The Discipline of a Wise Father

Text—these are the very words of God

Proverbs 3:11–20 ESV

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed. The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew.

Introduction

One of my earliest memories:

Sticking a nickel in a socket...

Getting spanked for it...

My parents didn’t spank much, but I remember my dad saying it was because I needed to know how dangerous it was.

Some might say— “That’s kind of sad that one of your first memories is getting punished.”

Solomon would not agree.

He would say— “What a blessing that one of your first memories is that of disciplined by your wise parents for your own good—it proves their love for you and makes you wise.”

Big Idea

This is the big idea being communicated in this passage this morning:

Do not despise or dread God’s discipline because it proves His love and delivers His wisdom.

Context

Proverbs has 31 chapters that you can break down into 7 collections

Collection 1 is chapters 1-9

Most of it is made up of 10 father and son talks

Proverbs 3:11-20 is “heart-to-heart” #4

Outline

1. God’s discipline proves His perfect love (v. 11-12).

2. God’s discipline delivers His precious wisdom (v. 13-20).

1. God’s discipline proves His perfect love (v. 11-12, 19-20).

The fourth “heart to heart” begins with a statement about the discipline of God and the relationship that the son should have with it.

There is a heart posture that must be avoided when it comes to God’s fatherly discipline.

And there is a motivation given for avoiding that wrong posture.

The Posture That Must Be Avoided

My wife gets on me all the time about my bad posture.

My response is “Baby, I was born this way.”

I come from a long-line of hunched shouldered McCormick men

She responds, “No—you just sit and stand like a caveman.”

She is probably right.

Years of bad choices in how I sit and stand have led me to this place of darkness

Just as bad posture is a thing that should be avoided in the body, bad posture is a thing that must be avoided in our heart.

The heart posture that must be avoided in this situation is one that would:

Despise the Lord’s discipline...

Be weary of His reproof...

Despise = Reject

To believe it can’t help

Fools despise wisdom and instruction instead of fearing God

Fools also despise the discipline of God

Be weary = Loathe or Dread

The way a child might loathe and dread the foreboding footsteps of a hard, unrelenting father

We should not be this way in our hearts with God’s discipline

Always Under Discipline

In some sense we always live under the discipline of God

I have three children in my house and they all live under my discipline.

They live under a code of “YES’s” and “NO’s.”

YES—you will be respectful.

YES—you will do the chores.

YES—you will do your homework.

NO—you will not eat ice cream before dinner.

NO—you will not stay up until 1am playing Fortnite.

NO—you will not skip church on Sunday mornings.

If the code is broken, there is another level of discipline in terms of consequences that will then come from the parent to the child.

Why do we operate this way?

Because we love our children and we know what is best for them.

We are always under the discipline of God if we are in his household

Have you repented?

Have you believed?

Are you a Christian?

Then you are in God’s house and you are under His discipline

The discipline of Christ is easy and light because we are not earning salvation through commandment-keeping (saved by grace)

And yet—within the discipline of Christ, there are commands and if we love Him, we will keep them.

John 14:15 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Discipline Due to Sin

Just like in a household, if you ignore the YES’s and NO’s of God—who has all the authority—we will find that there are consequences of our disobedience.

This is the next level of discipline that God the Father brings when we are disobedient.

He meets our disobedience with reproof and correction.

Solomon wants his son to understand:

If the son violates the father’s admonitions, he can expect I AM to back it up with a spanking.

Bruce Waltke

This discipline typically comes in the form of:

Physical and/or emotional affliction

Psalm 119:67 ESV

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.

See how God uses the affliction to bring the Psalmist back to the Word.

Some sort of loss

Numbers 20:12 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”

Moses struck the rock in disbelieving anger and God told him that he would not enter the Promised Land

**In the case of affliction and loss, we cannot always say these are the result of discipline.

It may simply for sanctification and the glory of God

And yet—affliction and loss should always be seen as opportunity to examine ourselves to see if there be any wicked way in us and to draw close to the Lord

Allowing the natural consequences of sin to take their effect

Galatians 6:7–8 ESV

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

Tormented Conscience

Psalm 32:3–4 ESV

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Love is the Motivation for God’s Discipline

v. 12: God reserves His reproof for those whom He loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

God’s fatherly love for us is too strong to allow us to press on in dangerous and destructive things.

