Live Free with Josh Howerton - Keep Out of the Mud | Ep. 15 | Friday February 24, 2023

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

Surrounding yourself with people you can lean on when life gets hard makes the difficult moments significantly more bearable. In today’s episode, Pastor Mike urges you to consider the company you keep and talks through ways to make sure your community promotes good character. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Man, I hope you having a great day. My name is Mike Bro, and it's an honor to hang out with you just a few minutes every day.

We're just all trying to walk with God together and learn from each other and wherever you're at today, whether you're driving or whether you're going to school or whether you're working out or on a walk. However you're tuned in today, man, I can't believe you do it, first of all. I'm just grateful that you are. And we're just talking a few minutes every day about walking a new direction in 2023. And so far we just talked about how your direction determines your destination and your decisions determine your direction. And what you download determines your decisions. And who you walk with?

Yeah, it makes all the difference. We've been talking this week about how we were meant to do this life together. I mean, God just designed it that way. I got my list of top five movies. My top five movies. And these morphed a little bit. Well, number five would probably be a Toy Story 3. I love that movie.

I just love that movie. Probably number four would be the fugitive. I love that movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford. Number three would be its quirky, goofy movie. Princess Bride, love that one. It's just a dumb movie, but I love it. Number two, this probably wouldn't make your list, but I love this movie.

It's called What About Bob with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus, where this neurotic guy drives a psychiatrist crazy. It's just a funny movie to me. Well, my top movie of all time is Forrest Gump. I love that movie. It's one of the most best photographs, great soundtrack, storyline. I love that movie.

And when I think about friends, always think of that scene where Forrest and his buddy Bubba are in Vietnam together. And it's raining like crazy. See, it is a nasty, nasty night. There is mud everywhere. And Bubba says to Forest. Hey, Forrest.

He says, hey, Bubba. He said, let's put our backs together. I lean on you. You lean on me. That way, we don't have to sleep with our head in the mud. And the forest goes, okay. And when life gets cold, and it does, man. When the rain pours down, and it does.

When we are exposed to the elements and we are vulnerable, that's when we need a friend to lean up against. And when we're in an ICU waiting room, that's when we need to put our backs together with somebody. We're in a funeral home. We're walking into a custody hearing in a courtroom. When we're checking into or out of rehab, we're going through a breakup, we're going through chemo. When those cold winds blow, we're thinking, how in the world am I going to make it through this? I'm telling you, it's so much better when you have a friend walking with you.

So as you try to walk this new path, the ancient path we've been talking about, the one that leads to life, make sure you surround yourself with people that can pick you up and not pull you down. Our verse has been, Proverbs 1320 this week, whoever walks with the wise will become wise. Whoever walks with fools will suffer harm. You know, I heard somebody say one time that stupid rubs off. Actually, all kinds of stuff rubs off. Some of us have friends who can't finish a sentence without cussing, right?

Can profanity rub off? Absolutely. Others of us work with people who cut corners and put in the least amount of effort possible. Can laziness rub off? Absolutely. Some of us have friends who fill their mind with violent images and express their anger openly and often. Can anger rub off? Absolutely.

Some of us have friends who are cynical toward everything. They put their spouses down every chance they get. Can apathy rub off? Absolutely. Some of us have friends who are judgmental toward certain groups of people. They draw lines based on race or economics or political viewpoints. Can arrogance rub off? Absolutely.

Some of us have friends who drink way too much. They gamble way too much. Eat way too much. Spend to way too much. Listen to me. Stuff rubs off. Whoever walks with the wise will become wise. Whoever walks with fools will suffer harm.

God also tells us in 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 33, bad company corrupts good character. You've probably seen the old standing on a chair illustration where someone stands on a chair and you're on the ground, you ask them to pull you up, and they can't do that, but you can easily pull them down off the chair. I see and hear it all the time, especially in the dating world. Oh, I thought I could change him.

I thought I could pull him up. I thought I could change her. What the person is saying is, I thought I was stronger than I actually am. And instead of pulling the friend up, the friend pulled them down. Why? Because stuff rubs off. Because bad company corrupts good character,

because whoever walks with the wise will become wise. Whoever walks with fools will suffer harm. And since stuff rubs off, let me ask you this. Can joy rub off? Absolutely. Some of us have friends who are incredibly encouraging and kind with their words, Can a positive attitude rub off? Absolutely.

Some of us have friends who go to the gym and exercise three or four times a week. Can a healthy lifestyle rub off? Yep. Some of you have friends who live beyond themselves. They serve other people in need. They're always giving stuff the way. Can compassion rub off? Absolutely.

Now, none of this relieves you and me of our personal responsibility. Like, you don't get in shape through watching other people work out. You don't renew your mind by just watching other people download God's word into their life. But it sure helps to have friends who are trying to work. walk the same path as you are. Whoever walks with the wise will become wise stuff rubs off. When I look over the course of my life, my friendships have shaped the decisions that I've made. You know, scripture says that God, he sets the lonely in families.

He uses people to form people. What happens between you and another human being is never just like human-on-human interaction. It's the Holy Spirit at work in your life. You see, direction determines destination, decisions determine direction, what you download determines your decisions, and I'm telling you who you choose to hang with affects all of it. And we have an enemy who wants to get us off of this new path that we've chosen to walk this year. And one of his favorite strategies is to get us isolated. And one of the weapons he uses is shame because he knows how shame is a huge isolator.

And if he can get us to isolate ourselves, it's so much easier for him just to pick us off. Because in our shame, we start thinking, you know what, I am worthless, I'm such a screw-up, I could never show my face around there again. I might as well walk away from everyone who loves me. You know, my life is over. I will never recover from this. And in our isolation, we get thinking we're the only ones like this. That's the way many addicts think.

And then they finally show up at like an AA meeting and they discover people saying, oh yeah, me too. They find that most of us are like the rest of us and they discover real friendship based on common struggle and honesty and grace. I prayed with a bunch of humble and courageous people one weekend not long ago.

There's a bunch of students who were currently in a rehab facility. One guy was just seven days sober. Another girl was 12 days clean. Another young guy was two months sober. and I told them all that they needed to lean into God one step at a time and they need to keep finding great people to walk with. And they said to a person that they were leaning on each other in that group because all of them were after the exact same thing.

You see true friendship is just helping one another walk on the same path toward the same place. True friendships create these safe places to be heard, safe places to be honest and vulnerable. True friendships are safe places where you can shed, your fear and your shame, safe place to confess stuff. We all need people we can count on to respond with compassion to us. We need those people.

So let me ask you again, who you walking with this year? Your direction determines your destination. Your decisions determine your direction. What you download determines your decisions and who you walk with makes all the difference in the world. Let me pray with you today. God, thank you for setting so many of us on a brand new path. this year. And I pray especially today that you would lead us to good friendships, people in our life that could keep us on this path. Thank you, God, that we can walk this together. We can

lean on each other. We can put our backs against each other so we don't have to sleep with our head in the mud. And we can have a good friend in our life that keeps us walking toward you. God, I pray that whoever listening today that needs a friend would take a risk and start to reach out and find some wise people they could walk with. And I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Man, I hope you guys have a great day today. I'll be praying for you today. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. For more information, visit lakepoint.com. Church slash daily drive.