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 the spiritual rhythms and changes the world together. Well hello, Life Group leaders and welcome to week two, fighting for joy, our study through the book of Philippians. It's been a great start to the series already.
I know in our Life Group we have a chance to engage the discussion questions this past week and really dive into this passage together. And we're excited to do that here with you all as well for week two. Just before we jump in, week one was significant, not only that we were opening up the book of Philippians, but we had an I believe weekend and over 149, it was 149 people across all congregations stood to declare faith in Jesus. Come on everybody.
Incredible. Across Paul Castellan. Give it a hand clap. Do an extra jump if you're running somewhere, whatever you're doing that.
I mean we can never get tired of the miracle because that's what it is, the miracle of salvation. Death to life, loss to found. God's doing great things and so we want to celebrate that together. And then this weekend's going to be great.
We have our pastor emeritus, the legend. Can be sure we'll be opening up God's word with us. And then another legend, and some of you have already heard your voice. You've figured out who it is already.
It is our global outreach pastor. Pamela with a new name. New last name. Pamela, do you want to break it?
Yeah, you can start up and out apparently for John. So Pamela Thornberg, formerly Pamela Philip, I got married last month and very excited to change my name to also learn how to spell it. But no, it's great. And I agree, John, this past weekend or the weekend, I guess before for the, I believe this was phenomenal.
I got to be at all five services at Irvine and every single time, you know, we had one service where one person stood up and then one service where over 30 people stood up and both were just a really beautiful, it doesn't matter. And I think sometimes we get a fearful and sharing the gospel of what if no, what if they don't say yes or in our case, what if they don't stand up? But really it's about presenting and allowing the Holy Spirit to work. And if we are faithful and obedient to present, even if the person is across the line of faith in that moment, we have to trust the Lord that he is working in their heart.
And so I love the picture of both, but then getting to celebrate across all of our congregations. It's amazing. Yeah. And that's so good.
And I get this in the perspective of quite often leading that invitation moment outside on the lawn. Yeah. Long John is one of my names and just a beautiful picture again this weekend of a father with his two young kids standing up, shouting it out together. And I love what you said to you about even when there isn't a response.
And Eric mentioned this in our, if I had more time podcasts this last week. So cross podcast promotion here, make sure you listen to that one. And I never really thought of it, but he said, even when somebody doesn't stand up, like we're discipling our church in the weight of God's grace at that moment and is sovereignty in that moment, reminding ourselves that it's not about us. It's not about like, Oh, wow, nobody stood up.
Let me go check in on Pamela and how she led that moment. It's like, yeah, like we do the invitation. We leave that up to God's spirit and his drawing. And it's also modeling to work, look, you can do this.
You can do this. And success doesn't mean, you know, how many people in response, the success isn't on us, right? It's we're obedient, we're faithful and we give the invitation. And it's not just for pastors who stand on stages.
It's for every single one of us. Sorry. Beautiful. Great.
No, it was great. And it was just a reminder of our own faith, right? And Eric led that moment so beautifully of saying for those of you in the room who know Jesus, like remember the moment when you said yes. And I really actually at the 10 AM service, it's amazing going to all five, how you can see the difference in response and the difference of the movement of the spirit.
And at the 10 AM when we had over 30 people, the applause in the room could have lasted another five minutes. Like it was joyous to remember when we said yes to Jesus and to welcome you feeling members. And we could talk about this before podcast. I know like don't miss it.
Right. The sick, Robert moment, lean in, be a part of prayer when that's happening. Like your car is not going anywhere. Sometimes I gotta go, I gotta get my kid.
I gotta run off to this. I don't want to miss that moment because you remember how significant it was in your own life and your own journey and what that means for other people, not just in the moment for eternity. We believe it. Alright, Pamela and I could talk all day long about a great number of things, but why don't we start talking about the sermon discussion questions.
The lean in this week is what's some advice you've received while you're struggling in particular season in life or Pamela, I didn't ask you this, but being a newly married person yourself, if I were to flip this question individually on you, and you may or may not be able to answer because I didn't prime you for it. But I wonder if you got a lot of advice for folks as you're newly married now, is people to try to give you instructions of how to walk through it? Yeah, no, that's a really great question. But you know, we're only a month in, right?
