FOUNDATIONS FOR PEACE

1 KINGS 11:3-4
August 7-9, 2010
11th Sunday After Pentecost
Pastor Tim Smith

1 KINGS 11:3-4 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of his father David had been. (NIV)

We sin according to our station in life. When Edward Pierce and William Agar committed the first Great Train Robbery in 1855, the English people were stunned to find our that the master criminal was not from the so-called criminal classes at all, but a well-born English gentleman. Pierce’s only answer to the question put to him at his trial, “Why did you commit such a dastardly crime?” was his simple reply, “I wanted the money.”

It is utter foolishness to think that there is anyone in the world who deserves a term such as “low-life” or “riffraff” or any other epithet suggesting a criminal class of people. We are all sinners; and we are all capable of committing crimes. We commit crimes according to our abilities; we sin according to our station. From God’s perspective in heaven, there is no sin that is worse than another. A woman who secretly lusts after a soap opera star and a polygamist are both sinners.

We all need the forgiveness that comes only from the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross to atone for our sins; we all need his forgiveness, because we are helpless and hopeless without it. And his forgiveness is ours; ours by grace and through faith because of the message of the gospel in the Scriptures. Let’s not forget that as we look together at Solomon’s wives, and our sins.

I. SOLOMON’S SIN OF POLYGAMY. He had a thousand wives. There is no reason at all to take these numbers at anything other than face value. They might possibly be round numbers, “about” seven hundred and “about” three hundred, but there is no reason to adopt any other meaning here. The difference is that the seven hundred wives were of noble birth—the daughters of kings and rulers of the lands around Israel—and the three hundred other wives, our author calls them concubines, were probably more ordinary local girls.

Solomon exhibits two primary sins here; verse 3 describes one and verse 4 the other. The first sin is polygamy. God’s intention is that a marriage will consist of a man and woman (Genesis 2:24), and although there are examples of polygamy in the Bible, even among the great Patriarchs like Abraham and Israel himself, these marriages are never commanded nor condoned by God. Jesus himself specifically says that if a man so much as looks with lust at a woman other than his wife, he is guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:28). Jesus also pointedly uses the numeral “two” when he refers to the members in a marriage (Matthew 19:5). Note that the command for a pastor or deacon to be “the husband of only one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2; 3:12; Titus 1:6) is meant to show an exemplary life that cannot be accused of any sin–including the sins of polygamy or adultery.

Solomon would have been unable, even with all his great wealth, resources and evident energy, to have been a good husband to each of these wives. Just taking the aspect of sexual love, which is by no means the only mark of a marriage, if we suppose that Solomon spent the night with a different wife each and every night of his life, that would mean that each wife would expect to sleep with her husband about once every three years. Solomon reigned forty years (1 Kings 11:42); that’s a dozen or fourteen times that most of those women could have hoped to have shared their husband’s bed, and it was probably less.

Solomon let other wives get in the way of his marriage vows, but that doesn’t mean we don’t sin just as he did. You’re not in a polygamous marriage, but are there things that get in the way of fulfilling your marriage vows? Vows to love, honor and obey, to be faithful, to cherish? For the not yet married, are there things in your life now—habits, perhaps, or a sexual relationship outside of marriage—that will make it more difficult for you to keep a marriage vow in the future? There are all things we need to confess and set aside, as painful as it may be. They are sins against each other, and they are sins against God himself.[Soft Break][Soft Break]I’ve heard an argument that Solomon could not possibly have gotten to know all of those women. Verse 4 shows us that in fact he got to know so many of them so well that they were able to turn his heart away from his Savior.

II. SOLOMON’S SIN OF IDOLATRY.
It didn’t happen overnight; Solomon didn’t go to bed one night faithful to the Lord and wake up the next morning an apostate pagan. His sin crept over him through little compromises, little by little. Perhaps a wife who worshiped the LORD wanted her own private shrine, a high place. It wasn’t something the Lord liked, but until the Temple was finished, she needed to worship someplace. Okay. But then another wife wanted a shrine for her god, Molech. “Why does she get one and I don’t?” As soon as that question was even asked, there was no turning back. All right, you can all get your shrines. Solomon could have insisted that each of them become Jewesses, but perhaps some of them were permitted to retain their childhood beliefs because it was in their treaty/marriage contracts. So up went the Asherah poles. Up went the altars to Molech of the Ammonites and to Chemosh of the Moabites and the Baals, the Egyptian gods and all of the others.

And it went even further. Why do you go to church with your Hebrew wife but you don’t go sacrifice to Molech with me? All the infighting and backbiting and bitterness of the harem would come into play, and can you imagine letters from Solomon’s thousand fathers-in-law? “If you honor our treaty, O King, then why do you dishonor my daughter your wife by failing to give worship to Milcom her god? At least you should go through the motions, so that honor is satisfied, wise king.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Solomon went to the pagan shrines with his pagan wives, and watched the sincerity of their pagan prayers, and perhaps saw some of the devil’s own miracles. Her sacrifice to Baal made it rain last month! And after our worship under the Asherah pole, she became pregnant! Maybe there is a wider view I should be taking of religion. Maybe there is nothing special about the worship of the God of Abraham. Maybe I could be more inclusive for my fifty-score significant others.

