SPEAKER_00: So this is part three and the final part of a three-week series on wisdom for different stages of life.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago, we looked at what the book of Proverbs says as wisdom towards parents.
SPEAKER_00: And if you recall, basically what Proverbs says to parents is two things.
SPEAKER_00: Parents are supposed to instruct their children and they're supposed to discipline their children.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the two main headings that basically the rest of Proverbs towards parents fall under.
SPEAKER_00: Then last Lord's Day, we looked at Proverbs or wisdom towards teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: And Pastor Ryan explained to us that the main thrust of wisdom towards teenagers is to help teenagers understand the world is not all about them, to get their eyes off of themselves and onto ultimately the Lord, but onto those that are around them.
SPEAKER_00: And so to parents, you teach them to discipline and instruct your children.
SPEAKER_00: To teens, you teach them to get their eyes off of themselves and see the world around them and start to look at the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, we're going to look at wisdom towards children, towards younger children.
SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, I do want to give one more word to parents before we dive into wisdom towards children here.
SPEAKER_00: I think that much of kind of Christian parenting can have too much of a focus on, quote, getting your kids saved, so to speak, or on leading your kids to a point where they say the sinner's prayer or where they ask Jesus into their heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that can end up, I think, crippling parenting over the long term.
SPEAKER_00: It might surprise you to know the Bible has a lot to say about parenting.
SPEAKER_00: It has zero to say about teaching your children to pray a prayer after you or teaching your children to ask Jesus into their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: That is not biblical language.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the Bible's pattern for parenting.
SPEAKER_00: I think when you kind of structure parenting towards getting kids to make a decision for Jesus, and let's say that you have obedient kids, they make that decision at age five or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just throwing an age out there.
SPEAKER_00: They now, you're, you're undercutting the next 15 years of your relationship with them.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible has a lot to say about how you parent them from age five to, let's say, age 20, post-COVID world, age 20, 22, 24.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible has something bigger in mind than merely their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Not something less in mind, but bigger in mind.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that approach to parenting of having the kids repeat a prayer after you at a young age and then telling them, you're a Christian now, you know, have assurance of your salvation if you prayed that prayer and meant it, can do long-term damage, I've experienced this as a pastor, it can do long-term damage in some kids' lives.
SPEAKER_00: I've had counseling situations with college kids, college seniors who are coming back from college, they haven't gone to church in four years, they have no evidence of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: They have no, if you ask them, do you love the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: The answer would be no.
SPEAKER_00: And I've had kids tell me, you know, my parents don't like that I'm questioning my salvation because they were there.
SPEAKER_00: They keep reminding me, they were there when I said the prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And it becomes a very convoluted situation where you have kids who know they don't love the Lord, but who have confidence in their salvation because of something they did when they were five.
SPEAKER_00: And that is just frankly not the biblical approach to parenting or to salvation.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope this morning a very simple, kind of bottom shelf message will help fill out for our thinking what the Bible actually says to young children.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's my intro to that.
SPEAKER_00: Kids believe me when I tell you the Bible has something to say to you.
SPEAKER_00: God, of course, wants every young child to come to faith.
SPEAKER_00: He wants young children to be to be Christians, to love Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible says something more immediate to children than what happens to them when they die.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible has, what I said earlier, a bigger picture in mind.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible makes an appeal to young children to lead wise lives.
SPEAKER_00: When I say something more immediate than their salvation, that's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible speaks to young children, especially Proverbs, the passage we just read, it's making an appeal to young children to learn to love wisdom, to have a life that is marked by loving the Lord and living in the world in a wise way.
SPEAKER_00: When the Bible speaks to children, it's less about what happens to them when they die and more about what kind of people they should be while they're living in this life.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible wants children to be wise.
SPEAKER_00: There's three main points in the passage we just read given to children about this.
SPEAKER_00: And the first is that kids need to understand that you are known by how you act.
SPEAKER_00: That's my appeal to any children that are here in this service that you would understand.
SPEAKER_00: You are known by how you act.
SPEAKER_00: People understand what kind of kid you are based upon your actions, based upon your conduct.
