Seeking after Wisdom

Learning on the Path

For this year and the next, I’ve got the good situation whereby all three of my girls are at the same school. This makes the school drop off and pick up a whole lot simpler. Previously we’ve needed to factor in the pre-school and in 2022 we’ll need to add high school to the list.

But the great thing about where we live is that, unless it’s raining, we can either walk or ride our bikes to school each morning.

Now here’s the thing… taking your kids to school… you think that the learning starts when they sit down at their desk, and to be sure, there is a lot of learning that they do in this regard. However, as I reflect on it, there is actually a lot of learning that takes place on the journey to the school.

I’m teaching them road safety. For example I remember them once running to the edge of the road where cars were. They were always going to stop because they could see the cars, but I had to explain how nervous that makes the drivers feel, and for that matter, me as the parent as well.

When we’re on our bikes, I teaching them how conduct themselves while on the foot path.

And then there are the lessons they learn themselves. Most recently my eldest two got some pretty quick lessons about dealing with magpies. I think the conclusion was to change the route we take.

Now, there is something about this kind of learning which is different to book learning. You see it is learning by doing.

I could have sat around the dinner table the night before and told my children the various lessons they need to learn. Possibly some of it might have stuck. But mostly I suspect it would have been forgotten.

One of the best ways that we learn is by doing.

You know sometimes we wish we could just know things. I saw on Facebook some time ago these celebrities that had made a video where they were effectively giving advice to their 12 year old self.

The video imagined that they could somehow go back in time and tell them the messages they needed to hear. Now don’t get me wrong. I thought the videos were actually good and helpful. But as I reflect on it, it strikes me that it is hitting this desire we have that we want to learn the lessons of life without the hurt that often goes with it.

Link with building

This morning, I’m continuing my series which I’ve called: “How to Build a Church”.

Now we had read for us earlier the passage where Solomon asks God for wisdom, and so you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to realise that my message today is going to suggest that to build a church we need to ask for wisdom.

And this is exactly what I’m going to say.

But as I explore the passage today and explore a little bit about the nature of wisdom, I want to show that sometimes we miss the point of how wisdom comes to us.

Now I’m going to come back to this idea, but not before we look at the context of what is happening in this passage first.

So let’s do that now.

Temple

Now when I originally planned this series, initially I chose the parallel passage in 1 Kings.

If you’re not familiar with the book of 1 and 2 Chronicles, then essentially it repeats much of the same material that we get in 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings.

If you compare the two accounts, you’ll see that Chronicles skips big chunks of the story, but then at times it narrows in on a few events and really fleshes it out further.

That’s because Chronicles has a much more narrow focus on what it is trying to say.

The author of Chronicles spends more time looking at the way in which God’s promises are fulfilled. One aspect of this is the Davidic kingship which is why, even after the kingdom splits in two (which happens after Solomon’s time), Chronicles only bothers about following the events of that involve the line of David.

But as we move into the last 8 or so chapters of 1 Chronicles, and the first 7 or so chapters of 2 Chronicles, the author picks up on a different topic - that of the temple.

Now if you were listening last week, I picked up on these two themes, namely, kingship and the temple.

Today however, we’re going to move a little further with the temple theme.

So let’s track how it goes in Chronicles.

David’s census

So this time, I’m going to start back at 1 Chronicles 21. In this chapter, David wants to count all of his troops and commands the man who is essentially the chief of the army to do this. But we’re told that this command was evil in the sight of God.

You may wonder why, and without going into all the details, it essentially was a lack of trust in God. David thought he could do it in his own strength.

Well, this angered God and he sent disaster on them, which he actually gave David a choice about the means this would happen. The disaster chosen was a three day plague which killed 70,000 men.

It is then as the plague lifts that we see the first sign that the temple is going to come back into the picture.

The Lord shows David where he is to build an altar - and as we get to the first verse of 1 Chronicles 22, he states “The house of the Lord God is to be here”.

Significance of temple

Now, last week when I introduced the temple theme I spoke about the way in which the temple was that contact point between God and humanity.

Last week I argued that God wanted to establish the kingship first before the temple, which I argued was because God didn’t need a fancy building to operate, he was more concerned with the relationship he had with his people.

