Circle Check | No Regrets Part 2 | Nathan Lawson

Music.

Your next step.

So we are in a series talking about wisdom, and I love that we had this past

week passing out backpacks, because we're going to follow it up this week with praying for students.

We want to pray for their year. We want God to bless and to guide and be moving

in them, and we want to make sure that they got crowns so they can express their

creativity, and if you go through scripture, you're going to see both realities, right?

That psalms, the book of Psalms, a lot of poetry, a lot of prayers,

a lot of worship is right next to Proverbs.

And it's kind of like if you were going on a trip and you were thinking about

it through the lens of Psalms, you would want to lay hands on that car and say,

God, we're going to pray for traveling mercies. God, give us safety where we're going.

God, we just ask that the conversations would be divine appointments that you set us up on.

And God's like, that is true. And that is necessary and good because God does answer prayers.

But just so you don't get confused, he puts Proverbs right next to it,

which says you need to also check to make sure you have a spare tire.

You need to change the oil. Like, don't blame me because you didn't check that

there was a spare tire in the trunk. You have both things that are true at the same time.

That Proverbs is the kind of wisdom that's not esoteric wisdom.

Meditation and up some mountain secret things that we can't tell you unless

you meditate and fast for a couple thousand years or whatever it is.

This is called wisdom that is out on the street.

Proverbs chapter eight, Lady Wisdom says, look, I'm standing on the street corner

here. I'm on first and main.

I'm passing out lessons to anyone who's willing to pay attention.

Like this stuff is ready and obvious for those who are willing to listen and learn the lesson.

You see it in the boardroom. You don't have to be a, you know,

a theologian or a philosopher to say, well, I know what a dysfunctional relationship looks like.

I tell you that much, like, I'm pretty sure I can tell you what that is.

Like, we all have experiences that provide at least an opportunity for us to grow.

Because the series we're in is called No Regrets. But we have to say up front

that that is a future hope, not a past reality, right? That we all have made mistakes.

How many of you have spilled a beverage on yourself at a very inopportune moment,

like before the meeting, before the event. How many of you have done it?

If you haven't put your hands up, I don't know who you are. Like you must be

amazingly neat. How many of you have done it more than once?

How many of you have stubbed a toe on the same piece of furniture more than

once? Like right here, right here, right here.

It can be so bad that sometimes when I get up at night, I can feel my toes cringing

back because they know who's piloting this ship.

That the problem is, is that by itself, going through hard things doesn't make you any wiser.

We talk about the school of hard knocks, but experience by itself doesn't necessarily

mean you're not going to repeat that same mistake next time.

Experience is only the best teacher if you're taking notes.

If you're writing down, okay, what do I want to do different next time?

How am I going to set this up? What kind of happened?

And if your reflection is accurate and based in reality, it's a reflection of

the way God actually made the world, then it's possible for wisdom.

It's not what you go through that makes you wise. It's what you think through.

And we're going to be talking in this series about some key areas,

but Proverbs is filled with lessons and insight.

It's the kind of book where you just kind of want to take that one proverb,

put it in your back pocket and stew on it saying, boy, I need to do better at fill in the blank.

And we talked last week about just several different Proverbs about our words

and how for a lot of us, if you were to talk about regrets, for me,

it's the fact that I can stick my foot in my mouth like a pro.

And over time, God has helped me to do better so that I have fewer regrets going forward.

But today we're going to talk about friendship.

I mean, it almost sounds quaint when you say it, you know, I mean,

I can't help but think of that 1995 hit that had awesome graphics at the time, Toy Story.

This is when Windows 95 came out, it was cutting edge and that voice coming

over that says when the road looks rough ahead and you're miles away from your

nice warm bed you remember what your old pal said.

Oh, come on, guys. How hasn't seen Toy Story? Let's try it out. What is it? What is it?

You've got a friend in me. I mean, for a lot of our culture,

though, friendship is kind of more cute and quaint.

I think for a lot of people, if they put it in a category, they'd put it like

a luxury, like it's more fun than not having it. I mean, it's good.

