SPEAKER_00: Hey, what a privilege it is to be together to study God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: We do study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: If you'd like a paper copy, we have some folks that are passing them around.
SPEAKER_00: Just lift up your hand and someone can bring you uh bring one to you.
SPEAKER_00: Also want to welcome all those who are uh worshiping with us online.
SPEAKER_00: We heard heard some from from some folks uh in Scotland as well as New York City, uh as well as South America and places around uh Southeastern Asia just this week.
SPEAKER_00: So glad you're uh with us, worshiping with us today and studying with us today.
SPEAKER_00: It's been said in several different ways and uh by different people, something like it can take 20 years to build a reputation, but it only takes five minutes to lose one.
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of truth in that, but I don't think it goes far enough, does it?
SPEAKER_00: In those proverbial five minutes when the politician makes a catastrophic blunder, when the businesswoman torpedoes her career because of a moral failure of some kind, or a husband walks away from a family.
SPEAKER_00: In that fleeting moment, those proverbial five minutes, what we're really witnessing is the visible fruit of a thousand yeses that should have been no's, or vice versa.
SPEAKER_00: The cumulative effect of small compromises that cultivated a numb conscience and led away from an integrated whole person, integrity, as we say.
SPEAKER_00: Those five minutes reveal some form of drift at some point in their life.
SPEAKER_00: A heart or a mind fractured with a broken rudder or an ineffective compass.
SPEAKER_00: The ancient scriptures that we call the Bible, that we have the privilege of studying here this morning, they're refreshingly honest, sometimes shockingly honest.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, our reading of God's word will show us the I'll say the unvarnished reality of Solomon, his heart conditioned towards the end of his life.
SPEAKER_00: So this morning, as we read, I think it'll be good for us to pay attention and remember this.
SPEAKER_00: Remember this in the back of your head.
SPEAKER_00: This is a true story of a real human person with longings and desires much like yours and mine, misshapen by sin.
SPEAKER_00: And at first glance, it can seem challenging to relate to a wealthy Middle Eastern king from 3,000 years ago, but this man faced similar categories of temptations that you and I face every single day this week, perhaps even this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: So as we study the scriptures this morning, here, I'm gonna put these up on the screen for us.
SPEAKER_00: Here are four observations or four lessons I'd like for us to keep in mind as we invite the Holy Spirit to bring his guiding hand of illumination to our study today.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see the peril of drift.
SPEAKER_00: Little compromises that cultivate a numb conscious, an apathy that leads to complacency, that leads to spiritual decay.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see the peril of drift.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see the priority of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Worship in the sense of all of life aimed towards something.
SPEAKER_00: It has a telos, an end in mind, our deepest affections and love.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean when I say worship.
SPEAKER_00: What we worship is ultimately the most important thing about us.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll see the provision of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: We just sang about it.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, at least up until that time.
SPEAKER_00: He turns out to be one of the most foolish.
SPEAKER_00: Even so, we'll be astonished by the grace and mercy shown because of the outrageous, lavish love of God for mercy to the weakest, the vilest, and the poor.
SPEAKER_00: I love this from George Herbert Morrison.
SPEAKER_00: He was a Scottish pastor in the 19th century and early 20th.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible never offers a drink from shallow waters.
SPEAKER_00: There you do not find a set of petty maxims, but the everlasting love of God.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you see that today.
SPEAKER_00: You do not find any shallow views of sin, but a lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the secret of the Bible's permanence, or I might say, relevance for us today, when our little systems have ceased to be, our little kingdoms have ceased to be, because of sin, because of sorrow, because of life and death and duty.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible, it gives us drink as abundant as the seas.
SPEAKER_00: Borrowing from Psalm 78 there.
SPEAKER_00: I do pray the Spirit would do his work in us today, redirecting our attention towards the risen Christ, whose mercy is indeed more, and the genuine hope he has for anyone in here who might be surveying their life, wondering about the trajectory of your current path, or perhaps you are experiencing the sting of those thousand no's that should have been a yes.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, his mercy is for you, abundant as the seas, my friend.
