead, Booth was able to fit his entire speech into one telegram message. It represented the focus of the movement’s work.

            When the telegram was read to the crowd, it contained but one word: “Others.” (DeNeff, 2011,38)

            So, church, how is your soul? Are you focusing on yourself or are you focusing on others?

            Do you need to experience a shift in your soul; a shift from focusing on yourself to focusing on others?   

            The Good news is that this type of shift is possible! Jesus Himself gives us the invitation:

            “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29, NIV)

            If you’ve got the mind of the disciples instead of having the mind of God,

it’s time for a change; it’s time to experience the first SoulShift.

            “It has been said that the final test of any religion is how it affects our relationships with other people” (SS, 2011, 39)

            So, how does your religion affect your relationship with other people?

            Jesus said: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

            35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35, NIV)

            Is it time for a shift in your life?

 

SoulShift, Part 1

Last Sunday, we kicked off a new sermon series called "Soulshift". This post is the introduction of the series. Enjoy!

 

ILLUSTRATION- I remember having a conversation with someone a while back about Jesus.

        While I cannot remember the specifics about that conversation, I do remember how it ended.

            As we were concluding our conversation, I mentioned to this person that I would be praying for their soul.

            Almost immediately this person told me that they didn’t have a soul.

            Unfortunately, this way of thinking has crept into our world view, and many people are not even aware that they have a soul.

            The people who think like this are like the French philosopher Ernest Renan, who said: “O Lord, if there is a Lord, save my soul, if I have a soul.”

            So I ask you church: are you aware that you have a soul? There is something deep within you that is responsible for you.

            The Bible uses several words to arrive at this very truth. Some of these words are:

è Heart- The heart is the seat of all of our affections. The writer of Proverbs said: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Pr. 4:23, NIV)

è Another word the Bible uses is Mind- this describes our biases, our way of thinking, our assumptions, and our predispositions

è Spirit is another word the Bible uses to describe something deep within us that describes us- this is the inward person that gives life to our bodies;

è And finally, we have our Inward Nature- this is our inclinations and, as David said, our “inner parts”( Psalm 51:6, NIV)

            The Bible is completely correct when it tells us that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14, NIV)

            There is so much that goes into making us that only God is truly able to understand all of us, and why shouldn’t He? He made us!

            So, what is the state of your soul? What if we took an actual photograph of your soul? What would you look like?

            Most of our souls are buried beneath mounds of activity, excuses, noise, addictions, laughter, small talk,therapy, entertainment...

            We are like passengers trying to get through a busy airport.

        We move very quickly from one place to the next, from one obligation to the next, from one relationship to the next, from one activity to another, seldom stopping to wonder who and where we really are. 

       So, how is your soul?

            Do you think it’s possible to be a follower of Jesus and still be out of touch with the state of your soul?

            At the beginning of Mark’s gospel, Jesus began preaching that people should “repent and believe the good news.” (Mark 1:15, NIV)

            Just a few moments later, Jesus gave an invitation for several fishermen to “come, follow me” (Mark, 1:17, NIV) 

            These are the first three commands in any believer’s life: repent, believe, follow.

Sometimes we forget one of the three commands.

We may repent of our sin and believe in Jesus, but we stop short of following Jesus; or better yet—I mean worse-er yet—people believe that Jesus exists; they are trying to follow Him; without ever having repented of their sins.

            But Jesus lays out the pattern that is to be followed: repent, believe, follow.

            Seven chapters later, after the very same fisherman had followed Jesus for two years, He pulled them aside and asked them a question, a question that each one of us will have to answer at one point or another:

            “Who do people say I am? ... Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8:27-29a, NIV)

            After Peter gets it right—“You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29b, NIV), Jesus immediately predicted His death, and had Peter rebuke Him for telling the truth!

            In what could be called ‘the shot heard round the church’ Jesus said: “Get behind me, Satan.... You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." (Mark 8:33, NIV)

            “To be minded (Greek- phronesis--) like God is not only to think like Him, but to be oriented the way He is oriented” (Steve DeNeff)

            So, when Jesus said to Peter, “you do not have in mind the things of God”, He was saying, “you are not oriented like God; you do not have God’s instincts; you and God have different things on your mind.”

            Jesus was surprised, and may have even been slightly disappointed that after all this time; Peter was still not minded like God.

After all, Peter had been with Jesus every day for 2 years. That’s the equivalent of coming to church once a week for almost 14 years!

            Jesus was surprised that Peter still didn’t think like God, but how could he? God is God, and Peter is… well Peter. Was it really possible to have the mind of God?

            The simple fact that Jesus brought this up implies that He somehow believed that it was possible for Peter to have the mind of God, and if it was possible for Peter, it is possible for you and I to have the mind of God as well.

            While this is possible, it will take work. It takes work to think as God would have you think. This will not happen overnight, it’s a process. But it is possible to have the mind of God.

