Iron that Sharpens Iron

Thank you. Once again, good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, Mr. Miller. I appreciated the suggestion to put a little extra special on it. It's special music. It's not regular music. Special music. Put a little extra special on it. You guys did. You put a little extra pepper on it, and we certainly appreciate that as we go. Well, a few years back, I had an opportunity to open up my classroom to a teacher candidate, is what we call it. We used to call them student teachers. That's probably the term you're more familiar with than teacher candidate. But the idea is the same. The person who is in that classroom as a teacher candidate is a pre-service teacher. In other words, they have not yet begun their career in teaching, and they're learning the ropes. They're getting their feet underneath them, so to speak. With regards to classroom management, with regards to lesson planning, with regards to delivery. Sometimes it's easy to put a lesson together. It's easy to go through and think that, hey, here's how it's going to work. And then you get up there, and you start, and you realize all those plans have to go out the window. I need to shift it, I need to change it, I need to do whatever it might be. Sometimes the delivery is difficult. They're trying to get their feet under them from a grading standpoint. Just the sheer amount of papers going out and papers coming in, and ensuring that those get graded, and they get back out rather than just getting thrown in the garbage can and putting a plus on everybody's name in the grade book. Guilty. I did. Couple of times, guilty. Trying to keep up, right? Trying to make sure that you have that ability. But they're learning everything that it takes to help a classroom run smoothly. Now, that young person who is in your classroom has been in an education program. They have been getting their heads filled with pedagogical theories, conflicting ideology. In fact, sometimes they're not even 100% sure what their own personal ideology related to a classroom is. And then, essentially, when they reach the pinnacle of being wound up by that college teacher preparation course, they're sent into the school system to make a difference in the life of our youth. And they do come out loaded for bear and just ready to go. And they're so excited, and they're so just ready to change the world.

Now, I was a student teacher at one point in time. I remember it all too well. I, honestly, when I went into the classroom, I didn't even know what my educational philosophy was. I had no idea. I had just, you know, I had all these thoughts and considerations in my head from college, and I didn't really know what my own educational philosophy was. I, frankly, was still defining it.

And I was defining it up into the first couple of years of my career. I remember coming out of my education program into my student teaching with all these ideas. You know, at that point, I had a class website planned. You know, I'd plan to post all the grades online. Keep in mind, for some of you younger people, you're like, everybody does that. Well, at that point in time, that was brand new. Nobody did that. You know, going through and posting grades online, it wasn't a thing at that point in time.

I thought about different ways of setting up the classroom from a seating standpoint, ways to deal with conflict, ways to deal with behavior, and a whole bunch of the ideas that I developed while I was in that graduate program, kind of as a result of all this information that I was being fed by a fire hose.

If I'm being perfectly honest in the interest of transparency and honesty, some of those ideas worked very well, and they remained in my teaching repertoire. Many more of those ideas, frankly, went down in horrible and terrible flames.

They ended very poorly. They were not what needed to be done in those classrooms. But what I learned in my time as a guest in somebody else's classroom, that failure was part of the growth process.

Failure was needed to find out what worked well versus what didn't work at all.

And I was very blessed, I was truly blessed, to have two phenomenal mentor teachers who were both masters of their craft in their own right, but really knew what was going on in those classrooms. They knew what worked. They knew what would be effective. But, despite the fact that they knew what would be effective, despite the fact that they knew what would work, they gave me the freedom to explore and experiment with possibilities and watched on more than one occasion with morbid curiosity and a visible grin as I went forward and tried whatever it was.

When I took on my own teacher candidate, finally, after a number of years in the classroom, I wanted to do everything that I could to be just like my mentor teachers.

I wanted to provide that young person with a chance to explore. I wanted to provide them with the opportunity to try out these ideas and to have the freedom to fail and to learn from those mistakes while trying to develop ways to kind of mitigate and control the collateral damage.

So you might imagine my surprise when the teacher candidate came up with all these ideas, and I found myself doing the exact opposite of what I desired.

Instead of being open to their ideas and being willing to entertain the possibility of change, I rebuffed their ideas at every turn.

They came up to me and said something to the effective. So I was thinking I might reorganize how you have this feeding chart.

And all I'm thinking in my brain is, for the one period that this person teaches, they want to take all the desks and move them a different way.

And the next period, I have to move them all back. So my response was, yeah, no. No, that's not really an option.

I mean, you can if you want, but you're going to have to move everything back before the next period starts. I mean, you know, knock yourself out.

The person told me, I don't really like A through F grading skills. I would really prefer to do a proficiency grading system.

And I said, well, you know, I suppose one way to live your life. Have fun with that.

We talked about student behavior, and they said, well, I'm not really much of a behaviorist.

I feel that positive and negative reward systems really impede student motivation.

And I kind of said, well, after observing the behavior in their classes, I said, how's that working out for you?

Because it wasn't working out at that point in time.

They said, I'd really like to consider testing them differently than you have for the rest of the year.

I'd like to do this, this, and this. And I kind of said, well, I tried that at one point in time, and it really didn't work out quite as well as what I'm doing now.

Now, I've worked very, very hard to make myself sound a lot more obnoxious than the actual responses that I gave her. But the reality is, my fundamental attitude behind my responses honestly wasn't far off from what I've described.

What I was telling her consistently when our discussion was happening, I was telling her, this is how we've always done it.

This is how we've always done it. Let's not make waves. Let's not, you know, try to shift anything.

