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 Life Group leaders to week four of our sermon series, start with the ending. We hope that this sermon series has been a great encouragement to you.
I know that I've so enjoyed just not only receiving the messages as they've been taught just so faithfully well by our team, but also being a discussion in community with others as we look at some real big picture conversations about eternity and what does heaven look like and how can I be assured of my state in the end? This has just been a great, great series. And we hope likewise that these tools have been helpful for you as you are discipling others in your life group to have great conversations and to live out what you have been discussing as well. Well, this is week four as we mentioned, and the sermon title this week is The End of My Life.
So quite an obvious sermon title. Jeremy's on the line here. And just straight off the bat, the lean in question this week as I was just looking at it, what comes to mind when you hear the word death? I mean, we're just going straight in for it, aren't we?
That's right. So we've kind of had a recurring theme throughout the series of just these things are so common to all of us and they just pervade our culture, our entertainment. And so this week we jump off with, what do you think of when you hear the word death? And where do we see different ideas of death and art and culture and our entertainment?
And it's all around us. Some of us try to avoid the idea and desperately just do everything we can to avoid thinking about death. And then there's an unhealthy obsession with death. And I think this week we'll see biblically what it looks like to have a healthy recognition of the fact that we will all face death someday, but it's not something we have to be scared of.
And so I'm excited about this week. Yeah, especially for us as Jesus followers, I mean, the movement that we are a part of, what we follow with some in death. And so we should not be afraid of death because on the other side of it, obviously we believe in resurrection and power and that's not the end. But what we experience that's sown and suffering is actually we see a harvest of just of God's grace and his eternal nature that comes through with that.
So, John left for you to walk us through maybe some of these texts and these questions and leaders you might be noticing actually that this week we have kind of a different collection of verses which is really helpful to the theme that we're looking at but not one rooted maybe in revelation. Jeremy talked to us a little bit about that and how we can lead that well this week. Yeah, so this week and next week for our final week, we're gonna take a break from the book of Revelation. We can hit those major themes.
And both this week and next, we're gonna see a letter that Paul wrote to the church, the believers in Corinth. And this week we also have a verse from Hebrews and also from Jesus words in the Gospel of Matthew. So Hebrews, we have just a real simple statement, this fact here of just as it is appointed for people to die once and after this judgment. So just that reality of our days are numbered.
We all will face death at some point in our lives. And then as we've already touched on earlier in the series, there's judgment and each will be saying before God and given account for what they've done. And prayerfully, by this point in the series, we've seen what it takes to have your name in the book of life, the Lamb's book of life and that we come into eternal life in the kingdom of God through the sacrificial lamb in Jesus. Then we have some of Jesus' own words here from a passage that many of us are probably familiar with, the parable of the sheep and the goats.
And verse 46, we see Jesus say, they will go into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life. So again, touching on this theme that both consequence and punishment and life and reward are the two potential fates for all people after we die physically in this earth, that we will stand and give an account. And in that parable, there's a leader note that just kind of reminds people the context of that, where Jesus is saying, there are people who truly showed love to God and neighbor by the way they treated others. He said, that's the way you've treated me.
That's how you've shown your love for Christ is by the way you cared for others in need. And so we see him kind of touching on this ethic of the Christian life and the way we love God and love each other being an outward expression of the fact that we love Jesus and we belong to His kingdom. He doesn't earn our way into His kingdom, but he says, this is the way that you've shown that you truly love to me, by the way that you love those around you. And then our biggest chunk of time is in this passage from 2 Corinthians chapter five, where we see this idea that the Holy Spirit has been given to believers in this period of history between Christ's life, death and resurrection and sending back into heaven.
And he gave his disciples the great commission. He told us, he established the church there on Pentecost sent the Holy Spirit and now believers, we have the power of the resurrection. We have the power of Christ through the Holy Spirit in each of our lives. And that's how we're living our day to day lives until the end of time and life as we know it.
And Paul says that gift of the Holy Spirit is kind of a down payment, a deposit, a promise that we can know with certainty that God is gonna keep His promise to return Christful, established His kingdom. And we will be a part of that kingdom for all eternity. That's really helpful, but a beautiful picture that is and it's so much more that the Holy Spirit is given to us as a down payment to live into the reality of what Jesus has done. And it's not like the Holy Spirit is given to us as like a ticket, you know, where it's like, okay, here's, when my life is over here, here's my ticket and I get to escape and so I'm just gonna hold on to my ticket and wait till I get there.
It's like, no, the Holy Spirit is given so you can outwork all that Christ has done in your life now in the very present. And I think there's a danger isn't there, Jeremy, when we talk about the end of my life of, well, I'm just holding on, I'm just gonna bunker down and I know that mortality has 100% right, like that is gonna be there. So I'm just gonna try to do the best that I can and hold on to my ticket and wait till I get there. When actually what we do now, it echoes for eternity.
What we do now is a reflection of the grace that we have received. So the Holy Spirit is at this reservation ticket. The Holy Spirit is this empowering spirit of Jesus to live all the stuff, live all the stuff now. So I just love that, but there is that danger.
I think also, Jeremy, just talk about, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but I wanna make sure as leaders navigate, when we talk about all standing in front of the judgment seat of Christ, we have that choice, don't we? Where we can stand and be judged by our own works, or we can be stand and be judged by Christ's work in us, which motivates the way that we serve others. So yes, we'll stand before that. And we have the choice in our good works, which are emptiness, filthy rags, or in the finished work of Jesus.
