First Kings chapter 12. The nation of Israel wanted a king, and God gave them Saul, who then replaced with David, the man after God's heart. God promised David that his descendants' kingdom would endure forever. We can read about that in 2 Samuel 7, 13. David handed the kingdom to his son Solomon, who sinned greatly against the Lord. Part of the consequences of Solomon's sin was that the kingdom would be torn apart. First Kings 12 records the details of how God ordered the events that divided the nation of Israel in 931 BC. And it was certainly, as we look back over 2021, We've been blessed with the messages, the challenges from looking at the life of Saul. David and Solomon, certainly there's many things that I know I need to apply to my life that was brought to us. So thank you pastors for the messages this past year. So follow along with me as I read 1 Kings chapter 12. Then Rehoboam went to Shechem, and all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. Now when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it, he was living in Egypt, for he was yet in Egypt where he had fled from the presence of King Solomon. Then they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, Your father made our yoke hard. Now, therefore, lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke, which he put on us, and we will serve you." And then he said, depart for three days and then return to me. And so the people departed. King Rehoboam consulted with the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, how do you counsel me to answer the people? And they spoke to him saying, if you will serve, if you will be a servant to this people today and will serve them and grant them their petition and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever. But he forsook the counsel of the elders, which they had given him and consulted with the young men who grew up with him and served him. So he said to them, what counsel do you give that we may answer this people who have spoken to me saying, lighten the yoke which your father put on us? Well, the young men who grew up with him spoke to him saying, thus you shall say to this people who spoke to you saying, your father made our yoke heavy. Now you make it lighter for us, but you shall speak to them. My little finger is thicker than my father's loins. Whereas my father loaded you with a heavy yoke. I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. Then Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day as the father had directed saying, return to me on the third day. The king answered the people harshly and he forsook the advice of the elders, which they had given him. And he spoke to them according to the advice of the young men saying, My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions. So the king did not listen to the people for it was a turn of events from the Lord that he might establish his word, which the Lord spoke through Adijan the Shonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel. Now look after your own house, David. So they departed to their tents. But as for the sons of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them. Then King Rehoboam sent Adaram, who was over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death. And King Rehoboam had made haste to mount his chariots and to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel had been rebelling against the house of David to this day. And it came about when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, that they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. None but the tribe of Judah followed the house of David. Now, when Rehoboam had come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the houses of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 chosen men who were warriors to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. But the word of God came to Shimea, the man of God, saying, Speak to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin and to the rest of the people, saying, Thus says the Lord, You must not go up and fight against your relatives, the son of Israel. Return every man to his house, for this thing has come from me. And so they listened to the word of the Lord and returned and went their way according to the word of the Lord. Then Rehoboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there. And he went out from there and built Penuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, now the kingdom will return to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifice to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of his people will return to their Lord, even to Rehoboam, king of Judah. And they will kill me and return to Jeroboam king of Judah. So the king consulted and made two golden calves. And he said to them, it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt. He set one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. Now this thing became a sin for the people went to worship before the one as far as Dan. And he made houses in high places and made priests from all the people who were not of the sons of Levi. Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month of the 15th day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah. And he went up to the altar, thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of high places which he had made. And then he went up to the altar, which he had made in Bethel on the 15th day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart. And he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense. Last year, we began our sermon series. We're entitling Kings and Controversies. One year ago, we began preaching about King Saul. We followed his life and then began to work our way through the life of King David. In early August, we transitioned and began to look at the life of King Solomon. My brother Jonathan preached the final message on King Solomon's life from 1 Kings chapter 11 on Youth Sunday at the church picnic in early October. Since then, we've been looking at the writings of Solomon. Pastor Del preached a number of messages on Proverbs, and then Pastor Ike and I worked our way through Ecclesiastes. And now this morning, we are picking up the narrative once again in 1 Kings chapter 12. Solomon has died and he has passed on the reign to his son, Rehoboam. And as you heard my dad read earlier in 1 Kings chapter 12, it really is a sad account of what happened to the nation of Israel because of sin. Both Rehoboam and Jeroboam made some serious mistakes as they began their respective reigns as king, and their lives serve as a warning to you and I. You see, if we're gonna begin 2022 well and continue to mature in our walk with the Lord, we must avoid the mistakes of Rehoboam, Jeroboam, and the nation of Israel. Mistakes which we are tempted to make. I've outlined 1 Kings chapter 12 around six common mistakes that we need to avoid. And we can group these six common mistakes into two categories. First, mistakes or sins that we are tempted to make in our interaction with others. And as you can see on your notes, the second category is mistakes or sins that we make in our relationship with God. Now life can be moving on normally, And if we're not careful, before we know it, we can find ourselves heading down one of these wrong paths that are demonstrated in this chapter by Rehoboam, Jeroboam, and the nation of Israel. Rehoboam began well. As we begin chapter 12, he's doing what is expected. His father said, you're gonna be the king, and so he is establishing himself as king. What he's doing is nothing wrong. Jeroboam, as he returns to the nation of Israel, and as he represents the people and makes that request there in verse four, There's nothing wrong with that. He's doing a good thing. He's making an appeal. And it's very wise and good to make an appeal. But as often happens, especially with New Year's diet goals, a good start doesn't last long. And that's exactly what we see here. Very quickly, everyone involved in 1 Kings chapter 12 slides into mistakes and sins. And these are the mistakes and sins that you and I must avoid if we're going to start 2022 well and continue to live a life for God. Now as we look at these common mistakes, we must keep in mind that we cannot avoid these mistakes in our own strength. I am not presenting a TED Talk about how to improve your life, nor is this a motivational speech about how to make your life better. Instead, my goal this morning is to preach God's Word and allow God's Spirit to do the work that only He can do in each one of your hearts this morning. I want to call you to walk in the Spirit, not in your flesh, not in your willpower. You see, the only way that we can avoid these common mistakes in our lives is when we set our eyes on our Savior, when we seek to depend on Him for the strength and grace we desperately need in all of life. As we will see, both Rehoboam and Jeroboam were walking by sight, not faith. They were most concerned about what they could get out of the situation, how they could align things for the biggest personal benefits. And you and I can easily see the error in their ways. But if we're not careful, we too can fall into the same trap of walking by sight instead of walking by faith, living in our own strength and determination instead of abiding in Christ and depending on him for the strength and grace we need moment by moment. Of course, none of us are perfect. We're never going to be perfect until we get to heaven one day. But that should not discourage us. Our mistakes, our sins should not cause us to despair and drive us to give up. Instead, our mistakes and sins should be used as reminders of our desperate need for God's grace in our lives. You see, we need God. As believers, God is always with us. But so often, at least speaking for myself, I live too much of life as if he is not here. So if we're gonna continue to mature in our Christian life, we must continue to turn to the Lord. We must seek to walk by faith and depend on him completely. Now there may be some of you who are listening to what I'm saying, and it may sound foreign to you because you do not have a relationship with God. You see, if you have not received the gift of salvation that God made possible through Jesus Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, everything that we're going to talk about this morning is not