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Thank you. Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource you to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Your leaders, we're so glad you joined us back for the weekly podcast.
This is your host This Week. This is Kim, and I'm so excited to have my friend and our college pastor Tiffany with us. So glad you're here today. Hey, so excited to be here.
Oh my goodness. Week six of Colossians. Week six in this great book. This has been so good so far.
For chapter three this week, I hope that your groups are going great. The discussions are just deep and fruitful and personal. And we just want to encourage you this week to dig in, to lean forward and glean everything you can because this passage today is incredible. So good.
Yeah, there's so much depth to it. So we want to just talk through some of the text, some ideas of how to lean in, maybe use some of the questions, maybe land on one or two and dig deeper. But in all of that, lean into the Holy Spirit and you know your group. You know the people that come every week and the hurts they carry the challenges they have their love for the scripture and how they bring that to your groups, lean into that and know that God is going to show right in that space.
Yeah. Let's do a lean in question to get us started. These are always kind of fun. Or maybe you have your own.
You know, I don't know some weeks our group. We have our only new questions. But this one was pretty cool. Like what's the first image that comes to your mind when you hear the word piece?
That is a great lean in. You know, I could go deep with it, but I'm not going to go deep with it for this immediate lead in. I immediately pictured Sandra Bullock on Miss Congolie. So I just think of like, you know, world peace, you know, just kind of like that.
You know, please say everybody wants world peace kind of thing. Yeah. No, I forgot. No, about that movie.
But wow, it's not just why it comes right back, doesn't it? Classic. I think of the beach. Oh, the beach.
No matter where I am in the world, no matter where I am in my mind or schedule. If I just get to the beach, the consistency of the waves and gods majesty in that place. It's just so peace getting for me. I love it.
I love to sit in that space. So make sure you give everybody a chance to dial in on that question. It doesn't have to be deep as Tiffany clearly displayed for us. But it needs to be fun and absolutely.
Draw people in and just get the conversation started. So lean in. Yeah, that one. And then look down at the scripture.
Look down. And that is where the Holy Spirit begins to work. Of all the questions, this is the one I look forward to the most because the Holy Spirit and the Word of God does the work. We just have to lean in and know that he's going to do that.
So I want to read part of it. I'll read the word. Plosians 3 12 through 17. Therefore, as gods chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience bearing with one another and forgiving one another.
If anyone has agreements against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you. So you are also to forgive above all, but on love, which is the perfect bond of unity and let the peace of Christ to which you were also called in one body rule your hearts and be thankful. But the word of Christ will richly among you in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another through songs, hands and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts and whatever you do in word or indeed do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, getting thanks to God the Father through him. That is the word of the Lord.
Amen. Tiffany, I know that you are preaching the word Thursday night for this passage and we're so excited. So as you prepared for that message, what did you glean out of that passage? What really stood out to you or challenged you?
Absolutely. Well, I think the first challenge is where to start because every word is just like packed with so much and this is such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful passage. In fact, it feels a little bit overwhelming. Like if you go to like a five star restaurant and there's just so much like where you start.
I think that was the first thing. But the first thing that I noticed was verse 15, which I think is kind of a crown jewel of this whole thing and let a piece of Christ to which you were also called in one body rule your hearts. And the first thing I thought of was this idea of allowing the peace of Christ to actually rule in our hearts. And if I'm honest, I think if we're all honest, peace is something that we all long for.
We all long for it. I know made fun of this congeniality and all of these. But the truth is the thing that keeps me up at night typically is the lack of peace, either within myself or with other people. And so the idea that there could actually be a piece that rules above everything is so amazing.
It just gives me a sense of hope that's so beautiful. I love that. It is a longing for every one of us. And it's probably in a different space each week.
If we were talking about this passage next week, it would be different than today. Totally. But the ruling over your hearts is a consistent thing. I love that the phrase and be thankful is its own sentence.
Yeah, that's true, right? Yes. Like there's a whole list at the top. There's above all put on love and the peace of Christ.
And be thankful. I love that. Because when we're thankful, we're grateful. It changes everything.
It changes our will be long for changes, our attitude. It changes what we pray for. It certainly changes our level of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Totally.
We're grateful. We're thankful, right? So good. The first question I have in here for a look down, what in your words does it mean to put on these characteristics?
Another version says, clothe yourselves. What does that mean to you when you read through that? I immediately was very into the imagery of putting on clothes. We're going to put on these different things.
And as I thought about compassion being a jacket or kindness being, all of these things. And just like we choose to put on different clothes depending on what we're about to do, or the activity we're about to embark on, I started to think about every time we're about to interact with somebody. Whether it's someone we know and love or we know and they're really hard and they're causing a lot of pain or even a stranger. We recognize they're all made in the image of God.
