Our Favorite Proverbs: Proverbs 13:20

Welcome 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

people 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

that 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

our 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

some 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