TV 1747 | Equipped for the Kingdom

Well, praise the Lord. I feel like I'm very qualified to be up here this morning because I got nothing but weakness, but that's what the Lord says we should glory in because it's not His strength we need anyway, is it? But I had some thoughts and it's interesting, see if I can quiet that frog this morning, but it's interesting how many times I will have a thought and the more I think about it the more I suddenly realize, hey, that connects to what we talked about last week or the week before and it's funny how the Lord does that. He kind of knows what He's doing, doesn't He? But anyway, I had some thoughts as I was reading through the Bible as I do each year and my mind went back to a scripture in 1 Kings chapter 3 and in this particular setting we find Solomon who has just assumed the throne. His father David has finally died and passed it off to him and he is feeling the weight of the responsibility that he has been given. And so we find him going off to offer a sacrifice. Now you know, there are a lot of challenges. You know, God has a plan. The devil always tries to do what he can to upset that. You know, earlier years before one of his older brothers had, was it Absalom, had tried to ... had mounted a movement against David, a revolution, and it succeeded for a short period of time and then David was able to reassume the throne. But even when David had already made known that Solomon was his choice, that it was God's choice, there was another brother. Absalom's younger brother went out and he got together some of the leaders and he had himself crowned king secretly. And the Lord had to undo that. David said, no, Solomon's the one, God's chosen. And so here is Solomon who was obviously younger than most of his brothers and felt his weakness, felt the weight of the responsibility that he had. And so he goes to sacrifice to the Lord and reach out.

And then we find the Lord reaching out to Solomon, okay? And so in verse four, I'll just go ahead and read some of this. The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices for that was the most important high place. And Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. I mean, he was pretty serious, wasn't he? Wouldn't it be good if we were that serious about wanting the Lord and wanting to be in his ... in the place of his choosing? So anyway, at Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream. And God said, ask for whatever you want me to give you. Solomon answered, you have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day. Now, Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, but I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, all right? Sorry, I turned two pages there. Too numerous to count or number, so give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong, for who is able to govern this great people of yours? The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this, so God said to him, since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies, but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. And then he goes on to talk about how he would be given great wealth in addition and he would be like no other king in the world. I mean, he was the greatest of his day, possibly in history, I don't know, but regardless. It's quite an interesting prayer and it sort of reminded me of last week when we talked about childlike trust and how the Lord wants to see ourselves realistically, not to be

full of pride and our self-assessment be based on human quality. qualities, but to be like a little child to realize that in the grand scheme of things, we're not smart, we're not as wise as we think we are. We live in a world that is absolutely operating under satanic deception. It is built upon the words that ultimately come from the lips of Lucifer himself. Our culture comes from the lips of Lucifer. I thank God for every influence he's had in it, but I mean the basic trend of everything is coming on the basis of lies, and we're born into that, and we're all born with natural abilities that have to do with living in this world, and one is gifted in this way and one is gifted in another. But now we come to the kingdom of God and his purposes, and of course the question is, what place do ... I mean, where do we get the ability to do what we need to do? And we've often quoted what Brother Thomas said as a general ... when you ask him what should we do, his answer was always seek God and do what he says. Well praise God, that's a mighty good advice, isn't it? But you know it leaves an unanswered question, and the question is, how do we do that? Does God simply say, now here's what you're supposed to do, you go and dig deep into your natural ability, you were born with everything you need, just go for it. This is a supernatural kingdom. If you've been born into it, it's supernatural from front to finish. It has nothing to do with human ability or strength. Amen. Okay? I'm just so blessed that God enabled Solomon to take an honest view. I don't believe Solomon was acting here, do you? Pretending. This was a man who honestly looked at the situation and said, God, you've given me something, I just can't do this, I do not have it in me to do this, Lord. And boy, isn't that a place we need to come to? Folks, if you just come to it like Peter tended to, say, oh God, just tell me what to do,

I'm halfway down the road, we're going to fall flat on our face. We're going to be doing all kinds of stuff that has no value in eternity. We need the Lord. We need to know what he wants, and we need to do what he wants with divine ability. And that's what Solomon somehow realized, and I was thinking about this, and it wasn't like Solomon said, oh God, I need the wisdom ... Well, I'm going to focus on this first. What was his motivation here? Wasn't very selfish, was it? Wasn't selfish at all. He realized, I've been raised to the kingdom in order to administer justice, to treat people right, to do things the way God is pleased. Oh God, that's my focus. It isn't on how great a person I can be, I'm focused on others. Is that not the nature of the kingdom of God? Isn't that what he's interested in? Is it all about him, or is it about us? Is his love focused on the objects of his love? Isn't that what he seeks to reproduce in his children, where we are focused not on our own personal welfare, but we're focused on the needs that he places before us, okay? That's a key right there. Solomon has his heart in the right place. God has somehow given him that sense. Solomon, wouldn't it be good if God could give us that sense about ourselves? It's not just that I've shown you what I want you to do, I want you to realize who you are and that this is not something you are capable of doing. Right? Praise God. That's an awfully good place to be. It's not a place that we come to naturally. What is the natural response to anybody?

