Sermon Tone Analysis

Primary Passage: 1 Kings 3:1-15

Our primary passage comes from 1 Kings 3.

PAUSE

We use the expression ‘The Bigger They Are the Harder They Fall’ to indicate that the more powerful or auspicious someone is, the more disastrous a loss is to accept.

Example of use: “The Cardinals are bitter about losing again.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall!”

An interesting fact about The Bigger They Are the Harder They Fall

The origin of the phrase ‘the bigger they are the harder they fall’ is believed to have come from boxing.

Not surprisingly, there were earlier expressions that meant the same thing and used similar wording.

One of the first recorded incidences is in the poet Claudian’s Rufian, essentially translating to “Men are raised on high in order that they may fall more heavily.”

If this proverbial expression is true, then nonother has fallen further than Lucifer, and King Solomon is coming in a secure second place.

Lauded as the wisest man to have ever lived, and with all of his riches, he couldn’t seem to maintain a relationship with God Almighty.

He was the son of King David, and like His father, he started strong and promising, but as his life progressed, he regressed into the insidious and lost man we see later in his life.

So, God shows us something about what the finest and strongest of humanity can do with their good intentions; only fail.

No matter if they were as talented and brave as king David or as intelligent as Solomon, who legend says could tell there were diamonds in Africa based upon minerals brought back to him from his men’s excursions.

None of that mattered in the end.

Even with man’s best intentions, we fell short, and God was making a long, drawn-out statement of our inadequacies to show a good pattern and track record of our failings.

As believers today, we have an advantage that these kings did not have.

That the judges and heroes of the Bible did not have.

Consider Sampson, all of his strength and might could do nothing for him in the way of keeping his promises to God.

Almost as brutally as the Egyptian gods were lined up and knocked down by God through the plagues, humanity proves to themselves time and time again that we are all insidious at heart and deserve the punishment that awaits all of us if we have not been forgiven.

With that said, let us stand for the reading of God’s word.

Starting in 1 Kings 3:1

Let us Pray!

What would you ask for if God told you that you could ask him for one thing, anything?

I mean, that is what God did with Solomon at the beginning of his reign as king.

Before we dive into Solomon’s answer, let’s talk a little bit about Solomon: Solomon was David’s son, and in 1 Kings 3, Solomon finds himself the newly appointed heir to the throne.

In one sense, Solomon was a man born into privilege; in another, he was the product of a pretty messed-up family.

He was the son of Bathsheba, the wife David stole from his best friend after he had had him murdered.

(So, that relationship was a little complicated.)

Solomon was not David’s only son or even his oldest, so there was a lot of jealousy and infighting among the brothers about who would get to replace David as king.

Amnon, David’s oldest, violated his half-sister, and so one of David’s other sons, Absalom, killed him for that.Then Absalom, who was David’s favorite, got impatient while David was still alive and led a revolt trying to overthrow David and got killed in the process.Then, when David was on his death bed, Adonijah, a third son, tried to claim the throne and attempted to marry David’s favorite concubine to prove he was up to the Job.

And he ended up getting killed for that.

Anyone else starting to feel better about your family yet?

I always like to point this stuff out because some of you come from messed-up families.

Good news: Most of the people that God chose to use in the Bible did too.

Listen: Your past family history doesn’t have to define your future.

God wants to start a legacy of blessing in your family line with you.

Today.

You can become someone greatly used by God to bless others like Solomon was.

And Solomon shows you how to get there.

First, let’s look at how Solomon responded to God’s offer again.

Solomon’s request (1 Kings 3:6-10)

I want us to see in this passage what Solomon asks for and why he asked for it.

What he asked for was wisdom!

It has been said that one way of interpreting the word “wisdom” is it is the ability to see things from God’s perspective.

Look at the words Solomon uses to request wisdom (vs.

9) o Give your servant a “receptive” (lit., a ‘hearing’ or ‘perceiving’ heart).

Give me the ability to perceive things like you perceive them.

The most common Hebrew word Solomon uses for ‘wisdom’ in Proverbs means “training,” or “coming under authority.”It

implies something like ‘instinct.’

To be wise is to have your thoughts trained in a God-shaped view of the world so that you know what God wants even before you know what he says.

So, by understanding what Solomon meant when he asked for wisdom, we can understand why God was pleased with Solomon’s request for wisdom.

My second point, the why, has us looking at what it means to “discern.”

In Solomon’s case, he is asking for the ability to discern the right and wrong paths from one another.When the Bible is clear, it is usually easy enough to see the message loud and clear.

When the Bible is clear on something, it is easy.

But many of life’s biggest decisions are not spelled out so clearly in Scripture, like whom to marry.

Or what Job to take.

Or which financial choices are best.

Or the best way to handle certain relational conflicts.

Wisdom knows what to do in those situations where it is not spelled out for us in black and white.

There is a sailors myth that in the Bermuda triangle, ships get hopelessly lost when their needles begin spinning uncontrollably.

If such a myth were true, then science and engineers would find why it does this and what they can do to protect against such a thing.

Wisdom is a compass that stays true unmindful of the magnetic pull of society or anything else for that matter that pulls in one direction or another.

In life, we can feel like we are pulled in so many different directions at once that it may feel like our heads are left spinning.

Wisdom is the attribute that you should seek in those situations.

Solomon recorded in Proverbs 9:10

What does it mean to fear the Lord?

One thing it isn’t is the same kind of fear that leaves you shivering under your bed.

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Proverbs 9:10;

and others

Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 14:27; 15:33;

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Proverbs 9:10 tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and many other passages talk about the fear of the Lord (e.g., Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 1:7; 14:27; 15:33).

Before we can understand how the fear of the Lord leads to wisdom, we need to define what the Bible means by “fear” in this context.In the Bible, the word translated “fear” can mean several things.

It can refer to the terror one feels in a frightening situation (Deuteronomy 2:25).

It can mean “respect” in the way a servant fears his master and serves him faithfully (Joshua 24:14).

Fear can also denote the reverence or awe a person feels in the presence of greatness (Isaiah 6:5).

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Frightening Situation: Deuteronomy 2:25; Respect: Joshua 24:14; Feeling in the presence of greatness: Isaiah 6:5.

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The fear of the Lord is a blend of all of these.

Fear of the Lord can be defined by understanding the following passages; Matthew 12:36; Psalm 139:2; and Jeremiah 12:3.

In other words, as J.I. Packer would put it,

“the continual awareness that our loving heavenly Father is watching and evaluating everything we think, say, and do.” - J.I. Packer

As Jesus told each of the seven churches in Revelation 1—2, “I know your works.”

Nothing escapes His attention.

To develop the fear of the Lord, we must recognize God for who He is.

We must glimpse with our spirits the power, might, beauty, and brilliance of the Lord God Almighty (Revelation 11:17; Hosea 12:5; Isaiah 6:1–5).

Those who fear the Lord have a continual awareness of Him, a deep reverence for Him, and a sincere commitment to obey Him.

Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

This verse gives us some added insight with its antithetical parallelism—there is a sharp contrast between the wise and the foolish life.

A wise person fears/reverences/obeys the Lord; A fool despises God’s instruction and cannot be told what to do.

The wise person is wise because he has started at the starting place; The fool has no foundation on which to build wisdom.

Romans 1:21–22 speaks of those who “neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.”

Here is a description of people who try to obtain wisdom while ignoring God—

it cannot be done because God is the source of wisdom.

The link between the fear of God and wisdom means we cannot possess wisdom if we recreate God in our image.