Wisdom for Peer Pressure

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

I read this week about a reporter that was interviewing a 104 year old woman. He asked her, “What is the best thing about being 104 years old?” She answered, “No peer pressure”. I suppose that is probably the best way to avoid peer pressure, isn’t it? Just outlive all your peers.

Tension

But for the rest of us who aren’t quite there yet, peer pressure is something we all have to deal with. That is true if you’re in elementary school, or junior high, or high school, or college or even an adult. As a student, you might face peer pressure to dress a certain way, or to cheat on a test, or to drink alcohol under the bleachers at a football game. As an adult, you might face peer pressure to cut corners in your job or to do something immoral or unethical in order to make some more money.

But that is really nothing new. When Solomon wrote the book of Proverbs nearly 3,000 years ago, it appears that peer pressure was a problem then, too, because it is one of the first things he is going to address in this book.

Truth

Last week we looked at the first seven verses of the book of Proverbs which ended with the verse that is essentially the theme verse for the entire book. We learned that there are two ways we can live our lives. We can live wisely by recognizing that God is God and I am not and follow His purposes, plans and ways, or we can be fools by living as if we are our own gods.

Today, we’ll pick up in verse 8 of chapter 1. That verse begins a long prologue to the book that will extend all the way to the end of chapter 9. That prologue consists of 12 separate poems that set the stage for the part of the Proverbs that most of us are familiar with - the pithy sayings about how to live wisely. This morning we’ll cover the first of those poems, which picks up where we left off this week and extends all the way to verse 19:

Proverbs 1:8–19 ESV

8 Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, 9 for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck. 10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. 11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason; 12 like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit; 13 we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder; 14 throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse”— 15 my son, do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths, 16 for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. 17 For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, 18 but these men lie in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives. 19 Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.

This section begins with the first of 22 appeals that Solomon will make to his son in the book of Proverbs. Likely the recipient of Solomon’s teaching was his son Rehoboam, but if that is the case, this wise instruction unfortunately fell on deaf ears based on what we know about him from the Bible. Let’s not let that happen in our lives.

Before we start digging into this passage, it’s important to note that not all peer pressure is negative. Often peer pressure can actually be a good thing when it encourages us to live according to God’s plan for our lives. In fact, I would go so far as to say that one of the important benefits of the church is that it should be a place where we can find that kind of positive peer pressure.

But as you’ve probably already figured out, the passage we’re looking at this morning deals with negative peer pressure. And here is the big idea we’re going to develop today:

I overcome peer pressure by living to please God instead of living to please people.

But how exactly do I do that? This passage provides us with some very practical advice and I’m going to break that down into two main sections:

First, I want to talk about how to figure out when someone is “pulling my strings”.

Then I want to discuss how we are to respond to that peer pressure in a way that will help us live to please God rather than to please people.

So as long as you’re under 104 - and I’m pretty sure that is all of you - this message is relevant for your life.

HOW TO FIGURE OUT WHEN SOMEONE IS “PULLING MY STRINGS”

Have you ever watched someone control a puppet? They do that by pulling on the strings attached to the puppet. Do you ever feel like others are trying to control you like that - like they are pulling your strings? Sometimes that can be a good thing. Like we talked about last week, when we’re young, we need our parents to do that in order to protect us. As I said earlier, some kinds of peer pressure are good for us. But sometimes people are pulling our strings in a way that is going to harm us. And we don’t always see that.

There are three words that all begin with the letter “H” that will help us to identify when someone is pulling our strings like that. You probably already know these intuitively but it won’t hurt for us to talk about them for a few minutes.

Hide

We see this primarily in verse 11:

Proverbs 1:11 ESV

11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason;

Most of the time peer pressure lures us into hiding. Notice here that the sinners who are trying to entice others are lying in wait. They are ready to ambush others. In other words, they are not doing this out in the open, but they are hiding their actions from others.

Negative peer pressure will almost always ask you to hide something from others. Kids, you will be asked to hide things from your parents or your teachers. In your job, a co-worker might ask you to hide something from the boss or your boss might ask you to deceive a customer. Or it might be a friend who shares a juicy tidbit of gossip and asks you not to tell anyone where you heard it.

In the New Testament we frequently see the contrast between dark and light. And one of the functions of light is to expose sin:

Ephesians 5:13 ESV

13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible,

So whenever anyone asks us to hide something they are essentially asking us to choose darkness over light. And that not only harms us, it impacts our relationship with God and with others, too.

