The Skill of Loving Discipline Proverbs 12 1

hey guys welcome to friday night study my name is rick ice i'm one of the chaplains here at hosanna want to welcome you this is going to be pretty good study today but i'm going to give you little bit of setup so that we understand the context of what's going on and why we're reading this but we're going to be in proverbs today and the context and the setup is the fact that proverbs is poetic book but it's poetic book about wisdom and wise things and how to live life based off of wisdom right it's just how to live wisely or live skillfully so with that it's great book for daily devotions if you it's only got 31 chapters so if you read chapter day you generally will go through the book you know on the months that have 31 days on them on the months to have 30 days you read two chapters on one of the days and then or you split up and you break it however you want but it's really simple really easy just to have as daily devotion especially because it's book on wisdom so it's not just daily devotion of you know which isn't bad thing but like going through the gospels or through the epistles or even the old testament but this is hey this is wisdom for your life for today now there's also going to be verses in those chapters you're like this doesn't apply to me yet but that's the thing it'll apply in the future someday and it's good to have that wisdom locked away in your brain so that's the setup we'll be in proverbs this poetic book of wisdom and with that want to ask you question have you ever been given correction and didn't listen you kind of just blew it off you felt hurt or offended because how dare they how dare they criticize me and my actions have you ever felt that way you're not alone i'm pretty sure every human has always felt that way everyone has the other question would then be have you ever been corrected by the word of god and has it ever convicted you of your sin what did you do then did you feel hurt offended did you listen to it i'd like to say we all listen to it every time but obviously we don't we fall we don't listen and what want to do today is actually encourage us want to give an encouragement for you and for me and for everyone so that we will be able to basically live better lives be able to accept encouragement and accept the correction from other people in the word of god so with that we're jumping into proverbs chapter 12 verse 1 where it says this whoever loves discipline loves knowledge but one who hates correction is stupid first off just side point that always think is funny love how the bible calls people stupid just it's like yep you're just stupid but that's my fun side point the question here or not the question but what it brings up is there is two people in this proverb one who loves discipline which means they then therefore love knowledge and another person who hates correction and that person is yes you guessed it stupid now remember this is book of wisdom and it is telling us that it is good right in this verse it is good to love discipline discipline is another word for correction right other verse or other translations will actually also say correction so loving discipline means you love knowledge and knowledge is the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning that's the definition of the word here used for knowledge so this is intellectual growth you like knowledge which is personal intellectual growth and is good for you growing is good thing if we never grow in physical or mental states there's generally problems mean we call like you don't grow past four foot nine you're you have dwarfism if your mental age doesn't pass you know it doesn't continue to grow you unfortunately have problem mental disability which then we say you're mentally capped at this age now that shows that growth is good thing so why would you want to stop your own growth because this book of wisdom that's saying you should love like if you love discipline and people's correction you love knowledge and self-growth but if you hate it and you turn away from it you're stupid because you're denying yourself growth which is good thing growth is always good thing unless it's like growth on your heart or you know besides those things but this what it's saying is you're stupid if you hate correction which kind of hits in the heart big time hits your feelings it hurts me i'm like man because there's times people will correct me and don't want to listen no think did it right right and and unfortunately the truth is this person that you know think i'm good they're stupid and this word stupid means right the word used here is lacking or marked of lack or marked by lack of knowledge or intellectual acuity it's exactly as it sounds you're stupid person two examples can give of the person who loves discipline versus the stupid person who hates it is you have two new hires at your job one or both of them are saying making the same mistake and you give the correction to both of them one loves the correction takes it learns from it grows and then continues to do well so well that hey you keep them on permanently but the second one listens to the correction thinks they know it all right tends to be like teenager thing but guess what that doesn't go away we say that teenagers know it all nah man as you get older hope you go through what i've realized the older you get the more you realize you don't know that's healthy thing but this person you tell them the correction this new hire and they don't listen and they keep doing it their way and messing things up and slowing down what happens to that person they get fired they're stupid because they didn't listen to the correction which then therefore cost them their job in this analogy but what also like is proverbs doesn't just stop there there's another proverbs that gives us more details on the person who loves correction versus the one that doesn't proverbs 15 32 says this anyone who ignores discipline despises himself but whoever listens to correction acquires good sense so if you ignore correction not only are you stupid but you hate yourself because in sense you're denying yourself intellectual growth you're denying yourself good sense because the person who listens to correction gains good sense so this stupid person really one of the my favorite examples it it's just story that always remember hearing is this hunter right guy wanted to be hunter these he wanted to go shoot bears you want to go hunting for bears and he had 44 magnum he's like yeah it's big enough could take him down it's revolver which means it has hammer right hammer action but he wanted to be like the wild wild west taking that gun out and getting hammer action to where instead of pulling the trigger you just slip the hammer back it slaps against the pro the the firing pin hitting the the primer and setting off the bullet so you can go really fast like in the cowboy movies people warned him his gun was semi-automatic so therefore you pull the trigger right it's how it works it would have