Chapter 3. We'll read the first 10 verses. Our text is going to be the first four, the text that I read for Josiah. Initially I was going to do the verses 5 and 6, which was given to my wife for her text, but decided to do the first four verses instead. Proverbs chapter three. 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 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 acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. 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 first fruits of all your crops. Then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. Again, our text will be the We'll be focused on the first four verses. Dear people of God, called to be saints, Josiah this morning publicly has said that he knows Jesus, and through Jesus has come to know the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What Josiah did not say this morning is that he knows this triune God fully. He knows that today is but one step in coming to know God, in joining God and all the blessings that he gives. It's a step because this is now where he, as it were, takes hands with all of God's people and they move together in growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a joy. That's a privilege. And the first verses of Proverbs 3 teach us that knowing God, first of all, as a matter of the heart, and that living in Christ is a way of joy and blessing. We understand that these verses are fatherly advice. It's the instruction of our Heavenly Father. He's teaching us. He is, as it were, persuading us with promises. He says, son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. So there's a promise, there's wisdom. There is wisdom with a promise. Proverbs is a book. Not so much of laws, of rules and regulations, but of wisdom. The father imparting wisdom. to his son. The father teaching how we can maintain a living fellowship with God in Christ. Josiah, God has brought you into fellowship with him. You've discovered, this isn't a book just of words on paper. You've discovered the truth of them in your own heart. Okay? God has planted them in your heart. Through his spirit, God works faith and love in our hearts, and he fulfills the promise he gave in Jeremiah 31, I will put my law on their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. That's what this profession of faith is acknowledging. God gives us the blessing of the forgiveness of sins and he remembers them no more. It is God who enables us to see the marvelous love he has in Christ. It is God who enables us to see his beauty, his majesty, his glory, the delight of his holiness. And all of this is given. It's a gift of grace. And as God gives it, He knows it's hard for us to live in Christ. The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The Apostle Paul says, the good we want we do not do and that which we do not desire, that we do. And therefore for the believer to know Christ better, to give him praise and to reflect his beauty is an ongoing daily prayer. Every day we need the reminder Grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord. That is why the Spirit of God here says, do not forget my instruction. It's sad that we need that reminder, but we do. I know as I get older, I'm forgetting more. We discover, the older we get, how weak we are. And we need this reminder to self-discipline. We need to do things so that we will not forget God's word, that we will not forget or neglect his teaching. In my experience, there have been times when we kind of want to forget. Sometimes we're tempted to sin. There are times when, as the apostle says, we want to even do wrong. And those are times when we contend to just keep that closed. We're just not going to go to the worship service. We're just not going to hang out with certain friends anymore. We want to do something so that we can kind of ignore what we know so that we can indulge the sinful nature. Sometimes we can conveniently forget that God has established with us an everlasting covenant. Which is why the Spirit of God comes to us and says, don't forget my words. Or go away from them. Chapter four. Moses' final instructions to Israel in Deuteronomy four. Be careful not to forget. the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you. Do not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. Be careful not to forget. Boys and girls, and Josiah, this would include you, your parents have told you to do certain things. not to do certain other things. And there are times when you didn't. Times you forgot. Why did you forget? Sometimes parents would, now look at me, I want you to hear me. And then the kids go off and they forget. But probably because their heart was really somewhere else. Their heart really wasn't on listening. The heart was with their friends out there or playing this or doing other things they wanted. And so it didn't sink home. Well, we can do this with God's word too. Verse one says, keep God's commands in your hearts. The heart, as you understand, is the very center of our being. It's what drives us. It's what motivates us. It determines the direction we take in our lives. And God, the triune God, must have a prominent place there. And therefore his word has to have a prominent place in our hearts. You see, all true obedience begins in the heart. If what motivates us is we really want to have fun with our friends, if we really want to be making more and more money, if we really want sports as a number one priority, or getting possessions, or those kind of things, then that is soon going to be revealed by your actions. The heart, the direction we take is soon, the heart first wanders and then before anyone else may notice, in fact, we can be having our heart somewhere else. But our actions soon follow. We become indifferent to certain things and we become more fascinated with other things. And so God is saying to us here, keep your heart steadfast and true. If you have strayed, it's the heart that is the first thing that must return. And if in our hearts we are focused again upon the Lord, and we keep him as the focus of our heart and our life, our actions begin to conform to that. Then worship takes a higher place, and reading the word takes a higher place, then speaking the truth with love takes a higher place, and so on. That's why Proverbs 4 says, above all, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Romans 6.17 also speaks of the freedom that comes when with our whole heart we follow the Lord. Freedom comes. We think we have freedom sometimes apart from that, but we don't. This is crucial. Proverbs 4.4 says, lay hold of my words with all your heart. God told the Israelites, fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds. Deuteronomy 11, 18. Well, how do we do that? How do we fix God's word, his teaching, his wisdom in our hearts and in our minds and not forget? Let it be a delight to you. Read it. Read it regularly. Because if you don't, it's never gonna be a pleasure to you. If you don't use it, you lose it. It's true of the word. Read it faithfully. Study it. Meditate on it. Memorize it. Parents, one of the things that you can do for your children is make sure they do their Sunday school work, they memorize. That includes catechism, by the way. We're not doing this. We don't give assignments just for something to do. We understand something. We get it into the head, praying that the Spirit applies it to the heart. And if we don't get it, it's not gonna get to the heart. That's the desire in all of this. We understand Psalm 119, I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. It's one of the reasons why it's good for us to memorize scripture. That's to get it into our minds. And that becomes difficult with all these different translations coming out here. We forget which translation we've memorized. But that is, you see, when we start memorizing, we get it into our heads, that's the way to the heart. The goal of studying and memorizing God's word is not simply so that we can have a head full of knowledge, but it's so that it might be written in our hearts and become dear to us. And I understand when you first are memorizing a text, it might not be all that dear to us. Sometimes it's just hard work to memorize. When we're younger, it's a little easier to absorb things, and we do, because we have to. We learn our grammar facts, we learn math facts, we learn scientific facts, and we just seem to absorb this stuff, and it doesn't mean much to us, but we gotta do it because we gotta pass a test, and there we go. But the Word of God is the tool the Spirit uses to bring us to Himself. And when the truth of what we have been learning with our minds, by the Spirit's work, sinks into our hearts, and we grasp God's love in sending Jesus to restore us to fellowship with Him, then our hearts warm with love, and we want to know Him even more. That's when his word, you see, begins to take on a delight to us. We still have to work at reading it, don't we? We still have to work at grasping it, at studying it, at meditating and applying the word. We have to work to make it part and parcel of every moment. And it's worked for us because we have so many temptations. The devil, the world, sinful nature, never stop attacking us. So it requires great self-discipline. But in doing so, we will reap a great harvest and increasingly know the joy of living in Christ. Apart from loving Jesus, all good deeds, even worship, and the study of scripture, will only be burdensome. Apart from the love of Jesus, what you do here this morning will be burdensome. What makes the Word and His ways a delight? What makes us want to keep God's ways with all of our hearts? That, of course, we understand is the gift of the Spirit of God. Ezekiel. We read, I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them. I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws, Ezekiel 11 and 36. So in John 14, Jesus promises his spirit saying, the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Josiah, Be daily in prayer for the Spirit to lead you into remembering Jesus' teaching. He promises the Spirit to all who ask. And use the word. Never, ever give up this daily reading, study, meditation, and memorization of the word. Never be content with just knowing God a little bit. Never be content with just a little bit of love among God's people. Take the gospel to heart, believe it. All the promises, believe and live the life God has given. There is great pleasure and blessing in the way of Christ. And we have to use the insights the Spirit gives us into God's Word, also by using the insights that God has granted to others. You read good books, that's why we give you a book, Josiah. We give that for the profession of faith here because other people can help us in our walk with the Lord. That's why we have sermons. It's a tool in which God helps us to remember, to plant it into our heart. That's why we read good magazines. They all aid us, they're all tools to help us in a growing understanding of the wisdom and ways of God. Revelation 3.20, Jesus says to us, here I am, I stand at the door and knock. and when he hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me. That's the promise of fellowship with a sovereign Lord. Proverbs 3.3 adds this, let love and faithfulness never leave you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. God has written something on the tablet of heart. Now take these and you, as it were, trace over the words in your own heart. How do you bind love and faithfulness around your neck? And whose love and faithfulness is being talked about? God's? or ours? Both. But first of all, God's. God, in love and faithfulness to His promises, sent Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to bring us, His bride, home to Himself. Jesus came the way, the truth, the life. He came in absolute faithfulness to His Father. God's love, God's faithfulness is the very foundation of our life. Knowing God's love and faithfulness fills our hearts with love and a desire to be faithful like Him. That's in our hearts we begin to reflect His love and faithfulness and never the one without the other. Truth without love is harsh. Love without truth is shallow. Let every man speak the truth with his neighbor and no one lie to each other. We are always to speak the truth in love. And this is the kind of thing we have to work at every day. dwelling on the love and the faithfulness of our triune God to us, and reflecting that love and faithfulness to one another. And so what the preacher is saying here when he says, bind it around your neck, he's really saying, immerse yourself in the love and the faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ. Take these truths, this reality to heart. Don't just read about it, relish what He has done for you. Meditate upon this and be confident in His faithfulness. As He has been faithful in sending Christ, He will be faithful in bringing us home to Himself when Christ returns. Keep your love strong by that daily reading of the Word. and then show his love to others. That's