1 Kings 3:1-15

Speaker 2: All right. Thank you all so much for coming up here. Take your Bibles if you have them and turn to the book of First Kings wanting to preach a message tonight specifically for this occasion. And I'm going to I'm going to go back to a study that we did four years ago. It's actually been over four years since we looked at this go to First Kings chapter three. And I hope this isn't too on the nose, too cliche, but we're going to talk about Solomon and his his prayer to God. When God came to Solomon as he was taking over the throne of Israel, God presents himself to Solomon and gives him an opportunity to ask something of the Lord. And we want to learn some things from Solomon's request, some things that I hope will not only be a blessing and a challenge to Geno and to Haley, but to all of us as we all seek to follow the Lord in our daily lives. So if you there in first our First Kings chapter three and you don't mind standing in honor of reading God's Word. Says in Solomon, verse one one made affinity with Pharaoh, King of Egypt, took Pharaoh's daughter and brought her into the city of David till he had made an end of building his own house, the house of the Lord in the Wall of Jerusalem roundabout. Only the people sacrificed in high places because there was no house built under the name of the Lord. Until those days, and Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David, his father, when he sacrificed and burned incense in high places, and the King went to Gideon to sacrifice there. For that was the great high place. A thousand burnt offerings did Solomon offer? Upon that altar in Gideon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream. By night God said, Ask what I shall give me. And Solomon said, Thou hast showed under thy servant, David, my father, great mercy, according as he walked before the in truth and in righteousness and in uprightness of heart, with me thou has kept for him this great kindness. The Dow has given him a son to sit on his throne as it is this day and now, oh, Lord, my God, Thou has made thy servant king instead of David, my father, I am but a little child. I know not how to go out or come in, and I servant is in the midst of thy people, which now has chosen a great people that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude. Give therefore thy servant and understanding heart to judge thy people that I might dismay discern between good and bad, who is able to judge this thy so great a people. And the speech pleased the Lord. Solomon had asked this thing, God said unto Him, because now has asked this thing and has not asked for thyself. Long life neither has asked riches for thyself, nor has asked thy the life of thine enemies, but has asked for thyself, understanding, to discern judgment. Behold, I have done, according to thy words, low, I have given the a wise and an understanding heart, so that there was none like the before me neither. After these shall any arise like under the. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked both riches and honor. So there shall not be any among the kings like under the old I days, that will walk in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments as thy father. David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days. Solomon awoke. Behold, it was a dream. And he came to Jerusalem and stood before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and offered up burnt offerings and offered peace offerings and made a feast to all his servants. Let's pray. I asked you to help us. Now, as we look into your word. Would you give me the word you'd have to say of the folks that are here to listen, apply what they hear to their hearts in Jesus name that I ask these things. Amen. Thank you. Maybe see them. So think back to when you graduated high school. What were the perceptions that you had of what adult life was going to be like? How many of those perceptions came true? How many of you thought, Hey, five years, I'll be here, and in ten years I'll be here and I'll be here. And yet those things didn't always come to pass the way we planned them out, did they? Definitely not. If we were to go back, I'm sure most of us would say, you know what? There's probably some things that that I would do differently. When we think about the lives of many early young adults, we understand that the stereotypical expectation is that they're going to leave mom and dad, they're going to go out and they're going to experience things that they didn't experience before. They're going to sow their wild oats. I said that one time when I was a youth pastor and one of my lovely teenagers said, What does that even mean? It's like, So your wild oats, you know, like go out and like live it up and be crazy because you're young. I've never heard of that before. And so we talk about it's a common statement. She said, Yeah, maybe in Oklahoma. I'm like, Excuse me. This was back when they also thought that everybody in Oklahoma lived in TV's and Horses. And I said, That's not true. But they're in Washington, D.C. What do they know? The whole town is lacking in intelligence and common sense. But man, adult life is just totally different than what we thought it was going to be. You talk to kids, talk to teenagers, say, man, I can't wait till I'm an adult. When I'm an adult, I'm going to do whatever I want. No one's going to tell me what to do. Then you realize that's not always the case. We are young. We think, Hey, I want to be rich. I want to have nice cars. I want to get an easy job that I that, you know, just doesn't require a whole lot of money to retire early. I'm going to live in a big house and I'm going to marry so-and-so person. And we have all these desires and all these wants. And yet sometimes the thing that we really need is the thing that we think about the least. Wisdom. Understanding a relationship with God. Solomon is here as a young man, and he is given an opportunity to ask the Lord for something. And what does he ask for? Understanding. This is amazing. You know, I've told people before I was pretty specific with my prayers as a as a kid and as a teenager. I literally prayed from the time I was about 13 years old that I would married somebody, that I would marry someone