The Father's Joy and the Son's Mouth Text: Proverbs 23:15-16
Introduction: The Great Chain of Gladness
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, but it is never merely pragmatic. It is not a collection of sanctified "life hacks." It is a book about the grain of the universe, about how reality is actually structured. And at the center of that structure is a relationship. The constant refrain, "My son," is not just a literary device; it is a window into the heart of the covenant. All of God's instruction, all of His law, all of His wisdom, flows from a Father to a son. This is true of Solomon and his son, it is true of our relationship with our earthly fathers, and it is ultimately and gloriously true of God the Father and His eternal Son, Jesus Christ.
This means that all true wisdom is covenantal. It is relational. And because it is relational, it is full of joy and gladness. We live in a miserable age, an age that has tried to sever all the covenantal connections. We have an orphan culture. We have tried to have wisdom without a father, law without a lawgiver, and morality without a master. The result is not liberation, but a profound and pervasive misery. We have become a generation of sons who despise their fathers, and the end of that road is a world full of bitter old men.
But the gospel restores this great chain of gladness. God the Father, in His infinite love, sends His Son. The Son lives in perfect wisdom and speaks only upright things, bringing ultimate joy to the Father's heart. And by our union with this perfect Son, we are brought back into this relationship. We are adopted as sons, and our fumbling attempts at wisdom and righteousness, empowered by the Spirit, now bring joy to the heart of God Himself. This is a staggering thought. The joy of a father in his son is a faint echo of the joy that God has in His people when they walk in the truth. These two verses in Proverbs give us a beautiful snapshot of this reality. They show us that true wisdom is not just about having the right information in your head; it's about having a certain kind of heart that produces a certain kind of speech, which in turn produces a certain kind of joy.
The Text
My son, if your heart is wise, My own heart also will be glad;
And my inmost being will exult When your lips speak upright things.
(Proverbs 23:15-16 LSB)
The Internal Root of Joy (v. 15)
We begin with the internal condition, the root from which everything else grows.
"My son, if your heart is wise, My own heart also will be glad." (Proverbs 23:15)
The address is personal and affectionate: "My son." This is covenantal instruction. This is not the cold, impersonal voice of the state or the detached advice of a secular therapist. This is a father, invested and full of love, pleading with his son. All true Christian education must have this character. It is not about information transfer; it is about soul formation within the context of a loving relationship.
The condition is "if your heart is wise." Notice where the wisdom must reside. It is not enough for the son to have a head crammed with facts or to be able to recite the catechism by rote. The wisdom must penetrate to the heart. In the Bible, the heart is the command center of the person. It is the seat of your will, your affections, your deepest commitments. It is the spring from which all the issues of life flow (Prov. 4:23). A wise heart is not just a smart brain. A wise heart is a heart that loves what God loves, fears what God commands us to fear, and directs the whole man toward godly ends.
Biblical wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Prov. 9:10). It is the skill of living life in a way that pleases God. It is a moral and spiritual quality before it is an intellectual one. A man can have three PhDs and be a world-class fool if his heart is not right with God. Conversely, a simple man who fears God and keeps His commandments has a wise heart. This is why the world's wisdom is foolishness to God (1 Cor. 1:20). The world's wisdom begins with man as the measure of all things. God's wisdom begins with God as the creator of all things.
And what is the result of a son having a wise heart? The father's heart "will be glad." This is not a superficial happiness. This is a deep, settled joy. There is no greater joy for a godly parent than to see his children walking in the truth (3 John 4). Why? Because the father knows that a wise heart is the only path to true blessing, true safety, and true life. The father's joy is not selfish. He is not glad because his son is making him look good at the Rotary Club. He is glad because his son is aligned with reality. He is glad because his son is walking in the light, and not in the darkness that leads to destruction. This gladness is a reflection of God's own heart. When one sinner repents, there is joy in heaven (Luke 15:7). God delights in the obedience of His children, not because He needs it, but because He loves them and knows it is for their ultimate good.
The External Fruit of Joy (v. 16)
From the internal root in the heart, we now see the external fruit on the lips.
"And my inmost being will exult When your lips speak upright things." (Proverbs 23:16 LSB)
The language here intensifies. The father's "inmost being," his kidneys, which for the Hebrews represented the deepest seat of the emotions, will "exult." This is more than gladness; this is triumphant, overflowing joy. What causes this exultation? "When your lips speak upright things."
What comes out of the mouth reveals what is in the heart. Jesus stated this principle plainly: "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). A wise heart will inevitably produce upright speech. A foolish heart will produce crooked, perverse, and destructive speech. You cannot have one without the other. If you want to diagnose the state of a person's soul, just listen to them talk for ten minutes. The tongue is a rudder, and it shows where the ship of the soul is headed.
"Upright things" means speech that is straight, true, and righteous. It is speech that corresponds to God's reality. This includes telling the truth, of course. But it is much more than that. It is speaking words that build up, not tear down (Eph. 4:29). It is giving a soft answer that turns away wrath. It is confessing sin. It is praising God. It is defending the weak. It is speaking the gospel. Upright speech is speech that is aligned with the character and purposes of God.
When a father hears his son speak this way, he exults. He rejoices because this is audible evidence of the invisible grace at work in his son's heart. It is the proof that the instruction has taken root. It is the sound of wisdom bearing fruit. A father who has labored to teach his son the ways of the Lord, who has prayed for him, who has disciplined him, and who then hears that son articulate the truth of God with conviction and grace, experiences a joy that is a foretaste of heaven. This is the joy of seeing the covenant promises fulfilled in the next generation. It is the joy of seeing the family line secured in the faith. It is the joy of knowing that the testimony of Jesus Christ will continue after he is gone.
Conclusion: The Glad Covenant
So what do we take from this? First, for you sons and daughters, understand the connection between your heart, your mouth, and your parents' joy. Your walk with God is not a private affair. It has a direct and profound impact on those who love you most. To pursue wisdom is to pursue your parents' joy. To speak uprightly is to give them a gift of incalculable worth. And more than this, it is to bring joy to the heart of your Heavenly Father.
Second, for you fathers and mothers, this is what you must aim for. Your ultimate goal in parenting is not to raise successful kids, or compliant kids, or kids who make you look good. Your goal is to raise kids with wise hearts who speak upright things. This is the target. This means you must be more concerned with the state of their hearts than with their grades. It means you must listen more to the character of their speech than to the volume of their music. You must instruct them, discipline them, and model for them what a wise heart and upright lips look like. And you must bathe the entire enterprise in prayer, asking the God of all grace to do the work that only He can do: to take their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
Finally, we must all look to the perfect Son, Jesus Christ. His heart was perfectly wise. His lips spoke only upright things. He never once caused His Father anything but gladness and exultation. "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased" (Matt. 3:17). He is the ultimate fulfillment of this proverb. And the good news of the gospel is that through faith in Him, we are united to Him. His wisdom becomes our wisdom. His righteousness becomes our righteousness. And as we are conformed to His image, we too, as adopted sons, begin to bring a derivative but real joy to the heart of our Father. He rejoices over us with singing (Zeph. 3:17). This is the great chain of gladness, restored by the gospel, in which we are called to live.