Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group leader podcast. This week the 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. All right, well, welcome to week three of our series, How to Pray Like Jesus. We're glad that you're joining us for this weekly resource designed to equip you as you lead your group weekend and we got through these serving discussion questions.
John Thomas here and I'm flying solo this week. It's probably a scheduling error in my part, but I'm so glad that I spent this time with you as you prepare for your life group this week. Hey, before we dive into this week's questions, just wanna call out what an incredible week we've had with our equip gathering, which was on a Wednesday night of this last week. We saw so many of you, Life Group leaders join us together as we got to worship together and then be further equipped as we lead our life groups, we spent a really good time in our breakout, just looking at some of the keys of what it means to shepherd others really, really well, of how we're intentional with those that are in our care.
We've got some practical tools of like, how do we use our Mariners toolbox? How do we update our rostras? How do we sign up for group serves? Which is all really, really important.
All these tools matter as we lead our group to a place of just health and vibrancy. And so we love that, we love that we got the connect with us. So many of you are equipped now. Well, I would love in this series, looking at how to pray like Jesus.
Prayer is primarily about us being in relationship with our Heavenly Father. And so this week we get to look at this idea of God as Father and how we get to talk with our Father in prayer and how that impacts our prayer life with Him together. So I'm gonna jump in with you, lead through these questions and interact with Him as I might respond or leave my group through this. So we got our leading question here this week.
It says, describe a time when you got backstage or special access to a concert, event, project, organization, something on the red carpet. That's a good question. I get to give a few things. I think of my daughter actually who's 15 now, but she was much younger.
She must have been, I'm about seven. We were living in LA at the time. And the school that she was at had this organization where they would take kids and give them media opportunities to go to different special events and be on the red carpet and interview different celebrities and things. And so we got this picture of her in our newspaper up there in Culver City where she was at a red carpet premiere of all what was it.
It was Hotel Transylvania 2, something like that, that old Adam Sandler movie. And there was a picture of her interviewing Selena Gomez. So that was kind of cool. So that was something for her.
But what are those stories in your own life group? Those times where you got to go backstage to something where you got special access to a place, a person maybe that somebody else didn't get. Just have some story sharing on that, moments of circumstance of that. How did you feel in that moment?
Did you feel honored, surprised? You know, what was that like? And of course that's gonna set us up into the passage as we're looking at praying to God, our father, to whom we have access, like full access to the very throne of God because of what Jesus has done. So we can approach the father because of what Jesus has done and the power of the spirit.
We have full access to him. And that's what prayer is. Prayer is a relationship in which we have full access to our father. So that's a little bit of why the question is being asked.
So let me move down to the lookout section. And we're gonna read from Luke 11, five through 13. And before I read the passage, a few of the lookdown questions here are what are the attributes of God that stand out to you? And what does this passage tell us about the access that we have to God in prayer?
So what are the attributes that stand out in this passage? And what does this tell you about the access that we have to God in prayer? And we read the passage, excuse me, it says this, starting from verse five, it says, he said to them, suppose that one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, friend, let me three loaves of bread because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I don't have anything to offer him. Then he will answer from the inside and say, don't bother me, the door is already locked and my children and I have gone to bed.
I can't get up to give you anything. I tell you, even though he won't get up to give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his friend's shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find knock in the door will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks the door will be open.
What father among you, if the son asked for a fish, will give him a snake instead of a fish? Or if he asked for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If so, then you who are evil, thanks for that clarification. God, we know that.
Know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? This is the word of the Lord. So what stands out to you?
As you read this passage, what are the things that you learn about who God is? This is a familiar parable to you, might be unfamiliar with your son, but it's in a certain form of a high low as I was talking about. Talked about it. If you are evil down here low, know how to give your own children good guess.
And you're evil, you're here. How much more way up here God who is not evil, was perfect, was blameless, who was sovereign, who was good. How much more will he give us good things if we ask? So what have we learned about God in this?
Well, we learned that he desires to be asked. He desires to be asked. That there are things that God is sovereign. And he's going to do what he does in his sovereignty.
But he's often waiting for us. He gives us the dignity of causality. He's waiting for us to invoke his sovereignness through our prayers. And he's waiting for us to often ask.
And he has good things to give us, that we can trust him. And the things that he gives us, they are good. And you can have a discussion here about, he knows what I need before I ask. Like, if I didn't get something from him, it's not that he's not good, is that actually, as Eric talked about his message, what I was asking for, I didn't know it, but maybe that was a scorpion.
And he got something better, better for me. So he knows what we need, even before we ask. I love that, just the posture of the relationship of a father and how audacious of a claim that is, that God is majestic and he's noble. Of course, Father denotes a sense of intimacy, even familiarity that doesn't bring contempt, that is not disrespectful.
But there's a proximity to relationship that we can have with God as father. So he's near to us. So there's so many different things that you can go down here as you interact with the passage. Maybe we'll get to the lookout section.
It says, what assumptions do people have about how God answers prayers? Oh man, good question. What assumptions do we have about how God answers prayers? Well, I think there's lots of different assumptions that people can make on that.
And kick this around in your group. But I think for some, they may think, and I've seen this in my own life and the lives of others that God only answers the prayers of the faithful. So only if you pray enough, only if you're persistent enough, only if you have enough faith, and only if you're pure, and you've got nothing blocking in your relationship, then God will answer your prayers. The only answer is the prayer of the holy ones.
Well, we know that's not the case, because there's none to holy, not even one, but none of us. And does God honor faith? Absolutely. But it's not the quantity of our faith that we can muster up, that enables God to answer our prayers.
It's the object of our faith, that we have faith in the one who is faithful, even when we are faithless, that God is faithful. So I think there's one assumption there that God only answers the prayers of those that have enough faith. But what does it, what does it for you? Discuss that within your group.
Then we move into our look-in section. It says, how can you take advantage of the access that you have to God? Another question down here, it says, in Eric's message, she stated that, Jesus endured the pain of punishment of God the Father, so that there would only be grace for you. Jesus was condemned so that you would be accepted.
So where do you need the grace of your Father today? So it's bringing us to this understanding that we have access to our Father, because of what Jesus has done, by the power of the Spirit. And so how are you taking advantage of that? What are the things that you're bringing in, bringing into Him?
And this is a great point in the conversation here too. You know, say, what are those things? What are those requests that you're bringing to Him? You know, what prevents you maybe from bringing those requests to Him?
And what's behind that? And it could be lots of different things. It could be, you know, I've asked and it didn't happen, but I've been disappointed through unanswered prayer before. That's a real thing.
And that's a great moment for you as your life your precluded to shepherd your group well, through what do we do with unanswered prayer? And Eric talks a lot about that in the message. So take some of those cues for the message about how do we navigate that? But what are the other things?
What are you bringing to Him? What are the things that prevent you from coming to Him? It could be that, you know, it might seem like you're a question or too small. Just gotta really care about these things.
And actually he cares about every part of our lives and he wants to lead us and he wants to guide us. And so lead your group, there are great conversation here about, man, how are you experiencing that? How are you taking advantage of the access that you have to guide? What are the things that you are bringing to Him?
What are the things that maybe you haven't brought to them? What's behind that? Why aren't you bringing those things to Him? You could lead your group really well through that conversation.
And then of course this weekend is an extended prayer weekend. It's an extended prayer weekend. And so one of the things I love about who you are as a church and we really see that highlighted through this sermon series, through this teaching series is, this is true for every teaching series. We don't wanna just download information that we wanna put into practice.
So if you remember the first week of the sermon series, we talked about having a time and having a place to practice praying, have that time, have that place. Last week we talked about have a plan and we gave you those prayer cards, the acronym, you know, P-R-A-Y and how do you can work through that? So have a time, have a place and have a plan. And then this week we're talking about bringing our continual requests to Him.
And we're gonna make space through that, in our services through extended prayer. Of course we offer prayer ministry every weekend across all of our services, but we're bringing what normally happens in the elder prayer room down the town front with our chef and elders, with our team to have an extended moment for those to bring in prayer. And so you can even model that in your group this week. Hey, we modeled, we did that this weekend in service.
Wasn't that beautiful? Hey, what have we created an extra space now in our group today to have our own kind of many extended, extended prayer to bring our needs to Him and to believe that He's gonna heal us not because of our, you know, quantity of our faith or the quality of our faith, but because He is faithful. But what an incredible thought. Take around with your group this week.
You have access to the King of Kings. You have access to the throne room of God because of what Jesus has done. You get to enter in, be known by Him and bring your requests to Him. All right, so kicking around in your groups this week, God's doing great things.
It was great to see some of you here at equip. And of course, we're right around the corner from rooted, rooted as starting very soon for the week of August 25th across all of our congregations. And so that's really should be, it's a marker for your group. If you haven't got back to your regular rhythm of meeting, you know, the seasonality of groups really built around that season of rooted, that should be a good signal for you to say, hey, if you're not already, let's get into our meeting.
What's our habit gonna be? What are we serving together? And then also around the rooted sessions too. You may have some folks in your group that are looking to be raised up as leaders and maybe multiply your group and the best way to do that is to have them come lead rooted so we can send them folks in that environment to start groups there.
And so if you're interested in that, get in touch with our team, but man, it's gotta be a great session, great season together. And praying for you guys, again, great to see so many of you. This last Wednesday at equip, guys doing great things because you said yes, because you step in and shepherd and lead your group. All right, guys, well, we'll see you this weekend and we'll catch you on this next week.