1 Kings chapter number 11. And I don't plan on being real long tonight. Of course, for a preacher, that means a lot of different things. Maybe I shouldn't have said that, but 1 Kings chapter number 11. But really, overall, I'm not a long preacher. If you wanna know what long preaching was, I need to take you back about 25 years, 30 years, and you could hear what long preaching was, especially when you had wooden pews, amen? 1 Kings chapter number 11, you say you against long preaching? No, if you got something to say, say it, amen? My wife tells me most of the time I could take about five minutes to say what I know, but anyways, or have to say. She said it takes me a long time to get those few little thoughts out I have, but anyways, I'm working on it. 1 Kings chapter number 11, in verse number 28. We'll start in verse 26. The Bible says in Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, an Ephrathite, Zerudah, Solomon's servant, whose mother's name was Zeruah, a widow woman, even he lifted up his hand against the king. This was the cause he lift up his hand against the king. Solomon built Milo and repaired the breaches of the city of David, his father. And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor, and Solomon, seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph. Let's pray. Lord, I sure love you and I thank you for saving me. Lord, it is good to be in your house. And Lord, you blessed this morning and we're thankful for it. I already thank you for what we've enjoyed here tonight. But Lord, as you open your word, I ask again for your touch and anointing. And Lord, I pray you give me the words to say, I pray your spirit have liberty here tonight. And Lord, these folks did not come to hear from me. They came to hear from you. So I pray you'd help them. Lord, all of us in different areas, different places in our life. And I pray you'd meet the needs that are here. We'll thank you for it in Jesus name. Amen. A little while ago, I began to look at some of the men in the Word of God that the Bible specifically says they are mighty men of valor. And tonight, last time I looked at Jephthah, it's been a little while, but I want to look at this man here tonight, a very unlikely man that the Bible says is a mighty man of valor, but it's Jeroboam there in verse 28. The Bible says, and the man Jeroboam was a mighty, man of valor. Now, I understand. I know the story of Jeroboam and you do, too. And I know how Jeroboam ends up. He does not end up doing very well. But we also can't argue what the Bible says about this man right here in First Kings chapter number 11. You know what I do know about people? One of the things I know about people is that people change. Now, we should change, but we should change for the better. But you know, some people change for the worse. Not everybody remains who they once were. There's many people I've known that used to go to church, that used to live for God. Some used to be involved in the ministry, full-time ministry, and today they're not living for God. What happened to them? They changed. Now listen, I hope that in the last year that I've changed, not for the worse, but for the better. I hope I've grown for the Lord. I wanna say that, I'm not preaching on this, but in a marriage, you know what, a dangerous thing for a marriage is if one of the spouses is growing and the other one is not, you're gonna grow distant from each other. It's important in a marriage that both husband and wife are both growing in the Lord and drawn closer to God, and if they're both draw them closer to God, they're gonna get closer to each other. But if one draws closer and the other one doesn't, there's gonna be a rift, there's gonna be a separation there that is not healthy. But here, Jeroboam is a mighty man of valor. I wanna look at just some simple things about him and preach about this man, Jeroboam, here tonight. And I understand this is the beginning of his life. Again, I know how he ended up, but I just wanna look at him in the beginning of his life when the Bible calls him a mighty man of valor. I wonder if the Lord came down here tonight And I wonder if he lined us all up. I wonder if he was choosing those that he would consider a mighty person, man or woman of valor. I wonder if you and I would be considered a mighty man or woman of valor. Now, you might sit there and think, well, that's only for the best. Well, I mean, Jeroboam was, and I don't believe he ended up as one, but he was. Look in verse 26, what the Bible says about him. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat and Ephrathite of Zerida, Solomon's servant, whose mother's name was Zerua, a widow woman. What's that mean about Jeroboam? He came from a single mother home. Now, it's interesting, if you remember, the last mighty person we looked at was Jephthah. Remember Jephthah? His mother was a what? Does anybody remember? What was his mother? Casey. She was a harlot. Not the best home life. I mean, I'm thankful I didn't have a harlot for a mother. And here's a man who the Bible says is a mighty man of valor, and his mom was a widow. That means her husband had died. Now, I don't know how old Jeroboam was when his father died. I don't know if he was a year old. I don't know if he was 10 years old. I don't know if he was 15 years old. The Bible doesn't tell us, and I'm not gonna try to guess, but I know this, that at some point, he was without a father, and he lived with just a mother. You know what it tells me is that Jeroboam had overcome obstacles in his life. You know what every one of us are going to have to do in our life? We're going to have to learn how to overcome obstacles. I'm telling you, we live in a day and age where we live in the softest of generations that I believe this country has ever seen. Could you imagine if this generation was the generation, Brother Dan, that landed on the Mayflower? Could you imagine? You know what I'm pretty sure? I'm pretty sure that there'd be no America, no United States of America. Can you imagine if this generation was the one that decided to get in a wagon and go across the unknown out to the unknown and cross the rivers and the mountains and the Indians and the wilderness and the dust storms and face all that to try to find a place to set up a homestead. If it was up to this generation, I'm not sure we'd have much of a country. We live in a soft generation. It seems like, I mean, just a little ledge like right here is tripping people up, and the smallest of obstacles, we throw our hands up, and we say, I can't, and we find somebody to go cry to, and everything is so hard, and everything is such a challenge, and everything is against us, and we just have so little strength, and we have so little zeal, and so little toughness about us. Here's a man. He overcame an obstacle in his family. He didn't have a father. Hey, who wouldn't like to have a father? But Jeroboam didn't have a father. You didn't find him not doing anything? We're going to find out in this point in time. There's a lot of good about this young man, Jeroboam. He learned how to overcome obstacles. He did not allow trouble in his home life to hinder his life. You know, one of the things I'm very tired of hearing about is young people, of course, they're my age, so I'm not sure you would call them young people. I still call them young people that grew up in homes similar to mine, complaining about the horrible home life they had. You know what I'm not sure any of you had? I'm not sure any of you had a truly horrible home life. Oh, I know you could sit there and think of all the terrible things you had to go through, but I promise for every terrible thing you had to go through, we could find somebody in some place that had it a thousand times worse than you did and have turned out much better than you and I. So all our terrible home life, I had it so hard. We were poor. I didn't have a mom. I didn't have a dad. I didn't have a brother. I had a brother. I didn't have a sister. I had too many sisters. We had a lot. We didn't have a lot. We were too involved in the ministry. We weren't involved enough in the ministry. We had to go to a big church. We went to a little church. We had a new car. We had no car. You know what we can do? We can almost complain about anything, but we need to learn to get over whatever it is we're allowing to be an obstacle in our life. Some are going nowhere with God. Because they have never learned to get over obstacles. The woe is me mentality of 2024. He didn't allow the fact that he didn't have a father to hinder his life. He did not allow himself to become a victim. to the negative in his home life. I don't see anywhere where he made excuses. We're going to look later on. There's some good things about this man. He was such that King Solomon saw him, took notice of him, said, I want him in my kingdom. I want him part of my staff or whatever you call it. I want him to rule and reign with me. I'm going to give him a position. I can trust that young man. When you caught the eyes of King Solomon, many would say the wisest man who ever lived because of the wisdom that God gave him. But there was something about this young man. He had not become a victim. He did not go through life making excuses for himself. Now I know I mention often about making excuses, but could I just say that making excuses does not profit you in life. And let me say this about excuses. I'm sure I've said this. Before but you know that one excuse is as good as another so if you're gonna make one excuse It's just as good as the next excuse or as poor as the next excuse. Nobody. Can I just tell you here? Nobody wants to hear your excuses I know some of you it's going you have to go see your your shrink here in a couple days to get over that but let me just tell you What's this Mike doing out here? Anyways, you're trying to block me, right? Nobody wants to hear your excuses. You say, mine are unique. No, yours are just as lousy as the last ones we heard from. You know what excuses are in life? They're a crutch. You really want to go through life on crutches when you don't need to with that crutch? He didn't make excuses. When he stopped making excuses, we need to not allow excuses from our children. Excuses are just, are simply, are really just what we should say is, I can't, I don't want to, I didn't want to, I didn't feel like it, instead of making an excuse. But anyways, I believe this man, I don't know much about his mom, but the Bible says she was a widow woman there, her name was Zerua, and I believe he probably had a pretty good mom