Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader Podcast. This weekly 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. Welcome leaders to the Life Group Leader Podcast. What an incredible time of year.
We are officially, through all things fall, may not feel like it with the weather outside, but here we are, kids are back in school. We've got a brand new sermon series called Losing It. We are so excited for the series as we look at just a great biblical response to the emotion of anger. How do we think about anger well, but then how do we navigate the emotion of anger well?
What does it mean to have righteous and unrighteous ringer? How do we reconcile a God who displays qualities of anger and you're being that all in scripture, this is gonna be a great, great series. Before we jump into week one here, if you have not listened already to the sermon series overview that we did with the Thirsty or Kager, go ahead, go back and listen to that one. I'll give you a second to the pause button now.
Great, okay, welcome back. All seriousness, we have a listen to that. And then we're gonna be here as we are every week on Friday, releasing these episodes throughout the sermon series. All right, I've got Esther Chump with us.
What's happening? Just a lot of things, women's event and fall and a new series, which we're so excited about. Yeah, at the time of recording this, we are about to just walk away from the last minutes, which is amazing, right? It's an ocean side Irvine.
It was absolutely amazing. We're so thankful. That's great. It's gonna be a great fall season.
Lots of women jumping into rooted. And of course we've got this new course that Kager is leading, How to Study the Bible, so much fun and excitement and hunger around it. What would you say for folks that have heard about that course? What's the fact that in person?
Well, first and foremost, the fact that KRC your pastor's wife is an elator and sort of the mom of the house leading. It's just so special when it comes to someone who really loves our people and loves our women. And then the course itself, how to study the Bible, I think it's gonna be perfect for people that are just learning to read the Bible, to people that have been in God's word for years, but you need that refresher, the sharpening of the double edged sword kind of thing. I'm so thrilled.
Yeah. It's gonna be great. So it starts on Wednesday nights and over 20 and we are in the worship center. We are.
But that's what we're gonna be amazing. So we've got room for you. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great to see the outcomes of that course as well.
All right, shall we jump into this week one, a loving and holy anger. I mean, just right off the bat, like the title is like, is that obviously more on? Can there be such a thing as a loving and a holy anger? And so we're gonna leave through that discussion here to take your passage as a little.
First, before we get there, we've got a lean in, which is getting us to begin to think about the topic, right? So what are some of your pet peeves? And for some of you, this might be the airing of the grievances. I've got a whole list of you.
Oh no! Don't weaponize this question. Yeah, that's right. But it is a fun question.
Anything for you Esther? Nothing in the way you ever have ever seen. Oh no, I do. Honestly, I gotta confess, I'm really bad with road rage and bad parking.
Maybe it's because I have a kiddo with me and when I have to open the door, but it's so squished, I have to get her out too. I'm like, Lord bless this person's fucking skills. Yeah. And do you internalize that frustration or do you demonstrate that frustration?
I don't, that's great. That's exposing. I get really, actually I get super tempted to want to write something out of post it. Yeah.
I never do it. I never do it. But I get really tempted to write something like passive aggressive, like it was hard getting out of my car or something. That's ruining my day.
Oh gosh. Yeah, that's funny. It's fun just a couple of days ago. Actually, I was picking up coffee for the family and stuff.
And then yeah, there was somebody in a full on parking lot over by Southwest Plaza that took two spots and like diagonal. No. And I could find him or depart. He's a very upset.
I was like, I don't want to scare the person, you know, but I walked up kind of calmly. Yeah. I don't know if you're taking up two spots. Hey.
Is it possible? Oh, great. Did you be taking a nap? I don't know what was going on.
Oh, OK. What was going on? OK. But she moved anyway.
Yeah, that's great. So yeah, that's one for me. Yeah. Like I don't want to say too much, right?
Because people are thinking I'm a pro munge it. But I have to be honest. Yeah. Like chewing is the thing?
Oh, yes. I'm the guy that movies like I will move seats. Oh. You know, I don't know.
That's bad. No, it's OK that love popcorn and ice chewing. And, you know, I'm in process. I'll be sure to be extra careful when I'm eating around you.