SPEAKER_00: People that don't even know you very well, they don't tuck you in at night, they don't live in your house, they can still be perceptive enough to know what kind of kids you are based upon your actions.
SPEAKER_00: When I say what kind of kid, this is what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible speaks to children in two categories.
SPEAKER_00: There's the wise kids and the foolish kids, there's the obedient kids and the disobedient kids.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not hard to discern which is which.
SPEAKER_00: Acts, uh Proverbs 20, verse 11 says it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Even a child makes himself known by his acts, whether his conduct is pure and upright.
SPEAKER_00: And that description of a child makes himself known.
SPEAKER_00: It's not something acted on the kid.
SPEAKER_00: The kid is acting himself in such a way from his own heart, his own actions, his own mouth, his own arms, his own legs, his own conduct is the advertisement to everybody around him of what kind of kid he is.
SPEAKER_00: And you can often tell right now in Virginia, it's warmer right now, the last few days.
SPEAKER_00: We have flowers and plants starting to grow in our front yard at this very moment.
SPEAKER_00: You can tell for the most part what kind of plant or flower it is based upon the very young leaves.
SPEAKER_00: You can tell what kind of tree a tree is going to be, even when it's a shrub, based upon how it's starting to grow.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, with fruit trees, you might put a wire basket around them, and I know this analogy works better in California than Virginia, but you might put a wire basket around a little tree, and the tree is going to grow into the shape of its basket.
SPEAKER_00: That's true with children.
SPEAKER_00: You can, in a sense, tell what kind of grown-up a child is going to be based upon the young leaves, based upon how the child is acting now.
SPEAKER_00: The child's conduct is the wire basket around himself.
SPEAKER_00: He makes himself known by how he behaves.
SPEAKER_00: A little kid who is disobedient and lying and fighting and being disruptive doesn't outgrow that when they grow older.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, their capacity to sin just grows bigger.
SPEAKER_00: Now we understand that every child has moments of good and bad.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: If you've been a parent for five minutes, you understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Good children misbehave, and bad children have moments of behaving.
SPEAKER_00: Both are true.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the fact that both are true doesn't make it unnecessarily complicated.
SPEAKER_00: If you're being honest, and this is the appeal to children, if you're being honest, you should be able to tell what kind of kids you are.
SPEAKER_00: Generally speaking, are you the kind of kid that is obedient or disobedient?
SPEAKER_00: Wise or foolish.
SPEAKER_00: You are known by how you act.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, there's always hope.
SPEAKER_00: I said that children grow into the shape that they are in, but a child, you understand this.
SPEAKER_00: No child is born wise.
SPEAKER_00: No child by their own natural conduct, their own just left of themselves, would grow into the wise, a wise person.
SPEAKER_00: No acorn that falls is going to grow into the mighty oak tree that's described in the Psalm 1 if left by itself.
SPEAKER_00: So the first step towards growing in wisdom is for a child to look at his own conduct and recognize where he is sinning, recognize where he is being foolish, to see that.
SPEAKER_00: And a child who looks at himself and goes, Oh, I am being foolish in this way, I am being sinful in this way, there is so much more hope for that child than the one who is a rebellious child and who doesn't see it.
SPEAKER_00: That being said, it is still worth asking yourself, what kind of child are you?
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, first part of wisdom for kids is to know, to understand that you are known by how you act.
SPEAKER_00: The second component of this is to understand that sin has sad consequences.
SPEAKER_00: That's the second thing Proverbs wants young kids to know, that sin has very sad consequences.
SPEAKER_00: If your life continues down the road of sin and self-centeredness and disobedience and lying, it doesn't end well.
SPEAKER_00: Now it doesn't end well for your parents.
SPEAKER_00: The first sad consequence of this is grief or sadness, grief, sorrow in the hearts of the child's parents.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 17, 25 says it this way.
SPEAKER_00: A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her who bore him, bitterness to his mother.
SPEAKER_00: There's a kind of sorrow that starts to rip the family apart.