I mean, you should do it because, you know, being lonely is not that much fun.

But you don't realize how critically important it is for your development as

a person, for the way God made you to live.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to say we need to push past a culture

which is, you know, it thinks it's important.

I mean, you should probably find some, I guess, if you need to.

And you kind of feel like that's going to help you in life.

We want to ask ourselves, what does Proverbs tell us about friendship?

Because if you were to take a class over at the community college or Christopher

Newport, you could pick a class on any subject to help improve your skills.

You could become a better writer, learn how to express yourself better in the

written word to be more persuasive or poetic. You could learn to be a better speaker.

You could take classes that would help you to make fewer mistakes in mathematics

and engineering. You could be better in all kinds of subjects,

even running a small business, how to maximize your profits. But you know what?

They don't have a single class in how to be a friend.

There's no friendship department last time I checked at CNU.

And this is tragic because, honestly, your success is going to be heavily impacted

by the kind of friendships you develop.

And the lessons that you picked up on the playground in the fourth grade,

whether they were healthy or not, are the ones that are like unseen tattoos,

the kind of people that you choose to trust or not.

So we're going to look today at a couple of different aspects of friendship.

Because friendship does impact you. The people around you shape who you are.

Slowly, but powerfully.

I mean, I found this when I was, went overseas in a country,

maybe you've found yourself doing this and they have a lot of British terms

in their English for stuff. And they sound weird.

You know, they just say the wrong

word for everything. Tennis shoes or tennies or a wrench is a spanner.

You know, the propane is called handy gas. It's like, there's all kinds of different

ones. And when you start, it sounds so weird.

And then it doesn't sound weird. Then I start saying it.

Then I can't remember which one's which. Like most of you have a friendship

that has over time maybe changed how what you were up to, what you got interested in.

Maybe you weren't interested in running. A friend says he's going to do a 5K.

And before you know it, you got the smartwatch and you're comparing stats like that's an actual sport.

And you're just into it now because of the environment that you find yourself

in. Your friendships have a huge impact on the kind of person you become.

Here's the first one we want to look at, and I'm going to pull it up.

This is a really critical verse to talk about why this is so important.

You see, plans fail for a lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed.

Plans fail if you are the only one in the captain chair.

If you're operating life under the assumption that the things that you think

you should do are you are the best and most intelligent person in all areas,

it is not likely to go well.

One of our favorite books that my wife and I like about parenting from the company

that does our curriculum called Orange, the book is entitled Parenting Beyond Your Capacity.

And it's this book by a guy called Cary Newhoff. And what he says is,

it would be a shame if your quality as a parent was capped by the luck of what

kind of skills you just happen to be born with.

So if you were born really good, and you're just really good with preschoolers,

You're going to have a great time as a parent for four years.

And you're going to have 14 years of, oh my gosh, I'm not built for this.

Or if you're the kind of person that says, I actually do really well with teens.

That's my favorite year.

Then you're just going to have to put in eight years of glitter and crafts and

glue and messes going, I did not sign up for this.

And what he says is, what you need to do is you need to bring in other people

who are in that conversation so that the quality you are as a parent isn't limited

by your own skillset because none of us are that gifted in everything.

And if it's true in that area, how much more is it true in the other parts of your life?

You see, the first danger we run into is we have a lack of advisors.

That is people that aren't just acquaintances. They're not just like casual

small talk, but have the right to say, I don't know if that's a good idea.

What we're going to talk about, the first danger is the danger of the echo chamber.

Now, there's two ways you can get in the echo chamber.

One is you go in there by yourself and lock the door.

And let me tell you, it's not as unpleasant as it sounds. You're smart. You're smart.

You're right. You're right. I mean, if you're the only one in there,

then all your ideas are great. I could fix this country if they put me in charge, that's for sure.

The echo chamber unchallenged. It's only me in there.

But you could also get there by being surrounded by people that never really say anything very deep.

They just kind of sign off on it. It's mostly small talk.

And, you know, I'm thinking about doing this. And you're like,

yeah, that's a great idea. You should. People need to do that.

