Proverbs 3:1-3, 11-12

My son, do not forget my teaching,
    but keep my commands in your heart,
for they will prolong your life many years
    and bring you peace and prosperity.

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
    bind them around your neck,
    write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will win favor and a good name
    in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.[a]

Do not be wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
    and nourishment to your bones.

Honor the Lord with your wealth,
    with the firstfruits of all your crops;
10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
    and your vats will brim over with new wine.

11 My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,
    and do not resent his rebuke,
12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
    as a father the son he delights in.[b]

Listening guide

Proverbs 3:1-2  My son, do not forget my teaching,  but keep my commands in your heart,  

2 for they will prolong your life many years  and bring you peace and prosperity. 

One piece of character to master among the wrong turns and false starts _____________ 

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,  and do not resent his rebuke, (verse 11) 

Solomon …. 

John Newton “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” 

We must accept _______________________

12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.   

Accept correction and experience delight. 

Discussion questions

No questions available for this message. Please join our group studying politics.

Sermon

 

In our smaller Bible studies right now, we’re discussing the government and politics. I know, right?

I don’t have much great insight. This is one that struck me. What do you think?

“The Bible binds my conscience to care for the poor, but it does not tell me the best practical way to do it. Any particular strategy may be good and wise—and may even be somewhat inferred from other things the Bible teaches-- but they are not directly commanded and therefore we cannot insist that all Christians, as a matter of conscience, follow one or the other.  The Bible binds my conscience to love the immigrant, but it doesn’t tell me how many legal immigrants to admit to the U.S. every year. It does not exactly prescribe immigration policy. The Bible tells me abortion is a great evil, but it doesn’t tell me the best way to decrease or end abortion in this country, nor which policies are most effective [to preserve life]. The current political parties offer a potpourri of different positions on these and many, many other topics, most of which, as just noted, the Bible does not speak to directly.  This means when it comes to taking political positions, voting, determining alliances and political involvement, the Christian has liberty of conscience. Christians cannot say to other Christians “no Christian can vote for…” or “every Christian must vote for…” unless you can find a Biblical command to that effect.”

What do you think? To me, this is a pretty good example of putting into practice what we learned last week. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 1:7) Only when we have a positive fear of God, will we have better thoughts on riots, protests, individuals killed at the hands of law enforcement, law enforcement killed at the hands of private citizens, job loss, the passing of many grandparents, and babies and infants we have lost.

You know what wisdom can do for us? Take a quick look at Proverbs 3:1-2

My son, do not forget my teaching,

but keep my commands in your heart,

2 for they will prolong your life many years

and bring you peace and prosperity.

Look what Solomon says you can have. You can have long life. Peace. Prosperity. This is the good life. Who doesn’t want peace? Who doesn’t want prosperity?

Wisdom is what you use in the 80% of decisions of life when there are no rules.

Solomon argues, peace and prosperity does not come from hard work, although that is mentioned in other places. It doesn’t come from marriage, although there is definitely a correlation there. It doesn’t come from education or skills, although they matter. It doesn’t even come from your personality. Your charisma. Your winsomeness. Where does it come from?

Your heart. “with all your heart”. In two verses he says, “Let love and faithfulness never leave you”. Where does this peace and prosperity flow out of? Wise choices don’t come from our heads, they come from our hearts. That doesn’t seem to make much sense. Remember in the Bible your heart is everything you are.

It’s your convictions, your emotions, and your thoughts. When they make wise choices together – not just a head thing, not just a gut thing, not just an emotional thing – together – that leads to peace and prosperity.

That’s the promise today. I don’t know if you think I have a good life or not. I think I do. It doesn’t come from the hard work, although that’s important. It doesn’t come from marriage, although that’s part of it. It doesn’t come from education and skill. It doesn’t come from my shining personality.

I’ve made many wrong turns and false starts along the way. I still do. There is one piece of character God would have us master. That’s here in Proverbs 3.

Development

What is it? Verse 11

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,

and do not resent his rebuke,

Woah, did you hear that. Talk about tough, huh. Can I share some other verses that say the same?

·        Proverbs 10:17 "Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray."

·        Proverbs 12:1 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.

·        Proverbs 13:18 “Whoever disregards discipline comes to poverty and shame, but whoever heeds correction is honored.”

There are many other verses in Proverbs that tell us to accept correction.

Can you believe this? Solomon says, this is what you do to have peace and prosperity. Do this and you’ll win favor. Do this and you’ll get health. Oh, and by the way, what is the secret to it all?

Bad stuff happens. Bad things happen to everyone. Take it as discipline. Accept correction.

That’s tough. A lot of us would like to believe that if we’re good enough, we will have it good our entire lives. Good people get good lives. But this is basic wisdom.

