Let's stand together as we read God's Word. Our New Testament reading is from John 4, beginning in verse 19, going through verse 26, and then our Old Testament text and the text from which I'll be preaching is 1 Kings 12, 25 through 33. John 4, 19 to 26, and then 1 Kings 12, 25 through 33. Remember as I read and as you listen and follow along that this is God's Word. John chapter 4. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he. Now from 1 Kings chapter 12, And he went out from there and built Penuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their Lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah. So the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. And he said to the people, you have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And he set one in Bethel and the other he put in Dan. Then this thing became a sin for the people went as far as Dan to be before one. He also made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people who were not of the Levites. And Jeroboam appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. So he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the 15th day in the eighth month, in the month that he had devised from his own heart, and he instituted a feast for the people of Israel and went up to the altar to make offerings. Well, as we prepare to approach God's word, let's come to him once more and ask for his blessing. Our great God and loving Heavenly Father, once again this day we open Your Word as Your people and we ask for You to bless us by Your Spirit. Father, You have promised that Your Word will not return void, but will accomplish all that You purpose, and so we ask that You would do that in our midst. Would you show us our sin and convict us of it? Would you conform us more into the image of Christ? Would you instruct us from your word this evening? We ask that you might do this for the glory of Christ, and we ask it for our good as well. But we come to you in Jesus' name with this request, amen. If you have your Bibles, open them please to 1 Kings chapter 12, the text that I just read a moment ago. This is an interesting text in the context of 1 Kings. 1 Kings and the book of 2 Kings record for us the many ways in which God worked through the various kings, primarily in Judah, but also eventually in the northern kingdom of Israel. In fact, this particular text comes at a kind of inflection point in the book of 1 Kings because we've just come out of this description of what will lead to, what really has led to, by the time we reach these verses, the division of the kingdom of Israel into a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. Division takes place because of the actions of Solomon's son Rehoboam, very foolish actions which are recorded for us earlier in this text, earlier in chapter 12. But when we look at it in the overall sweep and scope of 1 Kings, we see that this text doesn't merely concern the reign of one particular king, although it does instruct us about that and record those events for us, but really this section of Scripture, this section of 1 Kings 12, instructs us and teaches us a great deal about the matter of worship. This is another theme that runs throughout 1st and 2nd Kings. It's not only a record of these kings, it's also a record of the way in which they engage with, and in many cases respond to, the Word of God. That's why 1st and 2nd Kings have recorded for us these great prophets of God, Elijah and Elisha. They're meant to show us how the kings, the various kings, respond to God's Word, or in most cases, don't respond to God's Word. And here we have an example of that on the subject of public worship. That's really what this records for us when it describes Jeroboam's reign and Jeroboam's sin with the golden calves. This couldn't be a more important subject. If you read the Bible from the beginning to the end, what you realize is the Bible is replete with references and instructions about worship. In fact, we might almost say that after the fall of Adam and Eve is recorded for us in Genesis 3, when we come to Genesis 4, that whole episode with Cain and Abel, this sin where Cain murders his brother Abel is brought about initially by a failure to properly worship God. Remember that Cain and Abel both bring an offering to the Lord, but Abel's offering is acceptable to God, but Cain's offering is unacceptable to God. And this theme of the importance of worship continues on, not just through the book of Genesis, but even after the giving of the law. Perhaps you remember the very first day when the tabernacle opened, that sort of grand opening of the tabernacle as the people of Israel built it according to the plan God had given and the people of Israel gave much of themselves in order for this tabernacle to be erected. On that first day, we read in Leviticus chapter 10 that Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, go in to offer worship before the Lord. The text tells us that they offered strange fire before the Lord on that instance and they were immediately struck down and killed. Another reminder of the importance of worship. Or if we fast forward through our Bibles to John chapter 4, which we read earlier in the service, we see there the significance of worship. The Father seeks worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. That's what the text tells us. That's what Jesus describes about worship as He gives clear instruction to that Samaritan woman. And then we reach the end of the scriptures in the book of Revelation, and again and again you know if you've read through the book of Revelation, again and again you realize that it's filled with these scenes of worship in heaven. And indeed John at various points, even as he's narrating the events that he saw, the vision that he was given, is struck by his need to worship the Lord. So this is not out of place at all with one of the great themes of the Bible. You know, the reformers recognized this. John Calvin, very famously, was describing the primary reasons for the Protestant Reformation, what was behind the Reformation, and