Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This week the conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practice his spiritual rhythms and changes the world together. Hey, Life Group Leaders, this is Scott and I'm here with Linda. Yep.
And we're so excited to finish off the last week of this incredible Exodus teaching series. And so yeah, this was great. And this past weekend we had Ed Stetzer, Dean of Talbot Seminary. Is he the Dean of Talbot Seminary?
Yeah, theology. Yeah, he's a lot of things, right? Yeah. He's one of the teaching pastors and travels the world.
So really grateful for his gifting and all that he brings to Mariners. Well, Linda, let's dive into the discussion for this week. Let's do it. Yeah.
How about we do the starter question of being in? Yeah. The question is, some people prefer to be alone while others fear being by themselves. For an extended period of time, do you wish you had more or less alone time and why?
Well, I love being around people, but I feel like I'm around people a lot. So I feel like my alone time is in the mornings when I do my walks and I love having that time alone with the Lord. Do I wish I had more? I don't think so.
I like being around people and family and a lot of the hustle and bustle and activity. Well, do you wish you had more alone time? Oh, you don't wish you had more alone time? No, I get a fair amount of alone time.
Okay. Yeah. I think for me, I'm an expert who enjoys being around people, but I really do appreciate my alone time. I do too, yes.
I wish I had more of that. I love that morning walk with my dog. I love just biking by myself. Yes.
But I love doing stuff with other people too. Like pickleball. Right. I'm a lot like you are.
Yeah. What a great starter question. I think this will really get the groups involved and engaged. And yeah, how about we look down into the scripture for this week and we're looking at Exodus 25 verse one through eight and then we'll go through that question.
So, hey, Linda, you want to read the first one? 25 verse one through eight? Sure. I'd love to.
Yeah. If you ever spoke to Moses, tell the Israelites to take an offering for me. You are to take my offering from everyone who is willing to give. This is the offering you are to receive from them, gold, silver and bronze, blue, purple and scarlet yarn, fine linen and goat hair, ram skins, dive red and fine leather, acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the eggs, Elements oil and for the fragrant incense and Onyx along with other gemstones for mounting on the.
F on F on and breast piece, they are to make a sanctuary for me. So I may dwell among them. Yeah. And I think as we look down the description, that first question, what is God's ultimate purpose in asking his people to collect offerings for the construction of the tabernacle?
I think worship, glory, sacrifice, surrender, right? Knowing that he gives us all things, that none of it belongs to us, and it's just an expression of our sacrifice for him. And it's worship too. Yeah, yeah, I think all those things like it's to make a sanctuary for God to dwell.
And it's really the purpose, it's a voluntary thing too. It's willing people, not obligated or, of course, or compulsion, but it's a place where God wants to encounter God. And obviously, that's not the only place that God exists. God is omnipresent, but he wanted to be in a place, designated place where he could meet with his people.
So how about the second section of Exodus 40, 34 to 30? How about I'll read that? This is talking about the Lord's glory. The cloud covered the 10th of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Moses was unable to enter the 10th of meeting because the cloud rested on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. The Israelites set out whenever the cloud was taken out from the tabernacle throughout all the stages of their journey. If the cloud was not taken out, they didn't set out until the day was taken up. But the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and there was a fire inside the cloud by night visible to the entire house of Israel throughout all the stages of their journey.
I mean, think about it, this is incredible, right? It's right to see that. Oh, that's the Lord. Do you ever sometimes wish that God could show himself like that?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think a lot of people have not a lot, but some people talk about encounters with Jesus or God or something happened. And yeah, I would love to have that.
Yeah, so how about that question? What role did the tabernacle serve in the community as God led his people? Well, it guided them. It guided them.
It was his presence. It was a reminder of him and his glory. Yeah, then you exactly like went to move. And when exactly when to move and where to move to where to move?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that leads to that question of looking out. Like why do many people feel like God's absent from the world and all he's created?
I think because they see the circumstances. So often that's all that we can see is our circumstances. And so it's hard to see God's hand and what he's doing outside of our circumstances. But we really tangently only have our circumstances or the circumstances that we see.
So we feel that God's absent because of what we can actually see with our eyes. No, that's so true. Like, you know, God doesn't always seem involved in affairs of men and women with all that's going on around the world, sickness and death and wars and all these things. And I remember reading this book one time in my twenties by one of my favorite authors named Philip Yancey.
He has a great book called What's So Amazing About Grace. Oh, Linda's looking at my bookshelf. I have a book by him called The Jesus I Never Knew. But I also remember reading this book by him called Reaching for an Invisible God.
And just to be honest, sometimes I just feel like, God, can't you just show yourself visibly? Right, right. It sometimes feels like I'm grasping at a God who is invisible. And like I said earlier, I wish I could see those clear signs like the cloud by day and the fighter by night moving so that I can move in accordance with his will and his purpose.