His reproof ensures that sinful behavior doesn’t become permanently rooted in our lives

God the Father delights in God the Son

The holy Father loves the holiness of the Son

The just Father loves the justice of the Son

The kind Father loves the gentleness of the Son

You belong to God by the blood of Christ.

The Son of God died to purchase your soul and bring you into His Kingdom

Acts 20:28 ESV

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Jesus bought the church with the blood of His veins.

You have been made righteous in God’s eyes

BY FAITH—Christ received the punishment for your sin

BY FAITH—You have have received acceptance with God because you have Jesus’ righteousness

This means that God the Father delights in you the same way He delights in the Son

Because when He sees YOU, He sees the righteous perfection of the Son!

But in our everyday living, the way we WALK hasn’t caught up with the STANDING we have before God in Christ.

This is because there is sin in us that God is still removing as He sanctifies us.

Romans 7:19–20 ESV

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

BECAUSE God delights in you in Christ, He will not let that sin keep dwelling in you.

He will cleanse and sanctify you until the day you die with His Word

John 17:17 ESV

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

This is no different from the heart of any good parent.

They discipline in order correct bad and harmful behavior for the good of the child

When human parents do this, they are reflecting His fatherly heart

His discipline is that of the family; not of the school; much less of the prison. He corrects his children, not as criminals, but as those whom he beholds without spot, made accepted in the Beloved.

Charles Bridges

Hebrews Connection

The NT re-emphasizes this idea that love motivates God’s discipline of His children.

The author of Hebrews even goes a step farther and says that if God does not discipline us, it is a bad sign for our souls!

He quotes Proverbs 3:11-12 verbatim and then says:

Hebrews 12:7–11 ESV

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

If a child comes to my house to hang out with my kids and they say a bad word, I’ll tell you about it “parent to parent.”

But I’m not going to discipline your kid.

You can discipline your kid.

But your kid is not in my household.

The point being made in Hebrews 12 is that if you are not receiving God’s discipline, it is a sign you are not in His household.

Can you sin without pain in your conscience?

Do you rarely ever pray to God and confess your sins to Him?

Do you feel like you can sin without any real discipline from God in the circumstances of your life?

These should be like check engine lights for your soul

Responding to God’s Proof of Love

On the other hand, the author of Hebrews is repeating the principle of Proverbs 3:12—God’s discipline is a sign of His love to those who receive it.

His discipline is motivated by love

His discipline confirms His love for you

His discipline is a sign that you are in His family

We should not run from something that is proof of God’s love to us

Do not despise it/reject it

Do not be weary of it/dread it

There is danger in that

Proverbs 15:10 ESV

There is severe discipline for him who forsakes the way; whoever hates reproof will die.

These are wrong ways to respond

Instead, here are three things we must do as we receive and respond to God’s discipline:

1) Humble yourself before the Lord.

Admit that God is right and you are wrong

Don’t be the child who grows more proud in the face of discipline

2) Trust in the wisdom of the Lord (v. 19-20).

One reason a Christian might writhe and complain under God’s discipline is that they don’t trust God.

They don’t think He knows what He is doing.

They suspect the discipline may not have a purpose.

But remember that God’s discipline in your life is executed by His wisdom.

It is wisdom you can trust—by it God founded the earth (v. 19)

He laid out the earth and established it in His wisdom.

He established the sun moon and stars with His understanding—His skill and competence (v. 19)

By His knowledge the deeps broken open (v. 20)

The KJV says, “the depths are broken up,” which is a little more clear.

Refers to how God made the oceans and seas and rivers, all divided by land

By the same knowledge the dew of the clouds descends (v. 20)

God’s wisdom is immense

With it He creates and governs the world

Can you not trust Him to wisely discipline you for your good and His glory?

3) Hunger for intimacy with God.

View God’s discipline as a pathway to intimacy with the Lord

Discipline removes sin and strengthens communion with God

This is always God’s goal in discipline—that you would know and love Him more

Review

This is our first point this morning:

1. God’s discipline proves His perfect love (v. 11-12, 19-20).

...Therefore let us not despise it or be weary of it.

...Let us receive it as children when it comes.

