Halftime | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

I want to welcome you to venture church. If I've

never had the opportunity to meet you before, I'm Brandon,

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

I'd love to meet you. I'll be hanging out in

the lobby after the service. Please come up, introduce yourself

to me. Love the opportunity to fist bump you. Say hi.

We do want to mention come back tonight six PMS.

One of our revival worship nights. All of our teenagers

will be coming back from camp. It's going to be

incredible baptisms. Those are always amazing. Encourage you to come

out tonight six o'clock. We're going to change it up

a little bit. Everybody stand up. One Kings, chapter nine,

verse one says when Solomon had finished building the Temple

of the Lord and the Royal Palace and had achieved

all that he desired to do, the Lord appeared to

him a second time, as it appeared to him at Gibbean.

I want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close

your eyes. Want you to take your hand, place it

over your heart. I want you to repeat this prayer

after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, speak to my heart

change my life in Jesus' name. Amen, you can grab

a seat. We are smack dab in the middle of

this series on the life of Solomon, and I like

to think of this as we are literally smack dab

in the middle. Let me give you an update on

what has been taking place, and I'm going to show

you through a map. So last week Die introduced you

to this map. Because she doesn't follow my orders. It

took Solomon twenty years as king to build what you

see in front of you. Took him seven years to

build the temple itself, and then thirteen years to build

his palace and the palace complex. Go to the next picture.

This one gives you just an idea of how intricate

this temple was. Took Solomon seven years to build this.

Go to the map that is the officially approved by

Brandon map. This one actually gives you a better idea

of what was taking place because up there took Solomon

seven years to build that, and then thirteen years to

build his palace and all the palace complex. Overall, this

building project was the first twenty years of his reign

and second Chronicle seven Parallels First Kings nine. So we

get to actually hear the story from two different perspectives,

and both perspectives begin with what was going through Solomon's

mind once he'd finished all of this. And here's what

it is. This is the second Chronicles version. It says

Solomon had succeeded in carrying out all that he had

in mind to do. In other words, when he became king,

he sat down and he whiteboarded his goals while he's king,

and once he completed the temple and the palace complex

after twenty years, he had done everything he set out

to do. Says it this way, he had achieved all

that he'd desired to do. That is going to prove

very problematic because Solomon is now in his early forties.

He served as king for a little over twenty years.

But we know, because we have the whole story, that

he ends up being king for forty years. But halfway

through his reign he'd achieved everything he'd set out to do.

I'd like to sum it up this way. The first

half is over. It is now halftime. When you look

back on that first half, Solomon is clearly dominating the game.

This is heading towards a blowout of his historic legendary

proportions if you think about it. In the first half

of his reign, these are Solomon's wins, builds, the temple, builds,

the palace complex. He solidified his kingdom, and he expanded

his influence around the world. He had achieved international stature.

He was world renown. At this point, Solomon was famous,

and Solomon wasn't famous today when it's easy to be famous.

We have the news media, we have social media, it's

easy to be famous quickly. Solomon did this before any

of that. This was due to world due to word

of mouth passed on. Solomon was leading well spiritually. But

one of the things that Solomon is done that he

has never been surpassed even today, is he is the

richest man at this moment that has ever lived. I

want to just take a moment and extrapolate a little

bit of his wealth. I did all this math off

the top of my head in the first service, and

it got a little bit confusing, so I wrote myself

some more notes now for you. But at this point,

Solomon's wage in gold alone was six hundred and sixty

six talents of gold a year, six hundred and sixty

six talents of gold a year. Since you're not familiar

with talents, let me break it down into tons of gold.

He was given twenty five tons of gold a year.

But we don't even count gold in tons today. That

seems insane. We count it in ounces. So how many

ounces are in a ton? Thirty two thousand ounces in

a ton. He was given twenty five tons. So, in

other words, Solomon was paid in gold alone yearly eight

hundred thousand ounces of gold. Let me keep breaking it down.

An ounce of gold at the time I wrote this

message was five thousand, one hundred and seventy six dollars

an ounce. I mean, if there's anyone here and you

have one hundred ounces of gold, please put venture in

your will. But he was paid eight hundred thousand ounces

of gold a year. That works out to four point

one four billion dollars a year that Solomon was paid.

