1 Kings 8:54-9:28

Discussion Questions

1. How does Solomon’s dedication prayer for the people (verses 54-61) challenge your thinking towards God’s faithfulness in your own life?
2. Verses 4-6 contain an ”if/then/but” statement from God. How do you balance such a statement with the knowledge that through grace, we do not earn our salvation?
3. Theological orthodoxy is not the same as intimacy with God. How are you developing intimacy towards Him?
4. Have you ever asked someone very close to you; “Does my daily Christian walk match my talk”?
5. “Authenticity is not the new Godliness” …what do you think about this statement?

Transcript

We study through the books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel. We do happen to have some extra copies. If anyone would like a copy to follow along in the text, this is a good week to do that. I know I say that almost every time I get up here, but we’re going to cover some text today. We will be looking at 1 Kings 8:54 all the way to the end of that chapter and then all the way through Chapter 9. The QR code I believe is up on the screen. If you would like the sermon notes and quotes, you can access those there in advance. And if you would prefer a digital or an online copy of the Scriptures, you can find that on our church app as well.

Let me pray for us before we start. We’re going to read Solomon’s Benediction. We’re going to pick up right where Pastor Tommy left off last week in Chapter 8 there. He was dedicating the temple that he had built and had so much invested in terms of time, manpower, money, resources. And we’re going to look at that closing prayer of Solomon, and I think you can learn a lot about somebody when you listen to them pray. You can learn a lot about what’s going on in their heart, what’s going on in their spiritual life, what their motives are.

It’s fascinating to me to read some of the prayers of people like Solomon, who, up to this moment and really until we start into next week, I think is doing fairly well. And this is the pinnacle. This is the height of where we’re going to get with Solomon who was called by some the wisest man who ever lived. But we’re going to see that he missed something really simple starting next week. It’s going to be really clear to us. But our study of 1 and 2 Kings is called “The King of Redemption History.” And today, we’ll be looking at God’s blueprint for a healthy spiritual life.

Let me pray for us first: Lord, thank You for Your Word and its searching power, for the way You speak to us and reveal Yourself to us through Your Word. Thank You that this ancient text offers us Your wisdom, Your ways, Your will. Holy Spirit, please use our study of it to lay bare all of our vulnerabilities. We open our hearts to hear from You. Please come convince us, convict us, convert us. And then, Lord, conform us to the image of Christ. As You draw us closer to Jesus today, Holy Spirit, may all who are weary find rest. May all who are hurting find comfort. May all who are broken find grace. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen and amen.

Let me put up this outline in advance of Chapter 9 when I get there. I’m going to read the prayer of Chapter 8, that closing prayer, first but I’m going to throw this up there because I want to keep cruising once I get to the end of the reading of Chapter 8. I just want to keep going. Along the way, I might make a comment or two, but I do want to get that up there, so you’ve got the outline in advance. If you nod off in about 10, 20 minutes or whatever, at least you’ll have the basic outline. And those of you who are online, I’m so glad to have you with us as well. I’m looking for the red dot. I don’t see it anywhere, but I know you’re watching. So, we love you and we’re so grateful. I hope you have your Bibles.

Let’s look at Solomon’s Benediction or his blessing prayer at the end of Chapter 8. “When Solomon finished praying this entire prayer,” that’s all that we studied last week, “and the petition to the Lord, he got up from kneeling before the altar of the Lord with his hands spread out toward heaven, and he stood, and he blessed the whole congregation of Israel with a loud voice.” Okay. So, this is a big moment. This is the King Solomon. He’s at least 20 years or close to 20 years in. We know it takes him seven years to build the temple and then 13 years to build his palace and the administrative buildings that he has. So, a lot of that is being blessed and wrapped up here.

So, he’s been the leader for a long time. He’s a respected man. He’s so respected, people are coming from all over the world to hear his wisdom. He’s amassed great wealth. He’s made great international connections. And that’s the guy who was just on his knees. And that’s the guy who just prayed aloud for the whole nation. And now he gets up and this is what he says to the congregation of Israel with a loud voice, “Blessed be the Lord! He has given rest to His people Israel according to all He has said.” Rest is a great theme of the Bible. It goes all the way from Genesis all the way to Revelation, God welcoming us into the rest of His presence, the rest that we find in right relationship with God. I hope you’re hungry for that today. I hope you’re eager for that today.

