Proverbs | Discipline Or Regret (April 25th, 2021) - Mike Armstrong

All right, get your Bibles open then to uh Proverbs chapter 5.

Proverbs 5 · chapter mention

Proverbs chapter 5, been in a in our Proverbs series, uh looking at wisdom, looking at a number of ways that we need to be wise as believers.

Proverbs 5 · chapter mention

And uh so Proverbs 5 is uh an immense uh section of scripture, uh certainly, and we'll get into reading portions of that in just a moment.

But I remember a number of years ago, uh I was reading a magazine article, uh really it was an interview in this article with a pro athlete, and uh it was talking about his life and it was and his workout routine, and it showed a picture of his his home gym, uh, which basically was massive and amazing.

And and the thing that really stood out to me though in the picture that I noticed is he had this this slogan written out on one of his walls uh as his motivation, and this is what it says.

It said, it said, sacrifice or regret, you choose.

A sacrifice or regret, you choose.

And really the meaning of it, the gist of it was you know, put in the the work, okay, put in the practice, the the blood, sweat and tears, lifting weights, running, all of that.

In other words, discipline yourself.

This is what he was telling himself, discipline yourself, and eventually you'll experience the results you're looking for.

Okay, that was one side of it.

Or, or don't do all of those things, don't put in the effort required, take days off, eat poorly, all of that type of thing, and and simply be filled with regret.

Okay, that that that slogan I think is really stuck with me uh ever since I read it.

I I've thought about that many, many times because I think it just translates so well to our walk with Christ.

Either we make the wise decision to discipline ourselves towards fighting against sin, okay, or or we choose to suffer the inevitable consequences and the painful regret of failing to do so.

Okay, so so if I could modify this athlete's motto, that slogan they had written up on his gym wall for our big idea here today, uh, it's this, okay?

It's discipline or regret you choose.

Okay, discipline, I mean we know discipline, but he had sacrifice written on his wall.

Discipline absolutely requires sacrifice.

It really does.

So discipline or regret, you choose.

Okay, that that choice really is ours.

It's each one of our uh choices to make.

At the end of the day, all we truly have are these two options in front of us.

Okay, to discipline ourselves now or choose not to.

And I think Proverbs 5 makes that extremely uh clear to us.

In Proverbs 5, it's written as a it's written as as a plea or as a warning from a father, from King Solomon specifically, uh, to his son.

Okay, so it's a dad writing to his his boy, his grown son, about resisting the dangers of sexual temptation and pouring into his marriage instead.

Again, an amazing, amazing proverb.

Now, I I would highly urge and recommend each one of us, each one of you, to read and study this entire proverb uh very carefully on your own, because it's amazing.

Uh, but today, really, what we're gonna do is we're just gonna highlight a couple of different points in it, kind of pull out a few different verses and focus in on some of that.

Now, again, while this is certainly about the sin of uh of lust, of of adultery specifically, okay, a lot of what we're gonna look at here today can apply really to any sin, right?

Any any battle, any temptation that you and I might find ourselves in.

All right, so as we get into this here, let's pick it up in verse three and notice what Solomon says here.

He says, For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey.

They drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil.

All right, so all of that is to say that that sin is extremely alluring.

It's enticing, it is, it is looking to suck, to draw you and I in and to to captivate our hearts, to captivate our minds and our actions, the way that we live.

Okay, so so why do any of us get get drawn into that?

Why do we get caught in the you know in the cords of sin and the cords of idolatry and and and and addiction?

Right?

We all got various addictions.

Well, it's because it's fun.

Right?

Sin is fun, it is, it is, it is pleasurable, it feels extremely good.

I mean, when I was a kid and growing up in churches, I don't remember pastors and and leaders and stuff like that just kind of straight up saying that.

I I remember hearing, be careful of sin, sin is bad, sin is bad, sin is bad, but I don't remember them just being honest and straightforward and saying, no, like it's it's also fun.

That's why it's so it's so dangerous, right?

It it is, it but it it sucks us in, it's it's extremely enjoyable, okay.

That is in the in the moment that we engage with it, right?

