Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Welcome leaders. This is week five of our summer series in the book of Exodus.
We're talking all things burning bushes, blood, and door step, part and sea, bread from heaven and your new life. It's a love that this is a great series, obviously continuation of our series previously in Genesis. We just kept rolling through the summer here and man, if I can't believe we're already at week five. So happy to be back on the podcast.
It's been a while that I've been on here. This is John Thomas here. And I have got our men's discipleship and groups director. First time to the podcast.
What is up? What is up? Sam Smith, what's happening, dude? What's up, everybody?
This is my first time on the podcast. Hopefully not the last, unless I get canceled. I mean, we'll see. It's possible.
We'll see how it goes the next 15. Only God will know. Yeah, yeah. That's right.
Only God. And maybe the I don't know if I make that decision. I think you do. Yeah, but Sam, so happy to hear me.
It just gives us a little bit of intro about you, your role here for those that haven't had the joy of interacting with you yet. Just talk about who you are, what you do around here. Yeah, of course. Well, I am the discipleship director for Life Groups and Men.
So I'll talk about the men portion first. I help oversee our men's events and working with our men's pastor, Tim Bluekai, to watch over our men's groups and also getting guys to volunteer in our ministry. And then with the Life Groups portion, I work with our discipleship pastor, Scott Kim, to help execute things like Life Group Launch Night, our new leader trainings, our Life Group leader huddles. So that's a little bit about me.
I didn't hear about a year and a half and loving it. Yeah. And hello, Mary. I know, are you?
Four years. Four years. It's a fairly newly married. Yes.
I know the gender yet. Yeah, that's awesome. I know the time of this release, I think I'll know. Yeah, that's great.
You put a lesson on it, man. We're so excited for you guys. Thank you. And a lot of your sport that made a Mariners hat, you're doing the whole thing.
Let's go. That's awesome. Sam's obviously primarily focused here at the Irvine campus. We got some leaders listed from a lower place.
And summer is summer, right? There's probably folks in your groups that are traveling and doing things. And even my group, a lot of travel, will go over to place. We're getting ready to do a summer social, just hanging out at our house kind of a thing.
But would you have any encouragement to groups about the list before we get into the content? Just how do you make the most of summer? We're about halfway through, really. But why would you make the most of these rest summer weeks?
Yeah, one thing that we encourage at the Irvine campus is to have a flex schedule in the summer. It's a time for us to rest. People are traveling. So just personally with my life group that my wife and I lead, we've taken a break.
But then we'll do socials once a month. And then we've already set a schedule to start back up again in August, early August. And we've communicated that to the group. But it's really time for us to rest, to enjoy social time with each other.
We're planning a sort of event early on. So one thing that we've already done too is looked at our 90 day plans. So that would be an encouragement for you leaders. Yeah, that's what we're doing for the summer.
All right, man. Great. You're going to talk about 10 commandments of the law. Let's go.
Oh my goodness. All right. We're going to talk about it all. It'll be great here.
We've got a little leading question. They're going to go in here. It says, when you were growing up, were you more of a rule follower or a rule breaker? Or somewhere in between?
You share some stories if anything comes to mind of you as a kid. And so we're getting people to think about rule keeping, law keeping. That's going to tie in into our observations or content commandments. Anything you would interact with that, Sam, either in your own response or how you might help leaders get the most of your questions.
Well, say that if you know Sam Smith, I am a rule follower. You're all daily. I am a high compliance person. And I think that's just how God made me and everybody.
Yeah. Yeah. I think this is a fun question. It's a great way to get people to open up and have them, like you said, start to think about keeping the law, keeping the commandments.
And yeah, I think it's a good one. Yeah, that's good. I think for me, it depends. I honestly, I think it depends on the rule.
Yeah. Do I believe in this rule? Obviously the rule law, all the law we're governed by those things. But I think I also lead a little bit with it.
I mean, OK, really? It says 25. Yeah. Do not murder.
That's a good one. Yeah. I'm going to roll out of that one so far. So good with that.
All right. We're going to look down and interact with the passage here in the context here in Exodus 20. This is as the people of Israel have been let out of captivity, they've been wandering in the desert. And now Moses sends up to the mountain.
He interacts with Yale, incredible interaction there, and is given not just the Ten Commandments, it's really given the full law, the Holmosec Law. But we're going to focus on the really on the Ten Commandments. And just know what we see about them. So a couple of questions here to interact with.
First is what commands, speaking specifically the Ten Commandments, is we're in Exodus 20, verses 1 through 6 here to start off here. What commands does God give his people? What reasoning does God give for these commands? So what commands do you see him giving his people and what reasoning is there for that?
So let me just go ahead and read verses 1 through 6. It says, then this is actually 21 through 6. Then God spoke all these words and said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. So do not have any gods beside me.
