Good morning church. Going to invite you to turn in
your Bibles to 1st Kings chapter 3.
We're going to be in verses 5 to 14 today.
If you're using one of the physical Bibles that are found
under some of the chairs here in the auditorium and you don't
know where First Kings is, please don't feel embarrassed,
don't feel dumb. I'm just glad that you're
looking this up. So here's what you can do.
You flip open to the beginning. You go forward about 1/5 or 1/6
of the way in. If you go past First and Second
Samuel, you will come to 1st Kings.
If you come to 2nd Kings, you've gone past First Kings.
That's how that works. We're in a series called Ancient
Prayers Present Power, and we're looking at these prayers of
people of faith throughout history and how they can help us
grow in our prayer life today. I said the first time in the
first sermon that we had in this series that really want to see
us move beyond prayers that are just like, Lord, help me
prayers, right? It's so easy in our prayer lives
to default into God, please fix God, please help God, please
heal. And that kind of becomes the
extent of our engagement with God.
And like I said in the first week, there's nothing inherently
wrong. In fact, it's really good to
come to God with everything that's going on in our life, all
of our requests, no matter how big or small, all of our
concerns. God is a good father, and like
every good dad, he wants his kids to come to him and to
engage with him. And so that's why we read in
Philippians 46. Don't worry about anything, but
in everything, in everything, through prayer and petition with
Thanksgiving, present your request to God.
There's nothing too small for God.
Prayer is not less than being honest about our concerns and
what's going on in our lives, but it can be so much more.
See, God's not looking for our shopping lists.
He's inviting us into a conversation.
That's what prayer is about. He, He wants our presence, not
just our petitions. So we want to look at how do we
move from talking at God to talking to God.
In today's passage in prayer is a conversation that takes place
between God in a guy by the name of King Solomon.
Now, even if you aren't all that familiar with the Bible, maybe
you haven't really been in church for before, maybe you
haven't been in church for a long time.
You probably have heard of King Solomon at some point.
And let me just give us all catch us up on who Solomon is.
Solomon was a king of over Israel who reigned from
approximately 970 BC to 931 BC. He succeeded the most famous
king in all of Israel. That is King David.
And in fact, if you look at the Israeli flag today, you will see
a star on that. That is a Davidic star because
King David was the man. He was the king.
He's the king by which all other kings are judged.
He's also the guy who had a stone and flung it and killed
the giant, so you may know him from that.
Solomon comes after him, and Solomon is known for his
incredible wisdom, his incredible wealth.
Solomon expands the Kingdom, grows the Kingdom of Israel to
its greatest extent. He was the builder of the first
temple in Jerusalem. And in the passage that we find
ourselves today, Solomon's just stepping into the role.
So David's reign for 40 years, he has passed away and he has
named Solomon his successor. And Solomon is somewhere around
20 to 21 years of age. He is a young pup.
He's just entering into adulthood, and he is tasked with
this reality of stepping into his father's shoes and leading
the Kingdom that his father had kind of knit together in the
land of Israel. And we read starting in verse 5
that at Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night.
So what has happened is Solomon has gone to worship God.
This is before the temple is there.
So he's gone to Gibeon to worship God.
He's brought all of these sacrifices, and God comes and
appears to him at the beginning of his reign.
And God says this, Ask, what should I give you?
Now let's pause here for a second.
Imagine God came to you with that opportunity.
Ask what should I give you? God appears to you and says,
hey, hey, what do you want? What does your heart desire?
Why don't you think about this for a second?
If you could ask God to give you anything today, what would it
be? What is the thing that your
heart is calling out for? What's the driving desire?
What's the thing where you like God?
If you would just do this for me, man, that's all I really
need. You know, that's the opportunity
that God always affords us in prayer.
Think about that. Like we actually have a heavenly
Father right now who just as he came to Solomon and said, ask
what do you want? He invites every single one of
his children to come and say, what do you want?
Now? God's not Santa Claus.
He's not a genie. He's more like, remember when
your parents had to write a list for Christmas?
