A couple weeks ago I ran a half marathon. 

Not because I’m a runner. Not because I had been training. And not because I was trying to compete. 

I did it because a few days before, my best friend had done it. He woke up on Saturday (and mind you he had been running for a few weeks) and ran a half marathon in incredible time. When my wife and I learned about this she looked at me and said, “I wonder how far you could go if you just went for it?” 

So… naturally… I had to run a half marathon too. 

And it was dumb. 

The rest of the week I was sore and my knees (which I’ve had lifelong problems with) never fully recovered. 

But it was a beautiful picture of the power of friendship. Friendship makes you do dumb things. It pushes you to places that you couldn’t have imagined going, it introduces you to people that you otherwise would’ve never met, and it changes more about you than you could ever realize. 

Why does this all happen? Well, because we are influenced by the people around us whether we want to admit it (or realize it) or not. God designed us to be “image bearers” and part of this reality is that we reflect those who are closest to us and become like them. 

So… we need to be careful who we surround ourselves with. 

As it’s been said many times before, "show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are." We become like who we surround ourselves with, and being in community makes you dumb. It either makes you dumb in the sense of running half marathons, losing sleep sitting by a fire having deep conversations, or spending too much money to go above and beyond for those you love, or it makes you dumb in the sense of risking your reputation (guilty by association is a deadly way to live), getting into worse and worse trouble, or worse. 

So, if all of life is spent with people, and we become like those that we’re close to, and all relationships make us dumb in one sense or another, we simply need to choose the right kind of dumb. 

When the world looks at how the Bible calls us to live in community with other people giving up our possessions, time, and even lives for them, it could be called dumb, but as believers we know that our lives are only fully lived when they are spent with those around us. We are sharpened, challenged, and made all that we’re called to be when we look past ourselves and lay down our lives for those around us. 

‍As the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it,

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‍“9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
 one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

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Are you willing to look foolish for your friends? Are you willing to give up your life in order to experience the fullness of Jesus that is only seen in closeness with others? How can you be made dumb in order to be made more like Jesus?