Well, good morning, church. Good to be with you this morning.

Just over a week ago, I was with a friend named Kevin. We’re both a part of an organization together called the Sons of the American Revolution, and we both serve as state officers. We were together for a state meeting, and Kevin is telling me this story about something that happened to him just last summer.

He’s a young, fit guy. He’s healthy, and he was at the beach. He was playing beach volleyball with some friends, and suddenly he started to feel a tightness in his chest. Within moments, he hit the sand and he was having a heart attack.

At that moment, people rushed around. There was a big crowd, and there were a couple people who jumped into action. They started doing CPR.

Well, somebody else was walking by. They saw them doing CPR and realized they were doing it incorrectly. So she called them off and started doing CPR, which she did for ten minutes until the paramedics could get to them.

He’s telling me this story because, obviously, he was alive, and she had jumped in and saved his life.

So here we are. We’re in this organization together. We have twice a year these awards banquets where we give out awards. We honor firefighters and public servants, police officers, military members, and that day we were able to give out this award for heroism to this woman who had saved his life.

It was this really incredible moment of having the guy there and having her there, and this incredible moment where she got to see him alive after she had stepped in and done something.

Now, here’s what I didn’t tell you.

She wasn’t just a random person walking by.

She was actually a nurse.

And not just a nurse, but an ICU nurse.

And not just an ICU nurse, but one who works specifically with cardiac patients.

So I looked at my friend Kevin and I said, “Kevin, do you really think that was just a coincidence?”

Of course, he knew it wasn’t.

In this organization, I get to serve as the state chaplain. So I got up at the end of the award ceremony to say the closing prayer, and I was able to make sure that everybody in the room redirected our attention to the Lord and gave Him credit and gave Him glory for what He had done.

Now, was it worthwhile to honor this woman? Absolutely. She played an amazing part.

But it was by no mistake that God is the One who orchestrated this. God put it together.

So we got to stop and give God credit.

I want to ask you a question this morning.

How many times in your life, how many situations are you in where it was clear that God did something, but maybe we didn’t stop to give Him credit?

What are the places in your life where you might easily attribute credit to something else?

When you think about your career or your achievements or your success, are those things that you just look to yourself for and attribute to all of your hard work and all of your dedication and all the things you’ve put in?

Or do you stop and acknowledge that everything you have comes from Him?

Or when you’ve experienced maybe a medical miracle, are you quick to say, “Wow, the technology today and the doctors and all the stuff that they did”?

Or do you stop to acknowledge the role that God played?

You see, we need to make sure that we take time to give credit where credit is due.

We need to acknowledge the places where we need to give glory and honor to God for the ways that God moves and works.

Well, let me ask you this question.

What would you do if you were in a situation where it was so clear that God did something, and not only did someone not give credit to God, but instead they were choosing to give credit to another god, to a false god, to a made-up god?

What would you do?

Well, that’s exactly what happened to Paul and Barnabas in the book of Acts.

We’re going to see exactly what they did when they encountered that very situation.

So, if you have your Bible with you, I want to encourage you to turn to Acts chapter 14.

We’re going to be walking through this together.

We’ve been in a series going through the book of Acts, and we’re really hitting some of the highlights of the story of how the gospel message that Jesus delivered to the disciples began to spread, and it has continued spreading to us today.

So we’re going to be in Acts 14.

Let me pray for us, and we’re going to dive into our text.

Father, we thank You, God, because we even this morning acknowledge that You are here.

You are present, and You are at work.

Lord, we want to glorify You this morning.

Even as we read Your Word, Father, would You be speaking to our hearts?

Would You be convicting us?

Would You be helping us know how we can take steps to draw closer to You, to look more like You, and to grow in our faith?

Lord, would You speak now through Your Word?

We ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

So Acts 14, I’m starting in verse 8.

It says, “Now at Lystra, there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked.

“He listened to Paul speaking. And Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet.’”

Now, let’s just stop right there for a moment.

There’s a number of things here that I find really fascinating.

One is, here’s a man. He’s just listening.

There’s a lot of people that are probably hearing Paul as he’s speaking, but this man is listening.

He’s listening intently.

What is he listening to?

He’s listening to the Word of God.