he said quite clearly that the church needed to be reformed, first of all, because it needed to be reformed in terms of its understanding of the mode in which God is to be properly worshiped. Then he goes on to say, secondly, the source from which salvation is to be obtained. This question of worship is of primary significance in the Bible. And indeed, it should be of primary significance to us. How we worship matters. And we see this played out in this text. Well, what is it that happens in the text? What is it that we know about Jeroboam? Well, first of all, We know that Jeroboam, this king whom we're introduced to in verse 25, had a history. And his history goes back a number of chapters, but if we were just to begin in chapter 12, we would see that Jeroboam was among those advisors to Rehoboam, who advised Rehoboam after the death of Solomon, to lead in a way that was thoughtful of his subjects. Jeroboam went to Rehoboam. Rehoboam asked him for advice and counsel, and Jeroboam gave him very clear counsel that what he ought to do is lighten the load of the people. Jeroboam was emphatic about this. He had reasons for it. They were good reasons, but Rehoboam rejected those reasons, and so Jeroboam has to flee to Egypt, after being this advisor to Rehoboam. He's denied his request and he has to leave and so eventually we pick up with Rehoboam reigning in Jerusalem and Jeroboam here trying to establish some kind of rule in the northern kingdom in verse 25. What does Jeroboam do here in this episode? After having tried and failed to give Rehoboam advice, what is it that he does here? Well, the first thing we see is that what he does is he decides that the best thing he can do for the people is to keep them away from Jerusalem. And he does something that Rehoboam did, only he does it better in a sense than Rehoboam himself did. He takes advice from his counselors on what he is to do. In verse 28 it tells us that Jeroboam the king took counsel and made two calves of gold. He not only asked for counsel, as Rehoboam did, he listened to the counsel he got. He spoke with his advisors and his advisors told him, well, the best thing you can do is to make these golden calves for the people in the northern kingdom of Israel. And so he does that. And we might say, and some commentators in fact do say, when they look at Jeroboam, isn't this wonderful? Isn't Jeroboam really showing us how to lead? In contrast to Rehoboam, who didn't take his counselor's advice, Jeroboam does take his counselor's advice. And after all, the Proverbs tell us, in a multitude of counselors there is much wisdom. So we might say that Jeroboam seems to provide a counterpoint to Rehoboam earlier in the chapter. Not only that, we see that Jeroboam not only took the advice of his counselors, but when Jeroboam went about heeding their advice and producing these golden calves, as it's described for us in verse 28, He seems to have spared no expense in this updated worship of God. He listens to what other people tell him, and he takes their advice, and he gives it everything he has. He makes calves, but he makes calves, it says in verse 28, out of gold. Not only do we see the money that he spent on these calves of gold, but if we look a little later in this text, in verses 32 and 33, we see Jeroboam offering these sacrifices to the calves. He holds a feast like the feast that was in Judah, and he sacrifices to the calves, and he puts priests there near the high places. What we see is Jeroboam listened to counsel, He spared no expense. He tried to keep everyone away from Rehoboam and his kingdom. And we also see in Jeroboam that he seems to have an interest in protecting his people and making worship somewhat more convenient for them. Not only did he listen to what his advisor said, but he thought about what the people might enjoy, what they might appreciate, what they might like a little bit better. What he says in Verse 28 is, you've gone up to Jerusalem long enough. And so he gives them this convenient worship. He gives them one calf in Bethel, according to verse 29, and another in Dan. This too, I think, would have pleased many of the people. This would have made sense to them. Jeroboam's making it easier for us to worship. He has our needs in mind when it comes to worship. Not only that, not only does he pick places that are convenient for the people, he picks places that have historic significance, historic spiritual significance. I read already that he set up places in Bethel and in Dan And this is very significant, because Bethel had all these ties with Abraham and Jacob. This is where God met Abraham at one point, and Jacob as well. And so, Jeroboam must have been thinking to himself, well, not only will this be more convenient for the people, but it actually has a sort of historical veneer to it. This is worship rooted in history, Jeroboam must have thought. Dan was the place in which Moses' grandson had presided as priest in Judges 17 and 18. So again, a place that had historic ties. We might stop at this point and say that Jeroboam seems to have thought very carefully and clearly about it. And as I mentioned already, many commentators look at that and they say, isn't Jeroboam a wonderful example? Here's Jeroboam, who knows how to take advice, knows how to think about the people who would be engaging in worship, his subjects, thinks historically, is willing to spend his own money and the kingdom's own money to facilitate the worship of the people. And he even, as we see in verse 28, uses a verse from the Bible to try to bolster this claim to worship. Now, the problem, of course, is this. The problem is that the text very clearly tells us that despite all of that, in verse 30, this thing became a sin. Because everything Jeroboam did from a superficial perspective seemed to work. The people embraced the worship in Bethel and Dan. The people embraced the worship on these high places. The people embraced the worship of these golden calves. And yet this was a thing that displeased the Lord. Why was that? Well, it wasn't because Jeroboam had failed by any