Apologetics Session 33 - Discipleship

Leadership, Discipleship, and Faithfulness

This Christianity thing keeps perpetuating is because those faithful men have passed it on down to those who would follow them. Other faithful men. And that's what the topic is tonight. Leadership, discipleship, faithfulness.

So, you know, it's not a novel concept in the world, right? Has anybody watched The Sopranos? I never have watched The Sopranos. I'm not looking for, you know, I'm not looking for it. But even in the world of something like The Sopranos, where you have the older guys who've been there and done that and they know how to take care of business, they're always trying to train up the next generation so that they can be the next wise guys or whatever they call them, right?

And that goes on through anything. You see in the military, those who are older and wiser, been there and done that, those are the ones that take control, those are the ones who are going to lead the next group of troops, right?

To conform them into battle-ready soldiers. And there's discipline involved with that. There is hard work involved with that. There's a change of mentality for the soldier who's Now who was in the military?

You can raise your hand if you did that. You guys in the military? So you guys, you were in the military too, Mike? And I know you were too. And you probably didn't appreciate it maybe at the time, because you were kind of forced to be that one who was the underling for a while.

Maybe you willingly went into the service though, so you knew what you were in for, but the idea is that you were molded, in a sense, by those who were trying to train you into being something maybe different than you were, giving you qualities that you didn't have yet.

Well, that's what brings us to our to our lesson tonight. So, does anyone know what the word disciple means itself? I don't have the Greek word out. Perpetual learner.

Mephites in Greek means a constant learner. A perpetual student, basically. A student for life.

That's exactly what it means. What do you know, Rich knew the definition of a term. I'm shocked. Right? He always knows all the definitions.

But that's the idea. Now, think of.

Think even of Star Wars. You have Darth Vader being trained by the Emperor, if you've watched the Star Wars movies. Or Luke Skywalker trained by Yoda and or Ben Kenobi and all that. So you can translate this into many, many forms of life.

And I'm going to put up to you right now a picture of something we've all probably seen at work at some point or another. Something similar, at least. So, you know, you go to these meetings at work and then they have this, these kind of fancy charts up there and they're trying to instill in all the employees, especially the big companies like mine.

I'm Lockheed Martin, so they do this kind of stuff all the time. So, you know, you're going to mentor these younger folks and you're going to provide motivation and coaching and counseling and support and all this stuff.

And that's going to lead to success and there's going to be goals set and all this stuff. You guys have probably seen all this stuff many, many times. Well, it's not that much different in the Christian realm.

It really isn't. And Jesus gave us the model. I mean, Jesus gave us the formula. So what we're going to do is we're going to look at what he taught us and what he asked us to do.

And the question is,.

Is why should we do it? Well, let's have Phil read Matthew chapter 28,.

18 through 20. Matthew 28.

Verses 18 through 20. Probably some folks in this room have this memorized.

And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

Okay, so this is what we know in Christianity. We call it something that's a great commission. We call it that. And the reason it's the great commission is because this was the very end of Jesus's time on the earth.

And this was one of his last instructions to his men. Very important. You know you're going to have, you know, Jesus's window was three and a half years with these guys. And now at the very end, this was one of the last commands he gave them.

He said, this is what you're going to do. And it's a command. It's not an ask or a suggestion. This is a command. Go and make disciples of all the nations, teaching them. And a lot of people forget the observe part, but it says teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

A lot of folks think in their minds of teaching them what I commanded you. Well no, it's teaching them to observe what I commanded you. Because we just don't want hearers of the word that know what God said, but those who are actually executing and being obedient to God's commands.

And we see in the scriptures this taking effect, this going and being, you know, part of the lifestyle of many of the leaders in the scriptures. We think of Moses discipling Joshua. And that was a one-on-one situation where Aaron really discipling his sons in the faith.

We think of Elijah, the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament, and Elisha who followed in his footsteps and took the mantle of Elijah. We think of John the Baptist and all the disciples that he had, and he was training all those.

We certainly think of Jesus and his disciples. We think of Barnabas taking Paul under his wing when nobody wanted anything to do with Paul because he was breeding threats and murders, and all of a sudden he has this great conversion.

But Paul needed to be trained in the Lord, the real Lord. He knew a lot about the Old Testament scriptures, but he didn't know a lot about walking with Jesus. And Barnabas helped him in that. But then we see Paul, of course, taking that mantle and then training Timothy and Titus and others.

