Moved to Worship — 1 Kings 8

0:00 Well, morning. I feel self conscious about my swaying now. It's like, oh no, I'm doing that. Can't do that. He told me not to.

0:12 You can do it, that's why we're standing up. Okay, good, good. It's allowed. Thank you so much for having us here this morning, Kelly and I and our son Matthew. It's great to be here again, it's a pleasure to see everyone.

0:28 See everyone again. It's it's good to be here. I want to ask you start off by asking you a question of has this ever happened to you? We don't have to have a show of hands or anything of that nature, but perhaps you're reading a book or you're watching a movie perhaps or something like that, you're being entertained by some medium and something happens in the story or in the movie and it's kind of sad. And you get this little tear that goes down your eye and you begin to cry.

1:06 And you're like, it's so sad about Bambi. Has that and perhaps maybe that's happened to you, maybe not in Bambi but maybe in some other some other thing. And I think it's funny to or interesting to think about of the different things that move me and, you know, you get worked up over and, you know, you watch a movie and about, you know, deer and you get all choked up and it's so sad. And you look at other things in the world and even in scripture and we are very stoic about it. It doesn't influence us, doesn't move us at all.

1:42 But we get moved by these other things that really don't matter. And what I'd like us to look at is a passage in First Kings, the book of first Kings chapter eight and I'd like to talk about this morning about being moved to worship. Being moved to worship and we're going to look at first Kings chapter eight and we're going to look at the whole chapter. We're going to bounce around just a little bit within the chapter because it is quite lengthy but this is a great passage, a powerful passage of the dedication of the temple that Solomon has built. And this is a moment for which the nation has looked for and longed for, for several decades.

2:33 David had... King David, Solomon's father had the desire, as we'll see in this passage, the desire to build the temple, but the Lord did not allow him to. But he made the preparations for the building of the temple. Solomon's, once his kingdom is solidified and secure, he begins the process of building the temple. It takes him, I believe, a period of time of seven years to build to actual construction of the temple.

3:08 And this is the crown jewel of this new nation, the height of its beauty, the height of its technological and architectural prowess, and it really ushers in this new era of peace in Solomon's lifetime. And the people are longing for this moment, for the time of when they can worship the lord in this new temple and we see in chapter eight verses one and following, we'll just read a few verses here. It talks about this dedication, this special ceremony to dedicate this temple. It says, then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the father's houses of the people of Israel before king Solomon in Jerusalem to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David which is Zion. And all the men of Israel assembled to King Solomon at the feast in month of Ethanam which is the seventh month and all the elders of Israel came and the priest took up the ark and they brought up the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting and all the holy vessels that were in the tent.

4:28 The priests and the Levites brought them up and King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who had assembled before him were with him before the ark sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered. Then the priest brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place in the inner sanctuary of the house in the most holy place underneath the wings of the cherubim. For the cherubim spread out their wings over the place of the ark so that the cherubim overshadowed the ark and its poles. And the poles were so long the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place before the inner sanctuary but they cannot be seen from outside and they were there to and they are there to this day. There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone that Moses put there at Horeb where the Lord made a covenant with the people of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt.

6:15 And they are sacrificing these animals in worship to the Lord, they bring the object of worship of the Ark of the Covenant, they place it into the temple and as this happens, this massive cloud comes in and comes into the temple and fills the temple as a manifestation of God revealing himself, his glory being shown. What a crazy event. And Solomon looks at this and we're going to look at what Solomon says here in the remainder of chapter eight. And Solomon looks at this and he in in today's terms he might... He just kind of goes, woah.

7:09 God is here and he is just consumed with who God is and worships him. And as he looks at this event, as he's at this event of dedicating the temple and seeing the Lord making himself known here, he remembers and proclaims two themes about God. He's he's reminding himself this and reminding the people and these two themes they move him to worship. He sees this about who his God is and who our God is and it moves him to worship God. And he first sees the theme of the presence of God and later he'll see the theme of the faithfulness of God, but first he sees the theme of the presence of God and talks about this.

