Tawa Baptist

Principles

Scripture: Proverbs 3:1-12

Video Link: https://youtu.be/3zN8xHVvEg0

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Verses 1-4
  • Verses 5-8
  • Verses 9-12
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

I grew up in the city of Hamilton. The main feature of Hamilton is the Waikato river, New Zealand’s longest river. As a general principle, river water travels downstream and consequently you can expect anything floating on the water to travel downstream too.

Having said that, there are times when the water travels upstream, against the main flow. This usually happens near the bank of the river. Sometimes floating objects get caught in an eddy and are prevented from moving downstream. But eventually they come unstuck and carry on their journey to the sea. 

Today we continue our series in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs offers practical wisdom for living well in this world.

The book of Proverbs is like a river. It describes the main flow of wisdom and the outcomes one can expect from certain choices. It doesn’t explore the eddy lines and back flows all that much. Proverbs is more concerned with the main principles of wisdom rather than the exceptions to the rule.  

Our message this week focuses on chapter 3, verses 1-12, which read…

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. 3 Let loyal love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 Then you will win favour and a good name in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. 8 This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. 9 Honour the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits 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.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Verses 1-4:

The book of Proverbs contains principles. A principle is a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of beliefs. Principles guide our reasoning and behaviour.

For example, one of your principles for living might be ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. This principle then informs your chain of reasoning and behaviour: I want people to be honest and kind with me, therefore I will be honest and kind with others.

Of course, living by this principle does not guarantee people will always be honest and kind with you, but it does increase the likelihood of positive treatment. In any case, your kindness and honesty is not dependent on others. You aim to be kind and honest on principle, irrespective of how others may behave. 

Proverbs gives us principles to live by but we should not confuse these principles with promises.

The principle in verses 1-2 of Proverbs 3 is that the son remembers the commands (or instructions) his parents have given him, for they will prolong your life and bring you peace and prosperity. This is not a promise. There is no guarantee that following the parents’ wise advice will always bring prosperity.

Following the path of wisdom is not a get rich quick scheme. We don’t learn wisdom in order to accumulate lots of money. We learn wisdom on principle, because that is who we are and what we want to build our life on. 

There will be times when the vicissitudes of life create an exception to the rule. The story of Job is a case in point. Not all suffering is the result of folly. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and we don’t know why. We don’t always get what we deserve. But, as a general principle, following the path of wisdom leads to peace in the end. Ultimately, God restored Job.

The phrase translated as peace and prosperity is actually one word, shalom, in the original Hebrew. Shalom is wellbeing or abundant life. The prosperity of shalom has less to do with money or possessions and more to do with the richness of right relationships in community with others.  

The principle then is that remembering the parents’ wisdom is good for wellbeing, not just your own personal wellbeing but also the wellbeing of the whole community.

Verses 3-4 provide another principle to live by, the principle of loyal love and faithfulness. The term loyal love is actually hesed in the Hebrew. I’ve talked about hesed before. Ruth did hesed for her mother-in-law Naomi. Jesus does hesed for us on the cross.

Loyal love and faithfulness is about commitment and taking care of your relationships. Being a trust worthy person, maintaining your friendship and support through good times and bad.

To bind something around your neck is to have it with you all the time, wherever you go. To wear it so people can see. A wedding ring on your finger is a symbol of loyal love and faithfulness to your partner in marriage. It shows your commitment to your spouse.

Likewise, for some people, wearing a cross around their neck is a sign of their commitment to Christ. For others a cross necklace is just decoration. Wisdom says it is important that the symbols we wear on the outside of our bodies reflect the deeper principles and commitments we hold in our hearts. 

The heart, in this context, represents a person’s inner life. It includes your mind, emotions and will. To write loyalty and faithfulness on your heart is to be the same on the inside as you are on the outside. Don’t just pretend to be loyal and faithful, mean it genuinely, from the inside out.

As a general principle, being loyal and faithful will result in a good reputation. Over time, people will learn they can trust you. That being said, you don’t practice loyalty and faithfulness in order to make yourself look good. You are loyal and faithful and practice hesed on principle, because that is who you are; that is the foundation on which you want to build your life.

While a good reputation is not guaranteed or promised, it is the normal by-product of a life lived with loyalty and faithfulness.

There’s an interesting wee connection between Proverbs 3 and Luke 2. After the boy Jesus was left behind in the temple and his parents found him, we read   

51 Then Jesus went down to Nazareth with his parents and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. 

We don’t always follow the wisdom of our parents but Jesus did. We are not always loyal and faithful but Jesus was. Jesus fulfils the principles of wisdom we read about in Proverbs. Jesus does for us what we are not able to do for ourselves.

Verses 5-8:

Verses 5-12 of Proverbs 3, spell out some of wisdom’s principles as they operate in our relationship with God. Verses 5-6 are well known…

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.  

The main principle here is to rely on God; don’t be sucked in by the illusion of self-reliance. 

We tend lean on this verse at isolated times when we are facing a significant life decision, like who to marry, whether to change careers, how to handle a tricky issue and so on. But really, these verses are for all of life, not just the crisis points and crossroads.

Trusting the Lord needs to be a constant principle we live by 24-7. We are to trust with all our heart, completely, totally. Trust is the antidote to worry and anxiety. Trust sets us free to think more clearly so we make better decisions. Trust enables us to wait patiently and to rest so our strength is renewed.

Trust is like a bridge over a gorge; it provides a way to safer ground.

Trust is like a torch light when you are walking at night in the bush; it doesn’t show the whole journey, but it does reveal enough to take the next step.

Trust is a promise kept; it gives you confidence to move forward.

Trust is like a warm meal; it fills you with comfort and strength.

There is a lot in this world that we don’t know and cannot control. If we think about that stuff too much we soon become overwhelmed with fear. Trusting God means leaving the stuff we don’t understand and cannot control with God. Not worrying about it but instead focusing on the things we can control.

God is the source of wisdom.  God alone sees the whole picture. We only see a small piece of the puzzle and not always that clearly. If we make decisions based on the little we know, without reference to God, then there is a good chance we will get it wrong.

This does not mean we have nothing to offer. Rather, trusting God with all our heart means we put God at the centre of our decision making.

The temptation is to rely on ourselves. That is what Adam and Eve did when they ate the forbidden fruit. Their sin (and ours) was to stop trusting God and rely on their own understanding.

Verse 6 talks about acknowledging God. In one sense that means praying to God; asking him to guide us and show us the way. But asking God for guidance is the easy part. The harder part is listening for God’s response; discerning what he is saying.

In order to do that we must know God. So the bigger part of acknowledging God is knowing him. We come to know God in the experiences we have along life’s pathway and as we trust him.

For example, my knowledge of God as Father did not come solely from a book. It came mostly from being a son and becoming a father myself. Likewise, my knowledge of Jesus (his goodness and suffering) came in part from reading the gospels but more deeply through serving in the church.

My knowledge of God’s forgiveness comes from realising when I have messed up, being honest about that and receiving forgiveness. It also comes when other people do wrong and I have to look to God for the grace to forgive them and let it go. 

The principles of loyal love and faithfulness in verse 3 are divine qualities. As we practice loyalty and faithfulness we grow in our knowledge of God. 

Do you understand the principle here? Acknowledging God isn’t just something we do in our head. It is the knowledge that comes from experience; from walking in relationship with God. And that happens all through life’s journey.

Verses 7-8 are saying almost the same thing as verses 5-6, just in a slightly different way. Not being wise in your own eyes is another way of saying, do not lean on your own understanding.

Fearing the Lord, goes hand in hand with trusting the Lord. To fear the Lord, in this context, means to respect the Lord, to recognise him as the source of wisdom and to be in touch with your need for his help. Those who fear the Lord do not want to do anything to damage their trust with God and so they shun evil.

The wisdom of these verses could be paraphrased as, walk humbly with God. The natural consequence of walking humbly with God is enjoying good health in your physical body.

This does not mean that everyone who is sick is wise in their own eyes. People can become sick for any number of reasons. Sickness is not proof of sin. Correlation does not prove causation. The principle here is that there is a connection between body and spirit.  

