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Good evening. Good evening is. I mean, as I told you, we do a lot of ministry in India as well as a lot of other countries. Jennifer is doing a superb job capturing what is actually going on there. Will you just thank her again? An excellent storyteller and the stories are true and if anything, a lot of that's understated because you can't get people to share very often. Like the pastors on there. You know, I heard this happen to you. And they go, yes, they go, well, can you tell me about it? It's an honor to suffer. It's nothing compared to how Jesus suffered. And so to get those stories pulled out of those guys is really unusual and says a lot about the relationship that exists between Mission India and the trust that's been established. How many have their rooted workbooks tonight? I was very. Look at that. Pretty cool. Before we jump into that this afternoon, I finally got to set up our resource table over there. So starting tomorrow night and then Wednesday, a couple sessions, we'll have some tools available. Let me just tell you about a couple of things that are there. First of all, a number of you have come up and said, okay, I want to take this rooted series, which is kind of amazing since you've heard one talk. But you're like, we want to use this with our small group. Is that possible? Yes, it is. There on the table. You'll see actually 1, 2, 3, probably 11 different of these biblical character series. Crucible is on David. The Choices that Change youe Life Forever. Detour, Finding Purpose When Life doesn't make Sense. That's Old Testament Joseph, the Book of Ruth is Finding Home in a world of change, etc. Etc. Mary is called Chosen when God calls your name. Anyway, there's 11 of them all together and they're basically both, if you like kind of meat and potatoes. Bible teaching like this. You're going to love those. Satchabal, our director in India goes, what is this meat and potatoes? And we explain it. And he goes, oh, that's so funny. He goes, here they call Pastor Phil the curry and rice guy. So whatever. I'm glad I'm a little spicy. I like that. So those are there and those are special workbooks because inside you'll see a little slip of paper that then has a QR code. So those workbooks are $25. And then you take the QR code, scan it, and you can download onto your phone or on your computer all the episodes of it. All right, you want to order more workbooks, you can order more Workbooks. And assuming I can get our little scanning thing to work, we will be in business tomorrow. One of the other tools, and this one I want to mention tonight while the kids aren't here, because you don't want it to be. And if you really love your kids, you'll buy them this order by midnight tonight and you get both the Old and New Testament. I'm not that kind of a guy. But a number of years ago, we created something called the Keyword learning system. There's OT39 that teaches you the name of each Bible book in the Old Testament and what that book is about. Locks them in a picture, makes it memorable. It comes as flashcards like this Old Testament, New Testament. On the back of the card it's summarized. I got a thank you note a few years ago from a pastor who was getting ordained. And in his ordination exam, somebody goes, could you briefly tell me the message of the Book of Habakkuk? And he's like, ah, Habakkuk, okay, ha. Backpack, I got it. And he's on a watchtower, a tower wrapped up with watch. And he lectured and all the other people go, how did you know that? So he goes, Please send me 12 sets of these so I can send them as thank you notes. Because no way I get ordained without those. That's pretty cool. We actually developed them for kids, but adults are like, you're nuts. These are for adults too. They also come as coloring books. And the great part about the coloring books is on one page is the drawing. And on the other side of the page, written in kid friendly English, is the explanation of it. But until your kids can read, they won't know your secret. They'll go, dad knows everything about the Bible. It's so cool. Till my kids busted me at about age 6 and then the secret was out. But these things are going to be there. Will you come give me a hand and put one of these on? Yes, put one of these on each of these tables. And after we're done tonight, first one to get each of those gets them. Don't take all four. That would be really tacky. No, no, no, no. One on each table. 