Pastor Jon Burgess
September 25, 2016 - W1639

When looking at the pinnacles and pitfalls of life, a good place to start is the story of King David setting up his son Solomon for success. We understand that David is telling Solomon heart work must precede hard work or your heart will grow hard in the working. This is setting the tone for us at New Hope asoHop we move forward on the Spiritual Journey together. God has called us to build a resource center to reach as many people as possible and we cannot get from here to there without a lot of hard work.  It will take at least a couple of years before we will see that come to pass.  Before we get to the hard work, God wants to do some heart work in us of putting Him first. Our priority should be Matthew 6:33 NIV which says, “But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.” This is a commandment with a promise.  If you seek God first, He will add all the other things.

Listen to the last words of David to his son Solomon in I Kings 2:1-3: “When the time drew near for David to die, he gave a charge to Solomon his son, ‘I am about to go the way of all the earth.’ He said. ‘So be strong, act like a man, and observe what the Lord your God requires: Walk in obedience to Him, and keep His decrees and commands, His laws and the regulations, as written in the Law of Moses.  Do this so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go…”

If we can teach our children to just keep walking with God no matter what life throws at them regardless of the pinnacles (the highest of highs, at the top of your success) or the pitfalls (the lowest of lows, at the bottom of your failure), we have succeeded in our parenting. In other words, David is telling Solomon you must let God do the heart work in you first before you do the hard work, whether you are at the pinnacle or the pitfall.  In this way, your faith won’t get fractured.  There are four ways to successfully walk out your faith with God using the acronym WALK.

W = Wholehearted, being completely devoted to God. King David says in I Chronicles 28:9, “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve Him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.”  Don’t allow your heart to become segmented halfway through your life.  Although Solomon had great wisdom and riches because God gave them to him, and he was the most influential man of his day, somewhere along the way his heart became divided. I Kings 11:4-6 says, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.” (David had instructed Solomon to make sure that his heart was not divided.) He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  He did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.”  It is interesting that Solomon followed the Lord, but just not wholeheartedly.  He loved the Lord, but just not wholeheartedly.  If we are not careful, we can go to church faithfully every weekend and even pray, but somewhere along the way as we enter the pinnacle of life and God brings more blessings into our lives, we can actually let our hearts get divided from the very one that blessed and guided us to the pinnacle.  Ask yourself, “Is my heart wholehearted or am I hungering and thirsting after other things?”

Daily, even hourly, we are faced with a choice either to follow our earthly appetites or to hunger and thirst after God. How quickly our hearts can be divided by multiple other things while still loving God and spending time with Him. The Spiritual Journey to which God has called us is to hunger and thirst for Him, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” In order to go forward, we must go back to the basics. Ask God, “How is my heart, God? Am I prioritizing you? Am I loving you while also loving other things, as King Solomon did?” 

A = Action-Oriented to the things of God. It is more than just saying we believe; we must walk out our belief. James 2:17 says, “…that faith without works is dead.” I Chronicles 28:10 says, “Consider now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a house as the sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.” Let that sink in. The Lord has chosen you to work, to take action, and to build a sanctuary. Be strong and do the work.  Remember, heart work must precede hard work. Spend your time, energy, and focus doing what God wants you to do. Solomon started out doing the things of God; but toward the end of his life I Kings 3:1-2 says, “Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. (This was the first of hundreds of foreign wives that would eventually draw his heart away from God.) He brought her to the City of David until he finished his palace and the temple of Lord, and the wall around Jerusalem. The people, however, were still sacrificing at the high places, because the temple had not yet been built for the Name of the Lord.” Solomon was action oriented but because his heart was being divided, his actions became divided. 

Our priorities reveal what and how we are spending our time. Solomon was building more and more buildings for all of his foreign wives. We should be action oriented. What are we spending our time doing with the time given us? Solomon did not have to continue in that direction. He could have adjusted his focus somewhere along the way saying, “I am spending too much time on my own agenda.  I am going to be action oriented to the things of God. I must get up and move with God.”  If you wonder why you are still facing the same addiction, struggles, and doubts, the Lord would say, “You don’t have to stay there. I have called you to freedom, purity and security. Be action oriented toward the things of God and quit pursuing other things.” This was exemplified during water baptism when so many of you took action saying, “I am no longer just giving lip service and staying where I am. I am moving into a place of purity.”  Water baptism is drawing a line in the sand and saying, “I’m not going back.  I am moving forward with God and will be action-oriented to the things of God.”  God has called you to be holy and set apart for Him. 

