Discipleship Conf: The Discipler As Counselor - The Work pt.4 (Troy Stogsdill)

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Living Faith Fellowship Conference Podcast. The Living Faith Fellowship is a peer network of like-minded churches, united under a single biblical authority and one common mission. You're about to hear a message from one of the many conferences hosted by the Living Faith Fellowship every year. We pray it's a blessing. - Well, amen. Man, that was awesome. Man, it really has been a good week. I mean, that's weird to say, 'cause I'm speaking. So I'm not talking about the evening, I'm not talking about the evening session. As that was coming out of my mouth, I thought, well, that might sound a little weird. The mornings have been tremendous. The worship has been tremendous. Everything has been tremendous. But here we are, we're at the end. So it's a nice last night. And that's, you know, in one way, these weeks are kind of crazy because, you know, in one sense we're all tired and we're a bit exhausted and, you know, folks that are from out of town or who's like, oh, man, ready to sleep in their own bed and that sort of thing. And then at the end, at the end of the day, you're also, I mean, at least me is a little bit sad. It's like, man, these weeks get rolling and all of a sudden they're at the end and these conferences. And there's such a great time. It's such a great time hanging with people and friends and brothers in Christ, sisters in Christ. And it's this amazing thing, the fellowship we have in the Living Faith Fellowship really is incredible. And so I cherish it. And it's been an encouragement to me. It's been just a very encouraging week, convicting week and all of it. And so I praise the Lord for that. You know, I think everybody that's had a microphone today has thanked you guys, you know, all of you Oakland Heights folks. And then I want to add my name to that chorus. Truly, thank you, James, and your team, and Thomas, and Michael, all of you guys truly have been tremendous. So like, you know, for everybody who doesn't go to Oakland Heights, listen, let's give it up for them, for all that they... (audience applauding) So as a church, and I mean this, I'm not just saying, as a church, the host, one of these, we learn a lot from you guys and you do a fantastic job, so you praise the Lord. And you know, you're honoring to the Lord and how you can do it, so it's great. But tonight we're gonna close out this conference back in Exodus, chapter 18, one final time. So hopefully you got one more sermon in you. Let's see if you can stick with me to the end. You know, we'll see what the Lord will do. But one more time, looking at this theme of the disciple maker as counselor, and we've seen the wisdom in that design, it's not just for the pastor, we know that. Not only do you need to be involved, your pastor wants you involved. And he wants you to take that step with another individual and walk them through the things of life and teach them the word, but not only teach them the word, share your life with them, invest your life in them, bring them along in ministry. But as we learned last night, to be able to do that effectively to God's glory, we need to be able. And so we need to understand the right fear and the right foundation and have the ability to forsake the cares of this world and those things that wanna choke out our eternal focus. And so that's what we've looked at so far as we dissected the wisdom of this aspect, the way and the worker. And tonight we're gonna close things out by looking at the work. What is the work involved for the disciple maker as counselor? So we're not really, tonight is a different kind of night. So it's not gonna be like last night. Last night was where we turned the mirror on ourselves and looked into it and really see what God had to speak to us, tonight's gonna be very practical. And we're not even really looking at discipleship generally tonight as much as we are talking about the work of counseling specifically. And so tonight we're gonna study what it was that the able men were asked to do. What was it, what was the job? If they're gonna help Moses out in this endeavor, what did he need them to do? And what we're gonna see is a very clear picture of what it is that these guys had to do. And by extension, what we are being asked to do when we disciple in this holistic way that includes things like counseling is you're sharing your life and you're walking another person through what the Christian life is. And we're helping them biblically navigate the issues of life and counseling them through. So let's pick up our story. We'll pick it up where we left off last night. Exodus chapter 18, we'll pick it up in verse 25. Jethro says, "Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them to be rulers of thousands and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all seasons. And it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for thyself and they shall bear the burden with thee. If thou shalt do this thing and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure and all this people shall also go to their place in peace." So Moses harkened to the voice of his father-in-law did all that he had