Sermon Prep Outline | Proverbs 17:12

Bears and Friends #60

Introduction:

Bears. They are not necessarily the friendliest bunch. They look cute, and cuddly at times, but the Winnie the Pooh’s are few and far between. Famous Bears - Believe it or not, there are some famous bears out there!

-Winnie The Pooh Paddington

-Baloo (Of all the…Bare Necessities)

-Yogi Bear

-Fozzy Bear

-Care Bears

-Smokey the Bear

-Corduroy

-Little Bear

-Berenstain Bears

Proverbs 17:12 - “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.”

We have a bear here, didn’t necessarily make the top 10, but still powerful. Honorable mention. Commentaries believe this is a Syrian Brown Bear. Back in Bible times, the Syrian Bear was often found in the hilly wooded parts of Palestine. They aren’t there anymore, last sighting was near Galilee just before WWII. These bears when standing on their two feet stand around 6.5 feet tall, which is on the smaller side of the brown bear family. They typically weigh around 500 lbs. So not the biggest, yet when encountered, you will most likely run rather than “Come here, let me pet you.”

Read Verse - “Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.”

A bear is already dangerous, a lot of times a brown bear won’t hurt you…unless it’s a momma bear, and her cubs have been taken. That’s what this verse describes. When you have, or are around someone who has taken a momma bear’s cubs…you are in grave danger! I mean, almost a death sentence,

There are about 40 bear attacks a year. Of those, 85% resulted in injury, almost 70% are defensive, meaning that its not just out of the blue, it is because they are defending their cubs. In other words, you don’t want anything to do with a bear in that scenario that Solomon is painting for us.

What Solomon describes next, that is FAR WORSE than a bear attack, is kind of shocking! He is telling his son, “Son, I’m telling you, you would MUCH rather face this bear, than have an association, confront, be around a fool in his foolish activities.” This danger is not ”being” a fool.

That’s bad, but where the danger lies, is when you associate or are even around a fool when a fool is engaged, is actively participating in his foolish activities/wrong doing.

Solomon is saying, you would rather come into contact with an angry bear, rather than come into contact with a fool who is being foolish. What this tells us and what I’ve said many times in this series is, be careful who you associate yourself with. You may not be a fool, but a fact of life is that you can be lumped in to a certain group of friends simply by being around them.

Being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

How many people have been arrested simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Solomon is not saying, don’t ever talk to a fool, or don’t ever try and influence them in the right way…the distinction here, is when the fool is doing something wrong. Is actively participating in something that should not be happening, the scene of the crime you should not have any association with them.

Another fact of life is, when you associate with a fool, either intentionally, or unintentionally, you are now judged that way. That is why Solomon is saying it’s so dangerous because it affects how you are viewed and affects your leadership/influence.

Is that fair to be judged that way? Not all the time, but that’s the way life is. Remember the story I told awhile back…

Illustration-I read a story a few months ago about 3 teenage friends who decided to go to this mans house and prank him by egging his house. So, they went together and in the middle of egging his house he came out and started to confront them. They all ran to their car and as they were pulling away, one girl pulled out a gun and shot the man 3 times killing him right there in the street. When the police found out who did it, even though one girl pulled the trigger, they were all charged with murder. This was the press release…

”Because they all plotted and planned together, and traveled to the location with the intent to commit a crime that ultimately led up to the murder together, they are all just as culpable as if they had each pulled the trigger themselves. They went to egg a house, the victim confronted them while they were doing it, he lost his life, and they drove off and left him in the middle of the road. Together they bought that ticket; now together they can ride that ride.”

Though this is an extreme example, it really brings home the point the Solomon is trying to make in this text. The associations and friends you have will have a major impact on how your are viewed, the kind of influence you have, and the kind of impact you have on other people.

Each one of you have so much potential. I dream for each one of you. I CAN’T WAIT to see what God does with each of you. To be all that God wants you to be, to have as much influence and effectiveness as a Christian, to be used by God as much as possible…this mindset, as “out there” as it may seem, plays such a large role in being used by God. To be everything God wants you to be, it takes the utmost care and caution. Just like when you come in contact with a bear you need to…

Be Aware Of Your Surroundings

You would do that for your physical life, why not your spiritual life? This applies to homeschoolers, public schoolers, private schoolers, christian schoolers, or no schoolers.

Am I sitting by someone during church that is going to cause me to appear like I am talking or not paying attention? I know that seems little but that happens…

Is where I am sitting appearing like I am a part of the foolishness? This happens quite a bit when you guys sit in the back of the sanctuary or you are sitting with friends not in the youth group. That is why I encourage you to sit with the youth or sit with your parents.

