In the Moment (Part 4): When Your Mind's Made Up

TO START

Invite the group to share something meaningful that happened to them this past week.

  • Why was it meaningful? Was it spontaneous or planned? How did it come about?

TO DISCUSS

This week, Zane challenged us to consider what it looks like to retrain and redevelop our eyes in order to find meaningful moments with God in the most blinding parts of life.

  • Zane asked this question near the beginning of his message: ""Have you ever been on the outside of an inside joke or reference? A moment where someone is quoting a movie, a show or an event where everyone understands the reference?”

    • How did that make you feel? Do you have an example?

    • Have you ever felt this same way in your time in the church or in relationship with other Christians?

Read Mark 8:22-30 with a focus on what’s being seen and what’s being understood in light of what is seen. 

  • Why do you think this healing story sits before Jesus’s questions to the disciples? 

In the sermon, Zane invited us to consider a quote by Winston Churchill in relation to the fact that there is one thing that will be the gods of our day/the gods of our future if we let it — IDEAS… Specifically, Churchill writes, “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind”

  • Do you agree that the gods of our day are ideas? How have you seen that play out in your life? Which ideas are asking for your faith and allegiance? Have any of these ideas blinded you?

Furthermore, Peter seems to answer correctly when Jesus asks who the Disciples believe he is when he answers saying that Jesus is the Messiah. THIS IS HUGE…as Zane puts it, “Peter is saying, ‘I think you represent God among us…[and] I think you are God’s purpose among us…[and most importantly] I believe you’re the ultimate reality of how we should see everything’”

  • So, we must ask this question: What do you say about who Jesus is? Do you live in a way that affirms that Jesus is the ultimate reality of how we should see everything? Another way to put it, is Jesus king of your life? How is that evident?

At the same time, things change quickly for Peter as Jesus rebukes him. Read Mark 8:31-33. 

There were notions wrapped up in all the names previously mentioned by the Disciples. Notions that Jesus wanted to challenge because he was worried that Peter doesn’t know that Jesus’s kingship is different from any other King that Peter has known. So Jesus reminds him that “part of following Jesus is surrendering that we think we know everything. That we think we always have God right.”  Our experiences and assumptions inform the way we see others and the way we see Jesus. Sometimes that has to change for our sake and others.

  • Additionally, how have you already seen Jesus change your mind? How has he brought new insight that has led you to trip over the truth?

  • So, how do you go about making the change from mentally feeding yourself what the world tells you versus the reality that Jesus tells us?

TO CLOSE:

We want to invite y’all to close by praying and opening a space for your group to name some of the ideas, messages, etc. that so often try to reinforce lies about yourself and others. Then pray this simple prayer together asking God to help each person to see the way that God longs for us to see…

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like us,

we once were lost, but now we are found. We were blind but now we see.”

God, we ask that you continue to give us eyes to see what is true and real

and what is not of you as well.

Amen.

Matt DeLano