Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 14, 2021 - Jeff Gokee

My name is Jeff. I’m so excited to be back here in the Valley. We were here for 11 years. Then we were in California for the last 4 1/2 years and then we’ve now just returned three weeks ago. I’m so glad to be here.

I really love this series that you’ve been in. If you haven’t listened to David, your pastor, his last three sermons, I can’t encourage you enough. I did listen to them. Powerful. So powerful. They’re going to give you an overview of Kings. First and Second Kings was actually one book that they cut in half because they were like, “I don’t know if people can get through the whole thing.” So the divided it into one narrative. And that narrative is really, really important, because it’s really about small amounts of success and massive amounts of failure.

That’s why, a lot of times as we look at the Old Testament, it’s kind of like, “Oh, let’s get to the New Testament, the good stuff.” No, no, no. We’ve got to learn about the failure part. There is success int here, of course, but the failure part helps us understand all the good stuff. It helps us understand why we need Jesus.

I’ve got three kids. One of them is a GCU student, whoo! So, as a father, I’m constantly telling my kids where I’ve made mistakes. The reason I do that is “Don’t do what I did. Don’t repeat those same mistakes.”

The Old Testament is like, “Listen, let me tell you why we need Jesus. Look at all the failure.” And it’s really important as we go through this, that you kind of sit in that a bit. Sit in how you’ve made mistakes. Sit in how you’ve failed. Allow yourself to receive the redemption that Jesus Christ gave to you, the grace you’ve received that you did not earn.

This is why the Old Testament is so helpful for us. It’s helping us bring into the New Testament where Jesus was the fulfillment of it all. You can’t separate these two. This isn’t old and new. This is wholistic way of telling the gospel narrative. It comes in its final moments in Jesus’ death and resurrection and his kingdom come and his will be done in earth as it is in heaven. That’s why it’s so important and that’s why I love this church, that we’re actually diving into the failures of the past to help us see where we need to go, and why we really need Jesus. So, I hope you face yourself today.

Much of what I’ve been doing in this last year has been facing myself, dealing with myself. A year and a half ago, I’ve been going to a counselor for the last three and a half years; and he asked me this question, “How do you care for yourself? How do you self care?” And I was like, “I don’t even know what that means.” And he said, “When’s the last time you went to a doctor.” And I was like, “I don’t know. Like ten years ago.” And he was like, “Yeah, maybe we’ll start there. Maybe go to the doctor. You’re forty-three, so it’s probably time to do that.”

So I walked into the doctor being that guy—you know, the guy who hasn’t been to the doctor in ten years. And they’re like, “Hey, that guy.” So I sit with the doctor and she has me go and do some blood work and she calls me back and says, “Hey, I need you to come back in. We saw some stuff.” So I sit back down with her and she says, “We need to send you to a hematologist.”

Now our family knows blood pretty well in this way. Our son was diagnosed with leukemia when he was eight (so nine years ago). So she sends us to a hematologist for me to sit through. We knew what that meant. So the hematologist says to us, “You have cancer.” Okay. “So, what happens. What’s going on?”

He asked me this question, “How do you feel anxious? How does that come out in your life?”

And I was like, “I don’t even know what you mean.”

And he said, “No, like, how often are you anxious?

And I’m like, “I never feel anxious. I’m that annoying guy that wakes up in the morning at 5:30 going, ‘This is the greatest day ever!’”

Right? I’m like lollipops and sugarplums. I’m like, “I’m so happy to be alive every single day.”

And he said this, “You have been anxious for a very, very, very long time. And this cancer is activated by anxiety.”

What I didn’t realize was I had a place of worship, a high place of worship, a different reality than the throne where God is supposed to sit. I created my own. It was wrapped around insecurity, power, position. I’m a 3 on the Enneagram. I want to get stuff done. And when I get stuff done, I feel successful. I want influence. I didn’t realize that over a period of time it actually triggered something genetically, biologically in me that caused cancer. It’s as if God was saying to me, “I want that place back. You keep filling it with all this other stuff, the approval of man, power, and that’s your reward. That’s all you get. But I want you. I’m a jealous God. I want all of you.”

