Trinity and education. We have to start out with the question, why are we here? Why are we here, besides me telling you the time to be here? And you have to be here. Why are we here? What is our purpose here as teachers? Well, we're here because we want to be good teachers, right? Of course. We want to teach our students well. We want to be faithful to God and our callings. But how do we know what a good teacher looks like? What does that look like? What's the standard? What's the plumb line? that we could look to. Everybody knows what a plumb line is. Amos talks about the plumb line, the standard. The way that you know that you're building a wall straight or building a house straight and that it's not going to fall down is that we use accurate measurements. you know, a plumb line. For us, it's a tape measure. We can't use a tape measure. We can't use one tape measure that has one standard of measurement and then use another tape measure that has a different one. It won't work. So we all have to use the same standard. But what is the ultimate standard of measurement to know what a good teacher is? You know, what are we supposed to do? You know, what's the standard of being a good teacher? What's the plumb line? So, imitating God the Father, this kind of leads us into the Trinity. So, one thing that we can do is we can look to Scripture. Of course, that's our standard for everything in life, right? Our walk with Christ, our family life, church life, vocation, all of these sorts of things. And Proverbs 3, verse 11 and 12 comes to mind. It says, My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord. neither be weary of his correction. For whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth." we're always being taught from the Lord, right? If we're a faithful believer following Christ, we are called a disciple, which is a learner. So we have Christ, we have God the Father teaching us every single day, and that includes instruction, and that includes correction, that includes chastening. Chastening is another word for discipline. Oftentimes, we sin against God, we sin against our neighbor, we disobey God, and the Lord is telling us here to don't despise that chastening. Don't despise being disciplined. Don't be weary of God correcting you. Because for whom the Lord loveth, he correcteth. The Lord loves us. That's why He corrects us. It's hard sometimes for our kids to understand that sometimes, especially when there's a season of them getting spanked almost five times a day. They're like, this doesn't seem like love. And we tell them, we do this because we love you. And they're in tears. It's like, you're not loving me very well. I'm like, no, well, you don't know the standard of what love is. And don't be weary of the correction that you get. Because if you didn't love your child, or if you didn't love your student, you wouldn't give two flips about what they're doing. And you wouldn't even bother to correct them. So for whom the Lord loveth, he corrected. And then we have a simile here. Who can tell me what a simile is? class. A comparison between two things using what words? Like or as. Right, so here we have it here. Even as a father, the son in whom he delighteth. So we have a comparison here. So the Lord corrects us, and then on the other side of the simile is like a father correcting the son or daughter in whom he delights. So here's the standard. We are to imitate God the Father in our teaching, in our discipling, in our parenting. A lot of this overlaps. Parenting, teaching, so forgive me if I jump back and forth. But, you know, this is how we are to know our standard. Are we imitating God the Father in correcting and in disciplining and in teaching? Even Scripture plainly says in Ephesians 5.1, Be ye therefore followers of God, dear children. I think the ESV says literally imitators of God. So we are to imitate God in this way. We are to imitate God as we walk through the doors of our classrooms. So imitating God the Father, and we'll also go through what it's like in some ways to imitate the Son and imitate the Holy Spirit. as we teach and go about our callings. So right now we are reading a book called Repairing the Ruins. But what are the ruins? I think it's easy for us sometimes, I know it's easy for me, to look and see You know, some of the public schools and different private schools who aren't following Christ in the way they disciple, or they're discipling their children from a standpoint of humanism or state, the state being God. And it's easy for us to say that those are the ruins, and dun da da da, we're the Christian classical educators, and we're here to save the day, and we're here to tear down all this garbage and rebuild something new and something great, and something that's godly. We have a tendency to say that the ruins are out there, when in reality, that certainly is a product of the ruins, but the ruins really are within our own hearts. Because we're depraved. Our hearts are naturally wicked from the fall. So not only us, before Christ did a regenerating work in our lives, but each and every one of our students that come in, they are sons and daughters of Adam, at least at some point in time. And you're having to come alongside God and repair the ruins that are in their own hearts, right? So the ruins are, yeah, they're out there, but let us not be prideful in thinking that the ruins or some remnant of the ruins are not within our own hearts, too, or in our students, even the best of students, even your, you know, who you would think of as your pet and don't want to admit it, like we talked about earlier, you know? There's still ruins in their hearts, and even if they're Christians, they're still being sanctified daily, and they're still having to mortify sin daily and put sin to death, even though it doesn't dominate their lives as it doesn't dominate ours. But there's still ruins to repair, and