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 back to the Life Group leaders. My name is Dallas.
I get to be our young adults pastor. So glad you were joining us and I am joined today by my friend, Tiffany. Welcome to podcast. So happy to be here, Dallas.
Tiffany is our college pastor. We get to do Thursday nights together. It's awesome. Dream team.
Come on. Dream team. So we're going to jump in. We are in the series.
What would Jesus say? One of the things we did is to those who think they have it all figured out. It's a long, long title. But it's like, you know those people, they got to figure it out because they have this, this and this and that, and this and that.
But we're looking at one of the most popular passages in all of Scripture, John 3 16. It's a famous one. Famis one. Where have you seen John 3 16?
Like where are you thinking of it? Oh my goodness. Like what do you think of John 3 16? I immediately think of Tim Tebow.
Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow. Yeah. What about Tim Tebow.
What about Tim Tebow? I don't even remember what game it is. I mean, I know it's football. I feel like I need to make that there.
if that was like a championship game, they decided to do that or something, but either way, it's serious in my mind. Yeah. And Tiva, we've seen it all around culture, John 3 16. So it's super fun to be able to unpack it this weekend at church and kind of see what does it mean?
What does it mean for us? And there is someone in this passage who thinks they have it all figured out and that is Nicodemus. So as you as a lecture player, hopefully your group is reading this entire passage. It's such a beautiful passage, a conversation with Jesus and Nicodemus.
But I think one of the things that really stands out in this passage is you have Rule Breaker and Rule Follower. So Tiffany, are you more of a Rule Breaker or a Rule Follower? I think I am more of a Rule Breaker. Yeah, I see.
You're not shocked. I'm not shocked. I was actually prepared, like, when she says Rule Follower, how do I tell her? I don't know.
Don't conversation. When there are no rules or there are no systems, then I have to be the one to be like, all right, let's get some systems in place, but then I want to break the system immediately. Yeah. That's great.
Okay. How have you seen like Rule Breaker in your English? Yesterday. I'm sorry.
So yesterday, I took my knees to Disneyland and I got in the longest line to get in the parking garage. And then I was like, there is a better line. If I just go through some areas and I'm not supposed to go through, I will land in a better line. And so I did it.
I pulled all the way over through some areas that wasn't supposed to go, but it worked out great. Didn't get arrested or anything. It was amazing. It was amazing.
I didn't get arrested. What a win for the day. It was great. I am more of a Rule Follower.
Okay. Not surprised. Not surprised. The people who know me, Rule Follower, it's funny like a story that I was thinking of was also a driving stop.
It is on the toll road when traffic starts backing up. Yeah. Hey, these two lanes are 91 East, something like the 241 if you're in the area. 241, there's 91 East to get onto the 91 for you to go to Corona.
Those lanes are backed up for miles. And I'm the dude who knows they're backed up. So I just get over immediately and I just wait in the line. And then there's the people that are flying by on the left hand side at the last minute, like cutting across traffic and cutting in.
And I feel like they're breaking the rules, but I'm sitting back there. Oh my gosh, I'm that person. I'm sitting back there like three miles. It's gonna take me a few hours.
You're doing everything. I feel like I have to do that. I feel the one like, if I break this rule, I'm gonna be like, they're gonna pull me out of my car. Like I'm gonna be the one that's gonna take a car away.
Like I just have, I build that out my head. That's a me issue. Not a me issue. But I think that's a really fun conversation for your whole group.
What I would not recommend for your group is to be like, here I'm gonna guess if you're a rule breaker, a rule follower. It's good. Just let people have fun. And then when they say it, I totally see that in you.
And they get to be really fun and great when they get to know people. But then we look down at the passage, which is super important. So hopefully you guys have read the passage, but as you read the passage, Tiffany, what stands out to you about me? What stands out to me is who he is, that he's a good man.
And he's known for his character. He's a good teacher of a lot. Just who he is coming to Jesus is like pretty stand up guy. Eh.
That's exciting because he was a Pharisee, super well respected, upheld the law. But at the same time, I think the beauty of it is he has all those things, but he's missing out on the main thing that you can have all those things. But the main thing is Jesus' response to him. So that's who he deemises.
And then what stands out to you about how Jesus responds to Nicki Miss. Totally. I think I wonder if we don't know how Nicki, oh, he was thinking in these moments or whatever. But I wonder if he's thinking like, oh man, I have clout.
I can go to Jesus. I, because he knows what he carries, which is a lot of really great, well respected, following the rules, kind of essence about himself. And Jesus doesn't talk about any of those things. If I was Nicki Davis, I would be a little bit bummed out.
Because that's not where Jesus starts the conversation. In fact, he doesn't really ever go there as far as, hey, this is really great. You're halfway there. You only need me for 50% of this thing.
That's just not even part of the conversation. And so I think what I noticed about Jesus and his response is he sees who he is and his responses. Let me just tell you who you are and what you bring to the table. Actually has nothing to do with the salvation I have for you.
Yeah. I'm thinking of the person who is going to their boss and they're so proud of the work that they did. Look at all these great things that I did. And the boss is like, OK, but what about this?
