Building Stronger Families:
Helping Your Kids/Grandkids Choose Wise Friends
Proverbs 13:18-21
- Pictures from Youth Group Lock-In
- Importance of youth ministry –
- Gives youth an alternative to spending time with friends who get into trouble.
- Friends who do drugs
- Risky sexual behavior
- Friends whose home environment is toxic
- Helps youth a place where they can talk about their faith
- It’s amazing how much they want to talk about their faith, but few environments where they know they won’t be ridiculed.
- Gives them an opportunity to make wise choices about their friends.
- Gives youth an alternative to spending time with friends who get into trouble.
- That’s what I want to focus on this morning.
- Three week sermon series on building strong families
- This week – how to help your kids/grandkids choose wise friends
- I’ve chosen passage from Proverbs
- Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings from many sources
- Many associated with King Solomon of Israel: given more wisdom by God than anyone else
- Some from an unnamed group of wise people
- Some from Gentile King
- Different periods
- Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings from many sources
- Give guidance for living
- Question: why would they need Proverbs if they had all of the laws God gave Moses?
- Law of Moses tells them everything they needed to do in order to be righteous before God.
- Why did they need anything else?
- For the same reason that we don’t simply hand our kids a book of rules, ask them to memorize the rules, and then expect them to make excellent choices in life.
- People don’t just need to know wrong from right. They need to know the difference between being wise and being foolish. Our kids need to know.
- Question: why would they need Proverbs if they had all of the laws God gave Moses?
- Leaders in Israel began seeking wisdom from advisors in addition to asking the priests how to follow God’s laws.
- Leaders from all over the Middle East – King Solomon’s guidance
- Doesn’t just happen in Israel: Egypt and Iran
- Very practical tone. Clearly not just for royalty
- Focus on raising children wisely. Look at vs. 1:
- “A wise son heeds his father’s instruction, but a mocker does not respond to rebukes.”
- Proverbs were read and repeated, used as practical sayings by people seeking guidance on how to raise children. How to build strong families.
- This particular section – being receptive to wisdom, being open to teaching, being someone who can accept discipline.
- Vs. 18: “Whoever disregards discipline comes to poverty and shame, but whoever heeds correction is honored.”
- Something we all emphasize to our children – be teachable
- Not easy – parents aren’t always teachable.
- We all know parents whose children run the show. Miserable. Kids won’t be able to accept anyone’s authority.
- Difficult balance to strike –
- Being authority to our kids or grandkids vs. learning the things we need to learn from them.
- If we’re going to help them make wise choices in who their friends are, we need to strike that balance and be consistent.
- Vs. 18: “Whoever disregards discipline comes to poverty and shame, but whoever heeds correction is honored.”
- Vs. 19 – “A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul, but fools detest turning from evil.”
- Very important lesson we need to consistently emphasize with our children and grandchildren.
- One of our children’s greatest longing – feel accepted by a group of friends.
- Not that different from us
- Acceptance doesn’t come easy.
- Price to be paid – established set of expectations to be met in certain groups.
- If our kids’ longing to be accepted is too strong, they may be too foolish to “turn from evil.”
- Prone to doing things that they know are wrong. Things that conflict with their own value system.
- That’s how good kids get caught up in things their parents never imagined they were doing.
- Kids think – “I’ll just compromise this one time. I’m still the same good person. This one mistake doesn’t make me as bad as the rest of these kids.”
- Problem is that the next time they find it easier to compromise on what they think is right. and eventually they stop caring what they think is right.
- American Graffiti – Curt, played by young Richard Dreyfuss, wants to join Pharaohs – greaser gang.
- Two choices – be dragged through streets by car
- Or play big prank on police.
- Chooses big prank
- Risks going to prison
- Should have “turned from evil.”
- Very important to teach our kids two things in order to help them make wise choices:
- One: We have to reinforce that they are good enough not to need approval from their friends
- Praise them for their successes. Important.
- If we do that, they will be seek friends who can appreciate them.
- When we correct them, we should not belittle them or leave them with no self respect.
- Their mistakes don’t make them bad people.