This last year for me has been about repentance. And I resonate with Paul when he says, “I’m the chief of all sinners.” I stand before you today not as somebody who has it all figured out. I am broken and I am beautiful. Because the King of kings and the Lord of lords has rescued my life and he’s rescued your life.

That’s why it’s so important that we look at both the successes of the past and the failures of what we move forward. And because we look at King David, we go, “Wow, a man after God’s own heart.” Yeah, an adulterer and a murderer. Right?

And we move to Solomon. “Wow. Wisest man who’s ever existed.” Oh, a thousand wives. Idolatrous. He starts to divide the kingdom.

His son Rehoboam takes over for him and decides he wants to prove to Daddy that he’s a somebody. So he starts taxing the people so hard and grinding them down, that God as a result of the failures of Solomon goes to this man Jeroboam and says to Jeroboam, “Jeroboam, I’m going to bless you. You’re going to take these ten tribes. I’m going to bless you. Because of the failures of what’s happening with Solomon and Rehoboam.”

And listen to this in 1 Kings 11:38-39:

38 If you do whatever I command you and walk in obedience to me and do what is right in my eyes by obeying my decrees and commands, as David my servant did, I will be with you.

By the way, that’s the win. “I will be with you. My presence will be with you. My power will be with you. My influence will be with you.”

I will build you a dynasty as enduring as the one I built for David and will give Israel to you. 39 I will humble David’s descendants because of this, but not forever.’”

Here’s what I want to say. How gracious is God? He just lays it all out. Look what God is doing. God is not a cruel God who doesn’t set expectation for us. He goes to Jeroboam, “I want to bless you. I want you to take these ten tribes and I want you to lead them well by the power of God to be a light unto the nations for the world to see that there is a king who is on the throne. And I want to do that through you. But you need to be obedient. You need to follow after my laws. You need to obey in the same way that David did, repent in the same way that David did.”

He’s not cruel. He doesn’t make us guess. As followers of God, he’s not making us guess. He’s making it clear: with obedience and righteousness comes blessing. When we choose to do something different, there is a responsibility to that. He releases us. It’s terrifying. In Romans 1, he releases us to our desires. You want to go do that? Go do that.

What we find in Jeroboam is a significant problem. God has made everything clear. And maybe you find this in yourself. I would imagine you would. But what happens in Jeroboam is an individualism steps in. God has given the promise. God has made clear what he will do and how he will bless. But Jeroboam all of a sudden gets this individualistic urge in him that so many of us have and I want to go after this morning.

I did a lot of research on individualism. And honestly, the best thing I found was the Webster’s Dictionary definition and it is says this, “Individualism is a doctrine that the interests of the individual are or ought to be ethically paramount.”

It’s a doctrine. It’s a doctrine that the interests of me, what I want, what I desire are ethically paramount to anything else God included.

I was driving down the 10 there around University of Phoenix. If you go to the east Valley, you hate that turn, because it’s jam-packed So I’m on this turn this week, which I thought was kind of interesting. I’m on this turn and there’s a billboard for Gila River, and it said this: “Reclaim what’s yours. You do you.”

I was like, “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You do you?” Eh? You love money and want to be greedy? You do you. You like to sleep around? You do you. If you want to get ripped every weekend because you think it’s fun, you do you. You like to have affairs? You do you. Right? You don’t like your church? Don’t go! You do you.

This is the cancer that’s killing our culture. What’s more terrifying is it’s made its way into the church. It’s made its way into believers who profess Jesus as Lord and Savior, their King of kings and their Lord of lords. And where the angels lay down and say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come,” and we’re like, “Yeah but that’s kind of inconvenient for me. That doesn’t really fit in my box right now. I just don’t have time for it.”

This is what happens to Jeroboam. All that God has promised him, all that God has laid out to him, all the blessing, Jeroboam is, “But I’ve got a plan. I’ve got a different thing.” And what he does is he creates his own religion of individualism. And I wonder if many of us have done the same thing. In 1 Kings 12:26, I want you to listen to all the personal pronouns here. It’s really important.

26 Jeroboam thought to himself, “The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David.

So now he’s moved these ten tribes and he’s starting to think to himself. It’s a dangerous thing to go, “What about me?”

