Making Wise Decisions Series

Date Written: May 1, 2006

Date Preached: May 3, 2006

Where Preached: OZHBC (Wed PM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: Basic Bible Studies

Sermon Title: Making Wise Decisions

Sermon Text: 1 Kings 3:1-15

Introduction:

You have heard it said that the sum of our lives consist of the decisions or the choices we make. And that is a true statement… we are what we CHOOSE…

We can choose to live a life that is self-centered and focused on OUR every desire… or we can choose to live a life that seeks to serve God and do His will… or we can fall somewhere in between!

I have never been an advocate of what our liberal world has tried to force down our throat… things that go against what God’s Word teaches and shares with us… things such as alcoholism is a disease… to that I say balderdash!

Alcoholism is a very debilitating condition to be sure and when you are an alcoholic it DOES take over your life and hold you in bondage… but it is NOT a disease!

Our society today had become a society of victims… we are such a weak-kneed and spineless society! For everything wrong in society we try to blame others… or pin it on a disease… in either case we make ourselves out to be helpless in the situation!

There are REAL diseases in this world in which you will have NO decision in getting… but there are ‘conditions’ you can fall into that are totally avoidable if you will simply begin to make wise, biblical based decisions in your life…

In our passage tonight King David has died and Solomon has been chosen by God to rule over Israel. God comes to Solomon in a dream and asks him a question that many of us would love for God to ask… God asks Solomon, “…Solomon, you can have whatever it is you want… you name it, and I will give it to you…”

Can you imagine having God ask YOU that question… what would you ask for? I thought about it and many things came into my mind…

• MONEY!!! Yeah, baby money and lots of it…

• Stuff!! Lots and lots of stuff… material things…

• Happiness… a long happy life

But then I realized that all of the things I was thinking about were selfish in nature. I rationalized them by saying, if we have lots of money or lots of stuff… or we were really, really happy then my family will be taken care of, but really these were desires that would please me and my family was secondary…

But what did Solomon ask for, let’s go to God’s word and see…

READ SCRIPTURE HERE:

And God granted this to Solomon… and we find that the choice that Solomon made pleased God! And we see that God granted him a wise and discerning heart to rule as no one before him or no one after him would rule… even today we hear people use the phrase, “The wisdom of Solomon” when they are speaking about true wisdom…

There are several ‘keys’ we can look to in the prayer of Solomon that we can apply to our lives to help us to make wise decisions in our walk here in this world!

1. Solomon loved God (v.2)…

First we find that Solomon loved the Lord. We need to understand that a key element to pleasing God and gaining wisdom in life is loving the Lord.

Look in v.6… we can see that Solomon showed great respect and admiration for his godly heritage. Solomon knew he was living his life thru this godly heritage… the one started by his grandfather Jesse and his father David…and one day Solomon would pass this godly heritage onto his son Rehoboam… and we can read about him doing this in the book of Proverbs.

Solomon showed another key aspect of loving God in that he showed true humility in his prayer to God. Read v.7… He was overwhelmed when God approached him… he knew the task of being King was more than he could bear on his own and he needed God to lead, guide and direct his steps.

When we come to the end of our own natural abilities… when we get to the end of our rope… when we can do NO more on our own… it is then and only then that God has us right where He wants us to be… totally reliant upon Him! It is only at that time can we be used of God and God receive the glory and praise…

2. Solomon asked for understanding/wisdom (v.9)…

In this verse we find God summarizing Solomon’s prayer where he asks God for discernment in judging the nation he is about to begin ruling over…