FOUNDATIONS FOR PEACE

1 Kings 3:5-12
August 20-22, 2011
10th Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Don Sutton

1 Kings 3:5-12
5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” 6 Solomon answered, “You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. 7 “Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” 10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 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.

Introduction
The theme of our sermon today is “Lord, Make Me a Wise Guy.” “A wise guy, huh?” you’re thinking. “Being a wise guy may not be good since they often make light of things that should be kept serious. They often speak when they should be quiet………. I get into enough trouble shooting off my mouth without asking God to help me. Besides he won’t help me in that way.” If you’re thinking of a wise guy in this way, no, it’s not the thing to pray for nor is it something with which God will help us.

I’m talking about God helping us to be people who are wise. I’m talking about being wise in the ways of God, being able to make the right decisions in the right way and at the right time. When I refer to guys I’m using the term generically. “Guys is guys and girls is guys.”

Solomon prayed this prayer, “Lord make me a wise guy” when he went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices in the high places where his father David had first located the ark of the covenant after rescuing it from the Philistines. It was the number one worship spot at that time. Solomon was one of the sons of King David of Israel. Solomon became king in the mid-900’s before Christ. Let’s consider this petition – “Lord, make me a wise guy,” as we consider God’s offer to Solomon.

God’s Offer
While in Gibeon Solomon offered God 1,000 sacrifices. While he probably had help doing this, it took a while with the result that he would have to stay over-night. During the night he had a dream. The Lord appeared to him in that dream. God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

Wow! Wouldn’t that be something? That would be like a person with a sweet tooth having the whole candy store given to him or her and being told you can have anything you want. Of course with God his sweets and treats go much further than a candy store. Could you imagine God making an offer like that to you?

Do you realize that he does? Think about Jesus’ invitation and promise to his disciples in John 14, “You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it (14).” What is Jesus doing when he says, “Ask and it will be given to you… Seek and you shall find… Knock and the door will be opened to you (Lk11)?” Consider God’s word in Isaiah concerning his people – “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear (65:24).” There is that assuring passage in 1 John 5, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us (14).”

Do we sometimes find ourselves struggling through life, juggling too many balls in the air, carrying so many burdens, puzzled and perplexed about how to handle some situation or deal with some challenge and we’re floundering, failing and falling because have forgotten the Lord’s invitation to us, “Ask me for anything?” Do we at times ignore his invitations to ask him for things because we doubt his invitation and his promises? Do we not ask because we see our own limitations and make the mistake of transferring them to God in our minds minimizing his power? What are we doing? We are sinning because we are doing things to God we shouldn’t do. We are being stupid because God is offering us himself and we’re taking a pass on the greatest Father, Friend and Helper there is.

This God who tells us to ask, is the God who loves, loves us so much he gave his one and only Son from all eternity… loves us so much that he gave himself as our Savior…loves us so much that he gave us his Spirit to set us apart as his people …loves us so much that he has forgiven us our sins and given us his righteousness …loves us enough that he has made us heirs of eternal life.

Listen to God’s invitation, “Ask me for whatever you want.” Take it seriously.

Solomon’s Response
Then request wisely. Solomon did.

Wouldn’t you think that he would have felt like a kid with a sweet-tooth in a candy store? What were his options? “How about living a long life? The conquest of all my enemies? Wealth?” These were the things that a lot of ancient kings would have considered.

But Solomon, rather than feeling elation, felt intimidation. Since he was only 20 years old, Solomon felt too young to rule. He felt like a little child. He was intimidated by the fact that he was ruling not just any nation but the Lord’s people. Then there was the fact that they were many. What was he to do with such a daunting job?

So feeling so small and incapable, Solomon wisely asked God for a discerning or understanding heart to govern God’s people and to distinguish between right and wrong. Solomon was basically asking, “God make me a wise guy so I can be a godly king.”

What you have asked for? Wealth? Beauty? Prestige? To be the next superstar athlete, singer or actor? To be the next whiz kid on Wall Street or owner of a palatial ocean-front Home?

Jesus once asked, “What does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world and forfeits his own soul (Mat 16)?” Jesus also said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things (those things of this world that we need) will be given to you as well (Mat 6).”

Don’t we like Solomon need wisdom? First of all we need to be wise onto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus because apart from him there is no salvation – only damnation. Jesus gives us that wisdom through the gospel and the Holy Spirit who works through it empowering us to believe it. To be wise and stay wise, regularly hear and listen to those words of the Gospel, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (Acts 16).”
But don’t we also need wisdom in discerning right from wrong or what is just okay and what is really great? Don’t we need wisdom in choosing spouses, being spouses, raising children, dealing with parents, wresting with issues at work or school or in the community? Who of us is so wise that we don’t need to join with Solomon is saying and praying, “Lord, make me a wise guy?”