In the in the very moment there are those those benefits of pleasure to us.

But look at here in verse 4, what Solomon says.

He says, but, okay, but in the end, okay, in the end of your life, in the end of the of the road, she, okay, personifying sin, again, the specific sin of lust, but in the end, she is, notice, bitter as wormwood.

Uh wormwood was uh was a medicinal shrub, okay, that was uh had a very bitter taste, very, very bitter aftertaste as well.

And it became a word that was used to express the misery of grief.

And so that is what he's saying.

He's like, in the end, you might give into sin, it might be fun for a little while, but here's where this is going.

Okay, it's going to be bitterness, there's gonna be regret, there's gonna be pain and problems that you don't really want to deal with.

But he's not even done explaining it.

He goes on, he says, She's bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

Okay, so in the end, sin is like a like a razor-sharp double-edged sword, you know, used, wielded by an enemy in battle to pierce and to and to kill with extreme effectiveness.

Okay, so so what this is setting up for us with with crystal clarity is that sure, sin is enjoyable for a little while.

Okay, let's be honest about that.

Let's let's concede that, okay, but it's it's deceptive.

Sin is extremely deceptive, it it tricks us, and it's always, always, always deadly in the end.

Okay, leading to all kinds of pain, all kinds of grief.

Okay, so Solomon goes on, and after further you know, warning his son of the treachery of sin, he's it he's urging him to steer clear of the snares, you know, avoid the traps.

Okay, now Solomon gives us uh a glimpse at the kind of towards the middle part, towards even the end of this proverb, and it gives us a glimpse into what the later years of his son's life will look like should he fail to adhere to his father's warnings.

Okay, and and just notice with me how how sobering his words are here.

Okay, the sting of regret that you sense in what he is saying here.

Notice in verse 11, join me there.

He says this, and at the end of your life, okay, so he's fast-forwarding the end of his life.

He says, You groan.

Okay, that's a that's a word of of misery.

You ever had that pang of regret where you're just like, ah, like that groan.

I wished that I hadn't done that.

I wish I hadn't gone down that path and made those mistakes.

He says, at the end of the life of your life, you groan when your flesh and body are consumed.

Okay, showing us that that giving in to sin and and maybe even prolonged sin can actually take a toll on our on our physical health.

You waste your best years going after the wrong thing, and it just it actually has a physical effect on us.

It certainly can.

Verse 12, he says, and you say how I hated, notice the word here, discipline.

How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof or or rebuke.

Okay, he says, and I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or inclined my ears to my instructors.

He says in verse 14, I am at the brink of utter ruin.

In the assembled congregation.

Again, you sense the regret there, the pain of it all.

Now, verse 22, jump towards the end here, last two verses say this.

Says, the iniquities of the wicked ensnare him.

We've kind of talked about that, right?

They they entangle us.

That's what our sin does.

It's this inescapable trap.

The more we try to get out of it in our own strength, the less we can.

He says, and he is f he is held fast or or he is caught in the cords of his sin.

Now, verse 23.

He dies for lack of discipline.

You see that word again.

He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly, he has led astray.

Okay, so church, to make it very clear here again is what this proverb is showing us, it's spelling out very clearly for us, is that again, you and I have really two choices, right?

That's it.

It's to learn, you and I, each of us, to discipline ourselves now so as to resist and avoid those pitfalls of sin and the consequences and the regret of all of it.

That's what that's what wisdom would have us do, right?

To discipline ourselves to be holy and to be wise and to pursue Christ and all of that.

Or, of course, second option, ignore it all.

Ignore the wisdom, ignore the counsel.

Despise the hard work and the sacrifice and the energy that it takes to grow and just end up living with this devastating misery of various regrets that can that we can find ourselves dealing with.

Now, here's the truth the thing, church, and I want you to listen really carefully here.

The extremely sad thing about this proverb, about Proverbs 5, is that the author, King Solomon, ended up not following his own advice.

So you think about this guy, he was the wisest man who's ever lived.

I I read somewhere this week, he was like two Einsteins.

Okay, the wisest man, he's he's he's he's coaching his son here.

He he's he's saying words that are true and and life-giving, and yet he ends up shunning it all.