that didn't, she did not allow him to become a victim, to make excuses, to feel sorry for himself. I believe she probably encouraged him and pushed him to go ahead and live life and make something of his life. And I don't have to say this to you moms, you know this, but you moms have so much power in your children and dads. I'll just say, how about I just say parents right there? Do you understand parents that your kids are gonna grow up someday even though right now it seems like they'll never grow up? Literally, I mean they just grow out of stuff but they're not growing up as much as quick as you'd like but one day they're gonna grow up and they're gonna become adults and they're gonna go on their way and they're gonna set up their house and they're gonna do all this stuff. And you know what they're gonna do? They're gonna carry things that you either put in them, good or bad, all through their life. You know how many people, and look, it's not an excuse, because we don't believe in excuses, but you know how many people are hindered in their life from things their parents put in them or failed to? things the parents did to help make them weak, or maybe things they did to help make them strong. Parents, we have a very serious responsibility. We think, and it's true to an extent, well, my training on my children once they leave my house, it's all done, and it is. I mean, you still need to pray for them and try to communicate being in their life, but I'm telling you, things we put in their life, whether it's good or bad, will go with them the rest of their life. I think he had a good mom. You know what many do? Many, they struggle and they just flat out fail to overcome issues and problems in their past and go on for Christ. And I know when I preached on Jephthah, I preached a lot of this same stuff because it was a lot of the same, it was similar to Jephthah, but I'm telling you, in the world today, and even in the church today, there's so many that they, for some reason they cannot let go, they cannot overcome, they cannot move beyond the obstacles, the difficulties, the bad things done to them, the negatives in their life, the hardships, whatever it is, and they just, maybe it's a past relationship, maybe it's a past issue they had, I don't know, but there's so many people, they're hindered, they're held back, and if they could just learn to overcome, the Bible says we ought to be overcomers, Why? Christ overcame. We have the power of God inside of us. There's nothing in your past that without the help of God, you cannot move past. You cannot overcome and go forward for God. You know what many people do? They end up tripping up over and over and over, over things that have happened in their past, and they fail to go forward for Jesus Christ. They hold on to past hurts in their life. Hey, who wasn't hurt in their life? If you understand what I'm saying? I mean, I came breakfast one day and my sister told me I had bad breath. I mean, that's hurtful. You say, that's foolish. Well, what hurt are you holding on to? They hold on to past relationships that didn't work out. You know, I've said this before. We used to, when I was younger and I got saved at a camp meeting that probably had 500 people there. Went to different meetings, knew a lot of young people, different churches. You know how many of the people that I was friends with at teenagers aren't even in church anymore? You know what some people wanna do? They wanna live in the past, so those relationships. I'm not trying to be mean and cold, and I'm not talking about being rude and all that, but you know what some of those relationships are to me? They're dead to me. Those people made a choice, they wouldn't go live for the world, they wouldn't live a life of sin, they wouldn't go please the devil, and they're living a godless life. Why would I, because I was their friend at 16, be so worried that I'm their friend when I'm 46? Why am I looking to connect with them on social media, rekindle something we had 30 years ago, and they're godless heathen? You know what you need to do to some of those things? Just let them go. What is that? How is that person going to help my life? How are they going to strengthen me, Josh? How are they going to draw me closer to God and help love God more? They're not. They're going to be a drag on my life. So you know what I do? Forget those things which are behind and press forward. Thank God for the good friends I have right now that want to love God and live for God and be faithful to God. Listen, you know why brother Kevin and I are friends is because I'm such a wonderful guy. He just so badly want to be my friend No, he's in church. He wants to live for God. I'm in church. I want to live for God We've served God together for 20 some years. We've we've gone to church together for 20 some years We become friends, but listen if brother Kevin gets out of church tomorrow and leaves God our friendship will never be the same Friendship is supposed to be built on the direction you're supposed to be going in the same direction. So sometimes you just gotta let go of past relationships. So I wanted them to work out, they didn't work out. Let me say this to you adults, and we've heard this happen in some adult getting on some social media and finding