The Right People

We are doing something this summer called the summer of wisdom.

We've been going through a lot of the wisdom scriptures, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, this whole section of God's word that is dedicated to wisdom.

Now, that's not the only parts of the Bible that contain wisdom.

That would be all of the Bible.

That would just be God's word.

Jesus actually said in Matthew chapter 7 that whoever listened to his teachings and did what he said would be like a wise person who builds their house on a strong foundation.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

But if you listen to his teaching and you didn't do what he says, that would be like someone who builds their house on sand.

There is a wisdom that God has.

It's a wisdom that he reveals to us in Scripture.

And when we build our life on that wisdom, life goes as well as it can.

Jesus is honest in that portion of Matthew 7, if you read it, he says that when the storms come, he doesn't say, if you follow me, nothing bad will ever happen, everything will be safe and lovely.

No, life is hard.

But if you build your life on the wisdom of God, your life is built to withstand those storms.

So we want our lives to be built on wisdom.

So we've been studying wisdom in a variety of different capacities.

We've actually let you guys help us determine what the topics are going to be.

There's a phone number that you can text to.

And I was up pretty late last night trying to get fully caught up on where we're at.

I think I've responded to everyone.

If I have somehow missed you, text me again today.

But this phone number that's up here, we'll leave that up for a few seconds.

You guys can text to that number and ask anything.

And I'm going to respond to those.

We've had a lot, and it's been awesome.

I truly enjoy reading these and just knowing how I can better pray for you guys.

It's been a blast.

And so keep keep sending those, and I'll keep responding to those.

Those have helped us determine what we're going to talk about based on what you guys are actually dealing with.

The last few weeks we talked about money.

We had a lot of questions about finances.

That's a big part of life.

And we finished that last week with a conversation on how to be content.

I really enjoyed that conversation.

I've had a lot of follow-up.

In fact, a group of friends of mine were talking on Tuesday about the difference between being content and complacent.

That we want to be content in life, but not complacent, like we want to go for it.

We want to accomplish things.

We want to do things.

And we kind of discussed the idea of I want to do this, but I'm okay if it doesn't work out.

I'm content, I don't need it, I want it, but I don't need it.

That was a good conversation.

So really enjoyed that.

Today we are moving past the financial stuff, and we're going to start talking about people, relationships.

Yay.

Proverbs chapter 14, verse 4 begins by saying this.

Proverbs 14:4

Without people, man.

Like I think about my kids.

I I love my kids.

I love all four of them.

Megan and I, a few weeks ago, we had our 10-year anniversary.

We went to a cabin near Blue Ridge and just spent four days there.

And uh, oh, okay, yeah.

Wait, wait, what year did I say?

Did I say 10?

20.

That's very different.

Very different.

Here's why that happened.

And I just met with an awesome coup, an awesome couple at our church before uh coming up here, right before church started, and they are leaving for their 10-year anniversary today or tomorrow.

So we were just talking about anniversaries, and it's their 10.

Megan, I know that we've been married for babe.

I love you so much that 20 feels like 10.

You know?

It's like I lose track of time.

That's how in love I am with her.

Has it been 20?

Couldn't have been more than 10, you know?

That's how it feels.

No, we had our 20.

And what was amazing about the there's so many amazing things about that trip.

It was beautiful, we had great views and all that.

We didn't get interrupted at all, not once for four days.

That broke my brain.

And it was so clean.

It was so clean.

Like my children are messy, they're just messy.

They're kids, and kids are messy, and teaching them simple things like don't throw food on the floor.

Shouldn't be hard, but it's it's hard for them.

And it's probably my fault as a parent.

But it was incredible to spend four days in just a clean environment.

Without children, the house stays clean, or at the very least, it should.

Do you guys know how easy church would be without all of you?

Can I just say that?

Like, man, there was a minute during COVID where all we were doing was filming videos.

We're like, this is so easy.

It's like all the easy parts.

This is the easy part of church.

Right now, this is the easy part.

The hard part is it's just people, people are hard.

People are messy.

People are sometimes a problem.

And there's so many of them in the world.

The second part of Proverbs 14:4 says this.

Proverbs 14:4

But you need a strong ox for a large harvest.

Without oxen, a stable stays clean.

It's not as messy.

But without an ox, you can't get much done.

Without people, what are you gonna do?

Honestly.

People might be a problem, but people are often always the solution as well.

In fact, give me an example of this.

I I have never been more proud of myself in my entire life than I was a few days ago.

Because I can now say, truly with confidence, hear me.

I fixed our air conditioner.

I did it.

A fact that I have reminded my wife many times.

I came up to her and I was like, hey, I don't know if you remember or not, but fix the air conditioner.

How you doing?

Like one of those moments.

Um didn't work.

But uh no, I fixed an air conditioner.

I if you know me, when we got married, people gave us tools.

And I did not grow up in a family that was handy.

My dad was pretty handy, but he didn't let me do anything.

All I was, my job was hold the ladder and go find a Phillips head screwdriver.

Those are the two things he would trust me to do.

Um and it and that's all.

That's all I knew how to do.

And then when I got married, there was, I mean, I could hold the ladder for Megan, but that didn't seem right.

Um really good at finding those screwdrivers.

But, you know, things would would break, and Megan would say, Well, you go fix it.

And I'm like, I don't know how to fix it.

She grew up with a dad who could fix anything, and so I didn't have those skills.

We got tools as gifts for for me.

I didn't know what half the tools were.

I've never seen this.

So I had two bins, and some of my friends who hung out with me back then, you remember this.

I had a bin labeled common tools.

Philip said screwdrivers were in there.

And then I had a bin labeled not so common tools.

And that's where I put the things I didn't know.

And when something would happen and they're like, Do you have this?

I would go, I don't know what that is.

Let's go check the not-so-common tool.

And I've just so the fact that that was me 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and I fixed an air conditioning unit, it's just amazing.

But let me give some context to that.

I did fix it.

But the only way I was able to fix it was I called my buddy Ben, Ben Densmore, who's been here at his hands for a long time, good friend.

Ben, that's what he does.

He does air conditioners, he knows it, and I'm like, Ben, this is what's happening.

I was kind of freaking out.

Air conditioning went out in the middle of the night.

My wife woke me up, you know, because that's I'm not complaining about marriage, by the way.

But sometimes, ladies, just understand that if you wake your husband up in the middle of the night and you give him like an unsolvable problem, like air conditioning's not working, and you're like, on it.

Like, that's hard, okay?

So I got up and I'm like sending text messages, and Ben says, Hey, it's probably this, and he walks me through it, and I go to the hardware store and I bought a not-so-common tool, added that to my collection, and I was able to cut PVC pipe and then blow out a clog and wet dry back the water that came out, and then get a thing called a coupling, which I'd never got, and I glued it to the and it's it works.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

I'm a real man.

Couldn't have done any of it without a friend.

A hundred percent.

So people might be a problem, but where would we be without people?

I couldn't have done any of that if I hadn't had my buddy Ben to call.

People are very often the solution.

In fact, I would say that people are God's plan A most of the time.

He chooses to work through us.

That's his favorite thing to do.

We often have an idea in our minds that it would just be amazing if God would act in our lives and bypass people.

We we actually, that's what we consider a miracle, where God just does something.

And he didn't use a person for it.

It just he did it, he bypassed people.

And that's often what we want.

We're in a problem, we have a situation, you know, we're struggling in some way, we're like, God, just fix it.

And then a person shows up who can help us, who has wise advice, who has experience.

We're like, no, not that way.

Just you do it.

Like that's what we want, but that's not how God works.

He can and he does, but primarily God uses people.

People are his plan A.

So much so that to save the world, God became one of us.

To save us as one of us, like people are his plan A.

So people are hard, they're messy, but they are often the solution, they're what we need.

People are the point, they're what God cares about the most.

And they're, like I said, they're everywhere.

So if you want to be good at life, at the very least, you have to be good at people.

So, with that in mind, we've had so many questions in the last few weeks that are essentially related to how do I deal with people?

And a lot of it has been very situation specific.

And I will let you know that after this message, we're gonna get into a little bit dice territory of what do we do when people hurt us, betray us?

How do we navigate that, whether it's in our marriage or parents, children, friends?

Because even great people fall short.

And if you live your life deeply connected to people, you will be hurt.

That will happen.

We've all been there.

How do we process through that?

That's not today, that's gonna be after this.

But today we're just gonna focus on laying some groundwork with some general wisdom that God's Word gives us about how to have the right people in your life.

How to have the right people in your life.

I've got a really good friend who is very, uh, very successful business wise, just an incredible business person.

And he told me, he was like CEO of his company, and he told me once that when it came to his number two, one of the primary reasons that this guy was his number two is that he just really liked him.

And he wasn't knocking the guy, he wasn't saying he was unintelligent or wasn't capable.

No, he's like, he's he's great at all that.

But the one of the main reasons he said that this guy was his number two is that he just really liked him.