Paul is communicating this. He’s communicating the message.

This is where it begins.

God uses His Word.

He uses the things that He has spoken to do something in us.

So, as this man is listening and he’s paying attention, God is doing a work in him.

It’s producing in him faith.

If you want to grow in your faith, if you want to grow in the area of trusting God, you know how you’re going to do that?

Spend time right here.

Spend time in God’s Word.

He’s going to develop faith in you.

So this man is listening.

He’s growing in his faith.

Paul is able to recognize that in him.

As Paul looks at this man, he sees a man who has the faith to be made well.

What was it about him that Paul could see?

How did Paul know that?

It’s hard to tell, but Paul saw something and he knew.

So Paul goes into action.

Paul tells him, “Get up on your feet. Stand up.”

Look at what happens.

It says, “And he sprang up and began walking.”

Amazing.

Not only is this man’s faith amazing, but Paul had faith too.

Paul had faith that when he told this man to stand up, this man would respond and that God would perform a miracle.

It’s this incredible, incredible moment.

So this man is healed on the spot.

Imagine there’s people listening and they’re paying attention to what Paul is sharing and they’re understanding, and then they’re seeing God work.

But there are other people that aren’t really paying attention to what Paul’s saying.

It’s maybe going in one ear and out the other, but they all saw the miracle.

They all saw this, and now they have to figure out what to do with it.

Let’s see what happens in verse 11.

It says, “When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycaonian, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.’”

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had this happen in your life where somebody accuses somebody else next to you of being a god.

Not very common today, right?

It makes me think of that scene in the classic Star Wars movies when C-3PO shows up and the Ewoks see him all in gold, and they think he’s like a god and they start bowing down and worshiping him.

Do you remember that?

It’s kind of that moment.

The people see a miracle, and they look at Paul and they look at Barnabas and they assume, “These guys must be the gods.”

Now, why are they saying this?

Because what you’re seeing here is you’re encountering their worldview in their region where they were.

They believed in all the Greek mythology.

So if you’ve ever seen Hercules or read any Greek mythology, you know a little bit about that.

They had a belief in all of these different gods, a pantheon of gods.

Their belief was that in many of those myths, those gods at different times walked among men, that they came down to earth, they visited them, and they took on flesh.

What the people don’t realize is that the one true God had come to earth, had taken on flesh, and that’s in the person of Jesus Christ.

What they are seeing is the power of Jesus Christ working through Paul and Barnabas.

So they’re close.

They are seeing divine power in action through people, but it’s not through the Greek gods.

It’s through the living God, the one true God.

Let’s see what they say here.

Verse 12: “Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.”

So not only do they say the gods are among us, but they actually name them.

They say that Paul is Hermes and Barnabas is Zeus.

Now, Zeus in Greek mythology was like the head god, right? He’s like the main one, and then he’s got all of his underlings.

Hermes was always in the mythology accompanying Zeus.

He was always coming alongside him.

He was like the herald.

He was the speaker.

He would speak on his behalf.

So the reason they call Paul Hermes is because Paul’s doing all the talking, and Barnabas is being quiet.

So they assume, “Well, Barnabas must be the important one, and Paul is talking on his behalf.”

They’re projecting their worldview onto what they see.

Now, this is a mixture of Greek and Roman culture.

In Roman culture, Zeus is Jupiter and Hermes is Mercury.

So when you look at the planets, you’ve got two named after these Greek and Roman gods that they’re claiming to be Paul and Barnabas.

Maybe we should call those planets Paul and Barnabas when we look at them.

Verse 13 says, “And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance of the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds.”

So this thing is starting to escalate, and not in a good way.

Paul and Barnabas are here.

These men have been speaking in Lycaonian.

Paul and Barnabas probably don’t speak that language, so they’re probably not at first catching on to what’s happening.

Then all of a sudden you’ve got the priest of Zeus, because the temple of Zeus was in their city, and he’s wanting to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas.

Imagine that.

Imagine if you were just with fellow believers doing God’s work, and then some people came up to you and wanted to offer a sacrifice to you.

Pretty extreme.

Pretty remarkable.

But that’s what’s happening.

So how are they going to react?

Well, look at verse 14.

