Dana Kohlman - Class 5: The Teachable Spirit (Sunday School)

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Ready, Bob? All right, thank you. Good morning, Sunday School scholars. Okay, here's the question. In the last seven days in this room, who among us has lost their temper to the degree that someone near us has been able to discern that we've lost their temper? Okay, now we're at seven. Seven people in this room, eight people in this room. Okay, so the long and the short of it is we're agreeing that it wouldn't be a terrible thing to talk about self-control as a pattern of things. This is what I don't know about adults, young people, and I know there's a healthy batch of young people here.

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   I know this about adults. Adults make things that are simple very complicated. Have you found that in life? Broadly as a pattern of things, that adults make things that are simple very complicated, right? They make it really confusing. But what I want to emphasize to you here is that the work of the truth, the things that we do day to day are not complicated at all. They're very, very simple.

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   Hard to do, but they're at least simple in terms of knowing what to do. The gist of this exhortation, or the gist of this Sunday school class is called Living Up to What We've Already Attained. Okay, so you have a knowledge of the truth. Some of you got baptized. And all we have to do now is just figure out how to navigate this life of ours. All right. So I want you to imagine, you know, the vegetable that we have for supper is lettuce. Okay, it's really easy to remember these passages because they're lettuce passages. All of them have lettuce in them. And if you listen, you'll see it. Okay. The gist of this presentation is let us live up to what we have already attained.

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   You hear the lettuce? Okay. All right. Now there are 10. 10. And if you get two of them, you'll be great. All right. So we already know the first one's a giveaway. From 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 8, it says, let us be self-controlled. All right. Here's the apostle reminding us, young people in school and at home and seniors and adults, that we don't flip our lid. All right. We don't blow our top.

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   We're careful about what we say and what we do because the alternative is simply to give into the flesh. All right. Let us, passage number one, so 1 Thessalonians is let us be self-controlled. The next thing, and particularly this is great for young people, is let us behave decently. So when we're at school, we're making sure that the things that we say to one another are at least kind, right? By all means, have all the laughs you can, but make sure you're not hurting people's feelings. That is an absence of decency. When someone is getting hurt along the way, someone's getting their feelings hurt, that is a red flag to you that that ought not to be occurring.

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   Here's two in a row. Let us be courageous and let us stand strong. It is very difficult in this day and age to be a religious person. It's very difficult to say, I believe in God. There is all kinds of pressure out there not to acknowledge that. And I'm not asking or suggesting young people run around and say that they pump their fist in the air and say they believe in God. What I'm saying is it's difficult to stand by the standards of what Jesus asked us to do. So when you do see your friends at school being torn down, you aren't participating. All right? That's crucial that Jesus's words come through in here and they ask us to be courageous, to be able to say, stop doing that. You don't need to say that. You can actually say nice things. And if you can't say nice things, as your parents have told you, you can say nothing at all and you can encourage the same thing in others. So there's four so far. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. It's a very simple thing to do. We can take confidence that God will keep his end of the promise. All right? Here's another one that stands everyone in good stead. Let us be silent. When in the last seven days would you have been better served having remained silent? It is a great, great message for this day and age that you can be careful with your words. And if we don't know what to say, you can choose the option of silence. We're told in Ecclesiastes, do not be quick with your mouth. We're also told a fool is

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   consumed by his own lips. James, anyone who considers himself religious does not keep a tight rein on his tongue deceives himself. We're told to be silent and if anything, to be very careful what we say. So we're in about six. There are six lettuce passages that we know already and here is the clincher for the let us be silent one. The reason we have to be careful with what we say is because we know that's the number one predictor as to whether or not we'll be hurting people's feelings. All right? So young people, if you're getting your feelings hurt or if you're hurting others' feelings, it's likely you're using words. And this is what we know about words. People will forget what you do. People will forget what you say. But people will not forget how you made them feel. So there's a message out there in the Sunday School that we have to be really, really conscious of how we're making people feel. And if we're ripping people down, it's just not a good thing to be doing. We're told to be alert. Let us be alert from 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 6. And we've talked all weekend about the importance of consciousness. Remember the two fish? And this is water. What the heck is water? We're in the water.