7:54 He gives a very short introduction to the people as this cloud comes and descends into the temple in verses ten and eleven. Verse 12, Solomon comments about this event. He says, then Solomon said the Lord had said that he will dwell in thick darkness. I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever. And Solomon sees this as the text says, as the Lord himself coming in the form of this cloud revealing himself and making his presence known to his people.

8:31 If we remember back to the Exodus and the nation of Israel's wandering through the wilderness is that they were guided by a pillar of light and a pillar of cloud, right? And so this is a manifestation of the Lord revealing Himself to His people, making Himself known, his presence known to his people. And the same is here in this event, this dedication of the temple. And Solomon draws our attention and draws the people's attention to the purpose of God making himself known and making his presence known to his people. And you see this, if we jump down to verse 29, we see of why God would do this and the purpose of it and he says this, verse 29, says that your eyes may be opened night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said my name shall be there, that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place.

9:36 And so the Lord has this, makes his presence known to his people in the temple for the express purpose that they would have a place for them to come and worship him. Have a place for them to come and seek forgiveness. That they could go and pray to the Lord and he would forgive them. And this is and Solomon looks at this as this is an opportunity for us to communicate with God. God is making himself known.

10:06 He's he's pleased with this temple. We can go to God through this temple, through this temple because God's here and we can worship him. And we can praise him because he's here. This is the point of contact for us. And I think that Solomon is really excited about this.

10:46 Thus, we can go to him. We can pray to him. And we can have forgiveness of our sins. Isn't that awesome? And this is what, you know, this moves him to worship because of the Lord is there.

10:58 And that the Lord makes himself known to his people. This is the great thing about who our God is. Is that our God is not like the God that Thomas Jefferson viewed. He created the world but then kind of stepped back and it had nothing to do with it. Our God is interested in human affairs.

11:18 He is interested in us. He has interjected himself into human history. And he has done that here in this event and because of that, Solomon looks at this says, God is so awesome. I want to praise him, I want to worship him because he allows me to come to him. He has made himself known to me that I may seek forgiveness.

11:43 And we see this joy that he has here in verse 27 as well. I apologize for jumping around a little bit but in verse 27 we see kind of this joy come out that he has. He says this and I think this is a profound statement and we'll come back to this statement in a few moments. He says, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? Like, isn't that a crazy thought that God would dwell on the earth in the form of this cloud in the temple that I've made?

12:13 Behold heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house that I have built. And you just see his joy overflow because of this. That the Lord would condescend himself and humble himself to show himself to his people. And this overjoys Solomon.

12:36 Then we see in verses 28 through 30, we've seen that joy that he has and then in verse 28 through 30, we see the plea that Solomon makes. We've already seen that the reason why God would do this, but now because God is there and because he has made his presence known, Solomon makes a request. He makes a plea to the Lord and we see this in verse 28 through 30. It says, yet have regard to the prayer of your servants and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said my name shall be there that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place and listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel when they pray toward this place and listen in heaven your dwelling place and when you hear, forgive. I think this is so cool because Solomon reminds us and reminds the nation of Israel at this time that see God's here, we can go to him and oh by the way, let's go to him right now.

13:50 Let's pray to him and ask for his forgiveness. This is something I was thinking about this weekend and looking over this passage again and we'll see later in this passage that God is a speaking God, that God makes himself known and he speaks to us and we know this very well because we have his scriptures. But one thing I was just thinking about in a new light is that God is a listening God. I think that's just, if I can reverently put this, that's such a crazy thing that God wants to listen to you and to me. We can come to him and pray to him.

14:31 I think that's so cool that the God of the universe wants to hear all I have to say and wants me to come to him. And Solomon sees this event of the Lord indwelling in the temple and he goes, we need to go to the Lord, we need to pray to him, we need to seek forgiveness because he's God and we're sinful, we need to pray to him and so he pleads to the Lord because the Lord is there and has made his presence known. Now we look at this passage and we look at it from Solomon's point of view and how he viewed things but I think another way that we should look at this and see this passage is in light of the New Testament and how much greater things that we have. Solomon gets so excited about the Lord indwelling the temple as a cloud and what that means for him, but we have so much more than that. I love this verse, verse 27.