27 If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their lord, Rehoboam king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Rehoboam.”

It starts to create this insecurity. “Oh my gosh, what about me? Oh my gosh, what if they leave?”

28 After seeking advice, the king made two golden calves.

This should transport you back to the exodus. This should transport you back to the mountain where Moses is up getting the Ten Commandments, and because the people are impatient, Aaron creates these calves. This should transport you back to that.

He said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

How wrong.

29 One he set up in Bethel, and the other in Dan. 30 And this thing became a sin; the people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other. 31 Jeroboam built shrines on high places and appointed priests from all sorts of people, even though they were not Levites. 32 He instituted a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. And at Bethel he also installed priests at the high places he had made. 33 On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month of his own choosing, he offered sacrifices on the altar he had built at Bethel. So he instituted the festival for the Israelites and went up to the altar to make offerings.

Where is God? He, he, he, me, my. This is the way that Jeroboam is deciding to lead the people of Israel, the people of God rescued out of Egypt for His names’ sake to be a light unto the nations. And what does Jeroboam do? He does what so many of us do. “Well, what about me? Me, me, me, me, my.”

This is a complete and utter rejection of all that God had promised, that all that God has promised us. As I was thinking of it, there are many things that individualism fuel, but in the context of this passage, there are two things that I think are core, that stand out in this passage.

I think number one is fear. Fear. Listen to that first part of that narrative. He’s like, “Oh my gosh. They’re going to go to Jerusalem.” By the way, the place they’re supposed to go to honor God—the system that had been established by God Almighty, carried out from generation to generation, he’s like, “Oh, I don’t want them to go there. Because they might follow that king.”

No, no, no. If they go to Jerusalem, they’ll try to follow God, not a king. “No, no, no. I can’t do that. The might dethrone me. They actually might kill me.” Jeroboam was more worried about the people not following him than following God. I think that’s true so often in our lives. But here’s what I’ve been wrestling with this week. That fear is always in conflict with faith. Always. Fear is always in conflict with faith.

What we fear we follow. I wonder what you follow. Because is about the things unseen, Hebrews tells us. It’s this mysterious moment when we stand on the edge of the boat of whatever situation we find in our lives, and God’s like, “Just trust me. I know physics says this is impossible. I know science says this is not possible. Trust me.”

And this is the movement of faith. We step into the water. But fear says, “You could drown. You could die.” I think in our culture, what I find so interesting that fear is doing, is we are so afraid, we are so fearful that we might offend people, that we are willing to offend God. We’re so worried, “Well, what if we offend somebody.” I’ll just make it easy for you. You will. You’re going to offend people if you follow Jesus.

But so many of us are like, “I can’t live that way. I can’t say that thing. I can’t really, truly abide by all the scripture is saying. I mean, bits and pieces of course. But not all of it, because, if do that, I’ll offend people.” And in that process I’m willing to offend God but I’m not willing to offend others. That is another altar at a high place.

That is the opposite of what God is inviting you into. Because fear is where false gods come from. It’s a false god in your life that you’ve maybe created, because instead of being guided by the Spirit of God who inspired the scriptures of God, we are led by the hand of a fearful culture that we were called to do a transformation over. Right? This is heavy stuff. But we have to face ourselves. We have to deal with ourselves.

This is why Isaiah 53:6 says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned” – what? “To our own way.”

What I want to propose to you is this: Fear God and fear not. Fear God and fear not. Do you know this is a beautiful thing in scripture. This fear not thing is a gift that God gives to us. In fact, he gave it to us in the scriptures 365 times. Do you know why? Because he wants you to wake up every single morning reminding yourself that you were bought with a price. You are a precious son and daughter of the most high God. You carry the commission in your bloodstream, made to go help people come to see Jesus. Fear God and fear not in this world.

We are unstoppable in this world when we live this way. But when we become just like everybody else, because fear has emasculated the gospel, we miss out on the mission and the joy of what it is to join Jesus, his hands and feet in this world reaching. So fear not. Fear God and fear not.