So the honeymoon phase, everything's crazy. You can probably write books on marriage and just how to have great conflict resolution because you don't have conflict. Okay. No, we got a lot of great advice from people, but I actually wanted to answer this.
I was reading this question earlier and I think I have more personal answer. And I actually hope that the advice that we've received from so many people. Actually, one of my favorites came from another member of our church, one of our elders and about marriage. And he just talked about the endless extension of Grace to your partner.
Like never stop extending Grace to your partner. And when he shared it, I just knew it came from a place of depth and a lot of growth in years of marriage. And so that's something I definitely want to hold on to knowing that our seasons will get more challenging. Our growth together will be tough at times.
And so am I extending Grace? Am I extending Grace to myself? But am I extending Grace to my husband? But then I think on a personal level, so what is the best advice I've received while struggling with her particular season in life, on a trying season?
One thing that I hold on to so much, I'm not sure exactly where this advice came from, but it's been something I've held on to for a long time is that really nothing is past the Lord's redemption. So no matter how dark this season, how confusing this season, how frustrating or painful, it doesn't mean I'm jumping to the resolution or to him to redeem a booklet. Well, God, I'm going to make this good. So I don't have to sit in the sorrow, sit in the sorrow, sit in the lament, feel all the emotions.
But that's where my hope comes from is that there is nothing that the Lord cannot redeem. And so do I have hope that he's going to pull me through this situation and that he could even turn it around. Right. That's right.
That's right. Sometimes we get advice that can be a little bit pithy and went off and maybe an avoidance of a real thing through a statement that we might be. But it's so true that the best form of advice often comes through somebody who we're in relationship with and also has got the experience, right? Of the backside of seeing what that has looked like in their life.
And I think there's something to that with in Paul's letter to the Philippians that he's writing from prison. He's restricted greatly in his what the immediacy of maybe what his ministry was and what it looked like. But yet his instruction to them is rejoice in the advance of the gospel all the more. And so we're going to get into that as you look at the passage.
I'm going to read it right now. Actually, Philippians 1, 12, or 18, it says this, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me and what has it. It's not an all expense pay vacation. It is imprisoned for proclaiming the gospel.
He says, what has happened to me is actually advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly. To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will. These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.
The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely thinking they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ's proclaim and in this I rejoice. So so many things to draw out of the passage here.
You've got a few look down questions that will help you prompt as you lead this section of discussion with your group. One of them is in addition to the general hardships of prison. What else was making Paul's situation difficult? What do you see there Pamela?
Yeah, I think what he specifically talks about people that were preaching Christ out of selfish ambition. So one, you know, here's Paul who's known as this great teacher and kind of has his reputation. And so even other people trying to take his reputation or become greater than him, which obviously is his motivation. But then also that that some of them were using actually proclaiming Christ to cause problems for him in person to help even by them preaching the gospel was actually shedding more light on his situation and potentially causing him more harm situation.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so there's so much going on just besides his physical imprisonment. And then he says that this bad situation is actually advanced the gospel. And there's things that you could pick up in the passage here that we kind of glance over, but they're really substantial.
He says in verse 13, it's become known throughout the whole imperial guard. Yeah. And to everyone else that this is why I'm in prison. We talk about maximizing the restrictions.
Paul, under under guard, likely a Roman jailer every four hours or so rotating coming in and checking on him. And I just get the spectrum. This is me in the white space a little bit. If everybody comes through that doors, this is an evangelistic opportunity for me to share why I'm here, why I'm joyful about what I'm here, that it's not a defense of himself, but it's an advanced into the gospel.
I think so often when I get into a situation that's overwhelming, I want to either retreat or I want to defend. I want to figure it out. And not the first thing in my mind is how might this be for the advancement of the gospel in and through my situation. So Paul is maximizing that.
Absolutely. And then too, right? And then if his letters written from prison, he's basically bound not able to. Paul was like a serial church planner before that was really a thing.
The amount of movements, churches that he started that he would go and check in on. And now he's restrained physically, but the impact beyond the physical restraints is where the advancement comes. Well, I think this is what we hear in Kenton's message as well about purpose. Yeah.
Paul knew his purpose. His purpose was to preach the gospel. And for all of us, that's the call over all of our lives. Yeah, not just the super impossible.
Exactly. Exactly. But I think that's what sustained him in those moments. And I'm sure there were really hard days.