SPEAKER_00: Because the parents want their kids to be godly, want their kids to be wise, and they're seeing in the child's life a lack of wisdom and a lack of godliness.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, a godly parent is going to keep praying for the disobedient child and begging the Lord to work in the child's heart.
SPEAKER_00: But as the child continues on his or her way, it just creates more and more grief.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost a magnifying grief.
SPEAKER_00: The more the parents are praying for the child, the more the child is rebelling, the more the grief is magnified.
SPEAKER_00: The child wants to do what he wants to do, he wants to live for himself.
SPEAKER_00: He's not concerned about his family.
SPEAKER_00: He's concerned about his own desires, his own lusts in his heart, the own ways he wants to live.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care if it hurts his family, and so that causes grief to his father and bitterness to his mother.
SPEAKER_00: That's why sin makes the family so sad.
SPEAKER_00: Because the parents don't want the children to be leading a foolish life, and so their hearts are saddened by it.
SPEAKER_00: That sadness produces shame.
SPEAKER_00: As sin comes home and the the kids and the kids are rebelling, continuing to cause their parents grief, eventually it produces shame.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, no parent, no godly parent, would ever say, I'm ashamed of my child.
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes the Bible speaks a truth that is too direct and too hard for people to say.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what the Bible says about this.
SPEAKER_00: He who does violence to his father and chases away his mother is a son who brings shame and reproach.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, no parent would say, I'm ashamed of my child.
SPEAKER_00: But the child's conduct, the child's disobedience and sinning and foolishness brings shame into the home.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sad picture of recklessness.
SPEAKER_00: When a person worships an idol, they can't also worship God.
SPEAKER_00: You can worship lots of different idols.
SPEAKER_00: You know this, right?
SPEAKER_00: Idols kind of idols are okay with competition from other idols.
SPEAKER_00: The whole Greek system works with a whole bunch of Greek gods, the whole Roman pantheon of gods, they can all coexist.
SPEAKER_00: They might have their own petty rivalries and own petty uh fights and everything, but the system works based upon all of the gods coexisting.
SPEAKER_00: When you add the true God to the equation, the idols have to go.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot worship the true God and idols.
SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
SPEAKER_00: The same concept is true in the family.
SPEAKER_00: When children start living for themselves and living for themselves and refusing to pursue wisdom, refusing to repent from their sin, putting themselves forward, that's going to cause a rift in the family.
SPEAKER_00: It's described in the verse on your screen as you know, child children chasing away their father, driving away their mother.
SPEAKER_00: How does that actually happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the kid is pursuing sin, and the parents get to a point where they can no longer support the kid's sinful life.
SPEAKER_00: They can no longer support the choices their children are making.
SPEAKER_00: It causes a separation.
SPEAKER_00: That separation produces grief and shame.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, some parents will say, I don't approve of my kid's sinful life or what have you, but I'm not going to tell them that because I want to maintain the relationship.
SPEAKER_00: I want to maintain what we've got going on here.
SPEAKER_00: That's not, of course, ultimately going to work.
SPEAKER_00: Because as I mentioned, you can't worship the true God and idols at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually the bridge is going to be crossed.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, choices are going to have to be made.
SPEAKER_00: And those choices bring grief.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, parents don't want to be driven away from your kids, but sinful kids that are living for themselves bring that kind of grief and shame to the house.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, it brings loss.
SPEAKER_00: Brings grief, shame, and thirdly, it brings loss.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the sinful, disobedient child is not thinking of.
SPEAKER_00: They're not projecting 30 years down the road.
SPEAKER_00: Like Proverbs is a very practical book.
SPEAKER_00: It even speaks at this level.
SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen to the parents' house when the parents die?
SPEAKER_00: Who gets the house?
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the rebellious teenager is thinking.
SPEAKER_00: The rebellious teenager is not, you know, extending this all the way down for 30 years from now, or 40 years from now, or 50 years from now when my parents die?
SPEAKER_00: Who gets the house?
SPEAKER_00: That's not what they're thinking.
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking I'm living for myself.
SPEAKER_00: My parents don't support me, so I'm going my own way.
SPEAKER_00: Forget them.
SPEAKER_00: What is going to happen when the parents die?