Jesus understood the body / spirit connection well. The Lord said, human beings cannot live on bread alone but need every word that God speaks. The person who fears and trusts the Lord, listens to God’s word and obeys it. The wisdom that comes from God is as necessary for life and health as food.  

Verses 9-12:

Part of acknowledging God involves honouring the Lord with your wealth. People in the Old Testament did this by offering the first fruits of their crops to God at the temple. The first fruits were then shared with the poor and the priests.

Giving a portion of our income (according to our means), rather than hoarding it up for ourselves, is an act of trust in God. It’s a practical way of saying, ‘God gave me this and God will continue to provide’.

Verse 10 says that when you return the first and best to the Lord, your barns will be filled to overflowing. You’ll have more than you need in other words.

Again, giving to the Lord is not a get rich quick scheme. We give to the Lord as a matter of principle, because offering the first and the best to God is an acknowledgement that all we have comes from God. It is God who provides us with a job and an income and the wherewithal to do the work.

Jesus talks about the wisdom of generosity in Luke 6, where he says…

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Our earthly economy is driven by the assumption of scarcity. The underlying belief of our society is that there is not enough to go around and so when something is in short supply, the price goes up. The economy of God’s kingdom is different from that. The underlying principle of God’s kingdom is abundance. With God, there is more than enough to go around.

We still have to do the mahi though. We still have to be good stewards of what we have. But the principle of reaping what you sow holds. If you sow generously, you will (more often than not) reap a greater harvest. And if you forgive others, God will forgive you.

Verses 11-12 of Proverbs 3 show us that God’s love is expressed as much by the Lord’s disciplineas by the abundance he provides…

…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.   

When we hear the word ‘discipline’ we may think of punishment. But discipline is a word that really means teaching. Disciplining or teaching someone will usually mean correcting them when they are wrong, so they don’t keep repeating their mistake. But that correction need not involve punishment. More likely it will involve further practice until you get it right.

Verse 11 says we are not to resent God when he rebukes (or corrects) us. Resentment is a form of anger. Anger is the natural response to injustice. We get angry when we think we are being treated unfairly. If God corrects you, because you are doing something wrong, that is not unfair, that is kindness.

But what if we suffer when we haven’t done anything wrong? Could God be teaching us something in that experience? In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis says this…  

“I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.”

C.S. Lewis was far wiser than me, but I’m not sure I agree with him entirely on this point. From a human perspective pain does not translate as love. Megaphones don’t work on the deaf but sign language does.

What’s more, human beings are not like blocks of stone. Stone is unfeeling, unyielding, unforgiving. Human life is fragile, sensitive to suffering, vulnerable.

Yes, God is a sculptor, but we are more like clay; soft, malleable, easily bent out of shape. In my experience, God’s correction of us is like that of a potter, who adds water and shapes our character with a gentle touch. Yes, the clay vessel goes into the furnace of suffering to set, but no longer than is necessary.

God’s discipline may, at times, involve suffering but not always. There is a patience and a grace to God’s discipline that is truly humbling.

If you know someone who is going through a difficult time at the moment, then please don’t make their ordeal any more difficult by suggesting God is teaching them something. Better to ask yourself, what is God teaching me.

God has a way of glorifying himself through suffering. I have learned a lot over the years by observing the way other people have handled themselves with courage and faith as they have journeyed through loss and grief.

Conclusion:

There are many principles of wisdom in the book of Proverbs but the most important principle is that God is love and everything he does is an expression of his love. The more we know that, the better we are able to trust him and rely not on our own understanding.

May the Lord bless you with a deeper experience of himself. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

  • What is a principle? How is a principle different from a promise? Describe one principle that guides your reasoning and behaviour?
  • Why do we practice loyal love (hesed) and faithfulness?
  • What connections do you see between Proverbs 3:1-12 and Jesus (in the gospels)?
  • What does it mean to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding?  How might we do this?
  • Discuss / reflect on the various ways you (personally) have come to know God.
  • Why do we give the first and best to God?
  • In what ways has God disciplined / taught / corrected you?