And they're just saying yes to everything.

They're so similar to you that there's no challenge.

And we're going to talk about why is that? Why does that go so badly?

Well, it goes, it goes badly for a couple of different reasons. Number one.

That there are parts of you that are, how do we put this pastorally?

Quirky. All right, you have quirks. I have quirks. You have quirks.

If you don't think you have quirks, have a conversation with whoever you're

sitting next to. They'll be sure to gently tell you perhaps a few.

Now, here's what happens though, that all of us have these quirks,

but the people next to us help to temper and shape them so that they're moving

in the right and not wrong directions.

If I were to ask people in this room, do I tend to speak a little fast when

I preach? Don't raise your hand.

But most of you would say, yep, I've noticed that.

This is me trying, all right? This is me every week knowing that about myself

saying, slow down. Like this is with effort.

Now here's what can happen though. In a regular conversation out in the lobby

or in a community group, I can get going.

I mean, a book I read, I'm excited about this idea. I'm motivated.

I'm talking, I'm talking. And someone's trying to add a comment and I'm still

going. And then I get the nudge.

You know, my wife, it gives me the little, the kick, which can get harsher over time.

And I know her and trust her well enough and know myself well enough to be like,

oh, I'm doing the thing. And I slow down.

And because of that, I learn more from others. I have more rich conversations

with other people. But what if she wasn't there?

And I just keep running over people. And I don't know why less and less people want to talk with me.

And I don't know why all these relationships, my quirk becomes a habit.

And my habit becomes a character that leads to harm.

By having another person there saying, hey, now, hold up.

That excitement that I have, which is a good thing. It can be if it's formed in community.

It goes the other way as well. I've walked out of counseling situations where

things were really tragic.

And I can just tell you, no matter how much you've gone through it or how many

other times you've prayed with people, it is always nerve wracking when you're

walking into a room where there is just really, really heartache and tragedy.

And sometimes I feel so anxious about saying the right thing or not saying something

or trying to do the right thing and I can walk out of a meeting like that thinking I don't know if.

I don't know if I did the right thing. And I don't know. I don't think I,

I just don't know if I can.

And another person could sit in that same room with me, come out and say,

what are you talking about?

All they needed was for you to sit and listen. No, no, you did it.

You said you did what you needed to do. That was great. And I'm like, it was like, yeah.

But what if that other voice wasn't there? That means when I walk out of that

room and say, I think I'm terrible at that.

And I just repeat that to myself again. And again, there's not a single other

perspective that I trust who also saw that situation to say,

I'm not sure that's the best way to say it.

And another voice that begins when I begin to say, I just don't know if I can

do that, can say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I was there. You're doing great.

There's other voices we need because in isolation, that negative sense that

we have that I don't know about things are going to work out.

And there's no other voice to say, wait a minute, I was there.

I don't think it's as bad as you think it is. Like, I think we can actually

turn this around. Like, that's not quite as tragic.

Haven't you felt it when you have a friend in your life that you can talk to

about something you're really worried about and be fully honest with?

And as you're unloading it, you feel better immediately because you're now you're

talking about this thing you're worried about.

And just speaking to a trusted advisor, you're now thinking about it through their eyes.

And you're like, why are you running around and screaming like the house is on fire?

And they're like, I get it. It's bad. I'm just not sure it's as bad as you think it is.

But what if that voice isn't there and you just keep saying,

this is the worst. I'll never come back from this. This is horrible.

I'm over. I can't even bother. And there's not a single other person to give without many advisors,

your plans fail because all of us have perceptions of reality that if we kept

repeating it become true for us,

they're just not actually the way the world is.

And to have people around you who are also walking with scriptures to say,

look, God loves you. We can work this. This isn't the end.

Another voice in the room that you trust will help your mind not to develop

quirks that grow into habits, that grow into that negative, dark place that

teach you to walk down a different road.

There's a reason that loneliness often leads to depression and anxiety because

there is no voice to be consistently with you to say, I don't know if that's even true.