And we talked about that a couple of weeks ago, you might wanna reference that again if that comes up in your conversation. Cause I know for me, I have some whiplash thinking back to my kid, you know, into my life, who's gonna be this movie screen and everything that I've done that's been horrible is gonna be put in front of all my friends and family, but that's not the case. That's right. And the revelation 20 passages is noted in a leader note there to remind us that yes, we stand to give an account, but that ultimately those whose names are found in the book of life will move on into eternal life.
And we'll not have to pay the consequence, pay the penalty due for their own sin. And praise God that he took that penalty upon himself and he paid that debt that we could not pay on our behalf. That's right, that's good. Stuart, why don't you walk us through a bit more of what you'd like us to see?
Latin in the leader discussion guide this week. What's going on, man? Yeah, so I was never a Latin nerd or very good with foreign languages, even in seminary, you know, Greek and Hebrew, I enjoyed, but they're just not strengths of mine. But this phrase is a favorite of mine, memento mori.
It simply means remember that you must die. And if you've seen, you know, ancient art or even, I was speaking with someone even over the weekend about how you may see pictures of monks from back early church fathers, imagery of skulls and things like this, it seems very morbid to us. But to them, there was this reminder of the fact that we all die someday. And so kind of like the idea behind Ash Wednesday for those who observe like Lent, Lenten practices and Ash Wednesday, the fact that like from dust we come and from dust we return.
And so really it's not a morbid thought to remember that we all died, but it's the idea to say, so what am I doing with my life? What am I doing with the breath that I have, with the days that I have, with the opportunities that set before me? How am I making the most of those opportunities to show love for God and love for my neighbor? Kind of like Christ referenced in the Matthew 25 passage.
So just one possible way to get your groups thinking, again, about the fact that this fact that there is kind of an expiration date, so to speak, on this earthly life, not on our life overall, but on life as we know it right now and on these physical bodies as we know them now, there's an expiration date. And so what are we doing to make the most of every opportunity that we have and not take it for granted? Yeah, that's good. That is the reality, that is the truth.
And we are given, as it is always, an opportunity to respond to that reality and truth. We can have a fatalistic approach. We can do the eat, drink, and be married for tomorrow. But no, actually, we understand that this isn't the end.
And so we want to make the most of the opportunity that we've been given, knowing that what we do now doesn't gain our entryway into heaven, but it continues. The kingdom continues through us joining in God's work, His finished work here and here and now. And so the hope is that it's a motivation for us, right? You're made a motivation to go on advancing the kingdom with the power of the spirit within us.
That's right. And a follow-up question that leaders may want to pose to group members is what are those things that we would like to see happen in our lifetime? And some of those may just be, you know, certainly there can be personal goals or things that we enjoy or value, but in light of eternity, in light of knowing that all of us are mortal, in the sense that we'll all face death, but then that there's also this immortality to us, that there is an eternal reality that we live into. What are those things that we would like to do?
Are there relationships that we would like to see mended? Are there people that we would like to see come to know the love of Christ for themselves? You know, things along that kind of nature, who do we need to tell that we're sorry? Who do we need to let them know that we love them?
What can we do with our lives and then ask ourselves, why are we putting those things off? Like, if we know we'd like to do those things with this lifetime, then we'll better time than the present. Let's start working towards those things that truly matter. That's good.
That's not working of love, love keeps short accounts, right? And we have an eternal view in mind. And so we want to maximize that relationships. And depending on when you're listening to this, just last weekend, we had another incredible, I believe moment and we had people that responded again to the truth of the gospel.
And it may very well be that you have people in your immediate network and spear, relationships that have responded, people that you are currently continually praying for to respond to the gospel because we know that this life is short and there is an urgency for those to respond to Jesus. There just is. And so that is how we want to live and how we want to operate, that everything that we do is pointing towards God's grace, that we join into that work. So we're celebrating with you for those that have friends, family that responded and we continue to pray with you for those that you're standing in the gap for to receive that gift of salvation.
Jeremy, anything else just to point us towards, remind us of before we say a do here and then look towards the final week, week five in the series? Well, for this week, I just pray that it's truly encouraging and motivating for us to live in such a way that matters and we don't wait and put off the things that matter most to us. And related to that, related to the way that we love others and live in such a way that we can show our love for God by showing our love for our neighbors. I wanted to ask you to remind group leaders to be able to remind their groups about the upcoming opportunity they're gonna have this coming weekend.
Yeah, that's right. This weekend is a volunteer expo for us. As we look at our journey of discipleship, we want to grow together in community, but we also want to serve one another. And within your life group, our unique gifts, talents, experiences, and we want to use those things to come alongside to serve the body of Christ.
And so this weekend, you're gonna see across all different congregations an opportunity for you to jump in and to use those gifts to serve, to serve one another, serve the church. So I'd encourage you this week to be talking about that now. Hey, as a life group, what does this look like for us? Where are we currently serving?
Where can we step into to serve others? Because serving like many of the spiritual disciplines, activities, you don't get the full benefit of it until you're actually going and doing the stuff. And so this is an opportunity to step in and to practice out your discipleship together. So look forward to that this weekend.
All right, well Jeremy, thank you so much. And life group leaders, thank you guys for tuning into this weekly resource. We're praying for you. We believe in what God is doing.
And as always, we'd love to hear from you. Love to hear your stories before you see God at work and how we can come alongside to resource and pray for you as you see the Kingdom of Advance in and through your life group community. We will see you all next week.