First Things | Fall 2026: Week One

Show Notes

September 17, 2026 | Ben Mandrell opens the fall session of First Things with Galatians 4:19 as the men begin Disciplines of a Godly Man. He explores the affection, agony, and aim of spiritual leadership, encouraging men to pursue Christlikeness without falling into pride or despair.

What is First Things?

Men's morning bible study led by Pastor Ben Mandrell

All right, gentlemen, if you'll go ahead and grab your seats, I think it's time for us to get started. Lord Jesus, we thank you for this breakfast, we thank you for this fellowship, we thank you for this church. Thank you that we live in a free country where we can assemble in worship, study our Bible, proclaim the name of Jesus without fear of being jailed or persecuted. Thank you, Lord, that we have the body of Christ, which is designed to be a family. So when our own families are dysfunctional, or we feel abandoned or orphaned or ostracized in our own biological families, there is this beautiful body of Christ, the family of God, always ready to receive us. Lord, thank you that you're the father to the fatherless. Thank you, Lord, that you never leave us or forsake us. And thank you, Lord, that you've given us the gift of your Holy Spirit, the counselor, to guide us into all truth. And I pray this morning that your Holy Spirit would be present in this room. Lord, I do not know the stories of all the men at these tables. You know where they're at with you, and you know where they're at in life. So I pray that you would do what only you can do, God. You would take a single passage of Scripture, and you would somehow personalize it and apply it to every man who had the courage to show up this morning. Lord, let the word of God run rampant in our hearts today. Convict us, change us, challenge us, grow us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. As we begin this morning, I want you to imagine there's a man in this room named Dale. Dale has wrestled with self-discipline his entire life. He's read all the books, he's listened to the motivational speakers, he's downloaded the apps, he even joined an accountability group once, but nothing has ever seemed to stick. And if Dale were completely honest, underneath all that frustration is a quiet sense of shame. He looks around at other men who are more disciplined, men who get up early, work out, read their Bibles, manage their money, stay organized, follow through on what they say they're going to do, and he wonders, what is wrong with me? That's the language of shame. What is wrong with me? Part of Dale wonders, even if it was just part of his family DNA, both of his parents are notoriously undisciplined. He and his brothers joke about it now, mom never took care of herself, dad was remarkably consistent at exactly one thing, watching baseball on the couch. So somewhere along the way, Dale has even begun to secretly wonder, maybe it's just who I am, maybe I've inherited this, maybe disciplined men are born with something I simply wasn't given. And yet there's another voice inside Dale's head, a voice that says this, you can be a better man, you can keep growing spiritually, you can give your sons a life worth imitating, you can become a man who increasingly keeps his word, who increasingly controls his appetites, who increasingly finishes what he started, you can become more and more the kind of man that God can use. And so Dale has a decision which voice he's gonna listen to. And when Dale finds out that his church is doing a study called Disciplines of a Godly Man, he signs up, but what he doesn't know is he walks into a room full of dudes, is that there are two ditches he could fall in if he's not careful. One side of the road in a study like this is the monster called pride. Pride naturally happens when you get really good at something and you start looking down on others who aren't. Jesus told a story about a Pharisee once who had gotten really good at religion and he prayed the worst possible prayer. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. We're never further from God than when we pray a prayer like that or think a thought like that. This attitude can certainly creep into a study like Disciplines of a Godly Man very easily. We can come to a chapter on a particular discipline that's something we're naturally good at and that strength becomes a perch by which we look down on others who struggle with that. That's pride. So as we start a study on spiritual disciplines, just be aware there are gonna be some moments where you're gonna be tempted to think, you know, I'm really something. I've really figured that out. So pride is gonna be right there. But the other ditch, if pride is one ditch, the other side is despair. I spoke with one brother who already picked this book up, he's read most of it, and he said, well, so far I've learned that I'm a terrible friend and a lousy husband. And that can happen when you read a book on spiritual disciplines. The snare of compare leads to despair. The snare of compare leads to despair. So a study on spiritual disciplines can be a place where the devil, the accuser, starts flinging arrows at you. I think you should be prepared for that. See, there's something wrong with you. You've never prayed like that man next to you prays. You've never cultivated friendship like this man across the table testifies. This is the voice of condemnation, and the book of Romans says there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. Okay, so get this through your thick skull, man. Are you ready for this? This is something I still have to remind myself every day. Jesus Christ loves you unconditionally no matter if you get a C minus on half of this book or not. That's hard for us to really grasp. That God loves you whether you apply this book well or whether you apply it poorly. His love for you is not based on your performance. It is by grace you have been saved and not by works lest any of us should boast. And so be very careful when you start to visit with another man who's better at one of these disciplines than you, and it starts to lead you to a place of despair. Now, I want you to know that I've had a chance to meet Kent Hughes. He seemed like a great man. I got to be with him once in a room, but I would tell you if his wife and children were here, I'm sure they would testify that he's not as good as the book makes him sound. In fact, as somebody who preaches the Bible every Sunday, I prefer the service where Lindley is not in the front row because she knows as much as I'm calling people to a certain standard, she knows the struggle that I personally have to live out the very thing that I teach. People make this mistake all the time. They assume that I'm as good at living the Bible as I am teaching the Bible, and that's simply not true. Most people who teach the Bible are very humbled by it. In fact, James 3,2 says, we all stumble in many ways. That's an easy memory verse for you. James 3,2, we all stumble in many ways. So shatter the illusion that one of the people at your table has become a struggle-free man, that he's somehow arrived, that he has reached perfection. No, the truth is you have strengths that that guy doesn't have. He has strengths that you don't have, and when we encourage each other, we make each other better. That's the beauty of a study like this. So there are indeed two ditches to stay out of in this study. One is pride, and one is despair. If you avoid them, though, there is a great opportunity in a study like this, because sometimes in life, men, I've noticed this particularly with us men, we get a bad case of the blahs. Our spiritual life just becomes blah. We get stuck, we get bored with Christianity, we get complacent, we stop stretching ourselves, we grow stagnant, and that's why Paul says to Timothy, which Kent Hughes develops right here in chapter one, train yourself for godliness, 1 Timothy 4, 7. Train yourself for godliness, and as he points out so well, the word train, it means the smell of the gymnasium. And Hughes begins his book with that, get back into God's gym if you've started to feel weak as a Christian, and that's where we're headed for the next eight weeks. We're gonna get back into the spiritual gym, we're gonna keep pushing ourselves toward Christlikeness, and none of us has arrived. Just raise your hand if you've not arrived, okay? Just look around, men. Not very many men didn't raise their hand, and those guys are liars, okay? So let's begin with some honesty, just a quick discussion activity. I want you to turn to a man next to you, and I want you to confess one area that you're very disciplined in your life, and one area that you're really not, okay? Turn to one man and tell him one thing you're disciplined in and one thing that you're not, go. All right, we're going to go. All right. Thank you.

