David Stockton 3/28/21 David Stockton 3/28/21

The King Who Conquered Sin

1 Kings is where we are at. Today we celebrate the day Jesus announced to the world that he was a peaceful King who had conquered a foe. The event is called The Triumphal Entry. The Sunday that commemorates it is called Palm Sunday. Jesus is thirty-three years old. He knows he’s in his final days, so he sets his face toward the big city and enters Jerusalem the same way a king would after conquering a foe.

Series: A Kingdom Divided
March 28, 2021 - David Stockton

So what was the conquered foe Jesus was declaring victory over? He had not conquered the oppressive Rome. He had not overthrown the evil King Herod. He had not really done much damage or changed much of the arrogant structure that the Pharisees and the Sadducees had set up in the religious system and caste system of that day.

So what did he conquer? What was he declaring as he rode into Jerusalem and basically sent people out ahead of him to announce that he was coming, and to have this parade of disciples cheering, “Hosanna! The Savior has come. He’s saved us. He’s the King. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of David.”

What had he conquered that made him want to go public with being a King for the first time in his life? Well, I think the answer is he had conquered sin.

What’s interesting here is that on the cross we know Jesus conquered a lot. He paid the price for our sin. The resurrection was proof that he had conquered death once and forever. He had become the sacrifice that could take away the sins of the world. But Jesus conquered sin every moment of every day as temptation would come and he would not succumb. He is the only one who has been tempted like humanity is tempted, yet without sin. There was one other who came on the sin who was not sinful, but was tempted, and that was Adam. Yet Adam succumbed and brought great devastation to the world that we’re still living under today.

But Jesus Christ, as he was going around healing people and performing miracles, he was demonstrating to everyone that he had authority to undo all the damage that sin had done. And then, as he was transfigured on the mount of transfiguration, he was glorified. And he was there with Moses and Elijah before the presence of God. Basically that was symbolizing that Jesus had passed the test. He had, at that point, been tempted in every way that you and I are ever tempted, yet without sin.

And in that moment he had a decision to make. He had fulfilled the law of God. He had done what God had asked him to do. And was that enough? Or would he go down that mount of transfiguration and go to the cross? And the only reason that he would go down the mount of transfiguration to the cross is because he had not yet paid the price for you and I. He had fulfilled the law. He had become the sinless King. But we were still guilty of our sin. And because of his great love for us, he walked down that mount of transfiguration and he resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem.

Now he comes into Jerusalem announcing as a King, as a peaceful King — because he rode a donkey, not a horse — as a peaceful King, he was coming to declare that he had conquered sin and was now the King above all kings. The sinless King who was able to provide a sinless sacrifice for the sin debt of humanity.

It’s a day worth celebrating. This Triumphal Entry. That’s why it’s called Triumphal Entry, because he triumphed over the thing that you and I could never and have never been able to triumph over, the foe of sin.

So we spend a moment thinking about that, because, in our series in 1 Kings, we’ve been looking at king after king after king after king after king who, when tempted with sin, succumbed. Not only succumbed, but subtly and in small ways made these little compromises that ultimately led Israel further and further into idolatry and ultimately ruin.

So we look at 1 Kings and we see that, in this time in history, God’s people were becoming numb and blind to idolatry and sin. And we’re doing this because we do not want to become God’s people in our day and age who are becoming blind and numb to idolatry and sin. So we’re taking the word of God and we’re allowing it, like a magnifying glass, to look into our lives. No matter how pretty or how ugly we come out. But we do not want to fall prey to the same things they fell prey to.

It was just a few hundred years between King Saul, King David and King Solomon until Israel was completely destroyed. I do think in our society as Americans — and I don’t say this lightly and I don’t say this judgtngly — but I do think our society is progressing away from the things of God and more into the things of this world, or the things that are incongruent with the lines of God, that he has drawn for our own freedom and flourishing.

Though that is something I see taking place — and I’m praying for a great awakening, because we’ve had awakenings in America before that swept across from sea to shining sea, that turned hearts back to God and his ways. And it’s been beautiful and wonderful. I’m praying for some more of that. Anybody with me? Yeah? I’m not like, Oh, all hope is lost. Down with America. No! Not at all. I’m just trying to say I think I’m seeing these things so I’m praying that I’ll be able to see the opposite happen. And I think we all should be doing that. We should have hope. We should pray. Because God can do it.

