October 7, 2023 • 36 mins
https://www.anushjohn.com/post/a-rabbi-s-responsibility
Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, October 2023
anushjohn.com
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning.
Good morning, the first personwho went to the South Pole was
Norwegian explorer RoaldAmundsen, and in order for him
to go to the South Pole intosuch treacherous conditions, he
needed some training.
So as part of the meticulousplanning that he did is that he
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went to some communities thatlived in such extreme
circumstances, and one of thosecommunities was the Inuit
Indians in Northern Canada.
And he went to them and helived with them and he learned
what they did, and from them helearned how to manage sleds and
harnessing and about clothingand how to dress in layers and
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about how to manage buildingshelters and to manage with less
resources.
And in 1910, when he set on hisjourney with his team to the
South Pole, he was well preparedto be the first man to reach
the South Pole.
We are all on a spiritualjourney and at every stage of
the journey there is somebody infront of us and there is
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somebody behind us, and we learnfrom those who are in front of
us and we teach those who arebehind us.
This morning, in a sermonentitled A Rabbi's
Responsibility, we're going tolook at the issue of
discipleship and mentoring.
Mentoring is the task of makingdisciples, who make disciples.
The concept of disciples is avery common concept in the New
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Testament.
Jesus had disciples, the Jewsconsidered themselves disciples
of Moses, john the Baptist haddisciples and it was used of
Christians in general Loosely,with Jesus being the core.
The people outside Jesus wereclassified into three On the
outermost were the crowds, themiddle layer were the disciples
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and the inner layer were theapostles and the 12.
So the disciples were anybodythat was not a crowd that was
following Jesus.
And though discipleship is forall church members, mentoring is
only for church leaders.
It's a leadership function.
This morning I want to talkabout five aspects of mentoring.
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I want to use the New Testamentexamples of Jesus and Paul and
how they mentored.
In a book called Augustine asMentor Edward Smither, he talks
about these five aspects ofmentorship and he says not only
did Jesus and Paul use them, butalso the early church fathers
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used them in their mentoring.
The first point that I want tomake about a rabbi's
responsibility is that there isa selected group.
There is a selected group.
It is a group, and of thenumber of times that the word
disciple is used, mostly it isin the plural form.
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It is in the singular only afew times, and those few times
are in the Gospel of John, whereJohn calls himself as a
disciple that Jesus loved, andthe only named disciple in the
Gospel of John is Joseph ofArimathea.
Disciples were a plural groupand mentoring was a group
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activity.
In the New Testament Even Paulmentored multiple people and was
in groups.
He had John, mark, he had Luke,he had Silas, he had Timothy,
he had Titus.
A group is good for a fewreasons.
From the standpoint of thementor, if you have to say the
same thing to two people, youmight as well have them in a
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group and say the same thing atone time.
It's easier, it's moreefficient use of resources.
But for the group itself, acouple reasons why it was good
for them at that time tofunction in a group Because the
purpose of the group was forJesus to establish a church and
so they were being trained towork together as a group to
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learn how to work in a churchlater.
Also, a group fulfills therelational needs of the members.
Otherwise it's up to the mentorto provide the relational needs
.
But if there's a group they canprovide relational needs and
it's a selected group.
Jesus didn't take anybody whocame and he didn't choose random
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people.
He selected a few people thathe wanted to mentor.
And the same thing with Paul.
Barnabas went to Paul to mentorhim and asked him to teach with
him in Antioch some of theGrecian Christians and then Paul
went and chose individually.
It was a selection that wasdone.
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A second aspect of mentoring isthe mentor-disciple relationship
.
The mentor-disciplerelationship.
Now, this relationship is acomplicated relationship and is
a combination of at least fourdifferent relationships.
The first one is as a fellowsojourner or a fellow learner,
and this relationship modifiesthe other three relationships
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that I'm about to talk about.
Teaching is not because we areexperts and we have reached
there.
It is because we are slightlyahead.
We have to be a disciple inorder to be a mentor.
We cannot be a mentor withoutbeing a disciple constantly.
We are more mature, maybebecause we've been Christians
longer and have had moreexperiences, but that's not
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always the case.
We can be a younger person,like Timothy was, and have more
spiritual experiences.
Paul was mentored by Barnabasfirst.
So in Philippians, chapter 3,verse 12, he says, not that I've
already obtained this or amalready perfect, but I press on.
So he is also pressing on as heis mentoring.
In 1 Corinthians, chapter 11,verse 1, he says Be imitators of
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me as I am of Christ.
We can only be mentors as longas we are disciples.
We can only ask people toimitate us only as long as we
are imitating Christ, and that'swhat Paul did.
So then the question comes howdo we have the time to be
mentored while we are mentoring?
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The task in ministry is so busy, we have so many different
roles, and if we are mentoring agroup of people, where do we
have the time to be mentored bysomebody else?
One of my instructors in mydoctor ministry program was a
man by the name of LeithAnderson, and he had a 20,000, I
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think 20,000 member church inMinneapolis, st Louis, and after
that he became the head of theEvangelical Association of
America, something that thatoversees 80,000 churches.
One of the things that he saidto address this problem of how
can we have mentors when we areso busy with stuff, he said you
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can choose a mentor from anybody.
It doesn't need to be aphysical relationship that you
meet once in so many days.
You can read a person's books,you can watch his sermons and
you can be mentored by thatperson.
That person doesn't even needto be in the same city, doesn't
even need to speak your language, doesn't need to be even in the
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same generation.
We can read material fromprevious generations and be
mentored, and thereby getmentored and be discipled by
someone else.
The second relationship is thatof a parent, just like a parent
is a mentor to children.
It's a personal and caringrelationship.
Paul called Timothy, my child,and Jesus was known as the good
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shepherd.
He was a good shepherd to hisdisciples and, as a mentor, we
need to show grace and patiencewith our disciples, and that's
what Jesus did.
He showed grace and patience tohis disciples.
Many times when you startmentoring, it's like you take
one step forward and five stepsback, and then, after several
months, it's one step forwardand four steps back, and then it
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takes forever before.
It's one step forward and onestep back and you still never
moved forward at all.
When the disciples were withJesus just before the Last
Supper, they were having adiscussion of who was the
greatest.
That was three and a half yearsinto this and within a few
weeks they were going to behanded the entire responsibility
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of the Christian movement, andhere they were discussing with
each other who was going to bethe greatest, but Jesus had
tremendous patience with thedisciples and he waited and
waited for them to slowly cometo the point where it was one
step forward, or two stepsforward and one step back.