All right, take about one more minute. All right, all right, wrap that up. Shh. That always works every time. I just want you to know this brother here just confessed that his name is Dale. I love that. God knew you needed to be here, Dale. I told him I could have said Dave, but there'd be like 12 people in here with the name Dave. So anyway, Dale, I'm glad you're here. I hope you feel very convicted this morning. Hey, if you brought a Bible open to Galatians chapter four, as you're turning there, just a quick word about this book by Kent Hughes. As I said, there are 19 chapters in this book. We only have eight weeks together. I'm going to be picking eight topics out of this book and not preaching what's in the book, but a passage that would be related to that chapter. So you're not getting the same thing in the book mulled over by me, but hopefully I'm stimulating. This is meant to be a resource to you. If you're already reading a spiritual book and you don't need another one, you don't have to read it. It is available to you after we're finished. You can buy one in the bookstore, but Disciplines of a Godly Man is just meant to be a resource to you. I love to share good resources with men. All right, let's get into the word. In Galatians four, the apostle Paul is a very frustrated man. He is disappointed with some of those that he has won to Christ. On one of his missionary journeys, Paul had planted these churches in Galatia. He had preached the gospel to these people, but not long after he left, false teachers had moved in, attacked Paul's reputation, questioned his authority, and destroyed his credibility. Obviously this hurt. I'm sure some of you know what character assassination feels like. For someone to come behind you, throw you under the bus, and you weren't there to defend yourself, that is a blood boiling scenario. Paul was mad when he wrote Galatians, and if you can read it for yourself, you'll pick up the stern tone immediately, but he was also heartbroken because these new believers were going backward in their faith, not forward, and they were moving in the wrong way, in the wrong direction in their spiritual growth. They were buying into the idea that faith in Christ wasn't enough, that they needed to go back to the requirements of Judaism. These false teachers were telling them to return to the rigid requirements of the law, saying that if you want God to accept you, then you should be circumcised. To that, Paul says in chapter five and verse 12, I wish those men would go ahead and emasculate themselves. I'll let you Google what that means. It's intentionally jarring language. Paul says if these teachers think that cutting the body makes a person more acceptable to Christ, why stop with circumcision? They might as well go the whole way. He's frustrated. Paul is using attention-getting devices. He's using strong language to expose the absurdity of believing that cutting the flesh could accomplish what Christ has already accomplished on the cross. So Paul could not bear the thought of his friends going back to the slavery of work-based righteousness or legalism. That's the occasion of his writing. Now imagine that you have a son, you have taught him to love Jesus, you have watched him give his life to Christ, you have seen him baptized and discipled in your church. Then in his 20s, he goes off to a new city, meets a very charismatic, smooth-talking, misguided man who convinces him to join a cult. And that convinces him that Jesus and all of this teaching of the Bible is nothing more than a lie. How would you feel toward the man who led your son astray? You would be heartbroken over your son and you'd be furious with that man. That's the emotional temperature of Galatians. It's why Paul cries out earlier in the letter in chapter 3 and verse 1, you foolish Galatians, who has cast a spell on you? Who has bewitched you, he says? Who have you let put a wool, pull the wool right over your eyes? He's frustrated and at the same time, he's heartbroken because under that anger is a pastor's heart who loves people and wants to see them grow in Christ Jesus. He loves them like his own children. And that's why Galatians 4, 19 is such a powerful verse. And I'm going to unpack the three parts of this very short but very full verse. This is what Paul writes, my children, I am again suffering labor pains for you until Christ is formed in you. Let's read that verse together. My children, I am again suffering labor pains for you until Christ is formed in you. Here we see the heart of a pastor, the heart of a spiritual leader. And since we all want to be spiritual leaders and we all struggle to be spiritual leaders, let's see what we can learn from Paul because I think there are three aspects that he mentions about what it means and what it takes to be a spiritual leader. First of all, there is the affection. Second of all, the agony. And number three, the aim. The affection of a spiritual leader, the agony of a spiritual leader, and the aim of a spiritual leader. Let me see if I can unpack each of those for you this morning. So first of all, the affection. Despite his disappointment with these baby Christians, Paul still refers to them as his spiritual children. He says, my children. Those are the first two words of this verse. You cannot shepherd people well if you do not love them deeply. A big part of the Apostle Paul's ministry was simply spending quality time with people. First Thessalonians 2.8, he says this, one of my favorite verses. We cared so much for you that we were pleased to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very lives as well. In other words, Paul didn't just preach at people. He didn't just throw Bible verses at people. He didn't lock himself away all day studying scripture, preparing sermons, and delivering messages only. He shared his life with people. He listened to them. He learned their stories, the names of their children and grandchildren, their pets. He took an active interest in the lives of the human beings that God brought into proximity. He spent quality time with people. As the old saying goes, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. It takes time to build trust with people, to build rapport with people. So much of the glue that holds relationships together is in the informal moments of life of just simply being together. On Sunday, our top ministry leaders and their spouses went away for two days on a staff retreat. We hopped on a charter bus right after church on Sunday, and we went to Montgomery Bell State Park near Nashville. For two days, we had some time of teaching and worship, but it was largely just unstructured hang time, spend time together. As I climbed on the bus Tuesday afternoon, I could feel in a very palpable way a familial and brotherly and sisterly connection that was not there when we got on that bus the first day. There's something that happens when people spend

quality time together. It's one of the reasons why I believe so much in camp ministry. I'm a big fan of camp ministry. Every summer our student ministry spends gobs of energy taking kids to camp. We have a fourth and fifth grade camp, we have middle school camp, we have student camp, high school camp. What happens to kids when they go away to camp? They are forced to hang out together in constant interaction and encouraged to put their phones away. And those shared experiences are a glue that holds them together. I have a dream that we'd have a men's retreat one day because I think when men get together in rocking chairs and start talking about their fathers, start talking about their real lives away from the church, the more time they spend together, the more the family connection starts to feel, the more impact we have on one another. I do lament the good old days in some ways in which people were at church so much more than they are today. There were so many more connections for people. But we are in a culture that people, it's hard to get people together these days, harder than ever. I don't know if that's the impact of streaming and people like to sit home and stream Netflix. I don't know what it is, but people more than any time in history, I think, are more resistant to getting into community. We have to really encourage people to move from being a spectator in the sanctuary to being a part of any kind of small group. And this is why so many people struggle to grow spiritually because life-on-life ministry is what stimulates spiritual growth. Proximity produces familiarity and familiarity creates influence. Let me say that again. Proximity produces familiarity and familiarity creates influence. So if you wanna have a spiritual influence on the lives of other people, you have to build strong, almost familial relationships with them. And that's why the Bible repeatedly describes the church as a family. It's the household of faith. That guy sitting next to you, he is a brother you don't know yet. He's a brother in Christ. And Christianity was never intended to be lived among strangers. Spiritual formation happens best in the context of a spiritual family. And yet, as a famous author once wrote, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. That most men in particularly are lonely individuals because they isolate, they withdraw, and they choose to hold other men at arm's length. So my challenge to you first and foremost this morning in this eight-week experience is that for some of you, this is a good word. You need to open your life more to other men. You need to take the risk of vulnerability and let some other people know who you really are, what your real struggles are, the highs and the lows, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's a risk most men don't make, and they don't take. But if you're gonna have an impact on people, you've gotta form really strong relationships. Paul speaks from that well of affection. He says, my children, it's the affection of a spiritual leader. Now, look at the agony. Paul pulls now one of the most painful human experiences as the illustration of the way he feels in this moment. He says, I am again suffering labor pains for you. Now, just raise your hand if you still remember the pain of your labor pains. Most women in this room, if I was preaching this passage, would roll their eyes and think, what does Paul know about it? I mean, what does he really know about the excruciating pain of bringing a child into the world? And Paul, though he has never experienced it, knows that it's a moment in a woman's life when she wants it to be over as soon as possible. And Paul, when he heard that the people he loved were in danger of walking away from the faith, it felt like labor pains to him. It was excruciating. I can tell you, there are a few things that I feel more pain over than seeing someone I love leave the faith. Right out of college, I had an opportunity to witness to my friend Ed. We had been childhood friends. He suddenly woke up spiritually and was interested in the things of God. And so I bought him a New Believers Bible, which had all kinds of helps in it for somebody who was brand new to trying to read and understand scripture. And he worked a night shift at his job. And for a season, he would read that Bible all night long. I've never seen someone become so spiritually hungry almost overnight. I was deeply encouraged. I knew at any moment I'd have a chance to lead him to Christ, and I was just waiting for the opportunity. And then one day it all just stopped. He stopped asking questions. He stopped bringing it up. He was avoiding the subject. And finally, I just asked him, I said, hey, whatever happened to the Bible, your reading, your spiritual life? And he said, science. Just one word, science. He said, I read the Bible and I came to believe that faith is not compatible with science. And that was it, he wouldn't talk about it anymore. It absolutely crushed my heart. I still remember the moment when he told me that, just the overwhelming sense of pain that I felt. Because I loved Eddie, he was one of my best friends growing up, and I thought he was this close to receiving Christ, and something led him astray. This is the hard part about letting yourself love people and giving yourself to people spiritually, is that some people are gonna go to the well and they're gonna walk away and it's gonna break your heart. It's gonna happen. This is one of the greatest pains of raising children, is that there are no guarantees that all of your kids are gonna be in church, love the Lord, and raise little Christians. It's part of the agony of wanting people to know Christ, experience Christ, walk in the Holy Spirit, but you do not have the power to turn that switch on. Only God can do that. And this is part of it. C.S. Lewis, I think, gives us the greatest quote on vulnerability and love. I love this. He says, to love it all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you wanna make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries. Avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken. It will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. And what does it mean to be vulnerable? To be vulnerable means you're willing to get hurt for the sake of people. The reason that Paul felt such agonizing pain at the thought of these people leaving their faith behind is that he really loved them. He had opened his heart to them. He had shared life with them. And this is the agony of spiritual leadership. In war, there will be casualties. And when we enter into the spiritual arena of people's lives to see them rescued from hell on their way to heaven, there will be heartbreaking losses. Just the other day on social media, I saw a Christian friend pop up on my feed who was a co-counselor with me at a camp 25 years ago. I mean, we were really close. We'd lost touch. So when I saw his face pop up, I was like, man, I wonder what he's doing now. And so I clicked on it and listened to what he was saying, and it absolutely shattered my heart because everything coming out of his mouth made it very clear that he had walked away from Christ, that he no longer believed the very things we taught those kids all summer at camp. That somehow he had gotten under the spell and had walked away from Christ and gone apostate. And I'm telling you, I spent the rest of that day just with a heaviness and a heartbroken. I've prayed for him since that day many, many times that the Lord would bring him back. This is the agony of serving as a member of God's army. You will see in your lifetime shocking victories, people you thought would never in a million years respond to the gospel, and sadly, you will see the opposite as well. Some that you were sure of, that you were most certain of, will go rogue and it will break your heart. So when Paul heard about the spiritual drift happening there in Galatia, he said, I am again suffering the labor pains, the agony of spiritual leadership. And some of you in this room know exactly what I'm talking about because there's someone you deeply love. It may be your wife, your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, a child, that you would give anything to see them turn their life over to Jesus Christ. It's agonizing in the most beautiful way because you care. That pain is a reminder that God has given you a relationship that really matters to you. That's a good thing, embrace it, the agony of spiritual leadership. And then finally, the aim, which I think is the real focus of the verse, the aim of spiritual leadership. What is the goal? Paul says, I agonize, I am in the pain of childbearing until, and this is a really important shift in the verse, until I see Jesus Christ formed in you. This is the idea of spiritual formation, or we might call it discipleship. The call that God places on each of us to train ourselves to be a little more like Jesus than we were the day before, to train ourselves to be godly, to get into God's gym, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. The goal for all of us in this room should be the same, that one day we.

We stand before Jesus and we give him our full heart knowing we gave it everything we had on the time we had. I wanna pull a page from a commentary and read just a couple of paragraphs because I think Timothy George, a scholar, summarizes Paul's words so well. Let me read two paragraphs to you. I'll put it on the screen. He says, we cannot stress too much that Paul was not interested in developing a personality cult, a band of Pauline groupies whose primary loyalty would be to him rather than to the gospel. No, his overriding interest was that Christ be formed in his dear little children. For this reason alone, he was in distress on their behalf. In Galatia, the false teachers were preaching a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. They were guilty not only of sheep stealing, but of soul butchering. This is why Paul could not simply shrug his shoulders, shake the dust off his feet, and move on to some other venue where he would likely be more appreciated. Something eternal was at stake, and Paul had to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered. I love the way Timothy George writes that because we not only should be fighting for the spiritual growth in the lives of others, we should be fighting for our own spiritual growth, that we would contend for the faith in our very own heart every single day. And the aim of ministry must always be that the people that you disciple or pour into would look more like Jesus Christ than they look like you. We're not trying to conform them into the image of Adrian Rogers, or into the image of Chuck Swindoll, or David Jeremiah, or John Piper, or whoever your favorite preacher or teacher is. We are not trying to create the impression that people will live the fullest life when they are imitating a human being. The aim of ministry is to help people find Jesus Christ, and get out of the way of what God's gonna do in their life, to create a dependent relationship between this person and Jesus, who will never leave them and never forsake them. I confessed recently that one of my personal struggles, and people are always surprised to hear this, and I don't know why, but I constantly wrestle with a feeling of insecurity. I battle it all the time, every Sunday morning on the way to church. I think this is likely the worst sermon I've ever written in my life. As I walk into a speaking engagement the other night, I was speaking at a banquet. As I was walking in, I thought, surely not a single person's life will be changed because of this measly thing. I never feel like I'm enough for people in words. I never feel like I'm enough for people at home. I just never feel like I'm enough for people. And then I recently realized, the reason I feel that way is because I'm not. I can never be for someone what Jesus Christ can be for them. I can never convince them through a well-prepared message that Christ is King and should be Lord of their life. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. I can never convince even one of my own children to love the Bible and read the Bible unless the Holy Spirit says it to them, my words are dead in the water. So it's not anything that I do, but it's Christ living through me. And so insecurity, whenever we feel it, is an invitation for dependence. To say one more time, to cry out to God, saying, God, what I have is not enough. It's not enough for my wife. It's not enough for my children. It's not enough for my friends. It's not enough for my church. You're gonna have to come and fill the gap. I have to believe that your grace is gonna be sufficient for me today. And when you introduce people to Jesus and they begin to live that way, a tremendous freedom is found. They now no longer feel like they have to go back to the law, like they have to be great at everything in this book in order to be loved by God. They now realize that apart from Jesus Christ, we can do nothing. So the Apostle Paul said, I am in the agony of childbearing until you come to this place where Christ is being formed in you, where you and Jesus Christ are solid, growing, and together. That is the heart of a spiritual leader. That's my heart as a pastor. I'm sure that's your heart as a church member. That your life, when it's over, you will have had the opportunity to bring some people to Jesus Christ and see them growing in him. So do you wanna be a spiritual leader? If so, there's three things Paul mentions there. You have to build close relationships with people. You can't isolate. You have to be willing to get your heart broken. Don't self-protect. And you have to be growing in Jesus Christ and setting an example for them. So that's my heart, and that's Paul's heart, and I know that's what you want your heart to be. Now, as I normally do, you guys know I like to raise a question or two. I'll just raise one today. Here's a question from a father of adult children. I get this question a lot. What if I look back and realize I didn't do a very good job spiritually leading my kids? Is there anything I can do now, now that they're grown up? Let me say a couple things on this. First of all, let me say that I've never met an older man, never in my life, and I've talked to a lot of older men. I've never met one that gives himself an A on their report card at home. If you know somebody, that's wonderful. I've never met a man that says, you know, at work I was a B, at home, A plus. As Paul said about ministry, I think we all feel about the home. Who is adequate for this? Who is sufficient for these things? I asked a guy this week at staff retreat. We paired off one-on-one. I said, hey, tell me about your personal struggles. This man on our staff has two small kids, and he said, oh, by far, spiritual leadership at home. Listen to me, it's hard for all of us. Let's stop pretending that when we walk into our houses and our families experience us at the end of the day that they feel the instant flow of the Holy Spirit by their sheer proximity. And the devil, the accuser, does some of his best work in this area. He has plenty of angles for making men feel like failures over the things that we wish we had done differently as dads, so when a father has a 30-year-old son who hasn't been to church in five years, his mind often runs to these questions. Are you ready? What have I done to you, son? I must have worked too much when you were little. I didn't lead enough family devotions. For too many years, I kept us at that dying church. I should have moved us to a thriving one. I fought too much with your mother in the kitchen. I wasn't emotionally present in your teenage years. I should have listened to