So yeah, so which leads to our next question. How does God tabernacle among us today? Well, I think it's anytime that we can take time to spend time with him and his presence to remain in him is us being able to hear from him. I try to provide times of silence during my quiet time to to be able to receive from him.
And it has always happened that he speaks to me. But we have to be in a posture of being able to be in God's presence, whatever that looks like. Yeah, I mean, what a gift, right? I mean, in the old days, the Old Testament times, we see that God dwelled in the tabernacle and then in the temple.
But with the coming of Jesus and his ascension, the Holy Spirit is with us. Right. And we are now the temple. Right.
I think it's the first Corinthians 3, 6, and don't you know that you yourselves or God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you. And that's pretty amazing. Like he's always in us. Right.
And they call me in the Old Testament to go, well, I wish I had that. Yeah. Yeah, we had a tabernacle, but you had the Holy Spirit going inside you all the time with you. Yeah.
And we are just like they offer sacrifices in the tabernacle. We offer bodies as living sacram. That's Romans 12 and 2, right? We offer our bodies as living sacrifices.
Holy and pleasing to God. Transformed by the renewing of our minds. So yeah, I mean, this in your life groups, I think this will bring up a lot of great, rich discussion. And then just that last part of looking in, like looking in personally, Linda, how has God made his presence known in your life?
Well, I know specifically when I asked the Holy Spirit to give me words or to help my conversation, he does it every single time. I know I more often look back and go, I can't believe I pulled that off or I can't believe I did that was all the Holy Spirit or I can't believe how God was softening someone else's heart before I spoke with them and really seeing his hand in that. So that's for me, that's what it is. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, as much as I think I shared earlier about, I wish I could see God physically. He seems sometimes absent. He's like this invisible God.
We have the opportunity now to be in his presence every day, every moment through his word, through his spirit, through his community, times of prayer, serving, being in office creation. I think through all of those ways that God has shown his presence throughout my life, not always in big signs and wonders, but thunder and lightning. But do that still small voice of him speaking through all those different channels. So to close out, what can you do in your everyday life to be reminded of the presence of God throughout your day?
Well, we have to create space to be in the presence of God. And it's a holy, holy time that we step into. So removing the noise, removing the chaos, removing the static that's busy, busy as our mind. And just being able to, whether it's, you feel closest listening to worship music or just going for a walk or being outdoors or whatever it means for the person, that's going to be.
A lot of people feel God in different ways. How do you do that? You have a very busy schedule. You're a mom of three boys and you're a wife.
You have a full-time job. You have so many responsibilities and pressures. And I'm sure many life group members can relate to the busy schedules and the busy responsibilities that they have chugging through so many things. How do you do that in your personal life?
I don't listen to anything in my car. I only turn on classical music so that I don't get bogged down by my thoughts and I just pray. I go for long walks in the morning with a dog and that's my prayer time. So I have to, I have to create spaces of silence in order for God to be with me and for me to be with him and speak with him.
And my quiet time, my daily quiet time too. Just to wait for me to connect. But you have to, you have to put places, spaces in your life for quiet to just receive and be an apoisure to receive. Yeah, that's so good.
Yeah, I mean, I think this, like I shared before, this will be such a good discussion to have with your group of encouraging them in the midst of the busyness, in the midst of all the pressures and life that we go through that God is with us, God is for us. He dwells in us that we are this temple. He is near and through times of worship and prayer. He desires time with us.
Yeah, that's the connection he desires. And when we don't have that, we begin to drift. We begin to drift when we're not in community with one another. It's as hard as sometimes it is to, you know, like, quite a hard time to say I'm going to be going to life group this week after a long day.
It's worth it. Yes. Because as we come together and pause and reflect, God's going to move and God's going to bring transformation. So like group leaders, it's just been wonderful just to be able to kind of go through the discussion guide with you and Linda and I were both praying for an amazing gathering that you have together as you close out this teaching series.
One other announcement that we have is this format of our like a leader podcast for many years has been such a blessing for us to be able to share our hearts and to go over the sermon discussion guides to give some ideas and tips at how you can facilitate your group meetings. But we've also been evaluating and we're always wanting to get better and how we can resource you and equip and encourage you. And starting in August, we are going to be changing kind of the focus of the format a bit where we're going to be talking about some specific topics that will help you and your group, things like how to facilitate effectively, looking at some ways to resolve conflict in a healthy way, how to create a hospitable environment, how to have amazing serve experiences and so much more. And so we're really looking forward to that.
I know this will be a change for some of you listening in, but we really believe that this new way of doing the podcast will help you and equip you to be better leaders and be confident and and equip to lead well. So we're really looking forward to that and we'll probably be inviting some of you to just ask questions and connect with us to give us feedback on how we can create better topics and do things that will elevate your leadership. So thank you so much for listening in and love you all. Have a great one.