Broken Heroes #3 - Solomon: The Trap of Happiness (Dr. Kurt Bjorklund)

In this compelling message from 1 Kings 11:1-8, Dr. Kurt Bjorklund reveals how even good things like career success, relationships, and respect become dangerous traps when they replace God as our ultimate source of satisfaction. Discover how to enjoy life's blessings without being enslaved by them, finding true freedom through worshiping the Creator rather than His gifts.

Message Summary & Transcript - https://www.orchardhillchurch.com/blog-post/2025/7/28/broken-heroes-3-solomon-the-trap-of-happiness

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Transcript

It has been a great three weeks around here with all of the campers. Thank you to those of you who've trusted your kids to Orchard Hill over these weeks. Thank you to those of you who served and volunteered. So many of you took off work to be here, to facilitate, to make things happen, and it has been great. Our hope is that, as much fun and enjoyment as it is, the stories of life change—like what you just heard—would be told over and over, and there would be a disproportionate impact in the days ahead. Wherever life takes people, wherever they are in the Pittsburgh region and beyond, the encounter they have with Jesus Christ here would last and continue to have a ripple effect.

So let's pray. God, we thank you for what you've done over the last few weeks. We pray for this ripple effect in the days ahead, that your word would be planted deep in hearts and transform lives. God, we ask that in these moments that we're together here, you would speak, that my words would reflect your word in content, tone, and emphasis. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Introduction: The Trap of Happiness

Over these weeks, we've been taking a journey through some of the Old Testament kings—the three kings of the United Kingdom of Israel. There are three kings: Saul, David, and Solomon, who were over the United Kingdom. Then there's the divided kingdom that has a whole host of names that are a little harder to know and understand. But the three we're talking about here were the major kings when the kingdom was united.

We've called this series "Broken Heroes" because one of the things we learn when we look at Old Testament characters is that it isn't the story of those who did everything right and thus were somehow commended to God. Rather, it's the story of broken people, and God works in our brokenness and doesn't abandon us in our brokenness. But what's also important is that this doesn't mean we simply say, "Well, they were broken, we're broken, so let's all just be broken and whatever God does, God will do."

They can also serve as cautionary tales. We've looked at the trap of comparison that we learned in Saul's life, and the trap of sensuality in David's life. Today we're going to look at another trap. I'm going to call it the trap of happiness in Solomon's life.

A Modern Example: The Phishing Trap

But first, let me share with you a text that I got on my phone the other day. It said:

"Pennsylvania Department of Vehicles, PADMV, final notice. Enforcement penalties begin July 25"—so this is two days ago now. "Our records show that as of today, you still have an outstanding traffic ticket in accordance with PA code," and then they give me a whole bunch of numbers. "If you do not complete payment by 07/24/2025, we will take the following actions: Report to the DMV violation database"—now how do they have this if it's not in the database is my question—"Suspend your vehicle registration starting July 24, suspend driving privileges for thirty days, transfer to a toll booth and charge a 35% fee, and you may be prosecuted and your credit score will be affected."

Now, I happen to know that I do not have any outstanding traffic violations. How do I know this? Well, I haven't had a moving violation in a few years, and the last one I had, I resolved. So I know I do not. This is phishing—to get me to click on it, give personal information, and get myself entrapped in some kind of economic thing. You get these all the time.

Often they're not very good because they say things like, "We're gonna report to the PA database that you violated, have a traffic violation." Well, that's the only way you would have this information on me is if you actually had such a database and I had violated something. So it doesn't really feel like a trap, but the best traps are the ones that you don't realize you're in until you're way in.

Why Happiness Can Be a Trap

Happiness can be one of those traps. Now, you may say, "Okay, happiness? Really? I mean, happiness is good." And I agree that happiness is good. But it's a trap when it becomes our ultimate good. Because when a good thing like happiness—and the things that we think lead to happiness—become our ultimate aim, what happens is they become objects of worship. And when they become objects of worship, they become idolatrous. They become what we worship instead of the true God, therefore becoming dangerous in our lives.

That's why it's a trap, because it starts out feeling like, "Well, of course you just pursue this thing that I want, that I think will make me happy." But what happens is those things can become so much more than that.

This is what Blaise Pascal wrote years ago about this. He said:

"All people seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they use, they all tend to this end. This is the cause of some going to war, and others avoiding it. It's the same desire of both—to be happy. This is the motive of every action of every person, even those who harm themselves."

