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. Well, welcome back to week six of our series, Hope and Hopeless Times, our journey through the amazing book of First Peter. As always, we really hope that this series has been an encouragement for you both in your personal growth and discipleship, but also in the growth and discipleship of your groups.
We know that we are intended to grow spiritually night in isolation, but in community with others. And there is no other better tool to help us with our growth than God's word. And so we love that as a group leader that you are committed, you're absolutely committed, to looking at God's word, to taking your cues from the word of God, and to using this as the main instrument for which the spirit wants to grow you together. And when it comes to our conversation this week, looking at the book of First Peter, we go into this conversation of one of the hardest questions that's been asked throughout history is the idea of suffering.
And there really is no easy one size fits all answer to this question, but we do love that this week. Again, your group is gonna have an opportunity to dive into this topic knowing that it's not some ethereal topic, but knowing that it really represents life situations and circumstances within your group that we passionately believe, myself and Jeremy, our entire team passionately believe that you have been called and equipped for to shepherd your group, not just through the easy things, but through the difficult seasons as well. So we hope again that this is a great tool to help you just to do that this week in your life groups. So Jeremy, here we are.
We're at First Peter 3, I believe it's 8 to 22, an amazing verse, amazing truth here in God's word, but we'd love to always just have your insight to the passage, things we might wanna be aware of and how to maximize the conversation in our groups this week. Yeah, this week, and Peter, he transitions, he's been talking about marriages and how kind of the marriage relationship point people to Christ. And then we get right back to this question that you said of, in the midst of suffering, like what do we do? Like how should we live, all of us?
And I love Peter opens up this passage per se, finally all of you be like-minded and sympathetic. And you pointed out last week that after he talked about husbands and wives, he's like, likewise, you do this as well. Like this is a mutual thing. And now he's saying, now all of us, not just husbands and wives, but everybody, how are we gonna live?
We need to take those same lessons that we learned from when he was talking to married couples. And we all need to learn how to be like-minded, sympathetic, love one another, being compassionate and humble, not paying back evil for evil or insult, for insult. But on the contrary, giving a blessing, because this is why you were called, so that you may inherit a blessing. And so we talked last week about how ultimately, that's what this conversation was about in marriage, about considering the other person, how can you bless that other person, not insisting on your own rights.
And now, gosh, if there was ever a timely message, like when this hit, culturally, our country's been all over the place the past couple of years, and I feel like things are, you know, with back to school and kind of all these things, are kind of amping up again. I know parents who are getting nervous about with kids going to school, and I feel the tension in the way people are interacting again. And so this message about, are we gonna do what's good? Are we gonna speak with gentleness and kindness?
Are we gonna do these things that are always thinking about the other person, not just ourselves? And this hit me this week, as I was looking over this, and I think it's gonna be the same in our groups. It's gonna, I think it's gonna hit it's just the right time for people in our groups. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, if you don't read scripture as an ancient manuscript, that doesn't have anything to do with our modern lives, but this is God's word alive and breathing, and it's applicable for us. And it's not always easy, it's a journey to kind of understand and sometimes to navigate, which again, just to affirm what you guys are doing. I mean, one of the greatest values for reading God's word is to read it in community. That's how it was presented, and that's how we maximize God's word and his truth, not by ourselves, but with others.
And so Jeremy, why don't you just walk us through then again? How can we do that? How can we really just get the most out of the conversation this week, or maybe even any pitfalls that we want to avoid? What would you recommend if you're looking at this passage this week leading up with your group?
How would you facilitate it? Yeah, so this week, one of the major themes that's gonna come up in the midst of hardship is gonna be how we respond with our words. And so talking about this, there's likely going to be a somber tone, but not only is that okay, but sometimes it's appropriate for discussion to be more serious. So don't feel pressured as a leader to lighten the mood or keep things fun.
If the Holy Spirit seems to be taking people to a deeper place of reflection and maybe even conviction leading to some, you know, personal confession and repentance. But on the other hand, don't manipulate the mood either. Like we don't need to force a heaviness. We even kind of open with a sort of a funny question about what's the dumbest thing you've ever said, right?
