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. We're welcome to a week four of our Hope and Hopeless Times series where we're unclocking this together with our friend, Journey Maxfield for you, our life group leaders. Really the point of these conversations is to equip you to really engage the passage and the group discussions within your group to maximize your time together.
And we're so glad that you're using this as a resource, knowing that we've got some new life groups that are with us both coming out of this last course of rooted and through our Life Group Connect series. So we're excited that you're jumping in and we hope that you find this to be a great resource for you and your groups going forward. Well, we are on week four and the passage that we're diving into today, it's another chunk you want. I love it.
I love that we're going verse by verse, that we're really engaging God's word faithfully, understanding it and then also applying it through conversation. So we're gonna be looking at first Peter to 11 to 25, looking at the reality that our citizenship is no longer here on earth, but we are citizens of heaven. And I've heard that a lot growing up in church and I think I've even seen a few t-shirts and bumper stickers, but have often wrestled of how do we actually play that out? What does that actually mean?
And so this is gonna be a great conversation with your groups too, to bring this incredible concept into the here and now with all of its practicalities. So Jeremy, our good buddy is gonna walk us through the passage as always and look through some of the finer points of the group discussion as you lead this week. So Jeremy, why don't you take it away, my friend. Awesome, thanks, John.
So this week, like you said, we're gonna keep going through chapter two and whereas last week we looked at kind of who we are, now we're really gonna look at, okay, if this is who we are now, how do we live differently? If our identity has been transformed, how is our lifestyle? How is the way we live and operate while we're still here in this world? How do we live now?
And so if we're no longer citizens of this world, but we live here, we're to live with integrity, submit to authority, live honorably and silence the criticism by doing good. I think you and I both know, anyone listening to this knows that Christians are going to receive criticism because we should be living in a way that is a little out of step with the world around us. Now, sometimes the criticism is fair. Sometimes we bring it upon ourselves and we haven't represented Christ well, perhaps.
Even if we're speaking up for truth, maybe we're not doing so lovingly or with humility. But sometimes there's gonna be conflict between a Christian worldview and those around us because we're just living out of different identities and living for different values. And so we want to always live in such a way that our good works, silence those who would have something negative to say about us. So this week we're really gonna get very practical and for me, this is one of the most challenging parts of first Peter personally.
Just this whole idea of authority is a big one. So we'll hit that, but one thing I wanna point out to leaders right away is that this is a great opportunity with your groups to remind them of the rhythm of repentance or freedom from strongholds. Later, as you discuss, there's gonna be opportunities that I have a feeling I'm not alone in this, that this week was a really challenging one. And so we'll walk through that here in a little bit.
But the way we respond to authority can be a key distinction between the Christian life and testimony to the world around us that Christ is greater and that we have a good, good hope in him. That's right. I love how you framed this even from the beginning. As a letter is framed out as many of the letters in the New Testament are set up with this.
This is indicative, this is true, this is who you are. This is your nature, this is your identity. Now the imperative in light of that here is a way to live. And I love that it's not flipped around the other way, right?
As many world religions are, you must live up to the standard. And if you can reach that mark, then maybe you'll be accepted. Where Christianity comes with the realization that we can never reach that standard. Now here's who you are in Christ.
And now in light of that, here's what you're called to live. Here's what you're called to respond. So I love that. And part of that response is gonna be that rhythm of repentance, realizing that we miss the mark time and time again, but that grace is sufficient, even in those moments.
So I love that you tee that up for us, Jeremy. Something I found kind of striking in here is that verse 11, when I think about, as you talked about Jeremy, the culture at large, and sometimes it's contrary to what we wanna see as Jesus followers. And the encouragement actually in verse 11 says that urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul. And I know in my own life, just looking at that term wage war that often I feel like I wanna wage war against culture.
Culture, get it right, you need to get things together. But the encouragement is actually look inward and examine your own hearts and the sin that wages war against you. I think that's lost on a lot of us sometimes in the Christian community. Would you agree, Jeremy?
Oh gosh, what a great reminder, what a sobering truth that there is. There's so often an us versus them mentality. And we hear phrases like culture wars and things like that. And while it's true that there is spiritual warfare going on and there is tension that Peter is so clear, Christ was so clear that we're to conduct ourselves honorably.
We're to live out our identity as part of God's kingdom right now as a way to point towards our future hope that we believe this is the reality that we'll be experiencing, that there is a time of justice and hope and freedom and truth and beauty and joy, all those good things. But too often it just gets boiled down to do this and don't do this. And while we do see some of that, like do these things and don't do these things, the identity in Christ and our reason for that comes first. And it's so much bigger than just a moral guideline or a set of rules, we don't do these things.
It's because we have such a great hope in Christ. Right, right. And I love even how the group questions started out with our lean in question, because we wanna be experts in our culture and our surroundings as well. We're not excapists, we don't run from, but we wanna be involved and aware.
And I think Alina, something to affect this week about, where are you from? Where are you born and raised? What do you love about where you were locally? It's just getting us to think about where we live and where we live matters and our upbringing matters.
We wanna be aware of our cultural and our surroundings that we're starting out there. Yeah, hopefully that'll be one. It'll be just a way to maybe kind of get to know one another a little better, but it is. Like the people that you're around, where you're from, have shaped us more than we often realize.
