A Promise-keeping, Joy-producing, Wisdom-giving God
0 Amens
During a conference at a Presbyterian church in Omaha, people were given helium-filled balloons and told to release them at some point in the service when they felt like expressing the joy in their hearts. Since they were Presbyterians, they weren’t free to say, “Hallelujah, Praise the Lord.” All through the service balloons ascended, but when it was over, one-third of the balloons were unreleased.
The moral of the story: Let your balloon go.
As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a friend: “It’s a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians—and I am one of them.”
That man learned to let his balloon go.
C.S. Lewis said, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Quit making mud pies. There’s a holiday awaiting you at the sea.
Let your balloon go.
That’s going to be the challenge from 1st Kings chapter four today. The main truth that will emerge is-
GLADNESS SHOULD GRIP GOD’S PEOPLE WHEN THEY FOCUS ON HIS FAITHFULNESS.
I say this because of the key verse in this section, verse 20. Verses 1-19 are giving us detailed information about Solomon’s kingdom.
I know. It’s not a very exciting text. I mean, our appetites aren’t necessarily whet when we read that “Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder” or that Ben-hur was one of the 12 officers or that Solomon named one of his daughters Basemath. Not exactly morning devotional material, eh? I mean, how many of you turn to 1st Kings 4 for that morning spiritual pick me up? Really? A list of cabinet officials, food budgets, horse stalls, Solomon’s song-writing ability, and a biology text book?
But since “Bible” is our middle name here at Country Bible Church, and since we place a high priority on the Scriptures, and since Paul, speaking of the Old Testament, said in 1st Timothy 3:16 that all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for us, and since Paul said in Romans 15:4 that whatever was written in the Old Testament was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope, it would behoove us to see exactly what is profitable and encouraging here in chapter 4. And I would say that there is a lot.
We have to know what we’re looking for. And what we need to be looking for is what it says about our God. And I think we’ll see that this chapter reminds us that Yahweh is a promise-keeping, joy-producing, and wisdom-giving God. Now, that ought to whet your appetites!
In fact, we’ll see that God did in fact keep His promise to Solomon to give him wisdom and to establish his kingdom {see 1st Kings 3:12}. And this wisdom will then be fleshed out in how Solomon runs the kingdom.
Notice in verses 1-6 that the Lord has provided Solomon with:
*a high priest
*secretaries
*recorders
*a commander of the army
*priests
*friend
*commander of the palace
*commander of the forced labor
All of these people were key officials that Solomon needed to help run the kingdom and we see it as evidence that God has kept his promise to Solomon to give him wisdom and establish the kingdom.
Solomon divided up the kingdom into 12 parts and each part had to provide the king food for one month. Solomon discerned the difficult task of collecting from 12 groups each month. So he delegated one month to each group and it made his life much easier! That’s wisdom!
This is big government at its best. I’m not a fan of big government. I’m for capitalism. But here we may have the only record of successful big government. How so? Because verse 20 says, “They ate and drank and were happy.”
How? Because the Lord gave Solomon wisdom. He kept His promise to Solomon.
Big deal, you say? What does that mean to me? It means that God gave Solomon wisdom, a wisdom that extended all the way to the ordering and affairs of everyday life. Notice how wide Biblical wisdom is. It’s not just limited to book smart ideas.
ILLUSTRATION:
Wisdom extends to all of life, not just establishing and maintaining gigantic kingdoms! Even the stay at home mom can drink from the fountain of wisdom. The 10 year-old child can drink. The teenager struggling with a changing body, pimples, hormones, etc can drink from wisdom’s fountain.
In fact, wisdom can be defined Biblically as, “…being skillful and successful in one’s relationships and responsibilities. It involves observing and following the Creator’s principles of order in the moral universe.” {Roy Zuck, in Learning From the Sages: Selected Studies on the Book of Proverbs, p.99}.
