Chapter 13 “The Wisest King That Ever Was ”
1 Kings 3
Intro – welcome back to The Story…our 31 week series through the main themes of the Bible…after our Christmas break we are now in chapter 13…just to get us all back on track, you should have read up to this point in your book…and ch. 13 is what your small group will be focusing on this week…
Here’s a question for you: if God were to say to you, “ask for whatever you want me to give you…” what would you ask Him for? Without making God to be some kind of genie in a lamp…if He were actually willing to give you anything you asked of Him, what would you ask?
It’s an awesome thought isn’t it? It’s worth thinking about…
-some of you would ask for healing, restored health for yourself or a loved one…the return of a family member to the Lord…help make ends meet financially…
-when I was in Gr. 12, just freshly back to the Lord, I asked Him to make my teacher not check my homework in class! And she didn’t! I was elated! Told Audrey after class…”isn’t God good!” He helped me not get caught slacking off on my homework! – such young, immature days…
Now some of you are thinking, God would never do this…He doesn’t just let us choose our own gifts from Him…He doesn’t just give us anything we want…that’s name it and claim it…
Well, you may be right, but He did with Solomon, the greatest and wisest King that ever was…
As a matter of fact, in 1 Kings 3, when Solomon was the freshly anointed new King of Israel, replacing his father David, and he had just finished sacrificing a thousand burnt offerings on an altar of worship to God, in a dream that night…
…God said to him in 1 Kg 3:5: “Ask for whatever you want me to give to you.” 1 Kg 3:5
So if you were Solomon, new King, young, inexperienced, just getting started in this new, overwhelming role…what would you ask God for?
Well take a look with me at what Solomon did ask God for in chapter 3 starting at v.6…
Prayer…read 1 Kings 3:6-9…
Solomon asks for wisdom…a wise and discerning heart so that he can govern God’s people properly and capably.
And how does God respond to Solomon’s request? Let’s read from vv.10 to 15…
This response by God to Solomon shows just how generous and gracious and abundant and lavish God is to those whom He loves and desires to bless…
-so, back to what you would ask God if He gave you a blank cheque…I guarantee that your answer is determined by how you view God…by how loving, kind, good and generous you think He is and wants to be to you…
-many of us are hesitant to believe that God wants to bless us abundantly and lavishly…that He wants to do great things for us, in us and through us…and so we limit our longings, requests and desires…mostly because we don’t think we deserve great things from God…
But, if you’ve been reading ahead in The Story, then you have already come across this passage of scripture:
Mt 7:11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
And you’ve probably come across this one too:
Eph 3:20-21 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
James 4:2-3 You do not have because you do not ask God.
But listen to the warning in v.3: When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
We learn we need to ask God for things with the right motives, not selfish ones…
But, God really does want us to ask…and He really does want to bless us abundantly and lavishly, generously…He really does want to do great things for us, in us and through us…
If we believe this to be true, then we are not asking God for enough…our faith in what God can do is being limited by our lack of faith and our willingness to believe in Who God is…
-how about we make 2017 a year in which we ask God for big things, impossible things…with God-honoring motives…how about we ask Him for things that only He can do so that He will get the glory and lives will be changed and His kingdom will be advanced…
-how about we hope again, pray again, believe again, …that He really is that good, good Father who won’t give us a snake if we ask for a fish…or won’t give us a rock if we ask for bread…but will do immeasurably more than all we can ask or think, because of His love, power and grace…
Solomon, young, new King, asked God for wisdom, for a wise and discerning heart. And God answered his prayer…and then some…listen to this summary of what God did for Solomon in 1 Kings 4:29-34…
-sounds lavish to me!