we're a part of that in their lives. John Milton says this, the end of learning is to prepare the ruins of our first parents by three things, by regaining to know God a right and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him. So this is how we begin to repair the ruins. Notice he says our first parents, we play a part in that. Adam and Eve are our first parents too, not just our little heathen students. So it starts with us. And how do we do that in our lives? Well, we have to imitate God. We have to show them what this looks like. And we do this by regaining to know God alright. What's one way we can do that? Like just daily practical stuff. reading the Word, loving the Word, seeking to obey the Word, being with the body of Christ on the Lord's day, praying and asking God to weed out sin in our lives, confessing sin to one another and to God. That's one way that we regain to know God aright. And out of the knowledge that we get from Scripture, That should cause us to love Him, to love Him, to cherish Him, to be loyal to Him. He is our King, He is our Father, He is our God. I will be loyal to Him and faithful to Him till death. That's what this knowledge should cause us to do. to feel and to act, and then to imitate Him, to be like Him. How does God the Father treat us? In what ways does He relate to us? In what ways did Jesus relate to the people of His day when He was on earth? And how does the Holy Spirit interact with us and shape us each and every day? And in those ways, looking at that, trying to imitate Him, in all three of those ways, imitating the Trinity in the classroom with our students, right? Being like Christ. What is one way God the Father teaches us? We're all teachers, right? We teach each and every day. But what is one way God the Father in particular teaches us? Well, one way is that He gives us His law in Scripture. He gives us his law. He gives us the way to act, the way not to act. And we have laws here at school, too. And we love to give them out, right? Don't run in the hall. Raise your hand before speaking. Stop picking your nose. Don't flap in line. Well, there's the law. We give the law out. Right, right. And He gives us the law. I mean, we can look at the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, and we see just law after law, precept after precept. And where is the place we usually get bogged down in our Bible reading plan? throughout the year, in the law, in Leviticus, in numbers, right? And sometimes I'm sure our students feel the same way when we give the law over and over and over and over again, right? But it's still our jobs to give the law, to show them what to do, show them what not to do, to show them what is lawful and what is not, right? Deuteronomy 6, this is like the go-to scripture verse for parents who realize, oh wait, you know, education is my responsibility. It's not the state's responsibility. It's not anybody else's responsibility but mine. You know, this is usually the linchpin verse that we teachers see whenever we see that vocation and calling to become a teacher, oh, I'm to act in the place of the parents to disciple and teach these students. It's Deuteronomy 6, verses 6 and 7. And God says, and these words, which is the law, which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. And thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. This is the giving of the law all the time. This is the teaching of the law all the time. This is conversing about the law all the time. That child in a Christian family should have the law in their ears and out of their mouths all the time. And the same is true here at school, right? Deuteronomy 6, verses 20-24. I don't know why I don't have it up there. Can someone pull that up and read it for us? When your son asks you in time to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you? And you shall say to your son, we were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all of his household before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as we are this day. There it is. For our good always. That's why God the Father gives us the law. For our good. Because He loves us. Because we were slaves in Egypt. We were slaves to sin. We were slaves to iniquity and to the kingdom of darkness. And God freed us. Now that we're free, you're free to obey my law, which is good. Jesus and God, God the Father, say don't commit adultery. It's not because He's trying to rain on our parade. No, it's good for us not to commit adultery. It's good for us not to murder. It's good for us not to bear false witness or covet other people's things. It's good for us. And this leads me to my next point. God's motivation for rules and laws is not primarily for Himself. It's for the good and the blessing of His children. That's what the law is for. It's, yes, he gets glory from this. Yes, people who obey his law experience blessings, and that makes God's name known throughout the world. But at the same time, it's for the good and the blessing of his children. That's why he's given us the law. And in our households, with kids, in school, with our students, we have to remember that the laws we give are for the good and the blessing of the students that you're teaching. Now, this may cause you, which is good, you should do this, to examine your own house rules in your own classrooms. The rules between each classroom and the law is generally the same. But there are various differences between Emily's class and your class. There are different variations of probably the same law. But at the same time, you have certain house rules in your own classroom. And you have to put those under examination. Do the laws that I give, or this particular law that I'm thinking of, or this rule, am I giving it for the good and blessing of my children, or am I giving it for my own convenience, to not be annoyed? Let's say that the kids need to do some seat work, and