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Take a look at this video ofJason Alexander.
He was talking in terms ofdeveloping his own skills and
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his expertise, but that is truewith anybody that we mentor.
We have got to wait, andsometimes it just takes forever.
A third relationship is that ofa teacher.
This involves disciplinedtraining.
The training that the disciplesgot under Jesus was a rigorous
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training.
There were times when theywanted to sleep but they
couldn't sleep.
There were times that theywanted to eat but they couldn't
eat, even when they took a break.
There were people that came andthey had to minister to 5,000
plus people and they needed tobe fed and they needed to be
cleaned up, and they had thisrigorous training.
This training that Jesus gaveto his disciples to deal with
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people was probably becauselater they were going to deal
with people and he had promisedthem you are dealing with fish,
but we are going to stop that,and now you are going to deal
with people.
And so he was training them howto deal with people.
I'm not suggesting that we needto have a rigorous curriculum
with those that we mentor, butit's a good idea to have some
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kind of path as opposed to justbeing reactive to different
circumstances.
Having a path through which youare taking disciples is better
to be proactive In this age wheneverybody thinks that they know
everything.
One of the tasks of a teachermentor is in the art of gentle
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correction.
If somebody did something wrongin your group, how do we
correct them?
How do we correct them?
Back when I was still in India,my dad was a pastor of a church
in the local language and aftermy stint as a Sunday school
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teacher, all the kids grew up.
I was glad for that.
I grew up as well.
We started the English serviceof that church and I led the
English service of that church.
So all these kids that I taughtSunday school for all these
years they became members of theEnglish church and we are other
members as well.
I was probably in my early 20s,19, 20, 21.
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When we did this, there was onekid that he was a teenager and
he would come some days and notcome some other days, and he was
very erratic.
So I decided to confront himand so I went to his house,
knocked on the door and he wasthere and his siblings were
there.
His mother was there.
His dad wasn't there at thattime.
So I went in and I talked tohim.
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I said this is not right.
We need to come, we need togrow.
I gave the nice talk.
Honestly.
I felt good about myself.
I felt like I did a good job.
I explained everything well.
I scored good points with themother who was standing there
Check.
I scored good points with thesiblings that were standing
there.
I said you need to be a goodexample for your siblings and I
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checked all the boxes.
I felt good and I left.
That kid never came back, notone more time.
What should I have done?
I should have taken him out tohave chai and masala dosa and
asked him why, why aren't youcoming?
But I thought I knew theproblem and here is the solution
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and let's fix it.
That wasn't the way to correct.
So the way we correct people ishuge.
Obviously, it depends on ourtemperament.
If we have a confrontationaltemperament, then we need to
tone it down a little bit.
If we have anon-confrontational temperament,
then we need to ramp it up alittle bit, but we need to work
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with our temperament, work withthe temperament of the people
that we are leading, and I feellike it's better to have a plan
already what you would do if thesituation arose with your
temperament, so you know how wewould tackle something like that
.
A fourth relationship is that ofa spiritual leader, and this
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includes a friendly respect.
You need a friendly respect.
Jesus was their rabbi, but hecalled them friends.
Paul called his co-workers asbrothers, so there was a
friendly respect.
A mentor needs to earn theright to be respected.
Jesus obviously didn't have toearn it.
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He had the right to berespected and so he was
respected.
How did Paul earn the right tobe respected as a spiritual
leader?
Because he started withnegative respect when he was
persecuting the church.
How did he come all the wayacross to the other side to be
respected as a spiritual leader?
In 2 Corinthians, chapter 11,he writes this in verse 23
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following, he boasts a littlebit about himself and before he
boasts he has about six, sevenverses where he's super
apologetic and he calls himselfa fool for doing this.
But he has to do this becausehe is being considered as an
inferior apostle.
And so this is what he says.
Are they servants of Christ?
I am more.
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I have worked much harder, beenin prison more frequently, been
flogged more severely and beenexposed to death again and again
.
Five times I received from theJews the 40 lashes minus one.
Three times I was beaten withrods.
Once I was pelted with stones.
Three times I was shipwrecked.
I spent a night and a day inthe open sea.
I have been constantly on themove.
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I have been in danger fromrivers, in danger from bandits,
in danger from my fellow Jews,in danger from Gentiles, in
danger in the city, in danger inthe country, in danger at sea,
in danger from false believers.
I have labored and toiled andI've often gone without sleep.
I have known hunger and thirstand I've often gone without food
.
I have been cold and naked.
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Besides everything else, I facedaily the pressure of my
concern for all the churches.
How does a person gain respectas a leader, as a spiritual
leader?
You cannot not respect a personthat works harder than you.
If your leader comes to workearlier than you and leaves
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after you leave, how can you notrespect that person?
Another way that Paul gotrespect is because his words
matched his deeds.
Follow me as I follow Christ.
Nothing can kill respect in thespiritual field when we say one
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thing and do something else.
It's a struggle to keep theperfect balance.
Are we going to be morefriendly or gain respect or be
disciplinary when we have kids?
We want to be friends with thekids, but then if you're too
friendly with the kids, theydon't respect you.
So then we back off a littlebit and then we are a little
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more strict and then they arenot friends anymore, and so we
go back and forth and that's howit's going to be with the
mentor.
It's just this complicatedrelationship that we have to
somehow find ways to balance.
A third aspect of mentoringinvolves sound teaching.
Sound teaching, studying andteaching the scriptures are
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essential.
If, instead of sound teaching,the Bible said if you want to be
a mentor or a disciple, youneed to learn the guitar, okay,
let's say that's what thecommand said you need to learn
the guitar.
What would we do?
We know what to do.
We would buy a guitar.
We would either do the longroad where we learn to figure it
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out by ourselves or, if youwanna speed up the process, you
find somebody to teach you howto play the guitar.
You will learn the fretboardand the strings cold.
You'll find some books to readto learn to improve.
You may watch other people thatare experts in the guitar and
learn from them.
Then you'll play some songsbefore you're finally ready to
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play in public.
But it's the Bible and we needto do the same thing.
We need to invest time inlearning the Bible.
Jesus was called in terms thatshowed his teaching role 190
times.
He was called either a teacheror rabbi, which showed his
teaching role.
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Now I want to read three verses,if you can turn your Bibles.
The three verses.
The first one is in 1 Timothy,chapter six, verse three, and
this shows what unsound teachingis.
So if we ask the question, whatis sound teaching, this is
unsound teaching.
So don't teach like this.
1 Timothy, chapter six, versethree teach and urge these
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things.