I want this image in your head. Psalm 23. Say this with me. There are enemies all around us. And what are we doing? We’re at a table with the Good Shepherd. You can hear all the voices. “Don’t do that.” “You can’t do this.” “Go this way.” “Do you know that you could get this?” “If you don’t have this…” “If you don’t vote for this…” They’re all around you. You can hear all the voices. And it’s just you and God laughing hysterically and enjoying a meal. Because he makes a banquet table in the midst of our enemies, because he’s a good God, he’s a Good Shepherd and he’s leading his people into the Promised Land. Not just for ourselves, but for the sake of others. But if we’re so fearful, we’re going to miss out on the calling that he gave to us, which is to have life and life to the fullest.

The second thing that I see that individualism breeds, and what we see with Jeroboam, is convenience. He goes, “Don’t go all the way to Jerusalem.” Like it’s so far away. “Let me make it easy for you. Let me make it easy for you.”

You know what I have found that historically the easier things have become, the farther we have moved away from God; because we can get whatever what we want just like that. I can go on an app and I can order whatever I want whenever I want how I want it when I want it. And so I just went like this, “I bet God works the same way. I bet I can do that with my Christian faith. Just make it convenient. Because it is all about me.” And what we’ve done in the process is replaced our theology for me-ology, and made it all about us instead of all about God. Our lives, as Christians, are not about convenience. It’s about crucifixion. “I am crucified with Christ,” Paul says, “Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. He’s literally doing the opposite of what Jeroboam did, where it’s like, “I did this. I made it. I happen.” Paul’s going, “I need to die to all that.” And dying is inconvenient.

Ryan brought this up and it triggered in my brain, I realize I really struggle with Good Friday. I’m trying to get past Good Friday as fast as I can to get to Easter Sunday. Because that’s where the party is. He is risen! Everything’s great now, right? But at Good Friday, I get to deal with what I did to Jesus, how I’ve betrayed God. And I don’t want to deal with. Are you with me? I don’t want to deal with my sin, my depravity. I want all the good stuff. I want convenience, happiness, all the good stuff. I don’t want to deal with the fact that my sin put him there. I don’t want to deal with that. So get past Good Friday and go to Easter. That’s easier, more convenient.

And I struggle with that. Maybe you do too. Because convenience will always be in conflict with the cross. Always. And it’s what we’re being invited, not only to die to ourselves, but also commissioned to help other people do the same thing. It crushes our evangelism. It crushes our calling in this life.

So what’s the answer? Matthew 6:33 says this. This is something I write in my journal every single morning because I have to because I might forget. “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” Make it all about Jesus. Make it all about his kingdom. Make it all about his power, his joy, his peace, his love.

Then what happens in that mistrial exchange? Everything we’ve been longing for, hoping for, desiring for comes to fruition. But it comes to fruition in the person of Jesus, not in what I want, how I want it, when I get it.

This is where Jeroboam fails. It says in 1 Kings 14:9, because he led the people astray:

9 You have done more evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols made of metal; you have aroused my anger and turned your back on me.

May we not do that, church. Because of our individualism, because of the fear that we feel so deep in our soul that Satan keeps sparking day after day, because of the convenience that we desire that’s become a part of our ethos, the way we think, the way we act.

Jeroboam’s legacy, as we talk about it thousands of years later, is that he led a people astray. He had an opportunity to call them to be who God wanted them to be, and instead he created a counter-gospel. He will be ever known as the man who led Israel away into conflict, not blessing, but curse. That’s what happens when we release God’s will and we take up our own.

But here’s the beautiful thing that scripture always does. Scripture is always about redemption. And where Jeroboam failed, come on let’s preach, where Jeroboam failed, Jesus succeeded. Where our sin kept us in the grave, Jesus resurrected from the grave. Our eternity is heaven because Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, loved us enough to lay down his life to come to us. Emmanuel, God with us, gave his life so that we could be set free, which has now commissioned us to be the people of God for the glory of God. This is what we’re being invited into. This is how beautiful, where mankind fails, Jesus wins. We are the people of Jesus, called to live this out in our lives.

I know it’s not easy. I want you to know, I know your pastoral staff here, it is so weighty to be up here. I have to deal with me first. Sometimes a bunch of people think, just because I get up here and speak, that I’ve got this all figured out. And I don’t. I don’t. I’m struggling so deeply to find the grace and mercy that covers a multitude of sins. It’s not easy. I don’t have it all figured out. But I am obediently, to the best of my ability, following after Jesus. And when I fail, I repent.