you command out of the law that there be silence in the room. while this work is being done. Why are you saying silence? Is it so you can have peace and quiet to do your grading while they're doing their work? Or is it for their good? You know, I know you guys probably, you know, we've thought about this at some length before, but it's worth thinking about again. You know, whenever the school year is going on, you know, oftentimes we barely even get to think about what's going to happen this afternoon versus big picture things. Why are we here? Why are we doing this? So, you know, that's why this time is good. It gives you an opportunity to, to really examine big picture. Where are we going? Where am I taking my students? Where are they going to be in 20 years? How can I help them get there in the small amount of time that I have with them? You know, it's hard to do that when, you know, you're just trying to get to lunchtime at this point. That's why we need to focus on these things now, right? So, thinking about the laws that you give, you know, or running in the, or talking in the hallway. You know, why do we have our students not talk in the hallway? Is it for our convenience, or is it for the classroom that's right next to the hallway that's trying to get work done, and the class in line is distracting them? There's blessing in them following the law. Blessing for their classmates that are in the other classroom, but also blessing for them because they get to learn and they get a humbling lesson on considering others before themselves. These are all great things. These are blessings. So think about that with the various laws that you have in your classroom. Is it for their good or is it for my convenience? Sometimes they run hand in hand, but oftentimes you may be surprised that you may be giving a law out strictly for your convenience. So you have to remember that. All right, so imitating God the Father, and now we're looking at imitating God the Son and the Holy Spirit and how that translates to school. Let's see, John 14, 16. Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and this is in the upper room, and he says, I will pray the Father, or pray to the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, then he may abide with you forever. So who is this comforter? The Spirit, right, the Spirit. So we have the Son and the Holy Spirit being mentioned here in this sentence, right? Even the Father as well. So the Son is praying to the Father that the Father will send the Comforter, right? And the word Comforter, and other translations say Helper, comes from the word Paraclete, which can also mean Counselor, Ally, an Advocate. Basically, someone who is on your team and wants you to be successful. God could have given us His law, Christ could have come, He died, He rose again, He paid for our sins, but where would we be without the Holy Spirit? Where would we be? We wouldn't have the law written upon our hearts. We wouldn't long to obey God. We wouldn't long to pursue righteousness. Nothing like that. We would be just as ugly and despicable as we were before we heard the gospel, right? So God the Father sends the Holy Spirit in our lives to comfort us, to be our advocate, to defend us from the accusations of the enemy. Satan accuses each and every day. He still accuses us. In some aspects, you know, as it relates judicially, he has merit. He has standing in giving those accusations, right? We have sinned. We have transgressed God's law. We do deserve hell. We deserve punishment. You know, we deserve all these things, but Christ has been our advocate. He has been our ally in all of the sin that we have committed, are committing, will commit in the future in Christ. It's been paid for to where God the Father, the judge, can declare us righteous. And the Holy Spirit is the one who comforts us in that idea and in that fact, right? The Holy Spirit is the one who daily advocates for us and daily It brings the Word of God back to our minds and our attention when we stumble, when we sin against God. Because God the Holy Spirit is on our team. He wants us to be holy. He wants us to be successful. I know many times in my own walk with Christ, I sinfully feel like I'm all alone. Like, I want to be holy, but I just can't. I can't do it. God's standard is here. I can't do it. I've forgotten though, I've forgotten that the Holy Spirit is with me and he wants me to be successful in following Christ, just as successful as I want more actually, right? So the Holy Spirit is someone who is advocating for us, who is with us, who is on our team and wants us to be successful in following the law, in obeying God through his law. And we need to be the same as teachers for our students. You know, we need to give them the law, of course. Don't run in the hall. Stick gum under your desk, you know, whatever. But also, we have to remind them. that we are on their team and we want them to be successful. We want you to follow Christ. We want you to obey Him for your good. We want you to be successful. Are we doing that? I think sometimes we're good at giving the law and hammering the law at them and shooting down lightning bolts, but at the same time, do we grieve with them? Or do we grieve whenever they don't care about whether they've disobeyed you? I've had to do that with several students that enter my office. At the end of it, if it's every day, I'm pleading with them. I'm like, please. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what the consequences of your sin really are. You don't understand. Quit frustrating the grace of God. As much as you can explain that to a five-year-old. I'm pleading with them. Please obey your teacher. Please stop lying. Tell the truth. I'm begging you. Not for my sake, but for your sake. For your good. You're going to experience a life of curses if you continue to behave this way. instead of blessing. I'm trying to let those students know that I'm on your team. I want you to succeed. I'm not just beating you with the law and laughing at you when you disobey. I'm not. I don't want them to disobey. And you don't either. You don't want any of your students to be rebellious against God or rebellious against you. So we have to be cognizant of reminding them that I'm on your team. I want you to win. I want you to successfully follow Christ. I want you to be fully sanctified. I want that for you. And that can go into actions of how can I help you do that, depending on what the issue is. So we have to serve our students as God the Son served His people. Jesus was put in Israel, the Son of God, the Alpha, the Omega. It would have been one thing if He was put in Jerusalem at the beginning. There's a lot of high-ranking elites there. Most of the Pharisees and the Sadducees were there. Those were the top dogs of Judaism at the time. But where did God put Jesus? in Nazareth, for crying out loud. Like, the lowest, like, slum place in Israel that one can be put. And Jesus was to start his ministry out of Galilee, out of Nazareth, you know, with people who, you know, we would probably associate with, you know, homeless folk, drug addicts, people who are just, you know, they're the lowest of the low, the dregs of society. And Jesus was put there to begin to minister and to begin to serve, to be able to serve them. You know, Jesus was no doubt walking down the road constantly interrupted. You know, he lived a life of interruption, I'm sure. He had places to go, and of course, he got there, but not without much interruption. How many times have you interrupted during your day? You have an agenda, you have a lesson plan, I need to get this done. Y'all need to learn this, for crying out loud. And then there's constant interruptions. How well are you taking in and handling those interruptions? Now granted, some of those interruptions are foolish. and if they are foolish you need to say you know we're not that's now's not the time for that but i just want you to be careful of certain interruptions that you know are important and may need may need your attention you know no doubt jesus got all kinds of crazy requests on his journeys around Israel. But for those who really interrupted him for good reason, they wanted to know him more. They wanted to seek God. They wanted to know who the Father is. They wanted to know if he was the Messiah. He gladly stopped and took up his time and ministered to them. And we need to take the time to do the same thing as teachers when it's necessary. I mean, can you think of instances in your class where that has happened? Yeah. And then, you know, well, not being interrupted. I know that happens all the time. Yeah. Had there been opportunities or maybe there was an opportunity that you realize later on in the day that you missed and you're like, ah, that was, that was a good opportunity. Yeah. Because you were, you know, anxious to get this done. Yeah. Well, yeah, there's some time, there's time constraints too. We have to remember that as we teach our students, we're serving them. We're exhibiting and imitating God in our service to them. John 13, 14 says, If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done for you, or done to you. They were all arguing. The disciples were, who's the greatest? I'm the greatest. I'm the greatest. My conduct's better than your conduct. Blah, blah, blah. And Jesus takes out the towel in the basin and gets on his knees and washes each of the disciples' feet. And then he tells them, you should do as I have done to you. Wash your feet. How come we wash our students' feet? metaphorically speaking. Maybe reality, I don't know. You know, one thing, you know, we try to have a culture of, you know, if you see an adult, you know, be eager to hold the door open for them when they're, especially if they have things in their hands, be courteous to them, be kind to them. But you can also flip that around. Maybe there would be an opportunity for you to hold the door for a student. Show them, don't just demand or command them to obey the law for your benefit, but also don't command them to serve you only. We should take opportunities to serve them too and just show them what servant leadership looks like. Even though we have the power to say no, like you can get your own door, and we wouldn't be necessarily sinning for that in and of itself, but it would be a good opportunity for us to show them and to imitate Jesus Christ in holding the door for them. Or, you know, one of the 7th and 8th grade students, you know, dropped like a binder full of papers in the hallway like a few weeks back. And that's an opportunity for anyone around, me included, to help them pick up some of their papers. Or in class, if a student's pencil drops on the floor. Now, they're being foolish with it and throwing it around, but if they didn't mean for it to drop on the floor and they weren't being foolish or intentional with what they were doing, you could sit there and stare at the pencil and look at them Or you could, well, it's quick, it's convenient, but at the same time, that's an opportunity to say, so finding those opportunities to wash our students' feet, so to speak. So giving them the law as God the Father would. imitating the sun by serving them and being their advocate, being on their team, telling them I'm on your team, I'm on your side, I want you to be successful here. You didn't do your best on that test. I want you to do your best because I want you to succeed, not because I'm being hard on you, because I want to see you miserable. I don't, I don't. This doesn't lead to misery. It may seem miserable right now, but it doesn't lead to misery. It leads to joy, it leads to peace, it leads to righteousness. You know, I'm going to help you even in a way that you don't even understand yet. That's hard. It's hard for some