some old flame they had or boyfriend or girlfriend from years ago and trying to reconnect. Listen, how foolish and godless can you be? Move on past. You're like a little kid who's worrying about how many friends you have. They hold on to past disappointments. Can I tell you this? If you're gonna try to do anything for God, you are going to suffer disappointments. But you need to get past them. You gotta get past, you know many disappointments is because we many times, or I should say sometimes, they just simply come because we have too high expectations. We gotta move past them. You need to, some they hold on to past shortcomings and failures, failures of themselves, failures of others. Listen, there's some people sitting in churches and because of what somebody else did that they deemed to be wrong, they judged it to be wrong, and they have never gotten past that. Say, how do you know? You hear him talk about it. And you're thinking, man, that's awful. And then you find out it was 20 years ago. It was 10 years ago. And you're bringing up something wrong done to you from 12 years ago? You're still stuck 12 years back. You mean you've missed 12 years of growing for God? You mean you've missed 12 years of living the victorious Christian life because you've been holding on to a hurt or a failure or a disappointment in your life or what you deem somebody did wrong and they've never made right? You mean you've let that hold you back while there's been so much more you could have done for God? It's crazy. Some hold on to past mistakes and sins that were committed against them. But this man here, Jeroboam, learned how to overcome obstacles. Look at the second thing there it says about him. Verse 28 says, Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious. He was industrious. It's the only time that word is found there in the word of God. The Bible says this in Psalms 22 verse 29, seest thou a man diligent in his business, That's a question mark, and I think today that that's probably a harder question to answer in the affirmative today than it's ever been. But it goes on to say, he shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean men. Well, you see that that verse is exemplified in Jeroboam. You know what he was? He was diligent in his business. You know how he was rewarded? He stood before the king. King Solomon said, hey, I want you. I want you to serve me. I want to use you. I've got something for you to do. I'm going to elevate you into a position you've never been before. That word, industrious, as you know, it means it's habitual diligence in any employment. It's steady attention to business opposed to sloth and idleness. Has the idea of ministry and being diligent and paying attention or attentiveness to what you're doing. And it also has the idea of the services you render doing it with zeal and being constant in it. Industrious. This, in a physical sense, this country was built by people that were industrious. They went, they worked hard, they made it a habit to be diligent and steady in their business. They were not slothful, they were not idle. One of the definitions of industrious is to do or make. We used to live in a country of people that were doers. Now we live in a nation of people that are watchers. They'd rather they get as much entertainment from watching as they used to get from doing. And that has crept in our church. People come, they watch, and they feel as if they partook the same as those that did. No, listen, watching and doing is not the same. Now, you may think it's the same. If there's a football game being played and you're sitting on the sideline on a bleacher watching, you are not partaking. Now, you may say, oh yeah, we won tonight. No, you didn't win. They won. But we say, oh, we won. Our team was the best. No, you weren't on a team. You were an observer. You were in the safe, comfortable area. You were not getting hit. You were not being hurt. You were not expending any energy other than putting the popcorn in your mouth. But you were not part of the team. Watching is not the same as doing. There's many today, they're poor spiritually due to a lack of diligence. Proverbs 10, 4 says, he becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. Romans 12 says, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. The Bible says in 2 Peter 1, 5, and beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge. And it goes on, but I want to say this, we need to be diligent that we're adding these things, these graces in our lives. How are we going to do that? Well, you must have a walk with God. We need to be diligent in our devotional life, in our walk with God. Listen, I know you hear it prayed, I pray, preached all the time, and probably some of you being prayed for, that your walk with God increases. But you need to have a real walk with God, a close, personal, fervent walk with God, where you read your Bibles, and you're not just checking off an amount, and I know we can get in that habit, and I'm not against systematically reading your Bible. I think you ought to do it. I think you should read your Bible through from Genesis through the end of the book of Revelation when you get it done. You ought to do it again. If you're able, you ought to read a proverb for the day of the day. There's