Acts 12 - God's Judgment and Glory

Tom Shrader examines Acts 12, focusing on Peter's miraculous prison escape and Herod Agrippa's death. He emphasizes that while God delivered Peter through prayer and divine intervention, Herod died because he accepted worship that belonged to God alone. The teaching warns against idolatry in all forms, including making good things like family, work, or sports into objects of ultimate devotion that steal glory from God.

“God expects you to glorify Him and He doesn't expect you to be glorifying anything else.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Acts

Recorded: November 09, 2017

Duration: 38 min

Themes: judgment, deliverance, pride, idolatry, prayer, persecution, worship, glory, facing persecution, struggling with pride, seeking deliverance, new believer, pastor, parent, experiencing opposition, young adult

Scripture: Acts 12:1-23, Isaiah 42:8, 1 John 5:21, Exodus 20, Matthew 5, Hebrews 11

Theological Themes: divine sovereignty, providence, spiritual warfare, martyrdom, intercession, biblical authority, worship theology, sanctification

Full Transcript

This morning we look at session number 7, Acts 12, verse 1. "It was at about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. He had James, the brother of John, put to death by the sword, and when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened Bread."

I want to stop there. When we talk about King Herod here, we need a little background.

Understanding the Herods

When I typically think or hear the phrase King Herod, I think of King Herod the Great. He reigned from 38 B.C. to 4 A.D., roughly. He was named King Herod the Great because one morning he woke up and said, "I love the ring of that, call me King Herod the Great." And that's just what they called him. He is the one who the magi came to, remember, and they said, "Hey, there's this guy, this king of the Jews," and he says, "Well, I thought I was." And they said, "No, we're looking for this other guy." And he said, "Well, when you find Him, come back and tell me because I want to go. I'd be interested in meeting Him too." And they don't go back, and he has all the Jewish babies two years of age and younger slaughtered. So that was Herod the Great.

So he dies, the king gets all sliced up, and the next Herod we really meet is a guy named Herod Antipas. By the way, all these Herod guys are bad guys. Herod Antipas had this deal where he had this brother that he really liked who was married to this gal that he liked more, so he had his brother killed. So he kills his brother, marries the gal.

Now, here's how you'd know Antipas. There's this time when he's got a bunch of guys together, and they're drinking and having a bunch of fun, and in comes his daughter. She comes in and does this dance, and he goes—and you can just see, I love to picture it, because you can just see a bunch of guys together, and he's drunk, and he's acting like, "Hey, baby, anything for you," thinking she would want a Rolex or whatever it is. And she said, "No, I don't want that. I want what?" The head of John the Baptist. So that's Herod Antipas. He is a bad guy.

Enter Herod Agrippa I

Finally, he's gone. That's the Herod that Jesus stood before when He went from Herod to Pilate, Herod to Pilate, back and forth. Now, who we meet here in Acts 12 is Herod Agrippa I. He was a popular guy for what you really see in these three verses. He was sympathetic to the Jews, so he was popular with them. He is reigning. He is winsome and powerful.

He has James—not James the brother of Jesus, but James the brother of John—arrested and killed. That was done privately, word spreads. And two things happen. He has him killed, and one, the church grows. Within two decades, they estimate there are 100,000 Christians in Jerusalem. I get a lot of books on church growth, and a lot of guys want to talk about church growth, and I tell them, "I'll tell you how you can grow your church. Take one of your guys and cut his head off, because that always seems to work." So there's one thing. And it's funny, every church has somebody they volunteer for that, too.

So one thing that happens is the church grows. The second thing that happens is he sees the Jews are pleased with this. So if that made him happy, James made him happy, then I'm going to give him Peter, because Peter's a big gun. Let's go get Peter. So he takes Peter, he has him arrested. It's right during a feast time, so he doesn't want to kill him then; he's going to wait.

Peter in Prison

Verse 4: "After arresting him, he put him into prison, handed him over to the guard to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after Passover." So Peter was kept in prison, but the church—now this is one of those things, if you mark or underline or do something in your Bible, this is really important for our story today—the church was earnestly praying to God. And what were they praying for? Peter.