And by the time we go and get help, we've so cemented mentalities. You know, people.

As they were getting older, they cut away relationships and they got,

what's the word we're using?

Quirkier and quirkier. And by the time they tried to move back in with their

kids, these quirks were almost unmanageable.

Like, oh my gosh, how in the world did you get to be somebody who was this grumpy and angry?

Well, it was, it was a little bit of complaining that nobody stopped and it

just kept going until it became bitterness.

And that bitterness became cynicism, and then, okay, I guess I have to move

back near my kids now. But look what happened.

You see, God designed you to live in community. He designed you to have some

of those assumptions challenged.

We need to be the kinds of people that surround ourselves with at least a few

trusted voices who are also listening to scripture with many advisors,

not with lots of small talk.

Plans succeed. We have to be careful. We have to be careful because our own

thoughts can end up in an echo chamber.

The beliefs that we have about the world that are simply never challenged or

expanded or somebody else saying, I don't know if I see it that way.

But there's another problem, not just the echo chamber, but we might call these the faithful fools.

You see, you can have people in your life that you go way back with.

I mean, I went to high school with these guys, like they're loyal.

Like they're my people. I can call them at one in the morning.

Like they're on my team. Like if I had to have a go and do a street fight,

which I would not do well in, but hypothetically, if I imagined it,

like I have people I could call, but these people are loyal.

And in our culture, loyalty plus time means they're a good friend.

But if you were to consider what Proverbs says, that's not the only rubric you need to use.

You see, it's going to say this. This is the verse that is well known from Proverbs.

If you walk with the wise, you become wise.

But if you walk with a fool, you become foolish. That's not what it says.

It says a companion of fool suffers harm.

Most of us have some of these people and we're like, oh man,

I mean, I know he's a little wild. He's a little rough around the edges,

has to sleep it off on the couch sometimes.

But I'm not, I mean, I wouldn't do it. He's just a friend. You know,

we go way back. We've always been together.

The problem is, is that when you hang around fools, even if you say to yourself,

I would never, that the disasters that they cause have a way of spilling over into your life.

That if somebody else is driving the car and they've had too much,

or they are texting and being irresponsible and they wreck the car,

you don't get to say to the ER doctor, I can't have any broken bones because

I'm a responsible driver. That's not how it works.

You see, these people have a way of affecting us in ways more than we realize.

There was a national crisis that was averted after the Vietnam War.

You see, many of the soldiers who were in Vietnam had started using heroin because

of the incredible trauma of that entire experience.

A significant number of soldiers were regular users of heroin.

And at the time, the recovery rate for somebody trying to get over an addiction

from heroin, this is somebody like trying to do it, was a success rate of one in 10.

Meaning only one person who was trying would succeed and nine would continue to be addicted.

So there was an assumption that when the army was going to be brought back,

we were just going to have tens of thousands of these people who are addicted to heroin.

But despite the predictions, those who had used regularly in Vietnam when they

came back, nine out of 10 discontinued use and did not repeat.

A 90% success rate. And this just, this blew people's mind. They're like,

I don't, that should not have happened.

Because addiction doesn't really care what political party you're in.

It doesn't care what state you live in. It doesn't care if you're in California or Virginia.

Addiction looks similar anywhere in the country.

And so they're like, what in the world happened? Like it wasn't really a place, it just happened.

And what they came to the conclusion was that the change in environment

with the trauma that was gone and that more importantly, the social environment,

an entirely new slate of friends who were not from had anything to do with that

addiction, gave the opportunity for people to leave something behind.

And this was repeated a number of years later in an experiment called Rat Town.

And it's really exciting. What happened is there was one group of rats that

were put in a cage by themselves with two things to get water from,

two little distributors to get water.

One has water, one has water mixed with cocaine.

You can imagine which one's more popular. I mean, the rats, I mean,

they're eating the cocaine and they're just having a great rat time.

I mean, they're just like, they're excited, they're energized,

they don't need any sleep.

I mean, they're just hitting it like you would not believe. They're also not eating.

