Sunday, November 9, 2025 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the provision that you have made, what you have given for us to be here today, the provision you have made from eternity past and the provision you made just this morning.

The love that you have shown, the grace that you have given, that we can gather here today to praise your name, to give you glory in the name of your

Son, because you have given us your Spirit that we may worship you in truth.

We have received more than we can account for, more than we can fathom already, and yet you promise us that the best is yet to come.

So we come together this morning in hope and in faith, and Lord, I pray that what will be known most among us is love, our love for you and our love for one another, and our love for the things that you love.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. I invite you to open your

Bibles and turn with me to Proverbs 3. We're going to be reading verses 1 through 12, and this will be, yes, our fifth time into the passage, but it is a very rich passage, as many have noted.

This is a passage that is often put to memory. It is a passage often discussed and taught, and it is well that that is so.

There are so many things here that are of vital importance, encouraging to our hearts, guidance for our lives, as we consider whom the

Lord loves, from Proverbs 3 verses 1 through 12. We've been talking about wisdom in our series in Proverbs.

Wisdom is the skillful mastery of life.

It is a righteous mastery of life to the glory of God.

A skillful mastery of our relationships, our responsibilities, and our resources in righteousness to the glory of God.

Skill in truth, skill in goodness, skill in beauty, organizing all of our life for God.

And Solomon has been laboring to acquaint his son with wisdom, to know wisdom and appreciate wisdom, to pursue wisdom.

In many ways, Solomon wants his son to be attracted to lady wisdom and pursue her before he would pursue anyone or anything else in his life.

And it is fitting for a son to receive wisdom from his parents, to adorn his life with their wisdom, and then live in the attending blessings that they have desired for him.

But it is even more fitting for those who have been made in the image of God to live in the wisdom of God.

God has made us in his image, made us according to his glory, that we would live in his goodness as true sons and daughters.

Whom the Lord loves, as we see in these 12 verses, whom the Lord loves, he reminds of his truth, he leads in his way, he delivers from evil, he gives an inheritance, and whom the

Lord loves, he chastens and corrects.

If you are able, I invite you to stand with me as we read God's holy word, Proverbs 3, verses 1 through 12.

This is the word of the Lord. My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands.

For length of days and long life and peace they will add to you. Let not mercy and truth forsake you.

Bind them around 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 the Lord with all your heart and lay 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 the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.

Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits 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 the Lord, nor detest his correction.

For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. There's a lot of potential to misunderstand this idea, whom the

Lord loves. Even the statement, the Lord loves me.

The Lord loves you. There's a great potential to misunderstand what that means in our current context.

There's a great deal of popular preaching, popular theology that I think comes down to God is your biggest fan theology.

What God wants most is your autograph. To hear all about you and from you, he just can't get enough of you.

There are a lot of attempts to soothe the oppressed soul with sentiments that God sees you.

God sees you. No matter who you are or where you're at, God sees you. What does that even mean?

God is omniscient, he's omnipresent. Of course he sees everyone. It's meant to convey the following idea.

Although so many do not see and understand you for who you are,

I mean the way that you know and understand yourself, God really does. He's an ally to you in your sad, oppressed life.

Others may refuse to see you in your unique issues, but God always sees you.

It reminds me of a sermon I heard 22 years ago in a village in Guatemala on a mission trip where the beleaguered farmers were hastily gathered by a bell into this wall -less tabernacle.

The sermon was given by one of my mission teammates. Psalm 139 verse 7,

Where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence? And the conclusion was from the preacher,

No matter where I go, I can go there confidently because God is always following me like a puppy.

I think one reason why this theology persists, and you can find it today, today's expression is, you know,

He Gets Us campaign. But one reason why this theology persists is because it's very flattering to ourselves to think that God is just so into us.

Another reason is that Scripture is full of testimony about our

Creator and our Heavenly Father, that He knows everything flawlessly, and thus

He knows us, and yes, indeed, we have testimony that God loves us. But the point of the matter is

God loves us better than we do, and God knows us better than we do, not in the same way that we would think of ourselves and love ourselves.

God does not love me along any kind of Michael -centered, Michael -absorbed trajectory, but in a

Godward way. He knows me, but He knows me correctly. What He sees in me,

He sees rightly, and what He sees is far afield from any of the convoluted misapprehension of what is really going on with me and around me.

I am a sheep. He's the shepherd.

I'm a child. He's the Heavenly Father. The point is, yes, of course,

God sees me. He's always present with me. God loves me for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, and therefore

God corrects and chastens me. That's the comfort and the confession of all the saints.

