We have met the enemy and he is us! | Pastor Brandon Beals | Venture Church

Welcome Super Bowl Sunday.

My favorite thing in the first service is nine point

thirty in the morning. They are outside eating hot dogs,

all the things you want to do.

Just a couple of comments.

As I'm saying, I mean, could you have picked a perfect,

a better, more appropriate winner than the dude wearing the

Drake May jersey.

I know, it's pretty great.

I also commented to Claire that she's wearing a Shawn

Alexander jersey. Remember when they were in the Super Bowl

with Shawn Alexander. Yeah, we don't talk about that, but

the jersey was cool, Claire, So that's good. But my

favorite jersey was Rachel's Bosworth jersey. If I could have

found a jersey that size for me, that's what I'd

been wearing. But I couldn't because nothing like acknowledges the

Hawks being in the Super Bowl but also hints to

the Raiders at the same time. Google Brian Bosworth and

you'll understand what I mean by that. But grab your

Bible's turn to First Kings.

Chapter two.

We are the second of a series of messages through

the life of Solomon that are.

Taking us all the way to Easter.

Solomon is a complicated person that you are going to

find out. These are the words of David to Solomon,

and this was on David's deathbed to his son. He says,

I'm about to go the way of the earth. Be strong,

act like a man, and observe what the Lord, your

God requires. Walk in obedience to him, and keep his

decrees in commands, his laws and regulations as written in

the Law of Moses. Do this so you may prosper

in all that you do wherever you go, and that

the Lord may keep his promise to me. If your

descendants watch how they live, and if they walk faithfully

before me with all their heart and soul, you will

never fail to have.

A successor on the throne of Israel.

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.

This is a little bit of a shout out to

the forty and overcrowd.

Thank you.

Remember the comics page in the newspaper. Now for those

of you under the age of forty, when our parents

would get the newspaper as kids, we would turn to

the comics section, and there was an entire page of

the newspaper full of comic strips, and each comic strip

usually had four boxes that told the story of the comic,

and you'd have to follow it every single day so

that you knew what was going to happen the next day.

Comic strips. This is kind of a shout out to

the over forty crowd in our comic strip days. One

of my favorite comic strips as a.

Kid was Pogo. Pogo was a possum who lived.

In the southeast in the Bayou. This is the most

famous of all of Pogo's.

Comic strips right here.

Okay, this was done in nineteen seventy one. Pogo was

a comic strip from the late forties all the way

through the end of the seventies, but it's most famous

for the Earth Day nineteen seventy one comic strip that

came out.

So he was walking.

Through the by you with his best friend, a porcupine,

and they walked across all of the litter that people

had thrown in the Byo and his buddy, the porcupine says,

it's so hard walking on all this stuff, And Pogo

makes the famous statement that even presidents have subsequently quoted,

and he says, yep, we've met.

The enemy, and he is ust.

There is never going to be anything that is more

true than as we look at the life of Solomon.

Whenever I do a study on the life of someone

in scripture, to be able to do is you need

to be able to apply that to you today. And

what I hope is that we learn things from Solomon

that will help us not make the same mistakes in

our life. What I found fascinating about Solomon is Solomon

did everything in his power to remove every enemy that

he could possibly face. And in fact, there has never

been a king that was handed everything more on a

silver platter than Solomon. First off, he was mentored, and

he followed who is arguably the greatest king in Israel's history, followed.

His father, David.

David the Bible tells us, is a man after God's

own heart, that is his father. Then his father, David

literally conquered all of the nations that were their enemies,

built the kingdom into this vitaly, wealthy, influential kingdom, and

he hands it to his son Solomon. You could argue

that no one's ever started with more of an advantage

than Solomon had. And Solomon takes out some of his enemies.

The only problem is he didn't realize that his biggest

enemy was within.

You were going to discover.

That the central battle of this life is usually with yourself.

That the biggest.

Challenge you are going to have is your own heart.

How do you lead your own heart? Oftentimes that is

our biggest struggle, is what we're dealing within our heart.

For some of us, we have hatred in our heart.

Now I'm going to say something that I did not

plan on saying. Every week, something happens in the news

that people that are connected to venture think I should

make a statement on. By the way, this happens like

five times a week, so people always say, why don't

you say anything about this? Why didn't you say anything

about that? It doesn't matter what side of the political

aisle you're on. Everybody thinks I should have an opinion

about something.

By the way, I do.

