This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Waterford Lakes, East Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. Our scripture passage for today comes from the book of Acts. I'm going to do the thing that everybody hates that I have them do, but I'm going to have you stand up. Because you'll be sitting for a long time, so go ahead and stand up in reverence to the scriptures. God's Holy Word, this is Acts chapter 12, starting in verse 1. It was 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 with the sword. When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the feast of unleavened bread. After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover. So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him. The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains, and centuries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. Quick, get up, he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists. Then the angel said to him, put on your clothes and sandals, and Peter did so. Wrap your cloak around you and follow me. The angel told him, Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea what the angel was doing was really happening. He thought he was seeing a vision. They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city. They'd opened for them by itself, and they went through it. When they walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, now I know, without a doubt, that the Lord has sent this angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating. When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. Peter knocked at the outer entrance and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter's voice, she was overjoyed, she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, Peter is at the door. You're out of your mind, they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, it must be his angel, but Peter kept on knocking and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. Tell James and the brothers about this, he said, and then he left for another place. In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. After Herod made a thorough search, made for him and did not find him, he cross-examine the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then Herod went from Judea to Cessaria and stayed there for a while. He had been quarrelling with the people of Tyre and Sidon, joined together and sought an audience with him. Having secured the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king, they asked for peace because they depended on the king's country for their food supply. On the appointed day, Herod wearing his royal robes sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, this is the voice of a God, not of a man, immediately because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down and he was eaten by worms and died. But the Word of God continued to increase and spread. When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark, the Word of the Lord. Let's pray, Father, thank you for sharing your word with us this morning. What a captivating story about your church and we pray for you to fill Scott with your spirit. As he speaks to us about this passage and as we learn from you, Lord, speak through your servant Scott and we also pray that you would open up our hearts and minds to receive what you have for each of us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, kids, you know it's going to be a good sermon when we talk about angels and worms all in the same passage. So I'm hoping I got every kid's attention here and some of you big kids as well too. Because this is a great story, this is a great passage to go through Acts. If you're new here, I'm Scott Puckett, I'm the pastor here at Christchurch, I'm glad you're here with us this morning. As we look at this passage, I want to invite you, even if you're not a note-taker, this might be a good morning to become one, because we're going to talk about lots of important things along the way. There's an insert in your bulletin and if you didn't grab one, there's some still back out on the welcome table. But as we look at that, I'm going to tell you right here from the beginning what the point is of this passage. The point is this, glory is the gift of God given by his spirit. Glory is the gift of God given by his spirit. You may not have seen that in this passage when it was read, but let me tell you it's there. It's the point of this passage. It's the point of the book of Acts, by the way. And beyond that, it's the point of the entire Bible. It's the point of why Jesus left heaven to come to earth, because glory is the gift of God given by his spirit. You see, Luke who's writing Acts as we've talked about for several months now, Luke is setting up a comparison between Peter and King Herod. These stories might look totally independent, unconnected, but there's a lot in common if you think about it. Let's look at it. One, Peter starts off bound by chains, surrounded by 16 soldiers. Peter is sleeping in fact in between two of them in this particular account. So he's at one place, King Herod's at quite a different. Peter is at the bottom of the food chain here in this sense. King Herod's at the top, King of the area. An angel comes and supernaturally sets Peter free. Well, an angel comes also to Herod, but with a little different purpose, right? Comes and strikes him down. He's going to be attacked with worms and eaten and dies, according to history, dies within five days of that actual count. Peter comes and in the end, God is glorified and setting Peter free. And on the contrast, God is glorified through Herod by actually bringing judgment upon him in this passage. So as you can see, there actually are some comparisons between the two of these things, the two of these stories. You know, most, if not all people, when they read a story or any kind of story, they find themselves identifying with one of the characters in the story. And usually, right, it's the good character. It's a good attribute that our character is a thing of a person that you identify with if you think about it. Let me give you some examples, okay? Here's one. Most kids would want to identify with one of these two groups. And more than likely, it's going to be the Avengers, all right? Not the villains of the Avengers. Getting on Halloween, you might dress up like a villain that might be kind of fun, all right? But when you're dreaming at night about who you're going to be, it's probably one of the guys you're on the left, not on the right. Most ladies will identify with one of these two figures here, all right? And it's probably not the one on the left, probably the one on the right. And most men will be picking another contemporary movie. We would have done fine on one of these two movies. But I guarantee it's probably the James Bond, not the silver character in the recent Skyfall picture. There's something that is just about that when we're reading stories. And my guess is, is that when you read this story, if you want to identify, or if you took the time to think for a second, who you might identify with, it probably wasn't King Herod. And when your pillow, or