They got along really well, and if stuff got hard, if they were in some type of crisis as a company, which happens, and they had to be locked in a room for four or five hours solving that problem, he didn't dread being locked in a room with that guy.

So much of life is about who we're around, right?

We all we all know this because there's certain experiences in life where I'd be like, hey, you just won an all expenses paid vacation to this place.

And you'd be like, woo-hoo.

And then I'm like, and you're going with that person.

You're like, no, please.

Like, I don't want to go, I don't want to go to the nicest restaurant in the world if I have to be across the table from that person.

Hopefully they're not in your family, but I'm sure all of us had someone come to mind.

You all had somebody, you're like, anyone but them, right?

Life very much comes down to do I have the right people around me?

And what scripture would teach us is to choose the right people.

In fact, if there's one word that you want to take away from today, it's this word, choose.

Choose.

You need the right people around you.

Listen to what scripture tells us life can be like when we have the right people around us.

Ecclesiastes 4, 9 through 10.

It says, two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help.

But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

When you have the right people around you, when you struggle, when you have something that that hits you and it's hard, you're not alone.

You don't have a lack of support.

You can struggle, and there's a safety net when you have the right people.

Proverbs 18, 24 says that one who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer to a brother.

If you have the right people in your life, you have friends that are closer than even family can be sometimes.

And you just know that no matter what happens, they're there and I can count on them like clockwork.

It's powerful when you have the right people.

Proverbs 17 17 says, a friend loves at all time, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

When you go through it, when life gets really hard, you need the right people around you.

Proverbs 27, 17 says, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

When you have the right people around you, they sharpen you, they make you better.

That's not always pleasant.

When iron sharpens iron, sparks fly.

But when you have the right people around you, if you marry the right person, if you date the right person, if you choose the right friends, you walk away from conversations with them, challenged sometimes, maybe even angry, but better.

The right people make you better.

So, with that in mind, we have to choose.

We have to choose the right people, and God gives us that choice.

We have to understand God is a God of freedom, He gives us choices.

Very often in life, we want God to make the choices for us, and He can, but that's not His His primary way of operating.

He gives us choice.

It's been like that since the very beginning.

He created the garden, he put Adam and Eve in the garden, and he said, Eat from all of these trees.

Eat freely, just not that one.

It wasn't the opposite.

It wasn't like one good tree and all the bad trees.

No, he gave them a variety of choices.

And we know how that went.

They chose wrong, but he gave them choice.

Right before the people of Israel go off into the promised land in Deuteronomy, Moses speaks on behalf of God and he calls out to the people and he says, Today you have a choice.

You can choose to follow God, you can choose to do what he has told you to do, and if you make that choice, things will go well for you, you will be successful, or you can choose to abandon God and go after false gods and just do whatever you feel like doing, and if you do that, you are choosing misery.

So choose life.

He says, choose life that you might live.

God gave them a choice.

He gives us choices.

He's a God of freedom, and we have the ability to choose, to wisely choose the right people in our lives.

But it can be challenging.

So let's go through this for just a few minutes.

I've got a few, a few thoughts, a few categories that I want us to consider.

Number one, choose the level of friend.

Choose the level of friendship that you're seeking with someone.

Relationships have have different levels.

I'm gonna give you three words and and I'll explain these.

Uh these kind of help me when I'm determining what what level of friendship, what level of relationship am I seeking to have with this person?

And it's all a matter of how much do I trust them, how much confidence do I have in this person, to what degree can I allow them to be close.

So here's the three categories I have: plumber, pastor, partner.

Okay?

Plumber.

This is not a knock on plumbers, by the way.

I actually don't have a friend who's a plumber.

I've got Ben who does air conditioning, I need a plumber friend.

So it's just it would be very beneficial in my life.

I offer you nothing in return.

Um, but no, here's what this means.

You can be anybody's plumber.

Like you, you could be anybody's plumber.

You can have a professional relationship with anyone.

You they don't have to be a great person, they don't have to be moral, they don't have to have character, they don't have to be honest.

If if you're seeking a professional level relationship, it's just, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna do this for this person in exchange for that.

Whatever.

All of us have relationships like that.

It's people that you have as clients, it's people that you work with in some other capacity, and you don't have to put a lot of pressure on those decisions because it's professional in nature.

I I do a lot of a lot of basketball training on the side, and I love that, and it's just something I enjoy doing.

I love working with kids.

And I don't do a lot of screening when it comes to that.

You know, if a parent reaches out to me and says, Hey, will you work with my kid?

The answer is as long as my schedule allows, and I don't have a lot of time, but the time I've carved out for that, sure.

