Muskoka Lakes Ministry of Knox, Port Carling & Zion, Torrance
Sunday July 11, 2021
Message: The Lukewarm King
Reverend Glynis Faith
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Announcements
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* Monday 7pm Bible Study via Zoom

* Thursday 7:30pm Lectio Divina via Zoom
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Prayer of Adoration & Confession
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(adapted from 1Kings 8:12-61)
Praise and glory be to You, O God. There is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below. You, Lord God, keep Your covenant with all who will live in covenant with You. From generation to generation to generation to generation, You have been faithful. You make promises to Your people - - promises to bless – to protect – to lead – to provide – to provide a Saviour! You keep Your promises, and we praise You, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit – blessed Trinity.
O Lord, You are faithful, but we are not. When Your people sin against You- for there is no one who does not sin – You enable us to see our sins - - - to know our sin. Lord, give us hearts to discern when we turn from Your ways and wisdom to repent of our sins and return our hearts to You.
May You always be with us, as You have been with our ancestors. May we turn our hearts to You that we might walk in obedience to You, keeping Your commandments and following in the footsteps of Jesus, in whose name we pray. AMEN
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Prayer of Intercession
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We bow our heads before You, our Truth, our Way, our Life, asking You to hear our prayers.
Lord, where there is sickness, we pray for healing;
where there is sorrow, we pray from comfort;
may all who mourn feel Your loving presence surrounding them;
may those who are feeling weak feel Your assuring strength.
We pray safety for children and families travelling this summer.
We offer our prayers for medical and care-giving staff that are feeling exhausted now that hospitalizations and overall covid 19 cases are decreasing.
We give thanks for lowering case counts and for warmer weather that makes it possible for us to interact more safely.
Lord, we pray for world peace, for revival – we pray for miracles that only You can bring about. All these things we pray in the perfect name of Jesus our Lord. AMEN
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“ The Lukewarm King ”
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1 Kings 3:5-15 NIV
5 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.”
6 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.
7 “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. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 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?”
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 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, 12 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. 13 Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. 14 And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” 15 Then Solomon awoke—and he realized it had been a dream.
He returned to Jerusalem, stood before the ark of the Lord’s covenant and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then he gave a feast for all his court.
King Solomon is often remembered for his wisdom. Most of the proverbs are attributed to him. He is also considered by many scholars to be the author of the dramatic love poetry of the Song of Songs and the philosophical book of Ecclesiastes.
I once read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 at a funeral. That is the familiar: there is a time and a place for all things under the heavens, a time to be born and a time to die, and time to plant and a time to uproot . . . - - you may be familiar with the passage.
Actually, many people are familiar with the song written by Pete Seeger in the mid 50’s, but really, Pete merely took what Solomon had written and added “I swear it’s not to late” and ‘turn, turn, turn” in to create lyrics. In 1965 (an excellent year, by the way) a band by the name of the Byrds recorded Seegers or Solomon’s words and it became a smash hit, making it all the way to #1 on the top 100 billboard.
So, to my surprise, following the funeral service, one fellow came up to me and complemented my use of the Byrds’ song, to which I replied, I did not read the words of the Byrds’ song, I read the words of Solomon from the Ecclesiastes 3. Its in the Bible. Nah, he said. Yes, here let me show you, I replied. He looked puzzled, but not puzzled enough to let me show him.
Solomon was also known for his wealth and fame – oh, and for his 700 wives and 300 concubines – but we will discuss that shortly. I am sure if Solomon had known the fame and riches the Byrd’s would gain by using his writings, he would have figured out the process of copywriting centuries sooner!!
Perhaps you have heard of Solomon’s wisdom, or how he built the temple of God, or how rich and powerful he became throughout the land, BUT, have you heard that he was a lukewarm King? What do I mean by that? Well, let me begin with a scientific discovery:
Is anyone here a fan of eating frog’s legs??? Well, let me give you a tip for the next time you go to cook a pot of frog’s legs. The research on cooking frogs shows that if you pitch a frog into a pot of boiling water, you better be prepared for that frog to jump right back up into your face. The instant the frog senses the heat of the water, it instinctively does what frogs do – it hops up and away (who can blame the poor thing).
If you want to cook frog’s legs, you prepare a pot of lukewarm water. Frogs like being in water and lukewarm is a comfortable temperature to be in. For some reason, if you turn the heat up, they simply do not notice the change in temperature, and slowly - viola – cooked frog’s legs.
One might call this climatizing – as things slowly change, one adapts to the changes – often times, without even noticing changes have occurred.
Sometimes the changes are societal – changes to laws. We may not agree with a change, but over time we adapt - - - Sunday shopping is one example. At one time in our history only businesses deemed essential remained open. Of course, essential then becomes debatable, and over time it is simply easier to let businesses and consumers to decide for themselves.
Sometimes the changes are personal – changes to our perspectives and our behaviours. A person decides this drive thru coffee idea is a positive thing, so they try it. Turns out having a hot coffee in hand while driving is a good experience, so one finds themselves spending 10-20 minutes caught in long line ups every morning on the way to work. Before you know it you are doling out about $500 dollars a year (and that is only if you don’t add a bagel or muffin to your morning order) and adding 20 extra minutes to your morning commute.
