Beware of Success | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

Welcome you to venture church.

If I've never met you, it was like the eighty

slow clap right there.

Good job guys.

If I've never met you before, I'm Brandon. I'm the

lead pastor of the church. If you're new, I'd love

the opportunity to say hi. I'll be hanging out in

the lobby afterwards. Please come up, introduce yourself to me.

Fiz bump Me'd be great to be able to meet you.

I want to echo what Kelsey said.

I think a really healthy life rhythm for a follower

of Jesus is every couple of years go on a

missions trip.

And I think you do it for a couple reasons.

Number one, it's the constant reminder that you are blessed,

and that's what it shows. You're able to see other cultures.

You'll see the freedom that you have, You'll see what

the Gospel has.

Provided you in your life.

And you get to help people that otherwise may not

be able to hear the gospel.

So you get that experience. And then in.

Addition, I call it, you get a vacation with purpose,

which means we will plan a trip, tell you what

it's gonna cost, plan every single detail and you get

to go to a country that you will likely never

visit any other time, and you get to do it

and feel great because you're actually there with a purpose.

So it's vacationing with purpose. Every couple of years we

do go to Israel. And if you're interested in Israel,

that is really vacationing with purpose. It will make the

Bible come alive for you. Challenge you to consider that

this year. There's an info meeting after the third service

if you're interested. All right, we are in a series

leading us up to Easter, which is the first Sunday

in April. Don't forget grab yard signs. We're gonna give

you invite cards when you walk out. And and it

was today driving to church. We had a plan for

Easter for a year, and on the way driving to

church today God turned it upside down. So since then,

David and I have been scrambling as I have been

back in my prayer room sketching out what my sermon

is going to be for Easter. The only reason God

would turn everything upside down and change the direction we

were going to go for Easter is because God has

a word for your friends, and your friends will only

hear that word if you step out in faith and

invite them. But we're really excited about Easter. But we

are finishing up the life of Solomon, and we are

exploring what lessons we can learn from the wealthiest, most successful.

Person that's ever lived.

Let's dive right in we left off. Solomon had spent

the first twenty years eating his king building, spent seven

years building the palace, another thirteen years building or spent

seven years building the temple, another thirteen years building his

palace complex. Here is the schematics for it looked something

like this.

Up on the hill was the temple.

Then down below was Solomon's palace, then the court where

he would judisicate justice and conflicts, and then there was

all these other areas that he had built. It took

twenty years to take what was a vision and actually

implement it. We know that after he finished this project,

God met him.

He had an encounter with God.

It was the second time that he'd had a face

to face conversation with God. And God said, Solomon, if

you keep serving me, this palace and this temple that

you've built will last forever. But he said, Solomon, if

you fall into idle worship, that palace and that temple

will be nothing more than a pile of rocks. And

God ends it by saying, Solomon, how are you going

to be remembered? Are you going to be remembered as

a man who pursued me and I blessed and as

a result, sustained everything he'd built for decades beyond him?

Or are you going to be remembered as a sad

story of what could have been? Second Chronicles, Chapter nine.

I'm going to read verse twenty two Second Chronicles parallels

First Kings ten, so as you're studying along with me,

you should be reading both in preparation.

But I'm read one verse. Then we'll pray together.

Verse twenty two surmises all of Solomon. In this verse,

King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all

the kings.

Of the earth.

I want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close

your eyes. I want you to repeat this prayer after me.

Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to my heart, change my

life in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We're gonna stay in First Kings for First Kings ten

for a while. I shared with you last week that

First Kings was written is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah.

It was written during the period of time when the

Israelites were in Babylon.

So Jerusalem was.

In utter ruins, the temple had been destroyed, and all

the people had been stripped from this land that was

promised to them, and they were exiled in Babylon. Entire

generations grew up and died in Babylon. In fact, by

the time First Kings was written, it was four hundred

years since the time of Solomon. So for decades people

would ask their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents.

You told the stories about.

Moses leading us out of Egypt, You told the stories

about the miraculous exodus, you told the stories about the judges,

then Saul and David, how are we in Babylon? And

for generations they would say, how did we end up here? Well,

the prophet Jeremiah wrote First Kings to explain how they

ended up not in the promised land, but in Babylon.

And it was meant as.

A warning to the people and future generations to learn

from history and not make the same mistake. Interestingly, Second

Chronicles was written maybe fifty years later.

By the scribe Ezra. The people were free.

To leave Babylon and go back to Jerusalem. And when

the people got back to Jerusalem, what they found was

the city that they longed to be back at, in

absolute ruins. Jerusalem destroyed, the temple destroyed, and guess what.

