In Christ

STAND BY ME
IN CHRIST
DR. JIM DIXON
JOHN 14:15-17a, JOHN 16:13
SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

Have you ever wondered where the word mentor comes from? You probably haven’t, but I have. I wonder about things like that. I’m curious about etymology, word derivation, the history of words and where they come from. The word mentor has a particularly interesting history. It’s very old. The word goes back to about 800 years before Christ, and it goes back to Greek mythology. It goes back to the time of Homer, when Homer allegedly wrote The Odyssey and The Iliad. I know when you were in school—high school, college, university—you perhaps studied The Odyssey and The Iliad. You know that in The Odyssey the primary character is Odysseus (or Ulysses, depending on whether you are Greek or Roman). But the primary character is Ulysses/Odysseus, and he has a son, Telemachus. And he also has a friend, an elderly friend, and this elderly friend is a wise counselor, a guide, someone who comes alongside, sometimes comforts and encourages. And this friend is named Mentor.

So, originally Mentor was a personal name. It was a proper name. Over time, the word mentor evolved into a noun and into a verb. When Odysseus went off to war, he went off to the Trojan War, he entrusted his son to this faithful friend named Mentor. Eventually the word mentor, the name Mentor, became a noun and a verb meaning a counselor, a friend, someone who is elderly and wise, someone who is a caregiver. That’s the background of this word mentor.

Now, we are going to take a look at this concept of mentor and the meaning it should have in your life. If you could look back at your life, you’ve had many mentors. It might be a good experience for you and a good discipline for you to sit down sometime and try to identify who were the mentors in your life and what they accomplished. And then it might be good to sit down and ask yourself, “Am I mentoring anybody? Do I have a mentoring role in anybody’s life?”

Now, what I’d like us to do first of all this morning is look at the word mentor in the Bible. The word mentor is not in the Bible, even though it is a Greek word and the New Testament is written in Greek. The word mentor, this Greek word mentor, is not in the Bible. The truth is we don’t even know how long it took for the name Mentor, that proper name Mentor, to evolve into a noun and a verb. It might be that in the time of Jesus, in the time of the New Testament, this name Mentor hadn’t yet evolved into its verb and noun meaning.

But what we do find in relationship to this Greek name Mentor is the root of the word in the New Testament. You see the word “men” in the Bible and it means “true.” It’s tied to the word “amen.” Often in the Bible Jesus says, “Amen, amen,” which means “verily, verily” or “truly, truly.” So, this word “men,” this root of mentor, perhaps, means true. And it may be that Homer chose to call his elderly friend in The Odyssey Mentor because he viewed him as true.

Also in the Bible, you see another root word which may be foundational to mentor, and that is “meno.” You find this word over and over again in the New Testament. “Meno” means to remain, to stay, to dwell, to abide. Jesus said, “If my word abides in you, remains with you, stays with you, dwells with you, “meno,” you’ll bear much fruit. And so, we see this word “meno” and it may be again that Homer called his elderly friend in The Odyssey Mentor because he viewed him as someone who would remain and stay and dwell and abide. So, you get the concept.

Now, in the Bible there are many mentoring words and perhaps some of you think one of those mentoring words might be disciple. In a sense disciple is a mentoring word. It is the Greek word “mathetes.” It is, in Hebrew, “talmadim,” but this word disciple never actually refers to a mentor in the Bible. It refers to a mentee, you understand. So, it was the rabbi who was the mentor and the disciples who were mentees. You understand that distinction. Therefore, as you look at your life, and you think about whether or not you want to become a mentor in any sense, I know you don’t want to be a rabbi, so we’re not going to use that word for mentor.

There are other mentoring words in the Bible. The word teacher can connote a kind of mentoring role. “Didaskalos” is the word for teacher. But there’s one great word in the Bible for mentor. It’s just very special and it’s the word “hodegos.” Hodegos is the word for mentor in the Bible. Hodegos comes from “hodos.” Hodos means way. You know how Jesus said, “Ego eimi he hodos.” “I am the way.” In the first centuries of the early church, the church of Jesus was called what? Often times it was simply called the Way, and Christians were called people of the Way. They were said to have joined the Way. They were followers of the Way. And so, the church of Jesus Christ in those early centuries was simply called the Way because Jesus said, “I am the way,” hodos.

