Transformers – Astoundimus Missthepointimus

November 5-11, 2007

 

Day One       The Necessary Link

The great mysteries of life, around the Anthony household, are the missing remotes for our living room television.  For most of the past year we have had to use the remote from a television in another room, passing it back and forth between rooms.  Strangely, this remote never seems to go missing.  However, whatever remote we have for our living room television, it is bound to go missing.  When Jake Schenk lived with us for a couple of weeks when he first moved to town, he got took pity on us and went out and purchased us another remote.  Soon after he had displayed this act of grace upon us, the missing remote, which had been missing for at least three months, turned up.  Now (don’t tell Jake this) both, the new remote and the old remote, have entered that neverland we like to refer to as “remoteland”.  Once again we are now running the remote back and forth between rooms.

 

Now, as we have said before, it is possible to actually get up and walk over to the television and turn it on.  I have not convinced my children of this truth, but I know it to be fact from my days watching “Gilligan’s Island.”  But our televisions do not have many of the function buttons on the television that are on the remote, so, we need the remote.  Without the remote we are unable to truly experience the television adventure.

 

The remote is a necessary link to the television experience.

 

The people that experienced Christ during His earthly ministry found Him to be the missing link to fully experiencing the joy of God.  Read about the man at the pool as detailed in John 5:1-9.  What did Christ do for the man that the man had been unable to do for himself?

 

How did Christ link the man with the healing power of God?

 

What was required of the man to experience this linking that Christ provided?

 

The man had to obey to experience the healing offered by Christ.  How has your transformation process involved obedience?

 

Day Two      Missed Opportunities

The year after I graduated from Oklahoma State University with my undergrad degree and before I entered Southwestern Theological Seminary to work on my Masters of Divinity, I spent a year in an internship at a church in Stillwater.  (Yes, that is Stillwater, Oklahoma.)       About a month into this internship the church held an evangelistic Sunday emphasis with former pro football player, Rosey Grier.  In my mind, Rosie was a celebrity bigger than life and I couldn’t wait to meet him.  It had been planned for him to come to a staff gathering on the Saturday night before the special Sunday, but his plane was delayed so none of us got to meet him early.  On Sunday morning the auditorium was packed and I ended up sitting on the front row as the service began.  Shortly into the first song, in walked Rosey Grier, who came and sat right next to me.  In my mind Rosey Grier had been a larger than life celebrity, but as he stood there next to me I found that he was a larger than life human being.  The man is huge!  I was completely intimidated and didn’t even turn to look at him. I was cool, looking straight ahead as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on especially in the seat to my right.  Then, when the welcome came and people were encouraged to shake hands with others, everyone came and shook Rosey’s hand, everyone but me, I couldn’t even get to him.  Shortly after the welcome he was called to the stage and I never had the chance to personally meet and greet Mr. Grier.  I missed my opportunity!  He was right there next to me and I didn’t take advantage of the chance.

 

Judas was a disciple of Jesus with an amazing opportunity.  He was a follower of Jesus, walking around, listening to Him daily.  But Judas seemed to never take the opportunity to truly get to know Jesus.  He missed the opportunity to personally know Jesus.  Read about one encounter he had and how he responded (see Mark 14:1-11).  What do you think kept Judas from taking advantage of the opportunity to know Christ in a personal way?

 

How do you take advantage of the opportunity to relate to Christ?

 

What things keep you from relating to Christ fully?

 

Day Three      Never Give Up Hope

I have a dear friend whose spouse is an alcoholic.  In the twenty years I have known this friend I have watched as this spouse has abused their trust, put their family in one financial bind after another, taken medical risks, put their children in harm’s way, not to mention violate all of the basic boundaries in a love relationship.  Throughout this time, this friend has held out hope that the spouse would change.  Every time there was a promise of rehabilitation, my friend would hold on to hope.  Every time there was a relapse, my friend would have hope for the future.  I constantly wondered why the individual was able to hold onto hope when to everyone else the situation seemed hopeless.

 

Recently the spouse crossed so many boundaries and shattered all possibilities of hope that even my friend had to finally give up after holding on for probably close to forty years.

