JAN 9 2022 | Proverbs: Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World S1E3

Sea Change Church · Proverbs for the New Year · "Proverbs" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · January 9, 2022

Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Music Start spreading the news. I'm leaving today. If you're new here, you will find that we love our sermon bumpers, and so I hope you enjoy them as well. Hey, I want to say hello to the Chonko family. Welcome. That's Chris's parents. Worship leader Chris. Good to have you guys. Welcome to our church. Good to have you. Well done on your kid. She's amazing. Really good. I hear that mom taught her everything she knows about music, so that's good stuff. Let me pray. We're going to jump into the episode three of wisdom, ancient wisdom for a modern world, the biblical basics and basis of friendship.

Lord Jesus, we ask that you would bless this message, Lord God, that you would touch it, God, with your spirit, Lord, and that you would be with us, God, as we seek to understand you in a deeper and more meaningful way. Lord, we just thank you, God, and that you would be with us in Jesus' name. Amen. One second. I'm just going to set my alarm so we don't do 12-hour treaties here on Martin Luther. So, one second. One second. Clock, stopwatch.

Bingo. Set it for four hours. We're good. Dunbar's number. I don't know if you've heard of Dunbar's number. Dunbar's number is from the 1990s, and it was based on the size of the human brain and basic anthropology and sociology on how many friends someone can have in their network. It's about friendship. It's about how many relationships that we can actually have. And there's different numbers in Dunbar's the way that people have put it together, but five would be what you would call your soulmates.

You have the ability to have probably three to five soulmates, but they say you only need one. They say that a person only needs one, but three to five soulmates. The next number, 15, would be like friends, close friends and family. These people are really close. They're connected. You would put them in the, you know, maybe soulmate. Hopefully it's maybe your spouse or something like that, but it can also be a friend.

So the first is your soulmates. The next is your close friends. These are really close friends, people you really connect with. And then next, the number that is up there is 35. That's kind of your circle of trust. So maybe you remember the circle of trust. You guys have heard that term before. Circle of trust would be these people. And Al, may you have a picture of the circle of trust? Trust. There we go. So maybe you remember the circle of trust.

This might be one of your father-in-law who's seen if you belong in the circle of trust. The next one after that, those are the people that you really feel like you can trust. It's about 35 people that you feel like you can trust them with something. You can be there and they can be there with you. The next number moves out to 150. 150 is like your active network. These are people you have a trust relationship that you would work with, you connect with.

The average Facebook user has 150 people as their number of people that they are friends with. This would be your connective workshop. And then they say that between 500 and 1,500 would be the amount of people that you would recognize. Now, the 150 number, they say, is the number of people that if you walked into a restaurant and they were sitting at a table, that you wouldn't feel awkward like sitting down. And so you're there and you will sit down in that group.

And then there's 500 and 1,500. The average church size in America is 75 people. And there's kind of a cap of about 150 of what churches usually, many churches, I think 85% of churches in America are 150 or less. It's very hard to go to that next level of a larger church if you don't keep those circles of trust and those relationships. This is one of the reasons that we do small groups. Robin Dunbar did that in the 1990s.

Now, we're talking about small groups. I want to say that most church happens, you know, in that 35 to 50 number. That what I mean by that is the relationships you are going to have in a church community is probably going to be one where you have trusted people that you're around, that you like being with, that you have, you know, connectivity with. But it's very rare, I think, to find one of your five in a church setting.

Although I think people often have an unreasonable expectation that when you go to church, every single person there would be a person who could possibly be in your five. I've only had one person break into my top five soulmates in the last 15 years. And what you will find is the older you get, usually that group of people are people you've traveled with, you have the most trust with, and you have the most commonality with.

Church happens, and in regard to the expectations of church, what you're looking for in church is a community that you can network and work with together, but oftentimes you won't find exactly what you might think you're looking for, or you'll have an unreasonable expectation. And so good church happens between that 35 and 150, and that's what we're trying to provide for you. We hope you find a soulmate. We hope that you find really close friends.

We hope you find people that are in the circle of trust. But what we're trying to do is to create an organization where you are surrounded by at least 150 people, that you have some close relationships on smaller areas where you can all be partnering with things like we're doing, like helping orphans, like working with caps, like preaching the gospel, like living lives that matter and that have a purpose. C.S. Lewis says this about friendships.

Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, what? You too? I thought that no one but myself thought that. I mean, that is what it is. Have you ever met somebody and all of a sudden there's a connectivity? Now, just because there's a connectivity doesn't mean that relationship is going to last. We're going to talk on three elements of friendship that are incredibly necessary, even friendship in your marriage or with close friends, that are incredibly necessary if you're going to go beyond just connection, just familiarity.