said. And Moses chose able men out of Israel and made them heads over the people, rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judge the people at all seasons. The hard causes, they brought unto Moses, but every small matter they judge themselves. All right, let's pray. Dear heavenly father, Lord, we come to you one final time for this conference tonight, and Lord, we need you to speak to us again, and we're here, and we need to hear from you. And so, Lord, I pray you move me out of the way, and I pray that you speak to each and every heart tonight. And I pray that the words that you have for us, Lord, will be exactly what it is that we need. We're all in different spots. We have people in different areas dealing with different issues of life, and Lord, speak directly to them through your Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray that everything that is said is true to your word. I pray that it's honoring and glorifying to you. Thank you for, just thank you for all that you've done in this conference, and I pray that you continue to work in our midst tonight. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so in this final message, focused on this aspect of counseling within the discipleship relationship, my goal, like I told you, is to be very, very practical. The most practical sermon of this conference. I'm just gonna give you some keys, some practical keys that you need to understand when performing the work of counseling within discipleship. You need to understand what the work entails and what we see in verse 16, and then specifically in verse 22, is that the work of counseling involves judging, right? It involves judging, and that has a particular emphasis that I'm gonna explain to you. You're making, but when you're within discipleship and you're helping someone navigate life, you're making judgments on particular situations for a particular person or multiple people. Maybe you're helping your disciple with a marital issue, for example, or other relationship issues, and whatever it is, you're judging their decisions, their actions, their words, their lifestyle. You're making judgments, and then you're giving advice. This is something we see tied together within scripture. When God is warning the Moabites about going against Israel, and Isaiah chapter 16, verse three, he said, "Take counsel, execute judgment. "Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday. "Hide the outcast beway, not him that wandereth." See, if you study scripture and you study judgment, judging and counseling go hand in hand, and that applies both for the giver and for the receiver. So the giver of counsel is making a judgment based upon what they hear and see, and then providing counsel of what to do. When the receiver is hearing the counsel, and then they're making a judgment on whether they're gonna abide by the counsel that was just given or not. And this connection between counseling and judgment is this is one of the reasons why many disciples are scared of it, and they're afraid of stepping this deep into a person's life and quote, unquote, judging them. And this is mostly because, as people, we don't like to be judged. And so we don't wanna judge someone else 'cause we don't wanna be judged. This is a constant refrain in our society today, and then fortunately it bleeds over into the church. So let me just say, I'm afraid that many churches today, within many churches today, there is a lack of judging and therefore a lack of accountability. And the result is unfortunately an abundance of sin within a congregation. And again, this is just prevalent in our society today. It's a satanic refrain. Like today's age you hear all the time, something like, judge not, lest you be judged. And that refrain is a misquote of Matthew, a misuse of Matthew 7.1 and also a misquote. Matthew 7.1 says, judge not, that you be not judged. And people assume this to mean that you're not to judge another person, that that is God's job. Well, that is God's job, absolutely. He is the one ultimate righteous judge, but stick with me tonight and I'm gonna attempt to prove to you this connection and how we are to judge and how we are to make judgments. But when people say that, that you don't get to judge me, that's only God's job. What they're really saying most of the time is, I don't want you to judge me because I want to keep doing what I'm doing. And I want to live my life the way I want to live my life without having to answer to you or anyone else for it. Now, the truth is Matthew 7.1 is part of what's called the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon by Jesus. And this Matthew 5 through 7 in the doctrinal context of the Sermon on the Mount is the millennium, certainly not the church age. I mean, we're in Matthew chapter 7, delivered at a time before, well before the crucifixion of Jesus, the most Jewish centric book of the gospel, certainly. So however you cut it, you're gonna have a hard time making a strong doctrinal application of that verse to the church. Let's say you want to make it as a personal devotional application of Matthew 7.1, okay, that's fine, you can certainly do that. But you can't make a personal application that contradicts scripture and context. And