The Importance of Godly Wisdom: 1 Kings 3:1-15

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Good morning, good morning. We talked on that

through good moaning. Good moaning to you. Thank you for

being here.

And in fact, if you're listening in the morning.

Hopefully that cheered you up as you're pouring your cup

of coffee or perhaps on your drive to work.

There you go. Yes, that's wonderful.

Thank you. You're welcome.

We thank you.

Anybody is welcome.

We can't think you know, I don't think you did

that last week.

I don't think I did either. Orough took a little

break in a while. So welcome to the Bible guys.

I'm Chris, this is Jeff, and we are about to

dive into uh one of the coolest stories, yes, about

one of the most miraculous gifts ever given to any

person on the face of the planet.

Really, that's right.

But before we do, we have a segment that I

really love. Would you rather? Oh?

Good? Yeah?

And did you ever play this when you were a

youth pastor with your students?

Yeah?

I have.

I'd have a would you rather? Booklet?

And and what I would do is I would have

the person stand up right, like you know, eighty kids

in the room. One person stands up, and then I

would have the whole group group practice yay or nay,

and they'd either shout yay thumbs up and they go no,

thumbs down. And so I'd ask this one person, would

you rather, and then everybody had to either agree or

not agree, so.

Involve the whole audience. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

So all right, so here we go, number I'll do

the first one, number one, okay, and we have to answer, obviously,

would you rather be stuck in a room with someone

who never stops talking or someone who never stops singing

off key?

Oh that's rough, never stops talking. Yeah, me too, I

can't handle the off key thing.

Yeah, the off key thing would be just you know

what if if if.

It never stops for the rest of your life, you

would probably start to hear songs in off key, right,

I mean, you're you're, you're here would be so used

to off key it would probably mess up your musicality.

I was in a series of church ers this one

time where every single song was off key. Yeah, and

I just wanted to jump out the window. Yeah, it was.

It was horrible. I wanted to die.

Yeah. So we had a girl named.

In her first Scott Well, I would never say her

name is dishonoring, but it was Laura.

And I'm not going to tear her last name.

But now she knows who you're talking about. If she

listened to nineteen ninety two. Yeah, and you've got fans

from that lives in Georgia. Okay, so you know who

you are, Peachtree, you know who you are.

Laura, she had she had one song that she always

sang and and uh, and we put the cassette track

in and it was on this upon this.

Rock, I'll do my kingdom right.

And and she go on this rock forever endev stand

and up on.

This rock of revelation.

I've been my strong Okay, we're good, good, We're good.

It was absolutely painful.

Yes, it was really bad. And then, Laura, if you

listen to the Bible, guys, as literally thousands upon thousands

of people do, We're sorry for him exposing you in

this situation because we believe that you love Jesus and

you were doing the best you can.

There's no way in hades that Laura listens to the Bible.

Guys, trust me, it's all of her friends. They're all

on Facebook right now, Laura, You're never gonna believe what

pastor Chris just did. Okay, all right. Second, would you

rather only be able to communicate and dad jokes for

a month or only be able to respond in puns?

Both are pretty great?

Yeah, dad jokes, dead jokes because it's only a month.

Okay, Well, then it's only a month of puns.

Who doesn't say, only a month of punts? Only able

to respond in puns?

Oh? I bet you she wrote it wrong. I bet

you that's what she meant.

But dead jokes.

But you're right, is not what you wrote. It is

not what she wrote. Right, Well, then it has to

be dead jokes, right.

Dead jokes are fun?

But what if? What if it was only puns for

a minute or a day?

What doesn't say that it is only able? There's no

ending to it, there's no there's no written in there.

She gave us an ending for dead jokes.

You are so funny?

No, that's the law. The words matter, man structure.

Okay, all right, number three, would you so funny? Remember

yesterday we argued, Okay, number three, would you rather only

be a What would you rather only be able?

Okay, to be able? Would you rather to only be able.

To eat food that's been microwaved or only eat food

that's been burnt?

Oh? Microwaved.

It is definitely microwaved.

Yeah, I mean because some microwave food as although not horrible,

not great, is better than burn food.

Yeah. You can do microwave food, well, if you're diligent

at it, right, starting and stopping and all that kind

of stuff turning and stirring, and it's just that we

throw stuff.