But if all I did is spend Sundays addressing things

that happened in the previous week, that's all we'd ever

talk about. It's literally the news is driving our pulpit schedule.

So I have opinions.

I have a.

Podcast where I address ninety percent of those things. But

because so many people said, are you gonna make a statement,

Are you going to say something about what our president

posted on true social First off, I don't have a

t through social membership. I've seen the real I know

the story.

I know all of this. I know that he says

that one of.

My staffers posted a different reel than an automatic play happens.

I mean, I get it. All those things might be true,

but let me just say this one statement.

Just say you're sorry. That's all you have to do. Church.

Your greatest enemy might be inside of you. It might

be a heart that is so prideful you can't just

humble yourself and say my bad. Maybe your heart has

so much hate in it that when anybody from the

other side of the political I'll post something on social media,

or you find out about it, you jump at it

and run at it, and it outrages you.

The outrage is on both sides.

It's like I can't keep track of who's mad at

who and what opinion I'm.

Supposed to have about what.

You got to ask yourself, do I have so much

hatred in my heart? That all of these things light

me on fire. I mean, it's everything. I'm supposed to

have an opinion of what Super Bowl halftime show I watch.

I'm supposed to have an opinion about everything. I will

probably be going to the bathroom at halftime of the

Super Bowl. Our problem is not all the stuff around us.

You will find out really quickly that oftentimes your enemy

is within, and that was the problem for Solomon. And

Solomon thought he'd taken care of everything. My dad's taking

care of everything, but he didn't deal with the primary

issue in his life, which was his heart. I know

Pastor Christian and talked a little bit about Solomon last week,

but let me give you a little.

Bit of an introduction to him.

Solomon was one of catch this one of David's nineteen sons.

That means there are.

Nineteen individuals who rightfully have some sort of claim to

the throne. Solomon wasn't the oldest son. He wasn't the

youngest son. He was one of the middle sons. You

know how like comedians love to make fun of the

middle child. So that was Solomon. He was smack dab

in the middle. David had eight wives. Solomon was son

number four That came from David's favorite wife, Bathsheba. Now,

Bathsheba is probably the only one of david wives you're

familiar with, and that's because that was David's greatest mistake,

His most epic moral failure was with Bathsheba. Committed adultery

with her, she gets pregnant. He eventually orchestrates scenario to

have her husband killed so that he could marry her.

That son actually dies, and later on she has three more.

Sons with David.

Now, why do we not just know David as this

guy that screwed up? But instead he's known as a

guy after a man after God's own heart. There's a

verse in Jeremiah. This is a prophetic word for you.

If you are somebody and your struggle is your heart,

follow David. That verse in Jeremiah says that if you repent,

he will restore you, that you may serve him.

What an awesome verse.

It's like David realized, my heart has deceived me. My

affections were led and led me astray. Then my heart

was full of pride and wanted to cover up. And

instead of make this right, I committed murder and I

tried to lie and committed deception. Now that could have

been the story of David's life, but instead he humbled himself.

He repented, and God restored him. That is a promise in.

God's word that if you and I repent, He'll restore

us so that we may serve him. What an awesome word.

So that was David. Solomon, his fourth son from Bathsheba

is born. Likely Solomon is born and grows up after

Dad has killed most of the giants that were trying

to kill him, after Dad had conquered most of their enemies.

He is this iconic name throughout the world. Everybody loves David.

He's this beloved king and this this, this is what

Solomon was raised in him By the way. Solomon and

David couldn't have been more different.

David was a fighter. David was a warrior.

There is no other king in Israel's history who killed

more people with his own.

Hands than David.

David was the epitome of the guy that was on

the front lines fighting with his troops. He was a warrior.

David solved a problem with a sword. Solomon was an academic.

Solomon was raised with the best teachers. Solomon was raised

apart from all of the battles. Where David handled conflict

with a sword, Solomon handled conflict with his intellect. When

David named Solomon, it's almost like he was trying to

be prophetic over his life because the name Solomon comes

from the root word shalom. Now you're familiar with that

Hebrew word shalom, it means peace. So Solomon's name actually

means peaceful. So if you are a dad who loves

your son and all you've had to do is fight

wars your whole life, what do you want for your son.

One of the things that we die and I always

talk about with the church plant is that we want

to slay all the giants now so that someday our

kids don't have to And I bet that was a

little bit of David's attitude with Solomon.

But even though Solomon's name means.