He says, “Not one of all the good promises God has made through His servant Moses has failed.” That’s another theme. It’s in Deuteronomy. It’s in Joshua. You read it over and over and over again that God is faithful. What He says, God does. And so here, it’s reiterated. Solomon’s doing pretty good right here in terms of his attention being on the Lord. His prayer begins with, “Blessed be the Lord.” Our beautiful Lord’s Prayer that we say every single week begins with the Lord. It doesn’t begin with us. It’s our Father who art in heaven. It’s all in the plural. Did you ever notice that? You’re never alone. Once you start belonging to Jesus, you belong to everybody else who belongs to Jesus. And some of you are going, “Oh, no.”

Amen. Oh yes, because we weren’t designed to be alone. Even you introverts, we weren’t designed to be alone. It doesn’t mean you don’t need some alone time once in a while. I acknowledge that. But we can trust this God who’s faithful all through history. From Genesis to Revelation, we see it. Not one of his good promises has ever failed. Verse 57: “May the Lord our God be with us as He was with our ancestors.” In other words, we have a history. This faith is not just something we made up right now, subject to our whims, our preferences, our desires, our wants, the way we wish things would go. No, no. This is a faith that’s tied to history. And all through that history, we see this God is faithful. And so, we can count on Him based on His past performance.

“May not abandon us or leave us.” Let that sink in. If you’ve ever felt abandoned or forsaken or left hanging, silly little ways, you go, “Hey, high five,” and take it away at the last minute and leave somebody hanging. That’s funny or not but it’s trivial. But this is God’s people saying, “You have never left us.” Sometimes we abandon God, but He’s never left us. “So that He causes us to be devoted to Him, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commands, statutes and ordinances which He commanded our ancestors. May my words with which I have made my petition before the Lord be near the Lord our God today, our God day and night. May the words of this prayer be near the Lord day and night. May He uphold His servant’s cause and the cause of His people Israel as each day requires. May all the peoples of the earth know that the Lord is God.”

There’s a missional impact that he hopes this building they’ve just built, this temple to honor the name of the Lord, and all of the flourishing that’s going on in Israel and in his own life, he hopes that that has a missional impact. That the peoples of the earth would know that Yahweh is God. There is no other. There’s one God. If the word “God” … It’s actually a title. If the title “God” means anything, there actually can only be one. It means the Supreme Being. There can only be one Supreme Being. This is not a lesser deity of some human fancy, imagination or some human creation. The god of the rain, the god of the sun, the god of the whatever. No, no, no. This is the supreme creator of everything that ever existed. It’s very important.

“Be wholeheartedly,” verse 61, “devoted to the Lord our God to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments,” he’s talking to the people now, “as it is today. The king and all Israel with him offering sacrifices in the Lord’s presence.” This likely a little bit uncommon. That’s really something the priests normally did, but here’s the king doing this. “Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings [or some of your translations will say, “wellbeing offerings”] to the Lord, 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep and goats.” And I read that, and I just thought about the Chick-fil-A ad where the cows go, “Eat more chicken.”

That’s a lot of animals. 22,000 cattle. 120,000 sheep and goats. To be sacrificing that many animals at one festival would have meant blood running through the streets, would have meant a horrible stench. And yet it symbolized how seriously God takes sin and how seriously we human beings ought to take sin. God commanded blood offerings, sacrifices, as a symbol of atonement for sin. And hallelujah, all of the animals breathe the sigh of relief now because Jesus is the final, the ultimate Lamb of God who gave His life once and for all, so we don’t need to offer those animals anymore.

“In this manner, the king and all the Israelites dedicated the Lord’s temple. On the same day, the king consecrated the middle of the courtyard that was in front of the Lord’s temple because that was where he offered the burnt offering, the grain offering and the fat of the fellowship [or wellbeing] offerings, since the bronze altar before the Lord was too small to accommodate the burnt offerings, the grain offerings, and the fat of the fellowship offerings. Solomon and all Israel with him, a great assembly, from the entrance of Hamath to the Brook of Egypt,” basically from the northern tip all the way to the southern tip of Israel, “observed the festival at that time in the presence of the Lord our God, seven days, and seven more days, 14 days.” This is likely the Feast of Booths. They have three different feasts each year, the Jews did, Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths.