Just because you put it on the list doesn't mean you're getting
it right. And if you grave it to grandma,
you're probably definitely not getting or you're getting a
knock off brand of it. She's not going to get it right.
It's OK. But it is an invitation because
there is a God who cares about us.
There's a God who wants us to come to him, lay our hearts bare
before him, and he's inviting Solomon and he invites us into a
conversation. And this conversation, it's
going to reveal both the heart of Solomon and the heart of God.
And and I think as we walk through what Solomon praise, how
he converses, because this is what prayer is, It's a dialogue
with God. What Solomon dialogues with God
about can really help us grow in our own prayer life.
So let's begin to look at what does Solomon say to God coming
to him with this offer. Verse 6 Solomon replied, you've
shown great and faithful love to your servant, my father David,
because he walked before you in faithfulness, righteousness and
integrity. You've continued this great and
faithful love for him by giving him a son to sit on his throne
as it is today. I think it's really instructive
that God initiates this conversation with Solomon and he
says ask. But before Solomon ever gets to
ask, he starts with acknowledging, right?
I said in week 1, we're going to look at some things that are
often times going to repeat themselves in various ways in
prayer. And we kind of saw this in
Moses's life too. He, he starts by recognizing the
God whom he's speaking to you. And I want to start by saying
when we think about prayer, maybe we should think this way,
that when we pray, we begin with remembrance rather than
requests. So Paul Solomon remembers 2
things here. First, he remembers who he's
talking to. He says he has a great and the
faithful, the loving God, the Hebrew word here is has said
there's there's God. This is who you are in your
essence. You are a God who loves your God
who keeps his word. He keeps his covenant.
You never fail, you never change, you never let us down.
And the same God that Solomon goes through is the same God
that we come to today, because God is the same yesterday, today
and forever. And, and, and when we remember
who we talked to, it changes how we ought to talk to them.
So one of the things I don't know if you're maybe a parent of
a young kid, maybe you've experienced this.
It's really easy to fall into mom and dad mode and then all
the sudden realize that you're talking to your spouse like you
talk to your kids, right? That's not a good thing.
Just tip 1 husbands, wives, don't talk to your spouses like
you talk to your kids. It's not a good thing.
You should always be thinking about who is the person that I'm
talking to? What is their role?
What is their position? One of the things that drives me
absolutely bonkers. I don't like it when somebody
talks like a jerk to anybody, but when somebody is a jerk to
like a server or a service person, I'm like, are you
kidding me? That person had nothing to do
with the issue that you're dealing with.
They're just there and now they're having to take all of
your junk. Remember who you're talking to.
They they didn't screw up your order in the back.
That's the chef. I don't think you should go talk
to them like a jerk either. But what were they supposed to
do? Often times we forget who we're
talking to. We, we can often be the worst
when we're talking to the people who we claim to love the most,
right? Because we feel safest there.
These are people who won't return.
So we just kind of blurred it all out on them.
But if we stopped and remember, hey, this is somebody who I love
dearly. Why am I talking to them this
way? It's in any situation, it's easy
to forget who you're talking to, and that also includes prayer.
Sometimes we just need to stop and pause and reconsider about
who we're having a conversation with and just speaking that out,
right? God, you are holy, you're great,
you're powerful, you're loving, you're merciful, you're so
forgiving. It changes the tone and the
posture and even the request with which we come right when
when we pray. God, you're so loving.
You've been so kind to me even when I haven't deserved it.
You've forgiven me. You've been merciful to me, and
you're so great, got all this beauty of creation that I get to
observe. That's all your handiwork.
And you've done it. Done it for me to engage.
And all of the sudden, instead of just approaching him with an
ask, my heart is turned towards awe and affection.
Solomon starts by remembering who he's talking to.
And then he remembers what God has done.
What has this loving, faithful covenant fulfilling God done?
He has shown it. He's demonstrated it.
He's proven his greatness. He, he Solomon says.
You displayed it in the life of my dad.