that was blond hair, blue eyes. No joke. Guess what? I married some of those blond hair, blue eyes, you know. But what should I have been praying for? Probably wisdom. Probably understanding. Probably a closer walk with the Lord. But that's exactly what Solomon asks for. Solomon leaves Jerusalem. He travels to the city of Gideon. He goes to give in, to make sacrifices under the Lord. The verse refers to Gideon as the great high place. This is not because it was greater in height. Gibbons Actually not that high. But what made Gideon the great high place? I forgot to turn my mike on was the fact that it was the location of the tabernacle. And so since the tabernacle was there and given, that was the great high place for the Israelites. This, of course, is the same tabernacle that Moses had built for the Lord in the wilderness. This would make the tabernacle around 500 years old. Can you imagine having to go to worship God in a 500 year old tent? That would be kind of interesting. Can you hear me? Okay. My voice. I can't yell. I really can't yell. I need some volume. Now, I'm sure they made repairs over time, but the Tabernacle was reaching the end of its life. And we know that Solomon will be the one to build the Lord a permanent house there in Jerusalem. Never the less the Tabernacle was where God had required his people to go to sacrifice to him. So Solomon comes to give in, to make burn offerings to the Lord. The Bible tells us that He makes a thousand burnt offerings under God. This would have been nearly impossible to perform in a single day. There are only 1400 minutes in a day, 1440. And so if you're gonna make a thousand sacrifices in a day, that's like a sacrifice every 90 seconds. That's just too much. So probably over the course of a few days, he makes these sacrifices to the Lord. And while he's there making these sacrifices to God, Solomon receives a visit from God himself. Verse number five tells us that the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night. Now we're told from the onset that this is a dream, but I doubt Solomon realized that it was a dream. I have weird dreams sometimes, and some of them are pretty vivid. So much so that I can't tell if I'm dreaming or not. If you add this, I certainly have. Guess what? Sometimes some of you guys show up in my dreams. It's weird. Have you ever had a dream that your spouse was mad at you or that you were mad at your spouse and you woke up and you're mad at your spouse and you're like, Oh, wait, I'm mad at you. But it was a dream. I need to get over this quick. So even though we're told it's a dream, Solomon probably didn't realize it was a dream. Verse number 15 of the passage seems to indicate that Solomon did not know it was a dream until it was over. Okay, so the whole time he's interacting with God, he thinks this is really happening. In the dream, we see God ask Solomon if there is anything that He would like to request from him. And so Solomon knows that he's communicating with the Lord, and he acknowledges the fact that it was God who had been with his father, David. So Solomon had an example that had gone before him and set a standard for what it looked like to follow the Lord. Was David a perfect man? No. Gina. Contrary to what you believe. Your mom and dad aren't perfect. Sorry to tell you. I know this comes as a shock. Haley. I know you weren't expecting me to say this to you after what I just said to him. But your parents aren't perfect either. I can see on her face, she's just blown away by this. She's not going to hear anything else I say, because she's going to be thinking about the fact that mom and dad aren't perfect. None of us have perfect parents, do we? Your dad's not here. That's very bold of you to say that. David wasn't perfect. David had tried to serve God. David had tried to model for his son what it looked like to follow the Lord. And so Solomon was wise enough to look at his dad and say, You know what, Lord? I can see evidence of the fact that you were with my dad. David would have been nothing without the blessings and intervention of God. God had been merciful to David. He had been kind to David. And He had blessed David. Where was David when God found him? He was watching the scene. He was the youngest of his family, the last of a whole line of boys. And he's out in the fields watching the sheep. The most lowly job he could have been given. And yet God plucked David up out of that situation and wrote brought him up to be King of Israel. If it were not for God's work, David would have never been king. And Solomon understands that if it weren't for God's working, Solomon would not now be king. Remember, if you were with us when we did this study, there was a lot of drama surrounding Solomon's rise to the throne. It was not a foregone conclusion. And there were those few. Wow, that's embarrassing. There were those who tried to stop it from happening. You see, you come on a Sunday night. You never know what's going to happen. So Solomon knows that David owed his position to God and so did Solomon. And so Solomon also acknowledges his own weakness and his own need for God's help. He identifies himself as a servant. Look what verse number seven says. Oh, Lord, my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David, my father. He goes on, he says, And I am but a little what child? I know not how to go out or come in. He sees himself as a servant, not as a king. He sees himself also as a little child. Some commentators claim that Solomon was only 12 years old when he became king. This is ridiculous. Solomon had he was already married and he had a one year old son. By the time he becomes king of Israel. How does that happen for a 12 year old? It doesn't. Okay. Most likely. Solomon was in his early twenties when he became king, and yet, despite his advanced age, he still considered himself to be a humble servant, a child. You guys didn't laugh at my joke about his advanced age at 20 years old. With all the years of experience and wisdom that he had garnered in 20 years. I mean, why does he think he needs God? Surely he's got it all figured out. He also sees himself as incapable of the tasks that lay before him. Though he had been in government for many years, he did not consider