Peer Pressure (Prov 1v1-10)

[Opens with a (similar) clip from Ocean's Eleven]

So keep that clip in the back of your mind, but come with me to Proverbs 1 verse 10:

“If sinners entice you.” If we’re going to deal well with the situations life throws at us, then it’ll help us to be aware of the ways people might entice us into sin. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. So what is it that’s enticing? Well, let’s have a look at verse 11: 11If they say, "Come along with us; let's lie in wait for someone's blood, let's waylay some harmless soul; 12let's swallow them alive, like the grave, and whole, like those who go down to the pit;

It’s not comfortable to admit it, but there’s a part in most of us that finds violence alluring. I guess that’s why it’s so common and so popular on TV and film.

And power isn’t just about violence. In Ocean’s Eleven there isn’t all that much violence. The power factor has to do with being smart and cunning – able to outwit the nasty casino owner and all his security. Able to pull the perfect heist.

Isn’t it funny the way sin, and the desire for power, can take good things and use them for evil? Strength is a good gift from God – but we can be tempted to use it for violence. Intelligence is a good gift from God – but we can be tempted to use it to con others.

And the second step is to find good ways to use your gifts. Constructive ways to use your strengths. What strengths do you have? How can you put them to good use? Cos God has given us abilities to be used. And if we don’t use them in good ways, we’ll be tempted to find other ways to use them.

Power isn’t the only enticement. We get another, even more obvious one in verse 13:

Money. The get rich quick plan. That’s what drives Ocean’s Eleven – it’s what can entice lots of us into wrongdoing. Again, if that’s your weakness it’s important to recognise it, cos other people may recognise it too, and use it against you. The kid in Ocean’s Eleven, Matt Damon’s character – who knows whether he’d have got involved in million dollar heists, if left to his own devices. But he wanted the money, he fancied the power, and when you throw the peer pressure of the others in as well, he was a push-over.

It’s good to know your weaknesses, and it’s important not to set your heart on them. We’ve seen two so far, power and money. There’s a third in verse 14:

The third one here is a bit more subtle than the money one, but it’s maybe the most powerful of the lot. Companionship. Belonging. Both Matt Damon in the film, and the young man here in Proverbs they’re both being offered the chance to belong, to be part of a group. And a powerful, rich, attractive group at that. Almost part of a family – they’ll look out for each other, they’ll share their possessions together, they’ll share their lives together.

And this gets us right to the heart of why peer pressure can feel so intense. We are desperate to belong to a group, and so the group means a lot to us, so we want to keep the group happy, and we certainly don’t want to risk being rejected by the group. We don’t want to risk being on our own.

This is something that can particularly affect younger people, because they’re still trying to find their place in the world. But it’s not something you grow out of. Peer pressure affects us all, no matter how old we are. We all still want to belong somewhere.

Now I have oversimplified things a bit there, and made it a bit individualistic. It could sound like I’m saying it’s just to do with me and God and nobody else. Maybe sometimes it might come down to that, but most of the time fellowship with God ought to include friendship with lots of other people. For one thing, fellowship with God ought to include fellowship with his people – at least it should when they are doing what is right. But we are all sinful, and just because a group of people are Christians unfortunately that doesn’t automatically mean their peer pressure will always be positive pressure. You’d hope it might be, at least a lot of the time, but there’s no guarantee it always will be. Sin affects us all and becoming a Christian doesn’t eradicate it, not this side of heaven..

OK, we’ve seen some ways of defending ourselves against peer pressure and our passage ends with another quick encouragement not to go the wrong way, not to give in to peer pressure. Look at verse 15: 15my son, do not go along with them, do not set foot on their paths;

Why not? Well, the whole of the rest of Proverbs will be spelling out the reasons why not. But we get some quick reasons straight away: verse 16: 16for their feet rush into sin, they are swift to shed blood.

Verse 17 says something slightly different:

There’s a few different images here, but the overall message is the same: No matter what the short-term gains, doing evil comes back to sting you in the end.

Now if you include the very, very end – if you include the judgement of God, and heaven and hell, then evildoing comes back to sting you in the most terrible way. But even if you don’t include the very, very end – even if you only include things in this life

Now I haven’t seen the sequel to Ocean’s Eleven – the imaginatively named Ocean’s Twelve – but I believe that’s the story behind the second plot. In Ocean’s Eleven, they pull off the heist, they con the nasty rich man, and they get away with it. They get to spend all the stolen money in peace.

Ocean’s Twelve picks up the story a couple of years later. They’ve had a great time spending all the money and it was a load of fun while it lasted. It’s mostly gone now, but they’ve got a much, much bigger problem. The nasty rich guy they robbed – he’s worked out who did it, and he wants all his money back or he’s going to have then killed.

That can be true of the little things – we push away the knowledge that a fourth bar of chocolate is going to store up weight problems for us later. It can be true of the very big things too. Matt Damon’s character knows the rich casino owner is a ruthless killer. But he pushes that knowledge away because he loves the idea of what 10 million dollars can buy him.

The battle of sin is normally won or lost in your heart and mind. What is your heart set on? What does your mind dwell on? What do you choose to remember and what do you choose to forget?

Let’s finish by looking at a well-known verse on this from Romans 12.

The battle of sin is lost or won in the mind. If your mind keeps on being transformed and renewed in Jesus, you’ll be able to win that battle. You’ll “be able to test and approve what God's will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”