How To Choose Your Friends | The Book of Proverbs

Amen, amen, amen. Well, who's excited that Vincent is back from sabbatical? Let's go. So excited. We were meeting, I don't know, a week or two ago, and I was like, Vincent, we need to get you up to preach. We wanna hear from you. We've missed you. And he's like, I'm excited. Let's do that. Let's just give me a little bit of time to kind of get back in the flow of my job and see everyone and reconnect. So later this summer, we'll have Vincent up there. And now that you told me about Psalm 139, they will move off of Proverbs for a week and just let you fire away. So excited that you're back. We get the joy of sending out a church planter today as well, someone who, there we go, we got a few people excited about church planting. Someone who has invested in our youth. We're just praying for our youth. Invested in our youth, both here in the church and in the city as a teacher and a coach. So Kyle, if you wanna come on up, buddy. You guys give Kyle a hand. You guys give Kyle a hand. You guys give Kyle a hand. Kyle has been a member of our church,

went through the discipleship school, invested in the youth, invested in many places in our church, and also has done a great job as a teacher and a football coach here in the city. You've invested in my son. I'm grateful for that. And if you know Kyle, you know that God has put a calling on his life to carry the gospel to the nations. And so he's gonna be launching out. We're sending him out to work with one of the Antioch teams in France, in Paris, France, to plant churches, share Jesus, make disciples. And it's amazing that you get to continue to use your football skills, your football coaching skills there as well, like you did here. So we're gonna pray for you now. So Vincent, if you wanna come on up. And if you guys would extend a hand as we send him out to Stephen, who was around. You guys join with me. Jesus, we are thankful for the man of God that Kyle Carter is. Thank you, Lord, for the ways that he's sown into our church family. God, I like the church at Antioch and the book of Acts of old, Lord. We lay hands on him today. We set him apart for the work

that you're calling him to in France. And in the nations, God, we commission him as a minister of the gospel. Lord, we pray that you provide for him every step of the way, that even as he goes, Lord, that you would connect him, you give him divine appointments, that we would see Jesus exalted in France and in the nations, that we see disciples made, we see churches planted in your name, glorified in the nations, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen, amen, we love you and we're excited for you. Thank you for investing. Kyle will be around in between the services. Love to give you a hug as you dismiss. If you are here and you, like Kyle, feel like God has given you a calling to the nations or a calling to church planting, we as a church family, we invest in, develop, raise up and send out church planters. I'd love for you to find me after the service. If that's something you feel like God might have for you, we could talk more about that. Okay, if you'll open your Bibles to Proverbs 13. Proverbs 13 is where we are going to be today. Today, we are talking about friends. Specifically, we're talking about how to be a good friend, how to choose good friends, the impact that friends have on our lives.

Why are we doing that? Well, we all know that friendship can be one of the sweetest things in life when done well. It can also be one of the most painful things in life when done poorly or when it feels like there is a lack of friends. And God, as our Heavenly Father, has made you and made me for friendship with Him and with others. And as our Heavenly Father, He wants to teach, to train, to encourage and equip us to give us wisdom in the area of friendship that we might walk in the riches of what's available for us by way of friendship. And the book of Proverbs is filled with heavenly wisdom about friendship. It's one of the most prevalent topics in the book as you read it through. It's always talking about relationships, wisdom in relationships and friendship. So we're gonna look at that today. And as you go there, Proverbs 13, I wanna ask you a question. What does your dinner table look like? What does your dinner table look like? I'm not meaning physically what color is your table or how big it is. I'm talking about who sits around your dinner table. My wife and I, we have four kids. Our oldest is 18, just graduated high school.

Our youngest is eight. And our dinner table for the last 18 years has been a consistent place in our family where we've tried to spend time together. We don't make it every day, but most every day we're eating dinner together. And sometimes it is awesome. Sometimes we're praying for one another. We're encouraging one another. We're sharing gratitude. for one another, we're laughing, it's fun, it's great. Sometimes it's very mundane. Maybe it's a little flat, we're tired, we're distracted, it's a little monotonous, here we are again. Maybe we're thinking about what comes after dinner with this child or that child, it can be a little mundane. Sometimes awesome, sometimes mundane, sometimes it is pure chaos. Particularly when our kids were younger, right, you're getting close to bedtime, any parents you know out there where you're like, oh my goodness, how soon can we get this child into bed as they begin to melt down? Sometimes the parents are melting down too and thinking, man, how soon can I get to bed? That's gonna be the night where another child decides this is a great time to do a talent show at dinner, while one child is crying, one child is trying to show off their talents, another child is remembering what they need for school

