This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to week two of our look through
First and Second Kings together, day one of week two. We're going to focus in on
chapter eight these first couple of days of this week. They are chapters about
dedication, about what true dedication looks like in your life.

When you think about what does it mean to be really dedicated to the Lord, what
does that mean? One person that might mean, "Wow, I'm really dedicated. I gave
up a football game I wanted to watch to go to church this weekend," that's
dedication.

Another person might say, "Well, I took some of the money I wanted to spend on
myself and I gave it to the Lord," that's dedication. Somebody else might say,
"I decided to, instead of going after the goals I thought I wanted in life, I'm
going to go serve the Lord as a missionary in a country I never thought I would
go to. " That's dedication to me.

Which of them is dedication? Well, they all are, depending on what's in your
heart and what's going on in your heart. In 1 Kings chapter eight, Solomon
dedicates the temple that they had built to the Lord.

And as he does this, it teaches us some important lessons about what real
dedication looks like in our lives. In your life, what does it look like to be
dedicated? What does it mean to dedicate your life?

Well, from learning how they dedicated this temple, we can learn some things
about how to dedicate your life. In fact, there are four things specifically
that you can see in this chapter about what it looks like to be dedicated.
Number one, to be dedicated, you have to tell someone you want to be dedicated.

Number two, you have to give something because you are dedicated, because you
trust in God. Number three, you have to praise God for His faithfulness. That's
part of dedication.

And number four, you have to trust God with your everyday needs. That's part of
dedication as well. We're going to look at the first couple of those today, and
then tomorrow we'll look at the last two of those as we talk at the beginning of
this week about what real dedication looks like in our lives.

And it starts with this. You have to tell someone. Tell someone that you want to
be dedicated.

It starts with a declaration. Listen to what happens in 1 Kings chapter 8 verses
14 to 21. "While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king
turned around and he blessed them.

And he said, 'Praise be to the Lord the God of Israel, who with His own hand has
fulfilled what He promised with His own mouth to my father David. For He said,
'Since the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city
in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built for my name to be there. But I've
chosen David to rule my people Israel.

My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the name of the Lord,
the God of Israel. But the Lord said to my father David, 'Because it was in your
heart to build a temple for my name, you did well to have this in your heart.
Nevertheless, you're not the one to build the temple.

But your son, who is your own flesh and blood, he is the one who will build the
temple for my name. The Lord has kept the promise He made. I have succeeded
David my father, and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the Lord
promised.

And I have built the temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. I have
provided a place for the ark, in which is the covenant of the Lord that He made
with our fathers, which He brought out of Egypt. '" So Solomon is celebrating
this dedication moment.

He's clearly saying before everybody, we are dedicating this temple to the Lord.
Down in verse 65 of this chapter, you see that this is a very, very, very public
event. The whole nation was there.

There's this vast assembly of people from the farthest north to the farthest
south. They've all come together to celebrate what God has done. Hundreds and
hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people are there gathered together for
this dedication day.

In a real sense, you can say that dedication is a public announcement of your
intentions and your commitments. And this day, Solomon is publicly announcing,
we intend this temple to be used for the Lord. When you talk about dedication,
many people see dedication as some kind of inner commitment that no one can
really see or understand.

That's not true. Dedication is always expressed in public commitments, public
actions. So that's what it means when we dedicate a child to the Lord.

You may have been to a child dedication. You're publicly announcing, the two
parents are publicly announcing the fact that they want to raise this child to
no faith, to no Christ. It's not some magical transformation for the child that
happens in that.

It's the declaration of the parents that's important. That's the dedication
moment. It's not the child who is dedicated in that moment.

It's really the parents who are declaring their dedication. That's what's
important. There's some people who see dedication as some inner spiritual drive
that others have and that you'll never be able to experience.

And nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is all of us can declare,
announce, tell to others our dedication, and then watch how God grows it in our
lives. You know when dedication begins to happen?

It always begins to happen. When you place your faith on the line in terms of
public commitments. It's that willingness to declare to others, this is who I
want to be.

This is what I want to do. This is what I'm choosing to do because of my faith.
In any instance of life when that happens, that's when a idea becomes a
commitment.

When America's forefathers penned the Declaration of Independence, they turned a
philosophy into a dedication to freedom. When John Kennedy said, "We're going to
put a man on the moon before the end of this decade," he transformed a
scientist's dream into a country's dedication. Now we were acting on it.