What God has for us every Sunday is WAY too important for you to be distracted by what your friend thinks is funny. Do you really want to rob the God of Heaven an opportunity to be worshipped by giggling during the singing? Do you really want to miss what the One who saved your soul from Hell is trying to say to during the preaching just because your friend is trying to talk to you? NO, its a big deal.

Is the group around me having a conversation that is foolish, even though I am not participating?

Is the friend I am riding with playing music that is foolish, even though you don’t want to listen to it?

Is the group I am with causing a scene? Loud and obnoxious.

Is the person/group that is playing something foolish on their phone making it appearing like you are participating?

Is the person I am talking with outside in the dark making it appear like something fishy is going on? I realize, when these things pop up, it’s hard!

I remember times when my parents would allow me to watch tv downstairs. There was a time or two I would flip channels. Of course, the one time my mom or dad walks it is the exact time a bad word is said and I get in big trouble… I realize that can happen. That’s why it’s so important to think about your surrounding and what could happen before going into that situation when a fool is being foolish. But that also means that you need to…

Know When To Flee

The moment to flee is the moment the foolishness starts. You linger you lose. Be like Joseph! Flee that moment! If there is a hint of inappropriate conversation happening, leave.

If there is a hint of something being watched or listened to that is not appropriate, leave…

If there is a hint of tearing down of authorities just leave…

Now, there is a time and a place to stand up for and do what is right and try and stop it, but as soon as it is clear that you aren’t doing any good then you need to leave and flee…

If there is any hint that there could be an accusation of inappropriate behavior with a person of the opposite gender or foolish behavior with others, then you need to remove yourself from the situation…

This helps in so many areas, as soon as the Holy Spirit pricks your heart and says “there is a temptation coming” or “maybe you shouldn’t say that” “,maybe you shouldn’t go with them” then LISTEN and FLEE! If Joseph had lingered with Potiphar’s wife he would’ve lost and he would not be the man that we all look up to and learn from today!

You know, you don’t have to be physical friends, physically with someone to associate with a fool or a group of fools.

You can follow someone on social media that is sketchy or borderline inappropriate and be lumped in with them… YouTube accounts and shorts

Talking about a celebrity, musician or figure who you look up to or like. If you’re talking about them then it is probably going to be assumed that you support them and like all their stuff…

You don’t have to be guilty, just accused.

In today’s culture…simply being associated with a fool can become a major problem! There are people in jail today because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time just like we talked about before… Even now, if you begin to place yourself around fools, at some point, the foolishness will begin, and you get caught. Your name is brought up, and you weren’t even participating in the foolish activity, you were just simply around it.

That has happened over and over and over again in our youth group. More than you know. A group of people were hanging out, some things happened that shouldn’t have, and names and teens are involved in a situation that they never had to be involved in! You would save yourself so some hard meeting and lessons if you decide from the beginning…I’m not going to even place myself in that position.

Sometimes, you are around a fool and their foolishness so much that it numbs you to the foolishness, don’t allow the numbness to take place/set in.

What that means is that you can become desensitized to it, that you don’t even realize how bad things have gotten. Being around a fool and his foolishness will cause you to participate in things you used to be appalled at! “I would never do that!” Or “I would never be around in that situation!”

But, you’ve slowly allowed yourself to hang around a group of people that participate in foolishness, and now, you’ve become part of the group! What started as an association, has now become a joint effort. Being around a fool and is folly makes it so much easier for you to be pulled into his foolishness! Don’t believe the lie of - “I don’t care what other people think, so it really doesn’t matter who I hang around with…”

When you believe that lie, you begin to lose all influence and effectiveness. You can do that, you can say that, but you lose the ability to lead people and have influence. There’s a balance to that, you should care what the right people think about you, not the wrong. You have both in your life.

Right - Parents, Pastor, Youth Pastor, Mentors

Wrong - Friends and even frienimies Find the balance!

When figuring out how much to associate yourself, ask: Do I want eternal influence or earthly influence?

Do I want my leadership to make a difference in eternity? Or do I want leadership that never has eternal significance.

Where do I want to be in 5, 10, 15 years? If you look at your friends and the things you are doing, the spirituality of your friends, the work ethic of your friends, the humility of your friends, that is where you will be in 5, 10, 15 years if you do not disassociate yourself and start making the right friends. Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future…

Leadership, effectiveness and a growing walk with the Lord is out there for the taking, but only you decide how far that goes when deciding who your friends and associations will be.