Sunday, October 5, 2025 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day that you have made.

Thank you for arranging all of this for our good and for your glory.

We thank you for the joy of singing these songs together, reminding each other of your grace and your love and your

Son, Jesus Christ. I thank you for the Scripture reading and the prayers that have been offered.

I thank you for the baptisms in which we see the reality of your

Son's life, death, and resurrection for us, that we find our identity in Christ.

I pray that you would help us now as we read your Word and consider its truth, that you would bless us with clear minds and ready hearts to give a full amen to what you have to say, that you would do your work in us by your

Spirit, conforming us to the image of your Son, the one with whom you are well -pleased.

Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Proverbs 3, reading verses 1 -12 this morning,

Proverbs chapter 3, verses 1 -12, in thinking about whom the

Lord loves, whom the Lord loves. Wisdom is the skillful mastery of life to the glory of God.

Indeed, wisdom is godliness in motion. We've been seeing that in Proverbs chapters 1 and 2.

In Proverbs 1, we are introduced to the basics, the principles, the posture, the persona of wisdom.

Even she is called Lady Wisdom, and we learned a lot about her and her priorities.

We learned that our approach to wisdom requires humility, like that of a child coming to his father, coming to his mother.

And the most fundamental lesson is there in the premier proverb, if there was ever a proverb of Proverbs, it's

Hebrews...I'm sorry, Proverbs 1 verse 7, which says, the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Everything else that we read in the book of Proverbs is somehow a variant of that. And then in Proverbs chapter 2, we were presented with the value of wisdom as if it were our own life, that we would pursue wisdom as if it were our very breath.

And we discover from chapter 2 that to pursue wisdom is ultimately to be protected by wisdom.

By securing wisdom, we are secured. Proverbs 2, 6 reminds us, for the

Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

So now that we turn to Proverbs 3, all of these principles and patterns that have been laid down are now more directly applied by Solomon to his son, and he clarifies that what he desires for his son in regards to wisdom has primarily to do with his son's relationship to the

Lord. And that relationship of the young man to God has always been the underlying principles of everything we've seen in chapters 1 and 2, but here

Solomon makes it really obvious that his desire as a father for his son is that his son would think first and foremost about the

Lord. It's here, even more than other places in Proverbs, that we see godliness is the measure of manliness.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and wisdom being the skillful mastery of our relationships, then it has to do with our relationship with God.

This is not surprising, but Solomon will take the time here in this chapter early to have a man -to -man talk with his son, and it has everything to do with a

God -with -man walk. I invite you to stand with me, if you're able, and let us read

Proverbs 3, verses 1 -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 lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge

Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes.

Fear 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 firstfruits of all your increase. So your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine.

My son, do not despise the chastening of 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." In the dynamics of a family, there is often a silly, but perhaps sometimes not so silly, joking amongst the multiple children as to who is dad's favorite, who is mom's favorite.

Where does that come from? Of course, that could come from a child's insecurities and fears and those follies that are bound up in the heart of a child that we all experience even still, the folly of fearing man, thinking about what others think of me first and what others think of me most.

But, of course, it also comes from other factors. The reality is that God makes each child different and unique.

The parents themselves are always growing in their relationship with each other and with the Lord, and they're not as scared in some stages of parenting as they are in others, and they're not as foolish and ignorant in some stages of parenting as they are in others.

And each child, of course, is different. And so, as the children begin to swap stories about what life was like, as they begin to observe that, mom and dad sure treat you different than the way they treated me, thought comes to mind, why are we being treated differently?

Why are we having different experiences? And the silly jokes begin to try to take the edge off, oh, yeah, well, it's because your dad's favorite or your mom's favorite or because I'm the favorite, obviously, because they gave me this, but they only gave you that.

But when it comes to God as Heavenly Father, there's no need to joke.

There's no need to ask. It's all very clear. There was only one of whom he said, this is my beloved son in whom

I am well pleased. The one whom he loves.

That's a good thing. It's a good thing to remember that when we relate to God as our

Heavenly Father, we don't have to wonder, am I His favorite, is somebody else

His favorite? We don't have to think about, well, I think God loves this person over here more than me, because I see that in the providence of God, in the circumstances of my life, in the things that have happened to me and the kinds of prayers that I offer up and are answered versus somebody else, their circumstances and my circumstances being different,

I don't have to ask, does the Lord love this person more than me?