You see, whatever we do in life, what we're doing is pursuing what we think makes us happy.

Something as simple as: to exercise or not exercise. Do you ever have one of these conundrums? Should I exercise or should I not? Well, what are you doing? On one hand you say, "I don't want to exercise, I want to sit on the sofa and eat something, I want to be happy today." On the other hand you're saying, "Well, I want to exercise because I want whatever the benefits of that are tomorrow." But either way, what you're doing is choosing something based on your perception of happiness.

We all make choices all the time based on happiness. When happiness—which is a good thing—and good things that we think lead to happiness become an ultimate thing, it becomes a dangerous thing because it becomes idolatrous in our lives.

The Problem with "Follow Your Heart"

You've probably heard the phrase "follow your heart." People say this all the time. It's often the phrase in movies when somebody gets to that point where they don't know what to do and they're like, "Just follow your heart."

But following your heart works out to be wrong as much as it works out to be right. Do you know why? Because according to Jeremiah 17:9, the heart is desperately wicked above all things. Which means you may follow your heart right into a disaster in your life.

I remember some years ago when my kids were little, we were staying at a hotel, and I went down to get a spot by the pool for my wife and our four kids. I put towels out on the chairs—I did the whole thing where you stake out your space—and I went back up to the room to help my wife bring the four kids down and all our stuff. As we were coming down, as I approached, there was a guy who had moved all our stuff and taken our spot.

I had one of those moments where I wanted to follow my heart. I didn't mention this guy was big. And I came this close to letting that guy destroy me. But I actually followed my heart, and I didn't do anything because I didn't want to be destroyed, so we just took another seat.

My point in that is just to say following our heart is not a guarantee that it's a good thing. In fact, it's probably more likely that it's a guarantee that it will be destructive in some way.

Solomon's Story: From Wisdom to Folly

Solomon stands as a reminder to us as one who said, "I'm going to not withhold from my heart anything that my heart desires." And what we read in 1 Kings 11 is that Solomon married these foreign women, and because of this, his heart turned toward their gods and away from God. So he went from pursuing something he thought would make him happy, and it became an ultimate thing, and therefore a dangerous thing, because it became idolatrous.

One of the things we know is that Solomon's life isn't just recorded in some of the Old Testament books, but he also gave us some of our Old Testament books. In the wisdom literature, he gave us:

• The Song of Songs (Song of Solomon), that he probably wrote when he was young. Some have called it "the book of romance" where he was looking at life and thinking about the possibilities.
• Many of the Proverbs that we have. He probably wrote these in midlife where he was thinking about the rules of life and what works in life.
• Ecclesiastes. Most of Ecclesiastes, we believe. And Ecclesiastes, late in life, after what took place in 1 Kings 11. These are his reflections on life as he looks back at his life after a life well-lived.

Solomon's Experiment with Pleasure

Now Solomon, we know, became king, so he had power. He had incredible wealth—we're told he had more wealth than anybody before him in Jerusalem, so he was the richest person. He was a powerful person, he was prominent, and he had all of these wives.

Here's how he reflects on this in Ecclesiastes 2. He said:

"I said to myself, 'Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.'"

So now he's testing life. He's saying, "I just want to know what will make me happy," in a sense.

"But that also proved to be meaningless."

By the way, this is a key word in Ecclesiastes. It means like a vapor or a puff of air. He's saying, "I wanted something that would satisfy me, but it felt like a vapor, a mist. It just appeared for a time and then it vanished."

He says:

"Laughter, I said, is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish? I tried cheering myself with wine and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives."

So I drank. I had entertainment, I had levity.

"I undertook great projects. I built houses for myself, and I planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks, and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees."

So I built a nice house—houses, not just one. I built parks and gardens and reservoirs that probably were publicly available, so I did good in the community.

And then he says:

"I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers and a harem as well—the delights of a man's heart."

And what's his conclusion? He says, "It's meaningless. It's like a puff of smoke."

The Excess of Solomon

We know from 1 Kings chapter 10 and other places that Solomon had incredible wealth. He had more weapons than anybody else, even though God had told him not to take weapons and amass weapons because God wanted him to rely on Him for strength. And we know that he had these foreign wives. In fact, it says in 1 Kings that he had 700 wives, 300 concubines, and in Ecclesiastes it says "a harem, the pleasures of a man's heart."