Everybody asked, how did this happen? So Ezra wrote Second

Chronicles from everything he'd learned from Jeremiah from reading First

Kings You with me, and all of it was explain

how did we end up here and how do we

make sure that we don't end up here again. It

was a warning to the people in future generations to

learn from history and not make the same mistake.

I want you.

To do amazing things for Jesus. I want your business

to be blessed. I want your family to be blessed.

I want you to get promoted. I want you to

make more money so you can give more. I want

you to be blessed. Hear me when I say this,

but don't be deceived. Success does not necessarily equate to significance.

In the end, we want our life to have significance,

and there are some serious warnings that we learn from

the life of Solomon that unless we shift from a

mindset of a pursuit of success and instead in one

to a pursuit of significance. Our successes will ultimately lead

to failures. I want to share with you over the

next two weeks really the big warnings that I think

we learn from the life of Solomon Today, I want

to warn you about success. I think there's three key

things that we learn from Solomon about success. Number one,

success can be an addiction. What happens when you are

halfway through your life and everything at the beginning of

your life that you wrote down as goals, dreams, I

mean far fetched dreams and ambitions.

What happens when.

You achieve all of them halfway through your life. First

Kings nine to one tells us that after the temple

was built, after his palace was built, Solomon thought this,

I've achieved everything I've desired to do. What happens when

you find yourself at that spot where you've reached all

your goals, but you still have a lot of life

to live, You still have a lot of working years

ahead of you. Well, I think you either be content

with what God has done through you you and you

invest the next half of your life into the future.

Generation helping them achieve their goals, or you think I

could be even greater.

Solomon's dad, David.

Had conquered every enemy of Israel, had expanded the territory

he added to the Kingdom of Israel. David wanted the

Temple to be built, so he went on a massive

fundraising campaign, spent years, the last years of his life,

raising money so that someday the temple would be built.

But the one thing.

David never did is after conquering all these other nations,

he never attempted to build an international network that would

make Israel more powerful among the nations. And that was

because David's priority honor God.

We're going to.

Build the temple, create this place where God's presence can rest.

And then at the same.

Time, I want to protect the people. So he defeated

their enemies, not to expand Israel's wealth, but to keep

the people safe. In fact, at the end of his life,

David praised this prayer. When he looks at how safe

the people are, and he looks at all the money

they've raised for the temple, he says this First Chronicles

twenty nine to fourteen.

Who am I?

Who are the people that we should be able to

give this generously. And then he says the most humble statement,

the statement that shows you that David pursued a life

of significance and it far exceeded the success that from

the outside it looked like he'd achieved. That his motivation

wasn't success, it was significance. And he emphasized that everything

comes from you, and we've given only what you've given

to us. He literally says, God, I wouldn't have anything

if it didn't come from you.

Here's the unfortunate part.

While David was this mighty general who feared no enemy,

his son Solomon was raised in a time of peace,

and Solomon was a shrewd diplomat and politician who missed

no opportunity to increase his wealth and his power. And

once you get started, it's hard to stop because success

can be an addiction. Solomon used this gift that he'd

been given from God, this gift of wisdom. Now there

are many of you you have the spiritual gift of wisdom.

But Solomon had like the type of wisdom that some

of you that are very gifted with that have like

superhuman on steroids. But he took this god given gift

of wisdom, and he used it to profit himself in

ways that had never been done before or since. Solomon

was the wealthiest, greatest king, greater than any king before.

Him, during him, or after him. First Kings nine point.

Fifteen begins to describe how success was an addiction for Solomon.

Here's the account of the forced life.

King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord's temple. So he

built the temple took seven years. His own palace it

took thirteen years. Once you're done with that, what do

you do next? Well, Solomon thought, why not build more?

Let's build even more. So what does the Bible say

he did? He built the terraces, so, in other words,

Jerusalem was built on a hill. He rebuilt and re

engineered all the terraces around Jerusalem. It then says he

built the walls around Jerusalem.

So if you visit Jerusalem.

Today, there's walls that surround Jerusalem. And Solomon basically initiated

that construction project.

But that wasn't enough.

In Hazor, Meguido, and Geyser, he built fortress cities. He thought, well,

I got to store up the wealth of Israel. I

got to store up the unitions of Israel and I want.

To protect Jerusalem.