If God says, here's something for you to do, where do we look? We tend to look on the inside and take a self-assessment of our qualifications, our abilities, our resources, and then some people are so blind that they think, okay, I can handle this. I'll tell you, if we get it, if we truly get it, we understand this is a supernatural kingdom with a supernatural purpose to produce eternal results. It is completely beyond us, completely. What struck me as I read this, this was not some ability that where God said, Solomon, you were born with what you need. This is not ... not some positive thinking guy that says, you really are what all you ... You just look down deep. It's there. Just bring it out. Rah, rah, rah. It's not that kind of a thing at all. He had to recognize this simply is not in me. So where did this amazing ability that he got come from? God supernaturally gave him ability he did not possess. Now think about that. Read on that. Isn't that what God's call to every one of us is? Has nothing to do with natural qualifications. It has everything to do with discovering what our purpose is. Now God had revealed it in this case. But you think about the gospel itself. God is calling us to a life where we are walking with him. We are serving him. We are doing what is right in his eyes. There is not a human being who has ever been born ... I'll qualify that in a second. You could say, well, Jesus.

But I'll tell you, even Jesus needed his father, didn't he? He said, without him I can do nothing. Let's just remember what he said. But the reality is every person that God calls into the kingdom is totally helpless to be a Christian. It has nothing to do with our ability and who we are naturally. It has everything to do with somebody who will come like that little child, cast themselves at his feet, obviously forgiveness of what we have done, wiping out that terrible record is part of it, is a big part of it. But now what? Now I've got to have a supernatural heart, a supernatural life, just like Solomon could not govern the people of Israel without God's supernatural anointing. You and I cannot live for him unless he comes in and lives that in us. We have every right to go to God in our weakness and to expect him. Does this passage, along with many others, not reveal God's heart? Does anybody here think that God has called us to do something without promising us the ability to do it? He's the one who knows we need it. He knows what we're capable of and what we are not capable of. It's pretty obvious that we are not capable of any of this. And I'll tell you, the people that have a hard time are the ones that do think they have the qualifications. He had to really take Peter down a few notches and then mightily used him, didn't he, when Peter finally got it. Praise God. I want to be one that gets it. I don't want to be sitting here thinking highly of myself because there's nothing to think about when I'm thinking in real terms of God's kingdom and purpose. Who in the world am I? What have I got to bring and offer God?

Oh God, you picked the right guy. I'm going to help you out. Good God. We need him to rescue us from the pit of sin, call us to an eternal calling that has nothing to do with natural qualification, and then fill us with whatever ability we need to fulfill that calling, okay? So this, what a picture that is of what the Lord has, the way things work. You know, there's an old saying that's often quoted, God does not call the qualified. He qualifies the called. And of course we all know, we've talked many times about Saul, the Jew, and what an impressive guy full of zeal, full of ... He'd given himself with everything he had to the religion of the Pharisees to study the Old Testament. He studied under one of the great teachers in the history of the Jewish nation. Boy, he had everything going for him, and man, he was a rising star in their religion and he was just going to go do it. He thought he was serving God. But what was he relying upon? Whose ability was he relying upon? I'm qualified. Well, God had to take him down a whole bunch. Not only did he reveal himself to Paul, to Saul, on the road to Damascus in such a way that he just, he spent three days trying to come to terms with what had happened. Oh my God, I've been fighting against this Jesus and here he is. He's the Lord. Oh God, what's my future like? God finally came to him and revealed it. Revealed I've chosen you. You're going to suffer many things for my sake. But the baptism was not just that his sins would be forgiven. It was so that he could receive the Holy Spirit, the new life.

But you know, even that wasn't enough. You wonder how Paul was able to write Romans 7? Remember what Romans 7 is about? It has to do with answering the question, what now? How do we live this? And Saul, apparently, as he became known, went through a period of time where he said, all right, now I know what he wants. I know who he is. Boy, I'm going to go for it. And he went for it with all of his zeal and all of his everything in him. I'm going to serve God. And he batted zero. The things that I don't want to do, I do the things that I, and so forth. The opposite. He just found out that he was a failure at every point. He could not do it. And he came to a point of despair. Do you know sometimes victory needs a sense of despair before we get there? It's not that God wants us to feel worthless in ourselves in that sense and just come and grovel at his feet. He wants us to have an honest assessment of who we are and what we can and can't do and how much we need him and how the kingdom works. It works with God imparting a supernatural life and then placing us in a certain place in the kingdom, first of all, to live for him. And secondly, with something to do that absolutely provides a service to somebody else. Praise God. And so this principle we're talking about today, obviously it's unfolded a great deal more in the New Testament because in the Old Testament, God didn't indwell people like he does since Jesus died, since he rose. There was a new covenant that involves not just the forgiveness of sins and sacrifice, it involves the one sacrifice for all time that has absolutely taken care of sin and the gift of the Holy Spirit as a result. They were looking forward to that in the Old Testament era. Praise God. I forgot what I was getting ready to say. But anyway, we have got to have God for every single thing that we need. And I started to say, if you're somebody that's just coming to the Lord and the barrier in your mind is I can't live it, well, guess what? You're right. God hasn't called you to dig deep and live it. It's not a religion you embrace and say, okay, now I'm going to live by different principles and it's going to be okay and he's going to accept me. This is I just lay myself at your feet as the helpless sinner that I am. I'm trusting you to fulfill your promise to come and live in me and to help me from the inside. Paul came to that place where he understood it's not by keeping the law. It's not by self effort. It's just coming to a place where you come and live in me and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in me. How? Yeah. It's not by walking in my own strength. It's by him living in me. Then

