Who do you trust?

So in the first chapter the father asked the son to “listen…to your father’s instruction”, then in chapter he told him “accept my words” and now he says “don’t forget my teaching”. So in the first chapter he asked the son to sit down and listen, the 2nd he called him to trust that what the father said is true, now he is appealing to him for something more. For him to not forget. That means he is calling him to value the wisdom of the father so much that he is willing to hold onto it throughout life.

How many of you have memorized the books of the Bible? Can anyone name all the presidents of the US or all of the capitals and states? There are some things that even years after we learned them we can still remember. Why? Because we valued learning them and we practiced learning them over and over again.

The father tells him to not forget because what he is telling him “will bring you many days, a full life, and well-being”. What the father is telling him is that if he remembers these words that in the long run it will bring him a “full-life” and “well-being”. This is different then just a “happy life”, or satisfaction. We can look at habits people have. Like just eating fried foods and sugar all the time, that may bring them happiness but will not bring them a “full life”. Because you will have bad health, you won’t be in good shape, it will bring you pain, there will be things that you miss out on because you can’t do them, and you will most likely die earlier. Those are all truths about an unhealthy lifestyle. But we can also have unhealthy spiritual lifestyles. Actions that may not be causing us physical problems but are causing emotional issues and affecting your relationship with God. What the father says is that the son should have a “wholesome” life. What we see in verses 3 and 4 is that what the father wants the son to develop is an inner integrity that reveals itself in the sons interactions with other people. In fact what verse 3 says is what Deuteronomy 6 says to parents. That they are to use every opportunity they can to remember these important commands.

So what the father tells the son throughout the rest of this chapter is the attitude that he must have in order to value these truths the way that he should.

Trust in the Lord and don’t be wise in your own eyes

First, he is to have the attitude of humility towards his own ability to know wisdom and submit to the will of God. That if you “know God” that God will “make your paths straight.” It is a call to not depend on your own ability to know what is right and wrong but trust that the Lord’s way is better than your own. It is also a call to reject the wisdom of the world. It means to submit to the Lord’s way even when you think that it seems weird or wrong.

Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:21-25

1 Corinthians 1:21–25 CSB

For since, in God’s wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached. For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

The point that Paul is making is that often times what the Lord tells us to do seems dumb, it seems like the stupid thing to do. So when we hear God’s wisdom in our ear what we can often say is “that is dumb, I need to do this instead” because we are thinking with our wordly thoughts. Because God’s way seems like such utter foolishness. But Paul says that God’s foolishness, which is just hyperbole, God can in no way be foolish. But what Paul is saying is that if God could be foolish that even this would be wiser than the smartest thing we could say. In Proverbs when it says to “lean not on your own understanding” what the writer is describing is lying helplessly face downward. What is showing is that you allow yourself to be vulnerable by trusting in God’s commands. That you don’t protect yourself, but that you trust him through danger.

Whenever Chick-fil-a first opened they started in malls but when Truett Cathy told him that he was going to be closed on Sunday he was unsure if he should let him have his business there because it seemed like a bad business decision, it seemed like foolishness. But in fact they have found that this day off actually makes people craze it more when they can’t have it. Chick-fil-a is the 3 largest fast food chain in the country. Now I am not saying “God blessed them because they were closed on Sunday”. But I am using it as an example of how something that can seem like foolishness to us isn’t always foolish to God.

Sometimes the wisdom that we receive from God’s Word, or our parents, or anyone else can seem foolish to us. It can seem dumb. I’ll give you one example. I know that in middle school and high school that students make fun of one another, and I tried my hardest in high school not to make fun of others in the same way that I was made fun of. And I had some of my friends say “if you don’t make fun of other people then you will become a target and they will say more mean things to you.” Now that may or may not be true, but what seems like “wisdom” from your friends does not mean that it is godly wisdom. But God says “turn away from evil, even when it seems like the foolish thing to do.”

It also talks in verse 9 about honoring God with your possessions, it is talking about tithing and not just do what is good for business but what is the right thing to do. To be a fair person rather than greedy. Oftentimes we can do what we think is best for us even when it means hurting someone else. But God never calls us to do that. But again, it uses this reverse logic” give your money away and you will be filled with riches. Which brings us to the second attitude he must have. Which is that he should...

Seek life

What the father says is that wisdom is far more valuable than even the greatest riches on earth. He tells them that wisdom accrues interest. Does anyone know what it means to “accrue interest”? It means that over time something gains value that it does originally have. For example, whenever I worked at Starbucks they gave us stocks every year when we worked there. And several times I have considered selling those stocks and use the money but instead I held off. I could have sold the stocks and had money to use and it would have been nice to have, but now it is worth double what it was worth when I first got it. Even though, at the moment, it may make me seem “poorer”, in the future it will make me even more rich. Oftentimes we can be a victim of the moment, we don’t want to be poor or a fool in the moment. We want to be wise now, but we don’t see how making the right choices now can benefit us down the road. Do you want to know why it is important to be a good student now, even when you think it is useless? Because it doesn’t get easier to be a student, it gets harder. So developing the right habits for studying now will help you down the road.

But the illustration the father gives is that wisdom holds both a long-life as well as riches and honor while seeking JUST riches will only give you one of those things. Wisdom is the source of a good life.

Then what the father says next is even more incredible, he says that the Lord created all things with wisdom. That the same wisdom we have access to in Christ is the same wisdom that He used to create the universe. That to abandon God’s wisdom to go against the very nature of the world God created for us. Because when Adam and Eve ate the fruit they broke the structure of the world God had created. But in Christ we have access to the wisdom God intended for us. Colossians 2:2-3 “I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ. In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

What God’s wisdom keeps us form is all the deceitful ways of sin, that hidden obstacles that come from human wisdom. So the father calls the son to not harm others, to not lie about others or make things up that may hurt their reputation, to not desire the life of those who are violent or destructive. To not be someone who seeks to try to attain by force.

Then at the end he tells the son that if the son mocks others that he will be mocked himself, but if he is humble then he will have honor. Peter quotes this in 1 Peter 5:5

1 Peter 5:5 CSB

In the same way, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. All of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

What does this say? It says if those who are younger, who have those older than you who have authority over you, and you mock them and you are proud thinking you know better than them, then you are the fool, you will be mocked yourself. But to clothe yourself with humility means that you recognize that you don’t have all the answers, and that your way that you think is best will not lead to life. What it literally says is that the proud will be filled with disgrace.