“On the 15th day, he sent the people away. [Solomon did.] “So, they blessed the king, and they went to their homes rejoicing, with happy hearts for all the goodness that the Lord had done for His servant David and for His people Israel. When Solomon finished building the temple of the Lord, the royal palace, and all that Solomon desired to do, the Lord appeared to Solomon a second time.” Remember, he’s been king for probably 20 years now. And this is only the second time the Lord appeared to him. The first time we read about in Chapter 3. And here is the second time the Lord appears.

Remember in Chapter 3, it was, “Solomon, if you could have one thing, what would you like for me to grant to you?” And Solomon chose what? Wisdom. That’s right. And the Lord gave it to him, and he’s had wisdom in so many categories, hasn’t he? He’s had the wisdom of engineering. He’s had the wisdom of architecture. He’s had the wisdom of sort of a judicial scenario that was really difficult between a she-said, she-said situation about a baby. He’s had the wisdom to develop international relations. It’s amazing the wisdom this guy has. And so, that has been given to him. And yet as we see him decline in the coming chapters, we’ll see, “Man, you can have all the smarts, all the stuff in the world, all the data you want up here. But if you don’t have something going on right here, it doesn’t really matter.”

“Solomon finished the temple of the Lord, all that Solomon had desired to do, and the Lord appeared to him a second time as he did in Gibeon. And the Lord said to him,” and this is why I thought we should focus on verses 1 through 9 today, “’I’ve heard your prayer and petition you have made before me. I have consecrated this temple you have built.'” It’s interesting because in his prayer in Chapter 8 there, Solomon wanted to be the one consecrating it. No, God is consecrating it. So many other things, we’re like little kids telling our mom and dad that, “Look, what I did. Me do it. Me do it. We did it.” And we didn’t do it, He did it. He made it all possible.

“I put my name there forever, my eyes and my heart will be there at all times.” Oh, that’s so beautiful. That combination of His name, okay, I can believe that in my head. But His eyes and His heart, these are anthropomorphism about God, but He’s giving us those so that we will understand that He is always watching over His people. And His heart is for the highest good of His people. And we will distinguish between our highest good and just the list of things that we want. And there’s a difference.

“As for you,” the Lord says, “if you walk before me as your father David walked, with a heart of integrity and in what is right, doing everything I’ve commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and ordinances, I will establish a royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David, you will never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.” Notice, it’s a conditional statement, “if you” and then fill in the blank. And the Lord is speaking to Solomon in saying all of this. The Lord has already said, “I’ve already set my name there. My eyes are on you. My heart is for you. If you will, then do this.” And this is very Deuteronomistic kind of language. This is very covenant language, covenantal-type language.

And here comes the warning part of it though: “If you and your sons turn away from following me and do not keep my commands, my statutes that I’ve set before you, and if you go and serve other gods and bow and worship to them, I will cut off Israel from the land I gave them, I will reject the temple I have sanctified for my name. Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among the peoples. Though this temple is now exalted, everyone who passes by will be appalled and will scoff. And they will say, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord their God who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt. They held on to other gods and bowed in worship to them and served them. Because of this, the Lord brought all this ruin on them.'”

And you kind of stop right there for just a second and you got to remind yourself who’s reading this for the first time. Who were the first readers of this and when were they reading it? Because this was obviously written long after Babylon had come and ransacked Jerusalem in 586 B.C. And the temple itself was completely dismantled. Not one stone left. I mean, the place is burnt, lots of fire and it’s just a horrible experience for all of them, that people are carried away into exile.

And then somewhere after that, this literature is written. Is it in the middle of the exile? Is it after they come back? Is it Nehemiah, Ezra? We don’t know. But the first readers, the first hearers of this message, this would have been really fresh. “What happened to our city? What happened to our people? Why did God abandon us?” And then all of a sudden, even the people from pagan nations are going to go, “No, they abandoned their God is what happened.” That’s fascinating to me. Well, the rest of Chapter 9 is kind of a wrap-up. It’s interesting. At the end of the 20 years during which Solomon had built the two houses, the Lord’s Temple and the royal palace, Hiram of Tyre, having supplied him with cedar, cypress logs, gold for every wish. This is interesting because really, as far as we know, we don’t have any knowledge of there being gold mines up near Tyre.