students to understand, but God sees it, and he'll use it, and he'll bless it for sure. All right, so applications of servanthood. You know, you kind of touched on this already, but when it comes to etiquette in the classroom, you should be the best example of a polite host that anyone could imagine. Show them what politeness looks like. Show them what courtesy looks like. Show them what loving your neighbor looks like. I get home every day from school, I don't know, between four and five, I guess. And when I walk through the door, I could be nitpicky of what I see at home. My wife and kids are at home all day. The house is not clean, not pristine. You know, it's passable, I guess, most days. But I could easily go home and, and I've done this, I mean, I'm not, I'll say this out of experience, and nitpick everything. Why wasn't this done? Why are there a sink full of dishes? Why is there so much toys and junk on the floor? I could easily walk into my house and when my kids see me I can be Mr. Nitpicky and be a negative example of imitating Christ to them. In some instances maybe I have a good reason to do that. But as I go home every day, I try to remember that I want to show my kids the joy of their father. I want to show my kids that I'm ecstatic to see them. I haven't seen them all day. I'm so happy to see y'all. I want Stacy to know that I'm happy to see her. You know, I want her to see that on my face. You know, I want her to see the joy of, you know, the head of the household coming home. I want her to see that, you know, yeah, even though the place has been in shambles, that her husband sees that, oh, it's good to be home, and I want to be home. We want that. We want that. And that involves me overlooking some things, being intentionally just not paying attention to some things that I could pay attention to. And the same thing can be said when tomorrow your students walk into your classroom. You could be nitpicky of how their hair looks that day. You could be nitpicky of their uniform being out of sorts. You could be nitpicky of just their general attitude and their general demeanor of coming back to school. Some of them may be excited to come back. Some of them may be like this to come back. But you have to be willing to overlook some of those things and really give them the impression that, I'm so happy to see you. I'm glad you're here. And we want them to feel like, it's not home, but this is, This is school. I'm so glad to be at school. I'm so glad to be in the classroom. I'm so glad to be in Miss Jasmine's class. She wants me here. We should be the best example of what politeness looks like in that aspect. I'm not saying give a pass on untucked shirts. I'm not saying give a pass on these things. But it may not be the first thing you get to. Oh, your shirt's untucked. Go to the bathroom and untuck your shirt. We don't want to do that. After we haven't seen them for two weeks, yeah, I mean, the law is there. It's in the handbook. It's policy. But we're not slaves of the law. We're not slaves of the policy. The law is for us. It's for us to use for their good. If their shirt's untucked, eventually get to it. But it should already be done in the atmosphere. I'm glad you're here. Give them a hug. Okay, go tuck in your shirt. How many of you guys have played volleyball before? Well, yeah. Maybe you played in high school, maybe you played... I don't know if anybody plays volleyball out here. No, right now, because there's so little. And usually it's just the serving team that wins, because they haven't figured out how to volley. They don't play. I figured, yeah. out there whenever we were, I think it was for Thanksgiving, we had some time. And I'm like, let's go play volleyball. And they're like, we don't have a clue how to play volleyball. I'm like, well, let me show you. And they were right. They have no clue how to play volleyball. But at any rate, what happened, one of the things that happened out there is that I would serve, and then the ball goes over the net, and then you have two guys, and the ball just falls right in between them on the ground. And you know what they do? They look at each other, it's your ball. Why didn't you hit it? Right, right. And believe it or not, we play volleyball in our classrooms and at home every single day in the exact same way. Husband and a wife play volleyball all the time. And the attitude that we should have instead of saying, why didn't you get it? It should be, I'll get it, it's my ball. Both husband and wife should be saying that. There's a dirty diaper, it's my ball, I'll get it. They both should be saying that. That's easy to say hypothetically, but whenever it's in the middle of the night and one of your kids have messed the bed because they had an accident. Both man and woman should be saying, it's my ball, I'll get it. The husband should not be pretending to be asleep and hearing the cries of distress. Rumor has it, yes. In the home, there should always be that mentality of service. It's my ball. I'll get it. You don't even have to have kids to have this, which is things that go on along around the house. I'll take initiative if it's possible. So here's the question. What if both take initiative or want to take initiative? So there's a conflict there. They both want to serve. What do you do? Well, you submit to your husband as unto the Lord. and let him take it. Let him be the patriarch of the family and take the service. Let him do it. And all this can go to our classrooms as well. you know, something going on that two teachers are, there's some need that needs to be addressed. And if there are two teachers around, you know, we should have that mentality, too. Like, I'll handle it. Even though, you know, let's say it's outside, and it's kind of in common ground, but it's, you know, somebody out of Rebecca's class, and, you know, Rebecca's there, and Darlene, you're there, too, or