God's Eye View
God's Eye View
This Narrative Framework
Session 1
This Narrative Framework
Session 1
Getting Started:
1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT
“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”
How do you deal with ambiguity in life?
Are you a “why” (need the answers), or a “why not” (go with it) person?
Donald talks about “freedom within framework” regarding our life’s “purpose”:
What is your perspective on this?
Do you think God has a specific plan for your life?
How would it affect your perspective to think of yourself as a supporting character instead of the main character in this story of life?
What do you think about sin:
is it something we do, or the status of our hearts?
READ: Genesis 3 NCV
Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, “Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?” The woman answered the snake, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.’” But the snake said to the woman, “You will not die. God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!” The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.
Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden during the cool part of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?” The man answered, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” God asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “You gave this woman to me and she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “How could you have done such a thing?” She answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit.”
The Lord God said to the snake,
“Because you did this, a curse will be put on you. You will be cursed as no other animal, tame or wild, will ever be. You will crawl on your stomach, and you will eat dust all the days of your life. I will make you and the woman enemies to each other. Your descendants and her descendants will be enemies. One of her descendants will crush your head, and you will bite his heel.”
Then God said to the woman, “I will cause you to have much trouble when you are pregnant, and when you give birth to children, you will have great pain. You will greatly desire your husband, but he will rule over you.”
Then God said to the man, “You listened to what your wife said, and you ate fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat. “So I will put a curse on the ground, and you will have to work very hard for your food. In pain you will eat its food all the days of your life. The ground will produce thorns and weeds for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will sweat and work hard for your food. Later you will return to the ground, because you were taken from it. You are dust, and when you die, you will return to the dust.”
The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.
The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them. Then the Lord God said, “Humans have become like one of us; they know good and evil. We must keep them from eating some of the fruit from the tree of life, or they will live forever.” So the Lord God forced Adam out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. After God forced humans out of the garden, he placed angels and a sword of fire that flashed around in every direction on its eastern border. This kept people from getting to the tree of life.
What happens when we go outside the framework God creates for us?
What is the purpose of that framework?
What does the framework say about who God is?
John 10:10 MSG
“I came so they can have real and eternal life,
more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”
And All That Jazz...
Session 2
And All That Jazz...
Session 2
Getting Started:
2 Thessalonians 1:11 Nlt
“So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do.”
Have you ever felt “prompted” by your faith/God to do something?
READ
Many times, Christians measure success by how many people they “evangelize,” how many they bring to church, or how many people “pray the prayer.” But many Christians wrestle with feeling like they are “selling” God, like God is product you should acquire so your life will be better - not so you’ll actually experience any real change.
Evangelizing often comes off as an act, because it seems like an unnatural thing: like a sales pitch. Now there’s nothing wrong with sharing your faith, that’s part of being the hands and feet of Christ on earth. However, when it isn’t natural it can feel forced and insincere - when you’re doing it because you think you’re supposed to. We should reflect as to why it feels unnatural.
We need a level of authenticity in our lives regarding our faith. The church, in many cases, has super-spiritualized faith to the point that we can’t live it out in any type of natural context. This creates disconnect between us and God. It’s funny that Christians often admit to having more significant spiritual experiences in places they never expected to see God than they do at church, because it’s in those unexpected contexts that we’re truly able to connect faith with his reality.
Sometimes we need to feel uncomfortable in our faith—that’s what growth is,—but oftentimes it is more beneficial to simply live a better story that others can experience and be drawn into. When our lives match our words, that’s what living a genuine, sincere, connected faith is all about.
DISCUSS
Is your story engaging and inviting?
Are people drawn to your life?
Where have you had a spiritual experience or “holy moment” outside of church?
What are some things that temper you from sharing your faith?
Referring to 1 John 4:20, Rob Bell says, “How we love others is how we love God.” In Matthew 25, Jesus reminds us that whatever good we do for others, we do to God.
How does this affect your approach to personal interactions?