- Don’t humiliate them. Tendency to want to make the experience of being disciplined so bad that they do everything they can to avoid it.
- But humiliation teaches them that they cannot receive the validation they need from their parents, which is why they go out seeking it in all kinds of other bad relationships.
- Important part of teaching them to turn away from evil, as the author says, is by teaching them not to seek acceptance in all the wrong places. When we teach them that, we teach them to choose their friends wisely.
- The next verse, vs. 20, continues on with that theme. “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”
- Did your kids or grandkids – friend who you know is going to be trouble?
- Looks suspicious?
- Long hair
- Dress suggestively
- Race
- These days it’s different.
- Hairstyles don’t set people apart.
- Clothes don’t set people apart.
- A lot of deviant behavior takes place digitally.
- Hard to monitor
- Have to monitor friends
- Parents have the right to ask where their kids are going, what they’re going to be doing, and with whom.
- If the answers are vague, if your kids resist being specific, parents have to be suspicious.
- Sometimes kids think they can get away with more when they go to their grandparent’s place.
- It matters who they’re with.
- They tend to accept some of the identity of their friends
- They expect that their adult lives will be like their friends’ adult lives.
- Take on faith positions of their friends.
- May 2014, two twelve year old girls, one of whom attended Emma’s middle school in Waukesha WI, became convinced that they needed to participate in a real lifer version of a video game called Slenderman.
- I’ve played Slenderman. You just try and outrun this skinny, dark character.
- Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier thought they needed to kill someone in order to please the real slenderman.
- Lured another twelve y/o girl into woods in a park in town. Stabbed her 19 times.
- Victim found by biker who called 911.
- What possessed these kids to do something?
- Tendency to blame the video game, but most kids know the difference between games and reality by age 9.
- They didn’t make wise choices about their friends. One of them should have said, “No, this is crazy.”
- Instead, they are looking at 65 years in prison for attempted homicide.
- “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” It’s important that we know who our kids and grandkids are with.
- Finally I want to share the hopeful part of this passage.
- So much of Proverbs – destruction that awaits people who make foolish choices.
- One of many verses that promise reward: Trouble pursues the sinner, but the righteous are rewarded with good things.
- Did you ever know – kid who was always getting in trouble.
- Always had police over at his/her house
- Always in the principal’s office at school
- Always talk of him/her doing really bad things
- It’s important to teach our kids to think about that when they think about who they want to spend time with and who they want to be like.
- Sure – Jesus with sinners
- But Jesus was an adult.
- Not being judgmental to say to our kids, “If you hang around with that person who keeps on getting arrested, you’re probably going to get into the same kind of trouble.”
- They may not listen; they may hang around with those kids just to spite you.
- But most times what you say will have a big impact on their choices.
- Close with story about family in my neighborhood
- Son a year older than me – lived right behind us.
- Kid I wanted to be like more than anyone else
- Had a dirt bike – rode it around
- Listened to cool bands and got to go see them in concert
- Wore cool clothes – rock t-shirts and hiking boots
- Had long hair
- Could beat up anyone in the neighborhood.
- Dated the prettiest girls in school.
- But his house was also the distribution point of all the drugs in our neighborhood.
- Got lots of my friends hooked on drugs.
- Said words to his dad that would have got me killed by my Dad.
- Always in detention at school
- Always vandalizing people’s homes
- Police were constantly at his house
- Caused my parents fits – wouldn’t let me hang around with him.
- Thought for sure he was going to end up in jail.
- My Dad told me last year that he was going to Bible study
- I wouldn’t believe who started going with him.
- It was this guy, now 50.
- I was shocked
- Shows the transformative power of God –
- I think God used my parents to show him that there really was another way to go in life.
- It also reminds us that our kids and grandkids won’t learn some of the lessons we’re trying to teach them right away.
- It may be quite a long time before they realize the importance of making wise choices when it comes to friends.
- But it’s crucial for us, if we want to build strong families, for us as parents and grandparents to give our kids guidance, wisdom, and grace when it comes to choosing their friends.
- It’s part of our responsibility to them. It’s a way of ministering to them. And it’s a way of modeling Jesus for them.