Proverbs 1:8-10
Let’s give our attention to God’s
word. This is the first chapter of Proverbs, verses eight and
nine. Remember, these are the words
of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. And he says,
hear my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s
teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants
for your neck. Amen. This is the word of the
living God for us. One of our family’s favorite
ice cream joints is on a farm, and at this farm there are fields,
there are barns, and guess what else? Greenhouses. No cows. Greenhouses. What happens in
a greenhouse? Well, you can take seeds and
safely germinate them into plants that are strong enough to grow
on their own. And I’d like for us to think
tonight, as we look at children listening to their parents’ instruction,
of the picture that a home with parents is like a greenhouse.
It ought to be, at least. A home with parents is like a
greenhouse. And it takes hard work, it takes
action. In our passage tonight, in verses
eight and nine of chapter one of Proverbs, we have two words. It depends on what translation
you have, but hear my son, your fathers, instruction and forsake
not your mother’s teaching. So we got instruction and teaching.
Remember all these synonyms we looked at a couple weeks ago
for for the fear of the Lord seeking wisdom. So so the father
and mother both teach instruction and they give their their teaching
and their doctrine. So the moral of the story tonight
is listen to your parents, right? Listen to your parents. In fact,
I think What did we name? Oh yeah, Listen Up and Listen
Good. That’s what we put as the message title tonight. So we
want to listen to our parents. And there’s a, I know I’m saying
a lot here, going in a lot of different little paths, but if
you can learn as little ones to listen to your parents, guess
who you will listen to when you grow up and get old? God. So you begin to see how important
it is for us to learn to listen at a young age while in the greenhouse
of youth in the greenhouse of safety of the home. Just as it takes parental action
to have children learn and grow, it also must be received by children. So parents got to teach and what
the children got to do. They gotta listen, they got to
receive the instruction from their parents. So in verses eight
and nine, it says, importantly, the word hear or listen, my son,
to your father’s instruction. Forsake not your mother’s teaching,
and then as a blessing or benefit, as the Proverbs also do, they
are a graceful garland for your head. So we’re gonna look at
the wisdom of listening to mom and dad, but also the beauty
of listening to mom and dad. Now, who was the first hearer
or the first audience of this passage? Who is the my son in
this passage? Is it a little infant? Well,
it’s good to teach your infants along the way, but you can kind
of guess this is maybe a little bit older child who can take
a little back and forth discussion. But nevertheless, children ought
to grow up listening to their parents. We had a little saying
that we were taught Maybe some of y’all have followed it as
well Right away. How else does it go? all the
way and in a Happy way. How many of y’all grew up under
that? I grew up under the now right some of y’all grew up that
way now. Yep. See Some of y’all got raised
some raised up others of you got jerked up but Whatever, at
least we got raised, right? That’s been a good thing. But
this instruction teaches us as children to listen to our parents. So first of all, let’s think
about wisdom of listening to mom and dad. That’s in verse
eight. Some of y’all are aware that
in the scriptures, God ordained three main institutions. He ordained
the state or government, He ordained the church and he ordained the
home. And between state church and
home, we could have a society that was well glued together.
It didn’t disintegrate as it’s happening before our very eyes.
I made the mistake of turning on the news at five o’clock before
I came over here and got my blood pressure up and got mad. I can
tell you exactly what’s going on in the world. You got a bunch
of children who’ve grown up not listening to their parents, right?
That’s what’s going on out in the world. That’s all it is. And they get to be about 40 or
50, and they’re still making the same mistakes. But now we’re
living in a day and time where it’s not the state, the family,
and the church, but it’s the state and the individual. And
if you don’t believe me, take your child to the pediatrician.
What’s the first thing a pediatrician wants to do when you get there
with your child? Mom, Dad, can you leave the room?
They want to spend time with just your child. because they
want to make sure there is no undue influence from the parent,
get that, to the child. That’s not the wackiest thing
in the world. So we’re living in a day and time where we are
literally stripping children away from the home. Homes are
being removed from the church. That’s their undoing very often.