Yes, God is about affirmation, but He is affirming the preeminence of Christ in our lives. Yes, God is all about saving the oppressed, but He's saving us from enslavement to self -centeredness and enslavement to pride.

God is all about love. He is love. His love is corrective.

His love is good. His love is true. His love is beautiful. His love is redeeming.

His love is recreative. His love leads us to repentance as He reshapes us into His image, the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.

God is a wonderful Heavenly Father. We've been reflecting on that, especially here in Proverbs 3.

The first two chapters, Solomon is acquainting his son with wisdom, encouraging him to grab wisdom, especially from his parents, to adore

Lady Wisdom. When he comes to chapter 3, he brings home the point that it's all about his son's relationship with his

Creator. God is his Heavenly Father. And the questions are poignant for us.

Will we forget our Father's commands, or will we treasure them? Will we rely upon our own counsel, or will we, as we were admonished in verses 5 -10, trust in the

Lord, fear the Lord, honor the Lord? What a list of instructions from a father to a son.

Very complete list. Trust the Lord, fear the Lord, honor the

Lord. A last question to ask here in verses 11 -12 is will you despise your father's correction?

Obviously, the potential is there, as Solomon warns his son.

My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest his correction. For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as a father the son in whom he delights.

Now, the way that Solomon phrases this is the same pattern we've seen all throughout these 12 verses.

There is a prohibition and a promise. We see that in verses 1 -2.

Don't do this, because here's a promise. Verses 3 -4, don't do this. Why?

Because here's a promise. Again, we have the same thing here. A prohibition in verse 11. Do not despise the chastening of the

Lord. Do not detest his correction. Why? Here's the promise. The Lord, if he loves you, he is going to correct you.

He delights in you. He's going to be directly involved with your life.

The similar pattern is in verses 5 -10, where we have a command expressed along with a concern, but also a comfort assured the son.

As I look at that pattern, as I look at Solomon as a father, directing his son to trust in the

Lord, I see a close correlation here between exhortation, do this, and explanation, why this.

Exhortation, explanation. There is a combining of instruction and encouragement.

Here's how you go about it, and this is why you should desire to do it this way.

You see how these things are combined, interleaved with each other? It helps me as a father.

It helps me as a dad to know how to communicate, how to instruct my children.

But this prohibition is expressed, first and foremost, relationally. He says, my son, do not despise the chastening of the

Lord. He could have said, my son, do not despise my chastening, don't despise my correction, and of course, that would be a true thing to say, but the ultimate goal of the father is to hand his son's attention and love and honor off to the heavenly father.

He's got a bigger goal in mind. And so he says, my son, do not despise the chastening of the

Lord, nor detest his correction. So the father is leveraging his authority in his son's life, he's leveraging all the influence he has with his son in order to promote

God's authority. Parents, that's why we were given authority.

Why did God give us authority over our children if not to do that?

Our authority over our children isn't, I have authority over you so that I can constrain you from annoying me.

I have authority over you, my children, because I want to make sure you make me look good. No, God has given us authority in the lives of our children so that we may direct their attention and leverage that influence so that they would glorify

God and live for the Lord. And so, do not despise this correction and chastening.

The hope being offered here is holiness. God's going to correct you, he's going to change you, he's going to adjust things in your life.

And if the hope is holiness, then the starting point has to be humility. If the hope is holiness, then the starting point has to be humility.

If you want to know more about humility, listen to Brother Kinn's sermon last week. I did, and I think it's worth re -listening to.

Isn't that the answer to so many things? What answer to what issue going on in the church or in our lives as families or in our relationships, what answer does not have humility as a part of that?

Notice, he says, my son, how many resent some sort of name that points out their subordination?

How much of our counsel to other people is trying to figure out how to make sure that they are submitting to the proper authority in their life without them getting riled up and angry about the fact that they have to submit?

But humility is the key. Do you resent the subordination? Do you resent the name son?

A reminder that you're under authority. Do not despise or detest.

Now, a parent will know what it is like to lean in toward a child, to try to correct and redirect them for their good, only to have the child wrench away their pride more precious than their parents' hope.

Every parent knows that. All of us know what it's like to grab the arm of a twisting two -year -old who wants to jump off the ledge.

I'm doing this for your good. And they are very, very resentful. All of us know what it's like as well in our personal lives to bow up in disgust when we are rebuked, to immediately flare in anger when corrected, because we are fearful of how we are being made to look and thus what we are about to lose.