Hurt

In verse 11, as well as throughout the rest of the passage, we see that those who are exerting the negative peer pressure are intending on hurting others - even to the point of killing them.

So when I’m pressured to go along with what someone else wants to do, I need to ask, “Is someone going to get hurt if I do this?” Here in Proverbs the hurt is pretty obvious because it involves physical harm. And sometimes we might be asked to do something like that. But more likely we’re going to be urged to harm someone in a much more subtle way - maybe to damage their reputation by spreading gossip or to hurt someone emotionally by going along with others as they make fun of a classmate. It might be doing financial harm to someone by swindling them out of their money with a pyramid scheme. Or it could be exploiting someone else for our own pleasure.

Have

We see this idea primarily in verse 13:

Proverbs 1:13 ESV

13 we shall find all precious goods, we shall fill our houses with plunder;

The sinner is enticing others to join in as they take from others what does not belong to them. They are asking others to be part of their efforts to plunder others rather than rely on the fruits of their own labor.

Again this is an obvious example. I think we all know that it is wrong to steal from others. But there are a lot of other ways we can take that which does not belong to us. Cheating on a test means that we might get a grade we didn’t work for or don’t deserve. Cheating on our income taxes is essentially stealing money that belongs to our government. Any kind of get rich quick scheme, including the lottery and other forms of gambling, promise to give us something we didn’t earn. Even sex outside the commitment of marriage is essentially taking something from others that we don’t have a right to.

So the next time someone tries to pressure you into going along with something they are planning to do, you need to ask:

Will this require me to hide something?

Will this harm someone?

Will this allow me to have something that I’m not entitled to?

And if the answer to any of those questions is “yes”, then you can be sure that someone is trying to pull your strings - and not in a beneficial way. When that happens, how am I to respond?

Application

HOW TO RESPOND TO NEGATIVE PEER PRESSURE

The basic principle is found in the command in verse 10:

Proverbs 1:10 ESV

10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

That seems pretty obvious. But what are some practical things that I can do that will help me to not give in to those who try to pressure me into doing things that I shouldn’t do? There are four other commands in this passage that give us that practical guidance. The first two are things we need to do well before anyone ever attempts to pull our strings. And the last two are the actions we should take once that occurs.

Know God’s heart

Last week we defined wisdom as “God-enabled skill for living”. So that means that long before these temptations come along, we need to be actively seeking to know God’s heart and His principles for living. That is what Solomon is teaching his son to do in verse 8:

…Hear…your father’s instruction...

It is the father’s instruction, but the source of that instruction is the wisdom that Solomon has received from God. And Solomon exhorts his son to “hear” that instruction. The Hebrew verb used there means to listen carefully with the intent of obeying what one hears. In fact, this same verb is frequently translated “obey” throughout the Old Testament.

Obviously we primarily hear God like that in His Word. But is is also helpful to listen carefully to others as they teach the Bible and to gather with others to study God’s Word. All of those are invaluable ways to better understand God’s heart and His standards for our lives.

Decide ahead of time to please God

Far too many people who call themselves Christians seem to have the mindset of “I’ll wait to see what God wants me to do and then I’ll decide if I want to follow that”. That is essentially doing what we talked about last week and being a fool by being our own god. We even see churches here in our country who have taken that approach and who have decided to go along with the culture rather than follow the clear teaching of Scripture. Solomon warns against that in the second half of verse 8:

…forsake not your mother’s teaching...

Obviously, once again the mother’s teaching is not her own wisdom, but rather God’s wisdom. In fact the Hebrew word translated “teaching” there is “torah”, the name given to the first five books of the Bible. The verb “forsake not” conveys the idea of not leaving that teaching behind. In a sense, hearing is what children are to do in the home and forsaking not is what they are to do whenever they leave the home. Not forsaking what we know about God means that we remember it and act accordingly when no one other than God can see us.

This idea extends beyond just parents teaching their children. It applies to all of us in the sense that we need to make a commitment to God to obey Him, no matter whether we like His commands or not and regardless of the consequences.

One of the best examples we see of this in the Bible is in Acts 5. Peter and some of the apostles are arrested for preaching the gospel. An angel frees them from prison and they immediately go to the temple and began to preach again. They are confronted by the Jewish religious leaders who remind them that they had been instructed to not teach about Jesus. In verse 29, we read their response:

Acts 5:29 ESV

29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.