Now, if I were to choose like a team, if I was gonna be a coach, I'm gonna pick a team, and I want this kid to be on the team and the parent to be a coach, a whole different level of screening.

But if if it's a professional relationship, it doesn't really matter.

So we don't have to spend a lot of time on that.

Like you can be anybody's plumber, okay?

The next one, pastor.

We all have pastoral relationships, or at least we should.

Like, pastor is a role that I have here.

It means to shepherd, it means to help guide people, but all of us do that in our lives.

You have those of you who are parents, you're pastoring your kids.

Some of you who are older siblings, you might you might pastor your younger siblings.

You're helping guide them and do that well, because man, it's tempting to just take advantage of them and make their lives miserable.

Been there.

Maybe you have people you work with, people that are are in your life, and you have a relationship with them, but if you think about it, it's a pastoral relationship.

It's not pride and arrogance, but you are recognizing that this person is not where I am, and I'm spending time with them, but I'm spending time with them and it's to help them grow.

I don't expect much back in return.

And with people like that, you you might want to find someone who's receptive.

You know, maybe it's in a work environment and someone you're kind of training up.

You want someone who can receive the coaching that you give, but you just know in your mind that we're friends, but but not on an equal level.

Jesus had this, by the way.

Jesus did not have like one level of friendship.

In fact, we know he had a lot of followers, he had 12 disciples that he chose and he poured into them, but even in the twelve, he had three that he was really close with.

He had an inner circle, he had different levels of friendship.

So, for example, in John chapter 2, it says that because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him.

John 2 · chapter mention

But Jesus didn't trust them because he he knew all about people.

No one needed to tell him about human nature, for he knew what was in each person's heart.

So Jesus loved all those people, but he didn't trust them.

And so he had this defined sort of relationship where he was there for them, he would meet their needs, but he didn't let them uh get close.

That was wise of Jesus.

It wasn't Jesus being standoffish or being an introvert.

He just knew there there has to be a certain level of trust for there to be a close friendship.

We see Jesus' followers, his disciples, sort of move into the next category that I'm about to share in John 15, 15.

This is right at the end of Jesus' ministry.

They've been with him for three years.

This is a conversation that happens during the Last Supper.

This is the very last night of Jesus' ministry, and he says this to them I no longer call you slaves or servants.

Slaves meant a very different thing in their culture.

Because a master doesn't confide in his slaves, now you are my friends.

Since I have told you everything the Father told me.

I'm not saying that Jesus didn't consider them friends before or they didn't consider Jesus to be their friend, but this is the first time that Jesus calls them friends.

And this is apparently significant because Jesus takes time to address this.

Hey, from now on, we are friends.

See, up to this point, they had been in a pastoral relationship with Jesus.

He loved them, but he was teaching them.

They called him rabbi, like he was teaching them, guiding them, but he tells them on this night, hey, you guys have leveled up, and you're at a different place now.

Now I call you friends.

Because from here on out, we're gonna partner together in a really unique way.

And that brings us to that last category, partner.

You can be anybody's plumber, you can be a lot of people's pastor.

Just know that.

You're there to help them.

But you have to be so careful when it comes to who you partner with.

You've got to be so careful.

You you need to have an inner circle, people that you really trust.

And I'm telling you, you should be incredibly discerning and prayerful about that.

And you've got to determine, you've got to wisely choose what filters you're gonna have for that.

In the past, I've had silly filters, and that that happens when we're young, by the way.

Like I had a buddy when I was in high school that he's great, it's not a knock, it's just I'm not the high school version of myself, but one of the main reasons we were friends is because he was hilarious, he did dumb stuff.

And it was hysterical.

Like I was always a class clown, but he would do things that, like, you might you might get arrested for that.

And it was fun to watch.

But that can't be the like you can't have friends just because they're funny.

That should be a plus.

That should be a bonus.

But that's not enough to partner with someone in life.

I've had times in life where my interests were one of the things that got me the most excited about someone.

I'll never forget, many years ago, I met this guy, and we hit it off really fast because we both were super passionate about the same, the same basketball team.

And after talking with him for a few minutes, he was knowledgeable.

Like I was obsessed with this to a degree that was unhealthy, and he was too.

And so we were talking, having conversations that only someone who really knew this could have.

And then I found out that he he played ball, and like I'm always looking to play the older I get, less.

But you know, in my mid-20s to mid-30s, I was playing four or five days a week wherever I could.

And so he told me he played.

I'm like, dude, I've got this group of guys, we play together every this night at this time.

You want to come?

And he's like, Yes, I'm there.