But this word hodegos means “guide on the way,” someone who guides you on the way. Hodegos. So, this is (I’d say) the greatest mentoring word in the Bible, hodegos. And when you look at the Bible contextually, this word hodegos is beautiful. In John 16, hodegos is the label given to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is hodegos, the Holy Spirit guides us on the way. We have in John 14 the promise of Jesus that if we love him, we’ll keep his commandments. He’ll pray to the Father, and he will send us another counselor, another comforter, another advocate, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes, he will mentor us, guide us. The word is hodegos. That’s a beautiful thought, that as a Christian in whom the Holy Spirit now dwells, he has a role as mentor in your life.

Also, you come in the Bible to Acts 8, and the Bible itself is given this title, hodegos. The Bible is a guide on the way. And is that not true? As you seek to live out the way of Christ, is not the Bible your guide? Hodegos. It’s a mentor. So, the Bible has a mentoring role in your life. And in Acts 8, those who instruct you with the Bible, those who teach you the Bible, they also are called hodegos. Those who actually help you understand the Bible are mentors. Hodegos.

Then you come to Revelation 7, which is a beautiful passage where you can look through time and space. Through the portals of time you see the throne of God and you see the saints assembled. You see the saints, the believers of Christ, assembled around the throne and you see the promise of the Father that they would have a mentor forever, and that mentor is the Lamb who is the Shepherd—the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. It’s beautiful to see Jesus, Lamb and Shepherd, called hodegos. He is the one who forever and ever in all eternity will mentor us.

This morning before we come to the table I’d like to focus just for a few moments on Jesus Christ as our mentor. He is the ultimate mentor. I want to recommend a book to you. The book is called The Divine Mentor, by Wayne Cordeiro. I’ve recommended the book before. Most of you didn’t take me seriously. It’s called The Divine Mentor, by Wayne Cordeiro. Wayne Cordeiro is a great guy. He’s pastor of the largest church in Hawaii. It’s a church of 10,000 people in Honolulu. We’re going to have him come speak at our church sometime. He wants to come and certainly we’re going to have him. He’s an incredible guy, a great pastor, a man who really loves Jesus Christ.

He’s not just a Type A personality, he’s like AA, he’s like AAA. He’s kind of a driven guy. He is goal oriented, and like a lot of guys like that (and like some pastors) he had a break down some years ago. He had an emotional, mental break down. He was in Southern California at a speaking conference and he was just walking the streets and he broke down, became dysfunctional, disoriented, started crying. When he was brought back to his friends, he was counseled to get a counselor, to get therapy, to get help. Of course, Wayne Cordeiro knew many counselors and many therapists and many of his friends were counselors and therapists. They all had a mentoring role in his life and eventually he was told he needed to go to a monastic community. To really get himself together he needed to go to a monastic community.

I told you this story some time ago, about Wayne Cordeiro, how he went to that community. He got there and, in the morning, they sang Gregorian chants. But after the chanting there was a vow of silence and everybody had to take this vow of silence. You could not talk. As a Type A, AA, AAA guy, this just drove him crazy. He went stir-crazy. After a few days with no technology (you’re not allowed a cell phone, you can’t text message, you can’t email, you can’t have a cup of coffee even) he’s thinking, “How do these people do it?” And after a couple of days, he just goes AWOL. He slips out. He’s in some very remote place where this monastery is. At night he slips out, he gets into his car, and he just takes off. He has to drive more than a hundred miles before he comes to civilization, and he finds a computer cafe and a place where he can connect with the internet and connect to the world and get a cup of coffee and settle down. After a few minutes he calls his wife, and she says, “What are you doing? You made this commitment to go to this monastic retreat and you’ve escaped? You’ve got to go back! You’ve got to go back.” He goes back. He reluctantly goes back and he’s thinking, “Oh, what are they going to say to me?” But of course, they say nothing because they’ve all taken a vow of silence.

Eventually Wayne Cordeiro finds his way back to health and he recognizes it’s God, it’s Jesus. Jesus uses many people, many friends, many counselors, many therapists, but it’s Jesus. Jesus is the Divine Mentor. And so, he’s written this book. And we actually after the last service ran out of copies. But we’re ordering more, and we’ll make them available.