At the same time, I’m also trying to give warning to my own soul and to my own household and to us as a church that these things are creeping their way into the household of faith. I’m having conversations with people who are brothers and sisters in Christ and people who have walked with us for a while who are now saying that they don’t think sin is sin, according to what the Bible teaches. It’s creating moments where there’s pressure and it’s causing some divisions.

It’s so important for us to look at God’s word again and say, “Okay, Lord. You get to speak. We’re putting you on the throne to decide what is good and right and wrong. And we’re not going to let our culture be on the throne. We’re not going to let our own desires be on the throne. We’re not going to let our sinful flesh be on the throne. We’re going to watch out for selfishness and we’re going to watch out for the idols of comfort, security and convenience. And we’re going to make sure you are the one on the throne deciding what is right and what is not right.” And it’s been challenging. It’s been tricky. It’s been unpopular. But it’s okay. It’s okay.

We’re looking at 1 Kings because they were going through a lot of similar things. We have Jeremiah, who wrote this book — according to tradition — and he’s writing this to help people wake up from their stupor, wake up to the reality of the decline that’s taking place all around them. And we really did make sure that, even though he’s kind of a weeping prophet and he’s moaning and groaning, he’s not a bullfrog. Jeremiah is not a bullfrog. He was a weeping prophet. We had to clear that u p earlier on in this series.

But he’s basically speaking about how the people of God slowly but surely kind of give in to these things. He’s talking to us about a lot of different things. Just to sum up, I’m going to read some real quick summarizations from Jeremiah about these kings and what they did.

Under Rehoboam, in 1 Kings 14:22-24

Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than those who were before them had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

Israel was a consecrated people, set apart as God’s people. They continued to want to more and more be like the nations around them. It was more and more bringing in their idolatry, more and more bringing in their thoughts, more and more bringing all these things in, until, eventually they were a people that God was angry at. His jealous anger was enraged. It’s true that God is slow to anger, but God is angry at sin and those who are walking in it. That’s the most loving thing he can do at that point, to be angry against the those who were leading people into idolatry and sinfulness and ruin.

And God was angry at them. Right there, this is talking about God’s people. “There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land.” Solomon had set up worship to all these other gods and some of those gods required you to have sex to worship them. And so you would go and it just so happened to have male prostitutes, so if you were male or female, you would go have sex with these people to worship these gods. It was a way that you would honor them. It wasn’t just stupid, but it was that you would get the reward. You would get the blessing of fertility of your land or your family by doing this. This was going on in the nation of God, that God had blessed and led out of captivity, giving them their land.

1 Kings 15:30

Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.

So he was setting up Baal worship. Baal worship, at this point in Israel, it was like worship of Yahweh. They never really stopped worshipping Yahweh, but at this point in Israel’s history, definitely Baal was the main god of the Israelites, and Yahweh was the “side God,” which was very upsetting to the Lord.

And under Ahaz (2 Kings 16:3-

…he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.

Now, I don’t know what a spreading tree in this regard, but I’m sure you can look in commentaries and they’ll talk about it for a long, long time — which is fun about commentaries and also so boring sometimes. But anyway…

He’s offering his own son as a sacrifice in the fire, which was a practice of the god Molek, again to get fertility and prosperity. And we look at these things and we think these people are crazy, for them to be so bizarre in their sexual immorality and to be so bizarre in what they’re willing to sacrifice and kill — even of their own families — for these gods. And yet, I think if we’re honest, in our society we see some very similar type things.

That’s the scary thing about sin. The sin that we commit, we don’t get to decide what the consequence is or who suffers the consequence. As we see it in the story of Solomon, Solomon was very sexually immoral. Yet he didn’t suffer the consequence. His son did, and all of the people of Israel, ultimately.

When we choose the idolatry of greed, of money, or we choose the idolatry of sex, power, position, so oftentimes it’s our kids that get sacrificed at those altars. In some ways I bet every one in this room or listening online could tell a story of something that they experienced because of the idolatry of their parents, or maybe something their kids have experienced because of their idolatry and sin. It’s very heavy stuff. These kings were people just like you and me.

