“Authentic Trust” – Proverbs 15:10

How many of you are tired of cold weather and are looking forward to spring?  Boy, I am!  Spring is my favorite time of the year.  If nothing else, I’m hoping the spring winds will blow all the leaves in my yard over to my neighbor’s yard.  I hate raking leaves.  In fact, I got a mulching mower so I don’t have to rake leaves ever again.  I’d rather mow over them 20 times than rake them once.  I don’t know why.  It’s always been that way.

I remember when I was a little kid and my dad told me to go rake the leaves in the front yard.  I came up with every excuse not to.  I didn’t feel good.  I don’t know how.  I was too busy.  The rake didn’t fit my hand.  I was allergic to leaves.  And besides, if you leave them on the grass it’s sort of like a blanket to help the grass stay warm in winter.  Nothing worked.

So I went out there and I started raking at about half-speed, telling myself how mistreated I was to have to endure such pain.  And after convincing myself of the horrible injustice I was having to go through, I slowed down to about quarter-speed and then to nothing and then I just sat down under the tree and relaxed for a while.  Until Pop looked out the window.

We like to give God praise around here for what He has done because it is edifying to the body.  It lifts the body up when we do that and it’s encouraging.  Well, you might say I got edified that day because when Pop came out there he lifted my body up and “encouraged” me to get back to work.  He encouraged me with swats to the back of my pants, edifying me with every swat.  And I got the leaves raked.

Now, there is any number of ways to look at that story.  You can look at it and say how mean my dad was to discipline me for not raking those leaves.  He should have just let me continue watching cartoons that day instead of putting me through all that.

You might say he should have let me realize the importance and the need of raking those leaves on my own and just provided the rake for me to use when I got ready to do it.  Or even that he should have started raking and encouraged me to join him.  Maybe he could have sent me an invitation or at least explained to me the importance of hard work and why the leaves needed to be raked.

But can you imagine if I had said, “That’s it!  This is too much!  It’s too much for me to be expected to endure the pain of raking all these leaves and obviously my dad cannot be trusted.  He hates me.  He proved it by spanking me.  He doesn’t love me.  He is wrong.  And I’m leaving, never to come back.”  That would be pretty ridiculous, wouldn’t it?  It’s ridiculous because we all know the value of discipline and we know that discipline is actually a sign of love.

It is a sign of love that shows that I love you so much that I will not allow you to get away with being stagnant, not growing, not improving or not doing something right.  That’s my definition of discipline.  It is how I show you that I love you too much to allow you to be stagnant or not growing, not improving or not doing something right.  And it is because I love you that you can trust me.

And as much as a parent loves their child, so God loves us even more.  Do you know that God loves you, yes you, as much as He loves His Son Jesus? In John 17, Jesus was praying in the garden and he prayed for all of us, saying, “that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.  I have to admit that I don’t understand that…but I believe it because His Word says it.

But I also believe that He disciplines us in His love and I believe it because His Word tells us that as well.  Turn to the book of Proverbs if you haven’t already.  We continue our series on being authentic with a look at Proverbs 15:10 where we will see how to have authentic trust in the Lord even when he disciplines us.

Proverbs 15:10 says, “Stern discipline awaits anyone who leaves the path; the one who hates correction will die.” 

Hmm…I hear ya.  “Pastor Todd, that sounds awfully harsh.  Let’s talk about how much God loves me some more.”  I know that sounds very negative and depressing and not my favorite topic for a sermon.  But if you want to talk about God’s love for us then the conversation is incomplete without pursuing the angle of his discipline.

To understand this verse and to keep it in context you have to read the previous verse.  In fact, you really should have been here last week to hear the sermon about authentic living from that verse to really understand today’s verse.  So, if you weren’t here last week, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.  It’s just easier that way, I’m afraid.

But, I’ll tell you what.  If you don’t want to leave I will just tell you that the path that is talked about here is a way of life.  It means the choices we have made in our life that make up our lifestyle.  And God has made known to us through His Word, through the Holy Spirit and through other ways such as Christian friends, family or church the way, the path that He wants us to travel.

