Solomon – Wealth, Wisdom & a Worthless Life
1 Kings 9:1-9; 11:1-6
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Intro
Good Evening/Morning.
We are glad you are here and I am happy to once again be back up here preaching. I hope you were as blessed as I was from hearing from our elders and staff during July. We are so blessed as a church to have the leaders that we do. I praise God for each person that God is using to help lead this church and minister to this community.
The Question
I want to begin today with a question? It is a question that I asked people to respond to on Facebook this week.
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When you stop and think about your life, what is the one thing that you think if you had (or had more of), would make your life better?
Now, I think there are a lot of people who know the answer for them personally in their head. I don’t think they have to think about it too long.
And as I posted that question, I received many, many responses. I received may that were similar and a few that were unique. One person wanted a better singing voice, a few others wanted to be more patient, one person said bacon. He may have been joking, but there are a few people, and I might be one of them, that think bacon does make a lot of things better.
But the overwhelming responses were in these areas.
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Money, time, health, good or better relationships.
But when you stop and think about it, all of these responses can be boiled down to I think, the same thing, which is less stress, which was also a response.
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If we had more money, we wouldn’t have to stress about the bills
If we had more time, we would not have to stress about fitting everything in.
If we had better relationships, we would not have the stress over awkward encounters
If we had better health, we would not have to stress over the future and what that held.
But really what we are saying when we want less stress or any of those things so our lives will be less stressful is that we want
More Contentment
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And we think those things will help us be more content.
Now to be fair, in my facebook post, I did not allow people to say more of Jesus, because I did not want people to give the easy and obvious Sunday School answer, but to really think about the tangible things that much of society and in reality, much of Christianity, believes will make our life better, less stressful and more content.
Now I grant that many of these things will make our life easier but not necessarily better, except maybe bacon.
But seriously, easier is not always better and sometimes easier can lead us on a path toward a worthless and meaningless life rather than the meaningful life we all long for.
So where is your hope for meaning and contentment, for a better life? Do you think it is one of these things listed that will give you that elusive contentment and meaning?
If it is, then today, I want to dash your hopes, because the hope you have is only an illusion, it will never provide what we are looking for.
But while I want to dash your hopes that are an illusion, I want to give you hope, hope that is sure, hope to truly live by and flourish in, a hope that can help us to enjoy the blessings of time and of health and of money and of relationships, without leading us astray.
We are going to do that by examining the life of a man who had it all and yet had nothing. That man is Solomon.
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Turn with me to 1 Kings 9:1-9.
We are returning to a series that we had paused in called God’s story through God’s people. As we continue on in this series, it is my hope that you will see how God has used His people, real people with their flaws and problems, and give you hope and encouragement that God can use you in the midst of whatever you are going through, and on top of that, it is my hope that this series gives you an overview of much of the Old Testament as well.
So let’s see what we can find out about Solomon and how we can avoid getting everything we want, and yet have nothing of value.
1 Kings 9:1-9
9 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, 2 the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 The Lord said to him:
"I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. 4 "As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, 5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.' 6 "But if you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 8 And though this temple is now imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, 'Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?' 9 People will answer, 'Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them — that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.'"
Pray
Ok, I want to start our look at Solomon by seeing that
Solomon had a great beginning
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1 Kings 9:1-2
God used him to build the Temple and the Royal palace. He was born into a great family with King David as his father, and had achieved a lot of accomplishments..
Earlier, as he became King, the Lord asked him to ask for anything he wanted and Solomon asked for wisdom!
So the Lord, because he didn’t ask for wealth or the death of his enemies or long life, gave him wisdom AND bestowed on him great wealth and long life!
Solomon had it all going for him at the beginning and he was focused on the Lord.
And not only that, but
Solomon had a bright future
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He did not only start with wisdom and wealth, but God gave him a great promise as well.
1 Kings 9:4-5
4 "As for you, if you walk before me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, 5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.
Solomon had a great start and a bright future and wealth and wisdom.
He had it all going for him.
And in fact he sought to enjoy all of that wealth and power that was given him.
In Ecclesiastes listen to some of how he used his wealth and power.
Ecclesiastes 2:4-10
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4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me.
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8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well — the delights of the heart of man. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Solomon sought to use his wealth and wisdom to find meaning in life and pursue things that would bring meaning to life.
He had more wealth than anyone.
