Our God Hears the Cry of a Humble Heart

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca.

You can also find us on Instagram, GraceChurch, Y -E -G, all one word, or on Facebook.

You can also find us on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Please enjoy the following sermon. I would like to ask you to turn with me to the book of 1 Kings, and we'll be looking at 1

Kings chapter 8. 1 Kings chapter 8. It's a delight to be with you all here this afternoon, and it's a delight to look at this passage.

It's a beautiful passage. I trust as we work through it, there is a lot to look at, and we won't even be able to read the entirety of it because of the size of the selection that we're looking at.

But I trust as we work down through it, this will give us a deep sense and a deep love, both for God's church and actually for prayer.

Some years ago, my wife and I, a series of different events, we found ourselves in Dubai. So we were part of, there was a

Filipino church that's there, a really flourishing church. And so we were part of something that was going on with that.

And afterwards, we come back, we're at the hotel, and I'm laying on my back in this room, and I look up,

I saw this little pointer arrow thing in the corner of the ceiling, just fixed to the ceiling in the corner.

I'm just kind of looking at this thing. What is this thing? I've never seen anything like this before. I'm kind of trying to figure out what it is.

Maybe you have a guess. It's Dubai. It's a pointer telling you what the direction is to Mecca.

So, I mean, this is kind of important information. If this is your framework, you're in the room, you need to know, daily prayers come around, you need to know which direction you're going.

And you know what? This is kind of an interesting rabbit hole to go through if you're looking for something to browse around in sometime.

There are a lot of odd implications that come out of this. Like, how do you handle planes? So, some of the

Arab airlines will have a little bit of help at some point in the flight when it comes around.

By the way, there's also all this complex calculation of what time you're supposed to do the prayers. So, when you're between time zones and you're traveling, there's some serious reckoning, some serious astronomical detail has to go into figuring this thing out.

And some of the airlines will help the guys out and know, this is the time when you need to do your prayer and you'll be facing this way and so on and so forth.

Why? Because there's something fundamental in Islam, a very well -known hadith putting the centrality of Mecca.

And down to this, if you travel to Mecca and you pray at the

Kaaba, that's that black box that you see sometimes in the very center. If you'll pray at the

Kaaba, then that prayer is worth a hundred thousand times a prayer elsewhere.

It's like massive multiplier points. And by comparison, if you can pray at the

Prophet's Mosque in Medina, that counts as a thousand. It's not bad, considering. And if you pray at the

Al -Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, that's 500. But at the Kaaba, 100 ,000. So anyway, people run the math on this.

By that reckoning, praying just once in Mecca is the same spiritual credit as praying five times a day faithfully for 50 years.

You can see why. Run the math, it would make sense. Go there. In fact, when people do the

Hajj, they will compress their stay or work their stay. I mean, because like literally every additional prayer you can score in Mecca, right, 50 years.

You do this right, you could have five prayers in Mecca on one day.

That's half a million prayers. That's basically 270 years of daily prayer.

And you got it all done in 24 hours score. Now we're in 1

Kings 8. This is Solomon's dedication of the temple. And you're just going to notice a pattern as we go down through this section.

Well, you can look up with me towards, how about verse 44. When the people are in battle against their enemies, they pray to the

Lord, it says, toward the city that you have chosen, then here. Or a bit later in that next section, if they are captive, they're carried away to the captive land, and there they turn and they pray, verse 48, toward their land, which you gave toward their fathers, the city that you've chosen, and the house that I've built for your name, then here in heaven.

Introductory question I'll just put in front of you. Is Solomon doing a Mecca thing?

Is the prayer towards Jerusalem somehow counting for something special? Do we have sacred spaces?

Do we go for the holy land thing that if you, you know, you go to this like patch of dirt in present modern day

Israel, that it counts for more there? Do you remember

Daniel nine, Daniel prays, it's actually Daniel six and nine together, but there's this issue with Daniel's going to pray, and then the

King says, don't pray, and Daniel prays anyway, and he prays out at his window towards Jerusalem.

Why the big deal about praying towards Jerusalem? Are we doing like a

Mecca thing? And well, I'll go ahead and answer the question to settle the mental noise.

No. Okay. But I think working through this passage and working through what's happening in this passage can really help, or at least get our hearts and our minds and our understanding of both prayer and of God's place into its proper understanding.

That's what I'm seeking to do. Title of the message is that our God hears the cry of a humble heart.

But the framework for our message is that we're going to work down through, and we're going to, it'll be a journey on our way there. But the framework for our message is to recognize some things here that are our pointers or starting points or beginnings of something that to actually understand and appreciate first Kings eight properly, you really, you have to, you have to understand this, the dedication of the temple in light of the whole story, and the whole story is that Jesus, the

Messiah will come. He is, he is greater than the temple. He, in so many senses replaces the temple.

He fulfills the expectation of the temple. Let's go past it now because Jesus is the cornerstone of the temple and has replaced the temple.

We are the temple of the living God. And so we come before our God in prayer with all of the weight and the significance and the grandeur that I'm reading in first Kings eight times.

