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. Hey leaders, in this episode, Scott and I discuss what you can expect from our series starting this weekend entitled The Week That Changed the World, The Account of Crisis Passion Week. We'll be looking at the week leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, which is the crux of our faith.
Passion Week covers a third of the passages in the Gospels, and our prayer is that listening to this episode equips you to care for your groups during the series. Let's tune in. Hey, excited for this series that we're going to be talking about called The Week That Changed the World, The Account of Crisis Passion Week. Yes, I'm so for it.
It's going to be a six-week series looking at the week leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, and this series is going to lead us right into Easter. That's right. So I love that our church is wanting to dedicate an entire series to this, just looking at the week, this week in scripture, it actually takes up a third of the Gospels, which is crazy. I just know that Eric has a good word for us from the Lord.
So, Scott, I want to mention all of these different weeks that we're going to have that we're going to feature. So first week is a promised king arrives, and we're going to have an, I believe, weekend, that first weekend. Tables overturned, week two. Tables overturned, a king with righteous anger.
Week number three, humility in action, a king who washes feet. We're actually going to do a serve ex-boy that we can as well. Week four, promised comforter, a king who won't abandon us. Spoiler alert, I think that weekend's about the Holy Spirit being sent to comfort us.
Week, what is this? Week five, agony in a garden, a king who sweats blood, and we're having extended prayer. And then week six, death of death, a king who forgives and absorbs our sin. And that one's actually going to be a rooted celebration at week six.
Man, that sounds incredible. What comes to mind is that God has put on our teaching team to look at six different facets of God's character, Jesus' nature in that. That's just what's speaking to me right now, having righteous anger for the money, changers in the temple grounds, humility, washing the disciples' feet, agony in the garden, Jesus asking God the Father to take this cup from him, but also saying, your will be done. So I'm just excited to walk through this series.
What kind of things are you looking forward to in this series? What weeks stand out to you, Scott? I mean, all these topics, I think, are super important because this is really the crux of our faith. And this one week changed the world, the history of humankind, right?
And it still reverberates today as we look to Jesus and what He did for us. You know, interestingly, our family got together this past Christmas season, and we have family members who are not believers. And I know many of our life group members have family members who don't know Jesus. And I don't know if my mom is listening to this podcast, but she's a believer.
She's been a longtime believer. She loves Jesus. But she was sharing her faith to some of our family members who are not believers. And she was kind of giving this analogy about this ladder, right?
And how if we go to church, if we pray, we have another rung in the ladder. And I had to stop her and I was like, Mom, that's not the gospel. It's not about us. I know what you're trying to mean, but it's not about us trying to strive or earn God's grace and salvation.
It's what He did for us. It's because of Jesus. It's because of what Jesus did for us. I guess as a pastor, I just had to say, like, that's not correct.
And I had to tell our non-believing family members because of Jesus and through faith in Him that we have life. And so really, this is what this whole series was about, right? As we're approaching Easter and what Christ did for us. This is our faith.
This is our faith. This is our faith in a nutshell. And I think it is such an opportunity for us as believers in our life groups to be strengthened in what we believe and then also to be able to share with family and friends and neighbors about who Jesus is and the impact that He has made, not just in our lives, but in the entire humanity. So, yeah, I'm really excited about the series.
This reminds me of our senior pastor, Eric Iger, recently walked us through this exercise of this framework. And I know that you and I have talked about it a lot, but just a little bit of an insight for our life group leaders that Eric talked about these two terms called the indicative and the imperative. And the indicative is everything that Jesus did. And Jesus came to serve and to care for the vulnerable and the oppressed.
And then the imperative is what do we do as a result of that? And Jesus came to serve, the indicative, the imperative is we go to serve. And if we forget the indicative, if we forget the why behind our serving, it does become a religious act of works. That's right.
And all of the religions is about that. Like time and the latter is driving. Do you mean the right thing? But the sequence has to be there.
It has to be the right order. It has to be the right order. It has to be the right order. It has to be a blend of the two because if we just focus on the indicative, then we'll never make disciples of all the nations.
We'll never go out and be sent out in reach and serve and love others through action. But we have to remember. And when Eric first walked us through this, I thought, my goodness, it's so simple. All that we do, even as a life group leader, maybe it feels like we're going through the motions or we're doing all the things and we've got to set a nice table and all those elements matter.
But the reason that we do everything that we do is because Jesus gave it all on the cross. And his value at Mariners is his finished work motivates our best work. It all has to stem from Jesus' sacrifice. And this week perfectly models how he lived that week leading up to him, giving himself on the cross.
