God Lifts Up & God Brings Down
1 Kings 11:29-39 James 4:13-17 1 Kings 11:29-14:17
If someone says, that person is full of pride, what image comes to your mind? Do you see someone who is stuck on himself? Do you imagine someone who has a big head. Do you think of someone who likes to brag about what he or she has done. In reality that’s not pride, that’s being conceited. Pride is much more natural than being conceited.
We find a good description of pride in our New Testament reading when James gives a warning to us who go about busily planning our lives of making money, going to the mall, taking vacations and setting our calendars without recognizing, we are not in charge of tomorrow. God is. Pride is what makes us think “I deserve this.”
It is so easy to get into trouble when we think we deserve to be where we are in life. With the financial scandals going on on wall street, we are quick to point out how greedy those chief executives were in getting rich at the expense of shareholders and employees. But at the heart of it, it was not greed that began their downfall. Rather it was pride. Pride tells us, “I earned this position and I am entitled to the salary I make.”
Pride tells us “I’m in control and it is up to me to make things happen for my benefit.” Pride tells us, “I’m entitled to whatever I can get. I deserve this house, these clothes, and this lifestyle.” Pride tells us, “I really do not have to consider God’s opinion of what I’m doing.”
At the heart of pride, is living as though God had nothing to do with where we are in life. It is sheer foolishness to think we are who we are, because we made ourselves. The Bible teaches that it is God who exalts a person and God who brings a person back down.
We can think I got here because of my intelligence, my voice, my good looks, my skills or my whatever, but I want us to know there are people far more intelligent than us in mud houses, there are people who can sing better than us singing to animals, there are people who look a lot better than we do in villages people never heard of and there are those whose skills could rival Michael Jordan who never got the chance to play ball.
God raised us up whether we acknowledge it or not. There was an ordinary guy by the name of Jeroboam. He was just your plain run of the mill guy who didn’t mind working hard on the job. His supervisor reported that he was hardworker, and he received a promotion. Out of the millions of people to choose from, God decided he would lift Jeroboam up in his plans and purposes for the nation of Israel.
King Solomon was a wise man, who did not practice what he preached. He was one of the first educated fools. He deliberately disobeyed God in a number of areas and thought he could control the outcome. God decided to take away Solomon’s Kingdom and split it into two parts. One part would go to Solomon’s son, but the other part would go to a man who would obey God’s word.
God sent Ahijah a prophet to meet Jeroboam out in the countryside to tell him, that he would become the next king. Now Jeroboam was not from a royal family, and there was nothing that special about him. God simply chose to give him the opportunity. God said, “now listen, if you will do what I tell you to do, you and your descendants will reign for many generations to come.” God could have chosen anybody to offer this promise to, but he chose to offer it to Jeroboam. God intended to use Jeroboam to make a difference for his people.
God could have chosen anybody to be in the position you are in today. If you are not careful, you will think you got there because of who you are. Pride begins to sneak in and says, “yes, I’ve made it. Look where I am compared to some other people that I know.” We may not say it out loud, but we do whisper it in our hearts. We even begin to trust in our position. The psalmist wrote, “some trust in chariots, some trusts in horses, but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.”
There are some things that seem so sure in our lives. We think that its not possible to lose them, but I’m telling you this morning, it does not matter how high we go up, we are always susceptible to coming back down due to things we cannot control. Think of all the people with degrees hanging on their walls who worked for Enron at great salaries, who one day woke up and discovered because of the pride of a few people, they had not only lost their jobs, but their pensions as well. We can look here in our own city at LTV steel, where the pride of a few has brought misery and suffering to thousands of people.-
When the word of Ahijah became a reality, and Jeroboam became king, a funny thing happened to him. He forgot that it was God who lifted him up to be king. No sooner than he got the position, he began to come up with ways to make sure that he would always have the position. Pride sneaked in upon him and he started to think, “I deserve what I got, and I will make sure that nobody takes it away from me.” God had place Jeroboam in the kingship to make a difference for God. Not for Jeroboam to think only about himself.
Each one of us is where we are to make a difference for God. It does not matter if it is a job, or at a school, or on a team, or in a group, or in the family. Some of us God has granted us positions of leadership within informal groups, especially as young people.
