Choose to Grow

Well, thank you again, Mr. Hanson. Brethren, I don't know if you've noticed, but it's official. Spring has sprung. It is absolutely official. The flowers at our house are beginning to pop. The salmon are in. That's important. Spring salmon have arrived. The trees are all leafing out. In fact, our front tree, it was just butted up for—it seemed like yesterday it was just butted up.

I looked out the window this morning and there's just leaves all over the thing. And if that wasn't enough, to believe that it is spring last week, 70 to 80 degrees this past week, it was beautiful. Of course, I guess in Oregon that's not really a common spring thing, so maybe that's not the best evidence in the world. But we have entered—at school in my world in public education—we have entered the longest month of the school year, April. It's not a day off. The weather starts to get nice. It's warm. The kids don't want to be there anymore. And it starts to become definitely examples of spring.

But at Waldo, we just recently underwent our Spring Parent Teacher Conference. We just recently underwent our Spring Parent Teacher Conference. And those of you with children likely just underwent Spring Parent Teacher Conferences wherever your kids may go to school as well. We have our conferences twice a year. We do it once in the fall, and we do it once in the spring. And early in the year, kind of the first couple of months of school, you know it's often too soon to even really notice patterns of student character that early on, to be honest. They can fool you early on. They can fool you for a little bit. We call that in education.

We call it the honeymoon period, where you've got just—things are great for the first couple of months. But I'll tell you what, when you're seven months in, sun's shining, you know, they're almost high school students, their real character begins to show very, very quickly. Very, very quickly. You start to notice the deficiencies in their work habits.

Their conduct becomes a little bit more in line with who they really are. And so while we jokingly refer to fall conferences as being a little bit more optimistic, you might say spring conferences are a little bit more realistic. We get to have a real conversation about the person that is at the table with the parents. For my eighth graders as well, it also represents the final conference before they go on to high school. So it's really—it's important on that particular conference, we let the parents know up front, look, this is important. We're going to get everything out on the table, and we're going to talk about exactly what we need to focus on here for their success over the next four years.

Well, to make things more interesting, my kids dread spring conferences. And the reason that they dread spring conferences is because my spring conferences are student-led. I'm just a facilitator. The kid is the one telling their parents how they're doing, coming clean on their behavior, talking about their work habits, talking about their tests.

So they are—and the kids, to be fair, they do fantastic. You know, they sit down—we prep them a lot beforehand. But they turn and they talk to their parents. They let their parents know where they are, what they're working on. They own up to their behavior, their work habits, their test results. Here's a test I didn't do so well on. They come clean with both their faults, as well as their successes. We talk a lot about the transition to high school, moving on into this next stage of their life.

What they're excited about, what they're afraid of—often what they're afraid of is a little bit higher than what they're really excited about. All my job is, the whole entire purpose for me even being at that table is to make sure that the picture that they're painting is inside the lines.

That's the only reason I'm there. And, you know, if we have discussion about what the kid can do better, then the parents can ask them questions. But the students lead the majority of the conference. They talk to their parents and tell them how it's going. But as you might imagine, for those of you that have had teenagers, it takes a pretty significant amount of prep work to prepare an eighth-grade student, 13 or 14 years old, to have this level of conversation, to be able to identify their deficiencies, to look at what they do well, what they need to work on. It's difficult to get that conversation set up. Any of you who have had teenagers or have had the privilege to talk to a 13 or a 14 year old, when you ask questions, often their answers are kind of monostalobic.

Hey, what do you think about your test performance? Okay. Discuss your behavior with regards to your success. It's okay. Or what are your biggest concerns going on to high school? Okay, well, good talk. Good talk. Thanks. To carry on this kind of conversation, for us to be able to carry on this kind of conversation and have parents be able to really get good information from their young people, to have it be a fruitful conversation, the student has to know the standard that they're being held to.

They have to know what exactly the requirement is of them. And not only that, have a lot of time to really think about and compare themselves to that standard. So, in the week or so leading up to conferences, we spend quite a bit of time on this. I have a little sheet that I give them. It's almost a script, so that when they get there and they turn to their parents and every thought falls out of their ears, they can cut to their script so that they can be able to come back and have it be a good fruitful conversation.

But otherwise, if they don't have the time to compare, if they don't have the standard, they're just completely my Olympic. They just don't see their shortcomings. So at school, we've adopted this set of standards. We call it the career and college readiness standards. There's two factors in it.

One is work habits, the other is conduct. And so, these are the types of things that employers are looking for. These are the kind of things that colleges are looking for that are going to indicate a student that is going to be successful in whatever endeavor it is that they go on to do when things are done. So for work habits, for example, that's kind of looking at how well do they complete their work?

How well do they do the work they complete? Is it on time? Do they show up to class? Are they organized? You know, those kinds of things, when you think about transitioning into the workplace, you want somebody that you're going to hire to show up on time, do their job, actually be halfway organized. Same thing with college students. Conduct, on the other hand, though, is a little bit more of how they carry themselves with regards to other people.

It's more about cooperation and respect, how they treat one another. Are they respectful of others and their property? Can they work well in groups? Do they show leadership skills? Do they ask questions? And as you might imagine, if you've got a student who is really good and really solid at work habits and conduct, whether they're in my science class, whether they're in a math class, language, it's not going to matter what class they're in. These are the characteristics of a good student. These are the characteristics of a good student.

So with those characteristics somewhat established with this concept of work habits and conduct, what I found is that without the standard in front of them, without really being able to look at exactly what is required of them, they can't get an accurate assessment as to where they really are. In many ways, for them, comparing themselves to this standard is a lot like taking a look in a mirror. And brethren, we find ourselves in a very similar place during the springtime of the year. As we approach Passover, we're admonished within Scripture to examine ourselves, to spend time looking at our life, looking at what we've done, looking at our actions, our attitudes, our thoughts, and really trying to focus on where we find ourselves.