himself to be ready to lead a nation, though he had been witness to one of the greatest kings in Israel's history. He still doesn't feel like he knows what he needs to do. So in verse number eight, he sees himself as too small to lead the people who are too great. She? Solomon had an interesting perspective on who he was and what he was capable of doing. It wasn't a proud man at this point in his life. He wasn't puffed up with his own abilities and goodness and charm. Solomon saw himself as being in need, and all of us have to face different points in our life where we come to grips with our own inadequacies. You know, you start to figure out how to survive and how to thrive in one stage of life. And then it's time to start another one. Right. I mean, I would imagine that Gino and Hailey, you kind of got high school figured out by now. But now it's done. And now you have to move on to something new, something that perhaps you don't have quite figured out yet. Because of Solomon's humble view of himself, he responds to God in verse number nine. With this request, he says, Give thy servant and understanding heart to judge thy people that I might dismay discern between good and bad for who is able to judge this thy so great a people he wants to be able to understand and he wants to discern this idea of an understanding heart literally means a listening heart. You see, there's a difference between hearing and understanding. Some of you are hearing me right now, but you're not listening. You're not understanding me right now. And that may be my fault. If it is, I apologize. If you're married, I am confident. There have been times where you heard what your spouse said, but you weren't listening to what your spouse said. My wife can usually tell. When I've tuned out because my responses become uh huh. Uh huh, uh huh. You know, she said that the kitchen's on fire. Uh huh. The boys are calling you. Huh? You know, you hear noise, but you're not listening. I can hear something and maybe even have a basic appreciation for what is being said. But there is a big difference between that and understanding what is being communicated. This understanding will enable Solomon to judge the people and what our young people need the most as they move forward into adulthood is an understanding heart to understand and discern what is right and wrong for their lives. You see. Solomon has already mentioned the fact that the people are great. He says it again in verse number nine. At the end of the verse, Solomon is intimidated with the prospect of governing an historically stubborn nation of people. Listen. Adulthood is intimidating when you think about everything that's going to be happening, most likely over the next few years, you'll make some decisions about what your career is going to be. If you haven't already. Over the next several years, you're going to probably make some decisions about who your spouse is going to be over the next several years. Potentially, you knows you may be even making decisions about how to raise your children, where to settle down. All of these things are coming and how you respond to these these these opportunities will dictate much of what happens in the rest of your life. You know, sometimes. It's not a decision of what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes it's a decision between what is good and what is best. There are plenty of good things that we can invest our lives in. But what all of us ought to be most interested in as followers of Jesus, as Christians, is what is the best thing that God would have me to invest my life in? We only get one opportunity to live this life on earth. Why waste it? Israel in this situation has been on mostly a positive uptick through the time of David. I mean, not everything had gone perfect, but there was a lot of good happening. They've kind of gotten a good start. And now Solomon feels the pressure to keep that going. I don't know everything about you guys and your lives, but I would say, generally speaking, your parents have gotten you off to a good start in life. Whether or not that good start carries through that momentum keeps going will largely depend upon your relationships with the Lord and how you decide to follow him. Solomon admits that he needs God's help. If he's going to move forward for the Lord. God responds to Solomon's request by expressing pleasure in Solomon's petition, says the version written in the speech Please the Lord. The Solomon had asked this thing. This pleasure is founded in what Solomon chose, as opposed to what he could have chosen. There were a lot of different things he could have asked for. We talked this morning about treating God as if he's the genie in a lamp and you rub it and he poof. He pops out and he says, All right, I'll give you three wishes. What do you want or what are the three wishes going to be? There's a lot of options, you know. Here's Solomon's been given an opportunity to ask for one thing. He could have asked for anything. He could have asked for a long life. He could have asked for riches. He could have asked for the lives of his enemies. And most men in his position would have probably chosen one of these options. Instead, Solomon asks for understanding and discernment. Because of this, God assures Solomon that he has granted his request. Solomon will possess a wise and understanding heart, so much so that there would be none before or after him that could compare. I think it was Charles SPURGEON that said something along the lines of the world has not yet seen what God could do with a young person totally dedicated to the Lord. You have your whole life in front of you. The world is waiting to see what would happen if Chino gave his life totally to God. No matter what career he's in, what would happen if you were totally dedicated to God? Hailey The same goes for you as well. You see? God doesn't just give Solomon the thing He asks for. But Solomon also receives the things he didn't ask for. The Bible goes on to tell us that God promised to Solomon that he would enjoy riches, though he did not request them. He would receive honor from those who may have opposed him, though that's not what he asked for. He will stand above all other kings during his life, though he mentioned nothing about that. God makes these promises to Solomon with no stipulations. He says, because of what you asked for, I will give you these things. But then God gives Solomon another promise in verse number 14. This one comes with a condition. This last promise is contingent on whether or not Solomon will walk in the ways of his father. The Bible says, if I will walk in the way in my ways to keep my statutes and my commandments as they they. Father David did walk. Then I will lengthen thy days. As diverse as this means, keeping God's statute says commands. It means walking in his ways. It means honoring God with the actions of our lives. Solomon will do these things and God assures him that he will grant him the third thing that he could have asked for, and that was length of days. If Solomon will live righteously, then God will grant him a longer life. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, we know that, Solomon. Didn't always follow the Lord. And it does seem if you study Solomon's life, that his life was cut short because he didn't follow God the way God had told him to. Upon hearing this verse 415 that Solomon wakes up. He realizes he's been dreaming. He does not discount the dream as he returns to Jerusalem, but instead he is confident of God's hand upon him. He goes to the altar, which is there in Jerusalem at the Ark of the Covenant, offers more sacrifices. He didn't hosts a feast for all of his servants. You see those? Solomon had widespread support. He had a good support structure around him. And though the circumstances of his life were generally favorable, Israel is in a good place. We see a marked difference in the new king because of this dream. Wonderful things will happen in Israel due to the rise of Solomon. But Solomon's rise must ultimately be credited to God's hand on his life. At this point in his life, Solomon knows exactly who is behind his success. He knows how weak and incapable he is on his own. And it was this humility that allowed God to use Solomon so greatly. You see, our passage shows us that Solomon had an understanding that he would only achieve lasting success through God's empowerment on his life. This principle applies equally to our lives today, whether you're a senior graduating high school or you're a senior citizen. If we want to have real, lasting success, we must depend upon God and not our own abilities. To achieve. Achieve this, we first have to have a right view of success. Solomon saw a need for a king who would be able to judge rightly and lead the people in the way they should go. His goals were not selfish or pride based. He wasn't out to have the biggest armies. It wasn't out to raise the incomes of the people or lower the crime rates. He simply wanted God to help him discern what was right. Solomon could be a successful king without having great wealth. Solomon could be a successful king and not have the greatest armies. Solomon could be successful in God's economy, even if he didn't have all the other indicators that usually point to success. But without God. It would never be successful. You and I need to learn how to measure our success by God's standard. You can be a successful father and live in a humble home with your family. You can be a successful mother without having to match someone else's busy schedule. As a church, we don't have to be the biggest church in Collinsville in order to be a successful church. You don't have to be top of your class with all of the materials that the world says you need to have in order for you to be a successful young adult. In order for us to be successful in God's eyes, we must come to the realization that it is not about what we can do with our lives. It's about what he can do with our lives. And this requires humility. It requires a mindset like Solomon had. I am small. And the task is great. God. I need your help. It requires the right focus. Solomon was more concerned with having the right heart than he was about having all the right stuff. Understanding and discernment are worth far more than riches and long life. The question for us tonight. Question for you is, which do you want more? The success that you can achieve on your own. Or the success that you will only experience through God's empowering. Each of us have to make this decision for ourselves. I'm sure that your parents would like to make this decision for you, but they can't. Especially as you move forward into adulthood, these things will largely rest upon your shoulders and the consequences of your decision will also rest on you. Mom and dad won't be there to give an account for your decisions that you make as an adult. They've done their part and will continue to be there to help you. But as so many of us have found out. The consequences of life as we move into adulthood, largely fall on us, whether or not we will follow the Lord and honor Him with our actions, or whether we'll try to get by and be successes on our own. As long as Solomon followed God, he was a success. The moment he started to do things his own way is when Solomon experienced a great, terrible fall. Our prayers that you guys will follow the Lord and honor Him with your lives. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for this opportunity for us to gather around your word. To be challenged by the life of Solomon. Thank you for the good start. Solomon had example that he set humility in the dependance that he had for you. Or I ask that you would help all of us to take note of his life. What I praise, especially for our young people, are young adults. That are just getting started on the on the road of adulthood. Lord help them not to be. Too confident in their own abilities. Very talented young people here, Lord. Very capable. They've experienced success in their life in many ways. God help them to still be humble before you, to rely upon you, and they come to you for help. God, I pray that you would grant them an understanding, heart and discernment as they move forward in their lives into adulthood. Or thank you for the help that you offer to us. Help us to take advantage of that. Grasp on to each one of us in our lives. It's Jesus name that I pray. Amen.

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