Sermon Central
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In Pursuit Of Portion
Contributed by Joe Dan Vendelin on Mar 23, 2024 (message contributor)
Summary: Our life's pursuits ultimately define us. King David was a man after God's own heart. King Solomon ultimately pursued other things. Being in pursuit of God as your portion will lead you into the fullness of His goodness today as well as for an eternity.
King David said, “??O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
??You maintain my lot.” Psalm 16:5
The word for portion in Hebrew is manâ (Strong’s H4490), and it is translated as part or portion. It’s used 14 times. In most of these instances, it refers to the portion of an offering. But, here David says that the Lord Himself is his portion.
Today, I would like to focus on how our pursuits become our portion. David prayed that the Lord would deliver him from men “whose reward is in this life” (Psalm 17:14 NIV).
The title of this sermon is “In Pursuit of Portion.” Be careful in your pursuits. Your pursuits preoccupy. Pursuits carry you. So, just be sure you are in pursuit of something you want to end up having.
Ecclesiastes 7:4 says, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.” It is easy to find yourself in the house of pleasure. To find yourself preoccupied with things that do not extend beyond today. Things that ultimately will be exposed as wood, hay, and stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12-13).
But, here is the thing, we are hardwired to be in pursuit. So, it is just a question of what we are in pursuit of.
King Solomon was the wisest man in his geographical area, to say the least (1 Kings 4:30). When God asked him what he wanted, he asked for wisdom. God promised him wisdom and even more than he asked for as described in 1 Kings:
“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.” 1 Kings 3:12-14 (NIV)
God gave Solomon a “wise and discerning heart” and set him up to have no equal–in his time or ever. What a powerful promise.
But, what happened? Did he live up to this range of wisdom? As described earlier he was the wisest in the “East.” But, is he described as the wisest of all time?
It’s not always how you start but how you finish. This takes us back to Solomon’s own words in Ecclesiastes 7:4. The house of mourning is the place of understanding the end of it all. The end of what God has in store for you on this earth. It is the end of your days.
If you stood on that day and looked back at your life, where would you be as far as your life’s pursuits? Would you be proud? Would you be ready to stand before the Lord in anticipation of hearing “well done” (Matthew 25:23)?
We cannot say what anyone will hear when they stand before the Lord on that day. Solomon was given a lot. As a matter of fact, he was set up to be the wisest ever. That is a massive feat–to have no one ever wiser than him. A super high bar.
But, did he live up to the potential?
In the end, he clearly missed it.
1 Kings 11:4-8 describes how the pursuit of his own pleasures with his reward being in this life led him to a heart of doing evil in the sight of the Lord. He started out by building the temple of the Lord. (This occurred during 7 of his 40 years of reign as king over Israel. He spent 7 years building the temple of the Lord and 13 years building his own palace.)
How does someone with so much wisdom wind up not pursuing God?
Jesus warned that where your treasure is your heart would be (Matthew 6:21). Just like Solomon, we can start out right but end up wrong.
The title of this message is “In Pursuit of Portion.” Portion has been described as an allotment. King David said that his portion was the Lord Himself.
That was his pursuit. He was a man after God’s own heart and God chose him to be king because of this (Acts 13:22). God wants to richly bless us, just like he did King David. David paid the price of war for Solomon to have a place of peace.
You may be in a time of peace today because someone went before you to pay the price of war. In a spiritual sense, there may be someone in your family or spiritual lineage who paid the price of knowing God. They made the choice to follow Jesus.
