Our Favorite Proverbs: Proverbs 13:20

0:00Welcome to your moment of hope. I'm Jen Houston joined by Pastor David and Marilyn Chadwick. We're in our series called our Favorite Proverbs and today we're going to take a look at Proverbs 1320. David will you share with us today how important are our peer relationships? Very important. Biblically it's undeniable that our peer relationships are extraordinarily important. So let's look at the proverb today. Proverbs 1320 whoever walks with the wise becomes wise but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Clearly stated whoever walks with the wise becomes a wise person. If you walk with the fools you become a foolish person. So if you've never heard this principle before hear it today my dad said it this way growing up he said son always remember your friends are like elevators they will either take you up or they will take you down. So today may we all understand this profound truth in our lives we become like the

1:01people we hang around and I think parents need to oversee their children's peer relationships. Marilyn I can remember with you you were very intentional. If you thought one of our three kids was getting involved in a bad friendship you would do it suddenly and behind the scenes but you were trying every way possible to divide that friendship and not let that peer influence come up on our children. Yeah but you know I wouldn't be very overtly said subtly I didn't ever attack the friend to our children that's not fair to them and not fair to the friend and I was very clear about what was and what wasn't healthy but a couple of situations it was just real clear that the child had a really bad influence on our child and so you kind of have to run undercover and figure out ways to make them busy or help them move beyond that friendship because you would think that it would be things like drugs or immorality or whatever that would be the biggest temptations but sometimes it would have been a friend who would crush their dreams. See I was much more about nurturing the positive than I was just about guarding against immorality I thought they were dumb enough to do

2:01that after all we had talked about but it was the more subtle the dream killers that I was really careful about that. Jen is a mom does does that ring a bell for you at all. Oh it definitely does I definitely want my children to be ones who build up their friends up you know and not kill others dreams to celebrate their wins and so I want them to also be surrounded by people who will do the same. Well I love athletics as most people know and I played on some really great University of North Carolina basketball teams and I just knew that we weren't going to win unless we had good teammates that we enjoyed being with one another and we would lift each other up and be there when we would all fall together so maybe saying this in a different way is make sure you have good teammates as you're trying to win at the game of life and those people that are around you will either lift you up or take you down and you need teammates who fill in your gaps who have strengths you don't have but also with their words give you encouragement and hope because we are who we hang around with and I think we can be proactive about that not just with the children and trusted to

3:04our care but just in general with our friendships and how we steward you know what God has given us you know this makes me think of I want to define wisdom here for just a second just pausing and defining it by James 3 verse 13 who is wise and understanding among you let them show it by this if people want to define it their good life by deeds done in humility that comes from the wisdom but if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts don't boast about it because you deny the truth such quote wisdom does not come from heaven but is earthly and spiritual demonic and it goes on to say some pretty sobering things that there's all sorts of evil practices when those things are present so as parents I think we should do a deep dive and contrast this demonic quote unquote wisdom compared to heavenly wisdom great point starts with us as parents and starts with us as adults you know again let's not just say this is for kids it's for us as well we will become like the people we hang around and if we're around haughty and godless and reprobate people hey rest assured at

4:09some point that could creep in to your own life so like you just said and hang around humble people hang around those who are seeking God with all of their hearts and when you have that together especially Matthew 18 19 praying and unity together like that you will see the mighty man of God working with a powerful conversation David and Marilyn thank you so much