Well, again, thankful to be here with you this morning. And as you open your Bibles, let's open up to Genesis chapter one. Genesis chapter one. This is where we're going to begin. And this morning we're going to again start our series on biblical counseling and discipleship and why we should be interested in that. We really gave a preview as far as where does it fit theologically on Wednesday. to hear that one, encourage you to go listen to it. But this morning I want us to think about the need for biblical counseling and discipleship, the need for biblical counseling and discipleship. So as we just kind of introduce this, I think it's worth defining our terms so that we know exactly what we're talking about. So we begin with what is counsel or what is counseling? What does it mean to give counsel to someone? Is it something that's reserved for a special group of people, or is this something that we do every day? Well, according to Webster's, giving counsel to someone is just simply giving advice or instruction. It's directing the judgment or the conduct of another person. If you look up the word disciple or discipleship, you find that it just means that one becomes a follower in doctrine and in precept as it relates to another individual. What that means is if you are going to counsel someone, you're going to give them direction as to how they ought to be thinking and how they ought to be living. If you are a disciple, you're someone who is following someone and you're following specifically what they are teaching and how they are living, how they are instructing someone to live. Now, the reason that these two are put together as far as biblical counseling and discipleship is to simply point out the fact that these are two different words that describe the same thing. OK, so if you are going to disciple someone which that language is biblical and you are familiar with that, it's the same thing as giving someone counsel. It's the same one. The same thing as instructing someone. So when we think about the need for this, the need for biblical counseling and discipleship. Began all the way back when God created man. began all the way back when God created man. When we look at Genesis 1, we see that when God created Adam, that Adam was created perfect, but he was not created complete in and of himself. Adam needed God's counsel in order to know what to do and what not to do. This is before the fall. So if you look in Genesis 1, verse 28, after God had created man in His own image, that is, male and female, in verse 28 it says, and God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree and which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat and to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life. I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. Now, we could read through this and not give much thought to it at all. But in verses 28 through 30, we see that God is giving Adam and Eve specific instructions on how they are to relate to the rest of creation and what it is they're supposed to be doing. So in verse 28, He tells Adam and Eve how they ought to be relating to one another. Then He begins to talk about categorically, this is what you do as it relates to the creation around you. You subdue it. OK, and here's what you should be doing. And then later on. He's going to give some prohibitions and tell him what they should not be doing. OK, so that would come along. In verse 16 of Chapter 2 Genesis Chapter 2 verse 16. the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." So again, they have this prohibition, this instruction, counsel from God. These are the things that you can have, which, by the way, Before the fall, it pretty much went like this. You can have anything you want except one tree. We have no idea how many trees were in that garden. Oftentimes, we focus so much on what they could not have that we don't think about all that God gave them. I mean, God was so generous in the garden. Again, when we think about pre-fall, No problems. You know, the only real problem we hear about before the fall was that God looks at Adam and says it's not good that man should be alone. And so then he creates an appropriate companion for Adam. Other than that, Adam lived in a world again after creation was finished. Problem free. And yet he was still in need of a word from God. He was not created to function autonomously. He was not created to look within and guide His own self. This is before His heart was desperately wicked. He was created to live a life that was fully dependent on God. He was created to live as Jesus articulated, as He quoted the Old Testament in Matthew 4, Verse 4, when he said, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Brothers and sisters, one of the things that Scripture makes clear, even before sin entered into the world, is that you and I were meant to live. That is, to think in accordance with and to allow our actions and our motives to be guided by the Word of God. Theologically, we call that the authority of Scripture. That is, the Bible, Scripture, has the authority to instruct you on how you ought to be thinking about things. That's just doctrine. Scripture instructs you on what you ought to be motivated by. And Scripture also instructs you on how you ought to live your life. And we needed that even before the fall. We see Adam and Eve living that way. So before the fall, they needed directive counsel from God. They