Well, here I can borrow something from what I just said from Islam times a hundred thousand. Here we see the tremendous significance of God's people,

God's place and prayer time. But on the way there, I want to set up for the context of the passage.

So I'll start with this. This is one of these really amazing hub passages. I mean, there are a lot of these, right?

I mean, it just kind of lists off passages that are kind of like links where you see strains or ideas or all kinds of things passing through like Genesis three, 15, the promise of the seed or Genesis 12, 15, 17, 21, promises to Abraham, or you can do second

Samuel seven, first Chronicles 14, the promises to David, or you can talk about the new covenant promises, or you can talk about Exodus 34, the

Lord merciful and gracious, plenteous and mercy. I mean, you just kind of multiply out, go into Psalm, Psalm two, Psalm one,

Psalm 110. These really amazing hub passages where it's just like a bunch of lines all cross and they all come into one spot, right?

This is one of those. It's an important summary passage because what we're looking at here is after the expectation of centuries, the hope that someday

God's people would be in their place and that there would be a place where they could rest and worship

God. Brothers and sisters, it's happened. The temple has been built.

It's complete. The ark is finally brought here. And if I was just trying to connect it out to,

I guess I would say resonant passages, you've got strong resonance with one of the passages

I mentioned, second Samuel seven, the promises to David that he will have a descendant and that his descendants will rule upon the throne forever.

You've got strong resonance with Deuteronomy 12. I love to look at that passage with us. Very significant passage that I think gets ignored too much.

Deuteronomy 12 talks about the promise that God will choose a place and there he will put his name.

The significance of that is to say when Israel establishes the temple and the place of God's worship, that's not just, oh, let's pick a place that's convenient.

God will choose the place and God will say, that's where my temple goes, right?

And there's all kinds of reasons that God has set that place. That will be my place.

Resonant with that. Resonant with Joshua one, this book of the law will not depart out of your mouth.

Meditate there and day and night, it will make your way prosperous and you'll have good success. In what sense? In the sense of pursuing and achieving what

I've sent you to do. Resonant with all of those passages. How about resonant with Exodus 40?

This is the end of Exodus, the tabernacle, God has given commands about building the tabernacle.

Israel has right after that is the golden calf incident. So like God sets out, here's my intentions and it's beautiful.

Here's what's, it's going to be really complicated for a holy God to dwell with sinful people. You're going to hear this, this, build all this, construct all this.

You're going to have to plan ahead. It's going to be complex. God, a holy God dwelling with sinful people.

You don't just waltz into that. And right in the middle of it, while Moses is up on Mount Sinai, they're down below with the golden calf, worshiping an idol and fornicating.

And we continue on after that and God says, I mean, there's serious judgment falls, people die.

And subsequent to that says, okay, but build my tabernacle. End of it,

Exodus 40, the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle and the people are falling back in awe, the glory of God.

How about resonance with two passages, Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 to 30.

You know, these passages where in the law you have, Moses says something like, I set before you blessing and curse.

Okay. And so choose life. If you'll walk down this pathway,

God will bless you and you'll flourish over on this pathway. You follow or you choose to go against his commandments, chaos happens.

It'll be awful. What are you going to choose? Okay. Strong connections to that. I could go on, but I'm going to move out of like that broader context.

I'm going to move into the near term context, like right around this section. This is chapter eight. In chapter three,

Solomon has taken his reign. He's received wisdom from God. He's flourished in chapter four.

Chapters five and six, he has set his heart on building the temple. And so,

I mean, that's massively costly. Chapter seven, the work is finished.

There is a little hint in chapter seven where it talks about the number of years that Solomon worked on this temple and the number of years that he worked on his own palace.

He worked longer on his own palace than he did on the temple. This is a little passing like, I don't know that everything's going great here.

Little hint. But that sets us up here in chapter eight. And what follows, he's dedicated the temple.

Chapter eight, this is what we're reading is the dedication passage. He dedicates the temple. God commends him for that in chapter nine, but you'll see at the beginning of chapter nine,

God also warns. I mean, if you will obey my statutes and my commandments, then you will be blessed.

If you will not, then this place will become a heap. This house, this temple will become a heap of ruins, he says.

Point of fact, it did. And by chapter 11, we read that Solomon's heart turned away.

He pursued false gods. He pursued false marriages. Chapter 12, the kingdom is split in half and it runs downhill by chapter 18.

This is eight. By chapter 18, we're Elijah and Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal. Okay, so that's where we're at in the big picture of what's happening.

What I want to do with you then now is let's zone in a little bit on this passage.

Let's come to an understanding of what's happening here. And I'll start out with this. I'm just looking at verse one.

Really, I'm going to kind of like scan read the passage as we go down because, I mean, basically we're working through the whole chapter and it's a long chapter.

I'd start off with this point. First initial observation, whatever's happening here is huge.

Like national level huge, like historic level huge. This is a big deal. I say that because verse one,

Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the father's houses of the people of Israel, all of them.