SPEAKER_00: So I invite you to turn to 1 Kings chapter 11, and I'll pray for us and we'll get going this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Father, what we know not, uh teach us.
SPEAKER_00: What we have not, give us, and what we are not, we pray you would make us.
SPEAKER_00: By the power of your Holy Spirit, and in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, we all said.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings chapter 11, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, his first wife.
SPEAKER_00: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon clung to these in love.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations will render it, he held fast to these in love.
SPEAKER_00: The daughter that he married, the daughter of Pharaoh, we read about that in 1 Kings 3.
SPEAKER_00: That was breaking a prohibition on its own.
SPEAKER_00: And here there's a direct prohibition, and this is not an ethnic prohibition primarily.
SPEAKER_00: This is about worship.
SPEAKER_00: All of these nations, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite, the author, literally, if you had a map, it's like encircling the nation of Israel, all of them.
SPEAKER_00: On the eastern side, all the way down south, and then up on the western side towards the north.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord, in giving this prohibition, is trying to preserve a kingdom from the worship of pagan idols.
SPEAKER_00: He's trying to protect with this prohibition his people from the devastation that idol worship can bring to them.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this is about.
SPEAKER_00: It's primarily about worship.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He had 700 wives who were princesses and 300 concubines.
SPEAKER_00: And his wives turned away his heart.
SPEAKER_00: And you might underline the word heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's mentioned six times in this text here.
SPEAKER_00: His wives indeed turned away his heart.
SPEAKER_00: And 700 wives, princesses, 300 concubines, you could say in a sense, he had a thousand wives, seven hundred of them had special privileges.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps there were political marriages.
SPEAKER_00: But they turned his heart away.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: For when Solomon was old, so some time has passed now, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
SPEAKER_00: Not wholly true.
SPEAKER_00: His heart was fragmented.
SPEAKER_00: It was splintered, fractured, disunited, disintegrated.
SPEAKER_00: Not wholly true to the Lord his God.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting that that section there, as was the heart of David his father.
SPEAKER_00: David, of course, was not perfect, we know that.
SPEAKER_00: David had spectacular sins.
SPEAKER_00: But he remained faithful until the end.
SPEAKER_00: Repentant, humble.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll read a little bit of that repentance a little bit later today.
SPEAKER_00: That assessment, really a spiritual and a moral assessment, his heart being with David or not being with David, we're going to see this all throughout 1 and 2 Kings and the kings that follow Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: Often they'll be assessed in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: Did they walk in the ways of David their father, or not?
SPEAKER_00: This is the same kind of assessment, a spiritual and a moral one.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, we're going to see this work itself out.
SPEAKER_00: A heart splintered.
SPEAKER_00: For Solomon went after Astareth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea there of that text rendering went after, he walked towards.
SPEAKER_00: He willfully pursued Ashtarath and Milcom.
SPEAKER_00: Asterith was an international deity.
SPEAKER_00: And this particular one of the Sidonians likely had something to do with fertility.
SPEAKER_00: Milcom also could be Molech, could be one and the same.
SPEAKER_00: The depravity of some of the what these this pagan, the practices of this pagan worship, it leads to child sacrifice in the case of Milcom and Molech.
SPEAKER_00: And Solomon here is going after these gods.
SPEAKER_00: He's walking towards them.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done.
SPEAKER_00: Then, and it's here we see the progression of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Then Solomon built a high place for Shemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites.
SPEAKER_00: Shemosh, the god of war.
SPEAKER_00: Molech, similar to Milcom, associated with child sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And where did he build it?
SPEAKER_00: But on the mountain east of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't know for sure, but this could be the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_00: It probably is the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, and so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one point I want to make here, and I've made this point before.
SPEAKER_00: Our sin, our unfaithfulness, the thousand yeses that should have been no's, doesn't affect just me, doesn't affect just you.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see later in 2 Kings with Manasseh, who sacrifices his own children to Molech on a high place that Solomon instituted here in this text.
SPEAKER_00: My sin, my own unfaithfulness affects my friends, it affects my spouse, it affects my church, my community.
