I Kings 8:1-21, 54-61
1. Presence
Why is God’s presence so important…
a) God’s presence is an indication of God’s pleasure.
b) God’s presence distinguishes us as God’s people.
“Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”
-Exodus 33:13-16
2. Provision
Provision is God doing what is in His heart and God’s people being faithful with what God has put in their heart.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
-Matthew 7:7-11
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
-Luke 12:32
Twice the word “fulfilled” is used but there are two different definitions to the word...
a) v. 15- “to fill full”
b) v. 20- “to be fixed, proven, established”
3. Progress, v. 54-61