Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource you to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together. Hello and welcome to the Mariners Life Group Leader podcast. My name is Kirby Wood, the groups pastor at Mariners Irvine.
And I'm so glad to help equip you and host this podcast. I also wanna welcome any and all of our congregations who are listening on as well. While I am the groups pastor for Irvine, I do work closely with all of your discipleship pastors, helping every, all of our Mariners Church campuses have really healthy, great life groups. And so we hope that this conversation today will help prepare you for your conversation and discussions with your life group this week.
We have a very special podcast today as we get to kick off a new series on the study of the Holy Spirit. It is a two part series. We've got a six week chunk, and then I think another four week chunk after that. But the first six weeks is the spirit of God, and then the second is the spirit in you.
And we're actually going to spend some time here today in this podcast, not with myself, but with Jared Kirkwood, our lead Irvine pastor, and Eric Geiger, our senior pastor for all of Mariners Church. And they're both going to talk about what our hope is for all of you in life groups and what you hope to experience in this new teaching series as we study the Holy Spirit. I hope you know, just before we jump in and we get to hear this great conversation between the two of them, that I would love to tell you that we are doing all of our discussion guides for this series will be week to week. So please keep up to date with our life group, with your email and to congregations, stay in touch with your discipleship pastors as they will be supplying you with the leader guides week to week.
And hopefully we are hoping that this short and condensed one to two questions per section will really help you guys have a very clean and streamlined group discussion this week. So I'm actually going to come in at the end of the podcast and talk through the leader guide. But now I'd love to turn it over to Jared and Eric as they talk about the Holy Spirit and this upcoming series. Eric, thanks again for joining us on the Life Group Leader podcast.
We are super excited about this summer and the series that you have prepared for us. Just as we get started, I've been thinking about, well, I'm teaching in a couple of these, you are, you are, you are. Yeah, and so I've been doing a lot of reading and praying and studying and just considering the spirit. And it's been a beautiful thing for my own soul, which is, it's a good thing as a teacher, right?
We want the spirit to minister to us first before we teach on. But as a believer, let me just ask you, what would we miss if we didn't study anything about the Holy Spirit? It's good. So, as Christians, we hold to this mysterious yet clear teaching in the scripture that we have one God who's three person.
So a triune God. And so we get the word Trinity from the understanding of Deuteronomy 6, 4, hero Israel, the Lord your God is one. So we have one God yet throughout scripture, we also see God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. In fact, several passages in scripture, we see all three together in the same passage.
So we have one God yet three persons. So when you ask the question, hey, what would I miss if I didn't study or understand the spirit? Imagine if you asked that with, hey, what would I miss if I didn't understand God as Father? Or hey, what would I miss if I didn't understand Jesus?
The short answer is you'd miss a lot. 33% if it's all equal. You'd miss a lot. You'd miss understanding who God is, because God is Father, God is Son and God is Spirit.
So that's the high level view is you would really miss a fundamental understanding of who God is, because God is Spirit. Yet also to get more personal, you'd miss knowing what you already have, because this is what the Profound Teaching of the New Testament that the Spirit of God that who hovered over the waters at creation, the sort of God who led the Israelites to freedom out of Egypt, the Spirit of God was active in creation, active redemption, he hovered over, but now he moves within. So he lives within his sons and daughters. So you have God within you.
Not everybody, it's not like Pantheism where God's in the tree, God's in the people, but no, no, this is the person of God, the Holy Spirit moving into the lives of believers. So we have God living within us, those of us who've received his forgiveness. So understanding who the Holy Spirit is is really understanding who is the God who's always with us. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's pretty important.
It's important. When you think about it, sometimes I'll talk to somebody at the church and they'll say, we don't talk enough about the Holy Spirit, right? And in some ways, I understand what they mean, but at the other side, I'm like, we talk about the Holy Spirit as, may not call out specifically the name Holy Spirit, but anytime we talk about Jesus or the activity of God, we're really talking about the activity of the Holy Spirit. Right.