If anyone teaches a differentdoctrine and does not agree with
the sound words of our LordJesus Christ and the teaching
that accords with godliness, itis unsound teaching.
As we know, both Paul and Jesususe the Old Testament, so they
consider the Old Testament asscripture.
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Okay, now I'm going to ask younot to turn to the next verse.
Okay, I'm going to read thenext verse, because if you turn
to it you will see the footnoteand you will answer the question
that I'm about to ask you.
So don't turn to it.
Let me read the verse.
Okay, and then I'll ask you twoquestions.
1 Timothy, chapter five, verse18, for the scripture says you
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shall not muzzle an ox when ittreads out the grain and the
laborer deserves his wages.
Okay, so that's the verse.
There are two quotes in it.
Let me read the two quotes.
The first quote you shall notmuzzle an ox when it treads out
the grain and the laborerdeserves his wages.
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Now here's my first question.
I'll give you three chances toguess where that first quote
came from.
Guess the book.
Obviously, we didn't memorizeevery quote from the Old
Testament to the new.
I get that.
But three chances to guesswhere that first quote came from
.
Deuteron, I think.
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Deuteron all right, deuteron inyour first guess, that's great.
How about the second one?
The laborer deserves his wages.
Three chances again.
Proverbs, proverbs, okay, noOne.
Two more.
Deuteron me no one more.
Leviticus no, it's not from theOld Testament.
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It's not from the Old Testament.
Where did Paul get that from?
It was one of the sayings thatJesus said.
In that one verse he made equalall the writings of the Old
Testament on all the writings ofthe New Testament, made it both
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scripture.
Let's read another verse wherePeter talks about Paul, and this
time you can turn your bibles 2Peter, chapter three, verses 15
and 16.
2 Peter, chapter three, verses15 and 16.
Peter is talking about Paul,and this is what he says, and
count the patience of our Lordas salvation, just as our
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beloved brother Paul also wroteto you according to the wisdom
given him, as he does in all hisletters when he speaks in them
of these matters.
There are some things in themthat are hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstabletwist to their own destruction,
as they do the other scriptures,and you see how Peter elevated
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the writing of Paul to the wordscripture.
Everything in the Bible, fromthe Old Testament to the New
Testament is all scripture forus and a mentor has to be
proficient in handling the Bible.
Earlier this year in my church Iwas asked to speak on the topic
of the Bible, so I spoke aboutit, but I didn't wanna just say
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okay, everybody needs to readtheir Bible.
So what I did was I had afollow-up three week course on
how to study the Bible and welooked at different kinds of
Bible readings.
We looked at some principles ofhermeneurics, the historical
grammatical method ofinterpretation.
I simplified it to about fivesimple steps.
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I also had a homeworkassignment.
They all had to follow thesefive simple steps.
We all picked the passage andthey came back the next week and
we all discussed it.
They also talked about Bibletranslations, the differences
between the translation and whythe translations are different
and all that stuff, because Ifear that most believers think
that anybody can read the Bibleand it's like a novel and you
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can get anything out of it.
Yes, you can.
It's good to read the Biblecover to cover a few times, but
at some point we gotta go deeper, beneath the layers and know
how to find the jewels that arehidden beneath those layers.
We need to know the truth andbe constantly handling the truth
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so that when falsehood comes,we can pick it up immediately.
We don't need to learn everyfalsehood that there is, we just
need to know the truth.
Once we know the truth and allof the truth, then anytime
falsehood appears, we can knowexactly what it is.
Stephen Curry is one of thebest players in the NBA.
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Watch this video of himdribbling a ball.
I think it's in his home court.
He knows how the ball feels onthe court.
He knows exactly how the ballshould feel.
So the one time it didn't feelright, he knew something was off
.
And he tested it and it wastrue.
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Right there at that spot,something was off.
That's how it should be withour handling of truth and
falsehood.
We know truth so much thatanytime falsehood shows up, we
know instantly.
No, that doesn't sound right.
There are lots of things thatChristians think are there in
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the Bible, but it's not there inthe Bible, and I've heard this
so many times.
An easy example is oh, mybrother died last night, or my
brother died last week andheaven has gained an angel.
If we didn't know, we'd say yes, I'm sorry for your loss, there
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is an angel, extra angel, inheaven.
No, we're not becoming angelsin heaven.
The Bible never says thatthere's lots of stuff like that
in our churches.
That is just cultural.
It came from movies, it camefrom books and just filtered
down and it's now scripture,unless we debunk it.
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The fourth aspect of mentoringis the is ministry,
apprenticeship Ministry.
Apprenticeship Ministry canstart as soon as a person
becomes a believer, and thereare three aspects to it.
The first one is opportunitiesto observe.
The twelve observed Jesus, howhe interacted with people, how
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he told stories, how he tried totake rest, how he talked to the
Jewish leaders, how he arguedwith those who tried to trap him
.
They learned by observation.
So at home I let my kids seewhatever they can see in the
house.
So if we have to set the TV up,so I show them how to set the
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TV up.
I want them to see every taskin the house that they possibly
is, so that when they becomeadults and they're like, oh yeah
, I remember watching my dad onetime dismantle the dryer and
put it back together, I wantthem to remember that.
What's that?
Did you?
actually do that.
I did that.
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Yeah, a dryer wasn't working soI pulled up some YouTube videos
, pulled out the back of it andfound the wires and did
something.
It was an old dryer.
It failed again after a fewmonths but it survived for a few
months.
But your son will remember yeah, my son will remember it.
This was in Kansas City, thiswas the Kansas City house.
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They were younger that time.
So we need to give themdifferent opportunities or let
them see different opportunitiesas available.
They can come with you onministry trips just to see.
They don't need to do anything,just see for the first time.
And then they haveopportunities to minister and
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they start with small tasks.
So the disciples started withsmall tasks clean up after the
feeding, help with the feeding,go get the cult, do a little
preaching, do some baptizing andthen do some exorcisms.
They were given little tasks.
Same thing with Paul.
He learned from Barnabas.
So Barnabas invited Paul as hisdisciple.
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They went to Antioch and theytaught the whole year among the
Grecian Christians that werethere.
You always start with smalltasks.
I remember when I was back intraining in Kansas City doing a
surgical training the internsthe first year interns they do
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all the dirty work and thesmallest thing that we do in the
surgery is what is calledretraction.
So once somebody cuts the skinand opens it, you stand there
with retractors holding thetissue apart while the surgeon
does the work.
So as an intern, I would dothat.
So they would cut and then Iwould open, stand there Some
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cases go from an hour to 12hours and you're standing there
until you get spasm in yourhands.
