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Second Chronicles chapter one. And we’re we’re in a series together called Move Past and and we’re about to move past the series called Move Past. This is the last Sunday that we’re going to spend on this topic together as we enter into the Christmas season, and this is an important topic for us today. Over the last, last week and into today, uh, we’ve recognized this, that we can’t cover every topic in life that we’re going to face that will provide for us adverse circumstances and trying to discover how God can help us move through that. But the good news is, is while we can’t cover every circumstance, we know the God who does. We know that God is with us in all of those things. And so we’re we’re diving in these last couple of messages on this move, past series Seeking God and how he can help us and walking with us through the circumstances we we face in life. And we talk about moving past areas of life. We’ve we’ve talked about pain. We’ve talked about, uh, temptation. But out of all the things that we’ve discussed, not everything can necessarily fit in this black and white category. And what I mean is, when you’re in life, some of the things, some of the decisions that that you face aren’t always as, as crystal clear. Like, for example, what about a career decision and taking a job or turning down a job or, or finding the right person to marry or or or buying a house? Or if you’re looking at schools, what schools do you attend or what schools right for? Maybe your children or parenting the best methods and parenting and and whether or not you have kids or or the struggle to have kids or dealing with sickness, or when do you retire or coming up on the holidays, how do we do those? Right, with family members pulling us at different in different directions and different parties that you feel obligated to go to in celebration of the holidays? How do you deal with all that? It’s not always, always black and white.
What do you do when you don’t know what to do? And how do you build a successful life that just helps you move past those gray areas, or move through and navigate in those gray areas of life? You know, when we think about some things that would, would, would help us to move past adversity in life, some sometimes we think, you know, what I need is is morality. As long as I stick to morality, I’ll have everything right or or I just need to be smarter or more successful. But when you when you look at people in life that you would consider your example in morality or being smart or successful, you know, a lot of times when you pull back the curtain, they’re not happy either, right? When it comes to morality.
Maybe one of the most famous passages in the Bible, at least I think is is Jesus towards the end of his life. This may be one of the one of the things that took him to the cross when it did is in Matthew chapter 23, he comes to the Pharisees and he delivers what’s referred to in Matthew chapter 23, beginning in verse 15 as as the eight woes, Jesus comes before the Pharisees and says, woe were you scribes and Pharisees? And he. He delivers eight reasons why. And every time he delivers these reasons, he always says, woe before he starts. Now this word for woe, I want to say in our culture today, we have desensitized it. We have, uh, emasculated it. We have minimized it. I try to think of where we even use it today. I’m thinking maybe some guy riding a horse. He’s like, whoa, horsey, it’s time to slow down. But so the word, the word woe today doesn’t have quite the punch that it used to have. It’s not about just slowing down the horse when Jesus is saying the word woe in his culture, it’s a statement that literally means you’re a dead man. Like I’m going to kill you like it’s it’s it’s it’s as brutal as it gets. In Isaiah chapter six. Isaiah said it in the Old Testament, woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips. Isaiah is literally saying, whoa, I’m a dead man.
And in Matthew 23, Jesus comes before the religious leaders and he tells the most prominent people in that culture, listen, you are dead people. Woe. Morality Jesus is identifying isn’t. It’s not what will bring you what you’re looking for in life now. Morality is a good thing. But but when you identify yourself in morality, you can you can identify with behavior modification. Without heart transformation, you can come into our place of worship today and think that all we’re about is just a religion and trying to get you to follow our rules, and that’s not the case at all. God created you for so much more than that morality. It doesn’t necessitate the answer. Neither does being smart. There’s lots of people that have a lot of knowledge, but when it comes to relationships, they could fail miserably in connecting in certain ways and and even success. People with power and fame not always quite satisfied with it. In fact, some of those people could be some of some of the most lonely people in the world. I remember I went on a a trip to Atlanta, and I happened to sit beside a celebrity on a train for like 30 minutes, and I thought it was a celebrity, but I didn’t care. So they sat down beside me. I’m like, I think I know you, but. And I started vaguely reminding myself. And then as I’m sitting on this train next to this person, like crowds of people just start coming up talking to this individual and I’m just sitting.
