Scott Wiley here, the Executive Director of Wisdom International. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. What began as a radio programme in a single city has grown into a global ministry now in sixteen languages. We're hosting a banquet to celebrate all that the Lord has done and you're invited. Please visit wisdomonline.org slash twenty five.
That's wisdomonline.org slash 25. There's a link in the show notes. And now here's Stephen with today's message from Wisdom for the Heart. I don't know who said it first, but I've always smiled at the statement that when God shuts a door, He opens a window.
Now the window for David was the opportunity to prepare. He won't be able to dig one footing. He's not going to hammer one nail. He'll never hang one door. By the time you get to 1 Chronicles and David's speech, where he hands over the blueprints to Solomon.
And he announces to the nation all that he's prepared, how he spent the remainder of his life getting ready for this. You would expect to find the shell of an angry old man. But you don't. God effectively tells Nathan to go and. Tell David that he doesn't need a house.
And the house that will be built, the temple, Won't be built by his hand. In fact, if you look down at verse 12, I read it quickly. David is informed by Nathan that when he lies down with his fathers, that is, when he dies, His descendant will build that Temple.
Now in a parallel passage and 2 Chronicles 17, it reads even more clearly, The word of God came to Nathan, saying, Go and tell David, my servant, thus says the Lord, you shall not build a house for me to dwell in. David, it won't be you, it will be your son.
Solomon.
Now, before you rush ahead and say, well, yeah, it's great, stayed in the family, and that'd be wonderful. No, no, no. Keep in mind, David has no ulterior motive here, he has no selfish ambition here. He has no desire to make a name for himself. He's not going to write his name over the.
Front door. He wants to exalt the name of God. Can you imagine wanting to exalt the name of God, wanting to do something glorious for God? Have no ulterior motive, have no selfish ambition. God, I want to do this for you, and God says.
Yeah. We're given a little further clarification in the Chronicles that since David spent most of his life at war, God wanted a man of peace. To build the temple and Solomon. whose name is a derivative of shalom. will be that man of peace.
It isn't a matter of David's heart being wrong, it's a matter where God simply said. No.
Now pause for a moment. with the difficulty of this in mind for Nathan himself. Imagine a prophet having to do an about face. within 12 hours. Yeah.
That wouldn't have been easy. David is going to have another appointment the next morning with Nathan, and Nathan is going to have to effectively say, Look, David, I got so excited, and I know it's your passion and your desire. It sounded great, and wouldn't that be wonderful that I said, you know, God would be pleased for you. Go for it. God came to me and said.
Well yeah. He'll be pleased with. the building of his temple But That can be such a discouraging word. Can it? Makes you just want to cry.
Yeah. You had planned to go to College or graduate school. But You had made plans to get married. But You were told that you were the person for that job. But You had planned on having lots of children.
But You'd plan on not having any more children. But That little conjunction can change everything, can't it? In fact, when you're talking to someone, what comes after they say but. is what really matters.
So tune in. Your child's elementary school teacher calls you and says, We really love having. A little tornado in the classroom with us. But A client calls up and says, We've enjoyed doing business with you for years. But Maybe you fellas had a girlfriend call you at some point and say, you know, you're a really nice guy, and I really like spending time with you.
But You know what that means? It means you are now free to move about the country. That's what that means. I'm convinced David was unable to sleep. He was excited.
He was dreaming, planning. The things he would do for the glory of God. And God said, Oh, but I have something else in mind. You know, it strikes me that When we're told that David had a heart after God, A heart after God's own heart. That's such a big statement, isn't it?
You can't attack that in one lesson. A mark of having a heart after God is probably nowhere. more revealed than in how someone responds when God's heart says, No. Let's go through these next few verses quickly, and let me give you five summary words revealed in David's attitude. And action.
We'll call it five ways to respond when God says no. All right? Here we go. Number one, the first way to respond is with humility. Look at verse 18.
Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that you have brought me thus far? He doesn't go into God's presence, and I got a laundry list of why I'm the man for the job. Why in the world wouldn't you let me do that without any argument, without any protest? David is literally at his best here when he goes into that skin-covered tabernacle. and offers up the self-deprecating self-regulation.
renunciating, self-denying testimony. Who am I anyway? To have received what you've given me already. What do I even have now? That isn't a result of your goodness.