Peaceful, his succession to the throne was far from peaceful.

Remember one of nineteen brothers sons that all had a

claim somewhat to the throne.

First, the oldest was Amnin.

Amnin rightfully was to be the next king, but Amnin

gets murdered by his younger brother Absalom. Absalom when David

was dealing with issues in his life, primarily from the

Bathsheba incident and trying to recover from that. He was

broken and somber and was just constantly just a mess

of tears. Absalom saw the state that his father was

in and thought, this is the moment to ussert my

dad's throne.

So Absalom raises up.

An army and tries to overthrow the throne from his father.

Well, David is able to stop that.

Insurrection, and Absalom is eventually killed by the commander of

David's army, Joe ab So there's that. Then there's ad

Anija at an Ija at the end of David's life.

So David's now in his late sixties early seventies. The

toll from all the battles, the toll from the weight

of leadership is heavy on him, and he is bedridden

and weak.

And at that moment, ad.

Anaija thought, I'm gonna take my dad's throne right now.

So you know what Adenaija does, And this is the

setting of where what we read in First Kings and

Second Kings start at Anaija plans his own coronation ceremony.

We read about it in First Kings one verse five,

go and turn there, it says, now ad Anaija, whose

mother was Hegeth's So this was the fourth born son

of David, put himself forward and said I will be king.

He got chariots and horses ready, with fifty men run

ahead of him. Now listen to this Parenthesi. This is

what happens when you spare the rod and spoil the child.

Like literally, the parentheses is telling us David should have

spanked this kid. It says his father had never rebuked

him by asking why do you.

Behave as you do?

Like all the corruption in ad an I's heart, he

was obvious at a young age. He was the epitome

of this privileged prince in a kingdom that thought he

could get away with bloody murder, and dad never disciplined him,

and he grew up as a man that didn't change.

And then we're also told this. We're also told that

he was also very handsome and was born next after Absalom.

Adenaija confirmed with Joe ab this is the commander of

David's army and with Abbi Athar, one of the key priests,

and he gave himself support So what we're told is

that ad Anaija, on David's deathbed, plans his own coronation,

gets one of the commanders of David's army to support him,

gets one of the high priests abbi Athar to support him,

gets all of these fighting men armies throughout Israel to

support him, and he invites to his coronation every one

of his brothers except.

Solomon, and they all go.

And at this big coronation, the people start shouting, long

live King Adenija, Long Live King Adenija. Interesting about Solomon

really quickly, we're not told much about Solomon. We're not

told what he looks like, We're not given any description

of him. We're only told in first and second kings

on twenty different occasions, that he was very wise.

That's what we're told.

But we know about Saul King Saul was tall head,

taller than anyone else in Israel, and very handsome. We're

given a description of David. We're told that he was ruddy,

handsome with a very strong build. We're told that Absalom

was beautiful. We're told that ad in Nija was very handsome.

But we are not given a description of Solomon. Another

interesting thing, about Solomon from scripture is we don't get

very many conversations that Saw had with people, like back

and forth dialogue.

There's some, but it's really minimal. I mean, do you

even think.

We get introduced to David as a teenage boy. We

get to see what David actually said word for word

to Goliath.

I mean, when you.

Hear the things that David said to Goliath, you know

the character in the heart of David, and you're like,

that is a dude.

I could follow right there. But we don't get that

with Solomon.

When he interacts with the Queen of Sheba, we see

what she says to him, but not what he says

to her. We can see often what David said to him,

but we don't get to hear what he said back

to David. So we know little about Solomon other than

through the books that he wrote and some of the

psalms that he wrote. So, while this coronation ceremony of

Adanaija's going on, Nathan, one of the prophets, and Bathsheba,

David's wife catch wind of what is going on, and

even though David is on his deathbed, they report this

to David, and David is able to muster what little

energy he has left, and he decides, I'm gonna throw

a coronation ceremony for Solomon and announce Solomon is king.

So he grabs the current commander of his army, the

current high Priest, whichever members are left, and he coronates

his son Solomon, while less than a mile away, Adenaija

is coronating himself king.

This is a dysfunctional family.

Even though his name is peaceful, this does not seem

very peaceful to me. Well, word spread really quickly through

to Adanaija's coronation people and they hear that David has

made Solomon king, that he's blown the show far announcing

that he's king, and immediately, like rats leaving a sinking ship,

everybody that was just shouting long lived King, Adenija.