And the reasons for this are extremely important. You know, we see this admonition in 1 Corinthians 11. Let's go ahead and start by turning over there. 1 Corinthians 11, just to again scripturally establish this, we see in this particular passage the Apostle Paul is addressing those of the brethren in Corinth who were not treating the Passover as maybe the solemn event that it needs to be considered. From what we can gather from the historical context, there were individuals present in that particular congregation who were taking the Passover without the proper reference. They were taking it in an unworthy manner, as Paul puts it. They were essentially making a mockery of the Passover and by extension the sacrifice of Jesus Christ himself.

1 Corinthians 11, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 27. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 27, says, Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. That unworthy manner is the Greek word anaxios. It means irreverently or in kind of an unworthy attitude.

And sometimes I think we get hung up on that. We look at that and we go, okay, my sins, my struggles, does that mean I'm unworthy, that I can't somehow take the Passover because of the things that I've done? It means we need to recognize the solemnness of this day. It means we need to understand the seriousness of sin. We need to understand what that means, what that sacrifice of Jesus Christ really means. And it means that we need to make sure that when we take those emblems, that we take it accordingly and that we treat it accordingly. Otherwise, it says that we can be guilty of the blood and the body of Christ.

So, 1 Corinthians 11, 28, So we are admonished to examine ourselves. And we recognize this is not just this time of year. I mean, we put a strong emphasis on it this time of year. But this should be a throughout the year thing. We should be spending time periodically throughout the year in prayer, in fasting, looking at our life and examining ourselves, seeing where we are. The word for this examine is, if you have a strong or you have a Thayer's or some other thing that's key to strong, the word is Dokimasso. It's G-1-3-8-1. It's G-1-3-8-1. It's Dokimasso, which is defined as to put to the test to prove or to examine.

And the root of that word is Dokimos, which was used in the context of proving or testing of coins to see whether or not they were genuine. So this idea of Dokimasso, this idea of proving or putting to the test or examining, is to prove genuinicity, if that's a word. I don't think it is, but I just made it up, so we'll throw it in the lexicon.

Genuinicity. But no, to prove whether they're genuine or not. And that's really the manner that he's using this in this particular section, is to make sure that they're examining themselves, that they might take the Passover in an appropriately reverent manner, proving themselves not to be counterfeit, not to be there just for the meal and for whatever else. He discussed at a similar point along the lines of examining ourselves.

It's the same exact Greek word, Dokimasso, and it's found in the second letter to the Corinthian church. Turn over to 2 Corinthians. We'll take a look at that as well. 2 Corinthians. And we're going to pick it up in 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5. 2 Corinthians 13 verse 5. And again, we'll see this word used again in a slightly different context, in a slightly different phrasing, but similar idea.

2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5 says, Examine yourselves. Except, interestingly enough, that examine is not Dokimasso. That examine is Perasso, which is a slightly different root.

It means to consider deeply or to scrutinize, to test objectively. So it's Perasso, examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test Dokimasso yourselves. Prove yourselves. And then it says, Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you are disqualified? But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified. Verse 7. Now I pray to God that you should do no evil, nor that we should appear approved, but that you should do what is honorable, though we may seem disqualified.

So Paul is getting at this idea with the Brethren and Corinthians, or in the Church in Corinth, and it could have been a little bit of a reminder in this particular second epistle, to put themselves to the test, to examine themselves so that they could prove or test, as you would coins, their own faith, so that they might be found genuine.

And so we recognize that we examine ourselves. We see that during this time of year in particular, we really take a look at the life that we have built. We take a look at our thoughts. We take a look at our actions. And we very intentionally and very purposefully look at ourselves to determine that we don't just appear approved, that we don't just look good to the outside observer, that we don't just look good on the outside, but that when we peel back the layers of our life, when we rub the ink off, so to speak, we aren't found to be counterfeit.

That's what this examination is. It is a proof of genuinicity, for lack of a better term. But that way we don't prove ourselves to be counterfeit. Because it is possible, it is very possible for us to deceive even ourselves if we're not careful. So let's turn over to the book of James. It talks a little bit about this concept of deceiving ourselves. The book of James. Turn over to James 1, and we'll pick it up in verse 22. Book of James. James 1, verse 22. We need to make sure that when we look at our lives, when we examine ourselves, this self-examination is as honest and as open as possible.

I tell my students when we go through this that they really need to take a look at where things are at. Because I've had students that are getting D's and F's in class, and they'll come back and go, yeah, I'm good, and all my work done.

All? Come here and let's look at the grade book real quick, and we'll sit down and go, that's a zero, that's a zero, that's a zero. Well, most of them. That's a zero. That's the conversation we sometimes have. I tell them, look, you guys, we need to be honest. We really need to look at our lives. And that's the way this is as well, because James gets into the nuts and bolts of this.

In James 1, he admonishes us to be certain that our actions are in line with what we profess to believe. That our actions are in line. James 1 and verse 22, to begin with, James 1 verse 22 says, But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. So there's how we can deceive ourselves. We hear what we need to do, and we don't do it. We know what is right, we understand what is right, and then there's not that follow-through.

So be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. So, stepping up and taking a look at ourselves, for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. If our examination is not on the actions of things that we do, on what we know and the follow-through from that, we run the risk of forgetting what we look like when we walk away from that mirror.

So how do we delude ourselves? How do we deceive ourselves? Well, by only hearing, and not following through. That is one way. We can think that we're doing great, but the follow-through is really what matters. The follow-through is what matters. And this, just I want to make sure that I'm clear here, too. This is not doing in a manner of going through the motions, begrudgingly going to church services, begrudgingly tithing, begrudgingly any of these things.

That's not what this is. This isn't going through the motions. This is because these are the things that we desire to do. These are the things that we want to do. We have to let God's Word take root in our life and change us at our core. If we don't do that, and if we don't allow God's Word to change us, then we are deceiving ourselves.

And during that examination, we can look into that mirror and see something that we don't like to see. And maybe you're not willing to change as we walk away. But we can fool even ourselves. He goes on in verse 25, But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty, the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, so looks into it, doesn't turn to walk away, but continues in it, is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work.