1, 2, 3, 4. There you go. And there we go. That works. Let me show you a few of these. Here's one. Beep. Next slide, please. Now this is designed to build early confidence in you as learners after a big meal. What book of the Bible might this be? Come on. If that's that week, we're in big trouble in about two minutes. What book of The Bible is this Genesis. What do you notice about Genesis there? N. Is it small? It's big. Because Genesis is a book of big endings. Oh, pace yourself with the groans. These are 100% bad, dad. Joke approved. All right, so where would you turn your Bible to read about what happened in the beginning? Obviously Genesis. Let's go to the next one. Hmm. This one's harder. This one's harder. What is this guy doing? He's kissing his foot. Which foot? So make it a sentence. He's giving his. Left foot a kiss, which is about the offerings and feasts. Five offerings, seven feasts, 12 ways to say, lord, we love you and we're so glad that you took us out of Egypt. This used to say Levi, but no joke. We got a really nasty cease and desist letter from Levi Strauss. So now it just says Lev, and they can't touch us. Here's another one. Hmm. Exodus. Guess what the key word of Exodus is Because they make their exit out of Egypt. You'd think they'd all be smiling. You can't see. Some of them are frowning. Do you know why? They miss their mummies. Okay. Also have a few for the New Testament. Or. No, this is still Old Testament. What animal is this? Give me another name for a donkey. We're at a Bible camp. Okay, almost a donkey. Stubborn as a mule. What's this mule made of? So it's a Samuel. How many of them do you see? Must be First Samuel. This is about one of Israel's kings. Which king? What's he holding? Saul, who had no heart for God. Ah, very nice. Last one. No, next to last one. What is this leaning against the stump there? And in the book. No, go back, go back, go back. Book of Acts is about building the church. You read about some splinter groups who are barking up the wrong tree. And Satan says, let's just cut it all down. And God says, not. And anyway, all that's in there now, the last one. One of my personal favorites. What vegetable is this? What's coming out of his eye? So it's a which. How many Peters do you see? Just one. So it must be the book of one Peter. Why is he crying? Because he's in pain. But be encouraged, folks. It's pain with a porpoise. Okay, take that off the screen. You laugh and you groan, but they work. Where would you go in your Bible to read about the people's exit out of Egypt? All right, what if you wanted to read about this guy named Samuel? First Samuel. But he's not the Only king there who's the main king Talked about in 1st Samuel? Saul. What kind of heart did he have? Right. What if you had a friend who was really hurting and they're like, I just don't see any point in any of the suffering I'm going through. What would be an encouraging book for your friend to read? First Peter. Pain with a porpoise. Very nice, Father. Now, as we open your word, as we continue our series on rooted, Lord, just help us to grasp the importance of this essential topic. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So this morning we talked about being rooted by what? Family. Good. Tonight we're going to attention turn our attention to being rooted by mentoring. What is a mentor? Dictionary defines mentor this way. A more experienced, knowledgeable or mature individual. Go ahead and go forward. 1. A more mature, experienced, knowledgeable or mature individual who provides guidance, support or advice. Let's go back to Acts 16, where we were before Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer, but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. So Paul meets Timothy in Lystra, a town by the way, in modern day Turkey. Somebody needs to do in the back of some of our Bibles like an overlay so you can put what are these countries today? That's the simplest idea that would be so helpful. So go do that and you'll probably make a lot of money. Verse 3. As Paul or Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. And we'll talk about that tomorrow. You can't talk about that right after mealtime. Can we guys? No way. As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. Paul decides to take Timothy with him on his second missionary journey. So this is kind of when their relationship starts to grow. They're doing ministry, serving God together. Read Philippians 2, 1920. This is really cool. Here we go. I hope with me. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him who will show genuine concern for your welfare. Paul had a good number of associates. Name some of the associates who worked with Paul. John, Mark. Good. Who else? Silas Barnabas. Excellent. Epaphroditus. We don't know much about him. I mean you can come up with a list if you just started reading the beginning and the ending of his epistles. Epistles, by the way, are not the wives of the apostles. Epistle means like a letter, same root as our word post office. It means to send something. So the apostles were sent out to reach people. The epistles are communication in writing that was sent out. But Paul had a lot of associates. But his relationship with Timothy was unique. You see that phrase he says in verse 20, I have no one else like him who will show genuine concern for your welfare. Let's keep going. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 1:18-20. I like when you read. You can either read it off here if that's easier, or same thing as in your book. Here we go. But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not yes and no. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silas and Timothy was not yes and no, but in him it has always been yes. Keep going. Our yes in Christ. And so through him, the amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. Timothy communicates the same unwavering message as Paul. The first time I went to India, our leader there, Satabal, I had never really, I didn't have any friends who were, who were Indian. Now Normal, Illinois, where I grew up, at the end of our street, what used to be a softball field, there's now cricket fields there. No joke. State Farm hired 300 programmers with their families, brought them over from India to Normal, Illinois. You can now get tikka Masala in Normal, Illinois. Who knew? But I had never really been around many Indian people before and sochable, you know, I'd ask them a question and I know this is yes and this is no. But often the answer was this. And Jennifer could tell you this must mean like 40 different things because it's not always a yes, no question. And I said, satzal, sometimes does it mean maybe? And he goes, which tells me nothing. And you know, and I'd say does it sometimes mean this? And he'd go, which I think meant yes. Finally at the end of the trip I go, satchibal, does it ever mean Pastor Phil, I love you and I respect you because you're president of Walk Thru the Bible globally, but that's a really stupid idea. And once you get on the plane, there's no way I'm going to do anything with what you Suggested because you don't have a clue what it's like to be a Christian in India. And he goes, This is saying Paul. And like Timothy, it's never this. It's yes, it's no. The truth doesn't get compromised. Let's keep going. This is a hard one to spot. I had no idea until we studied this. This was true. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother to God's holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father. So a lot of times in an epistle, there'll be the greeting to the faithful brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you. That's the greeting. But at the beginning of this, it's like we address the envelope, right, who's this written to? Right. The church in Colossae, the faithful believers there. Then up in the upper left hand corner, you have the return address. Who's it from? But it doesn't just say Paul, Timothy. In fact, there's six different epistles where Timothy's name is mentioned in the return address. Now, we know all scripture is God breathed or inspired by God, but that doesn't mean they went into a trance and they woke up and went, whoa, dude, look what I just wrote. I think it's a book of the Bible. God poured his truth through the personality, through the life experience of the different writers. And I don't know what Timothy's role was, but six different times he's somehow involved in the authorship of that. I don't think he was just the mailman making the delivery. I want to find out about that when we get to heaven. I don't think we'll know till then. First Timothy, chapter one. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the command of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus our hope. To Timothy, my what true son in the faith, Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. Paul describes Timothy as his true son in the faith, which we'll talk about this tomorrow night. It's pretty cool. One of the real trials that Timothy had was being from this family where his mom was a believer, his dad was not. And in some ways, Paul filled that void and he calls him his true son, the faith. Look at second Timothy, chapter one. Read verses three and four with me. I thank God whom I serve as my ancestors did, with a clear conscience. As night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers, recalling your tears. I long to see you so that I may be filled with Joy, what's the point here? Paul frequently prays for Timothy and longs to spend time together. I think Paul has been miscast as this, like, super driven person, this lone ranger of the Christian faith. He sure greets a lot of people and calls them partners in the Gospel. I think is a highly relational individual as well as being really focused on purpose. One more passage. Second Timothy 4, 9 and 10. Do your best to come to me quickly. Paul says to Timothy for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica, Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Timothy remains loyal to Paul all the way to the end of his life. Some of Paul's associates were embarrassed because he's in prison. If he went to prison, he must have done something really wrong. We just don't know about it. Timothy stayed loyal to him all the way to the end. So we're talking about this relationship between Paul and Timothy. Paul is very much Timothy's mentor. He's older than he is. He's certainly got more experience. But what's this have to do with us? Let's pull four principles, four lessons about mentoring that I didn't find these in a book. These are acquired over a long time of serving the Lord. I wish somebody had explained these to me a long time ago. First of all, mentors often go by other names like parent, spouse, coach, teacher and friend. There's something heavy about the name mentor that is off putting to people. We've got this idea that a mentor has to be somebody who has it together in all areas of life. Right. When Ellen and I in our first church, this was in a town of 850. It was 24 miles from the nearest McDonald's. We had no stoplights in the town. Nobody used turn lights because everybody knew where they were going anyway. Yeah, you're late to