Or if somebody from our team, I got your back. You're a bit of a very, very information. That would be awesome. All right.
But I have a fun conversation there. And it just goes to show, right? There are things that annoys us that really have left on check could be a problem, right? You can express those in different ways.
That's an interesting question. Do you internalize that? Do you demonstrate what does that look like? There's a little pet peeves that we all have.
But often these things can be triggers towards the end. Yeah. And we'll have a little conversation as we start thinking about the emotion. All right.
Then I'm going to read our passage. And then a couple of look down questions for you with this passage. It just says, what you learn about righteousness from the passage? What's the connection between righteousness and faith in Jesus?
And then what character traits about God to the cross of Jesus reveal? What is the relationship to God's anger towards sin? And good questions? I think that third question is really one that you might want to hone in on.
What you learn about the cross of Jesus and relationship towards God, anger, and sin. So I'll read it unless it's written to interact with a few observations. It says this. It says this.
It's from Romans 3, 21 through 26. But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the law and the prophets. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
They are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him as the mercy seat by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. Because in his restraint, God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.
That a really, really rich passage. I think Eric in the message alluded to something to the point of man theologians that said if you understand these five verses in Romans, you actually can understand the whole article. That theology is here, it's five verses. That's true for Romans eight, I think about Romans eight.
But there's a lot of richness here. So just what do you notice here as you get this passage, what do you learn about the relationship between our sin, anger, the cross of Jesus? What does that do you? What I'm relieved about is that anger isn't demonic.
Anger isn't evil, but the expression and the demonstration of it, it reveals the origin or the motivation behind it. And even how God, his wrath and his anger is actually rooted in his justice. Yeah, and a righteousness that was violated, and so God wanted to make that right through his son. And so I think that this is a sobering view of anger.
I'm sure there are people who have all different types of views of anger from their parents. They've seen different ways expressed, but yeah, looking at how God expresses anger, how he withheld his anger, how he restrained himself, and it's such a sobering and a clear picture of the definition of anger. Yeah, that's really good. But I love the inclusiveness within the passage too, right?
Like it's reminding us sharply, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Other places, it talks about that all were enemies of God, subject to his wrath, you know, we all went our own way. We all chose our own way. But that there's also been a way that's been provided for all.
So it's not, like we should be glad that, and Eric talks about this in the passage that God demonstrates anger, that his anger is righteous. And his anger actually weren't, as you just mentioned, more deeply, that it's rates his love and his redemption, that he's angry at sin because of the effects that sin has on us in our broken world. But it's not like sometimes my anger, where I'm really upset about the situation, but I can't actually change it, you know what I mean? Or I'm just gonna walk away from the situation.
Like his anger is involvement and it's sacrifice and he provides a way way out for it. He's angry at the results of sin in our broken world. But then he steps in through Christ, through the verses he finds his blood, through faith, that for all that there's a way to be justified by having faith, faith in Jesus. So there's a lot, there's a lot there in this beautiful passage.
And so really foundational one is we look at the entire, of the series that come to you. Let's move down to the lookout section to look in. I like this look at lookout question. Where do you see people associate Christianity with law keeping?
Where have you seen it? Where does it leave people to believe about God? I think what the question is getting to is, the pastor talks about for all, I've seen it falling short, right? But we might think, well that's not me.
You know, if I can just keep the law, I'm a good person. I don't wanna believe it in an angry God. Surely he's not angry at me because I check all the boxes. I do all the things.
And what does that sort of thinking, what does that lead to? Where have you seen that in people? Sort of that moralistic law keeping? I'm good, but I'm not standard, so I'm good, right?
You can't be talking about me. Where have you seen that? Yeah, I mean, I think the leader note after the question and the look down, what do you learn about righteousness from this passage? Like the leader note talks about how in Judaism, people would find their righteousness through their obedience to the law.