"The night before Herod was to bring him into trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers. Bound with two chains, sentries stood guards at the entrance." So here's the situation: he's arrested Peter, cannot take him out and kill him now, we've got to wait for the feast to pass, so Peter's in prison. He's guarded, and we get some really important data here, by four squads of four. And for some of us, we're going to go, "Well that sounds familiar, where would I have heard that before?" These are the same group of guys who would have guarded the tomb. These were the elite guys.

This is really important. These weren't some guys who were just kind of confused, "anybody seen my spear" kind of guys. No, these are the Navy SEALs, the Rangers. Peter's under house arrest, and they've got the best guys guarding him. The church is praying, there's going to be a public trial, but it's not like due process kind of trial. It's "we've got this guy, here's the charge, he's guilty, so let's cut his head off."

The Miraculous Rescue

Verse 7: "Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared, and light shone in the cell, and he struck Peter on the side and woke him up. 'Quick, get up.' Look what happens. The chains fall off Peter's wrists, then an angel said, 'Put on your clothes and sandals.' Peter did so. 'Wrap your cloak around you, follow me.' Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening. He thought he was seeing a vision, and he passed through the first guards, and the second guard came to the iron gate leading to the city, and it opened for them by itself, and they went through it."

So in verse 7, the chains are falling off. In verse 9, the door is opening by itself. I failed to point out something here significant. Peter is about to have his head cut off the next day in this process. And look what he's doing. He is sleeping.

If you knew, let's say tonight, you go home tonight, and you go, "You know, it's been a hard day, and they just let me know from the home office that tomorrow they're going to..."

Where would you set your sleep comfort number for that night? I mean, is that a 46 night, do you think, or a 75? My sense would be probably not much sleep. I don't want to make too much out of it, and it could be that Peter is just totally exhausted by the whole process, but there's certainly some level of peace here. I think it's because he knows God's in control, and there's nothing he can do about it.

That's a great lesson for us. How many sleepless nights have you had worrying about things that you can't fix? You can't fix them. You're burning brain cells on this and energy and making yourself physically sick, and you're not enhancing anything in the process, and you can't fix them. I'd love to say stop it, but you can't. I'm just saying there's something here, and God intervenes.

The Danger of Misinterpreting God's Rescue

Let me make another point. There's an aspect of this story that I don't like, and that is Peter gets out of jail. Because you can read that and think, oh my gosh, if I do everything right, then God's always going to rescue me too.

That's one of the problems I have every time I teach through Daniel. We come to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Into the fire they go, and they get out, and there's a side of me that wishes they would burn in there for this reason: We are awful at looking at that and saying, oh my gosh, it must have been their faith. It must have been what happened. Look what God did in there. If I just have enough faith, it'll be okay, and everything will work out. Or if I'm really God's guy, God's gal, if I'm really sold out to Him, He's going to break the chains that bind me.

Well, not necessarily so. When you get to Hebrews 11, and you look at that hall of fame of faith, and you see these wonderful, mighty things that are done, and then you get to verse 32 or 35, whatever it is. It said there were all these rescues, all these things that were done. But then it says, but some were sawn in two. So your physical circumstances are not necessarily in direct correlation to your spiritual circumstances. Some of you might be in the midst of great prospering, whatever that means, and yet your life is filled with sin. Some of you could be in the midst of maybe your closest time with the Lord, and yet, circumstantially, lots of yucky stuff around you. So be careful there.

Peter's Realization and Return

But our boy here, Peter, is out. He's on the move. He goes to the street. He's going about a block. The angel left him. Verse 11, Peter came to himself. He said, now I know without a doubt that the Lord had sent an angel to rescue me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.

Then it dawned on him that he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, also called Mark. Now we're flashing back to what we saw earlier, where many people had gathered and they were praying. Remember how they were praying? They were praying earnestly. There's some familiarity here. They go to the house of a lady called Mary.

Meet Mary and Mark

Now Mary was a very common name. I met someone the other day, and her name was Jill. I love the name Jill. I love the name Julie and Julianne and Kathy. I love those names and Mary, but you don't hear them anymore. If you go to the mall today and you go, oh my gosh, what a cute little girl, what's her name? Waterfall, you know. Ocean. Her name is Breeze.

You ever go to the nursery? Little girl, what's her name? Mary? You don't hear that hardly anymore. It's much more Tiffany and those kinds of names, and I'm alright with Tiffany. I have a daughter Haley which was a bit of an unusual name at the time, so I got no problem. I'm not on a name campaign here. But when they said Mary, they needed to clarify: what Mary was it? Well, it's Mary who's the mother of John. What John was it? Who's also called Mark. So now we're really getting after this.

So I get this Mary. There's been around. This is a familiar place to Peter and to the early church. This Mark guy is a guy that's a major player for us. He wrote a book. It's in the New Testament. What's it called? Mark. He wrote a gospel with his name on it.

Mark's Story of Failure and Redemption

He's such a beautiful picture because he's a young man. Paul and Barnabas take him on a missionary journey. He blows out. They're going on the next missionary journey. Barnabas says, let's take Mark. Paul says no. There's a sharp disagreement and these two guys split. Barnabas heads off with Mark and Paul heads off with Silas.

At the end of his life, Paul who said get out of here to Mark, literally in the last words that we have that Paul wrote, he writes to Timothy and says everybody's abandoned me. Pick up Mark. Oh my gosh, I love this. This is the same Mark that he blew off. Pick up Mark and bring him to me. Why? For he is useful for service.

Here you go. We can't unpack this a ton, but boy, write this down, not just on paper but in your head: failure is never final. Failure is never fatal. Look at this. We are all at some level broken down failures that God uses in incredible ways. There is something about failure that's so compelling. When you start to read stories about men and women and who they are, I love to go back and go, how'd they get there? Well, Mark failed. He failed big time.

I'll tell you another side story of this: he and Peter become really tight, and most scholars believe that Peter is a primary eyewitness source to Mark's gospel. If Peter wrote a gospel, it would be like Mark because it's kind of BAM BAM BAM. Okay, then we went there, then went there, doing it. I don't have a lot of time. Where John's painting this picture and Matthew's giving us history, and Mark's gone, we did this and we went over there, we did it, and John would say the sky—

Peter's Dramatic Escape

Peter goes to this house where they're praying. He knocks on the door and a servant girl answers named Rhoda. When she heard Peter's voice, she was overjoyed. She ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter's at the door!" They said, "You're out of your mind." She kept insisting it was so, and they said, "It must be an angel."

Now I know you've all heard me do this before, but I love this because this has a lot of humor in it. To me, not just humor - it says a lot about us. Peter's at the door. Peter's knocking. She hears the voice and recognizes Peter, but doesn't open it. She runs and tells them, "Peter's at the door," and they said, "You're out of your mind." She said, "No, no, He's there," and they said, "It must be an angel."

I want you to go back to what we've already said twice: they were praying. We saw earlier they were praying earnestly for Peter. What do you think they were praying? Well, I can guarantee you - now I know it's outside the scripture, so it's always dangerous to guarantee - but I guarantee you they were praying for Peter's release.

The Nature of Prayer

Prayer is a funny thing. I was raised in a denomination when we prayed, it was really formal. We rarely prayed - we let the guy, the main squeeze guy that they were paying to do it, let him pray. Then if we prayed, it was pretty formal: "Our Father, hallowed be Thy name." It was something they were reading. That's fine - it got you through it, kept you on track, but it wasn't, you know, not a lot there.

When I became a Christian, one of the weird things was praying because you'd be in a room and they'd go, "Let's pray." I'm thinking, "All right, Our Father..." "Not that stuff, Tom. Not meaningless repetition." "Oh man, okay." "Well, why don't you go first?" I'm not sure what we're into here.

Well, then I observed - and I don't know that it's intentional, and I don't mean it in any way other than an observation - that people tended to pray very competitively. So some guy would pray and say, "Father, here we are this morning in Paradise Valley. Thank You God for really letting us have an impact on the town of Paradise Valley."

Competitive Prayer

Then the next guy would say, "Father, we know that we're here in Paradise Valley, but God, we want to have an impact on Maricopa County - much bigger than Paradise Valley, Maricopa County."

"Well God, we know that You're not limited to Maricopa County. In fact, we claim the whole state - though it's not yet a hundred years old - we claim the whole state, God, for You."

Then the next person would say, "Father, it's not just any one of the 50 states. It's not even the continental 48, but the 50 states as well. God, we pray for the whole USA."

Next person would say, "Father, it's not just us. It's this continent. North and South America, God. Put us all together. Would You bring us all together?"

The next person: "God, don't let oceans be a boundary. We pray for the whole world."

Well, now it comes to you and you're kind of screwed at that point. So you say, "God, You're not even limited to this planet. It's the whole universe that's under Your control." Then you're the last guy and you kind of go, "You know God, I just echo what they said."

The Irony of Their Prayer Meeting

I guarantee you - and this is really important - I guarantee you in this prayer meeting at Mary's house, the mother of John also called Mark, when they're fervently praying, they're praying like this: "Father, we saw Jesus. He's been raised from the dead. We know what's happened. You're the God of the universe, God. Will You release him? God, we claim the name of Christ. We claim this for You."

Now in the midst of this fervent prayer that is getting jacked up as they go from person to person, so now they're praying, "Father, You can do anything. You can number the hairs on the head..." "Hey, Peter's at the door!" "There's no way!" "It's a ghost!" "He's not... God's not going to do this!"

So you can even see there isn't even the faith to believe it. So it's not like God said, "Oh my gosh, look at all the faith there," because they didn't even believe it. It's a great story.

Peter's Testimony and Departure

Peter comes in. He kept knocking. They opened the door. They were astonished. Peter motioned with His hand, described to them how the Lord brought Him out, and said, "Tell James and the brothers." And He went to another place.

In the morning, verse 18, there was no small commotion - there was no small commotion because it was a big commotion among the soldiers as to what happened to Peter. After Herod had a thorough search made for him and didn't find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed.

This is serious business for those guards. The same thing happened with the guys at the tomb. They understood, and I always felt bad for the guys at the tomb because they charged these guys. Here's what they said: "Okay, you're in charge here. We're wary of this. Don't let anybody in this tomb." Well, they didn't, which I thought was pretty cool. Really, I think they should have said, "We didn't let anybody in. He came out! You didn't tell us about that! You didn't tell me that was going to happen! I don't understand that whole process. Why didn't you tell me that? Don't cut off my head for this!"

Herod's Retreat to Caesarea

Herod goes from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there for a while. This is really easy to understand if we put it in terms of towns and cities we know. These guys did not want to spend much time in Judea. They wanted to spend time in Caesarea. They came to Judea for really key times when they needed to have a physical presence.

So if we just put it in towns we know, we get it. Herod went from Yuma to Newport Beach and stayed there a while. Easy to understand. Caesarea - this beach town, great place.

He'd been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and now they joined together...

together and sought an audience with him. Having secured the support of Blastus, a trusted friend and servant of the king, they asked for peace because they depended on the king's country for food supply.

These guys were arguing with Herod and his policies. They secure a friend of Herod's who intervenes for them, and they say we need your help.

The Day of Judgment

Verse 21: "On the appointed day," so here's Herod going to come and meet with them, "wearing the royal robes he sat on the throne and delivered a public address. And they shouted"—the people did—"This is the voice of a God, not of man."

Look what happens now. "Immediately, because he did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, he was eaten by worms, and he died."

Now, I want to unpack this for you in a minute, but let's make a couple of observations. We don't have to speculate. I'm going to take that last part first. Luke, who writes the book of Acts, professionally was a what? Doctor. Historian, that kind of guy. Very precise.

Notice the sequence of his death. He didn't die and was then eaten by worms. He was eaten by worms, and then he died. Here's the second thing: all this happened right after the people said, "This is the voice of a God, not of a voice of man," and immediately, he's eaten by worms and he died.

We could speculate. I don't know why that happened. It must have been something he ate. It must have been a pre-existing condition. Insurance isn't going to be covering this because it had to be a pre-existing condition. No, no, no. Immediately. Why? Because he did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms, and then he died.

Josephus's Account

Now, Josephus, the historian, actually accounts this day for us. Let me just read it to you. He said, "On the second day of which he put on this garment made entirely of silver, of a contexture truly wonderful, he came to the theater early in the morning at which the silver of his garment, being illumined by the fresh reflection of the sun's rays, shone out a surprising manner and was so resplendent that it spread a terror over those who looked intently upon him. Presently, his flatters cried out, one from one place, one from another, that he was a god. And they added, 'Be merciful to us.'"

Now, they're talking to Herod here, Herod Agrippa I. "Be merciful to us, for although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as man, yet we shall henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature. Upon this, the king did not rebuke them, nor reject their flattery. But as he presently afterwards looked up, he fell into a deep sorrow. A severe pain also arose in his belly, and it began in a most violent manner."

He therefore looked upon his friends and said, "I, who you call the god, am commanded presently to depart this life. I, who you called immortal, am immediately to be harried away to death. I am bound to accept what providence allots as it pleases God." When he said this, his pain became violent. Accordingly, he was carried to the palace. The rumor went abroad that he would certainly die in little time. When he had been quite worn out by the pain in his belly—how long did this go on, by the way, eating by the worms? Five days. He departed this life being in his 54th year of age in the seventh year of his reign.

The Gravity of Glory

Why did it happen? He didn't give God praise. Here you go. Are you saying to me, Tom, that if I don't give God praise, I will be eaten by worms and die? No, I'm not saying that will happen. I'm simply saying it should happen.

I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm sure there are a whole bunch of other times in Herod's life where he did this, but for whatever reason—and this isn't so important—God's God, man. Here's our problem.

I think it's A.W. Tozer: our theology does not descend low enough or ascend high enough. In other words, we have too high a view of man, too low a view of God. We see ourselves as these people who are basically good people kind of schlepping along, trying to get through life, trying to not do a lot of bad things, hanging in there. And He says, no, you're wretched sinners.

Then we see God as like this great guy who's got a lot of powers and kind of like a wizard in the Wizard of Oz. He's got a lot of these things, and sin—He's got to deal with it, but it's not that big a deal. You get a glimpse. There are just times in Scripture where you really see God's mercy, His patience.

Let me say it again. If you don't give glory to God, are we saying you will be eaten by worms and die? No, but we're saying you should be.

God's Work Continues

Look at verse 23. He dies. The angel struck him down. I love this: "But the Word of God increased and spread." Isn't that wonderful? You can't stop God's move.

My son-in-law just got back from China. He's working on his PhD, and part of the program that he's taking was two weeks in China and in Beijing. I'll tell you, they came back and it was really, really interesting just talking about Beijing and China and what they're seeing and all that's going on there, talking a lot about not just industry and business and the collision. They were talking to several of the leaders of the Chinese church.

They said, "You know what? Here's what the Chinese realized: they couldn't stop the church movement." Some of you who might be from the East Valley know the names David and Mary Lamb. Did any of you ever know them? They were wonderful people. They were on the last boat out of Shanghai before the communists took over and literally just clamped the nation down. They estimated at the time there were about 5 million Christians in China.

When China reopened a decade, decade and a half ago, maybe even a little longer, they estimated there were 50 million Christians in China without one American going over there to share their faith. It was the church being the church in the midst of the persecution.

was saying the other day is they realized we can't stop this church thing. Not only can we not stop it, there's aspects of it we really need because it brings morals and ethics. They said now, here's what, and they were with some really key leaders over there. And they were saying in the business community, part of the problem we have is we have no ethics. We have no integrity. We realized we couldn't kill the church, so here's what this is one guy, is this what happened? I don't know. Makes sense to me. But he said, here's what we did. We just established national churches and we introduced liberal theology. And that's the same as killing it. So now you just institutionalize sin. You just take Jesus as the only way and all that stuff.

And what Tyler was making this wonderful comment, I hear all the time, if you're going to China, you want to smuggle some Bibles in. Here's what they said. They said, more Bibles are now published in China than any other nation in the world. So we don't need to smuggle a bunch of stuff in there. That's not to say it's a free, open, it's probably as free as Montana. I'm teasing. But a free, open kind of thing, not there. But the church is flourishing.

So much so that the Chinese church has now determined, how about this? This is a vision they have. The Chinese church has now determined they are the ones to reach the Muslims, not the Americans. And they would say on a missionary basis, you Americans, and I would just tell, I'll tip my hand a bit, I think it's right. On a missionary basis, you Americans have had your day. Not in a bad way, but God's got 120 million Chinese who are ready to go. And they can go in and they don't have the baggage you and I have of being an Anglo. The baggage will be the gospel. And these people are ready to live it.

This guy was talking about he's got this house church and these people were saying, we need to get to Uzbekistan. We need to get to Kashmir. We need to get to these places. And he's the expert. He's saying, we need to be trained. You don't have any resources. You don't have any money. Here's what they said. We have feet.

You Are a Missionary

So it puts us, it puts me, I don't want to put you in my boat. You don't want to be in this. It puts me to shame as I look at that. And then I have to remind myself always, you're a missionary, man, will you get this? You're a missionary. It's not just those guys that go out to some foreign country where you need a visa and a passport to be a missionary. You're a missionary today. To the people that God brings in your life.

I get the coffee from the same guy three or four days a week. And he's this young guy. And I said, and I'm in there. I get Sunday morning, I'm in there around 4:45 and he's in there. I said, how are you doing? He said, how's my life, man? I'm working all night for minimum wage. I said, I don't know. He said, you know what though? I'm a pretty good citizen and I'm not in jail. I thought, well, that's pretty good. And so he's like, how come you're up at 4:45? You don't look like you're just coming home. Like the guy who's passed out on the sidewalk out there. I said, that's a church deal. But the process is there. That's a mission field. Get it?

God's Glory Cannot Be Shared

Look at this. We've got five minutes. Turn to Isaiah 42. I want to take a couple of passages and put them together. And we want to drive this home. Isaiah 42, verse eight. Here's the principle. God expects, positively speaking, He expects you to glorify Him. On a negative side of this, He does not want you to be glorifying anything but Him. So you see that? I'm saying it strong and then stronger. God expects you to glorify Him and He doesn't expect you to be glorifying anything else.

Isaiah 42, verse 8. Here's what God says, "I am the Lord. That is My name." When He talks about that, He's saying that's all that I am. When you have this idea of Lord, Yahweh, all of this stuff, you get Creator, you get all of that in there. That's who I am. So when you share your name, that comes out, all of who you are. You know, as a father or as a wife or as whoever those things are, that's who you are. "I am the Lord. That's My name. I will not give My glory to another or My praise to idols."

The Reality of Idol Worship

One of the strong realities that we need to come to grips with in our life if we're going to follow Christ is that we cannot be in the idol worship business. When John ends that book, 1 John, chapter 5, verse 21, it's like he runs out of ink or something. He just says, "Little children, guard yourself against idols." That's the end of the book. Why does he say that? Because you and I are incurably idol worshipers.

We worship. We worship God, I got it. But an idol is anything that takes the place of the glory and the worship and the praise that's deserving to God and that goes anywhere else. You got to look really close at this because we can think about, well, you worship sex or you worship this, you worship that, whatever, that could be part of it, but it could be a good thing. It could be work. You could be here and single and you so worship the idea of being married that your life is consumed with that. Or you could be here and be married and so worship the idea of being single, I guess, that your life is consumed with that. I don't know. I mean, it cuts a thousand ways. We will take whatever it is.

When I was a little kid, and you'd never know it by looking at me, but I was a reasonably good athlete. I played in baseball and basketball and football and golf. There's a lot of stuff. And here's what we did. We played summer baseball. So we would start and then we'd play baseball for June and July. And then we'd put that stuff away. And then in August, we'd go play football and then we'd put that stuff away. And then we'd go play basketball. Then we'd put that stuff away. Then we'd play golf. They don't do that anymore. When you're four, you make it, are you gonna play basketball? Now, if you're really, really,

Really good, and I was nothing, didn't even snip that. If you're really good, then maybe you could do that. And they don't just play baseball. I was reading last year, and I think it was in Michigan, but they had a Pee Wee T-Ball World Series. We're talking kids four, five and six from all over the country going to play T-Ball World Series in Michigan. Here you go. Let me help you out with that. This is stupid.

Now, is baseball okay? It is okay. But in the culture we're in, it becomes consumptive. Because if your kid's really good, he's got to play AAU or a traveling squad, now your weekends are gone. Is there anything wrong with that? No. But man, I've got to be really careful.

We talk about this all the time. If you've got a kid that's, let's say you've got a girl that's really good, a daughter, really good at gymnastics. Well, to do this, she's got to do this, got to have every morning at four, go do this, be gone on the weekend. What am I teaching that kid? And I'm not making a judgment there. Boy, if you feel condemned by that, you fill in something that I'm guilty of and we'll take it. I'm just saying, I wrestle with that.

The Greater Spiritual Opportunity

Now, I can say all that to you and come right back and say, hey, I can tell you this, from a spiritual position, coaching Little League could be far more important than meeting with five men and going through another Bible study. I'm not, you all know me, man. I'm not wound that tight. I'm not a prude. I'm not, I'm a good guy. I'm saying to you, you just need to think it through because we instinctively build idols. And then we come with some explanation for it.

And God, can I just read it to you one more time? I'm the Lord, that's my name. I will not give glory to another or praise to idols. Now, in Exodus 20, He says it a little more forcefully. He said it this way. I am God and I am a jealous God.

Understanding God's Jealousy

Not like I was when I'm dating Susan because I was very jealous. She was dating me. I thought we were dating exclusively and what I guess that meant was I wasn't dating anybody else, but she was. And this became highly competitive though I was the only one really in competition. And I'm trying to get this guy out of there and I can't handle it. And I'm jealous in the most weird way and competitive with this guy. And I finally just said to her, which is just totally stupid. I just said, you got to choose him or me, get rid of it. I can't figure it out. I can't handle it.

So when I hear I'm a jealous God, I think like that. God, no, I was jealous. Here we go, this is cool. Then we got to go. I was jealous, not because I wanted what was best for Susan. I wanted what I thought was best for me. I wanted her to pick me because I didn't, not because I thought it was the best thing for her. My gosh, I was a drunken bum. And people love that all the time. They go, Tom, you were a mess. And I'll always say, I might've been a mess, but I was in it. She voluntarily came into my world. How nuts is she? She's really nuts.

You see that? I'm jealous of her for my own good. God is a jealous God, not because He wants to kill your joy or stop you from having fun. He wants you to have what's best for you. What's best for you is Him. Nothing else will satisfy you.

The Emptiness of Worldly Success

I'm right in the middle. I got three things going right now. I got Dancing with the Stars. I got American Idol. And now I got Big Break on golf. So all this, at the end of this, here's what I know. Somebody's going to win, Christy Yamaguchi probably. Christy Yamaguchi, and then this Archuleta kid. And then somebody is going to win the Big Break on golf.

Here's what happens. I know how big this is. I see how big it is. But do you know when you're the American Idol, do you understand how miserable you're going to be? Do you be like Clay Aiken on the airplane, kicking the guy in front of you? That isn't going to make you necessarily happy.

Created for God's Glory

God created you to worship Him. He creates your light to change. Matthew 5, let your light shine in such a way that people see your good works and what? Glorify your Father in heaven. Because they'll see your good works and glorify you. And you can be like Herod and say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or say, no, not me, Him.

Next week, we tie this whole series together. Let's look at it then.

Father, thank you for your son, Jesus. God, I am, we are incurably religious. We love to worship idols. And we will take something that you create for our own joy, food, and turn it into an idol. Sex, and turn it into an idol. A house, and make it an idol. God, we pray that in our heart, you would conform us so the one thing that we would indeed worship would be you. God, you are the God. Let us not give glory or praise to anything or anyone else. We worship you this morning and praise you in Jesus' name, amen.