You're just standing there andthen the other task you do is
you suction.
So as they're working, you suck, suck, suck, because the field
needs to be clear, the surgicalfield needs to be clear.
So when I became a chief and Ihad interns, I would do the same
thing.
They would have to retract thetissues.
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Let's say that I was removing atumor or whatever salivary
gland, whatever.
I cut the neck open and theinterns would be standing there
holding the suction and theretractor and they would start
with that small job and if theydidn't screw up they could get
better tasks.
And the usual better task thatwe gave interns was to close up
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after everything was done.
So after I took out, let's say,the salivary gland, I tested
the nerve to the tongue andnerve, to the two nerves of the
tongue and so on, and then Iwould let the interns close up.
And closing up is not simplebecause if you screw it up you
can get fistulas that come outand the skin will be all
distorted.
So we close the muscle firstand then we close the
subcutaneous fascia and then weclose the skin on top of it.
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But if it's not done properlythe skin will be in all
different shapes.
So we let the interns start tosew the muscle up and if they do
that properly, they do the nextlayer up and soon they do the
entire closing.
So we do the surgery, they dothe closing, and as you come up
the ranks you do bigger andbigger surgeries until finally
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you are doing the entire case byyourself, from start to finish.
And that's how it was with thedisciples In mentoring.
You start with small tasks.
You give them a little bit.
See how they do.
In fact, many times even newbelievers will find out what
their ministry calling is.
When we give them small tasks,they'll find man, I love to do
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this kind of stuff.
Sure, maybe that's yourministry calling.
When I was in Kansas City andfinishing up, I was a small
group leader for the longesttime there and then, when we
were winding down, I stoppedbeing a small group leader
because we were winding down andwe gave opportunities to
different people to lead.
One of them was a lawyer thatwas in our group and so, after
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he led, I went to him I said,brother, I think you have a gift
, you should pursue spiritualleadership and work.
And so I don't know how itturned out, because we left
after that.
I think he ended up being aleader of some sort in the
church, but I'm not sure.
Give ministry opportunities topeople where they exhibit
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faithfulness.
All right.
The third aspect of ministryapprenticeship is debriefing,
very critical.
You talk about what went right,what went wrong, what could be
done better, how we could haveanswered something better.
You have a conversation with aperson don't have his mother and
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his siblings there.
Take him outside.
A debriefing session.
A debriefing session.
And this happened with thedisciples right, the seventy
went out and did ministry.
They came back and they had adebriefing session with Jesus.
The twelve disciples didministry, came back, had a
debriefing session.
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In Matthew, chapter 17, it talksabout how, on the Mount of
Transfiguration, after thetransfiguration, they were
coming down and the ninedisciples down there.
They tried to heal a boy withseizures but it didn't work.
So Jesus came, he chided them alittle bit, healed the boy and
then it says in verse 19,.
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Then the disciples came toJesus privately and said why
couldn't we cast it out?
That is a debriefing session.
And fifth and finally, releasingto ministry with support.
Releasing to the ministry withsupport.
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This is a natural next step.
Once you've given small taskand bigger task and then they
are released for the ministry.
Are they ever fully ready?
Never.
Nobody is ever fully ready.
If you had asked the disciples,after Jesus rose up and stayed
only 40 days, were they ready tohandle this huge great
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commission?
They would have said no.
They would have preferred ifJesus stayed for a couple more
years just to show them how tohandle this.
But they were given the taskand they were set free.
Timothy traveled with Paulduring his second missionary
journey.
He learned, he observed, he hadopportunities and then after
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that Paul sent Timothy in placeof him.
He went to some places onjourneys in place of Paul and
then finally he became thepastor of the Ephesian church.
So it's a progression andreleasing to ministry is with
support.
What did Jesus do in terms ofsupport?
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He sent the Holy Spirit.
What did Paul do in terms ofsupport?
He wrote letters that addressedissues.
So we have 1 Timothy, 2 Timothyand Titus, where he addressed
issues and encouraged them.
Some of the lessons thatdisciples learn from mentors are
(32:44):
the unsaid ones, the unplannedones, the spontaneous ones, more
the reactions than the actionssometimes.
Can you give us a little bit of?
that If somebody opposed you,how you reacted to that is a big
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deal and that is something thatis unplanned and that is a
temperamental thing.
I went back to India after Icame to the US, after doing part
of my demon studies I wasstudying evangelism I went to
India and I spoke at a Bibleschool in India and I told fresh
(33:36):
of what I learned aboutevangelism.
I told them about the differentsystems of evangelism.
So I spoke in this Bible schooland one of the kids stood up
and just said oh, I don't thinkthat works.
I live in, I do ministry in avillage.
I don't think the system works.
I was completely unprepared.
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My response was worse than theother correction situation I did
.
It was bad.
It was not good.
I can't even tell you.
It's so embarrassing I wish Icould take it back.
I said something like oh.
Then it became an ego thing atthat point.
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I know what I'm saying.
You don't know.
Come back in five years you'llsee your role.
I don't know what I said.
Some nonsense.
Yeah, some of the reactionsright, they teach more than the
planned actions.
Yeah, at the end of the day,mentors are essential because we
need disciples that makedisciples.
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It's a role that requires a lotof investment, a lot of
resources, but very rewarding.
Ian Wright is a Britishfootballer that played for
Arsenal and for the nationalteam.
He scored, I think, the secondmost number of goals for Arsenal
(35:00):
.
His dad was non-existent whenhe grew up and he had a very
abusive stepdad and he calledhis teacher, sidney Bigdon, as
the first positive male figurein his life.
This is Ian Wright meeting hismentor after a very long time,
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and we will end with this.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank youthat you were the ultimate
mentor.
Thank you for the ways in whichyou perfectly mentored the
disciples and gave them thishuge task that they faithfully
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did.
Thank you for the mentors youhave put in our lives that
corrected us with discipline andwith care and taught us.
Thank you that we are where weare because of many people that
have invested in our lives.
(36:06):
We pray for the people that areunder our care.
Help us to be mentors like youwere, lord Jesus.
Help us that our characterwould match up with our teaching
.
Help us to balance thedifferent roles, the different
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relationships it's so hard to do.
And help us to honor you as wedisciple our people.
In Jesus name, I pray Amen.
Good morning.
Good morning, the first personwho went to the South Pole was
Norwegian explorer RoaldAmundsen, and in order for him
to go to the South Pole intosuch treacherous conditions, he
needed some training.
