Peer Pressure Ambush
Words for Wisdom, S1 • Sermon • Submitted
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· 18 viewsFight against greed and those who invite you to it.
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What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever let your friends talk you into?
What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever let your friends talk you into?
My friends never really had to talk me into it. If I didn’t want to do something, I usually wasn’t going to do it. If I wanted to, then I would. There was one time when I was in 8th grade and was staying the night with my friend who was in 9th grade. We went with his sister, who was a senior, and her boyfriend who was like 19 or 20 to go roll a house. It was a girl his sister didn’t like. We bought like 50 rolls of toilet paper. I said it was too much. Too bold. But they all wanted to use it all at one house. Once we got about 20 minutes in to the job, we see head lights on the road. We run for the bushes. Then we see a spotlight come on on the car. It was a cop. We were next to the neighbors fence hiding in the bushes. This guy who was too old to be hanging out with kids still in school stands up and says, “Jump the fence!” He hops over one part and runs. My friend is a little slow, so I hop over another part and wait for him. He never makes it. I wait for a few minutes and hop back over and go help them clean up. That was the first and last time my parents ever received a phone call from the police in the middle of the night.
The passage we’re looking at tonight is telling young people to listen to their parents rather than the dumb things people may try to talk them into, specifically into killing and robbing someone. But I think that may be the writer came up with to make the point.
PRAY & go through text.
Fight against greed and violence and those who pressure you to satisfy it.
Fight against greed and violence and those who pressure you to satisfy it.
Recognize where greed and violence lead.
Recognize where greed and violence lead.
If you satisfy your greed (and we all have greed… I wanted to eat all the leftover CFA cookies this weekend) it will most likely end up hurting you. Especially if you go to the extent that Solomon talks about in this passage!
Maybe not immediately, but eventually.
When you give in to greed it will usually take you to a bad place, whether that being too stuffed on cookies or somewhere worse. These people let their greed get the best of them...
Dumb robbers video
Those people may have let their stupidity get the best of them more than their greed. Really though, think about all the people you hear about on the news who end up dead or in jail because they were trying to make quick money. Think about your friends who get greedy on a text and get caught cheating. Or who love fighting, they won’t win every fight.
We need to be wise enough to see where this stuff leads us to. Verses 17-18 talk about how even birds are wise enough to stay away from a trap in front of them. But people know what happens to those who choose to do these kinds of things, and other sins, even though they see the end.
I’ve seen it in my life, people I know and care about who have chosen sin and it has ruined their life. Then someone who has watched it happen chooses it just the same. Be wiser!
Greed can destroy you.
But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
Greed can destroy your relationships.
What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from the cravings that are at war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You do not have because you do not ask.
We need to recognize greed, we need to recognize the desire for unjust gain in our lives, and ask God to remove those desires from our hearts. Instead, you should be satisfied and grateful for what God has given to you! He has given all that you need! Need is a key word there!
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
“all these things” is referring to your human needs. Not a sweet car and phone and closet.
We need to be satisfied and content in what God has provided for us. Greed will only lead to more greed. We should run from it. And we should run from those who make us feel pressure to give in to it, or into any other sin for that matter!
Flee from those who pressure you to sin.
Flee from those who pressure you to sin.
If there are people who invite you or encourage you to sin, those are not people you want to spend a lot of your time with!
Halos or Cuties commercials. Whichever the ones where they kids try to get other kids to do stupid stuff.
Solomon says don’t go down that road with people who would have you doing dumb stuff! Don’t ever start. When you start, it gets harder and harder to stop.
We went to Illinois a few weeks ago and when we left to come home I missed our first exit on the highway. There wasn’t a place to turn around or another exit for like seven miles! By that time I just had to take another way.
When you’re on the freeway in the city, there’s lots of exits and turn arounds, but when you start getting away from the city, the opportunities get fewer and farther between.
It’s like that when you let people pull you into sin. It’ll be easier to get away the first few times, but it’s harder and harder to turn around as time goes on. So it’s best to never even start down that road.
There will be people who try to talk you into doing things you shouldn’t. At least I hope they have to talk you into it.
To do different things…
Like it says in verse 11, they’ll tell you it’ll be fun. Honestly, it probably will be...
Heard someone say recently that if sin isn’t fun then you’re doing it wrong. Our world tells us to live for that moment of fun, but what if it’s wrong?
What if there is something better than that moment, more lasting than a few fleeting minutes of rush or good feelings.
There is! That’s what God is offering to us in a life lived for Him! Lasting joy and peace and contentment!
If you believe that a moment of feeling good in sin is worth it, then you don’t fully and truly trust God. It’s as simple as that…
So when people try to draw you into sin, turn the other way and flee! Don’t be a fool!
But hey, I know it’s really difficult to tell some people no when they invite you to do something…
If you think you’re going to hang out with that group who is always doing things they shouldn’t and you’re going to turn them around, it’s so much more likely that a group will influence you to do something before you will them.
It’s so much more likely that a group will influence you to do something you
There’s a good heart in that, but you have to keep yourself out of a situation where you will be drug into sin.
Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
The Bible says instead that we need to be around those who would encourage us to pursue Christ and do good things.
And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our worship meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
The reason we have got to stay away from sin is because like Solomon says here in proverbs and the rest of Scripture tells us, sin leads to death. Not always immediately, but always ultimately, it leads to death. And we have all given into that pressure from others at times. Believed the lie that the moment of pleasure is worth it.
But Jesus never did. In our place, He never did. So we can be saved from the result of our sins…