John 13:34-35 NLT
“So now i am giving you a new commandment: love each other. just as i have loved you, you should love each other. your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Look in the Mirror
Session 3
Look in the Mirror
Session 3
Getting Started:
Have you ever switched “allegiance”?
Maybe from one sports teams to another, or from one product (Mac or PC, Pepsi or Coke, Nike or Adidas, etc) to another?
Why did you do it?
READ: Exodus 32:1-2, 4 CEV
“[The people said to Aaron], ‘Make us… a god who lead and protect us. Moses brought us out of Egypt, but nobody knows what has happened to him.; Aaron told them, ‘Bring me the gold… that your wives and sons and daughters are wearing.’ Then he… made an idol… The people said, ‘This is the god who brought us out of Egypt!”
READ
Every Christian will deal with doubt at one time or another. This is not cynicism or pessimism, this is fact. There are times when we feel alone, or abandoned, or unsure; like we’ve put so much effort into this journey only to find out that we started off in the wrong direction.
But doubt is a good thing. Doubt unlocks questions, and questions can lead to change. Timothy Keller said, “People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic.”
Doubt surfaces when our vision of faith or God meets the realities of life. Like the children of Israel who constantly grumbled about God while being delivered from slavery, their reality conflicted with their vision of God. But God was constantly challenging them to change their vision, to begin understanding that God isn’t a genie bent on satisfying our whims—God wanted to show them (and us) true life.
It can be easy to turn to “false gods” in these situations when Jesus won’t jump through the hoops we’ve created for faith - the parameters we’ve defined for how we’re willing to let God work in our lives. When this happens, we see that faith is more about our own ego than about God’s plan and love for this world.
DISCUSS
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the [person] who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
Have you ever called your beliefs about God into question?
What did you discover?
Jude 1:22 says, “Be merciful to those who doubt.”
Where does doubt fit into the “story” of your life?
“Our lives are in perfect sync with what we actually believe”
What does your life reflect about your actual belief in God?
Joseph says that our doubts can be covers for our fear. In Mark 9:24, a man asks Jesus to heal his son and in deep honesty tells Jesus he believes in him, but that he needs help overcoming his disbelief.
What does it mean to believe and yet still disbelieve?
James 1:22-25 cev
“Obey God’s message! Don’t fool yourselves by just listening to it. If you hear the message and don’t obey it, you are like people who stare at themselves in a mirror and forget what they look like as soon as they leave. But you must never stop looking at the perfect law that sets you free. God will bless you in everything you do, if you listen and .”
Mixed Signals
Session 4
Mixed Signals
Session 4
Getting Started:
READ: 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 NLt
“Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.”
What could it mean to be “controlled” by Christ’s love?
The concept and idea of church has altered radically since its birth in the AD 30’s. There appears almost a separation between Jesus and the church in contemporary thinking, but this thinking certainly isn’t reflected in Scripture. Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, but I don’t like your Christians. [They] are so unlike your Christ.”
Many people are turned off from “formal church” for many reasons: people “selling” Jesus like a product; War metaphors; having the wrong enemies—i.e. political parties or gender/sexuality “norms” instead of poverty, injustice and pride. These factors create a perfect atmosphere for hypocrisy and ineffectiveness.
One thing is clear, church is not a location, it is people: people who love Jesus and have given their lives to follow him. Because of this, we need to live that out in every context of life, not just when we’re within the confines of the church building.
This doesn’t mean that the formal church is irrelevant or unnecessary, but it does change what it means forthe body of Christ (the church) to meet together in one place. Instead of meeting to receive, we should be meeting to rejoice, worship, and strengthen each other. We become producers instead of consumers; that’s what the church is.
When we speak about love but live selfishly, we make the message (the Gospel) confusing and undesirable to a world that is desperately looking for true, authentic love.
DISCUSS
Why does the word, “Christianity” get such a bad rap?
What would it look like to “redeem” the popular perception of church?
Donal Miller writes, “the problems with Christianity aren’t ‘out there,’ the problem is me (I, you, us).”
In what ways do you make Christianity seem undesirable?
When Christians interact with others from a position of equality instead of judgment, how does this change their perception?