That doesn’t mean Hiram didn’t have any gold though. Why? Well, because he was amazing in international commerce and trade. And they provided lots of lumber for all kinds of nations around there and likely got paid in gold. This guy was wealthy, and he likely is paying Solomon, giving Solomon some of those rewards as well, as they have this working relationship. But watch what happens. At the end of 20 years, Solomon gives Hiram these 20 towns. It says in verse 12, “Hiram went out from Tyre to look over the towns Solomon had given him, but he was not pleased with them. So, he said, ‘What are these towns you’ve given me, my brother?'” That’s just so interesting. It has to be real. It’s so odd.

“Here’s a gift. I’m giving you the title to these 20 towns.” And he goes out and looks them over and sends him a note going, “Dude, what’s with the towns? Those are some loser places that you gave me. What is that about?” And it’s just fascinating to me the way that he responded, yet they continue to work together. He called the towns the Land of Cabul, C-A-B-U-L. We’re not really sure exactly what it means. Some of the Bible commentators think it’s close to the Hebrew word that means good for nothing. Where do you live? The real other side of the track, that’s where. I live over there. “As they are still called today, the day of this writing.”

“Now, Hiram had sent the king 9,000 pounds of gold.” You can ask, when you get home, you can ask her. But I asked her, I said, “Alexa, how much is 9,000 pounds of gold worth?” $260 plus million dollars. It’s a lot. Then the verses, let’s call it 15 down through 23, is kind of a record of the forced labor or the manual labor, and it’s Solomon building some defensive positions throughout Israel, lots of different parts. At the end there, it says he’s got 550 who supervise the people doing the work. So, I’ll just summarize that for you. You’re welcome to read that on your own later.

Verses 24 through the end of the chapter, Pharaoh’s daughter moved from the city of David to the house that Solomon had built for her. He then built the terraces. That sounds like a condo complex or something like that. She must have wanted some condominiums for the people visiting from her family for Thanksgiving or whatever. “Three times a year, Solomon offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings,” that would’ve been again Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, “on the altar he had built for the Lord. He burned incense with them in the Lord’s presence. So, he completed the temple. King Solomon put together a fleet of ships.” This is so fascinating. The ancient Jews were not a seafaring people. They didn’t have some big navy, but this is their navy now.

I mean, Solomon is taking everything way further than anybody else had. “Fleet of ships at Ezion-geber, which is near Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea in the land of Edom.” You could do a little digging if you would like. You might find a Bible commentator or a scholar that will read something like this: “Where he went right there is where they crossed after the Exodus when they left Egypt.” There are Bible commentators that suggest that. I don’t know how they know that, but that’s a speculative position that some of them take. “With the fleet, Hiram sent his servants, experienced sailors, along with Solomon’s servants. They went to Ophir.” Don’t know where that is. Not really sure. There’s a couple speculative answers on that.

But they acquired there 16 tons of gold and delivered it to Solomon. And yes, I checked that out as well. I thought you would like to know that: $936 million in today’s money, close to a billion dollars. That’s remarkable. And that’s Solomon doing some things. And as I put it up on the screen there, you can see some of this pretty easily in that Chapter 9, God’s blueprint for a healthy spiritual life, ongoing diplomatic relations with Hiram, military preparedness as he builds some of those positions. Religious practices in verse 25 there and then the expansion of international commerce.

So, what do we get here? What can we walk away with? I mean, I find the history fascinating. Maybe you do as well. Most of what we read in Chapter 9, I think, is the kind of thing a lot of kings would do. Build up their country financially, militarily, strengthen the country, get it so that it flourished. And a lot of this is quite understandable. The way he did it, I mean I know there are questions, I have questions too. But I think the basic idea we’re getting here is that he continued to develop and deepen and strengthen and fortify his kingdom.

Again, I think most kings in that time would do that kind of thing. But in spite of what most of us know will happen in the next two chapters up to this point, Solomon has not abandoned his covenant responsibilities with the Lord. What did God’s blueprint, the top item there on my list, what did that blueprint for a healthy spiritual life look like? What can we take away from this particular passage? I believe it begins with a heart of devotion. I believe daily devotions are important, but I’m not talking here about merely having a regular quiet time, some kind of daily devotions with a little Bible reading and some prayer. As a matter of fact, I’m not so much talking about what we do as much as I am the disposition of our hearts. And I think that’s a subject worth exploring no matter when we live, whether it’s back then or now.