Obviously Peter and the others were empowered and emboldened by the Holy Spirit. But I’m also convinced that the reason they stood firm is that even before they started preaching, they had made a commitment to do what God had called them to do regardless of the circumstances.

I need to take these first two steps long before I’m ever faced with peer pressure. The last two steps are the actions I need to take once I come face-to-face with that kind of negative peer pressure. Those actions are based on the two commands found in verse 15:

Find some new friends

Here is the first command:

…do not walk in the way with them...

There is certainly a fine line to walk here. The Bible is clear that we’re not to isolate ourselves from the unbelieving world. But when we’re confronted with negative peer pressure, it’s almost always a good idea to walk away from the people who are applying the pressure - at least for a while.

We see a similar idea at the beginning of the Psalms:

Psalm 1:1–2 ESV

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

If we want to be blessed then we can’t keep company with evil, wicked people. If we don’t separate ourselves from them, they are going to eventually become a barrier that will prevent us from delighting in God and His Word.

Kids, sometimes you’re going to have to decide to hang out with a different group of friends who won’t make fun of other students. In your job, you might have to find another job, or at least transfer to another position under another boss who won’t ask you to do things you know are wrong. If you own a business you might need to refrain from doing business with certain suppliers and customers. If your friend won’t quit gossiping about others, you might need to find some new friends who won’t do that.

Avoid tempting situations

Here is where the second command in verse 15 comes in:

…hold back your foot from their paths...

While there is certainly some overlap here with the previous principle, the emphasis is less on the person and more about the paths that they are taking - the places they frequent, the activities they engage in, the policies they ascribe to.

I can’t possibly describe all the different ways that we could apply this principle, but let me give you a few examples:

I’ll start with a really obvious one. If you’re an alcoholic, you shouldn’t go to a bar and or to a party where the main activity is going to be to get drunk.

At school if you know the student next to you is cheating, perhaps you need to ask your teacher if you can move to a different seat. If there are kids at you lunch table who are bullying another student, you need to move to another table.

If you know your company is using underhanded business practices, you need to find a new place to work, even if you’re not personally involved.

If you’re in a church that is teaching things that violate Scripture, you need to find another church. But if that ever happens, please take the time to let the church leadership know why you’re leaving - both for their sake and yours.

We’ve seen this morning that...

I overcome peer pressure by living to please God instead of living to please people.

Action

This is a very practical message, and I’m going to ask everyone to take some practical, concrete steps to apply what we’ve learned. So I’m going to ask all of us to prayerfully and honestly answer these questions:

Am I intentionally seeking to know God’s heart through His Word?

If so, then keep it up. If not, what are you going to do about it? If you don’t already have a systematic Bible reading plan you’re using, then join our church reading plan or find another one that works for you. If you need some help doing that, let me know.

Have I made a firm commitment to please God, even when I don’t understand or it’s difficult?

If not, would you make that commitment right here and now. In just a moment I’m going to give you some time to pray and you can make that commitment to God right where you are.

Do I need to find some new friends?

Are there any people in my life who are constantly drawing me away from God? Are they pressuring me to hide things, or hurt people or to have things that don’t belong to me? If so, will you make the difficult decision to break off your relationships with those people - at least for a season.

Am I putting myself in tempting situations that I need to avoid?

If so, not only do you need to make the decision not to do that, you almost certainly need another godly Christian man or woman who can hold you accountable.

I’m going to give you a few minutes right now to prayerfully consider these questions and then to commit before God to do whatever you need to do to live to please Him rather than live to please people. And then go ahead and write down whatever practical steps you’re going to take.

[Prayer time]

Inspiration

Much of the time in our lives, it seems like it would be a lot easier just to go along with those who are bringing negative peer pressure into our lives. And the truth is that, in the short run, we might actually benefit in some way from doing that. We might have more friends or get to hang out with the “in crowd”. We might even make more money or obtain some shiny new things.

But this passage ends with a sober warning:

Proverbs 1:19 ESV

19 Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain; it takes away the life of its possessors.

You may not see it right now. You may not even experience it in this life. But ultimately, pleasing people and giving in to peer pressure will suck the life out of you. It will damage your relationship with God. If you’re a genuine disciple of Jesus, it isn’t going to take away your salvation, but it is going to rob you of the joy you could have by choosing to please God and not man.

While you may not think so or you may not see it today, choosing to please God and not man, is the very best thing you can do for yourself, your family, your church and this world. Let’s all work together to do that right here at Thornydale Family Church.