the next day that they've not told you about, that's a giant history project or science fair project and where they need to go right after dinner to get ready for that and it's just pure chaos. So on one of those chaos nights, my wife or I can't remember which one pulled out our phone just to video the chaos, like to capture, it's like one of those nights where it's like, man, you just have to laugh sometimes. So video, showed it to a friend who did not have children at that time. And he was like, this is a routine occurrence at your dinner table? And you would kind of see the eyes get big of what was coming for him, he now has kids, I should ask him, what his dinner table is like. In the midst of the beautiful, in the midst of the mundane, in the midst of the chaos, the dinner table for us, for Christina and I, has also been a place where we've sought to invest in our kids, to teach them and train them, to give them wisdom for life, so hopefully they're being fed in their bodies, they're being fed relationally, but we've sought to feed them spiritually and give them wisdom in those moments to help them become the people that God had called them to be, give them the skills that they need to walk with Him and into the callings that He has on their lives. So I want you to hold that image in mind

as we read today's Proverbs, today's Proverbs, because that's the context of the book of Proverbs. As you read Proverbs, it's mainly compiled by Solomon, who is a great king, but all throughout Proverbs, he's talking about the wisdom, the instruction, the counsel that his mom and his dad, his mom Bathsheba, his dad King David, gave to him the investment they made in him that he might walk in wisdom. The book of Proverbs comes from the heart of a mother, not in a classroom or in an auditorium, but in the context of a family, of parents who delight in their son and they're teaching him and they're training him to walk with God. They wanna see him fulfill his potential. And they know that he has a calling to impact, to lead, to be a king, and to leave a legacy that not only impacted his immediate relationships, what impacted his job, what impacted his career, his immediate relationships, what impacted his generation and generations to come. Solomon records those conversations in the book of Proverbs. And now 3,000 years later, we gather around the Lord's table, taking communion together. We open up the scriptures and our heavenly father is here with love in his heart for you and for me. He wants to invest in you today. He wants to encourage you today. He wants to guide you today.

He wants to speak into very practical areas of your life that you might walk in wisdom, that you might walk and become the person that God created you to be, and that you might leave a kingdom legacy through your life. So as we come to the scriptures today, I want you to know we're coming to the words of our heavenly father who loves you and wants to speak into your life and mine. And that's the context. So today's proverb that we're going to focus on is Proverbs 13, verse 20. Proverbs 13, verse 20. Should be a great one to write down, to memorize, to walk away from today with. Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. So two images here, we're talking about walking together and companionship. Both of these are word pictures for friendship. In one house that my family lived in, our kids, the neighborhood school was right there. And so kids would walk to and from school and they'd walk together. And after school, you would see as the school got out, you would see kids, little clusters of kids walking in all directions in the neighborhood. our kids would walk home with their friends. It was really sweet. They look forward to that time of not being in class,

not quite home yet. They could just walk with their friends, right? That's an image that's here about walking together, being companions together. And there's the advice of you need to pay attention to who you are walking with. If you walk with the wise, if you're friends with the wise, what happens? You yourself will become wise. If you are a friend, if you walk with fools, what will happen? You too will live in foolishness and you will suffer harm. It will not go well with you. As a parent, when your kids are young, you really want them to have friends. You go to the playground, you go to the pool, you go to school, you go to Sunday school, and you're watching out. Do my kids, are they by themselves or do they have friends? I sure hope my kids have friends. We all know the sting of loneliness. So you want your kids to have friends. As they get older, you realize like you don't just want them to have friends, you want them to have good friends. You want them to have friends that are headed in a good direction. So you take on a new set of worries or concerns. But these issues about friends, of having friends and having good friends are not limited to parents or grandparents with little kids.