But then, just before we get too bummed out, we keep going. There are some other kings. Now I read about three kings who did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And then I’m going to read three kings that did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Don’t for a second think that it was kind of an even spread. Basically, you’ve got about three, maybe five, if you really want to stretch you’ve got about eight out of fifty kings did any good at all. The rest were horrible.

Here’s some good news. Asa. 1 Kings 15:11-14

Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done. He expelled the male shrine prostitutes from the land and got rid of all the idols his ancestors had made. He even deposed his grandmother Maakah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a repulsive image for the worship of Asherah. Asa cut it down and burned it in the Kidron Valley. Although he did not remove the high places, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life.

So here’s good news. It is funny to read in the Bible about a guy getting rid of his grandmother in this way. But it’s not funny what many of us are going through in our own families, as we navigate the differences and the challenges that are presented there when loved ones make decisions that are not in line with the scriptures or the lines that God has given us and we’re trying to uphold those lines, and at the same time love them. It’s tricky. This is where the love of God is so much deeper than the love that we have and the Hallmark channel teaches us about.

Love is patient, love is kind, but it rejoices in the truth at the same time. It is deep and it is rich and it is challenging for people like us . Sometimes we have to draw those lines. Jesus taught us that there are times in our following of him where we’re going to have to hate our brother and hate our sister. He’s not actually saying we should hate them. He’s saying that they’re going to perceive what you’re doing as hate, when really, all you’re doing is try to follow them and love them. And those become very difficult times, good times to pray and good times to sing about a God who chases down people on their prodigal roads. A good time to think about a God who wants to come into our lives and restore our broken lives. A good time to sing about a God who, there’s no mountain he won’t climb, right? There’s no wall he won’t break down. It’s good to think about God in those times and to pray.

The next king. Hezekiah. 2 Kings 18:3-

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.

Here’s the story of even something that was done in memory of God and what God had done, they had made an idol of that and were worshiping that instead of the Creator. And then we get on to Josiah. And we’re going to spend a little more time talking about Josiah. I’ve chopped up the full portion of the story about Josiah. You can read it later, if you want, but I’m giving us some little highlights. I’ve been watching a a lot of March Madness highlights and it’s just all highlights. I love highlights. It’s like I don’t have to watch freethrows and all the boring stuff. Jus watching the highlights and Baylor’s still in it, so my bracket’s still alive. Yeah!

2 Kings 22 Josiah…

2…did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left..
11 When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 12 He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest,… 13 “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.

It’s a fascinating moment in the history of Israel, because we’re in 2 Kings now when we get to Josiah. We’ve gone through a lot of kings asa we’re toward the end of the time of the kings before they actually go into exile in Babylon and Judah, before they get taken over by the Assyrians in Israel up north.

Here Josiah becomes king and wants to do what’s right int he eyes of the Lord. So he starts to try and figure out what that is. He knows the high places are evil, so he starts working on those things. But one of the things he wants to do is get the temple of Yahweh back in action. And he starts cleaning it out and doing all these things, and in the process of doing that, a guy finds a scroll and he doesn’t know what the scroll is. So then he takes it to some different people. They finally get to a priest and they’re like, “What is this thing?” And the priest is like, “That’s the Torah! That’s the law of God. That’s the thing that God gave Moses as they were on that Mount Sinai in Egypt. That’s the thing that teaches us God’s ways.”

So he brought it to the king and he says, “King, I want to show you something we found.” They didn’t know where it was. It had been buried. It had been forgotten. It had been totally rendered unimportant for long enough to where now they didn’t even know where it was. And he starts to read it to King Josiah. And Josiah… the reason I’m having trouble is because I’ve been praying for Josiahs to show up in our day.

Josiah gets hit in the face with this stuff. He gets his heart chopped up by the word of God and he repents. He falls on his knees. He tears his clothes and he says, “God, I’m sorry. But thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for letting it come to the surface. Thank you so much for helping us awake to the reality of what’s going on.”

