Framed
Pt. 4 – Friend Frame
We have talked over the last 3 weeks about the impact and power of our mind to frame us! The way we think determines how we act. If we can ever learn to change the way we think we will learn to live in victory and we will defeat the enemy in our life!
So quickly we said your perception determines your reality. What’s in your head gets in your feet. When you get your head right everything else follows. So then we spent two weeks talking about how to think right. We said you have to fix your mind daily and as we do that it will fix our behavior. This is a battle because the mind is mean. So we need to get brain washed daily. How do we do that? We take on the mind of Christ. We think like Jesus! How did He think? He thought about the kingdom, serving, and death. We get brain washed by thinking the right things. You can’t keep thinking on the bad things and then wonder why we struggle with our thought life and ultimately our actions. Our actions line up with what we think on. We wash our brain by washing in the Word . . . how? We hear the Word, speak the Word, and meditate on the Word!
So our mind is powerful. I gave our mind 3 weeks because I believe it is the most powerful. However, I want to finish this by talking about one more factor that impacts how your world is shaped and framed!
We dealt with the mind from the wise man’s statements that your thoughts run your life and what you think determines what you are. So it is only appropriate that we look to the wise man again for information regarding the other factor that frames our life.
Text: Proverbs 12:26
The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.
Notice it doesn’t indicate that it works the other way. The wicked lead the righteous astray. Don’t be fooled . . . you are probably not the exception!
The wise man understood the incredible impact and influence that our friends bring to bear on our world. They can frame us!
1. Be a picky people picker!
Be picky when it comes to people! Some of us choose pets more carefully than we do people. Some of us choose clothes more carefully. Who you allow into your life will frame you! We allow people to have access to our lives too easily at times. Before they are given access they must pass the lightmus test! I know you remember a litmus test from science class. But you had better learn about the lightmus test given to us in the New Testament to help us determine who we give entrance into our lives. It is found in
2 Corinthians 6:14
Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?
Don’t become partners with those who reject God. How can you make a partnership out of right and wrong? That’s not partnership; that’s war. Is light best friends with dark? Does Christ go strolling with the Devil? Do trust and mistrust hold hands?
We want to use this as a weapon on those who are dating who they shouldn’t date and it does apply but we also fail to apply it in our own life! This admonishment speaks to more than just marriage or dating. It speaks to every relationship!
Addressing believers hanging out with those who don’t believe in the resurrection Paul says, “Evil company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” “Don’t fool yourselves. Bad friends will destroy you.”
Ask Peter what just hanging out with the wrong crowd can do. In a matter of minutes the folks around a fire framed his world to the point that he denied Christ who he had just personally walked daily with for 3 ½ years. How many of us deny Christ daily because of who we hang out with? In minutes he was framed and yet you can spend every waking minute, eat every lunch with, surround yourself with people that don’t share your values and beliefs and it not impact you? Are you stronger than Peter? Maybe this is why Peter said, “Don’t let the errors of wicked people lead you down the wrong path and make you lose your balance.” (2 Peter 3:17)
So you are saying no friends that aren’t saved? No, what I am saying is you had better draw some boundaries in your life! You must understand that you can’t let those with no light try to teach you how to live in light. You can’t expect those who don’t know God to give you godly counsel!
Some of you are trying to get marriage advice from folks who think they are only married to their spouse. They can make their decisions and take action with no thought of vows to God. They forget that there is a third party involved! Unless God is at the center of their relationship and the basis of their relationship then how can darkness speak to light?
Some of you are trying to get financial advice from folks who don’t make room for God’s involvement in their checkbook. They don’t and won’t understand tithing.
What do you expect? They won’t understand faith!
Some of you are accepting morals from folks that don’t see the Word of God as the absolute moral standard and so your world view is no longer Christian it is Amyian or Robbyian or Kevian or Susian. Rather than Christ framing your world the people you are with frame your world!
Be friends with them but don’t allow them to shape or frame your spiritual views, your financial views, your relationship views or your world view.
2. What do friends frame?
Why are the people you are in relationship with so important?
a. Friends frame how we see ourselves.
I remind you from the Old Testament that 8 negative friends had the ability to influence an entire nation and cause them to circle wastelands for 40 years. Just because they saw themselves as grasshoppers everyone they were in relationship with was contaminated by insect infection. What your friends say can shape what you think about yourself, about your abilities and about your destiny! Some of you remain defeated, disappointed, and are covered with doubt simply because of how your friends have caused you to see you!
b. Friends frame how we see God!
All you have to do is read the New Testament and you find that Paul helped frame Peter’s view of how God felt about Gentiles.
Some of you have a very small God not because of His lack of ability but because of your friend’s view of God that has rubbed off on you.
Some of you view God as vindictive and unconcerned not because He has ever done anything to you but you have embraced your friend’s offense towards God.
Some of you have allowed your friends to frame your worship of God. You won’t worship Him the way you feel like He has asked you to because your view of Him and of worship has been framed by friends.
We are who we are because of the people we surround ourselves with.
I think the account of Job’s friends is perhaps the best example of the way friends impact us in these two areas. As Job is struggling with loss, tragedy, and sickness his friends first try to frame his view of himself. They asked him, “What sin have you committed? What wrong have you done? They say, “If you were innocent these things would not happen to you.” Then they go one step further and try to frame his view of God! They tell him God is punishing him. They try to influence Job towards a negative view of God to the point that God finally speaks out against Job’s friends and says that they have spoken folly and that Job must pray for them or they will be punished!
Guard your relationships. Some of you are framing your life with negativity just because of who you hang out with! That is the lens you begin to see through. Some . . . doubt. Some . . . anger. Simply because of who you hang with!
By the way the two factors work in tandem. Who you hang with impacts your thinking!
Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked (who are you in step with?) or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers.
It is time to carefully evaluate who you are surrounding your life with or you will find that they have framed you!
I want to end by drawing your attention to the account found in Luke 5. Four men framed their friend’s world! They saw his need and took action. They heard Jesus was going to be in a particular house but realized it was packed and they couldn’t get inside. They cut a hole in the roof to get their friend to Jesus. I bring this to your attention because in reality these men carried their friend to Jesus. I believe this simply teaches us that your friends have the ability and the power to either carry you to Jesus or they can carry you away from Jesus!
The power of relationships! Be careful . . . my life is being framed by . . . you. Carry me to Jesus!