a way of blessing, that's a way of joy. Such living in Jesus prolongs life. Such living brings prosperity and wins us favor with God and man. Hear these words of the Spirit. Psalm 34, verse 12. Those who love life and desire to see many good days must keep God's instructions. Proverbs, wisdom, the fear and knowledge of God holds long life in her right hand, in her left hand are riches and honor. Proverbs four, listen my son, accept what I say and the years of your life will be many. Proverbs nine, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding for through me your days will many and your years will be added to your life. Proverbs 10.27, the fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short. The Apostle Paul says, physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise both for the present life and the life to come. Psalm 119.165 says, great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble. Isaiah 32, the fruit of righteousness will be peace. The effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. Do you believe these things? Do you believe these promises? David struggled to believe these promises. Because there were times when he looked around and he saw unbelievers far better off than he was. They seem to have no health problems. They seem to have the long life. They seem to have all the peace. They don't have any worries. And we've seen it, haven't we? Little children. their life taken away. We've seen believers slandered and reproached, even killed because of their confession of Christ. We've seen them lose their jobs because of that. And if we're honest, we read these promises and we say, yeah, that's just for the future. We have to remember, we have eternal life now. You know what that means? That the eternal life we look forward to when Christ returns begins now. The kingdom has already begun and we are enjoying this kingdom now. Just in part. The fullness has not been completely realized. We are in this stage of already enjoying this life, already enjoying the kingdom, and yet, it's not yet complete. We're in the bud stage. We're in the infant stage, the toddler stage, or that kind of thing. Eternal life, peace, prosperity, promised to the righteous. We already enjoy life with Christ. Peace and prosperity. But we are filled, are we not, with a daily anticipation of the day when sin shall be no more. Jesus said it, in this life you will have trouble. And the reason why is because the devil has gone down to this earth and he is at work. trying to destroy our faith. This world as it is, is not our final destination. And yet even as we live in this world, we live in great anticipation of the new heavens and the new earth. And it's already begun in one sense. The renewal process is underway. Our focus And the focus of Scripture, the focus of the Spirit is not just, I want to get you so you can enjoy this precise moment and have the fullness right now. But it's to fill us with a vision of the complete work of Almighty God. Our focus in this age is not immediate prosperity, immediate success now. Without Jesus. For us, life and peace and prosperity have a whole new meaning. And if our days in this life are shortened, we're not grieved because though we die, we live. We're in Christ. We have eternal life. We understand that there are people around us who don't want us to enjoy peace and yet, In the midst of all difficulty, we have a peace that passes understanding. It's a peace that's not getting along with everybody because some people just don't want to get along with believers. But it's a peace because we are in God's sovereign care and He's accomplishing in us a great salvation. And someday the sinners will be no more. We understand success not simply in acquiring more for ourselves, but it's simply We surrender all to our Lord knowing that in Him we have the kingdom. When we focus on love and the faithfulness of God in Jesus Christ, then God is pleased and men also will Respond favorably, even unbelievers. Although they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your good works and glorify God on the day that he visits us. This is not a matter of striving for God's favor, as if we gain favor by good deeds. And if we do strive to please him through our good deeds, we're gonna be disappointed. We who believe, you see, already have God's favor. We already have his blessing, eternal blessing. These are words from a loving father to his children, to those whom he has already restored into fellowship with himself through Jesus Christ. These are the words of a father who has loved for his child such that he gave his own son to die for him. And he wants to keep this child in fellowship with him. And so he gives these words of wisdom. And he's saying, don't forget what I've done. Don't forget my faithfulness. Don't forget the full extent of my promises. Whatever comes your way in this life, don't forget. Whatever comes, it's fine by us. As long as we know this, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God. that is in Jesus Christ. He tells us that the way of wisdom, the way of Christ, is a way of blessing and joy that leads to eternal life and a blessing such as not even entered our minds to conceive. The heart that believes in Jesus and is led by wisdom is like a fountain spring of eternal life. It just keeps welling up and has more and more and more into all eternity. Jesus said it to the Samaritan woman, whoever drinks of the water that I give will never thirst. This water that I will give him will be in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. That's why we apply ourselves every day to the reading of God's word, to the meditating, to the study of it, to prayer, to Christian fellowship. We want to see, we want to live with an eternal perspective, understanding the love and the faithfulness of God. So when things are now hard and we face slander and the onslaughts of the devil or the affliction of the sinful nature, they don't lessen the truth of these words any. If the Lord should take us sooner, it's not something we want, but if he does, we'll discover that much quicker the absolute truth of these words. And I want to close with Proverbs 7. My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live. Guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers. Write them. on the tablet of your heart. That is, write them at the very center of your existence. May God lead us all in the way of wisdom, the way of Jesus Christ, and our lives bring him glory and honor. Amen.