“When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying out, ‘Men, why are you doing these things?

“‘We are also men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.’”

So their reaction is they are burdened.

They are burdened by what they see.

They tear their clothes.

It’s this symbol in Jewish culture of grief.

They are tearing their clothes.

They cannot believe that these people are believing a lie and that this lie is so pervasive that they are acting on it in a way that’s going to bring disrespect to what God has done.

Church, what’s your reaction when you encounter the worldviews of people who are lost, who have placed their faith in dead gods who don’t exist, and they’re acting based on these convictions that they have about things that are not true?

Does that burden you?

Does that do something in you?

For Paul and Barnabas, they tear their clothes.

They said, “This can’t be.”

Again, they tell them, “We are also men of like nature with you. We’re no different. We’re just like you.”

How many of us fall into this temptation of holding other people up as though they are not just men like us, and we put them in this place?

We put them on a pedestal.

Whether it’s a politician, a celebrity, an influencer, an athlete, a pastor, whatever it is, there’s the temptation that we have to place somebody up in this position where we put them almost in the place of God.

I was thinking about different ways that we do that, even with people who are great.

I have up here this little bust I keep in my office.

It’s a replica of the top of the statue of David.

David was a great man, full of great accomplishments.

The Bible describes him as a man after God’s own heart.

But just like us, he was just a man.

God uses ordinary, flawed people in Scripture.

Sinful people.

So we can’t hold him up as though he was a god.

He’s not.

He’s just a man.

I have friends who are Catholic, and for some of them they have turned Mary into a god, an idol that they worship.

She was just a normal person, a sinful person like you and me.

So here’s Paul and Barnabas, and they’re trying to make this case.

We’re just regular people like you.

But what does he say that’s unique about them?

He says, “We bring you good news.”

They’re there with the gospel message.

They take this moment of feeling this burden for the people and what they’re doing, and they turn it into this opportunity to share the gospel, to share the good news.

It begins with this.

He says, “We bring you good news that you should turn.”

It begins with repentance.

Repent from what?

He says, “Repent from these vain things to a living God.”

These vain things.

They were worshiping gods that were made up.

Their worship wasn’t doing anything.

Their worship wasn’t going anywhere.

They weren’t talking to anyone.

They were just talking to the air.

He says, “These are vain things. Turn to something that actually matters. Turn to the living God. Turn away from your idols.”

A number of years ago, I got to be in Asia.

Being in Asia, I got to see on every street corner where there was a shrine with these idols set up that people physically worshiped.

We live in a culture here where we don’t necessarily have idols physically on shelves in our houses and things, but there are idols everywhere.

What are the things that have become idols for you?

For some people, there are literally those idols.

There are those physical things.

I have this, for any movie fans out here, you might recognize this one.

Anybody know what it is?

It’s from Indiana Jones.

This is the one that makes the boulder come out when he grabs it.

There are people that worship physical idols like this.

They look at them and they pray to them.

God is calling them, and all of us, to turn.

To turn to Him.

To turn from vain things to the living God.

He is alive.

That idol is dead, and it never was alive.

It’s a man-made invention carved by human hands.

But God calls us to turn to Him, to talk to Him.

He says to turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.

They’re pointing to the fact here that God is greater than man.

He made everything.

He made everything we see.

Your fake gods didn’t do that.

This is the true God.

The God of creation.

That’s who they’re inviting these men to turn to.

Then in verse 16 he says this:

“In past generations He allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.”

So he says, “You know what? In the past, God allowed people to walk in their own ways, to worship their own gods.”

You look at the ancient Egyptians and all the gods that they worshiped.

He allowed these nations to worship their own gods.

It didn’t make it acceptable.

But you see, God doesn’t force Himself on us.

He allows us choice.

He invites us.

He wants us to turn to Him.

He wants us to worship.

God’s desire is that none should perish.

But He doesn’t force it.

He says, “If you want to try that, go ahead.

“You want to try praying to a statue? Go ahead.

“You want to get your priorities out of whack and make something else the idol of your life and see how that works for you? Go ahead.”

But He’s calling us to Himself.

He’s calling us to turn from these vain things and to turn to Him.

So he says in verse 17, even though He let the nations walk however they wanted, “Yet He did not leave Himself without witness.”