Let's try not to just, let's just keep doing what we've always done, because that works, that makes me comfortable, that makes me happy.

And let's not try to kind of change things. How many of you have ever been told that by somebody, this is how we've always done it?

Show of hands, right? I mean, we all, at some point in our lives, have heard, well, this is how we've always done it.

No, it's a great idea, but this is how we've always done it.

And I'd venture a guess that most of you at one point in time, even if you didn't raise your hand, you probably heard that in some way, shape, or form.

You know, it might not be those exact words, but the fundamental response was similar.

And maybe you've sat back and you've looked at something and you've considered it and you've seen how it progresses and you go, wouldn't it be more efficient if it was done like this, or wouldn't it be better to do this instead of this?

And then, of course, you suggest it to the individual involved, only to hear the death knell of change and improvement.

Again, those dreaded words, this is how we've always done it.

Have you ever wanted to turn around and ask the question, yeah, but why? Why? Why have we always done it this way?

Who's the person that decided this is the way that it's supposed to go, and then everybody just assumed that this is exactly how it should work?

Who says another method might not necessarily be as effective?

And this can and this does creep into the church. I think chances are good that you've heard it said in church, this is how we've done it, this is why we do it this way.

Young people, oftentimes one of the complaints that we hear sometimes as they begin to work their way into positions of service in the church, is they find themselves working into roles that have been held on to for a number of years by their elders.

And in some cases, those roles are being held on to very, very tightly.

And those young people have a very difficult time kind of integrating into those positions of service as a result of that.

They have a hard time kind of getting even a toe in there at times, which makes it really difficult for them to kind of get into that service mindset.

They kind of become disfranchised and disconnected. But it's not just service in church. Frankly, it's living this way of life.

We are living in a culture that is so backwards from the way that God desires his people to live that it is difficult.

Satan's system has infiltrated so many aspects of this society, from our banking system to our universities, and so much more.

Satan's got his tendrils in all these aspects of society. We live in a world, and we can never forget this, we live in a world that is ruled by the God of this age.

That is the world in which we live at this time. And our youth and younger people are learning to navigate that world while building their faith.

While learning to live this way of life in that sort of a society.

And obviously, in services, those of us who have been here for a number of years, we really desire to help those young people navigate that difficult time in life.

Those college years are tough. They are tough.

In many ways, everything you've learned, everything you believe is being challenged. And not just challenged a little bit.

We're talking attacked to a degree at war.

I came across an article from Focus on the Family that's interesting.

And it kind of talks about young people in the church, and it kind of talks about generally where and what's going on from a standpoint.

You sometimes hear this statement that our young people are leaving the church just over and over and over and over and over again.

And it's kind of interesting. The article talks about how that is true in certain circumstances than in certain churches.

But interestingly enough, in other churches, they're growing.

And you might not think, you might be surprised at which churches are growing.

I'd like to read just this briefly. A couple little pieces out of here that kind of...

And then emphasize a couple aspects of this as we build our topic today.

It says, within evangelicalism, it's become an oft-repeated truism that young people are leaving both the faith and the church in very disturbing numbers.

Some of the numbers cited are indeed very disturbing. This is from an article from Focus on the Family called, Are Young People Leaving the Church in Droves?

And it's written by Glenn Stanton.

One very popular evangelical author said that if present trends in the beliefs and practices of young adults continue, church attendance will be half of what it is in ten years. He said that in 2005.

It says, we continue to hear similar warnings. Has this happened in your church?

Counter such dire predictions, evangelical churches across the country are holding their own, even some growing nicely in many instances, even with young people.

Here's a concise explanation of the truth and fiction of the topic, and it's a more encouraging story than the one that we usually hear.

It says, the reality is, the answer is yes and no.

It depends on what churches we're talking about.

Based on the mainstream research, or the best mainstream research, I'm sorry, says, no.

Young people are not leaving either the church or their faith in alarming numbers.

Here are the quick facts, according to leading university scholars.

The answer is yes in mainline churches.

In mainline churches, the primary denominations that have been around forever and ever and ever, it says young people are running for the exits, just like the adults.

Church attendance says the answer is yes, too, if you look at only those at college age. Young adults have slowed, not abandoned, their attendance in young adulthood since the 1950s.

New independence, college life, etc., and they return to regular attendance after this stage when they marry and they have kids.

The answer, however, is no if you are a church that is a solid Bible-teaching church.

Evidence shows that attendance in these churches is growing, even among young adults.

Also, if you are those of a high faith continuity, kids raised in faithful, believing, practicing homes, even imperfectly so, are highly likely to retain the faith of their parents.

This is evidenced in two large longitudinal academic studies conducted at UNC and USC.

Pew reports that only 11 percent of young adults who left the faith said they had a strong faith as a child.

The other 89 percent reported no real faith.

The article goes on to say, our kids don't retain what they never really had.

That article, or that quote in that article, jumped out at me.

Of those young adults that left the faith, only 11 percent said that they had strong faith as a child.

89 percent reported having no real faith.

You cannot retain what you never had in the first place.

And I think we need to recognize, too, that some of our young people, even in the church at times, are growing up in homes where faith is not necessarily expressed.

I'll use my own family as an example. I've given it over and over. I won't belabor the topic.

We didn't talk a lot about church growing up. It was one of those topics that made Dad fly off the handle.

That wasn't something that I got as a kid very often.

It was not a topic to be discussed in the household.

It was super covert when it did get discussed.

