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, practice the spiritual rhythms and changes the world together. All right, leaders, welcome to week one of life making the most of it. We're going to unpack this week's sermon together, looking at the questions and how you can navigate the best within your group.
When we have a new series, we also have a series overview which we recorded and should have been released on Wednesday with Eric Geiger. We're so excited that Eric is back from study break and kicking off the sermon series with us together and we got a chance to hear from him a little bit of study break and where he's excited to be leading the church to God's word over the course of this next year, but also an overview to this sermon series wife. So make sure you go back and listen to that before you listen to this one and then you can jump in as we're going to now with week one. I'm here with Dallas and we are going to have a great conversation with you on this certain week one new series.
That's it dude. What are you talking about this series man? It's kind of the first of August which sort of feels like if you're not back to school yet, it's like orientation late August of timber, but the landing gear is coming down for a lot of people. We're getting back into our rhythm.
We've got to see more people coming back vacations or slowing down. Life's getting back into rhythm. July was a heavy travel month for so many people in our church volunteers. Yeah.
Myself. Yeah. We're back. Things are running.
And our system when things get running that our counters get so full and we are dictated by what's on our calendar and the alerts and we can fill our life up with busyness and tasks and schedules all day long. And it's not very often that we get these moments to actually stop and take inventory and say, okay, I love that we're doing this in the sermon series. Like how do I steward well this one life which is by the vapor that I have and how do I steward that towards things that are meaningful, make an impact, a return. So that's what we're looking at throughout this entire series.
And this week we're looking at how do we make the most of our time, the most precious resource, zip our time. Yeah. And it goes quickly. You and I both are our parents.
My kids are a little bit older than yours. But I'm sure you've got markers of both of your kids. It's like, wow, what happened? Yeah.
It's I mean, it kind of goes into that first question too. Like what experiences are well-remined you have that. We have a screen saver when we're watching TV and it goes idle and screen saver pops up and it's pictures of what my kids were little. And my kids were foreign too.
So for me, when they were little, like when I'm holding them in my arms and I look at them running down the hallway and it's whoa, that felt like it was the other day in time. It's just removing. Yeah. Same for us.
Like there's so many we don't even watch shows on TV. We just let the photo reel go. And it's the same thing looking back from years and years ago. And you know, it's the cliche thing, but it's true that life moves so quickly.
I know Eric talks about that quite a bit with his two girls right now. Yeah. He's been for five years and his role as senior password mirrors. And in the next five years, both of his daughters will have graduated high school.
It's crazy. We're right there too with a 14 year old and an eight year old. So life moves quick. So that's it for us too.
And so I think it's a separate mind. Did you reinforce that life is short? Well, the experience of just being that's it. You're sure it's even for the non parents to, you know, yeah, back to a job that you have just in fact five years ago.
What was different for some of us? It's, you know, the way we were in shape five years ago, like, I would die be in that shape again. Right? Is that is a huge picture?
Yeah. Just if you like, why didn't have the ice man? He's after going for a walk, you know, like just look back. So even if you are parent, like there's so many things that have happened over time, you just look over your shoulder on the back.
Yeah. Whatever the situation is, whether it's great and memorable everything. Or whether it's complex and hard and difficult, we can overstate what's going on in the immediacy that we lose sight of like the grand story, the trap story. And I think that's what this sermon series is going to help us to make the most of life to story it well, the things that we have in front of us.
Yeah. All right. So let's look at the passage. It is Psalms 39 one through seven.
There's a few questions here. We're going to impact you. What we learned about David, what was troubling David? How did David respond to the profound thought burning within him?
Why is his response a good model to us? Another look down question here is what did David learn as a result of leaning into God with his thoughts about wife's and brevity and the shortness of life. So there's a few questions over the passage. We'll interact with it here.
It's Psalms 39 one through seven. Just I said, I will guard my days so that I may not sin with my tongue. I will guard my mouth with a muzzle as long as the wicked are in my presence. I was speechless and quiet.
I kept silent, even from speaking good and my pain intensified. My heart grew hot within me. As I mutized a fire bird, I spoke with my tongue, Lord, make me aware of my end and a number of my days so that I will know how short lived I am. In fact, you have made my days just inches long and my lifespan is as nothing to you.
Yet every human being stands as only a favor. Yes, a person goes out about like a mirror shadow. Indeed, they rush around in vain, gattery possessions without knowing who will get them. Now, Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in you. So we learned about what is troubling David, what's the thought that he has and we learned. Gatting the verses four through six, seven post short life is imagining that verse one through three, like how troubled he was and everything is holding back my tongue, guarding my mouth, being speechless, being quiet. I can imagine if we all had that too.
And we are so troubled within, but it's the shortness of life. He's coming into that realization of, I don't think it's a mindset of defeativeness or indestination. It's stating the fact that he's realizing that you've made my days. My lifespan is a favor.
He's coming to the realization that my pursuits, everything I have, it's not everything. There's so much more beyond the short term of my life. And then everybody says the turn. Now, Lord, what do I wait for?
Well, it's not to feed. It's recognition that my hope is in you. Well, this is true. My hope is my hope is in the span of my life.