This one will be blessed in his doing or in what he does. So looking into the perfect law of liberty rather than the mirror, looking to the standard provided, and comparing ourselves to that standard, not just looking into the mirror and seeing ourselves. This examination that we undertake should not be a surface-level examination. We need to make sure that we follow through on what we see when we do this.

When we open up those holes and we see the places that we have issue with, we need to make sure that we don't forget, that we do what needs to be done. So James tells us it comes down to hearers versus doers. Which one grows spiritually? The doer. Which one makes lasting change in their lives? The doer. Which one do you think in my classroom is most successful? The doer. Not the kid who's just sitting there not hearing it but not doing anything.

The doer is most successful. But what I found is, just like my students, I think without a standard to compare ourselves to, without a standard for us to compare ourselves to, we sometimes lack the ability to really quantify where we really are. So instead, what we do is we look around and we try to find something we can compare to.

So maybe we might use subjective moral reasoning. We might say something like, well, I don't really lie that much. I mean, so I'm not really a liar. I mean, I only lie occasionally. So I'm not really that bad. That's subjective moral reasoning. We sometimes may compare ourselves that way. We might look around in the church and we might say, well, that guy over there, I seem to be doing better than he is, so I'm doing great. Or we might say the contrary. We might actually say, boy, that guy really looks like he's got it put together.

Ah, man, I'm not doing real well. The other thing that we can be guilty of sometimes is taking a look at the world around us and saying, boy, these guys are a mess. I'm doing way better than the world is. God must be pleased with what I'm doing then because these people who don't understand any of the truth aren't doing it, but I am.

So we can sometimes be guilty of that. Without the standard, we find comparisons. So we have to make sure that our focus is the standard, that we look at the standard of moral conduct that he expects from us. I've actually got a couple of handouts for you. The first one would be God's moral conduct of standard of conduct. It's got some boxes on it.

Some guys are going to start passing those out. You'll get them here shortly. The second one we'll save until later on. But brethren, we've been given a standard of moral conduct. We know what is expected of us. We understand that there is a standard. And to whom much is given, much is required. The standard that we have to compare ourselves to in order to have this tough conversation, because we are going to have a spring conference.

We are going to have a student-led spring conference with our Heavenly Father. We need to make sure that we understand where we are so that we can have an accurate conversation when we pray, and when we fast, and when we discuss this. But that perfect law of liberty that we compare to, the letter and the spirit of the law of God.

Now, this is specifically the moral law, this is specifically conduct. But only when we take a look at this and see where we are can we really see ourselves as God sees us. So, taking a look at this first standard, some of you guys are getting this just now, just to show you how it's organized so that it makes sense, and you can dig into it as you go.

The handout is hopefully designed, the goal here is that it will help to illustrate the standard. Starting with the far left-hand column, it's broken down on the underlying principle behind that particular law. So, whether it is a law that is intended to illustrate our love for God, or whether it's a law that's intended to illustrate our love for our neighbor or our fellow man. The next column over illustrates the letter of the law, the physical action specifically. And it's the short form that is recorded within Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.

And there are scriptural references throughout, so that you guys are able to prove these, because I don't want you to just take it off this paper, but prove it. So, we've got the letter of the law, the next step over is the spirit of the law, and then over on the outside is kind of modern spiritual application questions. So, for example, if we go across the first column, we see that the first commandment, specifically, you shall have no other gods before me, the underlying principle of that, is that we love God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind.

That's the principle for that particular law, the underlying principle. Then, we see the specific letter of the law and the explanation there. We see the spirit of the law, those are attitudes, actions, and the questions, who do we worship? We must worship God and serve only Him. We see scripturally, we can't have two masters, we can't serve two masters. We need to make sure we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And we also can see that pride often exalts the self as a god.

We can sometimes put ourselves up in this place of God. And we see that James 4, 6 talks about God resisting the proud, giving grace to the humble, and that is located there. So then we come over to the modern application questions. What do we turn to when we hurt? What do we turn to when we hurt? That could be place in our lives as a god. Have we made a god of self? Are we controlled by addiction? On what do we spend the majority of our time and on our money?

These are hopefully helping to identify places in life. What do we put first in our life? Where is our primary focus? And it does this for each of these as we go through. So hopefully it'll be helpful. Hopefully it'll be something that can be used as we go through this process, just to be able to have it in front of us in a way that we can just look at and see, but within the pages of our Bible itself.

So the goal here is, this is the standard that we're being held to. This is the conduct that God expects from us. And again, this is intended to assist you in your Passover examination. One of the things that we can probably do real well on at times is check off on the letter of the law. The letter of the law seems pretty easy to check off most of the time. You know, I didn't bow before any idols of stone, metal, or wood today. You know, I didn't pull the trigger on my fellow man.

I'm not having an affair. I'm not stealing, you know, groceries from the grocery store down the way. But what we tend to find ourselves struggling is in those spiritual aspects. Even though we can check off the letter, what if we spend all of our time on other pursuits other than spiritual ones? What if we have ill will towards people in the world around us? What if our eyes linger a little bit too long on the man or the woman in the checkout line at the store? What about the project that we do on company time that isn't related to our work at all?

Okay, so those are the kind of things, our ongoing struggles to show justice, love, and mercy to our fellow man. So spirit of the law issues that have a way of catching a snapping. In our classes that we're enrolled in, in our formalized education, as we learn to become kings and priests, we don't really have what we sort of do. We sort of have formalized education. In a way, we have the Sabbath and we have the Holy Days.

We sit down, we go through formalized education. But honestly, the majority of our education is experiential. It's out in the world around us as we go through life. It's God teaching us through our conversations that we have, through our experiences, through our mistakes, and through those situations that we come on as we go out in the world around us. As we learn, we gain both knowledge and wisdom. Now, they're intimately related, but at its core, wisdom is the application of knowledge. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. In fact, I think you can make a really decent argument.