But as we saw with David’s count of his soldiers, it doesn’t take much before God gets forgotten and it’s all about us.

This is why the temple becomes important. It is a standing reminder that God is there and he is in control. He is there and he has a way for us to communicate with him.

David’s preparation

Now, at this stage, David knows that he isn’t the one that will build the temple - that’s because of the events that we looked at last week.

But, it doesn’t stop David from making some initial preparations, which is what 1 Chronicles 22 describes.

Now for a large section of the the remainder of 1 Chronicles, we get those long lists of people which can make for some tedious reading, but for much of it, it still keeps the focus on the temple because it is these people that will keep the temple operating.

Solomon

Well, let’s jump down now to the start of 2 Chronicles where Solomon has now officially been named King. In the book of Kings, it describes the rather convoluted process of how this happened, but in Chronicles, it comes across as a lot more straight forward.

Now, once Solomon’s rule is established he then speaks to the people and takes them all up to Gibeon.

Where is Gibeon? Well, it’s about 8km NW of Jerusalem - but the most important thing about the place, as this passage tells us, is that this is where God’s tent of meeting was set up. Now just to be clear, last week when I looked back at the Tabernacle which was the predecessor of the Temple, well this ‘tent of meeting’ is another name for the Tabernacle.

We actually get some clarifying remarks in verses 4 and 5 which tell us that the Ark of God is in Jerusalem, but the altar is at the tabernacle in Gibeon. Straight away we can see that things are not quite the way they are meant to be.

Well, Solomon goes up to the altar at the Tabernacle, and it tells us that he offered a thousand burnt offerings. Actually, it probably means that it was the whole assembly offering the offerings, and the word thousand here can also sometimes be used to just mean a large number. But however you read it, this is a very special time when the focus of the people is being put on God - which is where it should be.

Where about to get to the main part where Solomon asks for wisdom, but I hope you’re seeing that it comes in the middle of this temple theme which is asking the question: how is God interacting with his people.

The Dream

Well, in the Chronicles account, we’re just told that this next part happens at night. If you read the parallel account in 1 Kings 3 then it makes it more explicit that this next conversation is actually part of a dream.

So in this dream God asks the question: “ask for whatever you want me to give you?”

It’s like the ultimate question. The creator of the universe is asking this man to ask for anything. He could ask for fame, or wealth or even the death of his enemies. It’s all open to him.

But Solomon does something very different.

Reflection

He starts with a reflection on what God has already done. You see, God has already shown him kindness. Indeed, God has made him a king. Not only that, he acknowledges the promise that God made to David - the promise we looked at last week, that is, that there would always be someone of the line of David on the throne. But it’s not even just that promise, you see, when Solomon references the people who are as numerous as the dust of the earth - this is a very clear allusion to the promise that was given to Abraham that he would have descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth.

The point is, Solomon is recognising that in receiving this question, he has already been blessed beyond measure.

And I think this is a point worth pondering just a moment. You see, we can become so engrossed in what we want - maybe even what we feel we need - but sometimes there is a need to sit back and say - you know what? God has already blessed me beyond measure.

Request for Wisdom

But Solomon does then follow this up with a request. His request is for wisdom and knowledge.

But I want you to note - it isn’t just wisdom and knowledge for the sake of it - in fact, the request ties back with the blessing that God has given him, namely a numerous people.

You see, he recognises that if he is going to lead these people, he needs wisdom and knowledge.

What is wisdom?

Now lets just briefly pause here a moment as we consider these ideas of wisdom and knowledge.

Now the two terms are certainly related. Knowledge is that understanding we gain from observing how things work and interact. Wisdom on the other hand takes it a step further. I like to think of it as the application of the knowledge. Knowing what we should so with the knowledge we have.

I think I might have shared this before, but there’s a little saying I like:

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

That being said, let me suggest that from a biblical perspective, wisdom take on a further dimension again. That is, that wisdom ties us to the activity of God.

And it is in this sense that you can see how wisdom becomes such a critical component to the temple theme that I’ve been exploring.