So it was like a mandate.

I picked him up, he got in my car, we're driving, I'm having a blast.

I'm thinking this guy might be my new best friend.

Like, I'm excited about this.

And then in the car, all I asked him was, How is your day?

And then he went on to describe he and his wife's relationship with a level of uh graphicness that I was literally just like driving.

Like I just said, Hey, how was your day, man?

How's your day?

And he was like, Oh man, it was awesome.

My wife and I, blah, blah, blah, and it was inappropriate and it was wrong.

And I just drove like, dang it.

Like the, I mean, I'm sitting there like, I gotta still take him to the to the game, and I did, and I introduced him to the other guys, and then that was like, but I knew in that moment that I cannot partner with this guy.

I don't need those thoughts in my head.

I don't.

I don't need a I can't partner with someone who speaks that way about their significant other.

That's just not.

I can pastor that guy.

I can be like, hey man, that's not that's not cool.

But I was looking for a partner.

I was looking for like a close friend, and that just I can't do that.

Because I don't want my head to go there.

You have to be so discerning about who you choose to partner with.

You can be anybody's plumber, you can be a lot of people's pastor, but you got to have very few people that you go, I partner with you in life.

This applies not just to your friends, this applies to those that you choose romantically.

Those of you who are who are single, listen to what it says in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 through 15.

This is really intense language, but it says, don't team up with those who are unbelievers.

How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness?

How can light live with darkness?

What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil?

How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever?

Now, in this context, it is talking about romantic relationships, but this could apply to everything.

Again, this isn't arrogant saying that, oh, we as Christians are better than people who aren't, but if you truly follow Jesus, if you've given your life to him, you know that he calls us to live a life that is very different than the life the world calls us to.

It is easy to live the life that the world asks us to live.

Temptation is everywhere, and you just gotta go along and it's great.

Do your thing.

That's the way the world works.

To follow Jesus is to live differently, and it's hard.

It's not always easy because those same temptations are there, but we are called to live a different life.

And if you partner with people who don't share your convictions, if you partner with people who don't know the Lord, what's it gonna be like when things get get hard?

They're not gonna give you wise advice, they're not gonna pray for you, they're not gonna they're not gonna help you.

I'll never forget when my oldest was born and he was in the NICU for 10 days, how hard that was for me and how grateful I was that I had a wife who loved the Lord and that we could pray together.

And that in some of those moments when I was weaker than I kind of thought I would be in a situation like that, I could rely on her in a different way.

And so you need to partner with people, but you've got to be discerning with who you partner with.

It's not arrogance, it's wisdom.

So choose the level of relationship.

Look at the relationships in your life and discern what level of relationship is this?

Be very careful with who you partner with.

So that's the first.

Choose the level.

The second, choose wisdom.

Choose wisdom.

Proverbs 13 20 says, walk with the wise and become wise.

Associate with fools and get in trouble.

Think about how cool this is.

Walk with the wise and become wise.

The second part we'll talk about in a second.

But like, my wife was talking about this with me, really cool thought, that that doesn't really apply to many things in life.

It's not like walk with someone who's ripped and you get abs.

That's not how that works.

You know what I mean?

Like you don't hang out with someone who's talented and you become talented at the thing they're talented at.

Like if I could have one talent, just God planted in my brain, and I could I would if I could just play electric guitar, I think that would be the coolest thing in the world.

I have no musical ability whatsoever, but I watch the guys on the worship team, and if you could hand me a guitar and I could be like, I just think that'd be the coolest thing in the world.

Can't do it.

I've spent a lot of time with Matt.

He's really good at that.

Matt and I have hung out for so many hours in life, since he was 17.

Spending time with him has made me no better at guitar.

None of that has been absorbed by me.

But this scripture says that if you walk with wise people, you will become wise.

If you choose to value wisdom in the people that you partner with, you will actually absorb that wisdom.

You'll start to think like they think.

You'll start to see things the way they see things.

I've experienced that so much.

I was so blessed to have Steve, who started his hands, lead me directly for seven or eight years and still a mentor in my life.

And as I walked with Steve and I saw the way he made decisions, the things that he valued, the things that he said no to, really early in our church's history, actually.

Many of us don't know this, but very early in our church's history, Steve was approached by like a major television station producer, I don't I don't know all the details, about his hands being on TV.

And he said no.

Because Steve said that the only person who would get famous here is Jesus.

That was it.

He was just not interested at all in becoming a like celebrity pastor.

And he met with me when I was in my early 20s, and he said, Hey Justin, I just want you to know that if his hands is where you're gonna be, this is not a platform.