pick up Jess at soccer practice here. Go ahead and go in front of me. I mean, if you got a wrong number, you stayed and talked for 20 minutes anyway on the phone. It was just. If the sirens went off, I just jumped into my car and went. Because there's a pretty good chance that I knew who it was who was hurting and suffering. It's an amazing place to learn about ministry. That's mostly the kind of pastors and churches that we serve around the world. Our stuff's used by a lot of megachurches, but megachurches have the resources to create their own tools. It's guys like on there 85% of whom have no formal Bible training. That's really more our target audience. And so we were. This was not a sleepy little country church with a bunch of old people only in it. It was not dying. It was a bunch of young couples our age. I was 26 when we went there. Ellen and I were both 26. There were lots of couples our age. Now we didn't know we were in the early stages of five years of infertility. That made this next part a challenge. But our third year there, there were 12 babies born in that church. It was a church of about 110 people when we went there. Maybe 2, 220 when we left. Not this, not going to get you on the COVID of Christianity Today. But almost all of those were new converts. It wasn't transfer growth at all. It was rich but challenging years of ministry too. And so we had all these couples and we had a pretty killer premarital counseling program. It was effective. But I thought, you know what? These young couples need support. And initially I thought, well, they've all got their extended families. I mean, there was one family in town, they had 14 kids. They had a child in every grade except third grade when we moved there because there had been a miscarriage that year. I mean, these were some big families. The town was settled. German. Those who spoke, you know, high German went to the Lutheran church. Those who spoke low German went to a church called Apostolic Christian. If you know that church, there was still a German speaking church in town. It's kind of similar. It's a little similar to Amish. Our church were families that went to a Billy Graham crusade and got disciplined by the church for doing that and eventually ended up starting our church. So I'm like, why didn't I pay more attention in church history? I didn't know it was still like alive and well in this little town we're living in. But I thought all these families have, all these young couples have their families. But you know what, you didn't talk about real life subjects. A lot of times it's tough. It's your own kids, it's tough. It's your own parents. So I go, let's, we need some marriage mentors. And I had a card in the bulletin and I described this thing we were going to do. And each engaged couple would be matched up with a veteran couple who'd been married like 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And three times you'd have dinner together before their wedding, then you'd have them over for a six month checkup. And a 12 month checkup. Does that not sound like a great idea? Yes. Zero volunteers. Not the young couples. They all wanted to do it. They go, we are so in. Please set this up for us. Zero volunteers. I said, maybe. I didn't announce that very well. Put it with a bigger card in the bulletin. The second week, zero volunteers again. I started asking people around that, and they're like, you don't understand. Our marriage is far from perfect. You've been married 55 years. Like my mom used to say, I would have gotten rid of your daddy years ago, but I'm too embarrassed for any other woman to see what little progress I've made in 50 years. It was like kind of that attitude. And I'm like, yeah, but you, you stood the test of time. You kept your vows. You'd be great at this. Finally, we stopped calling them marriage mentors. We switched the name to coaches. And it's like, I can do that because coaches win some and lose some. Exactly. So don't run from the title mentor. Change it if it helps you, but accept the role. Go on to the next one. It is wise to have multiple mentors for different areas of your life. When I did my pastoral internship in a church that I'll talk about in a minute, I was going to be a surgeon. That's why I went to Wheaton College. They have a great pre med program. I wanted to make a lot of money. I thought some people might get helped in the process, which is always a bonus if you're a medical doctor. My values were not exactly Jesus centered at the time. And then somewhere during organic chemistry and calculus, I felt led to be a Bible teacher. You can make of that what you want. I was pulling decent grades, but I was more excited about the Bible study I was in with the navigators than those classes. And then I met this girl, Southern, very southern. She had me at y', all, brown hair, hazel eyes. She put eight E's in my name. Hey, Phil, I'm Ellen. She'd always say, what Tom is it? And I go, if she could just dump this Tom guy. I found out Tom was her wristwatch. What? Tom is it? We had a language barrier, but we overcame that. She had me locked in the friend zone for way too long. Our first date was second chapter of Acts. You remember that band? That's how old we are. Okay? And the rest of Acts hadn't been written yet. It was just up to two chapters. And that night, I mean, we splurged. We went to White Castle afterward. And I said, what do you think you'll be when you grow up? And she goes, you're gonna laugh at this, but I've always known I would marry somebody in ministry. I go, like, what do you mean? She goes, like a pastor. But I don't think a pastor of one church. I think maybe a pastor, like, to other pastors, it is not a difficult process to switch your major in most colleges. And I got that done the next morning. That's not how God called me, but it sure was a pretty Sweet confirmation. And 45 years now. 45 years. When we went to our pastoral internship, I was now very worried because I realized I probably wasn't going to earn what I originally thought I would earn. And I asked the pastor about it. He goes, you're probably right about that. And he says, I'll tell you what. There's a guy in our church who, he can get $5 worth out of a dollar. I go, is he wealthy? He goes, no, that's the thing. He's not. But their house is paid off. He goes, their kids didn't graduate from college with a bunch of student loans. I frankly don't know how he did it. I think it was all legal. Ask him about that. But he goes, he could really be your mentor in this if you're concerned about it. Made an appointment, went to lunch with the guy. And the next. About a week later, I was with the lead pastor again. He goes, how did it go with so and so? And I go, he can't be my mentor. He said, why not? Did I not describe him accurately? I go, yeah, but you should hear how he talks about his wife. He talks about, the key to finances is giving your wife no involvement in the process. He put her down like six times at Taco Bell. I mean, I really. There's an edge. He goes, yeah, I probably should have mentioned that to you. And I forfeited him mentoring me in one area of my life. And the really sad part is, years later, I was talking about this with this pastor. And he goes, you remember that? And I go, yeah, I do. He goes, he could have taught you a lot. And he goes, and I was really hoping you would help him in terms of his marriage. So sometimes you got to think about, this is my coach over here. This is my coach over here. I can show you how to put a Bible study together. If you're prepping for an Ironman, probably don't call me. Right? Let's look at another principle. The healthiest mentoring relationships are not hierarchical, but Mutual. It's not one person way up here, one person way down here. It's not superior and inferior. There's a ministry in the Atlanta area called Windshape Foundation. It was started by the Cathy family, who started Chick Fil A. It's a lot of their nonprofit work that the Cathy family is behind. They run a camp. They run day camps all over the country. They had over 38,000 kids in camp last summer. They have marriage intensives for couples that are like code blue. It's five days in a group with four other couples. If you want to know more about that, come talk to me. They have group foster homes, several of them in the state of Georgia. I mean, they're doing so much great stuff. And I get to serve on the board now of Winship Foundation. We hired a new president about a year and a half ago. His name's Jeff. And even before Jeff was hired, he says, if I get this job, he goes, I've never led a non profit before. He came from selling big software deals to major companies, but he was the lead elder in their church. He walks with God. His wife's all in with him. And I said, sure, we can do that. We meet one Monday every month for breakfast. And he always grabs the check. And a couple times ago, I grabbed the check. And he goes, you can't do that. And I go, why not? He goes, because you're mentoring me. And I go, jeff, I've learned more from you than you have learned from me. I go, how about we drop the mentoring title and we call each other friends? And he goes, we are friends. And. But he says, you got to be my mentor. Because he says, my salary and my expense reimbursements are way bigger than yours. Give me the check. And if you'll let me call you my mentor, I can pay for all our meals. So I'm his mentor. But really, it is mutual. And the most helpful mentors stay connected long term. Even if it's not meeting the first Monday of every month, even if it's not that, it's still. You can pick up the phone, you can send a text when you're like, I'm stuck. I need help. When they just spontaneously know when to reach out and check on you. And you. I can't believe you thought about me today. Yeah, I am hurting. What is this on the screen? Mount Rushmore. How many of you have ever been to Mount Rushmore? We went when I was like six years old. I want to go back. I want to not sit by the native American on the rock and burn my thighs like I did last time. All I remember was that rock was really hot. And this thing is huge. You know, on George Washington's lower lip, you can park a school bus there. That's how big this is. Seriously, the holes for the pupils, A six foot man can stand those. It is amazing, the scale of this. Who's on Mount Rushmore, left to right? Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt. And weird, they're not in order chronologically, almost. I was surprised Teddy Roosevelt was on there. Then I read the rationale. You should Google this. It's amazing why they chose each one for a very different contribution that they made to our country. It's a pretty cool story. I almost pulled this out because I try to avoid things that are obviously American, but our global leaders were like, no, leave that in. I go, you know, Mount Rushmore? And about a third of them had heard of it. The other two thirds were like, hey, you explained what it is. Now we know what it is. We don't have a parallel like that in our country. Please, Phil, leave it in. So we left it in. They did say, no more baseball illustrations, please. If it's not cricket or it's not football and not your kind where you use everything but your foot, you use your hands. It should be handball. No, that's a different sport. And it's like, yeah, but this made the cut. Here's the question before us tonight. Who is on your personal Mount Rushmore? I'll show you mine and tell you why. On this left side here is my dad. I guess he was super Christian. No, he was not. When I was in third, maybe fourth grade, dad came home and he said, okay, Steve and Suzanne are already going off to college. You know, my marriage with your mom is a joke. I can't live this fake stuff anymore. He, in fact, had Mom's successor already picked out. Out. And he's like, I'm not living a lie anymore. That's one of the reasons I love Christian camping so much. I went to Honey Rock, which was Wheaton's camp. My counselor just so happened to be from a home that divorce had occurred. This guy just lovingly said, you will get through this. And he showed me the verse that says, God is a husband to the husbandless and a father to the father. Fatherless. And as a fourth grader, that was like. That was incredible to have somebody care about me like that. Mom fought dirty because dad worked for a pretty conservative company and she would have messed up his career. And so reluctantly he goes, oh, Boy ought to have his dad. I'll stay till Philip goes away to college. When I went away to college, dad didn't leave. In fact, he stayed there when mom died after years of poor health. They'd been married 56 and a half years. Mom left instructions about her funeral. My dad's like, even from beyond the grave, your mother is large and in charge. And she had pallbearers, and they'd be crossed out as they died. And then she said, philip will give my sermon. My whole family goes, you can't do that. And I'm like, I don't want her ticked off at me. And so I led her funeral, and God somehow gave me the words to say. A woman comes up out of the funeral and says, I was one of your mom's caregivers. You know, I don't believe in Jesus Christ or this whole Bible thing. That was a really good message. I said, thanks. You want to talk more about that? And she goes, no. But she says, someday, I think I will become a Christian. And I said, today will be an awesome day. And she goes, no, it won't be because of your message. I said, thank you. How long have you had the gift of discouragement? This is good. And she goes, it will be because of watching your dad love your mom. You know, she had terrible circulation. You do know every morning he would put her slippers on her feet, and he would warm them with the hair dryer first. I never saw that with my own eyes when I was in seminary. I think maybe our second or third year of being married, dad calls and goes, guess what I did last night? He was an actuary. We got any actuaries here? We have any accountants here? Dad said, I would have been an accountant, but I didn't have the bubbly personality for it. So he became an actuary. And I said, I have no idea. He goes, take a guess. I go, you factored a polynomial for fun last night. I mean, I don't. He goes, no, I got baptized. I go, what does that mean? He says, it means, the whole time in World War II and foxholes, I made a lot of promises to God, and God's been faithful, and it's time. I'd be faithful. With my end of the deal, I got to see God transform my dad. To my knowledge, he never taught a class ever. But he taught me more than any other man in my life. By the good things, by the bad things. Next to him, my mentor, Howard Hendricks. Anybody ever heard Howard Hendricks speak? He grew up in Philly. His parents Were split up before he was born. Only time he saw them together was at the divorce hearing. As a young boy, he taught at Dallas Seminary. That's why I went there. Somebody started junior year. As soon as I was falling in love with Ellen, they go, you're thinking about ministry? Listen to this guy. The church I grew up in, very far right fundamentalist Baptist. No humor. Lots of yelling and screaming. And people would say, phil, you should use your communication skills instead of telling foul jokes. You could be a Bible teacher. And I'm like, yeah, I need a lobotomy to have my sense of humor removed. I don't want to go through that. And then I heard Howard Hendricks. And he would get you laughing often at him and. And women, I don't know how your minds work. But guys, when we laugh at somebody else, the defenses go down in our hearts and God sticks truth in there. And now we gotta decide what we're