May 25, 2024 • 12 mins
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Ever felt like you're juggling more balls than a circus performer? This episode is an anchor in the storm, as I, Pastor Brandon, explore the rich complexity of life mirrored in the ancient tale of 2 Chronicles 8. Just as King Solomon managed his sprawling kingdom with all its grandeur and challenges, we too navigate through life's multifarious demands. I delve into the reality that life isn't a simple narrative—as much as we yearn for simplicity—and how Solomon's reign, filled with monumental achievements and day-to-day governance, reflects our own intricate journeys. The wisdom in accepting and embracing the ebb and flow of life's seasons is a soothing balm for the soul, offering peace in the knowledge that our stories are intertwined with historical giants.
In the spiritual embrace of this episode, I extend an invitation to find solace in the omnipresence of God within the tapestry of our daily lives. Prayer becomes our bridge, connecting us to the divine assurance that the complexities we face are not without purpose. These moments are not indicators of life gone awry, but rather, they're the spaces where God's strength shines brightest. As we close, I share a prayer from the depths of my heart, with hopes that it resonates with you and affirms the steadfast gaze of God upon those who seek Him. So come along; let's renew our faith together and anticipate the revelations that await us in 2 Chronicles 9.
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The More You Dig. The More You Find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today.
2 Chronicles, chapter 8, andtoday's title is Life is
Complicated.
No big surprise there If I saidlife is complicated, and some
of you guys were shocked.
I need to know.
I need you to get into theYouTubes and I need you to
comment like I had no idea.
(00:21):
Life was complicated andspeaking of such.
We're going to get into it in amoment, but be sure that you
are like sharing and subscribingto the podcast and to the
YouTube channel.
Leave us a five-star review onthe podcast.
It really does help and youwill always be my favorites.
Also, comment on the YouTubechannel and we all gather
together at the Facebookdiscussion group Bible Breakdown
Discussion, where they doamazing devotions every single
day.
(00:41):
Where they do amazing devotionsevery single day.
And, ma'am, I'm telling you,the more we dig, the more we
find, and we are building anamazing community of people that
are rallying around God's Word.
I can't think of a betterreason to rally, right, it's so
good.
Well, if you've got your Bibles, I want to open up with me to 2
Chronicles 8.
One of the things that I didn'trealize for the longest time in
(01:03):
my life and this just shows myignorance, right Is, I would
watch these movies and anybodywho patterns their life after a
movie, they're missing somethinganyway, right?
But I did, and I would watchall these movies and it was
always the same, in that therewould be a hero who would
experience something bad, andthen the whole movie was about
him fixing that bad, you know,overcoming the adversity or
whatever.
But it was a pretty linearstory, right.
(01:23):
There wasn't like a whole lotof different things, it was one
plot, one thing, one climax, oneresolution.
It was just straightforward,right.
And so then I couldn'tunderstand in my life why my
life wasn't straightforward, andabout one thing, like I had all
kinds of things going right.
And then, as I kept going in mylife, I thought, well, at some
point things will simplify,it'll just be like one thing.
(01:44):
No, that is not life, right,nothing maintains itself and
seasons change and all thesedifferent things.
And so I was single.
And then I thought, well, whenI get married, things will get
less complicated, and that's nottrue, because now you have
someone else in your life.
And then I thought, well, whenI have a daughter or a son, that
will change.
Well, I had a daughter, it'sgot even more complicated and
complex because now you've gotthis baby, then we had another
(02:07):
child and then, you know, Ichanged in my career, my job,
and just complexity is part ofit.
Right, and I think thatsometimes we can get so
discouraged because we thinkthat we're going to get to this
certain place in our life wherelife is not complicated, that
life is not complex, full of upsand downs, where life is not
complicated, that life is notcomplex, full of ups and downs.
Well, I think it's because wewatch too many movies and we
(02:28):
think that one thing happens ata time, but that's not how life
works.