the context of the verses immediately surrounding Matthew 7.1 discuss the danger of judging people with a double standard. So starting in verse two, Matthew 7.2 says, "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged." And about measure you meet, it shall be measured to you again, "And why beholdest thou the moat that is in my brother's eye, but consider it's not the beam that is in thine own eye?" So it's true, you shouldn't be a hypocrite. You shouldn't judge and condemn others for what, for something that you are doing as well. Take care of yourself first before you look at anyone else. That is the context of the personal application. So what this means when it comes to judgment and judging others, Matthew 7.1 should not be your go-to verse. So if it has been, sorry, you need to change that. You can't apply it to someone else saying you can't judge me. The Bible says so. Actually, it does not say that. Let me show you what it says with a verse that is in proper doctrinal context for us. A verse in the Pauline Epistle of 1 Corinthians, chapter two and verse 15 says, "But he that is spiritual, judgeeth all things." He that is spiritual, judgeeth all things. Yet he himself is judged of no man. You see, the spiritual Christian is actually supposed to judge everything according to the word of God. So to judge everything, or let me say it this way, the able disciple maker is supposed to be able to counsel. But the question is, the question becomes how? How do I do that? When do I do that? By what standard do I do that? What are the parameters? So there are a lot of factors to consider. You see, it's one thing to say, okay, when you're gonna take someone through discipleship, we're gonna view this in a holistic way and your disciple's gonna run into problems and you need to be able to help them and you need to be able to counsel through them. You need to be able to make judgments on their life. It's one thing to say that. And it's another thing to actually know exactly how to go about doing that biblically. But wouldn't you know it? God doesn't hide the information from us. And in our text and Exodus 18, and then also in Deuteronomy chapter one, we're gonna spend some time in Deuteronomy chapter one tonight, God gives us some practical insight into how this is to look. And so we're gonna look at the keys to the work. What is the work that we're to do counseling and discipling people through life? At least the keys as outlined in our main passages. Like I told you last night, I'm not saying there aren't other keys. I'm not saying this is the exhaustive list. But let me show you what God illuminates here at Exodus chapter 18, and I think we can learn something from it. And it starts with this. The first key to the work of the disciple maker as counselor is to deliver on time. To deliver on time. Joe will be happy to know that I am again gonna illiterate all of my points. I can't help it. I can't not do it. Like I, you know, this is ridiculous. So deliver on time and what I mean by that is to deliver the counseling message on time with respect to God's timing. You see, it's important not to only provide counsel, but it's necessary to provide timely counsel. You know, that counsel to be too early and you don't want that counsel to be too late. And we see this in verse 22 of Exodus 18 when Jethro told Moses and let them judge the people at all seasons. And Moses heated that counsel and he set up his counselors in verse 26 and they judged the people at all seasons. And seasons in the Bible are represented by connected to time. We deal with different things at different seasons. And the connection between seasons and time is true from the first mention of the word seasons in Genesis 114. And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for the signs and for seasons and for days and years. You see, God was creating time as we know it and it's made up of seasons and days and years. So the connection is there in the first mention of season. It's also connected in the last mention in your Bible of the word seasons. And that's found in 1 Thessalonians 5 1. But of the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. And listen, when it comes to counseling your disciple, there's an important aspect of discernment in this area that we need to consider. You need to be able to discern when to speak into their life and when it's not maybe the right time to speak into their life. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter eight, starting in verse one. Who is as the wise man, right? We've looked all week about the importance of wisdom within the context of discipleship and leading another person. Who's as the wise man? And who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom maketh his face to shine and the boldness of his face shall be changed. I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment and that in regard of the oath of God, be not hasty to go out of his sight, stand not in an evil thing, for he doeth whatsoever pleased with him. Where the word of the king is, there's power. And who may say unto him, what doest thou? Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment. Okay, so as we talked about last night when we looked at the worker, we need wisdom to be able to be a faithful disciple or to be an able man. And that wisdom involves discernment in areas like time and judgment. According to Ecclesiastes eight, five, a wise man's heart is able to discern those things, discern time and discern judgment. And that especially applies when you're making that judgment towards another person. But if you're wise, according to the Bible, you can discern. You can make that discernment and you get that wisdom to discern from keeping the king's commandment. Ecclesiastes eight, verse two. And when you keep the king's word, you have access to the power obtained in that word. Verse four. And the obvious picture we see here is that this discernment, this wisdom, comes from God's word. So maturity in God's word will give you the discernment and confidence to speak when you need to speak. And listen, that just brings us right back to where we were last night. Are you able as a man or woman of truth, but you need to remember that being that man or woman in truth, it includes both knowing and living God's word, right? We laid that out for you. So you need to know the Bible to be able to discern, right? Hebrews five, 14 says, "But strong meat belong to them that are a full age, "even those who by reason of use "have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." All right, so knowing God's word, being able to handle strong meat is what provides you the wisdom to be able to discern, both good and evil, to discern time and judgment. Okay, but then as you live the Bible, and as you walk in the spirit, now you not only know what to say, you know when to say it. Because 1 Corinthians two, 13 and 14, listen to these words. So this is right before verse 15 that we already read that he that a spiritual judges all things. 1 Corinthians two, verse 13 says, "Which things also we speak, "not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, "but which the Holy Ghost teaches, "comparing spiritual things with spiritual, "but the natural man received it not "the things of the spirit of God, "for they are foolishness unto him, "neither can he know them "because they're spiritually discerned." Okay, so you receive discernment in both time and judgment from the Holy Spirit as you spend time in God's word, right? That's it. It's Christian living 101. This is like just saying the same thing over and over and over again, different ways, but that's the beauty of God's word. He doesn't make it that difficult. He lays it out for us. This is being an able man or an able woman. Do you wanna be wise? Do you wanna be able to make good decisions that glorify the Lord? Do you wanna have power? And be able to help a disciple in a much deeper, deeper way than just sitting across a table from them once a week, teaching material that they could read on their own? Okay, then let the word of Christ dwell in you richly and let the spirit of God lead you based on that meditation. And you will be able to effectively deliver the right message at the right time to your disciple. You'll be able to discern what the right timing is and what the judgment should be and what the counsel should be. And listen, you can just trust the Lord in this. If you'll do your part to get the wisdom from God's word and walk in the spirit, live out what you're learning. You can just trust the Lord to work. I know it can be intimidating and it could be daunting to say, "Man, what if I tell them the wrong thing? "And what if I give them the wrong advice? "And what damage could that do?" No, do your part and God will do His every time. And you can trust the Lord in this. Listen, because when you are functioning at this level, you are counseling and you don't even know it. You're delivering the right message at the right time and you may not even be fully aware of all that God is doing in the life of that hearer and the life of that disciple. And it's all because you're in tune with the Holy Spirit and you're in tune with your disciple and you're being led to speak things that in the moment, you have no idea or impacting them at the level they are impacting them or you have no idea how much they need to hear what you just said. And it's pretty awesome how God just works it. God is faithful. God is good to take care of His people. He loves His children. He loves you and He loves them. If you do your part, get your face in that book and seek out His wisdom and live it out, not just for head knowledge, but turn it into your heart's desire and then live it out and walk in the spirit. You can help somebody like you never even imagined because it's God. It's just God, you're just a vessel. You're just that clay pot and lights coming out. And God's shining through you right into the eyes of your disciple. And he's working in their heart and you don't even know it. So that's the first key to the work of the disciple maker as counselor, deliver on time. But then second, you also need to be able to define your territory. And when I say define your territory, I mean know the territory or the areas that you can cover and those that you cannot cover. 