If we laugh and make fun others, those in the group around us will do the same. If we take a stand and say, that’s not right others will fall in suit with us. If God has raised you up to be the star athlete on your team or the best person in the band, or the best dancer, how do you use your position to glorify God to help those who are less gifted.
God gave you the position you have on your job, to speak up on behalf of what is right. Pride wants to sneak in and say, “I deserve this job and I’m not about to do anything to rock the boat even if Jesus says the boat needs rocking.” It is so easy to think that being a disciple of Jesus is something we do at church.
No, being a disciple of Jesus is more determined by what we do when we leave the church. Believe it or not, sometimes being a disciple of Jesus will put the very position you have been given in jeopardy.
When Jeroboam became king, the one thing he wanted to make sure of was that the people would never get rid of him. He tried to gain their favor by making it easier for them to serve God. He created two golden cows and put one in the north part of the country and the other in the southern part of the country. It made traveling a lot easier to get to worship. No more traveling all the way to Jerusalem. You could now sleep in and still get to worship.
He also let anybody who wanted to become a priest become one. He completely led the people astray and rejected God in order to keep his position as king. He forgot that God who had made him king, had promised to keep him and his sons as kings for generations to come. It was far easier for Jeroboam to trust in his own might and power than to trust in God.
Pride tells us, “I can handle this thing on my own. What’s mine is mine and I have to do what I have to do to keep it.” God had brought him from a nobody and made him a somebody. In appreciation, Jeroboam sent God packing out the back door.
Jeroboam was now able to boast, today I’ll do this, and tomorrow I plan to accomplish such and such. But James told us in our New Testament Reading, we are like a mist or a vapor that appears and vanishes. Instead we ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will do this or that.”
We put so much trust and confidence in our jobs and our money, thinking they will be there for us forever. Yet in the last few years, we have seen people lose billions in the dot.com companies, and people swindled out of millions by crooked investors. We have seen people’s pensions wiped, money they were counting on for their old age.
God is shaking us a nation to rethink the value we placed on our money. He is shaking the pride that is so ingrained in us. We have come to think, because we are Americans, we deserve to live higher and better than the rest of the world. We are only now realizing that our high standard of living is due to our oppression and robbing of poor workers in other countries. They are getting our jobs at 1/10 the salary that we were paid.
Pride tells us, other people may lose their job but not me. Pride tells us, others may get caught in what they’re doing, but not me. Pride tells us that others may lose their pensions, but it couldn’t happen to me. Pride tells us that others marriages may fail, but not mine. Pride tells us that I truly am in control. The reality is, our lives are often determined by things over which we have no control.
Think of all the honest people who worked for Arthur Anderson, some of who were Christians. Because of the deception and dishonesty of a few, thousands of people lost their jobs. Some lost their homes, their cars, their vacations, and ended up no doubt in bankruptcy. They didn’t it deserve it to happen to them, no more than we deserved for it not to happen to us. That’s why everyday is a day to be thankful to God.
When King Jeroboam tossed God out of his life, God didn’t quit on him. He sent a prophet to him that showed him a miraculous sign. Jeroboam attempted to kill the prophet God sent to him, and in the process God struck Jeroboam’s arm with paralysis.
The prophet prayed for Jeroboam and God healed his arm. God was giving Jeroboam an opportunity to repent and come back to him. But once things were going fine, Jeroboam went back to business as usual. He did even more leading of the people astray than he had previously done.
God gives us the opportunity to change. Jesus is living proof that God would rather have us change, than to have us judged guilty. Jesus makes it possible for us to turn and go in a different direction with our lives. It’s not always easy to make the change that Jesus wants us to make, but the consequences of continuing on in our own way can be far more disastrous. As much as pride has us believing we can control the things around us, it simply is not so. Only God can control all circumstances.
Jeroboam had a son whom he loved very much by the name of Abijah. Abijah would become the next king. But Abijah became very ill. None of the king’s power, wealth or status, could do anything for his son. It was at this point that Jeroboam had to admit, he wasn’t all that he had fooled himself into being. He also knew, that the only one who could make a difference in his son’s life, was the God who raised him in the first place.