He has told us to pray for each other, love each other, forgive each other and to tell others about Him.  He has told us through the lives of Moses, Elijah, Esther, Daniel, Paul, Peter and Judas what to do and what not to do.  And when we leave that path; when we make the choice to go a different direction, then verse 9 says that God detests that way and then verse 10 says that there is stern discipline for those who go that way.

Some people might think that this is talking about unbelievers.  I mean, surely God would never call one of His children wicked, as He says in verse 9.  But I would submit to you that how can an unbeliever ever be on the right path?  Verse 10 says that He disciplines those who leave the path, stating obviously that they once were on the right path.  All through the Bible you will see that God disciplines His children and He punishes those who are not His children.

King David is one of my all time favorite Bible characters.  I was telling somebody the other day that I can’t wait to get to Heaven to hear David tell about killing Goliath.  And I want to hear him tell it with Jesus sitting right next to him so I can understand the whole story.  Won’t that be fun?  1 Samuel 13 describes him as a man after God’s own heart.  God did lots of things and I believe may still do things “for the sake of David”.  David was and is special to God.  Even Jesus came from the lineage of David.

If anybody was ever “on the right path” it would be David, right?  God loved him, He blessed him and yet in 2 Samuel, the prophet Nathan goes to David and tells him what he has done the Lord finds evil.  That’s the word God used: evil.  You know the story.  David is minding his own business having a coffee break up the flat roof of the palace when he sees Bathsheba.  And he makes a choice.

I said last week that all sin is a choice.  God didn’t make David do what he did with Bathsheba.  Satan didn’t force him to do what he did to Uriah.  David, the apple of God’s eye, made a choice; he left the path, on purpose, knowing it was wrong, and it was evil and detestable to God.  Now, at this point, one might say that God has a choice. 

I don’t want to say that David was God’s favorite but if God had a favorite it would be David.  And because David was so dear to Him, God could have just turned a blind eye.  He could have said, “Well, boys will be boys” and forgotten about it.  He even could have sent Gabriel to appear to him in a dream to tell David to please not do that again.  But He didn’t.  Look at what happened in 2 Samuel  12:13-14.

Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”  Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. ¹⁴ But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.”

That’s pretty harsh.  In fact, you might say that was “stern discipline” as Proverbs says.  And if God will discipline His main man, the anointed king of Israel, the special one who reigned over God’s special country then who do we think we are to think that our sins will not find us out and that there will not be discipline when we stray from the path we know to be right?  God is too holy for that.  But He is also too loving.

God loved David too much and He loves us too much to allow that.  Just like my dad loved me too much to allow me to sit under that tree when I knew I should be raking leaves, God will discipline us when He knows we need to move away from where we are.  And anything less would not be showing love but would actually do us a disservice by not allowing us to grow through that discipline and through the absence of that sin.

Let’s go back to that leaf-raking story for just a minute.  Let’s say I was out there raking leaves and all of the sudden the neighborhood bully came over and started scattering the leaves all over the yard.  Would that have been my dad’s fault?  I mean, he did tell me to rake the leaves and now they’re all over the yard.  Of course that’s not my dad’s fault.

Well, in the same way, just because something bad happens to you doesn’t mean God is disciplining you.  Our enemy, the devil is out there like a prowling lion looking to mess up your pile of leaves and he would like to kill you and bury you under those leaves, so don’t think God is the one who brings all bad things.

We also live in a fallen old world where sometimes the wind kicks up and blows your leaves.  And when that happens it provides us an opportunity to continue making good choices or make bad choices but it’s not necessarily God’s discipline.