I'm sure there were days where he was not as energized or, you know, and you talk about John in the white spaces. My life group girls make fun of me. They say it's pammy in the white space. Let me paint a picture of what maybe could have been happening again, just to realize that these are real people.
We can obviously look at Paul and be so in a way idolized him for a good reason, but also remember his humanity and go, OK, what would I be like in that situation? And so knowing that he took that as every opportunity to talk to people that walk, they were guarding him to talk to people that were coming to check on him or maybe even people that were there to harm him. Yeah. Well, to say that I am here because I'm reaching the gospel and regardless of what you do to me, I will continue to preach the gospel.
It's really a wonderful thing. And Eric pointed us back last week to Act 16 and how the gospel movement started in this colony in Philippi and Paul and Silas imprisoned praying the earthquake or chains fall down. And then the prison guard, one that's watching. This is my opportunity to defend myself, attack him and get even.
And they end up sharing the gospel and he and his whole household are safe. Like it's unbelievable. Amazing. Which this next question, what does it tell you about Paul, right?
That what do you believe about himself? And we're hitting all these things. He's secured himself his identity. He knows it's not it's not about him.
It's it's about others. It's about raising other people up. And then the next question, which I won't read the passage for the sake of time, but 18 to 20, how did true joy impact what Paul expected or hope for with his imprisonment? So he knows what joy is.
It's not circumstantial. It's not the confinement of space, but the joy is not in, you know, his cover, the joy is in the advance of the gospel. So he sees that. Therefore, he's full below.
And I love it in verse 20. It says, I will not be ashamed about anything. Yeah. Yeah.
And I go, where does he get that strength from? And I always saw him 34. It's like one of my favorite songs and it says those who look to him are radiant and their faces will never be ashamed. And so I equate those things together.
Like when we are looking at Jesus and we are confident in who he is and his power and the hell he's going to do what he says he's going to do. And we're confident in the identity that he's placing us. That's where we can be courageous and confident to say, I will not be ashamed about anything because I know who I am and I know who's I am. Right.
I mean, that that is just how I always look at people in these situations where I go, how do you get through that? I mean, we all have a normal day to day things that we can get through. But when you look at someone who's imprisoned or being persecuted or just in a lot of physical pain or loss or grief and you go, how do you get through that? And more often than not, when I see people that hold the help of Jesus is because their faces are pointed to Jesus.
Come on, let's go panelists. Come on, panelists. I got it. I got it.
It's going to take you a while. Me too. All right. Then moving on to the next set of questions and the lookout and the look in here's a lookout says, and I might have a way to help us rephrase it or review another question that we can ask around it says, what objections to the view of God sovereignty at work in our circumstances might someone have who doesn't follow Jesus.
How do we answer these objections in a joyful and thoughtful way? So help us to think through that question. Yeah. When I read that question, it's a lot of words, but they're good parts.
But I think essentially what it's asking is oftentimes we're in a hard situation. And if we're like, Paul, and we're expressing joy in all circumstances, for someone who doesn't know the Lord, that's going to be confusing. You know, and they might question, how can you have a joy? How can you be hopeful?
And then you get to share where your source of joy is you get to share your hope, you get to the gospel. I think what could be hard is when somebody in your life who doesn't know Jesus is going through something hard. We might want to come in with those easy platitudes of God's going to work everything together for good. But if they don't believe in God, that's an exhausting statement.
Or my least favorite is everything happens for a reason. And I really struggle because the statement brings a lot of hope to people because we want to know that everything happens for a reason because some reason why if we have to go, if there's no reason for this, it's just senseless. But the reality is that we, this is the ramifications of the fall. This is the consequence of sin.
And so that's where going back to my initial, like my advice statement, I loved of nothing's past God's redemption. That's good. I think, you know, it can actually put a burden on people when we say everything happens for a reason because when they're going through what feels like senseless pain, it does not show a loving God. So when we get to talk about, hey, we live in a sinful world and there are consequences to the brokenness, the brokenness of this earth, the brokenness in relationship, the brokenness within ourselves.
But we have a God who restores, who redeems, who heals. And it really changes the perspective of it. I'm not looking at it as, well, God's in control and everything's going to be okay. But actually sitting in the pain with people.
And I think that's another way to answer this question too is what does it mean when we don't have the answers? Because oftentimes we don't, but we have the ability to be present with people. We have the ability to grieve and to lament and to not be afraid of not having the answers. And go, I'm so sorry, you're going through this.