That was just in goal. He also had silver, He

had gems that were paid to him, He had taxes

that were paid to him. They estimate, if you consider

inflation to today, that Solomon's net worth at this point

after building the temple was two point one two trillion dollars.

He was the richest person that has ever lived. Let

me prove it today. The wealthiest person in the world

is Elon Musk. He is worth eight hundred and forty

billion dollars. Solomon was worth three times as much as him.

Mark Zuckerberg invented faith Facebook. He's worth two hundred and

twenty billion dollars. Jeff Bezos, who were hoping buys the Seahawks,

he is worth two hundred and fifty five billion dollars.

Solomon is worth ten times what Jeff Bezos is worth.

Our current president is the wealthiest president that we've ever

had in our history. He's worth six point nine billion dollars.

I know that's debatable, but Solomon was worth a lot

more than him. Taylor Swift she is worth one point

three billion dollars. Solomon is worth over two hundred times

what she's worth. Let's really get it personal. Our very

own Morgan, Butcher Morgan has acquired in his holder, you know,

forty ish of his life. He is a net worth

of three thousand dollars now, I just kidding. Solomon is

worth two point two trillion dollars. Worth more than Morgan,

but not in my heart. Yes. The challenge for Solomon

is its only halftime. Halftime is a very important part

of the game. It's where you get together with your coaches,

you go over what went right, what went wrong in

the first half. There's tons that's already happened in the game,

but the game is far from over. There are tons

of teams that squander huge halftime leads. There are also

teams that come back from huge halftime deficits to win line.

No game is over at halftime. Now, I always I

get made fun of by the fact that I'm a

Raider fan. I do like the Seahawks too. I'm super

proud of our Seahawks winning the sixtieth Super Bowl. Awesome,

but big time sports fans we lament a little bit

about what could have been because a halftime of that game,

the Seahawks were on the verge of doing something legendary, historic.

They were about to do something that had never happened

in NFL history. They were about to do something that

every commentator team would talk about for decades to come.

They were on the verge of the first shutout in

Super Bowl history. And if they did it, every game,

every defense, no matter how good that defense was, would

always be compared to. Yeah, but the Seahat Hawks shut

out the Patriots in Super Bowl sixty. Now I know

they still won the game, awesome, but they're just another

team that dominated a mismatched team in the Super Bowl

game could have been legendary. It was heading that way,

but it was only halftime. There's a lot of game

still left to be played. Did you know that our

life operates that same way? For some of you, it's halftime.

Oftentimes we referred to it as a midlife crisis. Doesn't

have to be a midlife crisis, it's only halftime. That

midlife crisis doesn't have to be a new relationship and

a corvette. That midlife crisis can be a change in

the way that you view yourself. And I remember this

moment clearly as I was wrestling through it with Jesus,

I felt like the Lord was saying, branded it's time

for you to shift into father mode like I already

am a dad. Jesus, No, you got to view yourself

as a father to everybody that you interact with. So

in the second half of your life, it needs to

transition from you building your legacy to helping other people

establish and build theirs. You can do that when you

make a good decision at halftime. But no game is

over at halftime, so it is halftime for Solomon, and

guess who gives him the halftime speech. He gets a

halftime speech from God. God shows up and gives him

a word for the second time. By the way, I

don't think it is an accident that God spoke to

him clearly at the beginning of his reign, and now

he's speaking to him clearly again halftime through his reign.

The beginning, he says Solomon, it was a test. I'll

give you anything you want. What do you want? And

Solomon said, I want wisdom to lead the people right.

And God said, because you've asked for such a selfless thing,

not only will I give you wisdom, but I'll give

you everything else too. You'll have wealth, you'll have fame,

you'll have power, and you'll have peace. So now God

shows up at halftime twenty years later and gives him

a halftime speech, gives him the weird way ahead. Let's

finish this game. Let's blow them out, let's dominate, let's

bury the opposition. Gives him the doesn't matter how you

first half goes, if you don't make it in the

second half. Now, every great motivational speech has really three

sections to it. I'm a public speaker. This is what

I do, die and I teach public speaking at a university.

