Dock
Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 19 July 2026
Summary
This week Michael talked about teachability, landing the Growing in Wisdom teaching series. Proverbs 3:11–12 gives us a picture of a father who disciplines the child he delights in. He showed that teachability grows first in relationship with God rather than performance; and that this relationship is one of love in which God’s correction is always for our good. Finally, that love culminates in delight, both God’s delight in us (Zephaniah 3:17) and our invited delight in him. We are loved before we perform, and growth flows from a relationship we already have rather than one we must earn.
Key Points & Takeways
Teachability grows first in relationship with God, not performance - The “my son” language echoes the father-son motif common across ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature, and circles back to Proverbs 1:7: wisdom is built on a right relationship with God our father.
Every theme across the series has rested on the same foundation - Whether the topic was words, friendship, work, money, or care for the vulnerable, none of it was ever about earning God’s approval, all of it was about investing in a relationship already given.
That relationship is one of love, not just authority - This section of Proverbs 3 is quoted in Hebrews 12, which calls it a “word of encouragement,” proof that we are God’s children, given for our good, producing “a harvest of righteousness and peace.”
Loving discipline is costly for the one giving it, not just the one receiving it - Michael’s illustration of raising his voice to pull his children back from danger, which is painful for him every time, illustrates how “much more” a perfectly loving God disciplines us for our good.
Love is most fully expressed as delight - The Hebrew word behind “delights in” carries the sense of being enjoyed, not merely tolerated or accepted, and Zephaniah 3:17 pictures God rejoicing over his people with singing.
We are invited to mirror the relationship God has with us - Michael described his own journey from a relationship built on knowledge, to one built on love, to one that finally delighted in God, delight deepening as he grasped being delighted in.
Delighting in God is worked out practically, not just felt - Proverbs 3:1–10’s pairs of imperative and fruit show it in practice: remembering what God teaches, practising love and faithfulness, trusting him completely, not going it alone, and honouring him with what we’ve been given.
Dock Discussion Questions
Michael asked, “When did God last say something to you - through his word, prayer, someone else, or a feeling of conviction, and what did you do with it?” Take a moment to actually answer that for yourself: did you brush past it, argue with it, or let it land
Michael’s fitness tracker gave him honest, real-time feedback rather than requiring him to simply try harder. Where in your relationship with God might you be assuming things are fine, or assuming they’re broken, without ever actually checking?
Michael’s parenting illustration showed discipline that is painful but entirely love-motivated. Is there a time you’ve experienced God’s correction as harsh rather than loving? How might Hebrews 12’s promise of “a harvest of righteousness and peace” reshape how you look back on it?
Michael said his own relationship with God moved from knowledge, to love, to delight, and that for years he “loved God but didn’t delight in getting to know him.” Which of those three postures: knowledge, love, or delight, best describes where you are with God right now?
Zephaniah 3:17 says God rejoices over his people with singing. What would it look like this week to spend time with God not out of duty, but because you actually believe he delights in you?
Long-form, edited transcript
Growing in Wisdom.
Wisdom in Teachability.
Proverbs 3:11-12
Introduction
My name is Michael. I’m on the team here at SPS, and it’s exciting to get to share with you the last instalment of our series on the book of Proverbs. This year we’ve been focusing on growth, and over the last seven weeks we’ve been thinking about the really practical ways in which we can grow in wisdom, expanding on the themes within the book of Proverbs.
This morning we’re going to talk about how we grow, and how we carry forward teachability; our ability to be formed, taught and challenged, as we move from this series into the next one we have this summer.
We’re going to unpack Proverbs 3:11–12.
My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as the father the son he delights in. — Proverbs 3:11–12
So we’re going to look at three things this morning: that teachability grows in a relationship with God, that that relationship is a relationship of love, and that that love is delight. Relationship, love, and delight.
Relationship
We’ve talked a lot, when discussing Proverbs, about the ancient Near Eastern context of wisdom literature. Wisdom literature like Proverbs was really common at the time it was written, and a common theme is a parent writing to a child, something we see across the ancient Near East.
In this section of Scripture, the writer calls the reader “my son,” and then draws a direct parallel: in the same way that the writer is giving this instruction to his son, God is also our father, and he disciplines us the way a father disciplines a child. It’s a direct parallel of God as the father who loves the child. And that’s really at the heart of everything we’ve looked at throughout this series; a father-child relationship.
We circle back to where we began, in the very first week, on Proverbs 1:7:
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. — Proverbs 1:7
We talked, all those weeks ago, about how the fear of the Lord isn’t about being afraid, it’s about a right relationship with God. It’s all about this relationship.
I had to do a lot of cooking yesterday, I do a lot of batch cooking in my household, and while I was cooking basically all day, I had the great joy of listening to Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis on audiobook. I cooked enough that I listened to the entire book, so that gives you an idea of how much cooking I had to do. There’s a great quote in there where Lewis quotes Dr Johnson, who wrote the first English dictionary:
“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”
The fact that I am God’s child is something I need to be reminded of every day. The God of the universe calls me his child. It’s a parent-child relationship that causes me to grow.
