If Thou Wilt Be a Servant: Rehoboam's Choice

Text: 1 Kings 12:1-20

(Blog version of a Message Preached at Faith-Grace Vietnamese Baptist Church, Stone Mountain, GA, on 18 May 2014)

I want to talk to you about the power of choices. Someone said that all of us are the product of our own choices in life, and I believe that.

• Even if you are under someone’s authority, which most of you are, you still have choices to make. For example, you can choose to obey or disobey your parents. You can choose to listen in church or not listen. You can choose to have a good attitude, or a bad one.

• Everyone in this world, even those who we might call slaves, have the power of choice. And it’s a tremendous power. Although God is all-powerful, he still gives every one of us a free will to exercise as we wish. Wonderful, isn’t it? Yes, but also very serious.

• Our original parents, Adam and Eve, had the power of choice, but they chose to disobey God, and the world as we know it today is a product of that decision: poverty, war, disease, death…all of these came from that choice.

• But thank God someone else came into the world 2000 years ago and made this choice, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Who was that?

Here in 1 Kings 12, the new king of Israel, Rehoboam, has a big choice to make. His father, King Solomon, has died, and left a great kingdom to his son, but we find out in this chapter that Solomon put heavy burdens on his people to enjoy the fabulous wealth and power that he did. That’s what Jeroboam and the people are talking about when they say, “Thy father (i.e. Solomon) made our yoke grievous…” A “yoke” is defined as “service” in the next phrase. Farmers put yokes on cattle to attach them to plows and keep them in place to do their work. So the people are weary will the burdens that Solomon gave them and they come to the new king, led by his servant Jeroboam, to ask for relief.

So Rehoboam has a big choice to make. Will he continue to put the same burdens on the weary people that his father did, or will he lighten them at this own expense?

What I’d like to show you in this message are three things:

A. What to do when making a big choice
B. What not to do when making a big choice
C. Effects of our choices on us and on others

All of these things are covered in this passage.

A. What to do when making a big choice

1. Take time to think and pray (v. 5); Rehoboam asks for three days; it’s too serious a decision to make in just one day

2. Seek counsel from others (v. 6)

     a. Group of people (Prov. 11:14)
     b. Begin with older people; in family if possible
          i. Older people are usually more mature and have more  wisdom
          ii. His father wasn’t there, so he sought people like his wise father
          iii. So far so good, but the next verse is the most critical in the passage, and that’s why I centered the message on it

3. Take lower position, instead of trying to be on top
     a. Old men gave him the right counsel; the outcome proves it
     b. Since Solomon had demanded hard service from the people, the way to make peace was for Rehoboam to make himself a servant to them and do what they asked, instead of expecting the same service (or even more rigorous) from them that they gave his father

B. What not to do when making a big choice

1. Don’t reject counsel just because it crosses you
     a. Much, if not most, of the good counsel you’ll receive in life will show you where you’re wrong or coming short and need to change
     i. Prov. 6:23—the way to spiritual life is accepting reproof or correction from God and others; for example, you can’t be saved until you agree with God that you’re lost, which is very humbling, if you’re self-righteous, which many people are;
     ii. 2 Tim. 4:1-2—much of preaching is negative (reprove and rebuke), and that’s why Paul said that even believers would turn away from it in the last days; when men get on TV and tell you how great you are and don’t say anything about you’re sins, they’re not preaching…they’re lying! If we’re all so good, then we don’t need a Saviour; but the fact that God did let Jesus die for us proves that we are guilty and deserve punishment

2. Don’t make a final choice before hearing all of your intended counselors (v. 8)
     a. The passage doesn’t say that Rehoboam forsook the old men’s counsel after he had counseled with the younger men; he forsook it even before he went to the younger men; note where v. 8 is placed—seems like it should come after his discussion with the young men, but it doesn’t…
     b. He had made up his mind that he was not going to make himself a servant to anyone; notice what he says to the young men—he emphasizes to them that the people want a lighter load; I think that he knew the character of these men, that they were immature and foolish, and that emphasizing the people’s wish for a lighter load would stir them up (he doesn’t emphasize it to the old men); it certainly does, and they foolishly counsel to stand up to the people and threaten them, instead of humbling himself before them; now, there’s a time for a king to take a stand, but this was not one of them; the old men knew this, but the young men were foolish and couldn’t tell the difference; Rehoboam follows the young men’s counsel, however, and look at the terrible results

C. Effects of our choices

1. On ourselves
     a. Bring us closer or farther from God; at this point, he was serving God; afterward, he turns to false gods and commits and tolerates terrible sins
     b. Bring us good name or bad name (v. 16; cf. Prov. 22:1); most of the nation loses respect for Rehoboam and his family (the house of David)
     c. Bring us peace or trouble (v. 18); Rehoboam nearly loses his life by proudly denying the people’s plea and then insulting them by sending his chief tax collector, Adoram, to collect money from them

2. On others
     a. Individuals can be helped or hurt; Adoram is killed when Rehoboam sends him to the angry 10 tribes; this man was simply following orders, but since Rehoboam was foolish, it cost Adoram his life
     b. Groups can be helped or hurt; the older counselors lost their stature since Rehoboam ignored their advice; it’s unlikely that he’d ever consult with them again, so he not only missed the wisdom they offered here, but the rest of the wisdom he could have gained from them the rest of his reign as well
     c. Nations can be helped or hurt; the kingdom of Israel is split in two, and the leaders of both divisions turn from God and their subjects follow them, with terrible results: (1) the king of Egypt invades and spoils the southern kingdom; (2) the two kingdoms fight—in one battle, the southern kingdom kills 500,000 soldiers from the northern kingdom (2 Chron. 13:17); (3) the northern kingdom never comes back to God until it’s conquered by Babylon at last and the people are carried away captive
     d. All of this, because one man would not make himself servant to others! you see what a huge difference one man’s choices can make?! we’ve got to learn the necessity of serving others in life, the earlier the better; life is about serving God and others, not serving yourself; Rehoboam wanted to be served, but he ended up losing everything and carrying countless people down with him
     e. Don’t follow this man! the Bible not only provides us good examples to learn from, but also bad ones, and Rehoboam is one of the bad ones; he starts out on the right track to making a good choice, but this situations shows that his heart wasn’t right, so he could not make the right choice as long as it was; what he should have done is humbled himself before the old men and the people and he could have held the kingdom together under God; instead, he puts himself before everyone and ends up losing everything and making so many others lose everything too.
     f. So when you’ve got choices to make, think about how others will be affected, because they will be, whether you believe it or not
     g. In conclusion, this message is mainly aimed at young people that already know the Lord; If you do, his wisdom is available to you through the word of God, the Holy Spirit, and the church (including your family, if they are saved); these resources can help you not to make selfish choices, but rather choices that will please God and bless others; if you’re not saved, however, your tendency will always be to put yourself first, since that’s the nature you’re born with; that’s why the Bible says that we need to be born again, by receiving Christ as our Saviour; when we do, we receive his nature (Holy Spirit), which enables us to deny and overcome our old nature and live for him instead of ourselves; receiving Christ is the first thing you need to do, if you hope to make the right choices in life, and I encourage you to do that today if you’ve never done so