It was one of those things where Mom pulled her, and we would talk about a little something and then go our separate ways.

Not all of the young people that are growing up in the church have that backdrop.

As a result, what young people in our church need and what young people as a whole need are older folks to take them under their wing, so to speak, to teach them to serve, to be that person who helped train them in how to live their faith, be willing to step in as a mentor or as an advisor in order to help them be successful.

The cool part about mentoring is it's a two-way street.

The mentee is changed. The person who's being mentored is changed, and so is the mentor.

If it's done properly, iron sharpens iron, and both individuals come away from that interaction stronger than they went in.

The title of the message today is, Iron that Sharpens Iron.

With the time that we have remaining, I'd like to take a look at this concept of mentoring and how we can really work to strengthen the next generation, and how those in subsequent generations can glean the wisdom that comes from those who are our elders. I'd like to look at three specific points today. The first point is that we have to have a proper attitude.

We have to maintain a proper attitude throughout the process.

Point number one. Point number two is that we need to mentor purposefully.

We need to mentor purposefully.

And then lastly, point number three, we need to sharpen one another.

So we need to maintain a proper attitude, we need to mentor purposefully, and we need to sharpen one another.

Let's start with maintaining a proper attitude.

The design of the Teacher-Canidate Program, so the program that my student teacher was a part of, is designed to force these sort of iron-sharpening iron relationships.

They take somebody who is brand new out of school, and they take somebody who's been in the classroom for 10, 15 years, maybe even longer, and they put the two of them together, often with very little training, unfortunately, often with very little training.

They just go, here you go! Let's see if you can get them to teach like you teach.

And it's, you know, it's one of those things where the person who's hosting that candidate has a degree of wisdom from being in that classroom for the number of years that they have. They call that in business tribal knowledge.

That person has a degree of tribal knowledge that that young person straight out of college simply doesn't have.

Because they have, you know, it's like the farmer's commercial. It says, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two.

It's that same concept. They know a thing or two because they've seen a thing or two. They've been there. They've done it.

And so these kind of tribal knowledge things tend to be kind of unspoken things that are a little more intuitive than tangible.

That person coming into the classroom has very little tribal knowledge.

What they have instead is a toolbox full of ideas, of new skills, of concepts, of new ways to address old problems that are just waiting to be applied.

That are just waiting to be applied. And if done properly, the new person gets that tribal knowledge, and the person who's mentoring that person gets those new skills, those new ideas, those new concepts. They get a little more zeal, a little more energy in the process.

When it's done well, it's both a new employee training and it's also a refresher course when it's done well.

For it to be done right, though, both individuals have to have an appropriate attitude throughout the process.

And that's extremely important. It has to have an appropriate attitude throughout the process. Because if one of the people in that process decides there is absolutely nothing that they can learn from the other, it's over before it began.

In fact, you're stunk at that point in time. Game over. There's no point in even attempting to continue the relationship with that attitude in place.

If one of those individuals, either the mentor or the mentee, says, you know what? I don't need to learn anything from you at all. It's over. It's over.

In truth, while most people need mentors in their lives, what they need more, honestly, above all else, is to learn how to be mentored.

While everyone needs mentors in their life, they also need to learn how to be mentored.

So, turn over to 1 Peter 5. 1 Peter 5, and we'll begin here today.

1 Peter 5, we'll go ahead and pick the account up in verse 1. Verse 1 of 1 Peter 5.

Peter here is writing to those throughout the dispersion, those in the area of Asia Minor.

And really, this whole book focuses on exhortation and encouragement in many ways, as he's going through the process of writing to these individuals.

1 Peter 5 and verse 1 begins, 2 The elders who were among you I exhort. I, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed.

3 Verse 2, 4 Shepherds the flock of God, which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

4 And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. 5 Verse 5 of 1 Peter 5 says, Lost my spot. I apologize. There we go. 5 Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.

Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility. Peter gets at the fundamental attitude involved in these types of mental relationships, not lording it over those who are, quote-unquote, entrusted to you, but instead being an example.

In verse 5, he goes as far as saying, younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. And then sometimes we stop there and we say, There! You heard him! Submit yourself to your elders, right? I joke, but sometimes we do stop there. We don't go on and read the rest of it. But Paul goes on when he writes the rest of it to make the point. He says, Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility. I personally believe that includes the elders to those they were entrusted with. I think it includes the congregation to one another and the congregation to the elders. Everyone is operating from an attitude of humility. When that happens, then and only then are there opportunities to learn from one another. Then and only then are there opportunities to learn from one another. When pride starts drawing lines in the congregation, when pride starts drawing lines, starts throwing up fences and starts kind of making division lines among the membership. If somebody were to say, well, I'm an elder, why did you possibly teach me? If somebody starts going down that road, that's not okay, right? When somebody says, hey, I've been doing this 50-plus years, what could you possibly teach me? That's also not okay. We recognize that if everyone is in a situation of humility, then we can learn from anyone and everyone that we interact with. When we are operating in a humble attitude, every interaction is a learning opportunity. Every interaction can be mentoring, and we can learn from those that we discuss with. But when we start drawing those lines, when we start dividing things up based on pride, the ability for iron to sharpen iron is reduced significantly. What's interesting about humility, too, when you're in a state of humility and you've taken the time to really build a relationship with an individual, typically you're willing to extend grace to that individual. When you know the person fairly well and they say something that maybe puts your hackles up a little bit, usually you're willing to go, all right, I know who they are, I know that's not what they meant, they must have meant this. You give them the benefit of the doubt, right? At that point, you're not questioning their intentions, you're not suspecting their actions, you're willing to give somebody that benefit of the doubt. And that's crucial if those interactions between mentor and mentee are going to be effective, because trust is an absolutely essential component in a mentorship relationship. When I was being trained as an instructional coach and a mentor with a district the last couple of years of my career, this concept kept coming up over and over and over again, because if you're going to walk into somebody's classroom, because it was a mandate, the district said, you will take coaching.

