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. Welcome Life Group leaders to the Life Group Leader Podcast. We are looking at week one in our series, What Would Jesus Say?
We are excited to kick off the series together coming off the back end of Easter, which may have been an incredible weekend across all of our congregations. Isn't that right? Oh, this is getting handled in group faster. That's such an exciting weekend.
Oh my goodness. It was beautiful. Oh, that Good Friday Easter. Totally.
Totally. I mean, we were just talking about all the different places that we saw God show up. From baptisms to all the different environments. I mean, it was just such a beautifully profound weekend through the rain and all.
It's just incredible. And we love that we now get to jump into this series together. We know there's going to be lots of folks that are new going out of Easter. And then we've also got a whole crop of new Life Group leaders, right?
So exciting. And here we go kicking it off together. This is such a great series. It's a great place to start just jumping into the work together.
So excited to be out. Right. So new Life Group leaders, we are excited to have you too as you just wrapped up your rooted session and are jumping in now to our survey based questions weekend and week out where we get to walk through the questions basically as if we were in our own groups. And we're going to walk through some kind of advice and leader tips all the way through and then calling out other things that are happening across the life of our church that are pertinent towards Life Group.
So this is week one. We've got Christine Kane speaking across all of our congregations. And the question for this week is what would Jesus say to a person's suffering? We're going to look at John 5 verses 1 through 16.
So I'll read that in just a moment. But the lead in that we have for today is share about a time when you're glad you stepped out of your comfort zone. Anything that's a good one. Top of mind for you.
Share about a time when you're glad. We should have made you something that's a comfort zone when you're glad. You could tell that story too when it didn't go well. But moments of time where you stepped out and you saw.
You know, maybe something unexpected or surprising. Anything come to mind for you? Yeah, I guess the one that comes to my mind is I went climbing and repelling. There you go.
And started to go off the cliff at the top, you know, backwards. Yeah. And didn't want to. But I was really glad I did.
It was an incredible leap of faith. I lived to tell the tell. I did. That's great.
I did. I did. I'm sure everyone else on. Yeah.
Yeah. The first thing that came to my mind was my engagement. I was very excited to do that. But as you do back in the day, my wife and now wife and I, we were having dinner on top of the Carnelian room on top of the Bank of America Tower in downtown San Francisco.
Awesome. And I was in front of the whole restaurant, fancy French restaurant, got down on one knee. I had the matri D. I gave him the ring as we checked in and said, hey, can you bring this out with dessert?
So all the, I think romantic, some might say cheesy. It was a different time. It was the year 2000, maybe in 1999, but certainly not a normal operation. So out of my comfort zone.
But she said yes. That's awesome. Yes to the dress. And yesterday.
So I do not regret it. Wow, that's awesome. Great. So you're going to see that that kind of ties into the, to the theme of what we counter in the passage.
So I'm going to go ahead and read the passage. But before I do, we are tip number one is you want to read the look down question. Before you read the passage. Why do you think that's important to him?
Oh, to know what your, what your, it helps you focus your ideas, what you're looking for and leaning some out of the scriptures you go. That's right. Yeah. So you're focused in that way.
If you read the passage first, then you ask the question often people like, well, hold on. Let me go back. But if you read the question ahead of time questions ahead of time, it helps you to see through it. So we got a few different questions here.
And often that's the case where you may have one, sometimes I'll have two or three. So we got three today to help you interact with the passage. And they are who are the different people gathered at the pool and what do you learn about them? So just really characters, what do you learn about them?
And what do you learn about the compassion of Jesus with his interaction with the man? So you're going to see who that man is in just a moment. And then what do you learn about the religious leaders in their reaction? So the look down is observation.
Looking at the passage. What do you see? What do you learn? It's not opinion.
It's taking the scripture. What do you see there? Right. And so Kim and I will interact with that a little bit here.
So who are the people we learn about and we learn about the compassion of Jesus and what you learn about the religious leaders. So I'll read from chapter 5, 1 through 16. It says this, after, after this a Jewish festival took place and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. By the sheet gate in Jerusalem, there was a pool called the state of Aramaic, which has the five colonies.
Within these lay a large number of the disabled blind, lame and paralyzed. One man was there who had been disabled for 38 years. When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, do you want to get well? Sir, the disabled man answered, I have no one to put me into the pool and when the water is stirred up.
But while I am coming, someone goes down ahead of me. Get up, Jesus told him, and pick up your mat and walk. Instantly, the man got well, picked up his mat and started to walk. Now the day was a Sabbath.
And so the Jews had said to the man who had been healed, this is a Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat. He replied, the man who made me well told me, pick up your mat and walk. Who is this man who told you?
Pick up your mat and walk. They asked. But the man who was healed did not know who it was because Jesus had slid away into the crowd that was there. After this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, see you are well.