going to make any sense. You must first have that relationship with God before you will be able to implement the things that we're talking about this morning and depend on God's grace and strength. But for most of us, we are here, we are believers, we have received that gift of salvation. And so as we look at the text this morning, My prayer is that we will be able to keep our focus on God, especially as we work through these common mistakes. So let's begin by looking at the first common mistake that Rehoboam makes in verses 1 through 12. Namely, we could describe his mistake as shopping for advice. And now it's impossible to get inside of Rehoboam's head to figure out exactly what he was thinking and why he did what he did. But based on his actions, we can take an educated guess. I think it's very clear that Rehoboam knew of his father Solomon's sins and the result. Turn back in your Bible to 1 Kings chapter 11. First Kings chapter 11, and we're going to jump down all the way to verse number 11. Rehoboam was fully aware of this. Verse number 11 tells us, Rehoboam was aware of that. I think Rehoboam was also aware of God's words to Jeroboam. Skip down to verse 30. Here in verse 30, we see Ahijah, the prophet of God, speaking to Jeroboam. And Ahijah, as he's speaking, verse number 30, the text tells us that he took hold of the new cloak which was on him and tore it into 12 pieces. Verse 31, he said to Jeroboam, Rehoboam was fully aware of that as well. But he didn't know the timeline. He didn't know when that was going to happen. All he knew was that his father Solomon had appointed him to be king and so he's going to carry out his father's plans. But there seems to be in the back of Rehoboam's mind this desire to somehow circumvent God's decreed plan. It's as if Rehoboam is trying to align himself in order to be in the best possible place, in order to persevere, in order to continue his reign over the entire nation of Israel for as long as possible. I think this is why he's going to Shechem in verse number one, so that all Israel can come to make him king as they have this coronation ceremony. And when this appeal is presented to him by Jeroboam, he wisely takes some time to think it over. Notice he takes those three days. But as we come to verse six, it seems like he's just going through the motions. He goes to the elders, which was very wise. He listened to what they said. But as we come to verse 8, we see that Rehoboam intentionally forsook the elders' counsel. Now, why did he do that? I think he did that because he didn't like their counsel. He was looking for counsel that was more in line with what he wanted to do. You see, Rehoboam was shopping for advice. As you come to verses 10 and 11, these young men who he goes to next, keep in mind these young men are probably in their late 30s, early 40s. Because Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king, and these young men grew up with Rehoboam. So that's the age of these men. But these young men give him the advice that Rehoboam wants to hear. You see, in Rehoboam's mind, it makes sense to demonstrate to the people that he was king, and they must submit to him or else. He was probably trying to intimidate or crush and destroy any ideas of rebellion that the people had. This would explain why he accepted the advice of the young men to add to the people's yoke, to discipline the people, not with whips, but with scorpions. And when he's talking about scorpions, he's not talking about the animal. He's talking about whips that have sharp pieces of metal in them. This was the advice that Rehoboam wanted to hear because Rehoboam was shopping for advice. Now taking time to decide a matter is a very wise thing to do. Asking for advice is good. But, If you and I are not careful, we can shop around for advice until we find someone who agrees with what we want to do. Have you ever done that? I know I have. Maybe you want to take that new job. Your spouse isn't so sure, and so you go and talk to someone else who's thinking like you. Or maybe you wanna get that new car. It's the car you've been waiting for. You know what your pastor thinks about taking out a loan for the car, and so you go and talk to someone else. I think kids do this the best, though, right? Kids know which parent to go to to get what they want, right? But what's the common denominator here? What's the pattern? We're not really looking for advice. We're not really looking for wisdom. Our mind is already made up. We're simply shopping around for the advice that matches what we want to do. And this is exactly what Solomon warns us about in Proverbs chapter 3. We read in verse number 7. You might have to click it for me. My clicker is no longer working. Perfect. Do not be wise in your own eyes. So avoid the mistake of shopping for advice, the advice that matches what you want to do. May the Lord give you and I the willingness to seek out wisdom, to do what is right and wise even if we don't want to do it. Let's move on and notice the second mistake that we need to avoid, namely of lording it over the people. No, naturally, our sin nature drives a person in leadership to use their position for themselves. The Apostle