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. And believe it or not, we are here now on week seven on our Hope and Hopeless Times series. This has been our summer journey through the amazing book of First Peter.
And it's just been such an enriching study, just to really dive into God's word, to go verse by verse. And it's amazing, which is having the comment this last week and our teaching meeting about just how much truth is just presented right in the text that you just really need to just preach the text to involve yourself and what is presented there. And God's word is just so powerful it speaks to us. And so we hope again that you've enjoyed this series, that you've enjoyed unpacking First Peter together.
And so this week we come to another discussion, which is similar to one we've had a couple times of the series just unpacking the impactful and often confusing question about suffering and how we can have hope even in the middle of fire. That's the title for this week, Hope in Fire, as we look at First Peter 4, 1, 3, 9. So Jeremy is here as always to help us walk through the passage and not only the passage, but to give us some great pointers on how to maximize our conversation together with our life groups. I'd love to hear as we begin to unpack together.
Yeah, thanks John. This series has been great and it can feel like a really heavy topic for the summer. Usually summers are kind of light, but it's been so encouraging. And I feel like that's just kind of where we are as a culture right now.
Like things are kind of heavy in so many ways, but we're looking to find hope. And we're looking to see what are those truths that really are kind of those anchor points when so much around us seems sort of chaotic. And that's exactly where Peter goes in chapter four, these last two weeks, we really kind of pick up the pace and we're going to hit all of chapter four in week seven. And then in our final week, we'll hit all of chapter five, but really Peter just starts kind of bringing his argument to a conclusion.
So this week, we see that in the midst of suffering, we can look with great joy and hope to our future. And that our suffering is not unusual because Christ suffered and ultimately our hope and our joy found in him. And so we share in his sufferings and we're also going to share in his glory. Yeah, and so often I want to rush to the last thing that you just said, give me the glory.
Give me the glory, the suffering not so much. And I can see that play out my faith. I can see that play out in just the practicalities of life. I'm trying to get back to my running here slowly, but surely I would love to have the outcome of being able to run 10 miles of no problem, but I've got to run those first three and then five miles with great pain to actually to get to that other hand.
It reminds me of something, Smith Wigglesworth, great Pentecostal British preacher once said, he said, great faith is the product of great fights. And so often I want it the other way, but we see that so clearly laid out through the model, the ministry of Jesus, and it's what he invites us into. So Jeremy, how do we begin to navigate that reality of man wanting, the eternal stuff, wanting the great glory, but also knowing that often that's through suffering? How do we navigate that within our groups of this passage?
I think this week what we want to do, even with kind of the lean in section and our icebreaker is help introduce the fact that a lot of times if our expectations are wrong, we're tempted to get frustrated or angry or even give up or quit. I know I experienced that all the time. And so often if our expectations of what the Christian life are supposed to be like and what following Jesus is supposed to be like, if we think life is supposed to be easy, if we think that it's just kind of all blessing in the very comfortable sense, then we're tempted to think either this thing is not working out, I'm doing something wrong or God's not living up to his into the bargain. But when we look at Christ to set that example and set our expectations, then we begin to be able to handle when life inevitably is going to be difficult and there's gonna be suffering.
And he gets into some very specific things here, some very intense things, but what we really want to help our groups do this week is to set their expectations properly by setting their attention on Jesus. Yeah, and you tease that out really great through the lean in question even when we talk about when you've been frustrated when something's been wrong or when something has been broken and just that acknowledgement to get us in that mindset of, yeah, we live in a broken and a fallen world. Jesus has outworked the victory, but we're still in the middle of that victory being outworked and there is something that's broken in the world. So I like that we're teasing that out as we open up our conversation to the idea of suffering and it's a robust conversation.
And we know that we suffer for lots of different reasons, right? And we should be surprised Jesus tells us that we're going to, but sometimes that's because of our own bad, sometimes that's the bad of others, sometimes that's just the brokenness of the world. But what we see is that this is the reality of a Jesus follower, that there is suffering that we should anticipate as we walk through life together. Yeah, and you said not being surprised.
Peter in verse 12 says, Dear friends, don't be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you, but instead rejoice and it goes on. And that's where the title comes from about like hoping the fire, these fiery ordeals. And one thing that may be interesting as a leader to kind of help your people recognize is, we believe that this was probably written around 62, 64. If anyone picked up one of those CSV study Bibles that were mentioned a while back, I know the books that they had several people come in after Jared had mentioned it several weeks back, come in looking for those study Bibles.
Study Bibles says about 62, 64, as when Peter was writing this in Rome. And we know that that was during the reign of Nero. And in 64, July of 64, Rome was literally set on fire. And historically, it's believed that Nero blamed the Christians.
And also that he would persecute Christians greatly feeding them to lions in the arena, using them like literally lighting Christians on fire up on stakes to use as torches, for chariot races, just brutal, brutal realities that they were facing. And so this was likely written just before some of those things. And so just in God's providence, in his good providence of even those word choices of the firey ordeals, some of these things may have kind of already been happening. But to say, even in the midst of something like that, like just know that God is good and we have things to rejoice in, and that the fire so often in the Bible is a picture of refining, right?