This isn't a launching pad to build a brand or anything like that.

I wasn't thinking about that, but I think Steve knew that me at 24 years old was very outgoing and gregarious, and I like being on a stage.

I have a lot of fun with this, sometimes too much fun, and you know, you guys are gracious enough to forgive me when I have too much fun.

But like, I think he knew that I could go that way if I wasn't led correctly, and I'm grateful that he told me that.

And seeing him say no to something like that that would be such an immediate benefit in some ways, right?

Like just immediately attention and growth and momentum, and he's like, No.

He valued different things, and as I spent time with Steve, I learned to value those same things.

You walk with wise people, you become wise.

You absorb that.

So we have to value wisdom.

When we're choosing friends, we're looking at all the different things that we're gonna use as criteria to choose the people that we partner with.

We've got to choose wisdom.

Now, a big part of that is avoiding fools.

It's just true.

If you're gonna choose wisdom in your friends, then you can't have, you can't have partners.

Again, friends, but not pastoral relationships, partner relationships, close relationships.

Don't be really close friends with idiots.

I don't mean with people who make mistakes.

I don't mean with people who struggle with something, we all struggle with things.

I don't mean people who have areas of weakness.

We all have that.

What I mean are people who have no regard for wisdom.

People who are who are almost dedicated to doing what they want, when they want, how they want to do it, let the chips fall where they may.

That's foolishness.

That is like the definition, really, of foolishness ultimately is just do what you feel like doing.

Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

1 Corinthians 15, 33 says, don't be fooled by those who say such things.

And actually, what they basically say if you read the verse before that is like, hey, let's just live it up and see what happens.

He says, Don't be fooled by people who say such things, for bad company corrupts good character.

Just like being around wise people, you absorb wisdom.

Being around foolish people, you absorb foolishness.

I mean, those of us who can think back to a different stage of life, some of us who are older, not saying that teenagers do dumb things.

That's not what I'm saying.

So, teenagers in the room, you guys are awesome.

You can be just as wise as anybody else.

In fact, Timothy, if you read that scripture, it says, don't let anyone look down on you because you're young.

Instead, you can actually be an example to your church in all kinds of ways.

So live wisely.

But how many of us would say, my wisest years were my high school years?

Anyone?

That's when I was making the most consistent good decisions.

Okay, that's what I thought.

How many of you would say, Man, do I have some regrets?

And I hope my children make very different decisions than I did in those stages of life.

You know what's an interesting quick sidebar on that note, just to throw this out there?

Um, social media and phones and all the technology and all the things that come along with that.

If you talk to the people who are now parents, like they're in their 20s, maybe technically early 30s, but they're in their 20s, and they're the generation that grew up with phones, the first ones that had social media, it's amazing how many of them are like, oh, my kids will never have a phone.

And yet, we as parents who have teenagers now, we struggle with that.

We're like, well, I don't want to deny them a phone because, you know, they're gonna this, or or if we think they shouldn't have social media, we have those filters, we're like, no, but they're but just know if you're wrestling with that, that the ones who grew up with those things are like, oh heck no.

Just just know that.

Okay.

Point is we look back at life and we see things that we struggled with.

They're they're able to see what that did in their lives, the damage that did, and they're not gonna let their kids go through that.

But that's just a thought.

Um, it's not a crusade against phones.

Okay.

So if you work for a phone company, you're good.

There's plenty of yeah, all's good.

But we look back at life when we were younger, and we very often go, man, I made some major missteps at that stage of life.

That was hard.

I wish I could go back and do that differently, and at the very least, if I have influence on people, either my children or people that I pastor, I will encourage them to make different decisions.

How many of those decisions that you made that you regret or that you at the very least go, not the best, how many of it was extremely related to the people that you were around?

Like, how much of that, honestly?

I had a kid when I was a youth pastor, he had to do a bunch of community service hours, like a ton.

And I asked him, like, dude, what happened?

He'd gotten arrested for something.

And he was like, Well, I was with my friends and this happened.

And I remember looking him dead in the eye.

I was like, You have terrible friends.

And he looked at me, he's like, No, no, they're great.

I was like, no, you you started the sentence with I was hanging out with my friends, and the result of that was I got arrested, and I have to do hundreds of hours of community service.

You need new friends.

If I'm hanging out with my friends, I mean, I'm trying to think of what could happen.

The likelihood of me ending up in jail because I'm hanging out with the group of people I've chosen to partner with, it is very small.

I'll just say that.

A lot of things would have to go wrong.