They affect all of us. The Survey Center for American Life found in 1990, in America, about 3% of Americans said they had no close friends. So three out of 100 would say, I don't have any close friends, 1990. Fast forward 31 years, that'll make you feel old. If 1990 to 2021 was 31 years, wow. Fast forward to 2021, that number, 3% had risen to 12%. So gone up four times. Maybe like, well, maybe that was just COVID. Maybe that was a pandemic, social isolation. No, no, no, in 2024, it had gone up again. Now, to 17% of Americans would say they have no close friends. So quick math, that's about one in five people. Like if our church was representative of America, that's about one in five of us would say, I don't have any close friends. Another survey I saw said the average American hasn't made a new friend in five years. 24% of adults under 30, so 18 to 30, we have a lot of you in the church. 24% of adults 18 to 30 feel like they have no close friends. Of adults 18 to 30 feel lonely all or most of the time. So it's like one in four of our young people. The American Friendship Project found that those who were satisfied with a quantity of friends, okay, I have some friends, 40% of them, so almost half, said they were not as close

to their friends that they do have as they want to be. So they had friends, but they wanted the quality of the relationship to be better. In 2023, the US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, I hope I say his name right, declared loneliness a national epidemic. And he said the lack of social connections, the impact that that has on us, carries health risks equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes daily. Significant. As I was preparing for this message, I read a pastor who commented. He said, you know, Jesus did a lot of miracles. He healed the sick, he caused the lame to walk, blind eyes open, he multiplied food, he raised the dead. But perhaps most of his incredible miracle was that he had 12 close friends in his 30s. Just let that sink in, because it's very hard to do. So, what I wanna say to you today, if that's you, if you're here, you're like, man, this is actually kind of painful, like we're laughing, but it's kind of painful. I'm one of those, and I don't have close friends. Or I feel lonely most of the time. I have friends, but I really wish that those friends were better friends. I would like more connection with them. I'd like stronger relationships with them. What I want you to know is that

your heavenly father sees you today. He sees where you are. And he's not here to shame you. He's not here to make you feel bad about where you are. or you're not, but he sees you and he cares and he wants to provide. As I was preparing, this is the place where I felt led in prayer to stop, to have some Holy Spirit ministry for a moment. In the Old Testament, when Abraham and Sarah, they have a servant named Hagar, they have a falling out, they kick Hagar out, she is alone with child in the midst of loneliness and she has an encounter with God in that place of loneliness. And when she walks away is knowing the Lord is the one who sees her and provides. And I had a sense from the Holy Spirit today that there for us as a congregation that are struggling with loneliness and relationships, that the Lord wants to meet with you today, that you would leave here today with a sense of God sees me in my need and he wants to provide. So would you close your eyes with me for just a moment and would you open your hands because we all have need in the area of relationship, but some of us are experiencing it more acutely in this season. So I thank you that you see us in our need. You see us in our places of pain where we feel lonely or alone or broken relationally or we've experienced the pain of relationships gone wrong

or the longing for better relationships. And thank you that as our Heavenly Father, you see, you care, you have compassion on us and you will provide. So I pray that you administer by the Holy Spirit to each one of us this morning in Jesus' name. In the opening pages of Scripture, we see that God sees Adam's relational need. He sees Adam in the garden and he says, Adam, it's not good for you to be alone. And one of the first things that God does, one of the first ways he provides in Scripture is the providing of Eve for Adam to meet that relational pain, that relational gap. David, speaking to Solomon here, knows the importance of these type of relationships and had experienced God's provision for relationships. One of the most famous friendships in Scripture is David and Jonathan. That David in his early life had a buddy named Jonathan and so their hearts were knit together. He'd experienced the sweetness of a God-provided friendship. In his later years, David had built friendships with his mighty men, around 30 men that were warriors, that they fought battles together, they shared life together, they went through highs and they went through lows together. David knew the pain of his own breakdowns in relationship, that he had sold out one of his men, Uriah, one of his friends, he had betrayed him,

and he had sold out one of his friends, and he had betrayed him in order to marry Bathsheba. Bathsheba was Solomon's mom, so as David is talking to Solomon, as Bathsheba is talking to Solomon, they know the pain of broken relationships and maybe some things in their life that they were ashamed that they did. He knows that, he knows the sweetness of relationship done right. David knows the blessing of friends, like the prophet Nathan, who was his friend when David was going astray. The prophet Nathan came to him and said, David, you are off track, and he gave him faithful wounds that restored David to the path of wisdom. David had experienced supernatural provision of friendship in all these different forms. And if you are in a place where you're like, man, I need some friends, or I need better friends, we're gonna have a ministry time at the end, and we're gonna pray, and we're gonna believe for God to provide supernaturally to give you friends. And we're gonna see breakthroughs today, amen? And sometimes part of God's provision for us, his supernatural provision, is the provision of wisdom that he teaches us the skills that we need in order to make friends, or to be a good friend, or how to choose friends. And so in addition to praying for God's supernatural provision, we're also gonna study