The Baby and the Sword
-there is an incident that took place shortly after Solomon prayed this prayer that demonstrated just how much wisdom God gave him. We find it in 3:16-28…
I call it The Baby and the Sword…love this story! – read…
Our Desire For Wisdom
Now, one of the things God wants us to come away with today is the desire for wisdom, wisdom like He gave to Solomon…biblical, godly, heavenly wisdom that all of us can have…God wants us to be wise…
And to whet your appetite even more for this kind of wisdom, let me read about it from one of the wisdom books that Solomon himself wrote, the book of Proverbs…4:1-13…
Doesn’t that sound great to you? This desire for wisdom, love of wisdom is something that the Holy Spirit stirs within us…makes us long for it and seek it and grow in it…
What is Wisdom?
-but what is wisdom? we really need to understand exactly what Biblical wisdom is…what is it that God wants to give us…
-one place we get that answer is in the book of James…because in James 1: 5 God promises to give wisdom to those who lack it…and who will simply ask for it in faith…
But then James gives us a description of godly wisdom:
Jm. 3:17 “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”
-James tells us that wisdom is first of all about a heavenly perspective…first of all about living by heavenly values…wisdom is a way of life before a bunch of information…
Wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord and knowing Him…
Pr. 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
Don’t confuse wisdom with knowledge…wisdom is first about obedience and holiness and a focus on God and a way of life that honors God before it’s having lots of information/answers.
We often equate God’s wisdom with direction. “Lord, give me wisdom to know what to do about this decision.” We want to know what to do in a given situation now. And God does answer that prayer.
But God has something better to give us. If we only pray for direction, then we’ll only get information from God. But when we pray for wisdom, not just in the urgency of a situation, then God answers by giving us His mind, heart, His thoughts, as an on-going way of life to approach any situation.
So today, let’s ask God to make us wise with His wisdom, with godly wisdom, with biblical wisdom…because it is the most important thing…
-if you ask God for this, you can be certain He will answer because… He answered a prayer just like that for the wisest King that ever was many years ago…
Starting Well, Finishing Poorly
There’s one last part of Solomon’s story that we need to talk about today. Although he was a great King…did great things…had no equal then and now…
…he didn’t finish well…he started strong, but finished poorly…
Here’s what happened. We read about it in 1 Kg 11:1-4…
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites.
2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
Solomon let his foreign wives influence his heart’s devotion to God…he allowed his heart to be turned away from exclusive devotion to the one and only true God and follow the pagan gods of other nations…
How could this be? Wasn’t he the wisest king that ever was? Didn’t he write the book of Proverbs warning everyone to “guard their heart, for out of it are the issues of life? (4:23)
Sad, isn’t it, that even the wisest among us can still be vulnerable to drifting away from God and compromise and sin and disobedience…
Like Randy Frazee says in his talk on this chapter, “If Solomon was the wisest person that ever lived and he made poor choices, what makes us think we’re too smart to do such a thing?” Good point!
It’s a wake up call to us all that starting strong, receiving all kinds of blessings from God and having our prayers answered, being someone great… is not a guarantee of finishing well…
…sadly there’s too many examples in the Bible of that very thing happening to great and godly people…as there are too many examples of that happening in our world today…
Being loved and called by God and used by Him and receiving great gifts from God is no guarantee that we will stay true to Him…the faithful life of blessing and usefulness to God has to be maintained by constant, deliberate, ruthless obedience…
…it has to be tended to constantly, nurtured regularly by the word and prayer…supported tirelessly by the fellowship and friendship of good and godly people…
Heb. 3:12-13 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
And in this regard, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure…
But listen, even if we have turned away from the living God and have made poor, unwise choices…there is a way back…always a way back to the heart of God through the grace of JC…
-it’s a simple and honest prayer…confession, repentance, surrender…
-some of you may need to do that today…
Conclusion
So how about we end the story of Solomon by a renewed commitment to end our story well, to finish strong…and to do so in the strength and wisdom that God provides…and by committing ourselves to being faithful to the end…
1 Cor 1:8-9 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
-let’s end where we started. How would you now respond to God if He were to say to you, “ask for whatever you want me to give you…”
Prayer…Worship… (let’s ask Him for wisdom…)