so much wisdom in proverbs. But as you read the Word of God, remember, why am I reading the Word of God? That is the Word of God, it's absolute truth. I want God to speak to me. Say, well, I'm going to wait for a vision. He's not going to speak to you in a vision. He's already spoken. Everything you and I ever need to hear from God is found in this Bible. Can I tell you this? Do you have problems in your life? You ever face trouble? The answer to every problem and every trouble you ever face is found in the Word of God. So I need to go the Word of God and allow God to speak to me. I know that my life is not perfect. How am I gonna know what God wants me to do? I need to be in the Word of God and let the Word of God speak to me. But also, the Word of God is likened to water. You know what water does? It cleanses, it purifies. You know what happens to all of us as we walk through this filthy, dirty earth? We get dirty. Hey, would you go a whole week through the summer and not take a shower? I'd hope not. Would you go days and not bathe in the water of the Word of God? You need to be in the water of the Word of God so it'll cleanse you. It's also likened to fire. Not only does this world make you dirty, this world will make you cold. And you need to get in the Word of God and let God light that fire down in your heart and soul to have some zeal and fervency for the things of God. then you need to, so that's God talking to us, but you need to talk to God. Now let me just tell you, it's not that God needs to hear what you have to say because you're so smart, but we have sins to confess. There's only one person you can go to confess those, not a man, not a man who calls himself father, who's never married and has no kids, but God. You need to get in the habit of going to God every day, confessing your sins, coming clean, Before God, we need to talk to God. Then you need to begin to learn how to pray, intercede for others. You should pray for yourself, absolutely, but I hope you pray for others. and learn to supplicate, bring your problems and cares and troubles to the Lord. You need to learn to thank Him in prayer. You need to learn to praise Him. You need to learn to talk to God. And can I say this? I think you should have a place to read your Bible and you ought to have a prayer closet. But listen, when you get out of that prayer closet, your prayers should not stay there. You should live a life of prayer. As you're going down the road, listen, and you're driving down the road, obeying the speed limit, just calm and relaxed and patient. And as you think about it, you know what you could do? You could pray. Now don't close your eyes. So that's the time you can pray with your eyes open. Listen, when you're working, if you get a minute, you could pray. When you're in the line at the grocery store and they got two lines open for 129 people trying to check out, you could pray. but we ought to live a life of prayer in our devotional life. Hey, in our family, we need to be diligent in our marriage. I wonder, this would be a good test, we won't do this, but I wonder if we took your spouse, my spouse and your spouse, side privately, and they had to swear to tell the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth and all that stuff. And then we asked him, said, how are you doing? What are you struggling with? What needs do you have right now? Well, everybody would have to tell something. Nobody could say, oh, I'm fine, because if you swore to a truth, God would say, oh, you're lying. So I know the, oh, I'm fine. God sees past that, right? And so we'd write down what you're struggling with, maybe some needs you have, some things you're really burdened about. I wonder if we let you leave the room and brought your spouse before you could whisper to them, and we brought them in the room and said, hey, we just talked to your spouse. What are they struggling with right now? What needs do they have? What are they burdened about? Good, Richard. Would you know? You know, we play those silly games. We're like, what's your spouse's favorite color? Well, I don't know. She's a female. It changes five times a month, so how am I supposed to know that? What's her favorite restaurant? You're talking about year one, year two, year three, year four. I mean, which year of marriage are you talking about? How am I supposed to know the answer to that dumb game? This wouldn't be a dumb game, would it? No. I'd hate to go in there and stumble about and say, oh, my wife, she ain't struggling with nothing. She got it made in the shade. and find out I didn't even know what was going on in my own spouse's life. How could that happen? Lack of diligence. Lack of diligence. Little preoccupied with other things, devices, hobbies, pleasures, friends, making money. Diligence in our marriage. Hey, how about diligence in our discipline? I'm glad we heard a couple. I'm going to tell you, parents, the biggest struggle you're going to have training your children is diligence. I don't have a problem with diligence. Oh, we might beg to differ. You better be diligent. If it's wrong today, it ought to be wrong tomorrow. If it's not, you're sending very conflicting signals. You want to bring up a confused, even angry child? Be inconsistent. Oh, that's what it does. You're