You can be good, decent, charitable, honest, hard working, and bad stuff will still happen to you. People will tell you you are wrong. Take it all as discipline.

You know how hard you think this is? It was not easy for Solomon. Solomon had hundreds perhaps thousands of affairs in his life. I have no idea how many times he was corrected about them. All I know is the consequence. After he died, his kingdom was split into parts and never – not in the 2900 years of history since, has it been put back together.

See, Solomon faced a huge hurdle. In the ancient world, you listened to people because of their family of origin. Here is one example from the ancient world. One time Jesus taught in the synagogue. He was acting like a teacher. Some people who heard what he said were amazed. A lot of them said, “Isn’t this Mary’s son? Aren’t these his brothers and sisters?” (Mark 6) They were offended by him. It was his family that turned them off. It didn’t matter how good a teacher he was.

Solomon was the best family in the world. The wisest. The richest. Everyone knew it. Who was he going to listen to?

For us, it’s easy to say, I would never ignore discipline? I wouldn’t ignore correction.

Do we? When I was looking to buy a house, I looked for a realtor. I didn’t use a car salesman. When I need to get my car fixed, I talk to a mechanic, not a dentist. I don’t usually care what family they’re from. I don’t care who their brothers and sisters are. I listen to people because of their skills and abilities. I was just talking to a friend the other day (BS) who said, my boss doesn’t let handle the hiring or the strategic planning or the financials. He says I don’t have those skills and abilities

For us, we don’t ignore people because of their family. We ignore people because of their skills and abilities.

I don’t like correction. I don’t like being wrong. I don’t like apologizing for stuff that is only sort of kind of like wrong but not really wrong.

But you know, John Newton. You know him? He wrote this hymn, I think it might catch on. It’s called Amazing Grace. Have you heard that one? Good.

Newton is remarkable because he had been a slave trader, but eventually rejected the slave trade. In 1788, he published some comments saying, “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.”

Here is the thing. His conversion began in 1748 when he was almost lost in a storm. He prayed for deliverance and was saved. A few years later, he almost died from a fever. It took almost 40 years for John Newton to change regarding slavery. Newton himself said, it took a long time of “correction”.

In 1807, nearly blind and dead, the act to abolish the slave trade became law. Newton “rejoiced to hear the wonderful news”.

Point: We must receive correction.

Action

Let’s do this. Let’s accept correction and experience peace and prosperity together. Let me give you the strength so we can do this. Solomon goes on to say,

12 because the Lord disciplines those he loves,

as a father the son he delights in. 

Do you see what this is?

There are some ways of living that say, suffering is nothing. For example, some would say the death of an infant isn’t really suffering. They’ll say, well, there was something wrong with it and it would have lived a painful hard life. It’s better this way. I know most people who hold to survival of the fittest don’t think that, so I’m not saying you do. But that’s one thought.

Others say, suffering isn’t really there. It’s just in your mind. You have to detach from it. That’s basically the same thing. Suffering is nothing.

On the other end, some people say, everything is suffering. Life is so terrible. I’m just miserable and my life is falling apart.

That’s not it either.

Not God. God says, yup, you’re suffering. It’s awful. I delight in you.

Frankly, you don’t really learn to trust God till you’re drowning. You don’t really come to see Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. When you realize this, it’s not till you suffer that you really end up knowing God in prayer, that you really end up trusting God instead of the things you used to trust which have now blown up on you.

It’s only through suffering that you really get into the Word of God and you really get into community. We very often just go off on our own. We’re our own person, and we really don’t rely on other people till what happens? What happens is suffering comes in, and then in it comes. Suddenly, we need people. We always did.

The key is to believe God delights in you when it happens. the son he delights in. 

When Jesus got baptized, God said about him, “You’re my son in whom I delight.”

It says in John 1:12, “For those who received him, who believed on his name, he gave authority to become children of God.” We’re adopted. We’re brought in. His losing his sonship so we could become children of God, his losing that so … It says in Romans 8:16, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God …”

What does that mean? It means because Jesus died on the cross and took our punishment we can know now he is pleased with us. Sometimes the Spirit comes in and says, “You are my beloved child in whom I am well-pleased.” That will renarrate your world. If you put anything in that story, it’ll turn to gold.

What do you know if you see the cross? You know without a doubt that God loves you and delights in you. He wants nothing more in the universe than to come into our ugly sinful mess and deal with it himself.

If he suffered like that, and he did. And if he was corrected like that, and he was. What do I know for sure when I’m corrected? That he is glad about me.

Accept correction and experience delight. Put that on your card for the week, put it on our wall here and at home. See if that won’t give you a little more good life.