If you broke down and made it simple, this is

how you teach people to speak. There's three sections to

a great speech. It has an introduction, it has a body,

which is really what you want to learn and get,

and then it has a conclusion. And you see all

the elements of a great speech in God's halftime speech

to Solomon. We actually see it not only in First

Kings nine, but in second chronicle seven. We're gonna jump

back and forth. So first God gives him the introduction,

First Kings nine to three, he says, and by the way,

the introduction, this is your hook. This is getting people's attention.

This is why speakers get up and they do things

like I'm gonna change it up. Everybody stand up. This

is why speakers tell a stupid joke that's unrelated to

anything going on in the message. This is why the

speakers say Morgan Butcher has a net worth of three

thousand dollars, because I got everybody's attention all of a sudden.

It's a hook So this is God's hook with Solomon. Solomon,

I've heard the prayer and plea you've made before me.

I have consecrated this temple which you've built by putting

my name there. Forever, my eyes and my heart will

always be there, he says Solomon. This prayer I've heard

now throughout Solomon's twenty years leading Israel. I bet he

prayed lots of prayers. I bet there is many times

he's praying prayers and he's thinking to God hear this prayer.

This was the moment God shows up. I want you

to imagine you come tonight. You're praying at the altar.

You're praying for your kids, praying for your marriage, praying

for your career, whatever it may be. You've prayed those

prayers dozens hundreds of times in your lifetime. But you

show up at the worship time tonight and God appears

and says, I hear this prayer this time. I mean,

you're never gonna forget this moment. So God shows up,

says I've heard your prayers. I'm pleased with this temple.

In fact, I like it so much that I'm placing

my name on it. God says, my eyes are opened,

and my ears are open to prayers prayed at this temple.

I mean, that's a pretty good hook. And then this

is where God says one of the most frequently quoted

at church verses, Second Chronicles seven fourteen. I'm going to

read fourteen because you're familiar with it, and it says this,

if my people call by my name, will humble themselves

and pray seek my face, turn from their wicked ways,

then I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sin,

and I will heal their land. You've heard that verse.

You probably didn't know where that verse came from. It

came from God's halftime speech to Solomon, after he'd been

king for over twenty years and a just finished building

the temple and the Palace complex. God tells him that

the problem is too many preachers don't read the verse beforehand,

because the verse beforehand is where it says, when you

find yourself in this situation, here's what you do. Here's

the situation you might find yourself. In verse thirteen, when

I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain,

or command locusts to devour the land or send a

plague among my people, what is he saying. He's saying

when everything is falling apart in your world, when it

seems like the planets have a line against you, when

your boss doesn't like you, your spouse doesn't like you,

your kids don't like you, when it seems like you

cannot get healthy physically, when everything seems to be falling apart,

there might be a why. Sometimes that why is just

life's hard. But sometimes that why is because in spite

of your character, God has continued to bless all these

areas of your life. His hand has still been on you.

But after a while, God thought, you know what, I'm

going to let them reap the consequences of their actions.

And so he has not done anything. He has just

pulled his hand off of you and allowed the natural

course of life to take effect in your life. There

are also times God loves you so much to get

your attention, he'll let your world fall apart because he's

hoping you'll do Verse fourteen and verse fourteen is after

everything's fallen apart in your life, pause, humble yourself, pray,

seek his face, turn from your wicked ways, and guess

what he'll do. Put his hand back on you, forgive

you heal your land. This is all in the introduction

to Solomon. God is saying, Solomon's gonna be times. Droughts

will come, famines will come, wars will come. But if

my people call by my name, will repent, turn from

their wicked ways, I'll hear from heaven. I'll heal their land.

I'll restore this thing. That is my promise to you, Solomon.

That was just the introduction. Then it gets to the

body of the actual speech. This is this is the

halftime talk. This is the actual message God wanted delivered.

Now that you've hooked someone, now you get to talk

about what you really want to talk about. And go

back to First Kings nine, verse four. This is what

God wanted to tell him. God wanted to say, I

have an if then promise for you again. But then

in addition, I have an if you don't hear what's

gonna happen warning. So I have a promise and a warning.