And so it helps to stop and think about that. But then it also again can give us a heart for others as we stop and think, okay, well, why are they? Other people around me acting a certain way. Why do they value and believe certain things?
It probably has a lot to do with where they grew up and kind of their family or their community and their circumstances all kind of pull her into the way, the way we live out, how we see ourselves. That's right, that's right. Well, why don't you walk us through just some more tips for our leaders as they lead discussion this week? Yeah, so first of all, as we see that Peter starts to really get practical with unpacking, back in chapter one, the first week of the series, he said, be holy because I am holy.
And we talked about how that's a way to live out our family identity, right? It's not just a command, be holy and try to be like me. It's because you're part of my family, because we're children of a heavenly father, we begin to behave and act like part of the family. And so he gets really practical with that this week.
And as we start looking at our own lives, like I mentioned, that this week was challenging for me, there's gonna be specific behaviors where we probably need repentance. All of us can use at least an attitude check, that we can easily overlook thought patterns and postures that hold us back from walking in the freedom, goodness and mercy of Jesus. So I would encourage group leaders to lead by example, as always and create an atmosphere of humble confession and see a repentance where it's needed by naming specific ways that you look more like culture than Christ. And that happens to all of us.
And so I would encourage leaders to think about that and pray about that. Pray like the Psalmist did, of I'd open the eyes of my heart and reveal any way within me that is not pleasing to you. And so there's some questions that will kind of help you think about this in the world as well, with questions about like, how do you react towards like submit and authority? And why do you think you respond that way?
And why do you think people struggle with submitting to authority, especially in our culture that's so independent? And we even have kind of some categories of just authority in general and maybe government and work and relationships. Just to kind of help people start thinking through, what does it really look like to live with this kind of humble integrity that Christ modeled for us? And then finally, I would encourage leaders, the last question and that kind of look in section of, how does the description of Jesus challenge or encourage you today?
Spend as much time as your group needs for everyone to really wrestle with any of the strongholds they have in their lives and provide space for them to kind of break free and trust Jesus with every part of their life, including their view towards authority and kind of governing structures in our lives. Yeah, that's great. Every so often you'll read verses that just pop off the page and you have with those moments where at least I do. It's like, wow, that really surely can't be for me today.
I mean, verse 13, submit to every human authority because of the Lord, whether to the Emperor or to the Supreme Authority. I mean, just that word, submit to every human authority. Like really, is that really what is meant here? And then you come to realize that, whatever you think of our current state of affairs, you look back to the context of where this is written.
You're talking about people that were being persecuted, oppressed, executed. I mean, this was a horrific time in human history, especially for those that were following Jesus. And to have a letter written aloud to you, submit to every human authority in the middle of what they were facing. I can't think of anything else more subversive, more counter-cultural and actually in need all the more of the redemptive power of Jesus, if we're gonna actually live that out.
And so we don't get an out on this, do we, Jeremy? This is God's word to them, but also God's word for us here today. Yeah, absolutely. And that's such a good reminder and something that we wanna draw attention to.
And maybe even upfront, it's a good way to kind of curb a rabbit trail that would be really easy to go down about just as far as government and people get all worked up again, I mentioned culture wars and people have super strong opinions about politics and all these sorts of things that flow out of our, what we value. And so as we've heard in series in the past that our faith should inform our politics and our engagement socially, seeking justice and all these different things, but we always want to do so with a Christlike humility. We always wanna do so with loving others. And like you said, there really is no out.
Peter, as we heard Jared Kirkwood, I know mentioned in the first week in his message in the first week on chapter one that this was likely written during the time of Nero. And so there was just one of the most infamous persecutors of the church, blaming Christians for fires that possibly he even set or had set. And so there was just beyond religious kind of differences. Now there was full on government persecution, calling out Christians as troublemakers.
And you have Peter who would eventually die for his faith. You had Paul in places like Romans 13 talking about submitting to authority. And we do this not always because authority is correct, but we do it out of a posture, out of a testimony to trusting God's higher authority. That's what we saw Jesus do when he stood before Pilate and submit doesn't necessarily have to mean to obey, but it can mean to willfully accept the consequences for not obeying us.
Again, that's what we saw Jesus standing before Pilate. He didn't kind of bend the knee, but he was willing to accept the human consequences for living for God's kingdom first over man's kingdom. So as leader, avoid kind of those rabbit trails. And we mentioned last week that we're gonna have a series coming up in the fall with a verses 11 and 12, talking about what it means to be strangers in exile.
So we wanna touch on that here, but really focus your time on the authority question and let people wrestle with what it means to live as part of God's kingdom in a world where there are structures of authority. So good you guys. I wish you could see Jeremy. He stood up at one point.
He's preaching that point, man. So good. I love it. He could only do that.
Only do that if you're confident in your identity and if you're confident that there is something beyond what you see, that we are living for a kingdom that's beyond this temporal, that we're living for something that lasts, that's beyond that. So good. Well, as always you guys were praying for you. We believe that God is doing great things because of your obedience, because of your faithful shepherding of those in your group as you've discipled in.
So we look forward again as always to hearing stories of how God is working in and through your group. So have a great time discussing this week and we'll pick up next week for week five of our series.