In other words, he’s saying, “You know what? God let the nations choose whatever they wanted, but they had all the evidence they needed to see God and to turn to Him.”

You think about those ancient Egyptians and all the gods that they worshiped.

If you go back and study the Exodus story, when God brings the ten plagues on the Egyptians, each one of them was showing God’s dominance and God’s power over one of the Egyptian gods.

One of the famous ones is the sun god Ra.

Well, God sends a plague of darkness because their sun god had nothing to do with it.

Each story, each plague, is revealing a way that God is showing His power and His dominance over these made-up gods.

Why?

Because God is giving the Egyptians every chance to see His power and to turn to Him.

It’s the same thing today.

God wants us to turn to Him.

God bears witness about Himself.

The Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God.

All you need to do is look at creation, and you see all the evidence you need to understand that it was created by God Almighty.

He gives further evidence here.

He says He did not leave Himself without witness, for He did good by sending you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.

So Paul and Barnabas are telling the people, “Hey, God has been faithful to you.

“He has continued to provide rain, to provide food.

“Everything you have, it all comes from Him.”

That’s God bearing witness about Himself.

He’s given you all the evidence.

Do you see that He is the provider?

But here’s the sad part of the story.

Verse 18 says, “Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.”

So they preach the truth.

They share the gospel.

But the people, it just kind of slows them down.

It doesn’t truly stop them.

The people don’t respond with repentance.

That’s a truth for us.

We can share the gospel.

It’s not always going to be received.

You have to understand that not every time you open up and share the good news is somebody going to accept it and believe it and turn from their sin and turn to God.

It doesn’t happen every time.

That’s okay.

They’re not rejecting you.

They’re rejecting the One who sent you.

Jesus promised us as much.

So here the people are.

They’re essentially wanting to worship Paul and Barnabas.

Why is that?

Well, it’s because we were made to worship.

God has designed us.

He’s built it into us that we were made to worship.

We’re made to worship, but we’re made to worship God alone.

So people that don’t have that relationship with God, they’re going to redirect their worship somewhere else.

In this story, they’re trying to redirect their worship to Paul and Barnabas, to some guys, to some people.

Where are you directing your worship?

Where are you directing your attention?

Is it to the Lord?

Or is it to some vain thing, some thing that doesn’t matter?

There’s a couple stories in Scripture that I think highlight some of the ways that God has been kind of echoing this message and repeating this same story, that He’s calling people to turn to Him.

One of those stories is in First Kings.

There’s this great story in First Kings chapter 18 where Elijah the prophet is confronting 450 prophets to the false god Baal.

They essentially have this moment where it’s in verse 21.

Elijah came near to all the people, and he said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?

“If the Lord is God, follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him.”

So Elijah is coming to the people.

He’s saying, “You’ve got to decide who’s the real God here.

“Is it God? If it is God, then you need to follow Him.

“But if it’s Baal, if it’s that false god over there, go ahead. Follow him.

“But let’s put it to the test and see who really is God.”

So Elijah devises this incredible plan.

They set up two altars, and they’re going to say, “All right, you go do your thing. I’m going to do mine.

“You talk to your god. I’m going to talk to my God.

“We’re going to see which one is true.”

Verse 24 says, “You call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord. And the God who answers by fire, He is God.”

Elijah even takes it one step further.

He has them pour water all over his altar that he set up, so it’s not easily lit.

He presents this challenge.

Then the 450 prophets of Baal, they’re dancing around.

They’re doing their thing.

They’re offering sacrifices.

They’re cutting themselves, going crazy.

In verse 27—I love this. Elijah is such a character.

It says, “At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he’s musing, or he’s relieving himself, or he’s on a journey, or perhaps he’s asleep and must be awakened.’”

I love it.

He’s like, “Keep going. See if you can get his attention.

“Maybe he’s busy right now.

“He might be in the bathroom.”

It says in verse 29, “As midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention.”

Because Baal is not real.

There’s nobody there.

Then Elijah prays, and God sends fire.

I love it.

It says in there that He licked up the water.

So God, in an instant, responds and He shows that He is God.

It just goes to show that false worship is in vain.

False worship is in vain.