God’s Response
Isn’t God’s response motivation to do so? “The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 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.”

1 Kings goes on to state, “God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. 30 Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 He was wiser than any other man….32 He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. 33 He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. 34 Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom (1 Kgs4).”

God not only gave Solomon wisdom of the Kingdom of God the wisdom of God’s word, he also gave him common sense, good perception, discernment, administrative skills and an amazing understanding of the world in which he lived.

In James 1 God promises through the writer, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” Certainly this applies to understanding of God’s word and the ability to apply it to life. This is the main way that God gives godly wisdom. His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

But there are those challenges we face, those decisions we have to make, that direction that we are trying to determine. To deal with these we not only need his word but we need his guiding our decisions and choosing our direction. God says, “Come to me. I will give you that wisdom.”

Jeremiah wrote, “I know, O Lord, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps (10).” God does the directing. The Psalmist Asaph said, “You lead your people like a flock.” Paul wrote, “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.”

God gives wisdom to his people who seek it. So by all means pray, “Lord, make me a wise guy.”

JOB 41:1–34
August 14th, 2011
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Pastor Timothy Smith

The Leviathan is one of those things in the Bible that we hear about out in the world as well as encounter in the pages of Scripture. Along with his companion in Job, the Behemoth, we don’t know exactly what Leviathan is. Some people think that the crocodile is the closest thing they can imagine to Leviathan’s tough hide and powerful tail, and other people have set out the elephant as their idea of this creature who lurks below the water, waiting for prey to devour. It’s not my duty today to define this creature perfectly for you, but it is my task to explain what God is saying to you and to me through the poetry of Job, and it is your task to meditate with me on the warning God gives us through the Leviathan, and the gospel promise that is made more bright and clear than ever when set against the murky darkness of this terrifying creature in the book of Job. Let’s let King David give us a thought for a theme: The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?

Let’s very quickly bring us to this point in Job. The devil himself, Satan the Accuser, has proposed to God that he could get Job to curse God if he afflicted him with a disease and took away all his possessions. The Lord, confident of Job’s faith, permitted this test, as long as the devil spared Job’s life. Three (or, we learn later, four) friends arrive to console Job and to accuse him of hiding some sin that brought on this attack, which they think is from the Lord, although the reverse is true: Job is not attacked by God for a sin, but he has been attacked by the devil because of his faith. Job friends are quiet companions for a week, but then, if I read the clues in the text correctly, for three days and nights they torment their friend with accusations, during which a storm approaches and finally silences them all with its terrifying thunder and lightning. Then the Lord speaks from the storm—if you read back through Job, you will note that the Lord had been approaching the whole time; he had never left Job at all.

When the Lord arrived, he picked up on the conversation of Job’s friends, and he challenged them to tell whether any of them could say where the rain and snow come from, or the wind, or the stars. Then the Lord questioned Job about seven ordinary animals, like the hawk and the wild ox, the horse and the lioness. After asking whether Job or any of his friends were there when he created the world or any of these seven ordinary creatures, the Lord turns to two extraordinary creatures. First came Behemoth—a beast which God describes in chapter 40, and Leviathan, the monster before us today.

In the New Testament, there are references to the Beast and the Dragon which sound very much like an application of Behemoth and Leviathan. Should we think the same way?

Whom should I fear?

The Leviathan is pictured as destructive, as terrifying, as unbeatable—this is something Job and you and I should fear, and respect, and we should make plenty of room for him. The word leviathan in Hebrew seems to come from a root word meaning “bend” or “twist.” And although an ordinary animal could fit most of the description, nothing on earth today and nothing we know of that’s extinct fits the description we have here of the leviathan.

So before we apply this mysterious creature to our lives, let’s notice—please indulge me—let’s notice just one more thing. The book of Job is one of the Bible’s great Wisdom Books, which means that as in Proverbs, we expect that there will be some symbolism in the words, especially things like colors, numbers and even minerals in Job. The Lord mentioned seven ordinary creatures, and just two extraordinary creatures as he questioned his servant. But that’s only nine. In a book like Job, we would expect there to be a round ten examples, as long as the Lord through the poet is teaching us something here. But all through the book of Job, there has been a creature of God who has gone unmentioned, and virtually unnoticed by Job and his friends—and that’s the devil himself.

In the description of Leviathan, God has left room for something unmentioned and even more fearsome for us to consider. And so rather than trying to identify this monster—which cannot be identified—we should take the next step, and recognize the unnamed terror underlying everything in the book, and responsible for all of the sin, the pain, the loss, the trouble and the temptation in our lives.

