Isolation Kills Wisdom | I Declare

How many of you desperately need wisdom in some area of your life? Anybody want to raise a hand on that? Okay, I'm going to ask you another question. How many of you today desperately need good friends who know and love the Lord in your life? Anybody need that as well? Guess what? That was the same question. Okay, I'm going to say them again, but it's the same question. How many of you need wisdom in your life desperately? Yeah, we all need that. How many of you need desperately good friends who know and love the Lord in your life? It's the same thing. When you have that, you have wisdom. Some of the wisest decisions I've ever made in my life were with godly good friends. I'll give you a couple examples. The launch of this church. It was made with friends. That decision was made and that was decision was executed with great friends all the way back in 2004. The hiring of all of our staff. I don't handpick who that's going to be. We do that in a process and with friends and we kind of literally like if you ever want to work here, we're going to take you out to dinner and at the end of the day, it's just going to be a thumbs up or a thumbs down. We're going to know one way or the other. We're going to be in a friendship level and we're going to know how that's going to work out. The decision to launch more campuses, more churches has always been made with friends in mind. The decision that I made to give up my role as kind of the key leader, but like just hey, we're going to turn this over to the campus pastors. That was made with friends. Godly, good people who spoke into my life and helped me to make that good decision. Now, the flip side is also true.

Some of the worst decisions that I've ever made in my life have come in the company of really dumb friends. Is that okay to say? Like really bad? They really weren't friends. They were good people, maybe a lot of fun, but man, we made some dumb decisions, right? When I was in junior high and we would steal candy at the local gas station across from the junior high. That was made with friends. It was like, let's do it. And then we figured out there's a mirror at the end of the aisle and they can see what you're doing. And so we decided we shouldn't do that anymore. It's winter time as we're taping this. One of the worst decisions ever made, I shouldn't say worse, it just was traumatic, was we got off the bus and we'd all plan like as soon as we get off the bus, we're going to get off real quick and we're going to make a snowball. We're going to throw it at our bus driver because we didn't like the bus driver. Well, in the old days, the bus driver would always leave the window open and I threw it and somehow miraculously it went right through and hit the guy right in the head. And it was bad. OK, it was bad. It hurt him. He was mad. My parents were mad. Bad decision. Speaking of my parents, they watch this. So that's all the stories I'm going to tell. OK, there's a lot more than I did with friends that were not good, but I don't want them to know about those things. OK, finding wisdom is really finding great friends. That's all it is. People that know and love God. And so our declaration for today, we're going to say it together on the screen. Here we go. One, two, three. This year, with God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit, I declare I will seek wisdom. I'm not sure who originally said this, but whoever did, I want to give him the credit. They said, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. You ever heard that one? That's a good one. A guy by the name of Jim Rome, who's a major author and leader, said, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So just take a quick look. You know who you spend time with?

That's what you're going to be the average of, according to him. God's word says it this way in Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20. If you have your Bibles, let's all get to our scriptures here. Proverbs chapter 13. We're going to spend a lot of time in the book of Proverbs today. I want you to go to Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20. I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. It says this, walk with the wise and become wise. It's pretty good. Associate with fools and get in trouble. That's a pretty good illustration, isn't it? Right? Walk with the wise. You're going to become wise, associate with fools, get in trouble. Same verse, Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20 from the Message Translation. A paraphrase says this, become wise by walking with the wise. Hang out with fools and watch your life fall to pieces. Pretty clear, pretty clear. This verse is written by the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon. King Solomon was David's son. David's like, you're going to be the next king. And King Solomon's like, that's pretty big shoes to fill. I can't do it. And he was scared. And so God said, grant, just make a wish and I'll grant it to you. He could ask for money. He could ask for all kinds of different things. You know what he asked for? Wisdom. And it was the greatest. He became the wisest man who's ever lived. And he's got all kinds of things in the Scriptures that's just packed in there to help us to learn about wisdom. So we're going to look at three principles today as it comes to wisdom and seeking that.