So I wrest with that question too. So I'm gonna say, hey, you're not speaking enough about the Holy Spirit or hey, what are we gonna hear about the Holy Spirit? And like we're teaching through Galatians at the moment that we're recording this podcast and we happen to get to Galatians 5 where the Spirit is very prominent in Paul's writings in Galatians 5. Earlier in Galatians, the sun being cursed for us was prominent actually really all the way through Galatians that the sun, Jesus is prominent.
And so my short answer is, hey, we teach the text that's in front of us. And when the text emphasizes God the Spirit, we teach God the Spirit, when the text emphasizes God the sun, we teach the sun. I also think we have to realize that according to what Jesus says about the Spirit, the Spirit really shines the spotlight on Jesus. The Spirit is not making the hero of us.
The Spirit is promoting and making Jesus the hero. And then there's like to your point, there's a sense that because we believe God is one, we want to be careful, we don't separate these three and make them three different gods. We have one God who is the Father, who's the Son, and who's the Spirit. And when we teach a section of scripture that emphasizes the Spirit, we of course are gonna emphasize the Spirit.
And then this summer, we're gonna look at, I mean, 10 weeks of passages that emphasize the Spirit. So the Spirit will be on display. But we have to be careful, we don't make the Spirit different from the Son and different from the Father. When Jesus says, hey, this is one of the passages in John 14, when Jesus speaks of the Spirit and he speaks of the Father in the same.
So you have the Son speaking of the Father and the Spirit in the same passage. And Jesus says, the Father will send another counselor in the original language, it's allos periclete. And another is another just like, so it's like, hey, I'll have another drink. When you ask the waiter for another drink, you don't mean a different drink, another of the same one.
And so Jesus says, my Father's gonna send another of the same one just like me. And he's the counselor. So the Spirit is Jesus, another Jesus that moves within us because we are speaking of the same God. Now, if your mind is exploding right now, I'll just listen to this podcast.
We are literally talking, we're swimming in deep waters of the mystery of the mystery of the Spirit of God. And sometimes right, that is why some churches are a little trepidacious about teaching about the Holy Spirit because it can feel mysterious at times. I can understand the concept of a Father. I can understand Jesus, but the Spirit feels conceptual at most times, which is why we're, I have a Father or even if I didn't have a Father, I have a Father, so I know what the word Father means.
I understand the Son. And of course, I haven't even seen depictions of Jesus. So I get Father, I get Son Jesus. But Spirit, in fact, if you grew up in church and you had an old King James Version.
Holy Ghost, baby. And so I grew up as a kid scared of ghosts, right? I don't want ghosts under my bed. I don't want ghost busters.
I'm not supposed to find a group. And so you're reading the King James Version. And so holy ghost, do I want? Do I want a Holy Ghost?
And the word is new month for Spirit. And for some reason, King James translated this as ghost. But which is fine. The Spirit was saying the passage was teaching ghosts as not a physical, tangible presence that you can hold but a spirit, right?
So yes, I say it, not the Spirit. The Spirit is a he. But the teaching of the Holy Spirit has the mystery has caused some people to be fearful. And we don't want to be fearful of the Spirit because the Spirit is God and God is good.
Yeah, that's well said. So this summer we'll do a too mini series about the Spirit. We're going to talk about the Spirit of God. So too many, not like TOO mini.
Like we're doing too much. Not too many. Too many. The number two.
Mini hasn't short. Not too O-O-M-A-N-Y, but T-W-O. I'm going to teach you too many great messages. We're going to teach too many.
Too many ones. So we have two. Dose. Dose.
Mini. We're going to talk about a mini-ed Spanish. Dose. Little series.
The Spirit of God. And then the Spirit in you. Talk us through the overview. Why two aspects to this?
Right. So we could have just done 10 straight weeks. We have done that with Galatians. Thought about it and thought, well, this will be helpful if we spend the first six weeks giving really some teaching on who the Spirit is.
And then the last four weeks, a bit more practical on OK. Now here's what the Spirit does in you. Now there'll be overlap between those two series. But just helping our people have a bit of framing for the series that makes it more sense to them.
Yeah. So I'm really looking forward to, as a church, getting to study these amazing texts. They're so beautiful when you see who we are. There's so much identity aspect to this about God's love for us, coheirs with Christ, and really what that means is being a gift given the gift of the Holy Spirit because of that.