If you keep a track, number one, do not make an idol for yourself, whether the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or on the waters or on the sea. Number two, verse 5, do not bow and worship to them, and do not serve them. For I am the Lord your God, I'm a jealous God, punishing the children of the fathers iniquity to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love and keep my commands.
And then the commandments continue on after that. Do not use the name of the Lord your God, that's verse 7, verse 8, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Verse 12, honor your father and mother. Verse 13, do not murder, 14, do not commit adultery, 15, do not steal.
Do not give false testimony against your neighbor and do not covet your neighbor's house and do not cover your neighbor's life. That's in verse 17. So you can read really all the way through 1 through 17 to read all 10 commandments. But Sam, outside of the questions, what kind of leader tips would you give to give people to interact with scripture as they're looking at these verses 17 verses of chapter 20?
Yeah, of course. So I think about just like you said, ways that your group members could interact with scripture. Perhaps you can ask them to circle or underline the main points of these verses or the 10 commandments are listed. Maybe you can ask a group which ones are related to our vertical relationship with Yahweh, and then which ones are more related to our horizontal relationship with each other, with society.
And then which also leads into which of these are helping us move towards something, like relationship with God, honoring your father and mother moving towards that versus a way not committing adultery, not stealing, not coveting. And God placed these to protect us, to protect our relationship with Him and others to uphold that. So those are just a few different ways. I can picture our leaders inviting conversation with our group members to interact with scripture.
Yeah, that's right. And I tell a lot of people do know the 10 commandments of the first four really primarily about our vertical relationship with God, our worship of Him, our right prioritizing of our hearts towards who He is. Yeah. And then six through 10 are really the expression then of that right prioritization of our hearts towards Him.
So if we're beholding Him, then we should become like Him. And part of our becoming like Him is how we relate to the world around us. And so I love that. You can sit down there, you can note that, you can see those.
And then you can even have a great conversation about, okay, do you think that's happened, stand, circumstantial, or do you think that actually God, solving creative universe might have been intentional with the way that He listed that out? Why would He say, hey, one through six here, look at that one through four of the vertical relationship. I mean, what would you say to that, Sam, about the correlation between those and why is He listed firstly with our focus on Him, and then we'll focus on others. Why is that important?
Yeah, I mean, I think God is extremely intentional. You're glad you're back on some following. Yeah. Because our relationship with Him is central to everything else we do.
If you're not maintaining your relationship with God, apart from the vine, we can do nothing. So we have to ensure that we are maintaining that relationship with God first. And out of that, we can then fuel the love for a relationship with others. So I think God is spot on, of course, as with everything.
But with listing the vertical commandments first. And with Him listing the second, the horizontal relationship commandments second, that's actually a great segue. God knew this. It was a smooth transition into the lookout questions.
There you go. I think it was eight. That was a layup from God. What are we doing there?
So which of the 10 commandments, first question, which of the 10 commandments are respected by our culture? And which of them do people tend to ignore or even disagree with? This is a solid question because, especially if you have group members from different cultures, because you can see a compare and contrast, a lot of your group members are probably born in the States, but even within the States, in different parts of the country, they may have a different perspective on the 10 commandments. I think some things like do not murder.
I think that's pretty standard across all cultures, but some of them might not be as clear. So I think that's a great question to ask. Why do you think God started the 10 commandments with commands against idolatry? JT, what do you think?
Yeah, I think that's what we're talking about. It's the solidarity of our worship and our affection towards Him alone first, right? So it's the elimination of false idols in our life, which has an outflow in it. It affects how we relate to others.
So what's the replacement of idolatry? Well, it's proper worship. It's putting first thing first, which is God's awareness presence, right? And His commandments.
And so everything falls in line, falls in line from there. And I think you're right, that there are laws here that laws, commandments from God that are, well, they all are universal and cross all cultural and bounds of time and space and everything else, but there are some certainly where at culture, we tend to say, I'm not too sure about that. I mean, really, like idolatry? I mean, I don't think everybody would be on the same page.
Not really, I'm not sure. Murder, stealing, sure. Alminger, father, and mother, well, can be with a caveat there, you know, if it's been a good relationship or remembering the Sabbath, like rest. I mean, there's a lot here that if you grew up in church, you take for granted that these are not rules that are designed to restrict this.
These are commandments that are enabling us to flourish and to relate to God in ourselves really well. But they're pretty counter-cultural still in our day and age. What comes to mind is I think Eric Iger had a sermon a while ago about, man, I forget the exact imagery that he was using, but it was related to fire and how there were boundaries set in place. I think this must have been a talk around sexuality.
I'm gonna guess. But the boundaries protected us. And that's exactly what God is doing here. He's trying to protect our relationship with him and with others.
Yeah, it fires a wonderful tool if you go to the right place. Yeah, that's right. And spoiler alert, the Israelites don't do a great job against idolatry. So they fall into that.