I’m like, man, I think I know who this is. I figured it out, but but people were coming up and talking to him, telling him, thank you for whatever they did on TV. And this guy doesn’t know these people from Jack. And he’s got he’s got to think all these people coming to him. Oh thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. But at the end of the day, I mean nobody really got to know him. They connected to this figure on TV, and they’re treating him like this celebrity that they’ve known in their living room. But as far as a personal understanding, he’s just person after person thinking, you know, for acknowledging his work. But, you know, at the end of the day, he just left empty because none of those people knew him or invested any time in him. And and the same could be with success. Like people just cling to you because of who who you are or what you can do for them or but they don’t really know you. And so those areas of life, morality, smart success don’t necessitate to find satisfaction. They may even help us navigate through the the black and black and white or the gray areas of life. And and the reason I wanted to dive into Second Chronicles, chapter one with us this morning is, uh, Solomon is who the character relates to in this passage of Scripture, and he’s finding himself in a similar situation in life.
It’s not necessarily black, it’s not necessarily white, but he’s just taking on this new position before Israel, his father’s past. He’s becoming the king. He’s transitioning into this role. It’s a very difficult time for him. Anytime there’s just this new authority leading a country. People are in this, this stage of do they have what it takes? Can we really follow them? Are they going to work themselves out as a leader for us? Is it what we need as a country to move forward? Right. And Solomon stepped in to this role, and he’s come before the people of Israel, and he’s called the people of Israel. Seeing the beginning of this chapter to to the Tabernacle, they’re praying, they’re worshiping. They’re literally on their knees seeking God’s face. Because to be honest, I don’t think Solomon knows if he has what it takes. And as he’s praying in this tabernacle, as Israel is joining in and worshiping and praying with Solomon, it tells us in chapter one of Second Chronicles that the Lord appears to Solomon. And he asked this. And the night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, ask, what shall I give you? When Solomon, you look at this adversity you’re facing in life, what is it you think you need to do what you’ve been called to do? How can you fulfill this role? And God shows up and he just asks him, what? What is it that you need? Solomon? And we talk about these, these areas of life that we need navigated through sometimes not necessarily black and white.
Maybe the question for you this morning is this what is it you lay in bed at night just thinking about if I could just have this right now. This is what would bring me satisfaction. This. This would give me clarity in the direction I need to go. And God. God is showing up into Solomon’s life and and God has posed this question to Solomon. And Solomon’s response, he just describes where he is. Says in verse eight. Solomon said to God, you have dealt with my father David with great loving kindness and have made me king in in his place. Like first thing Solomon says is like, I’m here because of my dad. It’s not anything necessarily special that you see in me. God, I feel like the reason I’m here is because you worked in my dad’s life, and now I’m finding myself now as king in his place. And so I’m here because of my dad. And in verse one he goes on now, oh Lord God, you’re promised to my father. David is fulfilled, for you have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.
Now, God, remember you made a promise to my dad. I mean, it wasn’t necessarily me. It relates through me, but it was to my dad. Like you made him king over all these people. Now I’m looking out that I now am king over all of these people. I’m here because of my dad, and now I’m. I’m over these people in the land. This is why I’m seeking your face. And so Solomon then asks. God. This is what I need. Can I tell you before we read this verse? Some of you already know what this verse says because it’s very popular in what Solomon’s question is. But. Can I tell you what you want most in life? We’ll determine what you do. And if you want to change what you do. You’ve got to change what you want, right? What you determine or what you want most in life will determine what you do. And if you want to change what you do, you have to change what you want. And Solomon. Is looking around at what he’s got in his kingdom. In fact, he wrote a book called The Book of Ecclesiastes. It’s wisdom. It’s considered wisdom literature. And Solomon for the first 11 chapters, describes the way that people tend to live their lives. Their desires are the same. They think stuff will satisfy them. And when they get the stuff that they have craved, they find that that hunger is still there.
And so they crave more. And what we really discover in those cravings of the stuff in life is that that the temporary things of, of life really don’t satisfy, that the cravings within us run much deeper because it relates back to the soul. And for 11 chapters. Solomon Solomon says in the book of Ecclesiastes, life is vanity. It’s but a vapor, he says. And finally, in chapter 12, he paints this this final picture of where satisfaction is found in life. And it’s what he describes here in chapter one and verse ten. This is what he says. He says, give me now wisdom and knowledge. That I may go out and come in before this, people. For who can rule this great people of yours? God to live life the way that you’ve called me to live and to live life successfully. What I need is wisdom. In fact, if I just gave a very basic definition of wisdom, I would say this wisdom is being good at life. And God reflects his his his remarks back to Solomon when he asks for wisdom. And God said to Solomon, because you had this in mind and did not ask for riches, wealth, or honor, or the life of those who hate you, nor have you even asked for long life, but you have asked for yourself wisdom and knowledge that you may rule my people over whom I have made you King.