And so they start starving to death, their heart gets messed up,

they overdose and they die.

But in the same experiment, they took another group of rats and they built rat town.

They put in the bush garden of rats. I mean, they had puzzles to play in games. Rats are very social.

They had lots of space for them to interact with other rats.

They had lots of lady rats there. So they could, you get the idea.

I mean, they had all that they would need, but they also put in that cage,

the exact same two water distribution points, one with water and one with water and cocaine,

a 90% reduction in overdose rates in rat town.

And the reason I tell you this, and actually, if I were putting my cards on the table,

the inspiration for this message in this series is because I know a lot of people

who want to get out of addiction and they are trying to muster willpower and

they realize that it's been too long and they don't know if it's possible.

And they say, if I just had a little more willpower, if I just had a little

more drive, if I just had a little more effort.

And what I'm telling you is that both the science and scripture is going to

say that what you need is to delete some free people out of your contact list.

I don't care if you went to high school together, A companion of fools suffers harm.

Do not tell me that you want to get over addiction, but I also want to stay in this circle.

That there's a faithful fool and the consequences ultimately are dangerous.

There are some people that if you look at them in your life and you think to

yourself, I can't, this is a guy when I'm around him, I do things I regret later. I have to pause.

And perhaps in this message, you're going to text people, text someone and say,

look, I need six months, man, where we really can't be in contact.

I need to step away because this isn't leading me to a good place.

But it's not just chemical substances that are addictive.

The Proverbs is going to bring up a couple that are just as dangerous,

and here they are. It's going to say this in Proverbs 22, verse 24.

Proverbs 22:24

Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person. Do not associate with people

who get angry very easily, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared.

Emotional habits are contagious. And when you're around people that are quick to anger,

that are quick to try to rile you up to want to get back at them and get some

respect, it has a way, whether you're conscious of it or not,

of moving you toward habits that will harm yourself and others.

Proverbs said, look, I don't care how long you've known them.

If you are around somebody who is angered quickly, this is a person you need

to create distance from.

This is a person that cannot be in your inner circle because those habits,

no matter what you say, are more contagious than you realize.

It continues to list one more option. It continues to list one more person that

we need to avoid, and it's this one.

Drive out a mocker and out goes strife and quarrels. Insults are ended.

These faithful fools can be hidden because our culture loves sarcasm.

I mean, I don't love sarcasm at all.

Like there's a part of us that our culture loves it. The quip,

the cut down, the cynical remark.

And the problem is that a mocker, at least as far as Proverbs is concerned,

that word mocker would be what we might call a cynic.

Someone who wants to enhance your negative outlook on life, who wants to tell

you that everyone around you try to highlight the more negative things about

them, tell you what bosses are really like, and are constantly trying to echo

in your head the voice of a cynic.

And surround them are fights, quarrels, relational isolation.

Proverbs will say, not just in this one verse, but in other places,

do not allow a cynic a seat at your table.

We all have a propensity to enhance the way that we see the world through the eyes of a mocker.

And it's saying, if you push that

out, you will be surprised at how much conflict in your life goes down.

So we've covered a couple of these, I think some of the more dangerous ones.

We allow ourselves in an echo chamber, or we allow ourselves to kind of exist

in this with people that are toxic.

We're going to flip it and talk a couple of the kinds of friends that we should be looking for.

And the first one we want to look at is, this is iron sharpens iron, right?

So we're going to pull up this verse. This is a well-known verse in Proverbs.

It says, and we're going to say that first part together. Let's just say the

first part together as iron sharpens iron. Together. Here we go.

As iron sharpens iron. Let's say it one more time like we mean it. As iron sharpens iron.

So one person sharpens another.

This is a well-known verse, and it's a verse that it would be well-suited for your back pocket.

That copper does not sharpen iron. You bring copper to the party,

and when iron hits it, copper just crumples underneath it. They're not compatible.

You can't sharpen iron with aluminum. If you're an engineer and you actually

could, I don't want to know that.

This is a metaphor, all right? So just, just, just let me go with it for a second.