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   The water is the flesh around us. Always tearing us down. Always contriving ways for us to slip in our standards. We are to be alert to that. Here's for all of us, but in particular us adults. Let us be content. There is a spirit at work in this world that tells you that we're missing out on something. And you've got to go from here or to go from there and get more and have more and buy more. It is work to remember that we have everything we possibly need and we could probably get by with less. Let us be content. Here is probably the best one. There is no verse in scripture that is characterized more importantly as this. And hear me out. The phrase is, let us be thankful. All right? So day by day, we know we live in the best part of the world, hands down. And day by day, to remember that is an important thing. But listen to the rest of this verse. It says, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably. That is, gratitude is the basis by which we have acceptable worship. It doesn't work any other way. There's no other verse in scripture that says that. Let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. So this is, there are 10 lettuce passages. And if you can sustain even three of them in the coming weeks, you'll be doing really, really well. All right. There's another work at work in this, in this, in this theme. And it comes from first Timothy, where we're expected to train ourselves to be godly. So young people and old people, we have this obligation

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   to do the work ourselves. Train yourselves to be godly. We're reminded that there are the mature in Hebrews who by constant use have trained themselves to be godly. So there is this, this, this work that we're required to do. And I remember I said to you, young people, adults do well by making very simple things complicated. And what I'm saying is this isn't complicated. You have 10, 10 characteristics that if you sustain, I think you'll be, well, nigh on the way of perfectly sustaining the laws of your, of God in your life. But it does come down to you. Scripture says, we must individually train ourselves to be godly. All right. It is our life's work, young people, brothers and sisters, to get better at this. It is our life's work to get better at this.

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    So if the frequency with which we're flipping our lid and blowing our top is increasing, we need to change that. If there's a frequency with which we're talking back to our parents and being aggressive and defiant and stamping on feet and acting like four-year-olds, we need to stop that. And that goes for the adults as well. So I'm going to give you four other things, really short things, that'll remind you about how easy it is to follow up on our obligations here. We're looking at living up to what we've already attained. There are four key questions. First question is, what do you need to stop doing right now? So young people, adults, Sunday school scholars, what is the thing you need to stop doing in your life right now? Can you think about it? What is the thing that cannot, should not, will not happen in your life from this moment forward? What is the thing that you're going to stop right now?

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    What is the thing, this is part two, what is the thing you need to start doing? What is the thing you need to stop? What is the thing you need to start doing? All right. Number three is what are the things you've got to change? Something's going on in your life, you may have to make an adjustment. What is the thing you have to change? And, because I know there's no one in this room that is doing everything wrong, figure out the things that you're doing right. What is the thing that you need to continue?

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    What do you need to stop, start, change, and continue? All right. Thinking throughout the week, the coming week, think about that. Think of the lettuce, there's 10 lettuce, all right? Think of the four, stop, start, change, and continue. What is the thing you need to stop doing right now? What is the thing you need to change right now? What is the thing you need to start right now, and what is the thing you need to continue? I went to a presentation once, and when I was at the presentation, I was taking notes. I'm a guy, we don't broadly take notes. When we go to presentations, we sort of sit there and listen. But in this one, it was so resounding, such a biblical echo of presentation that I took notes throughout. I went to a presentation in Brooks, Alberta, and what it was is a colleague of mine arranged for Bruce Brown to come and speak to all of the junior high students. So that's grades seven, eight, nine students. There's 300, 50, 400 kids. We took them all inside a theater, and I don't know if you know Bruce Brown. Does anybody know who Bruce Brown is? Okay. All right. So if you know Bruce Brown, Bruce Brown is a coach and a talent scout for all kinds of levels of sport from NBA and sort of high level sports broadly. And I will tell you this. Remember we talked about the impact of speakers, or sorry, experts. Okay. We talked about the effective instruction and how the least effective is talking, but how it also it is that in instruction, we can, it's always at odds with itself that if you put an expert in front of people, he can break all

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    the rules, right? And this guy broke all the rules. There's 350 kids in there, and then they're junior high kids, which means they're sort of mentally unstable, right? And so they're all there, and he's talking to them, and you could have heard a pen drop. And I'll tell you why. Because he goes and finds world-class athletes for teams. So a team will phone him up, and they're saying, well, we're thinking of Josh here. Okay. We're thinking of recruiting Josh, and we'd like to see how he's carrying his weight.

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    Well, Bruce Brown doesn't tell anybody that he's recruiting Josh. He waits for Josh to go to a practice, and he watches Josh. And it's no kidding. You know, if Josh is, you know, worth his salt, Bruce Brown will know in about an hour, okay? So he'll observe. Sometimes he knows in 20 minutes whether or not it doesn't fly. He goes to view games, and these are kids. I mean, they're young kids, right? And they're going to get, within weeks, million-dollar offers. And he watches them, and he phones the team back, and he says, you know, yeah, Josh is okay. You should take them.

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    Or Josh, no, actually, you should probably not. What he observes is this. When the athlete that he's watching is worth their salt, they don't do the following. When they line up to do the drill, he'll watch the real posers, the guys that think they're really great. They'll get up. It's their turn to do the drill. They'll slip back. They'll pretend their shoelace is undone. They'll slip back.

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    They'll take their time out. When there's pressure on the court, the guy that is really good and could save the situation doesn't put all in. He'll ask for a time out or find a way out to do it. Anyway, long and short of it is, it was phenomenal because he spoke for an hour and a half. There wasn't a sound in the room, and this is what he told us. There are four broad characteristics of teachable spirit.