Scatters and hides.

Adenija thinks they're gonna kill me, so he runs to

the altar, which is supposed to be the place of peace,

where they worship, where they do sacrifices on behalf of

the people and ask God for forgiveness. He clutches onto

the altar and begs for forgiveness. So all of this

is going on Solomon's.

First day in the office.

First thing that Solomon has to do, he's got to

deal with his brother who's begging for forgiveness, who an

hour beforehand, hundreds of people were shouting his name as

if he's king. Now he's got to go deal with him.

This was way more complicated than you'd imagine because Solomon,

who doesn't deal with things with the sword, he deals

with it with his political rational mind. Solomon concludes this

he thinks, Hm, if I pardon my brother, remember this

is his brother. If I pardon my brother, the people

will think I'm weak. But at the same time, if

I kill my brother on the first day I'm king,

the people.

Will think me a tyrant.

So Solomon, in a very savvy, wise way, meets with

add and I just says, I need you to bow

a need to me and needs you to surrender to me.

And if you agree that you will never do anything

that is a threat to my throne, I will let

you live. And of course ad an Ija, he just

wants to live, so he agrees to everything. Are you

guys with me, all right? Remember the issue isn't the

enemy is around you. The issue, oftentimes for many of us,

is the enemy inside. So David is absolutely now on

his deathbed. It's First Kings, chapter two. It says, when

the time drew near for David to die, he gave

a charge to Solomon, his son. We see this over

and over again in the Old Testament, that when the

prophet is about to.

Pass away, he gives these.

Last words to the new prophet, or when a father

passes away, he gives these words to his sons and

his daughters. And these words carry an immense amount of weight.

They were viewed as divine words. They were viewed as providential,

as prophetic, that you speak these words over your kids.

And these are David's last words to Solomon, his son,

who is going to take over his kingdom that he

spent most of his life fighting for to be the

next king. And David gives Solomon two separate words of advice.

And you really understand the psychosis of David here, because

he gives them advice that is first spiritual, like there's

this deeply spiritual side to but then he shifts and

he gives him political advice. And you can't serve as

king for that many years and not be somewhat politically savvy.

So let's start with what was the spiritual advice that

he gave his son Solomon. He said, I'm about to

go the way of the earth. Be strong, act like

a man. And now he's defining what it means to

act like a man. He said, observe what the Lord requires,

walk in obedience to him, keep his decrees, in commands,

his laws, his regulations as written in the Law of Moses.

Do this so that you may prosper in all that

you do wherever you go. And then this is the

key part. Listen, it says, and that the Lord may

keep his promise to me. You see, David was promised.

That as long as his son, or his.

Grandson, or his great great grandson or his great great

great grandson, as long as they serve the Lord faithfully,

there will always be someone from David's lineage on.

The throne of Israel.

That was the promise God gave an incredible if then, promise,

if your kids, grandkids, your ancestors serve me, there will

always be someone from your heritage on the throne. So

David looks at Solomon. He says, God promised me that

if my descendants watch how they live, they walk faithfully

before me with all their heart and soul, that you

will never fail to have a successor on the throne

of Israel. So he says, Solomon, you gotta serve Jesus.

You gotta have a heart after God. You gotta be faithful.

Solomon's like, yeah, Dad, I got it.

I got it. I understand.

And then he shifts to the political and he says,

I do have some political advice for you, and I'm

gonna summise it. I'd argue, based upon the narrative of

Solomon's life that this was the part that he got

excited about because he thinks politically savvy. And his dad says, Hey,

the sons of Barzilly. He says, years ago, when your

brother Absalom tried to assert my throne, these guys supported me,

and I was so I was so grateful for their

support behind me that I promised I would bless them.

And he said, I haven't done.

That yet, but will you please show kindness to the

sons of Barzilly. So Almon was like, got you, Dad,

I can do that. And then he said, now, as

far as our enemies, most of the nations that surround Israel,

I have diminished them over my lifetime. They're really not

enemies anymore, he says, But within our kingdom, there's a

couple of guys that you need to take out Solomon.

He's the first is.

Joe Ab said, Joeab killed your brother Absalom.

I didn't like that.

He also killed two other men during a time of peace.

Listen to the words that David gave.

This is specifically what he said about Joe Ab. He said,

don't let his gray head go down to the grave

in peace. He said, do not let this guy die

of old age. Take him out. He's a threat to you.