Now, just for a second, think about this thousand women thing. Okay? He's also, by the way, the man who penned the phrase that "a nagging wife is like a dripping faucet." Just so we're clear, that's in Proverbs. Some of you are like, "Wait, I'm trying to catch up with that."

But just think about this for a moment. If Solomon had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with a different one of these women every day, and he started January 1, it would take him to the last couple days of September before he would repeat a meal. And if he was a late riser, so he didn't get up early in the morning and he just did lunch and dinner, it would take him two years before he would repeat a meal with the same person. I mean, he didn't even know all these women's names. Probably.

Well, I mean, what is that? What is he doing?

Our Modern Traps

You may think about this and say, "Well okay, that's Solomon, that's clearly an excess. I've never had that kind of opportunity, whether it be for material well-being, for military, or anything else."

But here's what happens for many of us, and that is we think:

• "If I can just get my career lined up, if everything will work out with my career, and I can have success, if I can be powerful, then I will be happy." And what happens is you go through your life trying to be happy and you end up working too much, you end up putting too much weight in it because a good thing has become an ultimate thing, and therefore has become a dangerous thing.
• Some of us, maybe it's about our family, it's about kids, it's about finding a spouse, finding romance, and we say, "That is what I need to be happy." And we put so much weight on it that we're devastated when something goes wrong in any of those arenas, and we can't receive life happily anymore because we've taken a good thing, we've made it an ultimate thing, and it's become a dangerous thing.
• For some of us, maybe it's the desire for respect and acclaim. We just want to be well thought of. But when we take that good thing and we make it an ultimate thing, it becomes dangerous.
• Maybe it's the desire to be needed and have a sense of dependence from other people on us, or it's our health and our fitness, our attractiveness.

And we take these things and we make them a big deal. At the end of them, the real problem is that there's worship, because we're making it ultimate. Whatever we worship, we serve. And when we worship and serve something other than the God of Heaven, it becomes a taskmaster that says, "I must have this in order to have a joyful life."

The Worship Connection

Thomas Oden, who's an author of another generation, wrote something that I want to read because he ties worship to this. I'm going to put the quote on the screen because I think it's worth just thinking about these words. It's a little long, but I hope you'll see the value in this. He says:

"When a finite value has been elevated to centrality or imagined as a final source of meaning, then one has chosen a god."

So whatever you choose to say, "This is my ultimate thing. This is what I need to have a happy, good life," it becomes your god.

"One has a god when a finite value is viewed as that without which one cannot receive life joyfully."

And now he starts talking about our emotions and how they point to this:

"Anxiety becomes neurotically intensified to the degree that I have idolized finite values. Suppose my god is sex or physical health or the Democratic party. If I experience any of these as under genuine threat, I feel myself shaken to my depths."

What he's saying is that when you're anxious about something, it's pointing to what is of ultimate importance to you.

"Guilt becomes neurotically intensified to the degree that I have idolized finite values. Suppose I value my ability to teach and communicate clearly. Then if I fail in teaching, I'm stricken with neurotic guilt.""Bitterness becomes neurotically intensified when someone or something stands between me and something that is of my ultimate value, to the extent to which limited values are exalted to idolatries, and when any of those values are lost."

So that's when I get bitter.

"Boredom becomes pathological and compulsive. My subjectively experienced boredom may then become infinitely projected toward the whole cosmos. The picture of self is called despair. The milder terms are disappointment, disillusionment, and cynicism."

Here's what basically he's driving at: when you're anxious, when you're bitter, when you're bored, when you feel guilty, these are all pointers to saying you have something that you have made an ultimate thing besides the God of the universe.

Solomon's Vulnerability Despite His Advantages

What we see with Solomon in 1 Kings 11 is that Solomon, as much as he had certain advantages, still was not immune to the happiness trap—to this idea of saying, "This is where I will find many good things in my life."

King Solomon, it says in verse one, "however loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter." So his position as king didn't keep him from going down this path.

Verses two and three: His prominence, his reputation didn't keep him from this. It says, "They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, 'You must not intermarry.'" So he thought as his fame grew, he could handle these pursuits.

And then in verse four and five, it says that his heart was not devoted to the Lord as David his father's had been. His past performance was not a hedge against getting a good thing to become an ultimate thing and becoming a dangerous thing.

And then he had these experiences. Verse nine says the Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice.

So he had these experiences, he had these past successes, this reputation, this position, and none of it kept him from going down this path.