So as part of the meticulousplanning that he did is that he
(00:23):
went to some communities thatlived in such extreme
circumstances, and one of thosecommunities was the Inuit
Indians in Northern Canada.
And he went to them and helived with them and he learned
what they did, and from them helearned how to manage sleds and
harnessing and about clothingand how to dress in layers and
(00:47):
about how to manage buildingshelters and to manage with less
resources.
And in 1910, when he set on hisjourney with his team to the
South Pole, he was well preparedto be the first man to reach
the South Pole.
We are all on a spiritualjourney and at every stage of
the journey there is somebody infront of us and there is
(01:10):
somebody behind us, and we learnfrom those who are in front of
us and we teach those who arebehind us.
This morning, in a sermonentitled A Rabbi's
Responsibility, we're going tolook at the issue of
discipleship and mentoring.
Mentoring is the task of makingdisciples, who make disciples.
The concept of disciples is avery common concept in the New
(01:33):
Testament.
Jesus had disciples, the Jewsconsidered themselves disciples
of Moses, john the Baptist haddisciples and it was used of
Christians in general Loosely,with Jesus being the core.
The people outside Jesus wereclassified into three On the
outermost were the crowds, themiddle layer were the disciples
(01:57):
and the inner layer were theapostles and the 12.
So the disciples were anybodythat was not a crowd that was
following Jesus.
And though discipleship is forall church members, mentoring is
only for church leaders.
It's a leadership function.
This morning I want to talkabout five aspects of mentoring.
(02:19):
I want to use the New Testamentexamples of Jesus and Paul and
how they mentored.
In a book called Augustine asMentor Edward Smither, he talks
about these five aspects ofmentorship and he says not only
did Jesus and Paul use them, butalso the early church fathers
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used them in their mentoring.
The first point that I want tomake about a rabbi's
responsibility is that there isa selected group.
There is a selected group.
It is a group, and of thenumber of times that the word
disciple is used, mostly it isin the plural form.
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It is in the singular only afew times, and those few times
are in the Gospel of John, whereJohn calls himself as a
disciple that Jesus loved, andthe only named disciple in the
Gospel of John is Joseph ofArimathea.
Disciples were a plural groupand mentoring was a group
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activity.
In the New Testament Even Paulmentored multiple people and was
in groups.
He had John, mark, he had Luke,he had Silas, he had Timothy,
he had Titus.
A group is good for a fewreasons.
From the standpoint of thementor, if you have to say the
same thing to two people, youmight as well have them in a
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group and say the same thing atone time.
It's easier, it's moreefficient use of resources.
But for the group itself, acouple reasons why it was good
for them at that time tofunction in a group Because the
purpose of the group was forJesus to establish a church and
so they were being trained towork together as a group to
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learn how to work in a churchlater.
Also, a group fulfills therelational needs of the members.
Otherwise it's up to the mentorto provide the relational needs
.
But if there's a group they canprovide relational needs and
it's a selected group.
Jesus didn't take anybody whocame and he didn't choose random
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people.
He selected a few people thathe wanted to mentor.
And the same thing with Paul.
Barnabas went to Paul to mentorhim and asked him to teach with
him in Antioch some of theGrecian Christians and then Paul
went and chose individually.
It was a selection that wasdone.
(04:48):
A second aspect of mentoring isthe mentor-disciple relationship
.
The mentor-disciplerelationship.
Now, this relationship is acomplicated relationship and is
a combination of at least fourdifferent relationships.
The first one is as a fellowsojourner or a fellow learner,
and this relationship modifiesthe other three relationships
(05:12):
that I'm about to talk about.
Teaching is not because we areexperts and we have reached
there.
It is because we are slightlyahead.
We have to be a disciple inorder to be a mentor.
We cannot be a mentor withoutbeing a disciple constantly.
We are more mature, maybebecause we've been Christians
longer and have had moreexperiences, but that's not
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always the case.
We can be a younger person,like Timothy was, and have more
spiritual experiences.
Paul was mentored by Barnabasfirst.
So in Philippians, chapter 3,verse 12, he says, not that I've
already obtained this or amalready perfect, but I press on.
So he is also pressing on as heis mentoring.
In 1 Corinthians, chapter 11,verse 1, he says Be imitators of
(06:01):
me as I am of Christ.
We can only be mentors as longas we are disciples.
We can only ask people toimitate us only as long as we
are imitating Christ, and that'swhat Paul did.
So then the question comes howdo we have the time to be
mentored while we are mentoring?
(06:23):
The task in ministry is so busy, we have so many different
roles, and if we are mentoring agroup of people, where do we
have the time to be mentored bysomebody else?
One of my instructors in mydoctor ministry program was a
man by the name of LeithAnderson, and he had a 20,000, I
(06:46):
think 20,000 member church inMinneapolis, st Louis, and after
that he became the head of theEvangelical Association of
America, something that thatoversees 80,000 churches.
One of the things that he saidto address this problem of how
can we have mentors when we areso busy with stuff, he said you
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can choose a mentor from anybody.
It doesn't need to be aphysical relationship that you
meet once in so many days.
You can read a person's books,you can watch his sermons and
you can be mentored by thatperson.
That person doesn't even needto be in the same city, doesn't
even need to speak your language, doesn't need to be even in the
(07:33):
same generation.
We can read material fromprevious generations and be
mentored, and thereby getmentored and be discipled by
someone else.
The second relationship is thatof a parent, just like a parent
is a mentor to children.
It's a personal and caringrelationship.
Paul called Timothy, my child,and Jesus was known as the good
(07:58):
shepherd.
He was a good shepherd to hisdisciples and, as a mentor, we
need to show grace and patiencewith our disciples, and that's
what Jesus did.
He showed grace and patience tohis disciples.
Many times when you startmentoring, it's like you take
one step forward and five stepsback, and then, after several
months, it's one step forwardand four steps back, and then it
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takes forever before.
It's one step forward and onestep back and you still never
moved forward at all.
When the disciples were withJesus just before the Last
Supper, they were having adiscussion of who was the
greatest.
That was three and a half yearsinto this and within a few
weeks they were going to behanded the entire responsibility
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of the Christian movement, andhere they were discussing with
each other who was going to bethe greatest, but Jesus had
tremendous patience with thedisciples and he waited and
waited for them to slowly cometo the point where it was one
step forward, or two stepsforward and one step back.
(09:03):
Take a look at this video ofJason Alexander.
He was talking in terms ofdeveloping his own skills and
(09:39):
his expertise, but that is truewith anybody that we mentor.
We have got to wait, andsometimes it just takes forever.
A third relationship is that ofa teacher.