SPEAKER_00: Who does the house?
SPEAKER_00: Who does the resources?
SPEAKER_00: Who does the finances?
SPEAKER_00: Who does the legacy get passed down to?
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 17, 2 says it this way: a servant who deals wisely will rule over a son who acts shamefully and will share the inheritance as if he were one of the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: In the Roman world, slaves are supposed to graduate.
SPEAKER_00: Slaves would be a slave for 10 or 20 years, and they go off into society with the social status of their previous owner.
SPEAKER_00: Kids don't graduate, they're always your kids.
SPEAKER_00: But when a kid pursues a disobedient and foolish and shameful life, it forces choices to be made.
SPEAKER_00: The kid graduates and goes off and leaves his family, creates separation.
SPEAKER_00: And the parents hand down the house to a slave, or to make it a more American analogy, the parents give the company or the business to the intern who's worked at it for twenty years because they trust him or they don't trust their kids.
SPEAKER_00: I just think of the kind of grief that's going to be in that kind of household.
SPEAKER_00: It's so sad.
SPEAKER_00: Such was the case of Moses' life, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00: He was a slave who was brought into Pharaoh's house and was going to have the power of Pharaoh, or Joseph, another slave, brought into captivity, brought as a slave, but who elevated himself above Pharaoh's own children.
SPEAKER_00: Such sadness in the home when that happens.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells a story of the prodigal son, a story that I'm sure you're all familiar with, and but you may have forgotten some certain details of it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the story begins?
SPEAKER_00: And it's a made-up story.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fictional story that Jesus is saying to make this point.
SPEAKER_00: But because it's in a different world than ours, we might lose some of the nuances that the original listeners would have understood.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the prodigal son asks, Can I take half of my inheritance?
SPEAKER_00: Can I get my inheritance now?
SPEAKER_00: He had a brother.
SPEAKER_00: So he appeals to his parents, split the inheritance, cash me out now.
SPEAKER_00: Well, think about what's going to happen with those parents.
SPEAKER_00: They do it.
SPEAKER_00: They give it to him.
SPEAKER_00: They say, okay, half of what we have is yours.
SPEAKER_00: Go away.
SPEAKER_00: What sadness.
SPEAKER_00: But what the parents have with the other half of their stuff, it's going to continue to grow.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to continue to multiply.
SPEAKER_00: Their wealth is going to continue to come in.
SPEAKER_00: If they're farmers, they're going to continue to grow crops.
SPEAKER_00: They're continuing to grow the inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: The son has lost that.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to get compounding interest.
SPEAKER_00: He's out of there.
SPEAKER_00: He's walked away.
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember at the end of the story when he comes back what he says is, I just want to be treated like one of the slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Let me be a slave.
SPEAKER_00: Such a heartache in a family that comes with that kind of loss.
SPEAKER_00: That's what sin does to a family.
SPEAKER_00: It brings grief.
SPEAKER_00: It brings sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: It brings ultimately loss.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with what wisdom brings to a family.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom brings glad consequences.
SPEAKER_00: If sin brings sad consequences, wisdom brings glad consequences.
SPEAKER_00: And here is a massive contrast.
SPEAKER_00: The main point of what Scripture says to children is that you can grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to me talk right now and you think, I think I'm a foolish child, listen, the child that thinks he's a foolish child is, I'm telling you, a hundred miles further down the road than the child who doesn't realize that.
SPEAKER_00: You can grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be left in the childish foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: You can grow up in wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's three verses that talk about this.
SPEAKER_00: They're all in front of you in Proverbs 23, so you can look at them on the pages of your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I'll put them on the screen for you as well, because I know some of the kids might not have Bibles in front of them.
SPEAKER_00: But Proverbs 23, verse 12, for example.
SPEAKER_00: Apply your heart to instruction and your ears towards words of knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: This is the main appeal of the Bible to little kids.
SPEAKER_00: Decide as a little child that you want to be listening to wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: You want to listen to your parents.
SPEAKER_00: You want your heart to be connected to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: If you love the Lord with your heart, you're going to listen to your parents with your ears.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 23, verse 19, just a few verses down the page.