Peter describes in 1 Peter 5.3 as lording it over people. In other words, acting like a big shot. The one everyone should love, adore, and serve. Even if you're not in a position of leadership, you too can fall into this trap in your interaction with your friends and siblings. You see, naturally, we look out for our own interests and use other people to get what we want. Again, remember, Rehoboam is 41 years old when he becomes king. And so he had a lot of time to think through and anticipate his chance of being king. Could you imagine all the thoughts that were going through his mind? Especially as he saw and observed and experienced the lavish lifestyle of his father Solomon. As he saw and experienced and observed all the respect, adoration, and almost worship sometimes that Solomon received. I mean, what would go through your mind if someone told you, that in 20 years you were gonna be the president of the United States of America. If they told you that today, what would begin to go through your mind? I would guess that five years down the road, you would be acting and thinking differently because of that fact. And I'm guessing that Rehoboam struggled with similar thoughts. Rehoboam was eagerly anticipating being the king of Israel, longing for the time when he would be the man. Everyone would look up to him. Everyone would know that he was the most important person. And so as he steps into this role, he is all on board with these young men's advice to increase the workload of the people, requiring even more taxes so he can continue to live this lavish lifestyle as king. He loved the idea of lording it over the people. And as a result, Rehoboam sinned against the people in at least three ways. As we look at these three ways, check yourself against Rehoboam to see if you too fall into this trap of lording it over people. I know I have fallen into this trap many times. Let's look at the first one. As he's lording it over the people, notice first that he is not serving. A good leader serves those whom he is leading. The motto, life is for service, hits the nail on the head. And that's the advice that the elders gave him. Go back up to verse 7, right? The elders tell him to be a servant to this people and serve them. That was very good advice. But the idea of serving the people was the furthest thing from Rehoboam's mind. He wanted to be served, not serve. But what has our Savior said? We read in Mark 10.45, Our Savior has set the bar high. Husbands, do you serve your wives? Parents, do you serve your children? Young people, do you serve your friends and siblings? Life is not solely about our personal happiness. Life is for service. May God help us to receive and implement his grace to serve those around us. The second mistake that Rehoboam made as he lorded it over the people was he did not love them. If you skip down to verse 13, the text tells us that the king answered the people harshly. That harshness was flowing from Rehoboam's heart, a heart that was focused on himself and what he wanted on his position, instead of a heart that was focused on God and how he could serve those around him. We see Rehoboam was not loving in his words. Fathers too can be harsh with their children. Mothers struggle with this at times as well. This is why God warns us in Ephesians 6, 4. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Parents, we need to be mindful of the words that are coming out of our mouths as we interact with our children. Harsh words come from a heart that is annoyed. and angry at the inconvenience of those children, the children that God has called us to serve as we lead them. So let's walk in the Spirit as we love those around us with our words. But notice, Rehoboam, not only was he not loving the people with his words, but he also wasn't loving them with his actions. The parallel passage in 2 Chronicles chapter 10 tells us in verse seven that the elders told Rehoboam to be kind to this people. He was to love them with his actions by removing the heavy yoke, or at least lessening the tax burden, as we see back here in verse number seven. Serving others is often the best way to love them. And sometimes serving others translates into us setting aside our desires and plans and honoring the wishes of those we love. Philippians 2 verse 4 is a very challenging verse. We read, Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. We need this reminder because that is not at all what happens naturally. We must depend on God's strength to regard one another as more important than ourselves. Well, the final way that Rehoboam was demonstrating this, lording it over the people, was he was not listening. We see in verse 15, that Rehoboam heard the request to lighten the load with his ears, but he didn't listen. The text says, so the king did not listen to the people. Rehoboam assumed that the people were trying to rebel and needed to be squashed. He misjudged their motives because he didn't listen. And you and I can have that same tendency. It can be so easy to assume. That's why God calls us to be quick to hear and slow to speak. a good practice to get into is to ask clarifying questions to make sure that we're really hearing and