The Right to be Wrong Part 5 “Known by the Company we Keep” THRIVE Service Livestream

It’s an adage uttered by every parent in history, “We are known by the company we keep.” Meaning be careful. Choose wisely. The people you hang out with will influence how people ultimately see you. If you’re surrounded by losers, you’ll be seen as a loser. Surround yourself with successful people and you’ll be looked upon as successful. If I want to know who you are, all I have to do is look at the people you run around with.

There is an old Middle Eastern proverb that says, “I saw them eating and I knew who they were.” Of course, you must be one of them.

Except Jesus didn’t buy into that notion.

He intentionally spent time with the kinds of people most of us would avoid. Tax collectors, the poor, the diseased, the outsiders and outcasts, the unclean and the untouchables.

“As Jesus sat down to eat in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners joined Jesus and his disciples at the table.

But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

The logic behind it is simple. Associate with the wrong kind of people and you’ll become just like them. If you hang out with bad people eventually, you’re going to become one.

But it turns out it was just the opposite.

Those kinds of people didn’t drag Jesus down. He pulled them up.

Everyone he touched, every person who thought they were at the bottom of the ladder, suddenly felt lighter, cleaner, less ashamed in his presence. They felt less like a social pariah and more like a sacred child of God.

“Those people” suddenly realized they were now “His people.”

Funny, isn’t it? We’re always so worried about other people dragging us down when our real job is to lift them up.