Maybe they even came up last week during the marriage discussion. Maybe someone stuck their foot in their mouth anew, but all of us, there's a reason that scripture talks so often about how hard it is to control our tongues and how godliness, the fruit of godliness coming out in our speech in a way we speak to one another, not just speaking truth, but truth in love. And so let the Holy Spirit kind of guide this and work in people's hearts. One of the things that I also want to encourage people to do as they're looking at this text and how it applies to their own lives is not to downplay or exaggerate feelings.
So a few of us have perhaps suffered persecution, like Peter and this original audience did, or like many of our brothers and sisters in Christ still endure throughout the world, but we've all certainly been hurt by others and faced degrees of pressure to conform to some sort of standard or expectation other than the expectation of Christ and his love. So there's some questions about feeling isolated or attacked where people could be sharing some very deep wounds. And so just allow space for that this week. Yeah, that's right.
And don't feel like you have a life group leader have to solve or rescue every problem that might be presented. I know sometimes I feel that temptation when somebody tells me a situation that they're going through. I might make that about me. Well, that reminds me of when I had this situation, or you know what, this is what you should do in the situation.
And you guys know, when you've been leading your life groups for quite a while here, people are often voiced difficulties not to have them be solved, but just to have them be heard. People are not problems to be solved. They're people to be respected and people to do life with together. I mean, we know we want that when we share, and so we should treat people in our group with the same way.
So I love that that's a great insight. And then of course, you know, always, as the passage so beautifully does, I mean, it's pointing us towards the reality of suffering. And I love that Christianity doesn't shy away from that. Jesus doesn't shy away from that, both in his practice but in his teaching, you know, you're going to encounter difficulties that's going to happen.
But I love how the passage ends that it reminds us near the end of verse 21 verse 22 that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he's gone to heaven and he's at the right hand of God, he's with angels, the authorities, and all powers are subject to him. I just love that it points to the finished work of the cross. It's that great John stock quote, you know, like I myself could not believe in Christianity if it were not for the cross. Christianity, the suffering that we face, it doesn't make sense without the cross.
But because of the cross, we have a God who not only associates with our pain and that's amazing in and of itself, but he's overcome our pain, which is just incredible. But even in that, you don't want to be too quick, right? When somebody shares, hey, look at verse 22, this is what they said, you know, Jesus has conquered all things, just get over it. It's going to be okay.
But you want to sit, be with, listen, but ultimately yes pointing towards the hope of the resurrection, absolutely. Yeah, that's a great reminder of the gentleness that this passage speaks of as we kind of guide conversation. There's really kind of three sections to walk through this week. And you kind of open up with how, kind of referring back to all the ways we've talked about how we interact with government, authority and marriage and all these different spheres of life.
And then we kind of move into this passage where we see the example of Jesus. And then like you said, there's just this beautiful conclusion where we cast our eyes up to Christ and not just what he has done for us in the past, but who he is and where he is now. And the fact that we have so much to look forward to. So we have all of it there.
There's the tension of life is hard, Christ has suffered, Christ is ultimately in control and will be victorious and all things will be made right. But all of those things are true. We don't have to rush past. We don't have to downplay one to honor the other, which I think is sometimes so hard.
Like you said, we want to rush past. Yeah, but God is good. Yeah, but God's gonna, you know, Jesus will fix everything. Yeah, but life is hard now.
And sometimes we just need to comfort one another gently and be with one another and those sufferings. That's right. And as a past, you know, how we talk, our speech matters, our actions matter, both when we are on the receiving end of circumstance that's painful and difficult, but also as leaders, how we help shepherd people that are going through difficult situations. So I hope that you sense this week, just the weight and the gravity of what it means to shepherd a group, what it means to help others in their discipleship journey.
And by the way, you know, that's the way that we grow. Isn't it Jeremy? We're often asking, I want to grow. I want to be discipled.
Well, the greatest way that you can grow and be discipled is by discipling others. And so I love that you guys are committed to that and we are committed to equipping you to praying for you. As always, we believe it and we mean it that God is doing great things in and through your obedience and your sacrifice and what you do matters, not just for your group, but also as a showcase for the kingdom, for those in your communities outside of your life group. So we're with you, we believe in you guys.
We love you, we're praying for you. And Jeremy, you're amazing, man. I've learned so much from you every week. Well done.
Absolutely, it's great. So we're with you guys and we love to hear from you and do join us again next week for our Life Group Leadership Podcast.