All that means is that whatever you've done in the past, whatever family you come from, whatever position you have, however well thought of you are, whatever experiences you've had, you can still be susceptible to saying, "This is what I need to receive life happily," and then end up in a place where you find out that it isn't what you hoped it would be.

Solomon's Answer in Ecclesiastes

I mentioned that Solomon penned Ecclesiastes—at least that's our general belief. If he didn't write it, he certainly was the subject of it, and it's his words. Here's what he writes toward the end of the book, because you may be saying, "Okay, what's the answer?"

Verse nine and ten of chapter 11 says this:

"You who are young, be happy while you're young."

Now he uses that word "happy." He says, "Be happy. Enjoy your life."

"And let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless."

He's using that phrase again, "meaningless," and he's saying, "Listen, the emotions of your heart—know that you can enjoy your life, you can go down a path and say, 'These are good things' as long as you have God in the right place. But as soon as God isn't in the right place, what will happen is you'll make those good things ultimate things, they'll become dangerous things."

A Better Scale Than Satisfaction = Outcomes/Expectations

A lot of people have thought about this idea of happiness, and some have given us an equation. Here's the idea that satisfaction equals outcomes over expectations. The idea of this is very simple: if you expect something to be like an eight, and it's a nine, you'll be happy. If you expect something to be an eight and it's a seven, you'll be unhappy with it. So whatever your expectation is, that matters.

What a lot of people do, just intuitively, is they go through life trying to downgrade their expectations so that their expectations are almost always met.

But that isn't Solomon's answer. He doesn't say go through life trying to take your expectations down a notch. He says embrace the life that you've been given. Seek to be happy on this earth, but know that there's a God.

What he's doing is saying there's a scale that is better than this scale, than this way of thinking in your life. And it's when you say, "You know what, this can be a good thing but it's not an ultimate thing."

The Happy Meal Analogy

Have you ever been with a kid when you go to a fast food restaurant and they want the happy meal? You've probably seen this happen, even if it's a nephew, a niece, your own kids, your own childhood. The idea is, they upcharge you for the Happy Meal. You get a little plastic thing inside of there, and so you get a bad cheap plastic toy and a bad hamburger, and it's called a "happy meal."

Here's what no three or four year old has ever done: They've never said, "Remember that one time you got me a happy meal? I'm happy. I will never ask for anything again, because I had a happy meal." Because it's not designed to do that. It is a temporary fix. You know it's a temporary fix. It doesn't bring lasting satisfaction.

But what a lot of us do is we go through life running from one happy meal to another happy meal thinking that it will bring us satisfaction, and all we are is like a three or four year old kid saying, "If I just get this then I'll be happy." But it brings no more lasting satisfaction because it wasn't designed to. Our satisfaction is only found ultimately in God.

Now that doesn't mean that there's no point in having a happy meal. It's better to have a happy meal now and then than not, but it's saying, understand its limit. When our expectations are out of whack, then our disappointment is higher.

A Personal Football Story

Let me just give you another story. Several years ago, the football season was winding down, and I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, so I'm a Green Bay Packer fan from the time I was born. I'm a Steeler fan because I've lived here a long time, and I like the Steelers. So my ideal football year, every year, is the Packers and the Steelers in the Super Bowl, with the Packers winning. That's what I cheer for every year.

A few years ago, both teams were advancing and they're both in the championship games of their respective conferences, meaning if they won on this particular day, they would meet in the Super Bowl. It was 2017, if you care to check the data. The Packers were playing the Falcons, the Steelers were playing the Patriots.

You know how this story ends. But to add to my expectation that day, one of my sons had a friend whose dad did business with both the Packers and the Steelers, and he knew that my son was a Packer fan, Steeler fan, and so he had said, "Hey, if either team wins, the Packers or the Steelers, I'll get tickets from the organization and we'll go to the Super Bowl."

So we had, going into this day, the hope that our football team—one of them, either of them—would go to the Super Bowl. Great outcome, maybe both with the Packers winning. It would be a great thing. And we would go to the Super Bowl, and this was going to be a great day.

And first, the Packers lost, then the Steelers lost. It was devastating.

Now, here's my point. Do you think, if one of the teams had won and I had gone to the Super Bowl, that I would be like, "You know, I went to the Super Bowl once, and the football team that I cheered for won. And therefore, I'm happy"? I mean, how many of you look back and say, "You know, the Steelers won in 2006. I've been happy ever since"?

I mean, it's not how it works because we weren't designed to find all of our satisfaction here. We're designed to find it in the Creator.

