Solomon and Prayer
Notes
Transcript
Solomon has been discussing all the things in life which are meaningless. Which is pretty much everything. Through the discussion, he begs his readers to turn to God to find satisfaction, peace, joy.
But, to turn to God, we need to know him.
Jesus himself said, while praying to the Father:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Knowing God only occurs through knowing the Son.
John wrote:
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, came to earth 2000 years ago that we might have a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe. He died, paying the penalty for our sin, and removing the barrier between us and the creator.
His gift of love, that sacrifice on the cross, is given to those who turn to him in faith, placing their trust on him alone for salvation.
When we believe in Jesus, we get to know God, because we are placed into an intimate relationship with him that lasts from the moment of faith into eternity.
This is the essence of our faith. This is the blessed hope, assurance that we have.
Once we know God, through Jesus Christ, we can approach him, as the author of Hebrews writes:
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Satisfaction comes from knowing God through a vibrant, intimate relationship, where we eagerly run to God, knowing that we can received grace.
However, most of us do not have a vibrant, intimate relationship with God.
1 out of 3 American Christians seldom or never read the Bible.
Solomon looks at his readers and shakes his head, because he knows how humanity normally approaches God. And he declares that our normal approach to God is meaningless. Empty. Vapid.
Let’s read the text.
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.
A dream comes when there are many cares,
and many words mark the speech of a fool.
When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, “My vow was a mistake.” Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.
Instead of pride, we are to approach God with humility.
Before we dive in, would you pray with me.
I have seven points today, describing how we as humanity are to approach God in our relationship with him.
1. With Humility
1. With Humility
First, we are to approach God with humility.
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
We are to approach God with an understanding that he is God and we are not.
That is hard for us. Since the beginning of time, humanity has decided that we are God and we know what is best for our life.
Solomon tells us to guard our steps thought. To look at what we are doing and why we are approaching the throne of God.
The fool comes, not knowing what they do wrong. The fool thinks that they are fine.
The fool is found in Jesus’ parable.
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
We are to approach God with humility. Realizing who God is, his holiness, righteousness, justice, and in the face of realizing who God is, we realize who we are. That we are not holy, not righteous, that we are able to approach him only because of the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
We approach with humility.
2. With Listening
2. With Listening
We approach God with listening.
The verse we just read in Ecclesiastes:
Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
The fools, coming without realizing their unrighteousness, bring a sacrifice to God, thinking that they can fulfill a need for God. They say: Look God! Look what I am doing for you! Don’t I make you happy because of what I am doing for you?
Solomon calls these fools. Because they are coming to God without considering what God even wants.
God told the Israelites
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice,
and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.
Jesus actually quoted this verse twice, telling the Jewish leaders of his day to go and figure out what it meant.
We as humans do not like to listen to God.
God told the Israelites through Isaiah:
Listen and hear my voice;
pay attention and hear what I say.
Jesus told his followers and everyone else within ear shot:
If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear.”
Multiple times, he said that.
We are called to come to God, not as someone who is constantly talking, but as someone who needs to hear what his savior, his God, his creator, is saying.
Because we need help. We need wisdom. We need strength. We need salvation from who we are right now.
Unfortunately, we are too busy.
To busy to stop and listen. So much of our prayer is coming with our agenda. We have our list, what we need done, how we need it done, and we present it to God. God help me with this, this, and this. Thanks, in Jesus name, amen.
And we move on. Because we have other things to do. We check the prayer of our to-do list.
But, we forget that we are not God. God has his agenda that he wants to accomplish in us, if we would stop our busyness and listen to what he has to say.
3. With Silence
3. With Silence
We approach God with humility and listening. We approach him with silence.
Solomon writes:
Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.
Have you ever come before God and said: I don’t know what to say. And you just sat in his presence, in silence, and waited. And waited.
To listen to God, we have to stop talking. We have stop the noise. Take out the earbuds. Pause the music or the podcasts. Turn off the tv. And reflect on our God.
As the Psalmist writes
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
We don’t know how to be still anymore. We have to keep flooding our senses, bombarding ourselves with sound and content.
When we pray, we think that we have talk all the time, or else God won’t here us.
But, perhaps the focus should be on hearing him.
David Mathis writes in Desiring God:
“So we might get alone and be quiet to hear our own internal voice, the murmurs of our soul easily drowned out in noise and crowds.
But the most important voice to hear in the silence is God’s. The point of practicing silence as a spiritual discipline is not so we can hear God’s audible voice, but so we can be less distracted, and better hear him speak, with even greater clarity, in his word.
This is what Jesus did.
After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone,
He left the noise, left the chaos, to be silent before his father.
When was the last time, you turned off everything and came to God in silence, stillness, reflecting on who God is that you might hear from God.