whatever. And, you know, if there's an immediate need, you know, whoever's there should say, you know, I'll handle it, or how can we coordinate or help each other tackle this? You know what I'm saying? Always looking for those opportunities to serve and to take on responsibility, to be able to return that ball. Don't leave it up to the other teammate to do it, right? Another important way to serve your students are to prioritize time to spend with your children or your students, just as Christ did. Remember I said earlier, He was always interrupted. But we always see in the Scriptures that He took time with people. He didn't rush them along. There was the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus was on to, goodness, reviving a person, or who was really sick and who actually died. But this woman touched His garment, and He took time to at least even ask, like, who touched me? Who did this? And he spent that moment with her on his way to do something else that really ministered to her and really met her need, a terrible need, a need that has been needing to be met for years and years and years. So prioritizing time to spend with your students. This involves maybe eating lunch with your student when you don't have to. I know many of you do this already. You guys have your lunch dates and things like that. I'm so surprised, they love that. I know, they do. As much as you drop the hammer on them and you give them the law, they love you for it. They love you for it. Because they understand that you love them and they understand that you do these things for their good. We love following the rules, in one sense. You know, we love having guardrails. We love having boundaries set. Kids love that. We love that as adults. You know, who would want to get on the highway if there aren't any boundaries set? Who would want to drive a car down the road if there aren't any rules? You know, we want that. It's good for us. It keeps us from death. So, you know, maybe eating lunch with them when you don't have to. Maybe pulling up a chair at one of their tables when they're all eating. It would probably be a shocker for them. But that could be something that you would do. Playing with the students at recess, minus tetherball. Do not do tetherball, but do something else. When it's available, when you can, play with them. Instead of maybe saying, I'll referee this game and give you all more laws throughout recess. That gives an opportunity. If you're on their team, I'm on your team. I want to score this goal with you, or I want to. What do the kids play outside these days? Do they play any team sports? Do they do anything like that? Dodgeball, yeah, there you go. So, you know, you can be on one of their teams and fight for the same cause. I'm on your team. I'll show you that. Yeah, sure. Right, right. Yeah, so, you know, and I know you all have a million other things to do, too, but I mean, I'm not telling you to do this. This is just suggestions. These are just ways, and you may be able to think of other times, other ways to prioritize, like, individual time with some of your students. I don't know. You know, at home, this kind of bleeds over at home. Spend time together. Find time to spend individually with your kids. You know, write letters to your students. It doesn't have to be a long letter. It could just be a short note. And for the kids that are old enough to read and can read, you can just write them a short note. Or maybe you're reading a passage of scripture and maybe one of your students pops up in your mind while you're reading that. They could benefit from this. Just jot the scripture down on a piece of paper and send it to them. I don't know. But I think little things like this pays off. I try to incorporate this with my own kids at home. It's hard when you have a good bit of them. You know, it's hard. Just prioritizing that time with them, that pays off in the long run. It pays off in ways that you'll probably never see, you know, but will later on in their lives. You know, they'll always remember you for it, and they'll remember Christ because you are imitating God in doing that, right? So, this leads us to the next question. All right, well, I have to be a servant. How much do I have to sacrifice to do this? Like, what's the line? What's the line? How many times do I have to make an initiative to hit the ball back? How much do I have to sacrifice? There's this ball coming over the net, do I have to get it every time? you know, every single time, you know. And you know, you always hear, you know, especially in marriage talk, you know, not 50-50, 100-100, right? And that's true, you know. I was going to say, do we have to have a conversation because it should be 100-100. Yeah, it should be. Yeah, I'm totally on board with that, definitely. I'm just trying to get the cliche out of our minds. We hear that all the time, you know. Yeah, it should be 100%. Sacrifice, 100% sacrifice for your kids, for your students. Because I mean, after all, you know, when was it enough for Jesus? When was it enough? How much did he have to sacrifice? He was the sacrifice. He sacrificed everything. Everything. And the same thing is true for us as we imitate Christ. We're not called to make a few sacrifices for our kids. We are called to be the sacrifice. We sacrifice everything that is convenient for us for the good of our children, for the good of our students. We're called to die to ourselves each and every day as we wake up in the morning, get out of bed, as we walk through these doors to go in our classrooms. We're called to die to ourselves. And at the outset, I mean, that sounds miserable. Who gets excited? Yes, I'm gonna die to myself today. I'm gonna die today. Yay, no one says that. But there's a very important truth that we don't understand on our own, and that scripture teaches us. And that is, as you die in sacrifice, and as you give your life