SPEAKER_00: Hear, my son, be wise.
SPEAKER_00: Direct your heart in the way.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the connection between the ear here for kids and the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The playground I took my kids to when they were younger than they are now is the one in the Pinecrest townhomes over there next to the Pinecrest golf course.
SPEAKER_00: There is a playground right there by the tennis courts.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fun playground.
SPEAKER_00: My kids loved it.
SPEAKER_00: It has one of those things that you speak into the cone and the pipe goes underground, underneath the whole playground, comes up the cone on the other side of the playgrounds.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: DJ and I would tell secrets to each other while they are playing on the playgrounds.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the only time we had for a conversation when they were younger.
SPEAKER_00: Your ear and your heart are like that.
SPEAKER_00: Your ear is connected to your heart.
SPEAKER_00: You listen to your parents because you love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: As you love the Lord, you listen to your parents.
SPEAKER_00: God is not going to speak to you in a voice that you hear.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to hear the Lord telling you something.
SPEAKER_00: If you're lying in your bed and you hear a voice and you think it's the Lord, it's probably the extra dessert you had last night.
SPEAKER_00: But you are going to hear your parents.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart is supposed to love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The more you love the Lord, the more you're going to listen to your parents.
SPEAKER_00: That's the connection.
SPEAKER_00: You hear them better when your heart loves the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Proverbs 23, verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: Again, just two verses down.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to your father who gave you life.
SPEAKER_00: Don't despise your mother when she's old.
SPEAKER_00: That's the appeal.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents want you to love wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: They want your heart to be directed to follow the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You hear better when you have love for the Lord in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: If you have love for the Lord in your heart and an ear turned towards your parents, you can grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: So don't despair now about your lack of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Don't despair now as if there's no hope.
SPEAKER_00: You say, I'm a sinful, disobedient, lying, fighting child.
SPEAKER_00: Don't despair at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, turn to the Lord in your heart and say, Lord, help me.
SPEAKER_00: Help me.
SPEAKER_00: And you desiring the Lord's help is going to lead to joy in your parents.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the glad consequences of wisdom, it brings joy to the house.
SPEAKER_00: Parents take joy in their kids desiring wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: That makes them happy.
SPEAKER_00: That makes the house joyful, which is a very good goal to have in mind.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you've been in a home that doesn't have joy, it's the you know, the family dinner table is supposed to be happy, and there's a cloud over it all the time because people are bringing their sins to the table.
SPEAKER_00: It makes a cloud there.
SPEAKER_00: When kids have a heart that wants to know wisdom, it brings joy to the home.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 23, 15, again on the page you're open to, says this my son, if your heart is wise, my heart also will be glad.
SPEAKER_00: This is the New Testament version of John saying, I have no greater love than seeing my children delight in the truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Old Testament wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: I just want my kids to know wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom, if you remember what wisdom is in the Bible, wisdom is not about your grades.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is about understanding how God made the world.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if I drop something, it falls.
SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't be surprised.
SPEAKER_00: It does every time.
SPEAKER_00: That's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Folly is being surprised by that.
SPEAKER_00: Folly is hearing a dog bark and going, oh, I didn't know they made that sound.
SPEAKER_00: No, they always make that sound.
SPEAKER_00: That's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Folly is being surprised by it, wisdom is knowing it.
SPEAKER_00: When the book of Proverbs is speaking about morality in this world, it's saying that's what wisdom is, is knowing that the way God made the world makes things go well for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's swimming with the stream of how God made the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to swim with the current, it's hard to swim against the current.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom in Proverbs is understanding how God made the world and ordering your life that way.
SPEAKER_00: And it brings joy to your life.
SPEAKER_00: When you swim against the way God made the world, it brings sadness to your life.
SPEAKER_00: So a parent doesn't want their kids to be sad.
SPEAKER_00: A parent wants their kids to have joy.
SPEAKER_00: So they see how God made the world, they live in accordance with God's commands.
SPEAKER_00: It brings happiness to the parents because they see the happiness to the children.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 23, 24.