In five minutes and walk away and.

Then it's just gross, right, right, But there's ways to

make microwave food better. Yeah, I certainly want wouldn't want

all burned food because there's no to burn food. There

often a carcinogenetic.

Yeah, there's no inding it says, it doesn't say anything,

which must mean forever forever.

That's right, only be able, that's right. Here you go.

Number four, Would you rather have to introduce yourself with

a silly nickname or have to use a silly accent

every time you talk to someone new?

Oh? Silly nickname for sure? Did you can explain it away? Yeah?

You know, I'm agreeing. With you.

Yeah, did you ever see what was it called She's

out of She's out of his league?

What was it called?

Yeah, she's out of my league?

I don't know.

Anyway, it's with Alice Eve. Anyway, There's a guy whose

nickname he got for wedding the bed when he was

a kid.

Oh no.

And and so his nickname was Stainer. Oh no.

And so he'd say, he goes, he walks up to

like this really fabulous.

He walked up to a really pretty girl and he goes,

I'm Stainer, and she goes and she called him out

it and she goes, what, Yeah, he goes Stayer and

then she's like busted all of it right, And then.

It was just it was just but he had braced

it right.

We had a kid in kindergarten, so you know, all

of us I grew up out in the country. We

walked to school. I lived about a mile from school.

We would all gather together at different corners and then

we walked together, the boys or whatever. So one of

the kids, his name was Benny. In kindergarten, Benny pooped

his pants like three times, oh no, in kindergarten in

class oh no. So for the rest of the time

we knew him, he was Benny poopy.

Pants, sure, and I mean as he will should be.

So then it was BPP for a while. Oh no, right,

because he didn't want to inroduce itsel as Benny pood

fans uh, And so it was. It was probably until

we were like in fifth grade. We call the MVPP.

That's terrible. And he got hit my car on his bicycle.

He didn't die, he was fine, but it really it

really freaked us out, and so we retired the name.

All Right, you survived getting hit by this pickup truck

on his bicycle and so he stopped. So he's spend

in BPP.

How merciful Benevo.

Yeah, yeah, we're good people.

Yeah, that's terrible.

It ran its course, that is terrible. He's fine. A man, Hey, Benny,

if you're listening, would you rather wear a sign around

your neck that says I'm awkward or one that says

I'm a terrible cook? Oh wow, I'm awkward.

Well yeah, I'm not.

Even I'm not even ashamed of that. I am awkward, right.

But you in the opposite.

It is true, you would hate to introduce yourself as

a terrible cook.

Well, I see that I'm awkward as a perfect innerduction

right right, you set the bar low and then people

are delighted by you. Right, maybe right right? If you're

wearing one that said I'm awesome, well then you better

I'm funny. Right then you have to really up your game.

Set the bar low? Right people, Oh jeff, you're not

so awkward. You get so much more compassion.

However, they might not even get there because what kind

of person? Where's a sign? How awkward do you have

to be to wear a sign that says I'm awkward?

So they may not even You get less opportunities.

How about this?

My name is how about this?

You'll get less opportunities to win people over if you

wear a sign that says I'm awkward.

I don't know. I'm kind of tempted to try it.

Oh wow, wouldn't it be fun?

Wow? You think this is a good idea?

I do? Okay, under promise over delivered.

I would definitely choose I'm awkward as well, although I

don't cook that much at all, and I don't really

care about that. But I would hate to have to

explain that away. But I'm awkward. It's funny. It's sort

of funny. It's a great conversation starter.

Okay, well there we go. Yep, thank you, Chris.

And you have self assurance too, that's right, which means

you don't really care.

That's right. I'm not going to worry about it too much.

Right, so solemnon. See. I do know some things about you,

that's right. I did not know that you had.

Ten siblings, which actually I sort of did know, but

I didn't know, right, And I knew you liked pork.

I'm so angry about that. Last week.

It's a week ago, man, dude. I really truly was upset.

I was legitimately upset. I was I was angry at myself.

I was like, I was like, how could I be

over four?

Well, last week, if you're new to the podcast, last

week we did a game where I had to say

five things or something like that.

You said four.

I had to ask, yeah, four questions and see if

he knew the answers and about me and about my life,

to just see if he's a decent human being that

cares about his co host and he didn't know a

single thing about me.