In other words, dream or no dreams, I am a blessed person. David says. When God says no, respond. with humility, secondly respond with gratitude. Look at verse 19, and yet this was a small...
thing in your eyes. O Lord God, you've spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come. You can insert, and that was a surprise. What you're doing for me, Lord. He's choosing to focus on what God is going to do rather than what God has chosen not to do.
Gratitude comes when we're willing to view the will of God in a longer term rather than a shorter term. Term, God has something else in mind. In fact, have you ever thought about the fact implied in God's response to David through Nathan that had God allowed David to begin building the temple 20 years earlier when he wanted to, David would more than likely have made it out of cedar. Cut didn't want it out of cedar. He wanted it out of stone.
M. Gold. and silver. I read recently about a man who Had heard God say no. And then God's design.
was a yes in a different way. It would involve surprise and disappointment. He and his wife Had dedicated their lives to vocational ministry. They were going to Africa to reach an unreached tribe, and they raised all their support. They made it to the field.
And in the middle of their first term, his wife came down with a serious disease which caused them to have to leave The field. and come back to the United States. In order to make a living, He joined his father in His dentistry practice, it was the last thing he wanted to do. They needed to eat. He also had the idea just from understanding a need within the congregation.
He was part of a denomination that observed the Lord's table every time they gathered. And grape juice didn't have a very long shelf life before it would begin to ferment.
So he began to experiment. He experimented. With pasteurization so that he could provide unfermented grape juice for their communion. He figured it out. The young man who had been a missionary, his dream had been dashed along with his wife.
His name was Thomas Welch. He went on to produce Quote. Unfermented sacramental wine. For church. But it caught on.
And to this day, In fact, within 10 years... It was selling around the world along with Welch. Uh grape jelly. He would go on to give Hundreds of of thousands of dollars. to the gospel enterprises.
God said no. to that. And a yes. to this. Maybe you can't teach.
But you can pray. Maybe you can't go, but you can support. Maybe you can't sing. But you can organize. Maybe you can't run that particular race, but you can provide the shoes for the people who can.
God says no. To that, and yes, Well, after planning and organizing, For 20 years, this temple is going to be absolutely breathtaking. And you hear 20 years earlier nothing but gratitude in David's voice as God will begin to unfold an entirely different plan for his life. Respond. With humility and gratitude.
Thirdly, respond with surrender. These aren't easy words, by the way. These are daily challenges. Respond with surrender. If you look at verse 20, David says, and again, what more can David?
Say to you. For you know your servant Oh Lord God. In other words, I'm your servant. What more can I say? I belong to you, and that's good enough.
Isn't it interesting that in verse 18 he asks, who am I? And in verse 20, he says, I am your servant. Which provides an interesting principle of surrender and security. It's not so much. Who you are, but whose?
You are. On your timing. Surrendering, and here's, I think, the tough part: surrendering to the plan of God means you are surrendering to the pace. Mm-hmm. As he directs your steps.
And that pace. Never fits. Ours. It's never been easy. I can remember years ago Driving our twin sons.
to kindergarten. A couple of mornings a week, give Marcia a break, and we carpooled with another family. They had a son as well, all in kindergarten. I used to drive and just. They'd be in the back and I'd just...
I just listen to their conversations. It's one Sermon illustration after another. I loved it. For several weeks, I got to tell you, they talked about the latest rage in kidney garden. I mean, the latest thing, the big thing, and the latest rage just so happened to be loose.
Teeth. That was the talk. That was the talk. They knew everybody in class who had a loose tooth by name. And if they lost that tooth, they'd come in the next morning, and that would be show and tell.
Look, that face right there. In fact, after first hour, I have Three kids would come up and give me a hug. And The one that came up, it was: look at this tooth, Pastor, it's the loose. And I could wiggle it. I mean, this is just the badge of growing up, right?
It's funny, Marcia and I had a little trouble with our twins. Actually, we had a lot of trouble with our twins, but we had a little trouble with this problem. They were born on the same day, and they thought in their minds that everything then should happen at the same time. It just didn't happen that way. I can remember one of my boys announced his tooth was loose, and his brother, our twin son, immediately reached for his, and it was not loose.
