Divided Kingdom

Love God and Love Man

Hello everybody

I am excited to be with you, and I am super excited about this weekend

We are having DNOW, and it is not too late to sign up

If you are going, find somebody to bring

Tonight we are continuing our series through the big picture story of the Bible

Last week we talked about the temple, and how God wants to dwell with His people

The story has been fairly straightforward up to this point

people have had their bumps in the road, but we have had this clear progression from the family of Abraham to the nation of Israel

Tonight our story is going to take a turn

The people of God, the nation of Israel, is going to split

We are going to quickly look at what led up to the split, and talk about what that means for us

1 Kings 11:1–10 “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.

So here we see something about Solomon

even with all the good that he had done building the temple, he still eventually got his worship wrong

The women that he married distracted him from the commands and goodness of God, and he started worshipping these other gods and allowing people in the kingdom of Israel to worship these other gods

For us, I think that we can use this as a caution

we must always stay focused on Jesus

Solomon had been great, but he got pulled away from God

Many of us have experiences and seasons where we were close to God, but then we get back around our friends who do not love the Lord, and they pull us away from God

We need to guard our hearts, and guard our relationships from this kind of influence

the people that you are around have much more influence on you than you may think

if you have experienced what I described, the close season to God and then gradually falling away, think back and see if there are any people contributed to that spiritual decline

maybe its the friends you hang out with, maybe its the people that you watch online, maybe it is a boyfriend or girlfriend

whatever it is, learn from Solomon and choose to not be pulled away from God by the people around you

So Solomon got his worship wrong

but that isn’t all that led to the kingdom splitting

The kingdom didn’t split until Solomon’s son Rehoboam was king

The fractures in the kingdom had started because of the worship of other gods, but lets see what also happened in the story

1 Kings 12:1–19 “Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. And as soon as Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from Egypt. And they sent and called him, and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you.” He said to them, “Go away for three days, then come again to me.” So the people went away. Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” And they said to him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him. And he said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?” And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to this people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us,’ thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs. And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’ ” So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king said, “Come to me again the third day.” And the king answered the people harshly, and forsaking the counsel that the old men had given him, he spoke to them according to the counsel 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 affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat. And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What portion do we have in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, David.” So Israel went to their tents. But Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah. Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, and all Israel stoned him to death with stones. And King Rehoboam hurried to mount his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.”

So Rehoboam becomes king and the people tell him that they are tired of the work that Solomon had them doing. They come to him and ask him to lighten the load, and they even say “and we will serve you”.

Rehoboam takes this request to his advisors. These advisors are wise men, and they tell him to listen to them. They see that he can do this and the people will follow him wherever he leads them.

but Rehoboam, much like his dad Solomon, listens to the wrong people

he listens to his friends, and they are like “who are these people to tell YOU want to do. Put them in their place, show them that you are the boss.

Rehoboam is foolish and listens to his friends

he tells the people that he is the boss and he doesn’t care about them or what they think

the people see that, and they split from Rehoboam, and the people of God have now become split.

For us, once again we are reminded to pay attention to who we listen to

are we going to listen to foolish people who tell us what we want to hear, or are we going to listen to the wise people who tell us the hard truths

But we also see that God’s people are supposed to get 2 things right: love for God and love for people

Solomon got his love for God wrong, and Rehoboam got his love for people wrong

you can’t live as people of God without either of these things

We actually see this in the new testament from Jesus

Matthew 22:34–40 “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.””

I want you to look at your life, and ask yourself if you love God with everything you have, and if you love others as you love yourself

nobody should feel that you get both of those all the way right

Is there some area in your life that you need to give God?

Is there somebody in your life that you need to learn to love?

neighbor in that verse doesn’t mean people who live next to you, it doesn’t mean just your friends

in the parable of the good samaritan Jesus clarifies that neighbor means anybody in need

even the people that you hate, you are commanded to learn to love them as you love yourself

I’m going to be honest, I don’t see this command being lived out when I go to the schools

I see a bunch of kids who like their friends, and look down on everybody else. I see a bunch of kids who do not love people like God loves them.

That should not be the case

we as Christians should be able to be spotted by how we love people

So look at your life, and think about how you can learn from this story

you can pay attention to who you listen to

you can follow God and only God

you can love those around you as much as you love yourself

If we can do these things, we can live in the united kingdom of God and avoid the pain of a divided community.