The number one principle is we got to walk with the wise. We got to be around other people who are wise. God never intended for you to live in isolation. Why don't you say that again? God did not create us. us to live in isolation. He created us and He intended for us to be around people who are wise. In Genesis 2, verse 18, you don't have to go there, I'm just going to read it real quick. Then the Lord said, it is not good for the man to be alone. And every woman has said, yes, that is completely true. Like they just get in all kinds of messes and all the men would say, yeah, that's probably correct, right? But that's the rallying cry of our culture today. Do you know that we're currently living in the most isolated, lonely generation in human history? And it's not because we have to be, it's because a lot of us choose to be. We just choose to do that. I recently read in the World Health Organization that they declared for the first time, loneliness is the global health threat. Isn't that crazy? Loneliness. In fact, the U.S. Surgeon General was quoted as saying that the impact of loneliness on our emotional health is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day towards your physical health. And it's crazy, right? You can argue the epidemic of our day is not disease. It's not the moral breakdown of our society, although it's directly relates to it. It's not obesity, it's not even drugs. The epidemic of our day is isolation and loneliness. Proverbs chapter 18. You were just in Proverbs 13. Just go over just a few pages or on your screen, just a couple of chapters. The Bible says, this is from the New King James Version. It says, a man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. He rages against all wise judgment. Sometimes the scripture is so good, we got to read it again. Just let that sink in for a little bit, would you please? A man or a woman who isolates himself seeks his own desire. I don't want to have anybody tell me what to do. He rages against all wise judgment. I don't want anybody to tell me. I don't want any impact from anybody else. And so we choose isolation. We choose loneliness. One of my favorite, it is my favorite comedian is a guy named Nate Bargatze. I've never been able to say his name right. You ever heard this guy? He's really, really good. He has this one bit where he talks about, you know, when he's young, he said, I miss being young because you're in your 20s and life is awesome. And your friends call and they say, do you want to go? And you're

like, I'll go. It doesn't matter where we don't ask where we're going or what we're doing. You're just like that. That sounds like a lot of fun. Then you get in your 30s and they ask the questions, do you want to go? And you're like, well, where are we going? We kind of need it. We kind of need to know some things. How late is it going to be? Is it loud? What's the parking situation going to look like? Right? We think about those things. We get into our 40s and people say, do you want to go? And you're like, I'm going to drive separate, right? I'm not even going to go with you. I'll just drive so I can control the situation. And then you get in your 50s and they're like, you want to go? And what do we say? I'm not going, right? I'm not going. I'm just not going to go. It's almost like we want more isolation. And when we say we are not going to go or we're not going to be around people, it's as if we're saying we don't want advice. We don't want wisdom. We don't want to deal with something that's hard. We'd rather just pick up a book. A book will solve it. Let's just read the book. Or in our world today, let's ask, chat, GPT. They'll solve it for us, right? Let's go to AI or let's go to YouTube or let's just figure it out ourselves. What I've observed about myself is simply this. It's often pride that keeps me isolated. Instead of like being around other people, I just have too much pride that I don't want to be vulnerable and say, gosh, I'm really struggling with this. I want to be self-sufficient. And I miss the gift of community that God has designed for me that brings wisdom. Proverbs chapter 15. You're in chapter 18. Go backwards a couple pages or a couple chapters on your digital scripture. Proverbs chapter 15, verse 22 says this, plans go wrong for lack of advice. Many advisors bring, what's the last word? Success. Isn't that great? It's great scripture. Plans go wrong for lack of advice, but many advisors bring success. When I look back on my life, the times I've grown the most and made the best decisions have always been in the context of great community, wise, godly people. When the church began, I had no experience, literally no experience. And I knew it and everybody knew it and it showed. And I thought, I got to find people that are already doing this, that are 10 or so steps ahead of us. And so I went to local pastors. They actually in Naperville, they're wonderful men. Dave and John Ferguson, they're brothers. We are not related. But I said, hey, we got the same namesake here. I need help. Can I just like, be in the room with you guys for a day, a week. I won't say anything, I won't mess anything up.

And they were so gracious and they said, absolutely, come on Tuesdays. That's when we do a lot of our plannings and a lot of our meetings, be a fly on the wall. And I was happy to do that. You know what was so great about those guys? Is on the very first time I was there, they're like, what do you think? I was like, I thought I wasn't supposed to say anything. I'm like, no, you're part of us and we're gonna include you in this. Proverbs chapter 12, verse 15, we're all over. So go backwards, you're in Proverbs 18, now go to Proverbs chapter 12, verse 15. The Bible says, fools think their own way is right. Let me say that again. Fools think their own way is right, but the wise, say the last three words, but the wise listen to others. Isn't that great? Isn't that great? Which begs the question, what's wise? Is it somebody who's just older? Probably. Is it somebody that's got more education than you? Potentially. Is it somebody that's got more money than you? Maybe. Do you know who's really wise? You can count every single time.