He assembles them to bring the Ark of the Covenant together. And you can just run down from that.

I mean, you've got actually after this multiple other suggestions of just the scale of this, like verse five,

King Solomon, all the congregation of Israel who are before him, all of them, it's a huge deal.

They are, verse five, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered.

It was helpful to me to understand. I had never processed before, but probably these are fellowship offerings.

The idea of a fellowship offering, you would make the sacrifice and parts of the sacrifice would be burned, but the rest of the sacrifice actually would be eaten.

And so it's like kind of a feast offering. Some of what's going on in this whole account when you hear thousands of animals slaughtered, yeah,

Solomon is literally setting out a feast for the entire nation. But the idea, if you go back and you read in Deuteronomy 12, setting up that fellowship offering, it's a feast enjoyed in the presence of God.

It's the sense of a sacrifice is made. And in the presence of God, I sit and I feast and I enjoy.

And I kind of like, we might sit down for a Thanksgiving meal or a Christmas meal, and you say, thank you, Lord. And we feast in his presence.

That's part of what's going on here. Another expression of just how big a deal this is, it's a rather nuanced detail, again, something

I'd never picked up before. But in verse two, it says it's the seventh month. Well, if you compare 638 talks about Solomon completed the temple in the eighth month, you're like, okay, what, how?

And we're not exactly entirely sure how it fits together, except just to say he finishes the temple and it's 11 months later that the temple is dedicated.

I mean, there's not a hint in the text exactly why. So some of the suggestions, well, did it take that long for Solomon to get everything else, like all the furniture set up and everything?

Possibly. I wonder if it's not just in terms of the scale of this celebration.

You have this many sacrifices and this many offerings. You're not kind of like, okay, hey, yeah, tomorrow, we free tomorrow?

I mean, it's going to take almost a year to get this thing prepared and set up.

One other real possibility is, and you can see this hint in verse 282, is it set up to correspond or make this set off the rhythm with the feast, which is the

Feast of Booths and actually the Day of Atonement in this month. So I suspect part of it is that Solomon completes the temple and then we're waiting around to the climactic month where you have the grandest celebration.

I mean, almost might be like our Christmas or something. The Day of Atonement, the Feast of Booths, that's when we're going to dedicate the temple.

Point being, all of this is set up as a big deal. And of course, where this is all headed when we get to the end of that first section, if you just go down to the end of that first paragraph, when everything is placed inside,

I should have mentioned, you can follow the pattern of the ark down through that section. Remember, David had tried to bring the ark up.

That's the place where Uzzah reaches out and he's struck dead, the holiness of God. Now, actually, finally, the ark is going to be placed in its spot.

I mean, this is a first ever historical. It's huge. David tried to get it to a better place towards the tabernacle, right?

But finally, the temple is built. Finally, the tabernacle is there. It's like, ah, centuries we've been trying to get here.

Verse 10, when the priest came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord. The priest could not stand to minister because of the cloud for the glory of the

Lord filled the house of the Lord. I'm going to pause here and I just anticipate where we're going.

Brothers and sisters, never underestimate the holiness of our

God. Never underestimate the weightiness of the glory of our

God. I'm going to use this expression and it's to make the point.

Our God is not just chill. Our God is a consuming fire, a holy

God, and a merciful and gracious God. Plenteous in mercy, forgiving, a

God who delights to forgive, and a God who does not let sin go.

You feel that tension between those two things I said, and it'll head to where we're going later in our discussion.

All of this reminds us of Exodus 24, Sinai, the mountain burning, the people saying, they actually put a fence around the mountain because the people are afraid the glory of the

Lord will break out. Exodus 40, even Pentecost, the glory of the

Lord fills the house and the priest could not stand to minister because the glory of God was too great.

Okay, you got to feel that. What follows now is a series of prayers.

And verse 12, just setting some of that up, the Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness.

What he's referring to is Exodus 19, verse 9. Solomon continues,

David desired verse 17 to build the house. But God said, verse 18, whereas it was in your heart to build a house, you did well, but your son, verse 19, shall build the house for my name.

Now God has fulfilled the promise. He has fulfilled verse 21, the covenant that he made with our fathers when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

And this next prayer, just beautiful. He stood before the altar in the presence of the whole assembly and said, oh

Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart.

You have kept with your servant, David, my father, what you declared to him. You spoke with your mouth and with your hands have fulfilled it this day.

Now, therefore, oh Lord, God of Israel, keep for your servant, David, my father, what you have promised him saying.

You shall not lack a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel. There's a condition. If only your sons pay close attention to their way to walk before me as you have walked before me.

Now, therefore, oh God of Israel, let your word be confirmed, which you have spoken to your servant, David, my father.

And you see, deeply rooted in the promises to David. Now there's a series of prayers and just tracking these prayers is really helpful.

Key verse, and this is an introduction followed by the series of different situations.

So I'm going to read the introduction verse 27 to 30, and then there's a series of situations that Solomon puts this framework into.

Let's start with the introduction. Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you.