human measurement. It wasn't that Jeroboam didn't take what we might think of as good worldly advice. It was because what Jeroboam did in every particular was contrary to the word of God. Certainly he felt a great deal of political pressure. Certainly he perhaps thought about the needs and wants of his people. But everything he did, from the building of the calves, the listening to that kind of counsel, the moving of the places of worship from Jerusalem to Dan and Bethel, even the ordination of these priests, as we read in verse 31, he made temples on high places and appointed priests from among all the people who were not of the Levites. All of this, from beginning to end, was contrary to what God had commanded His people in terms of their worship of Him. That's ultimately the bottom line in this text. We see what Jeroboam did, and yet we realize that all of it, well-intentioned as it may have been, was sinful. It was contrary to what the Lord had commanded. And indeed, if you read further, In 1st and 2nd Kings, you will read this repeated refrain when describing those northern tribes. It will say something like this, they continued in the sin of Jeroboam. They continued to worship these calves that Jeroboam had made. And the text will tell us generation after generation, Jeroboam's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were ensnared by his changes, his creativity, we might say, in the worship of God. Well-intentioned worship, in this case, is sinful. What do we learn from what Jeroboam did? That was what he did. And what do we learn from the reasons that he gives for doing it? Well, I think we learn a number of things that are significant for us with respect to worship. The first thing we learn is that Jeroboam's concern for power, ultimately Jeroboam's political concerns which drive all of this, that concern for power that Jeroboam had corrupted his worship. Look at what it describes here in verse It says, Jeroboam said in his heart, now the kingdom will turn back to the house of David. If this people go up to offer sacrifices in the temple of the Lord of Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their Lord, to Rehoboam, king of Judah, and they will kill me and return to Rehoboam, king of Judah. Whatever else Jeroboam was doing here, however he may have justified it in his own mind, however many people around him may have told him it was the right thing to do, fundamentally the text tells us that all of this came out of Jeroboam's heart and his concern for losing power, losing his grip on power. Make no mistake, Jeroboam knew that Rehoboam was no great king. In fact, Rehoboam was a very wicked king. And yet, Jeroboam is concerned for his own grip on power, and that drives him in his changes to worship. I think we could also say this as we look at Jeroboam's renovations to the public worship of his people. He's not only driven by a desire for power or a concern that he'll somehow lose standing in the eyes of the people, lose his reputation in the eyes of the people. He's also driven by a kind of concern for convenience, both for himself and for the people. They shouldn't have to go all the way to Jerusalem anymore. We should bring it closer to them, make it easier for them, and we see how that corrupts worship. He does the same with his decisions about the priests. We can see Jeroboam saying, That we are too exclusive in our selection of only Levites as priests. In fact, what we need to do is we need to broaden it. We need to open it up to more people, more tribes need to be represented in the priestly worship. And that kind of desire for convenience, even desire to democratize the worship that God had given to his people, ultimately corrupts the worship of God. We see as well that his interest in making additions, creative additions to God's Word also corrupts worship. I think we see this perhaps most clearly when we look at verse 28. I mentioned that in verse 28, Jeroboam quotes from the Bible in defending what he's doing. And indeed he does. It's an exact quote. Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. But if you know your Bible, what you know is that that quotation is taken directly from Aaron's mouth as Aaron points to that golden calf. You remember while Moses was on Mount Sinai, the people said, oh, this is taking too long and the Lord is too distant from us. We need something closer to us. We need something that we can see. We need something that really excites us and drives us. And so Aaron, of course, brings together all of these precious items, and they craft this golden calf. And this is exactly what Aaron says as he points to the golden calf. Here, O Israel, behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. In fact, another way of saying this, and perhaps an equally An equally good translation, both for this quote here and for the quote that we see in Exodus 32, is this, Behold your God, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. I think if you'd pulled Jeroboam aside, or if you'd pulled Aaron aside and said, are you trying to lead the people astray from the worship of God? They would have said, no, of course not. We're simply doing things in a way that is more understandable to them, more convenient for them, and keeps them away from these other wicked kings. He uses Scripture, but he uses Scripture not in a way in which Scripture is governing the worship. He twists Scripture in order to carry out his own desires. And I think this idea of carrying out his own desires really is at the core of this text. Because one of the phrases that's repeated over and over, you probably picked up on it even as I read through it, is this, that all of this, it says, comes from Jeroboam's own heart. Look again at verses 25 and 26. In verse 26 it said, Jeroboam said in his heart. And then from that point on, all of these things come from Jeroboam's own heart. We don't often think this way, do we? We often think that if something really comes from the heart, if it's heartfelt, then it must be good. It must be right. There must be something God-honoring in it. It isn't true