I believe that the question, “Are we devoted to the Lord,” is a bigger question than, “Did you have your quiet time today?” “Do you love God,” is a really important question. You might miss your quiet time sometimes. Sometimes my one-year Bible reading plan, I go to it, and I look, and the bookmark is like back in September or the 15th or something. And here it is, almost November or something like that, right? I’ve switched to listening to it on audio because we have that on the TVC app, and I just love doing that. But I’m not talking about that. I’m not even talking about getting your systematic theology together here either. I’m not talking about that either when I say, “Do you have a heart of devotion to God?” Because frankly, theological orthodoxy is not the same thing as spiritual intimacy with God.

You can have the Bible itself and all the ancient creeds memorized. You can be engaged in all kinds of humanitarian service and philanthropic activities. And at the same time, your heart can be drifting further and further and further away from being devoted to God. And I’m pretty sure we’ll be making the case in the next couple of weeks that we watched that start to happen with Solomon. Wise as he could be in so many categories, he has all the advantages of wealth, all of that stuff, and yet still drift can take place. Don’t lose sight of the importance of your devotion to God, your heart being devoted to the Lord.

How would I know if my heart is devoted to God? I started thinking about myself. I thought about it for me. Is my love for God faithful, steadfast and true? Really? Is it faithful, steadfast and true? Does my love for God show up in the fact that I make Christ preeminent in my heart and my mind? Am I looking for ways of delighting my Heavenly King or my Father and honoring Christ as my King? Do I humbly submit myself to the work of the Holy Spirit that He wants to do in me in this moment or in the next moment or when I go to lunch? Am I conscious of His presence all the time? Am I devoted to God? That’s the kind of question that we’re seeking to answer.

“The living God is infinitely perfect and quintessentially, overwhelmingly beautiful in every way: His righteousness, His graciousness, His majesty, His mercy, His all. And so, we do not love Him aright if our love is not a trembling, overwhelmed and fearful love.” That’s theologian Michael Reeves. I think he’s really brilliant on this. I think if we’ve never stood in the presence of God and trembled, we probably have never stood in the presence of God. He makes us tremble. But we need not be afraid of Him. Why? Because the Bible tells us over and over and over again about His steadfast love for us. And the fact that here this building, this temple, is just a symbol of God wanting to dwell among His people. The tabernacle before it, was a symbol of God wanting to dwell among His wandering people. The garden all the way back in Genesis, was the Lord wanting to dwell with His people.

The images run throughout Scripture. The Lord doesn’t want to ever have you feel like you are separated from Him. And He’s done everything necessary for you to be in right relationship with Him in the person and work of Jesus. That should give rise to devotion, to love in our hearts. Lewis talking about this kind of devotion in Reflections of the Psalms, “These poets (of the Psalms) knew far less reason than we for loving God. They did not know that He offered them eternal joy; still less that He would die to win it for them. Yet they express a longing for Him, for His mere presence, which comes only to the best Christians or to Christians in their best moments. They long to live all their days in the Temple so that they may constantly see ‘the fair beauty’ of the Lord.”

We have to talk about this more. We have to talk not about God in a utilitarian fashion, “Oh, say these magic prayers and he’ll give you what you want.” No, no, there’s so much more. I mean, the Lord welcomes your prayers… He’s delighted with your prayers. But He wants your presence. He wants your devotion, your love. Don’t forget that when Jesus was asked “What’s the most important command in all of Scripture?” What did he say? “You shall love the Lord your God with… how much? All. All. One of my favorite words in the Bible, all your heart, devotion, yeah, and with all your soul and with all your mind. He said that in Matthew Chapter 22. He was answering the question of a lawyer. That’s interesting. He was quoting Deuteronomy 6, again, Deuteronomistic-type thinking here. The great and foremost command of God is to love Him, to be devoted to Him. So, I think that is part of God’s blueprint for us to have a living vibrant faith.

Secondly, a life of obedience. And we see that here as well, don’t we? We see that expressed by Solomon in the last part of Chapter 8. He expresses that. We’re going to walk in your ways. Let’s do this. Come on, let’s go. And then when the Lord speaks to him, he says it one more time from the Lord’s perspective, “Here’s what I will do for you. I will never leave you and forsake you. My name, My eyes, My heart is with you.”

“Now, you walk with me as your father David did.” And it’s interesting because David … Was David perfect? Raise your hand if you think David was perfect. No, he wasn’t. But he had a heart after God. His heart was devoted to the Lord. “Is my heart devoted to the Lord?” It’s really important for us to ask that question and it looks like something. If we’re devoted to the Lord, it issues forth in a life of obedience. I start asking a question like, “Does my life display the kind of wholehearted obedience that testifies to the veracity of what I claim to believe about God? Is there internal and external consistency and coherence in my faith?” I’m just thinking about it myself and assessing myself a little bit as I prayerfully go before the Lord. Am I walking in God’s wisdom, God’s will, in God’s ways? Does my walk match my talk as kind of this simple way of doing it?

Talking about obedience to God these days causes some problems for those who, one, don’t believe there is a God or, two, if they do believe in the existence of God, their God is not much more than a doting grandfather in the sky. Or three, if they think God’s only job is to show His eagerness to approve and affirm every whim, every preference and every desire that I have for myself. Talking about obedience these days also presupposes that there are standards for right and wrong and that God has propositionally articulated those standards for what is right and what is wrong.

You listen in the world in which we live, “Who are you to tell me what’s right,” is the big question everybody always asks. I’ve been asking it for two decades. And now, we’re finally reaping the rewards of that kind of chaos where we no longer have a consensus on what is right and what is wrong. And those kinds of shifts in cultural thinking and societal thinking really matter. And our kids are starting to pay the price big time for our laxity in regard to these things. As Christians, we need to be able to talk about what God says is right and what God says is wrong and not worry about what somebody might think about it.

Sinclair Ferguson, “I suspect that we’ve developed, as Christians, such a fear of legalism that we’ve lost sight of the power of love that leads us to detailed faithfulness.” What’s he saying there? He’s looking at the motivation for wanting to do what is right and wrong. Not just to follow rules, not to balance out the moral scales. None of us can do that. None of us are that good. Not just so that we can have a quiet testimony. “I’ll just let my life speak. I’m sure people will get it.” You think you’re that holy. Raise your hand if you think you’re that holy, that you can just let your life speak and that will be enough. Thank you for not raising your hand. You’re right for not raising your hand.

I think he’s right. The power of loving God, being devoted to God that then issues forth in a life of obedience is what we’re looking for out of 1 Kings Chapter 8 and 1 Kings Chapter 9. Kevin de Young, he has a book called The Hole in Our Holiness, the H-O-L-E in Our Holiness. I love this. “My fear is that as we rightly celebrate, and in some quarters rediscover, all that Christ has saved us from, we are giving little thought and making little effort concerning all that Christ has saved us to. Shouldn’t those most passionate about the gospel and God’s glory also be those most dedicated to the pursuit of godliness? I worry there is an enthusiasm gap, and no one seems to mind.”

Man, I don’t know about you, but I went, “Yeah, I agree with that.” And by the way, he makes another comment because he talks about authenticity a lot. He makes a point, “Authenticity is not the new godliness.” You would think in our world that, “Oh, just be your authentic self, man.” No, I think your authentic self is part of the problem. I think my authentic self is part of the problem. And I think what the world around me needs is a little less than my authentic self. Some of you are laughing because you know that’s true for you, too. Yeah. That we might need occasionally to lay down our rights for love of another, our spouse for instance, or our best friends that we say are our best or our family members or whatever, on and on the list could go. Sometimes it’s a costly kind of love that’s being talked about.

The third part of God’s blueprint for healthy spiritual lives is a heart of devotion, life of obedience, and then always aiming for the glory of His name. Some of you will know the name of the 19th century Danish philosopher, theologian Soren Kierkegaard, wrote a book called Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing. I love the title. And for Christians, I would say as long as that one thing is the glory of God. Because to will one thing could be me amassing lots of wealth. And there’s nothing wrong with having money. Please do not hear me saying that. Just don’t let it have you. Don’t let it own you. And you’ll have to do some soul-searching to figure out whether or not that is happening.