And I want to sit with you and just love you. I mean, how many times has the Lord just sat with you and loved you in your confusion and in your grief? And that's, I think another way that we get to respond to people that don't hold the same faith, but who are so capable. And I really feel like desperate for the same comfort.
That's good. Yeah. And sometimes we are too quick to ignore the pain to and we want to skip over it. And like you said, the importance of sitting in there without having all the answers and acknowledging it, of calling bad, but how like this is evil, this is harmful.
You know, we live in a broken world. Sometimes brokenness is our bad. It's the bad of others. Yeah.
Other times it's just because of the bad, the broken nature of the world. But we believe in the redemptive power of who Jesus is. Did he cause this in your life? No, but he can use it.
Absolutely. Can we deem it? But don't rush too quickly towards that. Right.
And it's true. All things work together for the good of those who loved him and are called according to his purpose. Absolutely. But sometimes we want to rush to that.
We want to rush to the resurrection story of Easter without sitting to the silent in between of the Friday and Saturday and acknowledging that that God even wants to do some of his greatest work in there. You know, our faith is built upon the premise of death. That's not a like an extra elemental part of the Christian faith. It is an essential of the Christian faith.
Yeah. Right. But life and beauty comes comes from death and we should be okay with sitting in that while realizing that we hope we have hope, not like other stuff, right? I know my I can't.
I'm still about remembering where quotes come from. But it says that joy and sorrow are two sisters that live in the same house. And I love that because I often think sometimes, especially as believers, that we have this false idea that we always need to put on a happy face or to push through things or to proclaim the hope without proclaiming the pain that we're in. And that can feel very isolating.
So even to know that I can hold such deep joy and deep sorrow at the same time is really beautiful. And I think only is capable of the power of the Holy Spirit, which is, again, going back to this entire message. How do we do that? And it's only through Jesus.
That's right. One, there's a couple of down questions here. There's one here that I want to rephrase a little bit. You can use these questions as they're written here.
They're good questions, but you panel now we're talking and just kind of sprung into a different way, baby. But one of the questions says many people, believers included tend to only see the possible bad outcomes of the problems like Paul, how can you learn to recognize the advantage or appeal of even a bad outcome? So how could you learn? I think maybe I'm calling to remembrance for you or where have you seen?
Where have you seen overwhelmingly bad situations be redeemed and used for God's purposes? Where have you seen that in your own life? Call back into remembrance or in the life of others? Where have you seen that?
And you're sorry, some stories in your role of a global pastor. Yeah, as I was looking at Kenton's message and just even reading through this part of Philippians, I immediately thought of our global family and I learned so much from them about joy in the midst of hard circumstances. And first and foremost, I don't like comparison. We're going to even hear about that this weekend.
I don't want to feel like I can't feel my feelings because I'm not going through the level of devastation of somebody else. I'm allowed to feel how I feel. But I think there's something really powerful about learning from one another in these circumstances. And so even recently, as a lot of you know, we have two church partners, our global family in Ukraine.
And we've been supporting them immensely over this last year as they are in a war, a physical war. And every Friday, we do a prayer call with our partners over Zoom. Anyone's welcome to come, please just email me if you're interested. Is it Pamela form?
Is it be form of the emergency or should I work? Not yet. But working on it will be. But what's beautiful is that every single Friday we sit with him on his call and world there in the comfort of our homes in Orange County over Zoom, just hanging off of every word.
And last week, specifically Pastor Anatoly, who from New Life Church in Keve. So they're in Keve in the center of Ukraine. And he's literally showing us a video of rockets that were two miles from his house just days prior days. And you're like, OK, it's hard to even compute that.
And then he starts preaching to us. He is literally proclaiming the goodness, the power, the strength of God. He is asking for more of just the Lord's presence and how they're ministering to their people. The joy on his face.
I'm like, he to me is Paul. I'm like, everything you're going through, it does not make sense that you would hold this joy outside of Jesus. And yet you do. And you're actually here preaching to us and inspiring us.
And I'm guaranteed everyone on that call just like Paul, when he's in prison, encouraging the Philippians. Here's Anatoly in a war who's encouraging the members of Mariners Church to go and to recognize the freedom that we have for the gospel and how are we advocating for our global family? But how are we sharing the story of Christ? Great.