away, you'll find yourself, ironically, full of life as you do it. You'll find yourself with life abundant as you give your entire life away, just as Christ was when he rose from the dead. I think of these missionaries that go to these foreign countries or to start an orphanage, and they live their entire lives for these kids. They give everything away. They live in object poverty for these children. But you read about their lives, and they're some of the most joyful people you can meet. And if you ask them if they could be anywhere else right now, where would they be? They'd be like, I want to be here. I want to serve my Lord here. And when they don't have anything, they don't have even adequate, what we would call adequate living conditions. They're serving these other kids. They're giving their life away. And you can see that they are full of life because that's the economy that God has made in this world, that as we give our lives away, we're filled up with new life, life abundant. And that's how it should be for us here at school. you know, as we give our lives away in giving the law, correcting, instructing, you know, even through sometimes just hardness of heart and rebellion and, you know, them not understanding or getting it or, you know, any of those things as you, it's tempting to get frustrated, it's tempting just to, you know, But as you power through it and you continue to put your selfish ambition aside or the need to get this, this, and this, and this done, as you continue to give your life away, you'll find that as with any calling, not just with teaching, anything you do as a wife, mother, teacher, whatever, You're going to find that as you give your life away for Christ, that you'll receive it back a hundredfold. Right? Matthew 10 39 says, he who findeth his life shall lose it. And he that loses his life for my sake, that's the key word, for my sake, will find it. If you continue to, if you live your life entirely living for yourself, you're gonna find, of course, at the end of it, you'll be judged by God for your sin and for your rebellion. But you'll find at the end of your life, you really won't have much that's worth talking about. A life lived completely for yourself is eventually a life of isolation, and it's eventually a life at your funeral. People have to make up good things to say about you because you were so selfish your entire life. There's no inheritance to leave for anybody else. There's no thing of substance or value that you've left to the next generation. And that's another way that this verse can be interpreted, you know, he who findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life gives up his life, gives up anything else that you could be doing that's more prosperous, that's more notable than this, you know, anyone who gives those things up and pursues this calling, not for your sake, but for Christ's sake, in serving Him each and every day, then you will find life. As a wife, anybody who loses their life in submitting to their husband and helping their husband as they take dominion over wherever they're called to do it, for Christ's sake, it's going to find life. It's going to find joy. It's going to find peace, no matter how difficult the circumstances would be. And Romans, there's another verse I haven't put up there. Could someone turn there for me? Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with roaming's too deep a word. I have it here, but thank you for reading it. So, imitating the Holy Spirit in prayer. Yeah, and just like Rebecca was reading, you know, the Spirit helps our infirmities. Right? For we don't know what we should pray for as we ought. How many of us have found ourselves in those situations? We don't really know. There's something crazy going on and we don't really know how to pray. Or, you know, we didn't even know that there was something going on in our life or somebody else's life that we're close to that we didn't even know we should have prayed for. But, you know, we ended up just in our prayer time just going to God just generally in prayer. You know, we don't know what we should pray for. It's good that the Lord helps us in those things, right? Because we're not all knowing. We don't know everything. We only know what's in front of us and what we've heard or what we've experienced. But God knows everything. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows the hearts of each and every person. He knows your heart better than you know your own heart. He knows your students' hearts better than they know their own hearts. He knows where Christ Church is going in 20 years, where CCA is going, 20 years, 40 years, he knows all of these things. You know, we have a general idea, but we don't know for sure. He knows, right? So when we pray, especially when we pray about the future, we pray about needs, we often don't know exactly how we should pray. But God intercedes on our behalf. The Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings, with intensity, with passion, which cannot be uttered. You know, the Spirit knows these things. God knows these things. And He takes our pitiful little prayers and makes them, you know, valuable gifts at the altar of God. And God answers our prayers, you know, through the Spirit of God, right? And we have, you know, taking it to the classroom again, we have students that are in their desks because their parents make them go to school, speaking kindergarten, pre-K, first, second grade. Third and fourth, hopefully they're beginning to understand what they're doing there. These kids have no idea what they should pray for. They don't know what they're doing at all. They're just waiting on your instructions. Hold the pencil this way. Make these strokes. Here's a Bible story. Listen. Hear it. They don't know generally the direction that their lives are going in. Not fully. Not nearly as much as we do. So they don't know