The goal of public education is knowledge and skills to be successful in the next whatever, wherever they happen to be going, whether it's high school or college or whatever. The goal of God's education is for us to increase our wisdom. Now, it's knowledge and wisdom, but wisdom being the application of that knowledge. It's designed to give us a foundational understanding to make right judgment and discernments. Now, it talks about this in Hebrews 5, verse 14.

Let's turn over to Hebrews 5. Just a few pages back from where you're at now, if you're still in James. Hebrews 5. And we'll pick it up in verse 14. This passage follows a series that are so often looked at to illustrate spiritual maturity. Kind of this idea of weaning from the milk of the word to the meat of the word. We're not going to focus on that aspect of it today. We're going to skip that piece just a little bit and pick it up in verse 14.

Kind of looking at this idea of growing in spiritual maturity from a babe in Christ to a full-grown person. Again, Hebrews 5 and verse 14. Hebrews 5, verse 14 says, But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, spiritually mature. That is, those who by reason of use, who by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Who by reason of use, applying it, using it. Experiencing it out there in the world around us.

They have their senses exercised to discern good and evil. And as we become spiritually mature, as we grow in wisdom, which, again, ultimate goal of godly instruction, we learn to discern good from evil. We learn to make righteous judgments in the experience that we're provided, based on what we see in Scripture.

There's a guy some of you may be familiar with. His name is B.F. Skinner. His name is B.F. Skinner. He was a famous behavioral researcher, as well as an educational researcher. But he was once quoted as saying, education is what's left when everything that you've learned has been forgotten. That education is what's left when everything that you've learned has been forgotten. And what B.F. Skinner was not saying, he wasn't saying that education wasn't important, because we're just going to forget it all anyway.

That's not what B.F. Skinner was saying. What he's getting at is, unless what we learn changes us in some way, unless what we learn changes us in some way, unless it truly impacts our character, makes us a different person, then it's all for naught. If it does not change us, we can have all the scriptural knowledge in the world in our head. If it doesn't change us, what's the point? If it doesn't change us, what's the point? Wisdom is what we do with what we learn. It's how we apply it. And wisdom really is looking at a situation that is not black or white, it's in that gray area, quote-unquote, and using what we've learned in God's Word to discern what is right in that situation when it's not directly spelled out for us in Scripture.

Can we make a righteous judgment on a matter? Can we look at using God's law, using God's destruction? Can we decide where we stand on something based on what we understand God's desires to be? These are the goals of our education. And every day we have opportunity to learn as we go about our day. We're all enrolled in these experiential courses. We're out in the world around us.

We have Love 201, maybe. Kindness 103. Joy 102. Patience 101. Or, in my case, I'm in Patience 99. It's a remedial course. It doesn't quite give credit. I start to take 101, but I'm getting there. But you might be in 101, you might be in 201. But the reality of it is, brethren, spring is officially here. Our progress reports are going out. So, compared to God's standard, both letter and spirit, how are you doing?

What does our progress report look like? How are our work habits? How are our conduct? Quick show of hands. How many feel like they've met the standard this year in all their classes? 4.0? Valedictorian? Yep, still haven't had a hand yet in the number of times that I've given this message. How many are still working at it? How many are still striving? Still making mistakes?

Still occasionally failing a test now and again? Me too. You're not alone. We know that all sin and fall short of the glory of God, but it seems at times, despite that knowledge, we can become discouraged when we do our Passover examination. We can look at where we are in our life. We can look at it and say, you know what? I'm facing the same issue that I was facing last year. It doesn't look as though there's been any appreciable growth in this particular department whatsoever.

And we can look at where we are and we can conclude that we're not there yet. How many years have I been at this and I'm not there yet? We can get discouraged. And we can really beat ourselves up at times when we take a look at it. And we can almost get to the point where we start to ask ourselves, what's the point?

I'm never going to beat this. I'm always going to struggle against this. I'm never going to achieve a good prayer life. I'm never going to be able to study like I should, throwing out some examples. It's just not in it for me. You know, I notice my students do this exact same thing at times. They focus so much on the outcome. They focus so much on the outcome. The fact that they're not where they want to be, or where not even sometimes where they want to be, but where I want them to be.

They sometimes are frustrated because, you know, they're discouraged. It's not there. But what they have is a snapshot in time. They have a picture of, here's where I am right now. And if we don't zoom back occasionally and look at where we started, as Mr.

Miller brought out, you know, our conversion story, where we started, where was the beginning of this process and this continuum, you know, we sometimes lose track of the fact that we really may have grown a lot. But we're so focused in on where we are right now that we don't often see that growth. We're somewhere on a continuum from our calling to being transformed.

Some might be a little further along, some might be a bit further back, but everybody is on a continuum between these two places. We can't focus solely on the fact that we're not there yet as we examine ourselves. There's been some interesting brain research. We've been talking about this at school all year long, so it's been on my mind a bit lately. Coming out of Stanford University, it's got some potential to be really interesting from a standpoint of education, and it actually has some interesting spiritual parallels, I think, as well.

The research is being done by Dr. Carol Dweck, and it's called Growth Mindset versus Fixed Mindset. It really contrasts two very different ways of looking at the world around you. Has anybody heard of Growth Mindset versus Fixed Mindset? Okay. Basically, the gist of it is, someone with a fixed mindset might see things like intelligence, various skill sets, abilities as being fixed. In other words, they can't be changed.

It is what it is. You're always doomed to be a failure at this particular thing. I hear my students is what I always hear. I'm bad at math. That's a fixed mindset statement. That's a fixed mindset statement. I see some heads nodding. That's a fixed mindset statement. In that, it implies that there's nothing that they could do to fix it.

It is what it is. I will always be bad at it. It's just the way of the world. Whereas, someone with a Growth Mindset feels like, if they focused enough time on that particular skill set, that they could improve in it. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that all of a sudden they'll be deriving calculus the next minute from being bad at math to this, but it means that there is gradual improvement if the effort is focused on it and if they spend enough time on that process.

