| What Do You Want |
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I. A Revealing Question Please turn to 2 Chronicles chapter one, verse 7. That night, that is, the very night King Solomon and the people of Israel had spent the day offering a thousand burnt offerings to God. That night God appeared to Solomon and said to him (in a dream): “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Now that is an answer to prayer. Verse 5 of this chapter says Solomon and the whole assembly were offering those sacrifices because they were inquiring of the Lord. They were seeking God’s face and asking for His blessing as Solomon, their new twenty-something king assumed the throne of his father David. This is a critical point in Israel’s history. In response, God appears to Solomon and says, in effect, what do you want? What do you want me to do for you? Ask. Name it. Now God’s question was a bit tougher than being offered Aladdin’s lamp. Aladdin had three wishes. He could throw two of them away. He could make a mistake and still get another chance. But God is stricter than Aladdin’s genie; and God’s question, therefore, is more revealing. What is the one thing you want me do for you? This past summer I was asked that question. Not by God; but by one of the leaders on that backpack trip up in Colorado that I have mentioned so many times. One evening, around the campfire, Chuck, that was his name, was sharing. He was talking about this passage of Scripture in Chronicles. He’s said, “Now that’s a question worth thinking about.” So I’ve been thinking about that question, for several months. I’ve been thinking how I might answer if God were to say to me, “OK Son, what do you want?” I have also been thinking how other people might have answered that question. How David or Moses or Paul might have answered if God had asked them. What would Esther have said, or Naomi or Ruth or Mary, the mother of Jesus? How about you? If you could ask God to do one thing for you what would it be? Because the way you answer that question, if you can answer it honestly, will reveal what you most deeply desire. It just may reveal the fundamental shape and direction of your life. Blessed are those, Jesus once said, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for what is right, because they shall be filled. For the next three months I plan to ask one question over and over again and over again, in a multitude of ways. What did Moses want? What did Naomi want? What did John want? Through it all I hope one question will continue to reverberate: What do I want? What do you want? What do we want God to do for us? Let us begin with Solomon answer. II. Solomon’s Answer: The First Twenty Years Verse 10. Solomon answered God, “Give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may lead this people, for who is able to govern this great people of yours?” Now this happens to be the readers digest condensed version of what Solomon said. A fuller version is given in 1st Kings chapter 3, starting in verse 7 (on the screen). O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among your chosen people, a great people, too numerous to count. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours? What leaps out at you in Solomon’s answer to God’s question? I tell you what jumped out at me: his humility. And it is not a false humility. Solomon is probably at this point in his life barely 20 years old. He is following in the footsteps of the greatest King Israel would ever know, one of the greatest men the world has ever known, a renowned warrior, a slayer of giants, a master musician and singer of Psalms. Not just a king, but a prophet and a spiritual leader. A man after God’s own heart. When Solomon looks back he sees the shadow of his father looming large over him. When he looks around, he sees challenges to his throne on every side; When he looks down, if you will, at the people, they are like the sand on the seashore; and their needs and problems are too numerous to count. And besides, they are God’s people; God’s chosen people among all the people on the earth which means Solomon is responsible to God for them. So with a clarity that comes from childlike humility Solomon does the obvious: he asks for help. He asks for a very specific kind of help. He asks wisdom and knowledge, for a discerning heart to govern this great people well and God is pleased. He doesn’t exactly say, “You have chosen well grasshopper” but he could have. And God knows that Solomon could have chosen differently. He could have asked for wealth from every corner of the globe. He could have asked for power over all the kingdoms of the earth. He could have asked for protection from his enemies, and there are many. Or for favor among his people, and he’ll need it. Solomon could have asked for long life or supernatural health. But he didn’t. Solomon asked for Wisdom. We say to ourselves, “Well of course he did.” It was an obvious request, wasn’t it? There is a legend told about Christopher Columbus, after he discovered the Americas. His discovery made him famous and it made others jealous. One day, sitting with some of those jealous ones, he heard them saying, “Anyone could have done what Columbus did. It was obvious.” At which point he said, “Who can make this salt shaker stand on end?” One by one they tried. They tried to balance it this way and that way. Finally, Columbus said, “Are you done? Do you give up?” When they had, Columbus poured out some salt on the table, made a little indentation in the salt, and used it to balance the shaker. “That’s not fair. Anyone could that!” To which Columbus simply said, “Anyone can do it, once they’ve been shown how.” Everything is obvious, after it has been done. But what is not so obvious is what you and I might have asked for. I mean, what are we asking God for now? I think the most common prayer requests I hear are prayers for health. Maybe that’s because we’re afraid to ask for the deeper things in life, at least ask out loud, where others can hear. But maybe it is because we have this intuitive sense that when we lose our health we lose something very precious indeed. When you can no longer walk on you own two feet, or hear with your ears; when your days and nights are filled with constant pain or your life is literally ebbing away from you or someone you love; you realize quickly how important health really is. It is the physical foundation on which the house of our life is built. When the termites of disease start eating away at our health, we pray. We pray for health; and we pray for protection. Protection from disease and from economic disaster. Protection from people and forces aligned against us. Protection, as Paul says, from principalities and powers, from spiritual wickedness in high places because we wrestle not just with flesh and blood. So we pray for protection and we pray for health; and we pray for wealth and prosperity and success. We do. But don’t you pray that your children will do well in school, that your friend will keep his job, and