I I got AI got a front row seat to your faithfulness to him in
in fact, the very fact that I get to stand here today in the
place as a king is your faithfulness to my Father, your
love towards him and your grace towards me.
Our prayers deepen when they come out of remembrance and
reflection rather than just reaction.
Remembering who you're praying to will change the way that you
pray. Remembering what God has done in
the past will change the way that you pray in the present.
So here's a prayer prompt. I want to take some time in each
of these sections. I want to give you 30 seconds.
And if you're a follower of Jesus, I'm going to put those
prayer prompts up on the screen. I want you to pray these two,
the first top ones here. Start with God you are and fill
in the blank and then go to thank you for showing that by
here's who you are. Here's what you've done.
But some of you today, if you're not a follower of Jesus, the
best thing that you could pray today is that last one.
God, please show me who you are. Show me what you're I want to
see you. If you're out there and you're
real, would you display your glory to me?
So let's just take 30 seconds and I'm going to give you space
to just kind of bow your head, close your eyes, and pray those
prayer prompts. Amen.
Solomon continues on in his dialogue with God.
Lord my God, you have now made your servant king in my father
David's place, yet I'm just a youth with no experience in
leadership. Your servant is among your
people whom you have chosen, a people too many to be numbered
or counted. When you pray, pray with
remembrance. Pray with humility.
Solomon, I just love how real he is in this situation.
God, I am a youth. I have no idea what I'm doing,
no experience in leadership, and I got this massive group of
people and they're your people and I'm supposed to lead them.
Today we would probably say that Solomon struggles with imposter
syndrome. He's just a 20 year old guy,
right? And his dad has been king for 40
years. And like I told you, he's not.
He was not just the king, he was the king.
So every time when you go through 1st and 2nd kings, what
you're going to read about any king is how did they measure up
to David? Like, how's that for shoes to
fill? He's, he's the man by which all
other kings will be judged. And I know we read about and
Solomon mentions he's very respectful towards his dad and,
and, and God did recognize David as a man after his own heart,
but he was also a mess and he left behind a mess of a family,
some of which Solomon has to do a little cleaning up on.
So he's got his own personal issues that he's dealing with.
And then he's got millions of people who are looking to him
for guidance and for leadership. And Israel's not just any
people, the people that he has been put in charge of, our God's
chosen people, they are meant to be salt and light to the world
around. They're meant to be the ones
that declare the truth that God is God and God alone is God.
So if you have ever been in a role or a spot or a time where
you just felt in over your head where you felt like I'm an
impostor, I can't do this. Where you didn't know how you
were going to be able to function or accomplish what was
being asked or expected of you. You and Solomon, you got a lot
in common. Anybody feeling that today?
Anybody feeling like they're in a spot where they're in over
their head in an area of life, maybe you feel like you're in
this place where nobody trained me to do this again.
I go back to thinking about being a first time dad at at the
hospital and realizing that I had to take three tests to get a
driver's license. But at the end of 24 hours in
the hospital, they were just sticking this baby in my arms
and sending me out the door expecting like I knew what I was
doing, right? There's so many areas that we're
honest. We're just like, well, I just
got to fake it until I make it. I'm going to tell you what
Solomon realized is you can fake it, but you're only going to
make it if God's involved. The ESV, it says, it says it
this way. I love the Esvs wording of what
Solomon says. I'm but a little child.
I don't know how to come in or go out.
Yeah, God, I don't know anything.
I am so in over my head. And this is a reminder to us.
Prayer is not about impressing God with our strength.
It's about admitting our need. God, Solomon says.
Hey God, I'm weak, but I just remembered you're strong.
It's like he's comparing the two resumes, right?
First we get God's resume in the remembrance, and then we get
Solomon's resume and it's pretty bare bones.
And in a world that celebrates confidence and self-sufficiency,
prayer calls us to a radical act of.
Confession that we are dependent and not enough on our own.
So where are you in over your head right now?
