King David said, “??O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
??You maintain my lot.” Psalm 16:5
The word for portion in Hebrew is manâ (Strong’s H4490), and it is translated as part or portion. It’s used 14 times. In most of these instances, it refers to the portion of an offering. But, here David says that the Lord Himself is his portion.
Today, I would like to focus on how our pursuits become our portion. David prayed that the Lord would deliver him from men “whose reward is in this life” (Psalm 17:14 NIV).
The title of this sermon is “In Pursuit of Portion.” Be careful in your pursuits. Your pursuits preoccupy. Pursuits carry you. So, just be sure you are in pursuit of something you want to end up having.
Ecclesiastes 7:4 says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.” It is easy to find yourself in the house of pleasure. To find yourself preoccupied with things that do not extend beyond today. Things that ultimately will be exposed as wood, hay, and stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12-13).
But, here is the thing, we are hardwired to be in pursuit. So, it is just a question of what we are in pursuit of.
King Solomon was the wisest man in his geographical area, to say the least (1 Kings 4:30). When God asked him what he wanted, he asked for wisdom. God promised him wisdom and even more than he asked for as described in 1 Kings:
“12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. 13 Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. 14 And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” 1 Kings 3:12-14 (NIV)
God gave Solomon a “wise and discerning heart” and set him up to have no equal–in his time or ever. What a powerful promise.
But, what happened? Did he live up to this range of wisdom? As described earlier he was the wisest in the “East.” But, is he described as the wisest of all time?
It’s not always how you start but how you finish. This takes us back to Solomon’s own words in Ecclesiastes 7:4. The house of mourning is the place of understanding the end of it all. The end of what God has in store for you on this earth. It is the end of your days.
If you stood on that day and looked back at your life, where would you be as far as your life’s pursuits? Would you be proud? Would you be ready to stand before the Lord in anticipation of hearing “well done” (Matthew 25:23)?
We cannot say what anyone will hear when they stand before the Lord on that day. Solomon was given a lot. As a matter of fact, he was set up to be the wisest ever. That is a massive feat–to have no one ever wiser than him. A super high bar.
But, did he live up to the potential?
In the end, he clearly missed it.
1 Kings 11:4-8 describes how the pursuit of his own pleasures with his reward being in this life led him to a heart of doing evil in the sight of the Lord. He started out by building the temple of the Lord. (This occurred during 7 of his 40 years of reign as king over Israel. He spent 7 years building the temple of the Lord and 13 years building his own palace.)
How does someone with so much wisdom wind up not pursuing God?
Jesus warned that where your treasure is your heart would be (Matthew 6:21). Just like Solomon, we can start out right but end up wrong.
The title of this message is “In Pursuit of Portion.” Portion has been described as an allotment. King David said that his portion was the Lord Himself.
That was his pursuit. He was a man after God’s own heart and God chose him to be king because of this (Acts 13:22). God wants to richly bless us, just like he did King David. David paid the price of war for Solomon to have a place of peace.
You may be in a time of peace today because someone went before you to pay the price of war. In a spiritual sense, there may be someone in your family or spiritual lineage who paid the price of knowing God. They made the choice to follow Jesus.
That choice being made allowed you to be birthed into a kingdom that was not your own. Much like King Solomon, he was born into a kingdom that someone else paid the price for. He experienced peace and prosperity, but it was a gift.
It’s not always how you start but it's how you finish. He started by building the temple of the Lord but he ended by building places of worship of idols (1 Kings 11:7-8).
King David was in pursuit of the Lord and wanted to build a temple for him, but he was not allowed to do so (1 Chronicles 28:3). So, David made all of the preparations for it, including blueprints (1 Chronicles 28:11-19) and even the material (1 Chronicles 29:1-2). Solomon was appointed by God to be the one to build the temple (1 Chronicles 22:10), but he didn’t design it or come up with the material to build it. He was simply the one to complete it.
The price had been paid and the path had been paved prior to Solomon. He was just fortunate enough to be the one to fulfill what was in the heart of his father David.
I find it interesting that Solomon was able to complete a task designed by someone else and to do it faithfully. But, when he had the opportunity to use his wisdom to create things himself, he ultimately pursued passions outside of God.
It is hard to say what is in someone’s heart. But, you can judge someone by their fruits. The fruit of Solomon’s life was a heart turned away from God (1 Kings 11:4). How could a man so wise end up so far from God?
It’s the fear of the Lord that’s the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). Solomon said that.
Back to the title of the message “In Pursuit of Portion.” King David’s heart was toward and for the Lord. The Lord was his Shepherd (Psalm 23:1), and David professed that he had no good apart from God (Psalm 16:2). King David was a giant slayer and a kingdom builder. This was not his pursuit, though. His pursuit was the Lord.