understanding what is being said to us. Now before we move on, I must point out the note, the editor's note that we see here in verse 15. Did you see it there? That second phrase? For it was a turn of events from the Lord that he might establish his word. You see, none of these events took God by surprise. If you underline in your Bible, I encourage you to underline that phrase. It's underlined in my Bible because it's a great verse that reminds us of the fact that our God is in sovereign control of everything. There is nothing that happens that is outside of His control. Our God is able to take the good and the bad and weave it all together for His incredible plan and purpose. That should give us hope, right? Our God is in control of all things. We have nothing to fear because God is in sovereign control. Once we come to verse 16, we observe the people's response to Rehoboam's harsh words. And their response in verses 16 through 19 was wrong. And it's another mistake that we must avoid. Namely, we must avoid responding in vengeance. Now without a doubt, Rehoboam wronged the people of Israel by not listening to their appeal. But just because you are wronged, that does not give you the right to hit back. You see here in verse 16 that Israel is using the same call that Sheba used when he rebelled against King David in 2 Samuel chapter 20. Notice what the text says. Now look after your own house, David. With these words, they're basically saying, we're going to forget about you, Rehoboam. We're no longer going to serve you. You are not our king. We're going to our tents. In other words, we're going to our home. We're going to find ourselves a new king. What's interesting, though, is if you skip down to verse number 19, notice how God labels the nation of Israel's actions. God labels their actions as rebellion. Because the nation of Israel did not get what they wanted, they rebelled. And you and I can have that same inclination as well. When we are wrong, we naturally want to get even. We want to respond with vengeance. But God's direction is very clear. Romans 12 19. Now you know this is not a TED Talk because that is impossible to do in your own strength. Even if you could somehow muster up the courage, the ability, the strength to do this, God raises the bar even higher two verses later as God says, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. That is only able to be done As you and I understand and receive the grace of God in our personal lives. Once we have received God's grace, then and only then are we able to extend God's grace to those who sin against us. Overcoming evil with good is only able to be accomplished by those who have God's Spirit living inside of them. Do you have God's Spirit living inside of you? Well, as Israel returns to their tents, to their homes, they decide in verse 20 that Jeroboam is going to be their new king. And so just like God said, Jeroboam tears the ten tribes out of the hand of Solomon's son and gives them to Jeroboam. But of course, Rehoboam's not going to stand for this. Which brings us to the fourth common mistake that we must avoid. Namely, we need to avoid fighting against God's plan. Conflicts naturally escalate. One person sins against another person, to which that person responds in vengeance, to which the first person feels like they have to do something back and just gets worse and worse and worse. And that seems to be what's happening in this account. We saw that Rehoboam's ambassador was killed, and that gave Rehoboam the perfect opportunity to respond with war, which is exactly what he's preparing to do, as you see there in verse 21. Notice, Rehoboam is gathering 180,000 men from Judah and Benjamin. And notice, these weren't just any men. The text tells us that these were chosen men. And not only were they chosen men, they were warriors. Men who were ready to fight to restore Israel to the house of David. But in Rehoboam doing this, He was actually fighting against God's plan, as we saw back in verse 15. But none of this took God by surprise. As you see in verse 22, God told Shemaiah, the man of God, to deliver a message to Rehoboam and the entire house of Judah and Benjamin. I want you to put yourself in Shemaiah's shoes. Would you be willing to take a message from the Lord that was in direct contradiction to the king and his 180,000 chosen men warrior army? That took courage. But he did it. Shammai did it because Shammai was depending on the Lord. No wonder he is referred to as a man of God. Shemai's message was clear and to the point. Look at it again in verse 24. These are his words. The next phrase is probably the most encouraging verse in the entire chapter. Look at it. So they listened to the word of the Lord and returned and went their way according to the word of the Lord. Wow. Rehoboam and all of these men responded in humble obedience to the word of the Lord. They quickly changed directions. Every one of those 180,000 chosen men who were warriors returned home. Is that how you and I respond to the Word of the Lord? You know, in some ways, it's easy to sit here and to hear the Word of the Lord as you sit here in comfortable chairs in a temperature-controlled room. You