We'll spend some time in the book of Proverbs this morning. Dear gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you so very much for Jesus. We thank you so very much with all that you've blessed us with in him. So very thankful that we are fully and completely redeemed by the blood of your son And we ask father that as we look into your word your spirit would be moving Your spirit would cause us to see those things that we need to see that through the encouragement of your spirit and of the word that we would desire to be like your son Jesus Christ and We're just so very thankful for today that we have and this time that we have to come together and to look into your word and to worship and sing songs together. We thank you and love you in your son's name. Amen. This morning, I'd like to start in Genesis. The guys on Sunday morning, they always joke that my famous statement is, in order to get the sense of what's going on, we need to go back to the book of Genesis, even if that means we're in the book of Revelation. And they joke, but I'm serious. You always have to go back. No, but this morning, we're gonna be in Genesis three. I wanna just point out something here. So you're familiar with what's happening, right? The beginning of chapter three, the serpent comes up and tempts. Eve the woman and she takes of the the fruit and then she gives some to her husband Adam and he eats and in verse 7 it says in the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and so we know that they tried to make these clothes for themselves these loincloths for themselves from fig leaves Then verse 8, it talks about how God walks in the garden in the cool of the morning and Adam and Eve hear this and they get scared, so guess what they do? They go run and hide in the bushes, right? And God calls out, now don't read too much into this, that God doesn't know that Adam and Eve had sinned or that they're hiding in the bushes. He knows, I think what he's doing is being gracious and allowing Adam and Eve an opportunity to repent. That's what I think he's doing. It's not like he's like, it's a hide and seek game here. So he says, where are you? And Adam says a really weird thing. He says, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. Now, there are a lot of things that he said in that statement that are true. But that's not why they hid. It wasn't like he goes, oh no, I'm not dressed to meet the Lord God Almighty. I need to go get dressed. No, he hid because of what? The sin, right? That's why he hid. And then, it's interesting, and then God says, well who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from that tree I commanded you not to eat from? And Adam, once again, says a lot of things that are probably true in a different context, but in this context we go, oh, buddy. He says, the woman whom you gave to be with me gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate. Now, it's kind of an interesting thing because Adam sinned, right? He hid because he sinned. So who told him that he was naked? He should have said, well, I knew it the moment I ate and I disobeyed, right? Once again, that's the right response. But he does something and it's amazing because he hasn't had a lot of practice at this and he seems pretty good even though he hasn't had a lot of practice. He just immediately throws his wife under the bus. And in the process, implicates God for his sin, because you see it, right? The woman whom you. So really, he's, why are you hiding? Well, I'm hiding because I'm naked. Well, who told you that you were naked? Did you eat? It's your fault because you gave me this woman and it's her fault. So even though Adam sinned, he passes the blame, right? Their fault, your fault, your fault. I've seen this numerous times in dealing with people, every time there's a confrontation of sin. Normally people don't immediately just go, yeah, you're right, I'm wrong, I sinned, I need to repent. Normally there's this, passing the buck, it's their fault, they did this, the reason I did this was because they did that, or somebody else did this. And it's all trying to shift the blame. And it's really a shame, because as believers, we should not be like this. As believers, we need to be honest. And when we sin, we need to admit our sins, and we need to not try to implicate other people in that. We apologize for the things that we've done wrong, not try to shift the blame. One of the things that I do know about the Christian life is that we are constantly disciplined by the Lord. Now, I don't want to go on a diatribe here and just start talking about all sorts of things, but I do want to just say this, because I think whenever we hear this phrase, discipline of the Lord, we have a really bad idea. I think most Christians around the world have a bad idea of God's discipline. So nine times out of 10, whenever there's a big storm that happens, the first thing that's said out of many believers' mouth is, well, that's because of the sin of the community. Maybe, but probably not, right? I mean, Jesus deals with this when a couple guys died and the disciples said, well, whose sin is it that caused this? Jesus said, neither. This happens. When we think of the discipline of the Lord, we should think of it very biblically, that God, like a father, disciplines his children to shave off those things which are not like Christ. And he uses the word and the Holy Spirit and the conviction of the word. That's one of the ways that the Lord disciplines us. Another way that the Lord disciplines us is he allows the full consequence of sin to play out. So, for example, we sin, and instead of God stopping that consequence, he allows that to happen. There's various other things. We often think of God as like, he's like up in heaven, like Thor, can't wait to throw lightning bolts at people. That's not how this is. And so, this morning, as we go to the book of Proverbs, we're going to look at biblical discipline. how the Lord disciplines us, how we should discipline our children. And the point is that we should accept the discipline of the Lord, even though it's not fun at the moment, but we should see the blessings of when God disciplines us biblically. So this morning, in Proverbs chapter 29, we're getting towards the end, friends, we're getting towards the end, but Proverbs 29, we're gonna be in verse 17 through 21, Lord willing, And I want to point out three things. I want to point out three blessings from this text from God's discipline. So the first thing that we're going to see in verse 17 is we're going to see that discipline, biblical discipline, leads to loving families. So in 17, biblical discipline leads to loving families. That's the first blessing. The second blessing is found in verses 18 through 20, where it leads to wise obedience. Wise obedience, that's another blessing. That's a good thing. God disciplines us for further obedience. And then lastly in verse 21, what we're gonna see is future godliness. So let's look at this first one, the first blessing of discipline, which is loving families. Notice what Solomon says here. He says, discipline your son, and he will give you rest, he will give you delight in your heart. So here he starts off with the parent's responsibility to train, to instruct, to correct. This word discipline has become a bad word in almost every context it seems like. You mention the word discipline children in any setting and there's always going to be eyes raised and there's always going to be some discussion. And I understand that some parents do discipline different than other parents. I understand that. I also understand that some parents go way too far and go into abuse. That's not good, that shouldn't be named amongst us, and if anyone is committing that, that's a sin, that needs to stop. Or lack of discipline, that's a problem. So discipline, as we've seen in the book of Proverbs, really deals with this. One, you deal with a kid who has a sin issue, right? The discipline is always a sin issue. The kid sins, and so the parent then lovingly but sternly confronts the sin, says you've violated God's character, you've made God sad, here's what you've done, you confront the kid, you give a punishment, and then you offer the kid an opportunity to apologize, to say sorry, and once the kid has done that, then the issue is over, right? So mom and dad shouldn't bring it up again and continually say, well, remember that one time you did da, da, da, da, da, da. No, the issue is done with, right? So it's a, you confront the sin, you help them confess the sin, you teach them the right mechanics of how to deal with that sin. That's what biblical-wise discipline is. It also deals with the example of the parents. The parents are ones who should act in a way that is godly, and so when the children are looking at their parents, they say, that's what it looks like. So you might not even address certain things, but your actions, and the way that you act, and the way that you talk, and the way that you react, that affects your kids, and affects the discipline. But the idea is, is that the parents need to be proactive, right? The parents need the discipline. And notice what'll happen. Notice how biblical discipline in a family setting, notice what will happen. It says it will give, he will give you rest. Meaning that there's gonna be a future benefit for the parent that does the hard work now. So you do the hard work of discipline now, and there's gonna be a future dividend, right? And that dividend is that he's going to give you rest. He's going to be good to you. He's going to do things that are honoring to the Lord. So remember, as we're going through the book of Proverbs, I know that this has been said so many times, but it's okay that every single proverb deals with the fear of the Lord. So this is an issue of the fear of the Lord. This is what it looks like for parents who have been gifted children. This is what stewardship of that children looks like. And then you then see how the children then honor their parents, right? And so here, the principle is, you discipline your children, and the principle is, in the end, they will treat you well. So you see how discipline and confronting of that sin leads to a loving family, right? It's not that you discipline a child and then the child will go, mom and dad were too strict and so I'm not gonna love them. No, the discipline helps the child, helps the child learn what does it mean to love one another, to love God, to properly honor your parents. But notice there's another thing that will happen with the parent disciplining the child. It says, and he will give delight to your heart. Question is, why will the child give delight to your heart after you discipline them? And it's very simple. They will start walking in wisdom. They're pleasing to the Lord. So that's what the parent should desire, right? The parent desires for the children to walk with the Lord. So we've said it, and I'm gonna say it again, as parents, We shouldn't care what kind of job our children have, we shouldn't care what kind of house they live in or what kind of car they drive, as long as they're walking with the Lord. That's the number one thing. That's the number one goal. And for a parent, when we see our children walking in obedience, walking in wisdom, walking in Christ-likeness, That should be our ultimate joy. Wow, look at how God is working on the heart of my kid. My kid. There's better kids, but he's working through my kid. It's amazing. This is how God has ordained it, and this is what we should do as a church. Now, I know that there's many in this room right now