SPEAKER_00: But it also can affect folks that you'll never meet in the future.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good lesson for us as we read this story of Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: So several weeks ago, we began to look more closely at the life of Solomon, his rise to power.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_00: His exceptional wisdom, his growing wealth, the building of the temple for the name of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: The apex, really, of history, the history of Israel in Solomon's reign.
SPEAKER_00: And in the past few weeks, we've been essentially given a little biography of this man, Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: And let's recount how this biography began.
SPEAKER_00: I'll put it up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Kings chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: This was the beginning of the reign of Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father.
SPEAKER_00: And today in our reading, forty years or so have passed, and the storyteller tells us this Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not wholly follow the Lord as David his father had done before.
SPEAKER_00: The bookends of his life give us a sketch of his trajectory, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's sobering.
SPEAKER_00: It's real, it's honest.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is honest with us.
SPEAKER_00: Where is your trajectory taking you, friends?
SPEAKER_00: It's a good question to be asking.
SPEAKER_00: This account of Solomon's life should cause all of us to sit up straight and pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: How did Solomon get from point A to point B, from the wisest man to a foolish man?
SPEAKER_00: From one who had been given every advantage, materially, intellectually, spiritually, he'd been given every advantage.
SPEAKER_00: The one who built the temple for the name of Yahweh is now the builder of a place of worship for Molech right next door.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine this happening in the hills of Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: Francis Schaeffer often talked about something called the line of despair.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know about this, essentially describing the progressive nature of sin within a human person or even a culture.
SPEAKER_00: And in almost every case, spiritual decay, taken to its furthest extreme, ultimately leads to the dismissal of human life.
SPEAKER_00: Molech demanded the sacrifice of children, disregard for the image of God found in the most vulnerable, from the womb to the tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Where is our trajectory leading us today?
SPEAKER_00: Where's yours?
SPEAKER_00: Where's mine?
SPEAKER_00: So Emily and I are traveling to London and Wales this week for some schoolwork and some rest.
SPEAKER_00: And the subway system there has a well-known warning for passengers getting on and off the subway.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say it together.
SPEAKER_00: Mind the gap.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, did you like my accent there?
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty pathetic, actually.
SPEAKER_00: Mind the gap.
SPEAKER_00: It's a gentle nudge to watch your feet as you exit or enter the train, to pay attention to the little crack, the gap between the door and the main platform, lest you should trip and fall.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that's about.
SPEAKER_00: How did Solomon trip and fall so spectacularly from where he started in his final years?
SPEAKER_00: What does this post-mortem analysis of the final years of Solomon's life reveal?
SPEAKER_00: A heart problem.
SPEAKER_00: Something had grabbed his heart, captured his imagination, stolen his attention, lulled him into spiritual drift and decay.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 5 again with me.
SPEAKER_00: For Solomon went after, he walked towards Astareth and Milcom.
SPEAKER_00: This is first commandment stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: He walked towards them.
SPEAKER_00: He was enamored by them.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't simply, we should be careful about this, it wasn't simply that these prohibited marriages that he's brought into the kingdom brought these pagan gods into his life.
SPEAKER_00: No, his heart had willfully walked towards these counterfeit gods.
SPEAKER_00: Drift is not a danger, of course, known only to wealthy kings in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_00: It's a live wire battle today, in my own soul and in yours, for men and women of all stripes who perhaps love the Lord, but are so distracted with busyness, with noise, with hurry, or perhaps spiritually asleep because of indifference or hidden sin, that we don't give time or we don't have capacity to do a spiritual inventory of our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: The word heart there I mentioned is used six times in the text.
SPEAKER_00: And the text doesn't tell us, this is interesting, it doesn't tell us that he had forsaken Yahweh entirely.
SPEAKER_00: He just added on.
SPEAKER_00: He was dissatisfied with Yahweh alone.
SPEAKER_00: Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_00: He was dissatisfied with, he was dissatisfied with Yahweh's presence, his power, and his beauty that he had seen over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's heart began to drift little decision by little decision.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that we finally witness him building places of worship for counterfeits.