So you're walking into somebody's classroom, they don't necessarily want you there, and then you're going to offer suggestions on how they could have improved their lesson? There better be a relationship of trust there, because it's not going to come off well if there isn't. In fact, Jim Knight, who's the kind of the father of instructional coaching, he wrote the following, and I think this quote is really incredible. It says, trust and love stand at the heart of all effective communication. If we don't trust someone, if we don't think they have our best intentions in mind, we will hesitate to have meaningful conversations with them.

We will hesitate to learn from them. If we don't trust, if we don't love, if we don't have that humble attitude, we can't enter into these kind of relationships. We can't enter into a mentor or mentee type relationship. When that trust is present and the humility is there, you can reach a place that we see in Proverbs 9 and verse 9. Let's go ahead and turn over there. Proverbs 9 and verse 9. With an appropriate humble attitude in place, with trust and with love in place, you can reach this point.

You can reach this point. Proverbs 9 and verse 9. Proverbs 9 and verse 9 says, Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser still. Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. You know, a wise person doesn't shut down opportunities for instruction. You know, a wise man does not say, Yeah, I'm good. Thanks. I don't need to hear that. They're willing to listen. They're willing to interpret. They're willing to learn and be wiser as a result of that interaction. They're humble and they trust appropriately. Not blindly, but appropriately. They're humble and they trust appropriately.

And when that person is instructed by somebody else, rather than get upset, rather than allow pride to shut down the learning process, that person will grow wiser as a result. They will increase in learning as a result of their own attitude and their willingness to learn. And it's in that attitude, that humble, trusting, loving attitude, in which mentorship can begin to take place. Nothing can happen until that attitude is there. So once that attitude is in place, once both parties, not just the mentor, not just the mentee, once both parties have achieved that place, there can be purposeful steps towards mentoring made. But it's important to recognize, rather than mentoring, is not something that just happens.

It's not something that just happens. Now, you can have interactions with individuals and learn things from their example, but true, like, mentoring relationships is not something that just happens. It's purposeful. You know, it's intentional. And it goes both ways. You can't, as a young person, sit and just go, boy, I wish someone would find me and mentor me. You've got to go out and find a mentor.

You've got to go out and find somebody. You've got to go interact. You've got to go seek someone out. Oftentimes, someone who can teach you something specific. When I was a newer service teacher, you know, most newer service teachers struggled with classroom management. It's just kind of the reality. You're dropped in a situation of, you know, 30 to 32, 13 and 14 year olds, and you're expected to get them sit down quiet working on stuff.

And, you know, hopefully when you turn your back, something doesn't happen. But, you know, first couple of years teaching, you realize, well, I could use some improvement in this department. And you seek out individuals in your building who, based on their styles, you want to kind of try to emulate that. You want to try to find a way to observe them and see the value and the fruit that they have in their careers.

And it's those individuals that you seek mentoring from in the hopes of being able to replicate things. But you selectively select people who exhibit certain fruits and certain successes. And so likewise, it's important for us, and we consider our lives and living out a life of faith, that we seek out individuals who have faith. We seek out individuals who raise their kids well.

We seek out individuals who have been able to juggle career and faith and have done it gracefully and well. We see the fruit in people's lives, and we try to glean the wisdom that we can. So when we see someone with a strong marriage, and we see someone who has just incredible children who have remained in the faith, we see someone who has, again, a solid career and has lived this way of life, and still, you know, found a way to navigate it all.

When we see people who live this way of life each and every day, we can glean incredible wisdom for our interactions with those individuals. Again, every interaction that we have is a learning experience, whether they realize they're mentoring us or not, because you can have stealth mentors. We'll talk about that in a second. How do we start the process?

You know, you're going to run up to somebody after service to the end and go, I choose you! You're my mentor! And probably not. No, probably not. That's not going to really work. You know, you're not going to run up and throw your mantle on them or, you know, something along those lines either. How do you begin this process? How do you begin this process? It begins by building a relationship with one another. It begins by getting to know each other better, which means purposeful cross-generational connections. Drop in a shameless plug for the 2019 Intergenerational Team Decathlon. Just saying, it's a great way to have a purposeful intergenerational interaction.

But it requires us to break away from our comfort zones, requires us to break maybe away from that group of friends that we consistently talk with, those same people that we've been talking with for, you know, umpteen years, and really seeking out others to get to know them better. It begins, truly begins, with a genuine interest in being a part of the lives of the people in this congregation, looking around and wanting to be a part of their lives in some way.

Proverbs 13 and verse 20 says that if you walk with the wise, you will become wise. If you walk with the wise, you will become wise. But the companion of fools suffers harm. If you walk with the wise, you will become wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm. You know, we surround ourselves with wise people, with people whose fruits are apparent in their lives, who are living this way of life.

When we create opportunities to glean that wisdom from those individuals, we become wise in turn. Dave Ramsey has a slightly different way of saying this. He says, don't take advice from financial advice from broke people. That makes sense. If you're going to take financial advice from somebody, you take financial advice from somebody who is living their life correctly from a financial standpoint.