We're going to see in 2Chronicles 8 that while we have
been talking about, you know,the time that Solomon built the
temple and then the timeafterward, we have this idea
that Solomon just sat on histhrone and just judged the
nation, but so many things weregoing on at the same time and it
(02:48):
just blesses my heart torealize that Solomon, the king,
had a complicated life.
And if he had a complicatedlife with apparently all the
money in the world that hecouldn't buy his way out of
complicated, then it's okay thatour lives are complicated too
you ready.
Let's read this together andjust kind of take a deep breath
and realize if Sully's situationwas complicated, it's okay that
(03:10):
ours is too you ready.
Verse 1 says this it tookSolomon 20 years to build the
Lord's temple and his own royalpalace.
That's like half his rule, bythe way.
At the end of that time, solomonturned his attention to
rebuilding the towns that KingHiram had given him, and he
settled Israelites in them.
Solomon also fought against thetown of Hamath-Zobah and he
(03:34):
conquered it.
He rebuilt Tadmor in thewilderness and built towns in
the regions of Hamath as supplycenters.
He fortified the towns in upperBeth Horan and lower Beth Horan
, rebuilding their walls andinstalling barred gates.
He also built Balath and theother supply centers and
constructed towns where hischariots and horses could be
(03:57):
stationed.
He built everything he desiredin Jerusalem and in Lebanon and
throughout his entire realm.
There were still some peopleliving in the land who were not
Israelites, including theHittites, amorites, perizzites,
hivites and Jebusites.
These people were descendantsof the nations to whom the
people of Israel had notdestroyed, so Solomon
(04:17):
conscripted them as his laborforce and they served as forced
laborers to this day.
But Solomon did not conscriptany of the Israelites for his
labor force.
Instead, he assigned them toserve as fighting men, officers
of his army, commanders of hischariots and charioteers.
King Solomon appointed 250 ofthem to supervise the people.
(04:40):
Solomon moved his wife,pharaoh's daughter, from the
city of David to the new palacehe had built for her and he said
my wife must not live in KingDavid's palace, for the ark of
the Lord has been there and itis holy ground.
Solomon presented the burntofferings to the Lord and on the
altar that he had built for himin front of the entry room of
the temple, he offered thesacrifices for the Sabbaths, the
(05:03):
new moon festivals and thethree annual festivals the
Passover celebration, thefestival of the harvest, the
festival of shelters and, asMoses had commanded.
In addition excuse me inassigning the priests to their
duties, solomon followed theregulations of his father, david
.
He also assigned the Levites tolead the people in praise and
(05:23):
to assist the priests in theirdaily duties.
He assigned the gatekeepers totheir gates by their divisions,
following the commands of David,the man of God.
Solomon did not deviate in anyway from David's commands
concerning the priests andLevites and the treasuries.
So Solomon made sure that thework related to building the
temple of the Lord was carriedout, and from the day of its
(05:45):
foundation was laid till the dayof its completion.
Later, solomon went to Ezron,geber and Elath, on the ports
along the shore of the Red Seain the land of Edom.
Hiram sent him ships commandedby his own officers and manned
by experienced crews and sailors.
These ships were sailed toOphir with Solomon's men and
(06:07):
brought back to Solomon almost17 tons of gold.
Wow, there's so much going on.
He's building stuff here.
He's getting a labor force overhere.
He's training up an army overhere.
He's rebuilding this town.
There's just so many much goingon.
He's building stuff here.
He's getting a labor force overhere.
He's training up an army overhere.
He's rebuilding this town.
There's just so many thingsgoing on.
And can I tell you that is soextremely important for all of
(06:28):
us, including the person talkingright now, to remember, because
, if you remember, over the pastcouple of chapters, solomon had
done, finally, what he neededto do he built the temple, he
built his palace and then hededicated it to God.