No, that's not true. I got in the county. I

just didn't get the name of the city I got.

I got in the village.

I knew it was the village.

I knew it was pork and steak. I just picked

the wrong one. Although I knew it was pork, I

knew multiple siblings, I just didn't know the number.

I know, right, and and and by the way, I

did not know your first car.

And he's that's legitimate. He is grieving over. This is

what I'm saying. So if you missed that episode, it

was funny, you should go back and watch it. It was

last week, So okay, okay, speaking of not knowing anything,

Solomon had the wisdom to ask of God, which, by

the way, I think yesterday you said you were going

to get as you do it, what would be your

terrible intro.

I would say, speaking of would you rather God? Was

God is about to give Solomon? Would you rather question?

Oh? Yeah, yeah, no, that's actually a good one.

And you can even fail at these things, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, okay, So first King Chapter three, This is

a pretty straightforward one. We horsed around for a little

longer than we normally do, but this is really straightforward episode.

Because Solomon asks for wisdom. It says in First King,

Chapter three, Verse one, Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh,

the King of Egypt, and married one of his daughters.

He brought her to live in the city of David

until he could finish building his palace and the temple

of the Lord and the wall around the city. At

that time, the people of Israel sacrificed their offerings that

local places of worship for a temple honoring the name

of the Lord had not yet been built. Salomon loved

the Lord and followed all the decrees of his father David,

except that Solomon too offered sacrifices and burned incense at

the local places of worship. The most important of these

places of worship was at Gibeon, so the king went

there and sacrificed a thousand burnt offerings. That night, the

Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and God said,

what do you want, Ask and I will give it

to you. Salomon replied, you showed faithful love to your servant,

my father David, because he was honest and true and

faithful to you, and you've continued your faithful love to

him today by giving him a son to sit on

his throne. Now O, Lord, my God, you've made me

king instead of my father David. But I am like

a little child who doesn't know his way around. And

here I am in the midst of your own chosen people,

a nation so great in numerous they cannot be counted.

Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern

your people well and know the difference between right and wrong,

For who by himself is able to govern this great

people of yours. The Lord was pleased with Solomon that

he had asked for wisdom, and so God replied, because

you've asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice,

and have not asked for a long life, or for

wealth or the death of your enemies, I will give

you what you ask for. I will give you a

wise and understanding heart, such as no one else has

had or ever will have. And I will also give

you what you did not ask for, riches and fame.

No other king in all the world will be compared

to you for the rest of your life. And if

you follow me and obey my decrees and my commands,

as your father David did, I will give you a

long life. Then Solomon woke up and realized it had

been a dream, and he returned to Jerusalem and stood

before the ark of the Lord's Covenant, where he sacrificed

burn offerings and peace offerings, and then he invited all

his officials to a great banquet.

So one of the coolest stories, honestly, it's one of

the greatest gifts ever given. Uh. And we're about to

you know, see probably tomorrow, I'm assuming, uh, this wisdom demonstrated. Right,

it plays out with the baby, right, and it's a

great story. Although it's it's it's it's its own, it's

get its own uh surprise and twist there. But but

what a great thing. And so he had wisdom to

ask for wisdom.

Isn't that funny?

So he already had a base of wisdom because uh

what what an absolutely just a great thing. And by

the way, it's a character thing, isn't it. It's a

character thing. So it's it's all about the fact that

you know, King Solomon already had, uh, you know, all

the women that he could possibly want. I'm sure all

the riches that he probably you know, his dad had

billions and billions of dollars. Right, So Solomon inherited the

entire kingdom. He probably had billions of dollars himself, and

so he had all of that, but he.

Had not yet experienced any of that. So, but the

thing he wants to do more than anything else is

be a good king.

Because his dad really did pour into him, really, did

you know, give him instructions and say, follow God. This

is this is paramount. This is more than anything else

in your life. Son, treat this as the number one

thing is your relationship with your heavenly father. So Solomon knew.

So his response had wisdom, but it was really a

character thing.

Yeah, it's interesting. You see in this one chapter the

good and the bad of Solomon, just like many times

in one chapter we would see the good and the

bad of David too, right, And in this one it

says the very beginning says Salomon made an alliance with Pharaoh,

that the king of Egypt, and he married one of

his daughters. But God had told the people of Israel,

don't marry corners. They're going to lead you away, They're

going to try to take you to their idols. Well

over time, Solomon, with all of his wisdom. Solomon had

at the same time, was it seven hundred wives and

three hundred concubines or.