'Cause look at Jethro's advice again in Exodus 18, 22. Let them judge the people at all seasons and it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee. And they gotta bring it to you, Moses. But every small matter they shall judge. So shall it be easier for thyself and they shall bear the burden with thee. Jethro told Moses to set up this structure of help. But he also told him at the end of the day, Moses, there are some issues that they just have to come to you. And this is what he did. You can see that that's exactly what happened at the end of verse 26. And so this point is the balance to much of what we've been talking about this week. Because you see the fact is, sometimes there are situations where your pastor needs to be involved. And there are situations that your pastor or your pastors need to handle. And listen, this should not come as a surprise to anyone, but we all have limitations. We all have limitations. And when you're in a counseling situation, you need to be able to recognize yours. Last night we used Solomon as an example of someone needing wisdom and he asked the Lord for it and he obviously received it. But you should understand that before he received wisdom from the Lord, he openly recognized his limitations. And he knew he was heading into territory that he wasn't prepared for. Look at 1st Kings 3-7. He said, "And now, O Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father, and I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or come in." And Solomon admitted he didn't know how to handle all that was soon to be in front of him. Now, the obvious issue with this situation is that Solomon was at the top of the chain. Solomon was Moses, Solomon in picture was the pastor. So for the pastors in this room, we absolutely need to be like Solomon and beg the Lord to give us the wisdom that we need. But for others, for a faithful disciple maker, your job is to then push up the line situations that are beyond your capacity to handle. You see, this means that there's no place for pride. If you're ever in a situation that you cannot or you should not handle, then you need to know that and admit that to the Lord and to yourself. And listen, at the end of the day, it's okay. We all have different strengths and understanding levels, but you need to know where you're at with the Lord and be honest with that. And what types of situations fall within and outside of your scope of limitations, your territory? And our limitations fall into different categories. For example, there may be a physical or illegal situation that's likely outside of your territory. Now, if you're a doctor or a lawyer, you have at it. But otherwise, we're helping people with spiritual issues. And by the way, your pastor is likely not a doctor or a lawyer either, so don't send those issues down. But when it comes, he probably needs to be evolved, truth be told, he probably needs to be evolved. But when it comes to spiritual issues, and here's what we're talking about. When it comes to spiritual issues, here's the key. If you do not understand what the Bible says about a certain problem, then you've gone beyond your limit. So if you do not know what the Bible says about a specific problem, get help. Don't wing it, push it up the ladder. So the question for this point is it is not, can you trust God? The question is, can God trust you? Have you studied to show yourself approved in order to help people get victory according to the Bible? Well, even if the answer is no, and you have some limitations, there's some issues and areas that you don't feel comfortable handling and don't have a good handle of what the word of God has to say about them. Here's the good news about this aspect of defining your territory. You can continue to raise your limitation by spiritual growth. Colossians 3/16, we're just right back to it. This is all the same stuff. That the word of Christ dwells in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns of spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And the word led, it means to allow. I let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, allow or to give permission to spend time in the word, meditate on the word and allow it to dwell in you. And bring you that wisdom that you need. So you can increase your capability through spiritual growth in the word of God. And we've been talking about that at length. But you do need to know. I mean, there are some things that you're not able to handle and push those up. But when you know God's word, and you know what God's word says about your disciple's situation, then you need to move to the third key of the work of the Disciple as Counselor. And that is to declare the truth. Just simply declare the truth, speak the Bible. Here's what you shouldn't do. You do not need to, nor should you counsel your opinion. You need to simply say, this is what the Bible says. You need to declare authoritatively and unapologetically the truth of God's word. And this is where we transition to Deuteronomy chapter one. We haven't spent much time there this week, but I think I mentioned it once. But Deuteronomy chapter one, verses nine through 18, describes Moses retelling this exact same story. He tells it after the interaction with his leaders. So like, you know, by Dallin in verse 24 of Exodus 18. It's after he's interacted with his leaders, he's retelling the