You've got to have people that you partner with that are wise.

Avoid those who are dedicated to foolishness.

People who are committed to it.

Because they're gonna give you terrible advice.

All of a sudden you're having marriage problems one day, and they're like, leave, just get out.

And I'm not saying there aren't situations where that's the answer.

There can be abuse, there can be infidelity and all that, but like we've probably all had friends that are quick to just say, Yeah, upend your entire life right now.

Just do that.

That'll show them like that's not wise advice.

You need people around you who are wise because you will absorb their wisdom.

So choose the level and choose wisdom.

Choose wisdom.

Last.

Choose to make room.

I think this is really hard for those of us who are in a certain stage of life that I will just describe as in the thick of it.

Okay, now, all of us in the room, no matter if you're young, middle-aged, older, life is challenging.

It has its own unique things.

But life gets busier and busier.

I mean, so many of our schedules today are so crazy that like you, if you went back in time and showed the younger version of you your weekly schedule, their brain would like explode.

They're like, I don't understand how you do that.

And you're like, I don't do it well.

That's the that's the secret.

We have four kids.

People say sometimes, I don't know how you do it.

And I'm like, you assume we're doing a good job.

We are not.

That's the thing.

We are drowning.

No, we're doing okay.

But but we're busy, life is very busy, and and look, Satan uses busyness.

It's actually some of the excuses that are given in a story Jesus tells about why people can't follow Jesus, is they're basically like, I just have too much going on.

Can I do this when it's more convenient?

We have to be people who do not live out of convenience, but rather we live out of conviction.

Decisions made out of convenience, they're the easy decisions.

And if you live your whole life that way, I'll do it when I have time, I'll do it when it's easy, I'll do it when you know everything kind of when my schedule clears, you'll never do those things because life does not organize itself around what's important.

In fact, life tends to be the opposite.

Life is working really hard to crowd out your ability to do what's important.

You have to organize your life around what's important.

You have to make room for that.

In Luke chapter 10, there's this really interesting story of Jesus visiting with two of his really good friends.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Um, he had a guy named Lazarus that he was super close with, and Lazarus had two sisters, Martha and Mary, and Jesus is hanging out with him.

And it says in verse 38, as Jesus and his disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet, listening to what he taught.

But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing.

She came to Jesus and said, Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work?

Tell her to come and help me.

But the Lord said to her, Dear Martha, my dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details.

There's only one thing worth being concerned about.

Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.

Now, obviously, this is a story about Jesus.

And yes, if you have Jesus in the room, forget about dinner.

Like, get to that when you get spend time with him.

But it's also this lesson to us about the value of relationships.

Mary in this moment chose to make room for this relationship she had with Jesus, her friend.

And Martha, and it's understandable.

I mean, we've all done this, I do this all the time.

Martha was like, all the things I've got to do, those are taking precedent.

I don't have time to be with you.

I'm too busy doing all of this.

And it's very easy for life to become like that for all of us, where we're we are too busy to spend any time with the people that would bless us tremendously, that would help us grow in our relationship with the Lord, that would just bring joy and laughter and peace into our lives.

We get so busy that we don't make room for what's most important.

And so you've got to choose the level of friendship that you're after, be really selective about your partners, but you need partners in life.

You gotta value wisdom in those people, people that when you're around them, you gain wisdom, you're better at life because you spend time with them, but then you have to fight.

You have to prioritize that time.

You've got to make sure that nothing else crowds it out.

And that's really hard to do.

You gotta say no to a lot to make room for the right people.

And I think sometimes a lot of us find ourselves in a place where no, we actually have many of the right people in our lives.

We're like, yeah, I have wise friends and I am partnering with them, and that's good, but I'm just so busy we haven't been together in a while.

Make room.

Make time, even have conversations with them and say, hey, let's value this more.

Let's be more intentional, let's block out some time.

I'm not just saying this is a plug.

Church helps with that, by the way.

One of the nice things about being part of a group or being part of a Bible study or whatever it might be, even hanging out at the stick-arounds and meeting people, is that like it's not like we're a social club, and if you're involved in church here, we'll just give you all the things to do, but but a lot of times that is sort of what happens when you get plugged into a great group of people and you're following Jesus together, and your calendar kind of fills up with great things involving other great people.

I'm just saying.

It helps.

It's helped me a lot.

A lot of those relationships have come through here, and a lot of the time that I spend with them happens here, and it's really nice.

So take advantage of that.

But to wrap this up, we're gonna take Lord's Supper, and so uh if you have that with you, if you're new, by the way, it's okay, you'll you'll get this.

