Refuse To Fade Series

Refuse To Fade

Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.

So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified. – 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Prayer

OKAY – let’s do this week 8 of our series, ‘Such Things Were Written…’ AND THIS MORNING – we are going to unpack a conversation called, ‘Refusing To Fade’

‘Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. They give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises. – Romans 15:4

NOW - it doesn’t happen often, but occasionally we’ll be watching the news and a report will come on telling us of a plane that has crashed.

AND IT’S - always disturbing, if you’re watching that, because most of us fly every now and then – and when a plane goes down – It just gets our attention.

I MEAN - it’s nerve-wracking enough to get in a metal tube at 30,000 feet going five hundred miles an hour, but when one goes down, that’s pretty scary.

AND - oftentimes there’s a lot of debris and wreckage and carnage spread out all over the place…

AND - whenever a plane crashes, they always tell us that they are going to try to figure out what happened and what went wrong by finding the what?

That indestructible little box called, ‘The Black Box.’

BTW – the black box is not actually black.

Anyone know what color it is?

IT’S – bright orange so that it will be easier to find.

AND – inside that ‘black box’ is the data that will tell the story of what happened to the plane.

AND LISTEN - when they look at the black box, they are basically trying to answer two very important questions… “What went wrong?”

AND - “What can be done to keep it from happening again in the future?”

AND THAT – has been what we have done at times in our series, ‘Such Things Were Written.’

LIKE -

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! - 1 Corinthians 10:11,12

NOW THIS WEEK - we’re going to recover and open up and retrieve the data from the black box of the life King Solomon. A GUY - who had it all. Who started out strong.

I MEAN – this guy was flying high. HE – started well…

HOWEVER – in the end he crashed and burned, leaving debris wreckage and carnage all over the landscape of his life and nation.

NOW – in First Kings chapter 11.

WE SEE – some of this wreckage described.

Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the LORD’s command. So the LORD said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. – 1 Kings 11:6-11

UNDERSTAND…

There was wreckage and debris everywhere, on every high place. LIKE- crazy disappointing.

• Solomon building places of worship for detestable foreign God’s.

• Solomon following other gods

• The kingdom torn away from him (creating a carnage that would continue for centuries)

• Countless lives lost

• Death, debris and destruction everywhere

AND LISTEN – as Solomon as old man, began to crawl through this wreckage that had become his life, he wrote the words following in his journal…

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!…Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content." – Ecclesiastes 1:2,8

• Meaningless

• Wearisome