And I just want to read to us where we find this here.

It's 1 Kings uh chapter 11, uh, the first eight verses of this.

Notice how Solomon ends his life.

It says in verse 1, now King Solomon loved many foreign women.

Okay, this is a problem, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sid Sidonian, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter enter marriage, enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you.

For surely, and here's the issue, for surely they will turn away your heart after other gods.

Solomon, though, clung close, close to these in love.

He had, listen to this, seven hundred wives who were princesses, and three hundred concubines.

That sounds like a lot to manage.

And his wives turned away his heart.

For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of F of David his father.

For Solomon went after Ashtareth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.

So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not whole wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.

Then Solomon built, this is how bad it gets, his idolatry.

Then Solomon built a high place for Shamash, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, okay, he's the one who they would sacrifice their children to.

Okay, he builds a high place for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.

And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.

Again, I just find that shocking.

I find it sobering.

I shudder when I think about that because it's so easy to read Proverbs 5 and be like, man, this is this guy is bringing the heat here.

This is the exact kind of thing a son needs to hear.

And yet in the end, Solomon completely blows it himself.

And again, it makes me kind of think like if if the wisest guy ever could fall in such an epic and horrible way, it just makes us maybe not think so highly of ourselves, doesn't it?

And so as we kind of think about all of this and allow the heaviness of this really to kind of land on us, I want to give us here now four wise questions that you can ask yourself as you are, as you're taking stock of just where you're at, your your discipline and and and where your life is heading.

So really think about these four things.

They don't really, you know, just a quick, easy answer won't cut it here.

I encourage you to really chew on these this week.

Here's the first question Will the way I'm living now lead to joy or regret down the line?

You ever notice how easy it is for us to just think about right now?

The temporary, like in the moment, the pleasure that I'm receiving.

We don't think about tomorrow.

We don't think about six months from now or ten years from now and where this is all heading.

So think about your own life and and and the way that you're living and some of the sin battles that you know are tempted towards, is the way that you're living now, is that gonna lead to good things or not so good things?

According to how you're living today, is that is that gonna bring you true joy or is that simply going to lead to regret?

Have a vision for your life here.

Think long term.

Don't be so foolish as to think that you can do whatever you want now and it's not gonna have an effect down the line for better or for worse.

Here's a second question.

Which sins am I tempted to think aren't a big deal, but actually are?

Right?

I think all of us have those areas where we just kind of we kind of play with it.

You know, we we we think this is not a big deal, it feels pretty good, I'm not sensing the consequences right now in front of me.

No one knows, no one's being hurt, we tell ourselves all of these lies.

What what are those areas for you?

I mean, obviously, this this passage is about sexual sin because it is so dangerous, it's it's easy to hide for a while.

It it is it is pleasurable, that's why we go after it.

But maybe for you, you are you're foolish when it comes to money.

And you just spend willy-nilly, you don't think about it, and and this is cause it's gonna cause problems.

It's a bigger deal than you are giving it credit to.

Okay, what are what are the sins for you?

What are they?

They actually are a big deal, that's not nothing.

Here's the third question What is one thing I can do right now to better discipline myself?

What's one thing?

I think if if you're like me at all, you kind of look back at your at your life or how you were living over the last few months, and you're just like, man, I am such a disaster that it's gonna take a million decisions and a ton of work to get going.

You can get kind of overwhelmed by all of it.

I would just say this what's what's one thing you can do?

One decision you can make today to discipline yourself better and get things back on the rails, with God's grace, of course, with with the Holy Spirit's help, with his power.

Maybe it's something as simple as just canning your Netflix account.

It's not leading you anywhere good.

Maybe it's cutting up your credit card, Dave Ramsey style.

Right?

Something to that effect.

What's one thing that you can do?

It's get up early, it's it's get your Bible open, right?

That it's it's not a flashy thing to get up and discipline yourself, but it will have an immense and amazing payoff down the road.

What is one thing that you can do now?

It's it's get accountable with somebody.

Tell somebody what's going on in your life.

Stop being so secretive.

Stop pretending that you've got it all together and that everything's fine when it's not.