I would invite you into the same thing, invite you to the same journey that I’m trying to do as a believer in Jesus Christ, to the best of my ability. It’s not easy. And what David’s been talking about the last few weeks—not easy. But so important because this is a turning point for the local church, in my opinion. This is an opportunity for us to regain what it means to be a city on a hill for the world to see that he is the King. He is the King. All the power, all the glory, all the honor belongs to him. But we get to display that and live that in our lives daily.

I told you about my son nine years ago. He was diagnosed with leukemia as an eight year old. Walk into the hospital, and their marketing department must have done a whole rebrand. We walk in and the first thing is “It’s all about you.” That seems appropriate, right? You have a little kid that’s going through cancer. Like, “It’s all about you, buddy. It’s all about you.”

There’s nothing that could be more toxic to an eight-year-old heart, or to your heart or to my heart than to hear, “It’s all about you.” So we feel like we did everything we possibly could do. “Buddy, it’s not about you. It’s not about you.”

It’s not about you. I know it’s painful. I know it’s hard. It’s not about you. It’s about Jesus and entering into his suffering, in selflessly suffering to serve other people. Do what you’re going to do. It’s difficult. It’s not convenient. And it takes a whole lot of faith to go through. It was so painful. But we were doing everything we could to help him not believe it was all about him.

The thousands of children that have come before my son who have died so that he could have life, so he could have the protocol, the treatment, the chemo. Thousands of kids had to die. How dangerous for me to tell my son, “It’s all about you.” How dangerous for you, the carriers of the cross, the good news of Jesus Christ, for you to believe that it’s all about you, that life is all about you, your hopes and your dreams. It is all about Jesus. It will always be about Jesus. That will liberate you. It’s going to liberate you. It’s going to liberate you to live like Jesus.

As I sat in my home hospital room three weeks after getting a diagnosis of cancer, the doctor said, “I don’t use words like this. But you’re healed. It’s gone. As doctors we don’t have a lot of words for this.”

“I do. It’s a miracle.” Because he’s rescued my life. He’s trying to get my attention. “I want that altar. That’s my rightful place. You keep putting other people’s opinions and your lack of identity in that. I want you and I want all of you.”

He wants all of you. He wants all of you. He loves you so much. So I want to slow down and I want to invite you into something, something Joshua did before he dies. He was a father, he fathered these people. And he says this to them. And I want you to slow down. I know I’ve been ramping up. I want you to slow down and I want you to hear these words from Joshua, but I want you to hear them from theLord. I want you to trust the Spirit of God in your life right now that he is speaking to you.

Joshua 24:14-15 (ESV):

14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord

Put away social media, the fear of social media. Put away the fear of whatever the news is trying to tell you. Whatever political system is trying to tell you. Put away those fathers that you serve beyond the rivers and in Egypt.

15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites…

…or the gods of Hollywood, the gods of power and wealth in the institutions all across this world that tell you you need to achieve more, you’ve got to do more, you’ve got to be more…

…in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

We will serve the Lord. Choose today who you will serve. You can’t serve both. No man can serve two masters. Today is a day where we receive the gift and the grace that Jesus has given to us through his death and his resurrection. We say amen. We choose today to live in light of that. Don’t abuse it. Choose to live in light of the fact that he paid the price, the ultimate price, for you to be alive. He knit you together in your mother’s womb, not so you could have a good life, but so that you could have a God life. So that you could be his hands and his feet in this world, sharing this good news that will transform people’s lives. When people’s lives transform, cities transforms. And when cities transform, states transform. And when states transform, countries transform. And when countries transform, the world transforms. Right?

Because this is the work that Jesus has been doing, that God has been doing from the beginning of time and he’s inviting you into today. Choose today whom you will serve. But as for this church and the leadership here, we’re going to serve the Lord. May he invite you into that. May you be convicted by the Spirit of God, who today will you serve? Will you serve all the other gods? Or will you serve the King of kings and the Lord of lords for his glory and his honor, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And God’s church said, Amen.

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