Dharius Daniels - The Ministry of a Mentor

I want to talk about this subject during our time together. We’re in a series called «Put People in Their Place,» and we’ve discussed the three seats you need to have at your table: friends, associates, and assignments. Today, we need to talk about advisers. The subject I want to explore is «The Ministry of a Mentor.»

Family, today, people all over the country will be celebrating one of the most popular sporting events in modern history: the Super Bowl. This year’s matchup features a team from Kansas City—I can’t remember their name—against the San Francisco 49ers. Anyone who knows me knows that I am rooting for the 49ers to come out victorious. However, I am aware that the outcome of the game is not solely determined by the players on the field; it is equally impacted by the coaches on the sidelines. The players on the field play the game, but the coaches on the sidelines develop the game plan.

The players are able to perform at their highest level in public because of coaches who developed and discipled them in private. Head coaches, assistant coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, speed and agility coaches, and character coaches have all made invaluable contributions to help these players evolve into individuals capable of doing extraordinary things on the football field. God put the talent in them, but it takes a coach to pull it out, for no one can be their best self alone. And just as it is in football, so it is in life. Everyone who is growing and evolving, anyone who is advancing and progressing, will at some point in some area of their life face a season or situation where they possess the ability but lack the expertise, where they have the acumen but not the experience, where they have the will but not the wisdom.

In seasons and situations like that, when you find yourself in circumstances you’ve never encountered before, in rooms you’ve never walked into, you need expertise beyond your own to help navigate these foreign territories. You need a coach. By His grace, God will send significant and strategic relationships into our lives to help us become rich where we are poor, because everyone is rich and poor somewhere. Are you hearing me, family? Just because I can bake chicken doesn’t mean I can market, package, and sell it. Everybody is rich and poor in some area. I may not need assistance all the time in every area, but there will be seasons in my life where I need some outside help. I wish I had a church that would say «Amen» to the preacher!

You know you’re going to need outside assistance at some point. Your marriage may hit a season where you need expertise you don’t have, or your career may reach a stage where you lack the necessary knowledge. Your resources or finances may encounter a moment where you require expertise. Some are saying, «I’m waiting for that season, Pastor.» Well, come on! You need some expertise you don’t have. Are you all hearing what I’m saying? Woe to the person who feels so accomplished, so grand, and so great that they don’t need anyone beside them. Woe to that person who falsely overestimates and inflates the gifts, abilities, and natural talents that God has given them, because no one can be their best self alone.

An incredible example of what I’m trying to articulate is seen clearly in our text today with Jesus. Jesus is the master mentor—the greatest mentor in human history. I mean, when you die, and 20 years later people are still following your leadership and listening to your teachings, you have unlocked mentorship on a whole other level. The Bible tells us of a man who has an issue with his son. Watch this: it’s a natural issue with spiritual origins. Meanwhile, you see this boy is sick with seizures, but the nature of the ailment is satanic. Not all sickness has satanic origins, as we don’t always see that in the Gospels. However, in this case, the origin of the issue was indeed satanic because anyone aiming to reach their destiny must become proficient at diagnosis. You cannot get the prescription right if you diagnose incorrectly. A person who keeps getting the diagnosis wrong will never experience progress, because you go into a season and come out again. A person who keeps misdiagnosing will end up creating a cycle. Seasons change with time, but cycles change when you do.

If I keep going through the same situation over and over, if I keep dating the same type of person—just different body types and names—that is not a season; it is a cycle. And a cycle doesn’t change with time; it only changes when I do. But I can’t fix what I keep misdiagnosing. This issue won’t be resolved with superficial solutions. So, this man brings his son to Jesus and runs into some of Jesus’s mentees.