SPEAKER_00: A heart problem is a worship problem.
SPEAKER_00: And vice versa.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, we should give thanks that one greater than Solomon that we just sang about earlier has come.
SPEAKER_00: In order to rescue those who have drifted from him.
SPEAKER_00: Not just from afar, he stepped into our earthy, messy humanity in order to make a way home for us from wherever we have drifted from or towards.
SPEAKER_00: Both the licentious prodigal son, do you remember this story?
SPEAKER_00: And the self-righteous elder son, both, Solomon had some of both, as do I.
SPEAKER_00: Christ enters into our spiritual drift and decay and invites us to come home to him, to turn our hearts from the little high places we're building and to turn to him.
SPEAKER_00: He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor.
SPEAKER_00: Dane Ordland says it this way we feed sin by coddling it, pining after it, daydreaming about it, giving vent to it, but we suffocate sin by redirecting our gaze to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, may that be said of us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's keep reading verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.
SPEAKER_00: And he commanded him concerning this thing that he should not go after other gods, but he did not keep what the Lord commanded.
SPEAKER_00: God's anger is a settled opposition to sin, because it usurps God's glory, but it also does great damage to his people, including Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he's angry.
SPEAKER_00: It's settled opposition.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we read about it in Deuteronomy 6.14.
SPEAKER_00: God says, I am a jealous God, and if you go and walk after these other idols, I will be angry.
SPEAKER_00: A jealous God, that's kind of a weird phrase for us today, but if my love for my wife isn't a jealous kind of a love, then it's not worth its salt.
SPEAKER_00: My covenantal love with my wife, the covenantal love that God has set on David and on Israel and all those who have come to him in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is angry when sin creeps in and does destruction to his glory and to our own souls.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, Since this has been your practice, so there's a pattern here.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations will put it a little bit differently, but the idea is this has been worked into the life, the day-to-day life of Solomon, and you have not kept my command or my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you.
SPEAKER_00: I will surely tear the kingdom from you and give it to your servant.
SPEAKER_00: Quite literally, rip it away from you.
SPEAKER_00: 12.
SPEAKER_00: Yet, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: However, and oh, is there always a however in the economy of grace?
SPEAKER_00: I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that one tribe is the tribe of Judah, with Benjamin included along with it the same tribe that our Lord, the lion of the tribe of Judah, who has come on a rescue mission for us here today.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting to note, I think, in this story, one of the most remarkable spiritual implosions in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The author doesn't spend much of his time framing Solomon's final days through the lens of lust for money, sex, or power.
SPEAKER_00: Those are included, to be sure.
SPEAKER_00: We've been reading about them all along the way.
SPEAKER_00: But in this final scene of Solomon's life, the author goes to great lengths to frame this tragic fall through the lens of a heart that has turned away from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Look there at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord was angry.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because his heart had turned.
SPEAKER_00: That's what sin does.
SPEAKER_00: Sin at its core turns us away from God.
SPEAKER_00: Turning away, looking for something more than what Yahweh had given this man who had everything.
SPEAKER_00: Lest we look down our noses at Solomon, we shouldn't pretend that given the same opportunities, the same weaknesses, you and I might have fallen in the same way.
SPEAKER_00: The story should be a sober nudge for all of us to mind the gap.
SPEAKER_00: How's your heart this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Drifting, perhaps fragmented, presuming that this kind of spiritual shipwreck could never happen to me.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: Take heed.
SPEAKER_00: If you think you stand, lest you would fall.
SPEAKER_00: Sandra McCracken says this it's only human to want more.
SPEAKER_00: God made our hearts for abundance.
SPEAKER_00: We desire to know more of the goodness of God personally and particularly, but we also stray, chasing after substitutes.
SPEAKER_00: This is why advertising is so effective.
SPEAKER_00: It offers us counterfeit versions of what God created us to crave, keeping us busy and distracted.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see it?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it in this story?
SPEAKER_00: The problem is not that Solomon desired too much.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, he desired too little.
