Transcript generated by AI. Please comment if you notice any errors.
Good morning, everybody. I will say at the gospel mission, they had a nice big podium for me to spread out on down there. Oh, it was custom made for me, don’t know, nice. Alright, good morning, everybody. Good morning. Again, you know who I am. It’s an honor to be here again preaching to you guys and teaching you the word of God. This week was a little bit of a challenge as Will always does. He’s getting me to make different types of sermons, challenging me in ways that I have not been challenged before. As it was said earlier, luckily, we have the Holy Spirit to lead us through these things. But he gave me one sentence to make a sermon off of, and that’ll be in Proverbs 10 verse one. Don’t dive too far deep because that’s where we’re stopping. And the text is: a wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.
I had the honor of going to the gospel mission last night and preaching this, and I feel like there’s more that can relate to this as far as the children go in this room. But the rest of you, you might be thinking, I’m not a child. Why does this even apply to me? So this was written by King Solomon. He was speaking to his child, to his son, and he’s giving him advice, and we’ll dive through more of that advice as we go through this. But I want you to kind of think about if you hear that you are a child, oftentimes, we can automatically go to that I’m a child of God. That’s who I am in this world. But Ephesians tells us that that’s not how we’re originally created, that we are naturally children of wrath. We don’t naturally follow God. We don’t naturally seek after him, but Ephesians 2:1-3, it says, and we were dead in our trespasses and sins in which we once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air. That is Satan. You guys, naturally, we follow him and not God. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
Each and every one of us, we are a child, so we can relate to this. But when we first read it, we might think for that first son that is bringing gladness to his father, naturally, that’s not the case. We are born as the second son who is bringing the sorrow to his mother. So as you’re sitting here today, any of you, do you have one that you think you more relate with? Are you that one that makes your father glad or the one that brings sorrow to your mother? Sadly, we are all the second one originally. Romans tells us that because we are naturally that child of wrath, we don’t seek God, but not only don’t we seek him, we can’t. There’s no way on our own that we can earn our righteousness by ourselves. I’ll read it, Romans 3: “What then? Are we Jews any better off? No at all.” So none of us have any upper hand on anyone else in this world. We are all, so no one has a better hand. “Are Jews any better off? No. Not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jew and Greeks, are under sin as it is written. No one is righteous. No. Not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. We’ve all turned aside together and have become worthless. No one does good. No. Not even one.”
I want you to start to listen to, think, does this describe who you used to be or who you still are today? Their throats are like an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is on their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, and their paths are ruined in misery. In the way of peace, they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. I can think of my life before becoming a child of God that this sadly described me. When I spoke to people, it was not love and kindness that came out. It was bitterness, curses. When you would look at me, what came out of my mouth revealed what was inside of me. We are naturally looked at, and you can see the death and the lack of life that is within us. So, again, I asked, which one do you relate to sitting here today? Are you the first or second child? Do you relate more to this child of wrath or to a child of God?
The Bible is full of examples. Even when I ask you this question, you can naturally think, of course, I’m this first child. Of course, I bring honor and glory to my father, but there’s countless examples in the Bible of people who would answer that question that they are wise and they have understanding. One is found in the book of Matthew. We have three different cities run by these Jewish leaders. Jesus went and did most of his works in these three towns. And, again, these are people who devoted their life to the scribes and the Sadducees. They would say, yes, I’m righteous. I’m holy. I’m wise. I have this understanding. Yet Jesus himself, he denounces them. He went there. He showed them who he was, and they rejected him. He says, woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. He says, woe to you, Capernaum. Capernaum is where he was raised. Like, he went back to that town to where he was raised with Joseph and Mary. He says, do you think you’ll be exalted to heaven? I came here and I told you who I am and yet you deny me. Do you think you’ll be exalted to heaven? He says, no. You will be brought down to Hades.
Oftentimes, we can think that we are righteous. We can think that we are wise. We can think that we have this understanding, and we can fool ourselves just like they did. They thought they were the best. The townsmen would look to them as something to aim for as being righteous and holy and wise, but yet they are being cast down to Hades. They too were naturally this child of wrath. Jesus goes on to describe them with the very words that we’re speaking of. He called them wise and understanding. But what he’s doing here is either being a little sarcastic because they think they are or they have the earthly wisdom, not wisdom that is from above. Do you go about your life today thinking you are wise, but yet knowing the word of God and rejecting it, thinking just like they did? I don’t need this repentance thing that you’re talking about. I don’t need to turn away from my sins. I can do it better on my own, God. That’s exactly how they were thinking, but I plead with you. You are being that second child who is bringing sorrow instead of that gladness.
