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, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Well, welcome leaders to week seven. Can you believe it?
We're at week seven of our On the Table teaching series. May I have what an incredible series has been. It's hard to believe that we're slowly coming into land here with only two weeks left, but it's been just so impactful. And I know I say this every week as we start, but it's so encouraged by the patio conversations, the questions, the way that you life group leader are faithfully leaning into this discussion weekend and week out.
The way that you're accessing the additional resources are available throughout the series. It has been just so incredibly encouraging. And I do not share that encouragement by myself, nor do I share this episode by myself, after a little bit of a break, but happy to have them back per the request of thousands of listeners. It is my great friend and our lead pastor of the Irvine congregation, ladies and gentlemen, Mr.
Jared Kirkwood. Well, I'm so glad to be here. Thousands of requests. It's quite amazing.
No, it's really fun for me to get to be back with our amazing life group leaders. As someone in a life group right now, I know how important it is to be led by someone who is well-equipped, passionate about the group, and is really capable of just generating good conversation. And so I'm so grateful for you, life group leader, just because I know you may not feel like you have all the answers, especially in a series as kind of complex as this one is, but just your facilitation, just your being present, and asking some questions, learning how to listen, you make a profound difference in the spiritual growth of every person at this church, and so I'm so, so grateful for that. Yeah, that's right, absolutely.
I mean, we could not have kind of the robustness to what God is doing here at matters without on the ground, or missionally entrenched disciples who are discipling other people. So that's what you're doing life group leaders in. Man, we're so proud of what's happening. So as we take the turn to this week's conversation, last week we talked about God's design for sex, the week before that we talked about the biblical view of gender and gender dysphoria and the transgender movement, and we're not steering a like from the conversation around sex.
So this week we're talking about marriage and singleness in same-sex attraction. And so we know, again, when we turn the table towards this part of the conversation that as it is every week, there are gonna be real experiences, opinions, hurts, hopes and dreams when you get into the issue of really the conversation about like what brings me fulfillment, what brings me fulfillment. And really that's kind of the thesis of this week's message, just to read it, to set the tone for where we're headed in this conversation is our fulfillment as human beings is ultimately found in obedience to the one who gave us life for us. Therefore, whether we're married, single, we can reflect the gospel through our sexuality.
And so there is this pursuit often in our lives to find fulfillment of anything outside of ourselves. And when we do that, when we set up anything outside of ourselves, it'll ultimately let us down. Whether that's any relationship status, an economic status, whatever those pursuits are, they ultimately find us wanting for something that's a deeper connection. So the leaner question is gonna help your groups to begin to think about that a little bit, the things that promise fulfillment that let us, that often let us down.
So we're coming right off the Super Bowl. Jared, we had an incredible Super Bowl party. We are. Yeah, you and some other friends over.
And so this question is a little bit hard to get you to think along that line of, hey, Super Bowl commercials or commercials and ads in general, what are ones that stand out to you? What are the messages that they preach? And do they live up to those messages? Anything stand out for you?
Well, the only one I can, I only remember a couple of them. I think I've liked the one of Ben Affleck working at the Dunkin Donut Shop. Right. He's like, this is where you've been all day.
Like this is when you say you're going to work. This is what you mean. Because in the church world, people go, what do you guys do all day? Well, we basically work at a Dunkin Donuts drive through.
So the electric cars, tons of electric car, over promising what your life would be like if you had an electric vehicle. You drive one, I do not. I got to say, it's delivered on many a face. Saving the oil change.
Just this morning at Starbucks, this guy, followed me to my car, practically got in my car, took pictures of it because he wanted to find out more about my economically friendly, key electric vehicle that I drive. Well, I'm still destroying the planet with the gas vehicle I have. But yeah, I think you're right. This is a fun way to look at advertisement is designed to sell you a story.
And if you buy into that story, for the most part, you're going to find that it's a short-lived kind of hero's journey. That you can buy the car and it is a great thing. But eventually, it is not going to be the complete fulfillment that it was once it sold to you as. Same thing with the food that gets sold, the beer adds, the whatever.
There is only one ad though that was in this. You're Super Bowl that would fulfill, which is he gets us. That's the one. That's the only one.
So we can't say that no ads were filled because there were two Jesus ads. I'm so proud you worked that in there. Well, I'm not going to tell my friend that's fantastic. But again, the purpose of that question is to get your group thinking kind of a funny, light-hearted way about ads that they were gripped by and the fulfillment that is not met because of that.