He was too ashamed to go to the prophet Ahijah to get a word from the Lord. Pride kept him from humbling himself and admitting he was wrong. Ahijah was the one who had originally told Jeroboam he would become king when Jeroboam was just a nobody. Jeroboam told his wife, “you disguise yourself and go to the prophet, and ask him what’s going to happen to the king’s son. Then we will know what will happen.”
It’s something how pride will cause us to even try to use God for our own end. We want to get a word from God in this area of our lives, without wanting to hear a thing about what the Lord has to say about our areas of rebellion. You know people say often, “I just wish the Lord would speak to me.” Have you ever considered that what God may want to speak to us about, is a whole lot different than the conversation we would like to have with the Lord.
It’s been about 20 years since the prophet Ahijah had told Jeroboam he would become king. The prophet had grown blind. But God told him, “Jeroboam’s wife is coming to see you disguised as someone else. Give her a message to take back to her husband.” Well when Ms. Jeroboam knocked on the door, Ahijah said, “ Wife of Jeroboam, quit the tripping and the pretending and come on in. You tell that husband of yours, that God says, “I raised you up from a nobody and made you king.
I promised you that if you would obey me, you and your family would rule for generations to come. But you have disobeyed me by making other gods for yourself and throwing me behind your back. I am going to send my wrath on the house of Jeroboam and not one male in your family will be left alive. I will burn up your houses, and no one in your family will get a decent burial because the dogs will eat up their bodies. I will also send the people into captivity because of their worship of the gods you created.”
The same God who prophesies us up into a place can prophecy us back out of that place. If we are not faithful in the position God places us in, God knows how to remove us and put in someone who will. Each of us only has one life to live. That life will either count for God or it won’t. We’re making the decision for it right now.
Ahijah continued, “God also says, the son you came to ask me about, he will die the moment your foot enters the city.” Now God did not strike her son, because of Jeroboam’s disobedience. God said, “he will die because he is the only one in the entire family that I find something good in. His death now will allow him to have the kind of burial that is due him, rather than dying in disgrace with the rest of the family.” The young man’s early death was not an act of judgment, but rather of mercy on God’s part.
Pride tells us we have the right to determine when it is appropriate for someone we love to die. But my friend, God is in charge of the day of our deaths. We have to accept the deaths of others even as we accept our own. Even the death of his son did not bring Jeroboam to the place of repentance and humbling himself. Jeroboam died shortly after his son. His son Nadab became king and reigned for two years before he was assassinated and the entire family of Jeroboam were destroyed.
Rarely does our pride lead to only our own downfall. Many people suffer because of our unwillingness to remember it was God who lifted us up and it is God who can bring us back down. God had in mind to give Jeroboam a dynasty that would have lasted for hundreds of year. The plan Jeroboam followed caused his family to rule for only 24 years.
Let’s examine our hearts today and see where pride is doing damage in our lives. Which of us is letting pride keep us from going to someone to admit that we were wrong? We know the relationship is suffering, yet we are refusing God’s command to say that I’m sorry. Which of us has a position today, that we are not using for God’s glory because we think, we got it by ourselves and we will not risk losing it, just to be obedient to God? Which of us has God placed in a position to expose a wrong being done, but pride will not allow us to come forward?
Which of us has been greatly blessed by God, but we will not use our resources for the kingdom of God because we believe we have earned this money by ourselves? We simply will not tithe because pride has convinced us we can do with it as we please. If God can arrange circumstances for a nobody to become king and then remove the king and his family from the face of the earth, who are we to think we can control our future by disobeying the word of the Lord.
Jesus put it this way, “what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose his or her soul.” Life is not found in possession nor in positions. Life is found in Jesus Christ alone.
When we remember that we are but a vapor or a mist that’s quickly fading, we see the true need to have our lives rooted in God. Pride tells us, we’ve got plenty of time left to get right with God. That’s why so many people die without Christ and without hope of eternal life. Pride will have more people in hell than probably most of the other sins combined.
In order to enter a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, we must first lay our pride at the foot of the cross and admit that we have failed and lived in disobedience to God. We must be willing to lay pride at the altar every day of our lives because it creeps back in in the most subtle of ways. In reality it’s God’s mercy that makes our lives possible. That mercy is available to us all.