And then he said, and then there's that guy related

to Saul, Shimmy. He says, bring his head down to

the grave in blood. He says, you want to take

out Shimmy because at some point he could rally a

bunch of people that support Saul, that think maybe he

should be king, and he could stir an uprising against you.

You need to.

Take that guy out. Those are the last words of

advice to Solomon. David passes away, Solomon becomes king, and

immediately Solomon takes out all of his enemies. What happens

with Adenaija, Well, Adnija is ad Anaija so of course

he was.

Scheming behind the scenes. Solomon was waiting.

For that moment, and he has Adnaija killed. Whoo, then

Joe App. He has Joe App killed. Then Shimmy, he

has Shimmy killed. Solomon thinks that I have taken out

all of my enemy. I have no more enemies, but

he didn't realize that he was his own worst enemy.

Next week we're going to talk about.

Solomon and his wisdom, but it's going to begin with

this first that I.

End with today. One King three, Verse three.

Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according

to the instructions given him by his father David, except

that he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.

You see, Solomon's problem was himself. He looked at the

enemy and discovered it was us, And unfortunately for Solomon,

he doesn't realize that until.

The end of his life that we'll talk about.

Solomon worked hard to remove every one of his enemies

at the start of his brain, but the greatest enemy

was never removed because.

It was found in his own heart. Solomon.

The why is this man that ever lived didn't always

apply his own wisdom to his own life. I'm gonna

this is free. We have a marriage conference next week.

Why should you go to the marriage conference? You're thinking,

my marriage?

Man?

It is great because most people only go to a

marriage conference when their marriage is falling apart. Most people

only go to a therapist or get marriage counseling when

their marriage is in crisis. The reason that you go

to a marriage conference is. This is proactive.

This is you.

Saying, I want to make sure that my heart is

in the right place. I want to make sure that

my affections are for my spouse.

I want to understand and.

Build tools while everything is going great that will help

me when we're struggling. If you need a pitch to

go to the marriage conference, there it is. Dian I

are excited to teach at it. Darryl and Heather Taylor

are excited to teach at it. Sean and Rebecca King

are going to teach at It's going to be great.

We're doing it for you.

This is addressing issues of the heart before they become

issues that can potentially take you down.

Got it? That was pretty good? All right? Finally, Proverbs

for twenty.

Three Above all else, guard your heart, for it is

the wellspring of life. So amazing that Solomon wrote those

words the wisest man that ever lived, if only he'd

applied that same wisdom to his own life, and the

great words of Pogo the Possum. We've met the enemy

and he is us. I want everybody by your head

to close your eyes. Next week we're going to talk

about Solomon and wisdom. Really cool story. You'll be able

to hear about the first time that Solomon had to

navigate a dispute. It'll be familiar to some of you,

but it's.

A really cool story. But I want to ask you this,

where is your heart right now?

The first thing that every one of us needs to

have is a heart that is right with Jesus. If

you were here today and you don't know Jesus, but

you want to, I'm gonna count to three, and when

I say three, I want you to raise your hand.

I know that there's also some of you.

You're here, and if you were to be honest, you

would have to say, man, I go to church, I prayed.

But I am far from God.

And you want to say today, Pasa Brandon, and I

want to leave this place knowing I'm right with Jesus.

When I say three, I want you to raise your

hand on the floor in the balcony watching online.

When I say three, if that's you, raise your hand.

Here I go one. Two, raise your hand up. Now,

three hands up everywhere. Our ushers are running around and

they're going to place a card in your hand. And

this just gives you an idea of a next step.

But can I get everybody to stand up on your feet.

I'm gonna invite every single person to pray this prayer

with me, but specifically for those of you that raised

your hand.

This is for you.

If you pray this prayer and you mean this prayer,

you get to leave today knowing I'm right with Jesus.

So want everybody to repeat after me.

Everybody say, Dear Jesus, I stand before you today and

I admit that I'm a sinner, but I ask you

today to forgive me, and I invite you into my

life to save me and to forgive me. Thank you

for changing me in Jesus' name.

Amen, Hey, can we thank Pastor Brandon for that word

this morning? I want to thank you again for being

here with this adventure Church. Make sure right outside in

the lobby there's an opport need for you to sign

up for that marriage conference that passed Brandon mentioned just

a moment ago. But with that, we love you guys.

Enjoy the tailgate party outside and let's go Seahawks. Come on,

give me a see see Hey

Have a good one.