SPEAKER_00: What a just a wonderfully profound verse this is.
SPEAKER_00: And they think I'm lying sometimes because there's sometimes I do care about their grades, but you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: I ultimately don't care about their grades.
SPEAKER_00: And as much as their grades reflect their work ethic, I guess I care about it because their work ethic reflects their wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: But I honestly don't care.
SPEAKER_00: What I care about is if their heart loves wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: That I care about.
SPEAKER_00: And so it brings me joy to hear them, this kind of language right here.
SPEAKER_00: When the father, the righteous, hears his son saying wise things, it brings him so much joy.
SPEAKER_00: I guess it makes me happy when my daughter brings some of Spanish touch, she got an A on.
SPEAKER_00: Woo-hoo.
SPEAKER_00: But when I hear her saying something that reflects wisdom, oh, that brings me joy.
SPEAKER_00: This goes back to why God made the world.
SPEAKER_00: God made the world to reveal his glory in it.
SPEAKER_00: He made the world so his glory could be magnified through our lives.
SPEAKER_00: When a parent sees their children saying wise things, it brings joy to the parent because they see God's glory being magnified downstream.
SPEAKER_00: It's God made the world so we can display his glory.
SPEAKER_00: Parents have children so children can display God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: When you see your kids doing it, it multiplies the glory of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings joy.
SPEAKER_00: That brings joy.
SPEAKER_00: This is why parents discipline their kids.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about this two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: Parents spank their kids.
SPEAKER_00: And when you spank your kids, you're telling them, speaking about the little kids here, you're telling them, you're sinning, and sin brings pain into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And you're learning that lesson right now.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom, the instruction, is the flip side of that.
SPEAKER_00: When you're honoring the Lord, it brings so much joy into the world and into our home.
SPEAKER_00: God's glory is magnified that way.
SPEAKER_00: And wisdom brings the consequences of joy, brings the consequences of confidence, secondly.
SPEAKER_00: This is for the kid.
SPEAKER_00: Kids can have confidence in life when they have wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard for older people to understand this because so much of our life is behind us.
SPEAKER_00: Younger people are so prone to anxiety because they have so many unknowns.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know where they're going to go to school next year.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know where they're going to go to college.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know who they're going to marry.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what kind of jobs they're going to have.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know any of that.
SPEAKER_00: Older people are like, like, that's all in the rearview mirror.
SPEAKER_00: Like, for better or worse, you sorted out the marriage thing a while ago, and you know, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: It happens.
SPEAKER_00: You know where you went to high school.
SPEAKER_00: You're not worried about it.
SPEAKER_00: You know where you went to college.
SPEAKER_00: You're not worried about it.
SPEAKER_00: So, just in the same way as older people, you understand, younger people don't know wisdom, they can't understand what I'm thinking.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: Flip it around.
SPEAKER_00: Older people have such a hard time understanding the ambiguity and the anxiety of the younger people because they don't know what's next for them.
SPEAKER_00: And the book of Proverbs says a young person who loves wisdom gains confidence from it.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 of the passage in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
SPEAKER_00: When you love wisdom, you know God is going to do something good in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That all things happen for his glory and for your good.
SPEAKER_00: When you love wisdom, you believe that and you embrace it, and that gives you confidence that cannot be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: Elsewhere, the Bible says that that kind of hope does not disappoint.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents can disappoint you, your brothers and sisters can disappoint you, but your confidence from loving wisdom will never disappoint you.
SPEAKER_00: Your dad can lose his job.
SPEAKER_00: Your parents can get a divorce.
SPEAKER_00: You can get bad grades in the school.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: If you love wisdom, you can have confidence in your future.
SPEAKER_00: In our Northern Virginia world, your friends can move away.
SPEAKER_00: Your friends can move away.
SPEAKER_00: And you can still have confidence in the future.
SPEAKER_00: I talked to a family this morning.
SPEAKER_00: You know what's in Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: If you love wisdom, you can have confidence in what's in Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: You can have confidence in the Lord's goodness and kindness towards you there.
SPEAKER_00: At every stage of life, you can have confidence.
