This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you back to day three of our look through 1 Kings, week one,
chapters one through about seven we're looking at this week. Yesterday we began
this look at this moment in the life of Solomon where God comes and says,
"Solomon, whatever you want, ask for it. " And Solomon begins this prayer that
reveals that what he's going to get from God is wisdom.

How do you get God's wisdom in your life? Well first we learned from Solomon
yesterday, you say, "I need help. " That's where you start.

And then you say, "I don't know. " You admit what you don't know. There's two
other things that we're going to learn from Solomon today.

The third is right at the core of what we're talking about. God says, "Whatever
you want, Solomon. " And Solomon says, "I want wisdom.

" So to have wisdom you have to say, "I want wisdom. " You have to choose what
is most important. You can't just hope that wisdom comes into your life.

You have to say, "I want wisdom. " And you have to genuinely not just say it but
you have to live out that desire. I mean here is Solomon.

He's getting the proverbial genie's wish moment. Whatever you want, whatever you
wish for, what is it? And Solomon says, "I don't know how to lead these people.

I need discernment. I need wisdom. " Verse eight to verse nine, "Your servant is
here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or
to 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? "
To be wise, you have to put a priority on wisdom.

You have to want it in your life. And Solomon teaches that if you want it more
than anything else in your life, you're going to have wisdom. He not only taught
it, he exemplified it here.

If you read the book of Proverbs, many of those Proverbs written by Solomon, you
see him saying again and again and again and again, you have to want wisdom. He
says you seek for it like silver or gold. You search for it like hidden
treasure.

If you value it, if you value having wisdom before God, then you will have it. I
want wisdom. That's the third thing that you have to do in order to have wisdom
in your life.

And then there's a final thing that you must do. You must say, "I will serve. "
To have wisdom, you have to know why you're put on this planet.

So you say, "I will serve. " You invest your life by serving others. The person
who lives their life just for themselves obviously doesn't have wisdom because
they've forgotten the billions of other people on this planet.

They've forgotten the reason God created us. In verses 7 down through verse 9,
listen to the times that Solomon says, "You're servant. " Three times in a few
short verses.

So going back over what we've read earlier, he says, "But now, O Lord my God,
you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I'm only a
little child. I don't know how to carry out my duties.

Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too
numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern
your people and distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern
this great people of yours?

" You can't be wise unless you're God's servant. Unless you recognize who you
are in relationship to God. Wisdom is looking at life from God's perspective and
you are not looking at life from God's perspective unless you see that he is the
Lord and you are his servant.

And as God's servant, what do we do? We serve others. We do what Jesus did.

Jesus is our model. Jesus told us, "I did not come to be served. I came to
serve, to give my life for others.

" There are a lot of people who seem to have riches in this world and who use
their money, their resources to have other people serve them. It's all about
them and what they have and how impressed people are with them. And they may
have a lot of things, but they've got zero wisdom.

They're making zero impact on this world. Their stuff is just going to be
divided up in the end. They haven't invested their life.

They've just spent their life on the things that they wanted. But someone who
decides to serve, even if you don't have very many things materially, when you
decide to serve, you're taking what God's put into your life and you're not just
seeing it divided up in the end. You're actually investing it into people's
hearts.

You're seeing it multiplied into people's hearts in the end. Those people take
what you put into their hearts as they serve others, multiply it into other
people's hearts. And so whatever you invest gets multiplied and multiplied and
multiplied for generation after generation after generation.

When life is just about my things, they get wasted. But when life is about
serving, my life is multiplied for generation after generation all the way into
eternity and wisdom sees that. Wisdom knows that.

God looks at Solomon. He hears his answer and listen to God's response. It's in
verse 10 through verse 14.

The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. And so God said to him,
"Since you have asked for this, and not for long life or wealth for yourself,
nor have you asked for the death of your enemies, but for discernment and
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.

Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for, both riches and honor, so
that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in my
ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you
a long life. " Look at how God honors this prayer for wisdom in the life of
Solomon.

I will give you this. I will give you even more. It reminds me of Jesus telling
us, "Seek God's kingdom and all the other things will be added to you as well.

" Make the most important priority the priority. Make it the center of your
life. Now the truth is, we're told very clearly that God will honor your prayer
for wisdom as well.

James 1. 5 says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives
generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to them. " God
will give you his wisdom.

Even as Solomon asked for wisdom and God gave it, when you and I ask for wisdom,
God will give wisdom into our lives. But I don't ask for that wisdom for selfish
purposes so I can build what I want. That's not truly asking for wisdom.

That's just asking for money. That's just asking for power. Asking for wisdom
means I'm asking, "God, give me discernment.

Let me see life from your perspective so I can live life the way that you want
it to be lived. " So here's the wisdom questions. The questions in my life, your
life that we're facing every day that tell us whether we're going to have wisdom
or not.

Question one. Who do you depend on? Who do you depend on just yourself?

You're not going to have wisdom. If you start to depend on God and others,
you're going to enjoy God's wisdom. Question number two.

What don't you know? Wisdom doesn't ask, "What do I know? " You already know
what you know.

In order to gain more wisdom, you ask, "What don't I know? " And am I willing to
admit that? Am I willing to go out and learn it?

Am I willing to even be embarrassed to admit what I don't know? That's part of
having wisdom, of learning. What don't you know?

Question number three. What do you want? What do you really want most in life?

This is a key question to having wisdom, having God's wisdom perspective on
life. And when my heart bursts with this desire, "God, I want to see things like
you see them. I want to experience the life that you have for me.

The more I develop that desire in my life, the wiser I'm going to be in my life.
" And then the final, the fourth wisdom question is, "Why are you here? Why are
you on this planet?

Just for yourself? Of course not. You're here to love the Lord.

You're here to love other people. You're here to serve Him as you serve others.
And when you get that one right, you become a person of genuine wisdom.

" As you're listening to these last couple of days, I'm very certain that many,
many of you are thinking, "I want that kind of wisdom in my life. I'd like to
have a magic pill that I take or one prayer that I can pray and it happens in a
moment. " But the truth is, it's developed over a lifetime of loving the Lord
and reading His Word and letting His Word speak to my life.

But it starts here. It starts right now. So let's talk to Him together.

And in prayer, would you just say, "Lord, I want your wisdom. You promised us if
any of us lacks wisdom, we should ask you and you generously give and you will
give wisdom. And so God, I'm asking, I want to see life from your perspective.

I want to live life from your perspective. I need your wisdom to do that. " So
through your Word, through other people, through messages, through prayers, any
and every way that you can, God, put and place your wisdom into my life, I pray.

I need you. I need your wisdom. And I ask for it in Jesus' name.

Amen. Join us tomorrow. We're going to learn some things about building from the
example of Solomon.