Proverbs 3 verses 1 through 12, these are God's words. My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commandments. For length of days and long life and peace they will add to you. Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Bind them round your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart. And so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man. Trust in Yahweh with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear YHWH and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones. Honor Yahweh with your possessions and with the firstfruits of all your increase. So your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine. My son, do not despise the chastening of Yahweh, nor detest his correction. For whom Yahweh loves, he corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights. Here, what has become a familiar address in the book of Proverbs, where he says in verse one, my son, and then again, in verse 11, my son. And it's particularly in that context in verse 11, when he says, my son, do not despise the chastening of Yahweh as a father. He whom Yahweh loves he corrects as a father the son in whom he delights and so we See here that in fatherly love and delight in them. God gives his children discipline Discipline for their good even though it's painful and we're familiar with the passage in Hebrews 12 that actually quotes from here and there in Hebrews 12, he says, do not forget the scripture which addresses you as sons, teaching us, reminding us that, yes, it's probably true that the book of Proverbs was written largely from a father to his son, largely from Solomon, perhaps, to Rehoboam. but from Solomon to either an ideal son or a specific son. But one of the things that the Holy Spirit does in this way is that he addresses us as sons. He addresses us as God's children. So that when we see in the book of Proverbs it's saying, my son, we have to remember that God addresses us with fatherly love and fatherly delight. He speaks to us because we are his children and he loves us. And he teaches us how to live because we are his children and he loves us. He points us to himself because we are his children and he loves us. He is giving us eternal life because we are his children, and he loves us. And part of what he does as he does so is he gives us our discipline, our swats, because we are his children, and he loves us. And so he sets, of course, the example for earthly parents as well. But that's not the main point here. The main point here is that we are children who are directed and disciplined. by our Heavenly Father. The next thing that we see, especially in verse 3, is that we are being developed into the image of our Heavenly Father. And he says, let not mercy and truth forsake you. Let not chesed or emet forsake you. This pairing of these two attributes is one that is especially used of God throughout the Old Testament. He is the one who is abounding in chesed and emet, he says. when he declares his own name to Moses on the mountain in Exodus 34. And now he's saying that by his own instruction, he makes us to be more and more loving and faithful. He makes us to be more and more like himself. In fact, when the Lord Jesus as a baby, and then a toddler, and then a child, and then a youth, and then a man grew, He grew in displaying the chesed and emet, the steadfast love or covenant love and the covenant faithfulness of God. And so as he grew and he displayed these things, he grew in favor with God. It's not like God loved Jesus more when he was 11 than he did when he was two. When the scripture says of Christ that he grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and men, it means that as his mind grew and as his body grew, the expression of that mind and the conduct of that body more and more displayed the character of God himself. And so when we hear that from Luke chapter two, and then we read this in Proverbs three, and he says, let not mercy and truth forsake you, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. You know, let them be your adornment on the one hand, that which identifies you and adorns you on the one hand, bind them around your neck. Let them be that which controls your thinking and feeling and choosing more and more. Write them on the tablet of your heart." Then he says the outcome of that in verse 4, If by God's use of God's word he conforms us to his own image, what will happen, verse four, so find favor and high esteem or understanding in the sight of God and man. That's exactly what Luke 2 says about what happened with Jesus as he grew. So first, verse 1 and 2, and then verse 11 and 12, we are children who are directed and disciplined by a Heavenly Father. Next, verses 3 and 4, we are developing into the image of our Heavenly Father. Then, verses five through eight, we are to be children who depend upon our Heavenly Father instead of depending upon ourselves. Trust in Yahweh with all your heart. That means there's none of your heart left that trusts in anything else. You don't hedge your bets. You don't trust in the means, you use the means that he has commanded, but you don't trust in the means that he has commanded. You do what's right, but you don't trust in doing what's right. You believe what's right, but you don't trust in your believing. What's right? No, you trust in Him. And if you are going to trust entirely in Him, then certainly you must not lean on your own understanding. And lest we be creative in interpreting that in verse five in a way that leaves room for pride or leaves room for being willful or doing things our own way, verse seven makes it much adds language that clarifies, saying, do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear Yahweh and depart from evil. Be careful that you not be the sort of uninstructable person. If you are uninstructable with men, then although you may be self-deceived and come to the word and have what you think are quote-unquote wonderful quiet times or whatever people like to call them, but if you're coming wise in your own eyes, then you will lean on your own understanding. You may even end up leaning on your own understanding and calling it trusting in the