Today, hope is needed more than ever, and the goodness of Easter is that hope is alive. I'd love for you to gather with us this Easter at Mariners to celebrate Jesus' victory over death and his invitation to new life. Invite your friends and neighbors and join us at one of our many in-person Easter services. We have gatherings throughout Orange County for every comfort level.
If you're not ready for physical gatherings, tune into Mariners Easter services online. We can't wait to celebrate with you. Visit the new MarinersChurch.org for all our service times and locations. Happy Easter.
Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This week, the 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. This week, we're talking about week five of the unexpected words of Jesus, and this whole conversation is about a God who serves you. As always joined by Jeremy Maxwell.
How are you doing, my friends? Hey, I'm doing great. This study's been a lot of fun as I've gone through it. I've really enjoyed it.
So I'm looking forward to these last couple of weeks. Yeah, as am I, and I think that this is a conversation as we talk about about a God who serves us, that I'm excited for groups because I believe that as we are in a life group community, the underlying motivation for every one of us in a life group is that we want to become more like Jesus and we recognize that in community is where we practice those things. And I have a belief that we are never more like Jesus than when we serve. Mark chapter 10, verse 45, we get this picture of Jesus saying that Jesus says, I have come to the world not to be served, but to serve.
And so I take that and think, you know what, as a believer, that ought to be our mantra as well. What do you think, Jeremy? Yeah, that's great. I wonder that was a Jesus talking about how we came not to serve, but to serve, not to be served is just such a world changing paradigm.
I mean, religiously, it was a radical change in the way we think about God and it's so kind of cultural even today. So this is going to be a really helpful and important lesson or discussion as we think about the ways we can serve one another and the ways that we, you see in the text that the disciples either didn't cross their mind to do this thing that was always done or they felt that they were above it. And so it wasn't their job. And so just to think about in our own lives, are we looking for opportunities to meet the needs of others and to do the things that maybe we have to go out of our way or that are kind of unexpected, but that we can bless others by meeting a need and just humbling ourselves in that moment to do that.
So set the stage for us. This week's discussion is going to take us into John chapter 13 and it's another unexpected, not only words of Jesus, but entire experience with Jesus. Help our leaders just prepare for themselves by getting into this text. What do you want them to know about this portion?
Yeah. So we have a lot of people who are in this text just to really visualize the fact that this is one of the last moments that Jesus had with his disciples on earth before the crucifixion. And in John's gospel, he focuses on the story of the foot washing and we have Last Supper, you know, the bread and wine and all that, but John focuses on this moment before the meal or kind of as they've started and their feet haven't been washed, just to really visualize that this is them. These are some of Jesus last moments.
You know, you always hear kind of the saying that someone's famous last words, like you would choose both carefully. So what would you choose to do or say if you're Jesus, knowing that this is the final time that you're going to be with your disciples and that Judas is going to be leaving from the table that he's sitting at, even after he washes his feet, that he's going to go hand Jesus over to be crucified. And so what Jesus chooses to do is just this incredible act of humility and service. And so just to imagine God incarnate Jesus Christ getting up from the table with his closest companions and disciples and washing their feet, like taking his robe off and performing the act of a servant, kind of the lowest job that you can have in this culture.
And he did it willingly. It's just it should really create a sense of awe in us as leaders. And I really hope that that's what leaders can do through this discussion is create this sense of awe in our groups for the humility and the love and selflessness of Jesus and let that really cause us to self reflect and and compel us to action. Yeah, it's amazing to me as I read this story, how countercultural Jesus was in the early first century.
It did not make any sense for a rabbi, a teacher, a man of Jesus' stature to humble himself in front of his disciples to get down and to wash their feet. That is just not something that ever would have happened. And I think the irony is that as countercultural Jesus was in the early first century, the Kingdom of God is equally as countercultural today. For our life groups as we're having discussion about this and we're working through the discussion guide, you know, that really the crux of the matter is to be a part of the Kingdom of God is to be a part of this upside down movement that won't make much sense to the rest of the world, right?
It's not going to make sense to people who are outside of the Kingdom. And yet that is exactly what Jesus invites us to be a part of. And so, you know, Jeremy, as you're looking at these questions and you're thinking about these conversations, how are we going to help groups get beneath the surface of the story, but really bring into light some of those areas of our fear, our concern, our complacency. How can we help our leaders draw the best conversation possible from within our groups?
Sure. One thing that I think ironically has been helpful is that this past 12 months with COVID and things like that has kind of opened a lot of our eyes and reminded us of we have what we call now essential workers. And just a reminder that there are so many people involved behind the scenes in our day to day lives that we take for granted. And so one thing that's helpful is to really just help your people visualize and think through, okay, I mean, you could point to any object in your room as you meet your cup of coffee, whatever, and just to think through how many people were involved in kind of getting this to me, like from start to finish and just things like that.
Like how many people are involved in just our day to day life that we never think about, we never see, even if we physically see them, literally see them, we don't see them as another human being created in the image of God. Like to really talk about not just the ways that we can help out, certainly we can help out with chores and things like that, but what are the ways that we can really see people and meet the needs? Like what Jesus was doing here was symbolic of really meeting a need that they had and no one either wanted to do or like they just didn't feel like it was their place. They were waiting for someone else to do it for them.
