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. Thanks for listening to today's podcast. Before we start our episode, I wanted to remind you that this podcast and the other ministries of Mariners Church are all created to serve you, our communities, and our global family.
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And I hope you enjoyed today's episode. All right. Welcome leaders to week seven, 50 believe it week seven of fighting for joy or study through the book of Philippians. We are doing the thing.
It's been an incredible study looking at God's word. Hope you've enjoyed it with your life groups. We are here this weekend. It's July 1st and 2nd, right?
This is a the official start of summer. I got my buddy with pastor Esther Chung here. What's up, Esther? Hi guys.
Hey, Esther, summer's right around the corner. Fourth of July is the thing. We have looked like for you and your family. It looks like recognizing the sun's playing peekaboo with us and trying to go.
I know that was a spiritual thing. You're talking about the actual physical. Oh, yeah. Just making sure.
And trying to go with swimming. Our daughter just loves swimming so much. She's like really into a little mermaid right now and swimming. So trying to squeeze that in as much as we can.
That's awesome. David as well. He's all about a little mermaid too. All in time has to.
He knows the lyrics to all the songs and all the things. I'm going to ask him to prove it next time. Yeah, we love it. It's full on summertime.
Fourth of July is the big deal in our neighborhood. There's block parties and a fire engine. Our house usually becomes kind of the hang house. We live in Costa Mesa.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to find out.
See what happens. They're legal. It goes to Mesa. It doesn't mean the fireworks that go off our legal fireworks.
It's like a war zone which is a lot of fun. Yeah. We've got to maximize that. Fourth of July with your family with your groups.
We know that July is an interesting time. We've got to travel a little bit. So you want to stay connected socially, maintain your meeting rhythm as you can. And then we know that we've got a bunch of new groups that just launched as our last session of ridded just wound up amazing.
This last weekend. Ridded celebration baptism. Two hundred people say I believe unbelievable. It was so good.
I know we got a lot of new leaders that are listening to this podcast for the first time. Yeah. So our hope with this podcast is give you a little bit of a summary of the message. This is Steve Bengley to this weekend.
Joy not of this world. He got flippians three 10 to 21 and then Estrana will kind of work through the questions as we would in our own life groups. Yeah. Tips we might think Jack probably might reframe questions a little bit like that.
Yeah. That's not good. Esther, how do you do it? You're good.
You're a deep part of all. We love our life group so much and in the season, I mean, I don't have other life groups already in this like based on the season or it's the summer. We're kind of bringing back the testimonial part of Ridded in the beginning where each of the couples are right now taking turns, sharing their story of how they met, how they got together, what their beginning stages of their marriage was like and where Jesus has brought them today. So it kind of brings a freshness to our life group and we're even planning a retreat in the fall of our own life group.
All the adults are going. So we just love and we've been really intentionally going deeper. So it's just been really awesome. That's really.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That deeper thing doesn't just happen, right?
They encourage me as you lead us with your groups. The questions that are here are great. We have so many questions that are here. Of course, you want to like metabolize God's word for your own heart with sin to you for the passage.
You make about ways that you want to reframe questions. And be said to what God's doing in the moment in your group, right? Like these questions are meant to be a guide and not a strict term, I turn mad. I think that's helpful.
It's been all throughout the world. I'll be leading to so. But why don't we jump in through the method of questions when there are first one being Arlene in. Here's that intro question.
Think of someone that you deeply admire. What traits or qualities particularly set out to you about that person? What do you admire about them and the way that they do things? Anybody stand up in your mind?
Yeah. She is not alive anymore. But her name is Elizabeth Elliott and she was a missionary wife and widow. And you do it?
Okay. And then yeah, she lost her husband to a tribe in South America. But she took her daughter and went back to the tribe and taught them English, but actually learned their language and was a missionary to the very people who murdered her husband. And so just her insight and suffering, but also in her joy and security in Christ has inspired me so much.
But how about you, JT? You know, first I thought I actually was my mom. Just her praying. She's always been just a prayer warrior.
You know, for years leading a Wednesday prayer thing at the church that her and my dad lead together in prayers, but if he's part of who she is and what that's met at the impact of us and our family. That's so cool. When you look at characteristic of others, what it encourages you, not just on the appreciation of them, but what it fosters. And you see something in someone else that often you want to live into yourself.
Yeah. That's the beauty of relationships. Yeah. We need to be spurred on by one another, which is a bit of what this passage is leading us into.
Wow, I love us. Great. But why don't we get towards the passage? I'm actually going to read it.
And in your leader guide, it's versus 12 for 21, but I'm going to pick it up from verse 10, 321 because I think bang actually teaches from verse 10. And what I've actually done is I often do my own group. There are so many great questions here in the look down, but I've tried to really summarize all these different questions and kind of my own words in a couple of questions. And so we're going to do this kind of live on the spot with me and Esther here.
The question that I'm summarizing, all these great questions would be what do you learn about Paul's life goal? So that'd be the first one I want to maybe ask. And then the second cut of that question would be what do you learn about Paul's encouragement for the church of Philippi towards that goal? So what do you learn about Paul's life goal?