How rarely, how rarely when we are caught off guard do we respond in the measured, mature, and humble fashion we practice in our imagination and rehearse before a tough conversation.

Solomon instructs his son wisely, and in him saying, do not despise the chasing and correction of the

Lord, he's saying to him, be ready for it. Be ready to be chastened, be ready to be corrected.

Have that willingness and readiness to be confronted. Have that humble attitude combined with a hopeful readiness to be corrected.

To have an interest and inclination toward holiness, to know that you are being helped in this correction and in this chastening.

He says, don't despise it. Don't despise it. Don't despise it the way that King Saul despised the word of the

Lord. King Saul despised and rejected the word of the Lord, Samuel says in 1

Samuel 15. So he did not obey the instructions that God had given to him. And for such a transgression,

God rejected Saul as king. Now think of it in the context. King Solomon is instructing his son, what is he saying?

It is unkingly to despise God's authority. Do you have authority?

Have you been invested with authority and responsibility? It is ungodly to despise

God's authority, to not recognize he's the one with the authority, and you are only mediating what has been entrusted to you.

Proverbs chapter 16 and verse 10. And again, we look at the

Proverbs. We're going through the connections and then supplying it from the collections.

We're looking at the passages, and as we go through Proverbs, we're going to be taking from the sentences and helping to understand what is being said in the broader text.

Proverbs 16 verse 10, divination is on the lips of the king, his mouth must not transgress in judgment.

There's someone higher than him. Solomon says here, do not despise but also do not detest the

Lord's correction. This is a term that speaks of a kind of loathing or abhorrence.

To detest is to loathe something, to abhor something, to really hate it. And the same word is used to describe

God abhorring the Canaanites and abhorring

Israel when she became Canaanized. It can also refer to a sickening dread.

The same word is used to describe the way that the Canaanites feared Israel and the way that King Ahaz feared foreign kings.

So think about that. Dreading the

Lord's correction is the opposite of fearing the

Lord. Isn't that interesting? Dreading the Lord's correction is the opposite of fearing the

Lord. Thinking of him first, thinking of him most. If we were to fear the

Lord, we would be ready for what he has to say and how he wants to operate in our lives.

Now, there are some assumptions of faith here, aren't there? That God is present, active, he has revealed who he is in his word, and he's directly intervening in our lives to chasten us and correct us.

So many live as practical atheists or perhaps deists. God has set things in motion.

We're all on our own. God doesn't get personally involved with any of us. He doesn't have any mechanisms or means by which he pulls us up short and confronts us and rebukes us.

But in fact, whom the Lord loves, he corrects and chastens.

These two words work well together. Chastening is a disciplinary action that communicates the rebuke.

So chastening is an action that communicates the rebuke, but correction is a rebuke communicated as a disciplinary action.

So when you chasten, you actively discipline the child, and this communicates what you're trying to say.

It communicates the rebuke. In correction, you're communicating to the child what was wrong, and this serves as a disciplinary action.

But notice they're both together. Both are in the tool belt of the father.

They work best together in the building up of children. They are basic ingredients to the recipes of a mother's nurturing of children, both chastening and correction.

Not just one, not just the other, and not just components of one or the other.

It's not simply talking all the time without an actual correction being made.

It's not simply punishment for doing something wrong without ever communicating why things are wrong.

There is a combination of both exhortation and explanation. There is a combination of both instruction and encouragement.

In the education and training of a child. But I would have you notice here that Solomon, as a father, is saying this to his son about the heavenly father, and thereby he is letting his son know we're both accountable to the same father.

Do you see that? Solomon himself has applied this, and thus he brings it to bear on his son as well.

So what is being assumed here is this. Even glorious men like Solomon, who are blessed and empowered by God, are in need of God's chastening and correction.

If the king himself needs to be corrected and chastened, well then, doesn't it apply to everybody else?

What do you assume? What do we assume? Do we assume our need for chastening, our need for correction from a heavenly father?

Are we ready for it? Do we assume that we need it? And do we, by faith, assume that God, as a loving heavenly father, will be active in that way in our lives?

We need to be. That would be walking by faith. Now, many times, practically speaking, as we go through life and difficult things begin to happen and we begin to suffer and trouble afflicts us, sometimes we begin to think a little bit like Job, what did

I do to deserve this? Right? Here we are, sons and daughters of a heavenly father, the sheep of a good shepherd, and we're going through life and we're having difficulty and we begin to wonder, what did

I do to deserve this? Let me tell you, you did nothing to deserve that. You could never do enough to earn

God's love for you as a heavenly father, Christ's love for you as a good shepherd leading you through the valley of the shadow of death.