I want to show you. Well, my hope is this is ultimately cool. Let's turn into the lookout then a couple questions here. It says, how might someone who does not believe in God respond to a long contemplation on the property of life, what conclusions would they draw and how would those conclusions compare it with David and the other?
So it's a long way of saying, you know, for those that may be don't believe in God, how do they respond to the shortness of life, even the meaning of purpose of life, how to mean a wrap with it and how is that different from what David says? Yeah. And might even be like, what can you think of in your life too? Like that thinks differently on this.
So it's the people who view life as this is, this is it. There's nothing past this. Like, my purpose is in my insert title, insert parenting, insert, you know, whatever it is. That's my purpose.
But if you are a follower of Jesus, you know that all that will fail. I will never satisfy you when you make that your purpose. Right. So it's the sooner you can give up that title and put your cloak in hand.
I love that David said that the more you start to see the purpose of life and that life is so much more like there's a whole nother like in John Jesus is gone. He's prepared to wait for us and prepare a place for us. This is life is so much more. This is so small in comparison to all of you training.
Yeah. And I think a lot of times in culture, to be we want to avoid the conversation about death too and about the shortness of life. And so one of the ways that we may do that is we high on the successes, the pleasure of seeking. We try to make so much of the significance of everything that's happening now and they get pulled in so many different directions.
And then we realize, wow, actually, where is the impact? I've been busy trying to do so much. I've actually done very little. Yeah.
But there is a lack of belief that there's more beyond than what we see. The neck of the very desperate place that's not filled with hope. And so you're right. And Jesus, we have hope that he's with us now, but also that what we see now is not that there is that we make the most of our time and we will also enjoy him for all the time, for all of the fralipity turning in spirit.
We read this book like a year or two ago, Spiritual Leadership as an historical deal. And the author said something along the lines of God has given you all the time that you need to complete the full will he has set up for me. Just thinking about that, how you use your time, how you perceive time and even how you perceive your purpose and their God has given you all the time that you need to complete the will that he has for your life. So it's one, like recognizing every decision you make into recognizing that he has a purpose for your life.
It's just so much greater than what you can ever comprehend. So that's Ephesians two, right? You were God's hand, you were created advanced to do good work. So she's pulling him for you.
He gives you this life to outwork that opportunity to outwork that. So then the lean in question or the look in question is then, okay, well, the things then that are are restraint on your time. One of the things that you need to lose in order to make the most of the time that you have. And that necessarily could about 24 hours in a day.
And that's two different ways to define time. I ever talked about that in the message. The Chronos, which is the literal 24 hours span of time. Then there's the Carols, which is like a lot of time of one's life and how do you make up most of that.
So with that, what are the things that you need to lose in order to make the most of that? How would you interact with that? I think I would interact in a unique way only because I've read that book and so I moved by it every year I get away in the month of July and I start writing out all the things that I did. So what did I do?
Quarter by quarter, there are all the things that I did and you start to see themes of, well, I don't think how much time I wasted doing this and I'm so selfish here and I'm starting to see themes. So it might even be a challenge for you as a leader to one, go through that process, walk through different stages. If you want to give yourself homework, walk through that. What are the things that are taking up so much time and maybe you can challenge your group to do that?
Take some time journal. What are the things you did? Was that wasting time? Was this going towards a bigger purpose?
Things like that. I would interact with it that way only because I just went through. That's just process. I love that.
That's really helpful. The first step of that is inventory. Look back. Yeah.
Okay. Given how I spent my time, what's the measurement of that? What's the impact of that? Negatively and positively.
It's self and on others. Where is it? We can get stuck in the routine and we're there. This is getting a fall and things are marching on.
You can just go and the mode of operation doesn't change unless you take inventory. We talk about the impact and have a right orientation around the life that you've been given and how to store it well for guns. That's great. That's great.
That's great. Awesome. All right, guys. Well, that's a week one.
We'll be back here with you next week. We're going to talk about that. We'll talk about now. It's going to be a conversation I make the most of your gifts and there's going to be a moment for you to respond in service and after service, joining a team, learning more about those teams and then we also have volunteer equipment that's coming up on August 16th.
We just talked about that real quick for life group leaders and they should have received a ready and invite to that. What's the effect on that equipment? I'm 16th. Yeah.
It's getting everybody together. There's something about getting all of our leaders together into one roof. Yeah. It's just it's magical.
At least for me on my side. I love it. Yeah. And then we're going to have breakouts.
We're going to talk about what it means being a life group leader and to brush shoulders with other leaders. So this is a night that is designed for you. We hope that you walk away empowered and equipped to do the work of the ministry. We are equipping the Saints.
Lots of Ephesians. It isn't. Yeah. And so if you haven't signed up yet, check the inbox.
We'll be a email attached to the life group leader weekly. They'll be a link attached to that. It's going to be a great night. It's all congregations do.
All of our congregations get out of it across all of our different teams. So now all the different areas. Ms. Dallas mentioned we'll have a dedicated breakout space for life group leaders.
So we look forward to seeing you there on August 16th. All right guys. Thanks for joining us. I'll catch you on this next week.