And so we have the rise of the state and the individual. No
longer are the church and home important. And so the home is
under attack, but it is so well needed. And we’re seeing that
great need in our culture and society. And as we mentioned
a moment ago, a home ought to be a place where it’s like a
greenhouse for kids. The seed can be planted. It can
be germinated. There’s heat, there’s light, there’s protection
from the wind and rain and elements. And as your kids get older, there’s
also another wonderful word picture in the Bible. Our kids are like
saplings. We plant them in the ground.
But they’re not ready to stand full on their own, so we put
stakes in the ground. We put strings or rope down,
and as the wind and rain comes, they can still grow and get rooted. But we provide time for our children
to grow up. It’s what we might call supervised
growth. This picture is often known to
us from Deuteronomy 6. What does that say? When we sit,
when we walk, when we rise, as we live life, what are we to
do? We’re to teach our kids. We’re getting a little heavy
here on teaching kids, and we’re supposed to be talking about
listening, so we’ll get to that. But in this context of the home,
the greenhouse, the staked sapling, this supervised growth, we need
to see the advantages of listening to mom and dad, or rather the
wisdom of listening to mom and dad. A couple things about that. First of all, they know more
than you do. Any of y’all grow up watching
Bill Cosby? Oh yeah, classic TV, right? He always had a good
one. I love the one where I think the boy wanted to move out on
his own. And so they pretended to be the slum lords, the rent
lords, the landlords. And so they took all his money
from him and they’re trying to give him a dose of reality on
how much life is. But mom and dad know much more
than we do. right, as children. They’re older
than you. They’re wiser than you. They’ve
been through a little bit. And so they know better than
you do. And so to not listen to them
is to literally say, mom, dad, you’re not that smart. Now, mom
and dad may not be that smart. But they still know more than
you, which makes you pretty dumb, right? So if your estimation
is tallied up there, they know more than you do. They know more
than you ever could at your young age. There’s another thing, though,
they have been there and done that, right? And they’ve got
the T-shirt, they’ve got the scars, they’ve got the bruises,
they’ve got the sweat and the blood and the tears to prove
it. I don’t know about some of you
who are older now, and maybe you’ve had kids, you’ve got grandkids,
but you’re still learning things. You still encounter various things
in life and say, hmm, I never knew that. And I’m not talking
about a fact. I’m just talking about life experience.
It’s new every day. We should always be open to learning
and understand that we are still learning. But nevertheless, parents
have been there and done that and got the T-shirt, and kids
haven’t. And so parents know more, they’ve
experienced more, but they’ve also got more wisdom than you. There’s a funny Mark Twain quote.
I looked it up earlier today so I would get it right. And
it goes something like this. Let me see if I can find it here
on my phone. When I was a boy of 14, my father
was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old
man had learned in seven years. And isn’t that the way it is?
When we’re 14, we can’t wait to get out of the house because
we know more than mom and dad. We think we’ve been there and
done that. They haven’t, and they aren’t wise but are foolish. And so we can’t wait. to get
out from under their thumb as we see it. But there is wisdom
to listening to mom and dad. And at the end of last week’s
lesson, or two weeks ago lesson, we saw the key phrase in verse
seven. The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. And so to not listen to parents
is to do two things. Number one is it’s to say to
God, you’ve put me on earth in the home of parents. And I didn’t
think that was so smart of you, God. But it’s also to say to
your parents, I got it figured out, don’t need you around. Well,
maybe your checkbook, your credit card, that sort of things. Fools
despise wisdom and instruction, but wise kids fear the Lord and
they fear their parents. So there’s wisdom in listening
to mom and dad. That’s a bit of a oversimplification
of it, but we’re gonna be making our way through Proverbs over
the next many weeks and months. And so we’re gonna get plenty
more instruction on how to live wisely following mom and dad. But the thing I want to ring
into your ears is this, if you can listen to your parents as
a young person, you will listen to God as an older person. And
if you learn to fear God and fear your parents, you’ll be
a wise kid, wise beyond your ears. So there’s wisdom in listening
to mom and dad, but there’s also beauty in listening to mom and
dad. Proverbs often have a statement
and then maybe a flip side to the statement or a blessing.