So this was something we see throughout the scriptures. And the reason we're here tonight is because there have been faithful ones that have followed those men later and have trained others. So I think when we look at what Jesus did with his disciples, I think that's really our model, right?

We want to focus on what Jesus did. And he had what a lot of people feel is a four-phase program, I'll say, to discipleship where we see different kind of levels happening in a person's life. So the first phase, we're going to say, is John 1 .31.

So John, could you read that?

John the Gospel 139, excuse me, not 131. He said to them,.

Come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying. And they stayed with him that day.

For it was about the tenth hour. So I had.

John just read one verse out of a bigger section there. But Jesus was being introduced to several of John's disciples in that in that area back in John chapter 1, the Gospel of John chapter 1. And they were saying to him, well, Master, you know, where are you staying?

And they were interested in Jesus. They were wondering, you know, what he was doing, what he was all about. John introduced him as, you know, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was the one who was to come after John.

And they're like, well, Master, what, you know, where are you staying? And Jesus says, come and you will see. This is an introduction to Jesus. Jesus is introducing himself to these men. They're seeing him for the first time.

They're getting to know him. They're getting to understand who he is. And we call this phase basically the come and see phase. And this is the introduction to Jesus. And a lot of churches teach a class called Alpha, or something similar to like an Alpha class, right, where you're introducing someone to who Jesus is.

So that's the idea behind like an Alpha class, is to get to this like phase one. You're being introduced to Jesus Christ, and you're finding out who he is. And, you know, the hope is that when you do find out who he is, you are converted in heart.

And the conversion would happen in this phase one stage. But then some different things happen. If you come to continue to, you know, be interested in Jesus Christ, then something happens. And there's a call then to follow him more closely.

So let's look at that. Mike, could you read Matthew chapter 4, verses 19 and 20? Matthew 4, 19 and 20. And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

So up until this time, the disciples had seen Jesus on and off, attended the wedding at Cana. They saw him heal a centurion in Galilee. They saw different things, but they weren't following him closely at this point yet.

They were still learning about Jesus. They were very interested in who he was, but they had not yet been called to a close intimate relationship with him. And Jesus, and it says in Luke, after a night full of prayer, really called these twelve, called the twelve together, and wanted to spend time with them and be with them.

And MacArthur says at this point, if this opportunity that these men, and this was not different, by the way, than what the rabbis were doing at this point in time, because the rabbinic teaching would take young men who were willing to learn, and that's really key to being a disciple, you are willing to learn and be molded, that they could come and be with the rabbi, and stay with the rabbi, and be taught by the rabbi.

And the students of a rabbi would say, well, I don't necessarily just want to know what my rabbi teaches. I want to know how my rabbi ties his sandals. Meaning that you're learning a lot more from the teacher or the mentor than just doctrine, than just, okay, this is what the scripture says.

You're learning how this man operates every day, and you want to emulate that man, just the way Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. That's the idea. You want to become like your disciple. So MacArthur says this about this phase.

At this point, he says they, the disciples, could listen to his teaching, they could ask him questions, watch how he dealt with people, enjoy intimate fellowship with him in every kind of setting. He gave them ministry opportunities, instructing him and sending them out on special assignments.

He graciously encouraged them, lovingly corrected them, and patiently instructed them. That is how the best learning always occurs. It isn't just information passed on. It is one life invested in another.

And that's the key of discipleship. It's life on life. It's not just someone who is in a classroom like this saying, I'm going to share this information with you. It's a very more intimate situation where you're sharing your life with someone, and you're passing on to that other person, or maybe small group in the case of Jesus, you know, the things that you've learned and loved, and the things you desire to see, you know, your pupils emulate, and they're willing to learn.

Now the third phase, once they have been with the teacher for quite a while, the third phase is when the Master sends them out and gives them opportunities for themselves to be part of ministry. So let's read Luke chapter 9, verses 1 and 2.

Bob Zellman, could you read that please?

I can when I get to it. Luke 9, 1 and 2, you said? Yeah. Calling together the twelve, Jesus gave them power and authority to expel all the demons, and to cure diseases. And he sent them.