Would you try to catch the monster Leviathan with a fishhook? Well, would you ever dare to go fishing for the devil himself? Would you want to keep Lucifer in the back field with a ring through his nose like your uncle’s prizewinning bull? Will you beg the devil for mercy? Will evil—the evil that tempted Eve with the slightest pinprick of a lie—will evil be merciful with you? Will evil be gentle with you? Will you make a bargain with the devil and agree to be in his debt? To become his slave?

Be careful with your faith. We get angry with the world, and we get angry with sinfulness, and we get angry that our plans fall through. Who are we angry with? Are we angry with God ? If we’re angry with God, who will we turn to for help? Who is really looking after us? If we listen to the hissing lies of the devil, we will be tempted to lay our troubles at God’s door instead of laying our sins down at the foot of the cross.

Remember what John said about the Great Dragon in Revelation:

The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ!” (Rev. 12:9-10).

In verse 14, God warns about Leviathan: Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth? If that’s true of a dangerous and impossibly terrifying creature, how much more true isn’t it of the devil himself? Don’t let him open his mouth in your life. Don’t listen to his whispers, and don’t listen to the way he shouts at you through your TV set or the New York State supreme court. Keep his mouth shut. We do that spiritually by tuning the devil out when he tries to talk and by listening to God. When we hear what the Lord has to say, we will be better prepared to recognize the Adversary, the Satan, when he bares his teeth in our lives.

As the Lord describes Leviathan’s back as protected and tough, we have to remember that the devil has strong defenses, too. Doubt, fear, peer pressure, habit, tradition—all of these are trenches and battlements around the devil’s lies that cloak them in mist and fog and make them hard to recognize and even harder to pierce. And there is truly on one weapon: The Word of God, and especially the very Name of Jesus Christ himself.

The name of Jesus undoes all the lies and deceptions of Satan, and shines a bright light on the true object of our faith—not because it’s a magic word, but because what Jesus did is finished and what Jesus did is true. We trust in Christ alone, and we want his grace and his forgiveness to protect us forever.

Let’s not forget that. A temptation we face today is to think that the devil is only interested in somebody else, that he probably hasn’t got time for you today. But God wants us to think again. The devil isn’t a bunny we can frighten off by stomping our foot when we catch him nibbling in the garden. He is a fallen angel, as awesome and as powerful of any of God’s holy angels, but with none of the compassion or mercy that comes from God himself. All he wants is for you to fall.

So when we’re tempted to ignore the devil, or think that he’s napping today, if we think that we can get away with a little bitty sin that he won’t cheer about and exploit by shattering our conscience and our self-esteem, then we need to seriously recognize the devil’s lies already at work in us, and we need to run to Jesus. In Jesus alone there is forgiveness. In Jesus alone there is protection and victory over the devil and all his fury.

God tells us flat out about the devil in our text: On earth is not his equal. That’s why we rely on Jesus Christ, who is more than the devil’s equal, and we trust in Christ’s victory on the cross for us, when he crushed the serpent’s head and smashed the power of this powerful leviathan.

Through Jesus, we have eternal life. Whom shall we fear? Amen.
41 “Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope? 2 Can you put a cord through his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? 3 Will he keep begging you for mercy? Will he speak to you with gentle words? 4 Will he make an agreement with you for you to take him as your slave for life? 5 Can you make a pet of him like a bird or put him on a leash for your girls? 6 Will traders barter for him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? 7 Can you fill his hide with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? 8 If you lay a hand on him, you will remember the struggle and never do it again! 9 Any hope of subduing it is false; the mere sight of it is overpowering.
10 “No one is fierce enough to rouse it. Who then is able to stand against me? 11 Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me…
14 “Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth? 15 His back has rows of shields tightly sealed together; 16 each is so close to the next that no air can pass between. 17 They are joined fast to one another; they cling together and cannot be parted. 18 His snorting throws out flashes of light; his eyes are like the rays of dawn. 19 Firebrands stream from his mouth; sparks of fire shoot out. 20 Smoke pours from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over a fire of reeds. 21 His breath sets coals ablaze, and flames dart from his mouth. 22 Strength resides in his neck; dismay goes before him. 23 The folds of his flesh are tightly joined; they are firm and immovable. 24 His chest is hard as rock, hard as a lower millstone. 25 When he rises up, the mighty are terrified; they retreat before his thrashing. 26 The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. 27 Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. 28 Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. 29 A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance. 30 His undersides are jagged potsherds, leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing sledge. 31 He makes the depths churn like a boiling caldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment. 32 Behind him he leaves a glistening wake; one would think the deep had white hair. 33 Nothing on earth is his equal– a creature without fear. 34 He looks down on all that are haughty; he is king over all that are proud.” (NIV, read from lectern)