that your husband will land that contract the family needs? So let me ask one question: How often and how intently have you prayed for wisdom lately? For the wisdom to respond to disability and disease and disappointment with the right thoughts and the right attitude and the right actions? For wisdom to see this world and everything in it from God’s perspective, even trials and tribulations that pass through the sovereign hand of God? We have been shown by Solomon what to pray for, it is now obvious, but do we pray for wisdom? III. God’s Response And Notice God’s Response to Solomon’s Prayer. Verse 11. “God said to Solomon, “Since this is your heart’s desire and you have not asked for wealth, riches or honor, nor for the death of your enemies…or long life, but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people…therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given to you. And I will also give you wealth, riches and honor, such as no king who was before you ever had and none after you will have.” If you read on in 2nd Chronicles, or in the parallel account in I Kings, you will read about all the ways that God did for Solomon what He said he would do. You will read about Solomon’s almost unimaginable wealth. You will read about his 1200 chariots and 4,000 horses. You will read about the temple he built and the way it was literally covered in gold. You will read about his cedar palace and the great hall with 500 golden shields lining the walls. You will read that Solomon’s annual income, in gold, was 25 tons… Solomon’s wealth was beyond belief. His wisdom was the talk of the world. The Queen of Sheba traveled 1000 miles to see it for herself. Here are her words in chapter 9: “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe what they said until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half the greatness of your wisdom was told me…how happy must your people be!” Now there are two ways of understanding the blessings that God gave to Solomon. The first way is the way of additional blessing. Solomon asks for wisdom, and God grants his request. Because God was pleased with Solomon’s request for wisdom, He gave him other blessings as well: wealth and honor and power. That is certainly what happened. But there is another way of looking at what happened. That way is to see the request for wisdom, not as one blessing among man, but as a key that opens the door. You see, God knows, and I think Solomon knew as well, that in giving him wisdom, God was opening the door to other blessings, to honor and wealth and power, even a long life. Because that is what David his father has told Solomon as a little boy. Proverbs chapter 3; David is speaking. “My Son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity. Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies, nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. She is a tree of life to those who embrace her; those who lay hold of her will be blessed.” There’s a reason why Solomon asked for wisdom. There’s a reason why God gave Solomon, not just wisdom, but honor and power and wealth and a long life. That reason is that wisdom is the key that opens the door to the good life. Wisdom is understanding everything from the perspective of God. Wisdom is the skill of knowing and living according to the truth of God. For 20 long years Solomon was perhaps the wisest king Israel or the world had ever seen. He clung hard and fast to the words he had written: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” IV. The Next Twenty Years But then something happened. Something terrible, something tragic, something that forever changed the course of the nation of Israel. I Kings chapter 11, beginning in verse one. “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from the 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. He had 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines and his wives led him astray. 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 even built altars for his wives to worship their false Gods and sometimes he joined them. In response, God brought against Solomon enemies from within and without. Finally God tore the Kingdom from Solomon, dividing it upon his death, North and South. Israel was never a united Kingdom again. The long, horrible history of idolatry that eventually lead to the total annihilation of the northern tribes and the exiles of the southern tribes began with Solomon and his wives. How could that be? How could a man with such wisdom become such a fool? How could a man who started so well end so badly? How could the Son of David divide and destroy David’s Kingdom? The answer is simple: Solomon lost sight of what was really, truly important. He failed to heed his own words, and the words of his father. Proverbs 4. “Listen my sons to a father’s instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. When I was a boy in my father’s house, still tender and an only child of my mother, He taught me and said, “Lay hold of my words with all your heart…Get wisdom, Get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them. Do not forsake wisdom and she will protect you, love her and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme; therefore, get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding!” Don’t let go, don’t ever let go. But Solomon let go. He forgot what he once wanted, and what he most deeply needed. He decided he wanted the political protection that came from all those foreign wives; he decided he wanted their affection, the pleasure they gave him. Maybe he decided that power and pleasure, wealth and honor, which his foreign marriages gave him, was more important than wisdom, more important than the knowledge and worship of God. V. What Do You Want? So the question is: What do you want? Many of us start our lives, our young adult lives, anyway, wanting wealth, honor and pleasure and power. We want everything this world seems to offer in abundance. We learn too late in life, that what we really needed, and need, is wisdom. We need to know the truths of God and we need to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on our own merely human and worldly understanding. Solomon had it upside down. At the age of twenty he put us to shame. He saw clearly and he asked wisely. But by the age of 40 and 50 and 60 he put himself to shame and he turned his world upside down. So what do you want? What are you seeking with all your heart? I will conclude with the final words of Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount. Jesus, who said of himself, “One greater than Solomon is here. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock, the wisdom of God incarnate. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose and winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” So what do you want? Do you want to be like Solomon in his first 20 years as King or like Solomon is his last 20 years? The choice is yours. Choose wisely, grasshopper. |
| Last Updated on Wednesday, 23 February 2011 22:13 |