going to have an angry child. You're going to have a confuse. You say, oh, they're OK. I didn't say OK to be angry. That's what you're going to produce. If you don't have consistent guidelines, consistent boundaries, consistent rules, consistent discipline, you know what that child needs? They need that. That is protection to them. See, they're not wise enough to have that structure in their life, so we as parents supposed to give them structure, and when they step outside of that, we're supposed to consistently correct that all the time so they know. Amen. We'll move on from the family, amen? Maybe we'll preach on that here soon. How about in our witnessing? I'd hate to go a whole week and not have had any opportunities to say something for the Lord, pass a track, invite somebody to church. So we see there's many that are poor spiritually due to a lack of diligence. The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but of everyone that is hasty, only to want. Do you know this about diligence? That diligence is profitable. The Bible says the hand of the diligent shall bear a role, but the slothful shall be under tribute. In Matthew 25, the Lord said, His Lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. How did he go from ruling over just a few things to ruling over many things? He was faithful. He had been diligent in what he'd been given, and he had been blessed. The Bible says in Psalms 13, the soul of the slugger desireth and hath nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat. You know what diligence proves? Talking about being industrious, being diligent in our dealings. It proves you can be trusted and counted on. Your responsibility and privileges will grow and increase as you are diligent, as you are industrious. I know many times young people in the home, they wanna be given more privileges. They wanna be able to stay up later, right? It's like one of the, they just wanna stay up late. Why? I have no idea. Why would you wanna stay up late? They want more responsibility. They want their parents to be able to trust them. They want privileges that they didn't have when they were little to show that they're maturing. Listen, you don't get that just with age. You get it with being diligent. being industrious. See, it shows that he wasn't, Jeroboam was not lazy or slothful. The Bible says he was industrious. The first definition meant to do or to make. In other words, he had accomplished something in his life already. It didn't say he was going to be industrious. He, at this time, as a young man, was industrious. He had done, he had made, he had accomplished, he had been diligent, he had steadily applied to whatever he was doing. Now, I'm not saying he had accomplished everything he needed to in life, but he had already done something. So much so that he stood out to King Solomon. Listen, a simple question. What have we done? What are we doing? Can God look at us and say, that is an industrious person. That is a diligent person. They're doing, they're making, they're being faithful. They're accomplishing something for me in the church. Sometimes you have people and they want a position. Listen, what are you doing? What have you done that would give somebody confidence that you could be trusted with more? The Bible says this about doings. Even a child is known by his doings. Doings is something you've done. It's actions, behavior, conduct. What are we doing? What have you been doing? Are you doing anything that somebody could look at you and say, that is an industrious person. They're busy, they're diligent, they're applying themselves to something. I know we criticize the world. There's many in the world today, in our country. You know what they want in life? They want a free ride. They want a ride on the hard work and the money and the sacrifice of others. And we'll criticize them, but you know what we have in Christianity? We have people, they want a free ride. They want a ride in the coattails of those who have worked hard and who sacrifice and who labor, and they just want to slide through and not have to do on their own. What God wants us to do. Not like the world. There's those who do their own things. There's the doings of the world. But no, God wants us to do, to be busy serving Him, to do something for God. He was industrious. In other words, whatever He found to do, He did it with His might. Be a blessing. That's how we attacked whatever opportunity we had. We did it with all our might. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. I believe he was probably zealous about what he did. He took the time, he was willing to make sacrifices to accomplish something. So he was industrious. Listen, folks, we've been given so much. The question is, what are we gonna do with it? I'm afraid many times, or sometimes, we're like that man, that hid that talent in the ground. He could have done so much. You know what he could have done with that one talent? He could have made it into two talents. God's given us so much. You know what you could do is you could take what God's given you and you could multiply it. But how many times do we just let it hide it in the dirt because we're not industrious? Not only was he industrious but Look at that last phrase there or sentence in verse 28 says, he, Solomon made him Jeroboam ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph. Now, if you know about the house of Joseph, that was two tribes, that's the tribe of Manasseh and Ephraim. You know what Solomon did? He put him in charge. Why would he put Jeroboam in charge? He was a leader. The Bible says he was a mighty man of valor. Even though his mom was a widow, he had no dad, he was industrious and he could be trusted. He was a leader, he was put in charge. Let me say this, somebody will lead. Somebody will lead in your home. Somebody's gonna lead in the church. There's always a leader. One of the questions is, is it the right leader? The Bible says this, one of the greatest verses in the Bible about being a leader. 