Are all relationships equal? Pastor Mark Driscoll visits Generation Church and unpacks Proverbs to reveal the three kinds of people you’ll meet: wise, foolish, and evil and how to relate to each with biblical clarity. Are you willing to learn? Are you asking for wise counsel?  No one is wise in every area. Wise people grow in wisdom because they keep wise counsel. They seek out people that have wisdom in various areas; finance, raising kids, business, marriage. When was the last time you invited wise counsel? Weekly meetings are not necessary. When there is a need, you know you have a safe, sacred place to go get counsel. Evil people will shove themselves into your life. Foolish people do not seek counsel as they are oblivious to their need. Wise people invite wisdom but because they respect boundaries and privacy, you must ask them.  When you arrange to meet with a wise person, pray before you go, show up early, bring a notebook, ask questions. Don’t do a lot of talking, do a lot of listening. Write down what they say and do the homework they give you. Ask them, “After I do what you’ve assigned to me, in the future, would you be willing to meet with me again?” Wise people don’t waste their time, foolish people do. The wisest person ever born wrote, “The living know they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they will have no more reward. For the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, hatred, and envy have now perished. Go, eat your bread (enjoy the body of Christ), and drink your wine (the blood of Christ in remembrance of what Jesus has accomplished for you); for God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white, and let your head lack no oil.” Wisdom is superior to folly! Ecclesiastes 9.

The Bible’s relational framework: wolves are evil, sheep are foolish, shepherds are wise  • How evil people use control and fear and why engaging them only brings chaos  • Practical ways to set healthy boundaries that honor God  • Why foolish people need accountability and spiritual growth more than sympathy  • Marks of the wise: humility, repentance, teachability, Spirit sensitivity  • How to build wise counsel across key areas of your life  • Six types of relationships and how to handle each one  • How Jesus transforms broken hearts and makes relationships new. A worthwhile 45 minute lesson of wisdom for those eager to learn. The transcribed definition of evil. Identify people who may operate as your friend, covertly to control you. Discern Good or Evil Understand there are Wise people, Foolish people, and Evil People. Foolishness, wisdom, and evil are distinct characteristics that impact all relationships. Everyone is foolish at times. Some folks are really good with money, but really bad with relationships. Some are really good with relationships but stink at handling money. We need to be humble enough to say, you know what, I need help. Are foolish people less intelligent? No, they’re just less responsible and less teachable. Evil people are often brilliant with a very high IQ, and that is very dangerous. Foolish people do not lack mental acuity, they lack humility. To be wise, you don’t need to be brilliant, you need to be humble. You need to be teachable. You need to be repentant. A wise person makes a plan, a foolish person doesn’t have a plan. Rather than making a plan, they make an excuse. Foolish people tend to deny reality and fall into a pattern of not learning from failure. Notice a pattern with the foolish. They are not responsible for anything. The rent is due each month, and they fall short each month. Foolish people are selfish and it is hard to have a close relationship them. They are tuned out and generally do not listen because they’re selfish. A wise person listens and they think about other people. Evil people are devising how to use and abuse other people. Foolish people aren’t thinking about anybody but themselves. Time with a foolish person is exhausting. They are burden givers as they talk incessantly about the problem without a clue about a solution. They state the obvious and seem shocked by it. Enjoy a trigger free Christmas with people who live in the Spirit, not necessarily blood relatives.

Lord, we pray for favor and grace and blessing. Holy Spirit, we invite you who know all about relationship as Father, Son, and Spirit. You are a relational God. You’ve made us in Your image to be in relationship. You’ve told us that it’s not good to be alone. Open our minds and spirits that we may learn from the Holy Spirit. We invite God to help us to be healthy people that have healthy relationships to God’s glory and our joy in Jesus name. Amen. We’re going to learn about 3 categories of relationships. Three kinds of people: wise, foolish, and evil. There are two ways to approach the Bible. The religious way is to use the Bible as binoculars to examine and criticize everyone else and find their faults, flaws, and failures without understanding and being aware of our own. The other way to read the Bible is as a repentant Christian saying, “The Bible is my binocular to see me as God sees me. It is my mirror.” Lord, where do I need to learn? Where do I need to grow? Where do I need to repent? What do you have for me?” Use this teaching to examine yourself, and then you could use it for someone else. The sociologists tell us that the average person interacts every year with anywhere from 500 to 2,500 different people. We spend 40% of our time with the same five people. Think about your relationships. There’s only so much time, energy, and sometimes money to be invested in a relationship. That means we make sure that the priorities we have are the priorities that God gives. When it comes to relationship, we do NOT treat people the same. We are WISE to treat someone BASED upon their character. If someone is godly and wise, be close to them. If someone is dangerous and evil, do not be close with them. We treat people differently, and it’s not discriminating, it’s DISCERNING. People reveal themselves by their conduct.  Are they evil, foolish, or wise? What is God saying to me? If you’re raising children, you want them to be discerning, and you want them to know there are evil people, foolish people, and wise people. You don’t want your children to be naive. Give them the advantage of knowing the difference between Evil, Foolish, Wise. We all get worn out by foolish people. Train your self to discern correctly.