2. God’s discipline delivers His precious wisdom (v. 13-18).

As you move to verses 13-20, the rest of the 4th fatherly talk is about what the discipline of God will bring to your life.

Those who humbly receive God’s discipline will see His precious wisdom delivered into their lives, along with all the blessings it brings.

Solomon wants his boy to know that God’s discipline will have its good effect

It will bring wisdom and its blessings to the boy’s life

Valuable Wisdom (v. 13-15)

Verses 13-15 show us how God’s discipline will deliver God’s wisdom to us

This wisdom is valuable and the one who finds it is called Blessed (v. 13)

They are happy in the soul

They have a peace that only God and His way can provide

v. 13-18 begin and end with blessing, let us know how valuable wisdom truly is

We know it is valuable because its gain and profit are compared to the gain and profit of (v. 14-15):

Silver

Gold

Precious jewels

Anything you could possibly desire

v. 14-15 are reminiscent of Solomon’s words in his 2nd father-to-son “heart to heart” :

Proverbs 2:3–4 ESV

yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures,

In both passages, wisdom is depicted as a woman

In each passage wisdom is spoke of as something of the utmost value

The only difference is that in this passage we find out that wisdom is better

This is because God’s wisdom starts with fearing Him and it has eternal value

“Wisdom makes you richer than money ever will.”

Derek Kidner

Here is how David talks about God’s wise words in Psalm 19 :

Psalm 19:10–11 ESV

More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Solomon speaks from experience.

He was as rich as he was wise.

1 Kings 10:23–25 ESV

Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. Every one of them brought his present, articles of silver and gold, garments, myrrh, spices, horses, and mules, so much year by year.

But Solomon looks at his son and says, “All the presents of the earth can’t compare with the wisdom that God’s discipline will bring you.

If the riches of the world could make the soul happy, there wouldn’t be so many therapists in Hollywood.

God’s discipline brings you His wisdom.

His wisdom blesses the soul in a way material things never could.

The Two Hands of Wisdom (v. 16)

In v. 16, the precious value of wisdom is illustrated by depicting her as a woman with blessings in each hand.

We shouldn’t be surprised to see wisdom bringing blessings

Proverbs 3:1-10 taught us that submission to God’s wisdom is the gateway to experiencing God’s blessings in our lives

In her right hand —> Long Life

In her left hand —> Riches and honor

The long life is the more important and valuable blessing in Solomon’s eyes

Right hand more important than left in Ancient Near East

Shows Solomon has indeed come to understand that some things are more important than money

Long Life (v. 16)

Wisdom offers long life to those who find it

The choices and values that wisdom will lead you positions you for longer physical life

Helps you avoid destructive vices

Helps you avoid foolish decisions that could risk your physical life

But remember—any blessing promised to us that we do not experience in this age, we will experience in the age to come

Even if the godly have short days on the earth, they will have unending days on the New Earth

Riches and Honor (v. 16)

With the left hand, wisdom brings riches and honor.

Here is Matthew Henry talking about what children of God should expect from Wisdom’s left hand:

They shall have the wealth of this world as far as Infinite Wisdom sees good for them; while the true riches, by which men are rich towards God, are secured to them.

Matthew Henry

Christ is the Wisdom of God.

You will have all the physical riches and worldly honor in this life that He sees fit

He will provide for your needs.

He may go beyond that and provide abundance in the storehouse

If he gives you an abundance, know that it is for His glory

Augustine famously said that God gives riches to good men so they are able to show they are not evil...

...but He gives riches to evil men to expose they are not good.

God gives abundance to believers so that they will glorify Him

Not the case with everyone

Some of the poorest of the poor in the world are believers.

But Henry’s point is that even poor believers in this world are rich toward God because they will inherit every blessing through Christ in the age to come

Pleasantness and Peace (v. 17)

In v. 17 we see the blessings of spiritual delight that God’s wisdom brings.

The Ways of Pleasantness (v. 17)

When you walk the in ways of wisdom, you walk in the ways of pleasantness.

There is spiritual pleasure in walking wisely and obeying God.

And there is nothing wrong with hungering for that.