Do not sin anymore so that something worse doesn't happen to you. The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore, they began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. The word of the Lord.
Alright, give with those three questions in mind, help us to highlight the things that we should want to draw out from our groups. So the first question, who are the different people you see at the pool? Disabled, of course they are blind, lame, paralyzed. So it is all kinds of different needs.
Yeah, those are neat. What else do you see? What do you learn about the compassion of Jesus? I think the religious leaders are also also there, the guy who got the pool.
Jesus himself is there at the pool. We are not told exactly why the religious leaders are there but we want to know that they are there. And then we go on, what do you learn about the compassion of Jesus with his interaction? Well he saw him.
He saw him how powerful that is. And he went straight to him. And asked him a question. Yeah, do you want to get well?
Yeah, the seeing is a huge part. Somebody that was overlooked, somebody that has been there for 38 years, talking about what he learned about this man, he was desperate, he felt overlooked. But there was still this a bit of hope that he was there and he was showing up every time. And then Jesus asked him a question.
Do you want to do you want to do you want to do well? Why do you think Jesus asked him that question? What can we learn there? Did he want to change?
Yeah. Did he want to have faith that he could be made well? Or had he given up hope? Right.
He was just killing time. Right. Yeah, I think there's something in that. You've been so unwell for so long that there could be this identity that's being built around his sickness, his position, his being on the margins.
Jesus asked him, do you want to do you want to get well? Then he heals up. He builds him right away. Then he has an interesting interaction with the religious leaders.
What have you learned about them from the passage? Yeah, he's like, they said, who is this man? I don't know who the man is. Yeah.
The man that healed me told me to get up. Right. Yeah, like it wasn't all about the man that was that he's been healed. Right.
Right. I don't know who the man was. Yeah. And he's not even understanding him.
He's very understanding and keeping of the Sabbath and you're not supposed to work, you're not supposed to do this. Who is this person that's breaking breaking the law so they they went to the functionality of the law, the law over the compassion of the value of God's kingdom. Right. They hold a law over the value of God's kingdom of compassion.
And then it says that they, they began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath, but this really is in John's gospel and we use which John's gospel is not necessarily linear, this and that he's piecing things together. But in this moment we can say like, okay, they'd start persecuting Jesus. Why? Because he's breaking their law.
He's breaking the Sabbath, he's breaking the Sabbath. He's doing these things on the Sabbath. Right. Right.
Then we move to the lookout. This is where you want to see the values out of the passage at work in culture around us. And there's a question here. It says, where do you see parallels to the reaction of the religious leaders in today's world?
So we've noted the reaction of the religious leaders. And then where might we see that in the world today? Mm-hmm. And maybe as you enter this section, it's reminding yourself there's not a right or wrong to this.
It's perceptions as what we bring to the table and as we share them as a group. And being able to include as many people in the circle as you possibly can, keeping the conversation moving in that. Right. Yeah.
So where do you see the parallels to the reaction of the religious leaders in today's world? In many places in our world today, right? Because a lot of times I think the world around us, it's yes but. Right.
Yes but this happened, yes but. Did you think of that? Right. And it's easy to hear that in any circle, whether it's in the school system or if it's in your neighborhood H.
Right. H. My meetings. Yeah.
It's everywhere you go, you hear those type of responses and how do you stay focused on the Lord and on the healer, on the woman? Is your savior? Yeah. Right.
So where do you see people hold over rules over compassion? Mm hmm. Where do people use rules instead of compassion? There's lots of different spaces where we see that it's easy to put boundaries and rules in principles in place when you're not actually in it with people and I love what Jesus does as he comes and he sees the man and he approaches him and he asks him, he asking as a form of relationship, right?
So he's there, he sees him, he's on the margin of society. And so often we can have an idea about people and we can build rules to protect really ourselves and maybe not people versus like moving towards people and having a heart of compassion that do some models for us here. And then when those boundaries, all those rules get broken, we don't, we're upset, we don't celebrate that actually brought freedom, it brought healing in this situation. So lots of different ways that you can interact with that question.
For sure. Because it opens up the whole world. Right. You can be stuck in that space and the hope that you've even long for, you don't even, you're not even able to visualize what that is but it opened up this man's whole world.
Right. He was no longer in that circle of people. Yeah. And waiting there every day, he was out and could go to the temple, was active and could see his viewpoint of land and sky and see it was different just from his vantage point.
Yeah. And then we can get up on that too because the man who had a physical condition that wasn't just about the suffering of his physical condition, it was somebody that was cut off. That was not a, not a relationship. And so often when we're suffering, suffering can feel like that.