God's word today, and listen to him give us the wisdom that we need on how to navigate friendship. So whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. So you might be saying, well, okay, Zach, just to be honest, I don't have anyone to walk with. walk with right now. I don't have anyone to walk with. So it's not like I'm choosing between the wise I don't have anyone to walk with. and the foolish, I am one of those one in five I don't have anyone to walk with. I don't have anyone to walk with. that I don't have any close friends. I don't feel connected like I want to be. Maybe that's you, and so we need to start there. Proverbs has a lot to say just about the skills that we need to have friends. Let's look at a few of them. Proverbs 18, 24, we need the skill of friendliness. David and Bathsheba wanted to make sure Solomon had this, and God, your heavenly Father, wants to make sure you and I have this as well. Proverbs 18, 24, a man who has friends must himself be friendly. A man who has friends must himself be friendly. What's this saying? Skill number one, if I want to have friends, if I want to have people to walk with, I need to become a friendly person.

And I appreciate the different personality tests, the introversion and extroversion, the Myers-Briggs, the ones where you're an animal, like an otter, or a golden retriever, or you're a number, or just all those things, wonderful. Sometimes, though, we let those tests give us an out from what Scripture calls us to. So the Word of God says it doesn't matter if you're an introvert, an extrovert, a golden retriever, or a badger, three, an eight, a 27, a two, what your working genius is, if you want friends, you need to be friendly. How many of you know that God is friendly? God comes pursuing people in Scripture. He says to Abraham, Abraham, I am your friend. Jesus tells his disciples, I'm not calling you service learners, I'm calling you friends. Jesus was known as a friend of sinners. He gets invited to weddings, and dinners, and all these things, Jesus is friendly. So we as his people, regardless of our individual personality types and temperaments, as beautiful as those may be, God wants to teach us how to be friendly people because we're made to bear his image. And this doesn't always come naturally. There are skills for friendliness. I want to honor my wife in this. I'll be honest, a lot of times at those dinner table

training times, I'm like, man, I'm hungry, I'm ready to eat, and then I'm ready to move on. I don't always wanna be like, let's train our kids in this time. She's awesome though. She's focused, she's like, no, we are going to be intentional. These kids are valuable. Stop talking about whether Jalen Brunson or Victor Wim Ben-Yama, who's gonna be better in the NBA Finals, like, that has a place, but let's focus in. Only three of y'all are watching the Finals. Anyway, you know, she's helpful. I love this. And I watch her with our kids, train them in, okay, here's how to ask a question at the dinner table so that you're not just self-absorbed with yourself. Here's how to be a friendly person. Here, we're gonna look one another in the eyes. Here, we're not gonna interrupt. We're gonna, we're going to, I gotta thank you from somebody over here, right? We're going to, here's how we're gonna do birthday parties. Here's who we're going to invite. We're not just gonna invite these couple people. We're gonna think about how can we be friendly. Here at your school, here's how I want you to think about the lunch table so it's not just you and your couple friends.

I want you to look for who doesn't have a spot. Can you pull them in? At Children's Church, I want you to think about who needs a friend. I've watched her train our kids in being friendly. We're very much a work in progress, very much a work in progress, but our kids cannot say that they have not been given an excellent trainer in my wife. She continues to work on me as well. Most times before I get up to preach, she leans over and she says, hey, remember to smile. So I'm trying to remember to smile right now. I love it, I'm very grateful for her, but I've watched her train in the area of friendliness. She is an introvert. She likes her quiet alone time, but she has the skill of being friendly. I wanna honor her for that. And parents, I want to encourage you. These are things that some of our kids will get this naturally, but many of our kids need practical training in the area of friendliness. And God wants to use you to train your kids to be friendly and that will lead to them having friends. Another encouragement I wanted to give, Wednesday evening, we're at football camp. Carter Starr, I'm sorry, Henry Starr, eighth grade, going into ninth grade, comes up to me. Hey, Mr. Daniel, how you doing?