They focus on the process. They focus on the growth. They focus on a little here, a little there, and that's how they'll see success. That incremental growth is their focus. I have an article here that discusses this just a little bit. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I want you to hear what Carol Dweck has said about this particular thing. This is written by a guy named James Clear. He's a behavioral psychologist. He says, there are many reasons why it can be hard to stick to good habits or to develop new skills, but more often than not, the biggest challenge is sitting between your two ears.

Your mind is a very powerful thing. The stories you tell yourself and the stories you believe about yourself can either prevent change from happening or allow new skills to blossom. Recently, I've been learning more about the link between our beliefs and our behaviors. If you're interested in actually sticking to goals, building better habits, and reaching a higher level of achievement, then you'll love Carol Dweck's research.

She's well known for her work on the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset. Here's how Dweck describes the difference between these two mindsets and how they impact your performance. In a fixed mindset, students believe their basic abilities, intelligence talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount, and that's that. And then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset, students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching, and persistence.

They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or that anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it. You know, when we consider our spiritual journey, when we particularly, as we begin to examine ourselves, we need to recognize that the goal for us is as much spiritual growth as humanly possible before we draw our last breath. Will any of us meet the standard of perfection in the law of liberty that Jesus Christ set for us in this life?

This life? This physical life? No. So if we focus on the outcome and consider that we're not there yet and then become discouraged and beat ourselves up, how does that help us? Now, that's different than godly sorrow, which leads to repentance. That's different. This is beyond godly sorrow. This is like punishing ourselves for the things that we've done.

Godly sorrow leading to repentance, as was discussed by Paul in 2 Corinthians, is crucial. But to move past godly sorrow and repentance to discouragement, beating ourselves up, is exactly what Satan wants. Exactly what Satan wants. We won't get there in this life, but that doesn't mean we just give up and stop trying. That does not mean we give up and stop trying. Telling ourselves, I can't do it anyway, so why try? We have to focus on moving that line on the graph ever higher towards the standard that was provided for us, once again, until we can't anymore. Growing in wisdom, living the way of life, we've been called to lead to the best of our ability, learning and growing each and every day.

Letting every experience shape us. Letting all that we've learned change our character. So in the interest of this, what I'd like to do is spend the rest of our time today encouraging you, as we near the Holy Days, by taking a look at three specific things that we can do to kind of help develop a growth mindset, a process of thinking that will help us focus on the process of growing and improving. And what we'll do to do that is to take a look at three primary points. The first of those points is that we need to learn from our mistakes. We need to learn from our mistakes. The second of those points is that we need to choose to grow. And that's actually the title of the message today, Choose to Grow, because that is the linchpin in this process. And finally, the very last thing that we need to do is follow through. Follow through. So we've got to learn from our mistakes, we have to choose to grow, and we have to follow through. And my goal is to spend a little bit of time in the first two with more of our time spent on where do we go from the examination point. That's really the important part. How do we progress? What can we do to grow? Now, as all analogies break down, this is where this one breaks down a little bit. This is where this one breaks down a little bit, so I'm going to throw that out there. One of the central tenets to the idea of a growth mindset is the idea that stepping out of your comfort zone and failing is a good thing. Now, in education, absolutely true. But I want to be very clear. Transgression of God's law is not okay. It's not okay. We know that. We understand that. Christ's death is what rectified us and reconciled us to God for those transgressions. So it's not like we need to go out there with a goal of creating mistakes so that we can fail. Paul talks about this in Romans. He talks about in Romans 6 that this grace of God, the grace of God, does not give us license to sin. It does not give us license to sin so we can go out and sin more abundantly. His grace provides us with the opportunity to learn from that mistake, to recognize it for what it is, a transgression, a sin, a mistake, to repent of that sin, and to draw nearer to God and resolve to go forward. That's what God's grace allows us to do. God's grace does not let us go live whatever life we want to live and say, Oh, it's fine because grace has got me covered. That's not the goal of grace. It's not what grace is designed to do. But this is one of the hardest things. This comfort zone concept is one of the hardest things to establish in a student. Stepping out of that comfort zone, taking a risk, and maybe not being successful. That is so hard in 13 and 14 year old kids to get them to do because they don't want to look bad in front of their friends. They step out and answer a question and it's wrong immediately.

Did anybody see that? Did anybody see that I got that question wrong? They worry about that kind of thing. And in some ways, they don't want people to see them fail. They don't want people to be thought less of by anyone else. And honestly, brethren, in some ways we're no different. I mean, in some ways we're no different. We don't want people to see us when we're vulnerable either, or for them to know that we've made a mistake, or for them to know that we've failed. You know? Without us talking about these kinds of issues that we face, we're a room of perfect people in everybody else's eyes. Because we don't realize that other people are struggling with this issue, or that issue, or are having trouble here, or going through this trial here. If we don't talk about them, if we don't ever discuss them, how will people know? How will people know what to pray for? How will people be able to help us, to give us support, strengthen us? In the book of James, we are admonished to admit our vulnerabilities. Let's go to book of James 5. James 5 verse 16. James 5 verse 16. It is okay for people to see us vulnerable. It is okay for people to know that we are not perfect. Because we're not perfect. All have fallen short. Book of James 5 verse 16. It says, James instructs us to share our sins. It is a Greek word, hamarchia. These are the places we fall short, where we miss the mark. We should share these places in our life with others where we fail. It's not an announcement. We don't roll in through the door and scream at the top of our lungs, You know, hey, here's what I did wrong this week. No. No. We have certain people that we trust, that we know can keep a confidence, and we trust them. We share with them. We ask them to pray for us so that we can beat whatever it is that we're dealing with.