There is nothing wrong with being motivated to receive God’s discipline because you know it will bring His wisdom

And walking in wisdom is pleasant

On the path of wisdom, the believer tastes and experiences the kindness of God

If you are here today and you are wrestling with God, I am going to guess it is not pleasant.

When the soul is not in fellowship with God and experiencing its kindness, it makes the heart sick and bitter.

Proverbs 14:13 ESV

Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief.

This is the state of the heart that despises and is weary of God’s discipline

Is this the state of your heart today?

Paths of Peace (v. 17)

Are you lacking in peace today?

Get back on the paths of wisdom.

All the paths of wisdom are peace.

Philippians 4 is a perfect example of how this works:

Paul tells the Philippians to do the wise thing of bringing their requests to God.

Philippians 4:6 ESV

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

What will be the result if they do the wise thing of praying?

Philippians 4:7 ESV

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This is just one example of how God’s wisdom brings the blessing of peace

So then, Walking in wisdom is pleasant and pleasurable for the soul.

And as you do it, your soul will be at rest.

Tree of Life (v. 18)

Finally, we see how Wisdom is called a tree of life for those who lay hold of her.

For those who hold fast to her, they will be blessed.

Tree of Life was in the Garden

If Adam had obeyed God, it is the tree that would have provided longevity of life for him as he rested with God

Because Adam from the forbidden tree, He is locked away from Paradise and the tree of life.

His rebellious pride took away access.

Genesis 3:24 ESV

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Here in Proverbs 3:18, wisdom is a tree of life for all who lay hold of her.

Eternal life is being communicated here

God’s discipline delivers God’s wisdom and God’s wisdom brings us eternal life

This is especially impactful when we consider that the New Testament calls Christ our wisdom.

1 Corinthians 1:28–30 ESV

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

God has seen to it that you are in Christ Jesus

He is the Wisdom of God

As you have repented and believed, Christ has become the Wisdom of God to you

Delivered righteousness (right standing with God)

Sanctification (Spirit of Christ making you more like God)

Redemption (delivered from the power and consequences of sin by God)

If you wash your ragged robes in the blood of Christ our Wisdom, the Tree of Life is yours.

Revelation 22:14 ESV

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.

What was lost in the first Adam is recovered through the Second Adam

Don’t Despise the Discipline that Delivers Wisdom to You

Like many of you, I have been watching what I am eating in 2026 to try and get in shape.

Some of you don’t care about these efforts and show up at events I am at with warm Krispy Kreme.

How can I turn it down?

If you share my love for a warm Krispy Kreme donut, you know how they are delivered at the donut shop.

By a conveyor belt.

I love that conveyor belt.

Why?

Because it delivers the deliciousness of hot donuts.

How could I despise it?

Similarly, how can we despise God’s discipline if it delivers to us something so precious and valuable as God’s wisdom?

That would be foolish.

It would expose a lack of fear in God

Despising discipline would expose that we despise wisdom itself

We must love the mechanism that God so often uses to instill His precious wisdom in our lives

We must learn to love the discipline of a Father who loves us

Satan’s Ploy

Satan’s ploy will be to get you to do just the opposite.

Satan knows that when a believer receives God’s discipline as a humble child the believer will draw near to God.

Satan knows this means he will have to flee.

So then Satan takes the discipline of God and presents it to you as a cruel plot to destroy you

Convinces you that God does not love you

Convinces you that God is not wise

Convinces you that God’s discipline is not for your good

Typically if a person buy into this they run harder from God, believing He is a tyrant

God’s Reality

Satan’s ploy is not God’s reality.

God’s reality is He is the loving Father on the porch.

He looks over the horizon for the wayward son.

He has allowed the son to feel the consequences of his choices, but only so the son would come home.

And when He sees His child bend low and say, “I’m sorry Father,” with a sincere heart...

...He brings our the robes and rings of His wisdom and decks the son out.

...The fattened calf is slain.

Let the blessings flow.

The father’s son has returned.

Do not despise or be weary of the discipline that brings you home to the blessings of God’s precious wisdom.

Someone Needs to Repent Today

Who is this message for today?

Who is harboring secret sin, thinking they are fooling God?

Who is ignoring God’s voice in order to make their own choices?

Stop and listen to the voice of the Father.

For even in His correction and reproof, there is love waiting for you.