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, happy new year of Life Group leaders. We are so excited to be back together with you.
My name is Jared and I am joined by Jeremy Maxfield. Jeremy, how are you doing my friend? I'm doing great. So glad to be here.
Well, happy new year to you. I know that for all of us, it's a good thing. When we get to turn the calendar from one year to the next, there's all kinds of hope and excitement for what the new year turns. But I'm not gonna lie, there's been a lot of sickness around us too, right?
You feeling okay? There has been. I'll try not to cough. I'll try to keep my mute button handy because I've got a little bit of whatever's going around, but no COVID or anything.
So that's good. Well, we are jumping into a brand new series starting this week where we're gonna be looking at the end of our story. And I love the positioning of this, that at the beginning of the year, we're gonna look at the end of our story. And in fact, the beginning of the year comes right on the heels of Christmas, where Christmas is the celebration and the acknowledgement of the arrival of Jesus, the first time that Jesus came.
God sent his son to us. Beautiful pictures, John 3 16, Philippians chapter two. Amazing pictures of a God who did not stay distant, but sent us his son. And of course, the reconciliation, the redemption that any of us has is in the person of Jesus because of his first arrival.
But that is not the end of our story. We are still here. We still live in a fallen and broken world. There is still pain and suffering all around us.
Jesus came for a specific purpose, but he is coming again for a different purpose. And so this series is a beautiful opportunity for us to have a conversation about what happens in the end and how does that inform our daily life right now? And I wanna just give a quick caveat here. And I know Jeremy, you're gonna spend some time talking about this too, but this is not a charts and graphs trying to predict the end of the world kind of study.
But instead, we're going to look at the book of Revelation. We're going to see as it fits into the meta narrative of scripture, how does that book inform the way you and I become more like Jesus today? And it really is a missional book. It's a picture, a story of redemption.
And it does give us a great picture of what our impact could look like on this life now, while also giving us great hope for what life will look like after the end of this version of the story. So with that, Jeremy, do you wanna give us an overview of where we're going in these next several weeks? Yeah, so I love what you said about Revelation, because the series is mostly in Revelation, that's gonna be kind of the base of our text store. And it's a book that for most of us, feels very mysterious.
A lot of people, like you said, kind of get real caught up in trying to figure out current events and how does this line up at the different prophecies and how are we to interpret that? But that's not gonna be our approach. But one thing I love about the book of Revelation, like you said, it's a missional book and it's a book that gives a lot of hope. So we're gonna focus on some very clear themes that Christians around the world see in the book of Revelation that really give a lot of hope, a lot of joy.
One of the things that I found as a side note in some of my travels working with the church, I had one pastor in particular who asked me, what's your favorite book of the Bible? And he said, most people in the West and in America will say things like the book of John or maybe the Psalms, but in countries where there's persecution and a lot of difficulty. He said, Daniel and Revelation, these books that point to the future give tremendous hope and people just love these books of the Bible in other parts of the world. So for us, it feels mysterious.
For others, they see these very clear themes of Christ is returning and gonna make all things new. And so in this series, we're gonna see how when we have that perspective, this first week is called the best dechet to come, that when we have this picture of the fact that we know some things about the end, a lot of it is mysterious, but we know when we have these things in mind, it affects the way we live. And so we're gonna look at the fact that there is a judgment, we're gonna look at the fact that there is heaven and what is God gonna do with the new heaven and earth. And we're gonna look at how do we live with these things in mind?
The fact that God is gonna make all things new, there is a judgment, there is eternal reward. This life does matter and it has implications for our eternity. So what does that mean for us personally? And what does that look like for the people around us?
And when we believe that these things are true, it should create a sense of both anticipation and a sense of urgency in recognizing that what we do right now and the people around us, how we interact with them, their eternal fate really is part of our everyday lives. So what are we gonna do about that? And so this very first week, we look at both Genesis and Revelation. And I'm really excited about this kickoff week and then we've got some experiences planned during the series that I'm also really excited about.
Not only do we have great experiences built within the life group program, but we also have some awesome things happening over the course of the weekends as well. There's a whole bunch of stuff, but the two that I wanna hit, when we get to week three, which is January 22nd and 23rd, we're gonna have an extended prayer time within our weekend services. And so the content is going to lead us into a place where we will invite the entire church to come forward and for any one of us who may need prayer, we have it available for you. And then after that, the next week, so January 29th and 30th, we're doing an I believe.
And this will be an invitation for people to receive Jesus for the very first time. And so you can, you likely don't have somebody in your life group that's like that, but you can be praying about who do you wanna invite to church this series is actually a really good invite tool. Everybody has questions of what happens to me when I die. And pretty much everybody has an opinion, whether it's your opinion or not, they agree with you, I don't know, but everybody has a thought about it.
And so why not invite a church and say, let's have a dialogue together about it, knowing that the last weekend of the month, they'll have a chance to say, I believe for the very first time. So with that in mind, Jeremy, why don't we get into week one, the discussion guide. Are there any specific ways that our leaders can begin preparing now for it? Yeah, so what you just mentioned about how everyone has an opinion and idea, each week, we open our discussions with the opportunity to share, like where do you see ideas about the end of time?
