How Does God Form Us in Wisdom? Proverbs 3 Sermon
Scripture: Proverbs 3:1–12
Series: Proverbs Advance
Preacher: Russell Smith
Date: July 5, 2026
Church: Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
Theme verses: Proverbs 3:5–6, 11–12
Are the promises in Proverbs guarantees?
No. Proverbs is not a contract, and God is not a genie in a bottle. The promises describe the kind of life that ordinarily flourishes under God’s good design. They are fruits that grow out of relationship with the living God. Hardship doesn’t cancel them; the Lord disciplines those he loves. The abundant life is, first of all, life with him, and he fills us to overflowing.
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We are doing something this month that we are calling the Proverbs Advance: taking a step with the Spirit. All during the month of June, we were getting ready for this by exploring the idea of hearing from God: that God does speak to us, that God speaks to us through his word and through the fellowship of the saints, and that we can discern we are hearing God when we perceive growth in our lives, growth in the fruit of the Spirit. All of that was preparing us for this month, when we are actively seeking God’s guidance.
So I’m inviting you to actively bring a question: something you are wrestling with, something you just need God’s wisdom on. Then listen for God’s guidance and leadership through the Proverbs. What I’m asking for is the regular marinating in God’s word, the regular listening to Proverbs, and the listening that asks, “What is God saying to me about what I’m trying to answer in this season of life?” The nature of Proverbs is that it’s not a linear story. It’s just an assemblage of wisdom. So each week we will simply take a selection from Proverbs, since that is what we are marinating in this month.
To begin our exploration of Proverbs 3, I have a question: In what ways do you perceive God forming you into a person who walks in wisdom?
Proverbs Is Not an Answer Key
One of the traps, particularly when you’re dealing with a book like Proverbs, is treating it like fortune cookies. “I’ve got a problem, I’m looking for an answer. There’s a proverb that speaks to it. Check, and done.” That treats God’s word as an answer key.
It’s not an answer key. God’s word is God’s way of forming us and shaping us to be the kind of people who walk in wisdom. Wisdom isn’t a matter of “flip to the right page, get the right answer, and go execute.” Wisdom is learning to listen to God and letting God’s word shape us, so that in the unexpected seasons of life, when things come along, we are ready. The boss comes and asks you to do something that puts you in a situation where you think, “I don’t know if ethically I can do this or not.” Or your neighbor comes to you with a problem, and you’re not sure how to handle it. God is trying to form you into the kind of person who is able to discern what is wise, what is right, and what is good.
That is what Proverbs is trying to do. We don’t want tunnel vision, where we fixate so much on fixing the problem in front of us that we forget the bigger picture: God is working to form us into the kind of people who can address these problems. It’s who we are becoming as we address life’s challenges. You see, Proverbs is less about helping you make one wise decision than about helping you become a wise person. God’s wisdom isn’t merely something we learn; it’s someone we become. God is forming us to live skillfully in his world by teaching us to trust him with all of our heart.
God Forms Us to Live Skillfully in His World
Now, one of the challenges is this: if God is forming us to live skillfully in his world, then your definition of the world will shape who you are formed into being.
If you live in a purely materialistic world, a world without God, you can end up in the world depicted by George Tooker’s painting Government Bureau: a stale, flat world. In a purely materialistic world you are living only for yourself and only for right now, and the whole world becomes stale, flat, and bureaucratic.
But a world that is spiritually saturated is something like William Blake’s Jacob’s Ladder, which depicts Jacob’s dream of the angels ascending and descending between earth and heaven. In a spiritually saturated world there is more than the material reality that we see. There is more going on in the cosmos than just atoms and energy, and it becomes a radiant world that is transcendent.
So how you perceive the world affects how you live in the world. If you’re purely materialist and you live only for today, wisdom for you is going to be something very different than it is in a Christian worldview. Proverbs is teaching us how to live in God’s world, a spiritually saturated world that has more going on than we can ever imagine. God is forming us to live skillfully not in a purely materialistic world, but in his world, the real world. And before God gives you an answer, he will shape you into the kind of person who will receive his wisdom.
God Forms Us as We Learn to Receive His Wisdom
The first thing I want us to see in this passage is that God forms us as we learn to receive his wisdom. In verses 1 and 3 there is this emphasis on receiving: “My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart.” “Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” Don’t forget. Receive this, and receive it not just into your head. Receive it into your heart. Formation begins by allowing God’s word to dwell within us.