That's the person that you approach. That's the person whose fruit in their life you look for, to be able to say, hey, how are you doing that? Can you help me with that? And usually people are pretty good about that. So we have to walk with the wise. We have to ensure that when we see those fruits in people's lives, again, strong faith, their parenting style, their career, whatever it might be, that we have opportunity to glean wisdom from them and how they approach those things. But where does this wisdom come from? I think this is the important thing to consider.

Where does this wisdom come from? What is its source? Let's go to Proverbs 2. There's a few pages back from where we are right now. Proverbs 2. Proverbs 2, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 6. Proverbs 2 and verse 6. And I think this is a very important concept for us to consider.

Proverbs 2 and verse 6. For the Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth comes knowledge and understanding. When we talk about gleaning wisdom from somebody, when we talk about gleaning these things and these fruits in their lives, those things come from God. Let's start with that recognition. Those things come from God. Those things are contained in this book. If you want to win in life, you live this book. You live the things in this book. If you want to be wise, you find someone who can mentor you in the things that are in this book. That you can see that they are living this book. That they are living God's Word. Somebody who can help you better understand the words contained in this book.

Who can teach you how to best apply them in your life. That wisdom can be gleaned from a person who has yielded themselves to God's way of life and has learned the lessons that God has taught them throughout their lifetime. A person that relies on their own understanding, or even a person that scoffs at the wisdom of God, is not a person you should consider taking advice from. It's not. It's not someone you should consider taking advice from. A person who's not living the Word of God or basing their lives on spiritual principles, living in contrary to God's law, is what we might term an anti-mentor.

Or a person whose advice you don't want to take. Maybe that anti-mentor also is a person who doesn't hold you accountable, a person who doesn't uphold wisdom. They provide foolish counsel. And their advice can lead to worse issues down the road. We have to be discerning. Mr. Consella mentioned that in his sermon a couple of weeks ago. We have to be discerning. We have to be willing to really discern what's going on. Doug Stewart is a gentleman who's a motivational speaker back in North Carolina.

And he wrote an article entitled, The Five and a Half Mentors That Will Change Your Life. And in that article he describes these mentors and these types of individuals that you want to find to help you to navigate life. The first of those is the World View Mentor.

This is your traditional mentor, the World View Mentor. This is the person that kind of sits above your perspective. Like you're down here on the ground. They're up at 30,000 feet. They're up looking at what your life is, what your goals are, what your hopes are, and what your dreams are. And they're helping you to go, Wait a minute! You said you wanted to go that way. And what I see you doing right now is going this way.

And because they're 30,000 feet, they can see it. And they go, Hey, you want to go that way, right? So that way is this way, not that way. Come on, come on, let's go over here. Right? That's the World View Mentor. That's the person who can see where you are, who can see your ultimate goals, and can see whether or not you're heading in that direction.

Another type of mentor that you could have is someone called the Street View Mentor. The Street View Mentor. Think of it like Google. You drag the little yellow guy down, and you can see the front of the house, right? You're in the same view, essentially, the same perspective. There's someone who's right alongside you. Someone who can also recognize when you're going off track, but they're right there next to you in the process. They see you heading off track because they're with you.

They're close to you. Typically, these are individuals that are very close to us. These are close friends, they're siblings, might be spouses, etc. That's the Street View Mentor, somebody who sees it from your perspective and also knows the direction that you're going and tries to help you in that process. The Time Machine Mentor. The Time Machine Mentor are people from the past.

They don't have to necessarily be famous. They don't have to necessarily still be alive. You can learn a lot from people's memoirs, autobiographies. You can learn a lot from studying history and seeing what people did and how things operated. You can learn a lot from talking to individuals who lived it, who were there, who experienced it. We have people in this congregation that have experienced a lot who are just wealth of knowledge, just able to glean and able to go through and discuss those things. The Time Machine Mentor are people who have been through past events. The Stealth Mentor, we mentioned that earlier. This is like ninja mentoring. This is where the person's mentoring you, but they don't even know they're mentoring you.

You're there and you're watching them, and you're learning from their example, but there's no official mentor relationship here. You're just observing. You're learning from that example. You're seeing it. You're watching and you're listening, and you're implementing things based on what you see. They're just living their life, but you're watching every step, and you're seeing, this is how they did that, this is how they did that, and you're working on trying to integrate those things in your own life. The Categorical Mentor is the fifth mentor, and that's the kind I was advocating earlier. It's like keeping a filing cabinet of individuals.

You know somebody who's doing really well financially, and you go, you know what? I'm going to talk to that person about finances, and they're going to go in my little finance file in my file cabinet. That person's a phenomenally good parent. I'm going to talk to them about parenting, and then their experience is going to go in my parenting file in my file cabinet. That person's been living this way of life for 50, 60 years, they've gone through all kinds of stuff. That person's going to talk to me about going through different things in life that are difficult, and how you get through that.

That's going to go in that file. You kind of keep this file cabinet, so to speak, in your head of these individuals. As you have needs, you seek wisdom and you seek advice based on those examples. The last person, and this is the half mentor, that is the five and a half mentors that Douglas Stewart talks about, the one half mentor, he says, is probably the most important of them all. It's the anti-mentor. It's the anti-mentor. It is the person that you absolutely, 100%, do not want to model. He says, you don't spend a ton of time on this, but this is the person you look at and say, I am never, ever, ever, ever, ever going down that road.