you more. On and on it goes, beating himself up for where the boy is spiritually. Now, some of those regrets may be legitimate, and there may need to be some repentance because we can't, we shouldn't excuse our failures. We all have failures, but I want you to hear this. Neither should we assume that our failures determined our children's future. Now, why do I say that? Your mistakes may have influenced your child, but they did not remove your child's responsibility before God. How do I know that? Because countless people have grown up with imperfect parents and still chosen the path of Jesus Christ. I grew up with wildly imperfect parents. I mean, I could tell you stories, and I chose the path of Jesus Christ. So though there may be some things you would do differently, make sure that you keep what is yours to own on your side of the fence, and keep what is theirs to own on their side of the fence. Otherwise, the devil gets in there and puts it all on you, and you can't bear that weight. However, it's never too late to model a life of repentance. Repentance always gives you credibility. The Bible says that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That means there's no shame in going back to an adult son or daughter and saying, you know, I've been thinking about some things I wish I had done differently when you were little. I wish I had been more present, or I wish I had listened better. I wish I had modeled Jesus more faithfully. I can't go back and change those years, but I want you to know that I'm sorry, that the Lord's doing a fresh work in my life, and I wanna be a different kind of dad in the years we have remaining together. Nothing but good comes out of that if your heart is sincere. You cannot go back and raise your children again, but you can decide the kind of father you're gonna be from this day forward. And Jesus says this, the Apostle Paul says this, press on towards the goal of heavenly in Christ Jesus. Look into the future, not dwelling on the past. And so it's never too late to ask for forgiveness. And as Lamentations 3.23 says, what a glorious verse it is, his mercies are new every single morning. So don't be condemned. There's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Pray for yourself, pray for your son, pray that your relationship would start to grow again, and that you would have the opportunity to bring them into a spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ. All right, here's the question for discussion before we close with a song today. I want you to turn and talk to somebody about this. Finish this sentence. If Christ were being more fully formed in me, the people closest to me would notice that I am becoming more blank. Answer that question to somebody at your table, go.

Pray with me guys, Lord, as I look at the contents of this book, it starts with relationships and I just pray right now for every man in this room, I pray first of all for the purity of his mind, his eyes, and his thoughts. Lord, I pray if there's any man in this room that's looking at pornography, that it would stop today, that he would break the cycle of that addiction. I pray that if there's any man in this room that's in watching things on television that take his mind to the gutter, that he would cut that cable cord today. Lord, I pray, Lord, if there's any man in this room that's flirting with a relationship that could threaten to ruin his marriage and his family, that he would cut that relationship off today. Wherever we are being tempted and we are always being tempted toward places of impurity, God, I pray that you would break that chain today, that there would be at least one man that walks out of this room and says, my life was heading in a disastrous direction until that day I showed up at that Bible study at Bellevue. Lord, make us pure in heart that we may see God. Lord, for those who have been given the gift of marriage, some perhaps in the season of fighting with their spouse, and I've been there, where not a single kind word can be spoken, Lord, we pray that you would break the spell, the conflict, the heated arguments, the defensiveness, change the atmosphere of a marriage today, Lord. I pray for any man who is hard-hearted toward his wife, Lord, that you would give him the ability to forgive her when she's too hard on him, when she reminds him of his failures, when she fails to have the right word that he needs for that day. Give him the opportunity to practice forgiveness one more time with his love. Lord, I pray for those of us who are fathers. Right now, if you're a dad, I want you to pray for the child you're worried about the most. Take a moment and just lift that child's name to God. Say to the Lord, oh God, I am in the agony of childbirth until my son is formed in you, until my daughter is formed in you. And Lord, we pray about friendship, how few of us have dear friends. Lord, I pray for any man in this room that's lonely, that feels isolated, that feels orphaned. Lord, I pray that this eight-week study would be the beginning of forming some deep and meaningful and lifelong friendships, that we would not buy into the lie that we are not lovable, that if people only knew, they wouldn't care, that if I love these men, they'll walk away from me like other men in the past. God, put all of those lies out of our head. Give us the faith to believe that there are good people in this room that are ready to love us. Give us friendship. And more than anything, grow our heart and friendship and desire to be with you, a growing desire as a deer pants for streams of water, so our hearts long for you, oh God. And we sing this song together, let's sing this last verse.