God, the Bible. So here's our number two principle for today. You ready? Wise people are godly people. Wise people are godly people. Just let that sink in for a minute. Wise people are godly people. It's someone who doesn't just know about Jesus, but they're actually walking with Jesus every day. Isn't that great? Are they intelligent? Sure, maybe. Are they smart? Sure, maybe. Are they wise? That's the key. Do they know the Lord and are they living out God's plan for their life? Doesn't mean they need to be perfect, it just means they're doing their best and they're working through that. Godly people have two traits. They know God's word and they live it out. That's what a wise person is. And you probably don't have to think too far into your psyche to figure out, I know who that is. I know who that is in my life. And I probably should spend more time with that person. That's how you know if someone is wise.

They know God's word and they live it out. There's a difference between knowledge, knowledge is good, wisdom is better. Knowledge is information, wisdom is application. Knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit. Did you know that? I did not know that. Somebody, I was like, you gotta be kidding me, that can't be right. They're like, no, it's a fruit, it really is. Okay, so here we go. It's a great setup, ready? Knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting that in a fruit salad, okay? So don't do that, okay? Don't do that. Values are caught more often than taught. So it's when you're around the right people, you start to figure things out. I'll give credit. I think Craig Groeschel, who was a great leader, said this, maybe somebody else said it. I certainly did not, I just stole it, it's simply this. It's almost impossible to live the right life with the wrong friends. Let's just let that one sink in for a minute. It's almost impossible, it probably is impossible, to live the right life with the wrong friends. So some who are watching today are parents, and you've got these kids,

and I wanna talk to you just about this idea for a minute. I think one of the hardest but wisest things you can do right now as an adult parent is do an audit of your kids' friends. Just look at their friends and kind of be like, good, good, good, bad, bad, and good, right? I mean, we can just do it. I mean, I don't mean that in an insensitive way, but that's what we did when our kids were in junior high and high school. And we'd literally just be like, yes, yes, mm, yes, no, yes, maybe we'll have to have a conversation. But here's what our kids knew. If it was a yes, they knew that they can invite any of those friends over at any time, and they would be fed, and they could stay up later than what they would normally get to do, and that we would make sure that that relationship was very strong. But if it was someone that was on the naughty list or the not-so-great list, we would say, let's think about it. Maybe there's an opportunity where we can connect and we can help them to figure it out. My oldest son, this is crazy, he invited 50 people to our house after homecoming, and they all showed up, which was crazy, and we have a pool and a hot tub, and they were all in both of those things, and our neighbors were like, what are you doing?

And I had actually told them in advance, I said, look, we just want them to have a place to go. And there were some other kids that heard about this party that was happening. happening at the pastor's house. And they started to come in with things that we weren't approving of, and the good kids kicked them out. And they said, look, we're just having fun. It's gonna be clean. And if you don't like it, that's okay. And so it just went on to the next group. The Bible says this very clearly in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, 33. You don't have to go there because it's only five words. Are you ready? Bad company corrupts good character. Let me say that again. Bad company corrupts good character. Look at the language. It actually corrupts good character. That's happening to some of your children right before your eyes. You can see it. You know it's happening. What are you gonna do about it? That's your job as a parent, to have that conversation. You can say, well, they don't know any better. It's because they haven't seen anyone live it out. Well, then that's on you.

You need to live it out and you need to help them. By the way, I'm talking to parents. Can I talk to adults for a minute? The same thing applies. You should do a friendship audit real quick and just think about like, who are my best friends? If I wanna seek wisdom, I need to speak godly people. You need to be around people who know and love the Lord. And they're letting God taking control of their life. Because that's where it's all about. Years ago, and it's wonderful friends, this wonderful man, this wonderful woman, and they came to visit our church separately because they were separated in their marriage. And somebody invited the lady, great gal, a different person had a different circle and they invited the gentlemen and they came and they're like, okay, we're showing up together at church and we're separated and we don't like each other and da, da, da. Well, here's what happened. God started to get a hold of their hearts and they started to change, literally. You could just see them change. And I got to be involved in getting to get to know them. Long story short, I got to remarry them. Legally, it was like, we got a divorce. I didn't mention that. They were actually fully separated and divorced. They actually got married back together.