Many people throughout this pandemic have realized just how much their harmless little habits were costing them a year.
Now, some of these subtle changes are harmless, and some only seem that way. We can rationalize a lot of things to favour our wants and perspectives, but what if we realized the long-term affects of our choices.
Notice in our reading today, Solomon only asks for the ability to discern and rule the land justly, and God tells him: “ Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.”
I will give you more than what you asked, God says. And, by the way, if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life too . . .
But guess what? Solomon does not end his reign as well as he began it. God gives Solomon the wisdom to reign, and he is renowned for his wise judgements. Yet, as time went on, Solomon begins to think strategically instead of wisely.
It is important that we recognize that wisdom is not the same as intelligence. Wisdom is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Intelligence is more of a cognitive process – memorization – rationalization – and science has found there are multiple types of intelligence: visual/special, linguistic, math/logic, musical, interpersonal or social and intrapersonal or self-reflective.
Originally, Solomon asked for wisdom to rule justly, but over time he shifted to using intelligence to rule strategically and increase his power and wealth. Somewhere along the journey, Solomon’s eyes slipped off God’s vision and onto his own.
Did you know it took Solomon 7 years to oversee the construction of the Temple? When it was completed Solomon set his vision on building a palace for himself. Do you know how many years it took for the palace to be completed? 13 years! You can read the accounts of the construction of the two structures in 1 Kings. It is worth a read.
Oh, the House of God was impressive – the best lumber – gold overlay – the finest cut stone – every detail was attended to. But Solomon’s palace, well that is a different story. It too was built of the finest stone and lumber, but the extra 6 years of construction were used in excessive details, or what we might call a whole lotta bling!
Interestingly, both the Temple and the palace were built using forced labour. Those who lived in the land that were not Israelites or from the 12 tribes of Israel were forcefully enlisted to build these massive structures. The Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites Hivites, and Jebusites were essentially slaves of the state. Does that sound like God’s will to you? No!
Solomon gifts the King of Tyre with land as a thank you for supplying the fine lumber. What Solomon gave him was the dessert equivalent of me giving you ‘swamp land.’ The king named the land given him Kabul, which means “good for nothing land.” It is kinda like when a person donates the expired items from their pantry to the food bank. Does that sound like God’s will – to reward generosity with garbage? No, absolutely not!
Solomon did not stop with the Temple and the palace, but built up a collection of chariots and horses and then built towns to store his growing collections. And how did Solomon pay for all of this excess? He taxed the people heavily. Does that sound like God’s will? No, God calls us to give freely and generously, but not by force, and certainly not to place a heavy burden upon people.
And then there were the 700 wives of royal birth and 300 concubines Solomon accumulated. Many of his marriages were to foreign wives and solely for the purpose of creating alliances with neighbouring kings. Now here is the thing, the Israelites were not to intermarry. Why? “. . . because they will surely turn your heart after their gods.” (1Kings 11:2) And according the 1Kings 11:4, that is exactly what happened, “As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD, God, as the heart of David his father had been.”
Solomon started strong – ‘all I want is the discernment to be a wise and just ruler’, but temptation kept turning up the heat and Solomon did not notice his lukewarm was getting hot, and he was in it way over his head. His mistakes – His sins would eventually lead to the nation of Israel being torn in two, with the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.
So, my friends, what relevance does any of this have for us today?
Well, Solomon started strong when he was focussed on God’s will, but when he began focussing on himself and strategies to get what he wanted he lost sight of God – lost sight of how God was calling him to serve.
Solomon teaches us that it is easy to get off track, so we need to work hard at keeping our eyes, ears and hearts fixed on God’s will. Take time regularly to check in with God to make sure you are not standing in a pot of lukewarm water. Ask any frog you meet – better to stand side by side with God then it is to stand in a pot of lukewarm water with your friends!
Please pray with me: Lord God, daytime or nightime is always the right time to fix our thoughts on You. May our thoughts ever dwell in You, and may Your presence ever dwell in us. When we are weak or weary You provide shelter for our souls and give power to the faithful. You, Lord, are our inheritance - the only treasure we truly need. Whatever battles we face – whatever lies ahead – be our vision, O Lord – be our guiding light. In Christ we pray. AMEN
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#461 Be Thou My Vision
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Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that though art,
thou my best thought in the day and the night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
thou my great Father, thine own may I be,
thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight,
be thou my armour and be thou my might,
thou my soul’s shelter and though my high tower,
rise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I head not, nor vain earthly praise,
thou my inheritance, through all my days,
thou and thou only, the first in my heart,
high King of heaven, my treasure thou art!

High King of heaven, when the battle is done,
grant heaven’s joy to me, O bright heaven’s Son,
heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, o ruler of all.
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Commission & Benediction
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As you leave this place of worship, keep your eyes, ears and heart firmly fixed on God’s will in your life, serving God and neighbour with wisdom and great compassion . . . And as you do . . .

May the love, grace and peace of God go with you. AMEN