needed God to give them direction. What do we need to be doing? So forth and so on. After the fall, we still need directive but we also need corrective counsel. Sin has entered into the world, and so God speaks to not just what we ought to be doing, but He also speaks to what we should not be doing. God's Word, if we move over into 2 Timothy 3, one of the things that really the first two things that Paul says the Word is good for is for convicting and correcting. Those two things are necessary for every single human who was born after the fall. It's worth paying attention to the scope of who all that applies to. So let me say it again so that we're not missing it. Every single person who is born into a sin-cursed world, which would be everybody you know and then some, is in need of God's directive counsel and God's corrective counsel. That is just a word from God to give directions and corrections as it relates to how we ought to be living our life. Now, in the garden, God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. We know that they had face-to-face fellowship with God as it related to their closeness with Him. and they received a word directly from God's mouth. Now, as it relates to us, we receive our word from God right here. So not only do we believe in the authority of scripture, we believe in the inspiration of scripture, which means that as we look to the Word of God, as we look to the Bible, to see what it has to say to us, we aren't just looking to some ancient book that some men compiled and thought would be a good idea for us to have, but the Christian conviction has been that we believe that Scripture is inspired. That is, God breathed. That is, if you want to know what God has to say, there's an authoritative place to go and to find that out. And that's the Bible. There's nothing that trumps that. It doesn't matter what your natural thoughts are about a situation. It doesn't matter what your feelings are about a situation. It doesn't matter what mom and dad and grandma and grandpa used to say about a particular situation, the highest authority is the Word of God. And every single human that's born will be judged according to the Word of God. No more, no less. Now, we could go on and talk about salvation and how that judgment works, but that's not the scope of where we're going this morning. So, the need for biblical counseling and discipleship began whenever God created man. Now, when Genesis 3 comes along, we see, again, another problem. In Genesis 3, after Adam and Eve had received all of this good counsel from God that allowed them to live in what we call paradise, as far as the Garden of Eden is concerned, and to enjoy all the good things that God had created and to enjoy an uninterrupted fellowship with God as they lived in the garden, Satan came along and he sought to overthrow God's counsel. He's still seeking to do that, by the way. There's an old phrase that some folks use. It's used very carelessly, but maybe you've heard it. All truth is God's truth. Maybe you've heard that before. It is true. God's the father of truth. All truth is God's truth. Usually that's meant to. Try to. Overthrow the authority of Scripture, but but the the the reciprocal of that is true as well. All lies are Satan's lies. You've never believed the lie that came from God. You've never believed the lie that came from anywhere except for the father of lies. And this is exactly how Satan made his way in in Genesis 3, and this is just exactly how Satan makes his way in as it relates to my life and to your life. And so, in Genesis 3-1, we see his tactic. Number one, Satan begins by creating doubt about God's Word. Has God really said...? Can you believe that Adam and Eve only had one thing they weren't supposed to be doing and Satan still fooled them? I mean, if we said you could do anything, but there's only one rule you have to follow. You would think, well, that's pretty clear. How are you going to be deceived? But but he did it, at least with Eve. He created doubt about God's word. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said that you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" Then he flat out denied God's Word. Genesis 3 verse 4, And the serpent said unto the woman, Shall not surely die? He began by sowing a little seed of doubt. Then he just flat out denied what God had said was going to happen when they took of what was forbidden. Then he begins to denounce God's character. Verse 5, For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as God's knowing good and evil. And then we know the rest. Eve was deceived. Adam was not deceived, but he ate of the fruit knowingly. But whether there's a deception or not, what ended up happening was Adam and Eve ignored God's counsel and listened to Satan's. Adam and Eve followed ungodly counsel. Their sin was far more than just eating fruit. It consisted of at least three things. Number one, their sin in Genesis chapter 3 consisted of them blatantly disobeying the revealed will of God. God had spoken a clear word, we just said that. Only one of what they should not be doing. And they disobeyed. Secondly, their sin consisted of believing the lies of Satan. Believing the lies of Satan. And then third, their sin consisted of placing their desires above God's commands. Every sin that you commit consists of at least those three things. Disobeying God's will, believing a lie from Satan, and placing your desire above God's will. Brothers and sisters, because of those three realities that are still in the world today, there is a need for biblical counseling and discipleship. As long as those three realities are present, then believers everywhere are going to need to know God's directive word and God's corrective word as it relates to our life. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a church where God honoring marriages that consisted of God-honoring husbands and God-honoring wives and God-honoring children was the norm? Well, of course it would. Do you know what it takes for that to happen? Biblical counseling and discipleship. Now, you may not have always called it that, but that's exactly what it was. It takes husbands who are serious about being directed and corrected by the Word of God It takes wives who are serious about being directed and corrected by the Word of God. It takes parents who are willing and serious to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to be directed and corrected by God. And it takes children who are willing to be directed and corrected by God. This is what we're talking about when we're talking about the need for biblical counseling and discipleship. So four reasons. We'll try to get through all four this morning. We may not. Number one. Four reasons as far as the need. Number one. All Christians are called to counsel and disciple. All Christians. are called to counsel and disciple. That may not hit you the right way. You may have some things to push back on that, and when we get finished, hopefully you'll understand. You remember our definition of counseling that we gave? It means to give advice, to give instruction. It means directing the judgment or the conduct of another person. Brothers and sisters, the question is not, are you giving counsel? The question is, what kind of counsel are you giving? You give counsel every day, whether you think of yourself as doing it or not. Everybody in this room has a position to where you're giving someone advice. You're giving someone instruction. Someone's going to come up and ask you a question about something. The question is not, are you responding? The question is, how are you responding? What is it that you say whenever you're seeking to guide or answer another individual? As a husband and a father, you can't fill those roles without giving counsel. If you're going to lead your family and they're going to actually follow you, that means you're communicating. That means you're giving direction. That means that you are advising and so forth and so on, instructing. as a wife and a mother. You're given counsel all the time. I just said this, but I'll reiterate it. The job of a parent is to raise our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. In other words, we are to counsel our children and help them learn to think and live in accordance with God's Word. What does that mean? That means if you're a parent, you're already a counselor. The question is, are you a good one or a bad one? The question is, are you giving counsel that's based on God's Word, or are you giving counsel that's based on worldly wisdom? But the question is not, am I or am I not engaged in this? We all are. As a church member, you're a counselor. Somebody at some point is going to ask you a question. What do you think about this? What do you think about that? And the question is, where are you getting the information that you're relaying as an answer? There has been a lot of, for lack of a better term, Christianese that falls and flies under the radar as biblical that has absolutely zero biblical basis. You know how that happens? People abandon the authority of the Word and they adopt the authority of preference. It's confusion. It's not intentional. But brothers and sisters, we're either speaking truth or speaking lies. You're going to give counsel as a friend at some point. If you're the kind of friend that you ought to be and you have the kinds of friends that you ought to have, you're going to have some conversations. And you're probably not going to have the kind of conversation where your friend comes up to you and says, hey, do you have 45 minutes to an hour where you can sit and listen to my problems and give me answers? That's not the way that works. Your friend's going to come up to you, and in the midst of a normal conversation, they're going to start to articulate some problems that they've been having, maybe some questions, maybe some struggles that they've been having. And then the question is, what are you going to have to say? Here's a question. Does God actually care What kind of counsel do you give? I mean, we're making a whole lot of fuss about nothing. Outside of pulpit speech, does God care if our words are directed by Scripture? Well, again, you already know the answer. Let's go to Job 42. Job 42. The Lord had just got finished addressing Job, and now He's going to turn His attention to Job's friends. I say friends, that's a loose term. Miserable comforters, you've heard them referred to as. Job 42.7. says, "'And it was so that after the Lord had spoken these words unto Job, and the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee and against thy two friends, for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath. Therefore, take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering, and My servant Job shall pray for you, for him will I accept, lest I deal with you after your