And so verse nine is the blessing of listening to your moms and
your dads for their wisdom, their instruction are like a graceful
garland for your head, and they are pendants for your neck. Yesterday, making a little trip
through the grocery store, I shouldn’t laugh, I shouldn’t, this is terrible
of me, I’ll repent of it later, but I saw a curly-headed little
girl, she had to have been about three or four years old, and
I saw her on the ice cream aisle saying, Mom, I want this. And
it was sweet and innocent. I was like, this isn’t gonna
go well. And so I kinda, with my eyes followed them, wherever
they went, and next thing I know I hear a stamp on the floor. I want it! And so here’s this
poor woman. She’s four times this little
girl’s size, but this little two, three year old, four year
old, whatever, she’s the boss. Right? And I felt sorry for the
woman. But I was thinking about this passage coming up, the beauty
of listening to mom or dad, listening to mom and dad is like a graceful
garland for your head, pendants for your neck. But I got to thinking
about that and thinking there’s something about the beauty for
the parents and that poor mom, right? And I’m stereotypical. Y’all know, just forgive me.
I’m sure this woman by the, you know, I have to repent of this
later too. I’m sure she’s taught this child
to recycle and be kind to others. I’m sure she’s taught her all
kinds of worldly things, but what’s the one thing she hadn’t
taught her little girl? To obey. And so for children
to obey, it takes parents expecting it. But there’s a beauty to listening
to mom and dad, and it doesn’t just happen naturally. You don’t
say, oh, look, I have an 18-year-old who obeys me. What a beautiful
garland around the neck. What a beautiful pendant. It
takes moms and dads nurturing obedience, expecting obedience. There being consequences when
there’s not. obedience. But watching this little girl
yesterday in the grocery store, this little girl has every privilege.
I mean, she was in a grocery store, right? She’s getting food.
Think about how, what percentage of children in the world have
never been in a grocery store and don’t get good, decent food.
She has a mom who obviously, uh, loves her in some way, shape
or form, maybe not enough to tell her no or to discipline
or to make her pleasant to be around. But, but she had so much
privilege, it seemed. yet she is unbridled in her behavior. Well, how do we think of the
beauty of listening to mom and dad? Well, I’m gonna get out
of my league here. If you ladies go buy a dress,
is the dress enough? Nope, you gotta have accessories,
right? You gotta have shoes, you gotta
have the jewelry, you gotta have the right purse and all the rest.
Nothing wrong with all that, because that’s exactly what it
says here in Proverbs, behaved child, so to speak, a child who
listens to their parents, a child who obeys, is well adorned, right? They
got the accessories. When you see somebody, I told
you I was getting out of my depth here. When you see a lady who’s
dressed and got all the accessories, all the stuff, what do we say?
She’s put together. Isn’t that what we say? She’s
got the purse that matches the shoe, the whole bit. She’s put
together. And so when you see a little
girl in the grocery like I did yesterday, was she put together?
No, she had fallen apart. And in fact, she was exposed
her foolishness before the whole watching grocery aisle. But to see a little one or even
an older one who obeys mom and dad, who know the wisdom of listening
to mom and dad, They’re like somebody well accessorized. How’s
that? Your obedience is reflected either
in beauty or in foolishness. I worked with a pastor when I
was first out of seminary, and this was before I had kids, but
I was doing a little youth work, doing some work in the children’s
ministry of the church. And he always told me a funny
saying. He said, you know you’ve done
a good job with your kids if they get invited back somewhere. And I thought, that’s a good
test, a good way to see if your children are doing well. Do they
get invited back? So many children, as the Proverbs
say, curse their fathers and they do not bless their mothers. They curse their fathers and
do not bless their mothers. And in the old age, many parents
feel great heartache because their children did not take to
the beauty of listening to mom and dad, nor the wisdom of listening
to mom and dad, nor do they display the beauty of listening to mom
and dad. little law in the Old Testament
has always struck me. Do you know what could be done
to a child who disobeyed his parents in the Old Testament?