By the way, these are for Solomon, but they seem

to play out a lot in people that I work

with today too. Verse four. As for you, Solomon, if

you walk before me faithfully and with an integrity of

heart and uprightness, as David your father did. If you

do all at command and observe my decrees and laws,

I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever. You

shall never fail to have a successor on the throne

of Israel. Solomon, Serve me, pursue me, chase after me.

You will be legendary. People will talk about your reign forever.

You won't only win this game, but you will go

down in history, Solomon. But is the warning if you

were your descendants turn away from me, don't observe my

commands and decrees I've given you, and you go off

to serve other gods and worship them. So basically, what

is that. It's one of the commandments you shall have

no other gods before me. It's idolatry. God he despises idolatry.

We already know Solomon's been drifting. We know that as

he marries one foreign wife for political reasons after another,

those women come into his kingdom with their own traditions

and upbringings and gods they serve from their foreign country.

And Solomon, partly because he's an academic and wants to learn,

and partly because he likes to experience things, was beginning

to participate in all of this pagan worship. So easy

for us to say that's idle worship, and that lets

us off the hook because you aren't actively participating in

the worship of a pagan god. So where innocent. But

idolatry is a lot bigger and broader than that. Idolatry

is anything you put in your life before God. Idolatry

for you can be a relationship, it can be money,

It can be your job, it can be a hobby,

it can be your kids' sports. Anything you put before

God becomes an idol and that is flat out an

abomination to God. And God warns Solomon that if you

partake in idol worship, here's what is going to happen.

This is such a bad warning, he says, I'm going

to cut off Israel from this land. I will reject

this temple that I have consecrated for my name. Israel

will then become a byword and an object of ridicule

among the peoples. This temple will become a heap of rubble.

This thing that you have given twenty years of your

life and billions of dollars to make happen will be

nothing more than a pile of rocks. All who pass

by it will be appalled and they'll ask, how could

God have done such a thing here? This is what

happens if you don't obey. This was God telling Solomon

that building the temple. While it was a great accomplishment,

it wasn't the basis for his relationship with God. Like ultimately,

what cares, what matters to God is Solomon's relationship with God.

It is a great reminder to you and I that

in the end, God does not care about what you do.

He cares about who you know. You can live your

whole life, accomplish amazing things and not know God, and

in the end it is like rubble. You can do

everything great, give lots of money, build lots of buildings,

but do you know him. It's kind of crazy that

in the world's eyes we can be a failure, but

in God's eyes we can lead the most rich envy

life by simply knowing God. Your success or failure in

life is not based on what you do. This is

why Christianity doesn't make sense to people that don't follow Jesus.

It is the most countercultural way to live your life

because in the end, all that matters is do you

know him? Ironic thing is what is it that brings

us recognition? What we build? What we do? You know,

the worst thing in the world. We've spent years raising

money and building this building. Worst thing in the world

would be twenty years from now. This is an office complex.

It's not ever going to get torn down and turned

into houses. It's too valuable of a building now. But

it could get bought and turned into a retail center,

an office complex, a school, doctor's office. I don't know

the different things. You know what a pity that would

be if twenty years from now people are driving down

thirty fifth and they think, I think that used to

be a church. Whatever happened to that church. In the end,

God is telling Solomon, your achievements are no substitute for obedience.

God is reminding us through Solomon that our achievements are

no substitute for knowing him. That the key for Solomon

is that he must continue the path of obedience. In

the second half, and now God gets to the conclusion,

any great speech has a good conclusion. A conclusion is

a call to action. A conclusion is now you have

this information, what are you going to do? With it.

And here's what God says. He says, Solomon, if you

don't obey me a temple, it's going to be a

pile of rocks. People are gonna mock it, laugh at it.

He said. Someday people are going to ask what happened here?

How did all the time and energy and effort that

it went to build this, how did it end up

in a pile of rocks? In verse nine, this is

the beginning of the conclusion, he said. People will answer

because they've forsaken the Lord, their God, who brought their

ancestors out of Egypt and have embraced other gods, idols,

put other things before God and started worshiping and serving them.