You need people who are, have the same passion, purpose, and direction that you're headed.

I worked on this, an illustration here, and I tried to think of one that wasn't

as geeky as the one I'm about to tell you.

I could not find it. So you're just going to have to go with my geekiness for

a second. And if this is not you, I'm just begging, just don't check out because

this is a really important principle of what this looks like.

This is from Lord of the Rings.

All right. And in the first movie, I know it's a fantasy movie.

And if you're not into fantasy movies, it's still a great lesson. So pay attention.

They're getting ready to go on a quest. Yes, I know. Fantasy quest.

And there's a dwarf there named Gimli. He carries a giant axe,

speaks with a Scottish accent for reasons that aren't clear.

And he's gathered around with these others. And I can promise you this,

that a dwarf, he is shorter.

He loves living in the mines. He has a huge axe.

For him, conversation would be easier with people who were like him.

He would have a much easier time if everyone was a dwarf. In fact,

not just a dwarf, but dwarfs who liked Axis.

They could compare techniques. They could talk about weapons.

They could share stories.

They would be like, man, this is like really working. Like, this is what we

need. We need more of these kind of circles. But here's the thing.

For that quest to succeed, you don't need seven dwarfs. That's a different movie

and has an entirely different plot.

What you need is people of significantly different skill set.

There's an elf that's there. There's a lost king that's there.

There's these really small people called hobbits, which have insatiable appetites

that are somehow unnecessary for the quest, but all of them are going to go.

Now, here's the thing. On the surface, they don't have a lot of things in common,

but they're going to the same destination.

What makes iron sharpening iron is not that people share your same hobbies or

they like the same kind of music that you do.

It's not iron sharpening iron. It's not just people who are like you.

In fact, oftentimes it's people who are not that much like you,

but they're trying to go to the same place.

And it's that going to the same direction that makes iron sharpen iron.

So when you're in a marriage group at this church, like re-engage,

or you're a part of a Celebrate Recovery, and you have people who have very

different backgrounds,

some who are really happy in marriage, but they're working on finance,

or some that are struggling, and some have been married for years,

some about six months, some that come from this home or that.

There's not a lot in common. But what makes the group work?

Because we're all trying to move closer to God and to one another according

to what God's word says in a relationship.

That sometimes what makes a community group work is not all that we just share the same hobbies.

It's that we're all trying to get somewhere. And our difference is what allows

us to see a situation perhaps from another perspective.

So we could say it this way, that, right, to share pastimes,

right, to share pastimes is great.

But to share purpose is essential, right?

It's nothing wrong at work when you want to share like, oh, we both like the

same sport. Oh, my goodness, you're also a Clemson fan. You're also a whatever fan.

Like, that's so awesome. Like to share pastimes is great, but to share purpose,

that's what you're looking for in a relationship.

Another way we could say is don't just seek out people who share your playlist.

Look for people that share your purpose. Look for someone who's trying to parent

the way that you would like to parent.

Look for someone who's moving forward in business with control and with a calm

approach toward life, but seems to have the kind of drive that you want,

even if they're not very similar to you. You wouldn't necessarily want to go

and hang out with them every day, but you're going to the same place.

Associate yourself by saying, too many of my friendships are just sharing the

same pastime. We just like the same bands.

We just like the same food. I need to make sure that my relationships are iron sharpening iron.

It says this, that perfume and incense bring joy to the heart.

And the pleasantness of a true friend springs from their heartfelt advice.

Just like perfume and incense. And I guess in the ancient world,

that was a very positive thing that would let you know that there's peace and

there's harmony in the house.

You come into a house that smells nice and is clean. It makes your heart feel

relaxed. He says, you know what else makes your heart relaxed?

The advice from a true friend that is heartfelt.

Another way we might say it is advice from a friend that's sincere.

And sometimes a real sincere advice is, Nathan, you're being an idiot.

That's the advice that we need to give right now.

Sometimes that is sweet because it saves you from all kinds of disasters.

I mean, what kind of friend says you're doing great, just keep walking.