2 Samuel 23, 3, the God of Israel said, the rock of Israel spake to me, he that rolleth over men must be just. Rolling in the fear of God. Just, that means righteous and lawful. In other words, you need to have a life that lines up, that can be a good example to those that you roll over. There is one of the worst things is a corrupt ruler or somebody that's corrupt in leadership. You know what that is? That's a bad example. You know what that's going to do? It's going to corrupt those that are under them. So he says we must be just and rolling in the fear of God. That means that we're to be righteous and lawful. We're not to be a respecter of persons. Listen, when you roll, if you have different standards for different people, that is not the right kind of leadership. That is not rolling. Justly in the fear of God. Do you understand me? And listen, I'm telling you, if you get, you're going to find in your own home, some of your own kids, they might at times be a little bit harder to love than the other one. And you get in, you'd be allowed to rule in the church or have a position in the church where you're in charge of, has somebody under you. You know what you're going to find? You're going to find some people that you like. Better than other people. But if you are a respecter of persons in your ruling and in your leadership, that is not the Bible kind of ruler that God wants. He said you must be just ruling in the fear of God, not a respecter of persons. You must be righteous and lawful. And one of the greatest ways you lead is not by yelling the loudest. You lead by example. Your life speaks louder than your words. I know who this passage is written to, but 1 Peter 5 says, feed the flock of God which is among you. And then it goes down, it says neither is being lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. When the greatest ways is you lead by example. If your life does not line up with your mouth, you're sending a mixed message to those that are under you. in the Word of God, the greatest, the Bible says, is to be servant of all. You want to be a great leader? You want to be a great authority? You want to be a great ruler? God says you must be a great servant. Now wait a minute, that goes against the world's philosophy. I'm going to be great, I'm going to have power, I'm going to step over people. No, God says you want to be great, be a servant. Whosoever will be great among you, let them be your minister. Listen, when you have an opportunity to rule, when you're in authority, whether it's in your home, in your marriage, whether it's in a ministry, wherever it is, your responsibility is to minister and to serve those people you've been put under. It's not that I'm the dictator, no! That is not how God's Word lays it out. When you roll, you're to care about those that are under you. Proverbs 27, 23 says, Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. And I understand, but there's a great principle there. When you have somebody or those under you, you're to be diligent, there's that word again, to know their condition. You're supposed to look well to them. In other words, you should know them. Listen, when you deal with people, especially when you deal with children, many times children will act up and they'll cause issues, and adults do it too, But you know why those kids do that? There's always a deeper reason. It's not, there's usually something going on that comes out in some sort of misbehavior. You know what the wrong kind of authority would do? He's just gonna not like that kid. He's just gonna get on that kid all the time and just say, well, he's just a lost cause. He's just a rebel. There's no hope for him. You know what a biblical leader, a biblical, somebody who's following the word of God's gonna do? He's gonna look well, let me find that verse there. He's gonna be diligent to know the state of thy flocks. In other words, if you had a flock and one of them started having an issue, you're not just gonna chop their head off and eat it. What are you gonna do? You're gonna try to figure out what's causing this problem. You're gonna try to fix the problem. So, Kevin, if I got people, if I'm ruling over somebody and I see somebody's having a problem, I'm not just gonna cut them off. I'm gonna start trying to figure out what I can do to help them with that problem. Not having a respect to a person, not just being a dictator, but caring about those that are under me. He says, be thou diligent to know the state of thy flock, states the condition, the circumstances or being of a thing at any