But again, he goes on to discuss how Elijah was a man with passions like us. Same propensity to sin, yet he prayed fervently that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't rain for three years and six months. We don't like to share our faults. We do not like to share our faults. We see them as limitations. We see them as shortcomings. But what if we looked at life less in a fixed mindset and more in a growth mindset? Would we see the mistakes that we make as limitations to be hidden, covered up? Or would we see them as opportunities to learn and grow that could be shared for not only the benefit of ourselves, but the benefit of others? There is something to be said for avoiding a trap that someone else has fallen into. When we share these things, we can understand where some of those traps may be. As we mentioned before, too, we do have a tendency to, again, beat ourselves up over our sins and to continue to dwell on them and think about them long after we've committed them. Sometimes we forget that once we've repented of that sin and asked God for forgiveness, Psalm 103 tells us that the sin is removed as far as east is from west. We also hear in Isaiah 43 that God remembers them no more. Yet, for some reason, we have a hard time forgetting ourselves, letting ourselves forget what we've done. Philippians 3. Let's go ahead and turn over there. Philippians 3.

Philippians 3. And we'll pick it up in verse 13. A couple chapters ahead of Mr. Miller today. Philippians 3.

That would be Ephesians. It's not going to give me the right one. There we go. Philippians 3, verse 13.

We see Paul telling the brethren in Philippi that their focus needs to be on what's ahead, not on what's behind. Let's look over there again. Philippians 3, verse 13.

We need to recognize that we will make mistakes. We're not excusing them. We're not tolerating them. We're not saying that it's something we do not want to make mistakes. We do not desire to make mistakes. We want to live God's way of life. It's important in order to establish a growth mindset that we learn from those mistakes and that we grow from them. So the second point, choosing to grow, recognizing that mistakes will be made, that we will fail and we will fall short.

The most important thing that we have to do when we learn our lessons is we have to choose to grow. We have to choose to grow. In that particular situation, we have to choose to grow. To recognize that progress can be made. To recognize that progress can be made. One of the key words to a growth mindset is the word, yet. One of the key words to a growth mindset is the word, yet. For students, I'm not good at math becomes I'm not good at math, yet. One of them is a statement with finality. The other recognizes it's a function of time and effort. I haven't conquered this thin, yet. I haven't gotten through this trial, yet. I haven't met the standard, yet. Just like our students will grow in their abilities with time and effort, we need to recognize our faith is a growth process. Our faith is a growth process. We start out in a certain place. That's not, ideally, that's not where we end. Let's go to 2 Peter 1. 2 Peter 1. And we'll see this growth process kind of outlined a little bit. 2 Peter 1. 2 Peter 1, and we'll pick it up in verse 5. We see an example of this growth process. That one thing leads to another. One thing adds on to another. In a way, it almost kind of stair-steps, honestly. In fact, I drew in the bottom of my Bible, I drew them as stairs. Because they do kind of stair-step. To one thing we add the next. To the next we add this. To this we add this. Verse 5 of 2 Peter 1 says, But also, for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue. So we start with faith. Faith virtue. To virtue knowledge. To knowledge self-control. To self-control perseverance. To perseverance godliness. To godliness, brotherly kindness. And to brotherly kindness, love. One is needed to have the other. It builds. Faith to virtue. Virtue to knowledge, self-control. On and on it goes to the point of, eventually, love. Agape love. That's the progression that's followed in this particular section. It all starts with faith, but to that small seed, we add more characteristics. We mature. We develop to the point of godly love. That's the ultimate goal.

We don't make the choice each and every day to be better than we were the day before in these characteristics, as we go about our daily classes. We're going to struggle to obtain that final goal. We're going to struggle to obtain that final goal. Agape love for both God and for our fellow man. 1 Corinthians 13, we won't turn there, but in 1 Corinthians 13, in that love chapter, Paul describes the ultimate proof of our spiritual maturity and our spiritual growth.

That we have love for our fellow man. But as we know, it doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop just at our regular fellow man. We're told to love our enemies. We're told to love our enemies. We're told to love those who would spitefully use us. We're told to love those who would do us harm. To them, we're told to turn the other cheek.

We're told that love puts away envy. It puts away pride. It rejoices in the truth.

It then goes on to discuss in 1 Corinthians 13 this idea that without love, without that mature proof of our faith in God, everything else that we do is useless.

Everything else that we do is useless. Prophecy, martyrdom, enough faith to move mountains, giving away all that we own to the poor. None of it matters if we don't do it with love as the primary motivation behind it. If we're doing it to be seen, if we're doing it to whatever it may be, if love is not the motivation behind those actions, then it's all for naught.

Love represents the goal of our growth. But growth doesn't just happen. We have to choose to grow. We have to choose to grow. I have a conversation with my students, and it's a frequent conversation, so this is every six weeks, honestly, when we do our examination. We do progress reports at six-week marks. But I have a frequent conversation with them when we do our six-week check-in. We have them go through and they do this examination process. We look back, we reflect on performance, and I have them analyze themselves against the standard. So they look at themselves, they look at the standard, and they go, okay, where am I at? And honestly, most of my students, most of them, come to a conclusion that they didn't do as well as they could have done and that they need to do better. Honestly, most of the time when I read their self-examinations, I would agree with just about—I mean, they're pretty accurate, honestly. They're pretty accurate in many ways. There are a few that, again, are completely—when they have the standard, they're pretty accurate.

Others that—they'll say things like, I talk too much, I don't finish my work, I need to study better for tests, I have difficulty focusing. But it's interesting, when I ask them, okay, so now you know the problem, now you know what needs to be fixed.

Where do we go from here? I'll do better? Is the response, I'll do better.

What does that look like? My response, define what doing better looks like to you. Turn in all my work. Okay, that's a start. And so we'll sit down and kind of conference a little bit together, just to set up some steps and different things that they can do. But it's interesting, when it comes time to actually make change, they talk a good game. They talk about wanting to do better. They talk about wanting to change. They talk about wanting to be successful.