SPEAKER_00: The extravagant, lavish, life-giving love of God, as abundant as the seas, as the psalmist says, and the blessings of his favor, his nearness, and his presence, all of that was available to Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: All of that is available to us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Where is your heart turned this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Who is it turned towards?
SPEAKER_00: So many questions that come out of a story like this.
SPEAKER_00: So, with our brief time remaining, let's consider some of the lessons that I mentioned earlier on that we learned from this life of King Solomon, especially in his latter years.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, the peril of drift.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth repeating that Solomon's downfall didn't happen in an instant.
SPEAKER_00: We know that.
SPEAKER_00: But over time, with those thousand little yeses that should have been no's or no's that should have been yeses, Solomon was greatly blessed with a brilliant mind, an exceptional intellect, prosperity, the privilege of building the place where Yahweh would dwell among his people.
SPEAKER_00: But all along the way, as we've been teaching in this study, the author has been giving us some hints, little windows into the heart of Solomon that reveals to us all was not right under the surface.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh had explicitly prohibited the kings, if you remember, from what?
SPEAKER_00: Marrying from pagan nations, check, we've seen that.
SPEAKER_00: Accumulating excessive wealth, check.
SPEAKER_00: Building a war chest of horses and chariots, check, not to mention the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: Number one.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, for every person, including everyone in this room in my own heart, the things of the world, the flesh, my internal desires, and Satan, the evil one, actively conspire on multiple fronts to wage a war against our souls, as it did our brother Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever read C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis's screw tape letters, he does such a brilliant job articulating the personal way that temptations are often applied to each individual, each community, each church, each culture.
SPEAKER_00: And this is true in the life of a believer where sin no longer reigns, that is true, but it still remains in some aspect as God completes his work of shaping us into the likeness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For those who are in Christ, you remember this from the New Testament, the Apostle Paul tells us, you are a new creation.
SPEAKER_00: Not kind of new, not somewhat new, no, new creation.
SPEAKER_00: And we are invited to live in light of that new identity in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He uses this language.
SPEAKER_00: This is how you once were, this is how you live, this is who you were then, this is who you are now.
SPEAKER_00: Now live in it, walk in it.
SPEAKER_00: You and I are given dignity and agency in this battle against sin.
SPEAKER_00: Go and sin no more, Jesus tells the adulterous woman.
SPEAKER_00: And she is set free to live in the newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian faith isn't simply a break pedal, but it's a gas pedal as well.
SPEAKER_00: Restore to me the joy of faithfulness, the joy of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance unto life, Acts tells us.
SPEAKER_00: Russell Moore says this about temptation.
SPEAKER_00: I found this so helpful this week.
SPEAKER_00: Temptation for the entire human race, for the people of Israel, and for each of us personally.
SPEAKER_00: It starts with a question of identity.
SPEAKER_00: Who am I?
SPEAKER_00: Moves to a confusion of the desires, and ultimately heads to a contest of futures, and we can see that vividly on display here.
SPEAKER_00: In short, there's a reason you want what you don't want.
SPEAKER_00: Temptation is embryonic, it's personally specific, and purpose-directed.
SPEAKER_00: So let's consider for a moment, I'll put this up on the screen, a simple anatomy of temptation.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope this is helpful in order to help us fight against it and the drift that it brings.
SPEAKER_00: An anatomy of temptation, external, internal, opportunity and decision.
SPEAKER_00: Something on the outside, something that catches our eye.
SPEAKER_00: Our head turns for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Something beautiful, something pleasurable, something desirable, something good.
SPEAKER_00: It can be a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember in Genesis, the fruit looked good to the eye?
SPEAKER_00: Then it moves to the internal, something within us, a good desire that might be misshapen or out of bounds for the way we were designed to flourish.
SPEAKER_00: So you put that together with opportunity, a place, the means, perhaps the dark, no one can see.
SPEAKER_00: And then that contest of futures that Russell talked about, a question of identity.
SPEAKER_00: That's our decision.
SPEAKER_00: John Owen said this be killing sin, or it will be killing you.
