Hope Church LV Sermons
the Social Network :: Relationship Status Friend
Well, there is one area of your life that is more important than all the others. One area of your life that will impact who you are and what you do more than any other area of your life. This area of your life will determine your values, your perspective, and really the overall direction of your life, and that area is your relationships. You see, all of us have a longing. All of us have a hard wiring for meaningful relationships. Regardless of who you talk to all over the globe, you find people that long for connection. And for the past five weekends, we've been talking about that. We've been talking about this yearning inside of all of us, this natural desire that we have for relationships. And we've been doing that in a teaching series called the Social Network. And here's the question we've been wrestling with. What does God have to say about our relationships? What is God's perspective on the relationships in your life and in my life? Whether it be the father-son relationship, the brother-sister relationship, the marriage relationship, maybe it's singles, maybe it's a relationship with God, a relationship to the local church. What does God have to say about all of these relationships? And we've established some pretty significant principles over the last five weeks. We've said that there's one relationship that affects all the others. One relationship that is more important than any other relationship in your life, and that is your relationship with God. And in part one of this series, we lay down a defining statement that I hope has been transformational for your perspective and your view of the relationships in your life. And I want to put it on the screen, and I want us to read it out loud together this weekend, both at this campus and at our Boulder City campus. And the statement that we're about to read is true of every person in this room. So let's read it like we mean it on three, one, two, three. My capacity for loving others is born out of my love relationship with God. Our capacity, our ability, the scope in which we can love other people is born out of our love relationship with God. We've said it this way. The greatest thing that you and I can do for every relationship in our life is spend time with God. The greatest thing you can do for your marriage is spend time with God. The greatest thing you can do for your family or for your friends or those you have interaction with, the greatest thing you can do is spend time with God because your ability to love the people around you, both in the church and in the world, is born out of your love relationship with God. And this weekend we come to our final relationship status. And that is the relationship status of friend. Now friend is a term that we use very, very loosely in our culture. We'll refer to people as our best friend or our old friend or our close friend or our new friend. But really when we say that, what do we mean? Well the dictionary defines the word friend as this, a person you know well and regard with affection and trust. And what we're going to do this weekend is look from a biblical perspective at what the Bible teaches some biblical principles that should shape the way we view and treat our friends. And I want to do that this weekend by looking at a text of scripture from the Old Testament book of Proverbs. So if you would take your copy of God's word and turn to the book of Proverbs chapter 27. This weekend we were in the book of Psalms. This weekend we're going to be one book to the right in the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs was written by a man named Solomon. And Solomon is said to be the wisest person of all time. Solomon wrote this book in a perspective that is apparent speaking to their child. And the book of Proverbs is called a book full of wisdom. In which Solomon gives practical real life application as to how you and I can live a life of wisdom. In 2007 as a church family we took four months and we studied through the book of Proverbs. And we kind of coined a phrase that really sums up what the book of Proverbs is. And here's what we say that the book of Proverbs is every everlasting wisdom for everyday life. It is wisdom that is eternal. It's never going to change. It is everlasting wisdom that can apply to us in everyday life. The book of Proverbs speaks to every area of life at every stage of life. I've made it a personal practice in my own spiritual journey that since there are thirty one Proverbs, one that corresponds to every day of the month. Every morning when I wake up one of the places where I spend time in God's Word is by reading the proverb that corresponds with the day of the month. Because there is such wisdom for us that we can apply to our everyday journey from the book of Proverbs. So I want to read for us in Proverbs 27 verse 17. We're going to be looking at several passages of Scripture in chapter 27, but kind of our anchoring passage is going to be verse 17. Here's what it says, iron sharpens iron. So one man sharpens another. I want to read it to you from the new living translation, a little bit of a different translation. Here's what it says in the NLT. It says as iron sharpens iron. So a friend sharpens a friend. And here's what Solomon does in this verse. He starts with an illustration. He's going to teach us something about friendship, but he starts with an illustration. He says, I want you to think about iron being sharpened. I want you to think about two pieces of iron that are brought together, that are brought close together in the friction that takes place, and the process that goes on when iron is being sharpened. And then I want you to think about the result. If we could all get in a car this weekend and travel down to a factory to watch iron being sharpened, we would realize it is a very intentional process. It's a very intense process, but when that iron is brought together, when it's struck up against each other, those two pieces, the result is sharpening. And Solomon says to you, listen, it