It was panic time. In fact, all night long he worked on that tooth. And he came down at breakfast and announced it's loose than it was. He'd succeeded.
Well, one particular Friday afternoon, we're riding along with that little boy, the three of them, and That little boy announced there was a girl in kindergarten that had two loose teeth at the same time. Oh my God. Goodness, how good could life be? He knew her name, and then one of our sons just said, that never happens to me. Yeah, that's it.
He said, why does everybody have loose teeth except me? I had to pull over and do emergency counseling right there on the side of the road. I couldn't help but think. We really don't get far past that, do we? The only thing that changes is the object of our discontent.
It didn't lose teeth. It's something else. It's things that we can't hammer down. It's it's What we'd like to purchase, but can't. It's a home, it's a career, it's a relationship.
David, in a sense. Is echoing the attitude of Paul, who writes, I have learned in whatever situation I am. In To be content. Philippians 4:11. Wow.
Whether rich or poor, he goes on to explain, whether appreciated or unappreciated. Whether in need or in abundance, whether I got a loose tooth or none of them are loose. Whatever. You say, wow, I just wish I had that gift of contentment. It's not a gift.
Paul said I have Learned. That kind of learning takes place In a classroom with curriculum more than likely entitled, When God Says. No.
Trouble is we don't want to stay in class. Long enough to learn it. Here's David with great submission and surrender. Lord, I belong to you. I'm going to wait on you, your purpose, your plan, your Pace.
You're ordering my steps. You've ordered my stop here. You've got something else for me to do. Fourth. Respond with praise.
Look at this response in verse 22. It's hard to imagine this coming on the heels of Nathan revisiting him and saying, God just said no. Look at this. You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God beside you.
Wait, didn't God just say no? Yes, He did. Isn't He great? Excuse me? Didn't God just take away your dream?
Yeah, but he didn't take away my faith. There's no God. Like him. But but shouldn't you, you know, try to force the locks? Maybe you can batter it down.
Maybe knock harder. No, God has closed this door, and I'm waiting on His direction. to go in a different way. One author provoked my thinking when he said the difference between waiting on God. and wrestling with God.
is worship. The difference between waiting on God and wrestling with God is worshiping. God. And from verse 22 to the end of this chapter, You could spend a week just Going through David's declaration of the glory and the greatness and the faithfulness and the grace of God. God.
Respond when God says no with humility, surrender, gratitude, praise. One more fifth. Respond with readiness. Readiness. I don't know who said it first, but I've always smiled at the statement that when God shuts a door, He opens a window.
So stay alert.
Now the window for David was the opportunity to prepare. He won't be able to dig one footing. He's not going to hammer one nail. He'll never hang one door. But he can prepare for that.
What do you think David did for the next 20 years? Oh, I don't get to hang any doors, hammer any nails, dig any footings. Forget it. I don't want to have anything to do with this temple.
Sorry I ever thought about it. Oh no. What do you think he dreamed about? You know, beating some more Philistines over the head, no. Building the temple of God.
It's obvious.
So by the time you get to First Chronicles and David's speech, We're not going to study it, but it'd be a great study where he hands over the blueprints to Solomon. And he announces to the nation all that he's prepared, how he's spent the remainder of his life getting ready for this. You would expect to find the shell of an angry old man. But you don't. In fact, just let me read to you as he dedicates this work, as it formally begins.
He tells the congregation, he informs Solomon. That he has, as they prepare now to build, organized and trained 38,000 priests. Their clothing. They're courses. They're units.
What they'll do. He's trained 6,000 officers who will lead them. He's trained 4,000 gatekeepers. He will circulate. He's trained 4,000 people to sing and play musical instruments.
They'll all have an instrument. He has overseen the development and the building of 4,000 musical instruments. He says, with great pains I have provided for the house of the Lord. I love the fact that he said that because God said no to something he really wanted to do and what God said yes to, he said, it was painful. With great pains, with great care, with great difficulty.
He says, I have. provided 7,500 tons of gold. And 75,000 tons of silver. Bronze and iron beyond weighing. There's so much of it.
Timber and stone I have provided.
Solomon, you have an abundance now of workmen, stone cutters, carpenters, all kinds of craftsmen without number, skilled in working gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Arise and work, the Lord be with you. One author estimated that David had saved up in today's economy.
Somewhere around $5 billion worth of gold. Then silver. And there's no shell of a bitter old man. This is an excited, thrilled man. who had accepted God's answer and spent his years preparing in whatever way he could for the work.
This is like being excited. That you spent 20 years to gather seeds.
So that somebody else can plant an orchard that will bear fruit you will never taste. Get excited about that. This is a spirit of readiness. God said no to that. to this I'll focus on what I can do.
Even though God has changed everything. I want to share, I I was driven to the airport. On this past Friday, By a word of life student. whose job was to drive the speakers to and from. And I said, What are you planning on doing?
And he said, Well I'm doing a lot of thinking about that. Things have changed. I said, oh, how? He said, well, a month and a half ago, my father... was killed.
I said, how so? He said it was a car accident. My father was a pastor. Driving a group of students on an activity and on the way back a tire blew and the van flipped and rolled. And my father was killed, and I said, I heard about that.
That was your dad. He said yes. He said, I was studying in New York and now my mother lives here in Florida and my my siblings and I'm I'm the man of the house and I'm back here praying. About what God has next. And I said, Well, what do you think He has?
He said, Well, I'm fairly convinced that he wants me. to go into the ministry now. I said, oh, you're going to carry on your dad's legacy? And he said, yeah. I said, well, how do you feel about that?
He said. I'm really excited. Maybe you've come in here today and You've experienced a change, a shift. of some sort. Maybe your view of life is Well, there's got to be something different.
something better, something faster, something newer, something more exciting. You're waiting. And there's an open window here. And over there? Oh, but but I I I'm waiting on that door.
I found it interesting in my research to come across a survey, a secular survey, that. that interviewed 3,000 People, adults. Asking them the question, what do you have to live for? That's a penetrating question, isn't it? What do you have to live for?
And as I read the answers, this pervasive theme that ran. Through 90% of their answers. had the same idea that they were waiting for something to happen they wanted to see happen. They were all waiting for something they didn't have. or something they hoped would take place.
For instance, a number of them were living for that moment when they were going to be married. What's the life mean for you now?
Well, not much, but I'm going to get married. Others were waiting for children to be born. Others were waiting for their children. to leave home.
Some were waiting for that long dreamed about Trip. Most of them were waiting. to retire. The tragedy. Was that all of them were waiting for something to happen in the future, and in the meantime, life meant little.
And the survey summarized with these perceptive words. Especially from a secular source. They indeed pointed to the truth of God's wisdom. These people were waiting. without realizing that all anyone has is today.
Because yesterday is gone. And they may not have Tomorrow. Are you waiting for God to change his mind? Are you waiting for God to change the locks on the door? Or for God to stamp your dreams with his approval.
Or like David coming and sitting In the tabernacle, in the presence of God, and saying, Who am I? Who am I? But your servant. You've already been so good to me. What could I do to serve you?
today, here and now, in the mundane. in the drudgery of perhaps all of it, in in in in the repetitive cycle of it all. What how can I bring you glory here? In whatever and wherever you have placed me. You see, if I could summarize those five words, I would put it this way.
Let's respond like David with humility for what he has chosen for us. For you. Respond with surrender to what he has chosen to do. Through you. Respond with gratitude for what he has chosen.
to give you. Respond with praise for what he has chosen to receive. from you. And respond with readiness for how he has chosen. His will to be prepared.
Organized? or supported or enabled. or interceded. By you. For his name.
For his glory. For his praise. You might be struggling with humility. God, don't you know who I am rather than I'm just your servant. It might be a struggle of surrender.
for what he's chosen. Maybe it's a struggle of gratitude. Praise. Whatever way the Spirit of God has provoked your heart, take just a moment. Talk back with them.
You're not here by coincidence. This text was determined by him Long time ago. That was Stephen Davey, and this is Wisdom for the Heart, a production of Wisdom International. Learn more at wisdomonline dot org.