You may ask, okay, you’ve covered the children aspect of this. Why did the father even get brought in? Why did the mother get brought into this passage today? We did cover that it is a literal father writing to literal children, his literal son. Another thing that we have to think about is as parents, as kids, that there are roles that we have to do when we are in those positions. God tells us we have jobs to do as we are in those roles, and King Solomon was fulfilling that, and we’ll dive through some other proverbs that he has written to us showing that he fulfilled this. But as fathers, if you’re sitting here in this room, we’re told not to just make our kids angry for no reason. Don’t just provoke them, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. This is what we see King Solomon doing as he’s writing these proverbs. He’s instructing. He is disciplining his child. Mothers, on the other hand, if you notice, the father is glad, but there’s sorrow in the mother’s heart. If you’re a mother sitting here today, Proverbs has a great example of what you seek in your life, how you live out your life to your kids if you’re following what the Bible says. It says the mothers, when they open their mouths, what comes out of her should be wisdom and kindness. When you look at her tongue, it’s not that death that we saw, but it’s wisdom and kindness that’s on her tongue. And when she looks at her household, she has gladness in it. Mothers, at least the mother of my children and maybe you too, there’s a lot more emotional connection to our children, and so they take it more personally. When their children are not wise, when they are this foolish child, it hurts them even more to the core. To see a child who they brought up in this instruction, they did everything that God said. When we see them just throw it away, that brings real sorrow to her.
So how can you and I not be this second child? Because we are. How can we not be it anymore? One, we can listen to the instruction of our parents if they are biblically foundational. If they follow these rules, then we should listen to them, children in the front row. If you are not living at home with your family, there’s good news that we do have another father and he has instructed us and has given us the key to how to be wise, to have this understanding. But we also have other passages that Solomon wrote that we can look at. Did I say King Saul at some point? Solomon wrote these. I apologize. Sorry. Solomon is writing this to his children. But I do wanna read something that gives us hope. Ephesians 2, we read it where we were children of wrath, but we don’t have to stay that way. Verse 4 in Ephesians 2 says that, but God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love in which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, even though we’re those children of wrath, he has made us alive together with Christ. By grace, we have been saved and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus. It is by grace that we have been saved. We don’t have to stay this child of wrath. It is by grace that God has chosen us to adopt us as his children; we can live our life for him. It is a gift. Nothing that we did. These scribes and Pharisees, they tried on their own, but all they could do is boast on themselves. A true relationship for God to be your father, for you to be a child of him is for you to put your trust in him, and it’s nothing that we did to deserve that.
So how again can we not be this child of wrath? We know that we need to put our faith in God. We need to be submitted under him, but we need to not have this earthly wisdom. We can’t be set in stone thinking the fact that we have wisdom when in fact it might not be the right wisdom. So how can we know? Am I fooling myself, or am I truly having godly wisdom, wisdom that is from above? The book of James tells us a little bit about this. He asks you straight to your face, who is wise and understanding among you? The same exact words that Jesus used to describe those leaders. He says, by his good conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. You can see it through your good works. Works don’t save you, but if you have this wisdom, you will do good works. But here’s how you can tell. But if you, again, sitting here today with this wisdom that you think you have, but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not wisdom that comes down from above, but it is earthly, it is unspiritual, and it is demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder in every vile practice.
I can think of the time when I was not saved. I thought I was. I was going to church for a good year before God actually saved me. If you ask me, yes, I was a believer. Yes, I was wise. Yes, I knew some scripture. That’s not what showed in my life. It was unspiritual. It was earthly. There was definitely jealousy in my life. Everything I did was out of selfish ambition. Even going to church, I selfishly went so that I could be seen. They saw me there so they wouldn’t question if I truly was saved or not. The chaos that ensued in my marriage showed the true disaster in every vile practice that was truly there. I was fooling those around me and fooling myself into thinking that I was wise and had understanding. So how do we know if what we have truly is? How do I know standing here today that I’m not fooling myself anymore? And James tells us, but this wisdom that is first pure, peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, and sincere. That is the wisdom that we want. That is the wisdom that is from above.
So when you think, when you are wise, challenge yourself. Am I doing the things I’m doing for God or am I doing them for me? Am I doing them to better my own life or to glorify him? The rest of our time will be in Proverbs. So if you do want to open up there, we will look at Proverbs 9:10. This is talking about how do we gain this wisdom. So we talked about what is it? How do I know if it’s earthly? How do I know if it’s from above? How do I get this wisdom and stop being this child of wrath? Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. We cannot have this truly biblical wisdom if we don’t have a right perception of God. That right perception of God comes with fearing him. That doesn’t mean I should be scared to open up my Bible or scared to talk to him, but it’s having this awe and reverence of the true power of the creator of this universe and putting him in the place that he should be in our lives. I can say all day long, Jesus is Lord of my life, but if I don’t listen to him, is he truly?