Proverbs 24 introduces wise, foolish, and evil. “Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them. For their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble. A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might. For by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors, we’ll call this wise counsel, there is victory. Wisdom is too high for a fool.” The Bible describes evil people as wolves, foolish people as sheep, and wise people as shepherds. Evil people live by demonic forces, and you wisely choose to have a professional relationship with them. Proverbs 4:14-17 “Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil.” Avoid then, turn away from their influence. Some of you are caregivers and this language will seem rather harsh, but it’s a way of God being a loving father and keeping you from being vulnerable and foolish. The majority of people are not evil. The majority of people are not wise. The majority of people are foolish. But one evil person can destroy your life. One evil person is a threat to your business, your marriage, your family, your legacy, your ministry. The evildoers are devoid of the spirit. They are oppressors, enemies of God, they are proud and unrepentant,  wrongdoers, worthless, unjust, causing calamity, unjust, full of malice, suffering, grief, and death. One evil person can do tremendous damage.

An evil person lives by the power of demonic oppression or possession. A foolish person lives by the power of their sinful flesh. A wise person lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. When you’re dealing with evil people, they will exhaust you and wear you out. One evil person will get you to the point where you’re willing to surrender to them just because you’re overwhelmed and exhausted by them. This is because Satan and demons do not share in the limitations of our humanity. Satan and demons don’t get sick, or the flu. They don’t need a night’s sleep, they don’t need to hydrate, they don’t need a meal. Satan is the accuser of the children of God, and he accuses them day and night. We can’t work day and night but demons can and do. When someone is demonically empowered, they have a way to covertly hold malice. They just wear you out as they are intentionally dangerous. A foolish person is unintentionally harmful. With a foolish person, you’d be like, “Do you know what you said and did and what that caused in my?” No, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even know.” Because foolish people don’t think about other people. Evil people think about other people and how to hurt them. How to use and abuse. How to take and how to dominate. It is not accidental, it’s malicious and intentional. Oftentimes, when you meet someone who is truly evil, there is a trauma that has happened in their life. Something has wounded them, but they have chosen bitterness rather than forgiveness, and they have chosen brokenness rather than healing, and the result is they will tell their terrible tale of the trauma they’ve endured to seek to cause you to give them permission to persist in their evil. Their trauma may explain their wrongdoing, but it cannot excuse it. They need to repent of their response to their trauma. These people, they see themselves as a righteous victim. “They see others doing evil, so they likewise get to do evil. They rationalize without a fear of the Lord. “This was done to me, so I get to do it to them.” These are people that were hurt and now they’re hurting others. These are people that are tormented by the demonic and so they torment others. One of the marks of an evil person is that they are exceedingly high control. They’re domineering and overbearing and they also do not respect privacy. They want to know everything and have access because for them access and information is a way of having control. Usually under control is fear. Usually under fear is pain. If a person does not heal from pain, then a spirit of fear rather than a spirit of faith results.  They no longer trust in the sovereignty of God over their life, so they want to be the sovereign of your life. They want to replace God and be in control.

When you’re dealing with evil people, they are fine until they are told no. “If you rebuke a wise man, he’ll thank you. If you rebuke a fool, he will hate you.” Sometimes you don’t even know who you’re dealing with until you have a conflict. Evil people want to control everyone and everything. If you ever tell them no, you will see the dark side of who they are. Some of you are living in fear of man. Proverbs 29:25 “Fear of man is a trap.” If a friend is covertly evil, you fear them, and so you’re in a trap. You don’t have freedom, you don’t have joy because the fear of them is controlling you, and they are domineering and overbearing. They’re working through threat of punishment and you’re afraid of them. You don’t want to have the conflict, you don’t want to have the division, you don’t want to have the separation because you’re fearful of what they will say or do. A relationship of torment serves them, not God.  When you’re dealing with an evil person, it is a lose-lose situation. When someone is wise and they’re living by the power of the spirit, it’s a win-win. God loves you, God loves them. There’s grace for both of you.  When you’re in a relationship with evil people it is a lose-lose. Nobody wins. It’s what counselors will call a double bind. A double bind is you have two choices. You either let me control you or you let me punish you. Those are your 2 options. If you engage or challenge them, you will enrage them. You give them money, they’re going to want more money. You give them access, they want more access. They want information, you give them information, they’re going to want more information. You give, they take and expect more. A stronghold of dependency is created for them to march forward to total domination and control. So when you’re dealing with evil people, you give them nothing. You give them no time, no energy, no access, no money. You change your cell phone number, you block them on social media, and you have a professional relationship, not a personal relationship with them. They need therapy or treatment. Close down the personal relationship and lovingly advise them to seek a counselor, go to rehab, or meet with a pastor and experience deliverance. What they have is demonic. A family member may require a restraining order. To all care givers, they are beyond your help. They’re not beyond God’s help, but they’re beyond your help. You will not save them. They will destroy you. They need to get delivered and saved. NOTICE that your relationship has not created a change in their behavior. Again, a very small percentage of people are evil. A cutoff is literally having the conversation to never have a future personal relationship. It’s the talk to never talk again.