            This process of becoming like Christ, of having the mind of God, is called Discipleship, and, “discipleship has, as its goal, nothing less than the rewiring of our instincts and the reprogramming of our nature.”

            “The goal of discipleship is not only to get us to act like Jesus, but also to react like Jesus. It is to absorb the mind of Jesus into ours until we think and act like Him without even trying.” (DeNeff)

ILLUSTRATION- Have you ever heard and/or used the phrase “it’s second nature for me”?

            That phrase means that you’ve done a certain thing for so long that it has become part of who you are, and part of what you do.

            Like tying your shoes, driving a car, making coffee, or rooting for the Montreal Canadiens- its part of who you are.

You can do these things without thinking about it, and you get them right each and every time because they’ve become part of your life.

            What if thinking and living as Jesus was that easy and natural for you?

       What if, instead of asking WWJD—what would Jesus do--; you actually did what Jesus would do?

            You see, Not only are we to imitate Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:1-2) we are to do what Jesus did! (1 John 2:6)

            So, over the next seven weeks, we’re going to talk about the soul.

Why?

Because the soul is the place where God wants to meet you.

I’ve spent a great deal of time studying Psalm 23.

I took our church in Havelock through this Psalm several years ago, and we came to the realization that this Psalm addresses the Goodness of God.

As I was preparing for today’s sermon, God brought to mind verse 3 of this wonderful Psalm.

The Bible tells us in Psalm 23 that: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

2 He—God-- makes me lie down in green pastures, he—God-- leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he—God-- restores my soul…” (Psalm 23:1-3a, NIV)

ILLUSTRATION- In what could be described as one of my new favorite things, is a TV show on History channel called “Pawn Stars.”

            The main Characters of this television show are Rick Harrison, who is the owner of the Pawn Shop, Rick’s father (The old man), Rick’s son (Corey), and I am certain a man who is only there for comedic relief: Chumlee.

            People come into the World Famous Gold and Silver Pawn shop in an attempt to pawn or sell their old and sometimes famous pieces of merchandise.

            Every once in a while, Rick will come across an item that is extremely rare and in extremely rough shape.

If this item turns out to be valuable, Rick will purchase the item and he will send it away to an expert who will try to restore the item to what it once was.

This expert will be someone who is skilled in the restoration process.

When the old item comes back in, we can clearly see that it has undergone an intense transformation.

It has been sanded down, repaired and restored to its original condition.

            Friends, this is a glimpse into what God wants to do with you and with your soul. He wants to restore it—and you-- to your original beauty.

            David wasn’t speaking of God restoring our souls when we’re dead and in heaven.

        He was speaking of something God wanted to do in this life, after we have surrendered our lives to Him.

            If you take nothing else from this message today, take this key thought: “God wants to restore your soul.”

            This process will be referred to as a SoulShift.

            “A SoulShift is a change in the deepest part of our being, usually after we are saved, and before we die, that makes us more like Christ and less like our old selves.” (DeNeff) 

            Most of us in this room are “saved”, we may have repented, and we may have even decided to follow Jesus, all of this is an important first step.

If we were to die right now, we would go to heaven, but we’re not dead—well most of us anyway--- we may be saved, but we are not yet restored. We need to undergo a SoulShift.

            There are 7 Shifts that we will be talking about, and will, hopefully, experience.

Pastor Mike and I will introduce these shifts during our morning gatherings, and we will learn more about them in our Life Groups on Sunday night, and we will be reading about them throughout the week.

            I’m prayerfully asking each of you who are serious about following Jesus, to hear the messages, get plugged into a life group and read the book, because God wants to restore you.

            After church today you will have the opportunity to sign up for this series, and purchase a book, and you can begin to experience the restoration that God wants to bring into your life.

       That's the first thing we want you to do. Sign up; get involved be a part of what God is doing in your church.

            You can also begin praying that God will speak to you during this series.

      Contrary to what you might think, you are not the best version of you! God still has work to do in your life, so why don’t you pray something like:

            Search me God, and know me. Speak to me, and lead me in the way of life.

        As we begin our study of the SoulShifts, I give you permission to speak to me about anyone of them.

       Help me to be humble and open to new things so that I won’t miss your very best for me.”

            Paul wrote in romans 12: “dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.

2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but 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.” (NLT2)

Will you join me as we begin this study of looking at our souls and asking Jesus to restore us to His original plan?

In Just A second, the Band is going to come and lead us in our responce; it's a song you probably know very well: It is well----

What does this song deal with? Our Soul's.

If it's not well with your soul, then this series is just what you need; becasue God wants to restore you, and me, to His orignial plan.

as we're singing this song, I would like to encourage you to pray and ask God to speak to your soul over the next several weeks, as we begin to undergo a shift deep in our souls.