And when you, when you confess, when you declare to the world that Jesus Christ
is Lord, that he's the manager of your life, and you're going to do this because
you follow him, you're breaking away from just spiritual feelings to begin to
live a dedicated life. It starts with declaration, it starts with telling
someone else. Who do you need to tell?

What are the commitments that God is working into your heart, into your life
right now? That's where it starts. The second thing we learn about dedication
from Solomon on this day is in dedication you give something.

You give something because you trust God. There's a declaration step, that's the
first step, and then there's a sacrifice step. Sacrifice is always a part of
dedication.

So we read in verses 62 down to verse 64, "Then the king and all Israel with him
offered sacrifices before the Lord. Then offered a sacrifice of fellowship
offerings to the Lord, 22,000 cattle, and 120,000 sheep and goats. So the king
and all the Israelites dedicated the temple of the Lord.

On that same day the king consecrated the middle part of the courtyard in the
front of the temple of the Lord, and there he offered burnt offerings and grain
offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings, because the bronze altar
before the Lord was too small to hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings,
and the fat of the fellowship offerings. " So that last part was saying the
regular place they would have done the offerings, they were giving too many
offerings to hold all the offerings that they were giving. They were making a
sacrifice, and they sacrificed an unbelievable amount that day.

We read in verse 63, "22,000 cattle, 120,000 sheep and goats. " That's a lot of
t-bone steak and leg of lamb. That's a lot of dedication.

Just think not only of what was sacrificed, but of the tremendous amount of work
that was involved in presenting before God the sacrifice of that many animals.
Why? Why would they do this?

What was the purpose of this kind of a sacrifice? Well these sacrifices were not
Solomon's idea. God himself had made sacrifices an important part of Old
Testament worship.

Now we know now on a deeper level that these sacrifices, the blood that was
shed, was looking forward to the fact that Jesus was going to give his blood on
the cross for us one day. We understand that now. In that day, they understood
they were giving something to God because they trusted in God.

What was happening? What did these sacrifices do for the men and the women in
that day that was so important to the Lord? Sacrifices represented a gift of
trust in God.

As they sacrificed, they were declaring that they trusted God to meet their
needs. Instead of hoarding, instead of holding back those animals and saying,
"No, we're going to need this to meet our needs," they gave it to the Lord. When
they did that, they were saying, "God, we trust in you to meet our needs.

In my life, in your life, dedication will inevitably involve some sacrifices. "
And that means giving up some things which seem to be precious to you or useful
to you. The truth is you can't be dedicated to something new without giving up
something old.

And even if that something old might be a good thing sometimes, I'm not even
talking about the evil things in our lives that we have to give up because we
know Christ. Sometimes it's a good thing that you have to give up, but
dedication means you give it up. Now, this giving up of something, that might be
what honestly scares you about dedication.

In fact, if you didn't say it scared you a little bit, I would think you weren't
being honest with yourself because sacrifice is difficult. Sacrifice challenges
us. Sacrifice is ultimately an expression of trust in the Lord.

And without trust, you would never do it. You're willing to give something up
because you trust him. You trust him more than that something.

That's what it means to be dedicated. "God, I trust you more than that thing, so
I'm willing to give that thing, my time, my abilities, my plans, I'm willing to
give that thing to you. " That's what it means to be dedicated.

Now, tomorrow we're going to talk about two additional things that we learned
about dedication from Solomon. But to end the day, I want to give you a chance
to talk to God about what we've talked about today. So in prayer, would you just
say, "Lord, I want to be more dedicated.

I need to learn and grow to be more dedicated. So help me to know what to say.
Who do I need to tell what I want to see happen in my life, the ways that I want
to grow in my life, the new ministries that I want to see happen in my life, the
ways that I want to trust you?

Who do I need to tell? Who in my family, who in my small group do I need to
tell? And then, Lord, what do I need to give?

Something that might seem useful to me, something that might seem precious to
me. What do I need to give to you to trust into your hands? Knowing that as I
trust it into your hands, it's going to be more valuable there than it could
ever be if I hold on to it.

Lord, help me to tell someone. Help me to give to you. Help me to learn and grow
to be more dedicated.

I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.