been just as fast as doing the the reverse action with the hammer problem is he thinks no i'm fine want to do it want to look cool don't want to listen and then he goes out and he goes hunting and he also because he doesn't pay attention to other people's correction and advice he didn't listen to the advice of the hunter safety course that says don't crawl over bushes or trees or things like that with loaded firearm didn't pay attention to that walks through this thick brush and guess what that thick brush grabbed the hammer pulled it back and bam shot him in the foot not only once but another time in the other foot he shot himself in both feet if he listened to either one of the corrections hey don't don't get this slide back action so that way you don't have to worry about crawling through bush but even then if he just unloaded the firearm and listened to the hunter safety course lessons then therefore he wouldn't have had bullets and ammo in his gun to then fire and shoot himself in the foot he didn't listen to either one so he ended up being really stupid and having to crawl out of the woods by himself with bullet holes in his feet that is stupid person who despises themself but the one who loves knowledge and correction or loves correction therefore also loves knowledge loves gaining it and gains acquires good sense is hunter who is smart listens to the hunter safety course license the course tests pays attention to them and does what it says he would unload his gun when he crawls through bushes therefore not shooting himself having great time and hopefully getting an animal really simple listening to knowledge or listening to correction increases you gain knowledge you love it and you acquire good sense but want to talk about something personal because it could be as simple as saying yeah there you go pay attention you know love knowledge love correction don't despise it we could leave it there but i'm not because the truth is loving correction is learned skill it is not something that comes naturally to everyone correction is not fun it actually hurts one of my favorite sayings is the truth hurts the truth doesn't care about your feelings truth is truth so hebrews 12 11 says this about correction and discipline verse 11 says no discipline seems enjoyable at the time but painful later on however it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it the the thing is we as humans we avoid painful things if something hurts we don't do it anymore which is natural reaction to pain right you accidentally put your hand on burning hot metal which have done before it was funny my room my roommate and we just made breakfast and don't know why took the food off and i'm like spilt under the the cover let me pull the covers off and just grab burning hot metal with my hand and my friend is like dude what are you doing and i'm like don't know don't do that anymore obviously hopefully but we avoid painful things right you feel pain the natural reaction to stay away from it which is good thing pain is good thing but we have to understand that pain is good thing so of course discipline is painful we want to tend to avoid it but if you love knowledge and you understand that discipline has its benefits down the road just like it's saying here the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it take in mind the context of this verse is god disciplining his children in this chapter which that is through god's discipline comes the fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it but the truth is any discipline seems painful it's not fun but just like the pain of me touching that metal grate then also understand that that's actually good thing that pain has taught me not to do those things therefore listen to the pain don't ignore the pain and try and grab the metal grate anymore well that pain is the same way we should treat discipline because discipline is painful it's something we should listen to and not ignore because if we listen to it we won't keep burning our hands we won't keep doing the problems that have caused us to get this correction in the first place so we need to love discipline we got to learn to love the pain right knowing it will benefit us in the future which means it's learned skill you have to dedicate time to understanding this person is correcting me need to listen to him or her and really especially take it take all correction with grain of salt not everyone knows full context of everything i'm not saying everyone's perfect and all advice is perfect it's obviously not but listen to it take it with grain of salt and love it love the fact that yeah this hurts it sucks but it's good for me because if listen to it and take the the good parts from it and apply it i've gained knowledge i've gained intellectual growth i've gained good sense and won't do the bad thing anymore or the wrong thing it's lot like exercise if you think about it which shows why it's learned skill because you learn to love exercise no one guarantee no one likes how hard exercise is right off the bat and even the people who are in the best shape man it's pain to exercise still it's mean used to be in great shape and liked exercise for the after effect of hey look good i'm in good shape i'm not winded going upstairs but in the fact of doing it man it sucked it was painful but the pain was good pain because it was it was making me better was growing from that situation what was torn down and painful now grew back stronger and bigger and that's the same way we need to understand correction now the trick to learning how to love correction the trick in gaining this learned skill and continuing to grow in it is humbling yourself proverbs 11 2 says this when arrogance comes disgrace follows but with humility comes wisdom an arrogant and proud person is the same person who denies wisdom and correction why because they think they know it all because this other person can't be as smart as am therefore know better right it's they basically because of that arrogance and pride they hate themselves they despise themselves and they're truly stupid why because they they hate correction those people those proud people when they hear correction either they'll act up they'll get mad they think they know it all or they just completely ignore you they give you the cold shoulder you know or you have done that know have in my life i'm not proud of it but that is the guy who loses his job because he was so proud he didn't listen to the the instruction of the boss saying hey no i'm going to do it my way they lose their job or the hunter who didn't listen to two different forms of advice of hey unload your firearm or don't get this lever action but no he wanted to and he shoots himself in the foot humble yourself humbly accept wisdom and correction because the truth is we don't know it all and the older you get like said you should realize you don't know it all and there's more that you don't know we should love correction which means we then love intelligence and love knowledge we love growing