And then looking out what he learned about his encouragement to the church about that goal. So it's not just Paul's goal, but it's a goal that he wants to set for others. And so I'll read the passage and then I'm just going to like look at the verse here and you might even note some stuff down. So what do you learn about Paul's life goal?
What do you learn about his encouragement to the church of Philippi around that goal? So it says this, my goal and it kind of gives you a reminder, but there's so much more to it is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead, not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead. I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, let all of us, and this is not kind of the term, let all of us who are mature think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this also to you. In any case, we should live up to whatever truth we have attained. Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.
Where I have often told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. They're in this destruction. Their goal is their stomach. Their glory is in their shame, and they are focused on earthly things.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself. So there's a lot in there, and you might want to read that in turn, read it a couple of times, restating the question there. And I would encourage people to read it, like pen and paper, let's mark down the things, just like we do a lot of our team things, right? You wouldn't sing the group.
And that first question, what do you learn about Paul's life goal? What stands out to you Esther in those verses? Yeah, I mean, I think you may clear that his goal is to know Jesus. And maybe even in our groups talking about what does that word no mean?
Is it? Bang is probably going to talk about how it's not a cerebral exercise, but that it's a relationship and an experience. And I'm sure there are many people who've had different experiences with the same Jesus, and just coming back to, yeah, not just knowing him conceptually, and even some of us, like we may have grown up in the church and have known Jesus in our head through VBS, but then one day I've had an encounter with the grace and the person of Jesus. And so, yeah, I think Paul, I mean, he's had a lot of goals and he's achieved a lot for him.
Yeah, remember the list, the resume? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. And like all the profit, right?
Yeah, right. That game. But yeah, he's saying like, hey, the rest of my life goal is to know Jesus more intimately. And that's also to be aware that there's more to learn about him, more to discover.
And I think that's the same with marriage. Like the moment that you think that you already know yourself is like the day that your marriage stops growing and becoming more intimate and I think the same is with Jesus. Right. So yeah, I love that.
It's kind of like this, this all in picture of his goal in Jesus. It's every part of who he is. What he says right out from the beginning, the power of his resurrection, one of the life that he brings. Oh, and yeah, the fellowship of his sufferings that it's very cross-centred.
It's all parts of the food Jesus says. I want to know every part. I want to be conformed to his death. I want to actually live in the power of his resurrection or to do that.
I need to share in the sufferings. I love the self-awareness. We talked about to that I haven't taken hold of it yet, but I'm still going after that. But then he says, I've been taken hold of by Christ Jesus that there's this understanding that it's not my own effort talking about the guy with the profit and the loss, right?
And his goal and his priorities are totally shifted to who Jesus is. There's so much in reverse their team. What do you learn about Paul's life goal that in order to go after it, he needs to forget what is behind and reach forward to what is the head or some lights that we can, the shame, the guilt that we carry or even the achievements of the paths that could prevent us from the full ness of life that Christ would have for us so much, so much in there. And then what do you see then Esther about how he would encourage the church to fill the pie to go after after that goal?
What's his encouragement to them? Yeah, I know Ben talks about the importance of, you know, in the scriptures talks about Paul says, you know, imitate me. Yeah. Yeah.
And then you can, you know, just to surround yourself with people that you admire that inspire towards Jesus. Yeah. And I think we can even give examples like, you know, in our life groups, but even maybe it'd be cool if you pointed out someone from your life group, right? You know, they've made a certain decision in their job journey or with their family and it's like, hey, where have you been inspired by somebody in this group where they've made a decision or thought about something that's turned your affections for Jesus?
It could be a cool moment of encouragement too. Right. Yeah. So great.
Yeah. Join in intimidating me as my life as following me as I follow Christ, these willational component there for sure. Yeah. And then I'll just take a picture too of like the opposition of reminding them where their citizenship is.
It's in heaven. And then he talks about these, these things that are enemies of the cross of Christ. I've never really actually, I've never read that, but I've never read that, but I've never ever seen it. I haven't seen it.
It hasn't read me. It goes on to list with those different enemies look like what we're talking about a bit more in the look in, but he's painting a beautiful picture of what it means to fall after in community. And he's painting a picture also of the opposition that that is there. Yeah.
And then the promise that it's not up to us. We create the environment for growth, but he ends in verse 21 by saying that he will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious. And he takes charge of play and he does the work to partner with him as a goal. So good.
Amazing. So there's so much in that passage. Just those two questions. We learn about Paul's life goal, what you learned about that encouragement towards the church of the Bible.
Then we get to the lookout and this is where we start thinking about where we see the supplies. A couple of questions here. Is your life such that someone could look to you as a mom? Why we're not actually that's a little bit more to look in question.
It's a good question to ask there, but that's getting us to think about the imitation of life. Is your life one that if others were to follow it, that they would also be led to Jesus? Yeah. One question.