And it was this amazing momentwhen he dedicated it to God and
the Bible says, the power of Godfell, and it was this crazy
(06:50):
situation where the fire of Godfell and consumed the altar and
the temple of God was now filledwith the presence of God and
they sacrificed, they celebratedfor seven days and then there's
, the thing is, all the peoplewent home.
And then there was this evenmore amazing moment when God
spoke to Solomon and he said youwant all of me, you can have me
(07:11):
, but it's going to cost all ofyou.
And then it's like that was thecrescendo moment, that was the
big climax.
God visits Solomon and says yougot me man.
And in a movie that would havebeen when the curtain kind of
went down.
They sail off into the sunset.
They're done, it's over.
Right, but it was not over.
(07:32):
What happens the next day?
What happens, can I tell you?
I've seen that so many timeswhen people give their lives to
Christ.
They've been running from God,they've been not whatever, and
all of a sudden God becomes realto them and they give their
hearts to Jesus and they realizethis is an amazing moment.
They experience God's love forthe first time in their life and
it's like their eyes have beenopened and it's like man.
(07:52):
It's awesome.
Like man.
It's awesome and what we don'talways intend to do those of us
who've been Christians for awhile is we're like man.
That's awesome.
I can't wait to hear how itgoes.
You need to start serving Godwith all your life.
Okay, man, I'm going to.
And then we just leave.
And what happens the nextmorning when the sun comes up
and that is life is complicated.
After you have a greatencounter with God, you still
(08:12):
got to get up and go to work thenext day.
You still got to, you know,feed your family or or finish
those school assignments orwhatever's going on Like life
continues on and that's okay.
But so many times we go wait aminute.
Did I do something wrong?
I thought that if I gave my lifeto Christ, or if I gave this
situation over to God, or if Iscaled that mountain or whatever
, then life would all of asudden be less complicated.
(08:33):
That's not how life works.
The thing is is that now God isgoing to go with you through
your life and you have aneternal home for him on the
other side of it.
You no longer have to feardeath and God is going to be
with you and all the things.
But we've got to remember ourlives are not like movies.
Our lives are real, and soyou're not doing anything wrong
if you have a great encounterwith God but you still get
(08:56):
frustrated sometimes.
Or you had this great encounterwith God but you still got to
get up and do your chores, oryou still got to get up and go
to work, or you still got tomake dinner that night, or just
whatever deal with conflict inyour life.
God hasn't abandoned youbecause you still got to deal
with the conflict that's in yourlife.
That's okay.
Life is complicated.
But to realize that all thesethings that Solomon did, he
(09:18):
didn't do them alone.
God was with him, and so I wantto encourage you today to get
ready to end our time together.
That just because you have agreat moment with God doesn't
mean that if you have to get upthe next morning and you still
feel normal, you've doneanything wrong.
It's that God encourages youand then he walks with you
through every day, and noweverything you do is to become
(09:41):
an act of worship.
So continue moving forward withGod, and life is going to get
complicated, but remember God iswith you all along the way, and
the Bible says we go from gloryto glory and as we go through
these different experiences inlife and we start to see, wow,
I'd have never made it throughthat, but I did this time
(10:02):
because God is with me.
Wow, that really worked out.
I bet God was in that and yougo yeah, god is with you in all
the things that you do.
God is with you today.
If you're struggling withsomething that is outside your
control, that doesn't mean thatGod's left you.
It means that God is with youin the middle of it.
(10:22):
If you're going through awonderful season, god is with
you.
No matter what you're doing,god is with you.
Life is complicated, but younever do it alone.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you so much for today.
Thank you that you're with us.
You're with us right now.
Whatever someone's doing ifthey're in a guard shack right
now, if they're on their way toschool right now, if they're on
their way to school, if they'reon their way to work, if they're
doing chores around the house,if they're going for a walk
wherever they find themselvesright now, they're on the subway
right now you are with them.
(10:42):
Right now.
Nothing's wrong because life iscomplicated.
It means there's anotheropportunity for you to show
yourself strong in their life.