We want to talk about what the scripture says, first of all, about friendship. And to do that, you're going to have to dive into the books that talk about friendship the most. Now, we're in a series on Proverbs. Let me just give you a few numbers if you were to do a search for the word friend or friendship in the Old Testament. First of all, you're going to find it referenced in the book of Proverbs 16 times, the word friend.

The next highest usage is going to be in Ecclesiastes and then also in the book of Luke, both at 14 times. Not used all that much. 16 times is the most. And then the next most usage after that is seven times. It drops off. So if you want to know about having friends, then one of the places you're going to look is in the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes. And then also, like I said, the book of Luke talks about friendship a lot.

So you're going to see that there. What is interesting is in the search for friends, one of the things the scripture says you want to stay away from is fools. In the Jewish culture, this was a word that you would not even, if you called someone a fool, that is a massive insult. And so one of the things that you'll see is in Proverbs, it only uses the word friend 16 times, but it uses the word fool 71 times. It gives you, I mean, that is a, that's exponentially greater.

That it talks about having a friend, but it also tells you it's more about how to stay away from people and how to keep yourself from being in the category of a fool. 71 times. And so when you're looking for friends, one of the things I've encouraged people is to immerse themselves in the proverbial literature. Immerse yourselves on a daily basis in the Proverbs. I try to read a proverb every single day. I don't read Ecclesiastes every day.

At least I read through Ecclesiastes at least twice a year. And I try to read a psalm every day. So with your Bible reading, just as you're learning to know the scriptures, begin to read the Proverbs. There's one for every day of the month, 31, start over again. There's 150 psalms. You can go through that about every five months you can go through the psalms. But it has the word fool 71 times. Ecclesiastes uses the word fool 23 times.

And then 2 Corinthians, seven times. So when you want to know what it means to be wise and what it means to be foolish, where you're going to find the most of it is in the Old Testament. And I want to say, the Proverbs will help you shape friendships. The Proverbs will create in you the type of person that not only has friends, but knows how to be a friend. There's a lot of people in the world that want friends. They feel incredibly lonely, but they don't have the emotional intelligence or ability or wisdom to be a friend.

I want to say, if you want to have friends, one of the best ways is to know how to be a friend. And so the scripture gives you that understanding as you think about that. So you find that in the scripture. Now, I want to set this entire three verses that we're going to use in Proverbs in the book of John when Jesus says that we're his friends. Now, Jesus calls us a lot of things. He calls us his family. He says that we're God's children.

There's all these different metaphors. But one of the things that's cool, you know, about friendship is, you know, you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. Jesus says that you're his family, but he also says that he wants to have friendship with you. And this is something Protestantism has done really, really well. It really leaned into the friendship of Jesus. As I was growing up, I understood the Father God, and it was a little bit paternal and top down when I was growing up in the church.

But Jesus begins to be a friend. And I remember when I was 19, what I needed was Jesus, my bro. I was hanging out with Jesus. I just, he was cool. I was, Father can, you know, kind of hang out over there because he wants to get me in trouble or something. But Jesus and me, Jesus likes, I just want my Jesus to party. No, I'm just kidding. It says that in Talladega Nights. Sorry, just a little thing. Got a tuxedo shirt, Alyssa Leonard Skinner.

If you watch it, you know what I'm talking about. John 15, Jesus says this, this is my commandment, that you love one another. So love is a command, circle love. I'm going to talk through this as we read through it. That you love one another as I have loved you. Good. Greater love is no one than they lay down his life for one's friends. You are my friends. If you do whatever I command you, no longer do I call you servants.

For a servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. So in that friendship, there's a communication that's happening there. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give you these things I command you, that you love one another.

Now, here's one thing that's really interesting. In the scripture, you are commanded to love people. You're never commanded anywhere in scripture to be their friend. There is nowhere in scripture where it says you have to have someone be a friend. I think a lot of people, some of the unreasonable, and I would say unbiblical, expectations is when people come into church, a lot of times they think that everyone should be their friend, that they should be able to jump into that circle of five people that they're closest to, or the top 15, and if that doesn't happen, then you hear, well, the church is a clique, and all these things.