have a desire to do the Word of the Lord, and that's a good thing. That's where it needs to start. But what about as you're living life and life happens? Do you listen to the Word of the Lord? Do you respond to the Word of the Lord? For instance, you're driving down the road. And as you drive down the road, someone pulls out in front of you and begins to drive so slow for the next like 20 miles. Okay, it's only half a mile, but it felt like 20 miles. And as all kinds of thoughts are going through your mouth and you're squeezing that steering wheel tight, Philippians 2, 3, and 4 comes in your mind. Like that driver? Do you respond to the word of the Lord? Or do you fight against God's plan? Or maybe your boss tells you, it's Friday, and your boss says, I'm gonna let you off early today, and you think that's great, because I got some big plans with my family tonight. But just before you head out the door, your boss comes running to you and says, hey, you gotta get this done, it's an emergency assignment, it has to be done before you leave. You take a deep breath, you sigh, and you say, okay, I'm gonna do it, I'm not gonna complain, and you do it. But when it happens the fourth time, you're ready to just walk out that door, At which point Romans 12, 21 comes to mind. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So do you respond to the word of the Lord? Or do you fight against God's plan? I think you get the point, right? Are we responding to God's word? Or are we fighting against it? When someone shows us from God's Word why our course of action is not right, do we continue down that current path? Or are we willing to listen to the Word of God and heed his instructions? May God give each one of us the humility to admit that we were wrong and to turn around. The scene shifts as we come to verse 25, as the spotlight is now focused on Jeroboam. And as we watch his actions, we see the final two mistakes we must avoid, really the sins that we must avoid, specifically in our relationship with God. Notice first, we must not ignore God's promises. Now in order to understand what's happening here in verses 25 through 27, we need to go back and review a little bit more of chapter 11. So turn back there again. We see in verse 28 that Jeroboam was Solomon's servant. Earlier we read verses 30 and 31, we heard word from the Lord to Jeroboam, but I want to read a little bit more of that. We're going to again read in verse 31. Notice what the text says. This is Ahijah speaking to Jeroboam. He says, Skip down to verse number 35. But, and Ahijah is still speaking to Jeroboam. This is the word of the Lord. God says to Jeroboam, verse 35, Skip down to verse 37. Verse 38. Then it will be that if Do you see all those promises that God made to Jeroboam? There's numerous promises he makes in there. God promised Jeroboam that he would be the king over Israel. Now, of course, some of these promises were conditional, right? We saw that in verse 38. But nevertheless, God made these statements. There were promises to Jeroboam. But as we come back to chapter 12 and look at verses 26 and 27, it's clear to me that Jeroboam is ignoring God's promises. As you can see in the text, he's thinking that the kingdom is going to be returned to Rehoboam, that the people of Israel are going to rise up and kill him. But that was in complete opposition to what God had promised. Now we can't know for sure what was going through Jeroboam's mind. But as we seek to apply this event to our lives, do you realize that many times you and I accidentally and sometimes intentionally ignore God's promises? Many times for you and I, it comes down to walking by sight, not willing to trust God when we cannot see what God is doing. Many times fear is involved. We're afraid of what might happen or what could happen. And that's what Jeroboam was working against. Right? He was fearful of the people deserting him. He was afraid that as they went down to Jerusalem for their regular religious ceremonies, that they would turn against him. And as worry often does, it quickly, Jeroboam's worry quickly became irrational as Jeroboam concludes that the people are going to kill him and return and serve Rehoboam. The man who promised to increase their yoke and discipline them with scorpions? That doesn't make any sense. But often, our fears are irrational. Now, they don't seem irrational as we play them over and over and over and over again in our minds. They seem like they are very likely to happen and pretty much impossible to overcome. But when we remind ourselves of the promises of God and view ourself from God's perspective, view our situation from God's perspective, those irrational fears can evaporate. You see, God has promised you as his child. He has promised you that he will never leave you or forsake you. Hebrews 13, five. God has promised that he will be faithful to you, that he will strengthen you to endure whatever he brings into your life. First Corinthians 10, 13. God has promised to uphold you with his righteous right hand, Isaiah 41, 10. We have nothing to fear because God is with us. And there are so many other promises that God has made to you and I. Do not make the mistake of