We approach God with humility and listening. We approach him with silence.
4. With Perspective
4. With Perspective
We approach God with perspective.
Solomon writes:
Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.
By coming with humility, desiring to listen to God, sitting in silence reflecting on who he is, we gain a little perspective.
As Solomon says: God is the one who is in heaven and we are not.
Perspective is a great thing.
I was watching the children’s show Bluey. And the dad is conversing with his daughter, and the daughter is wondering why a certain thing is so and consequently why she can’t do something.
And the dad looks at his daughter and asks: Who has lived longer? You or me?
And the daughter replies, correctly, you.
She gained perspective. Her dad had experienced life and she hadn’t, therefore she should trust her dad to make the right decision.
We are finite. We make mistakes. So this doesn’t always work as humans.
However, with God, it always works.
God is the one who is in heaven. We are on earth.
God sees the big picture and we see a little teeny tiny part of the picture.
I think about Cory Ten Boom, who lived in a German concentration camp. Her sister was telling her that she should be thankful for everything. Their cabin was full of fleas and Corrie couldn’t imagine being thankful for the fleas. Turns out, the German guards hated the fleas so much that they wouldn’t come in to inspect the cabin. So, the girls were able to have Bible studies with non-confiscated Bibles.
Corrie was not God. She didn’t see the big picture, but God in Heaven, having the big picture, was in control.
In silence, in stillness, we can reflect, remembering who God is, and change our perspective on life, because he is in heaven and we are not.
We approach God with humility and listening. We approach him with silence, with perspective.
5. With Restraint
5. With Restraint
We come with restraint.
A dream comes when there are many cares,
and many words mark the speech of a fool.
Jesus looked at the Jewish leaders of his day and said:
And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Remember: perspective. Who is God? Are we approaching him as that God, or are we approaching him as this elderly man who doesn’t hear very well. So we have to talk a lot so that hopefully he will hear something.
Or maybe we are approaching him as a vending machine and our words are money. The more money we put in the more stuff we get.
Have you ever prayed with someone and they take three minutes to say the same thing, over and over again, just in different ways?
Solomon says that that person is a fool. Jesus says that person is like a pagan.
We serve a God who hears the first time. We don’t have to babel on. We don’t have to be afraid that we didn’t cover all parts of the issue.
We come with restraint, stating our heart and our desire, and then we stop, in silence, remembering who our God is and listening for his work in our heart, through the communion of the Spirit and the avenue of the Word.
We approach God with humility and listening. We approach him with silence, with perspective, with restraint.
6. With Integrity
6. With Integrity
We approach him with integrity.
When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it. Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, “My vow was a mistake.” Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands?
At the time that Solomon wrote, people would ask God for something and vow something in return. God, if you do this for me, then I will do this for you. They would promise to make a certain sacrifice or give a certain amount of money or precious spices to the temple.
However, after God would do something, people would conveniently forget. Giving all the things which they promised to God would really crimp the pocket book. So, maybe if they don’t tell anyone, God wouldn’t notice.
But, unfortunately, when you make a vow at the temple, someone invariably hears. And so, sometimes a messenger from the temple would come, and the popular excuse was: My vow was a mistake! I misspoke!
Well, reneging on a promise to God isn’t a good thing. As one person said: don’t rob God.
In the NT, Ananias and Sapphira sold some property and declared that they were going to give all the proceeds to God. But, they didn’t. They kept some back. And God killed them both.
What use to them was what they kept back?
We are to approach God with integrity. When we ask God for help, we aren’t to make a deal with him, because we don’t know the future and because we know who we really are.
Instead, we approach him as the good God who does all things well. We bring our request, simply, and we rest in the fact that he is God in heaven and we are not.
Should we give back to God, definitely, but not because of a transaction: because we love him and respond to his gift accordingly and because he has told us to.
We approach God with humility and listening. We approach him with silence, with perspective, with restraint, with intregrity.
7. With Fear
7. With Fear
Finally, we approach with fear.
Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.
By fear, we do not mean a trembling dread, wondering what is going to happen. We are not like an abused child wondering when his father is going to lash out again.
By fear, we mean that we know who God is, that he is not someone to be controlled. We know who we are, that we do not deserve to come before him, but we can through Jesus Christ.
Fear is an acknowledgement of who God is.
So, Solomon sets up a contrast.
Dreams and words on one side and acknowledgement of who God is on the other.
The world offers us dreams. The world says we need to do something to earn those dreams.
God says: I am all you need. Remember me and come to me, because you need me.
What the world offers is meaningless. What God offers is eternal satisfaction.
So let us fear him, and approach his throne in humility, listening, silence, with perspective, restraint, and integrity. Because in this world of chaos, we don’t need more chaos, we need the creator in heaven to do what only he can do.