Out to proclaim the kingdom of God, and to heal. So he gave them not only the assignment to go out and do what he was doing, but he also gave them the power, the authority to do what he was doing. And this is how a disciple learns, by getting the opportunity to go out and be involved in ministry themselves.

Not just watching what the Master is doing, but then, you know, getting your feet wet, getting an opportunity to be out there in the midst of the people, getting an opportunity to, you know, care for other people, you know, because you are getting fed, you're being ministered unto, and at some point that has to translate into you ministering to someone else.

So Jesus gave them responsibilities. And then the fourth phase is they're going to take over from the Master. So I wrote a couple verses down here. I think, Ivan, could you read.

John chapter 20, verse 21. John 20, 21.

Jesus said to them again, peace be with you, as the Father has sent me,.

Even so I am sending you. Jesus was going to be off the scene.

Very shortly. He was not going to be there physically anymore, but the disciples were, the apostles. They took over. They spread his word. They spread the ministry of Jesus Christ, spreading the gospel throughout all who would hear.

And, of course, then the apostles passed away. And the men that they taught took up that mantle and followed. That's where we are now. Bill, could you read 2 Timothy 2, chapter 2.

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach.

Others also. So this is the classic discipleship verse. Paul instructing his pupil Timothy. And you remember Timothy, he picked up, he picked him up in Galatia. I believe it was in a city in Antioch where he picked up Timothy.

And Timothy was just a young man really very, very new in the Lord. And we see how Paul trained him, taking him along his missionary journeys. And at this point in time he's commanding Timothy as really an elder and a leader of a church to now be faithful to pass that on to other faithful men who will be able to pass it on to more faithful men.

And that's the chain. And that's the chain that Paul continued by teaching Timothy. And Timothy was willing. And Timothy was willing to learn, not only as a young man learning the scriptures and learning the gospel and learning just how to minister to others as they went on their visionary missionary journeys together, but then being assigned eventually as the pastor and shepherd of Ephesus, I believe.

He ended up in Ephesus. Yeah, Rod.

You know, you were speaking and reading about the disciples. He called them and gave them the ability to cast out demons and to heal people. And in miracles they must have seen as they were doing that, must have startled them, see they could do that themselves.

And I'm thinking it's a blessing to know that. But for us today we're involved in a miracle because if we share the gospel and somebody comes to Christ, that's literally a miracle that's happening. And God's working through us and doing that.

And that should be a very encouraging thing for us to know that he's working through us today to do things.

That's a great point. And, you know, this is the way it's different from our learning and doing and serving than the world's. Because if you're in a corporation and you're learning from your mentor, and your mentor gives you an assignment to say, hey, you know, you can do this.

You know, you've been trained for this. You can go ahead and do this. The idea is that the mentor is building up confidence in the pupil. And the pupil's learning how to do these things. And they get confidence in how to do certain tasks that beforehand maybe seemed out of their reach.

But now they've been trained and now they're doing these things. So they get confidence. But in that sense they're getting confidence in the abilities that they have. The Christian life isn't quite like that.

The way the Christian life is, is when Jesus sends us out and we see that the demons are subject to us as it was for the 70 and the 12 when they went out. And they come back and they say, Lord, wasn't it great?

The demons were subject to us. And Jesus is, oh my gosh, the Father, I just praise you that you have given these things but to babes. And it's almost like Jesus is, you know, it's blasphemous to say he was chuckling a little bit, but just to see the beauty and the innocence of who they were.

But he said, don't rejoice in this. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And they knew that it wasn't them doing it, that it was the Lord working through them. And it's the same thing with us.

It's not us gaining more self-confidence in like my own abilities, but as we go out in the name of the Lord and we see him working, we are trying to emulate those who have gone before us by being faithful to preach the Word and to encourage those others in the faith and standing firm on the Word of God.

But when we see results, it's not because we're brilliant or because, you know, we've done this or that so great and we've had this, we have it down to a tee and we can do it. It's because God is working through us and we gain confidence in him as we get the opportunities to go out and meditate.

And that's a big difference between, you know, us and a worldly pursuit of wisdom or training. We learn to trust in our Lord, not in ourselves. So, but it's amazing because you think like Jesus was, you know, walked on the earth and Jesus was teaching and healing and to leave this ministry in control of these 12 gods who at times were totally wrong, at times they were bumbling, stumbling, at times they were cowards, at times they were angry and they wanted to call down fire on those who didn't listen to them.