Whatever it is.

Crazy thousand wives, all of them just about are the

princesses of kingdoms and rulers, and you know, chieftains and

all this kind of stuff. And he achieved peace through

diplomacy this way. But in his old age he also

turned to idols. There's a note here that says in

the life Happecac study Bible. Marriage between royal families was

a common practice in the ancient Near East because it

secured peace. Although Solomon's marital alliances built friendships with surrounding nations,

they were also the beginning of his downfall. These relationships

became inroads for pagan ideas and practices. Solomon's foreign wives

brought their gods to Jerusalem and eventually lured him into idolatry.

It is easy to minimize religious differences in order to

encourage the development of a friendship. When you're young and

in love, you may be idealistic, minimizing religious differences as

something you can quote workout. What can seem small in

a friendship will have an enormous impact upon a marriage.

What a powerful phrase, right, And so here he has

the wisdom to ask for wisdom and at the same time,

he's choosing one of the things that God said, don't do,

and it winds up becoming his downfall late in his life.

So there's this dichotomy in his life, this paradox in

Solomon's life. But what took Solomon's reign to the peaks

I mean this is he becomes the pinnacle of the

leaders of Israel was his extraordinary wisdom. And so if

we can learn to lean in and relying on he

humbles himself. He goes, I'm just a dumb kid. He

humbles himself. In further instance, I don't even deserve this throne.

He says. You showed your faithful love to your servant

David because he was honest and faithful, and so you've

continued your love for him by putting me on the throne. Right,

So he goes, I didn't even earn this. I have

no reason to claim the throne. He wasn't even the

next in line ad and Igel was right right, I

have no reason other than the fact that you you

love David, and David did a great job, and so

here I am, and I don't have what it takes

to lead these people. And I'm just a dumb kid.

What does he say? He says, I'm like a little

child who doesn't know his way around, right right, He's like, God,

I have no right to be here.

Do we know how old Solomon was at this point? Oh?

I don't know. I'm sure we do, but I don't

know how old he was.

Yeah, so I'm assuming that he's a younger man.

What he feels like he's young.

Yeah, and based on the you know, the previous chapters

and the way that he's talking, it feels like he

must be, you know, maybe in his young twenties, maybe

even before then. Yeah, perhaps, Yeah, but back around and

find out, Yeah, that'd be great. But you know, I'm

sure that we could probably do math, you know, because

it always it always says he reigned for this many

years and he died this, you know, that kind of thing.

But yeah, so here he is just just a man

who really truly wants to do what's good. And so,

you know what, we perhaps aren't able to get a

gift like this bestowed on us from God, you know,

which is, you know, to become the wisest person who

ever has lived or will live. However, the Bible does

say for us, if a man lacks wisdom, let him

ask God for it, right, and he'll be given to him. So,

you know, the Bible does say that you know wisdom.

In fact, Solomon talks about wisdom later on, doesn't he

And he writes in Proverbs, and he actually talks about

wisdom in such a way that he refers to wisdom

as her. You know that he actually gives it a

pronoun of her and says, gain her, seek after her,

follow her, woo her right, you know, just obtain her

at any cost, because wisdom is the best. And then

he actually makes a statement. Remember later on he says,

the beginning of wisdom is to get wisdom. Remember that

he says, the beginning of wisdom is get wisdom. And

so what he's trying to say is he's trying to

say the very the wisest thing you could do is

want wisdom. And so it is just an incredible thing.

How when we pray for this, then everything else will

come right.

So I did a search and it says that he

probably was between twenty and twenty five years old, because

historians kind of put him at about somewhere in his

early sixties when he died, which is astounding to me,

that's amazing because I hadn't thought about how old he

was when he died. He reigned forty years, so he

was in his early sixties when he died. And it

says the Lord was pleased with Solomon's asking for wisdom,

and he said, because you ask for wisdom, I'm going

to give it to you. Nobody's going to be wiser.

And then he says, I'm also going to give you

the things you didn't ask for, right, riches in fame.

Yeah.

And then he says, and I'll make you live a

long life if you do what you were supposed to do.

There it is right.