He had more relationships than anyone –
He lived a long life filling that life with all the pleasures and activities that come along with wealth.
He was healthy, he was healthy, he did not suffer from the stresses of how he would pay bills, he had time for relationships. He had it all!...so we would think.
But when we look at the next verse in Ecclesiastes, we see that
Solomon lived a Meaningless Life
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He says, after listing all the things he did and enjoyed, that
Ecclesiastes 2:11
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
Meaninglessness…Worthlessness.
Now I am not saying that Solomon’s life was so bad and that he never experienced times of happiness or of value.
God used him to relate to us many of the great wisdom from proverbs, the experiences of love in the Song of Solomon. But I am saying that while he experienced moments of happiness and use, overall, it was all worthless and meaningless to him as it left him ultimately empty, as he himself admits.
Each of us sitting here today, no matter what we do, will probably experience moments of happiness in life. God’s common grace blesses all of his creation in one way or another. And I am certain that the money and health made things easier for Solomon, but they never really provided what He was looking for.
But if we truly want to live a life that is meaningful and where we truly find contentment, a life that Solomon did not have despite having the abundant wealth and wisdom he had, the great start and the bright future, then we had better learn from Solomon and from the path he walked to avoid a meaningless and uncontented life.
Transition
So, how did Solomon go from such a great start and bright future to his experience of a meaningless life?
I think the first thing we need to see is that
Solomon compromised His faith a little
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We see in
1 Kings 3:1 - Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter.
Now this does not seem so bad, does it? It seems so minor, but this is a specific thing that God told the Israelites not to do and especially the king.
Deuteronomy 17:16-17
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16 The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, "You are not to go back that way again." 17 He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray.
Solomon making and alliance, trusting in alliances rather than trusting in the Lord, and taking a foreign wife was exactly what the Lord did not want the king to do.
Apply
We think sometimes that the things that the Bible says seem so old fashioned, like he could not possibly mean that for me today.
Don’t have sex before marriage –
But certainly He doesn’t mean we shouldn’t if we love one another
Honor your Father and Mother –
But what if they don’t deserve it
Turn the other cheek –
to someone who will just take advantage of us again!
Love your wife as Christ loved the church –
my wife doesn’t deserve that
Wives submit to your husband –
Submit! Certainly not in the 21st century!
Does God really mean that for us today or is that just for then? I am not sure if that is Solomon’s thinking or not, but Solomon goes ahead and makes and alliance and marries a foreign wife. So he disobeys.
Am I saying because of this single disobedience that Solomon lived a meaningless life?
No. I am not saying that. And for each of us who have sinned, we are not destined to a meaningless life due to a single sin.
But what typically happens when we compromise our faith just a little, is that we end up compromising a lot.
And Solomon Compromised his faith a lot
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1 Kings 11:1-3, 6
11 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter — Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from 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. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. …6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.
Solomon went from marrying on foreign wife to having 700 wives and 300 women on the side.
Now I doubt that Solomon set out to take all of these women as wives. I am sure it happened one little compromise at a time and before you know it, you have compromised a lot.
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C.S. Lewis in his classic, “The Screwtape Letters,” which is written as a satirical series of letters from a senior Demon named “Screwtape” to his nephew named “Wormwood,” who is a Junior Tempter, writes to his young protégé saying, “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts”
Satan is not looking to get us to go from a “nice, upstanding citizen” to a murderer overnight. No, 2 Corinthians 11:14
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tells us that “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” and he is looking for us to just compromise our faith a little, because those little compromises eventually turn into a lot of compromise.
You aren’t looking to cheat on your wife, it is just some innocent flirting…until you have fight with your wife and step over the line.
You want to wait to have sex until you are married, but you’re in love and it will just we with this one…until you break up.
I am just going to make this one little compromise. It won’t really be that bad.
And then before you know it, it isn’t just a little compromise, but a lot and you experience moments were things seem ok, but then a lack of hope, a lack of feeling valuable, a lack of meaning.
All of this money, all of these relationships, all of this power, all of the activity and building and yet Solomon says “Meaningless!”
He wasn’t content with the wealth God provided so he sought to accumulate more
He wasn’t content with the first wife, or next, or next, so he kept accumulating more wives and relationships.
He wasn’t content with the things that he accomplished, so he sought to accomplish more.
You see what happened was that Solomon left his first love, the Lord.