Why am I experiencing this and they're experiencing that? Because I know who the Lord loves the most, and that's

Jesus Christ. The Father loves the

Son, and that our relationship to God, the

Heavenly Father, is through God, the well -beloved Son. Isn't it a good thing that God, our

Heavenly Father, treats us differently according to what

He knows is best for each one of us? In His wisdom and in His power and in His provision, what a good

Heavenly Father we have, and even when we see that things are different for others, we can trust in the Lord and know

His delight in His Son, Jesus Christ, is all our hope, my hope.

When we read Proverbs 3, verses 1 through 12, and we think about this relationship between Father and Son that has been building in the book of Proverbs, clearly

Solomon desires his son to trade upon the building relationship that Solomon has with him to understand that truly the primary relationship is between Solomon's son and his

Creator, the Heavenly Father. Ultimately, Solomon, as a dad, as a parent, is trying to make an excellent handoff to make sure that his son, his child, knows who really he is in charge, who really provides, who is really faithful, who is really consistent, who he really needs to depend upon.

Isn't that not our primary task as parents, whether we are trying to keep a control on two -year -olds, trying to coach 12 -year -olds, trying to counsel 18 -year -olds, or showing up as a help later on, advice in other years?

We want our children, we desire our children to have this mindset that we read about in verses 1 through 4.

We're going to focus on that this morning, and the question comes, will you forget your father's commands?

I think that's a question that verses 1 through 4 compels each one of us to ask personally, will

I forget my father's commands? Certainly it is what Solomon poses to his son.

Are you going to forget my law? Are you going to forsake mercy and truth?

Does not want that to happen to his son compels him to much the opposite. But I want us to think about these four verses, and in many ways, as you look at these four verses, they're not a whole lot different than what we've seen already in chapters 1 and 2.

In many ways, they simply repeat in a summary fashion everything we've already seen, but isn't that valuable?

Isn't that valuable? And isn't it true that whom the Lord loves, He reminds of His truth?

Was that not the promise, one of the promises about the Holy Spirit that Jesus says, it's better for me,

He says to His disciples, that I would go away from you, that I would go to my father and I will send to him the helper, the promised comforter, the paraclete, the

Holy Spirit, and He will bring to mind all that I have taught you. Whom the Lord loves, He reminds of His truth, and when we love our children, when we love somebody in our family, if we love our friends, if we love our neighbors, what will we do but remind them of things that are of importance, of good, of value?

So notice the way that Solomon approaches this. He says, my son, do not forget my law. This is in the negative, so he prohibits his son from forgetting.

And then he speaks of the need to preserve, but let your heart keep my commands.

And then he gives a promise, for length of days and long life and peace they will add to you.

And then he does that whole pattern again in verses 3 and 4. First of all, the prohibition, let not mercy and truth forsake you.

Then the need to preserve, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

And then the promise, verse 4. And so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.

So you see how Solomon's thought unfolds in three steps and in the same three steps, verses 1 and 2, verses 3 and 4.

But they are not mere echoes for... Verses 3 and 4 develop his thinking in verses 1 and 2.

They enrich what he's already said. There's a progression here.

And in fact, verses 3 and 4 kind of answer a few questions that I have when I read verses 1 and 2.

When I read, my son, do not forget my law, I wonder, well, what's contained in that law?

What makes up that instruction that he wants his son to remember? Mercy and truth,

I think, is what fills up that Torah, that instruction from the father to the son.

When I read in verse 1, but let your heart keep my commands, I wonder, well, how will the son do that?

How will he make sure to hold on to his father's commands? Well, I find the answer in verse 3, bind them around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart.

When I read that length of days and long life and peace they will add to Solomon's son,

I wonder, how will those blessings truly come to pass? Then I find the shalom of verse 4, and so find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man.

So you see how Solomon enriches his statements, how he reinforces what he wants to convey to his son, not only is he repeating what he's said before, but he's repeating what he said just now.

We ought not despise repetition. How many dangers lurk behind the sentiment,

I've already heard this? How many dangers lurk in the pride of,

I already know this? Whom the Lord loves, He reminds of His truth.

Well, there's a concern, there's a prohibition that Solomon gives in verse 1 and verse 3.

He says, my son, do not forget my law. He says, let not mercy and truth forsake you.

He doesn't want his son to ignore his instruction, his

Torah, his basic and shaping teaching in his son's life.

Don't ignore my law. Don't cease to care about my law.