And I can say this, I don't get me going. But our partners in Congo, our partners in Egypt and Egypt is literally illegal for them to share their faith. They're allowed to be Christians and it's beautiful. But to share the gospel on the street, they could be arrested for that.
And you go, well, God, how are you going to work in that? Because we can't have every single person in prison or maybe we could. I don't know. But what the Lord is doing is he's bringing visions, he's bringing dreams to people in Islamic faith and it's transforming nation, a region.
And it's mind blowing because it's encouraging the Christians, these stories of miracles. And then the last one I'll share, I'm going to keep going, is in Haiti. You know, we have, there's a lot of political and economic and even physical crisis in Haiti when they keep having earthquakes and hurricanes. And their president was assassinated a few years ago.
There is just a lot of turmoil. And if you've been around Meredith for a while, you know, we have a church partner in the south of Haiti. And in 2020, we helped finish raising funds for them to start a school. And the school is running and is beautiful and is amazing.
And you think, OK, we've got this project. They're planting churches. Things are still not looking great in Haiti. And yet we just got another donor who donated for a second school and Pastor Sam is so jazzed.
And he's like, we're going to keep running. We're going to keep going. I'm like, everything in your circumstance says, we're going to take a pause or we need to reevaluate what's going on. He's like, no, we keep building.
We keep moving. I have been standing in churches in Haiti that have been knocked down by hurricanes and they rebuild. And it says the church can be digged in the grass. So anyways, the church often grows where it's most opposed, right?
Absolutely. That throughout all church history, not just for the history of currently to get so good. So sure those stories as a way to build faith and encouragement in each other. And then of course, you know, many of us, we don't have those same restrictions.
We're not prisoned. We're not in a war-torn country, war zone conflict. But there are restrictions that are often placed on us. And think about those.
Now, where are the restrictions right now that I'm in the middle of and how can God actually work in and through through those? Or here's another one. Not that we seek out suffering, but where are those those limitations? Or those restrictions that you've been opposed to that you've tried to move away from.
Where actually God might be inviting you into them to use a showcase that showcases the gospel even more even more beautifully. So that's really good questions to kick around. But we're a post restrictions, but it often turns out that that's where the gospel forewishes and thrives. Well, I think one of our cultural strongholds is really the desire for comfort.
Yeah, that's right. And we work so hard to make our lives comfortable. But what I love about being reminded in Philippians is what is the purpose of my life, right? And I'm going to talk about glorifying God with his whole body, glorifying God with everything he does.
And some of you might be listening, and even for myself, you know, I might be listening and go, well, Paul is this great teacher and missionary and that was his call in his life. But every single one of us as a follower of Jesus is called to the work of ministry in the sense of sharing the good news of the gospel. Right? We heard that week one with Eric.
And so where is our sphere of influence? What sector of society are we in? You know, I'm not a teacher who happens to be a Christian. I'm not a doctor who happens to be a Christian.
I'm a Christian who happens to be a lawyer, a teacher, a mother, you know, ex-y and Z. And so when we're confident in our identity, the Lord is going to open up opportunities to share the gospel. And it might create persecution or oppression or opposition. And yet where do we get to in grace speak the truth of Jesus?
That's right. So good. Pamela, thank you so much. Incredible.
Love the insight, love the passion, love the highlight to you. Your heart, your passion, your connectedness to the global church. We need to be reminded of that continually. It's not a part of what we do.
It's an assessment of who we are, a global family, one church. So I love that you're drawn us to that as well. And you're a real deal with life group. How long have you been in your life group?
So I am in two life groups, which I love but also recommend it. It's beautiful. I saw one of my life groups. We were the very first root and group at Areners in 2010, 13 years.
And then I led a rooted group in 2020, right before the pandemic started and ended up staying with them. And then just couldn't let them go where they couldn't let me go. Yeah. So we now we have four, three years in and I love those women so so much.
And it's great thing to be a part of. Great. Amazing. Pamela, thanks for joining us.
Life Group leaders. Thank you for your time this week. Again, lean into this weekend. Bibles, pens, note taking in hand, whether you're going to be here in Kenton, here at Irvine or this is a life teaching weekend across all of our congregations.
So lean into what God is doing and come ready to discuss in your groups this week. All right. Thank you guys. We'll see you next week.
Bye.