And you may say, “I’m too advanced in years. I’m too old. I’ve already been formed by everything.” That is not the final word. If we lived in a materialistic universe, yes, that would be the final word. But we live in a spiritual universe, a universe where life goes on and we have capacity for infinite growth. Spiritual growth does not slow down and drop off the way our physical capacity does. Spiritual growth continues on a continual upward path, even after our bodies die, when we go to rest with the Lord and await the resurrection, the life everlasting, and the renewal of all things. So there is no sense of “Well, it’s already too late for me.” It’s never too late to invest in spiritual formation.
This is one of the reasons I talk about memorizing Scripture. When you memorize Scripture, it gets into your head, and once you’ve memorized it, you can meditate on it. Last month we talked about the power of the pause: those moments in your week when you’re standing in line at Kroger or Meijer or your grocery store of choice, or waiting at a stoplight, or just waiting on something. The temptation is to whip out your electronic device and scroll through social media or check the top news stories. Instead, you can say, “I have God’s word stored up in my mind. I’m going to rehearse it and ponder it.”
The mental image I have of meditating on Scripture is a dog chewing on a bone. You have this Scripture stored up, and you come back to it and just chew on it. You go over it again and again in your mind: “What is it saying to me?” Eventually, if the dog keeps chewing on the bone, he breaks through and gets to the marrow. That’s the good stuff. That is what it is to meditate. Meditating on Scripture is not letting your mind check out. It is coming back to the word again and again all throughout our day.
That is why, as part of this month, we’re asking you to identify the scriptures God uses to speak to you. When God calls a scripture to your mind, take note of it. Write it down; the act of writing it down is immensely powerful. Then every week, as you review those scriptures, listen to the Spirit: which one is speaking to you most? Store it up, memorize it, and meditate on it. When God gives you a verse that seems to speak to you, come back to it again and again.
Storing it up, keeping it in your heart, binding it around your neck, writing it on the tablet of your heart: that is how we are invited to receive this wisdom and be formed by it.
There are also promises all throughout this passage. We store these things up in our hearts and minds, and then come the promises: “they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity,” and “then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man” (verses 2 and 4). Notice how the teaching and the promise run in parallel.
I want to linger on these promises for a moment, because this is where the health-and-prosperity-gospel people go. They say these are absolute promises, and that if you’re not experiencing these things, you just don’t have enough faith. I want to suggest to you that this treats Proverbs, or God, like a genie in a bottle: “I’m doing the thing, rubbing the lamp. Grant me my wishes. Make me healthy, wealthy, prosperous, and wise.” I don’t believe that is what Proverbs is teaching.
The promises are not there as a guarantee or a contract. Rather, Proverbs is describing the kind of life that will ordinarily flourish under God’s good design. It is outlining general principles, not contractual stipulations. As you lean into wisdom, you can have good hope of favor and long life. But if it doesn’t happen, don’t think, “I’m doing it wrong,” or, “God has abandoned me.” It is all about what we are being formed into, and what we are being formed into is people who trust God.
God Forms Us as We Practice Trusting Him
God forms us as we practice trusting him. We receive wisdom in order to be formed into people who trust. And I suggest to you that sometimes formation requires patience. You don’t always get the immediate benefit of the promise.
Look at verses 5, 7, and 9: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.” “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops.”
“Do not be wise in your own eyes” is a very common theme of ancient wisdom. It’s in Confucius: “To know what you know and to know what you do not know, that is knowledge.” It’s in Lao Tzu: “To know yet to think that one does not know is best; not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.”
In the Western tradition we can go to your friend and mine, Socrates. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates tells how a friend of his went to the Oracle at Delphi and was told that there was no one in the world wiser than Socrates. Socrates thought, “That can’t be.” So he decided to test it by finding someone wiser than he was. Here is the longer quote: “I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him—his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination—and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: … I am better off than he is—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.”
Recognizing that we are not wise in our own sight is just basic wisdom. But here is the distinctive contribution of the Israelite viewpoint in Proverbs. Yes, do not be wise in your own eyes. And trust the Lord. Fear the Lord. Honor the Lord with your firstfruits. We are not wise in our own sight, but we are in relationship. We are in relationship with the living wisdom, with God who embodies wisdom. We who are in Christ understand that Jesus is God’s eternal Logos, God’s eternal wisdom. Wisdom is not just abstract knowledge. Wisdom is personified, and we are in relationship with wisdom.