And then you hit your shin on furniture and you're like, why didn't you say

that was there? And they're like, I didn't want to hurt your feelings.

Well, you hurt my shin. That's what happened.

That the problem is, is that it says the sweetness of friendship is not that

we always want to hear it, but that we know that they care about us.

You see, we know that they have our best interest at heart, that if they're

saying this, even if we sometimes have to say, I don't know if I always agree,

but we know that the place that they're speaking from is that they care about us.

And so iron sharpens iron. The advice from a person that you know has your best

interest at heart and is trying to go to the same place that you're trying to get to in life.

This is what you need, not just as a luxury because it's not very pleasant to

be lonely, because it's the way that God is going to help you become who he made you to be.

Proverbs is a lot about friendship. If you go in our study guide this week,

you're gonna see a list of verses. It's not even all of them.

It's just as many as we could fit in there.

And it's gonna be a great week to pick one or two of them and say,

I'm just gonna learn this verse in my own words.

And I'm gonna keep it in my back pocket and say, this is what I need to be on the lookout for.

We need to move toward this part in the message where we're gonna talk about a circle test.

You're gonna test that circle. Who is it that I'm allowing in my closest sphere?

Who am I giving voice to that I need to do some courageous subtraction.

I need to say, you know what? I need to push block and delete on some people,

some voices, some political commentary that I'm following or whatever.

Like this is not doing good things for me. I can feel it making me more cynical

and angry and it's not helping where I'm going in life. I need to have the courage

to push delete in my chat.

But it also means you need to be on the lookout for people that you need to

bring into that circle. This is difficult.

Because there is no exact way

that I can tell you how to get a great iron sharpening iron friendship.

If you come to the church this September, the September 14th at four o'clock

for only $19.95, I can guarantee you a lifelong, meaningful friendship.

It doesn't work like that.

But it does mean that you show up and you're on the lookout for it.

It does mean that it could mean that for this next month, you don't just come

to church five minutes late and rush out five minutes early.

It would mean that you would flip that around and come five minutes early and

stay five minutes late because you're looking for somebody that's talking about

business or life who is beginning to say, well, you know, I'm reading this part

of the Bible, but I don't know what all that means.

I've been wrestling. And someone else who says, yeah, I just started doing that too.

And you can say, you know, maybe we should, I would wonder if you had some time

we could get together and talk about it.

You have to be on the look out because you need people in your life to begin

to trust a voice that's not just your own echo.

It means that we've got some events coming up that are going to be fun.

We got pickleball coming.

We've got Northside Day coming. And when you come to the events like that,

when you have the courage to show up, even though it's a little awkward and

that you say, I can grill with a bunch of people I don't know that well because

I've only been coming to Northside for like three weeks, four weeks,

when you have the courage to say, I'll come,

I'll be a part of it, it can provide an opportunity where God and the Holy Spirit

may be helping to connect you with somebody who is going to be that voice that

is going to save you from all kinds of heartache and brokenness.

You show me your circle and I'll show you the ceiling of how far you're going to develop.

You show me the kind of friendships in your life and I can tell you how far

your life is going to be allowed to develop.

You have to have the courage to begin to be on the lookout for it.

It says this in Proverbs, one in life who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin.

But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. The literal Hebrew in

the first half of this verse says, the one with many friends comes to ruin.

But it used as that word with a tongue in cheek.

Lots of people. I know lots of people around here. I got a hundred contacts I know.

I'm the life of the party at work, but so few voices that I trust enough to

talk about what I'm going through. And so in my own head, I'm still have so

many unchallenged narratives about myself that I need to bring someone else

into conversation with.

He said, look, a person who has all these acquaintances, it's not going to go well.

What you need is that one, two, three people who are speaking into your life

that you trust, that is closer than even a biological brother.

Because it isn't just something you're born into by default.

It's two people who've decided we are going toward God together.

And I think that God has brought us together to help learn and minister one to another.

You have to be on the lookout for that friend that sticks closer.

Thanks for listening. If you're near Yorktown, we'd love to see you in person.

Services are Sundays at nine.

Music.