And I'm looking forward to seeing as we better understand the Spirit of God then those last four weeks, just like you're saying. OK, we get to experience. We get to partner with. We get to in the same way that we do with Jesus.
We talk often about what does it look like for us to be the hands and feet of Jesus? Like there's a practical component to Jesus? There's a practical component to the Father? That's right.
What do you see as the practical components of the Holy Spirit? Perhaps even as a life group, how can we experience that? And I think just a suggestion to a life group leader, because people in your group are less likely to have common language for the Spirit, that the more you talk about the Spirit in the same language you talk about the Son and the Father, you're actually going to be teaching through how you speak of the Spirit. So what I'm encouraging as a life group leader is you can de-mystify, which it would be a great, not de-mystify in terms of we want to take the holiness of the Spirit and bring him down to our level, not that kind of de-mystify.
But de-mystify in that we don't want the Spirit to be perceived as a force or just a power, but a person, the person of God, the Spirit of God. So how you speak of the Spirit, I just say, speak of the Spirit the same way you speak of Jesus. So hey, I enjoy spending time with Jesus this morning in his word. I enjoy spending time with the Spirit today.
More of the Spirit is leading me. I sense the Spirit of God directing my path today. And a good test for me has been, I should be able to sub God the Father or Jesus, the Son, the Spirit, interchangeably in what I'm saying, because this is one God, three persons, right? In other words, if I'm saying something about the attribute of God, so God is sovereign, the Spirit is sovereign.
God is loving, the Spirit is loving. It's not as if God the Father has a different set of characteristics or attributes than the Spirit. What are the distinctiveness then? So if there are three distinct persons within the Trinity, are there certain aspects to that are unique to one or the other?
That's a good question. So I just have to study this deeply because of the deep dive that we're going to be teaching this in the fall. So there's new metology, which is the study of the Spirit, and then Christology, the study of Christ, and theology proper, the study of the Father. And most system act illusions say, no, you have to really hold to, there is not one attribute in one the Son, the Father, or the Spirit that's not in the other.
Otherwise, think about it. You wouldn't be having one God. You'd be having essentially three different gods. So where some scholars get hung up is, Jesus emptied himself of some of his, that passage of Philippians 2, that he humbled himself.
He emptied himself in the original language. But mostly, I just believe that is a passage saying, he chose to not practice his divine prerogative of being worshipped, or of his thought. He limited himself. He emptied himself.
But any characteristic attribute that the Father has, the Son has, the Spirit has. So what makes them, they are one. And so what makes them distinct is the Son took on flesh, the Spirit lives within us, the Father sent the Son, sent the Spirit. But to attribute the essence of God is fully guide in the Father, fully guide in the Son, fully guide in the Spirit.
So we're not talking about three different gods. That is a really important distinction. And I think subtly, we can start to think that we create differences in our mind between the three aspects of the Trinity. And then you're right, the end result that perhaps most people don't make the connection to is you've ended up with three different gods, so that's not the intent.
And no one who says, hey, you didn't speak about the Spirit today, they don't mean when they ask the question, hey, that's a different God. But we do need to be careful that that's not what we unintentionally mean, because this is one God three, three verses. Not to mention, it's the Holy Spirit that is within the believer that actually interacts with our own Spirit, allowing us to understand God's word in the first place. The Spirit is one who helps us to start and understand what the Scripture teaches.
There's no understanding for us, no illumination for us apart from the Spirit. That's right. Now listen, I do agree when someone says, hey, I feel like the Spirit has been neglected. I don't think they're wrong in saying that.
There's times when, like you said, it can feel too mystical. So the teaching of the Spirit can feel too mystical. Again, not it being the Spirit. Right.
Spirits. And the teaching can feel mystical. And so we have to be careful that we don't neglect the teaching of the Spirit. It's been said in churches like ours that are a Bible teaching church, when we teach the Bible, that we have to be careful that our Trinity isn't God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Bible, that we have to be careful that we don't forget that it's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.
We must teach. And the Bible, that doesn't minimize the Bible. The Bible points us to this one God who is three persons, God's Father, God's Son, God's Spirit. But again, when we come across passages that emphasize the Son, that's what we teach.