It does nothing.

It goes nowhere.

They’re talking in the air.

They’re making sacrifices to no one, to nothing.

So we need to redirect it to the One who does matter, to the One who is alive.

Another story that came to mind that was similar, it’s in First Samuel chapter 5.

In First Samuel chapter 5, the Philistines have captured the Ark of the Covenant, and they bring it in as their prize, their trophy, and they set it before their false god, their idol named Dagon.

It says in verse 3 of First Samuel 5, when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the Ark of the Lord.

So they took Dagon and put him back in his place.

Imagine, they walk in.

They think, “Oh, you know, maybe it fell over overnight or somebody knocked it over or something. I don’t know.”

But then it keeps going.

Verse 4: They rose early on the next morning, and behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the Ark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold.

Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.

What’s God doing?

God is painting for them a picture that He is God.

Dagon is not.

God is God.

Zeus is not.

Baal is not.

The Bible mentions over 30 false gods that were worshiped by the other people in the region of the Middle East.

Over 30 gods.

Over and over again, God shows His power and His authority, that He alone is the one true God.

So what’s God doing here?

God is calling us, and He was calling them, to redirect our worship to Him.

We need to redirect our worship to Him.

Where are you directing your worship?

What are the things in your life that are calling for your attention, that are competing for your time, that are competing for your resources?

Are you directing everything towards the Lord, or are other things getting in the way?

For some people, money has become their god, and it’s all about getting the next thing.

For some people, it’s that person we hold up.

It’s that person we idolize, and everything they say, everything they do, is what we’re behind.

They take the place of God in your life.

What are the things that have gotten in the way?

We need to turn from them and turn our attention and direct our worship and direct the credit and the glory of everything to the living God.

To the living God.

So what does that look like for us as believers today?

How do we do this?

Well, Paul gives a great example in First Corinthians chapter 10.

He gives this great case study for us to look at as Christians who are actually trying to live this out in their day-to-day life.

He gives a specific situation.

I want to look at how this could even apply to us today in our context.

Here’s what Paul says.

First Corinthians 10, verse 26.

He says, “For the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”

Another translation says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.”

Everything in it belongs to the Lord.

What does that mean?

If everything belongs to the Lord, it was created by Him and it was all made for Him.

There are other passages that say that very same thing.

Everything was made by Him and for Him and through Him.

It all exists to give Him glory.

So he says that’s the backdrop for this situation.

Here’s what he says in verse 27.

“If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you’re disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.”

So he says, “Listen, if an unbeliever invites you over for dinner, go and eat whatever they make and have a good time.

“This is a great opportunity for you to be able to share your faith, to build a relationship and to share about Jesus.”

Why is he bringing up this specific example?

Well, very practically, for people in those cultures, if you were Greek or Roman or many of the other cultures around them, it was very common that they would take food and they would go present it as a sacrifice.

They’d take that food, they’d bring it over to their idol, they’d set it in front of that idol as a sacrifice.

What did that mean practically?

It meant it would sit there in front of it.

That’s all it meant.

Obviously, that idol couldn’t eat the food.

So it was kind of a way of dedicating it to that idol or that false god.

That food would sit there all day, and then at some point they would take it and it would go to the market and then it would be sold.

But you would know that food was sacrificed to an idol first.

Now remember the context.

Paul says everything is the Lord’s.

So he says, “You know what? That food, God made it.

“God provided it.

“Nothing actually happened to it because it sat in front of a statue.

“It’s just regular food.

“Nothing special about it.

“Nothing changed.”

So Paul says, “You know that. I know that. So if you want to eat it, eat it. It’s no big deal.”

That’s the first part of this instance.

But then listen to what he says next.

There’s a caveat.

Verse 28:

“But if someone says to you, ‘This has been offered in sacrifice,’ then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience.

“I do not mean your conscience, but his.”

What’s he saying here?

He’s saying, “Listen, you and I know that that food is just regular food.

“But if that person is telling you because they are maybe proud of the fact that it was sacrificed to the idol, and they’re saying, ‘Hey, so if you eat that food, you’re in agreement with this food being for that idol and that idol being real,’ then that food suddenly becomes a part of the worship of that idol.”