Turn to the person next to you and say, “You are God’s child.”
This is a fundamental identity issue. Those who are in Christ are God’s children, and it’s at the very heart of our faith. God created us to walk with him; a living, active relationship.
I’ve been a fitness professional for nearly fifteen years, but a couple of weeks ago I got a fitness tracker for the first time ever. Can I get a wave of hands, how many of you are tracking your fitness? That’s a good number, come on, don’t be shy, we won’t judge.
Even though I have a professional background in fitness, and even though I have the privilege of exercise being part of my job here at the church, this fitness tracker has still made it easier for me to hit my goals. I didn’t think it would. I basically got it because I wanted my health insurance to be cheaper, but it’s actually helped me be motivated in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve been doing this for such a long time, why was this suddenly working? And I realised it’s because it put me in dialogue, in conversation, with my fitness. When I look at the app, it tells me what I did and didn’t do, how I slept, it keeps that conversation happening. This one even has an AI coach built in, I try not to use it too much, but it’ll say, “Hey, you didn’t get much sleep last night,” and I’ll think, yeah, I know, maybe take it easy today. Quite literally, I’m having a conversation, day by day, about my health and my fitness.
I didn’t necessarily try harder, I got feedback. Honest, real-time tracking. And I wonder if that’s an analogy for our relationship with God. We need to be in conversation. We need to be getting honest feedback. We need to be seeing whether things are changing or staying the same.
Here’s an honest question I want to ask you , one I ask myself, most days, though it’s not a checklist: when was the last time God said something to you? Through his word, through prayer, through someone else, through that feeling of conviction from the Holy Spirit inside you? And what did you do with it? Did you brush past it? Did you have an internal or external argument with God about it? Did you let it land?
I think that’s the real test of this relationship, this father-child relationship, it’s not just a belief that we hold. All of this section, verses 11 and 12, all of Proverbs, only really makes sense if this relationship with God is actually happening, if it’s alive. If you can’t remember the last time you heard something (not necessarily audibly, but God speaking to you in some way,) that might be an indication that we’ve stopped listening closely enough to notice what he’s trying to say to us. It’s not about whether or not we are God’s children, because we are, those who are in Christ Jesus are called brothers and sisters with him. It’s about whether we’re noticing the relationship we already have.
So to grow in teachability, we have to be formed in a relationship with God.
Love
What does that relationship look like, though? Every week in this series we’ve rested on this same foundation: that it’s all about relationship with God. How our words are formed, how our friendships are formed, how we handle our work, our money, our care for the vulnerable, none of it is about earning God’s approval. It’s always about investing in the relationship we already have.
And that relationship, as we see in verse 12, is a relationship of love.
My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as the father the son he delights in. — Proverbs 3:11–12
Verse 12 tells us that the relationship with God is one of love, that parental teaching and formation happens in the context of love, and that love is the motivation for his teaching us.
This section of Proverbs 3 is actually quoted directly in Hebrews 12. I’m not going to unpack that passage fully today, though I’d love to, but a few things are worth noting. Hebrews 12:5 calls this section of Proverbs “a word of encouragement.” Verse 7 says that God’s loving discipline shows that we are truly his sons and daughters, it’s the discipline itself that proves we are his children. Verse 10 says the discipline is for our good, so that we can share in his holiness. And verse 11 says that while discipline can be painful, later on it produces “a harvest of righteousness and peace” for those trained by it. It’s a word of encouragement. It shows we are God’s children. It’s for our good. And it produces fruit.
As a dad of a five-year-old and a two-year-old, my very least favourite way to discipline my children, which happens more than I’d like, is that moment when they’re doing something dangerous, and I have to raise my voice and speak quickly, because I’m genuinely afraid for their safety. In that moment, my children freeze, they’re silent for about four seconds, and then their little faces crumble and they start to cry. Their face crumbling is the worst part for me. Then I go up to them, hopefully in a good moment, and get down on their level and say, “I’m sorry I had to speak loudly and shout a little bit, this is why, because this is dangerous,” and I explain myself. But every time, it pains my heart to raise my voice like that. The discipline is painful, but I do it out of love, because I don’t want them to get hurt.
How much more so, Scripture even says, if we who are sinful know how to give good gifts to our children, if we who are sinful desire to discipline in love, how much more does our God, who loves us with a perfect love?
So teachability grows in this relationship with God, and this relationship is a loving relationship. When we think back on all the themes we’ve unpacked across the series, and if you haven’t been here, they’re all online on the podcast or YouTube channel, all of those motivations flow from that relationship of love. God asks us to speak words that are true and life-giving because he loves us. He asks us to invest in real friendships because he loves us. He wants to shape how we work and how we trust because he loves us. He wants to open our eyes to the vulnerable because he loves us.