This is why Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” When you fear the Lord, or have a reverential awe of Him and submit to Him, then that is the starting point of wisdom. It is a recognition of your sinfulness and His holiness and sovereignty.
We saw Solomon demonstrate this in ch. 3 by offering 1,000+ burnt offerings, which signified his total sinfulness and complete surrender to God. That is the beginning of wisdom: I’m sinful and, Lord, You’re set apart {holy} and sovereign.”
Therefore, verses 1-19 demonstrate that God was faithful to give Solomon wisdom, and Solomon was skillful and successful in his relationships and responsibilities.
Now, isn’t that practical? Wouldn’t you like to be skillful and successful in your relationships and responsibilities?
1} Your relationships: spouse, children, co-workers, neighbors, family, church family, etc
Need wisdom and skill for any of these relationships?
2} Your responsibilities: parent, boss, etc
Need wisdom and skill for any of these responsibilities?
Guess what? The same God that promised and gave Solomon wisdom is the same God that can give wisdom to you for all of your relationships, responsibilities, trials, etc.
Listen to this promise from James 1:5-
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
God is the giving God, the generous God and He has wisdom at His disposal. Wisdom to navigate the trials of life {see James 1:2-4}. All you have to do is ask and believe!
Doesn’t that bring a sense of joy that God is faithful to His promises?! That’s why I say that the thrust of this chapter is that-
GLADNESS SHOULD GRIP GOD’S PEOPLE WHEN THEY FOCUS ON HIS FAITHFULNESS.
In fact, that’s exactly what verse 20 says. LOOK AT VERSES 20-28…
READ 1ST KINGS 4:20-28
Clearly the people of God are happy! And the narrator follows this happy verse by describing Solomon’s rule, which extended from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines to the border of Egypt and everyone brought him tribute. This was a big deal! The nation was secure!
And then we read about the daily provisions for Solomon’s court. And this is staggering.
Eugene Merrill says, “The needs of the palace alone consisted of 185 bushels of flour, 375 bushels of meal, 10 head of stall-fed cattle, 20 head of pasture-fed cattle, 100 sheep and goats, and miscellaneous wild game every day” {Kingdom of Priests, 308}.
Scholars have estimated that Solomon may have been feeding between 4,000-5,000 persons a day!
That’s what the author is saying here: “Psst, get a load of this. This is for only one day folks!”
But is that simply the main thrust of this section? Yee-haw, the Lord has provided Solomon and his kingdom with a lot of food! Let’s BBQ!
No! We must dig deeper than the mere physical blessing of food, which are legitimate reasons to rejoice. It goes deeper than just having a stocked cupboard and having Bobby-iah Flay as your personal Hebrew chef.
The theology oozing out of the text here is this: Yahweh has fulfilled His covenant promises.
We see this in 3 distinct ways:
1} People. Verse 20 says that, “Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea.”
This harkens back to Genesis 22:17 where Yahweh promised Abraham, “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.”
2} Place. Verses 21 and 24 speak of the scope of Solomon’s reign. This picks up the promises Yahweh spoke to Abraham in Genesis 15:18-21-
On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”
3} Peace. Verses 24-25 pick up the theme of peace and safety promised to David and his offspring in the Davidic covenant, as found in 2nd Samuel 7:10-11-
And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies.
It is not by chance that Solomon’s name means “peace.” {Hebrew: shalom}
So we have not just stocked cupboards and great chefs and lots of petting zoos here in chapter 4. What we really have is another demonstration of Yahweh’s faithfulness.
That’s why the people rejoice! Because-
GLADNESS SHOULD GRIP GOD’S PEOPLE WHEN THEY FOCUS ON HIS FAITHFULNESS.
The God that we serve is a faithful God…that should stir our hearts and produce joy!
We see more evidence that God gave the wisdom that He promised He would give to Solomon in verses 29-34.