what to pray for as they ought, but we can imitate the Holy Spirit in prayer by praying for them, by making intercession for them. You know, you see one of your students has a problem with telling the truth or or disobedience, or defiance, or any one of those things. You can pray with them and make intercession for them, because they may not know that they should pray for that thing. Or you see a student struggling academically, or has a heart issue that you know, as much as you tell them, they can't fix it on their own. We should be praying for our students. Daily daily, you know, and you know, there's a few ways that we could do this, you know I've read I've read a story of one teacher, you know before school starts every morning she walks in her classroom and just chooses one desk and And I think her students were big enough to where she could sit in that desk. And she could sit there and she can see the world that that student is in from their perspective. And she prays for that student as she is sitting in her desk. you know, praying that she understands, praying that she, you know, whatever her needs are, you know, she can put herself, you know, somewhat in her seat, in her shoes and pray for her. And then, you know, pray for three, five minutes and get up and go about getting ready for your day. I think it's super important that we take time to pray for our students because our students often don't know what they should be praying for or what they should be doing. It's great to help them and instruct them and give them the law and discipline them and all of these great things, but we should also be praying for them because we know that without the Spirit's help, they're not going to do any of this. They can't. They're unable to follow Christ without the Spirit of God enabling them to. without faith being given to them to exercise, they're not going to follow Christ. They can go through all the motions, even pray for your best students. Pray for those who follow all the rules. Because you can see with 90% of those students who follow all the rules, they take pride in following all the rules. And self-righteousness abounds in that person. They don't know that they have that problem. You can instruct them and let them know and continue walking them through that, or you can talk to their parents, constantly talking to their parents about those issues. But I think we should pray for them as well, because God is the only one who can, man, He can change somebody's heart on a dime. He can change somebody's attitude and perspective on a dime. So He is the one that we should be going to first, even before we try to be the means in which God uses to do that. Imitate the Holy Spirit by bringing righteousness, peace, and joy to your children. Romans 14.17 says, For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. Psalm 43.4 says, Then I will go unto the altar of God, And to God, my exceeding joy, yea, upon the heart I will praise thee, O God, my God. Now, put yourself in the simile. Remember the simile we talked about earlier? Do your students talk about you in your classroom like that? I will go unto the altar of God." This is describing a person going to the temple, going to the temple to worship, and put into New Covenant terms, we're going to the house of the Lord to worship, to be a living sacrifice, as you will, right? Going unto the altar of the Lord, and then it says, going unto God, going to God, my exceeding joy, my exceeding joy. Is God our exceeding joy? Do we find the utmost pleasure in meeting with Him on the Lord's Day? Do we find the highest pleasure in reading His Word and meditating upon His Word and praying and spending time with Him in those ways? Do we have that ourselves? Do we view God that way? Because God, once again, is that father who is correcting his daughters. correcting, admonishing, exhorting, as a father delights in his children. God the Father delights in you. That's why He chastises you. That's why He disciplines you. That's why He sometimes makes you go through hard things. It's for your holiness, for your good, for your correction. And our response should be, My God, my Father, my exceeding joy. Put yourself in that same simile. Put yourself in God's place in the classroom. Do your students talk about you in your classroom like that? When they come to school and they walk in, do they talk about Miss Jasmine? I'm so happy to be in Miss Jasmine's class. They would never say this, but she and her classroom brings joy to me. You know, can we see it on their faces? You know, obviously we're not God. We cannot give the law, give grace, give all of these things perfectly as the Lord does to us. We can't. But we are still called to imitate Him in every single way that we can. Be ye therefore imitators of Christ as His children. Alright, well good. Well let's go ahead and pray and we'll end this little session here. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank You for giving us Your Word. Thank You for giving us the standard by which we can measure if we're being successful in our calling. Father, thank you for giving us the plumb line and the standard. And Lord, help us to remember that even in the hardest of moments that we are to imitate you, we're to imitate you as a father by giving the law, by enforcing the law, remembering that it's good for your children to follow your law. Father, help us to remember to serve as we have been served. to try to find ways to wash our students' feet and to serve them in any way that will meet their needs. And Father, help us to remember to pray for them and to give our entire lives over for their good, Lord, so that you can do wonderful work in their lives and so that they can glorify you and they can be holy as you are holy. Lord, help them in this. Help all of us in this as we begin the year 2021. Thank you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.