16:08 We see John chapter one verse 14 and it says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. And talk about you know another level here. Solomon's getting excited of the Lord revealing himself as a cloud in the temple. But God has revealed himself in his son as a man, coming as a man to die on the cross for our sins.

16:43 That's like it's just so much greater than what Solomon experienced. And his experience was wow, God's amazing, he's here, let's praise him. And here we have the idea of the incarnation of God becoming a man for our sins. And many times I know in my own life, maybe this is similar in your own, that we get used to the idea of God coming to this earth. I want a crazy thought that God would humble himself to become a little baby, to grow up as a man and die for our sins.

17:20 Our perfect God would do that for you and for me. That should move us to worship. That should greatly impact our heart and loving the Lord more because of how much he has done for us. And we see that He has made Himself known, His presence known in coming and dying for our sins so that we may have forgiveness but also turn with me to Colossians chapter one if you'd like, Colossians chapter one. Not only has the Lord come as a man on this earth, but we see here that we have a greater experience of his presence in Colossians chapter one and let's look at verse 27.

18:14 Colossians one verse 27. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Isn't that cool? God indwells us as believers. Christ indwells us as believers.

18:38 For the purpose that we may come to him, that we may pray to him, that we may seek him and he would listen to us. That he would give us strength to do his will. I think that's really awesome. He makes his presence known so that we may worship him. For Solomon on his side of the cross in the Old Testament, he looks at what the Lord reveals and he's moved to worship.

19:08 But we have so much greater than that. And the question I think we need to ask ourselves is does it really move us to worship? That our God came as a man to die on the cross and he indwells us. Do we get used to the idea of the cross? Do we get used to the idea of what we have in Christ that we don't appreciate it?

19:34 I think Solomon reminds us in his proclamation of the presence of God here in his own situation that we should be worshipping the Lord more and more because of who he is, what he has done and how he indwells in us, that he is with us. So Solomon has first remembered and proclaimed the theme of the presence of God but then what takes up a great deal of his prayer and of his sermon here is the faithfulness of God, the theme of the faithfulness of God. And we see this in starting in verse 15, we'll jump back to verse 15 in one Kings chapter eight. Back in one Kings eight fifteen, it said, and he said, Solomon said, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who with his hand has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to David my father saying, since the day that I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I chose no city out of all the tribes of Israel in which to build a house that my name might be there. But I chose David to be over my people Israel.

21:35 And we see here that Solomon is remembering the faithfulness of God in his covenant with David. And he reminds us and he recounts what is told in second Samuel seven of how God made an agreement, made a covenant with David saying that, okay, you wanted to build the temple, that's great, I'm not going to let you, your son is going to. And I'm going to make this agreement with you that, and it's an unconditional agreement, no matter what, I'm going to I'm going to do it, that you will always have a son of your lineage, of your dynasty would always sit as king over Israel. We'll see that this is ultimately fulfilled with Christ in the millennium. But he makes this promise to David and Solomon recounts this and he sees that the Lord has fulfilled what he said he would do.

22:33 He said that David's son would build the temple. I'm David's son and I've built the temple. God's promise is true. I think a lot of times when we look at biblical history and maybe just history in general, we think of it as well it had to happen that way. There was no real deviations that could have happened, it was going to happen that way.

22:57 But for Solomon and you read chapter you read second Samuel and read the beginning of first Kings, of Solomon becoming king is actually quite tenuous. Solomon has several brothers that try to take his place as king and Solomon looks at this, sees this as a real world situation and a real world testimony of God's faithfulness placing him as king and making him set up the throne or setting up the temple. And he goes, the Lord did this. I love what Solomon says here later in verse 23. Solomon says before the people, he says, oh lord, and he prays this before the people, praying it to God, says, oh lord god of Israel, there is no god like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart.

23:55 I mean, think about that. There's no God that's like you because you are so faithful in keeping your covenant, in keeping your agreement. You keep it. You are faithful to your word and you're faithful to your word that you gave to your servant David. This is verse 24, you have kept with your servant David, my father, what you declared to him and I love this sentence here.