Now that’s where a line is drawn.

He says, “If that person believes the wrong thing about that food, then you don’t partake in that because now you’re reinforcing their false belief.”

So you see here, there’s a line between wisdom and discretion.

It’s understanding what is true, what is real, but also having the wisdom to know, “Okay, I could partake in that. I could take that home and eat it. No big deal.

“But I’m not going to eat in this context in front of them because now I’ve created a stumbling block.”

That’s the filter that can be applied to so many different situations in our lives.

You might know something is fine for you, and it doesn’t violate your conscience.

But maybe for somebody else that’s a stumbling block, and so you use discretion.

You think it through.

I remember talking to some people about the practice of yoga.

Maybe you’ve never even thought about this, but I know some people that for them it’s a class at the gym, and it’s about stretching.

It’s just stretches.

I also know missionaries who’ve worked in Asia, and for them those are the postures of prayer to false gods.

For them, not acceptable.

So what do you do?

Apply the same logic.

If you go, “It’s just stretching. I’m going to do that stretch at home. No big deal.”

But maybe I’m not going to do it in front of the person that for them creates a stumbling block because I don’t want them to think I’m worshiping a false god.

Lots of very practical examples that we could get into on that very same topic, and people are going to land in a different place.

It comes back to: What is your conscience?

If it violates your conscience, then don’t do it.

You have to be faithful to the Lord.

But look at what he says in verse 30.

“If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.”

What’s Paul saying?

He says, “You know what? If I buy that food at the market and I take it home and I eat it, I’m going to eat it for the glory of God, and I’m going to thank God for providing it.

“But if I’m with that nonbeliever and I choose to abstain in that moment, I’m going to abstain for the glory of God.”

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

God is inviting us in our lives to give Him credit and glory for everything that He does.

We need to make sure we are directing our attention to Him, giving Him credit, and doing everything for His glory.

So, three questions I want you to consider this morning.

I put these in your notes.

One: Where have you held up people as more important than God?

Where have people for you become that idol?

Where are you propping people up and putting them in a position where they are more important to you than God?

It could be that celebrity.

It could be that athlete.

It could be that influencer.

It could just be that you’re trying to get the attention of somebody you know and you’ve placed them in the position of God.

We need to turn our direction towards the Lord and give Him glory, give Him credit.

Second question:

Where have you been going after the wrong things?

Where are you pursuing other things?

Where are you pursuing money and fame and fortune and other things instead of the Lord because you think, “If I just got more of this, that’s going to solve my problems,” instead of turning to Him?

Where are you allowing other things to become the driving factor in your life rather than pursuing the Lord?

And the third question:

Where have you been misplacing your glory?

Where have you been misplacing your glory?

Have you experienced success in your life and attributed it to yourself?

Are you experiencing safety in your home and attributing that to your security system?

Where are the things in your life that you say, “You know what? I need to acknowledge God’s role in this”?

We need to worship God.

We need to give Him glory.

Live to give God all of the glory.

It’s not for us.

That’s why I have this frame up here, because one of the idols that we can have is ourselves.

I can end up worshiping at the altar of self, making everything about me instead of making everything about Him.

Imagine what it would be like if each of us, using the gifts and the talents that God has given, when we express those talents and those gifts, we give all the glory back to Him because He’s the One who’s working.

It’s not about us.

We’re just normal people.

A couple weeks ago, I got to meet a man.

He’s a retired lieutenant colonel of the Marines, and he was the pilot for Marine One for about five years.

So every day, he got to fly the President of the United States.

He worked under two different administrations.

He said, “You know what I learned from that in my time there?”

He said, “These men are just normal guys.”

We all need to remember that we’re all just regular people.

But we’re created by God in His image, and He wants to work through us.

We need to give Him the credit and the glory for the things that He does.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank You, God, because even now we know that You are in this place at work.

God, we want to give You credit.

We want to give You glory, Lord.

We don’t want to be like those people that falsely attributed glory to Paul and Barnabas.

We don’t want to put glory on other people.

Lord, we know there’s a role in giving honor to whom honor is due.

But God, help us above all to honor You, to glorify You, and to worship You alone.

We ask this in Jesus’ name.

And all God’s family said, amen.