How much less this house that I've built. Like how do you build a house for God? Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and news to his plea, oh

Lord, my God, listening to the cry, to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, that our eyes, that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, my name shall be there.

That you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers towards this place. Listen to the plea of your servant, of your people,

Israel, when they pray toward this place. Listen in heaven, your dwelling place, when you hear, forgive. And the pattern that we'll get here kind of almost sounds like the book of Judges.

You have a situation and Solomon says, when they're in that situation and they pray, then hear, act in mercy, forgive and restore them.

It's basically the pattern. I'll say it again. They're in a situation, some kind of difficulty, some kind of problem. They cry out.

He's saying, Lord, hear their prayer, act in mercy and forgive. That's the cycle.

So you can just run down it. The first situation, verse 31 to 32. If a man sends against his neighbor, he's made to take an oath.

He comes, swears his oath before your altar in this house. This is a situation of a judicial oath. You get some set up for this in a couple of different passages.

Ecclesiastes 5 actually sets this up pretty well or it helps you get the idea. Exodus 22 is another one.

The idea goes, if there was a situation like a conflict between two, you lied. No, you lied. No, you lied.

No, you lied. One of the solutions is that they would be forced or they would be compelled to take an oath.

You go before God and before God, you declare this thing. It's kind of like, if I'm lying, may I be struck dead?

That kind of thing. All right. So if a man sends and he comes and he swears his oath before your altar,

Solomon's prayer, oath dispute, judicial dispute, then here in heaven, act and judge your servants, deal with the guilty by bringing it on his head, vindicate the righteous by rewarding him.

When that person, you got to feel this. When that person comes to that temple, they've got to feel the weight of this.

Our God is a God who's merciful and gracious, but he does not let sin go. There I am.

Okay. And you're standing before him. Lord, knower of all hearts. Here I am. Will you act justly?

Can you hear those words kind of gumming up in your mouth on the way out?

If you know that you've been lying the whole time. Lord, act justly. Bring justice in this situation.

Second situation. Verse 33. When your people, Israel, are defeated before the enemy because they have sinned against you.

Hang on. This is Solomon's reign. This is the high point.

Israel is at its greatest. But really Solomon's language here is not like, if possibly there comes a day when maybe we're defeated.

The assumption here is when Israel is defeated because they have sinned, he's expecting it.

If they'll turn to you, acknowledge your name, plead toward this house, then hear and forgive.

Third situation. Verse 35. If there's a drought, turns out not very long from this.

1 Kings 17 and 18. We're in eight, not even 10 chapters from here. We're going to have a massive drought.

This is the Elijah story. Because they've sinned, drought comes. Okay. So this is really proximate.

Handful of years. I think to my memory, not even a century is going to pass. And they're going to be in exactly this situation.

When heaven is shut up and there's no rain. Why? Because they have sinned. If they pray and they acknowledge their guilt and they turn, then hear and forgive.

You see the pattern, situation, they pray, Lord, hear this prayer, forgive and deliver.

Or not just a drought, but verse 37, if there's famine, all kinds of different famines.

If there's an enemy coming, you could track through this section, all the whatevers, the alls, the every.

Whatever prayer, whatever plea, by any man, by all your people, each knowing the affliction of his own heart.

And they all come here. Then forgive, render to each heart whose heart you know, according to all his ways, that they may fear you all the days.

41 is, I mean, this is allowed. Probably not good to have favorites, but I have them. 41 is a favorite.

When a foreigner who is not of your people, Israel, comes from a far country for your name's sake, because they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm.

Remember way back in Exodus, when God delivers, then the assumption is the nations will know and the nations will hear of this.

And actually when you get in, you enter like Joshua and Judges. Rahab says, oh, because we heard, we heard about what

God did in the Exodus and we're afraid. This happens multiple times. So when the foreigner from a far country has heard of God's greatness and he comes and he prays to this house, then here in order and do according to that, which he calls to you in order that verse 43, all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you as do your people,

Israel, that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name. Okay. I'll return to this in a bit, but never make the very, very broken assumption that the old

Testament, God played favorites and it was all Israel favority favority. Never, never make that assumption that God was not paying attention to the nations of the earth.

There are reasons. I understand that there is an Israel focus, obviously across the old

Testament. There are reasons for that. It's a longer conversation, but absolutely clear that God's intention in Abraham and all that follow him is that in him shall all the nations of the earth, all the nations of the earth be blessed.

God's heart has always been for the humans, all of them. And right here in the middle of this prayer, the foreigner comes here and bless and answer that all the peoples of the earth may know.

I lost count. One, two, three, four, five, six, the sixth prayer. If your people go out to battle and they pray toward this city, then here maintain their cause.

The seventh, if they sin against you, there's no one who does not sin. And you're angry with them and you give them to an enemy and they're carried away captive to the land of the enemy far off and near.

Does this sound remotely like anything in Israel's history? Yet, if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors saying, we have sinned and acted perversely and wickedly.

If they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who carry them captive and they pray toward this land, the city that you have chosen, the house that I have built, then here and forgive their sin and their transgressions that they have committed, grant them compassion in the sight of those who have carried them captive, forgive and restore them.