24:16 It says, you spoke with your mouth and with your hand have fulfilled it this day. Our God is a speaking God. He's not only a listening God, he's a speaking God and what he says you can take to the bank. He is faithful to his word. What he says with his mouth, he will perform with his hand.

24:36 Isn't that cool? He doesn't, Solomon doesn't say, well you said that I would become king and I did that, I became king. I did that, it was all me, he gives all the glory to God, you did this, you made me king, you established this, you fulfilled it this day and he looks back at this promise that God made to him and to David and let's turn over if you'd like to two Kings chapter eight. Two Kings chapter eight, we're at one Kings, we can keep a finger in one Kings eight but we'll back there, but let's look at two Kings eight. But part of God's agreement that he made with David is that he would always have a son to sit on the throne in Jerusalem.

25:25 That he would that his dynasty would not be revoked or destroyed. When we look at the history of the nation of Israel after Solomon, the nation splits into two groups, the northern 10 tribes of Israel and the southern two tribes of Judah. The southern two tribes would follow the dynasty of David and his sons, the northern 10 tribes would have various dynasties, various kings and it's interesting to look at with that is that you have the king and the first one is, and I'm forgetting his name, Jeroboam. Yeah, Jeroboam is the first king of the nation of Israel in the North and the Lord says, if you follow me your dynasty will be secure. He doesn't follow the Lord, his sons don't follow the Lord, okay, dynasty gone.

26:18 New guy comes in, you're to follow me? Nope, dynasty gone. There's four or five dynasties, all of them are gotten rid of, are judged by the Lord because of their failure to serve the Lord. God doesn't say this with the southern tribes, he doesn't say this with David, he says no matter what, I'll be faithful to my agreement that you will always have a son to sit on the throne of Jerusalem. And notice two Kings eight and such a comforting passage and we'll come back to this in a little bit.

26:50 It says here in verse 16 of second Kings eight, it says in the fifth year of Joram the son of Ahab, king of Israel, the northern nation, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah began to reign. So this is a descendant of David, descendant of Solomon on the southern tribes, this guy named Jehoram. He was 32 years old when he became king and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem. And he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. That's bad.

27:22 That's code language for it. That's really bad. All the kings of Israel were bad. So it says and he walked in the ways in the way of the kings of Israel as the house of Ahab had done. That's double bad.

27:35 Ahab it says that he was the... That no one sold himself to do wickedly like Ahab did. So if he's falling in Ahab's steps, that's really, really bad. For the daughter of Ahab was his wife. So that means his mother-in-law was Jezebel.

27:51 Talk about mother-in-law problems. And so that influences his life, that influences his kingship, his service to the Lord and it is nonexistent. It says this about him and what a legacy that he leads, he leaves and he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. Now verse 19 is the key here. Given this description of the sin that Jehoram has done, verse 19 says, yet the Lord was not willing to destroy Judah for the sake of David his servant since he promised to give a lamp to him and to his sons forever.

28:31 He doesn't get rid of that of David's dynasty, of his sons because of his agreement to David that he would never do that. He is faithful to his word. Isn't that awesome that our God is faithful? Even in the midst of sin, of great awful sin, he is faithful to what he has promised. And really I think we have to look at is if God is not going to be faithful to his word with the nation of Israel, why would he be faithful to his word with us?

29:01 So we look at how he interacts with Israel and that shows us how he'll interact with us. He's faithful in his word to them. He's faithful in his word to us. And we'll see that more in a moments. But look with me back to first Kings chapter eight.

30:35 He looks and says, look, the Lord has been faithful. God said he would not forsake Israel. God said that he would, that they are his chosen people, he'll never forsake them, they're his. And Solomon says, he's done that, he's protected us, he's taken care of us, we're still here. He is faithful to his covenant to Israel and we look even today that Israel is still in existence, that through many attempts to exterminate the Jews they're still here.

31:06 Why? Because God is faithful to His covenant to Israel. They are still His chosen people and he's faithful to them and faithful to his word. Isn't that great that he is faithful to his word? And that as we look at his faithfulness to Israel and to David and his agreement with them, we can look at the faithfulness of God to us.