That we are not wise is something we share with all the other wisdom traditions. But our wisdom tradition says we are in relationship with a personal, living wisdom that we learn to trust, to lean upon, and to listen to. That is the big difference. Don’t lean on yourself. This is where wisdom moves from information into lived practice: an inward orientation of your will that results in outward action.
Now take note of the promises in verses 6, 8, and 10: “In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” “This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.” “Then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.” Notice that they are all interconnected and interwoven, not in some contractual “do this and this will happen,” but in relationship. Trust in the Lord, honor the Lord, be in relationship with him. Every command is relational: trust, acknowledge, honor. The blessings flow out of relationship with God. They are not mechanical rewards for good behavior; they are fruits that arise out of relationship.
So the good life, the abundant life as we understand it in a spiritually saturated world, is not just having material blessings. The abundant life is that we are in relationship with the living God, who fills us to overflowing. It may come in the form of material blessings, and I do suggest to you that living in relationship with God will increase your likelihood of being satisfied with the material blessings you have. The promises are rooted in relationship.
God Forms Us as We Welcome His Discipline
The last piece of this passage is the powerful piece: God forms us as we welcome his discipline. If wisdom is rooted in relationship, if we live in a spiritually saturated world and not a simple materialistic world where we’re on our own, and if we are in relationship with the living wisdom, then that living wisdom disciplines us.
We tend to think of discipline as punishment. As you’ve heard me say many times, it’s not punishment. Discipline is simply guidance and correction. A good athlete is a disciplined athlete who adheres to certain disciplines in order to perform at peak performance. A good artist is a disciplined artist who adheres to certain disciplines in order to perform at peak performance. God forms us as we welcome his discipline: not punitive, but corrective, so that we can live the abundant life he calls us to.
Verses 11 and 12 say, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” Discipline. Correction. Training. Correction from the living wisdom, from the eternal God, puts us on the right path where we can enjoy abundant life. God doesn’t merely speak through Proverbs. He also shapes us through experience. The whole of life becomes his classroom.
This sheds light on the promises. Sometimes things don’t go well, and those are refining moments: places where we are drawn deeper into relationship and trust. And sometimes those refining moments last for generations.
That does not mean we won’t suffer. Ancient Israel suffered. Remember, Israel was in captivity in Egypt for generations. They came out and wandered in the wilderness. They built a kingdom that broke into two kingdoms and fell into civil war. They spent generations in exile under Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. Gebhard Fugel’s painting By the Rivers of Babylon is a dramatic depiction of Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land?” And then they spent generations under the domination of Rome. Exile doesn’t prove the Proverbs wrong. It shows that the greatest fullness is the relationship with God.
Discipline may last for generations, but that doesn’t mean God has abandoned his people. God does promise us abundant life, but that abundant life is primarily in relationship with him. If we are experiencing trial, suffering, or difficulty, that doesn’t negate God’s promises. We are invited to consider it as something that helps make us spiritually stronger.
Notice the build of the passage. The last and greatest promise isn’t prosperity, but relationship. The author of Hebrews makes this connection explicit. He quotes these last two verses of our passage, “My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline…,” and then goes on to encourage the early Christian community: “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.” That is astonishing, isn’t it? We should expect difficult times, because difficulty makes us grow. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
So if you’re going through a hard time, remember the story one of our members shared in worship this morning. Her work changed during COVID, and then came almost five years of struggle, going from one bad job to another. I walked with her through some of those, and I know how bad they were. And yet she persisted. She persisted in faith, she persisted in trusting the Lord, and the Lord brought her through. As we persevere under his discipline, the Lord works through it in a powerful way.
So over this month, you’ll be collecting verses. But I also hope you’ll find that you are being shaped and formed. While you were looking for God’s wisdom, God was shaping you. You are practicing receiving God’s word. You are growing in trust. And perhaps you are even welcoming his discipline. So as we go through this month, perhaps one pivot might be for us to ask not “Lord, what do you want me to do?” but “Lord, who do you want me to become?”
Invitation to Reflection
Take a few quiet moments to meditate on the question we began with: In what ways do you perceive God forming you into a person who walks in wisdom? Bring the question or situation you are carrying this month, and listen for how the Lord may be forming you through it.
Questions for Reflection
In what ways do I perceive God forming me into a person who walks in wisdom?
Where am I tempted to treat God’s word like an answer key or God like a genie in a bottle, instead of trusting him in relationship?
What hardship in my life might God be using as loving correction, and how can I welcome it rather than resent it?
This sermon is part of the Digital Discipleship Resources of Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. We create resources to help people take their next step of faith with Jesus.
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