Proverbs - Wisdom For Troubled Times

We're gonna turn to the scriptures now, and Proverbs chapter 22. It's a strange book proverbs as I don't wanna take away what Tom is gonna say, but it's a strange little book because it is full of sort of pithy sayings, 1 after the other. Sometimes they link up and sometimes they just sort of individual little pithy sayings. And we've been discovering as we've been looking at this book on Sunday mornings.

Just how amazing they are. And how really helpful they are for living today and how up to date they are but also there's a deeper side to them when you when you start thinking about it and it's really good to have Tom, who's 1 of the passes of the church, gonna open up some of these provosts to us this morning. It's really exciting because they really do land in our lives. The thing about I've I've found about these problems they challenge you and sometimes you feel a little because when you're challenged, you immediately wanna go like that. But then when you think about it, you say, no, that's right.

Yeah. No, that's right. So have a have a listen to these. Proverbs chapter 22 and its first 1 and it's in the back of your booklet if you want to follow along. A good name is more desirable than great riches.

To be esteemed is better than silver or gold. Rich and poor have this in common. The Lord is the maker of them all. The prudence see danger and take refuge. But the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

Humility is the fear of the Lord. Its wages are rich and honor and life. In the paths of the wicked are snares and pitfalls. But those who would preserve their lives stay far from them. Start children off on the way they should go.

And even when they are old, they will not turn from it. The rich ruled over the poor and the borrower is the slave to the lender. Whoever sows injustice reap calamity, and the rod they will in fury will be broken. The generous Will themselves be blessed for they share their food with the poor? Drive out the mocker, and outgoing strife quarrels and insults are ended.

1 who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend, the eyes of the lord keep watch o over knowledge. But he frustrates the words. Of the unfaithful. The sluggard says, there's a lion outside. I'll be killed in the public square.

The mouth of an adulterous woman is a deep pit, a man who is under the Lord's wrath falls into it. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away. Tom. Come and open up some of them for us, please. Thank you very much.

Pete for reading that to us, and good morning. Welcome. As Pete said, my name is Tom. I'm 1 of the pastors here, the assistant pastor. And it's a great pleasure to welcome you and to see so many people here and an especially warm welcome if you're part of the family, visitors, friends, who've come to witness and to celebrate with these parents.

It was a great joy, wasn't it? See them all up here and to pray together as a church family. And to dedicate them to the ways of the Lord, which is what 1 of these sentences is is all about. I'm going to say a prayer and ask Lord would help us as we look at his word together and then we'll have a look at just a few of these proverbs together. Father we thank you.

For this book of Proverbs, and we thank you that it is so full of life changing true wisdom. We thank you that you are the ultimate author of this book. We thank you that all of the bible is your word to us, the people that you have made. And we pray that you would give us ears to hear now that we would listen in to what you, our maker, our lord, and our Savior are saying to us. We pray that these words would be a blessing, to all of the parents that we've just seen up here and we pray for these children that they would be starting off in the way that they should go.

And that even when they are old, they will not depart from the truth of your word. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, Proverbs 22, sentence number 6 is is really where our focus is going to be this morning.

This 1 that we just had read, start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it. Now, the word start off there, actually is the word to dedicate. And it was used in the bible for for the temple, and it was used of ordinary houses, and it was a type of celebration. You would you would dedicate a house, dedicate a temple for a purpose for the worship of God, and this proverb says that in the same way, as you would dedicate a building to the lord, so dedicate children to the way that they should go. Set them apart for a way.

Teach them a way, dedicate them. And that's 1 of the reasons we call this service both a thanksgiving as we give thanks for their lives and a dedication as we pray for and set them aside to the Lord and His ways. But I have to say when I first read that sentence, My initial feeling was not 1 of encouragement. I actually find it quite unnerving. Find it quite an unnerving sentence.

Because it seems to be saying, doesn't it? That as long as Christian parents teach their children to know the Lord, they will not depart from him. And therefore, if the children do turn out to depart from the Lord, Well, the fault lies with who? The fault lies with mom. The fault lies with dad.

They didn't teach enough or they didn't teach in the right way, they are responsible. They bear the burden. Something went wrong. And so I find it quite unnerving, quite intimidating in some ways. And I think partly, it's good to hear the challenge of that.

But actually, I'm not persuaded that this proverb is a universal guarantee that that is always going to happen in every case. And I'm not persuaded of that for 3 reasons. Firstly, we're not robots, children aren't factories, and it isn't the case as long as you control every input, the output will follow. We're people, we're responsible for our own choices. Secondly, it's not how this book of Proverbs works.

In proverbs, what we find is general truisms that hold true most of the time in most places but not all the time in every place. So it gives us expected patterns rather than universal absolute. That are gonna be true all the time. Thirdly, it doesn't even happen like this in the bible. So there's a book called 1 kings and 2 kings, which is the story of the kings of Israel, and 1 of the things you see there is that you might have a great and godly king who does everything right, but his son or daughter turns out to hate that same God and to go a very different way, and it can happen the other way around too.

So it's not always the case that 1 follows the other even in the bible. There's a a a great quote I was reading. About that point and it says this. This proverb is not a sure formula for success in child rearing. It is an assurance of how profound a parent's influence can be, though that influence might be rejected.

This proverb is not a sure formula for success in child rearing. It is an assurance of how profound a parent's influence can be, though that influence might be rejected. So I'm not persuaded that it's a universal absolute for those reasons. But having said that, there is a general expectation that as we teach children to know the Lord, as we have prayed for them this morning, that they too will embrace that teaching and take on that path for themselves. And so the question becomes, well, how Do Christian parents start kids off in the way that they should go.

How do we do that? And that's the theme this morning. Now, look, it might be that you're here and you're thinking, okay. Well, even from that introduction, I can tell that there's going to be nothing for me today. This is gonna be a talk for these parents, and I'll listen in where I can.

But largely, it's not gonna be relevant. It's not gonna be relevant to me. But remember, we've just said all of us together that it takes a wider family It takes a church family to raise a child. We all have a part to play. We have all made promises together And so in some way, we are all all involved in this.

So I trust that there will be something for everyone here this morning. So Proverbs 22, Started children off on the way they should go and even when they're old, they will not turn from it. What does it mean? 3 things that I want to show you this morning. Firstly, it means to teach and to show that God is a father, to teach them to show that God is a father.

Here's a verse from another part of Proverbs, and this is just 1 of hundreds like it, which I could have which I could have shown you. Listen my son to your father's instruction, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. So this book of Proverbs is set within a family. What we're dealing with here is mom and dad and kids sat around the dinner table on the sofa watching Tully together walking to school in the morning, it's mom and dad with their kids sharing the truth. It's set within family.

My son, my daughter, listen to your dad, listen to your mom. It goes on and on and on like that. It's a it's a family book. Now why is that? Well, I think partly because that's where children grow up.

It's it's the natural place for it and that is where the tunities for teaching are. But secondly, because it shows us what it's like to know God. In other words, families with all their many imperfections model what it actually means to know the Lord and to relate to him. John Calvin, great old theologian of the Christian faith, describe the family as God's school, and it's almost it's almost as if God thinks how can I best model to them this idea of authority and safety? How can I best teach them what it's like to have both training and trust?

I know family. I create family, and that will be a type of school to show them what it's like to relate to me. Now look even as I say that, I know there are many cases where it doesn't work out that way and some of you will know that very sharply in your own personal experience and in your own upbringing where dads and moms have in some way departed from from that and don't image perfectly what God is like. We do live in a broken world where even the very best of images can be graffitied. And actually, there is a sense in which there are no perfect parents on We all fail.

We all get things wrong. We are harsh when we should be encouraging. We turn the blind eye when we should be engaging. We get quick tempered when we should be patient. We all all parents on earth fail.

But the bible says there is father in heaven who is perfect in every way, 1 who encourages us, 1 who made us, and 1 who knows us, and 1 who loves us very, very deeply. That is how the Bible communicates what God is like. He is not something like the big bang, you know, a force which just got it all going and then left us to ourselves. He's not like those arcade machines where as long as you put enough 2 peas in, something good's gonna drop out the bottom. As long as you behave well enough, do enough, then he might reward you in the end.

God describes himself as a father. The most famous prayer in the world begins our father because that is what he is like, and that is what he invites us into through his son, the Lord Jesus. It's so important to say this right at the beginning because because everything else to do with parenting flows from that conviction. It flows from this idea that God is a father and that through Jesus, we can come to know Him. As his children.

And so start off children in the way that they should go means something like, dedicate them to knowing God as father. Both with words and with a modeled environment. This is what God is like. He is a father. This whole book of Proverbs finds itself within a family environment for that reason, because that's what it is to know God.

Secondly, It means to teach God's life giving words. To teach and show that God is a father to teach God's life giving words. Proverbs 1 verse 8 again. Listen my son to your father's instruction, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Now, that word teaching at the end there, is the word Torah is the word Torah, which is actually also the name for the first 5 books of the bible.

Tora, the teaching of your mother. So it refers to a body of teaching that mom is gonna give. Listen to mom's Torah, and listen to your father's instruction. And that's what Arvest in chapter 22 has in mind. Start children off on the way they should go and even when they're old, they will not turn from it.

Well, what is the way they should go and what will they not turn from? In context, It's the teaching about the lord that they get from mom and dad. Now just to pause here. It might be the case that you're here and you wouldn't call yourself a religious or a Christian person, and the idea of teaching a child to know God from a very early age. The idea of trying to impress on them that God is real and they should follow God might be very very unwelcome to to our ears.

Some people would argue that actually our job is not to teach them anything like this. Our job is to let them choose for themselves. What is true for them? And so they might say, look, I'm not going to teach my children to know God, but I'm not actually going to teach them to be against God, all I want them to do is to choose for themselves, what is right and what is true for them. But, of course, that is anything but a neutral position, is it?

That is a teaching which says you are in the position of authority. You must decide what is true for you. And I think you'd agree. That is quite a powerful world view, isn't it? The book of Proverbs understands that no child grows up in a vacuum.

Every parent or carer on earth, has a way of seeing the world, things that they think are true and values that they pass on and they do that persistently. And so the question for us is not, will you teach your children, But what will you teach them? And where does it come from? And what does it produce? And the bible is clear from start to finish that the family from the earliest days is to be a place where the Word of God is taught and lived out in the home.

Now, because I'm very very new to parenting and and feel myself to be a work in progress in this area and in every other area. I thought it would be a good idea for me ask some older and wiser parents what they found most helpful when it came to this idea of teaching God's life giving life giving wisdom in the home. How did they go about it? And to paraphrase, all of them said in different ways, that knowing the truth and knowing the world the kids live in and bringing those things together was the most important thing, knowing the truth of God's word, knowing the world that they live in and trying to bring them together. And I think that's really helpful, not just because it's wise, but because it's actually in the bible.

It's in the book of Proverbs. So have a look at this from Proverbs chapter 1. Listen my son to your father's instruction, and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Now, what is that? My son, if sinful men entice you do not give in to them.

If they say come along with us. Let's lie in wait for innocent blood. Let's ambush some harmless soul. We will get all sorts of valuable things and fill our houses with plunder. You see the relationship between those sentences, The teaching of verse 8 to 9 is connected to the world that they live in.

My son, if sinful men entice you. If they say things like this to you, in other words, they know what's being said in the world. They know what the temptations are, the challenges are. They know the sort of world the children are living in, and they bring the 2 together, both the truth and the world. And that is not just about warning but it also affects how we encourage them, how we teach children in our encouragement.

1 American writer and pastor called Tim Keller. He talks about how easy it is to accidentally turn our children into Disney characters. And what he says is, that if we only ever say things like you're so beautiful and you are the brightest in your class, and you are so good at sports, so much better than all the others. If we only ever say things like that, and he says we should do that, we should encourage like that. We don't want to exasperate children and run them down and push them down and crush them with a weight of expectation, they can't bear.

We should be encouraging. But if that is the only diet that they get, then they start to learn that that's how they should evaluate themselves in life. Am I brighter than? Am I smarter than? Am I better looking than her?

They learn to get their identity and their value that way. But proverbs would say that as parents try in weakness to teach that children are made by God and for God. That God loves them, and God wants to know them through Jesus, to teach them that they belong to a people and a tradition of knowing God that they will learn, we hope we hope they will, that brains and ability and how sharp their eyebrows are. Is not the final word on who they actually are. It's not where their identity and their value comes from.

They are made by God and God loves them, and his word is the best way for them. So this is not saying that parents need to be culture experts. It's not saying that they already need to know what's going to replace TikTok next year. And it's not saying that they have to do this all by themselves. But at the same time, this cannot be subcontracted to somebody else.

The Sunday school in this church is wonderful. It's excellent. We praise God for it. But this work cannot be outsourced just to them. Parents need to know the truth and the world that their children are growing up in.

And by God's grace with the gifts and opportunities they have to bring those 2 things together. That is what it means in proverbs to teach the life giving words of God truth for the world in which they live. Thirdly, to apply God's life giving correction. Now as we've already seen in Proverbs 1, we were just reflecting on it, there is there is much that is good in the world, but there is also much that is dangerous. Come along with us.

Let's lie in wait for innocent blood. There are dangers on the outside, but Proverbs would say that there is also danger on the inside. And that's what we saw in verse 15. If you look with me in your booklets at the bottom of the page, it says, folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away. Now we'll deal with that second half in in just a minute.

But first, do you see the danger within? 1 basic definition of folly is to reject the living God and his words and to go our own way. That would be a simple definition. To reject God's life giving wisdom, and to go our own way. And Proverbs says that that instinct is bound up in the heart of a child and in fact in all of us.

Now again, to some ears that That that could sound pretty unwelcome. Pretty unpopular opinion. People might say, That's just that that is just unfair. It's just an unfair way to talk about children. They're just children.

They don't know any better. And that is the start of an explanation. They do need education and they do need to know better. There is truth in that statement. Or some people might say, look, no child is born with folly bound up in the heart.

That comes from the TV. It comes from the mates that they hang out with. And as a dad, I love that explanation. Yeah? Doesn't come from me.

You know, it comes from their mates at school. It comes from the telly that they watch. Again, they they there's something true in that. We are shaped by the world in which we live. But let's imagine for a moment, that you could 100 percent control every input, that from day 1, you teach perfectly and from day 1 you stop every nasty influence, would that eradicate jealousy, an envy, and lying and aggression.

I heard a story this week from a friend of mine and his daughter is going to a school and she's about 8 years old. She's going to a school in another country. She doesn't speak the language. And the father was saying that the daughter arrived at school, and she was speaking English and there were 2 girls that really warmed to her and wanted to befriend her, and she thought she was gonna have a good time there. But then the very next week, those 2 girls who had been so kind to her had decided she wasn't as cool after all, and they separated from her, gave her a cold shoulder, didn't didn't didn't wanna be friends with her.

If we could just input the in get the input right, could we stop stuff like that? Could we stop the toddler kicking out at his brother who's getting more attention than him. Could we stop it if we just got the inputs right? See, what is the reason why you don't have to teach a child to lie? You don't have to teach them to envy.

You don't have to teach them to lash out at sister when she's getting more attention. What is the reason that we don't have to teach that? Well, the reason is not a knowledge problem or an environment problem as significant as those can be, but a heart problem. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. You see, we are conditioned to believe that the only problems we have are out there.

And if we can just get education right, we can just educate then all of our problems will evaporate. But the main problem according to the Bible is in here. Follies bound up in here, in my heart. And here's the thing, Christian parents know that, not just because they see it in the bible or in the children, but because they know it to be true of their own hearts. I, as a dad, need God to address my sin, like a good father, as well as doing that for my children.

If I'm not doing it from that starting point, then I'm just gonna become a kind of self righteous fool basically. Paul Blackam 1 Christian writer says this, some parents are alarmed at how often proverbs speaks of discipline in the correction of our children because history and perhaps our own lives have suffered greatly by the use of such discipline. However, the model for all parental discipline is not the brutality of a legalistic and self righteous fall. But the loving, compassionate and patient discipline of our heavenly father. And that is why I started with the father point.

Because it all flows from knowing God as father. Have a look at Proverbs 3 verse 11. My son do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke because the Lord disciplines those he loves as a Father the sun he delights in. That's what the proverb says. When he disciplines us, It is a sign that we're not illegitimate children.

It is a sign that he has adopted us, that he has delighted in us and that he will not leave us to the dangers of our sin. He loves us. And because he loves us, he cares about what we do and where we go, and he steps into correct us when we go wrong. Parenteral discipline draws from the that well. It drinks from that well.