I remember like having these conversations. I was like, what happened? What was going on? And they said, well, in the neighborhood that we lived in, everyone would come home from work and all the women gathered in one particular house and all the men gathered in this guy's garage and all the guys would complain about how much they hated their wives and all the women would complain about how much they hated their husbands. And they all got divorced. And then, fully separated, divorced, living in two different environments, they come to find the Lord. This bad company corrupts good character. Then, because the opposite's true. Good company promotes good character. They find the Lord and God changes them. And I'm happy to tell you, they're still married today. And they're just doing great. Here's the third principle, number three. Life begins to fall apart the moment I pull away from godly community. Life begins to fall apart the moment, literally, the moment I pull away from godly community. If you could just look into my heart and you could say like, what is Nate's biggest goal in life? It's to get people connected with other people who are godly.

Because I know that when that happens, lives change. We wanna connect you to the Lord, of course, but we wanna connect you to his people. That's the main thing. Every person has godly community all around them. If that's the case here at the village or in any church anywhere, oh, life change happens. So godly community does not happen in rows, right? Notice we're sitting in a circle, right? Because we're having a conversation and we're learning from each other. A lot of times when you go to a church, it's not a circle, is it? It's rows. And that's good. I'm not saying it's bad. That's the way we do it. You can pack more people in with a row. But you know where the greatest life change happens? Circles. We're just sitting around a living room. We're sitting around a dining room table and we're looking at what the scripture has to say. We call that a life group where we do life together. And I'm asking you to declare in this particular year that you'll find godly community. What would it look like if you said, look, I'm gonna be a part of a life group? And you're like, I don't know how to do one of those things. That's okay.

You just email Nate at the Village Christian Church or Kaylee at the Village Christian Church or somebody. Talk to your community pastor. If you're online, just let us know. We will help to get you connected. One of the things that we do is these groups that meet just for a short period of times, one is called Re-Engage. And we're launching that here in this calendar year. It's where we take 12, 14 weeks and we just focus on our marriage. And wouldn't it be great to focus on marriage with other godly people? in the room, that's what that's all about. Another 10 week thing that we do is called Rooted and there's signups for Rooted that you can be a part of and that's happening at different ones of our campuses but that's just again, just godly wisdom in circles rather than rows. Now here's some of the pushback I can already hear from some of you. I have friends. Do you have the right friends? I'll just say that one again. I have friends, I don't need these godly people in my life. Maybe you should consider that, honestly. When your marriage is failing, it's not fun. It's not fun. When your kids are rebelling, it's not fun. When your finances are hurting, it's not fun.

When big decisions are ahead of you and you don't know what to do, it's not fun. But when you have godly people around you, it's still not fun, right? But it does get a little better and there does seem to be some opportunity and light at the end of the tunnel. Of the 21 years that this church has been in existence, Rochelle and I were talking about this last night, my wife. I think of that time, we've been involved in some kind of a life group or some sort of a circle for 20 of those 21 years. We had a couple of times where death in the family just kind of wiped us out pretty bad and we just needed to heal. And that's okay, that's okay to take a season and do that. But for the most part, 20 out of 21, I think that's very, very, very important. And a lot of people are like, I'm busy. I get it, I get it, I'm busy, too. I'm introverted, I get it. I'm a little introverted myself. I'm a little introverted. I'm a little introverted myself. I got my kids in too many sports. Well, you can solve that. Just take them out of the sports, okay? Or find the time in another area. I think for a lot of people, it's like, it's just a fear of the unknown.

Never done this before. It's like, what's this gonna be like? Is like, we're gonna cross our arms and sing Kumbaya and it's a vulnerable kind of a thing. Well, what if it wasn't? What if it was just, I'm gonna seek wisdom, which means I'm gonna seek to have godly people in my life. I just wanna ask you to just think right now, like, who's that one person in your heart that God's putting there that's like, I need to spend more time with them? Who are those two people that you're thinking, I probably should spend more time with? If you're married, I like their marriage. I wanna be around them a little bit more. I like how they interact with each other. I like how they've raised their kids. It doesn't have to be a whole program. It just has to be who is it and how can you spend some time with them? So we're gonna make that declaration. Are you ready? We got a little opportunities here to say this. We're gonna say it all together. Here we go. This year with God's help and the power of the Holy Spirit, I declare, I will seek wisdom. Thanks for being with us today. We've got a little QR code that you can scan. And in that, you'll have an opportunity

to receive prayer, communion, worship, talk to a pastor, connect in a Bible study, be baptized, whatever it is that you would need. We'd love to be able to serve you. We look forward to meeting you there.