And I feel like, like I mentioned earlier, all of these weeks show a different character trait of Jesus. And one that's standing up to me right now is agony in a garden. Jesus, you know, Jesus, what we learned this past Christmas, he was dwelling in heaven and he purposely made himself poor. He came down to live a life, to experience a life that we would experience.
He was tempted in every way, but he was still perfect. But also he lived a painful last couple of days. And that last night, you know, in the Garden of Gethseman, he was praying, Lord, please take this cup for me. So he experienced pain like we experienced pain as well.
And I just love, there's no other religion out there where a God is willing to do that. But our God does. He loves us so much that he wanted to show his love through experiencing pain alongside us. And so thankful that our God is humble enough to do that.
Yeah, you know, man, I love that. I think for me, we too, the tables overturned. A king with righteous anger really resonates with me. I recently got an email from a mom who has, I think, a 10 or 11 year old daughter.
And she had a question for us as pastors. She was saying, regarding this very verse of why does Mariners have a bookstore and sell donuts if Jesus had righteous anger as people were selling things in the temple, of course. And I love the fact that she had that kind of question. Yeah, we should welcome those questions.
Yeah. And so I responded back of what the difference was, what Jesus was so against was anything that was coming against worshiping God. There were people, money changers who were trying to cheat people and selling those things. And so context really matters.
But at the same time, like I love that Jesus really is about honoring God and not having anything distracting from that, from that kind of unadulterated, like pure righteous, holy worship. And I think that's something that we need to realize as well too. Like what are the things that Jesus is trying to cleanse us of to purify us? What are the tables he's trying to turn in our lives?
And it's good for us to be able to reflect on those things as a group and as an individual too. That's good. And then as I mentioned, we've got different weeks featuring our serve expo out on the patio. And then there's going to be a mention of our outreach initiatives.
I forget if it's global or local outreach. We're going to give groups an opportunity to serve one another, jump onto a serve team or get involved in an outreach serve together. So there's going to be a highlight of that in week four. So just a reminder, one of the normal rhythms of a group is to get out and serve.
One thing that we're recommending that groups do is serve one's a session. So life group leaders, as you hear this, maybe in the next few weeks, if you guys haven't been able to serve yet, that's just another highlight. And again, going back to we serve because Jesus served. And just a couple weeks before that, or in week three, a king who washes feet.
I'm so glad that Jesus modeled what it means to serve. He made himself low to exalt other people. And so we should take on that robe of service to other people. So I love that.
Yeah. I mean, I think really the goal for this series as a life group for our prayer hope is that you guys would be able to spend time with Jesus, reflect on what Christ did for us, and spend time in prayer, perhaps take communion together as a life group, and let Christ refresh us and understand His finished work for us. And I think the other part is also the commitments that we make to Jesus. Sam, do you already talk about those things?
But we're going to have opportunities during the weekend services where people say I believe and make that declaration of faith. And maybe there's people in our life groups, or maybe we have life group members who are family members, like myself or friends who are not believers. What an opportunity during this series for them to give their life to Jesus and receive the gift of salvation, and serving using the gifts that God's given to us, and then being sent out on mission as the Holy Spirit fills us. I once heard like the worship is the fuel for missions flame.
As we worship Christ, He fills us to go out and be His hands and feet of the sweet of Jesus. And so yeah, I'm really looking forward to all that God wants to do through this series. So good. How about I pray us out?
Would that be cool with you, Scott? That sounds great, but sweet. All right. I'm going to pray in like the first person.
That's cool. You do that. I just feel prompted to do that. Hey, Father, I'm just so thankful that you gave your life for me.
And I hope that all of our life group leaders listening in on this will also, when I say the word me, that they take it to their own heart as well. But Lord, you sent your son for me, for my life group members, for my co-workers, all the people in my life. Lord, you are a humble servant. You are a king who washes feet.
My entire faith is based in your death and resurrection that you defeated death and that it has no sting over my life. Lord, you broke all chains of darkness. And I'm just so thankful that I have the freedom to read about this week leading up to that moment where you gave yourself for me. And God, I pray that you would speak to me, that you would speak to my life group members through the series that we would be reminded of your goodness, your humility, that it's okay to have righteous anger that stems from you.
Lord, that it's okay that there are times of pain and agony, but that we come to you for peace. Lord, may we be reminded that you modeled what it looks like to serve and to be sent out on mission. So Lord, we pray that we would feel prompted by you as well to do that same thing to make disciples of all the nation. We pray that I would just feel your Holy Spirit in and around me that it would protect me and my family.
And I'm so thankful for you, Lord. So thankful you are King over my life. And I will live every day with joy because of that, because of knowing that. And I just thank you Lord for our life group leaders.
I thank you for Scott Kim. I thank you for my life group. And I pray that you bless them in the season. In Jesus name.
Amen. Amen.