SPEAKER_00: For the believer, with this basic sketch of temptation, we can perhaps identify ways to, for us to push back against who we once were before Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In the real world, external, let's start there, external lures come our way from every direction.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, learn what catches your eye.
SPEAKER_00: Lust of the flesh, lust for more material things, perhaps, for more knowledge, the skinny, the gossip, for influence, for power.
SPEAKER_00: And like an athlete, work the muscles that keep you from turning that fleeting glance into a longing gaze.
SPEAKER_00: Internal desire can come at us in moments that we least expect them.
SPEAKER_00: We must work the muscles of self-control, discipline, accountability, and honesty with each other, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, we don't hear this from the world, but it's okay to tell yourself no.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to myself too.
SPEAKER_00: Immerse yourself in the beauty and the hope and the joy of the spiritual disciplines that are given to us in personal worship, in corporate worship, fasting.
SPEAKER_00: The goal of all the disciplines is more communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: A heart set ablaze for him.
SPEAKER_00: Be it the spout where the glory comes out, is what John Wesley would say.
SPEAKER_00: It's there that we find the resources of the Spirit to wage war against the schemes of the evil one and our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And it's there where we get the privilege of doing the work of avoiding drift.
SPEAKER_00: So external, internal, and opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Opportunity is the one area we often have the most control over.
SPEAKER_00: Not always.
SPEAKER_00: Be watchful over where you go.
SPEAKER_00: These are simple things.
SPEAKER_00: Be watchful over what you watch, be careful, little eyes, what you see.
SPEAKER_00: What stores you set your feet in, what websites you linger on, the apps that you spend your time on, what street you walk or drive down.
SPEAKER_00: Constantly remind yourself of who you are and to whom you belong.
SPEAKER_00: You are a new creation in Christ, set free to a flourishing life if you would follow Him.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has set his great love on you and you have bowed down to him.
SPEAKER_00: That is one big decision that makes all the other 10,000 decisions for you, bowing in repentance and faith and obedience to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The opposite of drift.
SPEAKER_00: Here are a few diagnostic questions for your spiritual health, just some things to think about.
SPEAKER_00: You might want to write these down, perhaps chew on them this week.
SPEAKER_00: What is my current spiritual trajectory?
SPEAKER_00: Where is my trajectory leading me?
SPEAKER_00: What am I building?
SPEAKER_00: Whose name am I building it for?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, keep us from drift and lead us towards you.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, the priority of worship.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 4.23 says, Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
SPEAKER_00: Likely written by our brother Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is always relational before it's behavioral.
SPEAKER_00: It's a condition.
SPEAKER_00: A heart problem.
SPEAKER_00: Sin's aim is always to draw us away from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That is why worship is so important.
SPEAKER_00: It's a counterformation to whatever you've been battling against in the world and in your own heart throughout the week.
SPEAKER_00: And our text this morning, did you notice, is primarily about worship, about right worship and wrong worship.
SPEAKER_00: The worship of God as opposed to the worship of counterfeits.
SPEAKER_00: Biblical worship is, in a sense, all of life aimed towards God, his glory, his name, our deepest affections and loves.
SPEAKER_00: It's a treasuring of God above all things.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when all things begin to flourish.
SPEAKER_00: It's what we were designed to do as a church, personally, and as a family in spirit and in truth, deep and lasting intimate communion with God.
SPEAKER_00: Who wouldn't want that?
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice that we no longer see Solomon praying to the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: He had a beautiful prayer at the temple dedication.
SPEAKER_00: Nowhere in this text does he address the Lord as he had so beautifully.
SPEAKER_00: Seemingly he is living now as if God does not matter.
SPEAKER_00: We are tempted in the same way to live our daily lives as if God doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: To operate as if we don't live every more moment before his face, quorum Deo.
SPEAKER_00: We can so easily nudge him out of day-to-day life, push him out of the center, live as functional atheists, even, or polytheists in this case.
SPEAKER_00: We might say true things about him, but he can become secondary to us.
SPEAKER_00: One of many loves, which leads to a fractured heart, which leads towards drift.