folly, in that you have not spoken of Me the thing which is right, like My servant Job." Now, if you remember the book of Job, the book starts out, we're using generalities here, Job has a whole lot of problems and a whole lot of heartaches. And Job's three friends come along, And they begin to try to help him make sense out of why he's having these problems and why he's having these heartaches. And they even try to use biblical categories to do it, but they get it wrong. What you notice when you get to Job 42 verse 7, that God's response to that is that his wrath was kindled. Does God care what kind of counsel you give? I mean, again, if you go back and you read the book of Job, it's not like Job's miserable comforters were saying, Job, you've suffered enough. Go hit the bottle. Go forget your woes. Go find some women. Go find some drugs. Go find some whatever. Just make yourself happy. That's not what Job's friends were doing. They weren't giving that kind of advice. But they were not speaking the truth. as they were trying to help Job make sense out of what he was going through. And it was their arrogance to speak things that they didn't really even understand that God is correcting here. They did not speak what was right about God. Jeremiah 8. I'm just going to quote this one. Jeremiah 8. You'll recall it. Verses 9-12. God condemns the prophet who say, peace, peace, when there is no peace. That's counsel. The prophet was coming along and was saying to the city that God was getting ready to judge. Don't worry about it. The Lord is with us. There's peace here. There's peace here. And God speaks of condemnation. Why? Because He cares what kind of counsel you give. He cares that if you open your mouth and you begin to try to advise and instruct another individual if what you're saying is completely contrary to what he has said. I mean, the reality is we're called to give counsel multiple times a day in multiple different settings. And again, the question is, what is the basis? What is the basis? Well, I point us back to Matthew 4. where Jesus says, man shall not live by bread alone, but off of every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. What does that mean? That means, brothers and sisters, we are to be living. That is, we are to be interpreting, understanding and acting. That is our behaviors. All these things are to be informed and directed. by the Word of God. So, what kind of employee are you going to be? You know, I'll just kind of look around and find the average of what everybody's doing. I don't want to be too far below, but I don't want to be too high. I don't want to be a suck up. I'm just going to fly under the radar, keep my nose clean. No, you need to be the kind of employee that is working as if you are working under the Lord. You need to be the kind of employee that honors God. What kind of husband are you going to be? What kind of wife are you going to be? What kind of citizen in society are you going to be? What kind of church member are you going to be? What kind of student are you going to be? What kind of child are you going to be? We could just keep going, couldn't we? Well, the shorthand answer to that is, man shall not live by bread alone, but off of every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Do you know you have to actually know what God says before you can live off of it? You can't advise somebody with something that you don't know. You can't give away what you don't have. Ephesians 4 sees this as just a normative part of a church body and the way that a church body ought to be interacting with one another. Ephesians 4 starting in verse 13. Ephesians 4. In verse 13, Paul is viewing the ultimate goal of the church, and that is until we all, this is why Christ gave gifts to the church, until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man or mature man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Now, we looked at this on Wednesday a little bit, but Paul views the ultimate goal of the Christian life to be the church as a whole. Notice Paul doesn't say, until you grow up. That's not what he says. Until we all grow up. in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of Christ. This is just simply another way of saying, until we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Until you look like Christ, until I look like Christ, and until they look like Christ, as it relates to our body here, as Christians as a whole, really. But the interaction is going on within the body. So I mean, that's a that's a worthy goal, isn't it? I don't think there really would be anybody in here that says, you know, whenever I think about. The ideal church. Christlikeness is not even part of it. I don't know anybody that would say that. I think we would all say the more Christlike we can grow, the more honoring to God we're going to be. And the more edified we're going to be. by the interaction that we have with one another. So then the question is, how does this happen? What would it look like for this to happen? Verse 14 gives us a contrast. "...that we henceforth..." If we're going to be more Christ-like, then we've got to be the opposite of verse 14. "...that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive." Okay, so in order for you and I to grow up in Christ-likeness, we must stop being immature children, that is in our understanding, who are deceived and carried about and tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. Just