I really want to encourage you as we launch this series to focus on the fact that primarily the mentor is Jesus. In the context of the church of Jesus Christ, all mentoring is rooted in him. To whatever extent our Sunday school teachers are mentors, they are mentors under Christ. When we tutor in the inner city and we mentor junior high and high school kids and elementary kids through Whiz Kids or Save Our Youth, all of our mentoring is in Christ. When we adopt homeless families through the Mayor’s Initiative, and couple hundred of you have, all of your mentoring is in Christ. That’s the way we function as a church and as a body of Christ. And so, it all centers on him. We begin with Jesus, the Divine Mentor.

In the Bible he’s called the “Parakletos.” You look at John 14 again, Jesus said, “If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. I will pray to the Father, and he will send you another counselor, another comforter…” and he’s referring to the Holy Spirit. This word counselor/comforter is parakletos, and again, when you look at mentoring words in the Bible, hodegos and parakletos are the two great mentoring words in the Bible. Parakletos means comforter, one who comes alongside, literally. It’s a great mentoring word, and Jesus is saying, “I’m your paraclete, I’m your counselor/comforter. I’ve come alongside you but I’m leaving this world and I’m going to send you another comforter/counselor to come alongside: The Holy Spirit.” In the Bible you have this beautiful concept of Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, mentoring us; and through his Word, mentoring us. As the paraclete, coming alongside; and hodegos, the one who guides us in the Way.

In the Bible Jesus is also called the Chief Shepherd, and he shepherds his flock. He shepherds his people, and I’m a pastor, the great word “poimen,” which means shepherd. But I’m an under-shepherd. I have a shepherding role in the congregation and the flock, but I’m an under-shepherd under Christ. I would suggest to you as believers in Jesus Christ that you’re all under-shepherds. All of us in this place are called to be under-shepherds. You’ve been called to a shepherding role, maybe you just don’t know it yet. Your shepherding role might be at home, it might be at work, it might be in the neighborhood. It might be in all of those places, but you are an under-shepherd. There are individuals the Holy Spirit will call you to in whose lives you are to be a mentor and a paraclete and a shepherd, an under-shepherd under Christ and in Christ.

I want to tell you about a weak guy, a guy who is really pretty weak. This guy became a Christian when he was in kindergarten. He became a Christian when he was very young. He had Christian parents, but he could never believe. This guy could never believe. He was so insecure he could not believe that he was really saved, that he really had salvation. Whenever this kid would hear the gospel preached, and whenever there was an invitation to accept Christ or some kind of an altar call, this kid would go forward. That’s just what he did again and again and again, accepting Christ again and again and again, but never feeling saved. And this went on until the kid was 14. So from kindergarten, basically from 5 to 14, for 9 years, this kid was going forward at altar calls, trying to find some security, some confidence of salvation.

Finally, the kid’s parents took him aside and they said, “You know, whenever you go forward at an altar call after having gone forward at so many others, you really discredit the gospel. You’re kind of saying the gospel’s not true. Whenever you go forward at an altar call, having gone forward at so many others, you discredit Jesus Christ. You’re kind of suggesting that he’s not true to his word. We don’t want you going forward at any more altar calls.” That’s what they said to this guy, so he tried to stop, though he was addicted.

A couple of months later, he’s at another service and there is another visiting evangelist who gives a scary message. It’s a heaven and hell deal, fire and brimstone, and he gives an altar call at the end. And this guy, this 14-year-old kid, his heart starts beating again, just pumping in his chest he’s so nervous. And what if he’s not saved? What if none of the other ones really took? So he goes forward again. While he waits a moment, he only goes forward because he sees his dad go up and go forward at the altar call. Then he feels safe. He thinks, “Man, my dad went up.” But he didn’t know his dad was a counselor, and when his dad turned around and saw him coming down the aisle, there was a scary look in his dad’s face. And I know that because I was the kid. I was that 14-year-old kid.

Now, some of you who have been at our church for a while, you know that about me. You know that insecurity, that weakness that is part of me. So from age 5 to 14, for those 9 years I went forward at just countless altar calls, unable to be confident of salvation. I was really a scared kid. To give you an example, when I was about 8 it became very clear to me that swearing was wrong and certain words were dirty. You weren’t supposed to say them, and God really doesn’t like it if you said these words. And so, I tried not to say them, but at night when I would lie down in bed and I’d just be there by myself, I would start focusing on dirty words I’d heard because I was so afraid of them. Now, I didn’t know that many dirty words. I know many more now, but what words I knew I would start playing a tape because I was so afraid of them, I fixated on them.