This involves disciplinedtraining.
The training that the disciplesgot under Jesus was a rigorous
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training.
There were times when theywanted to sleep but they
couldn't sleep.
There were times that theywanted to eat but they couldn't
eat, even when they took a break.
There were people that came andthey had to minister to 5,000
plus people and they needed tobe fed and they needed to be
cleaned up, and they had thisrigorous training.
This training that Jesus gaveto his disciples to deal with
(10:25):
people was probably becauselater they were going to deal
with people and he had promisedthem you are dealing with fish,
but we are going to stop that,and now you are going to deal
with people.
And so he was training them howto deal with people.
I'm not suggesting that we needto have a rigorous curriculum
with those that we mentor, butit's a good idea to have some
(10:46):
kind of path as opposed to justbeing reactive to different
circumstances.
Having a path through which youare taking disciples is better
to be proactive In this age wheneverybody thinks that they know
everything.
One of the tasks of a teachermentor is in the art of gentle
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correction.
If somebody did something wrongin your group, how do we
correct them?
How do we correct them?
Back when I was still in India,my dad was a pastor of a church
in the local language and aftermy stint as a Sunday school
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teacher, all the kids grew up.
I was glad for that.
I grew up as well.
We started the English serviceof that church and I led the
English service of that church.
So all these kids that I taughtSunday school for all these
years they became members of theEnglish church and we are other
members as well.
I was probably in my early 20s,19, 20, 21.
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When we did this, there was onekid that he was a teenager and
he would come some days and notcome some other days, and he was
very erratic.
So I decided to confront himand so I went to his house,
knocked on the door and he wasthere and his siblings were
there.
His mother was there.
His dad wasn't there at thattime.
So I went in and I talked tohim.
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I said this is not right.
We need to come, we need togrow.
I gave the nice talk.
Honestly.
I felt good about myself.
I felt like I did a good job.
I explained everything well.
I scored good points with themother who was standing there
Check.
I scored good points with thesiblings that were standing
there.
I said you need to be a goodexample for your siblings and I
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checked all the boxes.
I felt good and I left.
That kid never came back, notone more time.
What should I have done?
I should have taken him out tohave chai and masala dosa and
asked him why, why aren't youcoming?
But I thought I knew theproblem and here is the solution
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and let's fix it.
That wasn't the way to correct.
So the way we correct people ishuge.
Obviously, it depends on ourtemperament.
If we have a confrontationaltemperament, then we need to
tone it down a little bit.
If we have anon-confrontational temperament,
then we need to ramp it up alittle bit, but we need to work
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with our temperament, work withthe temperament of the people
that we are leading, and I feellike it's better to have a plan
already what you would do if thesituation arose with your
temperament, so you know how wewould tackle something like that
.
A fourth relationship is that ofa spiritual leader, and this
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includes a friendly respect.
You need a friendly respect.
Jesus was their rabbi, but hecalled them friends.
Paul called his co-workers asbrothers, so there was a
friendly respect.
A mentor needs to earn theright to be respected.
Jesus obviously didn't have toearn it.
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He had the right to berespected and so he was
respected.
How did Paul earn the right tobe respected as a spiritual
leader?
Because he started withnegative respect when he was
persecuting the church.
How did he come all the wayacross to the other side to be
respected as a spiritual leader?
In 2 Corinthians, chapter 11,he writes this in verse 23
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following, he boasts a littlebit about himself and before he
boasts he has about six, sevenverses where he's super
apologetic and he calls himselfa fool for doing this.
But he has to do this becausehe is being considered as an
inferior apostle.
And so this is what he says.
Are they servants of Christ?
I am more.
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I have worked much harder, beenin prison more frequently, been
flogged more severely and beenexposed to death again and again
.
Five times I received from theJews the 40 lashes minus one.
Three times I was beaten withrods.
Once I was pelted with stones.
Three times I was shipwrecked.
I spent a night and a day inthe open sea.
I have been constantly on themove.
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I have been in danger fromrivers, in danger from bandits,
in danger from my fellow Jews,in danger from Gentiles, in
danger in the city, in danger inthe country, in danger at sea,
in danger from false believers.
I have labored and toiled andI've often gone without sleep.
I have known hunger and thirstand I've often gone without food
.
I have been cold and naked.
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Besides everything else, I facedaily the pressure of my
concern for all the churches.
How does a person gain respectas a leader, as a spiritual
leader?
You cannot not respect a personthat works harder than you.
If your leader comes to workearlier than you and leaves
(15:52):
after you leave, how can you notrespect that person?
Another way that Paul gotrespect is because his words
matched his deeds.
Follow me as I follow Christ.
Nothing can kill respect in thespiritual field when we say one
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thing and do something else.
It's a struggle to keep theperfect balance.
Are we going to be morefriendly or gain respect or be
disciplinary when we have kids?
We want to be friends with thekids, but then if you're too
friendly with the kids, theydon't respect you.
So then we back off a littlebit and then we are a little
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more strict and then they arenot friends anymore, and so we
go back and forth and that's howit's going to be with the
mentor.
It's just this complicatedrelationship that we have to
somehow find ways to balance.
A third aspect of mentoringinvolves sound teaching.
Sound teaching, studying andteaching the scriptures are
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essential.
If, instead of sound teaching,the Bible said if you want to be
a mentor or a disciple, youneed to learn the guitar, okay,
let's say that's what thecommand said you need to learn
the guitar.
What would we do?
We know what to do.
We would buy a guitar.
We would either do the longroad where we learn to figure it
(17:18):
out by ourselves or, if youwanna speed up the process, you
find somebody to teach you howto play the guitar.
You will learn the fretboardand the strings cold.
You'll find some books to readto learn to improve.
You may watch other people thatare experts in the guitar and
learn from them.
Then you'll play some songsbefore you're finally ready to
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play in public.
But it's the Bible and we needto do the same thing.
We need to invest time inlearning the Bible.
Jesus was called in terms thatshowed his teaching role 190
times.
He was called either a teacheror rabbi, which showed his
teaching role.
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Now I want to read three verses,if you can turn your Bibles.
The three verses.
The first one is in 1 Timothy,chapter six, verse three, and
this shows what unsound teachingis.
So if we ask the question, whatis sound teaching, this is
unsound teaching.
So don't teach like this.
1 Timothy, chapter six, versethree teach and urge these
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things.
If anyone teaches a differentdoctrine and does not agree with
the sound words of our LordJesus Christ and the teaching
that accords with godliness, itis unsound teaching.
As we know, both Paul and Jesususe the Old Testament, so they
consider the Old Testament asscripture.