SPEAKER_00: That's why worship with God's people today, singing and praying and hearing the word taught, letting the word of Christ dwell richly within us as a regular pattern of life is of critical importance to our souls.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that here?
SPEAKER_00: Here are a few more diagnostic questions as we consider this idea of worship in our heart.
SPEAKER_00: Do I delight in my Savior?
SPEAKER_00: Do I grieve over sin?
SPEAKER_00: Am I being governed increasingly by God's word?
SPEAKER_00: Am I sensitive to God's presence?
SPEAKER_00: Do I love God's people?
SPEAKER_00: Do I love my neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps enough to tell them about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do I have an active hunger and thirst for more of God?
SPEAKER_00: Here are a few resources.
SPEAKER_00: These books have been really helpful to me in my own life.
SPEAKER_00: Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health by Donald Whitney.
SPEAKER_00: Watchfulness by Brian Hedge, Hedges and Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard.
SPEAKER_00: All three of these books may be of benefit to you.
SPEAKER_00: The watchfulness book is the shortest, and perhaps the one that might benefit you the quickest if you have limited time.
SPEAKER_00: The peril of drift, the priority of worship, and number three, the provision of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice that God, out of his mercy alone, his mercy alone, spares Solomon from losing his kingdom in his lifetime?
SPEAKER_00: Not because of anything Solomon had done, but because God had made a covenant promise to his father David.
SPEAKER_00: God is faithful to his promises, even in the midst of such blatant unfaithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: That's just stunning to me.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but in God's great mercy, he keeps his promise to David through the tribe of Judah, a promise that crosses through history and connects directly with us here in this room this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you know that.
SPEAKER_00: The story of the Bible is essentially God's good creation broken because of a heart problem.
SPEAKER_00: A heart in the garden that desired something more than God alone.
SPEAKER_00: God's work in history and in the work of Jesus Christ is to call hearts back from wherever they have drifted.
SPEAKER_00: I am the weakest and the vilest, except for the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: The just anger of God should rightfully be poured out on me, yet in his great mercy and kindness, he has laid down his life as a mediator between me and the Holy God.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest need of every person is the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So that we might be set right with him, and so that his spirit could be poured into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we need the Holy Spirit to shape our hearts, to renew our hearts, to renovate it, as Dallas Willard would say.
SPEAKER_00: John Stott says this in a wonderful book, The Cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: A guilty conscience is a great blessing, but only if it drives us to come home.
SPEAKER_00: Some people say we might in the book of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes, but we don't see it here.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what his spiritual condition was in the very last moments of his life, but we do know about his father David, who drifted in several categories throughout his life.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the most beautiful prayers of repentance is found in Psalm 51.
SPEAKER_00: And if your heart is perhaps stirring, or the old word quickened this morning, because of drift in your own heart or life, I encourage you, bookmark Psalm 51, read it, meditate on it, chew on it.
SPEAKER_00: Today, this afternoon, this week.
SPEAKER_00: It essentially says, Have mercy on me, O God.
SPEAKER_00: That's how it starts.
SPEAKER_00: According to your steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: That's so important.
SPEAKER_00: Not according to what David had done, but because according to his steadfast love, God's steadfast love on David.
SPEAKER_00: In your abundant mercy, it says, Cleanse me from my sin.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says these beautiful words.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love for us to say it aloud.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say this together.
SPEAKER_00: Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon ultimately desired too little, as I often do.
SPEAKER_00: And David's prayer here is so instructive for us.
SPEAKER_00: Satisfy me again with the abundance of your presence, your spirit's good work on my heart, the costly salvation that you have freely given to me.
SPEAKER_00: Restore to me the joy of all that I have in you.
SPEAKER_00: That should be our prayer this week.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, search us and know our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Test us and know our thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: That the work that you have begun by the power of your Spirit, you would bring that to completion.
SPEAKER_00: Satisfy us this morning with your steadfast love, your abundant mercy, your exceeding grace, and restore to us the joy of all that we have in you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Do the work that only you can do on hearts that are drifting, fractured, fragmented.
SPEAKER_00: To the glory of your name, we all said.