I find all of a sudden, hey, I've got an ability I wasn't born with. Where did this come from? How was I even able to feel that way or do that? It's Christ in us, the hope of glory. That's the whole kingdom right there. Praise God. But then of course you get down to the place where, all right, what is my life about? Is it just serving myself, doing my daily activities, or are we called to be the body of Christ where we literally have a function that affects everybody else? How do we do that? Praise God. You could go through scripture and you can see time and time again where God had to bring people to this sense of helplessness and how critical it is to reach that point. Moses has certainly got to be a prime example. Man, mighty in word and deed, growing up in the palace, just living a grand life of power and influence and position in society. God had to take him out for 40 years to spend keeping sheep in the wilderness. Just in his mind, he was done with Egypt forever. It didn't matter. He was content just to live a quiet life. How many times we pointed out how much he fought God when God finally came to him, and his ultimate position was, here am I, send Aaron. What did he constantly point to? He constantly said, I can't talk. I can't do this. I can't. I can't. I can't. That has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. The truth is, none of us can. None of us can be what God has called us to be. If you think you can, you've got another problem. God's got to take that away from you before he can bring you to the point where you realize I can because he's in me. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's where it comes from. God had to take this man who had become the meekest man in the world. He was described that way. That's amazing. He was up in the palace and now he's the meekest man around, and yet God anointed him with such power. Remember again, God was not digging into his natural abilities and just trying to stir them up. He gave him his spirit to be able to do what he did.

Do you remember the time when it came time to share the burden and the load of all this watching over the people and making decisions, and the Lord picked 70 men who were elders among the people, and what did he say? I'm going to take of the spirit that's on you and put it on them. You see that? Supernatural ability. There's a measure of God's spirit that rests upon you. I'm going to take some of that and put it on them. Everything about the kingdom of God is like that. Where do we get the ability to be Christians from him? Where do we get the ability to serve one another? We're going to have to get it from him. Praise God. Praise God. I don't know that I need to carry on with this this morning. Sometimes the Lord gives you something that goes an hour, and sometimes it's 15, 20 minutes. That's all right. We just need what the Lord has. I don't know, somebody else may have something that will just carry this on, or whatever the Lord wants. Lord, I want what you want, but I'm praying this, and I want us to join in prayer about this. Let's pray for one another. Let's pray that God will lead us to the point where he can tell us who we are and what we are, not in ourselves, but in him. Not for ourselves, but for him and for one another. Give us the ability that comes with the anointing of his spirit to be the person that he wants us to be, and then step out and exercise that, and come to that place where it's not about us at all. We're not even thinking about ourselves.

We're just thinking about God. How can I be a blessing? How can I help somebody else? What is their need? God, how have you placed me? Is it just to pray? Just to pray. That's kind of the most important thing. If it's to pray for somebody, and actually be a channel of divine life that can go out and make a difference ... See, if we're praying in the spirit, see how this goes back to that? We talked about that recently. God can give us the power to direct divine life to a situation and make a difference. If it's just to speak that word of encouragement, not just hang in there so-and-so in a natural sense, but this is sometimes a word, and someone can sense God's spirit in it, and it makes all the difference in the world. It turns a light on for somebody. It gives them just the word that they need in a time of need. Praise God. God is so faithful, isn't he? Think of what he did for Solomon and how that is revealed to us. I want to be that child in my own eyes. I want to be somebody that says, God, if you called me to do this, I can't do this. I need you, Lord. I need your strength. I need you to do what only you have the power to do. Praise God. I guess that was weakness, but I'll just trust God to make a difference in your life and in mine, in the call that he's given to us. Are we just going to sit here and circle the wagons until Jesus comes, or does God have a place for us?

I believe he has a place for us. I believe we can fill it if we'll find out what it is and then go to him and say, oh God, you called me to this or that. I can't do this, but I'm trusting in you for the anointing to do whatever you call me to do. And I know you're faithful. Praise God. This has been the Midnight Cry broadcast. If you would like a DVD or CD of today's message in its entirety, please request it by program number. While it is not required, a donation of $10 for DVDs and $5 for CDs is suggested to help with expenses. Also for those who request it, we will send you our quarterly publication, the Midnight Cry Messenger, free and postage paid. Send your requests to Midnight Cry Ministries, Post Office Box 685, Southern Pines, NC 28388. We invite you to join us again next week at the same time, and may God richly bless you until then.