What is one thing?

Do it.

Do it now before it's too late.

Stop living as though you've got decades ahead of you to figure all this out.

I'll figure it out at the end of my life.

No, at the end of your life, you may groan, you will groan if you're not dealing with this now.

Figure out that one thing.

Get on the discipline wagon.

And then finally, this fourth question: which gospel truth or truths will I look to for motivation as I discipline myself?

One of the things you've maybe noticed as a Christian when it comes to discipline is discipline can get very stale.

It can become very mechanical, it can become very wooden, and at first you're driven by like this guilt, like Pastor Mike's making me feel bad, and so I'm gonna get up tomorrow morning and I'm gonna and I'm gonna read my Bible, or I am gonna punch a hole in my TV, or shatter my phone, and then by Tuesday, you've got a new TV and a new phone.

Right?

And and that that that the motivation to discipline yourself wasn't really coming from the wrong place.

Remember, it's the gospel that needs to motivate us.

It's the reminder of who God is, who Jesus is, what he has done for you, your salvation.

That is the motivation that is going to carry you through when discipline is difficult, when it's when it's hard, when it's it's not the fun thing to do, when there's something else that's tantalizing that you could go after.

What is the gospel truth that you can hang on to in that moment?

Maybe it's the simple reminder that listen, Christ is enough.

Christ is enough for me.

He died for me, he is my savior, he is enough.

I don't need to chase after possessions.

I don't need to chase after somebody's approval in a sinful way.

Christ is enough for me.

He is God and I have him.

I need to enjoy him.

He is my happiness, holiness is my happiness.

That is my joy.

I'm not gonna look for happiness in something that is sinful.

My joy is found in him.

My joy is found in the salvation that he has secured for me.

He's rescued me from hell, he's rescued me from punishment and from shame.

My joy is not found in sinful pleasures.

Again, what is it for you?

One gospel truth that you can look to to motivate you and to stir up your affections and your heart for Jesus Christ as you fight this battle against sin.

Listen.

Listen, I think it's it's pretty obvious that we need to be praying.

And so that's what we're gonna do now.

We're gonna go uh to a time of prayer.

If you're at the office, you can pray uh with the people there.

If you're at home, I would encourage you uh gather around with your family, with your loved ones, with your spouse, and and and pray.

Pray that the Lord would give you uh a heart to be disciplined, okay?

To be disciplined or else suffer the regrets to know that the choice is yours, but you need the Holy Spirit's help.

Let's let's cry out to the Lord.

Let's cry out to the Lord together.

Listen, in just a moment's time, I'm gonna jump on that Zoom call.

And so you can go to our website and join us there.

I would love to pray uh for you as you wrestle through these things.

If you're at home and you need someone to pray with, we're gonna start that up in just a few moments' time.

But let me pray for you and then we'll go to prayer.

All right, Lord.

We come uh before you now recognizing, Lord, our inherent weaknesses.

Lord, we are not strong in and of ourselves.

Lord, if a guy like Solomon could fall.

In such a disastrous way.

Lord, any one of us are only a step or two away from these kinds of things.

Lord, I pray that we would not live in terror about all of this, but just be mindful of it, be sobered of that and cling to the fact that you are stronger than our sin, you are stronger than our addictions, than the things that tempt us.

Lord, we thank you that you are in the business of redeeming and restoring, Lord.

We're so grateful for that.

And I pray, God, that by your spirit you would rush to the aid of our church now.

Lord, we need you to be our strength.

We need you to convict.

We need you to motivate us.

We need the reminder that you are awesome and you are good and you are our joy and our happiness.

So, Lord, give us a passion for these things.

Lord, protect your church from the enemy.

Lord, protect your church from the tantalizing allure of the world and Lord, our flesh.

Our flesh wants to ruin all of these things.

We just want simple pleasures that ultimately are not good for us in the moment or down the line.

And so, God, as we think about these things, I pray that we would be humbled.

I pray that you would hear our repentance.

I pray that you would hear our cries.

I pray that you would, again, rush to our aid, be our strength, be our refuge, transform us.

Lord, we pray all of this in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.