I pray right now you'll opentheir eyes to see how you are
moving in the middle of what mayseem like a mess.
I pray that they'll experienceyour presence in a deep, real
way.
Lord.
(11:03):
I want it to go beyond atingling sensation or just
whatever.
I want it to be a deep knowing,a deep, settled, confident joy
that you are with us in allthings.
I celebrate you today In Jesus'name.
I pray Amen.
And what God's word says in 2Chronicles 16, verse 9, the eyes
of the Lord search the wholeearth in order to strengthen
(11:26):
those whose hearts are fullycommitted to him.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow for 2Chronicles 9.
Well, everybody, welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today.
2 Chronicles, chapter 8, andtoday's title is Life is
Complicated.
No big surprise there If I saidlife is complicated, and some
of you guys were shocked.
I need to know.
I need you to get into theYouTubes and I need you to
comment like I had no idea.
(00:21):
Life was complicated andspeaking of such.
We're going to get into it in amoment, but be sure that you
are like sharing and subscribingto the podcast and to the
YouTube channel.
Leave us a five-star review onthe podcast.
It really does help and youwill always be my favorites.
Also, comment on the YouTubechannel and we all gather
together at the Facebookdiscussion group Bible Breakdown
Discussion, where they doamazing devotions every single
day.
(00:41):
Where they do amazing devotionsevery single day.
And, ma'am, I'm telling you,the more we dig, the more we
find, and we are building anamazing community of people that
are rallying around God's Word.
I can't think of a betterreason to rally, right, it's so
good.
Well, if you've got your Bibles, I want to open up with me to 2
Chronicles 8.
One of the things that I didn'trealize for the longest time in
(01:03):
my life and this just shows myignorance, right Is, I would
watch these movies and anybodywho patterns their life after a
movie, they're missing somethinganyway, right?
But I did, and I would watchall these movies and it was
always the same, in that therewould be a hero who would
experience something bad, andthen the whole movie was about
him fixing that bad, you know,overcoming the adversity or
whatever.
But it was a pretty linearstory, right.
(01:23):
There wasn't like a whole lotof different things, it was one
plot, one thing, one climax, oneresolution.
It was just straightforward,right.
And so then I couldn'tunderstand in my life why my
life wasn't straightforward, andabout one thing, like I had all
kinds of things going right.
And then, as I kept going in mylife, I thought, well, at some
point things will simplify,it'll just be like one thing.
(01:44):
No, that is not life, right,nothing maintains itself and
seasons change and all thesedifferent things.
And so I was single.
And then I thought, well, whenI get married, things will get
less complicated, and that's nottrue, because now you have
someone else in your life.
And then I thought, well, whenI have a daughter or a son, that
will change.
Well, I had a daughter, it'sgot even more complicated and
complex because now you've gotthis baby, then we had another
(02:07):
child and then, you know, Ichanged in my career, my job,
and just complexity is part ofit.
Right, and I think thatsometimes we can get so
discouraged because we thinkthat we're going to get to this
certain place in our life wherelife is not complicated, that
life is not complex, full of upsand downs, where life is not
complicated, that life is notcomplex, full of ups and downs.
Well, I think it's because wewatch too many movies and we
(02:28):
think that one thing happens ata time, but that's not how life
works.
We're going to see in 2Chronicles 8 that while we have
been talking about, you know,the time that Solomon built the
temple and then the timeafterward, we have this idea
that Solomon just sat on histhrone and just judged the
nation, but so many things weregoing on at the same time and it
(02:48):
just blesses my heart torealize that Solomon, the king,
had a complicated life.
And if he had a complicatedlife with apparently all the
money in the world that hecouldn't buy his way out of
complicated, then it's okay thatour lives are complicated too
you ready.
Let's read this together andjust kind of take a deep breath
and realize if Sully's situationwas complicated, it's okay that
(03:10):
ours is too you ready.