and this we should understand that we don't know everything that would then make us the guy who keeps his job because we realize we don't know everything so when someone gives us advice we listen to it and apply it therefore keeping our job changing and growing or being good hunter that doesn't shoot himself in the foot and enjoys his hunt so talked about earlier how two questions one do you love when people correct you or do you feel offended two what about when the bible corrects you on your sin because the question is do you love or hate the word of god when it corrects you or do you ignore it do you ignore the pastor preaching and for some reason the things they're saying man it really affects you and hits your life but you're pushing it away well that's because second timothy 3 16-17 says this all scripture is inspired by god and is profitable for teaching for rebuking for correcting and for training in righteousness so that the man of god may be complete equipped for every good work the word of god like it says here is good for teaching right teaching us about god about jesus about sinners and humans and who we are about truth and righteousness and how we need jesus it's good at rebuking us and it's good for showing us where we're wrong where our thoughts are wrong how we perceive god or the world is wrong how we perceive what sin is don't think mean look at paul paul even said if if the old testament didn't talk about if the ten commandments didn't talk about don't being covetous he never would have known to not be covetous why because sometimes we don't know it all we don't realize what sin is the older i've gotten the more i've realized don't know but also the older i've gotten the more realize sin the more realize what sin truly is because it's not just simply bad thing where child's understanding of sin is you curse that's bad thing no sin is literally missing the mark of god it's you know sin was used in archery if you missed the bullseye by millimeter or completely missed the target by six feet you sinned and that's the point is righteousness pure righteousness bam that is the goal that bullseye if you miss it anywhere it's sin and looking in your own life the older you get you're like man there's lot more sin in my life than realized which shows you how great grace is but it's really good at rebuking us showing us our sins it also gives us correction to show us how to avoid sin in our lives not only does it say hey man you really messed up it rebukes us but then it it goes and say hey here's wisdom here's correction this is what you should do instead don't do this the bible literally shows us this correction it also trains us in what is righteous so that we may live righteously all also we may fully be prepared for the good work that god is going to do in our lives so that we're completely ready for what he has planned for us to do but if you hate discipline you're puffed up you're proud you're stupid you'll never be able to receive correction from god you won't be able to listen to his word or listen to pastor who's teaching or someone who's leading small group or even just your fellow christian who's coming up to you to share after church or something you won't be able to listen to it because you hate correction so what does the bible know what does this book know compared to me and i'm like well mean the guy who wrote it is god the creator of all things who is all-powerful who is omnipresent who is omnipotent who is omniscient yeah i'm pretty sure he's smarter than you i'm pretty sure his word and his correction is better than what you think and what think but the problem is is we get puffed up and not do it side note proud people who don't accept correction are those same people who will never seek out jesus or be saved i've never seen proud person be saved in the sense of their prideful in their sins they have to be humbled to realize who they are as sinner to then be saved i'm not saying it's your job to humble people i'm just saying this is an observation when someone is extremely proud and doesn't accept correction until they're humbled and realize that they need jesus and need that correction they won't so pray for people to be humbled that's that's an honest thing but the word just the word is truth and like said that's saying earlier truth hurts he doesn't care about your feelings it gives us correction for when we've sinned so if you find in your own life that man you know do have hard time with correction pray for god to help you humble yourself and take active steps of when someone gives you correction be like okay you know me talk to yourself like me listen to him just just just do it this correction could be good for me like need to pay attention don't just sit there and blow him off and not listen to him and get angry no listen force yourself to listen to them just like you force yourself to work out or you force yourself to eat good healthy things that don't always taste that good force yourself to listen to the correction and take it in if it's good correction live by it gain that knowledge and go on and gain good sense but if you don't if you don't listen to correction you not only hate yourself you're stupid and you're missing out on the correction of god because the bible corrects us all the time it's what shows us how to live as christians how to live righteously but if you're avoiding that you're going to be christian whose life seems even harder than normal and you're struggling with more sin than you realize because you're just not listening to the correction and giving it up you're not humbling yourself to this so this learns skill is very beneficial right don't reject correction don't reject the correction of the word of god's word how he speaks to us right if you reject it you hate yourself and honestly i'll call you stupid because call myself stupid all the time literally have like done something like why didn't just pay attention i'm so stupid and it's okay call yourself stupid because sometimes you need to to get yourself to realize was stupid in that moment should have listened to the correction so humble yourself and grow from the correction and discipline gain knowledge grow do it because it may hurt in the moment of hearing the correction and realizing man was stupid messed up it's really humbling to hear how dumb you were but that's good thing because then it allows you to grow from there so in closing we must understand there are two types of people in this proverb one who humbles themselves and loves discipline this person loves discipline and correction so much that they also love it from the word of god and are allowed to grow become smarter and in effect they love themselves because they're allowing themselves to grow but there's another person this person hates correction because they are puffed up and proud this person is stupid and hates themself because they deny themselves growth they deny themselves growth in god in righteousness from the correction of the word so my last question is which one are you you