should be the same way with friendships. When two friends are brought close together relationally, the product should be spiritual sharpening. And what I want to do in our time together is give us two principles, really that flow out of this verse, but that will help us categorize the friends in our life into one of two categories and give us a correct biblical perspective on these things. Here's what Henry Blackaby says about verse 17. He says, the mark of biblical friends is that their friendship draws you closer to Christ. They sharpen you and motivate you to do what is right. Two realities this weekend that will help us really get our heart around what this text means about friendships that sharpen one another. Here's the first reality. There are friends in my life and your life that are influencing us. There are friends in my life that are influencing me. There are people in your life and they are shaping. They are influencing your perspective, your values and the overall direction of your life. There are people in our lives and those people influencing us, they influence us. These are people and their opinion in your life, it carries a lot of weight. These are people that you and I look to during times of big decision, times of tragedy and times of success. We may call them our life coach, we may call them our mentor, we may call them our best friend. These are people that you and I do life with. Who are those people for you? As I said, those different descriptions you thought of somebody. Who are those people in your life? Those people who you would say are influencing or shaping your life. Now, that they're in your mind, let me ask you this question, is the influence they're having on you, a good influence or a bad one? Those people you've led in close, those people who are shaping what you do day in and day out, are those people good influences or bad influences? The book of Proverbs addresses three types of people, wise people, foolish people and naive people. Wise people obviously are those who know the difference between right and wrong and choose to do what is right regardless of how hard it is. Foolish people on the other hand are those who know the difference between right and wrong but always choose to do what is wrong. Naive people are those who do not have the experience to discern right from wrong. And here's what the Bible tells us, that those who are in our circle of influence, those who are influencing us need to be wise people. Very important. That this category of your life, these types of friends in your life should not just be anybody. We need to take very serious those who we allow to speak into our lives and influence us. The Bible says they need to be wise people. So very quickly, here's what I want to do, I want to give you three attributes of a wise person and all three attributes come straight from Proverbs chapter 27. Three things that we can look for to identify that yes, this person is wise, this person can be an influencer in my life because God's placed in there. Here's the first one, the first attribute that we need to look for as we seek people to influence us is that we need friends, I need friends who walk in intimacy with Jesus. The first evidence for you and I that a person is wise is that their life is anchored in a love relationship with God. We've talked about this the entire series. But one thing you need to look for as you seek people to influence and shape your life is that their life is anchored in a love relationship with God. Because just like every other relationship, the greatest thing you and I bring to the table and our friendships is our love relationship with God. Henry Black would be also said this, "Be careful in your choice of friends." Jesus chose his closest friends wisely. He did not look for perfect friends, but friends whose hearts were set to follow God. Here's why this is so important because you and I need people who when they speak into our life, they're communicating godly biblical truth that is coming as a result of time spent with God. When you go to those people who are influencing your life and I go to those same people and they speak into my life, we don't need their best opinion. We don't need the thought for the day or what was on Oprah Winfrey that week. What we need is wisdom that can only come from time spent alone with God. And this principle comes straight out of Proverbs 27. In Proverbs 27, 9, here's what it says, "Oil and perfume make the heart glad so a man's counsel is sweet to his friend." We need friends. We need influencers in our life who walk in intimacy with Jesus and you know this and I know this, these people are few and far between, especially in a city like Las Vegas. You don't just stumble upon people who are walking in intimacy with God. We must be intentional in seeking out those who influence us and knowing that they are walking in an intimate love relationship with God. But this is one attribute that as you look for those people, wise people, this will be a defining characteristic, Charles Stanley said this, "You will become wise by associating with people who are wise or you will suffer the painful consequences of imprudent relationships." We need friends who walk in intimacy with God. The second attribute of a wise person that's in this chapter, "I need friends who will be lovingly honest with me." This is a big deal. We need people in our life who will be lovingly honest with us. They're not in the relationship just to get something from us. They're in the relationship because they want to see God's will and God's desires accomplished in our life. Let me tell you one of the times this is very, very important. Believe it or not, this is hard to get your head around. But you and I have a tendency sometimes to be flat, wrong about some stuff, all right? That could be our attitude. It could be our perspective. It could be a decision we're about to make. But you and I have a tendency not all the time, obviously, but some of the time to be walking down a path that we believe to be the greatest thing ever all the while. It's wrong. In those moments, here's what I don't need. I don't need influencers in my life who just say, "Yeah, Travis, that sounds like a good idea." I don't need people who say, "Man, if that's what you believe, then that's what I believe." I don't need people who are just going to let me drive off a cliff and fail. I need people who are going to sit me down and say, "Listen, man, I know your belief in this. I know your feeling this, but I love you, and so I got to be honest with you. Dude, you're wrong on this one. We need that in our life." This comes right out of Proverbs 27. Look at verse 5 and 6, "Better is open rebuke than love that is concealed." Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy. And I'll be honest with you. This has happened to me numerous times, say it another way. This happens to me frequently that I'm tracking down a path. Maybe it happens to you too. And I'm thinking, "Man, this is the best thing ever. This is a good idea financially. This is a good idea as it relates to my career, and those influencers, those godly people in my life come to me and say, "Travis, I want the best for you. I care about you, and I know this is going to sting, and this is going to hurt your feelings. But here's the truth. You missed it." And I'll be honest with you. In those moments, I'm pretty mad. I'm pretty frustrated. My feelings are hurt. I'm embarrassed. I don't understand. "Man, if you love me, why are you going to come at me like this?" And I go away, and I'm by myself, and I pitch a fit, and I'm frustrated. But over the course of time, here's what I realize. They do love me. And I'm better because they chose to speak into my life and hurt my feelings. Rather than someone in your life saying, "You know what? You just drive the truck off the cliff, and you may fall to a fiery death, but at least I didn't hurt his feelings. You don't want those people in your life. You don't want those people as influencers, significant shapers in your life. We need friends who will be lovingly with grace, with mercy, and with perspective, honest with us when they recognize something in our life." That's a defining characteristic of somebody who's wise. We need those people. I told you several years ago, we studied through the book of Proverbs. And as we did that, there were really two just principles that were over-arkingly powerful for our pastoral team. And these were the two, the things that we drew out of the book of Proverbs more than anything else. And these are powerful. You probably want to write them down. Here's the first thing we learned, that our perspective is always limited. What we can see, what we can understand, what we can get our heart and our head around, our perspective, it's always limited. We can never see the full scope of any given situation or circumstance. Here's the second thing that we learned that was so powerful for us. My perspective is always limited, and my input, it's never enough. I always need a moment where I go to an influencer, to a shaper in my life, and say, "Hey, here's what I'm thinking." What do you think? Sometimes that moment's great, sometimes that moment's not so great. But our perspective, what we can see is always limited. The Bible says there's a way that seems right to a man. But the end result is destruction. My perspective, your perspective is limited, and our wisdom, our input, it's never enough. We need shapers, we need influencers in our life. We need friends who'll be honest with us, even when it stings a little bit. Henry Blackaby also said this, "True friends tell you the truth and even risk hurting your feelings because they love you and have your best interests at heart." Those are two attributes of a wise person. Friends in our lives, shapers, influencers who walk in intimacy with Jesus and who are willing to be lovingly honest with us. Here's a third attribute. I need friends who I can trust. I need people. You need people in our lives who that we can count on. If that's a decision in the middle of the day, if that's a crisis at some point, if that's at three o'clock in the morning, we need people who we can call on that we know are faithful, that we know are dependable. This idea of trusting people is huge when you begin to talk about areas like accountability. Somebody who's going to be in your life and tries to push you on a daily basis towards Christ's likeness, you better believe it's important that you can trust them. When you start talking about sharing maybe some intimate details in your life, it's a big deal that you can trust that person, not to go and share it at work or at church and just be a gossip about these intimate details. It's a big deal that you can trust them. When you start talking about a person who's going to pray for you and walk through life, interceding on your behalf before God, it's a big deal that you have a person and I have a person that we can count on. We need friends who we can trust. This is right out of Proverbs 27. Look at verse 10, it says, "Do not forsake your own friend." Straight out of the Proverbs, these three attributes of a wise person and it doesn't matter if you're a teenager, if you're a young adult, a single, married, an older adult, it doesn't matter. All of us can take these principles of what a right influencer looks like in our lives and apply them. It's significantly important. Now some of you may be thinking, "I don't have any of those things in my life." As I look around the people that are speaking into me, they're not walking with Jesus. They don't really have the right level to be honest with me like that and I don't even know them, I don't even know them that well, much less can trust them, listen. This is one of the reasons why at Hope we say community, being in a group is everything. Because even though being in a small group won't accomplish all of your needs, we believe that the probability of you experiencing these three attributes through your relationship goes dramatically up when you engage in a small group. You find yourself sitting in an environment with godly