Looks me in the eyes. You know, it stands out when an eighth grader going into ninth grader comes up to an adult with confidence and friendliness, knows your name, says hi, stands out. And I was talking to his dad, Taylor. I've known Taylor since I was a little kid. Taylor walks in that same friendliness. I was like, Taylor, you and your brother, y'all carry friendliness, and I see it in your sons, Carter and Henry. I watched them walk in that same thing, and that's what I remember about your dad, Taylor. Your dad was that same way, and did he train y'all? What did he do? And Taylor's like, well, some of it's natural, but my dad talked to us, and he trained us on how to talk to adults, how to look them in the eyes, how to be friendly, and it's amazing to sit there and see a multi-generational impact from a father and a mother training a son, and a son and a wife training their kids in the area of friendliness. Saw David Sikora at Chick-fil-A this week. David runs the Chick-fil-A by Baylor. My goodness, the amount of training that they put in to train their staff in the area of friendliness is amazing. And I just think about how many people are impacted through being a part of that company and being trained in the my pleasure,

it's my pleasure to serve you, trained in friendliness and the impact that makes. So David, Taylor, Sarah, my wife, way to go on being friendly and training people in friendliness. And you may be like, well, Zach, I didn't have that, I didn't, should I go get a job at Chick-fil-A? Like, is that the point of this so I learn to say my pleasure? Or can I come over and can your wife like train me in being friendly? Maybe on both of those, I don't know. But what I do know, Book of Proverbs is for you. So this summer, take the Book of Proverbs, go on the reading plan with us and just take notes of everything that it says about what it looks like to be a good friend and let God train you. Secondly, in Life Group and on our volunteer teams, these are amazing environments. If you feel like, hey, I missed that section of life on training to be a friend, I need help in Life Group and on serving. You will learn and you will be trained and you will watch these awesome people and you can be like, oh, that's how you do that. Wow, I can do that. So I wanna plug, if you're not in a Life Group or you're not serving or you've become disconnected, we would love to help you get connected into that. Our Connect Center right after this service

would be a great place to go. We wanna help you walk in friendliness. Another skill that we see in being and how to make friends is a skill of bringing joy and refreshment. Look what Proverbs says. Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart and the pleasantness of a friend springs from their heartfelt advice. So a skill that we need is how do I become a person that brings pleasantness, that brings joy, that brings refreshment into my relationships? We get ready in the morning, we brush our teeth, we wash our face, we're trying to make ourselves where we're not bringing morning breath onto others. In a similar way, Proverbs is saying, hey, you need to do some preparation so that when you walk into relationships, what the impact of that is is pleasantness and joy. We need that on our minds. It's one of the skills that we need. We need a skill of reliability. Proverbs 18, 24. One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Think about that. We need to be reliable. Reliability in the area of friendship. The skill of graciousness. Whoever would foster love covers over an offense.

Whatever repeats the matter separates close friends. Another skill that we need, the skill of feedback. Better is an open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. So here it critiques hidden love and also critiques flattery. And it says there's a skill of giving feedback that would be wounds from a friend that can be trusted. Am I a person that's learned how to give feedback to people? It's a skill. Next skill, the skill of choosing friends wisely. Get this, Proverbs 12, 26. The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray. So when we talk about the skills that I need for friends, there are things that I need to know and I need to learn how to choose friends. That's what David and Bathsheba. are teaching Solomon. That's what God as our Heavenly Father wants to teach you and me. Now Solomon is listening, right? But if you know his story, he did not take these lessons and implement them with consistency. In fact, Solomon's biggest downfall is he gets off track in this area and he ends up suffering great harm because of it. So let's go back to our main verse,

