1 Kings 9: God Doesn't Need You

"But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land..." 1 Kings 9:6-7a

God does not need you. That's a humbling statement, is it not? Perhaps you have thought before like you were God's one-and-only. Like an all-star basketball player, you thought you were God's all-star Christian that he needed to fulfill his purpose, and he was so happy once he found you. Reality check: it just isn't so. God is plenty big enough to fulfill his purposes without you, and if you haven't understood that, you haven't understood the Gospel. God doesn't need you.

Now before the hate emails come in, let me make something clear: God has created you for a specific task in his kingdom. God has given you certain talents and abilities that you might fulfill the role that he has given you in causing his kingdom to be on earth as it is in heaven. However, that does not mean that God wouldn't be able to accomplish his purposes without you.

We see this great principle in 1 Kings 9, as God is establishing an agreement with Solomon. Let us take a moment to remember the context of 1 Kings 9. In previous chapters, God has promised to have an eternal king on the throne of Israel in the Davidic covenant (2 Sam. 7). Therefore, God has set up Solomon as king over Israel, but he never guarantee's that Solomon's kingship would be the eternal one. Thus, in the chapter we read today, we see a conditional covenant made between God and Solomon. God tells Solomon that if Solomon and his offspring follow the Lord God, he would establish his throne forever. However, if Solomon and his posterity abandon the Lord, God says that he will "cut off Israel from the land that I have given them" and that they will become a "heap of ruins." God promised to establish a king over all of Israel forever, but it didn't have to be Solomon.

If we remember a bigger picture of scripture, we realize that Solomon eventually fell away from the Lord, leading to great trials in Israel, eventually including their split, destruction, and captivity. Unfortunately, Solomon disobeyed the Lord, and therefore he was not the eternal king that would reign blamelessly over Israel. At this point, we must note that Saul and David both failed this condition as well (though David was still a righteous man, he was anything but perfect). Thus, we do take a moment today to see how all of this text points to Christ, the only king who could obey God's commands in full and thus reign eternally.

So, have you realized that God does not need you? Has he called you to his purposes and obedience? Absolutely. But if you don't obey him, God will find someone else to replace you. God's success is not dependent upon your obedience. Although he certainly wants you to obey him, he is still God even when you do not obey him. Perhaps the words of Mordecai to Esther might help us understand this principle:

"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14

Thus, we find that God will certainly cause his plans to come about through someone else even if we are not obedient. However, our motivation must be therefore to obey him, in order that he might use us! Amen.