And I just comment on here, this one in particular, Daniel nine, where I just mentioned

Daniel six, Daniel nine, when Daniel's praying towards Jerusalem and then

Daniel nine is this whole extended prayer, look at it, this would be a good study for this coming week. Read down Daniel nine.

Daniel's doing exactly this. I mean, you can read the two texts together and Daniel knows this passage and he's praying this.

Daniel's faith is that if he looks at Israel's history, Solomon called it.

Not just Solomon, all the way back in Deuteronomy 28 to 30, all over the Old Testament. This was known.

God predicted it in Deuteronomy. He said, my people will sin, they'll be carried off captive and there from the land of their captives, they'll pray and I'll hear.

Daniel prays this passage. Okay, so I put all of that together and it feeds into the conclusion, which is 54 down to 61.

And you can pick up in here, the words blessing. You can pick up this idea that God would be with us, verse 57.

May he not leave us or forsake us. Sounds like things that are going to be quoted in the New Testament, Hebrews 13.

That we would obey his commandments, his statutes and his rules, verse 58. That our

God is one and so therefore our hearts also must be one, verse 60.

There is no other, therefore let our hearts be wholly true to the Lord our God. And the conclusion, the last verse of 61, the last phrase of 61, as at this day.

I think Solomon's reading down or praying down through this and that the whole assumption of the entire passage is, well right now anyway, they're all here and they're all worshiping and they're all here to be dedicating the temple.

And there's kind of like an overflow of hearts say, oh yes, yes we will serve the Lord right now anyway. Solomon's prayer, may their hearts be wholly true to the

Lord our God, walking in his statutes, keeping his commandments as at this day. Let's see if this thing's going to hold.

Sad news, it didn't. That's a lot of information.

We didn't even read it. We really flew over it. I'm going to highlight three tensions. Three ideas are kind of in the passage and they're sort of pulling at each other.

Tensions that are in here that are, you're trying to even figure out how they fit. And the first one is just,

I'll express as a question, does God dwell in a place? Right?

I mean, that's where we started out earlier on, even when Solomon started his prayer.

You know, he says, I've built a house, but right, I mean the absurdity verse 27, will

God indeed dwell on the earth? Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you. How much less this house?

So God's going to fit into this building. Really? And yet the tension is all the way throughout.

We have this idea of the place that God has chosen or the land that you gave to our fathers or this place that he has designated as his.

I mentioned Deuteronomy 12. It's a big theme. God will choose a place and will say, that's my place.

Right? So, and part of the intrigue of this or part of the interest of this, in each of the prayers, he'll say something like, when the people pray towards the temple, then here in heaven, your dwelling place.

Every single one of the prayers does that. They'll pray towards the temple. Solomon says, here in heaven, your dwelling place.

God's dwelling place is heaven. So what, like, why are we praying towards the temple? It's loosely, you know, all buildings are loosely organized piles of rubble.

We're praying towards this loosely organized pile of rubble as though like that's

God's place, which language here in the Old Testament, that is God's place, but actually

God's in heaven. And there's a tension there. Is our

God a localized deity? Even, let's just say today,

I mean, even today is you hear like Holy Land language, you know, do prayers from the wailing wall count for more?

And it, hard no. Okay. But there's a tension there.

God does have a, here, right here, the temple is built and God has chosen this place.

He's like, that's where my temple goes. That's where my art goes. That's where I will show my glory.

Like his glory was localized in that place. Scratching your head. He dwells in heaven.

The highest heavens can't contain him. But this temple is a place of glory.

God's glory manifested. Okay. And I'm just pointing out there's some tension in there.

How do you put those together? Well, I will talk about it, but hang on.

How about a second tension? Is this passage really ultimately

Israel centric? Like, is this, it feels like the passages, you know,

Israel, Jerusalem, the temple, and actually you can't avoid that. I mean, the passage is set up, like there's a building built out of time and he's talking, all the way throughout, you have this language of your people, your people,

Israel, and the people that you have chosen, the people that you have brought out of Egypt.

I mean, it's a distinct and recognizable group. Okay. So you have that reality.

In tension, on the other hand, with like that section I just highlighted in love, verse 41 and following, the foreigner comes and the foreigner prays and answer his request that all the peoples of earth would know your name and fear.

As do you hear even the tension of verse 43, as do your people, Israel, your people,

Israel. They're both in there, right? Like the universal, but also that it's intention a bit, isn't it?

Interesting note. This is going to be followed. This is eight in chapter 10. This is going to be followed by the queen of Sheba coming.

And she's like the archetypal example of the foreigner who's attracted, comes, asks questions.

She's in awe. Wow. I can't believe it. Look at all the wisdom and the blessing and the richness of this place.

And she learns at the feet of Solomon, drawn from beyond. And Jesus later picks that up in the gospels, says, you know, the queen of Sheba was drawn to the wisdom of Solomon, then

Jesus says, but greater than Solomon is here. I mean, so you've got this, this actually did happen.