What role are you trying to fill that you just don't feel
equipped for? What situation are you in right
now? Are you just, I mean, you're
trying to tread water and and keep your head above from the
water from drowning, but you you just don't know how much longer
you can keep it up and how you can do it.
This prayer prompt is for you this morning.
We're going to take a moment. Remember the God who you've come
to already and now come to him with your request for help.
God, I need your help with. Let's pray.
God, thank you for hearing our calls for help today, for
recognizing our insufficiency. Amen.
So take time to remember before requesting.
Come with a posture of humility. And then when you pray, ask God
to help you know and do what's right.
Verse 9 So in light of who you are, in light of who I am, give
your servant A receptive heart to judge your people, to discern
between good and evil for who is able to judge this great people
of yours? See, we've actually now we've
come back to the point where it started.
God started, he said, what do you want to ask?
And now he's got to the ask. This is the ask God.
I know who you are. I know your character.
I know your kindness. I know your greatness.
I know that you know what is good.
You're the arbiter of what is good.
Your ways, they're the best ways because you're the best God.
And I know how little I know, and I know how many people are
depending on me to get this right.
I know the choices that I make, good and bad, they're not just
going to impact me. They're going to impact all of
these people that I've been called to lead.
So here's what I want to know. God, what's right, God, what's
righteous, what's just God, Show me what is good.
Because what is good, what you say is good is what is best.
And we live in this world. We live in this world where the
standard of what is right, what is good is what makes me feel
good. What is, what does my heart tell
me? And so every individual in our
culture becomes the arbiter, the standard of what is right and
wrong, what's good and bad. So what's good for you may not
be good for me, or what you think is right, I may think is
wrong. And that's OK.
What what's right really boils down to this question, isn't it?
What makes me happy? And we're, we're, we're fairly
well along in this experiment at this point.
And I think we've got enough results on hand to tell us it
ain't working. Listen, here's what I see, and
it's not just what I see anecdotally, and it's not just
what you see anecdotally. It's what every single
statistical question that goes out there and every poll says.
Anxiety up, hopelessness up, loneliness up, social cohesion
down, joy down, peace down, satisfaction down.
This whole, hey, we'll figure out what's right and wrong for
ourselves. We'll figure out what's good and
evil. It ain't working, but we could
have known that ahead of time. Here's here's what here's what
God tells us in his word through through the prophet Jeremiah and
Jeremiah 17 nine. You want to follow your heart as
the ultimate arbiter of what you're going to do.
The heart is more deceitful than anything else and incurable.
Who can understand it? The problem with following your
heart to make decisions is your heart is a liar.
It is a terrible judge of these things.
Solomon himself in the book of Proverbs, which he is the author
of, writes this in Proverbs 1412.
There is a way that seems right to a person, but it's end is the
way to death. You want to be the arbiter of
what is right. You want to trust your gut.
That's where it goes. And I know it feels good, it
felt good, but is it actually doing you any good?
It's interesting. Some of you will know that
verse, the verse that follows directly after its Proverbs
1413, is directly connected to it, says this.
Even in a laughter, a heart may be sad, and joy may end in
grief. Don't judge the goodness of an
action by what your response to it is in a moment.
There is a way that seems right to a person, but it's end is the
way to death. See, Solomon understood that
wisdom at its core, it's not a pragmatic deal about just
knowing how to get what I want. I think that's how we think
about wisdom generally. How can I do things in a way
that will get me the most of what I want?
No, Wisdom is about figuring out what God wants and doing it.
That's wisdom. And again, you see why
Remembering first recounting God's resume and and and
remembering and recounting your resume in humility.
You see how this gets you to a point of the right thing to ask
for Here would be God. I don't know anything.
You know everything. Show me what to do.
You need to remind yourself of who God is.
You need to be honest about who you are so that you would trust
His words more than you trust your heart.