You could never do enough to earn the gracious, wonderful life as a

Christian, having God as heavenly father and Christ as your elder brother and the

Holy Spirit, the fellowship of God himself in your life. You could never do enough to earn that.

You could never do enough to earn God's loving correction and chastening in your life.

So let's start there. But further, a lot of thought has been given often to if I'm going through a tough time and difficult things are happening in my life, is it because of tribulation?

I'm being targeted, attacked, afflicted by someone or something because I'm trying to be faithful to the

Lord. Perhaps it is a trial. It's time for me to grow up a little bit.

God is interested in getting me ready for heaven, and so here comes some more purification my way. Maybe it's chastisement.

Maybe there's something directly involved where I have done something wrong and God is yanking me around and getting my attention because I've done something in particular wrong.

But do you know that when we biblically receive and ruminate on what goes on in our lives, the beginning and the end are basically the same?

I'm ready to be corrected. I'm ready to be chastened because I know that I need that in my life because if God loves me and I'm his child, that he's going to be conforming me to the image of his

Son. I know there's things that have got to change, and I know that standing for Christ is going to bring persecution and affliction in this world and things are going to be tough because I follow

Christ. But he said that, take up my cross and follow him. And I know that I need to be made ready for heaven, and so God is going to be putting all various necessary trials into my life and doing good things in my life.

And you know what? I'm a sheep and I'm a child and I may not know the difference between tribulation, trial, and chastisement.

I don't have to know. I have to know my Heavenly Father. I don't have to know the particularities of why this is happening like Job's friends and him were trying to figure out.

I don't have to know that, but I do have to know my Heavenly Father. I have to know that he is good. I have to know that I have a good shepherd.

I have to know that I can trust him. One way of despising the correction of the

Lord and detesting his correction is rejecting the tough times due to my lack of comprehension.

If I can't comprehend it, I resent it. Dearly beloved, we don't have to comprehend it.

We have to believe so that we may understand it. Faith, we understand by faith.

If we begin with faith, then we will understand. I didn't say comprehend. I didn't say exhaust the meaning and answer every single question.

But we will understand. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding. So, let us not despise our

Father's correction simply because we cannot figure out exactly why it's happening or where it's all going. We are sheep.

We are children. Humility. Trust him in the moment. What will aid in that humility?

What will motivate our holiness? What will maintain our hope is this thought. The thought that Solomon gives.

Whom the Lord loves, he corrects. Even the son in whom he delights.

The fatherly love of the Lord. His delight in us as his children. That's the motivation.

That's the promise. That's why we can keep on putting one foot in front of the other in difficult times.

Because we know the Father's love for us. And should we ever doubt it, as our frame is prone to do, we only need to remember this.

He has given us his son. How will he not also with him freely give us all things?

And by this we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. Solomon says,

For whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as the father the son in whom he delights.

Now Solomon knows that position peculiarly as the son of David, as the king of Israel.

God's love for David, who was a man after his own heart, was made evident to all the children of Israel. God delighted in the one who delighted in his word.

God delighted in the one who delighted in his worship. And further, God made clear which one of David's sons would be the rightful heir to the throne.

Remember, there was more than one contender for the throne. It was rather chaotic there in 1 and 2

Samuel. So, how did God make this known?

In 2 Samuel chapter 12, we read, then

David, verse 24, then David comforted Bathsheba his wife and went into her and lay with her.

And so she bore a son, and he called his name Solomon, or Sholomon, man of peace.

Now the Lord loved him, and he sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet, so he called his name

Jedidiah, because of the Lord, beloved. Call him beloved, beloved of the

Lord, indicating which one of the sons would be the son of David, the king.

So Solomon was loved and treated by the Lord in the way that a father would treat his son.

And didn't God say this in 2 Samuel chapter 7? When God made his promise to David that he would have a son and a lineage upon a throne, when he made covenant with David, he spoke about the heirs of David, and he said in verse 13, concerning this son of David, he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Didn't Solomon build the temple? Didn't the son of David build the true temple?

Verse 14, I will be his father, and he shall be my son. Now listen to the way that God speaks about David's son

Solomon and the lineage that follows. I will be his father, he shall be my son. If he commits iniquity,

I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But my mercy shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom

I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.