But their actions prove that they're not really interested in true change. In fact, with my group of kids this year, I told you I have a little bit rougher group of kids this year, our last six-week conversation, I dropped this on them. I wrote Einstein's definition of insanity on the board. He said, you know, Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

And then I told them, look, every six weeks you guys, you look at this and you say, you know, you've measured yourself, you've weighed yourself, and you found yourself wanting, and then you go, well, I'm going to do better. And then you do the exact same habits and the exact same behaviors that you did the six weeks before that, expecting that something is magically going to change. Choosing to grow is the linchpin in this entire process. Without this, the wheels fall off. The wheels fall off. Without the choice to grow, we go nowhere. Without the will to change, the choice stops dead. It's been said there are two kinds of pain in the world, the kind that hurts you and the kind that changes you.

Without something occurring in someone's life that is painful enough to cause change, true growth will be elusive. It will. This is actually the principle behind the intervention in AA. The idea behind the intervention is to create pain, emotional pain, to jar them out of that addictive cycle, to recognize what they've been doing, to recognize how that's impacting their family and their friends, to see how it affects others and hurts them and other people.

That emotional pain enables change. Godly sorrow leads to repentance. It leads to us turning the other way, walking away. Until we analyze our life objectively, until we look at the various places in our lives where we fall short, where we feel sorrowful about our life and about our choices, if we don't know where we're at, we can't choose to grow in those places. That's where the second of these handouts come in.

It doesn't look like you guys have already handed this out. So if you take a look at these real quick, this is actually an almost across-the-board adaptation of a sheet that I give my students for this is almost a conference script that I give my kids. Now I've adapted it obviously for our uses, but for the first little bit, looking at prayer, study, and meditation, this is looking at your relationship with God.

How is your relationship with God? Do you communicate regularly in prayer? Are we making every effort to study God's Word? Meditate on it. Try to understand His will. Are we acting on our understanding? Are we walking worthy of our calling? Are we repenting when necessary? How could we improve upon that relationship? We look at our character. These are the fruits of the Spirit. One through five, based on last year to this year.

Is there growth? Is there growth from last year to this year? How could we improve in those places? On the back, the conduct, this is the standards that we have written out on this other sheet. Is God the focus of our life? Have we built up an idol in His place? Do our actions and our words bring honor to God? Do we keep the Sabbath holy? Reflecting the light. How clean is our mirror, so to speak? Do other people see us for what we are?

I mean, if we're running around and saying, yes, I'm a Christian, and then all of our actions are unchristian, people start to kind of wonder, wait a minute, maybe not. How do we reflect the light? Would people be interested in getting to know your God based on your personal example?

Would they be interested in getting to know your God based on your example? How do we serve? And then lastly is next steps. That's just a way to look at...you might find as you look at this, if you're...I love these kinds of things. For me, this is like, I love this kind of thing, sitting down and like writing it out and going through it.

Other people, I totally get it. It's not your thing. I totally get it. But one of the things to look at on the back is, what is the next step? How can we go forward from here spiritually between now and next year? What can we do? How can we change? How can we focus on areas of growth? Once we've identified those sections, once we've done our analysis and we've got our trouble areas and we know now we want to grow, then comes the hardest part of anything.

Following through and actually doing it. Carrying out the plan. So once we come to the point where we see the mistakes that we've made, and this is the final point today, once we've made that choice to grow, to change, now we have to follow through and make that change. We have to recognize it all starts with our relationship with God. The first four of those standards of conduct we see on our standard sheet, if our sins have separated us from God, if we put something else in His place, you know, again, if we're not keeping the Sabbath holy, if He's not our primary focus, if we don't represent Him in such a way to the world around us that brings honor to Him, we have to repent and draw near to Him.

We have to change. We have to grow. Turn over to James 4, and we'll see a formula, so to speak, which helps us to draw closer to God. James 4, and we'll pick it up in verses 7-9. James 4, verses 7-9. We get a little bit of an idea of how to go about this process. You know, formula is formulaic, for lack of a better definition. Maybe it's not a formula, but it's a way of looking at it. James 4, and verse 7 says, Therefore, submit to God.

There's our first step. Submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom. So we can see that we have to submit ourselves to the will of God. We have to resist the devil, such that he flees from us.

I heard something on the radio up here today, somebody was talking about, anytime we want to say yes to something in our life, we have to say no to something else. So if we want to grow in our relationship with God, and we want to say yes to that, we have to say no to something else. We have to find something else and say, no, that's not letting me do this, whatever it may be. So we have to resist the devil. We have to say no, that he flees from us. We must draw near to God, and when we do that, God says he will draw near to us.

We need to work to cleanse our hands of sin, repent, purify our hearts. But notice verse 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up. He will exalt you. Humbling ourselves so that he will exalt us, so that he will lift us up. We can't pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We certainly do have a part in it, but we need God in our life to grant us repentance, to help us overcome, and to strengthen us as we go to battle daily against our carnal human nature.

Once we draw near to God and we remain near to Him, we begin to make change. Often my students at school, they'll analyze where they find themselves, and in response to where they find themselves, they'll make an outrageous goal that they can't actually meet, and then they get even more discouraged with themselves. You all have a student that's getting a D in class, and they'll go, I'm going to get an A! Let's start with the C, and then let's work up to the B, and then let's work up to the A.

Let's not say we're going to get an A, and then when you get a C, freak out because you didn't make your goal. I've been guilty of this, I'll admit it. I'll have a place in my life where I fall short, and I'll talk with God and prayer, I'm going to do this!

It's this big extravagant plan, and it's all this stuff, and then inevitably it's one ditch right into the other, and it wasn't successful. Lasting change is small and incremental. It's small and incremental. It's a little here, it's a little there. So, for example, if your conclusion is that your prayer life needs work, it might not be wise to commit to an hour a day and then beat yourself up when you can't kneel down for an hour a day and pray.

It may be that we set an unrealistic goal. Maybe we start by committing to five to ten minutes a day. We start there, we sit down with a prayer request list, we pray for those individuals, we pray for God's people. When you're done, you're done. When ten minutes becomes the daily habit, we add a little bit more. Once we get to that point, you know, who knows, you might be up to thirty minutes to an hour in no time.