So looking at the 12 disciples of Jesus, if you had to pick one who would be evil, the wolf, living by the demonic, who is that? It’s Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot, he is a man who had been plotting against Jesus Christ for years. The Bible says that he was the bookkeeper and he had been embezzling and stealing money from Jesus’ ministry the whole time. On the night that Jesus is betrayed, the last supper, the Passover meal, Jesus is there with his disciples, and he says something that had to be quite startling. He said, “One of you is going to betray me.”  Remember the conversation for those of you that know the word of God, the conversation that ensued? Is it I? They did not point fingers at Judas. Do you know why? Judas was covert. Covert people, you don’t even know who they are until they gut you. Judas had been plotting the murder of Jesus for a very long time, months or years. It’s the middle of the night, he shows up with Roman political leaders and Jewish religious leaders. Judas was possessed by Satan to covertly bring the religious and the political leaders together. They have an arrest warrant. It’s the middle of the night. The soldiers arrest Jesus. The court is open. The judge is convening court. Witnesses are there to testify under the cover of darkness in the middle of the night. This was premeditated murder. Judas had been plotting for a long period of time behind the mask of friend. You may find out who your parents, friends, and coworkers really are. “I thought they were my Christian brother or sister. I had no idea that they were out to use me.” Jesus excused Judas. “GO do what you have planned to do.”

Jesus let Judas go and he self-destructs and kills himself. Jesus walked toward somebody or walked with somebody, but you may overlook the times that Jesus walked away from somebody, or He allowed someone to walk away from Him and He did not pursue them. The rich young ruler was dismissed. A good book called When to Walk Away, by Gary Thomas talks about 41 times in the four gospels, Jesus either walked away from someone or he let them walk away and he did not pursue them. There are times when this sort of cutoff is necessary, and it is only with covert evil people. Let me say one more word before I move to the foolish. Sometimes this is most complicated with members of your extended family. Because sometimes if someone is related to you, you feel some sort of obligation to them or pressure from fellow family members to tolerate. If they’re evil and you tolerate, they will dominate. If you will tolerate, they will dominate. And so I would tell you, don’t allow people to be close to you, your marriage, or your children just because they are blood-related. They need to be spirit-related. They can’t just be born into your family. They need to be born again into the family of God.

When you’re dealing with foolish people, you give them homework: Read your Bible every day and go to church. Looking at the 12 disciples, if Judas was the evil one, who was the foolish one ? Judas was evil, and Peter was foolish. Judas was covert, Peter was overt. You can shepherd a foolish person. Rather than having a cutoff conversation, Jesus had a clarifying conversation with Peter. “Hey, you denied Me. Do you love Me or not?” Here’s some homework. “Feed my sheep and stop denying Me.” Sin is like gravity, unless you fight against it, it’ll pull you downward. Most evil people didn’t start evil. They started foolish and over time the gravity of life drug them down to evil. If there’s any area of your life that is foolish, repent of it quickly before it becomes evil. The foolish person is described with the analogy of a dog returning to its vomit to illustrate how people often repeat their mistakes. We have pastoral relations with fools. Proverbs 26:11 “Like a dog that returns to his vomit, is a fool who repeats his folly.” A dog eats something, it does not feel good and my dog throws it up and then the dog eats his vomit. God is warning us about foolish people. Why would a person repeat what does not turn out well or feel good? “I yelled at my wife and I slept on the couch.” A fool does not learn, they are insensitive to others and they repeat the same foolish mistakes. Shepherd them with kindness and set your boundaries.

The wise live by the power of the Holy Spirit and they tend to be shepherds and leaders. You can have a personal warm, loving, close relationship with them. Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Wisdom starts with this, God first. I fear God. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. He’s king of kings, He’s Lord of lords, He sees and knows all. My life is surrendered to Jesus. My money, my time, my relationships, my career, my sexuality, my children, my reputation, I surrender it all to the Lord Jesus Christ. I fear the Lord and I honor His Word. I live for an audience of One. However, nobody is wise in every area. We’ve all got an area that we need to be humble and learn. Those who are wise, are humble and teachable. You cant teach evil people anything. They insist on teaching you. Foolish people, they don’t want to learn, they are content with what they know. Wise people want to grow and learn and change. They seek wisdom and are always learning. When you are in relationship with a person who is wise, who acts foolish at times, you just pray for them. The key to wisdom is not being brilliant. It’s being humble and sensitive to the Holy Spirit. People who are wise have an awareness and a compassion toward others. “I’m so sorry when I said that, I now see how that was painful for you.” Hang out with the wise and notice much joy and life around them. There is rich, real relationship in their sphere of influence. They are not envious of other wise people, they simply enjoy relationship with them. Do people enjoy you so much that they just want to be with you because they sense the presence of God in your presence? Give wise people more time, more money, more access in your life. The mentor myth is that one person is sufficient for the rest of your life. Seek a group of wise counsel members and enjoy a healthy and happy new year! Wise people are thankful for feedback.