Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Turn the World Upside Down | The Life of Solomon | Patrick Miller

Episode Date: June 8, 2021

Who defines your next step in life? David and Solomon broke their culture's script. Instead of putting his firstborn on the throne, David trusts Yahweh's choice. This is often how it goes in life - following Jesus means throwing out society's map and trusting God. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Also, if you want to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at TMBT Podcast. You can also check out our hashtag, hashtag, AskT, where you can ask us anything, and we'd love to connect with you. Who decides what's right and what's wrong in your life? Who decides, you know, what's the next step you're going to take for your career, for your education, for your relationship, for your kids. So often, if we're going to be honest, the answer is straightforward. I decide, or if we're going to be even more honest, the world around us decides.

I'm not trying to spiritualize anything. It's just the simple truth. Whatever our society defines as the quote-unquote normal path, the normal thing, the smart thing, that's just what we do. Why do people go to high school and then college and then get a job and then get married and then buy a house and then have a kid? Well, that's just the order that society has given us. Or maybe that order doesn't fit you. Maybe in your family it's different. I remember the first time I became aware of the fact that not everybody goes on the same path. It's when I was in high school.

And one of my best friends, he grew up in a family where the norm was to graduate from high school and then learn. a trade and go work it, become a car mechanic, work at a factory, go into construction, something like that. But my friend, he wanted to go to college, and that totally broke his family's map. And while no one told him, no, you can't do that, he really had no support. And this was totally different than my family. My parents pushed me to apply for colleges. They walked me through every step of the process. My friend, on the other hand, he had to figure out every single step by himself and on his own. You see, breaking the script of society, breaking the script of your family is a lot harder than actually just following it, just giving in to what everybody around you

says. And I think that's why we, I, you really break the script. We do what's normal. You go along with the herd. So again, who decides what's right and what's wrong in your life? Who decides what's the next step for your career, your education, your relationships, your kids? In 1 Kings 1, we read how David and Solomon broke the script. The culture of the ancient Near East, they expected that a king's eldest son was going to reign in his place after he died. But David, he ends up setting a totally different pattern. Instead of letting his oldest son reign, he commits to allowing a younger son, whose name is son, Solomon, he lets him reign. And he does this because David himself, David made an oath. He made an oath to

Solomon's mom, and he made an oath before Yahweh. And that oath was to break the script. The eldest son is not going to reign. This is what David says to Beth Sheba, who's Solomon's mother. As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble, I will surely carry out this very day what I swore to you by the Lord, the God of Israel. Solomon, your son, be king after me, and he will sit on my throne in my place. David then goes on to give all his court officials and the priest around him instructions to anoint Solomon as king over Israel and to march him through the city and to put him on his own throne. First Kings 138 says,

So Zadok, the priest, Nathan, the prophet, Beniah, the son of Jehoiada, the Carothites, the Pelothites, went down and had Solomon mount King David's mule, and they escorted him to Gihon. Zadok, the priest, took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted, long live king Solomon. And all the people went up after him, playing pipes and rejoicing greatly. So that the ground shook with the sound. Solomon takes David's throne. It breaks the script.

Everybody would have expected David's elder son to be the one who ruled. When Solomon comes before David, the author tells us that David bows down and he worships God for faithfully putting one of his own sons on the throne. Now you have to understand this was great news for David, great news for Solomon, but this wasn't great news for everybody who was following the script. Everybody who thought that the eldest son should be king. David's eldest son, his name was Adaniah. And at the exact same time, Adonijah is trying to make himself king without David's input. without Yahweh's approval. Adonijah says, look, I'm following the script.

This is what all societies expect. I'm supposed to be king. I am taking what I expect as my own. And I think on one level, if you're like me, you're probably tempted to feel bad for Adonijah. I mean, poor guy. He didn't get what he deserved. But I think we'd be missing the point,

which is that this is so often how Yahweh works. He breaks the script. He looks at what society says, and he says, nope, I'm throwing it out. He looks at the, map that you have for your life and he says, nope, I'm throwing it out. He calls you not to ask, what does society say I should do next? What does society say is right or wrong? Yawai says, no, I'll throw that script out. Come to me, ask me instead. And of course, it's no surprise.

What Yahweh says and what society around us say, those two things rarely agree. Of course, we have to have the courage to trust Yahweh, to risk breaking the script. But I think that's precisely the note that the author of Kings wants to strike. David, Ashiba, Nathan, Solomon, they all put their faith in Yahweh, not the script of the ancient Near East. They all put their faith in Yahweh, not the normal practices of making the eldest son king. They said, Yahweh, you know best. You know who you want to rule. And it might not be who everybody expects.

It might not be who society says. And all of this highlights a key question that runs throughout the story of Solomon's life. Sometimes in a good way, a lot of times in a bad way. It's this, who is really king in your life? Who really decides for you what's right, what's wrong, what's next? Is it going to be yourself? Is it going to be society and the world around you? Or is it going to be king Yahweh?

Right now, look at your life. life, who is really king over your life? I know. The last year has been disheartening. Maybe that's the nature of any year that's rattled by a pandemic, an election, and a crazy amount of protests. But it's really pulled the mask off of so many of us, where we've had to ask ourselves this question, is Jesus my king or is someone else? Am I following Jesus? Because at least at one point, it looked cool and it fit in well with society. And now maybe Maybe I'm walking away from it because Jesus is less cool and society is going a different direction.

Does Jesus determine my view of right and wrong? Or does my favorite news outlet determine my view of right and wrong? Does Jesus' pattern of life, his call to love your enemy, his call to be nonviolent? Is that determining your way of life, your vision of love and justice and mercy and goodness? Or are you bashing your enemies, calling them names, and just a lot? destructive violence against others or their property. On a more personal level, I think it's been easy over the last year just to kind of hide out.

We've seen each other less, and so it's easy to let bad habits grow. We've become shorter with friends, more gossiping, more unkind, impatient with our kids. We've maybe even grown distant from our spouse. And all of these changes in our life, they are begging a question, who is king in your life? Are you going to follow the script that society gives you? Are you going to follow the script that your political party gives you? Will you follow the script that social media gives you? Will you follow the script that says, well, my friends in grad school all say it's cool?

Or, hey, my friends in work, I'll do it. Or, hey, all the other moms agree with this. One of my favorite musicals is Hamilton. And probably my favorite song in the musical is the world turned upside down. I think a lot of people who listen to Hamilton don't realize it, but that's actually a real song, and it's rooted in real history. During the English Revolution in the 1600s, when they kicked out the king for a brief period of time, they sung that song as the king was on his way out. The world turned upside down. It was sung in the streets.

And that was actually, interestingly, probably taken from the book of Acts. You see, in the book of Acts, when the apostles are preaching that Jesus is king and that Caesar isn't king, people say to the apostles that these are the men who are what turning the world upside down. Of course, the truth is that they were actually turning the world right side up. They were taking the world's scripts and turning those upside down, but they were making things right again. Following Jesus, it does make you into a revolutionary because you don't buy into the world's upside down scripts. You don't buy into the world's upside down standards. Instead, you turn the world upside down.

which is to say you turn the world right side up. That requires courage, it requires bravery, it requires rejecting the status quo. Now I'll tell you what, it will not make you popular. It won't mean that you get to match every popular opinion out there. Your life, it's going to look strange. But are you willing to turn the world upside down so that you can live right side up under the authority and will of King Jesus? Pray that today.

that God would allow you to flip the script in your life, to flip the script on your morals, your worldview, your lifestyle, to turn it all upside down so that you can live right side up with him. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or a family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually.

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