And then you're going to take the turn into the passage, the anchor passage for this week really is Matthew 19. We won't read that fully now, but this is, of course, you'll be familiar with it. I would encourage you, actually, you're already in church, but before you have your life group conversation, you want to go back. This is a message you want to go back.
Double tap on, take notes, listen well. I'll have your group questions in hand as we're leading through the discussion because there's so much in there. This is a passage where Jesus is kind of confronted by the Pharisees and he's being hard-pressed on his view of marriage. And they're wondering if he's going to redefine it, if he's going to back away from it.
And what we actually see is that often is the case with Jesus. It's not a low bar. Actually, he raises the bar on their understanding of marriage, on the implications of divorce. And he even goes back to Genesis 1 and 2.
This is from the beginning. This is what marriage is. It's one man and one woman in a covenant relationship for life. Yeah.
I mean, it is really critical when you think about when Jesus gets pressed on how he defines marriage, he goes back to the original design. He states Genesis 1 and 2, which is pre-fall, and says this is how it was always intended to be. So you get this picture of Jesus, the one who is the fulfillment of all promises, the one who eventually still in our future is going to redeem and restore the entirety of the world. He is still calling back to the original design, saying it was right from the beginning.
We have gotten off course. And I am here to bring us back to what the original design always has been. That's right. And even it's on single list within the passage, too, which is really, really important.
He talks about how that is a high view, that there are some, he uses the word unik, which they would have understood that a little bit as an actual physical, either done to them or done to them. And there's a part of that, which we don't understand to be true today. But there's also, there's a symbolic meeting for us today for those that have chosen celibacy, for those that are on a current situation of celibacy, that there's great value in that as well. Yeah.
And I think that where some of this might come really to a head in our group discussion is to remind ourselves that every one of these conversations is very personal. And I think this one is probably at risk of being the most personal. There's going to be people in our groups. There will be perhaps sons and daughters of those in our groups.
There will be friends and neighbors and coworkers of people in our groups who are either same-sex attracted or who are in a homosexual relationship. Perhaps people who are just single and yet they are shouldered all the time with people asking them, so when are you going to finally meet somebody? When are you going to get married? As if that's the chief aim of all humanity is to be married.
What I love about not only this passage in Eric's teaching is that it's going to really show that marriage is a beautiful metaphor of God's relationship to us, but so is friendship. Singleness can absolutely be one of those things as well. There's a sufficiency in Jesus that is the most important thing, not that I have found all fulfillment in my spouse. So I just want us to remember that these are real people, many who will be in groups and others, every one of us is one degree away from this conversation.
And so talk in a sensitive kind of way of understanding, but then to realize this is beyond just simply a sexuality issue. This is a broader cultural conversation that's taking place right now. That's right. And again, it's a question about fulfillment.
What does it take for me to be fulfilled? What does it take for me to feel complete and happy and whole? And I think Jesus, of course, paints the incredible high view for marriage and what that looks like. I think sometimes even within the church that we get that wrong, we have a high view of marriage all day long.
But sometimes you can say, not that it's too high of view, but we miss play. We make marriage like the ultimate goal. Yes, that's right. That's right.
That's right. That's right. And so there are going to be folks in your group that have maybe felt that and have experienced that. And then when you see marriages that are crumbling around you, it's like, wow, well, I thought that was the thing that was going to bring me peace and holeness and happiness.
Actually, the self-adventfulfillment pursuit within yourself is always going to let you down. But as Eric talks about the passage, it's about self-denial. It's about finding your ultimate place and your identity in Christ and everything flows out of there. There's even well-meaning people, well-intentioned people that sometimes can be caught in a different way of thinking.
For instance, I've got a single woman on my team, my staff. And I had a fun conversation with a guy recently who knows her, has been friends of the family for a long time. And his comment to me was like, we've got to get her a husband. And I was like, well, if she wants that, it's one of those things where perhaps that's your goal for her, perhaps that's her goal for herself.
But the point is that singleness is no longer something that is just sort of a waiting room until marriage comes around. Totally. It can be viewed as actually something beautiful. Paul himself did.
Yeah, absolutely. Jesus himself, right? Paul wrote over half of the details. All of the details.
That's pretty good. Another part of this conversation is going to be around same-sex attractiveness. I mean, Eric tells, because about five or six different vignettes of people that, my goodness, when you talk about self-denial, what an incredible journey of self-denial that is to have this wrestle of an orientation that many. And I know you've got people in your life.
I've got people in my life that have wrestled with. I've tried to pray away. And it just seems like, wow, this isn't going away. Yet the courageous decision of even though there may be this orientation within me, then I am for the sake of the gospel and for the fulfillment of the gospel and the power of the gospel within me, I am choosing to not lean into that self-expression, that I'm choosing self-denial.
I don't know that you and I could fully know what that's like to live that journey. I know we have people in our lives that live that, that live that journey. But this is an important part of the conversation to share those stories, to share that wrestle or where you've seen that at work in other people's lives, even people within your group, that it maybe felt not comfortable to share that part of their wrestle. What would you say to folks as they navigate that conversation about folks that they know, maybe folks within their group, that are wrestling through the orientation, but are yet choosing this life of denial and celibacy?
Oh, well, I mean, if you're talking about people who have a same-sex attraction, they're choosing celibacy in a life following after Jesus, I think that that's one of the most beautiful stories. It's a beautiful story of saying that my desires are parts of my mind that I'm choosing to not follow after because I want to submit those to my greater desire, my greater love, which is Jesus himself. That right there is a pretty profound storyline. I think the more common one, though, is people who are same-sex attracted and they're wrestling through and they're trying to find ways to validate and justify that they can be in the same-sex relationship and still find biblical founding for that.
It's very difficult. In fact, it's not possible. But it is one of these things where, as a church community, we should do everything we can to create safe environments for healthy conversations to go, which is why we have these follow-up workshops coming up. We have opportunities for people to say, hey, there's conversations going on about that, because we don't want to make the conversation have a stigma to it, and then people feel like, oh, if I go to that, I'm going to be casting some certain light.
No, we just try to have healthy conversations. We're trying to create enough space for people to ask their questions and for the church to pastor people and for people in your groups to come alongside and care for someone and resonate with and understanding that, there's a part of me that wants something that I know I should be doing otherwise, back to Romans 7. So, okay, if that's the case, I think we do have quite a bit of people that this conversation is going to resonate deeply with in our groups, creating safe places where people can ask questions without being judged, criticized, cast aside. Doesn't mean that we have to condone or affirm either.
It means we can have a dialogue about it. Eric even talks about that language of questions that were sometimes asked. Is your church an affirming church? Is your church a non-affirming church?
And we don't use that language here. We talk about the historic view, the historic, traditional view that's been passed down for thousands of years from the church that we hold to, that we hold to and that we practice. But even that word of affirming is like, well, actually I have a lot of gay friends that I affirm and Eric talks about this. I affirm so much in them and who they are in their personhood and in their followership of Jesus.
There's so much that I would affirm about that person. And so even that phrase that's kind of slipped its way into the conversation around church, is your church affirming or not affirming. It's a really loaded kind of term that you want to, there's a reason why we don't use that term. And Eric talks about that within the passage.
We hold to the historic marriage. But I think there might be, I'm just imagining some of the people that I know who are in life groups and have wrestled through this. I mean, I know people who have kids who are some such attracted or in relationships. And I also think that it might be worth us having room in our group time for people to just say, this is how I went about those conversations and for them to even have an experience of healing in the midst of that too.
We don't always get this right. In fact, it's a very difficult thing to get right every time. And so for us to have a place where we can go, this is what I tried and I've been carrying this guilt or this weight, this burden. And for us to feel the freedom that God is pleased with you, is with you, that's gonna be very freeing for people as well.
Yeah, and that's really one of the look at questions here is how do you navigate relationships that you might find views that are contrary to yours. That's a great moment to share. Like how have you done that? Like how have you done that with your kids?
How have you done that with your kids? Like get the wisdom of the people that are in the room. Because actually when we share, we can find commonality, we can find encouragement for one another. And then as it is, every week, life regulators, you do not have to have the answer for every question that's posed to you.
It is very okay to say, man, I don't know. Like I'm trying to figure this stuff out. Like we can have an assurance theologically and that's all through the message and all the workshops and everything that we do that gives us the foundation for what we believe. Like the outworking of it and your relationships and your family, like we understand, there's difficult, there's complexity, complexity that's in there.
And so embrace that, welcome that, all the while. This is the two words of the entire sermon series, right? It's truth and grace at the same time. Yeah, it's good.
It's very good. Anything else you wanna add on for us before we sign off for today? Just know that we're praying for you. I know that this is a conversation that, I love that our life groups are gonna be having these conversations.
So I think if you're raising kids right now, you should be talking about this stuff. If you have hidden run from it, the church should be a place where we can have healthy dialogue, be equipped to love and to care and compassionately come alongside people. And so if we're gonna be the hands of Jesus, this is a real equipping opportunity for us. And so we are praying for you.
I know it's not easy, but there's always growth in the heart stuff. So it's gonna make it happen. All right, thank you very much, Mr. Jerkwood.
All right guys, we'll see you next week.