Now Solomon was thus loved and treated by the Lord, and Solomon was corrected and chastened, as is evidenced by Israel's history.

1 Kings 10, the glory of Solomon. 1 Kings 11, the chastening and correction of Solomon.

1 Kings 11, all of Solomon's faults, his sins, his waywardness, where he left his great wisdom and entered into great folly.

And then in 1 Kings 11, you hear how the Lord corrected, how the Lord chastened Solomon.

Solomon gives testimony to this in his own writings. God loved

Solomon like he loved Jacob, and so he hounded him, didn't let up on him.

Notice that God never patiently chastened Esau. Jacob I have loved, so I don't let him be

Jacob until I make him Israel. Esau I have hated, and so Genesis 36, the grandeur of Esau, not a word about God.

God leaves him alone. Esau I have hated, so he lets him be Esau. God says to Esau, you do you,

Esau. That's hatred. He never gave fatherly correction to Jezebel.

Do you notice? No correction to Jezebel. Never fatherly came alongside to help her.

Wicked pagan witch of a Sidonian king. Never worshiped the Lord, but those he loves, he chastens and corrects.

That's a promise. God won't let up on me.

Praise God. I'm having so much trouble. I feel like God is after me.

Praise God. What did I do to deserve this? Nothing. It's his love because of his son.

Now let's think about God and man, how this works in covenant and in creation.

Whom the Lord loves, he corrects, just as the father, the son, and whom he delights. And so when you read about the covenant

God made with David, Psalm 89 is very interesting because there Ethan the Ezraite sings of God's covenant mercies displayed in David, and he is called

God's chosen servant. What was said about Israel was said about the king of Israel. The king stands in for the whole nation.

Now God is the true king overall, but he has exalted and anointed David, blessing him with a special relationship.

Psalm 89 goes into great detail on this promise. And all the elements are there from 2

Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17, the promises that God made to David by the prophet Nathan.

But what we come to in Psalm 89, I encourage you to read it, there's an intensification of the meaning of all this.

And why? Because Psalm 89, Ethan has a question of the Lord. He says, you said all these things to David about his son, about the throne that his son would occupy, about the lineage and the eternal throne in Jerusalem.

And you said all these wonderful things. And you can see how the promises of God to David have captured the imagination and the heart of true worshipers of Israel when you read

Ethan's psalm. But you come to the end of that psalm, and Ethan says, what happened?

What happened? Where's the lineage? Where's the Davidic king?

Where's the throne? Where's the city? Where's the promises? Because Ethan is singing out of sorrow and wonderment.

How is God going to say he has kept his promises to David when look at the disaster that has come upon the nation of Israel and the city of Jerusalem and the throne of David.

Where is it? God, where is your promises? How are you going to keep your promises? A question from Ethan, the

Ezraite, not answered until Matthew chapter 1. Here comes the king.

Here comes the king. God spoke about the son of David the way he spoke about Israel.

His son is firstborn, Exodus 4 .22. Guaranteed descendants, guaranteed dominion to Abraham, rephrased and said to David, specifically promises fulfilled in Christ.

As God chastened and corrected Israel as a nation, their time in the wilderness, so also he chastened and corrected their king, the one who stood in for the whole.

This nation, as Abraham's descendants, was thus exalted in the person of their king so that they would be a blessing to all the families of the earth, and those families needed blessing rather than cursing.

Because scattered since Babel, they lived under the specter of death from the garden, enslaved to their sin, blind in their darkness.

They deserved utter destruction, but God kept signaling salvation.

God had placed his rainbow in the sky, a mark of long -suffering and grace and providence, as well as a reminder of his supreme authority and justice, and God took such care over all mankind.

Why? What is man that you are mindful of him, Psalm 8 asks, because he made us in his image.

It is clear from Genesis 1 and 2 how much God loves and delights in his special creature, man.

But in the wake of Adam's ruin, God makes covenants then that tell of Adam's redemption, resurrection, and recreation.

In those covenants, God marks a servant. He always sets someone aside. Here's my servant.

He treats him like a son, and then he, by doing this, readies the world for Messiah, his perfect servant, his beloved son, in whom he is, well, pleased, the one whom the

Lord loves. In the Old Testament, there was nothing for the nations unless they found it all in Israel, and there was nothing for Israel unless they found it all in Messiah.

And now that Christ has come, there is nothing for anyone unless we find it in Christ.

Now, how do we bring this to a practical conclusion?