So in all of these surrounding cities, he had huge

fortresses built in all of these cities. Interesting, if you

join us on an Israel trip, we will visit the

excavations of some of these cities, including Megido, which is

absolutely massive. And these were the projects that Solomon undertook

after he built the temple in his palace. But the

problem is when you do all of these huge projects, you.

Need two things. Number One, you need money. He needed money.

So how did he get money.

Well, for he wanted to increase his own wealth, but

he needed money to.

Do all these projects. You know what he did.

He started heavily taxing the people. Anyone, anyone relate to

things that we just passed in the state of Washington.

Anyone relate when you make a purchase for anything ten

point eight percent sales tax.

Have you tried again? My jeep got recalled.

I have a truck now, it's super cool, but it

burns through gas and has a twenty six gallon gas tank.

It costs one hundred dollars to fill that gas tank.

What in the world we get taxes?

Well, taxes weren't enough that's unfamiliar. So he had to

make international trade deals with all these other countries.

Sound like tariffs. Nothing changes. He needed money.

Well, not only did he need resources, he needed workers.

So he took the Hebrew people.

And I want you to know, if the Bible says

the account of the forced labor, notice it didn't call

him slaves. He's really quick to say, I didn't make

the Israelite slaves, but they were forced into labor. We

know it was forced labor because immediately after Solomon dies,

they look at the.

Next king and they said, can.

You lighten the workload that Solomon put on us? It

is said rabbis have taught throughout history that Solomon required

that every Israelite give one month out of every three

to work on his projects force labor. So not only

did he force the Israelites to build his projects, but

verse twenty, there were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Parazites, Hitwites,

and Jebizideites. These people were not Israelites. So remember when

they went into the Promised Land and they conquered Canaan,

God commanded wipe out all.

The other people. Do not leave other people here.

But the Israelites never listened, so those people were still left.

There were remnants of them.

They had kids, they grew, they grew into large people

groups foreigners that lived in the region of Israel. They

would constantly stir up trouble, and Solomon thought, well, they're

non Israelites. So here's what Solomon did to them. Solomon

conscripted the descendants of all of these people remaining in

the land, whom the Israelites could not exterminate, were reminded

they were supposed to take them out, but didn't to

serve as slave labor as it is.

To this day.

So Solomon made the Israelites forced into labor. One out

of every three months service projects. Any non Jewish person

was made into a slave. And while all this is

going on, Solomon was building and living an extravagant life

two point two trillion dollars if you consider a inflation today.

We then in chapter ten we are given a description

of his wealth. The Queen of Sheba hears about Solomon.

Here's it, this guy is wiser than any other king

that's ever lived. And she starts hearing about his wealth.

The only thing we know about the Queen of Sheba

most scholars believe Sheba was probably in the region what

is now Yemen, which is about fifteen hundred miles away.

Remember this is before telephones, before newspapers, before the internet,

so for you to hear about someone fifteen hundred miles away,

people are talking about Solomon, and she thought, I got

to see this from myself. So she loads up this

huge caravan from fifteen hundred miles away and she travels

all the way to Jerusalem to meet Solomon because she

wants to prove he's not as smart as everyone says

he is. So she has all these tricky questions that

she's gonna ask Solomon, and here's the result verse three.

Solomon answered all of her questions. Nothing was too hard

for the king.

To explain to her.

When the Queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon,

so she saw how wise he was and smart. And

she also saw the palace that.

He built, the food he was eating, the seating of

his officials.

All of the servants hand in foot waiting on him,

the robes they were wearing, his cupbearers, the burnt offerings.

She was overwhelmed. She wasn't overwhelmed by his wisdom. She

was overwhelmed by the extravagant wealth that had sort of

been communicated to her ahead of time, but actually seeing

it was overwhelming.

Solomon was, for all intents and.

Purposes, the epitome of success.

Thing the world has to offer. He had a verse seven.

So she is talking to Solomon and she's just flown

away by what she's seen. And the Queen Ashiba says,

I did not believe the things that I had heard

about you until I came and saw with my own eyes.

She says, indeed, not even half of what was told

to me about your wisdom and your wealth has far

exceeded any report that I had ever heard about you.

Here are the types of things she saw that blew

her mind. Go to verse eighteen. Are you gua still

with me? Verse eighteen describes the throne. Salomon had his

throne built. So what would happen is when people would

come with a dispute. And you've seen this on ancient

TV shows, movies, things. The people would come and they

would present their disputes to the king who was sitting

on the throne.

This is the throne that these people would approach. This

is the throne he built for himself. Verse eighteen.

The king made a great throne covered with ivory. First off,

the only way to get ivory was the important from Africa.