There's a thing that we're carrying that maybe we, we can't share, we don't, we don't share with others and cause isolation. It can cause a lot of, a lot of shame and we can begin to wonder if Jesus sees us, what he moves towards me, he was compassionate to people then, but he'd be compassionate towards people now, whether it was something that, you know, a decision that was made for us or if it was a decision that we make that led us, led us into suffering or if it was just the broken us of the world, world around us. When things happen, often our, our tendency is to take, not always the first step towards Jesus, but we take step inward and we wonder why this happened, what did I do with it? I think that's where the enemy really does is, some of his best work, right?
Is to move us inward there. And so then the look in sections, what is the, like the word, what is the map in your life that Jesus is inviting you to pick up? So that Matt is symbolic of the suffering, the shame, maybe a false identity, things that make us feel like we're on the margins. What's the map in your life that Jesus is inviting you to pick up?
That is closed you off from other people. That has made you experience a loneliness because maybe of that shame, the thing that you're carrying that feels heavy on you. Totally. And then what are the barriers to walking in the freedom that Jesus has for you?
So yeah, how would you build our leaders to walk through this last set of questions? I guess my encouragement would be make sure you have enough time to sit in these questions because this is where life change happens. When sometimes it's scary to admit what the mat is, but we all have things that hold us back from living in the fullness that Christ has for us. We always do.
So being able to just drill down a little bit to expand these questions to don't mind getting in the messy things of life and discussing things that are holding people back. There's such power in that because that is like the first step walking towards Jesus asking for that freedom. Totally. And listening to his voice too, do we want to get well?
What are the barriers you think that people might have in hearing that question or responding to that question? I would think it would be a lot of times fear. Even the fear of what are people going to think of me if I say this in a circle. Right.
Yeah. And hopelessness too. I've tried that already. I did that and it didn't work or this repetitive cycle or this thing just doesn't seem to get better.
And of course in the passage we see the physical thing get better but there's also the restoration of this man in community which is beautiful. I think often in suffering of course we pray for the thing to get better, for the cancer to go to way, for the relationship to be restored, for the way we're son or daughter to come up and we pray for the thing to get better. And many times it does and then also many times it doesn't. And so navigating that conversation with people in your group that are going through things where it's like, man, I'm trying to pray it.
It's not happening. That's the real space. Right. And that's the real gift of community to the show and others.
It is. What would you say to leaders as they're leading people to group where it's like, yeah, I want the thing, I want the suffering, the thing that's causing the suffering to get away to go away. But how do you shepherd people through when the thing doesn't? When the thing doesn't.
When the thing doesn't. Jesus didn't always promise us in this life that it would get better. Right. So what if community got richer and deeper in the process and that pointed us to Christ?
Right. What if they experienced the presence and the power of Jesus even in a different way if healing wasn't provided in the exact way that you're praying? That's right. Yeah.
Of course, we're coming off of Easter. The greatest healing miracle that ever was, the defeat over sin and death. I mean, you talk about a miracle that is for everyone who says yes, for all people, for all time. So even when the unsteady waves of life circumstances seem like this, like there is a deep anchor which is found in the resurrection of Jesus, which is not just like platitude.
It's like reality. It's reality. And so love that. We just celebrated that.
And our next conversation is moving into a conversation about the reality of suffering, which would be really unkind to talk about the reality of suffering without the reality of the resurrection. And so we're both, right? We're both people living into the reality of the resurrection while living through the reality of suffering. But we do that.
We hope not as those, we breathe with those not without hope, right? We have a substantial hope that we celebrate it last week. And so I think there's something in that when you leave your groups this week of listen really well, sit into it, pointing back reminding ourselves of what Jesus has done and it makes all the difference. Really good.
Yeah. And the richness of community, right? That is so huge because you can stay in whatever you're suffering with that may last a while, but some people haven't ever experienced the richness of community. And that in and of itself is miraculous to be able to have people that represent Jesus, like be the hands of feet of Jesus in that situation.
It changes everything, changes your perspective and the hope and the way to cope with each day. Right. It's good. Awesome.
Beautiful. All right, guys. So getting in at this week, week one, what would Jesus say? Have some deep rich conversations, really excited, especially for all those new life groups that we have.
This is a weekly resource. We're going to walk in the passage with you. We've also got extended prayer this weekend too, which is great. Well, always a well time for extended prayer, but especially in a conversation like this, there's going to be space for you to receive prayer during service.
And hey, bring extended prayer to your life group. We call back to that. Hey, we had extended prayer this weekend. Why don't we have extended prayer in our life group this week?
We can talk about things. Why don't we actually spend extended amount of time praying for each other? Like grab that from the weekend and bring it into your group group this week. It's a natural, natural thing to do this weekend.
Awesome. Great. And even stopping to pray for somebody right then and there. Yeah.
If a map is identified and this is what I'm really struggling with, don't ever be shy about stepping in and just saying, okay, let's stop and pray. Totally. Yeah. It's beautiful.
Yeah, don't shame. I love that Jesus and shame. It doesn't do any of that. So we get our cues from Jesus.
Awesome. We're right.