Proverbs 3:9-18

All right, well good morning, good morning and welcome to Coffee and Devotions. It's so good for you to join me here this morning. This is where every day we get together. We get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together and this year 2021 we'll make it through all the wisdom literature. Well this morning we are at Proverbs chapter 3 verses 9 through 18. Why don't we go ahead and have some coffee, we'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for the sunshine. We thank you for the blessing it is that we get to sit at your feet to hear from your words. Lord, we pray that you might fill our hearts with your truth, and we pray that you would bury it deep in our souls. Make us attentive now. Please, Lord, do not make us dull to your word. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, here we go.
We're going to go to Proverbs chapter 3, verses 9 through 18 together. Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the firstfruits of all your inquiries, 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.
Happy is the man who finds wisdom. the man who gains understanding. For her precepts are better than the profits of silver, and her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, In her left hand, riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who retain her. well we need to ask ourselves a what is this about b what's the best verse to summarize this and c what are we called to do in response to these verses so first a what is this about well there's really three sections here right the first section verses nine and ten honor the lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of your increase so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with wine okay this this harkens back all the way to deuteronomy chapter 24 with the first fruits Right, when you would go out into the fields and you would harvest, you would do your first harvest, and you would take the best fruit, the first fruit off the vine, the first fruit of the field, the first grain of the field, and you would put it in your basket, and you would take it up, and at that point God was in Shiloh, and when you went in, wherever it was, right, Deuteronomy, they haven't passed into the promised land yet, I should say, it would end up being Shiloh before it was Jerusalem.
You would take it there and you would offer it to the Lord. You would take it there and you would bring it to God. And what was the point? We acknowledge in our lives that every good and perfect gift comes from our Father above. This is why we thank the Lord for our daily bread. We pray for it and we thank Him for it.
So that's first verses 9 and 10. Verse 11 and 12, my son do not detest the chastening of the Lord nor detest his correction. For whom the Lord loves he corrects just as a father the son whom he delights. What is this passage about? God corrects the people he loves.
Sometimes we take like the bad things going on in our lives. We might be struggling with making enough money or underemployment. We might be struggling with sickness or health concerns. Sometimes the Lord is using those things to teach us. To teach us things we need to learn. The Lord chastens us. The Lord reproves us. The Lord cares for us. And that doesn't make it easy. Do you remember being a kid? It's not easy. when your dad had to correct you. It's not easy being told no. It's not easy subjecting yourself to someone else in authority. And yet this is what God tells us he's doing here. Don't despise the Lord's correction. He does it because he loves us.
And then the next part, verses 13 through 20, is about going after wisdom, right? And what comes after it, and it's almost lavish, right? Verses 13 through 18 is almost lavish in what it is like to get wisdom. Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding.
What's it like? for her proceeds are better than silver and her gain is than fine gold, right? I mean, you'll find people who will go and search far and wide for treasures more valuable than rubies. Wisdom and understanding is even better than that. People spend all their life and all their time trying to figure out how to make more money. all the while not seeking after wisdom.
And God's saying here, hold on, go get wisdom. A length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honor. and her ways are the ways of pleasantness and her paths of peace. This is the blessing of following after wisdom as we find, what do we find? Length of days. We find riches. We find pleasantness. We find peace.
She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her and happy is all who retain her. When we seek after wisdom, Okay, I'm a presbyterian, right? Uh, I am anti-health wealth and prosperity gospel And yet there is a reality we talked about this last time. I think it was on friday There is a reality to the blessings that god gives in a godly life This is not this is not promising you that everything is going to be well I just said that sometimes god may chasten you by making you poor or god may chasten you by afflicting you with sickness But, generally speaking, the principle still stands. It's amazing.
If you live a godly life, if you live a chaste life, you don't have to fear a whole lot of diseases that come. If you're not a drunkard, you typically don't have to worry about getting cirrhosis of the liver. right? If you're not a smoker, your chances of getting lung cancer get lower, right? If you're not addicted to things, and this is what it's saying, right?
With wisdom there is life, with wisdom, but there's something even better than that, right? There's something better than the finest of gold. than the best of silver, than even rubies. Because what is it? The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It was Jesus who told his disciples that God disciplined them as a father. And when we walk in wisdom, we walk in the ways of Christ. It was Jesus Christ who lived out these words. It's Jesus Christ who teaches us wisdom and who shows us the Father. What would you underline in your Bible as the best verse?
These are three very different ways. We're going to maybe have a difficult time as we try to underline things in here. But I think for the first part, I would underline the first part of verse 9, honor the Lord with your possessions. In the second part, I would underline verse 11, the first part, my son do not despise this chastening of the Lord. And for the last part, I would probably underline verse 13, happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. What would you, would you underline different verses? Well, last calling, there's been a whole lot of calling in here. But the first part, are you honoring the Lord with your possessions? Do you give to the Lord with a cheerful heart? Not out of legalism, not out of some type of, oh, I want to get blessing, and so this is a transaction. God, I'm going to give you stuff, so you must give me. No, this isn't seed of faith junk. No, none of that stuff. But you recognize that everything that you have is a gift from God.
Secondly, my question to you is, are you accepting the correction of the Lord? When things are going wrong in your life, are you getting down on your knees and praying to God that he might let you examine your life and see if there's places of repentance? Or maybe things that he's trying to teach you in the dark moments. Maybe you're going through one of those moments in your life right now. Is he teaching you? I know this past week he's been teaching me a whole lot. Is he teaching you?
Lastly, are you going after wisdom? Do you value God? Do you fear him more than everything else? More than money, more than gold, more than silver, more than rubies, more than anything else? Do you trust that as you follow Him, He will give you long life?
He'll give you life everlasting, for the most wise thing is to follow after Jesus Christ. And in Him, there is abundance of life. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank You so much for this day, and we thank You for the blessing it is to sit at Your feet and to hear from Your Word, to glean from Your wisdom. God, we pray that You would teach us, and that we would follow after You. We pray that we would be happy, blessed people who walk after Your ways. Preserve our life, O Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.