And He left the Lord one small compromise at a time and never experienced contentment despite having all that anyone could ever want.
He stopped pursuing relationship with the Lord and began pursuing the “things” he thought would make him happy.
I want you to look again at Ecclesiastes 2:4-11 and I want you to notice who the focus is in Solomon’s telling of the things he did.
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Ecclesiastes 2:4-10
4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me.
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8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well — the delights of the heart of man. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Hi focus in on himself and what he is doing. His focus is not at all on the Lord.
Contentment and joy is not possible apart from the Lord and our pursuit of Him. doing otherwise is that first small step of compromise of our faith.
On the other hand, listen to what Paul says about his circumstances and finding contentment.
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Philippians 4:11-13
I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
The secret of contentment is a constant and continual focus on the Lord, not on ourselves.
The apostles also experienced this
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Acts 5:40-42
They (the Sanhedrin) called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.
They experienced joy in suffering because they were focused on and pursuing their relationship with the Lord.
This continual focus is what the Bible calls abiding.
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John 15:4-5, 10-11
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. …10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
ESV
We fall off the path that leads to fullness and meaningfulness when we aren’t abiding closely with the Lord and that leads us to take small steps of compromise in our faith and we miss out on the real meaning and value of life, even if we have moments of pleasure.
Transition
Ok, so the fact of the matter is, is that none of us are abiding like we should and all of us have compromised our faith to some degree.
Is meaning in life hopeless now?
No.
Through the Grace of God and through the Power of His Spirit, He has given us the ability to turn and to follow and abide in Him.
How?
Receive Christ as Savior
It starts with receiving Christ as your Savior.
f you have never done that, I will lead you through what the Bible says about that in a minute, but without Christ, there is really no hope for meaning.
But for those with Christ, who have had a good beginning with Christ, but find yourself now, like Solomon, pursuing the things you think are going to bring you joy and meaning and contentment, but finding only meaninglessness, what do we do?
Stop believing the Lies
Well, first, we need to stop believing the lies.
We are believing the ads off of Madison Avenue that the newest technology is going to make our life better
Or we are believing the whispers of Satan that an affair with my coworker will make my life more enjoyable.
Or if I just worked more and made more money, then my life would be better.
Or if I just wasn’t dying, then I could really live.
Listen, we are all dying. Are we living to make this .001 % of our life enjoyable, or are we living for the 99.99% of our eternity, that when we do, we get that and a joyful life now.
Now some of those things can be blessings when kept in proper perspective, but we don’t need one of them for Christ to give us contentment and joy.
Solomon had an abundance of all of them and found it was meaningless.
Paul was often suffering and in want and held captive and found meaning and contentment.
We need to stop believing the lies
Then we need to
Start believing His word
Believe that what He tells us in His word is really the very best for us.
He hasn’t told us some things to do and not do because he wants to rob us of really living. He has told us some things to do and not do because He wants us to really live!
When he tells us to not commit adultery and honor the marriage bed, it is not to rob us of pleasure, but to help us truly experience intimacy.
When he tells us not to store up treasure on earth, he is trying to help us not be too tied to this world, because the things of this world are only temporary and can never really provide joy.
Conclustion
Where are you putting your hope?
If it is in Christ, then we can find joy and trust Him to provide just what we need.
If it is in other things, ahead of Christ, then we will never find meaning and joy in this life.
I want to end in a interview I saw on Facebook this week.
It is from Jase and Missy Robertson from Duck Dynasty.
Now I have never actually watched Duck Dynasty, but have heard about it.
But I watched their interview and thought this was a great to hear from someone who has had nothing and quite a bit.
Jase & Missy Robertson clip
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“No matter your circumstances, you’re going to be joyous if your foundation is on Christ.”
Where is your foundation?
Have you received Him?
Is he what you are pursuing to experience a fuller more meaningful life?
Or are you believing lies?
Receive Him, believe His Word, and pray for the strength to obey and you can avoid the meaninglessness Solomon experienced and have a truly full and meaningful life.
We are going to close in prayer and if you have never received Jesus as Savior, then why not begin to live a truly meaningful life in Christ by becoming His follower and receiving Himas your Savior.
The Bible tells us that
“if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9
If you have never done that, then receive Him today and pursue an abiding relationship in Him through prayer, Bible study and fellowship of other followers of His.
That is how we will truly live a meaningful life in Christ.
Let’s pray.