I am not heading in that direction because I can see what has happened as a result. And so we file that away as well as one of those mentors that we can learn from. All of these mentors, all these individuals, can have benefit in our lives. Some of them fit into maybe a more traditional mentor relationship, while others tend to be more of an example that we take note of. But the Bible itself is full of positive mentor relationships.

Let's turn over to 1 Kings 19. Let's start there today. We'll look at a couple of examples from Scripture. 1 Kings 19. Oops, go the other way. And we'll take a look at one of these examples. 1 Kings 19. And we'll see the example of Elijah and Elisha. In the first part of this chapter, we're not going to pick it up in the traditional spot.

We're going to pick it up kind of earlier in the section here. We're not going to jump down to verse 19 just yet. We're going to pick it up in verse 4 to begin. 1 Kings 19 and verse 4. We picked this story up, and Elijah is in a very dark place. We picked this story up, and Elijah is in a very dark place. Jezebel threatened to kill him. He's on the run. He's gone into the wilderness, essentially, and he's gone as far as praying to God that he might die.

I mean, we've reached that point. Elijah says, look, I'm done. I won't do this anymore. And he prays to God that he might die. And verse 4 kind of contains that prayer to God. Let's go ahead and turn there. 1 Kings 19 and verse 4. He reads as follows. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die. He says, it is enough. Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my father's.

Notice God's response. I think God's response is beautiful in this passage. God's response to Elijah. He doesn't rebuke him. He doesn't yell at him, so to speak, and tell him, Buck up, Elijah, let's go. You got this. Instead, look what he does. He cares for him. He cares for him. Verse 5, he says, Then as he lay there and slept under the broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat.

And then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water. So he ate, and he drank, and he lay down again. The angel of the Lord came back the second time, touched him, and instead of rise and eat, because the journey is too great for you. So he arose, and he ate, and he drank, and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, as far as Orib, the mountain of God.

We see that God realized Elijah was burnt out, realized he was struggling, he needed food, he needed water, and he needed rest. And so he provides it. Helps to kind of nurse him back from the brink. But forty days, forty nights later, he heads into the wilderness of Orib in verse 9. And there he went into a cave, and he spent the night in that place, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah? And so Elijah said in his own words, again, verse 10, I've been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, they've torn down your altars, they've killed your prophets with the sword.

I alone am left. So there's some loneliness here. There's some thought that he's just the only one left. And he says, and they seek to take my life. And God responds to Elijah kind of throughout verse 11 on down into verse 19. But Elijah reached a point again where he'd despaired, where he was concerned about his life. God puts him to work, and God not only puts him to work, God says, You know what? I'm going to get you somebody who can help you.

You're kind of alone here, you feel like it's all on your shoulders. Let's get somebody else to kind of help along with this. And so he instructs him to go and anoint Elijah, or Elisha, sorry, the son of Shiphat, as prophet in his place.

And so Elijah does that. Verse 19 is where we pick that up. Verse 19 of 1 Kings 19 says, So he departed from there, and he found Elisha, the son of Shiphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he was with the twelfth.

Then Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him. And he left the oxen and he ran after Elijah. So this is like a run-by mantling. You know, rolls by, throws the mantle, and just kind of goes. Elisha's going...you know, he must have understood what was going on, because this must have been a way of putting somebody in place in those days. But he says, Please, let me kiss my father and mother, and then I'll follow you.

And he said to him, Go back again, for what have I done to you? So Elisha turned back from him and took a yoke of oxen and slaughtered them, and boiled their flesh using the oxen's equipment, gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and he followed Elijah, and became his servant.

You know, Elijah selected Elijah as God had commanded. And over the next few years, Elijah and Elisha walked together in service to God. We don't see much of that interaction. You know, it's not really recorded for us. But you can tell that they grew close to one another. The way that you can do that is in 2 Kings 2. We won't turn there. I'll reference it.

But 2 Kings 2, you can get an idea of how close that interaction was. As Elijah is nearing the time when he is going to be taken, you know, they continue to say to Elisha, Don't you realize today's the day that your master will go? And Elisha is like, I know. I don't want to hear it. Don't remind me, basically. Don't remind me. And multiple times that came up. And then finally, just prior to Elijah being taken, Elisha didn't want him to go.

They'd grown together in that time. They'd gotten to know one another. They'd walked together. They had mentored one another. And Elisha didn't want him to go. Now, after Elijah was gone, Elisha went on to perform many mighty works and miracles through the power of God working in him. And Elisha helped to prepare Elisha for this work. He mentored him as they traveled. And Elisha was able to learn. God was ultimately with Elisha. We see that as an example in Scripture of a mentoring relationship. There's numerous others. There's Mordecai and Esther. Christ and his disciples. Paul and Timothy.

All these examples involve exhorting and encouraging one another. Teaching and learning. And that teaching and learning is designed to go both ways. It's designed to go both ways. And we can see that in the example of Paul and Timothy. Let's go over to 1 Timothy 4 and verse 12. 1 Timothy 4 and verse 12.