Low energies. Yeah, not necessarily the group that you would say, these guys are ready to take over for Jesus. And you almost think like, well Lord, are you sure this is the plan you really wanted? There is no plan B.

This is Jesus's plan A, A, A, and A. This was the plan he gave us. Jesus is patient. He was patient with his disciples. As MacArthur said, he lovingly corrected them, he trained them, he enjoyed being with them.

And that's the kind of relationship a discipler and a disciple should have. And they weren't perfect, but he was willing to use them. And that's the same with us too. We're not going to do everything right, and thank God that he's patient with us.

And even when we do stumble and bubble, he'll give us another opportunity to learn and trust in him again. So that's the plan. So the goal for us all is to become more like Jesus Christ. And this discipleship process helps us all along in that goal and along the way.

But there's some issues in our day and age, I'm going to say. There are some challenges I think that we have to overcome as a culture. Because when you come to know Jesus and you're so excited about him, and you realize what he's done for you by dying on the cross, and then you hear about this following him, discipling, commitment, in our culture that's tough sometimes.

And in particularly tough for men sometimes. Are we willing to answer the call? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who many of you guys know, he wrote The Cost of Discipleship. He was a German pastor at the time of Nazi Germany, and he stood up against the Nazis.

But he saw things at the time people were so-called Christians and were not willing to stand up against evil in the day and age he was. He said this, I mean that even in the evangelical church we tend to think of Jesus's commands as historical artifacts, as sayings to be admired rather than obeyed without question.

Most importantly, we fail to recognize them as commands at the precise moment at which the command is applicable. If we miss that moment, we have also missed our opportunity to obey that command, meaning we've been disobedient.

It has become second nature for us as a church to put things off. Meaning that when we hear the Word of God, we hear a clear teaching. We're thinking, well, God knows my heart. One day I'll get to that.

A lot of people feel that way about baptism. It's like, I don't need to be baptized. That was just kind of like, no, it's a command of the Lord. If you haven't been baptized, you need to be baptized if you want to be obedient to Jesus.

Well, discipleship is the same way. A lot of us feel like, oh well, I'm not really sure if I should get involved in that. How has it done? Well, I'm hoping this class is going to help with a little bit of that.

But I'm also hoping that the Lord's command triggers us tonight because we now are those who have the opportunity, if you haven't been discipled, to get into a relationship like that. If you have been discipled, to continue to change.

Intentional Discipleship and the Role of the Local Church

So let's look at this picture now. TV went off again. I can never count on the TV. All these power-saving things. So the goal is, this is how the progression is supposed to work. You have an unsaved person who is evangelized and becomes a convert.

That convert is hopefully trained to be a disciple. Now sometimes this link is broken and training never takes place for one reason or another. Maybe people don't avail themselves to the training that's available in the church.

Or maybe the church isn't doing a good enough job at looking for those who would like to be trained in the faith. But this is very important. Now, when I was a young man in the Lord, I had elderly men come up to me and say, do you want to learn more about Christ?

Do you want to be discipled? The reason I'm sitting here in this chair right now, actually teaching a class, was because there were faithful men in my life who poured themselves into me and encouraged me to not only learn more about Jesus, but then after learning more about Jesus, then serving him in the church and becoming a worker.

And then once as a worker in the church, wanting to reproduce that into other people, becoming a disciple maker myself and looking for me to pour my life into other people. It's a beautiful plan. It's a beautiful plan of relationship.

It's a beautiful plan of the transfer of a life to a life. It's a beautiful thing. And I've had the beautiful opportunity not only to receive that myself, but I have had a chance to give that as well.

And it's been, you know, God allows these things in our lives. It's extremely, I'll say, fulfilling, you know. He's just gracious to give us that kind of thing. But the relationships we have in Jesus are precious.

And when we get very close to someone in the Lord like that, that really is a beautiful thing. Now, I gotta say, you know, I know this material because I'm teaching it, right? I knew what I was going to say tonight.

I'm not discipling anybody right now. I'm teaching a couple classes like this, but these are big classes. And you can't do like the one-on-one kind of thing or the pour-your-life-into-anybody-like.

And I gotta say, this is a real challenge to me. It's like, okay, you say you should be doing this, but Mr. Drew, what are you doing right now? I love the classes that we're in, and I'm thankful that you and you and maybe some other are hearing this, hearing both of them.