I actually think that's an unreasonable expectation of church. And I think when you go to church, if you happen to find a soulmate and a really close friend and a confidant that will last a lifetime, that is amazing. But just in human sociology, that doesn't happen all the time. And we shouldn't expect it at a church. But what we should expect is for people to be friendly and to be loving. Love is a command. Even when I was talking to my younger daughter, and she said, you know, I have these people that I used to be friends with, but I kind of feel like I've kind of outgrown them.

They've gone a different way in life, and I've gone this, and now I'm playing basketball, and I've got a different type of friends. And basketball kids are different than the drama kids I used to hang out with. And I feel like with my friendships, how do I continue to be friends? And this is one of the things I told her, that you don't have to be friends. Because she goes, well, I feel guilty if I'm not their friend.

And I said, well, there's nowhere in the Bible that God commands friendship as a choice. And friendship is really based on how you connect with a person, and also things like your emotional intelligence and such. But we are commanded to love people. And so sometimes love means acting like a friend, when you would say that, you know, that person, maybe I don't really trust them. They've kind of turned on me a couple times, but I still want to act like a friend.

What does that look like? So friendship is a command, excuse me, love is a command, but friendship is not. And that was interesting for me to find out this week. And God never calls us to friendship with others. But we should be friendly, and we should also love. Friendship is also a choice that requires love, but love does not require friendship. Meaning, if you're going to have a friendship, especially with your best friend, at some point you will have to employ love, and at some point it will have to overcome conflict.

Conflict. I realize that no one is a true friend that I have, and I don't believe true friendship happens, without overcoming a conflict. You will know that a friendship is oftentimes cemented when you have the ability to overcome a conflict. One of the things Carrie, my wife, and I are working on this year is continuing to be good friends. It is so easy, and I did some marriage counseling this week, to all of a sudden start out as really good friends.

They have all this commonality, and then it becomes about getting a house, and then it becomes about setting up the house, and then you have some kids, and then it becomes about soccer practice, and grades, and all this stuff. And pretty soon, you see this all the time, couple divorce rates are really high when kids leave, because couples have stopped nurturing their friendships. They've stopped learning how to be friends, and learning how to enjoy one another, and going back to the thing that probably attracted them at the beginning.

But it isn't friendship that keeps marriages together. It's actually love that keeps things together, and friendship is a choice. We have chosen, Carrie and I, and I asked her again this year, I said, do you want to choose friendship? Can we get back into something together? Can we do, there's a commonality. What can we do together that we both have that common interest? And so we see that friendship is a choice that requires love, but love does not require friendship.

Jesus, in John 13, 34, said, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. I would say this, that also from C.S. Lewis, friendship is birthed in commonality, but only survives with love. Now, what are the biblical basis? What are the, I would say, the main ingredients that you need to have a great friendship? There's many. I found three in the Proverbs that are super important.

As you begin to decide if you want to make friendship, and becoming a good friend, or having more friends, to move away perhaps from loneliness, that it gives us these basics. Let me just read a quote from Malcolm Gladwell from the book Tipping Point. If you haven't read Tipping Point, it's a phenomenal book. It talks about how movements happen. He said, To be someone's friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that, though, it takes emotional energy.

Caring about someone deeply is exhausting. It's true. It's true. Let me just say it again. To be someone's friend requires a minimum investment of time. More than that, though, it takes emotional energy. Caring about someone deeply is exhausting. I had a person I was doing some counseling with, and when we met, they said, Hey, I'm going through some things, and I really need you to be there. And I said, Well, I can be here, and here's how I can be there.

I need you to be there more than that. And I was like, Well, I don't, I can't. He goes, I need you to be there every time I call. And I said, I want you to know that that's not going to happen. My wife gets voicemail sometimes. Like, it's not my fault, you know. That was an unreasonable expectation. And we began to set up boundaries. And we began to see, and as this person has really actually become a leader here at the church.

They've become a leader. And they're leading at a high level. They actually realized that there was a need within them that only Jesus can satisfy. Only Jesus can actually satisfy your loneliness. Only Jesus can satisfy the things that you most need. And when you become secure in your faith of knowing that you are beloved and cared for by God, then I think you're actually released to be a friend. I think otherwise we have unrealistic expectations.

I have another story. I had a guy come up to me. It was a few churches back. And he said to me, I just, I want to be one of your closest friends. And I was like, I don't know if it's like you put 50 cents in and press the Adam button, and I pop out as your best friend. And he said, you know, I just, I want to just, I want to be able to share and have trust. And then he would give me these, like, eyes as he'd say it. And I felt like I was Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction.