That's what he means when he says, do not forget my law. It would be difficult for a son to entirely forget all the ways in which his father has instructed him or even his mother has instructed him.

It would be difficult for a child to entirely lose facility with those turns of phrases, the things that mom and dad used to say.

But this kind of forgetting is more than just the words. It's a kind of, I don't care about what they used to say.

I don't find it valuable. I don't put it into practice. And so he says, my son, do not forget my law.

Let not mercy and truth forsake you. Indeed, this is what is contained in his instruction, mercy and truth.

He says, don't let them leave you. Don't let them release you.

Be ever held in the grip of mercy and truth.

Well, a little bit more focused on verse 1, he says, my son, do not forget my law.

Do you see how personal this is? As surely as the father knows and loves his son, so he also curates and cultivates his law especially for his son.

Now the instruction is undoubtedly grounded in universals and externals, things that you can observe and things that are true no matter what is going on, the true word of God and the realities of how he has made his world.

Nonetheless, those universals, those principles are here personalized to the needs of his son.

There are some instructions that you have to give to one child that you never have to give to another. But that child, you have to remind them of many things that you never have to say to this one over here.

My son, do not forget my law. Truth, goodness, and beauty are universals.

Children are each unique. Our best instruction is best suited for each while ever grounded in eternity.

Isn't it a good thing to remember that the shepherd knows his sheep? He calls each of them by name.

We were reminded of the parallel of how God made all of the stars of the heavens and not only knows their number but calls each by name.

How many descendants of the promise to Abraham? As many as there are stars in the heavens, a multitude which no man can count.

And yet the shepherd knows each one of his sheep and they know him and they follow him. We hear his voice.

His dealings with one sheep over here and his dealings with sheep over here is as wise and as good as his shepherding of me.

We can trust our shepherd, we can trust our Savior and praise Christ for that personalized shepherding that's grounded in objective eternal truth.

He says, do not forget my law. What makes up this law and instruction?

I think Solomon fills in the blank there with verse three. He says, let not mercy and truth forsake you.

Even as he says, do not forget, he says, do not forsake. Let your mind not forget, let your heart not forsake mercy and truth.

What is mercy and truth? We'll have different translations given there for these two rich words in the

Hebrew, chesed and emeth, middle names of my first and fourth born, chesed and emeth.

What is that? That's covenant faithfulness and that's promise keeping. It's truth in two fashions, faithfulness in two fashions.

There's fidelity and integrity. What does it mean that God is full of mercy and truth?

I was a young lad, I loved Bible trivia, and I don't know why, but I always fixated on the fact that Psalm 19 was the longest

Psalm in the Bible, but I also knew that Psalm 117 was the shortest. Let's feel very rich,

Psalm 117 says, praise the Lord all you Gentiles, laud Him all you peoples for His merciful kindness.

Same word. His merciful kindness is great toward us and the truth of the

Lord endures forever. His chesed is great toward us and the emeth of the

Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord. And so, an invitation to all nations, all people, everywhere from all time to praise

God for His mercy and His truth. What are these? Well, sometimes the term chesed is translated as covenant faithfulness.

It means that God loves His people based on who He is and not who they are. It's what keeps

Him faithful and loving the people that turn away from Him.

Why He continues in faithfulness to the covenant while they do not.

We see that in the example of Israel throughout the entirety of the Old Testament. But also, not just His mercy, not just His chesed, but also

His emeth that He not only is ever true, but He always fulfills what

He says. He always does what He promises. There is not a single promise that He fails to keep.

He always speaks the truth and follows through on the truth. And so, He is utterly, entirely reliable.

And Solomon says, I want this godliness in your life, son, right, because we're made in the image of God, which means that all mankind was made for godliness without exception.

And when we look at God and we consider His wonders and His glory, we see Him full of mercy and truth.

And Solomon says, I want you to be wise. I want you to be filled with godliness. I want to see mercy and truth in your life.

I want you to reflect the godliness of God. And so, I want to see mercy and truth in your life.

I don't want to see this forsaken. I want to see you faithful in this covenant.

I want to see you keeping your promises and speaking true words.

Do you remember how dangerous it was for Israel to forget

God? How often were the prophets saying to Israel to not forget

God? How often was that the accusation? They had forgotten God. And what would happen when they would forget

God and forget His law? How would that show up? It would show up in the unfaithfulness of Israel, in their deceit.

What were the great besetting sins of Israel? Immorality and idolatry.