When we come across passages that emphasize the Spirit, that's what we teach. But for those who've been one in the Spirit, we got 10 weeks of it. 10 weeks of Him. 10 weeks of Him.
I can't wait. I really, I really am excited for this series. I just see so many topics in here of the function of the Holy Spirit, freeing and transforming, convicting, converting, comforting, encouraging. I mean, there's so many beautiful things that the Holy Spirit does.
And then as we get into what the Spirit and you, the things that are enabled because of our relationship with the Holy Spirit, seals and secures, bears fruit in us, he gifts us, he sends us. I mean, this is going to be an incredible summer. As always, we encourage every life group that as you're going through this content together that you would look for opportunities to practice the things that scripture is revealing to us, showing us. I can't wait for extended prayer.
We have communion this summer. There'll be, I believe, in baptism. I mean, amazing things are going to be taking place. And so, you know, Erica, as we close, is there, is there anything that you would encourage our life group leaders just to consider over the course of the summer?
As we're going to be looking at the Holy Spirit, we're going to be studying this together. We're also going to, let's call it as it is. People are going to be on vacation. They're going to be traveling.
How would you encourage our life group leaders? So I know oftentimes groups will meet a bit less as planned in the summer. So we're spending 10 weeks studying the Holy Spirit. We make it super easy to stay attached with people traveling just with what we're doing online.
Thank you, COVID, COVID, as increase. It's true what we offer online. And so I'd encourage your group to stay connected to the teaching. And then as a life group leader, I would look at the number of times that you are meeting in the summer and ask the spirit to lead you on which of the teachings on himself feel most applicable or relevant to your group.
You may want to combine a couple of them and say, hey, we've been talking about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives this summer. Let's talk about how that's playing out in our lives. And as Jared mentioned, we have questions and content for you. I think it would be, it'd be really cool if you took a couple of times throughout the summer as a way to connect with your group, but also connect the teaching that hopefully people are engaging with it with the summer.
Yeah, I love it. Eric, could you pray for us as opposed? Yes. Spirit of living God, thank you for being with each leader who's listening right now, for sealing them, for making them forever your son, your daughter.
I pray that you will empower them to lead and shepherd their group well. I pray that you will bear fruit through them, that they will sense your pleasure with them today, even as we pray now, that you will remind their spirit, as Jared mentioned, that they belong to you, that they are sealed by you forever your spirit. I pray that you will work powerfully in your sons and daughters this summer, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thanks, Eric. Which by the way, before you hit, you'll notice that when we close our beneditions, this is a little deep. Check it out. Notice we don't say in the names of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
It is a singular. It's in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So there's an example of one God, three persons in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, don't be sick.
Come on. Amen. I love hearing the fun candor that Eric and Jared have as they talk about our upcoming series, but also you can hear the beautiful passion that Eric has for us as we started grapple with a mystery and also the beauty that is the Holy Spirit. So I'm so excited for us to have an incredible series this summer.
And like they kind of mentioned, this summer, you will see some fluctuation in your group's attendance or maybe even the way that you meet. So please be flexible with your groups as you help them prepare for this week in the summer as they might not be at church every weekend. And luckily, as you take on the discussions, invite sized sections like this and not a whole chunk of content at once, people can jump in and jump out. All they have to do is re listen back to the message if they miss the weekend and then you have this small, concise, but hopefully really meaningful discussion guide for the week.
So if you open up that one pager that we've sent over in the Life Grub Leader email or on the Life Grub Leader resources page, we have our first week one of Spirit God. And I know Eric is going to bring it as he talks about how the Holy Spirit convicts. The Holy Spirit says here at the top is not a passive observer in our justification, but in saving us, he is active in our salvation. He awakens us to our need for Jesus by convicting us of our sin and he regenerates my apologies, making us new and clean.
What an incredible powerful truth that we have a spirit that lovingly convicts us and helps in aiding us or does the actual sanctification work in making us clean and new. So hopefully that is what we'll get to hear and learn this weekend over at our teaching series and over the weekend and all of our services. And you'll have the opportunity to really break this down with your group. We're coming in strong with the first one, conviction, but also it's one of the most beautiful things that we experience in our lives is recognizing our need for God and then also getting to step into the sanctification power that the spirit provides.