advice that he gave. And in this account, we get a little bit more insight that has pertinent to our topic tonight. And since you already know the story, we're not gonna read it all. We're gonna skip ahead to verse 16. And here we see Moses talking about what he told his able men that they needed to do. Moses says, and I charge your judges at that time, saying here are the causes between your brother and judge righteously between every man and his brother and the stranger that is with him. So we know that we're to judge, we're to make judgments. We've already been talking about that. That's part of counseling. But there's another word used here in Deuteronomy 116 that we don't see in Exodus 18. As Moses said, they were to judge righteously. And that goes back to where we started, because according to 1 Corinthians 2.15, we're to judge all things, right? He did a spiritual, judges all things. So it's part of counseling. But listen, we don't get to make up the rules. We don't get to judge things however we want based on how we feel or what we think or what we heard someone else say. If you're spiritual, you have to go by the standard. And the standard is set for us. And it is the word of God. We are to simply declare what it says. That is the only way to judge righteously. Psalm 581 says, "Do ye indeed speak righteousness?" Oh, congregation, "Do ye judge uprightly?" Oh, ye sons of men. And judging uprightly is only done when you speak righteousness, what is right, what is true. And you can only find that, sir, when you analyze the situation according to God's word, it's the one and only singular standard. Jesus gives us the same admonition in John 7.24. Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. See, when it comes to judging a person, whether that person is yourself or someone else, your disciple, you certainly don't want to judge by anything physical. The appearance of things. Judge according to appearance. No, instead, you want God's judgment. You want spiritual judgment. You want righteous judgment. He that is spiritual, judges all things. And how do you do that? Well, you do it by comparing spiritual with spiritual. We read that in 1 Corinthians 2.13. Two verses before that, and we just read it. You compare spiritual with spiritual. Just scripture with scripture according to John 6. So you're to compare yourself or your disciple that you're counseling with what the word of God says. This is where things can get tricky at times. And we mess this up sometimes because of our feelings towards the person or our fear of man. And so we end up judging and counseling based on those physical things. So our standard becomes how we want to appear to them or even how much we love them instead of what the word of God says. No, our job is to judge righteously. That means we must be true to God and the word of God above our feelings. We are true to God's word, so declare that. And listen, let me back up for just a second and say that we know that the word of God is a standard because we know Jesus Christ is the standard. Ephesians 4.13 says, "Till we all come in the unity of faith "and of the knowledge of the Son of God "under a perfect man, "under the measure of the stature "of the fullness of Christ." He's the standard, he's the measure. We measure all things by him. And he is the one righteous judge. 2 Timothy 4.8 says that, "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness "which the Lord, the righteous judge, "shall give me at that day, and not to me only, "but all that also love it is peering." You see, it's the Lord Jesus Christ, the word, according to John 1.1, and 1 John 1.1. And Revelation 19.13, speaking of Jesus says, "And he was clothed with the vesture dipped in blood, "and his name is called the word of God." So that undoubtedly means that the written word of God is also our standard because there's one. And the written word is how we learn about the Lord Jesus Christ and how we can know how to emulate him. And let me just take this opportunity to say that just as there is only one personal standard in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, there's also only one written standard. And while there are many copycats out there, there's only one that is true. There's only one that is righteous. And this one standard gives us everything we need in order to judge righteously. We just have to follow it. We just have to declare it. It will never fail. Psalm 119, verse 160 says, "Thy word is true from the beginning, "and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever." And again, when we are judging unrighteously, we are using our own feelings and assumptions and looking at the physical side of things, including the face of the person sitting right in front of us. And the problem is most of the time those things just don't line up with the word of God. I want you to see a passage in Proverbs 21 that I think summarizes this pretty well. Proverbs 21, verses one through eight says, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord "as the rivers of water. "He turneth it whether so ever he will. "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, "but the Lord pondereth the heart." The Lord looks on the inside, not on