This thing we're talking about. See, even there, there's my second, my second tension. My first tension is

God, a localized deity. Hard no. And yet there's the place. Is this

Israel centric? Well, no, look, it's for the peoples of the earth. And yet Israel, your people throughout.

Okay. Third tension. Third tension is, is this, is this really rest?

Verse 56 has this language in here. I'll just read verse 56 with you, if we may. Verse 56, blessed be the

Lord who has given rest to his people, according to all that he promised. Not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses, his servant.

And this is similar to, there's a similar passage in Joshua that does the same thing that people struggle with. Cause I mean, in our family

Bible reading, we read through that. And one of my kids asks me, did, did everything

God promised really get fulfilled? Because right there in Joshua, you have already the hint that they did not take the land fully.

And in Judges you really get that. I mean, so did they have rest or not?

Were God's promises fulfilled or not? There's one way of resolving that fairly simple.

Basically the idea would go, everything that God said he would do, he did. The people blew it. God was faithful.

It's a pretty good summary of the Bible. People blew it. God was faithful. I mean, that's a starting resolution on it.

Even here, there's some tension in here. Have they really experienced rest?

When you have the hint, as we observed in 61, verse 61, that Solomon himself kind of expects that things are not going to go well from here.

And I mean, right in a couple of chapters, all chaos is unleashed. So have they gotten rest?

Like rest, capital R, rest, bold. You see the kind of tension in that.

It's like, well, they're in the land and they have a temple and they have a king. At least they're not fighting wars anymore.

That's good. Do they have rest? Not fully, not yet. Okay. So the three tensions

I put there, and I didn't resolve any of them yet. Will God dwell in a place? Is this prayer ultimately

Israel -centric or is it global? And is this really rest or not? Because it kind of sure doesn't feel like it.

And that takes me, if I put some of those pieces together, I'll ask it with this question. I think this will lead to the resolution.

Basically my question would go, great. We've talked for a long time about this prayer. We've talked about it kind of in historical context for Solomon's day and that kind of thing.

But I'm asking myself, like, how do I apply it as a living in 2025

Gentile who's never been to Jerusalem? Definitely has never seen

Solomon's temple. No one living has. So how would I, I mean, besides just reading the prayer as kind of a historical curiosity, how do

I in 2025 pick up this prayer and say, here's how this helps me in my life.

Here's how this helps me in walking together lovingly with my family, reaching my neighbors, serving my local church.

How do you apply any of this? And what I'm going to answer in answer to that prayer is also the answer to those tensions

I just raised. And the answer is that you've got to read this whole passage and all of those tensions and everything we've kind of uncovered, exposed, and just left hanging there in terms of Christ, the ultimate fulfillment and the richness of where this story goes.

Now, each one of these, I have solid biblical foundations for doing.

Start off with the first. Is this really rest? I ask. I mean, they're in the land, they have a temple.

There aren't at least any terrible wars going on. Is this really rest? And if I fast forward all the way up into Hebrews 4,

Hebrews 4 will pick up this very thing. And it'll say that Joshua gave them a kind of rest that through God's help and the conquest, okay, they at least got a land.

But then Joshua 4 observes that there remains a rest to the people of God. We're waiting, he says.

And that rest that we're waiting for is the Sabbath rest, the eternal rest that we would,

Hebrews 4, verse 10, rest as God rested from his works. And let us,

Hebrews 4, 11, therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Is this rest? When Solomon can say God has given his people rest, it is an acknowledgement of a kind of a partial, just shadow, somewhat down payment.

They have a land, they have a temple, things are set up. It's like, finally, we can unpack the suitcases and settle in.

Finally, we have a place. Finally, there aren't any active wars going on. And then scripture comes to us and says, oh, yeah, your hope has to be so much higher than that.

Your hope has to be for a day when God would grant for his people in his place under his king, dwelling in his presence, the true and eternal temple that God has set up, not man,

God dwelling in our midst. That's the rest you're longing for. I put this really practically.

Life is exhausting. It feels like perpetual struggle.

And I got good news for you. It's not necessarily because you're doing it wrong. And I say, not necessarily.

Plenty of things you and I can do to make it worse. We can make our lives a lot more chaotic than they have to be.

But if you're hoping for a kind of a deep -rooted rest, the kind of rest that is all the way to the depths of your soul, if you're hoping for the kind of a, finally,

I have arrived, you won't. Life is a struggle and it will be until Jesus comes, until we rest in his presence.

See, and when I asked the question, something like, is this really rest? When I read Solomon's hope here, or I mean, the true joy,

God has brought Israel into his place. Yeah, it is a small are rest.

You haven't seen anything yet. Wait till you have Jesus and now rest, eternal rest.

How about my second tension I raised? Is this whole section, this prayer, is this like an

Israel -centric, hooray, Israel, or is there a foreigner component to it?

We saw the foreigner component to it. How would we even understand this? And I think the key to this and even the next, the question of place, is the prophecy we have or the promise we have, like, let's say in Isaiah 2, that when

Jesus comes, he will set up his reign from Jerusalem. The nations will go up to it.