Our first lean in question, I absolutely love, is what is something you often got in trouble for as a kid? How cute, how funny, I love this because I was just kind of breaking the ice, realizing we all probably got in trouble for something, whether that was, you know, stealing candy or talking too much in class or, you know, or maybe there were bigger things that people may have had, but regardless, we've all made some mistakes and they'll start to kind of break down and help us learn a little bit more about our group members and kind of what were our habits. I know when I was talking with one of my colleagues about this, I was like both of us right when we asked each other this question, immediately, both of us said, talking too much, talking too much, I was the kid for sure, that was moved from person to person or like move from seat to seat and I still talk to that person, it didn't matter if they were my friend or not, I'd be talking too much. So I'm looking forward to kind of getting some laughs with my life group this week as we talk about this break, which I'm sure they will not be surprised by that.
Look down, we'll be reading 1 Corinthians 6 9 11 and helping the people of your group really discern what do they learn from this passage about how the Holy Spirit transforms us. So a lot of really great answers to that that you'll be able to observe as you look over that text and then as you look out and identify the relevance of God's word, we're actually switching that one today with this series rather than looking down and then looking in, we're going to look down and then look out. Our hope in flipping this this time is to really get to the in part last as specifically as we think about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit might be guiding and directing us. So let's first look out, so we look at God's word, and then we're going to look out, okay, where in the world do we see this?
And so these two questions really simply are, what are the moral compasses that people look to outside of Christianity, which could be justice system or my parents or the law or other moral compasses such as like maybe diet I was even thinking of or certain things that people are thinking about with good or bad or the things that they really look to or their politics or all kinds of things that people look to. And then what are the drawbacks of those things? You'll be able to kind of help people understand, okay, if you put all your hope in that moral compass or you did or those in our lives, how is that kind of failed people, the people that we see around us and then looking in, then you kind of then are able to, or we're able to help our people redirect and then consider within themselves, what are the compasses that you look to outside of God's direction? So some of those you may have identified, they may be like, well, actually, you know, I do that too, my neighbor does it, my sister does it, but I kind of see myself like that too.
And then share time when you respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. So this might be a great time for you as a leader to kind of share, hey, like I actually was really convicted in my, in following after some other compasses in my life, and I was so grateful that the Holy Spirit course corrected me and then it ended up me elsewhere. And then where in your life today might the Holy Spirit be leading you to course correct. So this is already a very light conversation that can get really deep, really quickly, which I hope that that's our hope for you for your group this week is that they would be able to really identify after such an incredible message on conviction, some areas that the Holy Spirit might be convicting them and calling them into deeper intimacy with Christ and also on deeper sanctification.
So very, very naturally, you'll see and as you see on the leader guide here, this discussion is going to flow straight into repentance, which is a great, rather reminder, repentance is kind of the exercise of freedom from strongholds that we did enruded together. And it might be one of those strongholds that's coming up for someone that they identified and rooted a while back, but it's still, you know, they want to re, yeah, they want to re ask for accountability or, you know, it's come back up and they want to be reminded of the freedom that they have in Christ. And this would be a great opportunity. Or maybe some others in your group actually felt a conviction of something new in service or in this conversation.
And I would be really encouraging to help your group feel like a really safe place and not, you know, giving advice to one another, but just saying like, guys, let's just listen to one another today. And really here, like, where do we feel like the spirit is convicting us? Not our husband, not our friend, but where is the Holy Spirit convicting us? And of course, as always, as we come to the end, especially at the end of any kind of repentance and strongholds conversation, as we think about freedom, we want to solidify the truth rather than the guilt or shame we might feel about our own sins, which is not not the work of the Holy Spirit.
But we want to remind them of the truth. And that is their freedom in Christ. And so I would encourage you guys as a little leader note here to end your time in Titus 3, 4 through 7 and reading that after, you know, a time of confession and a time of prayer and affirmation will be really a great way to solidify and end your group today. So had to run through this quick today, but I'm excited for our continued discussion.
I'll have one of our pastors joining me again next week as we walk through week two of the Spirit of God, the study of the Holy Spirit. And I look forward to hearing you guys soon. So hope you guys have a great discussion this week. God bless.
Praying for you and talk with you soon.