So Solomon, does he say any more about this? I do apologize. I hope last night I did not just say Saul the whole time, but Proverbs 1, if you wanna flip there, we see him instructing his son even more. We see him doing that duty as a father to bring up his son in the instruction and the discipline of the Lord so that his son is not the second son anymore, but instead can move into that place of the first one that’ll bring him gladness and fulfill the roles and duties that he has as a father in this world. Proverbs 1:8-9 says, hear my son, your father’s instructions, and forsake not your mother’s teachings for they are a graceful garland for your head and a pendant around your neck. When I first read this, I was thinking, like, why is she decorating me? Why is my mother supposed to be putting this onto me? When you think about the fact that when you are a child of God, when you are out in this world, you’re supposed to be representing something beautiful. You’re supposed to be representing Christ and God’s handiwork. And so we read earlier the mother’s job was to instruct and to give you knowledge and information, and she was going to make you beautiful to this world. When people look at you, they should see Christ. And so she decorates you with these graceful garlands, puts a pendant around your neck. When people see you, they will see that you are different.
My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say come with us, let us lie in wait for blood. Let us ambush the innocent without reason. Like Sheol, let us swallow them alive and whole. Like those who go down to the pit, we shall find all precious goods. We shall fill our houses with plunder, throw in your lot among us. We will all have one purse. He’s saying, son, please listen to me. There will be people in your life who will try to entice you. They will promise you gifts. They will promise you a purse filled with this money. They will promise you these things that they have no right to promise you. But they don’t care who gets in their way. We need to be careful who we are around. Son, listen to my words. Do not even consent to be with them. He continues on, my son, do not walk in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their paths for their feet. They run to evil. They make haste to shed blood. For in vain is a net spread in the sight of any bird, but these men lie in wait for their own blood. They set an ambush for their own lives. Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain. It takes away the life of its possessors. These people that will come into your lives don’t just not consent to go with them. Don’t even be on the same path that they are on. They don’t care who gets caught in the net. It says for in vain, they spread a net in the sight of any bird. They don’t care what the catch is. They just want to have gain from it. They will go through anyone and do anything to get what they want in their lives for this unjust gain. So don’t consent to be with them. Don’t even go on the same path they were on. We have people in our own lives today that will try to drag us down these paths, and we have to be cautious and wise about who we are with.
Proverbs 4, you can turn there if you’d like. He continues to instruct his son. This is his duty. It is his job to make sure his son is wise so he continues to do so. He says, hear, oh, son, a father’s instruction and be attentive that you might gain insight. This word insight is the same as the understanding that we’ve seen. So pay attention, son, so you might gain this understanding for I give you good precepts. Do not forsake my teaching. He speaks about how his father did the same. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, let your heart hold fast to my words. Keep my commandments and live. Get wisdom. Get insight. Do not forget and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. Again, he is pleading, son, don’t go with those people, but also get this wisdom and insight so that you can know better. Don’t turn away from my commandments. He now starts to talk about wisdom as a her. He says, do not forsake her, and she will keep you. Love her, and she will guard you. The beginning of wisdom is this, get wisdom. I always chuckled at that, but as if you’re looking and waiting for a place to start, you just need to jump in. If you want wisdom, you need to just go and get it. But whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful crown.
There’s many passages to choose from, but I wanted to tie this one in for this graceful garland. We read that that’s what the mother did when you were underneath her care. Children, she will bestow this upon you. It comes with the wisdom. But now you keeping this wisdom that you should have will continue to do so. This wisdom in your life will continue to adorn you in these things. He says, hear my son and accept my words that the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the ways of wisdom. I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your steps will not be hampered. And if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction and do not let go. Guard her for she is your life. Do not enter into the path of the wicked and do not walk in the way of evil. Avoid it. Do not go into it. Turn away and pass on. Again, even in this separate proverb, he is warning against those around you, those that are evil who are trying to drag you down.
What’s interesting is how he describes them here next. These people that are in your lives even today that try to drag you back into the sins of which you once lived, it says they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong. They are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat of the bread of wickedness and they drink of the wine of violence. But the path of righteousness is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until a full day. The way of the wicked is like the deep darkness, and they do not know over what they stumble. A fun experience I was pleased to have last Wednesday at Lamar’s Bible Church is the youth group does this thing called underground church. You get middle schoolers, I think, did it last night. High schoolers is the group I was involved in. We got to do it Wednesday night. It is pitch black. You turn off all the lights in the church. The leaders lovingly get to walk around with pool noodles and try to smack tag them. We were wearing bells to entice them, and, there’s different levels to this game. At first, we could only be in the hallways of the church, but the whole church was for a game. And you could just jingle that bell, and you would hear people tripping and falling and stumbling. That was a great example of the image of what is said here. It was pretty dark, wasn’t it? Yeah. But the amount of blindness that we have when we are in this darkness, we can be in a room that you could normally traverse perfectly fine. But when you’re blinded by this darkness, you don’t know the path of which you’re on. It says the way of the wicked is like this deep darkness. They do not even know what they stumble on. But what he does say is that the righteous is like the light of dawn. So you could have that same very room right after hearing these kids stumble. Could turn on the light, and they could walk out perfectly fine. If you’re living your life in the light, you can see the path of which you’re walking on.