He will teach them from his law. We will be instructed. We will worship. We will bring the treasures of the earth.

I mean, the notion of there is a day when a place will be set up. And yes, that place, the new

Jerusalem, is geographically rooted. It's geographically rooted because there's a king,

Jesus Christ, incarnate, part of the struggle or the tension or the paradox of all of this.

One who is fully God, who has taken flesh and will reign in a place. And he will reign over all the earth from that place.

See, and now you actually can see how these two fit together. Does God designate a place?

He will. And from that place, all of earth will be blessed. And from that place, all the nations of the earth will go up and all the nations of the earth will worship.

So, is there a place? There will be when Jesus comes and when Jesus reigns, because Jesus is the center of it all.

Is this Israel -centric? No, this is the coming up, worshiping in that place from where Jesus reigns.

And so, if I pull all of that together now and I put that into our understanding from now,

I answer the last question I asked, how would we pray any of this? I would just observe that this whole passage, unpacking the temple and delight in the temple and praying towards the temple and all of this, you literally can't do this today because Solomon's temple is gone.

Right? The warning of chapter 9, if you disobey, this temple will be a pile of rubble.

Guess what? The temple is a pile of rubble. They even rebuild it. That one is a pile of rubble too.

Got two piles of rubble. You can't be temple -centric today.

But part of that richness of that is because there was a person who came and he said things like this,

Matthew 12, 6, I tell you something greater than the temple is here. He said things like this,

John 2, 19, destroy this temple. In three days, I will raise it up. They're all confused.

He was speaking about the temple of his body. Hebrews 9, Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, not of this creation.

Revelation 21, 22, I saw no temple in this city. Its temple is the Lord God, the

Almighty, and the Lamb. Brothers and sisters, we don't have a temple. We don't have sacred places.

We don't have like a place where we go where our prayers count for more or something. If you want to talk about sacredness, if you want to talk about even the temple, he has a name.

He died and he rose again. Our temple is risen. Our temple is in the presence of God.

If you ask yourself like, where do I go today to have the presence of God, fellowship with God, access to God, God dwelling in our midst, answer, he has a name.

He's called Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus is our temple. Okay, pause, calm, and in here.

When I grew up and I heard this language, Jesus said, like, destroy this temple. I think because I had heard my whole life people kind of referring to like, well, you should take care of your body because it's the temple.

I kind of thought like temple was sort of Bible -ish language. Like guys just sort of use temple that way.

Like guys would say, you know, man, I ran a race yesterday and my temple's sore. It's just maybe a way they referred to their bodies.

That's not like Bible -ish or first century language. Jesus was being provocative in his language.

I know this because their reaction, temple? You're talking about the building? Like they don't get it either.

And in Jesus' choice to use temple language, what he's saying is that temple, that building, that the idea of where you would go to see

God's presence or fellowship with God, I'm it. Jesus says, that's me. That temple?

Obsoleted. I've replaced it. I am greater than the temple is here. We're done with that.

I'm the temple, Jesus says. It's astonishing, an astonishing claim. And the richness of that, if I take it one more step, because you'll recognize this language too, is that Jesus replaces the temple, right?

Even very visibly, memorably, when he dies, that the curtain is ripped into.

That temple is obsoleted. It's done. A couple of 40 years later, it's actually going to be pile of rubble.

Not only is Jesus the temple, but you also have language like this, 1 Corinthians 3, do you not know that you are

God's temple? 1 Corinthians 6, do you not know that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, you are not your own. 2 Corinthians 6, 16, what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

For we are, and listen, it's astonishing. We are the temple of the living

God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them, walk among them, and I will be their

God, and they shall be my people. I mean, I would have read that in its original context. I will make my dwelling among them, walk among them, like, oh yeah, so the temple in the middle of God's people.

How about, how about a lot richer than that? I will make my dwelling among them. We are the temple.

Spirit of God, literally, actually dwelling in me.

The glory of the Lord fills the temple. The priest cannot even enter because of the smoke, the glory.

I mean, the power of that. Yeah, that's you. That's God's temple,

God's people. Ephesians 2, 19, we are no longer strangers and aliens.

We are fellow citizens, members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being joined together grows into a holy temple in the

Lord. Where is the temple today? Not Jerusalem. Currently, I see an expression of it before me.

God's people, God's people that know and love him. We're it. I'd like to go somewhere in the world today where I can feel the power and the presence of God.

Okay, I have an idea. Meet together with God's people around God's word. There you go.

You visited the temple. Like that other one, pile of rubble. This one, unbreakable.

Yeah, we're a mess. We sin, we fail. But God's people, as they walk in fellowship with him, unbreakable, unstoppable.

It's all over this planet. They've been worshiping all day today. We're like one of the last time zones as the sun goes around.

All day today, God's temple meeting. First Peter 2, 5, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

You hear some of these themes and it's got to astound you. It's got to make you fear.