Remember Your Creator

This is what we see in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verse one, where the writer again just takes this idea and very simply helps us to understand that there's some other scale than simply saying it's outcomes over expectations:

"Remember your creator in the days of your youth before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I have no pleasure in them.'"

So he looks back, has everything. He says it's all meaningless. It's all a bunch of happy meals. But if you will prioritize the Creator of the universe, then you will be able to weather some of the things that don't seem happy.

Now again, his wisdom isn't "don't pursue your best outcome." His wisdom is pursue it. Embrace it. Enjoy it. But you see, when you worship God instead of that outcome, you are able to say that thing is a good thing but it's properly placed because it's not the ultimate thing.

And when that is true, you're able to receive it joyfully and to have joy in life even if that thing isn't a thing. And now you're able to say because of who God is, perfection isn't had in this world, but it is out there.

The Need for True Worship

What we really need if we're going to encounter this kind of a life is we need worship. We need to be able to worship the real God.

Now, that starts in many ways by recognizing what Romans 5 tells us, that for a good person, some people might dare to die, but Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. Recognizing that we're sinful, but God, through Jesus Christ, has made it possible for our sins to be forgiven, for us to have a relationship with God, for us to be certain that what's ahead of us is better than what we're experiencing today, and that there's certainty. That is the promise of God to us.

This is why the broken heroes of the Old Testament remind us that God is at work even in broken lives. That is the good news.

But my guess is, many of us know that intellectually. And yet, we still find ourselves saying, "This next thing will bring me happiness." And it shows that we have a little bit of a worship affection for something other than the God of the Bible.

A Personal Prayer About Worship

I wrote in my journal a prayer a while back. This is what I wrote:

"Father God, my worship can and does drift into a formal appreciation rather than a passionate surrender. It can and does reflect sometimes more of a transactional approach rather than one of pure adoration. At times, it's a delight to me, and at times, it feels like merely an expression of duty. It can and is the result of wonder, and then it's followed by a time of indifference."

And then I wrote these words:

"Father, today I choose passion. I choose surrender. I choose adoration. I choose delight. And I choose wonder. But where I don't feel those things in the moment, I ask that you would help me to stop and to put myself in a place where I will wait until I once again experience this in the depths of my soul."

If you've ever been in a dating relationship, a marriage, you know a little bit about how there's a euphoria when you fall in love. And then there's some time that you have to work at it a little. And it doesn't mean that your love is any less, but what it means is that you have to keep putting yourself in a place where you remember what it is you loved about the person and sit with it until it is rekindled inside of you.

The same thing is true spiritually. Sometimes you have to say, "God, I'm going to keep putting myself in a place to be reminded of the wonder."

Maybe you need to go back and say, "God, I am a sinner who needs your grace," and not see yourself as one of the good heroes, but one of the broken heroes, and be blown away by God's goodness. Because what happens is, the more you actually know God, the more you realize how holy He is and how unholy we are, and the more you'll be blown away by His amazing grace.

Because what happens, it's a little bit like if you've ever eaten at a restaurant and you've spilled something on yourself and it's dark and you think, "Oh it's not that bad," until you get it in the light and you say, "Oh, that stain is bad." That is what happens when we come into the presence of God, and it's when we see who He is that we actually, once again, say, "He is filled with amazing grace. He is worthy of worship. He is wonderful. He is adorable," rather than "this is my perfunctory duty."

The Result: Right-Sized Priorities

And when that becomes true, what will happen isn't that you won't care about career and family and health and success and being respected or whatever else you think it is that makes you happy, but it'll be right-sized. You'll be able to say, "This is a good thing. But it's not an ultimate thing, because I have an ultimate thing. And the ultimate thing's better than this thing."

And that will let you receive those things joyfully and not be devastated when they aren't true in your life because you'll be able to say, "There are other parts of life that God can allow me to experience joyfully even without this one thing." And that's where you'll find freedom.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, we ask today that you would help us each to see where maybe we take a good thing and we make it an ultimate thing, and how that becomes a dangerous thing. And I pray that you would help us instead to choose worship of you, so that we'd be free to enjoy the good things as good things, rather than worshiping them. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thanks for being here. Have a great day.

AI-Generated Disclaimer: This transcript has been formatted and lightly edited from the original audio recording for clarity and readability. While every effort has been made to preserve the speaker's intended meaning and tone, minor adjustments may have been made to improve flow and comprehension in written form.