ignoring God's promises. As we come to verse 28, we see that Jeroboam's irrational fears caused him to sin against God in some terrible ways. And the same can happen for you and I when we choose to worship God our way. The final verses of chapter 12 explain the elaborate system that Jeroboam set up in order to copy and exceed the worship system that God had decreed. Notice in verse 28, Jeroboam designs these two calves as physical symbols to worship God. He created them as images or pictures of God so that the people could worship God visually. Just like Satan manifests himself as an angel of light, Jeroboam is presenting this system as a new and better way to worship God. But it was false. It was a lie. A lie that led many, many people astray. But thankfully, not everyone was led astray. And we know that based on the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 11. The Levites weren't led astray. The text tells us the Levites left their pasture lands and their property and came to Judah and Jerusalem. For Jeroboam and his sons had excluded them from serving as priests to the Lord. That was quite a commitment for these Levites who lived in the north, in the nation of Israel, in those ten tribes in the north. It was a commitment for them to leave everything and move to a location where they could worship and serve God as He required. Are you willing to do the same? Or is your worship and service for God at the bottom of your priority list? You only fit it in when you're able. Notice the Levites weren't the only ones who saw the heir of Jeroboam. Two verses later, in 2 Chronicles 11, we read, So there was this remnant who still desired to do what is right, even though Jeroboam is leading the majority of the people away from God. You see, Jeroboam, he was locked into himself. He was going to worship God his way. In fact, notice how many times the pronoun he is used in verses 29 through 32. I'm not gonna read those verses again, but it's he made, he stationed, he made, he devised, he instituted, he went up. It's all about himself, what he wants to do. But notice also that Jeroboam designed this whole religious system to gratify the people's senses. Feelings and emotions have their place, but they should not be indicators of what true worship looks like. Truth must lead the way. We must seek to walk by faith, not by attempting to gratify our senses. Now you might be thinking to yourself, this really doesn't apply to me because I've never set up an altar. I've never built a golden calf to worship God, to which I would respond, good. I'm glad you haven't. Don't do it. It is not a good idea at all. But can you see and understand how easy it is to begin to worship God our way instead of his? Jesus has told us we need to worship him in spirit and truth. Truth matters. But yet for you and I, it can be so easy to come here to us on a Sunday morning, to just go through the motions, stand when we sing, mouth the words, half-heartedly listen to the truths of God's word. But when we do that, we're worshiping God our way. But worship is so much more than what we do here on a Sunday morning at 9.30. Worship is all of life. And so as we live life, are we worshiping God or are we trying to worship God our way? To illustrate this for us, I want to just look at a couple verses from Romans chapter 12. I'm not going to read them. Instead, I'm going to ask questions to determine if we are worshiping God our way. For instance, verse number nine. Do we abhor what is evil? Or do we get as close to the line as possible? Verse 10. Are you devoted to your brothers and sisters here more than you're devoted to your coworkers, your sports team, the members of your club, your extended family? Verse 11, are you fervent in spirit serving Lord? Verse 13, are you contributing to the needs of the saints? Are you practicing hospitality or are you making excuses? When you start to think about it, all of life is meant to be lived in worship to God. But the tendency all of us have is to live our lives our way, to worship God in the way that works best for us. But in so doing, we are falling for the same mistake that Jeroboam made. God cares about how we worship and live for him. He is a holy God, so let's worship him in spirit and truth. Well, as we wrap this up this morning, We must remember, if we're going to honor God in our lives in the new year, we must seek to walk by faith, not by sight. We must make it our goal to believe and trust God, to depend on His strength as we seek to faithfully live our lives based on His clear instructions. And as we do, we must keep in mind that we're not doing this to merit or gain favor with God. Instead, we're doing it out of love and gratitude for all that God has done for us. And so we're seeking to walk by the Spirit, not in our own strength. And so as God's Spirit fills us, you and I will be able to avoid the mistakes and sins of shopping for advice, lording it over people, responding in vengeance. fighting against God's plan, ignoring God's promises, and worshiping God our way. Again, the only way we will be able to do this is when we're walking by faith with our eyes set on God. We must walk by faith with our eyes set on God.