gonna do about it. I took every class he had. He's the one who sicced, walked through the Bible on me. He was on our board for many years. He's on my Mount Rushmore. Next to him is a guy probably nobody's ever heard of. His name's John Trishman. He supervised my internship. Walked into his office the first day of the summer. He goes, I don't need an intern. I don't even need an associate. I need a co pastor. Get out your calendar. Whatever I'm doing, you're doing half of it. I had preached three sermons in class at that point. And all of a sudden I'm doing half of the preaching in this church. That summer, my internship was better than anybody else. He didn't drop me after that. We moved back after graduation. We're living 90 miles apart now. About every two or three months, John and Cheryl and Ellen and I would meet in Gibson City, Illinois. We'd have lunch, and then the girls would go shopping, and John and I would go to this furniture store. This is so tacky. We never bought anything. And we'd find two recliners, and we'd just sit there. I should have bought something. The owner's like, hey, missed you. Haven't seen you in four months. What? Ministry not going well? And we just talk. 1. One day I realized I'd fallen asleep. And I woke up and I thought, this is so embarrassing. I look up and John sawing Z's in the other recliner. My first funeral was a. There was a blind couple in our church. Both lost their sight from diabetes. Met in blind school. We were away on our first ever vacation. We got the call that Dave had died. We flew home. We go to Charlene's house. Charlene had asked, remember she used to be able to see? She says, what's the new pastor look like? And somebody said, he looks kind of like Clark Kent, only bigger. So she always called me Clark. And I messed with her. We'd pick her up for church every week. And I go, charlene, that red skirt looks great with that orange blouse. And she'd go, I hang things by color. I'm blind, not stupid. She had a system for everything. We're getting ready for this funeral to start. And the funeral director is, we're going to close the casket now. And Charlene goes, may I see Dave one more time? I'm like, sure. I take her, I escort her over there, not thinking what see him one more time would mean. It meant running her fingers over every contour of his face. Lost it. I'm starting, not a little bit tear up. I'm like that. I hear the door squeak, and I kind of glance over there. It's my buddy John Trishman has driven 90 miles just to be there for my first funeral. To pray me through it. He gave me this look like, get it together. You can cry later. You got a job to do. And I was like, okay, okay. He's in stage four of liver cancer now. I saw him in January, retire, lives in Florida. I went to visit them, thinking I'd encourage them. He's like, okay, okay. We've talked enough about my cancer. I love what you're doing with walk through the Bible. How can we, though, specifically pray for you guys? Crazy mentor. Fourth is Ellen. God knew what I wanted because she was beautiful, but he also knew what I needed because she tells me the truth even when I don't want to hear it. She has saved me so many big mistakes. My most trusted advisor, my best friend. And she looks better than she did 45 years ago. So bonus. Thank you, Lord, but so much. Such a great partner in ministry. She will, by the end of this week, know way more names than I know, even though she's hanging out with five grandkids the whole week. There's mine. Who's on yours? Write some names. If you're good artistically, you can draw their portraits. Most of you will just write their names. We need to be done because otherwise I will be in big trouble with the ones keeping your kiddos. So just take a couple of minutes, write down four names. You don't have to pray and fast about this. Just do it quickly. And then sometime between tonight and the start of the service tomorrow night, I want you to share your Mount Rushmore, or at least with somebody. Say, here's. Here's the primo position in my Mount Rushmore. So you really have to do this because you are now deputized to ask each other, tell me about your Mount Rushmore. Well, it's made of stone. It's somewhere in the Dakota. No, no, no, no. You got to do this. This will be one of the most helpful exercises of the entire week. So who's your Mount Rushmore? And whose life would you say has impacted you the most? Father, thank youk that we really are rooted by mentoring. We thank youk for those in our lives, whether they ever had that title or not. But those who have taught us so many things, those who have spoken into our lives, Lord, may we open up our minds to who wants and needs that. Now, this is one of the most requested things from Gen Z is I need somebody older to help me learn from their mistakes, their successes. Yeah, experience is the best teacher, but it's the most painful teacher. And it's so much better to learn by example. So, Father, take these words. Help us to open our hearts to that. And, Lord, not just to have a mentor, but to open our minds to being a mentor. We pray that you'd raise up a great army, even from this group. This week at Gull Lake, in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you, my.