I don't know if you remember that movie. I expect to find a rabbit in the pulpit. I just felt like there's an unreasonable expectation. I think one of the things that friendship has, and the Bible talks about this, is boundaries. And the ability that it's a choice. And you might, I might choose you to be my friend. This has happened to me. I've had some people I wanted to be in their friend group. I was not a cool kid in high school.

There was friend groups I wanted to be in. And I got barred on a regular basis. And as I go back and look at that, the reason it happened is because I was emotionally deficient. There were so many places where I really struggled to be the kind of friend that I needed. Let's just look at the biblical background. There's three things. One, wisdom is important in friendship. Number two, trust. Trust is essential in a friendship.

Wisdom, trust, honesty. Billy Joel said it's such a lonely word, right? Was that Billy Joel? Well, we're going to look at those quickly in here, in these three verses. Proverbs 7, 4 is in your notes and on the screen. It says, say to wisdom, you are my sister, and call insight your intimate friend. Now, let me just say something that's really important. That before we talk about how to be a friend, the Bible talks about the kind of person you need to be in order to have friends.

And the more wise you are, the more times you have the ability to say to somebody or to receive a critical word that is said graciously with encouragement, the more wisdom you have to do that, the stronger your friendships will become. I put wisdom this. Friendship without wisdom is the breeding ground for a company of fools. Friendship without wisdom is the breeding ground for a company of fools. If you look around and you think to yourself, I'm surrounded by fools.

Who do you think might be the biggest fool in that group? When I was 19, I remember looking around me and my friendship group had deteriorated to a bunch of addicts, thieves, and losers. And you know what? I was chief amongst them. And I knew it. And that caused a disconnect in my mind. I will say that as I have dove in, because it says in Proverbs that if you read the Proverbs, you understand the Proverbs, and call them your intimate friend, you will actually become wise.

And in becoming wise, you will become less lonely. You will become less dependent. You will find more friends. And your circle of friends, you will start, as John Maxwell says, flying with the eagles. Not that you don't have time for people that are struggling, or people who maybe act like fools, that you're not friendly with them, or invite them along on occasion. But you will find that the people that you circle with are a different ilk of people.

They have different decisions. They have different things that they want to go for. They have different boundaries. They're people you can trust. And so in order that to happen, Proverbs 7, 4 says, you have to say to wisdom. Look what it says there. Say to wisdom, you are my sister. That is in your top five or 15. Okay? Should be number one. But it is a building block. And it shows wisdom as a relationship to you. Do you see how wisdom becomes not only a familial relationship, in the same verse here, it's a friend.

You see, your first friend needs to be Jesus. He calls you a friend. And your next friend, right beside, is the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is the voice of wisdom in the Old. When it says, listen to wisdom, I was there at the beginning of the foundations of the earth. When I told you what to do, I was there before the mountains were formed. It is speaking about the Holy Spirit. It is about the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

And the representation of the proverbial wisdom giver in Proverbs in the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is known as your counselor. So when you read about Proverbs, when it says, I wisdom, I call, you could actually substitute that for the Holy Spirit. Now, it's the Trinity, but it is the Holy Spirit. So it says, you say to wisdom, you are my sister, and call insight your intimate friend. That you have an intimate relationship with wisdom.

In James, it says, ask, I think it's James 1.5, ask for wisdom, and the Bible, this is a promise, it will be given to you. So many times in an issue with my church, or a relationship with my family, or a friend, I get to an impasse, and one of the wisest things you can do is give yourself a speed bump. Give yourself time. My old pastor, Mark Foreman, said, time is your friend. Time is almost always, in almost all situations, your friend.

And I go away, and I say, God, give me wisdom. We experienced that at our staff retreat back in October. We had some things that we were dealing with as a staff. How do we go through? And I said, Lord, I need knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. And God just showed up in that time and gave that to us. So, do you love wisdom? Do you love wisdom? We live in a world that hates wisdom. We live in a world that says, the wisest thing is to do whatever your stomach tells you to do, and that is true life.

That is true death, and that's why we're dying as a society, and Western nations are dying. We, doing whatever you do to have this individual experience, so you can be an individual. I don't believe, I don't believe that Bible highlights the life of the individual as opposed to the life of a community. I think that the Bible talks about community, and we are best when we live in community. And when we live in an individualized society that goes after whatever you want, and for me to say that whatever you might want for yourself is wrong for one reason or another is anathema in our society, I believe you have a society that begins to die.