people who want to speak godly wisdom into your life. You find yourself in an environment where people want to share with you maybe some struggles they've identified in your life only because they want you to be better and you find yourself in a circle that you can count on. When the moments are good or the moments are bad, you know you're locked into a missional community that you can count on. We need these types of influencers in our life because there are friends right now in your life who are influencing you. The question is what type of influencer are they? The Bible says, the book of Proverbs says they need to be wise and I believe according to this chapter wisdom is someone who walks in intimacy with God, someone who will speak into your life regardless of how it makes you feel and it's someone that you can trust. That's a big deal. That's one category of friends in your life. That's one area of friends in your life. Here's the second. Here's the second reality for us this weekend. Not only are there friends who influence us but there are friends in my life that I am to influence for Christ. So there are people that are influencing me but there are also people who I am to influence. These are people who you would not necessarily categorize as wise people. These are people who you may not even categorize as Christians or believers but the reason that you and I have been placed in these specific relationships is not so that they can influence us. It's so that we can influence them and God in His sovereignty has placed you and placed me in certain pockets all over this city and He's connected you and I in specific relationships for the sole purpose that we as agents of change, agents of grace, as the light of the world may have an impact on these friends for the sake of the kingdom of God. That perspective is major as we navigate day in and day out but this is the second group of friends, those not that are influencing us but that we are influencing for the sake of the gospel. I ask you this about the first group of friends so I want to ask you about the second. Who comes to mind when I mention this type of friend? Who comes to mind for you? Who's that person that you know or that group of people that you know God has placed you in their life for the sole purpose of winning them into a relationship with God? Who are those people? Think about your neighborhood. Think about your job. Think about the circle of influence you have because of your children. Think about just your friends. Who are the people that God has placed you around so that you can be light to them so that you can be an influencer for them? Who are those people in your life? Rick Warren said this. Many parts of your life mission are unique but there is one part of your life mission that we all have in common. Here it is. God wants you to tell other people about what's happened to you. All of us have that in common. We don't have to wrestle through that. We don't have to pray over that. No God from the moment he saved you has had a burning desire to share the message of the gospel through your life with the people around you who are not close to him. So burning desire inside the heart of God for every person who has been born into the kingdom of God. We live in a city here in Las Vegas. It is 95% lost and the statistics are just as staggering if you are talking about Henderson or you are talking about Boulder City. We live in a part of the country that is lost. We don't have a relationship with God and the Lord has placed us all over the city that we may be influencers for the gospel. Did you know that just in Las Vegas, not counting Henderson, not counting Boulder City and the surrounding areas, in Las Vegas there are over 700,000 households. There are between four to 500 schools. There are thousands of places of business and this church, the believers in this church, have been sprinkled all over those pockets of influence, yes, so that you can have a job, yes, so you can provide for your family, but more importantly, so that you can shine the light of the gospel in those dark pockets of our city. And I hope on a regular basis that you have one to two to three people who you are praying for, who you are looking at and saying, "God, I have identified them. I know you have placed me where you have placed me so that I can share the message of Jesus with those people in some way, shape or form. We all need to have those people that we identify, that we are to influence, that we are to shape for the sake of the kingdom of God." It's a big deal. I'm going to give you a life application statement, a life-changing truth. Every moment of my life is an opportunity for God to share his story through my life. Every moment. Think about your day. I want you to think about your week, the people you see in the hallway, the people that you office with, the people that you're just around as you navigate through life. Every moment with those people is an opportunity for God to press his life, to press his message out through you that will be an influence on those people. Here's the struggle though, I think for a lot of people, we get so busy, we get so tired with life, that we forget that this is the primary mission. I'm glad you have a job. I'm glad I have a job. I'm glad that we can play sports and be a part of different activities. Those things are great, but they're not the primary mission. The primary mission for us as the Church of Jesus Christ is to see people who right now are far from God be brought into a relationship, into an intimate and eternal relationship with Jesus, and God has chosen through his grace to let us play a part in that, in that we get to be influences to the people that we are around and the places that we go. I want to share a statistic with you, and I don't want to say this because I want to put you on a guilt trip. I don't want to say this to make you feel bad. I want to share this with you, to show you where we're at, because when I say that there's a lot of people who aren't seeing the redemption of humanity as the primary