So God unconditionally gives him wealth, fame, and wisdom, and

conditionally gives him a long life. There's an if, but

he does his sixties. He dies in his sixties. His

father died, and the Bible says his father lived a

long life, a good long life, right, and his father

died at seventy. Wow, isn't that interesting? So the mistake

Solomon makes is he follows God almost his entire life,

and towards the end you'll find out he turns towards

the idols.

Yeah, and his life it's cut short.

He kind of becomes polytheistic right at that point. So

it's really really interesting here that I hadn't realized it

until this. Now there's this one. And if you follow

me and obey my decrees and my commands as your

father David did, I'll give you a long life. Yeah,

and Solomon's life was substantially shorter than his father's.

Yeah.

Well, it's interesting.

It's also very similar to yesterday's podcast when we talked

about uh or no two times ago, where we talked about,

you know, sort of the conditional and unconditional. David was

sort of saying, hey, if you do these things, you

know it'll go well. And then and then the and

then the The unconditional was that, you know, the promise

was that you know, it'll be the house of David,

the line of David will be forever.

Right.

That was the unconditional part, right, But that is extremely cool.

I think that in the in the end, uh Solomon

writes about wisdom and he is the person who has

the authority two to coach us. So in the Book

of Ecclesiastes, remember he writes about just about everything under

the sun, and what is what does he come to

the conclusion, and I'm probably skipping ahead, right, But what

does he say? He says, all these ambitions in life,

you know, at the end of our lives. And he's

really referring to people who sort of get it at

the end of our lives, you know, like I'm at

the end of my life.

I'm on my deathbed.

And uh, I pursued money, pursued women, I pursued fame,

I pursued politics, I pursued you know, influence, I pursued you.

Know, all these kinds of things.

And he says, it's all vanity, all of it is meaningless,

it is all worthless because you're going to die, You're

going to go into eternity, and.

This life is just a mist.

It is inconsequential. And he says, the only thing that

matters is God.

Period.

And so Solomon arrives at a point to where he

writes Proverbs one of the wisest. Have you ever even

seen a better source of wisdom than Proverbs?

Phenomenal? It's fat right, right, And.

So again it's just I can't emphasize enough that you know,

this one request is one of the best things that

you and I could seek and pray for our lives.

Let me read this note. This is so great. So

wisdom is not knowledge. Solomon is really good at differentiating

between wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge is knowing, is being book smart.

It's knowing the facts, it's knowing the details, it's knowing

all those things. Wisdom is knowing how first of all

starts with a fear of God and then knowing what

to do, how to do it, when to do it

the right way. So it's a very different thing. It's

it's always action oriented. So it's very interesting how he

asks for wisdom and not knowledge. And so the note

here in Life Applications Study Bible says, when given a

chance to have anything in the world, Solomon asks for

wisdom and understanding heart in order to lead well and

to make right decisions. We can ask God for this

same wisdom this James Chapter one. Notice that Solomon asked

for understanding to carry out his job. He did not

ask God to do the job for him. Most of

the time, we don't want to face the tough stuff

in front of us. We want God just to solve it.

And that's not what Solomon asked for. He says it said.

It says we should not ask God to do for

us what He wants to do through us. Instead, we

should ask God to give us the wisdom to know

what to do, courage to follow through on it. Right,

It's an action oriented thing, and so if wisdom is

the principal thing, then just understand action with that. Wisdom

is what God wants you to do. He wants you

to do something with that. That's to just have it.

That's a really important distinction because wisdom plays out with Okay,

what do we do?

Right?

What do we do?

Okay, Well, I'm going to exercise a decision and that

decision is going to be based solely on you know,

you can do many things, but hopefully you're going to

choose the wisest course of action.

So instead of asking God, God, solve this thing with

my marriage, instead, God give me the wisdom solve this

thing with my marriage. Right. God wants to work through you.

He's not just looking to do miracles all the time.

The miracle is how He transforms you to do the

right thing the right way, and it's just it's a

different thing. Sometimes I think Christians believe in magic more

than they believe in God doing the miracle through giving

us wisdom to do the work we're supposed to do

on these tough things.

Yeah, that's a good word.

Yeah.

Okay, well that is our time, so hopefully we'll see

you tomorrow on the Bible guys.

Mhm h m

Hm