The first step towards living the type of life that you're
designed for is to understand you'll never live that type of
life, living it your way. The expression here, a
discerning heart or hearing heart in Hebrew, hearing is
literally meaning obeying. So it's not like me when I'm
watching the television and my wife tells me something I I
heard it sort of right. Hearing is about taking it in
and, and, and, and doing it, living out of that information
and reality you have. So, So what Solomon is praying
for here is God. If I could have just one thing,
you asked me about one desire. If I could have one thing,
here's what I want. I want to know what you want.
I want to know what you say is the best, what you say is good.
And then I want to know how to do it.
That's what he's calling out for.
Do you want a marriage that's flourishing?
Pray that God would show you how to be a godly husband.
If you're a husband, you don't need to pray this for your
spoke. Pray this for you or a godly
wife if you're a wife that you would care more about that
desire that more live into that more than what societal
expectations say it should look like or what your favorite
social media influencer says it should look like.
Do you want to be the best parent you can be?
Then be more concerned about listening to God than listening
to another podcast or reading another book.
Do you want to live a life of meaning and purpose?
Stop listening to culture and stop and start listening to the
God who's giving you life. Do you want to live a life of of
contentment, of joy, of peace? Don't listen to the people who
are trying to sell you things to give you that.
Listen to the God who promises in His Word through His Spirit.
This is exactly what He wants to give to you.
When you pray for this type of wisdom, when you pray for true
wisdom, the wisdom to to know what is good and to do what is
good, to do what is right. That's what leads to flourishing
in life, not following your heart, not listening to your
gut. And so here's the prayer prompt
for us this morning. God help me to hear you and obey
you in see, we've all got spots in our life right now where
we're listening to other things. We're not listening to God
listen to our heart. We're listening to culture.
We're listening to our favorite podcast host.
We listen to the book. Maybe we're even listening to
the advice of our mom and dad or the traditions handed down to
us. But if those things were
encountered to what God has to say, when you stop listening to
those and start listening to him.
So let's just pray together this prayer and ask God to come in
and help us hear Him and obey him in.
Father, we want to be the type of people as your people that
this is our cry in every area of our life.
And if we've got a blind spot and we openly ask you by your
Holy Spirit to reveal to us where we are walking in
disobedience and in a lack of submission, help us hear from
you and listen to you so that we can obey you in Jesus name,
Amen. Here's God's response.
Now it pleased the Lord that Solomon had requested this.
So God said to him, because you have requested this and did not
ask for long life or riches for yourself or the death of your
enemies, but you asked for discernment for yourself to
administer justice. I will therefore do what you
have asked. I'll give you a wise and
understanding heart so that there has never been anyone like
you before and never will be again.
In addition, I'll give to you what you did not ask for, both
riches and honor, so that no king will be your equal during
your entire life. If you walk in my ways, if you
keep my statutes and commands just as your father David did, I
will give you a long life. Solomon's prayer, at its core
was a prayer of submission. God, I, I want to please you.
And you know what? That prayer pleased God.
So it pleased and delighted the Lord that Solomon brought this
prayer. But if you know the story of
Solomon, you know that how Solomon started isn't exactly
how it went all the way along. And overtime, despite the wisdom
that God had given to Solomon, he stopped hearing in doing.
And because of that, he'd miss out on the quality and the
quantity of life. Solomon dies much younger than
his father David. He dies at the age of 60.
He misses out on so much of the life that God wanted to give to
him. And we all fail in this area of
wisdom. We all fail to live according to
God's wisdom in God's way of doing things.
That's what sin is, a failure to live according to God's way and
a desire to live according to our own way.
We fail to please the Lord, and so we end up in places of death.
We end up in places where life is sapped from us.
But the good news is this. Our Father sent us a greater
king than King Solomon. He sent us a better Solomon.
He sent us Jesus, who was the true son of David, who didn't
just ask for wisdom. He is wisdom.
He didn't just pray for help, He came to be our help.
He didn't just ask for God's will.
He accomplished God's will on the cross, and now because of
Jesus, we don't approach God as beggars, but we get to enter
into his throne room boldly as his kids.
And so James promises to us in the New Testament that because
of Jesus, the wisdom that God gave to Solomon is available to
every single one of us today if and when we call out for it.