that go, well, We either one, don't have kids or we have lots of grandkids. So what do we do? I think the application would be clear. You encourage parents to discipline their children and discipline them in a biblical way. And every time you see a parent doing that, you applaud that. The church should applaud good discipline. And anytime that you see a kid acting righteously or wisely, I think it's good to go back to the parent and say, that was a good thing. Your kid just did something great. As a pastor, I get it, and this happens sometimes where my kids will do something, and people will come and go, you won't believe what your kid did, and then tell me how bad my kids were. Now, my kids are bad, and I believe every single thing that people say because I know my kids. See? Imagine living with that. No, I'm kidding. But sometimes it's very difficult for parents to know that they're doing something good, right? That the discipline is paying off. And sometimes we can't see the benefits of this discipline. But let's speak about another thing, a more theological thing here. God does this to us, because God is our heavenly father. And so our heavenly father disciplines us. And the response that we should have is yes, that is correct, there should be repentance, confession of sin. And theologically, if this is true of an earthly father, how much more is this true of our heavenly father? That it will be a delight to his heart, that when we respond correctly, he is pleased. We could say that one of the most worshipful things you can do is repent of your sin and walk righteously. That is worship. That is incredibly worshipful. But just notice this, notice that one of the benefits of biblical discipline is what? A family coming together. It's not divided. You have this loving parents and these loving children and they're coming together and they're helping each other, they're loving each other. Incredible thing. Now, there's something else, there's another benefit, there's wise obedience. Now, as we've seen in the book of Proverbs, we've seen that Solomon teaches positive things by pointing out a lot of negative things. And so, in the next couple verses, we're gonna see lots of negative things, but the point is that we should say, yes, I need to be biblical and I need to be obedient. I will also say this, that in my My life, as I've heard plenty of sermons, I'm a connoisseur of sermons, as it is, I've heard this next proverb preached more than any other proverb in the book of Proverbs. And most of the time I've heard it preached, I just go, I don't think so. I don't think that's the way that So notice what it says in Proverbs 29, 18. It says, where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law. Now, we spend a lot of time in Proverbs. We understand, we've talked a lot about parallelisms, right? This is how you read a proverb. You read the whole proverb and then you say, how does the first line relate to the second line, right? And it's the comparison that determines what the meaning of the proverb is. So obviously, the thing that is being contrasted is the throwing off of restraints and the keeping of the law. That's what's being compared and contrasted. Now if that's the case, well then the second part when it says, but he who keeps the law, then informs us on the meaning of this word, vision. And the ESV has a good translation. There's really not a perfect translation for this word. But notice in the verse 18 where it starts, it says, where there is no prophetic vision. That's really the meaning of the word. It has the idea of direct revelation. That's the idea, where there's no direct revelation from God, this specific revelation from God. And so then that is, in the second part of the parallelism, when it says the law, we can then understand what Solomon's talking about. And the idea is, is that when the scripture and the perspective that comes from scripture is not forefront in a person's mind and the desire to being obedient to that perspective that's found in God's word. When that's not forefront, guess what happens? It's complete and total, utter chaos. They throw off all restraints. There is no fence anymore. There is no more leash. There is no more right, wrong, right? It's everyone does what they think is right in their own eyes. That's what this verse is saying. So, let it be a warning to us. Do not be too quick to diminish the Word of God, to diminish the sufficiency of the Word of God, the inerrancy, infallibility of the Word of God. Do not be quick to diminish the sufficiency of Christ. Do not be quick to say, well, what does everything else say outside of the scripture, and then try to understand the scripture by everything else outside of scripture. The idea is, have a biblical perspective. That is important. Have a biblical perspective, a biblical worldview. What this book says is true, and this is how I need to think. Anything that is foreign to that, You destroy it. Anything that might sound close to it, you go, congratulations world, you say something that sounds really close to the truth. Good job. But that doesn't mean that that all of a sudden then becomes the truth. This is the truth, right? This is what we follow. And so the idea is that the biblical perspective is really important. And where there is no biblical perspective, what do people do? The cast off restraints. They don't care. They don't care. There is no consistent definition of what is good and what is right and what is holy. There's several examples that we could point to. We could point to the book of Judges, for example. The book of Judges demonstrates this really well, where everyone does what is right in their own eyes, and there is no biblical perspective. We could talk about Psalm 2, about how sometime in the future, there will be a group of