Lord. And so pride, self-righteousness, self-wisdom, being wise in your own eyes, is a great danger. But if we are proper children of our Heavenly Father, we'll depend upon Him, verse five, and we'll know Him. When verse six says, in all your ways acknowledge Him, it's not translating a phrase that means, or a sentence clause that means, in all your ways give Him credit. or in all your ways, even remember that he's the one that you're depending on. It's a relational word, it's not a remembering word. In all your ways, know him. That everything we do, we would do in relationship with him. And then trusting, not just that his word will tell us the right path, it does, but praise God, Since we are sinners and we are weak, if we know Him, if we are His children who know Him, And in everything we do, we are knowing him. He is the one who straightens the path. So not just the word tells us what the straight path is and tells us how to walk in it and that we should, et cetera. But God is the one who, on the one hand, straightens our path by grace, making us to walk in it. But then there's also a straightening of the path by superintending providence. so that we are not actually unable to undo, we are not actually able to undo the good plan of God for us. Although we may stumble and we certainly sin and commit all sorts of error, and yet he causes even that to work together for the good of his children. He will not give them Christ, He will not give them Himself in Christ, and then let their final blessedness, their final glory in Him fall. So He will straighten, He will straighten our paths, and He'll do this in every way. Not just in a spiritual way, but of the things that we need in this life, whether food or drink or trouble or any other such thing, and do not forget that the next world, the next life, is the long one, is the lasting and enduring one. So when he says it will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones, there is some fulfillment of that, some some measure of even physical benefits to living a wise and godly disciplined life, and then even more than that, when we are ill or injured, the one who knows God in his life, in his living, has joy and endurance of soul that is that is just as much health to our flesh and strength to our bones, but ultimately there's a fulfillment here, both physically and spiritually, that doesn't come until the next life. We're not gonna have the sort of persistent contentment and joy and peace in God in this life that he gives us in the perfecting of holiness and the glorifying of the soul. And certainly, although our souls are growing more and more in those things in this life, our bodies are actually decaying in this life. And there's a literal physical health and strength that is to come in the resurrection. But this is still the path to the resurrection. the path of knowing Him, belonging to Him. So, verses one to two and 11 to 12, children who are directed and disciplined by our Heavenly Father. Verses three and four, children who are being developed into the image of our Heavenly Father. Verses five through eight, children who are depending upon our Heavenly Father. And then verses nine and 10, children who are devoted to and delighting in our Heavenly Father. And this means not just with all of our substance, but with all that we have. When he says, honor your way with your possessions and the firstfruits of all your increase, this isn't just a rule about tithing. and giving more than a tithe, that the first part of everything that we get from him, we give back to him. The reason for that rule is because we don't belong to him just 10%, or 15, or 25, or whatever it is that we end up giving. We belong to him 100%. and giving the first fruits to God, the first part of our increase, shows that we belong entirely to Him. It doesn't get us off the hook or excuse us from living our whole life for Him, everything that we do for His praise. Rather, it is a reminder to us that the reason we give this first part is because we belong to Him. And if we live this way as one who depends upon Him entirely, is devoted entirely to Him, delights entirely to Him, then we indeed will have contentment in this life. To the extent that we live that way, To that extent, we'll be content. Our barns will be filled with plenty. Our vats will overflow with new wine. Now, there is a future fulfillment of that in the new heavens and the new earth. Well, very specifically in the new earth as well. But you will have enough. You will have what is best for you from your Heavenly Father. We must not fall into the idea of thinking that if we just had more, we would be happier. If you are not content with the Lord in knowing Him in all your ways, if you are not content with the Lord and what you have now, you will not be content with the Lord and ten times what you have now. And so there is a knowing of Him, a delighting in Him, depending upon Him, A devotion to him, this right knowing of him, is the key to plenty, is the key to enough, is the key to contentment, even in this life. Although he does promise a new heavens and a new earth as our inheritance as his children. But as his children, we must be devoted to and delighted in him. So, these 12 verses especially hold before us that the scripture speaks to us as God's children and calls us into a life through faith in Christ as those who are his own dear children. Amen, let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we pray that you would make us to know you as our Father, that we would receive your fatherly instruction and your fatherly discipline as love from you. We want to be more and more like Christ. We want to be children on earth who bear a resemblance to our Father in Heaven. Grant that it would be so. Give us not to be wise in our own eyes, but to depend upon You, to teach us from Your Word, and to help us by Your Spirit to be conformed to that Word. And give us to be devoted to You, to honor You, and then to delight in you, to be content with whatever we have, because we have you. So make us to be such children, and thank you for being unto us such a Father, through and in Christ, in whose name also we pray. Amen.