appearance. To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. And I look at a proud heart and the plowing of the wicked is sin. The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenious, but of every one that is hasty, only to want. The getting of the treasures by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek it dead. Listen to verse seven. The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them because they refuse to do judgment. The way of a man is forward and strange, but as for the pure, his work is right. You see, what this verse, verse seven says, part of the reason why the wicked are as they are, is because they refuse to do judgment. They refuse to judge themselves and they refuse to allow the word of God to judge them. When they do judge, it's not righteous. We see that in verses two and eight. Their way is right in their own eyes, but it's wrong according to the word of God. We see, we saw this play out in history. This should come as no surprise to you in the nation of Israel during the time of the judges. God wrote an entire book about this. Why? Because Israel wouldn't judge themselves. And just like Proverbs 21 verse two, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. So the Lord sent judges to judge them and that wasn't God's desire, but they refused to judge themselves righteously. And that's where their wickedness came from. So we need to understand this, the judge according to this book, 'cause verse eight of Proverbs 21 says, ask for the pure, his work is right. Do you know what is pure? You know what the Bible says is pure? Proverbs 35, every word of God is pure. And that's how we're to judge. And that's how we must counsel. We let God be true and every man a liar, even if that every man is our friend or our disciple. And that brings us to our last key in the work of the disciple maker as counselor. And that's determined to be tough. 'Cause like I told you Sunday night, investing your life into someone at this level isn't for the faint of heart. And you put yourself at risk of getting burned and getting hurt, and that's just the sad truth of real ministry. But you can't have it both ways. Look at what Moses said in Deuteronomy 117, when he's talking to his judges, he says, you shall not respect persons in judgment, but you shall hear the small as well as the great, shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's. And the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me and I will hear it. You see, discipling and counseling, it just cannot be done properly if you're a respecter of persons or if you fear the face of man more than you fear God. Leviticus 1915 says, you shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, thou shalt not respect the person of the poor nor honor the person of the mighty, but in righteousness, shalt thou judge thy damber? Proverbs 24-23 puts it this way, these things also belong to the wise, it is not good to have respect of persons in judgment. And this plays out in our discipleship relationship sometimes, I was alluding to it in our last point. And we talked last night about being that able man or able woman and how that person, that able person fears the Lord and not other men. But like I was just saying, you know, this gets tested. We get tested in this sometimes when we're counseling someone close to us. A friend or a loved one, a disciple. But back to our last point, our responsibility is first to the Lord to do right by him and his word. So therefore, it is important to make this determination beforehand that you will love your disciple enough to tell him the truth, even when the truth hurts. That you will be tough enough to stand for the Lord and take his side. And this is just critically important to being able to judge righteously. And it's critically important to how you righteously judge others because it says something about your character and your integrity and your consistency in doing right. Because judging righteously says something about your Christlikeness. Because we know Jesus Christ is consistent in his character. He never changes, and he is always true to his word. Malachi 3.6 says, "For I am the Lord, I change not. "Therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Hebrews 13.8, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today. And forever, I like how James 1.17 puts it, "Every good gift and every perfect gift "is from above and comeeth down from the Father of lights "with whom is no variableness." Either shadow of turning. Listen, God the Father and God the Son, they're not wishy-washy. God's consistent. He's always true to his word. And while we are, you know, we still sin, and we won't be completely like Christ until we have our glorified bodies, we can be men and women of character in this arena. If we determine to be tough and true to God's word, and be who God made us and called us to be, and that's a faithful disciple maker, who is willing to do the hard but right thing, even if that means you must confront someone you love. Paul had to do that many times in ministry. Kenny talked about it this morning. And listen, the sad truth is there are many folks in ministry, even leadership positions who are not consistent, 'cause they're not willing to have these