In time, his wives turned his heart “after other gods.”

“After other gods” is such a sad phrase, like a door leading out of a familiar house into an?unfamiliar, barren wasteland, “after other gods.” Don’t go out there, Solomon! But he’s already gone.

Students of the Bible notice something profound in Ecclesiastes– does Solomon confess his sin and turn back to the Lord? It would seem so. But even so, he is not and never shall be the ideal model of a husband.

But there is something else that must be said about Solomon. The first ten chapters of 1 Kings paint Solomon as a successful, wise, wealthy and ingenious king and administrator. But these things did not bring him into sin. Success and wealth are not sinful in themselves. True, the love of money (not money itself) is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10). But Solomon’s sin began with polygamy, and it soured and deteriorated into syncretism and idolatry. These are first commandment sins.

And we’re guilty of them, too. We sin according to our station, according to our means. Few of us could ever afford to have more than one spouse, let alone ever convince a present spouse to let somebody else into the marriage. But we have other sins. We all have temptations that are common to our age, to our culture, to our circumstances. Those sins aren’t “natural” except that they’re part of our sinful human nature, which was never God’s plan.

We need to take all of our sins—the sins of our private idolatries, those “guy in the mirror” sins where my opinion counts more than God’s word—and give them up. Jesus brought us into the family of God with his blood, to rescue us, and we run the Jesus, we cling to Jesus, we adore Jesus. We fall at the foot of the cross and let it be Jesus, Jesus and only Jesus.

And I bring it up because the only hope any one of us has is in Jesus. There is no one else to whom we can turn. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name,” said John and Peter, “under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Jesus is it. And Jesus is ours—we’re saved through what he has done. He has taken our sin on himself and paid the price for it with his blood.

What should we do? We should lay our lives aside and give everything to him; our time, our egos, our fears, our comfort zones, our habits, our list of friends — all of it should be transformed into service for him as if we have put on a uniform and a cross like the knights in the high Middle Ages. Except that we will not kill for him, but we will reach out with the gospel of forgiveness to wipe out the power of the devil forever, beginning today, with our own lives. The sin of Solomon taking so many wives, and letting his heart fall away, and every one of our sins are paid for in Jesus. He has given us the peace of God….

Colossians 3:12-17
July 24-26, 2010
Season of Pentecost
Pastor Don Sutton

Colossians 3:12-17
12Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (NIV)

Introduction
Teens, those-once-teens, and parents of teens can probably relate to this. What does a parent tell a teen leaving home perhaps to go to camp, to college, on a history tour, on a mission trip or to basic training? Maybe things like, “Now remember who you are. Dress decently. Act appropriately. Eat well.”

As God, through the pen of the Apostle Paul communicates with his people in Colossae, he speaks as a loving father. He reminds his people there and everywhere that raised with Christ through conversion and having put off the sinful nature, there are some things important to remember. It’s as if God is saying,
“Remember …” 1) you’re God’s…2) dress decently … 3) act appropriately …4) eat well.

1. You’re God’s.
Who are you? If you asked me that questions I could respond a number of ways – Donald Sutton; the husband of Joanne; the father of five kids; the youngest child of Lester and Renata Sutton; a pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. You could answer similarly.

But one of the things God wants us to remember is who we are in God’s eyes – “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.”

We are the chosen of God. In Ephesians 1 God tells us through the Apostle Paul, “4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” This means that before there was a world or an “us” to choose, chose us to believe; chose us to be his.

This is what we are – his people. Through faith in Jesus, we are children of God. God chose us to be this.

But at the same time he chose us to be holy, that is, sinless and pure. ….Isn’t that something? I can tell you that in and of myself, I’m not holy. Neither are you. God indicates that this lack of holiness goes all the way back to our conception. It shows itself in hated, envy, impatience, disrespect, laziness, lying and whole bunch of other ways. Yet God the Father, looking at his Son Jesus and seeing his holiness and his suffering and death on the cross for our sins, declares us to be innocent, holy.

This is not because of anything God sees in us, or received from us, but because of his undeserved love for us. This grace has moved God to love us, chose us, declare us holy, and make us his. God reminds us of this.

As the Lord has made us his people, he also has brought us into the spiritual body of Christ of which Christ is the head. As the body has many parts that have different functions, so it is with the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit, as he brought us to faith, brought us into the body of Christ, gave us spiritual gifts for spiritual service, and has given us reason to serve through the love of Christ.

Do you ever get down and feel kind of worthless? Sometimes this happens, doesn’t it? At times like this as well as at all times we want to remember that to God we are special – his chosen people, holy, dearly loved, and part of the body of Christ.

2. … Dress Decently
I remember one time when I was heading off for school that my mother voiced concern about my dress habits. She said, “I’d appreciate it if you would pay more attention to your dress. There are times you wear the oldest, rattiest stuff you have. Sometimes it looks like you just crawled out of bed… Remember to dress decently.”

“Remember to dress decently,” is what God is telling us also. Physically God tells us to dress modesty, decency and propriety. But in Colossians 3:12 God talks about spiritual dress, “…clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…”

Compassion is a deep feeling of care and concern for each other. At times we Christians may be tempted to feel it doesn’t matter whether we care about one another. God says that it does. Think of Jesus. A number of times the gospel indicate that Jesus had compassion on people and then acted to help them with their spiritual and physical needs.

Kindness is doing what is right and good in various circumstances in life. It’s seeing someone in need of help and helping in whatever way is appropriate – listening, loving, assisting, etc. A classic example of this is the Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable. Culturally and ethnically he had no reason to help the man beaten, robbed and left along the road. But he did. The Good Samaritan showed kindness.

Humility is recognizing that I am who I am, have done what I have done, have what I have and am where I am by the goodness and grace of God. It’s realizing that others, even if they appear to me to be less gifted than I am, are precious in God’s eyes and are people whom Jesus loves and for he died. Therefore, I will not think of myself as better than they are.

Gentleness is not being crude, crass, or impolite. Gentleness is being meek, that is taking a stand when necessary but in a courteous and constructive way. Gentleness is the willingness to suffer injury rather than to inflict it.

Patience is bearing with one another. Things are happening as quickly as you like, but patience leads you to slow down in your thinking and wait. Patience is not getting even with people who hurt or fail you, but forgiving them as the Lord has forgiven you. Consider how Jesus was patient with his disciples who didn’t always get things. Think of how God is patient with you.

But there is one more thing that the Lord wants us to put on and this is love. “And above all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity.” This love is the spontaneous response to God’s love for us. He loves us even though we don’t deserve it. How can we, then, refuse to love one another with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience?

Many a parent has had to stop a son or daughter at the door and ask, “Do you really think you’re dressed appropriately? Go back and change.” In this section of his word God stops us at the door of life and asks us, “Are you dressed appropriately?” Where we have on inappropriate dress – an uncaring spirit, disrespect, conceit, a spirit of vengeance, or impatience, God tells us to take them off. Then he shows us Jesus – perfectly compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient – for you and for me. He shows us Jesus who died for our sins and rose again. God says, “Now dress decently.”

3. … Act Appropriately
When I left home for somewhere for any length of time, I usually heard, “Now you behave yourself!” Or, “Act appropriately!”

God wants the same. “13Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Forgiving people can be so difficult. Human nature is to get even. But when we look at how God has fully and freely forgiven us in Christ, how can we strive to do less with one another?

“…teach and admonish one another…” The Lord has in mind that we share God’s word with each other and caution one another about the dangers prevalent in the world today. The obvious place for this is in a Bible class. But a great place for this to take place is in the home where parents are teaching and modeling God’s word. Friends and fellow Christians may do the same as they gather to read God’s Word together.

“…as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” We may automatically think of singing and music that is in the worship service. Certainly this applies here. But I can inwardly sing a hymn expressing my praise and thanks to God. I can sing hymns as I work in the law or clean the house. I can say or sing psalms hymns and spiritual songs at the bedside of the sick and dying. Families can do it in home devotions. Wherever this singing may take place, God says, “Do it!”

And everything we do God says, “…do it in the name of the Lord.” This means with faith in Jesus and in keeping with his will. Therefore, we will strive to do everything to the glory of God.

Appropriate behavior for the Christian includes being thankful. “Be thankful.” This begins with an awareness of the undeserved blessings of God and continues with an attitude of thankfulness that shows itself in expressions of gratitude to God – prayers, praise, service and other behavior that glorifies God.

4. Eat Well
I grew up in a home where we regularly had protein, potatoes, vegetables, fruit and baked goods. The baked goods were homemade. More often than not the meat, vegetables and fruit were all home-canned. We didn’t have things like pizza, tacos, candy or soda pop. Ice cream was a rarity. So when I left home and found a whole new world of food, sometimes I would go nuts with the stuff that I hadn’t had as a kid. So after a while my mom would say when I was leaving for school, “Now, remember to eat well.”

God wants us to remember the same spiritually speaking. He wants us to spiritually take in what’s good for us. “15Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.” This is the peace that comes from knowing Christ lived, died and rose again for our forgiveness and eternal life. It flows from God’s assurance that our sins are forgiven, that we have eternal life through faith in Jesus and that nothing can separate us God’s love. This peace produces the spiritual clothes we are to wear and leads us to the godly actions.

When God told the Colossians to teach and admonish one another, he indicated that they were to do so with all wisdom. To have this wisdom they would have to take in the wisdom of God. Where the wisdom of God comes from is from God’s Word.

Therefore, God says, “Let the word of God dwell in you richly…” Just like meat, vegetables, fruit and fibers don’t benefit your bodies unless you take them in, so God’s Word does not benefit us unless we take it in. But when we do, God’s Spirit works in us and helps us to remember who we are because he testifies through God’s word that we are children of God. He helps us to spiritually dress decently like God wants us to dress because as we use God’s word he dresses us with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love. The Spirit helps us to act appropriately because the Spirit dwells us to work and act according to his good pleasure. The Spirit gives us peace, wisdom and a thankful spirit.

So let the word of God dwell in you richly and the Spirit of God will work in you powerfully.
Amen.