No, no, no. Let me show you the report one more time. Look at all these great things that I did and the boss saying, cool, what about this one thing? That sometimes we can be so excited about the wrong things.
And it's the main thing. And Jesus makes the main thing. You must be born again, no matter what you do. There's nothing you can do to earn.
I like that. Hey, you're halfway there. There's no halfway there. No head starts for anybody, which is really beautiful about the gospel is Jesus is kind of like, that's really cool.
And he just doesn't even know. He's like, OK, totally. You must be born again. Yeah, that's it.
So I think it's really, really important for your group is to make sure that they understand that. How many Christians even that? I think we interact with Thursday night to our young adult service that it's this work based. How do I earn my way?
Look at all these great things I've done. And I think it's a great reminder for your group that there's nothing you can do to earn your salvation. It's all what Jesus has done. Everything is already been done.
Battle's already been won. It's all about believing. Believing in Jesus and then doing what he tells you to do, living the way he wants you to live. So as we look out on culture, to be aware, some of the things that people think save them.
Yeah, I think works is the first thing that came to my mind. OK, sometimes we think about this. And there's a whole TV show about the good place. And it's really making fun of this.
But I think so many people think this in our world. I need to do more good things and bad things. And that's what's going to save me. And so they're going to give the charity.
People are going to volunteer their time. It could be with things in culture. It could be things even in the church. Sometimes we can think, OK, we're in the church, but we still need to work really hard to make sure that we are good.
And so I see people sometimes serving as if they're trying to gain the salvation that they so want. And so I think it's what we put out is one of the things. Yeah, I think that's great. And the things that cause people to reject salvation are, hey, I have to go through all these loops.
I have to do all these things. I can't live the way I want to live. It causes people to reject the salvation of, or sometimes it's, I'm too far broken. I'm so broken.
I'm so undeserving of this. So I'm going to reject this. Or we can flip it to the other side, which might be a little bit more of the Orange County side is I can work just a little bit harder and I can earn this. It's the mantra of, but you don't know the health care that I have.
You don't know I'm a carnivore diet. Like I can work myself out of this. We have this work hard mentality that kind of goes into every area of our life, which causes us. That is one way to reject salvation too.
We save ourselves. We save ourselves. We try to be the hero of the story. But for everybody listening, this is a church answer.
Who is the hero of the story? Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
It's the simple answer right in front of us. And that's kind of the beauty of this passage is helping people see it's all about Jesus. Yeah, absolutely. Always has been, always will be.
So it kind of leads into some of these last couple questions, which might be a little open and honest and raw in your group, which would require you to really listen in, lean in, encourage, draw some things out, shepherd people. Like there's a tough question to answer. Like, where are you trying to accomplish salvation on your own? Like, where are you earning that, trying to earn that?
And it's a really beautiful question if you kind of create the group time for people to answer that question. But what do you see as you're looking into your community? How would you help like the left group leaders walk through that, answer that? What would be your recommendations for that?
Totally. I think the biggest thing is exactly what you said. The life group leader has to be honest in this one. And I even was just, as I was thinking about this question, wrestling myself, like, where am I?
Because you can look at that question, think, oh, I don't struggle with that. You know, like it's easy. Because we just answered all of these other questions about, no, no, no, we know it's not me 50%. And Jesus 50% like, this is all, Jesus is the only way that we can be saved.
It's not our own doing that can save us. But I think that's cut deeper for us personally as life group leaders. And then that's going to lead the way in the discussion with everyone else is just asking, God, is there an area of my life where I have put myself as king? Like, is there an area of my life where I am now in charge?
And where if I feel like I succeed in this area, I have peace. But if I don't, then I totally am angst. Or like, if you start to realize, like, if you associate your emotions around something, it helps you unpack and dig deeper into, oh, I didn't even think I was doing this. But I realized that if I actually fail or I say no to someone asking me to serve in this area or if I would ever fill in the blank, there's like this angst about me and I lose my peace.
There's a chance that maybe it's because you have started to say, OK, God, I trusted you for my salvation, but I'm trusting me to keep my salvation. And so it's easy for us to trust in for our salvation, but they were like, great, now that you've got us there, I'm going to keep the salvation. And so I think that it's a lot of hard work to try to figure out what's that one thing. But once you do it, then it's going to help other people think about this question in that way.
What I'm hearing you say, it's not, salvation isn't just a ticket into heaven. That's right. It's not you getting into heaven, but it's really heaven getting into you and heaven on earth and really saturating your entire life. Dangerous prayer, beautiful prayer.
Totally. We all want to pray that prayer. And I'm sure that's a prayer that God would love to work out in our own lives and your lives. But just as Tiffany said, leaders, it starts with us.
We lead the way. We set the tone. You set the tone for vulnerability. This could even be a really fun week to have people memorize John 3 16.
Have them memorize it. Verses 17 and 18 are also really, really beautiful that Jesus' role was not to condemn the world, but to save the world. That's really helpful for them in conversation. So lots of great places you can go as we really open up scripture and looking at the words of Jesus.
But we're praying for you leaders. We believe in you leaders. We can't do this without you. So we're super, super thankful.
It's if you think we're joining in on the podcast and loving on our Laughter Leaders. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Take care.
Laughter Leaders.