L = Life-Long Learners. Don’t get to a place where you have nothing more to learn because the moment you get there you are no longer moving with God; you are stopped in pride. I Chronicles 28:19 says, “‘All this,’ David said, ‘I have in writing as a result of the Lord’s hand on me, and He enabled me to understand all the details of the plan.’” David was saying, “I don’t know it all, but my God does, and if I’m seeking Him he will teach me what to do.”  From the shepherd’s field to the battlefield to the caves to the throne room, every place that David went he sought God because he had never been there before. He always asked, “God, what do I do now?” A life-long learner never arrives at a place and says, “God, I got this,” because he realizes the necessity of getting back to the basics. Often, we forget what we learned from God and we need to learn what we need to forget. If we are not life-long learners, we will miss what Jesus is doing right in front of us. This is what happened to Solomon in I Kings 11:2; “They [Solomon’s wives] were from nations about which the Lord told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.’”

Solomon’s heart held fast in love with his wives instead of to God. Unless we hide the Word of God in our hearts, we will sin against Him. Psalm 119:11 says, “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.” We learn from our culture; the world is constantly trying to program our thinking with the things we watch and listen. Only the Word of God will show us how to think righteously. I love the fact that at New Hope the keiki, youth, and adults are memorizing the Word of God.   At the end of five weeks on our Spiritual Journey, we will have memorized six core verses that will help us keep our walk with God regardless of the highs and lows in life and will keep us in position as life-long learners. 

K = Kingdom Minded.  Whose kingdom are we building?  I Chronicles 28:20 says, “David also said to Solomon his son, ‘Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.’” God is with you in school, at the job, at home strengthening your marriage and your relationships.  He is with you and will see you through.  He will not leave nor forsake you until the work is finished and Jesus comes to take us home.  He is not done yet.  In fact, 21 years into New Hope, God is just getting started. We just see the tip of the iceberg of what God wants to do through the New Hope movement. It will require each one of us to be Kingdom-minded—not my kingdom—but His Kingdom. If we are not careful we will go down the same path Solomon did.  I Kings 11:7-9 says, “On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a temple for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives that burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who appeared to him twice.”  The Spiritual Journey that New Hope is on is an invitation to build the Kingdom of God.  The building that we are retrofitting is to make it as effective as possible to facilitate building the Kingdom of God.  Pastor Wayne said from the beginning that we are not here to build big buildings but to build Big People.  It’s the heart work that must precede the hard work that God has called us to. 

I want to learn from Solomon. He started so well, but ended not so great. How can we make sure we avoid the same mistakes? Some of you are at the pinnacle of life; some are at a pitfall (the lowest of the lows), but you came anyway.  God is saying no matter where you are, at a plateau or somewhere in between, God is calling you to walk with him by getting on your knees. Solomon, somewhere along the way, stopped. The hardest fall will follow the highest feat. When we stop falling at the Savior’s feet, we will start taking credit for the good things that are happening to us.  When scripture says, “Every good and perfect gift comes from God,” we’ll say, “It’s pretty much me. I’m all that and a bag of chips.”

Review and apply the acronym WALK to walk with God successfully:

W – Wholehearted, completely devoted to God.

A – Action-Oriented to the things of God.

L - Life-Long Learner.

K - Kingdom-Minded.

STUDY QUESTIONS:

1. Explain Pastor Jon Burgess’ definition of “Heart work must precede hard work or your heart will grow hard in the working.”

2. Have you ever experienced a pinnacle or a pitfall in your life? What was the outcome?

3. It is said, “The hardest fall will follow the highest feat.” What is the remedy to not fall after a great feat?

4. Briefly explain the acronym WALK.

5. Complete the following sentence: In order to go forward, we must _____________________________________.