kings and leaders that will go against Christ, and what does it say? That their desire is to throw off the chains of Jesus, right? that Jesus has set up these laws and they go, no, we don't want it. We can look at Romans 1, right? As a society, as they move away from God and honoring God and worshiping God, that the ultimate conclusion is what? They call what is evil good and what is good evil. So this is what happens. So if this is the problem, a lack of biblical perspective, then the way that we fight that is what? A biblical perspective, right? That's the goal. The goal is to think biblically, to think theologically, to think truthfully about this. And I think that's implied in the second part of this parallelism in verse 18 when it says, but blessed is he who keeps, keeps the law. This idea of keeping the law is much more than just being obedient. It's thinking along the same lines as. It's the idea of thinking thoughts that God wants us to think. So important, so important for us to remember. As I'm thinking through this, God's word in a biblical perspective and the Holy Spirit, what does it do as we read it and as we think through it? It exposes all of those areas where we're not like Christ. And so what should we do then as believers when we see that? We should repent of those things which are not like Christ, which are not holy, which are not worshipful. And we should say, yes, I agree with God's word. That's what 1 John says when he says, if we confess our sins. It means to say the same thing. We're saying the same thing as God. Now, he goes on, because notice, there's still more that deals with obedience. So with the discipline of God's word will come this idea of this incredible blessing of obedience, and there's wise obedience. But notice in 19. Kind of interesting, it says, by mere words, a servant is not disciplined, for though he understands, he will not respond. Now, once again, very interesting, right? This is not advocating for beating your employees. Some have understood it this way, that it goes not by mere words, okay, well then, let's get the belt, and they'll understand that. I think what it's really speaking to is the inability of man's words to really convince people. Now, this is another incredible thing to think about, that no matter how articulate a person is, or how articulate an argument is, or how much it makes sense, no human words in among themselves can really influence another person. Right? It's like that old saying, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can lead somebody to the truth, but you can't make him believe it. We know throughout all of scripture that it requires the power of God and of the Holy Spirit for people to believe truth. So, when it says by mere words a servant is not disciplined, this may imply, Solomon may be saying that you might need to be more diligent in your discipline, but to me it just speaks of the inability of those words in among themselves. And notice, this is remarkable, notice in verse 19 where it says, for though he understands, this word for understands is the same word that we've seen throughout all the book of Proverbs that has been said in a very positive way. It means understanding the implications, understanding the truth of, understanding all of these, the underpinnings of it. Yeah, he gets it. But guess what? He is not moved by it. He doesn't respond. He doesn't respond. He doesn't repent. He doesn't change. He doesn't worship. And then notice the next thing. In verse 20 it says, do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than him. So here this speaks of the impulsive nature of somebody to just say something, to blurt something out, to say it without thinking, without wisdom. So this is a foolish person. And this person who's that impulsive to just say things, to say things without thinking about them, Here, Solomon says something interesting. There is more hope for a fool than him. Now you'd say, well this sounds like a fool. This is exactly what a fool does. So why is there more hope for a fool than for a man who speaks hastily? The idea is, is that the person who's impulsive is a fool, doesn't think about what he's saying, doesn't think about his actions, nor does it bother him. and how hasty and impulsive he is. It doesn't bother him at all, right? So it shows a lack of biblical discipline, right? A lack of wisdom. In fact, we may even say, verse 19 and verse 20 are connected, that you might have a servant or an employee that just says things, and you go, you can't just say stuff. You gotta think about it. And they go, yeah, no, I get it. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna be me. I'm gonna live my truth. I'm gonna do me. I'm gonna say whatever I wanna say whenever I wanna say it. That's bad stuff, that's bad stuff, that's a really bad thing. But notice the result of either of these, of a servant who is disciplined and he understands it but he doesn't respond, and a man who says things is an example of verse 18, of one who does not have a biblical perspective, therefore they throw off all restraints. Why would a servant, Why? Unless he has a biblical worldview. Think of Moses when he goes to Pharaoh and Moses says, let my people go. And what does Pharaoh say? Who is the Lord that I should obey him? He doesn't know the Lord, so therefore there's no allegiance to him. We as believers, as we look at this, we say, okay, it's important to be in God's word, important to have a biblical perspective. Any time that there is any type of discipline or rebuke or conviction of sin, I need to be obedient, respond correctly, and that will lead to what? Further wise action. Now notice this. Notice one other blessing of godly discipline, Christ-like discipline, is for future godliness. The sense is that lack of confronting sin, lack