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    And if you're talking, or if he's talking about hiring a kid to work on a professional team, the number one characteristic is coachable. That is, he takes, the child takes correction as a compliment. You think of this, young people, when mom and dad are correcting you, they look directly at the coach and say, thanks coach. And I always say, child, you need to clean up your room. I've asked you about it.

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    You've got to get on your room. The child looks back and says, sure mom, I'll get right on that. Right? When the coach stops correcting, when the leadership stops correcting, when the teacher stops correcting, it's telling the athlete that the athlete can't get any better. So a message to parents as well. Excuses, he observed, under the umbrella of coachable spirits, come from non-athletes.

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    There's lots of people out there that will make excuses. And if he sees it, those are the people that he won't hire. This is Jeremiah. Jeremiah, therefore say to them, this is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God, or responded to correction. Truth has perished. It has vanished from their lips.

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    These people did not respond to the correction that they were giving. So coachable trait, number one, is, sorry, teachable spirit, number one, is they're coachable. They take correction as compliment. They look to say, what do I need to improve in from their parents and their teachers? Number two is accountability. And there is real-time reliability for the work that needs to be done.

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    So these people that are coachable, these people that are hireable, these people that are going to be winners, they don't need to be monitored in their work. No one has to check if their room's clean after they say they've cleaned the room. Nobody has to check if their homework's done, if they've said their homework's done.

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    They do not need to feel someone is watching them to give their best. They don't have to be the center of the world. They don't have to have a big audience. They give their best no matter what. Titus 2 says, teach workers to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them and not to steal from them, but show that they can be fully trusted so that in every way they make the teaching about God, our Savior, attractive.

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    So, characteristic number one, coachable. Characteristic number two, accountability. Third one, and this is really great for all of us, it speaks to a lot of what we've talked about this weekend. Mental toughness. Winners are positive, enthusiastic, confident, no matter what. The question is, what does it take, young people, young brothers and sisters, to break your mental toughness?

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    Does everything, every little bump in the road make you break down? Is losing an assignment, blow your whole day off? Weakness is when every little bump in the road throws us off. Mental toughness. How quickly do we get over our mistakes? Well, you make a boo-boo, you have a terrible interaction with a teacher, have an interaction with a colleague, does it throw you off for an hour, a day, a week, a month, mental toughness?

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    Second Peter, one verse five says, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness, to goodness, knowledge, and to knowledge, self-control, and to self-control, perseverance, and to perseverance, godliness, and to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love, for if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive.

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    Five verses later, after that phrase, ineffective and unproductive, these things that keep you from being ineffective and unproductive, it says, for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble. Do you see the scriptural echoes here? Fourth one is selfless. This is a person who puts the needs of others ahead of themselves every time.

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    You know, mom and dad are coming home and the kitchen's a mess. You know to step in and help out mom and dad. These are the people that say, I'm in it for others. He told an anecdote about the Lakota people, the First Nations people. They never tried to stand out. Right? It's a terrible thing in Lakota culture to stand out.

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    If glory came to a Lakota warrior in battle, he had to give his prized possession away, usually his horse. So if it turns out you had great standing in a battle, it turns out you saved the battle. You had to give away a prized possession. Selflessness means you put the needs of others ahead of yourselves every time.

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    Tough work, young people, brothers and sisters. These are the signs of selfishness. Do you put your own needs first? It's called entitlement. You choose when to work and you choose when to coast. You choose when to listen. You choose when to tune out. You're quick to criticize and you're very quick to excuse yourself.

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    This is what he said for all of us at the end. He says, he has never seen a great ecclesia or team where the most talented are not the best workers. If you're most talented in your family or in your ecclesia or on your team, if you're most talented or not your best workers, you've got a problem.

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    every ecclesia, every team, every family improves when you take out or improve weak character. The last thing is you cannot lead in your family. You cannot lead in ecclesia. You cannot lead in your life if you're selectively invested. Here is John 15, verse 1. I am the true vine and my father is the gardener.

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    He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit while every branch that bears fruit he prunes so that it will be more fruitful. What it is saying is you might have some things that you can continue doing. Right? You might have a characteristic. Remember, start, stop, change, and continue. There might be some things that you can continue doing.

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    That doesn't mean some of those things that you can continue to do won't actually be improved through trial. You might have some experiences where you're going, no, I'm doing the thing I'm good at. Right? It doesn't guarantee that it's going to all go perfectly for you. You might find yourself in trial even though you're working on the thing that you're quite productive with.

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    In short, young people, brothers and sisters, I've said, one thing we as adults do well is to make things that are simple complicated. And I want to remind you that living the life of godliness, living the life in the service of Jesus is really doable. It's not a forever evolving the ten lettices that came out this week.

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    Remember the four key questions and remember the teachable spirits. Remember, if you do just even half of these things, young people, brothers and sisters, you'll be doing well. Thank you.