It's got to make you fear in respect to sin. Would I defile

God's temple, God's people, God's presence, God's glory like that? Would I have walked into the holy of holies and committed sin right there?

No, because you wouldn't have lived. Okay, so here we are. We are

God's people. We are God's temple. Does that not give us a sense of horror at sin and a sense of awe at the dignity and the beauty of this?

Where is God's temple? Where is God's place? Where is God's presence? Hi, this is it.

I just have a couple of applications. Number one, how ought we to view the sanctity of Christ's church?

Now that's individually, right? I'm putting this before you right now.

Okay, you walk out of here, you got tonight and Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

You got the week ahead of you. Temptation's going to happen. Sin's going to come before you.

You're going to have the moment where you're setting, I mean, set before you as a choice. And I pray before God, I think,

I hope maybe even in the heart of Solomon in this type of prayer. I pray before God that in such a moment, you stand before that sin, you stand before that temptation and you say, will

I do this when I am a living stone in God's holy temple?

Really? The sanctity and the glory of God's temple.

It's real. Take a second.

Never take for granted you're standing before him. So we're reading Solomon's prayer.

It's glorious. It's beautiful. And as you read down through that prayer, Solomon praises, well, so much wisdom.

Solomon prays with passion and zeal. And it really, the prayer is kind of like a priestly representative type prayer, like for the sake of these people, that these people would be faithful.

The prayer is that they would remain. And you only get two chapters away, Solomon falls.

Okay. Never take for granted the notion that like I'm on the good side of things or something.

Good people fall. Chaos happens. You see it right in the passage.

Okay. But I'll go to two more. My third application, never take for granted the beauty and the privilege of prayer.

That's one of the things this passage did to me as I worked through it. Very personal, very convicted.

Solomon is going through here and he's just putting before these people to pray towards this temple in God's place, fellowship here in heaven and deliver and answer.

And I mean, the privilege of that, the cost of that. And I'm processing as I just think, so I have this extraordinary privilege before me that the way that we ought to properly understand this chapter is if this was the privilege that Solomon is setting up, we have access to the temple,

Hebrews 12 kind of logic. We have not come to a mountain that can be touched. We've come to Zion. How much higher is the standard?

Right? It's a greater or lesser to greater argument. If Solomon found this a privilege,

I have Jesus. I have the spirit. He dwells in me. Not just that I go to the temple, but I am the temple.

Okay. And how sad is it then? And I'm just speaking straight up confession and conviction.

How sad is it that I would be prayerless? How pitiful would it be?

That after the deep and beautiful privilege, ultimately won by nothing less than the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, my savior.

I'm like too busy to pray. How? Like I got bigger things to do than that.

What? How? Hello. Privilege of prayer.

If Solomon and Daniel could have the deep confidence praying towards a physical temple, and I have the spirit of God within me, and I am that temple, like what's my excuse?

And so I would put before us finally in every situation, come to God.

He hears. There's a little progression even to those applications

I made. I pushed hard. What? The sanctity of Christ church this coming week, you're faced by a temptation to sin.

Don't capitulate. Never take for granted you're standing before him. You could fall. Okay.

But progress from that, the privilege of prayer. So come. You're sitting here and maybe something from the passage, you felt convicted.

I hope so. I did. Okay. What's your solution to that?

Like how do you handle the conviction? I have an idea. Work down through this prayer. And we're over and over throughout this prayer.

Solomon will say things like, if they sin against you for there is no one who does not sin and you're angry with them and you judge them.

And yet if they turn their heart and they repent and plead with you saying, we have sinned and acted perversely and wickedly.

If they repent with all their heart and with all their soul, then here in heaven, your dwelling place and forgive, forgive their sin, forgive their transgressions, all their transgressions they have committed against you and grant them compassion.

What do you do if you're like me and you feel convicted by the passage? Amazing. You have a

God that hears from heaven is dwelling place and he forgives. And so I set before you brothers and sisters, a temple, a prayer, an opportunity, a privilege far greater than anything

Solomon could set before his people. I put before you a hope greater than his.

I put before you a sanctity higher and more wonderful than the temple. I put before you glory greater than that, which filled that temporal so that the priest could not even enter it.

I put before you Jesus. I put before you Jesus Christ, him crucified and risen again, the fulfillment of the temple.

I put before you the fact, the biblical fact that all who are in him are also living stones in that temple.

I put before you the grandest hope. If Solomon's prayer was like this, how much more?

New Testament fulfillment. I put before you that hope and I call you as Solomon called his people and as the gospel calls us.

If you look at any of these realities and you recognize that I have need, there's an answer for that.

Come before your God, repent, plead, pray to him. Our God hears.

He hears from heaven his dwelling place. He hears from within our midst his dwelling place.

Our God is a God who forgives. This coming week as you and I walk out into a world that is not sympathetic and as we fight in our own hearts, the brokenness of our own hearts, we have the power, we have the grace, we have the sufficiency to live this coming week in a way that honors the sanctity and the glory of God's temple.

What he has done in human hearts by the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God bless you and we hope to see you soon.