In James 1/5, it says, if any of you lacks wisdom, anybody here
lack wisdom in an area, I'll put my hand up.
We lack wisdom, right? If any of you lacks wisdom, he
should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly or
in the version I learned it in without finding fault, which
always love. God never looks at you and me
because we say God I don't know what to do and says you idiot
why don't you figured this out yet?
I'm done. I gave you enough wisdom, move
along. No, He gives it generously
without finding fault. It will be given to him.
It will be given to her. We'll get wisdom when we come to
God and ask for wisdom, God. Because just like with Solomon,
God delights in answering this prayer.
This is a prayer that delights the heart of God.
So when we ask for it, I promise you it's always granted.
If you say, God, I want to know your way and live according to
your way. God's not like, let me think
about it. It's a prayer that he answers
and he delights in answering. And wisdom starts with realizing
that apart from the saving work of Jesus, we are done and dead.
That's where wisdom starts. So if you have not yet called
out to Jesus to be your Lord and your Savior, to to have a life
through Christ, then you can do that today.
All you need to do is say, God, I know you're good, I know you
do good. I know that I'm not good, that I
have failed up to live up to your standard of goodness.
But I know that Jesus, he's good and his goodness is more than
enough for me that he died on the cross for me to make me who
was not good, good enough through him.
And so Jesus, I just thank you. Thank you for dying on the
cross, for my failures, for my sins, for my mistakes.
Thank you that the blood that you poured on the cross was more
than capable of forgiving all of my sins.
And thank you that you rose to new life so that I want to one
day could raise, be risen to new life with God.
And if you just pray that you call out to him and you say, now
I want to walk in your goodness all the days of my life, guess
what? He gives it to you.
And if that's what you've prayed it, if that's where your heart
is, if you're a follower of Jesus, you have all that Solomon
was given and more. Think about this.
Because of Jesus all the riches of heaven belong to you.
Because of Jesus, no shame and no condemnation belong to you
anymore. Instead you are given the honors
and blessings that are due the name of Jesus.
Because of Jesus you don't just get a longer life, you get
eternal life. Because of Jesus you can pray
for wisdom. You can pray for what the, the
knowledge is of good and, and, and the ability to live out that
good. And you don't just get it.
You get God coming up and taking residence in you and helping you
live that out in ways that you are incapable of doing on your
own through the Holy Spirit. So if you could ask God for
anything today, what would it be?
I think if we're honest, most of the prayers that we pray, I'm
really just symptomatic with the deepest longing of our heart is
we prayer. We pray for God to fix things
and to heal things and to help things.
But those are all symptoms of, of a deeper struggle and a
deeper desire. That our deepest desire is to
live a life of flourishing, of abundance.
To live the life that we were designed to live for our sake
and for the sake of the people that we interact with, for our
family members for, for the peoples in our in our
workplaces, in our schools, That we would live type of life of
meaning and contentment and satisfaction and joy and peace
that God designed us for. And Solomon, Solomon understood
the thing that we all need to understand, that in order to get
that, we first have to come to a point of realizing that we can't
have it without God. That that way of living, that
way of being only comes when we start to walk in God's ways,
when we come to a point of surrender and submission.
As long as we're trying to live this our way, not going to find
what our heart longs for, that's what wisdom looks like.
Wisdom is about coming to God and saying, I want to hear from
you. I want to know how I ought to
live life in all the areas of my life, and then I want to live
according to that. And when we do that, all the
other stuff follows after it. Let me just pray together.
Let's pray. Father, you've been faithful.
Jesus, you've made a way. Holy Spirit, we need your
wisdom. Help us to walk in your ways.
Help us to walk in your wisdom. Not just for us, it's for our
sakes, Father, but for the sakes of our families, our friends,
our church, our workplaces, our schools, our cities, our
countries. But most of all, for your glory,
we pray. God show us what is right and
what is good. Give us wisdom to judge justly
and to live accordingly for the sake of Jesus.
Amen.