READ 1ST KINGS 4:29-34
You can’t help but notice that the author is making a point about the wisdom that Yahweh gave Solomon. 6x the noun for wisdom is used {vv. 29, 30, 34} and the verb form once {v.31}.
But where did Solomon’s wisdom come from: God {v.29}. Solomon’s success is to be attributed to the Lord.
His wisdom was superior to the wisdom of Mesopotamia and Egypt, which were known for their wisdom. But Yahweh caused Solomon’s wisdom to surpass theirs.
His wisdom was evidenced by writing 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs.
His wisdom covered a range of subjects from trees, plants, beasts, birds, reptiles, fish.
Even the nations came to hear of the wisdom that Yahweh gave Solomon.
But, lest we get caught up with Solomon’s wisdom, we must once again return to the thrust of this chapter-
GLADNESS SHOULD GRIP GOD’S PEOPLE WHEN THEY FOCUS ON HIS FAITHFULNESS.
Yahweh had promised to establish Solomon’s throne. Check.
Yahweh had promised to give Solomon wisdom. Check.
Yahweh had promised Abraham descendants like the sand and stars. Check.
Yahweh had promised Abraham land for his descendents. Check.
Yahweh had promised David peace and security for his sons who reigned after him. Check.
All of the promises of Yahweh, some spoken 1,000 years before Solomon are coming true in 1st Kings 4.
All of this information about the promise-keeping nature of our God should bring to mind 2nd Corinthians 1:18-20
As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
All of God’s promises are “yes” in Christ Jesus. The promise to forgive our sins, raise our bodies up in a glorified state on that last day, to usher us into His presence for eternity, etc, etc…all true!
That should cause our hearts to rejoice!
GLADNESS SHOULD GRIP GOD’S PEOPLE WHEN THEY FOCUS ON HIS FAITHFULNESS.
ILLUSTRATION: I love The Twilight Zone and recently watched an episode called “The Fever” about a man who, reluctantly at first, got sucked into slot machines in Las Vegas. His wife had one a free vacation there and he reluctantly went along. He ends up winning a little and then gets sucked in. After wasting thousands of dollars and playing for 8 hours straight on one machine, he reaches his breaking point and cries out to his wife, who now it trying to get him to quit, “It teases you. It holds out promises and sucks you in!”
That’s the idea behind the slot machine. It does hold out promises, but it rarely delivers.
But God is not that way. He holds out promises to you and He always delivers!
Promises like:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, Romans 8:28
As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore. Psalm 125:2
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1st John 1:9
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. James 5:7-8
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you…And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1st Peter 5:6-7, 10
Do you believe it today? He is faithful to all of His promises. He is the promise-keeping God. He promised Solomon wisdom to rule and rest from his enemies… and He delivered!
We serve the same God. Do you believe Him? Do you believe His word?
We serve a promise-keeping, joy-producing, wisdom-giving God!
Therefore, gladness should grip our hearts!
Let’s close and let these words challenge us:
In his biography on John Calvin, T.H.L. Parker said, "We have already seen that in 1537 one of the four foundations for the reform of the Church was congregational singing. . . . We have seen in effect that Calvin placed singing at the heart of his theology of the Church. The reason is not far to seek. To put it with the utmost simplicity: The Church is the place where the Gospel is preached; Gospel is good news; good news makes people happy; happy people sing. But then, too, unhappy people may sing to cheer themselves up” {John Calvin, p.87}.
Do you believe the gospel today? That Jesus died for your sin to bring you to God. Have you repented of your sin and bowed to His Lordship? If so, the good news, the gospel should produce joy in you.
Are you happy? Then sing!
Are you unhappy? Then sing to cheer yourself up!
Why? Because we serve a promise-keeping, joy-producing, wisdom-giving God!
GLADNESS SHOULD GRIP GOD’S PEOPLE WHEN THEY FOCUS ON HIS FAITHFULNESS.
Quit making mud pies. Let your balloon go. Let’s sing from joyful hearts to our great God!
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