Can you think of anything more opposite than chesed and emir? Can you think of anything more opposite than mercy and truth than immorality and idolatry, unfaithfulness and deceit?

And where do we find all of God's covenant faithfulness, satisfied and fulfilled?

And where do we find all the promises of God being yes? Jesus Christ, who is the image of the invisible

God, godliness supreme, perfect in every way, the Son in whom

God is well -pleased, which is why we look to Christ as the epitome of all wisdom, of all godliness.

He is God's yes, and we are to be His amen. We are to live a confessional life where what

God says, we agree. What God defines, we give an amen.

That we speak as God would say it from His word. That we would do our very best to think

God's thoughts after Him and to feel the worth and the truth of all of His values.

The confessional life is a conformed life, as we are conformed to the image of Christ.

What is this that Solomon desires for his son, that his son will be filled with mercy and truth?

It is when the yes is yes and the no is no in heaven above and on earth below.

Well, another question comes to mind, not only a need to...not only the prohibition, do not forget, do not forsake, but also this need for preservation.

Will we keep? Will I keep my Father's commands? Let your heart keep my commands, he says in verse 1.

And in verse 3, he concludes, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

So, don't forget, but keep. Don't let them forsake, but put them around your neck and preserve them in your heart.

And Solomon phrases the admonition in just a certain way where he is saying to his son, tell your own heart this, instruct your own heart in this, let your heart keep my commands.

In other words, Solomon is instructing his son and saying, now, son, I want you to grab hold of your heart and tell your heart what to do.

Right? None of this Disney princess stuff where the heart tells you what to do, right? You tell your heart what to do, and thereby, you will be kept safe and you will be led into all wisdom.

And so, he says, let your heart keep my commands. And what are we going to do with all this mercy and truth?

Well, bind them around your neck and write them on the tablet of your heart. And we are to talk to ourselves.

Remember Martin Lloyd -Jones in his book, Spiritual Depression, Its Causes and Cure, says that our problem entirely consists in listening to ourselves rather than talking to ourselves.

And he gives the example of Psalm 42 and 43 in which the psalmist takes his heart by the hand and says, listen to me, remember the goodness of God.

Solomon's son is to abrade his own heart regarding the keeping of his father's commands.

And he says, bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. And if you think about those areas of the body and the heart in the

Hebrew mind is the belly. It's not the organ that pumps the blood. It's low and it's where you have your deepest feelings of emotion.

And so, you have the neck and the belly. For a warrior, those are the places that are most vulnerable to fatal force.

Those are the areas in battle that need special protection. And so, what is

Solomon saying here? He is saying, take my commands, take mercy and truth and don them like armor that will keep you safe and protect you, covenant faithfulness and telling the truth, being faithful and keeping your promises.

Bind your neck and heart with these. And there's a dual idea here of both capturing and preserving.

To bind something about the neck is to keep it prominently with you, as you would, as the instructions are of the mother and the father to the son in chapter 1 of Proverbs, to adorn his neck with their teachings as one would great treasure.

So, to bind something about the neck is to keep it prominently with you. To engrave something upon the tablet of your own heart is to keep it permanently with you.

Make it prominent, make it permanent. And in both cases, the father's law, his commands are full of mercy and truth.

They are to remain with the son no matter where he goes or where he comes. He is to make a big deal out of mercy and truth, not just on the outside, but on the inside.

To adorn oneself with mercy and truth is, of course, to endow oneself with Christ, to make him prominent, to show that he is indeed the permanent guide star of our lives.

Whatever he says goes, he is my king. So, notice the emphasis on the external, what's most obvious about the neck, and what is internal, what is written upon the heart.

There's going to be something that is eye -catching about this, but it's also going to be heartfelt. Whatever the son's public valor is going to be must also be his private virtue.

Remember how Jesus taught us about this in Matthew chapter 6 and Matthew chapter 10. He's not against public piety.

He's not against praying in public and giving in public and fasting in public. He's not against that per se, but he says if that's all you do, you've got nothing.

If the majority of your prayer life is public for other people's ears, there's nothing really going on then, is there?

If it's all for attention, if you're using religion as a covering to look good, he rebukes you.

But when we organize our lives and use religion as for communion to love God, that's what

Jesus loves. And what we do in secret, God will reward openly in our private piety that will have an impact on our outward lives.

And he makes a big deal about this in Matthew 10. He says he has called us to live public lives.

He says, I send you out as sheep among wolves. So be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And when men try to dissuade you from confessing my name, you must be courageous and profess my name.