And the data shows you we are dying. It says, do you love wisdom? Do you love wisdom? Let's go to the second one, trust. Coming in for a landing. Trust is the only path to true intimacy. You cannot have true intimacy in a relationship, in a marriage, unless you trust the other person. Do you trust them with your emotions? One of the things, once again, I know I'm not doing marriage counseling from the pulpit, and I want to stick to the Bible, but one of the things about two years ago, I realized that the way I listen to my wife builds trust in her, or it discourages trust in her.

When I take time to stop and say, this is important, everything else is not important, look into your eyes, listen, you are important to me, it builds trust. Trust builds intimacy. Okay? And then from intimacy, all types of things flow from that intimacy. A lot of people want intimacy, but they're not willing to work on the trust. And we live in a world that wants intimacy, that says, I will just give you sexual intimacy, because that's the end, and if you experience all that goes with that and the passions of that, but they don't build it on trust.

This is why the highest form of trust is to say, I give my life to you forever in covenant. You will never have true intimacy until you have covenant, because covenant brings trust. And you say, I will never go with anyone else. I am with you through better or for worse. For whatever reason, intimacy is built from that place. Proverbs 18, 24. A man of many companion comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer to a brother.

That word sticks is important. You believe that they will be there for you. They stick. Do you stick and stay? Dick Cotton, I've said it a million times, one of my favorite things, I'll say it a million more in this pulpit. He said to me after 70 years of marriage, the best way to stay married is to stay married. That's what he said. And work. Proverbs 17, 17. A friend loves at all times. All times. And a brother is born for adversity.

Let's go to the final one as we close. Honesty. So the first one was wisdom. Do you love wisdom? Do you have trust? Are you building trust in your relationships? You are building trust. And number two, honesty. Honesty is based in truth. And truth only survives where there is trust. Let me say this again. Honesty is based in truth. And truth only survives where there is trust. My family knows that if they ask me, and I live with all girls, does this sweater look good on me?

Don't ask if you don't want to know. God said it the right way. Maybe we should have gone with the red one. Maybe. Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom, says Thomas Jefferson. Not a biblical writer, but he said honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. Are you honest with people? I'm not being brutally honest, but are you honest with people? Proverbs 27, 6. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend. The other way to say it is wounds from a friend can be trusted. That if someone says something that you don't like, but it's the right person, and you trust that person, it's going to sit a lot better if you trust that person. Wounds from a friend can be trusted. Don't be surrounded by a bunch of yes men or women who just tell you what you want to hear. One of the things that we love at this church is authenticity.

And for us that love authenticity and truth, learning how to do it in a gracious way is really important. Proverbs 22, 11 says, He who loves pure to your heart and whose speech is gracious will have the king as a friend. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but do it with grace and know when to say it and when to say it. So those are the three things, and then we're done. Wisdom, trust, and honesty. You can build friendship.

If you look around and say, I don't have any friends. No one's my friend. I'm incredibly lonely. Let me just give you a truth that might be difficult for you to swallow. It might start with you. You might need to change. And when you change, you will find that there are people that want to have that trust, that wisdom, and honesty. This year we've said three things. First sermon on this Proverbs was wanting less. If you want to be happy, want less.

Best way to be happy, want less. Sermon number one as we move into 2022. Sermon number two, detoxing your tongue. Are you detoxing your tongue? Do you give life or death with your tongue? And number three, fostering friendship. We want friendship here. We want great relationships that change the world. Amen? Amen. Let's stand if we would. We have prayer after the service, and you're going to have people at the prayer table.

If you want to know more about following Jesus in our community, go to the lobby. So the front and the back, we have those two things. And I want to bless you right now. If you want to extend your hands, I'd love to bless you in this community. In a world that is dying and full of curses, we bring blessing and we speak life over you. And Lord, these words, Lord God, the Bible is our friend, wisdom is our friend, and Lord, for anyone here who has said, I've not been wise, I've not followed, that wants to be wise, that wants to continue to build in wisdom, would you bless them with the wisdom?

We ask that they would ask for wisdom. If you need wisdom right now, ask for wisdom. James says that you will get wisdom. And then seek wisdom. So go into the Proverbs, go into Ecclesiastes. And Lord, we bless our church with wisdom. Wisdom on how to speak to a culture that is sometimes adverse to the message of the cross and to the gospel. Wisdom on how to speak to friends. Wisdom on how to be loving. Wisdom on how to spend our money.

Wisdom on everything that we do in our relationships. And if we need healing, I bless you with healing. I bless you with relational healing to chain things. And I bless, especially the marriages and the children in this church, that you bless their relationships and let them start afresh every single day sticking and staying together. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Thank you.