You can always get up right now, the table's at the back, bread and juice.

If not, do this with us next week, but um we take this meal together.

We're gonna take this in just a second, so just be ready.

One of my favorite pieces of wise advice, and something I use very often in my role in leadership, is that it's not about what, it's about who.

It's not about what, it's about who.

I don't have to spend a lot of time as a leader trying to figure out what are we gonna do and how are we gonna do it and how are all the details gonna work.

If I have the right who, if I have the right people in the right roles, they'll figure that stuff out.

I spend a lot more time trying to find the right people and then pour into those people, and I fall short of that very often.

But if I'm doing that well, those people, they'll be the ones with the ideas of how to do this and how to do that.

And I've seen that happen at his hands.

There's so many things that we do that I never would have thought of that.

You look at Warren, the God story that we just gave a preview of.

I never would have thought about doing a disaster relief ministry organization that turns into like what that is now, with skid steers and boom lifts and chainsaws going to help people.

I never, that never would have occurred to me.

But Warren was the right person, and we saw that he was the right person, and we just sort of came alongside him, and it's grown, it's really incredible.

When you have the right people in your life, the right relationships, everything's easier.

It's true.

So choose the right people, partner with the right people, value wisdom in those people, and see that wisdom, and let that wisdom affect you and shape you and make room for those people.

And make sure, make certain that you do that with Jesus.

Because he is your friend, that is true.

You can have a friendship with Jesus, he's alive, and through the Holy Spirit, he's part of us.

If we give our lives to Jesus, we have his spirit inside of us, and everything that we're talking about, we can do with him.

Now we don't do it with him at the expense of others because that's not even how Jesus did it.

He didn't just spend time with God the Father and ignore other people.

No, he had people around him.

We want to follow his model.

But I will say that all that we're talking about is really good.

It's really, I think it's good advice.

But it would be meaningless if we didn't choose the true right person.

Great friends are awesome, they can teach you a lot, they make life better, they cannot save you from your sins.

There's only one person who can do that, and that's Jesus Christ.

And so just know that He wants to partner with you in life.

Think about that.

Jesus wants to partner with you.

Not just pastor you, like He wants to dwell within you.

He uses words like abide.

That's not even a word we use in our culture, like abide.

When's the last time you did some abiding?

But even if you don't know the definition, you you get the sense of the word, it means to dwell within, to be with in a very intimate way.

He wants to abide in you and for you to abide in him.

He's calling you to partner with him, not just to believe in him, not just to have faith in him, but to abide in him, to be with him.

That's partnership.

And if you've given your life to Jesus, see it that way.

Partner with him.

See his wisdom.

Let his wisdom be absorbed into your life.

Make room for him, for Jesus, which you're doing right now.

But keep doing that on a day-to-day basis.

If you haven't given your life to Jesus, you need him.

You need him because no friend group, no matter how great it is, even if it's a church group, it's never going to replace him.

No one's as wise as Jesus.

No one's as powerful as Jesus.

No one's as loving as Jesus.

No one comes close to Jesus.

So I just have to say at the end, it's not just like a token invitation at the end of a message, but it would just be meaningless and pointless to say, hey, have great friends, but oh Jesus, don't let's forget about him.

No, he is the right person ultimately.

So know him, seek him, love him, worship him, abide in him, partner with him, listen to his wisdom, live by it, and make room for him because he makes room for us.

And that's what we celebrate every week with this meal.

One of the many things.

And so, with that in mind, let's take this piece of bread, let's give thanks.

Jesus, we thank you for this bread.

This represents your body sacrificed on the cross.

You gave all of yourself to us.

And because of what you've done, we can have you as a friend.

We can know you, we can talk to you, we can listen to you, we can learn from you.

Help us take advantage of that, Lord.

Help us make room in our lives every day for you.

Thank you, Lord.

Let's eat the bread.

Now the juice.

Lord, we thank you for this juice.

This is your blood.

You sacrificed everything, you held nothing back.

That's how that's how you live for your friends.

You actually said once, Jesus, that greater love, there's no greater love than this.

That one lays down their life for their friends.

And so, Lord, you said that.

You said that word friends.

There's no greater love than to lay down one's life for their friends.

And because you you laid down your life for us, by definition, you were telling us that we are your friends.

You consider us friends.

How amazing it is, Lord, to be friends with our King, with our Savior, with our God.

Thank you, Jesus, for making a way for that.

It's only through you that we could have that.

Help us value it, help us treasure it, help us take advantage of it every day.

We pray this in your name, Lord.

Let's take the juice.