Oh, and you too, John. So I get to see you guys a couple times a week, but I'm not doing necessarily what I'm saying here tonight, where you really are getting very close. I'm getting close to a lot of you guys, obviously.

That's great. That's great. But I also am talking about younger guys in the faith. I mean, a lot of guys in this room are very mature in the faith, and we have a lot to offer younger folks in the faith.

So in that sense, I think more like with John and Ivan and Phil and myself, when we get together, it's more like iron sharpening iron kind of thing, and we still need to know, we still need to do that as brothers of the Lord.

But I'm not involved in that training relationship, necessarily. So what you did...

Can I just make one comment, too, about that with the diagram? When one of the most wonderful things that happens when someone accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior is also the scariest time in their life, because they will be under attack because of that.

And we don't take that serious enough in terms of a person who just accepted the Lord Jesus Christ and says, I'm going to follow him. They are open to all types of things, and in my lifetime, when I've discipled people just like you have, questions come up like, why all of a sudden all these things are happening to me?

Why? And it's all these different why things, and there's a period of time where they're getting them, you know, they're being tested on how much their faith is part of what's going on there. Is this all real or not?

And it's a very serious thing, and we have a tendency, like what you were saying, Drew, we have a tendency not to do that. When someone accepts the Lord, okay, do you want to do that? It's almost like you have to.

You can't just say, do you want to? It's like, at this point, we got to help you build up some hedges around you to make sure that you're going to be protected as you're going through this, because you will be.

Being a follower of Jesus is not easy, and a young person in the faith is going to have their problems.

Well, I got to say this too. When I first came to know the Lord, and I was thrilled to know that my sins were forgiven, and I could serve the living God, I did have a man come up to me who was about 40, and I was about 28 at the time, who said, would you like to be a disciple?

But I didn't know what it meant, and did you ever see a cat get scared, and his tail gets like this? And I was looking at him like, is this some kind of cult or something? Because I didn't know, and I really didn't understand what he was asking for, but my tail was like, and I was like, oh my gosh, I am so out of here.

You didn't start hissing, did you? What'd you say? You didn't start hissing, did you? No, I was squirreled out at the time, because I just didn't know, and he was gracious about it, but later I found out, I was like, oh, okay, that's, you know, he was being a good brother there, and I just didn't get it.

That's also a really good point. We have to describe what terms we're using, you know, not just whether you're evangelizing, you know, when we say, you know, would you like to repent? Do you know what repent means?

I mean, they don't really know what repent means, so if you ask somebody, you have to be kind of encouraging in that, and not just ask the question, but explain what you're even asking. That's a really great point.

Yeah, because I was very new to faith, and I was very excited to learn, but I did not know what he was talking about, so that's a good point. So, you know, being judicious about, you know, how we approach the matter is a good idea.

So, okay, so what do we do? Well, let's see what the process looks like a little bit here. If we want to be involved in this, and we want to be obedient to what Jesus says, I think the first thing we need to realize is that this process should be an intentional process.

This isn't a haphazard thing, like, oh, maybe one day it'll happen, but I will say this. I've been involved in a few churches now that have very much promoted discipleship, and what they'll do, or what I've seen done, and I was part of this, it's like, okay, let's put all our list of disciples on this sheet of paper over here, and a list of those who want to be discipled on this sheet of paper over here, and we're just going to sign them and match them up.

Well, that sounds like it would work out, but it never really did, and I think that the part missing in that is the discipler's part to be intentional, in a sense, just the way Jesus was working with these men before he called them, and he prayed, Father, which men do you want me to choose?

And I'm sure he knew from the foundation of the world, but he spent so much time in prayer, especially with his father, that the Lord will lead you to those people. Maybe you have a common bond that just draws you together naturally, like maybe it's golf with Bill or something.

I didn't say good golf, but maybe a new a new believer will come into the fold and just fall in love with golf, and that's an automatic like sync up beyond even just knowing Jesus in the scriptures, something like that would happen.