 

Do you ever wonder how Christ has managed to hold on to hope for you?  Do you ever look back, or even in the midst, at your mess up and rebellions and wonder why Christ didn’t just say “forget it” regarding you?

 

Judas is a perfect example of someone that Christ held out hope for.  Jesus knew that truth of Judas’ heart and He probably even knew the eventual actions that Judas would take against Him yet He still kept him around.  Read John 6:64-71.

 

Why do you think that Jesus maintained hope for Judas?

 

What does this tell you about the hope that Jesus has for you?

 

Day Four       Drawing Close

Many years ago I conducted relationship counseling for a brother and sister who were both in their twentys.  They had gone through many family ordeals which had placed them on differing sides of issues and therefore, had placed a great deal of stress in their relationship.  They drove to the first session separately and entered the building separately.  As I walked in the room for the first session, I was struck by how far apart they were physically and emotionally.  This young man and young woman had physically rearranged the furniture so that they could be sitting as far away as possible.  If my office had been larger they would have been further apart.  In addition to the physical separation, you could see that they were apart emotionally. The room was dead silent as I entered and throughout this first session there was not interaction between the two of them, only to and through me.

 

The thing that brought them to me, however, was that there was a draw to restore their relationship with each other.  They had a draw to each other, but needed help getting there.  As we met that first session I knew that it would be tough, but as long as they wanted to respond to this draw they had to each other, it would happen.

 

For the second session I changed meeting locations and had us meet in a room that only had one obvious seat for me and one obvious seat for them, a small couch.  They had to sit together.  Although I half expected one of them to be seated in my chair or to have gone out of the room to get an additional chair, when I entered they were sitting on the couch…together.  There still was deathly silence, but they were sitting together.  For the next session I purposely came into the room late so they were forced to begin speaking as the waiting time dragged on.

 

Even though each session was painfully uncomfortable, especially at the beginning, the two of them kept coming and working on their relationship.  They responded to the drawing they had to each other.  I knew that we had success when they came to the session in the same car and would sit together and visit without any manipulation on my part.

 

They could have easily chosen to remain estranged even though they were drawn together.  They had a draw and they chose to follow that drawing.  They same is true for many married couples I have seen.  They may be in a very negative spiral, but something drives them to come back together.  They have to then make the choice to follow that desire to be together.

 

We have a similar drawing to God which we must choose to follow and nurture.  Read in John 6: 44-45 about our being drawn to God.

 

How does God draw us to Him and how do we choose to positively respond to that drawing?

 

How have you, or did you, respond to God’s drawing of you to Him?

 

Day Five        Rejection

I had a friend in seminary who was good looking and had all the girls on campus in love with him.  He had grown up on a Caribbean Island and had worked as a model prior to coming to seminary.  He would frequently hang out with some of my friends and me. The females in our group noticed that he would frequently invite one of them to go do something with him and there would always appear one of the young women who had a crush on him. 

 

Finally, one evening, my friend Jane called and informed me that she had figured out what he had been doing.  “He takes us along so he does not have to tell the girl that he is not interested in her.” Jane explained.  “He knows these girls are planning on meeting him at these places so he thinks that by seeing another girl with him he won’t have to break up with these girls!”   Jane was livid and was only telling me this after she had also told him.  He later also confessed this all to me.

 

He had a fear of being honest with these girls.  He was rejecting them, but did not want to appear to be doing so.  Rejection is tough and is almost always final.  He didn’t want to be the inflictor of rejection pain, but inflict it he did.

 

In the story of Jesus, we see two striking rejections of Jesus by those close to him. One is Peter, who said that he didn’t know Jesus, following the arrest of Jesus (John 18:19-27).  The other rejection is by Judas (see Mark 14:43-47).  What do you think are the factors in each of these rejections?

 

Peter goes on to be a primary figure in the spread of the gospel while Judas ends up killing himself in agony over what he did.  Why do you think that there were such different outcomes to these two who both rejected Christ?

 

At what point is rejection a final straw and at what point is it merely another step in our transformation process?

 

Think back over our transformation stories, what do you identify with and why?