mission, I say that because it's true. Look at this stat on the screen from Barna Research. He said, despite their evangelistic reputation, just four out of ten adults attending a Baptist Church shared their faith in Christ with a non-believer in the past year. We can't afford to just keep going through life and hoping something happens. I believe as Jesus follows in 2011, we must begin to be intentional with this life-giving grace-filled message that we've been entrusted with from God. And we need to begin to live seeing the people around us, those friends who we are having influence on and praying and hoping and serving in such a way that our utmost desire is to see them come into an intimate love relationship with God. We have influence. He's given us that platform of influence, and my prayer is we will begin to take it seriously. Who are the people that you are shaping? Who are the people that you're praying for? Who are those that you are wanting to be light to, that you see weekend and we go? As we close this weekend, I want to give you three prime times of influence that will hopefully just give you a different mindset. As you navigate through life, obviously, we are always to be intentional about sharing our faith, about loving people, about expressing the life of Jesus to those around us. But I want to give you three primary times that maybe you haven't thought of before that are unbelievable opportunities for influence. Here's the first one. Times of transition. All of us as we live experience times of transition, either personally or from the people that were around. That could be a new neighborhood. That could be a new job or a new co-worker. That could be putting our children in a new school, our children being on a new team, a new season of life, whether it be graduation or retirement. All of us have times of transition all around us, and I assure you in those moments of transition, there is great opportunity for influence. Great opportunity if we'll just have the right heart and perspective for us to encounter people and influence people with the love and the life of Jesus. But we must be intentional about it. We must recognize I'm in a time of transition, or I see a time of transition, God, would you show me through your spirit how I can step into this situation and be an influencer for the sake of the gospel, times of transition. Here's another great opportunity, times of tragedy. All of us in some form have experienced tragedy. And you can identify with the hurt, with the confusion, with the frustration that goes on as that happens. And we're doing it as believers. I can't even get my head around what it must be like to walk through those moments and have no hope for eternity. But there are people all over our city, all over our country and world who are walking through times of tragedy, and they have nowhere to turn. That could be something they're experiencing personally that you identify, and you just come and wrap your arm around them. Now not in that moment that you go into the Roman road or start sharing John 3.16, but you're there to love them with the intent of understanding, listen, I know you're hurting, but really your ultimate need is to be born again in an integer relationship with God and experience, hope. Or maybe it's a conversation about what's happening right now in Joplin, Missouri, in the tornadoes that ransacked that place, a conversation in your office, or maybe in your circle of influence, a time of tragedy, and you speak into the process from the perspective of a believer who knows a sovereign God who loves the world. Another dynamic time of influence is during times of tragedy. Here's one more. Times of celebration. That may be a new baby. That may be a promotion. That may be a new purchase. That may be a big event that takes place in your life. But those are moments where you have a chance to step in and just speak a word of encouragement, to speak a word of influence that can point them, that can direct them towards the glorious message of the gospel. I hope and pray that as we navigate through life, we would look for those moments at all times, but specifically as these things arise, we're looking for a moment that we can be influencers with our friends, with those who are in our life, for the sake of the gospel. I don't know how you perceive your friends. I don't know how you see the people who are around you, but here's what I hope you'll see tonight from Proverbs 27 verse 17, that there's to be a lot of shaping taking place in your relationship. Some people are in your life because God intends for them to shape you, to be an influencer, to speak into your life. But there are other people, and the reason they're in your life is because God wants you to influence them. I hope the Holy Spirit may even brought them to your mind right now. And for the first time it clicked, that wasn't an accident. Man, they're in my life because God's placed them in my life. And you would begin to navigate through your day and your week with a whole different mentality. It's not what can I do to make it through the day. It's not what needs to happen so that I can just get back home and figure it out. If we are on mission every moment of every day representing the glorious King named Jesus. So all that being said, the two questions are this, who's shaping you? Do you need to begin to pray and look around your life tonight for God to put somebody in your path? God would put a shaper in your life, an influencer, who is wise, who walks with God, who'll speak into your life and who you can trust. And secondly, who are you shaping? Does your heart break for the lostness of our cities? Does it move you at all? Does it stir in your heart that maybe God would leverage your life, your talents, your resources, your time, in some form to touch someone's life and draw them into a relationship with God? I pray as a church, it would stir us, it would mess us up inside. And we would see that the primary mission of why God has placed us here is to be influencers for the sake of the gospel. [BLANK_AUDIO]