And he tells his guys, “Go and figure out every single thing in this book that we’re doing wrong, and let’s make it right.” It was such a beautiful, beautiful response. So he finds some things that they’re doing wrong.

2 Kings 23:
4 The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the Lord all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. 5 He did away with the idolatrous priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem.… 6 He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord…

We’re talking about this stuff in the temple of the Lord.

… to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people.

Again, common people? What? Where did that come from? He’s fired up.

7 He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord…

Did you hear what I just said? In the temple of the Lord that Solomon built for Yahweh, there was a portion that was used to house the male shrine prostitutes. Josiah kicked some booty that day. And that was also…

…the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah.

I don’t know what that’s about.

12 He pulled down the altars the kings of Judah had erected on the roof near the upper room of Ahaz, and the altars Manasseh had built in the two courts of the temple of the Lord. He removed them from there, smashed them to pieces and threw the rubble into the Kidron Valley. 13 The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. 14 Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the sites with human bones.

It’s serious. Very serious.

24 Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the Lord. 25 Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the Lord as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses.

Hallelujah. And just in case you think he was a big jerk and didn’t know how to have fun…

21 The king gave this order to all the people: “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, as it is written in this Book of the Covenant.” 22 Neither in the days of the judges who led Israel nor in the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah had any such Passover been observed.

He threw a huge party across the whole land to celebrate what God had done for the Passover. And there was great rejoicing in God’s heart. His anger was stayed as he looked down and he saw Josiah whose heart was a fully his.

But Josiah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and he did all of these other things. He was proactive in that. He knew that, as the word of God came to him, he was supposed to respond by doing that boundary maintenance we talked about early on, for not only his own soul, but his household and the institutions that he was a part of. Just so happens he was the king of the whole nation.

The zeal of the Lord consumed him. He was hungry and thirsty for righteousness. And as he walked that out, he was filled. He chose to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness above everything else. This is what it looked like for him in his time. And it pleased the Lord. It was a beautiful thing in his eyes.

So what does it look like for us to do this in our day with our own souls and households and institutions? I don’t know. That’s why you’ve got the Spirit of God living inside of you.

But what I love about this is, when the line of God came and basically dissected Josiah and his people, when the line of God came and cut his heart in half, helping him to realize that he was outside the lines of God, he was outside where God needed to be, they were so far off. He did not respond thinking that God doesn’t love him or want him. He actually, by the grace of God, was able to respond to say, “Actually God has helped me see the lines because he loves me that much and doesn’t want me to head off into decay and depravity and destruction. He actually has drawn these lines to help me know, like a roadmap, how to get back in. Also, he’s drawn these lines to help me become aware of how badly I need him.”

Each and every time we’ve been in one of these messes, and each and every time you hear the word of God taught, or you read it for yourselves, and one of those lines that God has drawn is coming to you and making you feel like you are not right, you are incongruent, there is something in your life that is outside the boundaries of God, the devil wants to come in that moment and say, “See? You don’t belong. See? They don’t love you or want you. See? God doesn’t love you or want you.” And that is the devil talking and he is very faithful to do that.

At the same time, when that line hits you, when your heart is pricked as the Bible describes it, like Josiah was, what God wants you to hear is that he loves you and he wants to see you get into the fullness of what he has for you and that he can rescue you and he can heal you and he can make you whole.

That’s the message that Jesus came to bring. That’s the message that Jesus was declaring as he rode that donkey into Jerusalem all those years later. That’s the message that he cried on the cross as he gave up his last breath and said, “It is finished.” And as his blood flowed, basically, what he was saying to you and me was, when you find yourself outside the lines that God has drawn, when you find yourself with your heart pricked, when you find yourself in trouble, outside, alone, apart from God, you’re supposed to look up at that cross and see his arms stretched wide, ready to receive you. You’re supposed to see his blood and know that blood was a sacrifice that can wash you clean. No matter what heinous sin you’ve committed or you’re in right now, his blood is way more powerful. Always has been and always will be.

Then you’re also supposed to see him as that resurrected Lord offering freely his Spirit to empower us, to win our battles against sin. To find victory from time to time over the sin that’s inside of us, that’s lying at the door waiting to devour us. That’s what Jesus came to declare to each one of us.