1 Timothy 4 and verse 12. We'll take a look at the words that Paul records to Timothy here in this letter. He's instructing him to do the work that he was to do in the churches that he was pastoring at that time. So he's instructing him in kind of what that process was. And in verse 12, we see him give Timothy the following advice. He says, let no one despise your youth. But, and this is the important part. You know, we tend to read that first part and ignore the second. Focus on the second. Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. And he kind of continues and goes on, but we're going to break off there. You know, Paul's emphasis was on Timothy's conduct. That he was teaching him to set an example among the believers in speech, in his actions, in the love that he showed the brethren in spirit, in faith, and in purity. That he shouldn't be setting an opposite example that might cause people to conclude that he's not old enough. Rather, he should be an example in word and in deed. And his example would be a pattern to follow. Paul talks about that with Titus. Let's turn over to Titus 2. Just a little bit further over towards the back of the book here. Titus 2, he gives the same basic sentiment to Titus. It's the same kind of instruction that Paul gives Titus as he mentors Timothy and Titus. Timothy and Titus, they walked all over Asia Minor with Paul.

And then Paul went through and also wrote them epistles, mentored them through epistles. Titus 2, verses 6-8, Titus was yet another younger man that Paul worked with. Titus 2, verses 6-8 reads as follows, This likewise exhort the young men to be silver-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, than one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. He essentially tells Titus, Live your life in such a way that no one could accuse you of anything.

Live your life in such a way that your example goes before you, positively. That your example goes before you. We might call it, we might term it, the Arvernacular, letting your light shine. Letting your light shine. Letting God's Word dwell in you, and through God's Word dwelling in you, mentoring others by your example. When they see the way that you live your life, it's attractive. It's like that light in the darkness. That soft kind of candle in a dark room. Colossians 3 and verse 16. Colossians 3 and verse 16. Again, the importance of God's Word dwelling in us can't be overstated. Colossians 3 and verse 16. It says, Let the Word of Christ dwell in you, richly in all wisdom. Notice when that Word is living in us, dwelling in us, what does it say? It says, teaching and admonishing one another. Then the importance of music is thrown in, in Psalms and in hymns, and in spiritual music. It's not a very good thing. It's a very good thing. One another. Then the importance of music is thrown in, in Psalms and in hymns, and in spiritual songs, Wisdom was a byproduct. When everyone was living God's Word, yielding themselves to God's Word, they were able to teach, they were able to admonish, and ultimately they were able to sharpen one another with that Word.

So let's talk about what it takes to sharpen one another. Let's turn to Proverbs 27, which is where the passage comes from, of Iron Sharpening Iron. Proverbs 27.

Proverbs 27. And we'll take a look at it. It's an extremely well-known Scripture, but I want to emphasize a couple things that we maybe don't always consider when we look at this with regards to today's day and age.

Proverbs 27 and verse 17. Proverbs 27, 17 says, As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend. Now, I want to reference a couple of things here. This passage specifically refers to two things, and I think sometimes we don't always consider this when we read this.

It specifically states a friend. It specifically states a friend. There is a relationship present in this situation.

Have any of you ever been sharpened by somebody you didn't really get along well with? I hear the kind of underlying giggle, how'd that end? Probably not real well, did it?

Because, again, that trust is not there. That relationship is not there. And so when that person decides they're going to come sharpen you and they're going to fix you because you're doing something wrong and they're going to come take care of it, it doesn't often end well.

Because that relationship is not there. That relationship has to be present because we sharpen friends. We sharpen people that we know well.

Secondly, notice that it says his countenance is sharpened. His countenance is sharpened.

Well, countenance, defined by Merriam-Webster, is a person's bearing, their demeanor, their mood.

So a friend, a man, sharpens the countenance of his friend. It affects their outward expression, which we might say then, intimates a positive interaction.

Intimate's a positive interaction. That it's not necessarily something where, you know, it was a very heated back and forth.

And we look at this scripture as from a standpoint of personal improvement, and I think that's appropriate.

I do think it's appropriate that we look at it from a standpoint of personal improvement.

But this scripture is specifically stating the countenance of a friend is sharpened.

When we consider it from a standpoint of personal improvement, the kinds of relationships that make us better, you know, accountability, that friends can provide tough love, which comes from our friends as well, you know, faithful of the wounds of a friend. You know, we can see that these relationships with our friends, they also, they hone us.

They do sharpen us when we put ourselves in these relationships.

If you take two pieces of elemental iron, in other words, two pieces of just straight iron, and you rub them against each other, it will do absolutely nothing.

It will create heat, it will create friction, but that's it.

Straight iron rubbed against straight iron, elemental iron, like off the periodic table, will do nothing.

In order to sharpen something, one of those things must be harder than the other.

Must be harder than the other.

And it's really important to consider this proverb was written during the Iron Age of the Middle East.

It was kind of between about 1200 B.C. to about 700 B.C.

More particularly, it was written during the latter part of the Iron Age.

And at that time, iron wasn't pure iron like it is on the periodic table today.

It was an alloy. It had other things mixed into the metal. It had bits of carbon.

It had silver and copper and other earth metals that were mixed in in this melting process.

Well, as the Iron Age progresses, you know, your methods get better, and you're able to produce stronger and better alloys, like steel.

But at this time, when this was written out, iron alloy was really the choice of metal for weaponry, for arrowheads, for tools, for implements.

In fact, if you look at it from a historical standpoint, it was kind of largely responsible for sustained agriculture being able to take place.

But whether it was for agriculture or for warfare, the edge of that implement was important.

Due to kind of carbon impurities and other things mixed in, it was found that one alloy could sharpen another, particularly if they had different hardness levels.

If they had different hardness levels.

Today, I mean, what do we use? We use super high density, high strength, you know, diamond tipped, high grit, whatever, sharpeners, to be able to sharpen knives and other bits of steel.