The temple is God’s interaction point with humanity. Wisdom is needed to understand this.

Wisdom in seeking wisdom

Now let’s just spend a little longer thinking about this wisdom here.

One of the things that I find quite remarkable in all of this is that Solomon was actually showing a lot of wisdom in asking for wisdom.

In one way, we could say that as Solomon exercises his wisdom, God blesses him with more wisdom.

Now there is an important aspect to this that I want to draw out.

In my introduction, I spoke about learning on the path and how this kind of learning is so much more effective while ‘doing’. It’s not the type of knowledge that just comes.

Well, can I suggest that while the wisdom of Solomon was supernatural, in that it came from above, there is a sense which it only came as he was walking in wisdom.

Now what does this mean for us?

Well, let me point out a little trap that we as Christians can fall down. You see, we know we are to ask for wisdom. Not only from this chapter but in the first chapter of James, we are told to ask for wisdom from a God that gives generously (James 1:5). And so we diligently come to our prayer time and say “Dear God, please give me wisdom, Amen”. We then carry on our business and wonder why we haven’t suddenly become wise!!

Rather, let me suggest that wisdom is granted to us while we are in motion.

Wisdom literature

Now to explain what I mean by that, let’s briefly consider some of the wisdom literature we find in the Bible.

The Wisdom literature includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. Frequently in these books, wisdom is something that we seek after. That is, not just wait till it hits us, but that we go after it.

Or let’s take the book of Proverbs. In this book, you’ll find that the first nine chapters effectively pictures a father teaching his son the way of wisdom.

As these chapters go on, its like the father is walking along a path with his child. As he does, he points to one house and says - that is the house of folly, stay away. And then to another - that is the house of wisdom.

The child has to make a choice, but can only make a choice as he moves along the path.

What this means for us is that we should not hope that somehow wisdom is going to somehow fall out of the sky and into our heads and we’ll instantly know what to do. Maybe that will happen sometimes, but more often God will speak to us as we are on the move. Sometimes we won’t know the house of folly until we get to the gate and look up to the window and see who’s there.

God’s response

Now let me come back to the passage as we look at God’s response.

God seems really pleased with this request. He recognises that as Solomon has already taken the steps towards wisdom he’s avoided that door of folly and not asked for wealth, possessions, or death of his enemies. But rather that he asked for something that lines up perfectly with God’s plan - wisdom and knowledge to govern God’s people.

And so God confirm that he will give him wisdom and knowledge. In some ways you could say he is giving wisdom out of his wisdom.

But he doesn’t end there - he says that he will also give wealth, possessions and honour like no king before and after will have.

God loves to bless.

Quick note though - sometimes, like on this occasion, God chooses to bless with wealth and possessions. But this is not always the case. In fact, can I be as bold to suggest that it is quite often not the case in our situation. But God still loves to bless - it’s just that sometimes his blessings take on different forms.

Building a temple

From here, the next six or so chapters focus almost entirely on building the temple. Chapters 2 and 3 is about building the temple. Chapter 4 is about furnishing the temple. In chapter 5 the Ark of God is brought to the temple, and in chapters 6 and 7 it is about the dedication of the temple.

In much of this, it is really easy to get lost in the details. But the reason that this takes up so much space in the Bible is because it is effectively the stage for which God is going to interact with humanity.

As New Testament believers, we have the privilege of knowing that this stage also points us to Jesus. Jesus becomes to one in whom we can go to to interact with God. In this regard, he is our temple.

But to go to God, we need to actively seek out God. We need to seek his wisdom and his ways. We do this by praying for wisdom - but our prayers shouldn’t be passive, our prayers should be part of actively seeking after God’s wisdom.

Conclusion

Now as I mentioned earlier, this series is called how to build a church.

What I hope I can bring out of this message, is not just that we need wisdom to build a church, but that wisdom is central to being the church.

You see the church is one of the significant points of contact between God and humanity. But this point of contact can only be done through the wisdom that comes from God.

To have wisdom, we need to be seeking after God. We need to be walking down that path and learning as we go, always being attentive to the voice of God and choosing the right path to go down.

Wisdom comes as we move, so let’s keep moving.

Let me pray...