The fatherhood of God. Verse 15 here, what we're just looking at, has nothing to do with a physical rod. I mean, some people go wild on that idea that rod must be this long, this thick. You must order it like this made of this wood, this wood's also good. If you were It's nothing to do with that.

The idea is to create an environment where correction is applied. Not with cruelty and not constantly, but when needed as an expression of delight. In them. It all flows from the fatherhood of God. Now there's so much more we could say on this.

But those 3 things, I think are are really key in Proverbs. Teaching that God is a father. Bringing his life giving truth to bear and applying loving correction when needed. And so as we close, just 2 applications for us. Firstly, if you are 1 of the Christian parents involved in a dedication this morning or a Christian parent here or maybe not a parent but someone in the church who wants to love invest in the children in this church, you might be thinking, well, look, to be honest, I hear all of that But I look at my own life and what goes on in my home, and it looks hopeless.

I don't even know where to start. I I ignore things that I should be addressing. I'm quick tempered when I should be patient. I miss opportunities to teach and I'm always thinking, why can't I do a better job of this? Why didn't I do a better job?

Well, can I say you're not alone in that? I have found in my life that marriage and parenting reveal my heart more than anything else. We have all failed and feel ourselves to be failures. And therefore, as you think about dedicating a child to the way they should go. We have to remember that our strength and our hope is in God's dedication to us.

God is a perfect father and he is dedicated to us. Nobody is saved by perfect parenting. We are saved by the blood of Jesus who loves us and is dedicated to us and will give us grace for every task on every new day. As Christians, our help is in the lord. But with that in mind, this proverb is saying, Come on.

Come on then. Isn't this what we want for them? Isn't this what we want to aim for and pray for and hopeful and expect in both families and in the church that all of these wonderful children we've just seen would know God as father and would treasure his life giving words, would embrace his life giving correction and that even when they are old, they will not depart from it. Isn't that what we want? Isn't that what we expect and pray for that is with all our weakness and failing, we try to teach them that God is a father and he loves them in his way is best for them.

That even when they're old and approaching the end of their life. They would not have departed from that truth but would love it and embrace it and know it to be true and would be passing it on to their own family. That's the expectation. What we what we're driving at. It's what we've prayed for this morning.

Secondly, then, if you are a visitor, and this all sounds very strange to you, and Some of it, you might be thinking, well, I can get on board with that, but that stuff I really don't like the sound of. And all of it seems a bit a bit foreign. If if you could just take away 1 thing this morning, let it be that first point that to know the God of heaven, is to know a generous loving father. That's what he is like, and that's what he invites us to. Have a look at this verse, last 1, from the New Testament book called John.

It's about Jesus. It says that Jesus came to that which was his own. But his own did not receive him, yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. This is what makes Christianity so uniquely wonderful. That God is a father and he sent his son Jesus to the world and that he walked upon this earth and that he lived a wonderful life.

And that he gave himself on the cross, and he actually took the folly that is bound up in our hearts. He took it upon himself and he died for it, and he gave himself in our place. And then on the third day, he rose from the dead to show that it was paid for, and that now he says, all who believe in him will not become a God slave or a religious slave, but will become a child of the living God. That is what he invites us into to know This life giving, loving, corrective, always generous, always good father. And that invitation is extended to all of us.

This morning. Let's bow our heads and pray together. Loveing father, we thank you so much for the lives of these children that we've just given thanks for and prayed for, we pray for their parents. We pray for all Christian parents here, Sunday school workers, those perhaps who don't have kids but love kids and want to invest in them and bless them. And we pray that you would help us to start these children off in the way that they should ago, that we would teach them your life giving wisdom, that you are a father and that they would never depart from those ways.

We pray father that you would help us to understand what it means to know you, that you are a savior, that the Lord Jesus has died for our folly and our sin, and that if we will trust in him, we can know you as father. Lord, all of us will feel ourselves to be failures in 1 way or another in this area. We know we could always have got things better, be doing more, be doing what we are doing differently, And yet, lord, we pray that you would help us to feel the challenge of that, but also to know that you are dedicated to us that there is grace for us in this task, and we pray that you would help us in Jesus' name, amen.