Wisdom and knowledge have been granted to you. Now God goes on from there, and he says that that Solomon will have these things, he’ll have he’ll have wealth and he’ll have power. But it’s it’s it’s not because Solomon’s asking for wealth and power. It’s because Solomon learned how to be wise with the resources God gave him. And in the wisdom of that, God blessed Solomon through it. But God was delighted in Solomon’s heart for wisdom, because wisdom is what gives him the ability to navigate through the adversity in life. One of the most famous stories I think told about, um Solomon was when he decided to sell the baby in half. Right? Two ladies come with him, come before him, and one of them has a baby, and they’re both claiming that the baby is theirs. And Solomon says, cut the baby in two. And the mother that begins to weep, that this baby is going to be cut in two, gives her baby to the other lady. And Solomon knew that that was the mother, because the mother, the true mother of that child, would want to preserve the life of the child, even if she couldn’t hold the child. And this kind of wisdom helped him learn to navigate through life. Now, I don’t I’m not suggesting you’re ever going to be in a cut of baby scenario, but but wisdom is important because life throws to us certain adversities that that we don’t always know the right answer to, to, to follow after.
But we know the God who does. And so discovering the wisdom in him to navigate through that is significant for us in life. In fact, let me just give you an example. Here’s here’s one of all the wisdom I’ve learned over the years. My son comes to me this past week and he says, dad, I will pay you $10 to eat a worm. I will give you $11 to eat a ladybug, and I will give you $80 to eat a spider. I’m like, well, I don’t want to turn down a buck here. So. So all right, where are you going to get this money? I’m just curious, he said. I’m going to take it from you and I’m going to give it back to you. And I said, no deal, no deal. I, I am wise beyond my years. That’s not that’s not how it works. Right? Wisdom is being good at life. And I have to say no worm later and I felt pretty good. Wisdom is important in navigating the situations. The Bible gives us an understanding of where and how to receive wisdom as individuals. In fact, in James. And seeking wisdom as people for navigating through adversity in life. James says this in verse chapter one and verse five, but if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
Now, some of you may be familiar with this verse, but there’s a few things I want to point out to us as we just look at this text for a minute. When when God is asking us to ask for wisdom, he’s telling us, if you lack wisdom, ask for wisdom. It’s important first to understand that the originator of all wisdom is who. God, right? If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God. So what should happen is, as we as people in pursuit of wisdom in our lives, the place that it should drive us to the source of wisdom is God Himself. Meaning wisdom originates from God. Therefore, your relationship to God should draw more intimate and seeking wisdom from God. The thing that God asks us to ask for in this verse is wisdom, right? So we come to God. We’re asking God for wisdom. What this verse isn’t saying. As asked God what is true. I think there’s a very important distinction needs to be made between truth and wisdom. Right. For instance, when when I come before God and if if this is maybe a cheesy example, but if a lion is in front of me and I stick my hand in its mouth, I don’t need to pause and ask God, God, is it true that this lion will bite me, right? I mean, the lion’s got teeth, the lion eats meat, the lion will bite, right? I don’t have to ask God.
God is a sky blue. God is the grass green? Truth. Truth is truth, right? It doesn’t require me to to pray, to to know if it’s true. Truth is truth. This passage isn’t telling us to pray, to ask God what is true. What this passage is telling us. To pray is to ask God how to apply the truth to our lives, its wisdom, and and taking the truth and making the proper application in our world. This this passage on wisdom is God taking that truth and helping us understand how to do what’s right with it being good in life with it. When James is writing this to the believers in the New Testament, the believers already have the truth. They know what the truth is. They know who Jesus is. They’ve trusted in that. And when James is writing his book, he’s writing to the believers because they’re going through persecution. In fact, the next thing James dives into is considered all joy. My brothers, when you dive, when you when you face various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, you guys are going through hardship. You don’t need to know what truth is. You already know what truth is. The sky is blue whether you want to pray it green or not. And the grass is green. Whether or not you want to pray and pretend like it’s blue.