That would have been normal. It wasn't like an extreme arrogance that it was just normal and people were waiting for someone else to do it and Jesus took it upon himself to do that. Yeah, that's a big deal, isn't it? That we are people who have become conditioned to what is sort of quote normal today.
And this is something that was very normal for the disciples that they would never expect to wash each other's feet and they never would have expected for sure that their rabbi, their teacher, their leader was going to do that for them. I think it's going to be easy in our groups to identify even what are some of those things that have become normal. Like you're saying, I don't ever think about how the goods, the food, the resources that I have in my life. I don't know how those things get to me.
I just enjoy the fact that I have them. Are there a couple other things that have become normal that maybe are good conversation points within our groups? Sure. I think that we could actually there's so many things that we take for granted even the way we meet as a group.
And I think a lot of times we may for example last week we talked about prayer and hopefully groups had a great experience just kind of reorient them to the privilege and blessing of prayer. But a lot of times we'll say things like, yeah, I'm praying for you or we'll hear a prayer request and we may just kind of shoot off a quick prayer almost like we're texting it to God. But we don't make time to really stop and empathize with that person and show sympathy towards them and really kind of pour out our heart before God. So I think even just within our groups, the conversations we have, the prayers that we share, I think within the church there's all kinds of opportunities to serve within our church, things that we take for granted that either bless other people, benefit them, help them have an encounter with God if they're on campus at one of the locations or out in the community, just meeting needs out in the community.
And in the leader guide, there's a link that can kind of point you to opportunities that groups kind of want to brainstorm on ways that can get involved in serving others. Help remind leaders a little bit about this rhythm of serving. Yeah, well, to me, the biggest stumbling point or my fear for groups is that we're going to keep this concept at a distance. We're going to look at the story of Jesus, Washington's disciples feet and forget that Jesus had modeled for them for a couple of years, what it looked like to take risks, to get out of their comfort zone, to go to people where they are rather than expecting people to come to them.
And so it could be easy for me and my group to look at this passage and go, well, yeah, I love that Jesus serves me and I serve. I help my kid with their homework. I empty the dishwasher. I go out of my way all the time for people.
And yet that's not really what Jesus is getting at here. He's talking about actually going and doing the things that he did. He would never, in the pastor to talk about no teacher becoming better than their master. And yet what he's saying is, no, we're actually get to serve the world together.
We're going to flip this whole thing upside down. And he says, if I, he says to Peter, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part of me. You don't get to be a part of this mission, right? And so serving is being a part of the mission.
That's who we are. So serve the community is one of our rhythms where we believe that going out, getting out of our comfort zone, taking some risks is actually how we become more like Jesus. And as a leader, you are going to have to decide what's the level of risk that your group is ready for? You will probably have to push harder than you realize, but that's the work that we're called to do.
Let's help people get outside of that comfort zone because we believe God has something for them out there that we can't access or experience in here, here, meaning our comfort zone. And so serving the community is saying, how am I going to partner with our outreach ministries, local, global, city engagement, let's find a way to go and do the things that Jesus did. We can literally be the hands and fit of Jesus in the world. And that's really good for us as a life group.
It's really good for our life group to not subtly drift into becoming a support group. And the only way to rage war against us becoming a support group is that we have to go out and actually go do something about it. And that means we got to get outside ourselves and we got to serve the community. I'm preaching now.
Let me go away. That's awesome. I love how fired up you are. Like we want people to see not out of guilt or obligation, but like what Jesus has done for us through the cross and we're headed towards Easter and just what a great way to prepare our hearts and our minds and our action, like to take action in response to what we're about to celebrate with Easter coming up that serving others is not something extra optional for the Christian life, but it's central following Jesus example.
It's what he did for us and it's what we do individually and it's what we do as a group. Oh my gosh, it's so good, right? And I don't want to be mischaracterized here and that support groups are not good things. Our group's ought to care for one another.
We really should carry the burdens of one another. That can't be the only things that we do. It's really healthy for us to lift our eyes up, get outside of our own little element and see what Jesus wants us to see outside of our group, outside of our even just our church. Like go out into the community and see what God is doing out there is a really beautiful thing.
And so life group leaders, if you need help with that, you can contact our outreach teams. We'd be happy to help you find an upcoming serve opportunity. There's so many great things going on and we would love for you and your entire group to be a part of those things. So Jeremy, thanks again for putting together these questions.
We are praying for our groups. We're praying for you leader. This is going to be a really great activating kind of conversation. This is one that you can actually get people up and out of their seats and thinking about mobilizing into the areas of our church and the surrounding community.
So with that, Jeremy, would you pray for our groups as we close this week's talk? Yeah, Father God, we love you so much and we thank you that you have loved us in so many unexpected and undeserved ways. God, I pray for each and every group and the members of their groups and then all the circles of influences that kind of ripple out from there through families and workplaces and neighborhoods. God, I pray that people would see Jesus when they look at us.
When they see the way that we love and humbly serve one another, that they would see something different and it's not just a charity. It's not just a kind deed, but it's the love of Christ that we have received and is now overflowing in everything that we do. Spirit Guide, their conversations, plus each of these groups. It's in Christ's name we ask all these things.
Amen. Amen. Have a great week, everyone.