We recognize that really at the core, even if you don't admit it, we long for peace with other people. And I love that God gets really practical here. Paul does when he's writing this of, Hey, every time you're about to step into a conversation with someone or a situation with someone, you have to actively choose to put on these things. And it's not either put on these things or just go neutral.
The truth is without our without the Holy Spirit, we naturally put on the opposites of these things. Like we put on, you know, we put on selfishness and pride and all of these things. And I just think about how beautiful the passages is that if we decide to close ourselves, we grab that right jacket before we enter conversations. It actually promotes peace in those conversations and in those relationships.
Oh, yeah. So good. So rich. I love that.
The intentionality of putting it on. Yes. Daily. You have to, you can't just wear the same jacket and like you take it off every day, but back on like it's a daily thing.
Yeah. And the same jacket would highly offend everyone after a few days, right? That's so good. Yeah.
Yeah. It's got some intentionality to it. So dig into that passage. There's so much richness.
Yeah. I love that. And then, you know, as we often encourage you, you don't have to use all the questions. Some weeks you do.
Some weeks you may look down at the scripture and then move to look in and apply it. Right. And just dig down deeper with every conversation that you have. So however you get there, make sure that you get to look in because that's the part when we leave that it's going to stay in our hearts.
It's going to be in our minds and we go to sleep at night. It's going to challenge us and we get up to the next day to remember to put it on, put on compassion, or it's going to remind us when we didn't. Yeah. And the conversation that kind of gets us going with the lack of patience.
Oh, yeah. I should have taken that time with the Lord today. But the look in is so important. If you read back through the list of things, which of these do you struggle with the most?
Yeah. Is there another way you might ask that to have been here? How would you land in that in that question, in that space to look in? Yeah.
I think sometimes it's hard for us to admit that it's kind of like the job interview of like, hey, what's your strength? Your really great, what's your weaknesses? Maybe I care too much. It's hard for us to admit it in ourselves.
So maybe another way to really get us to be honest is who in your life is it hard to show these things too? Because then it's a little bit more like, oh, they're making it difficult for us. But then it opens us up to actually think about it. And then we can realize, oh, yeah, we still no matter how difficult people make it, we still have the ability to put it on and we're choosing not to.
And so it may be, it feels like a detour, but it might not at least get you to the place where we were honest with ourselves. And I know for me, can I just confess, as a leader, it's really helpful for us to go first. It is. It is.
It's the hardest thing for, like, I don't want to forgive. It's hard for me to do that. And it's something I have to do every single day. The people that really hurt us, it's easy to stay in that unforgiveness.
But how important it is to do that? It is. It is. And for me, I think I love that sentence to be thankful.
Because I don't know that I always hold that close. Really embrace that and stop and be thankful. Even for the tough things, even as we walk through things that challenge us, but having an attitude of gratitude, which is kind of a cliché phrase, but it does change my whole perspective when I am thankful for that person that I might be having a challenge with. For the way that God has created them, for the strengths they have, for who they are in my life, whatever.
It looks like just being thankful. And being willing to lean into those moments for sure. That's so good. Yeah, it is good.
And it's such a great, rich, very applicable passage for us to talk through as a group. So I would like to suggest, as you end your group this week, spend some extra time in prayer about these things we need to close ourselves with. Maybe it's having an attitude of gratitude. Maybe it is showing compassion, kindness.
But creating a prayer atmosphere where everybody can be a part of that, whether it's just a sentence prayer or if it's praying for the person on the right or the left, but praying through these things that the Holy Spirit gives us the strength and the ability to demonstrate. It's not by our own doing, but praying through that. And, Timmy, as you were preparing for Thirsty Night, what's one of your take-homes that you want people really to grab onto as they head out of the building, head out with their friends, head out back to work the next day? Yeah.
I think one of the things that I really would love for people to take with them and think about is that often we think that like peace, it's kind of like we think about peace and anxiety or peace and fear or all of these as like, you know, I think about inside out, like almost kind of like, well, whoever gets in control for a second. And, you know, we can't really hang onto peace because it's just one of the many things that we can experience. And I just love the imagery of, let the peace of Christ rule in your heart that it's actually, it doesn't have to be a tug of war. It can actually rule over your anxiety and rule over your fear or the tough relationships.
Like the overarching thing is that we can have peace with God and peace with people. And so, yeah, so I'm praying people feel encouraged that peace is possible. Amen. Yeah.
That's so good. What a good word. Yeah. I wish everybody could come to Thirsty Night.
We're so excited to hear you speak the word. Oh, thank you. Hey, Laker, please, we're so thankful for you. Incredibly grateful for who you are, for how you sacrifice and love and leave your groups.
And we pray for you often. It's just such an honor to walk alongside you. So, excited to hear stories from this week and pray that you have a great time together.