Truth is truth, but what God’s people need. Is to learn how to apply the truth that God has given. If any of you lack wisdom. James’s encouragement. Is to go to the source. For the application of the truth that’s been taught. Solomon. Being what the Bible says is the wisest man on earth. You may be saying this morning in in your heart, you know, Solomon was the wisest man on earth. But how could I ever how could I ever expect to be a Solomon in this world? And I would say, you’re right, God. God only made one Solomon. But here’s here’s the convenience for us. Solomon, the wisest man, wrote books on wisdom. In fact, the Book of Proverbs is 31 chapters of wisdom written, written from the wisest man. And in fact, he starts chapter one of his book with the idea of how to prepare your heart to grow in wisdom. The attitude to take. And I would encourage you this way if you’re thinking in your in your life today, you know, I just want to I want to become wiser. I want to grow in that wisdom. I want to learn how to navigate those gray areas of life. Here you go. In December, there are 31 days in the book of Proverbs. There are 31 chapters. You can read a chapter a day. And when Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs, he addresses it to his his children, his his older children, or his young, his older son.
He wants them. He wants them to read this as he’s getting ready to enter into his teenage years to figure out how to navigate life. So let me encourage you as parents, if you’re thinking about not only do I want wisdom, but I want to impart this to my kids. If you’ve got some older kids able to to critically think in these areas of wisdom and these proverbs, I would encourage you to do it. One of your children. Go through a chapter a day with your child and just discuss it. And let me let me just give you a little further thought. Some of this stuff is very specific to gender, right? And so if you have the convenience of mother doing it with daughter or father doing it with son, I would encourage you to do it that way, to talk about some of these subjects that that are significant for them in life to practice wisdom. But when, when, when Solomon opens up Proverbs chapter one, let me just read these thoughts to you. He says in verse two, to know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding of verse three, to receive instruction and wise behavior in verse four, to give prudence to the naive, to the youth, knowledge and discretion. In verse five, a wise man will hear and increase in learning.
When you look at the first six verses of Proverbs, Solomon is describing the context in which people should have in their attitude to receive wisdom. It’s one of a learning position. It’s one that’s not ready to speak, but one that’s ready to absorb right? There’s a story about, uh, Socrates that when he was, uh, teaching his philosophy, a young man came up to him and said, Socrates, I want to grow in your wisdom. And Socrates looks at this young man and from the outside judged him as a little arrogant and proud, and only doing it to boast in front of his friends. So he said, follow me. And so Socrates walked out of the city, down the street, out of town, down to the ocean, and walked into the water. And the young man continued to follow him, and they turned around about waist deep. And Socrates said, now tell me what you want. And the young man said, I want wisdom. And he takes. He takes the young man. He holds him down under the water for about 15 seconds, and he lets him back up. And Socrates says, now what do you want? And the young man says, I need wisdom. So he shoves him back under the water again and holds him there for 30s this time. And he asks the young man, what do you want? And he says, I want wisdom. And he takes the young man.
He holds him down for over a minute and finally he lets him up and he says, what do you want? And the young man says, air, I need air. And Socrates looks at him and says. When you crave wisdom, like you crave the air right now. That’s when you’re ready to receive it. Proverbs chapter one carries that idea. I mean, it’s easy to sit here and say, I want to be wiser, right? But the reality is there’s got to be a hunger there for. Wisdom is something that you apply your life to. You don’t just wake up today and say, I want to be wise, right? On the same token, I don’t think people wake up. And say, you know what? I want to wreck everything in my life. Jesus tells a story in Matthew chapter seven. It’s the end of his sermon on the Mount. He makes application at the very end. And it’s sort of this now choose statement Jesus makes. He describes a house, right? And Jesus says in verse 24, therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them. Maybe compare it to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house. And yet it did not fall. For I had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
The rain fell and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against the house. And it fell, and great was its fall. So what Jesus is saying is it looks like this. You know, people are going to build their houses in life. You’re going to build your house, you’re going to live in it. And from the outside when you just all you see is a house, you think, oh, that’s pretty. They got a house. But it’s when the rains come and the storms start to fall that you begin to discover exactly how that house was built. Is it made to last? And that’s what wisdom represents in the story. Wisdom isn’t something that you wake up and you say, I want to be wise, and foolishness isn’t something. You wake up and you say, you know, I want to be a fool. But over time, as the storm begins to rage against the home, you see where the foundation of that house rests. Wisdom is something you begin to apply to your life today because tomorrow you don’t know what it holds. And as the rains come, the effort that you spent in the wisdom displays itself. I mean, you can think in your own life if you ever get in a pinch in some situation, who’s the first person you call? It’s not the full.