Well, it's many, or most are all of them. I mean, you know, the context, right? You can't down them out and what are they doing? Yeah, they're worshipping the golden calf.
They're worshipping the golden calf. They're taking the goods that God had given them and then they're turning them inward on their own selves and obstructing their own idol. Why? Because they get tired of waiting for Moses to come down the mountain.
It's almost comical, but then you realize, we do this. That's me. Yeah. We do this too.
Like, OK, you've let us through the wilderness. You've performed wonderful miraculous acts. There's so much that we can be thankful. Remember, but where are you?
Like, you went up there and you haven't come back down. So the people are grumbling and they convince Aaron to come on their side and make a golden calf out of these. And then the scene from there is pretty horrific. I mean, I don't think this is being taught this weekend of what Moses has commanded to do with the Levites.
Yeah. And how they... And how... You don't get to be in all that in the 3,000.
Yeah. Slaughter. Slaughter. Slaughter.
Not a bang. And yeah, how quickly they forget, but also how quickly I forget of God's goodness. Which makes you think about the question. It gets out of your group discussion.
But I would imagine you're going to talk about these things anyway. What is the purpose of the law? What is the purpose of the law? Well, we're talking partly about it.
It is designed for us to have a right relationship with God ourselves and our others. All day long. But clearly, the other purpose of the law, it's a mirror into our own deficiencies. That tells us that we can't keep it.
I mean, Romans 3 talks about the law was given so that we could be aware, be conscious of our own sin. So the law is not given as a list of commands that we're going to perfect and get right, because spoiler alert, none of us do. Only one fulfilled it perfectly. And that's Jesus, not his brother alert.
And so if the law is given to us to fulfill, it's unperfect. Well, that's never happened. That was never the intent. It's intent was so that we can live a right relationship with God, ourselves, and others.
But also to show a mirror into our own deficiencies, our own brokenness, that we need the gospel, that we need someone to come and perfect it, perfect it for us. It's really good to be. We become conscious of our own sin, right? So that's part of it.
That's right. Yeah, I mean, looking at these looking questions, these are both really good questions too, which of the 10 commandments do you think is most difficult for you to uphold? And then God is clearly concerned with idolatry. What are you most tempted to worship in your life other than God?
And I think this is a great opportunity to for groups to practice the rhythm of confession and freedom from strongholds. I know that, especially if you're leading a married group. So my wife and I sometimes will separate the guys from the gals so that we can have discussions in small groups, that we can have the freedom to chat about real stuff that's going on in our lives. So I think this is a great opportunity to talk about just things that you're dealing with in everyday life.
Yeah. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. So, you know, and everything that we bring to light doesn't have freedom over us anymore. So good opportunity for you guys to practice that.
Yeah, it's attempting to be abstract. And Sam and I were talking before pushing record, just kind of nerding out on some theological things in here and how it relates to other parts of scripture and other parts of just Eastern society. It's fascinating. But to get real into the immediacy and to be talking about, look at these 10 commandments.
Like, how are you doing with that? Where's the wrestle? What are the ones that you resist? What are the ones that you feel like, actually, you've mastered it?
But truth be told, Jesus said, you think you have murdered somebody. But if you even call your brother a fool, like you've committed to murder your heart. OK, I have an adultery. But if you look at a woman with lust, Jesus says, you've committed adultery in your heart.
And so again, in the law is meant to expose our deficiencies, make us conscious of our sin. Why? Not so that we sit and wallow in self pity, but so that all the more we cling to the finished work of Jesus. Exactly.
And we're filled with gratitude for that. We have to reflect that. Or have a good conversation about that. Yeah.
Or if we think we are crossing everything off, like, oh, yeah, we're doing all the right things. It's not meant for us to be self righteous. Because right when Jesus was talking about this in the gospel, he takes it a step further every time. Yeah, it's my favorite training reader leaders when, OK, get strong hold week and someone says, I don't have a strong hold.
Well, guess what? You can just tell them you do it. It's called pride. Yeah, there you go.
There you go. So all kinds of stuff. And hey, this weekend we're also going to invite people into serving right, voluntary expo across all our congregations, which is a really good thing too, right? Because it's about, as we said, the vertical in the horizontal, receiving it and expressing it and expressing it.
And so the grace of Jesus, that's what we hold on to, it's something that we use to serve others, so that it can also experience its grace through our lives. And so you have to be encouraging your groups this week. Note that, right? How are we doing that?
How are we living that out? How are we serving the church? How are we using our gifts together individually to be a part of the story that God is writing and be intentional about that conversation in your time as well? Awesome, Sam.
Well, thanks for joining me. Oh, great. I can keep my job. You can keep my job.
Absolutely. And come back on the podcast. Good to talk to you. Thanks for being with us.
All right, guys. Thanks for your time. We'll catch you this weekend across all of our congregations. Let's lean in together.
Series magazines, week five, Exodus. Let's do it.