I’m praying, whether you’re online or in person, if these messages, if the word of God has come and has hit you, or it has cut you, that you would realize that that is what the word is supposed to do. Actually, the New Testament says that the law of God is the schoolmaster that leads us to Christ; basically like that angry, mean teacher that was always telling you when you were doing something wrong, so that you would know you need a rescuer, you need a savior, so that you would come to Christ and you would find out that he’s been there all along, only one step away.

What’s cool is that the Lord has been raising up some Josiahs in our fellowship. We have a guy that I know told me the story of him basically just hearing these words recently and saying, “That’s it.” And he put away all of his sexually immoral paraphernalia that he’d been practicing and playing with and he’s distancing himself — not because of Covid — he’s distancing himself from people that he knows were leading him in the wrong way. What he told me was the result was he’s never been able to hear from the Lord so often.

That’s why Jesus wants us to get in these lines because he wants to talk to us, wants to love us. Out there we can’t hear him.

We had a guy just show up on the lawn out here about a month ago. He just dumped a bunch of cocaine and other drugs on the lawn and said, “I’m sick of it.” And we were like, “Should we call the police?” And the guys who handled him said, “No.” They said, “Let’s go flush this down the toilet.” And they actually got some other people to make sure nobody thought they snuck it out the back door. They flushed it down the toilet. Then we connected that guy with Kurt to try to help him figure out what Jesus is doing. Because he was walking around out there in the darkness and he just got so sick of it. And he looked over and he thought, “Maybe they have some light.”

We’ve got some people that have decided that they weren’t going to worship at the altar of convenience, comfort and security. But instead, they have aging parents and they’ve decided to bring those aging parents back home with them to give them honor and dignity as they finish their days — at great inconvenience to them, for sure.

And another guy actually, he and his wife just moved away from us and everything that they loved and all the goodness they were experiencing to go do the same thing, to make sure his parents were getting loved and cared for.

I’ll tell you what, that’s something that God is really pleased with. I could go on and on. It might just seem little to you, but it’s not little to the Lord. Actually, my wife went to a birthday party yesterday for a kid who’s been quarantined his whole life because of autoimmune diseases. Instead of birthdays, he asked if everybody could donate to the food pantry here. He’s like ten years old! He’s a little Josiah.

So it falls to us. We have a great, great history. Ever since Jesus rode that donkey into Jerusalem declaring that victory over sin, there’s been a long line of parade, a great cloud of witnesses that have been following his lead and gaining victory over sin and doing away with high places and idolatry in their lives and in their families and in the institutions they’re a part of, many different ways. What are we going to do? What is the Lord asking you to do?

I know someone in our fellowship that they have been together for along time as boyfriend and girlfriend and they’ve got kids and all of that. They’re saying, “We’re ready to get married before the Lord.”

There are a lot of things that we can do to follow him. Some people built an underground railroad. Some people built a hiding place. Some missionaries have gone and it’s cost them their life, but then their family went to the same people and saw them get saved.

Lots of ways that we can serve the Lord.

Let’s pray:

Wow, Lord. You just keep it coming. Lord, I pray that you really would help us to not fall prey to our desires for sex, money, self, individualism, convenience, security, comfort or even idealogical popular or significance. Instead, Lord, we would just have your word hidden in our hearts, that we might not sin against you. That your word would be a light unto our path and we would walk in it, Lord. I pray that we, as a church, Lord, I pray for the whole church, but I really pray for us, Living Streams, right now in Phoenix in 2021, I pray that we would be the salt and light that you want us to be. Lord, where we’ve lost any salt in this, please forgive us and heal us. We know, Lord, you want us to stand against the decay in our society, but at the same time bring healing. We know. You want us to be a city set on a hill so that those who are walking in darkness and finally get sick of it can look and find someplace to run. Please help us, Lord, to not be like the older brother who rejects people who come home, but instead to be just like you, Father, and receive them and robe them. We thank you, Jesus, that you found us, that we were once lost and blind, but now we’re found and we see. Thank you, Lord.

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Guest User 3/14/21 Guest User 3/14/21

The Convenience of Idolatry

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.

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

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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