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Okay, now I'm going to ask younot to turn to the next verse.
Okay, I'm going to read thenext verse, because if you turn
to it you will see the footnoteand you will answer the question
that I'm about to ask you.
So don't turn to it.
Let me read the verse.
Okay, and then I'll ask you twoquestions.
1 Timothy, chapter five, verse18, for the scripture says you
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shall not muzzle an ox when ittreads out the grain and the
laborer deserves his wages.
Okay, so that's the verse.
There are two quotes in it.
Let me read the two quotes.
The first quote you shall notmuzzle an ox when it treads out
the grain and the laborerdeserves his wages.
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Now here's my first question.
I'll give you three chances toguess where that first quote
came from.
Guess the book.
Obviously, we didn't memorizeevery quote from the Old
Testament to the new.
I get that.
But three chances to guesswhere that first quote came from
.
Deuteron, I think.
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Deuteron all right, deuteron inyour first guess, that's great.
How about the second one?
The laborer deserves his wages.
Three chances again.
Proverbs, proverbs, okay, noOne.
Two more.
Deuteron me no one more.
Leviticus no, it's not from theOld Testament.
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It's not from the Old Testament.
Where did Paul get that from?
It was one of the sayings thatJesus said.
In that one verse he made equalall the writings of the Old
Testament on all the writings ofthe New Testament, made it both
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scripture.
Let's read another verse wherePeter talks about Paul, and this
time you can turn your bibles 2Peter, chapter three, verses 15
and 16.
2 Peter, chapter three, verses15 and 16.
Peter is talking about Paul,and this is what he says, and
count the patience of our Lordas salvation, just as our
(20:53):
beloved brother Paul also wroteto you according to the wisdom
given him, as he does in all hisletters when he speaks in them
of these matters.
There are some things in themthat are hard to understand,
which the ignorant and unstabletwist to their own destruction,
as they do the other scriptures,and you see how Peter elevated
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the writing of Paul to the wordscripture.
Everything in the Bible, fromthe Old Testament to the New
Testament is all scripture forus and a mentor has to be
proficient in handling the Bible.
Earlier this year in my church Iwas asked to speak on the topic
of the Bible, so I spoke aboutit, but I didn't wanna just say
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okay, everybody needs to readtheir Bible.
So what I did was I had afollow-up three week course on
how to study the Bible and welooked at different kinds of
Bible readings.
We looked at some principles ofhermeneurics, the historical
grammatical method ofinterpretation.
I simplified it to about fivesimple steps.
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I also had a homeworkassignment.
They all had to follow thesefive simple steps.
We all picked the passage andthey came back the next week and
we all discussed it.
They also talked about Bibletranslations, the differences
between the translation and whythe translations are different
and all that stuff, because Ifear that most believers think
that anybody can read the Bibleand it's like a novel and you
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can get anything out of it.
Yes, you can.
It's good to read the Biblecover to cover a few times, but
at some point we gotta go deeper, beneath the layers and know
how to find the jewels that arehidden beneath those layers.
We need to know the truth andbe constantly handling the truth
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so that when falsehood comes,we can pick it up immediately.
We don't need to learn everyfalsehood that there is, we just
need to know the truth.
Once we know the truth and allof the truth, then anytime
falsehood appears, we can knowexactly what it is.
Stephen Curry is one of thebest players in the NBA.
(23:05):
Watch this video of himdribbling a ball.
I think it's in his home court.
He knows how the ball feels onthe court.
He knows exactly how the ballshould feel.
So the one time it didn't feelright, he knew something was off
.
And he tested it and it wastrue.
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Right there at that spot,something was off.
That's how it should be withour handling of truth and
falsehood.
We know truth so much thatanytime falsehood shows up, we
know instantly.
No, that doesn't sound right.
There are lots of things thatChristians think are there in
(23:46):
the Bible, but it's not there inthe Bible, and I've heard this
so many times.
An easy example is oh, mybrother died last night, or my
brother died last week andheaven has gained an angel.
If we didn't know, we'd say yes, I'm sorry for your loss, there
(24:06):
is an angel, extra angel, inheaven.
No, we're not becoming angelsin heaven.
The Bible never says thatthere's lots of stuff like that
in our churches.
That is just cultural.
It came from movies, it camefrom books and just filtered
down and it's now scripture,unless we debunk it.
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The fourth aspect of mentoringis the is ministry,
apprenticeship Ministry.
Apprenticeship Ministry canstart as soon as a person
becomes a believer, and thereare three aspects to it.
The first one is opportunitiesto observe.
The twelve observed Jesus, howhe interacted with people, how
(24:51):
he told stories, how he tried totake rest, how he talked to the
Jewish leaders, how he arguedwith those who tried to trap him
.
They learned by observation.
So at home I let my kids seewhatever they can see in the
house.
So if we have to set the TV up,so I show them how to set the
(25:11):
TV up.
I want them to see every taskin the house that they possibly
is, so that when they becomeadults and they're like, oh yeah
, I remember watching my dad onetime dismantle the dryer and
put it back together, I wantthem to remember that.
What's that?
Did you?
actually do that.
I did that.
(25:32):
Yeah, a dryer wasn't working soI pulled up some YouTube videos
, pulled out the back of it andfound the wires and did
something.
It was an old dryer.
It failed again after a fewmonths but it survived for a few
months.
But your son will remember yeah, my son will remember it.
This was in Kansas City, thiswas the Kansas City house.
(25:52):
They were younger that time.
So we need to give themdifferent opportunities or let
them see different opportunitiesas available.
They can come with you onministry trips just to see.
They don't need to do anything,just see for the first time.
And then they haveopportunities to minister and
(26:13):
they start with small tasks.
So the disciples started withsmall tasks clean up after the
feeding, help with the feeding,go get the cult, do a little
preaching, do some baptizing andthen do some exorcisms.
They were given little tasks.
Same thing with Paul.
He learned from Barnabas.
So Barnabas invited Paul as hisdisciple.
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They went to Antioch and theytaught the whole year among the
Grecian Christians that werethere.
You always start with smalltasks.
I remember when I was back intraining in Kansas City doing a
surgical training the internsthe first year interns they do
(26:58):
all the dirty work and thesmallest thing that we do in the
surgery is what is calledretraction.
So once somebody cuts the skinand opens it, you stand there
with retractors holding thetissue apart while the surgeon
does the work.
So as an intern, I would dothat.
So they would cut and then Iwould open, stand there Some
(27:21):
cases go from an hour to 12hours and you're standing there
until you get spasm in yourhands.