SPEAKER_00: The child who loves wisdom loves the confidence he has in the future.
SPEAKER_00: So to recap, wisdom for kids.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, understand what kind of kid you are is obvious to everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you decide not to think about it, everybody knows.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, sin makes your life sad, it makes your parents' life sad, it brings sad consequences.
SPEAKER_00: But wisdom brings glad consequences into the home.
SPEAKER_00: It brings confidence to you and joy to your parents.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to expand a little bit, I know most of you, again, at this 9:30 service, union station is going on, very few little kids here.
SPEAKER_00: For most of the rest of us, do you understand how these points are also true for you?
SPEAKER_00: It's not a long walk.
SPEAKER_00: You are children of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: These points are true of you.
SPEAKER_00: You, what kind of person you are is so evident based on your conduct.
SPEAKER_00: When Solomon says it's true even of a child's, he means it's more true of you.
SPEAKER_00: It's easier to identify the apple tree when it's full grown.
SPEAKER_00: If you say you love the light, but you walk in the darkness, you are a liar, and the truth is not in you, and everybody knows it.
SPEAKER_00: Perfect love drives out fear.
SPEAKER_00: Sin can wreck your life at any stage.
SPEAKER_00: It can ruin your family, it can cause heartache in your home, you can lose your job, you can lose your integrity, it can devastate all you've worked for your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: But wisdom can give such joy and such confidence and such just security at any age.
SPEAKER_00: At any age.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, two just basic takeaways from all this for every age of person.
SPEAKER_00: They're buried in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: But I hope verse 17 jumps out at you now, kind of the center of this parenting section.
SPEAKER_00: Don't envy sinners.
SPEAKER_00: That's true of kids.
SPEAKER_00: You know how kids are tempted to envy sinners.
SPEAKER_00: You know, my non-Christian neighbor, he gets to watch these movies, he gets to play these games, he gets to stay up at night, he gets to do all these things.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy for a little kid's heart to be jealous of that, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy for grown-ups to be jealous of that.
SPEAKER_00: You're driving on the 395 and you get passed by the sports car going 100 miles an hour, and there's a moment that goes through your heart where you're like, why can't I drive the sports car at 100 miles an hour?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's because I'm in a minivan.
SPEAKER_00: That's why.
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy for our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: You see the wicked person prosper.
SPEAKER_00: You see them grow their stuff and they prosper, and there doesn't seem to be any accountability.
SPEAKER_00: They seem to be getting away with it.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, why don't I join in the wickedness for just a while, enough to have some fun?
SPEAKER_00: Don't envy the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't see the car crash that's going to happen one mile marker away.
SPEAKER_00: You don't see it right now.
SPEAKER_00: When it passes, you don't see the crash.
SPEAKER_00: Don't envy the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: But continue in the fear of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: Continue in the fear of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: I said that when Proverbs makes an appeal to children, it's talking about something more than their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about the way they're going to live their life in wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: But listen very carefully.
SPEAKER_00: It's not talking about less than their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Your whole life is built upon the foundation that God is holy, that I'm not, that I need a savior, and Jesus is so eager to forgive us of our sins.
SPEAKER_00: He's so eager to take our sins away, to wash us, to cleanse us, to bring us into his family through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Don't envy the sinner, but do cling to Yahweh at every age.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful for your invitation to faith, your outstretched arms.
SPEAKER_00: Thankful for the children that are here today.
SPEAKER_00: Our church is so filled with these young families, so filled with life, so many children.
SPEAKER_00: They bring so much joy and energy to this church, and we're so thankful for them.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that they would bring spiritual life and energy.
SPEAKER_00: We pray their spiritual life, even at a young age, they would know you and love you and trust you, and they would grow up bringing spiritual energy to us.
SPEAKER_00: As they evangelize at young ages, as they learn to pray, as they learn to obey, as they learn to read the word, we pray that their little hearts would magnify your glory in them in a way that gives our church so much joy.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we want your joy.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we want you to be magnified.
SPEAKER_00: We want you to delight in your children.
SPEAKER_00: We're so grateful for you.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church.
SPEAKER_00: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_00: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_00: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.