Verse 1 says this it tookSolomon 20 years to build the
Lord's temple and his own royalpalace.
That's like half his rule, bythe way.
At the end of that time, solomonturned his attention to
rebuilding the towns that KingHiram had given him, and he
settled Israelites in them.
Solomon also fought against thetown of Hamath-Zobah and he
(03:34):
conquered it.
He rebuilt Tadmor in thewilderness and built towns in
the regions of Hamath as supplycenters.
He fortified the towns in upperBeth Horan and lower Beth Horan
, rebuilding their walls andinstalling barred gates.
He also built Balath and theother supply centers and
constructed towns where hischariots and horses could be
(03:57):
stationed.
He built everything he desiredin Jerusalem and in Lebanon and
throughout his entire realm.
There were still some peopleliving in the land who were not
Israelites, including theHittites, amorites, perizzites,
hivites and Jebusites.
These people were descendantsof the nations to whom the
people of Israel had notdestroyed, so Solomon
(04:17):
conscripted them as his laborforce and they served as forced
laborers to this day.
But Solomon did not conscriptany of the Israelites for his
labor force.
Instead, he assigned them toserve as fighting men, officers
of his army, commanders of hischariots and charioteers.
King Solomon appointed 250 ofthem to supervise the people.
(04:40):
Solomon moved his wife,pharaoh's daughter, from the
city of David to the new palacehe had built for her and he said
my wife must not live in KingDavid's palace, for the ark of
the Lord has been there and itis holy ground.
Solomon presented the burntofferings to the Lord and on the
altar that he had built for himin front of the entry room of
the temple, he offered thesacrifices for the Sabbaths, the
(05:03):
new moon festivals and thethree annual festivals the
Passover celebration, thefestival of the harvest, the
festival of shelters and, asMoses had commanded.
In addition excuse me inassigning the priests to their
duties, solomon followed theregulations of his father, david
.
He also assigned the Levites tolead the people in praise and
(05:23):
to assist the priests in theirdaily duties.
He assigned the gatekeepers totheir gates by their divisions,
following the commands of David,the man of God.
Solomon did not deviate in anyway from David's commands
concerning the priests andLevites and the treasuries.
So Solomon made sure that thework related to building the
temple of the Lord was carriedout, and from the day of its
(05:45):
foundation was laid till the dayof its completion.
Later, solomon went to Ezron,geber and Elath, on the ports
along the shore of the Red Seain the land of Edom.
Hiram sent him ships commandedby his own officers and manned
by experienced crews and sailors.
These ships were sailed toOphir with Solomon's men and
(06:07):
brought back to Solomon almost17 tons of gold.
Wow, there's so much going on.
He's building stuff here.
He's getting a labor force overhere.
He's training up an army overhere.
He's rebuilding this town.
There's just so many much goingon.
He's building stuff here.
He's getting a labor force overhere.
He's training up an army overhere.
He's rebuilding this town.
There's just so many thingsgoing on.
And can I tell you that is soextremely important for all of
(06:28):
us, including the person talkingright now, to remember, because
, if you remember, over the pastcouple of chapters, solomon had
done, finally, what he neededto do he built the temple, he
built his palace and then hededicated it to God.
And it was this amazing momentwhen he dedicated it to God and
the Bible says, the power of Godfell, and it was this crazy
(06:50):
situation where the fire of Godfell and consumed the altar and
the temple of God was now filledwith the presence of God and
they sacrificed, they celebratedfor seven days and then there's
, the thing is, all the peoplewent home.
And then there was this evenmore amazing moment when God
spoke to Solomon and he said youwant all of me, you can have me
(07:11):
, but it's going to cost all ofyou.
And then it's like that was thecrescendo moment, that was the
big climax.
God visits Solomon and says yougot me man.
And in a movie that would havebeen when the curtain kind of
went down.
They sail off into the sunset.
They're done, it's over.
Right, but it was not over.
(07:32):
What happens the next day?