another way of saying that is in order for you and I to grow in Christ-likeness, we must stop believing lies and start embracing truth. And the thing about the world is that the world knows how to package a lie. Sounds good. Even sounds biblical sometimes. But this is the past. Someone says, well, you know, I think in order for a church to grow, we just got to be there for each other. Well, that sounds good. But what does that even mean? What does it mean for me to be there for you? Does that mean I get to pat you on the back whenever you're in habitual sin and say, I love you anyway. That's not a Christ honoring church. It also doesn't mean that I just throw you out and I'm not trying to help you and I'm not trying to work with you and so forth and so on. What does it mean to be there? Well. Paul answers that question too. In verse 15. Instead of being tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, verse 15, but speaking the truth in love we may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." What is the method that God intends to bring about this kind of change where men and women who are made alive by the Spirit, who are converted and who come to Christ and seek to grow in Christ are less and less being tossed about and more and more growing in Christlike maturity? Well, Paul's answer for that is this, that we might be speaking the truth in love to one another. That's just another way of saying that we might be actors in biblical counseling and discipleship. We need to know how we need to think about something, how we need to respond to something, what we ought to be motivated by in a particular thing. We're to be giving godly counsel to one another that is informed by and derived from God's Word. Now, I think that's important, again, for us to emphasize. Godly counsel has a chapter and verse. Godly counsel has a chapter and verse. I don't care what brother so-and-so used to say. if there's not a chapter and verse to back it up. Godly counsel is not passing on our favorite one-liners, at least our favorite one-liners that sound good but have no biblical basis. Godly counsel, again, is derived from and informed by the Word of God. Now, another reason why biblical counseling and discipleship is needed. We already hinted at this earlier. The reason why biblical counseling discipleship is needed is because human problems, the problems that you and I face are the result of the curse of sin. That's not the same thing as saying every personal problem is always the result of a personal sin. We know that's not true. So sometimes people can take this and go in an unbiblical direction with it and say, you know, well, we think about the disciples whenever they ask about the man born blind. Why was he born blind? Was it because of a sin that he committed or a sin that his parents committed? And Jesus' answer was neither. It had nothing to do with that man's sin or his parents' sin. That being said, the man was born blind as a result of living in a fallen world that was under the curse of sin. What we mean when we say human problems are the result of the curse of sin is that once the six days of creation were completed and before sin entered into the world, there were no problems. Can you imagine that? No problems. Now, some people stay worked up all the time because they have problems. You know, in this world, that just comes with the package. You're not going to get away from problems. You're going to solve one, and there's going to be another one waiting on you. Because we live in a world that has not yet been fully redeemed. If you go back to Genesis 3, what you'll find is that the result of the fall was a world of sin and suffering, and God was up front about that. He was up front about that. When we think from Genesis 3, 7-19, The impacts of the curse. Number one was the knowledge of good and evil. That doesn't just mean that Adam and Eve knew something about it. It means they had a personal experience with it. They knew the consequences of it. This had become a new reality for them and it wasn't a good one. Guilt. Broken fellowship with God. One of the results of the curse was pain in childbirth. It distorted marital relationships. That's nothing new. It all started in Genesis 3. The blame game. Exhausting labor in order to make a living. You've got problems at work. Take it back to Genesis 3. Physical death and spiritual death. All of these things came about and more as a result of the curse of sin. Brothers and sisters, as long as you and I live in a world that is still under sin's curse, there is going to be a need for biblical counseling and discipleship. There's going to be a need for someone to help clarify why things are happening the way they're happening. There's going to be a need for someone to help clarify how you ought to respond to the problems that are happening. And there's going to be a need for someone to clarify how to keep yourself from living a life that is repeating the same problems over and over and over due to the curse of sin. And when I say someone, I really just mean there's going to be a need for someone to open the Word of God and give instruction on those three aspects, maybe more. As long as there's sin, there's going to be a need. Number three, the fact that the Bible is sufficient to provide answers to life's problems exposes the need for biblical counseling and discipleship. You know this already. We live in a world that scoffs at the Bible. If you want a good eye roll in the public square, quote Scripture. You become a bigot. You become archaic. You become irrelevant. You become whatever else folks want to come up with. But here's the reality. Take Scripture for really historically and biblically. Biblically, what Scripture has said about itself. The Bible claims. To be sufficient. That is. You will find what you need in Scripture. For life. And for godliness. This is what the Christian life is really all about. So when we say sufficient, we mean what Jesus really said. You can live off of this. You want to know how you ought to think? It's here. You want to know how you ought to live? It's here. We've said this before. You know, it's not exhaustive in the sense of you can't go to the Bible and find instructions on how you ought to change your oil. But in a real sense, you can go to the Bible and find instructions on how you ought to change your oil. You know what I mean by that? How do you control your temper or not when you're in the middle of a project that's not going the way you wanted it to go? How do you respond to, how do you frame the circumstances of life that just seem normal, but they end up turning into pressures that expose what's really in your heart? The Bible can take a very, very simple thing like you trying to change your oil and having a difficult time with that and reveal a bundle of idols in your heart. And it's the only thing that can do that. 2 Timothy 3, verse 16 tells us that the Bible is useful or it is sufficient for reproof. Conviction. Bringing someone to the place where they're willing to admit they're wrong. Bringing you to the place where you're willing to admit you're wrong. Sometimes we can think about this whole business of counsel and we think about us telling other people. Well, that's a byproduct. God primarily gave you the Bible so that the Bible could do these things in your life. What business do you have correcting people whenever you have not submitted yourself to the correction of God? So it's good for reproof, bringing you to a place where you're willing to admit you're wrong. It's good for correction. It's good for, I skipped the first one, doctrine. That's just teaching. You can think about the doctrines of grace and that would be fine, but it's also good for the practical doctrine of just everyday life. It could be anything. Teaching about anything. And then it's good for instruction or disciplined training in righteousness. And then lastly, There's a need for biblical counseling and discipleship because we are called to guard against worldly myths that attempt to explain human problems and solutions. This is something that every Christian is called to. Look in Colossians chapter 2. Again, there's a need for biblical counseling and discipleship because we are called to guard against worldly myths that attempt to explain human problems and give worldly solutions to these problems. Colossians 2, verse 8. Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of man, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. Here, this whole letter to the Colossians is really Paul fighting against Gnosticism, which is just a worldly philosophy. It was error that had crept in. And Paul is charging the Colossians here to be sure that they weren't carried off by vain deceit, by worldly philosophy, by the traditions of men. And he backs that up with this reality that they ought to be carried off by the wisdom of Christ, and that in Him they are complete. Everything you need as it relates to wisdom, you've been given by having the mind of Christ, that is through the Spirit, and by having the Word of Christ here. We also think about contrasting passage like Romans 12, verse 2, where we're commanded to be renewed in our minds, to have our minds renewed through the Word of God. Rather than being conformed to this world, we're to be transformed by the Word of God. And so we should ask ourselves as it relates to the kind of advice we're giving. If someone's coming to you, and you're advising, which again happens in a thousand little moments every day, is the advice that you're giving someone helping them become more conformed to the world? Or is it pressing them to become more transformed to the renewing of their mind? As Christians, we ought to be interested in the latter. Now, we're going to end a little bit early today, the need for biblical counseling and discipleship. As we continue the series, we'll move into more practical applications of that. But I'm going to pray, and then we need to have a members meeting whenever I'm done. And so after I'm done praying, if you aren't a member, then I would just invite you to go ahead and go back to the fellowship hall, go to the lunchroom, and I'm sure there's some some of the dessert table that might get your attention or something. And we're going to have a brief meeting, and then we'll be in there shortly. So let me pray. We do thank you for your word once again. We thank you that you have spoken clearly and you have given us a clear word as to how we ought to relate to the word that you've given us. So I pray that we would all consider the counsel that we give on a regular basis, that we would strive to give godly counsel, godly advice, and that we would be intentional about discipling and about speaking truth and love to one another. I pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen.