Rich in Christ Part I: Solomon

Segment of Part 1 from a retreat I did for some super cool high school kids in east Tennessee a few months back. Enjoy.
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Solomon spent his life pursuing wealth, power, possessions, and women. Extravagant palaces, huge kingdom, 700 wives, everything to the greatest extremes--and he found it all meaningless. Quite possibly one of the riches and wealthiest guys in history, and he says it himself, “I missed it, I missed out on the real treasure.”

In Proverbs 2 Solomon shares with us what that “one thing” is we’re all looking for; he points out our treasure.

It’s the Lord, it’s a connection, an understanding of who he is and what he does for you. Scripture says God is more precious than valuable stones or anything else. Granddaddy Solomon is pleading with us to listen to his advice. There’s no value in the riches this world offers: power, possessions, prosperity.

Notice the verbs here he uses in chapter 2 to describe our quest: “accept, store up, turn, apply, call out, cry aloud, search, look for.” This idea of searching for him like silver or like a hidden treasure, it’s an unoccupied pursuit. He’s the hidden treasure, the ONE THING that is worth searching for, worth pursuing. And if anyone knows this, it’s Solomon.

There lived a great missionary/explorer in the mid 1800’s named David Livingstone. He was Scottish and very poor, but first European to see Victoria Falls and the headwaters of the Nile River. Livingstone spent his whole life telling the people of Africa about God, venturing into the deepest jungles. A man who knew well the one thing worth pursuing, he did so with everything he had, for everyone he ever met.

There’s a point in his ministry in Africa when some people back home wanted to come visit him to see the work he’s been doing and witness firsthand the amazing things he’d written about. So they sent word and asked him, “Have you found a good, smooth road to where you are?”

And David Livingstone writes back to them, “If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don't want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.”

So I wanna close tonight with this question: what would you pursue if there was no road at all? Would it be the Lord?
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pic of the day: