II Chronicles 11:16 And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers
You have won an all-expense-paid trip to Tahiti, if you just click the link below! Have you heard this before? Or you take a survey which promises some grand benefit. Or you get an unsolicited email which promises you a million dollars or some such thing. Maybe you remember your mom saying when you were a child, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
Any savvy person, which I think is probably you, who sees an ad which promises a lot probably thinks, “What’s the catch? What is in it for the person making this offer?” and realizes on some level that everyone is acting in their own self-interest. People make promises, deals, and concessions, but ultimately what is behind all that is the natural inclination to make decisions based on self-interests. This is probably most highlighted when you have competition, two people trying to attain the same thing. They are both motivated by their own self-interests.
In II Chronicles 10-11 you have a big contest. You have self-interest on display between two men and their kingdoms. You have Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, and Jeroboam, an upstart who came back to the land from Egypt. Both of these men were leaders of the divided kingdom of Israel. Israel had essentially split in a civil war after Solomon, and Rehoboam and Jeroboam were vying for power in these kingdoms.
What you find in the Chronicles 10-11 is best summarized by the word interests. You see three telling examples of interests. First, let’s talk about self-interest. That comes naturally to every one of us. I am interested in me and probably you are interested in you. II Chronicles 10:6 says, “And king Rehoboam took counsel with the old men that had stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived.” The question he had for them was, “What shall I do? These people have asked me to reduce their taxes.”
The old counselors answered, “Look, if you are kind to this people, and speak good words to them, they will be your servants forever.” It was in Rehoboam’s self-interest. If he would serve them, they would follow him. Well, he listened to the younger men instead of the older men, and basically made the taxes laborious and more of a burden instead of less.
Verse 16 says, “And when all Israel saw that the king would not hearken unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David? and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to your tents, O Israel: and now, David, see to thine own house.” In other words, “We have no ownership in the house of David, and obviously you don’t care about us, so we are not putting up with this.” This began the division of the divided kingdom.
What you see here is self-interest. The interest of the king, the interest of the people, and the conflict that brought. I realize you have to have some self-interest to stay alive. If you don’t care about eating or drinking, you are not going to live long, but if you are not careful, your self-interest will make you live a very sheltered, finite life. In this case, it caused division.
The second kind of interest you see might be summarized best by the word sovereignty. It is God’s interests, not just the interest I innately have on my own. For example, in II Chronicles 10:15 it says that Rehoboam did not listen to the people to reduce their taxes. The reason for this was “for the cause was of God, that the LORD might perform his word” which he had given before by a prophet. So why did Rehoboam raise their taxes? There was his own self-interest. Perhaps he was greedy. But behind that was sovereignty, God’s interest. The cause was of God. In chapter 11 when this led to some conflict, verse 4 says, “Thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren: return every man to his house: for this thing is done of me.” So, a couple of times you find God’s interest, God’s sovereignty.
The third kind of interest you see here is submission, deferring to God’s interest and sovereignty over our own interest. II Chronicles 11:16, speaking of the priests and Levites, says, “And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers.” Jeroboam, the leader of this divided kingdom had changed the worship of God Jehovah to ensure people would be loyal to him and not go over to the kingdom of Rehoboam. This was more than just his own self-interest; this was disobeying God. It strengthened him politically, but it stopped the people from doing what God had told them to do as to the worship of Jehovah.
But the Bible tells us there was a group of people out of all the tribes of Israel that did the hard thing because they “set their hearts to seek the LORD God of Israel.” They went to Jerusalem. That wasn’t politically expedient, close, easy, or popular, but it was deference to what God had said. It wasn’t because they liked one king more the other. It was because they knew what God had said.
We learn from these three interests that you will never live beyond yourself until you live beyond your own personal interests. All of us have such short visions and views when we look just within ourselves. Someone says, “Follow your heart.” Why would I do that? My heart sees and knows so little. God knows everything. Someone says, “A man has got to eat, doesn’t he?” As I heard one pastor say, “No, a man has got to die and everyone will.” The only way to live as you should is to know how you are going to die. To realize there is something bigger than yourself and someone who is more sovereign than yourself, who deserves your submission. That is God.
Years ago, a young evangelist was complaining to my grandfather that there was a group of preachers who were against him so he couldn’t preach anymore. In these days, it was a matter of being in the right fellowship or convention. This young man was not a rebel, but he wasn’t preaching because he felt like he didn’t have the support of the people he needed in order to do what God told him to do. My grandfather said, “You may not have a big church, but you can still preach. You can preach in parks, street corners, and wherever you are, and start there.” The young man replied, “If I did that, I would starve to death.” My grandfather replied, “Maybe you will starve to death, but there are some things worse than starving to death. One of them is not doing what God called you to do.”
Today, self-interest can have its place of importance, but there is something more important than self-interest. That is what God wants for your life. A life truly lived well is a life lived for God, the designer of my life, because I will never live beyond myself until I live beyond my own personal interests.