hard conversations. Or they'll say one thing in one conversation, but if a different person's in the room, the conversation changes. And listen, I'll be honest with you, I do not like confrontation at all. In fact, I hate it, but I'm willing to do it because I honestly believe there is a lack of Christ's likeness in me. If the situation requires it, but I don't go through with it. This is an area that takes some toughness, it takes courage. But it is courage worth exhibiting when you know what is at stake. And when you're standing up for truth. Now, you gotta balance because some people like to confront just for the sake of confrontation. And so they confront or they counsel based on their own ideas or private interpretations of scripture, and that's not what we're talking about here. If you're counseling based on standards that seem right in your own eyes, but turn out they're not biblical, that's a problem. And if you confront just for the sake of confrontation from the flesh, that's a problem. But if the situation is such where truth has been offended, if sin is prevalent, that needs to be corrected, that needs to be addressed. So don't avoid it. Do the hard work, declare the truth, say what God says. Even if it's a friend, we see this example from Paul. There was a time in Paul's ministry where he had to confront Peter. Peter had his doctrine sideways with respect to the Gentiles. So Paul called him on it. We see it in Galatians 2, 11, but when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed. See, Peter wasn't blameless, so Paul dealt with it. And he dealt with it in the way that it needs to be dealt with. He didn't go behind Peter's back, he didn't talk to others about it. He talked to Peter face to face. And that takes a toughness. That takes a determination to do what's right, even in the face of fear. But listen, and this is critically important to this point and understanding this point and getting this point right. Because you gotta determine and be willing to do the tough thing and take the tough stand. But you have to do it with humility. We heard this all morning as well. Kenny nailed this this morning. So yes, it's true. We must be willing to stand for God's word. We must be willing to be tough when the situation requires it, but we always need to do it with an eye toward ourselves. Romans 12, 3 says, "For I say to the grace given unto me, "to every man that is among you, "not to think of himself more highly, "than he ought to think, "but to think soberly, "according as God has dealt every man the measure of faith." And if you have to have these hard conversations, don't think too highly of yourself, be sober minded and who you are and what you're capable of too. I learned from Alan Shelby a long time ago that when you're dealing with people in these type of moments, it's always best to, as he would say, go low. And you could do that even while being true to everything we've talked about tonight, even when hard conversations are required. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't fully get it for a while in my ministry life until I really needed God to work in a couple of particular situations. And during those times, God brought me to two passages. The first one is Psalm 116, verse six, that said, "The Lord preserveeth the simple. "I was brought low and he helped me." You see, in those situations, dealing with very difficult situations, I desperately desired and above that, I needed the Lord's help. And he told me if I would go low, he would help me and he did. And the other thing that I need when dealing with people and something we've been talking about all week, that's wisdom. Proverbs 11, two, this is the other verse he showed me. He says, "When pride cometh, then cometh shame." But what the lowly is wisdom. And listen, going low doesn't mean that you let people walk all over you. Paul certainly didn't. Jesus was called lowly in Matthew 11, 29, but he always said what needed to be said. He stood on truth. He just did it with humility and a foundation of love not out of pride. But when all this clicks and you understand how to address things on time and within your realm, so you declare the truth even when it's hard to do so, but you do it with love and humility that I promise you that God can use you in ways that you will probably never dreamed possible. And I say that with full authority because I have seen it in my life. You can be a faithful disciple maker, an able man and an able woman, one who will stand with fruit at the judgment seat of Christ. And it'll be worth it. It'll be worth it all. If we'll just stick to his word now and do it his way. I hope you'll do it. I love you guys. I thank you for your attention. I thank you for your love and return this week. I'm under no disillusionment regarding the quality of my preaching. I know what isn't good. Then I know what is good. And it is this book every single time. So I love you guys. Let's pray. Lord. (congregation applauding) Thank you so much. Thank you for the word that you've given us to change us by it. In Jesus' name, amen. - We hope this message was a blessing to you. If you're interested in learning more about the Living Faith Fellowship, visit LFFellowship.com. God bless.