It was overlaid with fine gold. The throne had six steps,

and its back had.

A rounded top.

On both sides of the seat were armrest with a

lion standing beside each of them.

Twelve lions on.

The six steps, one at either end of each step.

Nothing like it had ever been made for any other kingdom.

No king had a throne like this. No kingdom had

ever seen a throne like this. Here is AI's rendition

of that throne. It's a little bit blurry, but it

gives you an idea. Six steps for this king to

get to his throne.

There's a lion on each side.

Ai made a mistake and did wild different animals, but

we'll give it grace.

It's not perfect.

Rabbis in the mid Rash described Solomon's throne. They say

Solomon's engineers created animatronics that as Solomon would walk up

the steps to his throne, the animals would look up

and raise their paw as he stepped on his throne,

and then when he walked down from his throne, their

hand would go down and.

They would bow. That was Solomon's thrown.

But the Bible doesn't just tell us about his throne,

tells us that all the king's goblets were gold. I mean,

why not, you got so much wealth, don't drink out

of any cup that's not made of gold. Instead, all

the house household articles in the palace were pure gold.

Forks and knives and spoons were gold. Plates were gold.

Everything was gold. Listen to this. Nothing was made of

silver because silver was considered of little value.

In Solomon's day. I want you just to process that.

Today investors everywhere talking about the price of silver in

the world spiking. I mean, we'd all be like I

just want a hundred ounces of silver. Solomon's throwing it

out because it's worthless. The king had a fleet of

trading ships along with ships of harem. Once every three year,

the ships returned carrying gold, silver, ivory, apes, baboons Verse

twenty three. King Solomon was greater in riches in wisdom

than all the other kings on the earth. Success can

become an addiction.

Number two.

Success can be deceptive. All of Solomon's successes masked that

his heart was turning to stone. Here's a couple examples.

Verse twenty six. Solomon accumulated chariots and horses. He had

fourteen hundred chariots twelve thousand horses, which he kept in

the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. So

he built all these fortress cities, owned all these chariots

and horses, and he just kept him in all of.

Those other cities.

The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones,

and cedar as plentiful as sycamore fig trees in the foothills.

Verse twenty eight. This is important.

Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt. Okay, go left in

your bible, giving you a journey through the Bible. Here

now we're to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is part of the Torah.

It's part of the Pentateuch. These are the first five

books of the Old Testament. These are attributed to Moses.

The Israelites memorized the Torah. They studied the Torah by

the time of Solomon. In all likelihood, Solomon had the

entire Torah memorized. So Solomon knew Deteronomy seventeen, verse sixteen

by memory, and it was a warning to kings in

the future.

Here's the warning.

The king must not acquire a great number of horses

for himself. Success can be a deception. And not only

you're not to acquire horses, but you're not to get

You're not to return to Egypt to get horses. Well,

we just found out that Saloma not only had horses,

but he went to Egypt to get them because the

Egyptian horses were the best. Let's keep going down verse seventeen.

The king must not take many wives. Next week we'll

talk about that. He must not accumulate large amounts of

silver and gold. All of Solomon's success made him blind

to the fact that he was drifting. He realized that

he was five miles away from where he started, and

it didn't even know he drifted this far. Here is

the words of Solomon about everything he built. So at

the end of his life, Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes.

So in Ecclesiastes, too, Solomon shows us the level of

deception that he was living in during these moments.

He says, I undertook great projects.

I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards.

He's going on and on.

About all the stuff that he built verse seven. I

bought male and female slaves, and I had other slaves

that were born to me in my house. I owned

herds and flocks more than anyone who has ever been

in Jerusalem ever. I amassed silver and gold for myself,

and I amassed these treasures for the kings and for

the provinces. I acquired male and female singers. I had

a harem. I had the delight of every man's heart.

I became greater. This is Solomon's own words about himself.

I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me.

Success is an addiction. Success is a deception. And here's

the deception in all of this, My wisdom stayed with me.

I mean, God didn't.

Take away if this was bad. Why would I keep winning?

If this was bad? Why does it feel like everything's

being blessed. I'm still getting promoted at work, even though

I don't live right. I still seem to be able

to buy lots of stuff.

Even though I'm stingy and I don't give well. I mean, my.

Business keeps getting blessed, even though I'm doing some kind

of questionable dealings at times.

My kids seem to be doing great.

I mean, even though there might be some issues in

my marriage.

Success is the deception.

