This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back to our third week of looking through First and Second Kings. This
is day two of that third week. We're looking at Rehoboam and Jeroboam and the
lessons we can learn from them about leadership.

They both went the wrong direction, so they teach us what not to do. From
Rehoboam we learned yesterday, don't listen to the wrong advisors. And from
Jeroboam we learned, don't listen to your fears.

One of the worst things a leader can do is listen to their fears. Jeroboam from
the reign of Solomon had wanted to be a king. And actually God had promised that
he was going to lead part of the kingdom.

He knew that it was coming, but instead of trusting it like David did, he tried
to push it forward. Was exiled and now he's come back and God's going to fulfill
his promise. But Jeroboam becomes frightened, scared of losing his position.

And his leadership begins to take its cues from that fear. Leadership from a
platform of love is encouraging, it's refreshing. Leadership from a platform of
fear, it is repressive.

It's frightening. You don't always know where it's coming from. You just know
there's just this depressed, repressive, frightening, controlling feeling in
this whole organization, in this whole family, in this whole school.

You can't always know why, but oftentimes it's because the leader is listening
to their fears. Fear in leadership, it can grow from a variety of sources. The
fear of failing, the fear of disappointing those that you're leading, the fear
of losing your position.

Jeroboam helps us to see what this fear starts to do to us. What happens when
leadership starts to take its cues from your fear? Well, first you begin to make
security a priority.

1 Kings 12, verses 26 and 27. Jeroboam thought to himself, "The kingdom will now
likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up and 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 they'll return to King Rehoboam. " Now here, Jeroboam's
fears, they begin in earnest. And the security of the kingdom, the security of
his own life, it becomes the priority.

Remember, he's taking the northern kingdom. Rehoboam is taking Judah to the
south. That's where Jerusalem is.

That's where the temple is. So he thinks, "If I let the people go worship at the
temple, they're going to start to have allegiance to Rehoboam. " Now God had
promised Rehoboam the northern kingdom, but he couldn't find security in those
promises.

All he could listen to was his own fears, and they began to drive his life, to
guide his life. It's easy to do. There's a lot to worry about.

There's a lot to be afraid of in this world. Without God's promises, all there
is is something to be afraid of in this world. So what are you going to hang on
to?

Your fears or God's promises? It's going to determine the kind of leader that
you are in your family, in your school, in your business, in your work, in your
faith. What happens when fear starts to take control?

A second thing that happens is you start to set allegiance to you above even
worship to the Lord. It becomes the major priority. And because of that, listen
to the actions that Jeroboam takes in 1 Kings 12, 28-32.

Even though they were not Levites. He instituted a festival on the 15th day of
the eighth month, like the festival held in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on
the altar. This he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made.

And at Bethel, he also installed priests at the high places that he had made. So
in the end, it was look at what Jeroboam had built. He had built his own temple,
his own priests, his own festivals.

He built his own religion. He makes two golden calves and says, "Here are your
gods," just like had happened with the people of Israel as they were fleeing
from Egypt. And Aaron had made those golden calves.

He doesn't even learn from Scripture what not to do. Why does this happen? It
happens because it is more important to Jeroboam that the people follow him than
that they worship the Lord.

It's more important to Jeroboam that he be in power than that God be followed.
The priority of his life became the power of his leadership. Now, you and I, we
look at this and think, "Nothing like that could happen to me.

" Don't be so sure. Fear can cause our pride to begin to overwhelm our every
decision. And the false gods that we have today are not these two golden calves.

They're things like money or where you live. And you begin to play on those
fears in people's lives. You begin to play on those fears in a way that causes
them to worship money or to be so concerned about where they live and that being
taken away from them that now you're controlling their decisions.

That's what happened with Jeroboam. That's what happens because of fear. And
then a third thing that happens because of fear, you see in chapter 13, verses
33 and 34, you become very stubborn.

You start to refuse any opportunity to change. Listen to what happens. It says,
"Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways.

But once more, appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people,
anyone who wanted to become a priest, he consecrated for the high places. This
was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and to its
destruction from the face of the earth. " Now, it says, "Even after this, he
would not change.

" After what? Well, right before this, a prophet had died, a prophet who had
actually healed Jeroboam, a good man before the Lord, he did not follow God's
direction completely, and so God took him from this earth. It was a huge
warning, a warning to Jeroboam.

If this kind of a man could die, could be destroyed because he didn't follow
God, so could Jeroboam. But even then, Jeroboam would not listen. He would not
change because fear was controlling his life.

The last thing that you want to do when you're afraid is change. You just stay
the course. You just stick where you are.

God invites us to change and to grow, but when fear is in our lives, it invites
us to become stubborn and stagnant and stay right where we are. Why are people
sometimes so unreasonably stubborn, even in the face of the most clear evidence
that they need to change? You could change and your family would be different.

You could change and your business would be different. You could change and
people would look at you differently. Why won't they change?

Because they're afraid. Fear has frozen them in their leadership tracks. Fear
has frozen them right where they are.

And so Jeroboam, because of his fear, he won't change. And it leads to the
destruction of his kingdom. The final thing that fear does to us, you see, in
the life of Jeroboam is you turn your back on God.

So in 1 Kings 7 to 9, we read the news that came to Jeroboam about what was
going to happen to his kingdom. And we read why it happened to his kingdom.
Here's what the prophet said.

"Go tell Jeroboam that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. I raised
you up from among the people and made you a leader over my people Israel. I tore
the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you.

But you've not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me
with all of his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes. You've done more
evil than all who lived before you. You have made for yourself other gods, idols
made of metal.

And you've provoked me to anger and thrust me behind your back. " That last
phrase, turn your back on God. Even more than that, you have thrust me behind
your back.

Fearful leaders have to put God in the back seat of their lives because God
always challenges us to change and grow. He always challenges us to overcome our
fears. And if I'm going to live in my fear, controlled by my fear, controlling
others with my fear, I eventually have to start thrusting God into the back of
my life.

The tragedy of that is God is the very one who can calm our fears, but he gets
thrust out of the picture. Why do we do that? Because it is the very nature of
fear that it decays our faith.

As you look at your own life, your own leadership, is there fear in your
leadership at home, at work, at church? If there is, you're probably
experiencing this decay from the inside out. But the good news is, 1 John tells
us, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

" If you will listen to God's love for you, he will begin to cast that fear out
of your life. Your life might be overwhelmed, overcome by fear. He can begin to
change it.

He can begin to change it. Or you might be someone who is just facing the
regular fears of everyday life. And another fear is going to happen to you
today.

Are you going to overwhelm, overcome that fear in your life, rather than letting
it overwhelm and overcome you? By listening to God's love. Great leaders have
learned two valuable lessons.

Who to listen to, good advice. But also, who it is that loves them. Because
that's how you overcome fear.

So right now, as we pray, we think about the fact that fear can sometimes
destroy our leadership. Let's just take a moment to listen to God's love. And in
prayer, would you just say, "God, thank you that you love me.

Whether I fail or succeed today in my eyes or in other people's eyes, you love
me. I can never, never get outside the bounds of your love. There can never be a
failure of your love for me.

" So Lord, I pray that would build a new confidence into my heart, into my life.
Let me live in that place of your love. Knowing you love me no matter what.

And out of that, let my leadership come for my family, for my school, for my
work, for my faith. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Join us tomorrow. We're going to start learning some lessons of servant
leadership from Elijah.