So he continues on. My son, be attentive to my words and incline your ears to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them in your heart. For they are a life to those who find them and a healing to all the flesh. Keep your heart with all vigilance. From it flows the springs of life. Remember, the light is stronger than the darkness. Even the sun makes the night scatter. So how much more will the wisdom of God make these second child’s wisdom flee? He says, put away from you crooked speech and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all of your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left or turn your foot away from evil. Being a Christian or at least walking in the path of how God tells us to is purposeful. You don’t wake up one day and accidentally follow God. It is a purposeful path that in the light you can perfectly see, contrasted to the darkness where we trip and we stumble and we fall.
So how do we get there? Again, you and I were born this child of wrath. How do we get there? How do we get this wisdom? It’s not easy. Satan is alive, and he is strong, and he is out there. He will try to stop you every single step of the way. He did it in the Garden of Eden. He went there when they had this perfect environment. They walked with God himself, and yet he came and tempted them away. The opposition to this wisdom that we want is described in Proverbs 9 as woman folly. And when you read this description of what this foolishness or this folly is, it really brings it to light. It says that she stands in the city and she yells out. If you’ve ever had a sin or a vice that keeps drawing you back, you know it whispers in your ear. It tells you, come back to me. I am better. She is loud. She will catch your attention. Says that she is seductive, and she will draw you in. The devil knows your weaknesses. He knows what will try to lead you astray. But if you follow her, Proverbs 9 tells us that the guests in her house are in Sheol. If you follow this seductive woman, this woman of folly, it will only lead you to your own grave.
So we need something stronger than this opposition that we are up against. That is Christ. Today, sitting here today, we need Christ Jesus to be the Lord of our lives and to shine the light so that we can see the path that we walk on. We don’t wanna continue to be the second child bringing sorrow to our mother. We want to be this one making our father glad. We’re told that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from the dead, that you will be saved. The words that I just uttered are not my own. They are promised from God himself that if you make Jesus your Lord and believe those things, you will be saved. God loved us so much that he sent his son into this world because we cannot do it on our own. We’re told if we fail at one single point of the law, we failed at it all. We don’t just kind of miss the mark a little bit. We completely flunk this test of life. That’s why Jesus had to come for us. We are naturally the second son. But he sent him, and he can keep us. Nothing can take us from the hands of God if you put your trust into him. Not angels, not demons, not other humans. Nothing can snatch you from the hands of God.
But are you in the hands of God sitting here today? Do you trust him enough for you to actually make that step into his hands? Are you just kinda sorta hanging out next to him? There’s a difference of him being the Lord of your life and you knowing a lot about him. Even the demons know a lot about God. Remember that we all were this foolish child. We all started out as this wrath. Nothing can take us from him if we make that leap of faith into his hands. But also remember that just because you say you’re wise doesn’t mean you are. Just because you say you’re a child of God doesn’t mean you are. There are countless people like the scribes and the Pharisees. Maybe even people in this room that when the day of judgment comes, we’ll hear the words I never knew you. We need to be in his hands, secure in him, not just kind of hanging out around him and around his children.
The one thing that we do have and that we know we can rely on is that we have a loving God. But what that means is that we have a God that’s not gonna force us to be with him. We have a God that gives you this opportunity. We have free will down here on this Earth. But if you don’t wanna be with him here, he’s not gonna force you to be with him in eternity. He loves you too much to then force you to come kicking and screaming into his kingdom. So have you made this leap of faith? He will not force you to. But if you love him and you go into his hands, he will keep you. Do not separate yourselves from him. Instead, run towards him. I plead with you that if you are still this child of wrath, even hiding like I was in the church pews, cry out to him. He will accept you. He loves you.
I pray that as we continue out our weeks, as madam Folly, day in and day out, entices us, calls to us that we walk in the paths of Christ and not towards her house. Well, thank you guys for your time. Dear God, I wanna thank you for this opportunity to dive into what wisdom truly looks like when it’s from you, Lord. I pray that we don’t rely on our own understandings, our own thought of what wisdom is. I pray that we look towards you, that we are not falling into the paths of those around us that try to drag us into our graves, Lord. I pray that we turn to you, the only one who can bring life to us. You don’t just say that we’re lost. You say that we are a pile of dead and dry bones. Without you, we cannot have the life that we need to be with you eternally, Lord. I pray that if there’s anyone here today that has not made you truly the Lord of their lives, that they take that step and they step into your hands, Lord. I know that you will take care of them and you will love them until eternity. In your name, amen.