It's when you start saying, well, maybe that those little

indiscretions that Pastor Brandon would say are drifting, Maybe they're

really not that bad. Maybe it's just church traditions. Maybe

it's just church keeped guilt the whole time. My wisdom

didn't lead me. Success can be an addiction. Success can

be a deception. And finally we close with this, success

is an illusion. No one living in the time of

Solomon could have predicted, we'll talk about this in two weeks,

that all the wealth would soon disappear quickly after you

was gone. The queen of Shechiba, she couldn't have predicted

that all this wealth would be gone soon. Ecclesiastes is

so fascinating because it's like we got Solomon's personal journal,

and Solomon at the end of his life, you know,

coin the words that I said before, and he reflected

on everything he'd pursued, how he'd pursued a life of success,

not a life of significance. And here's how he summed

it up verse ten. Ecclesiastes to verse ten said, I

denied myself nothing. My eyes desired. I refused my heart

no pleasure. If I saw it, I wanted it, I

bought it, he said. If I saw a new car

online I was driving by, somebody thought that's cool. I

need it, I bought it. If I saw something someone

was wearing.

I thought I got to get that.

I bought five of them. I denied my eyes. Nothing

refused my heart, no pleasure. My heart took.

To light in all my toil.

When I saw what I'd built, man, I puffed up

with pride. I walked around my cities and I told people.

I did this. Look what I've done.

No one has ever done this before, No king in

any kingdom throughout history has ever done this. Yet, when

I surveyed all that my hands had done and what

I had toiled to achieve, when it was just me,

by myself, with just my thoughts, I realized everything was meaningless.

Everything that I've done, it was just chasing after the wind,

and in the end nothing was really gained. That I'd

invested my whole life pursuing success when what I should

have been doing is pursuing significance. He later on in

verse twenty one, it's Solomon new By. Then it was

all going away. He knew, my children cannot handle the

amount of wealth that I've accumulated.

They can't.

They didn't earn it, they didn't deserve it, they didn't

have to fight for it, they didn't have to toil

for it. And if they just inherit it, they're gonna

lose it all. We see that in verse twenty one,

he says, a person made labor with wisdom, knowledge, and skill,

and then they must leave all they own to another

who is not toiled for it. This too, is meaningless

and a great misfortune. Solomon new it was gonna turn

to rubble. God told was going to I've heard it said.

It's good to have things that money can buy, provided

you don't lose the things money can't buy. What is

the warning that we learned from Solomon? We have learned.

I think it's significant for the region that we live,

specifically the city that we live in that region, that

I want you to be, from the outside a success.

I want you to be blessed, but not at the

expense of significance. That our goal in life is not

how do I become more successful? Like our life aspiration

should be, how do I live a life of significance.

Did you know that God created every single one of

you with something good and significant to do? Life's pursuit

is not one of success. Success may come as a

natural byproduct of you pursuing significance, but life is meant

to be a pursuit of significance. If not heed the

warning of Solomon, he wins. He is the epitome of success.

And when he looked at it all, he said, it

was chasing after the wind. There was nothing gained under

the sun. I want everybody to stand up on your feet.

I want to pray for you. I think one of

the great ways that you can have significance is you

tell people about Jesus. You have friends the need to

be at church on Easter. I already had a plan,

but driving to church today, God turn that plan upside

down because he has a word for your friends. Your

friends will hear that word if you invite your friends

to church.

So on your way out today, take these yard.

Signs, take a bunch of the invite cards, tell people

invite people to church. Don't come alone to church on Easter.

But I want to pray for you that the warning

that we learned from Solomon, that we would take that warning.

And then we would pursue a life of significance.

So whatever you need to do to put yourself in

a posture to receive, do that right now. Jesus, you

know every single person that's here. You know them by name,

you know what you've called them to do, you know

their goals, you know their ambitions, you know what their

heart is, you know what their motives are, you know

what they dwell on, what they think about, you.

Know all of those things. Well, Lord, beyond anything.

I ask that you would focus us on what your

purpose is.

And your purpose for us individually.

Is to lead live a life of significance. And I

pray that through everything we would do, we would filter

it through. Not am I a success? But is what

I'm doing significant? How am I moving God's Kingdom forward?

And Lord, I pray for everyone that's watching online, listening

to this podcast, or here with us in this room. God,

may we be people that strive to live a life

of significance. Do something great through us in Jesus' name.

Amen, make sure sometime this week you check out our

What's Next page. That's where you can find this week's

Bible plan, as well as resources and next steps for you.

We're here to.

Help you if you need anything otherwise, grab some invites

and some yard signs and go. Let's go spread the word.

Have it an incredible day.

We love you.