The Lord was his portion. King David wasn’t perfect. But, he was in perfect (or complete) pursuit of his portion, which was the Lord.
We will all stand before God one day and give an account. The house of mourning is a place for us to consider. Are we in pursuit of something that will last for an eternity?
If the Lord my portion, what I am pursuing will be rewarded on that day. But, more than that, or even before that, the Lord gives me Himself as a portion today. I can experience His goodness here and now in my day to day.
We are wired to run after whatever our heart is set upon. King David was in pursuit of God. His son Solomon was in pursuit of something else. King Solomon followed the plans of King David and was faithful in building the Temple of the Lord. King Solomon was wise in dealing with problems (1 Kings 3:16-28). He had all the tools.
But, he had the wrong pursuit.
Solomon was blessed with wisdom, and what he wrote still enriches our spiritual lives today. As far as the example he set for his own children, it could have been said, “Do what I say, but not what I do.” He did not pursue the Lord as His portion, and he ultimately pursued other gods. It’s not how you start–it’s how you finish.
He started well, but he was also blessed with blueprints, material, and wisdom beyond anyone else. He followed the plan of his father David. But, when given a chance to pursue his own pursuits, he did not walk in David’s footsteps. He had an example to follow, but he failed to follow it. He left no example for his own sons, and the dynasty of King David became a dynasty of division as the kingdom split after King Solomon (1 Kings 12).
He went from peace to chaos.
The house of mourning is also a place to consider what others will do from your own example you leave. Solomon left an example of putting a heavy yoke on the people (1 Kings 12:4). His son Rehoboam intended to do even worse (1 Kings 12:14).
When those who look to you look back on your life (in the house of mourning), what will they see? What will your pursuits have been?i
King David found goodness in the Lord that he never stopped pursuing Him. This was his life. There is a secret to this pursuit. That secret was a goodness in God that was not in anything else. King David had the power to pursue whatever he wanted to pursue, and his choice was to follow the Lord to be in pursuit of Him.
His heart comes out in the Psalms he left us to read. They are songs of lament, worship, heartache, and rejoicing. The whole range of human emotions is found in these songs he wrote. King David allowed us to hear his heart and to see his pursuit of the Lord has his portion.
To circle back to the word portion. It was often used related to offerings and things to eat. David experienced God in such a real way that he was able to say that the Lord was his portion. He had experienced his goodness. Until we taste and see that the Lord is good, why would we pursue Him?
It’s the goodness of God that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). Experiencing his goodness simply wants us to experience more of it. (So, we repent of things outside of his goodness.) That was King David’s path. The more he experienced God, the more he wanted to experience God.
Solomon started out this way, but he ultimately put other pursuits in front of God.
Here is the big takeaway. It’s not about the elimination of our desire to pursue. God designed us to be pursuers. We are not trying to squelch our desire to pursue. We are simply asking, God, are you worth me pursuing above all other things in my life? (The answer to this is yes, but it’s not something you can just hear about–you have to experience it to really receive it.)
Until you taste and see that the Lord is good, that question may seem extreme. It will seem like God wants me to give up all the “fun stuff” or what I want to do. But, ultimately, God wants to give you the fullness of Himself, which is a goodness beyond measure. And in his goodness we learn to turn to Him in an even deeper way, repenting of any and all pursuits we have put in place of Him. It deepens our experience of Him as our portion.
He is our portion. He satisfies our hearts. Pursue Him as your portion. Allow His goodness to invade your heart in every way. He stands at the door and knocks. He wants to be your portion. Will you let Him be today?
What does it look like for the Lord to be my portion?
The Lord becomes my portion when my pursuit is Him. He makes me whole. And from that place of wholeness, he sends me forth to fulfill the good works He has prepared for me in advance. But, it’s Him. He is our portion.
Solomon began his reign in peace, but he left it ready for war. He did not pay the price for his peace, and he did not pursue the Lord.ii
King David was a man who lived at war, and he fought valiantly. But, winning wars wasn’t his end goal. It was the Lord. He had experienced a level of intimacy with the Lord that made him realize “How Great Thou Art.”
May we do the same.
Amen and amen.
To God be the glory.
i As parents, we can teach what we want but we produce what we are. Solomon produced sons who ended up being foolish. Even though Solomon was wise, his actions were foolish. Our own children and those we lead will always hold us by the standard of our actions–not our words.
ii Your spiritual heritage could be one that someone else came to the Lord prior to you and paid the price, not for your salvation, but to show an example of how to live a life worthy of the Lord. Wherever you started, you likewise can be an example to all who follow.