I think we do so by remembering Christ as the Son, as the one whom the

Lord loves. Let's be clear on that. Who is the Son of David whom the Lord loves? Who is the

Son that is faithful to the covenant whom the Lord loves? We only have one answer throughout the

Scriptures, and that is Jesus Christ. God himself gave that answer. Part of the heavens, the Holy Spirit, descends like a dove upon Christ, being baptized by John in the

Jordan River to fulfill all righteousness. And the Father says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

The only one he ever said that of. So it's Christ and Christ alone. And when we put our attention there,

I think we are greatly helped when it comes to chastisement and correction. So Hebrews chapter 12, notice how,

I believe this is Paul and his stump sermon that he preached everywhere, every synagogue he went to.

Now notice, chapter 12, verse 1, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. So in other words, if the hope is holiness, what's the starting point?

It's gotta be humility. And what do we need for humility but to look to our Lord Jesus Christ? Verse 2,

Looking unto Jesus. How much of life is this? Looking unto

Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. The beginning and the end, the

A to Z, the Alpha to the Omega of our faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

And why should we look at Jesus as the author and the finisher of our faith? Why should our attention be there in hope of holiness?

Because, because of his example, because of how it builds us in our most holy faith.

Verse 3, For consider him, consider Christ, who endured such hostility from sinners against himself.

We think about the sufferings of Christ, the opposition to Christ. Consider this, recognize this, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

As a pastor, my heart is heavy. My heart is heavy for church members who are weary and discouraged in their souls.

I do not want you to be weary. I do not want you to be discouraged in your souls. And so that's why

I want to give you Christ. Look to Christ. Pay attention to him. Glorify him. Worship him.

Consider him. You have not yet resisted the bloodshed, striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons.

Here it is from Proverbs 3. My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him.

For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives.

Put your attention upon Christ.

Remember his faithfulness. Remember his crucifixion. Remember his resurrection. Remember his ascension. Remember his suffering, his sonship, his salvation.

The question to ask yourself is this. Am I prone to detest and despise chastening and correction?

If so, could this be because I misapprehend the nature of God's love?

If I begin with this God is my biggest fan theory, then correction and chastisement don't make sense.

Right? Only unqualified affirmation makes sense.

But if I understand the nature of love because my attention is upon Christ and I recognize that my position is in Christ, the one with whom

God is well -pleased, he's well -pleased with Christ, then I recognize that my adoption is by grace and God loves me for the sake of his

Son and therefore his love for me is corrective, indeed, recreative.

So chastening and correction is not punishment and wrath in that sense.

It is grace and proof of God's love. So rather than detest and despise, rather than reject and avoid, loathe and dread,

I am to trust and to receive. Sometimes we don't understand the means by which

God brings us into our life, but that God has given us to one another in the church to love one another and to say,

I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, to not be like Cain who was of the evil one, but to say, yes, indeed,

I will take responsibility for the spiritual welfare of my brothers and my sisters and I will encourage them in the word and I'm not going to run away from them and then

I'm not going to let them run away from me and I'm going to reach out to them and exhort them and encourage them in the word if I see the need for it.

Sometimes we may even despise and detest the

Heavenly Father's correction and chastening because we feel he's moving too slow. Perhaps too slow with myself or perhaps too slow with others.

Have you ever noticed that siblings are not as loving and kind and patient as the parents? But, surely, the treatment of the siblings towards one another improves according to their trust that the

Heavenly Father is doing his work and that he will complete his work when we trust in him.

How much does the father love the son? How great is his delight in him? What is the measure, then, of grace toward me that I should expect regarding chastening and correction?

Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. He is the

Alpha and the Omega of what it means to be made in God's image. What it means to be loved and treated as a son.

From beginning to end, from creation to consummation, he is the manifestation of God's righteousness.

He is the glory of God from which all of us have fallen short and his is the glory that clothes us in our adoption as sons and daughters of God.

His righteousness, once instituted over all men in the first Adam, is imputed to all those in Christ as the last

Adam. When he came to John the Baptist, he insisted on being baptized to fulfill all righteousness and the heavens opened, the

Spirit descended, and God the Father declared, this is my beloved son in whom

I am well pleased. And so Jesus Christ is the one whom the Lord loves and our union with him by faith makes us sons and daughters whom the

Lord loves. And it is in this that we are to receive chastening and correction with humility in hope of holiness.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the time you've given us in your word. We thank you for the reminder of what kind of a father you are.

And I pray that you would use this to build us up in our faith and that we would trust you all the more and live according to that trust.