And everything's fine. And you built yourself incrementally to that previously maybe unrealistic goal. Don't stay at five minutes, don't stay at ten minutes, but start there. If you come to the conclusion you need to become more familiar with your Bible, spend more time and study, consider doing a Bible reading plan.

We've got one going on right now that we've been doing. We just started into, just recently we just started into finished Ruth and just started for Samuel last couple of days. But that's not studying. That's not studying. That's a reading plan. That is not Bible study. It's a reading plan. So the study comes from when you see something interesting in the reading plan, you go, ooh, I wonder about that, and then dig into it.

Or the studying comes from trying to ask or ask, ask and look at a variety of different things, questions you might be thinking about, and seeing how it pertains to that particular story. That's just a couple of quick examples. But the most important thing, regardless of what we choose and what we decide we need to do, start small and don't quit. Start small and don't quit. There's a little second section of this article.

I'm going to read this really quickly. It kind of caught my eye. It has to do with running, so it's kind of interesting. But it's written by a woman named Leah Culver, and she talks about how she started running. It says, I started running a year ago. I didn't entirely start from scratch. In the past, I jogged every once in a while, maybe once a month. My first run was just two miles at 12 minutes per mile. That's pretty slow. However, for a non-athlete, I felt fairly good about it. I jogged a couple more times that week.

After a couple weeks of regular jogging, I set a goal for myself. I knew I'd never be fast enough to impress anybody, so it didn't make sense to make speed my goal. I could have picked a race to train for, a 5K or a half miler, but I knew how those ended. Everyone seems to quit running right after their big race. I wanted to do something different. I wanted to not quit. My goal involved not going too long between runs. If I skipped more than a couple of days, wouldn't that technically be quitting?

So I started running four and five days a week. The longest I went between runs was three days when I was in Hawaii for vacation. My goal made all the difference. I was still slow, but I could at least feel good that I was running a lot.

I have good days where I'd run fast and feel great, but I also had a lot of bad days where I was tired and I just didn't feel like running. In retrospect, those bad days were almost better than the good days because they reinforced my goal. I didn't quit. I ran my first 5K nearly five months after I'd taken up running as a hobby.

I wore a costume with fairy wings and I tried to keep up with a random guy with an owl on his head. I finished in 28 minutes and was super happy. I learned that racing wasn't always about being the fastest, but doing my personal best. I signed up to run a full marathon in December. I hired a running coach and I set a regular running schedule. I started to think of myself as a runner. If you would have told me a year ago that I'd be working out almost every day and running 100 miles a month, I never would have believed you. Running really snuck up on me. I had modest aspirations and didn't really care if I was great at running. I just wanted to stick to my one goal. Don't quit.

Moral of the story is, we have to do it. We have to do it. We have to start small, but we have to get out there and go. There can't be any excuses. Sometimes we find ourselves trapped in this prayer cycle of, Lord, please help me love my neighbor, you know, help me to love my fellow man, help me. You've got two neighbors.

You've got two neighbors, probably one on either side of you. How can you love them? How can you serve them? Sometimes we have to stop just praying about it and start praying about it and doing it. And so it's really important we don't get trapped in this analysis paralysis. We just sometimes need to take that first step and ensure that it's a small one that can be replicated. So how can we ensure that we can do what we need to get done in our spiritual life?

We're beginning to close here. If you turn over to Ephesians 5, turn over to Ephesians 5. What this process involves us doing is taking a very stark look at our life and not only identifying where we fall short, but more importantly, why we fall short.

More importantly, why we fall short. What is getting in the way of our relationship with God? What is it that's preventing us from doing what it is that we need to be doing? You know, if we identify addictions in our life, we need to get help. If we find that prayer and study aren't solid because we have so many external distractions, it's time to get out the pruning shears. What can we lop off of these external distractions that are getting in the way of what we need to do?

You know, if we're finding we go home and we sit down and we say, oh, I don't have any time to study, we're watching four and a half hours of TV a night, something's out of whack. We need to identify that and prune it out. Ephesians 5, verse 15, gets into this concept. Ephesians 5 and verse 15 says very specifically I'm turning there still, sorry.

I thought I already did. I didn't. Ephesians 5, verse 15, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Understand what the will of the Lord is. We are admonished to be careful and circumspect in how we walk. To walk as wise men. The times in which we live are evil. They are evil. And we are instructed to redeem that time. That's the Greek word exorazo.

Redeem it, rescue it from loss, buy it back from the evil in the world around us. God gives us 24 hours every day. How are they spent? How do we use them? Once again, to whom much is given, much is required. The distractions of things that waste our time, we have to be willing to walk away from things which no longer grow us.

We have to be willing to walk away if they're no longer providing us any kind of fruit on the other end of it. If it is purely wasting time, cut it out. Lop it off of the tree. We have to grow. Spiritually, we have to grow. Once we've identified places that we fall short, once we've learned from those mistakes, and we've made the conscious decision to grow, rather the only thing left to do is do it.

That's the only thing left. To follow through on what we know to be true. To follow through on what we know that our Father expects of us. The standard sheet that's in front of you, pulled from the pages of your Bible with scriptural references, contained a brief summarization of God's moral code of conduct, the expectation, the letter-spirit of God's moral law.

The other sheet is designed to help you evaluate where you stand with respect to that standard, and encourage you to identify the places that might need a little work. Will we be hearers only, or will we be doers of what we know God desires of us? We need to make sure we walk worthy of that calling, and our day-to-day actions must come from our convictions. We need to live God's Word each and every day, as that knowledge and that wisdom that we're learning from our classes, all these things we're doing in the world around us, should change us.

At our core, it should change us. We need to focus on growth in our lives, small, incremental changes that will make us better in that category than we were the day before. I hope you have a very profitable self-examination, and I pray for a very valuable student-led conference with our Heavenly Father. Have a wonderful Sabbath.