Come On Out For
The New Life Celebration This Saturday After The Walk A Thon
At 11:00
There Will Be Praise,
Food, Fun, &
Celebration For All.
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Sermon Outline Pastor Rick GNLCC 7/14/2002
God Lifts Up & God Bring Down
1 Kings 11:29-39 James 4:13-17 I Kings 11:29-14:17
A. What Comes To Mind When We Think Of Pride
1. Stuck On Self, Big Head, Braggart
2. Pride Vs. Conceit
3. Making Plans Because We’re In Control
4. Pride Not Greed On Wall Street
5. I Earned It And It’s Mine
B. Living As Though God Need Not Be Considered
1. I Got There Because Of Me
2. Intelligence, Voice, Good Looks, Skills
3. Others Were Just As Good
C. God Can Choose Anybody He Wants To Choose
1. Jeroboam—Hard Worker Got Noticed
2. King Solomon Of Israel—Wise But Not Smart
3. Solomon’s Disobedience-God Divides Nation
D. God Makes A Promise
1. Prophet Ahijah—Jeroboam To Become King
2. Family Will Rule For Generations If…..
3. God Places Us In Positions Today
4. Pride Will Creep In And Say Look At Me
5. Psalmist Some Trust Chariots, Some Horses
E. It’s Possible For Us To Lose What We Have
1. Degrees, Good Jobs But Enron & LTV
2. I’ve Got To Keep What I’ve Got
3. The Call & Gift Is To Make A Difference
4. Family, Team, Leader, Group, Star Athlete
5. Rocking The Boat For Jesus
6. The Real Meaning Of Disciple
F. Making Plans On Our Own.
1. Jeroboam Provides Easy Religion
2. Golden Cows North & South
3. Priesthood Open To All
4. Forgot God’s Promise Of Generations
5. Pride—I Can Handle This On My Own
6. James—Mist/Vapor If The Lord Wills
H. Putting Our Confidence In The Wrong Thing
1. Billions In Dot.coms Crooked Investors
2. Pensions Swept Away
3. God Is Shaking The Nation
4. Pride And Americans---Too High, Too Long
5. Pride Lies—It Can Happen To Us
6. Remember Arthur Anderson—One Giant
I. Before We Toss The Lord Out
1. Jeroboam Tosses Out—But God Is Faithful
2. God Gives A Warning And Miraculous Sign
3. Threat To Kill, Paralysis, Healing
4. Chance To Repent Or Business As Usual
5. God Prefers Change To Judgment
6. Only God Can Control It All
K. When Things Come Into Our Lives We Can’t Fix
1. Abijah, Jeroboam’s Son Becomes Ill
2. King’s Resources Of Little Help
3. King’s Pride Stands In The Way
4. Wanting A Word From The Lord
5. His Wife Goes To The Prophet Ahijah
L. When Pride Wants Us To Use God For Our Ends
1. Do We Really Want The Lord To Speak To Us
2. The Lord May Want A Different Subject
3. God Tells Ahijah What Jeroboam Is Up To
4. Ahijah Prophecies Judgment On Jeroboam
5. No Males Left In The Family
6. Nation To Go Into Exile
M. God Who Puts Us In Can Also Take Us Out
1. It’s A Choice To Make Our Lives Count
2. The Death Of Jeroboam’s Son Abijah
3. Abijah Dies Because He Is Good
4. God Sets The Days Of Death
5. Pride Cannot Alter God’s Plan
6. Jeroboam Dies—Nadab Becomes King
7. Two Year Reign & Assassination
8. Pride Takes Others With Us
9. 100’ Of Years Vs 24 Year Reign
N. Doing A Self Examination Of Our Pride
1. The Need To Admit Wrong To Whom
2. When We Need To Say I’m Sorry
3. Claiming Our Glory For Where We Are
4. Being Blessed But Not A Blessing
5. God Moves Kings—What About Us
O. Remembering What Life Truly Is
1. Jesus—Gain The World & Lose Your Soul
2. Where Is Life Truly Found
3. Pride Robs Us With A False Promise Of Time
4. Coming To Christ –Letting Go Of Pride
5. Mercy, Not Pride Is The Key