Yeah. I think it's important. I think sometimes even for myself, I might think are my behaviors modeling and representing my, who I am in Christ. The more than behaviors, even do people see my relationship with Jesus and how I make decisions or how I interact with other people and are they stirred to attend to their relationship with Jesus?
Yeah. I think that those are something to think about. Right. And even to ask the question of, am I in proximity with others that they could even make that assessment?
Oh, wow. Have I kind of surface level removed myself? Yeah. I think that's not vulnerable.
That's true. Okay. We'll just kind of see the veneer and not opening myself up and deep relationships to others where they can even come to that. Yeah.
Assessment. That's true. That's a good question. Yeah.
Great. Let's go to the look in. Look in here is looking at, it's a gorgeous look at verse really 18 through 21 where he starts talking about the enemies of the cross. He identifies a few different things there.
He talks about their God is their stomach. Their glory is in their shame. They're focused on earthly things. They have a lack of understanding of their citizenship in heaven.
These are all sort of earthly things that prevent us from running after that. Right. Yeah. So the question is, okay, then for you, what does that look like in your life?
What are those things that deter you from pursuing the goal of knowing Jesus and making him known? What does that look like? What's the impact that's had on you and others? How would you respond to that?
Maybe how would you lead your group to the death question? Yeah. I mean, I think that I would lean into where it says their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame really stand out to me. And that's just kind of interesting.
Like the lowercase, she got our stomach is and I think that what do you think he means by that? Yeah. I was in the States in 08 for college and I ordered a salad and saw how massive my salad was. I was like, wow, I love America.
Yeah. Our salad is huge, you know? And just the sheer amount of options of food and not that those things are bad. Well, I was like, oh, wow, I'll eat half a year and I'll take home half.
But it sometimes could really stir a culture of greed and that sin of greed in my own heart. None of them are that and picking whatever I want. Not that that freedom is of adding, but I think even assessing how much does our hunger control our lives when we eat what we eat and the amount we eat. And then the glory is in their shame, like something that I've been thinking about.
I mean, I've been going to therapy for many, many years and love the power of it. And from college was really processing like my daddy issues, right? But there comes a point where you can process, process, process all the past of my daddy issues, but there came a point where I realized I didn't need a therapist to forgive my dad. I just had to decide that in the scriptures, like us, you know, and I think that there was a part where, you know, where they glory in their shame, like the shame of my past or the shame of how it, how it didn't, our family didn't end up looking like the way that I wanted to.
And sometimes we have to move forward and bang talks about that. He says, give greater weight to your future than your past. So that's good. You know, what are we obsessed with from the past that we can hold our story, but isn't turning us into victims, you know, that we're free in Christ and operating as citizens of heaven.
Yeah, you could form identity around a person, a pastor. Yes. Yeah. Form how you relate to yourself and others into God.
Right. Without downplaying the reality of our past, you know, or the shame to not glory in it. That's what that's interesting. The word God and glory being used for those things.
I would, I would be, I would bring it up to my life for me. Like, what do you guys think about those are strong words? Like, enemies of the cross. Those are some.
Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts, GT? I think it's brilliant.
I think, yeah, I think about the stomach thing. I love the prayer like you're making to just the physical side of that. Yeah. The greed, even the gluttony in our culture.
I think there's something to, maybe some of the audience that he's writing that glory in their stomach meeting, like their discipline, their, of keeping of the law, the things that they've sustained from and how that can feel like a moralistic religiosity and perfection. Oh my God. I think there's something in there. Oh my goodness.
You know, it really, it's historical content exchanges. I was thinking from, this is what happens when you come with the Western American lens, right? But, but that is, that's incredible. No, I think it's both.
I think it's both. It's a bit of God's word, right? It was originally by Paul to them, but it's also for us. So there's a meaning that transcends even the initial, it's both words.
It's a session of, yeah. Yeah. But I think there could be something in there, which really points, it's a question of craving. Yes.
What are you going after? What are you, what are you pursuing? Are you craving just hedonism, pleasure, desire, is that preventing you from that goal of becoming like Christ? Oh, are you pursuing moralistic religiosity and rule keeping and following is that preventing you from receiving the grace of Christ?
Because both running towards, towards works and an under appreciation of grace, giving you license to do whatever, both of those prevent you from growing and information to be Jesus. So there's so much in there and there's so much you can ask the question with your group to interact. What does that look like for you? What are those things?
What are those enemies of the cross that you know in your own life that are preventing you from either like Paul said, sharing at the Glorgas resurrection or running away from the sufferings of Jesus, like all those things, there's so much in there. So I love it. I know you're excited to leave this with your group. I think Microsoft this week sold gels and we don't have to leave it.
So I'm doing it with you right now. This is a lot of fun. I asked you your best. Oh, my mind blown.
Yeah, I always what my heart is like stirred to know Jesus after doing this podcast. I don't that that's the same for the leaders. We're so proud of you guys and we know that you're in a position to help people know him which is the goal. So yeah, go and go and do your thing.
Go and go for it. Get it done. All right, guys. I love you.
Appreciate you. We will talk to you all soon. See you next week. All right.