You're just standing there andthen the other task you do is
you suction.
So as they're working, you suck, suck, suck, because the field
needs to be clear, the surgicalfield needs to be clear.
So when I became a chief and Ihad interns, I would do the same
thing.
They would have to retract thetissues.
(27:42):
Let's say that I was removing atumor or whatever salivary
gland, whatever.
I cut the neck open and theinterns would be standing there
holding the suction and theretractor and they would start
with that small job and if theydidn't screw up they could get
better tasks.
And the usual better task thatwe gave interns was to close up
(28:02):
after everything was done.
So after I took out, let's say,the salivary gland, I tested
the nerve to the tongue andnerve, to the two nerves of the
tongue and so on, and then Iwould let the interns close up.
And closing up is not simplebecause if you screw it up you
can get fistulas that come outand the skin will be all
distorted.
So we close the muscle firstand then we close the
subcutaneous fascia and then weclose the skin on top of it.
(28:24):
But if it's not done properlythe skin will be in all
different shapes.
So we let the interns start tosew the muscle up and if they do
that properly, they do the nextlayer up and soon they do the
entire closing.
So we do the surgery, they dothe closing, and as you come up
the ranks you do bigger andbigger surgeries until finally
(28:45):
you are doing the entire case byyourself, from start to finish.
And that's how it was with thedisciples In mentoring.
You start with small tasks.
You give them a little bit.
See how they do.
In fact, many times even newbelievers will find out what
their ministry calling is.
When we give them small tasks,they'll find man, I love to do
(29:08):
this kind of stuff.
Sure, maybe that's yourministry calling.
When I was in Kansas City andfinishing up, I was a small
group leader for the longesttime there and then, when we
were winding down, I stoppedbeing a small group leader
because we were winding down andwe gave opportunities to
different people to lead.
One of them was a lawyer thatwas in our group and so, after
(29:32):
he led, I went to him I said,brother, I think you have a gift
, you should pursue spiritualleadership and work.
And so I don't know how itturned out, because we left
after that.
I think he ended up being aleader of some sort in the
church, but I'm not sure.
Give ministry opportunities topeople where they exhibit
(29:53):
faithfulness.
All right.
The third aspect of ministryapprenticeship is debriefing,
very critical.
You talk about what went right,what went wrong, what could be
done better, how we could haveanswered something better.
You have a conversation with aperson don't have his mother and
(30:14):
his siblings there.
Take him outside.
A debriefing session.
A debriefing session.
And this happened with thedisciples right, the seventy
went out and did ministry.
They came back and they had adebriefing session with Jesus.
The twelve disciples didministry, came back, had a
debriefing session.
(30:35):
In Matthew, chapter 17, it talksabout how, on the Mount of
Transfiguration, after thetransfiguration, they were
coming down and the ninedisciples down there.
They tried to heal a boy withseizures but it didn't work.
So Jesus came, he chided them alittle bit, healed the boy and
then it says in verse 19,.
(30:55):
Then the disciples came toJesus privately and said why
couldn't we cast it out?
That is a debriefing session.
And fifth and finally, releasingto ministry with support.
Releasing to the ministry withsupport.
(31:17):
This is a natural next step.
Once you've given small taskand bigger task and then they
are released for the ministry.
Are they ever fully ready?
Never.
Nobody is ever fully ready.
If you had asked the disciples,after Jesus rose up and stayed
only 40 days, were they ready tohandle this huge great
(31:41):
commission?
They would have said no.
They would have preferred ifJesus stayed for a couple more
years just to show them how tohandle this.
But they were given the taskand they were set free.
Timothy traveled with Paulduring his second missionary
journey.
He learned, he observed, he hadopportunities and then after
(32:03):
that Paul sent Timothy in placeof him.
He went to some places onjourneys in place of Paul and
then finally he became thepastor of the Ephesian church.
So it's a progression andreleasing to ministry is with
support.
What did Jesus do in terms ofsupport?
(32:23):
He sent the Holy Spirit.
What did Paul do in terms ofsupport?
He wrote letters that addressedissues.
So we have 1 Timothy, 2 Timothyand Titus, where he addressed
issues and encouraged them.
Some of the lessons thatdisciples learn from mentors are
(32:44):
the unsaid ones, the unplannedones, the spontaneous ones, more
the reactions than the actionssometimes.
Can you give us a little bit of?
that If somebody opposed you,how you reacted to that is a big
(33:11):
deal and that is something thatis unplanned and that is a
temperamental thing.
I went back to India after Icame to the US, after doing part
of my demon studies I wasstudying evangelism I went to
India and I spoke at a Bibleschool in India and I told fresh
(33:36):
of what I learned aboutevangelism.
I told them about the differentsystems of evangelism.
So I spoke in this Bible schooland one of the kids stood up
and just said oh, I don't thinkthat works.
I live in, I do ministry in avillage.
I don't think the system works.
I was completely unprepared.
(33:57):
My response was worse than theother correction situation I did
.
It was bad.
It was not good.
I can't even tell you.
It's so embarrassing I wish Icould take it back.
I said something like oh.
Then it became an ego thing atthat point.
(34:18):
I know what I'm saying.
You don't know.
Come back in five years you'llsee your role.
I don't know what I said.
Some nonsense.
Yeah, some of the reactionsright, they teach more than the
planned actions.
Yeah, at the end of the day,mentors are essential because we
need disciples that makedisciples.
(34:39):
It's a role that requires a lotof investment, a lot of
resources, but very rewarding.
Ian Wright is a Britishfootballer that played for
Arsenal and for the nationalteam.
He scored, I think, the secondmost number of goals for Arsenal
(35:00):
.
His dad was non-existent whenhe grew up and he had a very
abusive stepdad and he calledhis teacher, sidney Bigdon, as
the first positive male figurein his life.
This is Ian Wright meeting hismentor after a very long time,
(35:22):
and we will end with this.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank youthat you were the ultimate
mentor.
Thank you for the ways in whichyou perfectly mentored the
disciples and gave them thishuge task that they faithfully
(35:45):
did.
Thank you for the mentors youhave put in our lives that
corrected us with discipline andwith care and taught us.
Thank you that we are where weare because of many people that
have invested in our lives.
(36:06):
We pray for the people that areunder our care.
Help us to be mentors like youwere, lord Jesus.
Help us that our characterwould match up with our teaching
.
Help us to balance thedifferent roles, the different
(36:28):
relationships it's so hard to do.
And help us to honor you as wedisciple our people.
In Jesus name, I pray Amen.
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