And it's kind of a one-way street. The blade is sharpened, but the sharpener is not destroyed in the process, and it's not improved in the process.

The blade is acted on with very minimal damage to the sharpener, but during the time that this was written, both materials were changed as a result of this process.

The blade or the implement affected the sharpener as well. And that's the way that it should be. That is the way that it should be.

If a person is unwilling to yield themselves, if they are unwilling to learn, if they are unwilling to change, you are not in an iron sharpening iron relationship.

You're not. You are beating two pieces of metal together. That's it. You're not in an iron sharpening iron relationship. You may have sparks fly, but the edge is not getting any sharper.

When pride is present, both individuals do not get sharpened, and frankly, it is unwise to continue that process.

When you are in a situation with someone who is unwilling to change, it is unwise to continue that process.

Humility is necessary, because only then can we hope to sharpen one another.

I'll be open and perfectly frank. This is not what happened in my interaction with my student teacher that I described earlier.

I should have been learning from my student teacher. I should not have been pretending I had all the answers, because I didn't.

We should have been sharpening one another. Proverbs 12, verse 15.

Proverbs 12 and verse 15. There's a few pages over here from Proverbs 27.

Proverbs 12 and verse 15.

It says, The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise.

Brethren, I'll be the first to admit, in my interaction with my student teacher, I was a fool. I was a fool.

I had this false notion that I was the expert. I was the one who knew how my classroom operated. This is how I've always done it.

This is how it works. There's no other way that it'll work. I've already tried that.

And there was a degree of pride there that took some serious humility and a willingness to listen to someone younger and fresher out of college than me to realize that I didn't have all the answers.

Once I figured that out, once that attitude was present, our relationship strengthened significantly. I mean significantly.

Things became much more effective. I was able to take things away from her that I used the rest of my teaching career.

In fact, that proficiency-based grading system that I was so hard on at the beginning when we were talking, I ended up implementing that in my classroom and using it for the rest of my career.

Not because it's easier. It was actually harder on me as a teacher, but it was something where it more accurately reflected what my students actually knew.

That's the ultimate goal, isn't it, to figure out what your kids actually know?

She had it right, and I had it very wrong. And it took me some time to realize that.

Sometimes the way that we've always done something is a way to make our lives easier, not necessarily do what's best overall.

The way I'd always done my grading system was really easy for me, but it wasn't the best method.

The proficiency system was far better. It was far more effective, and it was a better reflection of what my kids knew.

Sometimes the way we've always done it is because we resist change. It's because we don't want to try to make it more difficult on ourselves, even if that change could potentially be a change for the better.

Being willing to take on and mentor someone in the next generation, and in turn be mentored by someone in that generation, can help us to tackle issues that come up in the church going forward.

We need to recognize our demographics are changing. Look around. Our demographics are changing.

We are exceptionally blessed in this area to have a large, large group of young people. This is not the case everywhere.

There are places around the country right now with no young people, and the congregations are dying, one by one.

We are so blessed to have the number of children that we have in this congregation. It comes with its challenges, but it is such a blessing.

As these young people begin to grow up, they begin serving in church, they start to come into these ways of service. They're looking for ways to serve.

They're looking for opportunities to make this congregation home, to make it be a place that they want to be, that they want to interact with and to serve.

They're going to have questions about why we do things the way we do things. It's going to come up.

You might have answered that question already ten different times from ten different people. Answer it again.

Explain why it's done the way that it is, instead of just, you know, this is how we've done it. Explain this as why we're doing it this way.

Do you have another idea? What do you think?

As they begin to interact and begin to kind of integrate into the congregation, sometimes, you know, we're so efficient at times in getting things done, even on skeleton crews, that you can look out over the congregation and go, well, everything's getting done. That's probably fine. I mean, chairs are getting picked up, chairs are getting put down. You know, it's okay.

But in reality, the whole thing that we're not seeing sometimes is that all the while, those that are in those positions of service, they're not getting any younger. They're not getting any younger.

On the opposite side of that coin, however, is that those in positions of service have to be willing to relinquish the grip that they have on that service.

And over time, train others so that at some point, they can step away from it and trust and know that it's taken care of and know that it's taken care of because you trained them.

You trained them. You prepared them for the role that they're going to be doing.

Imagine for a second what would have happened had Elijah tossed his mantle onto Elijah with his last dying breath and expired at Elijah's feet.

Down he goes, and Elijah's got this mantle and dead Elijah in front of him, and he goes, Okay! Now what, right? Or imagine for a moment Timothy and Titus being asked to go about their tasks without Paul's epistles, without his letters, without that personal experience that they had going around Asia Minor.

Imagine the deer in the headlights kind of look that comes from that, being dropped into something like that without any prior training.

Finding opportunities to mentor one another must, rather than it must, be made a priority. It must be made a priority.

It's written right on our church seal, part of our mission to prepare a people. And while that has, you know, worldwide implications, obviously, large-scale kind of implications, it starts in our own congregation by us mentoring one another.

Young people, find a mentor. Find five mentors.

Find someone who you can get advice from, who you can get to know and integrate with, who you can look at their example and learn from them, who you can connect with and reach out to. Older people, find a young person to get to know better. And don't do it out of obligation. Do it because you have a genuine interest in their life and a genuine interest in getting to know them better, a genuine interest in their faith and helping them to learn this way of life.

Stay humble, be purposeful, and allow iron to sharpen iron.