 All right, welcome back. Let's continue from where we stopped. So the last one, characteristics of a spiritual father and mother. Let's look at Judges chapter 5 verse 7 through 9. The inhabitants of the villages seized, they seized in Israel until that Idebora arose and I rose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods. Then was war in the gates. Was there a shield or spear seen among 40,000 in Israel? Verse 9. My heart is towards the governors of Israel that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless the Lord. Now, this portion talks about the characteristics of a true father and mother. Let's look at these characteristics. There are about seven characteristics here of a true spiritual father and mother. We may have talked about a few of it, but let's look at it. One who is involved in the life of their spiritual son and daughter. Another is involvement. It's not just a one-time event that happens. Two, one who is able to correct, rebuke, discipline and guide their spiritual son and daughter. So these are things that must be done as a father or a mother. Able to correct, rebuke, discipline and guide. And they are able to pass the surface and instruct the inner man, into the lives of their spirit when they are able to meet them. In such a way that there is a connection of the spiritual son bringing improvement or discipline and guiding in the external but also the external. Three, one who goes beyond a casual relationship to a more meaningful relationship. For being accountable for growth, conduct, ministry, etc. So there is this influence that they have over their sons and daughters. Initially, we talked about leadership. Leadership is more about, it's an influence where people are willingly coming and following you. That means you're a good leader. So in the spiritual daughter and the spiritual father and the spiritual mother, when people say, hey, can you help me? Can you help me to become better in what way? If they come and they want to be under your guidance, they want to be under your influence, that's wonderful. So it gives you openness to immediately bring correction, discipline, guide and encouragement into their lives. Fourth one, one who deals with your character more than gifting. Every important character more than gifting. Now, when you look at the inner person, that's character, who we really are. So it's not only about, for example, maybe the Apostle Paul had Timothy in mind, one day he'll be a pastor. So it's not like Paul went and said, okay, this is how you preach a 5.7, or this is how you preach, this is how you teach. When you're teaching, be eloquent in speech, be wise in what you say, back up what you're preaching with the word. It was not only that, right? Our spiritual father and mother deals with the character also more than the gifting. A gift is given from diligence. God's league gives an equalize. But as a character, that enables us to grow our gifting. So for example, there's a musician, this is an example, there's a musician. This musician, God has given him this gift. So he, and maybe this pastor says, hey, you can be a good musician, you can be a good worship leader someday. So why don't you join these guitar classes? I'll make sure I find somebody who can teach you guitar, and I will probably help you with the fees, but go and learn this guitar and build yourself up. So this little, this boy has been a teen, and it's been like five or six years now. He's been learning the guitar, watching people lead worship, leading in the small groups. And now comes a time when he's ready to lead in the adult church, the big church, the pastor says, okay, now that you have, you know, led worship in the smaller places for the past two, three years. So now you can start leading in the adult church. Now that's wonderful, but the problem is the spiritual father or mother has only looked at the gifting, not at the character. Now this person may be wonderfully talented in leading worship, wonderful in writing songs, but his character may not be right. His character may be like, hey, whatever happens, happens. You know, this is my, you know, feeling of entitlement. It is my place. I must be leading because I've spent five years in training or I've spent five years watching people lead worship. I took the effort to learn the guitar. Now that's a wrong character to have. Or he may be somebody who's judging other worship leaders and saying, hey, he's not choosing good songs. He's not leading properly. Remember, character is more important than gifting. Gifting is free. It's given by God, but it's a character that will help you to bear fruit with that gift. So the spiritual father or mother must also, very importantly, first focus on character, then on the gifting. Gifting, gifts can be learned over time as well. So maybe there's somebody who had no gift of singing. I never thought that he's a singer, but he went for classes, learned singing, learned how to do sopranos, tenors, bass, and all of that came back and started singing. So it can be learned. But character is something that we must develop each of our lives. Number five. One who does not mind that a spiritual son or doctor exceeds and goes beyond them. This is another problem. A true spiritual father or mother will not be like Saul, who became jealous of David's accomplishment. He will not be jealous. He will be willing, now sharing this in the, I think it was the second years where, you know, when you look at Saul and look at David, Saul knew the anointing was taken away from him. He knew that he's not going to be the king, but he knew that David's going to be the next king. What different could Saul have done? King Saul could have said, you've been chosen as the next king and the Lord has spoken to me as well. So let me tell you something. For the next five years, I will train you. You only know how to look after sheep. I know that you've killed the lion and the bear and nobody has watched you about that. But let me tell you how an army works. David didn't know anything. He was a shepherd. He didn't know about warfare. He didn't know about how to do things. He learned it on the job. But what if Saul said, okay, David, I'm going to train you for the next five years. Anything you need, you have access to from my palace. As a king, I'm giving you authority. You can use anything, right? What would have happened? Could be that David would have, you know, just smoothly taken on the throne. This is not God's way. God wanted to even train David through this running and hiding and all of that. But the end of the story is a true spiritual father and mother will not be jealous if things get better. Now picture this. Say for example, you're a life group leader, right? And in your class, in your life group, there's somebody who's done, who knows Greek and Hebrew and they're very influential in the word of God. They just know the word of God. They quote scriptures. And over time, you've been talking to them, training them. And eventually he says, hey, I want to start my own life group. We are spiritual leaders, fathers or mothers. If we are not fathers or mothers, even if we are just leaders, let go, right? Never feel that, hey, they are better. They can only do what I tell them to do. No, right? We are always, you know, it's like this. In the natural, obviously a father will want their son to be better than them. No father will say, no, I don't want my son or my daughter to become better than me. If I'm a football soccer player, I don't want my son to be better than me. I should be better than him. It's not going to happen. A father in the, you know, even in the natural will say, oh, my son and daughter to do much better, 10 times better than what I do. Same goes with spiritual father and mothers. We don't be jealous, but if they do better than us, it's only a reason to praise God and release them to the things of God. That is a true spiritual father. Number six, one who rescues you from the place of abandonment gives you a spiritual home, giving you an identity and a name, a sunship in the house. Right? So there'll be times when people are a part of any church or they're not part of any body, any life through. There's no, you know, no, people have rejected sometimes or this usually happens in places where, you know, young boys and girls who are from other faiths, they accept the Lord Jesus and most often they've been asked to leave the home or they're just abandoned by their family. They have no identity. Nobody's there for them. They have no parents and it's a really difficult time. That's when true spiritual and father and mother can step in and just give them a home, give them an identity place knowing who they are as children of God. So that's a wonderful thing to do. Finally, point seven, one that sees and understands your future and trains you for it and releases you at the right time. Right? Again, we've been talking about this. He sees, is able to see what you can be. He has a blueprint in the future. One day I see this person leading worship or I see this person leading a ministry, leading preaching or I see this person becoming a teacher. So you train them accordingly and release them at the right time. Remember, there are no perfect fathers and mothers. There's only one perfect father or mother, that is God. Right? So again, we emphasize the point. All fatherhood, everything flows from God. Spiritual fathers and mothers can make mistakes but a genuine father and mother will acknowledge they made a mistake and will correct their wrong. Especially when it comes to children, when they correct the parents I've got two boys and my elder one is going to be eight years old and sometimes he comes and says, he corrects me. He says, you should have said that that day. And I think about it and I say, yes, I should have said it. But sometimes it's very hard to take it, right? You're only eight years old but how can you tell me? No, we must be willing. It's a humbling thing to take correction. Right? And so the same thing with in ministry where spiritual fathers and mothers are there but we must be willing to also take correction. So don't be afraid to make mistakes. But don't make the same mistake again and again and again. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Right? Finally, mistakes are like knives. They are the cutters or serve us depending on whether you hold them by the blade or by the handle. So basically it's okay to make mistakes. Learn from your mistakes. Be willing to acknowledge your mistakes. But again, don't repeat it and don't keep staying on that mistake but move on. Right? So Christopher and Sheik Kumar, you've raised your hands. Go ahead, Christopher. Oh, yes, Pastor. My question is actually around the model that is followed by a PC. And I think you may have mentioned it for that or alluded to it. But in the APC, in APC church, would you say that in some cases or maybe in many cases the senior pastor is a spiritual father for the other pastors in the church? And would that be a model that would be a preferred model for other churches to also adopt? Because as you were going through the characteristics, I was just wondering whether that some of that is all, it's actually being adopted by APC church, by the senior pastor maybe during mentoring sessions or any sort of assessments that are done throughout the year. So I just wanted to find out from your side. Yeah. That's a good question, Christopher. Now, since you've asked, I'm going to share. Usually, Pastor prefers that we don't talk too much about him. It's more about the word and that's what we always want to do that. But since you've asked about this, I'm just going to answer your question. Yes, the answer is yes, definitely. So we see that he's a spiritual teacher, right? And he is a spiritual father to us as well. But there's a difference. Like, for example, I'll take my own life. I don't want to take anybody else's, but I'm sure this will resonate with many of them at church and our team here. But I'm speaking from my side. I was about 24 when I came in. And I don't know. I was not somebody who was very good in the world or something. Not like I knew many things. So I joined Bible College and Bible College. Again, I got the opportunity, Pastor gave a few of us opportunities to come along for mission strips and see his life. It was not like he was... See, the thing is with APC, when we raise leaders, we don't tell them, hey, I'm raising you as a leader. But we make it in a way that that's the end result. That's the goal. So for me, it was more like Pastor would say, okay, Paul, why don't you lead a worship? Now, initially, I've shared with you, right? Leading one or a worship is very difficult because I've not come from that background. I can lead for 20 minutes or half an hour. So half an hour, you know, we would do... I was not too good in the... I didn't know about prophetic worship, all of these things. And so suddenly they said, okay, you lead worship for one hour. So it was like for me, oh gosh, how am I going to do this? And I remember just messing up so badly. Like in the sense it was just very like, you know, monotonous kind of a worship session. But the best part was they came back to me. They gave feedback. They said, why don't you try this? Why don't you do this? Right? And it was a personal feedback. But why don't you... So I've noticed that you're struggling with this part. So in terms of worship, so there was... He, you know, he spoke into my life. He said, do this. Why don't you try this? And then they gave opportunities again. Right? So that was a wonderful part. And this was during the Bible College. And during Bible College, we got opportunities every now and then they say, you go and teach in this session in this one place. You go and teach. Right? So I knew it was okay. It was not only for me. There were others also given opportunities. Right? So there were times when I didn't do well. There were times when I've done well. And, you know, there was always this space where I could, I can just go to him or anyone in our pastoral team. I could just go and ask questions and ask whatever it is that I need to ask. And I knew that I would get the right direction. Right? So, first of all, to answer your question, yes. There is sense of, okay, he's both a teacher and he's a spiritual teacher. He's also a spiritual father. But, you know, the wonderful part about it is there's no boss about it. He's not saying you don't have this, you know, this so-and-so quote on quote, you know, event, event, spiritual mentoring course and all those things. You don't have it. But we just, it's just done in the natural. Right? And if you look at all our leaders, if you look at our pastors in, you know, all our outreach pastors in the nation of India, all of them were Bible college students. They were just simple men, who came, they wanted to learn, they learned, they grew. And I'm sure all of them look at him as a father, right? As a spiritual father because that's where he was there to mentor, to deal with them, to help them, help them make decisions. So, yes. But, Christopher, in APC, we don't, and there's a reason, right? We don't say, okay, spiritual father, spiritual mother. We avoid saying it. But there are spiritual fathers and fathers. Right? So, but we don't keep using that term because of what is happening in the church. And we see, you know, the whole usage of the term father and mother has gone to another level. So, but personally, I would say yes. Yes. And not only our senior pastor, but there are other pastors as well. Our worship pastor who, you know, gives opportunities. And so this, it was more of this feeling of, okay, you know, we learn from them. We grow from them. And they're there. It's not like they just tell us and grow away. They're there to minister, to speak into our lives. So, yeah. And again, we do the same thing to others, right? We give opportunities. We tell them, you know, do this, do this. And eventually they become leaders. But it's not like, okay, okay, we don't go to them and say, okay, now I am your spiritual father. I am your spiritual mother. That doesn't really matter. The goal is maturity into Christlikeness. We use the term spiritual mentoring father, mother. That is secondary. The goal is spiritual maturity. And so that's what our focus is. So over the course of time, we've been able to raise up many leaders in church. And I'm sure they are mentoring other, of being spiritual fathers and mothers to other people in church. But we don't announce and say, okay, who wants to be spiritual father, mother? We don't do all of that, right? We just want to see the church grow in maturity. So, this is why I hope that answers your question. Yes, thank you. Yeah, yeah, sure. Now, Shrikmar, you raised your hands. Yes, sir. Thank you. Sir, because like I'm coming from a church where this thing is not encouraged and, but even though it's one of the big church in Bangalore, but our pastor never encourages for these kind of things, like no spiritual, especially the spiritual father thing or mentorship. So now I was there for a long time. And so this is something which is very new to me when I am hearing about the spiritual father thing. So in my life, there is no spiritual father, as you said, because I always consider some preachers whom I used to hear online, because there was no one to give any proper input, like the way how you said that when you are weak, somebody is there to invest and time and make sure that, yeah, I am praying or I am fasting or we can able to have an eye over me, my spiritual growth. So there is no one such like that. And it's all like the grace of God made me to move further. But recently I joined a church because I was attending some online services and they started in India one branch here. So now the pastor of that church believes that their main pastor is his spiritual father. And he told me that I should also consider him as a spiritual father because he is the spiritual father. So I also believe on that particular prophet as my spiritual father. So my question is, as you said, now you are explaining me so many things. So my question is, when he has never invested in my life personally and he has never, when I was broken or when I really needed and never corrected me or once in a while in a Zoom, I just ask certain questions he just answered. But in my day-to-day life he never invested. So in that case, can I consider him as my spiritual father or just a man of God or a prophet or a teacher? And can I go ahead with that? Because that pastor of the new church is saying that no, you should also consider him because he is my spiritual father. So can I go ahead with that? And in case if I don't have anyone like that, like this mentor is not there, who is not there to encourage me or discourage me or at the time for my spiritual edification. So in that case, how a man who does not have a spiritual father or a spiritual mother, how he can grow without a spiritual father or a spiritual mother? Thank you, sir. That's my question. That's good. So to answer your question, he cannot be your spiritual father or mother because he cannot be your spiritual father because he is not investing in your life. Right now, the pastor may say, hey, you make that person a spiritual father because he is his spiritual father, but that does not make sense because he may be a spiritual father to this pastor, but to you, he is a man of God or a prophet of God. And so we honor them, we respect them. Again, like we mentioned, just because we listen to videos, just because we listen to sermons, listen to podcasts of a certain preacher doesn't mean that he or she becomes a father mother. So in your case, Shri Kumar, the pastor honor them, respect them, but he wouldn't be your spiritual father or mother, father because he's not speaking into your life. He's not there to give you direction. He's not there to speak into the smaller details in your life at times of your trouble. He's not there. So I would say that I wouldn't consider that person as a spiritual father or mother. But again, I can, he's a pastor and you're part of that local church, honor him, respect him, listen to the word, receive from the word and do all of that. But when it comes to spiritual father and mother, it is somebody who can speak into your life and really direct you and take your guidance. So two, to answer your second part, now, what if there's nobody, right? Now, I understand, right? Because there are, you know, especially now and the day and time that we are in, pastors are all busy or people are, you know, people are busy working Monday to Friday, pastors also are busy. Now, what if we haven't found the right person to be like a mentor or to be like a father or a mother? It is all right. It is all right. Again, remember all fatherhood, all fatherhood flows from God. Yes, it's wonderful to have fellowship, right? So one of the things that you can do is, Shrikmar, trust God, right? Firstly, you continue to pray, ask God for comfort, for strength, all of that. And I know it's hard during difficult times. You want to talk to people. You want to talk to leaders, get direction. That's also important. Godly counsel is important. But if you feel that there's no one who can still, you know, no one in your environment who can give you that help that you need at that moment, it's all right. You just continue to press on, continue to ask God to bring people into your life. So sometimes, you know, always remember, God can speak through a donkey as well, right? May the donkey speak. So God can use somebody who is 25 years old to give a word of wisdom to you for your situation, right? So it's not like we have to wait, okay, who's 50 years old, who is 10 years in the 20 years in the ministry, only they can give me guidance. No, God can use the word of wisdom to a younger person, to anyone, or to many people to help you in your season and your times. Right? So just be open to that, right? Sometimes the mistake we make is we look at people and say, okay, maybe he may not, how can he tell me? Is it right what he's saying? But be open, because God can use these people to speak into your life, right? So in the meanwhile, even as you keep praying, the Lord may bring people to you in seasons, right? If somebody may come, he may be there for three, four years, and then they may go away. Then God may bring somebody else, and then they may be there for another five years, they may go ahead, go away, move on. So even that can happen, right? So you may have like a spiritual father or mentor for three years, they move on for the next three years. But the point is these people who speak into your lives must bring a change. There should be spiritual maturity from being babies in Christ. There should be spiritual maturity in our lives. So that is the point. It's not just to have a name, right? So Srikumar, I hope that answers your question. Yes, sir, one more thing. I just want to go ahead. Because nowadays they also say that because you are under this covering, you are the partners of that grace. Because Paul says you are the partnership of my grace. So because of that partnership of the grace, how the Paul was the spiritual father. So he should be the spiritual father because you are under the covering of that man of God because you are under this church. In that case, how I should respond to that thing? Is it like because I am under that grace or a covering which I understand that that man of God is having a grace which I am also partnering to in that grace when I am subjecting to that grace. So is it make me to consider him as my spiritual father? That's just what I want to do. So what you can do is now that you are part of that church, just be faithful to the church. So continue to go to church, continue to serve, continue to be volunteering, be faithful. If your pastor says, hey, why don't you serve in these areas? If he is ministering to you, just receive from him. But you don't have to worry about the whole thing of spiritual father and mother. You continue to do what you are doing in the church. If the pastor says, why don't you lead prayer or volunteer or do this, do that, do it. And there will be times the pastor will speak into your life. Just receive from him. And over time, what I feel is if the pastor really feels that I can speak into this person's life and he is there for you, he is available, ministering to you, over time you will feel that it's a connection that will happen. It's not something that is made up. It is naturally, a natural connection will happen. So since Shri Kumar, you've just mentioned that you just moved to this church. Give it some time. Give it a couple of years. See how it is. Give the leaders some time also. Maybe the pastor or the leaders in the church just to get to know you, to speak into your lives. And again, don't worry. They may ask you, did you make him your spiritual father? You say, no, I'm just waiting. I just want to grow more with the Lord and I'll pray about it. Just leave it at that. You don't have to say yes or you don't have to say no. You say, I'm praying as I grow with the Lord. I'm sure the Lord will lead me to make the right decision. Thank you so much. Yes, Christopher. So I think you had mentioned in your answer to my earlier question with regards to pastors who have been a war out of auto-banglow who came out of the Bible college. So I just wanted to understand in this particular aspect of spiritual fathering or spiritual mothering, is that something that is part of a follow-up process and maybe a formalized process for Bible college students? Basically, the class that is here right now, the class that is actually going to be graduating in the next couple of months. So I just wanted to understand, is there something that is there in the sort of follow-up plan? Yeah. So the thing is at APC what we do, we don't force people to come under our leadership. So for example, many of you are from other countries as well, but any time. So we don't have like a, yes, we do have new things coming up like the church planting acceleration program, APC world missions. These are things that we are just starting now. It's not yet launched, we're planning to start. I'm sure pastors mentioned it also. But to follow up like our associate, our outreach pastors, now they have also many pastors in their own states or their own places where they receive guidance from them and they also have people who speak into their lives. But we are always open because we know that, okay, they have come here, they have learned, they are part of APC Bible college or they're part of us. It's not like we say, okay, we train you, finish your course, go and do what you have to do. Actually, when we have a conference, yearly conference, we are still in contact with people who are in our first batch, 2005 batch. And it's such a joy to see them that they're still connected with us but they still receive our emails. Sometimes we get emails from them saying, I'm your first batch, I don't know the first batch, this is what we did and then they're still in touch with us. Now we don't force them, you be at APC itself, you have to tell us what's happening, you have to tell us what's happening in your ministry and we don't force them. But many times they come and they share because they have this feeling of family here, this is where I grew up, this is where I learned. And so that feeling is there. So again, Christopher, we don't force people. So for example, any one of us, like for me example, after my two years course, I had a choice. I remember the IT company that I was working for, they said come back because we have a better position available for you. It's been two years, I finished my course, after two years they said come back, we'll give you a better position. Now if I had gone there, nobody will stop me. I pass over and say, no, no, don't go, you have to be here, two years you will go. You say, okay, go, it's for your future, it's for your life, go ahead. But I knew that this is something that I wanted to do. So Christopher, we don't force people, but we do encourage our APC Bible college graduates to start something, start their own ministry. But we're always available to help, to minister, to speak into their lives, to provide material. Anything that's needed from our end, we are there. So that's something that we do. During those days there was no world missions, there's no church planting plan and all of that. So it was just that if you feel God's called you to go start a church, go and plant. And that's how all our churches started in India. They finished their course, they went back, they started with zero, and they established the church. And they decided, it's not like we said you should name it APC. No, they decided we want to come under the leadership of APC and we want to be called APC, Chhattisgarh, APC, Nagpur, whatever. So they decided to sort of re-force that. So again, that's important. Elisha has got a question here, should a spiritual father be someone who can be physically present with you most of the time? Yeah, I understand that the whole thing of Zoom and online, Elisha, but I think it's good if a spiritual father or mother is physically present because there is a difference when we counsel somebody one-on-one in person and then we do it online. There's emotions, there's so much more. But for example, you know you're part of a church, certain examples is fine. So if you're part of a church for 10 years, you've always looked up to this pastor as your mentor, as a great leader. And the pastor decides I'm going to go to another city and start another branch of the church. And now you know you can't keep going there just to receive guidance from him. So online, via Zoom, you can continue to receive guidance being mentored by him online. So it all depends on the situation. But it's okay, but preferably in person it's good. That whole feeling of one-on-one is good. All right, I think we have this a little more. What we'll do is we'll stop here. Lessons from Paul and Timothy will continue from next week. And I think next week we'll be able to complete this entire course. All right, no other questions. It's good that we were able to discuss any other questions. All right, no problem. Let's close in prayer. Maybe one of us can lead in prayer. Close. Anyone would like to lead? Asha, would you like to lead? Asha or Kung? Anyone? Sure, please. Thank you, Lord, for this day. Thank you so much for helping us to understand the spiritual thought and the intuition of God. Lord, thank you for giving us wisdom and understanding to discern the truths of who they are in our lives, God. And also, Lord, thank you, Lord, for blessing Paul as his God, his God, which continued throughout your spirit. And we pray over the great blessing of you and his family. And also, Lord, I would definitely love the living brothers and sisters and you. They will continue to stir up from more of you and coming to people to understand what it means to be disciples, what it means to be a spiritual father and mother. Lord, thank you so much for this opportunity for us to learn and to grow God. Thank you, Lord, for everything. Amen. Thank you, Asha. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Have a wonderful week ahead. I'll see you next Tuesday. God Bless.