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. Hello and welcome. I am your host, Kirby Wood here for the Life Group Leader podcast.
And with me, I have Jared, our lead pastor here at Mariners Irvine, and I am your group's pastor. We are so excited to welcome you back to a week two of Invitation to Rest, a Study of Relations. And we hope that you had a great first week discussing with your group as well as attending our Easter services. Easter was incredible here at Irvine.
Jared, what did you see here at Easter? My gosh, if you were at Irvine this Easter, it was amazing. It was so beautiful just to see we had over 19,000 people before Easter, which was remarkable. And then at all of our other congregations, I just loved hearing the stories of God blessing new buildings, new congregations down in Oceanside.
Heard amazing stories from Aaron down in Mission, VA, who just amazing to see what God did. My absolute favorite scene from Easter was baptism. So I thought that that was just so fun for me to see us getting to not only celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, but to put on display what it looks like to rise from an old life into a new one through baptism. It was just beautiful.
So fun. I love that. That's truly so fun to really see so many stories. I know, Jared, you were able to baptize people from rooted.
But I even saw life group leaders, maybe some of you, out in the water with people in your groups. And that is a better way to celebrate. There's no better way to celebrate Easter than seeing the resurrection fully come full circle into someone's life. And they say, I want to declare this.
And I want to proclaim this through this beautiful symbol. That is baptism. So I love seeing that. And I hope that more and more of you will make that decision to be baptized.
And Easter is a great time to do it. But we have lots of opportunities coming up as well. So looking back, I hope that you had a great first week as we thought about, OK, where are these other things in our lives that we might be trying to add to our understanding of the good news and the gospel? And I hope your discussion went well.
In my life group, we had a great discussion. And truly, this first chapter of Galatians really opened our eyes to saying, wow, all we need is the gospel. And now, as we look to ourselves, our own stories, how can we see that the grace that God gives us is sufficient for anything and any sin that we have ever experienced? And I love how in here, in Grace's Greater, as we look to week two, that Paul really paints the story while reflecting on his own personal story.
Do you see anything that Elsa jumps out to you, Jared? Do you think about the main point of the study? Well, anytime we're going to talk about the gospel, it's really important that we don't get confused with the gospel, like capital G gospel, and just like other things that people claim as gospels. Other good news, right?
Which is last week, we did talk about that a little bit bigger here. But I think what Paul gets at, and it is really critical, this human intervention piece is that when I share the good news of somebody, I am not sharing my good news. While the good news has been profoundly impactful to my life, my eternity, it's not me mustering up my words that have to be the most compelling picture of the good news I have felt. No, it is.
Party. When I share the good news, I am literally sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is his good news. It is what he has done.
Absolutely. And I get to involve my own story into that, because I've had a personal experience with it. Yes, and that shows us that the way that our stories are greatest is when we point to the impact of powerful, the vast grace that is our Lord Jesus Christ. I love that.
And coming to think of that, I feel like Paul really starts to paint that picture when he looks at his life, and he says, look at all this crap I've done, right? Look at all this stuff that I've done. But God is the one. It is not me.
It's not my story. Clearly, I have, in anybody, it's me that should not receive this grace. I'm here to tell you guys the great news. And so looking into that first question that you're going to be asking your group, I love the simplicity of this, because you might not know.
There might be people in your group that did not know that Paul, one of Jesus' disciples, was someone who first persecuted. And so what can we say even as we look around our group? What's something you might not know about each other? And that could be deep and heavy, or it could be really light and fun just to open up the discussion.
I do. I like this question, because it really is simple and everybody can play, which is a big part of a lean in question. And Kirby, you're absolutely right. People are going to be able to share things that might say something from their childhood, something from their life history that you just go, I did not know that they're not you.
It also could be just something that they enjoy, a hobby, a thing that they do, maybe even something they have planned. Maybe someone's going to say, you know what? We're pregnant. I mean, how cool would that be?
Right? It could be so fun. So fun. I absolutely love that.
And I love how we can kind of start with these light conversations that open us up and start getting our minds thinking. But then the first place we turn to for introspection and as we start to listen to God is his word. So then we look to look down. These questions are so great.
And they're so clear and so straight. So you're saying, OK, what do we see in Paul's story? I love that third question. What details stand out before Paul meeting Christ and after meeting Christ?
Go ahead. The contrast here is really important, right? Because what you're going to see, and as people in our groups, we get to observe the text. We get to look at it and really interact with it.
So this is going to be fun for us to look at Paul's previous life and then his life after meeting Jesus, which by the way, is a cardboard testimony. It's a resurrection story. You know, there is an old life and new life, right? Yes.
And I think so often we can look at the disciples and think, wow, they're just these pillars of faith that they never sinned or they never had any problems. But they have stories too, which is so incredible. But back to kind of what you were talking about at the beginning of this period, even that first question, what does Paul want to make sure that people know? Something that he's done or what have you.
But it is truly God's design and intention that we would experience the gospel in our lives. And so hopefully, as people point out Paul's story, they're also pointing out to the source of the life change that is God himself, that is on the pursuit for each and every one of the people in your group, especially you. So then we move on to look in, which this is where I really think a lot of us should camp in our discussions this week. There's a lot of meat here.
And it's important that you really try to create an opportunity for each person to share as they consider how does this apply to myself? I think here in that second question, I love in what ways can you personally relate to Paul's story. What hope does Paul's story offer to you? That is a perfect place where you can start to say, okay, where can I see this apply to my own life?
Every one of us has a gospel story, whether we kind of realize it or not. Everyone who has said yes to Jesus received his grace has now saved, we have it before an after story. We have it, I once was blind and now I see. I once was lame and now I can walk, whatever.
Like every gospel story is now true for us as well. And I do think it's an important little bit of work for us to think who was I before? And it's an important moment of reflection. Who was I?
Not just what I did, but who was I before? I was dead. In my own death, what was I was caught up in insecurities. I was seeking approval from people.
Like who was I really before Jesus? Is there so much depth of reflection that we can do here? Or what was I desiring? What was I going after?
Or what would have been my track? Had I not experienced the grace of God? Some people will say, I've been a Christian all my life. And I was like, okay, yes, but without experiencing the gospel on a daily experience, right?
If you let yourself, your mind wander and you fulfill your selfish desires, where would you be? What would you be pursuing? Who would you be judging, right? Who would you be up against?
But rather what does the grace of God, how does that change the lens of your life? And that's where you can help people start to develop their personal testimony. And I think that question will really, when someone's like, I don't know what my testimony is. Or I just, whenever I share my story, I go on for 20 minutes about my birth was in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1963 or whatever it might be.
How do you really encapsulate that climax moment of someone's story where they say, this is where I was and this is where God is bringing me? Yeah, and in this section two, then you'll, you know, that last question is really, how would you describe your life and growth as a Christian? I find that the more work I can put into understanding who I was before Jesus, those things I chased after, the things I felt about myself, what I'm doing is I'm giving myself more hooks that if I understand them about me, I can listen for them in others, right? Because what we're heading towards here is this idea of sharing your story.
And so if I, like for instance, if I go, you know who I was before Jesus, I was a guy who tried to find his worth in all kinds of other things. But it wasn't until Jesus that I truly found that my soul has felt it's worth in Jesus. I felt unworthy for the vast majority of my pre-Christian days, which was 18 years, I got a whole story of like childhood and upbringing and all this stuff. But now I can stand before anybody and say, no, I felt my actual worth.
So now, if I ever meet somebody that says, I'm really struggling with my own worth, I can say with all sincerity, I know how you feel. I have that for 15 things, because I've done a lot of work to be able to identify some key things about my life before, and then the contrast of my life after using a similar set of words. Right, and I think in a group discussion, this is so helpful to help people understand that theme. So, right, Jared was just kind of pointing out, okay, worth is a way that I'm able to share my story.
And that is a frame I can look through my story and God's impact on my life. So as we listen to one another and the different things, you can say, hey, Jared, I really hear, there's a lot about worth that's sticking out. As you think of in camp on, okay, how do I frame my story? Well, why don't you spend time as you think about worth, where your feelings of unworthiness, your now feeling of God placing this worthiness upon you because of the work of Christ, right?
How do we help our people, or help the people in our group really contextualize their story and the experience of God? And that, I think perfectly transitions. And after you kind of have maybe taken a moment for each person to kind of share their personal experiences of this text as well as their story, you can really start to consider the lookout, the who can I share my story with? Who needs to hear my story of I felt unworthy?
I have the same feeling that you might feel, but yes, but God has given me grace to live a life worthy of the calling that we've received. So how do we then transition people into thinking, okay, who needs to hear my story, right? Yeah, I think there's in that second part, or may as the third part, sorry, the first bullet point is like 19 questions, but the third question, right? Who might believe that God could never love them or that they've gone too far?
Write a name. I mean, I think that there's, and I'm actually gonna propose two things here. The first is write a name and ask God to give you an opportunity to have a conversation with that person. And then secondly, ask God that he would put someone in front of you that you would not have necessarily thought of and they start the conversation.
That they introduce a concept where they're like, I'm struggling with this and it might be that little crack in the door where you can help share the gospel of Jesus, not your gospel, but the gospel of Jesus with that person. And I believe God is gonna save thousands of people by just us being faithful to sharing his gospel with those who need it. Absolutely, I love that. As you think about someone who might stand in front of you, when you're in the grocery line who says, I'm just really afraid right now.
Then you can trigger your, oh, sorry. Oh, well, I remember when I was fearful. I remember when I was, you know, what have you, or maybe you're with a girlfriend over coffee and she's talking about insecurities or lack of contentment and singleness or what have you. Then you can say, well, I too have that feeling of lack of content in my life that unrest.
So helping the different people in your group identify a couple key points in their stories where God has redeemed, resurrected, and fulfilled some parts of them and given them purpose in those places, allows them to be able to readily share with those that they come across in their life. Okay, so the last thing I would say, and then I gotta go, is the more you understand about who you were before Jesus, the better you will be at relating with people right now in your life who have not yet said yes to Jesus. Love that. Understand who you were and you will relate to people who are there today.
So that someday they will get to be where you are right now. I love that, yeah, and that requires a lot of prayer. I mean, as with your group, if people are really struggling, don't hesitate to take a moment and say, let's really pray and contemplate our need for Christ, and don't allow anybody to leave the room saying, I was fine, I was fine without it. Really take that moment as a leader and say, I know that we all need this and that's why we're here.
And I know that we can really spend time in this and that will benefit ourselves. That will continue to help us be remembered that we are in need of salvation as well as share the good news with people. So we hope as you go into this week that you pray together at the end of this discussion time that you get some updates on your prayer request from last week and that you move forward and attend this weekend service together to be prepared for the next week of our amazing invitation to rest. We find rest as we understand God's promises and good news for us.
So we pray and hope you have a great week. God bless you all.