It began to get a real problem, so I finally went to our family pastor, a guy named Joe Stephens (and as I take you through this mentoring series, I’m going to mention Joe again down the road). Joe was a great family friend and pastor. I went to him, and I told him everything. I was so embarrassed and so nervous and Joe said, “Jimmy,” (when I was 8 everybody called me Jimmy), “Jimmy, you don’t need to worry about this. I know why it is that you are playing those tapes. I know your fears. I know you really don’t want to say those words, and Jesus knows all that. I want to tell you something. Never forget this: Jesus is bigger than all that. He loves you. You’re his. You don’t need to worry about this.” Well, that disarmed the Devil. And I never played any of those tapes anymore. I didn’t need to worry about the words and so I didn’t play them anymore.

That was a mentoring moment in my life. Even when I was 20 and in college, I was not secure in my salvation, and I also hardly ever felt the presence of Jesus. When I’d hear people talk about feeling close to the Lord, or having intimate time with Jesus Christ, or just fellowshipping with Jesus, I could not relate. I just couldn’t. I was not confident of salvation and I didn’t feel close to him. I came home from college one weekend, and I hadn’t talked to my mom in a long time about spiritual things, though I know she prayed for me every day. I sat down with my mom, and I told her all this. I said I wasn’t confident of salvation, that I couldn’t feel the presence of Jesus Christ. My mom had tears in her eyes, but she felt led to do something for me and it was life changing. She felt led to lay hands on me and pray, and she was very anointed by the Holy Spirit. As she laid hands and prayed over me, and she asked that the Lord would give me a gracelet whereby I would have complete confidence of salvation through which I would always feel the presence of Jesus.

From that moment on, my life changed by the grace of God. I have never since the age of 20 doubted my salvation and I’ve always gone through life in my adult years feeling Jesus right with me. I have felt his presence, his friendship, his intimacy, and what a gift that is. And yet, think about it. Think about the fact that I was saved years before, I just wasn’t confident of it. Jesus was with me years before, but I wasn’t confident of it. But I thank God for the mentor my mom was. I thank God for all the mentors that I’ve had in my life: my mom and dad, my brothers, my wife. I’ve had so many friends who have mentored me, and so many pastors. I’ve had just so many mentors. I thank God for all of them.

I’m still a weak person. You know how I had surgery on my hip. Two months ago, I had a hip replacement. You know that I needed that surgery for a long time. Many of you were saying, “Jim, get a clue!” But I waited four years bone-on-bone. I took the ball of my hip that went into the socket and it was like cutting an apple in half. I wore it down. Why did I wait four years? Because I’m a wuss, that’s why.

But you see, I have many wonderful mentors. It takes a village, and they literally have helped guide me and truly pray for me and give me wise counsel. The truth of the matter is that after the very first service (the chapel service) a gal came up to me and she said, “You know, I’d really like to think that you’re not completely weak.” I thanked her for her gracious desire and I told her, “I know I’m not completely weak. I know that, but I also know that in God’s ministry in my life—indeed, in all ministry—it’s only when you’re weak that God works greatest.” When we are weak, then he is strong. As the Apostle Paul said, “His strength is made perfect in our weakness.” There’s certain desperation in life that invites the power and the presence of God.

I would suggest to you that whether you know it or not, we’re all weak. I would suggest that to you this morning in so many ways. I know there’s lots of strengths out there. I know you’re gifted, talented. I know all the greatness, but there’s a sense in which we are all weak and his power is made perfect when we depend on him, when we are aware of our weakness and we depend on him. I want to invite you as we begin this series to consider letting his power flow through you in such a way that you might enter the world of another person as a mentor, or let another person enter your world.

As we’re starting this series on mentoring, really the question is, do you care? Could you make the choice to enter another person’s world? Or would you allow someone who cares about you to enter your world? As we go through life and we do this thing called “church,” this is at the heart of it. As we come to the Lord’s Table, remember no one cares like Jesus. He entered our world. He cared so much, he loved so much, he entered our world. He made that choice. He’s called us in his name to reach out to the world in that same manner. Before we come to the Communion Table, let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.