That is why the Lord has brought all of this

disaster on them, he said, Solomon, if you don't obey me,

someday people are going to ask, how did we end

up here? You're going to go from famous to infamous.

You'll end up legendary history. Books will talk about you

for all the wrong reasons. People will say Solomon led

us astray, and God warned us in the time of Solomon.

God warned Solomon in his time about this. Solomon, on

his way at halftime on his way historic status, best

ever status, untouchable status, legendary status. But there's still half

the game to play. Now, a lot can happen in

the second half. You know, when First Kings was written,

it was written four hundred years after the time of Solomon,

when the Israelites were exiled to the nation and city

of Babylon. Kids would ask their parents, mom, Dad, how

do we end up here? I mean, you tell us

the story about Saul and David and the period of

the judges and the exodus and God bringing us out,

But why are we in Babylon? And they'd ask their

grandparents about it. And four hundred years later they wrote

First Kings to explain the answer. And they would say,

because four hundred years ago, in the time of Solomon,

they started drifting. There were decisions that were made that

led us have men actually to the temple being destroyed,

and now we're exiled in Babylon, and it all began

in the second half of the game. It's funny because

there's often times when I look at the journey for

our church, people have asked me that people that from

around the nation that listened to our podcast, pastors unfiltered,

and they've said, you guys have talked a lot about

drifting a lot about Solomon and your podcast lately, and

it's because the parallel scares me to death, because I

don't want our story. I don't want your story to

be a story like Solomon's. I feel like you me venture.

I feel like we are at halftime and God is saying,

all right, first half, you got a big lead, but

it's not how you start that matters. Lots of people,

lots of teams lose big leads. How are you going

to finish? I think it's great that this message aligns

with this point in our church's history and today I

want to call you to come out tonight at six

o'clock and let's do second chronicle seven fourteen. Let's hold

God at his word that if for some of you

life is not going well, let's humble ourselves, pray, seek

His face, turn. Then you'll hear from heaven, heal our land,

forgive our sin. We live under that right now, and

that can set up our future. I want to encourage you,

invite you come out to night. Let's prioritize knowing God.

Let's just seek him. Chase after him, pursue him. I

want everybody by your heads, close your eyes. There are

some of you today. I know if you were honest,

you'd admit you're far from God. Maybe you're watching online.

You don't know God, but you're saying I really need

to begin a relationship with Jesus. I'm going to count

to three, and if that is you, when I say three,

I want you to raise your hand. There are some

of you though you've prayed prayers, you've gone to church,

but if you were to be brutally honest, you'd admit

you are far from God at this moment. But you're

here today and you want to say, Brandon, I want

to leave right with Jesus. Maybe you're watching online. This

is for you. When I say three, if that's you,

I want you to raise your hand. Here I go one, two,

raise your hand, now three. As your hands are raised,

the ushers and staff are going to run around. They're

actually gonna play something in your hands on the floor

in the balcony. Keep them up for a second. I

want to invite everyone here to stand up on your feet.

We're going to pray a prayer of repentance. Together. I

do this all the time on Sundays. But I want

to say, specifically for those of you that raise your hand,

if you pray this and you mean this, this is

for you. You leave this place knowing I am right

with Jesus. And that's what this whole life is about.

It's about being able to stand before God and know

that you are right with God. That is ultimate success

or failure in this life. He's knowing him. So I

want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close your eyes.

I want everyone in this place to repeat this prayer

after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, I stand before you

today and I admit I'm messed up. But today I

ask you to forgive me, and I invite you to

come into my life and to change me. Thank you

for forgiving me and for saving me. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Before I send you out, I just want to direct

your attention to a page on our website and our

app called What's Next. If you wonder what to do next,

that is where to go. It's got resources for you

this week's Bible plan. It even has a link for

you to hear the playlist so you can get familiar

with the songs we sing. Here If you need anything,

we want to help, so we hope we'll see you

back tonight at six pm for the worship night, and

also a couple of our staff and prayer people will

just hang out at the front. If you need prayer

for anything, it'd be our privilege to pray with you.

Have a great day.