And so how do we do that if we have no private virtue to stand upon what will become of our public valor?

So we ought not just wear the cross. We are to bear the cross.

The storefront should match the shelves. Both of them should be quality. No more

First Baptist Timu. How blessed is the man?

How blessed is the family? How blessed is the church where what is on the inside matches the outside, that we truly do love one another because we love

Christ and we rest in him? Now, Solomon, remember,

I mean, he's giving all these instructions and commands to his son, but notice he's insisting that his son be the one that puts these things on that he must carry them through for so long, for a certain season of years.

You dress your children. You feed your children. You direct your children. But at some point, the children must learn to dress themselves and feed themselves and direct themselves.

And what do you want for them? But to be ever headed to the heavenly father must endow themselves with Christ, as many of us have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ.

Praise the Lord. Lastly, the promise in verse 2 and verse 4, there's a promise given for lengths of days and long life and peace they will add to you.

Solomon says to his son, look, I want you to hold on to my commandments, to follow my instructions because a full and good life they will bring to you.

And what kind of full and long life is this? One that is filled with the favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man, verse 4, clarifies and enriches the promise.

When I read those two verses together, I can't help but think of Abraham's obituary.

Then Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years and was gathered to his people.

Isn't that exactly what parents desire for their children? In some sense, we just can't help but pray that our children would know length of days and long life and peace.

How often do we just pray a variant of Shalom upon our children time and time again, that all would be well in their heart, all would be well between them and God and all would be well with them and everyone else in their lives.

And it's not really about being rich and famous and all these other things, but I just want them to know these blessings.

How often do we strive in the lives of our children to see this come about?

All of our instructions to them are about this in some fashion. The instructions range from don't lick the outlet to be quick to forgive.

Both of them are important in different ways. But all of them, what are they about?

They're about maximizing the gift of life from God. We want to see wisdom in their lives, not foolishness.

We want to see them skillfully mastering the gift of life to the glory of the giver of life.

Is that not what our heavenly Father does for us in His instructions?

Even when we don't fully understand them, appreciate them, this is what the

Lord is giving to us in His instructions. These promised blessings in verses 2 and 4, these promised blessings, these are seen as the results, the outcome of keeping commands, but do these come about like in the same way that we hope taking vitamins work?

Take my vitamins, I feel better. Follow this list of instructions and everything is better.

It's far more organic and connected than that. It's not simply if I'm going to check my list of religious duties and then my life's going to be far better.

There's a correlation here by remembering his father's commands and not forsaking that, by not forsaking the mercy and truth that filled up his father's commands, by thorough and careful adherence to all of that.

Solomon's son would then find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man. Right relationship with God and man explains how one lives in such peace, in such shalom.

This is how God constructed the covenant at Sinai with Israel. Love God supremely, love each other rightly, in all of your stewardship be faithful.

And what was this except a reflection of how

God made us in his image? The responsibilities and relationships amplified in the old covenant are native to the image of God.

And so in Christ, who is the last Adam in the true Israel, we have the faithful son in whom

God is well pleased. Eternal life and peace are in him. He's the one who brings us into right relationship with God and with one another.

He's the one who gives us all of these blessings. In him is our peace. He is

Shiloh, the one to whom it all belongs, the man of peace. He has all the father's pleasure and he has all the authority over mankind.

What is the admonition of the psalmist in Psalm 2? Kiss the son, do homage to the son, honor the son, know his peace.

Look to him, find in Christ all of your righteousness, your standing before God, all of your reward, all of your hope intact.

He is to be our public valor and our private virtue. How are we to remember?

Well, we have the father's instruction, we have the son's incarnation.

And we have the spirit's indwelling. Has not God given us everything we need to be transformed from glory to glory, to be brought into conformity to him?

And we can do no better in honoring our heavenly father than by keeping close to his only begotten son.

It's good to tell yourself that you are not God's favorite and that that's a good thing because Jesus is.

Don't forget his commands and lay hold of his son, Jesus Christ, let's pray. Heavenly father, I thank you for the time you've given us in your word.

We thank you for the wisdom that is here, the reminders that are here. I pray that you would help us to grow in our faith and in our trust in your provision.

And we can look to you time and again. You never tire of us. You would as soon tire of your son,

Jesus, than tire of us who are in him. So let us have this confidence in this boldness to come to you again and again to find in you all the provision we need to follow you, to rejoice in your truth.