Proverbs 13, 20, and move from, okay, I've got some skills on making friends, but now I need to be smart, I need to be careful about who I choose to be friends with. We wanna be friendly with everyone, but we wanna be careful about who we choose to be friends with. There's a difference between being friendly and who are you walking with, who are your companions. And the Word of God says here, he who walks with the wise becomes wise. The righteous are careful about choosing their friends. So if you were to look at your friends, would you describe your friends as wise? Or would you describe your friends as fools? Let's go through and look at a few scriptures because we don't just go off, well, I kinda think, I don't know, this guy's pretty smart. Let's go off the Word of God. Marks of a wise friend. So this is who you want to look for. These are people you want to intentionally walk with. Number one, they fear the Lord. Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. So when you think about your friends, those you're walking with,

are you walking with people who fear the Lord? Are we teaching and training our kids to look with their friends of not just, hey, who has the same interests? You know, who's fun to be around, but who fears the Lord? Solomon got off track, right? Because he met a girl. Oh, I like this girl. She's pretty. We have chemistry. The dating apps of long ago, they matched us up. We're compatible. David and Bathsheba, does she fear the Lord? Ah, you know, sometimes she comes to church, but we have chemistry. She's beautiful. I don't know, when I'm around her, I feel it, right? And he starts hitching his wagon to friends, to girlfriends, to wives that don't fear the Lord, and he ends up being led astray. Do your friends fear the Lord? Second, wise friends, listen to advice and embrace discipline, Proverbs 19, 20. Listen to advice and accept discipline. And at the end, you will be counted among the wise. When you think about the people that you are walking with, are those people that have embraced a disciplined life, that accept advice, that are getting counsel, that are getting wise counsel, or not?

Third, they're diligent in their work, Proverbs 6, 6. Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider its ways and be wise. Are your friends diligent? Is their speech, does their speech bring healing? And then this last one, the wise build their house and do not tear it down. Proverbs 14, one, the wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands, the foolish one tears her house down. When you look at their friends, are they building something? Are they tearing things down? Are they working with wisdom? Are they destroying things? It's much easier to tear things down and to destroy and to criticize than it is to build. You wanna find people and you wanna walk with those that are building, not tearing down. Those are some marks of wise friends. Let's cover a few on the foolish friends as well. These are contrasted. They don't fear the Lord, Proverbs 1, 7. They spurn correction and discipline. So wise accept advice and embrace discipline. Fools, it says they spurn correction and discipline. Proverbs 15, five, a fool spurns a parent's discipline, but whoever heeds correction shows prudence. This is awesome even with our kids. Are our kids making friends with others who mock or spurn their own parents' advice?

That's the mark of a foolish person. That's not who you wanna hitch your wagon to. Fools are lazy and sleep through opportunity. Were the wise or diligent like ants? It says the fools, how long will you lie there, you sluggard? Wow. When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. They're sleeping through opportunity. Were the wise, their speech brings. He's healing the fools, their speech stirs up strife. Where the wise build up, the fools tear down. Where the wives listen to others, fools are overconfident in their own judgment. Proverbs 12, 15. And get this in this last one, fools repeat their own mistakes. Proverbs 26, 11. As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly. So why are we going through this? Because the Lord cares for you. Because he who walks with the wise becomes wise, and the companion of fools suffers harm. There's skills that you and I need to be good friends, and there's also wisdom and discernment for us on who are we choosing to be friends with. Who are we training our children to be friends with?

How are we helping each other partner with wise and walk with the wise? We can be friendly with fools, but we're not wanting to be a companion of fools because the word of God, the testimony of Solomon is the companion of fools suffers harm. Now, if we stop there, this would be just good advice. Right? But this is more than good advice. This is good news. Because we read in the Proverbs that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. That's Jesus. And whether you have been a wise friend or as we're going through the marks of a fool, you're kind of like, uh, that kind of describes me. I want you to know that Jesus came for fools like you and me. Jesus died for fools like you and me. Jesus loves fools like you and me. Because of him dying on the cross and giving us his Holy Spirit, Jesus has power to transform fools into wise people. To take people who have suffered ruin by being companion of fools, and to say, I'm going to rewrite your story and I'm gonna put you on the path of wisdom to walk with the wise. This isn't just good advice. This is good news.

And so I wanna invite you to stand. And if we can get our prayer team to come forward. Couple things that we're gonna pray into today. If as we go through this, you realize that in the area of friendship, you've been a fool. I want you to know you can repent today and the throne of grace is open. And we'd love to pray about that. Today's an opportunity to humble yourself and let Jesus rewrite your story. And our prayer team will be available to pray.