31:30 And turn with me to two Timothy chapter two. Two Timothy chapter two. We look at things from this side of the cross and how God interacts with us and how he deals with us and we see that he is the same. Second Timothy chapter two and let's start in verse 11. The saying is trustworthy for if we have died with him, we will also live with him.

32:05 If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. Isn't that a comforting passage? If we are faithless and I don't know about you, I know I am at times very faithless.

32:28 He remains faithful. Why? Because he cannot deny himself. He indwells us, we are part of his body, he cannot get rid of us. Not that he wants to, but he's faithful to us.

32:40 He has spoken that we are his and he is faithful to that promise. Turn over just a page or two to Titus chapter one. To Titus chapter one and let's look at verse two and I love this passage. Powerful passage regarding the nature of god and the nature of scripture but we see here in Titus one verse two, it says, in hope of eternal life which god who never lies promised before the ages began. He says God does not lie, he has promised that we would have eternal life.

33:21 He doesn't lie, you can take it to the bank. It's not like oh well, you sinned, see you later. Oh well, you know you weren't good enough, you didn't have enough faith, see you later. He remains faithful. I think that's so awesome.

33:41 What a God that we have that he would act that way towards us. This is all him. It is nothing on us, it is all on him that he is faithful to us. That he never lies. When he says something, when we look at his word, when we look at the scriptures and it tells us that he will never leave us nor forsake us, he's not messing around with us.

34:02 He's not saying, yeah I said that but you know, I was just kidding. Doesn't do that at all. When he tells us that we have salvation from our sins, we have that when we believe in his son. He is faithful to his word and to us. And we need to remember his faithfulness.

34:23 And that should move us to worship him and look how great our god is. Praise him because he's faithful to me. I want to look at one last thing here back in first Kings chapter eight. We see in one Kings chapter eight verse 57 and the next couple of verses we see that Solomon gives a response to the faithfulness of God. God acts this way towards us, He is faithful to us, how should we then respond to this?

35:55 God is faithful to us. God is faithful to his word. Let us then have our hearts be wholly true, completely true. Let their hearts be loyal to him and we would manifest this, we would show this in how we live in following his commandments. May we do this as at this day.

36:17 This is Solomon's plea to the nation of Israel and I think in light of further revelation that we have in scripture and in light of the cross, this should be even more accentuated. See of how faithful our God is in saving us from our sins. Let us worship him and let us honor him and follow him and our hearts be totally directed to him by living out his word. And may we have this in our life that we would respond to his faithfulness. I love that hymn and very familiar to us, Great is Thy Faithfulness.

37:01 I just want to read one line from it. It says, Great is Thy Faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not, as thou hast been, thou forever will be. Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness, morning by morning new mercies I see.

37:26 All I have needed thy hand hath provided, great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me. That's a great hymn isn't it? The thing I think about with that hymn is that it's not just a hymn to be sung, it's a truth to be believed. It's to be internalized. Because I think a lot of times we know oh yeah, well God came unto this earth and made his presence known.

37:51 Well God is faithful, yeah that's great. But what is that doing for us in our lives? How is that affecting us? Does it move us to worship our God? Does it move us to serve him with everything that we have?

38:10 We've seen that Psalm has talked about the presence and faithfulness of God and may these themes that we would remember them and that they would move us to worship Him. We get so choked up and moved emotionally by silly movies, stupid movies that we watch or books that we read and we go, oh it's so sad Bambi and it's so awful and you know we get worked up. May we get, may we be moved by this of who our God is and that we would praise him and serve him with everything that we have. Why don't we close in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for who you are and how you act towards us.

38:59 We thank you god that you are a god who has revealed yourself to us. That you've made yourself known and that you want to have a relationship with us father. We thank you that you are a listening god, that you love to listen to us, and that we can come to you and seek forgiveness. Father, we thank you that you are a speaking god as well that you tell us what is truth. When you tell us something, it is truth lord and we just praise you that your word is truth.

39:29 That you are faithful to what you have promised. Father may we worship you so much more when we look at who you are and what you've done for us. And father may our hearts be completely, be wholly true to you that we would do your commandments and statutes, Father. We thank you for your love and we thank you for your word and we ask these things in your son's name, amen.