What happens, can I tell you?
I've seen that so many timeswhen people give their lives to
Christ.
They've been running from God,they've been not whatever, and
all of a sudden God becomes realto them and they give their
hearts to Jesus and they realizethis is an amazing moment.
They experience God's love forthe first time in their life and
it's like their eyes have beenopened and it's like man.
(07:52):
It's awesome.
Like man.
It's awesome and what we don'talways intend to do those of us
who've been Christians for awhile is we're like man.
That's awesome.
I can't wait to hear how itgoes.
You need to start serving Godwith all your life.
Okay, man, I'm going to.
And then we just leave.
And what happens the nextmorning when the sun comes up
and that is life is complicated.
After you have a greatencounter with God, you still
(08:12):
got to get up and go to work thenext day.
You still got to, you know,feed your family or or finish
those school assignments orwhatever's going on Like life
continues on and that's okay.
But so many times we go wait aminute.
Did I do something wrong?
I thought that if I gave my lifeto Christ, or if I gave this
situation over to God, or if Iscaled that mountain or whatever
, then life would all of asudden be less complicated.
(08:33):
That's not how life works.
The thing is is that now God isgoing to go with you through
your life and you have aneternal home for him on the
other side of it.
You no longer have to feardeath and God is going to be
with you and all the things.
But we've got to remember ourlives are not like movies.
Our lives are real, and soyou're not doing anything wrong
if you have a great encounterwith God but you still get
(08:56):
frustrated sometimes.
Or you had this great encounterwith God but you still got to
get up and do your chores, oryou still got to get up and go
to work, or you still got tomake dinner that night, or just
whatever deal with conflict inyour life.
God hasn't abandoned youbecause you still got to deal
with the conflict that's in yourlife.
That's okay.
Life is complicated.
But to realize that all thesethings that Solomon did, he
(09:18):
didn't do them alone.
God was with him, and so I wantto encourage you today to get
ready to end our time together.
That just because you have agreat moment with God doesn't
mean that if you have to get upthe next morning and you still
feel normal, you've doneanything wrong.
It's that God encourages youand then he walks with you
through every day, and noweverything you do is to become
(09:41):
an act of worship.
So continue moving forward withGod, and life is going to get
complicated, but remember God iswith you all along the way, and
the Bible says we go from gloryto glory and as we go through
these different experiences inlife and we start to see, wow,
I'd have never made it throughthat, but I did this time
(10:02):
because God is with me.
Wow, that really worked out.
I bet God was in that and yougo yeah, god is with you in all
the things that you do.
God is with you today.
If you're struggling withsomething that is outside your
control, that doesn't mean thatGod's left you.
It means that God is with youin the middle of it.
(10:22):
If you're going through awonderful season, god is with
you.
No matter what you're doing,god is with you.
Life is complicated, but younever do it alone.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you so much for today.
Thank you that you're with us.
You're with us right now.
Whatever someone's doing ifthey're in a guard shack right
now, if they're on their way toschool right now, if they're on
their way to school, if they'reon their way to work, if they're
doing chores around the house,if they're going for a walk
wherever they find themselvesright now, they're on the subway
right now you are with them.
(10:42):
Right now.
Nothing's wrong because life iscomplicated.
It means there's anotheropportunity for you to show
yourself strong in their life.
I pray right now you'll opentheir eyes to see how you are
moving in the middle of what mayseem like a mess.
I pray that they'll experienceyour presence in a deep, real
way.
Lord.
(11:03):
I want it to go beyond atingling sensation or just
whatever.
I want it to be a deep knowing,a deep, settled, confident joy
that you are with us in allthings.
I celebrate you today In Jesus'name.
I pray Amen.
And what God's word says in 2Chronicles 16, verse 9, the eyes
of the Lord search the wholeearth in order to strengthen
(11:26):
those whose hearts are fullycommitted to him.
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow for 2Chronicles 9.
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