It’s someone in. Whatever that situation that you’re facing is going to help you navigate through that scenario, because they have gained the wisdom for that particular situation in order to encourage you. And Jesus comes to the end of his sermon on the Mount. Not only again is he identifying himself as the source of wisdom, but he’s saying to everyone, listen, there is a choice and there is a result to what you say in me. If you say this morning, you know I want to grow in wisdom. It’s great. Solomon wrote 31 chapters with 31 days this month. And and then Solomon says in Proverbs chapter one and verse seven, sort of this, this hinge thought that pulls all of this together in wisdom. He says this. The fear of the Lord. It’s the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. Wisdom starts. And the fear of the Lord. Your willingness to humble yourself before God and rather than just tell him what you want. Receive what he has to give. This word for fear of the Lord is one that, to be honest, sometimes I struggle with explaining. And the reason is, is because there’s both this reverence. In God’s fear. This this all inspiring power that God possesses. But at the same time, it’s invitational, right? Solomon wants us to recognize in this verse God’s authority over us. But also in that authority the invitation to rest under it. Right. I try to think of the best example that would explain what the fear of the Lord is, and made me think of.
When I was a kid, I lived on the ocean down in the Gulf, and I lived with my father for a little while, and I happen to be in a few hurricanes while I was down there. And my dad is like this adventure junkie, and he had a Camaro. And every time, every time one would roll through town, we would go play in it. It was not was not smart. And one time we get out in the hurricane that we’re in, uh, the area that we’re in is about to go through the eye of the hurricane. I didn’t know this, but we’re we’re in probably one of the most powerful storms that I had gone through and that that the Gulf had seen in a while. And we’re out and driving around in it, it starts to get really dangerous. And we notice this was different than the other hurricanes, that we needed to come home early. And so we come home to the house and and I’m sitting inside and this hurricane’s just just raging and all of a sudden it just stops. And I thought that was odd because I’d seen hurricanes before, just breeze through town and and the trickle effect of the rain just continues for quite a while. And I’m inside and the wind’s just blowing, the wind’s is blowing.
And all of a sudden it just disappears. I go out front and I’m looking around at the debris that the hurricane is knocked down, and neighbor’s house had a tree landing on it. I remember looking at all that, but then I walked out into the street, into a field across from from where my house was located. And I look up and the sky is just blue, not even a cloud around. You wouldn’t even know, other than the evidence of the tree branches laying laying on the ground that a hurricane had even passed. And I began to look, and I noticed as I’m staring around in this, uh, beautiful open space, blue sky, there are birds everywhere and a ridiculous amount of birds. So much that you just want to cover your head and duck because you feel at any moment you may get bombed, right? You’re looking like where? Where did all these birds come from? This is insane. It’s like a meeting after the hurricane. I don’t know what they’re doing. I got to get back inside. And I hate seagulls. They’re like rats with wings. I’m just thinking they’re going to eat everything, and they just trash birds. They just want to devour. I’m like, oh, no, they’re going to pick at me. And I know I’ve been on the beach. I know what they do to people. And so I go back inside to get away from these birds.
And I turn on the radio thinking, how does a hurricane go from amazing, amazingly powerful to to just nothing in seconds? And I find out. I’m in the eye of a hurricane. Eye of a hurricane spans from about 20 to 50 miles wide. You know, in the middle of a storm. It’s the calmest place to be. And the reason those birds were in the eye of the hurricane. They respected its power and they knew there was a place of safety. And so when the hurricane comes, they fly into the center of the storm. And they have a 30 mile span in this hurricane. I was it was over 30 miles wide. Where they were safe. That’s the fear of the Lord. God is powerful. All inspiring power he possesses. But in the midst of the storm. He calls you into the center. Because it becomes your place of protection. Wisdom. Is needed. Like we need air. And God in his great powerful fear of the Lord, wants us to recognize that one. He is the authority through which wisdom comes, but he also invites you in that power to take solace and the protection of who he is, that you may grow in the wisdom that he possesses. One of the things I love about fear of the Lord. As it calls me to take responsibility for my faith. I think too often we put our trust. And people for our spirituality, right? People will fail.
The Lord endures forever. When you think about the fear of the Lord. I was reading in James chapter three and God’s talking about wisdom and the way that it works in our lives. And and I feel like when God’s describing this, not only is he describing the way wisdom works in our lives, but but he’s also describing the character of God, because wisdom is what comes from God. And he says this in James chapter three and verse 17, but the wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering without hypocrisy, and the seed of whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Here’s my encouragement to you this morning. We talk about moving past in our spiritual lives. We can’t discuss everything. But you know that God, through whom all wisdom comes. In fact, you have books that are just written on wisdom. And you have a God who in his great power gives you the invitation to come in. To learn from him. To grow in him. If we would respect and reverence the fear of the Lord. And entrust our lives to him to find the protection to which he gives to those who desire to walk with him.