So, we have seen that stern discipline awaits him who leaves the path, now let’s look at the second part of this Proverb and see that “he who hates correction will die.”  You thought the first part was depressing and harsh!  “He who hates correction will die.”  So, the question is, does that mean literal death or something else?  My answer would be yes, it absolutely could mean a literal death.  It did for Ananias and Sapphira.  Remember we just talked about them a few weeks ago.  They left the path and the first church dragged their dead bodies out back before they knew what hit them.

And I believe that even today, if God decides that what you are doing is going to do enough harm to you or to Him and His Kingdom, then He just might decide to take you on right now.  But I want you to look over in the New Testament at Luke chapter 15 for just a minute.  There we find the parable of the prodigal son.  This is such a beautiful story and one that some of us can relate to in ways that we would rather not talk about.

You can make 100 different sermons out of this story because it illustrates so many things but I want you to think about God’s discipline as we read through this starting in verse 11 and going through verse 24.  Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. ¹³ “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴ After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. ¹⁷ “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸ I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. ²¹ “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²² “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

The father said his son had been dead but was now alive.  What did he mean?  Obviously he wasn’t talking about a physical death.  What kind of death was this then?  Well, like I said, some of us can relate to this story in ways we would rather not talk about so maybe I can answer the question from my study of the passage and maybe it is because I was the prodigal.

But I can tell you that the prodigal was dead to peace.  He was dead to joy.  He was dead to the relationship of his father and the rest of his family.  He was dead to the blessings of a relationship with his Heavenly Father and his Christian family.  He was dead to EVERYTHING except the consequences of his bad choices and there were many lonely nights when he would lay in bed and just wish he was physically dead.

And it was only because of the fervent prayers of his family and the incredible and awesome grace of God that he was restored to that family and was able to celebrate.  And he celebrated God’s grace for years and years.  And it was through all of that discipline that the prodigal became so firmly convinced of the love of God and that he could always trust God.  He had authentic trust in God BECAUSE OF God’s discipline, not in spite of it.

I want to end by talking about one last aspect of the discipline of God.  What does it look like to be disciplined by God?  Is it always a crisis?  Does God ever discipline in ways that aren’t horrible and dreadful?  Absolutely.  In fact, I would imagine that almost every discipline starts out as just a still, small voice.  If you saw your young child start walking in a direction that he shouldn’t go, you wouldn’t just knock the fire out of him right off the bat, would you?  I hope not.

No, you would start with just a word of warning or maybe a gentle nudge.  You might say something like, “Sweetheart, don’t go that way.  That’s not best for you.  I know others have gone that way but it’s not where you need to be.  Go this way.”  And if they refuse to listen and continue walking in the wrong way, you would increase your volume and your insistence and you would do anything necessary to keep your loved one safe and where he was supposed to be.

And hopefully soon they will see that you don’t want them to go that way because you have their best interests at heart and that you can be trusted.  It really is not because you are just a big old meanie. But sometimes that person will just continue to insist on having their way and at some point you just can’t stop them.  Did you know that even God will give up on you after a time?  If you continue to insist on having your way and year after year and time after time you ignore His grace and His mercy.  You don’t trust Him to have your best interests at heart and you continue walking.  He will take His protective hand off of you and He will at some point allow you to keep walking.

Did you know that salvation itself is like that?  It, too, starts with a still, small voice.  Maybe it’s the voice of a sunrise or a sunset.  Romans 1:20 says that God can be understood by seeing His creation.  Maybe that small voice rises to be the voice of a Christian friend or relative who tells you that Jesus lived, died, was buried and resurrected to pay for your sins; to pay for all those times you strayed from the right path.

But if you ignore those voices, He may allow the louder voices of difficult circumstances and the consequences of your bad choices to ring in your ears.  But if you continue to ignore those voices and you continue to insist upon going your own way, not trusting God, then at some point, maybe today, He will take His protective and loving hand off of you and allow you to walk away from Him, His blessings, His relationship and all that Heaven has to hold for you and allow you to make the choice to walk into eternal death, physically and spiritually.  But you have the choice.  And I would love to pray with you right now about that choice if you would let me, as the music plays “How Great Thou Art.”