And each week, so when we talk about hell, when we talk about heaven, when we talk about death, just this week in general, it's kind of into the times. So there's a way for people to say, okay, these movies, these books, these songs, kind of all shape our ideas about life after death and heaven or hell or whatever. So one way we can begin preparing is just by paying attention to all the cultural messages around this. This isn't intended to be like a critique about all the ways that the world is wrong about life after death, but just to realize this is something that we think about and that everyone has opinions about.
And to be aware of the fact that a lot of these ideas play into our entertainment and we're constantly facing messages about the end times. And so just to be aware of those. Yeah, that's great. Is there any questions that show up in this week's discussion guide that may need a little extra thought just as we are kind of getting into it?
Sure. One of the things that we ask in the leader guide is to kind of look at the imagery and compare the imagery between Genesis and Revelation. And the key image there that we're focusing on is the tree of life and how in Genesis God protects Adam and Eve from the tree of life. And then we see it show up again in Revelation, how everyone has access.
And so I would encourage people leaders to look at the leader guide and see some of those comparisons where we see imagery in both places and what it could mean. But in particular, to be aware of the fact that when God expels Adam and Eve from the garden and it sets up the chair of them with the flaming swords and all this imagery, it is a consequence for their sin, but it's also an act of grace. And we'll see this in the weekend message, but they're not just kicked out of the garden for sinning. And then the rest of scripture is waiting till God fixes that problem.
Separating them from the tree of life actually protects them from being eternally separated from God, eternally in the state of fallenness and sin. And so one of the things that we see from the very beginning is that God's both a just God and also a righteous and holy and gracious God. And so in his justice, in his righteousness, there had to be a consequence for sin, but even their expulsion from the garden was an act of grace and the fact that God was ultimately working towards our redemption. And so I think that's really important for leaders to be aware of at the very beginning, that it's not an Old Testament picture of justice and law.
And then in the New Testament, we get grace and forgiveness that all along, even from the very beginning of the garden, we see both justice and mercy in God's actions. Dude, you're getting me so excited already for this week one. This is so cool. It's really easy for us to look at the God of the Old Testament.
I did that in quotes. No one can actually see that, but the God of the Old Testament, who seems punitive and angry, vengeful. And yet the truth is there's a ton of grace and mercy that's applied into that as well. And so not only that there's progress.
You see the story goes from a garden to a city that's really being present in both of those, but you see in that imagery, there is not just a stale or stagnant imagery. It progresses in the same way that we have all as well. I'm sure that there are a lot of pitfalls that our groups could fall into over the course of this series. But are there any specific ones right here in week one that we might wanna be aware of?
Yeah, I would think as we begin wrapping up the lesson or kind of our discussion, there's a question about where do we see brokenness and evidence of the fall and sin in our world? And the intent here is not to be judgmental or critical of the world around us, but to be aware of the effects of sin, that it's not just personally we're separated from God, but all of the world is in a state of brokenness and fallenness. And so recognizing the death and grief and crying and pain and all the things that God promises will be made new in the new heaven and earth. So when we look at the effects of the fall and there's a question about where do we see this in the world, the intent is not to be judgmental or critical, but to be aware and even to develop empathy and how might we, as we go through this series with these things in mind, how might God want to use us to speak into those places of pain and brokenness to bring the message of hope in Christ's ultimate return?
Right, and of course we don't want to take that as an opportunity to point anything out in each other. You can say it about yourself, but not in each other, right? And so leaders that might even be an important moment for you to lay some ground rules as this question comes up, just to take a minute and say, hey, we're gonna ask a question about where do we see the effects of the fall around us? And let's make it objective, let's not make this about people in this group or anything like that, but if you get ahead of it before it even happens, it's probably safe for a great little room for people as we prepare.
So all right, Jeremy, is there anything else that we need to know as we get into week one? Just another reminder that this series really is one of hope and not of really not of mystery and nothing to be scared of. And it's gonna be a lot of fun to start the new year, looking at the book of Revelation and saying, when we know the end, when we know where everything's headed and the crisis is coming again to make all things new, that gives us tremendous hope and really an enthusiasm and a sense of importance to see in our day-to-day lives. So Life Group leaders, if you are listening to this episode, wondering if you should do this series or not evaluating is this right for our group?
What I would say is I truly hope that you will join us for these next several weeks together, because we're gonna demystify a bit of some of the confusion that comes with the book of Revelation. And as Jeremy has said, it's gonna be a conversation about hope and looking forward. And when we look forward to the second coming, the second arrival of Jesus, that is good news for those of us who have been saved and redeemed in his name. And so not only will it be good news for us, it ought to spur on some missional activity from us as well, where we will care for the people around us, our families, our workplace, our neighbors and so on.
And so I really hope that you will join us. We will be back again next week with episode two. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. We are looking forward to hearing the great stories of all that God will do over the next several weeks together.
We are praying for you, take care.