Shoulder to Shoulder with God

What does it mean to walk shoulder to shoulder with God? That question sits at the heart of this message drawn from 1 Kings 12, where the story of Jeroboam reveals how quickly ambition, convenience, and self-interest can corrupt even the most promising spiritual calling. We explore the ancient city of Shechem, whose very name means 'shoulder' in Hebrew, and discover that this place was meant to be a site of sacred partnership between God and his people. Instead, it became a stage for manipulation and false worship. The parallels to our own lives are striking. When we seek counsel from the wrong sources, when our thought lives drift from what Scripture actually says about us, and when we reduce worship to something convenient rather than something costly, we risk setting in motion consequences that reach far beyond what we can see. Jeroboam's decisions echoed through centuries of Israelite history, shaping borders and nations in ways he never imagined. This message calls us to examine who and what we are building allegiance toward, and whether our daily choices are pointing ourselves and others toward Jesus or merely toward something that resembles him from a distance.