Like with silver and metalworking that it would bring out the impurities and only leave something that was pure and strong that had passed through the fire. Yeah, that's right. And I love that you're just picking up the historical context and to know that the church's response to that, is one of the reasons which Rome, in a couple hundred years later on, would actually be so surprised with the response of the Christians and the radical love and how they endured their suffering to say, man, actually, there's something going on here. We can't stop this movement.
And so they end up adopting them as the state religion. And there's lots of things that we could say about that conversation, but they were so struck by the followers of the way, their response to suffering, which makes me think, man, how do we do that today? How do we live out hoping the fire in a way that culture just stops and is just so dumbfounded by our response? And we're living right now in the middle of global persecution, the current events and things that are happening in Afghanistan.
And this is not an a thirial conversation. This is something that Christians are facing every day and the here and the now. And I know that we can take great encouragement from the fact that God's not surprised by that. And that we actually were a part of a movement that was birthed out of death.
That's what Christianity was out of death and out of resurrection. And so I love that as we lead our conversations this weekend. And even this week as you get to even like the lookout section, one of the great things that we're given to help reenact the remembrance of our faith that's birthed through suffering and through resurrection is the great act of communion. And so we're gonna do that this weekend at our services.
And you may even wanna engage that within your life group. You know, walk your group through maybe first Corinthians 11 or 23 onwards. And it's one thing to have a conversation, but it's another thing to enact something physical, tangible reminder that Christ went through suffering for us. And the victory that he's received is also our victory, which is what we do through communion.
So a great week to have a conversation, but also to put in practice, the remembrance of communion within your life group. Yeah. And for people who may not have turned the page yet in their books, I've loved hearing the feedback that people are enjoying these magazines, these books that they have on page 144, 144 to 146. You have an article in there talking about communion and encouraging people to practice communion and what that looks like.
So I'd encourage leaders to check that out, especially if they want to observe that as a group. One thing that I would encourage leaders to avoid getting distracted on, because there's so many good things like this practice of communion, like the ways that we can be a public example through serving the needs of others that we see in the text. Paul or Peter mentions in passing that the end of all things is near in verse seven. And so I don't wanna just skip over that like it's not there, but I do wanna help leaders see that the notice that he doesn't dwell on this point, that he mentions it in passing as a way to draw even more attention to the point after it, that therefore be alert and so reminded for prayer and constantly love one another, et cetera, et cetera.
And so while he is saying that, look, these things aren't gonna last forever. Ultimately, all of history is gonna come to a conclusion and Christ will reign. The point here is really not to draw a lengthy conversation on end times, but that we have a hope right now knowing that we are kind of in that final season, that final chapter of history, which is how long that's gonna be. But his point really is to point to that, what is our hope now in the middle of that?
And how can we live in such a way that other people can also see that hope that we have? So just as a leader, try not to get too sidetracked with that in-time language there. Yeah, that's so good. I love that you're drawing that out.
And as he says, there's acknowledgement that the end is near, but it's not an escapism. It's not a well then, Jesus is coming back. So it doesn't really matter what you do and how you live, but even all the more, the alert, be constantly loving for one another, how you treat one another, how you endure through suffering. It's not guess what, Jesus is coming back.
So don't worry about it, how you live and how you love doesn't matter. But it's all the more as you're waiting for the advent, the arrival of Jesus again, love well and suffer well. Yeah. In encourage people to look at and share ways that they either are suffering now or maybe that they found hope and been comforted through suffering in the past.
Again, lead by example, share honestly, but wisely with things you may be going through. And then as you begin to look out, follow the text example of, okay, here's what we're facing. Here's the hope that we have. Now how can we turn our attention to the world around us and begin to meet needs?
And this week is a great time as well to practice that rhythm of serving our communities. And I believe there's an opportunity to do that this week as well. Yeah, that's right. After our 530 service at Mariners Irvine, we're having a back to school supplies packing event, which is a great opportunity for you, your family, your life group to engage the serve experience.
So you can find all the information on all our online channels, but we'd love to invite your life groups into that to making this a practical week to serve. Knowing that, again, we don't just gather to discuss, but it's putting things in practice, like communion, like our prayer experiences, like serving together these regular rhythms that really are opportunities for formation within our groups, opportunities for growth. So great, really good, really good discussion this week. And again, we're here for you guys who want to make sure that you feel equipped, that you feel empowered to have this discussion.
And I hope also that you feel that you don't have to have the answer to everything, to all the things that may come up in your group. We hope that your groups are healthy and they're vulnerable and they're sharing things. And often what we see is those are moments to grow together and not opportunities where we want to solve and fix everything. So this is a week to listen well and to point towards the cross of Jesus Christ.
Jesus who suffered on our behalf and Jesus who overcame on our behalf. So dive in this week in your discussion and we'll see you next week for our final week of our hope and hopeless times in series.