But here are some questions I would ask under this heading. Do I delight in speaking the name of Jesus? I’m aiming for the glory of his name. Am I moved by the splendor and beauty of the Lord? Do I glory in God’s good name? Am I representing the Name? Well, I am but how well am I doing it? What do people think of Jesus when they look at Jimmy? How are we as a local church doing with our calling to bring glory to his name? That’s great for us to ask. See, his glory is to be seen and it can be seen out there. You can just look in the night sky or the daytime sky, whatever. I mean, you just look around at creation. It’s everywhere. It shouts the glory of God. It’s to be seen but it’s also to be experienced. And we do that when we adore Him. We sing it every year at the end of the year. Oh, come let us adore him.

And it’s not just so we can have warm spiritual fuzzy, but it’s because He’s worthy to be praised and worshiped. And even more than that, you were designed to do that. So, if you want to find yourself flourishing, do it by doing what you were designed to do and don’t abandon what you were designed to do for some other little-g gods over here. Money, sex and power are forms of that. But worship Him and find your joy, your peace, your soul’s flourishment in doing all of that.

It’s because of the Name, you see. This temple was nothing without the name of the Lord. The tabernacle was nothing without His name. And it’s the name of the Lord our God that we’re supposed to bring glory to. There’s a picture of a baseball up on the screen. This was signed by 11 of Baseball’s first Hall of Fame inductees. They were all present at the very first ceremony in June of 1939. You can probably recognize some of those names. I don’t know much about the baseball as I call it.

Some of you are like … I think the World Series is going on now, right? That’s right. Okay. So, don’t … I mean, you’re going to think I’m sacrilegious to even talk about this. But this ball is probably worth about, I don’t know, 7 cents, maybe 10 cents, the materials, just in terms of the materials themselves. This ball sold for $632,369 in 2018 because the names were on it. The names are what matter, see. This wasn’t even a ball that was put in play. It wasn’t somebody’s homerun ball. It’s just because the names are on it. And I would suggest to you, church, His name is on you. What are we doing with it? What are you personally, what are we as a church doing?

“It is very important consideration,” John Calvin said, “that we are consecrated and dedicated to God. It means that we will think, speak, meditate and do all things with a view to God’s glory.” Yeah. And you, songwriters, listen, I used to be one of those guys that would write a little song, play it for somebody and go, “This is the song the Lord gave me.” And some of my friends started getting kind snarky and said, “Yeah, it’s because he didn’t want it anymore.” It would just kind of go on like that. But the question is … We pray for it every week, don’t we, when we pray for the vocations? How can you glorify God? How can you enflesh the Gospel in whatever it is you do? You don’t have to be some kind of vocational religious person to bring God glory all the time.

Leslie Newbigin, “What matters is not that I should succeed, but that God should be honored.” Is that the disposition of our heart? That’s a great question to ask. This was a man, a great missionary in India for a long, long time. But yeah, this is a great question for us to ask ourselves. Several times I put this up but at the end of our study of the temple, I think this is important. “The temple was but a symbol, and Jesus is the substance; it was but the shadow of which He is the reality… the Redeemer is greater than the temple, because He is a more abiding evidence of divine favor.” As you look at Jesus, you see God loves us. “God forever dwells in Christ, and this is the eternal sign of His favor to His people.” The Lord loves you. The Lord has put his name on you. What are we going to do with the name now? Let us adore him and let’s express that by seeking to live lives of obedience. Not because we’re checking boxes, following rules, but because we want to delight our Heavenly Father. We love him. We want to please him because we love him.

Let’s pray to Him: Lord, thank You for this. And even at this stage, it feels like the wisest man that ever lived right there still had something left. And then You came and spoke to him, and You reminded him of the core, what was at the center of a healthy spiritual life. And You even gave him a wise warning about what would happen if he abandoned that and turned his back on that. Lord, for any of us in the room here or watching online, Lord, if we’ve drifted, if we’ve belligerently turned our back on You, Lord I pray, Holy Spirit, reach into our heart, stir us, awaken us spiritually and remind us of how eager You are for us, even if we’ve let go or forsaken you. Your promise to have Your eyes on us, Your promise to have Your heart for us, Lord, draws us to You. We humbly bow before You and repent. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen and amen.