again and again in the scriptures that we see just the opposite. We certainly saw this with Solomon just a few chapters before. It's very interesting the way in which 1 Kings records the fall of Solomon, the downfall of Solomon. It tells us about all his wives and it tells us about all these other sins, his amassing of great wealth. But then when it zeroes in on what the Lord was displeased with most when it came to Solomon, It said his heart had moved away from the Lord. His heart had embraced other things, other desires, other than the Lord himself. And we see this exact same sin played out in Jeroboam's own life and reign. All of this was heartfelt, we might say. This is heartfelt worship, worship from the heart. And yet worship from the heart It's not governed by the word of God. We see is a sin in God's eyes and a snare to future generations. I think there's another indication in the text. It's a more subtle one that shows us that this is exactly what the writer of First Kings wants to drive home. In verses 31 through 33, it doesn't come out as clearly in our English text, but there is a Hebrew verb that is repeated eight times in these verses. And it's the verb to make, to make something. Notice what it says here. It says that Jeroboam made houses. He made priests. He made a festival. He went up on the altar and did this. He had calves which he had made. High places he had made, the text tells us. An altar he had made. A festival he had made. It's as if the writer is driving home for us this truth, that all of this worship, yes, it came from Jeroboam's heart, it was also something that he himself devised. He himself made it up from beginning to end, from top to bottom. And because it was made up worship by Jeroboam, it was unacceptable to the Lord, and the consequences of it were dramatic for God's people. It is striking when you look at Jeroboam as a whole, when you look at the whole arc of his career and his reign and his life as it's recorded for us. He's really not the worst king, superficially speaking, in the book of 1 and 2 Kings. He's actually a king whom we could, in some ways, identify with. He's put in some difficult situations. He shows some integrity at times. But Jeroboam is consistently mentioned in the text for having led the people astray. And you could hardly find another king in 1st or 2nd Kings. who has a more damaging effect on future generations, as it's recorded for us in these texts. Why? Well, because he devised worship from his heart, he made it with his own hands, and he neglected the word of God, even twisting it for his own purposes. Well, what's the alternative? Well, the alternative isn't recorded for us here in this text, but the alternative is something that's recorded for us throughout the scriptures. The alternative, of course, first and foremost, is worship that is governed by the word of God. Worship which is directed by what God has said, what God has commanded. Not worship of our own devising, not worship that meets our own twisted desires, no, but worship that is according to the Word of God, governed and guided by His Word. It's also worship that is centered on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of the great points that the writer of Hebrews makes to us, that we can enter into worship and enter into prayer with confidence. We can do so with confidence because, of course, yes, we're governed by God's Word, but we can do so ultimately with confidence, not simply because we've gotten everything right according to the Word of God, but because we go through the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, this is actually one of the axioms of the book of Hebrews in terms of our worship. We have confident access to God through Jesus Christ. We have a new and a living way to God through Jesus Christ. And we have a great and sympathetic high priest, qualified, more qualified than any high priest in the Old Testament could have been even on their best days. qualified to receive our worship to the Father. It tells us that when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He came through the greater and more perfect tent. He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. So the writer to Hebrews goes on to contrast this work of Christ, this priestly work of Christ, and he says, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? This is the kind of worship that the Bible commands us to engage in. As we think about our public worship, we need to ask the question, what is it that God's word has said? What is it that God's word has commanded? And that needs to be our guide. We have to ask ourselves, are we approaching God in the only way he can be approached, in the way he must be approached? approaching God confidently through the Lord Jesus Christ and on the basis of his work alone. That's of course one of the other major failings here that we see in Jeroboam. In making up this worship, whatever internal logic it might have had, He not only is violating the Word of God, but in violating the Word of God, he is losing all of those elements that pointed worshipers forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, to God's provision for his people. In a sense, we might say that in doing that, he was losing everything, losing all that worship is and all that we're commanded to do. So the writer to Hebrews perhaps sums up what ought to be our imperative most clearly when he says, since we have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, no need for any of these political machinations, we've received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, so let us then show gratitude, he says, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe For our God is a consuming fire. Let's pray together. Our God and heavenly Father, we thank you for this reminder of the centrality of our worship of you. Father, we ask that our worship of you would be guided and governed by your word. And we approach you with even this request confidently. on the basis of Christ's work on our behalf. And so it is in Christ's name that we approach you now. Amen.