They could be stoned. Isn’t that interesting? A child
who would not take reproof, a child who was just bent on rebellion
could be stoned by the community, taken outside the camp and stoned
to death in order to rid the camp of the saints of a sinful
person who would infect the rest of the camp. I think that’s very
interesting. We’re not that harsh. You know, thanks be to God, we
live under the new covenant. But you understand the principle,
don’t you? And maybe you understand it when you have a little unrest
in your home. One child, one disobedient child can spoil the
whole house. And some of you who, I don’t
understand the whole teenager thing personally, but I’ve had
people come up to me and say, just wait till you get teenagers.
Well, I’ve got 2.75, and it’s going OK so far. So I don’t understand
what that’s all about. But some people, they just dread
teenagers. But I don’t think you dread teenagers
if you have done the work when the kids are little, when they
are small. But you understand, when you
have a child who is older and who will not listen, it came
down to it in the Old Testament. What’s a man to do? What’s a
family to do? but to let the community judge this child. And
that’s how seriousness disobedience is. What’s the New Testament
say about the church? When we have church discipline,
as the church grows and sinful people remain in the church who
will not listen to the word of the living God, are we to mollycoddle
them? Say, oh, we’ll create a small
group for you, or we’ll let you run rampant. That’s what was
going on here about six years ago, I think. made life quite
miserable around this place. No, you say, uh-uh, no. You get with this program, you
get with the scriptures, or you get out of the church and not
ruin the sin in the camp. So there’s a lot of parallel
between what goes on in the home and what goes on in the church.
But there’s beauty in listening to mom and dad. Just watch the
news and you’ll see ugliness. Spring break. How many parents
look at the news on spring break and say, that’s my boy, or that’s
my girl, I’m so thrilled. Or look at college life. Look
at delayed adolescence. Adolescence for young men is
now stretching into the 30s, I do believe. Look now at paid
protesters. You send your kid to college now,
especially some of our local universities, they’re gonna get
a degree in protesting, right? They’re gonna get a degree in
causing trouble. And so just look at the picture
of the ugliness. Where is the generation of young
people who grow up Get a job go to go to church and at some
point in time get a family That is so absolutely rare these days
absolutely rare And so remember the three things I mentioned
God ordained the the state the home and the church Where’s the
state in the home nowadays? It’s all but gone. We’re a very
rare breed and so the ugliness of Not listening to mom and dad
is all over our news and it’s a generation before us that has
grown up in wickedness and unrighteousness. So we need greenhouses, we need
saplings, we need wisdom. and we need instruction. And
so let’s ask the Lord tonight that God would give us a healthy
fear of him and his law and his ways, and that we would not only
teach our kids and grandkids, great grandkids, the instruction
and teaching of the Lord, but that we might expect them to
hear it as long as they are under under our roofs. One of the favorite
things that Bill Cosby used to say, and I don’t think he invented
it, I think my parents did, is, I brought you into this world,
but I can take you out of it. And there are so many parents
these days that need to learn a simple line like that, right?
You see a little two-year-old dragging around a 200-pound man
these days. And you laugh, you laugh. It’s
not funny though. It’s really not funny because
it’s where, it’s where our culture is headed. And so God be merciful
to us that parents might wake up and teach their children the
fear of the Lord, but that children would also listen and wear the
beauty and the garland and the pendants around their neck for
the witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s look to God for
prayer. Lord, we pray that you would
help us to value Our parents help us to value their wisdom,
their instruction, their experience. And we pray for that for the
young in this room, but also for those of us who are older.
We still can find great value in our parents, for they’ve lived
yet a generation before us. So hear us and help us. May we
see a generation before us that loves the church, loves the home,
and loves your wisdom. We make our prayer in Christ’s
name, amen.