Delight
The final point is this: how is this loving relationship expressed? Again, we go back to Proverbs 3:11–12.
My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as the father the son he delights in. — Proverbs 3:11–12
Delights in. For me, this might be the most important part of the passage we’re unpacking today, because this is the thing that informs, most deeply, our attitude to growth, and how we carry it forward day by day as we go into the summer and beyond.
The word used for delight in the original Hebrew, “delight” is a great translation. Other translations include to be esteemed, to be accepted, or to be enjoyed.
To be enjoyed.
One of my favourite Scriptures describing how God delights in us is a classic Old Testament memory verse, Zephaniah 3:17:
The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. — Zephaniah 3:17
God saves us, delights in us, even sings over us.
Turn to the person next to you and tell them that God delights in them. Say, “God delights in you.”
God longs to have an active relationship with us, based in love and delight. And our response, I think, is an exciting and amazing one, because the challenge here is to mirror the relationship God desires to have with us. God delights in us, and he longs for us to delight in him.
For many years, my relationship with God was based on my brain, on thinking and knowing stuff about God. The relationship was there, but the love was not. As I understood the depth of God’s love for me, as I journeyed on, and as people invested in me and loved me, reflecting the love God had for me, I understood that God loved me, and my love for God deepened and grew and strengthened. So then I had a relationship that was also based on love. But I didn’t know I needed another step: delighting in God. As I spent more time with God in a loving relationship, and grew in my understanding of his delight in me, the time I spent with God became more delightful for me, and I desired it more and more.
What does it look like to delight in God? Well, this whole chapter of Proverbs 3 is about that. These verses come in pairs, the thing we should do, which is delighting in God, and the fruit that comes from it. My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commandments in your heart, so we delight by remembering what God teaches us. Let love and faithfulness never leave you, we practise love and faithfulness everywhere we go; that’s how we delight in the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, we trust completely in God, in every aspect of our lives. We don’t try to go it alone, we delight in the Lord by trusting his wisdom and rejecting evil. And we honour God with all he’s given us. This is how we delight in a God who delights in us. There are other ways too, that we’ve unpacked over this series, and I encourage you to go back and listen: we remember what God teaches us, we practise love and faithfulness, we trust in God completely, we don’t try to go it alone, we reject evil, we use all that God has given us.
We’ve got some amazing young people in the room with us, so here’s my last example. I think we can all cast our minds back to those times growing up when our parents asked us to do something, and we absolutely did it, for me it was exam study, or tidying my room, or chores, but we absolutely let them know we weren’t happy about doing it. Have you been there? It doesn’t have to be through words, it can just be through the volume by which you do everything. This is still something I struggle with today: if I’m annoyed, everything becomes slamming around in the kitchen. We can do the right thing with the wrong attitude. We can do a loving thing without taking delight in it.
What does it look like for me, for you, to delight in God, knowing that he delights in us? A relationship with a loving God who delights in us, and in whom we delight, is the key to long-term growth in every area of our lives. And that’s really what I want to encourage you with this morning.
Conclusion
What an absolutely beautiful moment to see Elizabeth being baptised this morning. I absolutely love baptism, it’s so beautiful, and she did fantastically. What an incredible reminder, an example of the truths we’re unpacking. Elizabeth didn’t do anything this morning to deserve or earn what happened at the font. She didn’t confess her own belief. She didn’t necessarily understand or delight in anything. She was washed and welcomed in because she is loved, loved by her parents, by her godparents, by this church, and by her heavenly Father.
Whether you were baptised as an infant like her, or as an adult, or you’re still working out what that means and want to explore it, (you can talk to us afterwards). That’s the truth underneath every single one of us. That’s the foundation: that we are loved before we perform, before we change, before we come. Wisdom, teachability, growth, none of those things are how we get the relationship with God. They happen because we are in relationship with God.
So as we land the sermon, I want to thank the Lord for Jesus, the person in whom we are welcomed into this relationship with God, a relationship that is based on love and delight. It’s that relationship which is the context for all of the growth we’ve been talking about over these last seven weeks. It all depends on our relationship with him.
So I encourage you, I challenge you, this week, as we go forth, as we get ready to enjoy the summer, whether you’re visiting with us or whether you’ll be back week in, week out, spend some time with a God who delights in you, in prayer, in his word. And if you don’t know this God who delights in you, today is a great day to meet him for the first time.
Closing Prayer
Lord,
Thank you that you’re in this place. Thank you that you love us and you gave yourself for us. We pray that today, this week, this month, the rest of this year, we would have a closer walk with you. Speak to us now by your Spirit. Whether we heard from you minutes ago, or whether it’s been days and weeks since we felt like you spoke to us, speak to us now. Soften our hearts. Open our minds and ears, Lord. If there’s anything between you and us that would block us from hearing from you, we give it over to you, Lord. We ask for your forgiveness. Come, Holy Spirit. Come, Lord Jesus.
Amen