And I think any confidence in our own righteousness, you know, actually the scripture talks, I think in Isaiah's, as they're like filthy rags before the Lord. And so I think it can create a sense of pride if you're good at keeping it. And if you don't, you feel a ton of shame, you know? And so I think that, you know, as the leavers, because we, you know, our expression of, you know, worshiping Jesus is kind of constructed in our own culture, I think we can get overly committed to tradition, which is what happened with the Pharisees.
Like you had the law, but they worshiped the law, but Jesus came to fulfill it, you know? And so yeah, now I see this in me all the time. And then I have to even ask myself, like, where do I think that God's angry at me? And I think that what I'm assuming in my actions and my belief is that God didn't pour all of it on Jesus and there's a little bit more to pour out on me, you know?
And then you walk in shame and then that leads to more sin and more feeling paralyzed. But if you recognize that all of God's anger was poured out on Jesus, there's none left for me, that stirs us back into a place of worship. Because we put our trust in Jesus, you know? So maybe even a question that you can ask with your life group is like, where have you felt like God was angry at you?
Where have you felt like God was withholding something from you because he was mad at you? Because you didn't live up to his expectations, you know? Yeah, that's great. Come on, and that's a wrap everybody.
That's so great that God's anger has been fully absorbed in Christ. And to take it on redirected towards ourself is in a sense like trying to crucify Jesus all over again. It's already been finished and already been accomplished. And I love what you said.
That doesn't lead us to passivity. We're like, I'll just keep on sending all the more, you know, it's great to bounce on the more, but it leads us to worship and what is worship, right? Worship is the sacrificial living of our entire selves. It's not just a song to sing on Sunday.
It's the sacrificial living of our entire lives. It's possible Jesus is already done. So we're really good. So we're kind of tied in already even to the look to the look in which is great.
How does everything that God's anger has been satisfied in the work of Jesus, both comfort and challenge you? And where are you allowed law keeping to affect you on your view of God? How does it affect the relationship with others? Yeah, really good questions there.
Yeah. And you've already reacted without a little bit. Anything where you want to say on that little context? Yeah, I mean, I think something that as a life group you can talk about is like, hey, what are some traditions that have like church traditions or home traditions that have maybe even skewed the gospel expression in your life in your relationship with Jesus?
And then also as a life group leader being mindful of, hey, how can we have a sober minded, honest discussion without it becoming pointy fingers at naming my old church and all that, you know? But I think sometimes naming it can even help you be freed from it. And I love that the rhythms that are reminded here are repentance and situations. So just being like, OK, this is what I was exposed to.
This is what it was encouraged. But and also there's a part of it that I inherited that I openly received. So I were kind of it and I want to step into a more accurate worship, which is a complete trust in Jesus. Awesome.
And then leading your group to talk about the impact on you and where you struggle with this still, where you challenge by. Yeah. Yeah. Really healthy.
And as you mentioned, totally. Yeah. So good. Yeah, I mean, look in is this is where you actively challenge by.
Yeah. And what would it look like for you to receive and understand what we're fully in God's grace. Like you might look at it as both like a challenge. That's also a bit of a hopeful challenge.
Yeah. So you're struggling with the struggle for me right now. Yeah. Like I'm law keeping.
Yeah. I know it graces out there, but I don't even got charity because I can do all this stuff. OK. That's tires.
You know, I live that way. People would look like to not live that way. Yeah. I'd be so much more free.
I'd be more free to serve and love others. Wow. I'd be more holistically integrated. Yeah.
My followership of Jesus and relationships will look different. So that look good is great. Good questions here. It's both like me.
We're my challenge, but also what we look like to live this out more fully. Oh, so good. Yeah. So good.
This is great. Really great insights. Thanks so much for joining us this week. Of course.
And great things. Women's ministry, great stuff has happened. Thank you. As you mentioned, that key course on 9.20, the House of the Bible Skills for Life.
And then we've got deep dive. That starts at same night for everybody as well. Deep dive theology, mission of God with Eric Geiger, teaching at online, but it's that sort of great things happen and happen this fall. We could do it.
Yeah. You guys, amazing, amazing. So true. All right.
Anything else to add as you wrap it up? No. All right. Yeah, so thank you for you guys.
All right, guys. Thank you. We'll see you back here next week.