given time. He also has the idea of the face or countenance. Can you tell, can you see? and read those that are under you. And it's likened to a shepherd over his flock. Remember in Exodus 18, Moses chose those men to judge. And the Bible says then, thou shalt provide out of all the people, able men. Not everybody's able. I mean, listen, if you can't be on time, you're probably not able to rule over people. If you're not patient, you're probably not able to rule over people real well. Listen, if you don't have discernment, it's gonna be hard to be a godly ruler. You don't walk with God if you don't have a spirituality about you, it's gonna be hard to be able men. And I understand that's probably physically able, but I think there's a great application being spiritually. Listen, hey, let me tell you this about ruling. If you're not able to submit, you're not able to rule. So he says, able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them. Joseph said this unto his brethren, this do and live, for I fear God. You know why Joseph had mercy on his brethren? He feared God. Listen, if I'm in a place of authority, and if I fear God, I'll do right by those that are under me. And listen, this world that we live in, they've got leadership and authority, whatever the word is, ruling, leadership, they've got it all wrong. It's all out of sorts in this world. They've got, in our homes, children run the homes. I'm just saying in a general sense. In most marriages in America, it's the woman. If they even bother getting married, the woman runs the man. And listen, it has creeped into our churches where our authority, our rulers, our leadership, it's out of sorts. We're not raising our young people to be leaders. You know what a leader has to be able to do? A leader has to be able to take a stand. A leader has to know how to submit and how to serve and how to fear God and how to be just and how to live a life that is a good example to those under them. You know what a leader has to be able to do? A leader has to be able to make a decision. a hard decision in a moment and make that decision and gather all the facts of what's available and make a decision and make the right decision with discernment and not allow the outside noise to affect his decision and make a decision and then stand on that decision that he made. Some of our kids can't make a decision if mom and dad don't make it for them. We're not raising leaders. We're raising people gonna be spoon-fed the rest of their life. We need to teach our children, teach them how to be a leader, how to learn to rule with diligence and how to be a just ruler in the sight of God. They need to learn, listen, we preach this, they need to learn to have a walk with God. Listen, if your kids are teenagers, there should be a time already you've told them, listen, you need to pray about this. You need to get something from God on this. Listen, parents, they need to learn to pray and get an answer from God. They need to learn to get in their Bible and God speak to them. They need to learn how to submit themselves to God. They need to learn how to make some choices that are right. I understand they're still under the hand of their parents. You're still there to guide them and take care of them, but they've gotta learn how to make a choice and make the right choice. We need to raise some leaders. Fear God, we need to fear God. Ecclesiastes, he said, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. These judges that Moses picked, you know what he told them? He said, the big cases, the hard ones, you bring them to me. Now, that's interesting. You know what he's basically talking about? Dan says, you're not smart enough to handle the big. I'll give you the easy, but you give me the big stuff. So you know what those men had to be? They had to be submitted. They had to be humble, Daniel. You know, I can imagine if he got the wrong guy, he'd say, what, you expect me to deal with all these petty issues all day, and then when I get a big one, I gotta take it to you because you don't think I'm smart enough to handle this on my own? It doesn't really matter what you think, it just matters what Moses said. So you gotta be willing to humble yourself. Submit yourself, in other words, you're told something, and you can do it. You're sitting there going, but wait, I thought, when I'm the boss, I'm the one that make them, no, see, if you're not willing to submit, you can't be a good leader. You can't submit. If you can't submit to God, you can't be a good ruler, a good authority. So they had to be submitted, and they had to be humble. So we see here that Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor. Now I understand it didn't end that well for him, but I'm just telling you here in 1 Kings 11, he's a mighty man of valor. And I think as we study his life, we can learn some things. He was a single, his home was a single mom, but he overcame that obstacle. He was industrious, he did something. He could be counted on to be the right kind of ruler. He could be trusted. by one of the greatest kings that issue ever known, by Solomon. Listen, I'm telling you, you're gonna wanna get to a place where you can be trusted in your life. Can God trust us? Can God increase the responsibility in our life? Amen, let's pray.