Maybe it's, you know, sports TV, intellectual pursuits, or whatever it is, but there might be a common bond that you see with someone in the faith, or maybe just like someone, but in order to do what I'm saying, you do have to meet people, so you do have to introduce yourself to people in the congregation, you do have to be part of groups like this, maybe necessarily, where you see somebody sitting across the way, and you say, hey, you know, you want to get together for this, that, you know, maybe coffee to start or something, and then, you know, if the Lord leads you into a, you know, a deeper relationship, you know, pray about it, and that's the intentional part of it, is to pray for this, to, yes, look for the opportunities, but for the Lord and Holy Spirit to lead you in this, and that goes for the disciple E too, for the disciple E also to pray about, you know, I really would like to learn more about Jesus.

Could I approach someone and ask? That's okay to do that. It doesn't always have to be the other way around, the disciple or ask, could be someone who wants to be trained. So, and then how many people should be involved?

It's like, okay, you know, what kind of examples do we see in the scriptures? You know, we see the one-on-one thing, like a Moses and a Joshua. Of course, Moses was training many people in different ways in different times, but we do see the one-on-one.

We do see groups, sometimes a small group, like when Paul would take Silas and Timothy on a second missionary journey, so there's two there, and the first missionary journey was Barnabas and John Mark.

It didn't work out with John Mark, but it was still a small group, just a couple together. And even with Jesus, with the twelve, MacArthur notes that, you know, twelve is still a pretty big group, and a lot of times Jesus narrowed it down to just three, right, where a lot of times the intimate conversations and the intimate, you know, revelations, I'll say, from from something that Jesus wanted to show, those three men, were just kept between them.

And we see that Peter, James, and John had the insight into many opportunities that the other twelve maybe didn't. And the Lord was doing something maybe he felt led specifically, obviously, to do with these three, to work with them more closely.

But I don't think there's a cookie cutter way to do it. I think just the desire to do it and maybe to keep a group down to a fairly small size is the idea. Obviously, a class like this is not that kind of a situation, right, because, you know, we're not going to be able to share with each other, because there's too many of us.

We would all be sharing it all, you know, it'd be impossible to take in all the information and be able to, you know, give it back out and that kind of thing. So we get that. So a group, small group. Now, as far as how you do it, I think there's a million ways to do it as well.

But there are some essentials to the relationship, and I think every discipleship relationship should have these things as an emphasis. So the first thing is a strong emphasis on the mastering of the Word of God, that that is going to be part of the training.

The assumption here is that the discipler knows more about the Word of God than the person who's being trained. But I will say this, even in a situation like Pastor Jeff, Pastor Jeff is in his mid -40s right, I think even in his situation, like it would be great for him to be involved in a relationship with an older pastor, somebody who's kind of been there, done that more than, you know, for more years.

The reason wouldn't necessarily be for Pastor Jeff to learn more about the Word of God, because I don't think there's many people on this earth that know more about the Word of God than Pastor Jeff does.

But that older pastor has walked with the Lord longer, and that older pastor has learned maybe to trust the Lord in different ways and gone through different experiences that maybe Jeff hasn't had yet.

Age and experience does matter, and especially when it comes to trusting the Lord in difficult situations, especially if that older person has already gone through, you know, children, grandchildren, you know, they're working their way, you know, Pastor Jeff is at the point where his children are getting to the teenage years, and that older pastor may have been there and done that, and may have great advice about how to trust in the Lord in those different times, so even Pastor Jeff can learn.

And we're always learning, like Richie said, a disciple is a continuous learner, so we've never really got it all down. But the Word of God, obviously, a strong emphasis on personal devotion and prayer to the Lord, especially for a new convert, like that might just not be something that, they just need an example to see how someone, you know, pours their heart out to the Lord.

You know, what do you do in your devotional time? Do you go through the psalms and, you know, just pray and exalt the Lord in your heart, and just read or pray through the psalms? Do you sing hymns? Do you just sit in a quiet time and read through the Bible?

You know, many different ways to approach that, but a new believer maybe not necessarily knowing, you know, a way to approach that situation, so that helps, you know, a person along the way. Mutual accountability.

So, this is us holding us accountable to each other, and, you know, wanting each other to walk circumspectly according to the Word of God, and, you know, really just being able to, you know, say to one another, just the way the Scripture says that we should submit to one another, and we shouldn't be so guarded in our life that we're not willing to, you know, let our lives open to another person for examination.

And that's not comfortable for a lot of us, but mutual accountability is very.

Important. I think that comes true from spending time with each other and developing a more personal relationship that you can get to that point, but you have to do those steps first.