of a gospel perspective, lack of this idea that we're saved by grace because Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was buried, rose again on the third day, and it's simply on the basis of faith alone, right, that we have a right relationship with God apart from that perspective. And apart from a, a biblical perspective of discipline, things can go really bad. And if we do it the way that God has prescribed, things will go better. So notice, this is the complete opposite of verse 17, right, where it talks about discipline your son. This next one is the complete opposite. So notice what it says. It says, whoever pampers, That's a good word. That's a good translation, by the way, of the word. That's really what it means, pamper, right? treat like a favorite, to give everything to this one, right? Pamper, that's a good word. Whoever pampers his servant from childhood. So here's this young one and there's this constant just giving of gifts and constantly doing all of this stuff for this one from childhood, right? Just giving them whatever they want. Notice what it says. It says, will in the end find his heir. There's two ways of looking at this phrase, in the end we'll find his heir, right? It can either mean that he is so nice to this servant that this servant becomes like a son to him, and so he's gained a son. Great. The other is he's so nice to the guy that the guy thinks he's a son and he's not a son. And what ends up happening is then you have to then serve the servant because it's going to be so incredibly troublesome for you here on out. I think the second is probably true, based upon the Hebrew grammar here, that it's, this is big problems. This is big problems, right? This isn't a good thing. This isn't a good thing to have a lack of discipline, and consistent lack of discipline, and then when they grow up, they're just gonna magically then what, become disciplined? No, that's not what happens. What happens is they've learned this particular behavior and they become spoiled brats, right? And it would be great problems for this one. I know that the temptation for us is to look around our city or maybe even amongst our friends and go, well, that parent doesn't parent their kid. That's going to be trouble for them. That parent doesn't parent their kid. That's going to be trouble. I know that's the tendency. But think about this for a moment. Think about those times that we pamper ourselves We don't listen to the word of God correctly. We give ourselves whatever we want, right? We give full range to the flesh, and then when it comes time for serious action, when it comes time, when it's come full blown, then we look at ourselves and go, well, where did all of this come from? Where did all this bad behavior come from? Do you think that it might be the fact that you just were given to pleasure and you just like the flesh a lot? That's a principle here. So biblical discipline causes this future obedience. It will end up better for you than it will against you. So we've seen three things this morning about godly discipline and the blessings of it, right? So the first one is what? Loving families, right? The second blessing is what? Wise obedience, right, right now. The third is what? Future, future godliness, right? So I think the advice here would be very clear, that we would accept the disciplines of the Lord, we would be quick, to confess our sins. We would be quick to deal with ourselves and our own sins. I know I like dealing in the sins of others. I do myself. It's one of my guilty pleasures. I love looking at the sins of everybody else. And when I can't find enough, I turn on reality TV. and I watch someone else and I go, look how bad that guy is. Makes me feel so good about the drama in my life, because it's not on TV, but theirs is. Let us be careful to deal with ourselves first. and deal with our own righteousness first, deal with our own obedience first. Another thing that I think is really important, as I alluded at the beginning, is that any time that we talk about the discipline from the Lord, it's very easy for us to pass the blame on somebody else. Well, the reason I sinned was because somebody else sinned before me, so yeah, there you go, that's why I sinned. We also need to be careful of that. Let's not pass blame. Let's be brave, let's be honest, let's be biblical, let's be Christ-like. When we sin, we apologize for our sin. We make amends for our sin. God is just and he will deal with the sins of everyone else. Don't worry about the sins of everybody else. You got enough to deal with in your own life. I have enough to deal with in my own life. And so, let us strive to live a life that's yielding to the power of the spirit, that looks to the scripture and the truth of the scripture. Let us determine to have a life that, like what Paul says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Let's go ahead and let's close in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so very much for your word. We thank you so very much for the things that are found here. We ask, Father, that we would strive to be like your Son, Jesus Christ, that we would yield to the power of the Spirit, that we would be obedient to the New Testament, we'd be obedient to your will. We ask, Father, for all of us, as we all struggle with lots of things throughout our life, be kind to us, be gracious to us, give us both the will and the ability to do the things that we've heard here in this text. Just so very thankful for my brothers and sisters who are here, thankful for them and their faithfulness, very thankful for them coming out and worshiping, and we just ask for your blessings on the rest of the day, and that you would bring us back tonight so that we may honor and glorify you. We thank you and love you, in your son's name, amen.