Glory to Who?/Upward Glory/Selfless Glory/The End of Yourself/Moving Upward/Forward

1 Kings 8:10-21

English Standard Version Chapter 8

10 And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD,

11 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.

12 Then Solomon said, “The LORD has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.

13 I have indeed built you an exalted house, a place for you to dwell in forever.”

14 Then the king turned around and blessed all the assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel stood.

15 And he 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,

16 ‘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.’

17 Now it was in the heart of David my father to build a house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

18 But the LORD said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart.

19 Nevertheless, you shall not build the house, but your son who shall be born to you shall build the house for my name.’

20 Now the LORD has fulfilled his promise that he made. For I have risen in the place of David my father, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised, and I have built the house for the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.

21 And there I have provided a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD that he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.”

Self-Preservation

Explain how all that man does is for himself to preserve his life.

We do anything we can to prevent discomfort.

Selfless people in the world who go thru tough trials and hard work for something that will be more fulfilling in the end., or even those who are “good parents” are really only out to maintain a legacy and live beyond death.

Even men and women of God can so easily fall into the trap of only wanting to follow God for His blessings.

Is God good?

Would you still want to follow Him if you didn’t receive a single good thing on this earth?

Would you want to follow Him if eternity wasn’t promised?

We are selfish creatures by nature, so what do we do if all that we do is in vain?

Questions

Has it ever been hard for you to know God’s will in your life?

And then do you end up doing nothing because you don’t have clear direction?

Have you ever felt paralyzed from this “godly” uncertainty?

Is God the God of confusion? (“No”)

Then why do we allow ourselves to submit to the confusion, pretending we’re doing it in service of God.

Testimony

The longing for greatness.

The works for greatness

The revelation of my pride.

The unknowing of where to move forward.

The paralyzation and inactivity of unknowing.

The fear of God’s wrath being greater than the Fear of God.

Realizing that “all is vanity”

Leading me to Eccelesiates.

Do you ever get hung up on figuring out your one calling or our one mission that we end up doing no-thing trying to figure out what that one thing is?

Pastor has mentioned how our one calling is a worshipper.

David lived this.

God is the Father of creation, He became the Son of Man, He is the Lion of Judah, He is the King of Kings, He was the Angel of the LORD, He is the Holy Spirit, He is the Alpha, He is the Omega, He is our provider, our counsellor, our prince of peace, our Almighty God, and HE is an all consuming fire. (Heb.12:29) While there is only one God, He has revealed Himself in many different forms for many different reasons.

“A jack of all trades is a master of none, …………………but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

***Go into How people have misquoted this quote, including myself.***

Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:2; 12:7-8; 12:11-14

English Standard Version Chapter 11

11:1 Cast your bread upon the waters,

for you will find it after many days.

2 Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,

for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.

3 If the clouds are full of rain,

they empty themselves on the earth,

and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,

in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.

4 He who observes the wind will not sow,

and he who regards the clouds will not reap.

5 As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.

6 In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

7 Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.

8 So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

9 Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

10 Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

12:1 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;

2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain,

English Standard Version Chapter 12

7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

8 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.

English Standard Version Chapter 12

11 The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd.

12 My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

***GO INTO;

The idea of doing multiple good things for God being so much greater than just doing one thing. Multiple landings for the tree. (Ecc.11:1-3)

We have free will, and God has a better backup plan for all of our mistakes.

But do we have a safety net if the tree falls in a direction different than the single one we prepared?

The idea of staring at the wind trying to figure out what the spirit is doing, and how staring at clouds, the fruit thereof is just going to lead to nothing getting done. (Ecc.11:4-5)

Even if we get it wrong, he will judge us accordingly (Ecc.11:6-9)

That doesn’t mean to test the Lord by doing the wrong thing.

1 Kings 8:18 “But the Lord said to David my father, ‘Whereas it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well that it was in your heart.”

Various ways people react to God’s judgment thru scripture.

Job and Jesus… vs. Saul and Ahab also Solomon

The beauty of God’s judgement

The parallels of being an American prisoner of war vs. an ISIS POW

The necessity to be willing to receive God’s judgement for His glory rather than your own.

The best of the best in the Bible had to suffer the consequences of their actions because God is a righteous judge and they were not outside of God’s judgement.

Moses, David, Solomon, Peter, Paul, Thomas, Job and Jesus Himself, but how Jesus is different.

But personally, I feel like theres a good chance we’ll still see all these men in heaven, because they were more concerned with glorifying God than glorifying themselves.

They were abased and punished to give us a testimony today of even the greatest weren’t all that great in comparison to God Himself.

***LOOK INTO; Psalm 104 images similar to those in Ecc. 11 and how it ends on sinners being consumed from the earth and the wicked being no more, blessing the Lord, O his soul. Praising the LORD.

Also how Jesus removes our sins from Him when we truly repent and follow his commandment such as spoken in Ecc. 12:11-14

I wonder if he knew he was still talking about himself since all have sinned and fallen short… ***VERSE***

Also How Psalm 104 relates to Psalm 51, (Especially Psalm 51:4 and can include how he literally only broke the commandment of God by taking Bathsheba) talk about how Christ will clean us newly when we repent, but how we will still pay for our wrongdoing, David included. He didn’t lose the eternal blessing, but he did lose the worldly one because God needed to be glorified in that He is a righteous judge. But David took it like a champ. Even upon his child dying, he just kept going forward, knowing what he did wrong.

1 Kings 8:17-21 The promise of David and the annointing of David was still fulfilled thru Solomon and eventually thru Christ

If you give a worthy offering, you have nothing to fear, but if not, sin is crouching at the door.(Gen. 4)