your head hits the pillow at night and you follow sleep and you're dreaming and thinking about an adventure that you might be on, and think of this story, you're probably not going to think, dude, they get eaten by worms, that would be so cool. You know, that's not going to cross your mind, I don't think. But to be in a place of captivity, to be in a place of your stuck, where you're in need of help, and to be rescued by angels. And that's a story to dream about. There's something about all of us that seems to want to identify ourselves with characters and stories. And you know, Luke knows that. And the Holy Spirit who's inspired Luke to write this knows that. God knows that. But with further examination, we will see here that Peter and Herod were not all that different as men, especially in Peter's early days. Now, this is why I like the characters and then maybe the Lord of the Rings. Every character, right, that comes in encounter with the ring and the story of the Lord of the Rings comes to realize something about themselves that there is something in them that is very dark. And something in them that maybe still has a glimmer of light, but they find the reality and they find a commonality. There is something common about the humanity of all those and the different creatures that encounter the ring. There is real evil that seeks control of each of them. There's a real common enemy and there's real common temptations. And you saw that in the character of Frodo. If you've seen the movies or read the books, you realize that he had a reverence, a respect for this, and knowing that there was something dark inside of him that could be pulled out in a given moment by the ring. Frodo, and all those that encountered the ring, encountered also what the ring was pointing to. You and I will see that we are not all that different this morning as we look more deeply as we see three things this morning. Three things I want to talk about. One, we all want it. Two, we all lost it. And three, Jesus offers it. Let's look at the first one right now. We all want it. We all want glory. We all want glory. But before we unpackage that more, what exactly is glory? That would take a little bit of a moment, and it may be worth it for us to unpackage that for just a second. Well, if you look at a dictionary definition, which I did this week, here's what it says, glory is a noun. It means very great praise, honor, or distinction bestowed by common consent. Renown, something that is a source of honor, fame, and admiration. But the Apostle Paul explains it differently in his letter to the Romans. Read what he says in Romans 1, 23 to 25. Although they claim to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the creator. So let me give you a picture of what I think the biblical definition of glory is. It's this. Glory is the presence of God be held in rightful worship. Glory is the presence of God be held in rightful worship. And the Apostle Paul writes and says, look, that's the very thing that we exchanged. The promise, not that we wanted, the promise that we exchanged the real thing for a cheap imitation. We all want it. We were born. In fact, we were designed to want it according to the Scriptures. Every one of us is born with a glory vacuum in our lives. And as my friend Mitch Stokes, but some of you know, my favorite friendly scientist, he would always say, you know, it's got nature of horrors of vacuum. And I'd say that's deep, Mitch. Thanks for sharing that with me. He's exactly right. Nature of horrors of vacuum. Nature will always try to fill the vacuum by definition. We have a vacuum for glory in our lives. And you know what? It's not if. It's not when. It's you are right now filling that void with something. The only question is, is it the real thing, the creator of the universe, the living God, or is it a cheap imitation? That's the only question that play here. We feel with anything that seems remotely worthy, if you think about it as well. We fill it with things that remind us of God, if it's not God. We fill it with things that are like God, things that reflect God, things that make us feel transcendent, things that connect us with some deeper spiritual reality. Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God. G.K. Chesterton wrote, every man that knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God. We want it. All of us. Something that escapes us. King Herod wanted it. See, Herod opposed Jesus and his followers. We see that in this texture. He kills the apostle James, the first apostle that's killed her, but the sword is done at the hand of King Herod. He imprisons the apostle Peter right after that. All right? He's got, hey, round one went pretty well, round two. Let's go for one of the bigger dogs. Let's go with Peter. And this plan was probably to end up killing Peter as well. And then we read in verse 21 of this passage in following, on the appointed day, Herod wearing his royal robes, which by the way, Josephus describes his royal robes that day. Josephus, who's a Jewish historian, not a Christian writing at the same time, says he was adorned in silver. The silver was so incredible that it would cop the illumination of the light and it was actually literally blinding people as the light would reflect off him. That's the picture that was happening here. And don't think that was by accident. Where in his royal robes sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people, they shouted, this is the voice of a God, not of a man. And immediately because Herod did not get praised to God in the angel of the Lord, struck him down and he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God continued to increase and spread. You see, Herod didn't know that glory is a gift of God given by his spirit. Well, Peter's in this story, remember as well too. Peter wanted it. You know, Peter had been among the disciples with Jesus who were caught on multiple occasions arguing about who was going to be the greatest. Now they didn't do that right in front of Jesus, all right? But the problem was is that Jesus could read people's minds. So he would always catch them in it and Peter was one of those, you know, arguing, mumbling behind the scenes. Who's the greatest? You know, Peter was like, well, Peter, James and John, I'm one of the three. So he knew he had to be one of the finalists, right? Because the three Jesus was taking off to do special things, special adventures. But he had the other two he had to argue with. That's the Peter who wanted it. Peter had rebuked Jesus for talking of his own death. You know, there was only really one apostle that directly rebuked Jesus and it was Peter. When Peter was talking about how he was going to be delivered up, how he must die, how he must suffer. Peter steps in and goes, Jesus, let me help you here. Let me clarify. You've got me and these other guys. That's not going to happen. And Jesus has to rebuked Peter and say, get behind me, Satan. For you are not looking to the will and the things of God. Peter is the one that claimed, on fact, the day before Jesus was crucified, he claimed that he would never deny Jesus. Even Jesus, though, had just told him they all would. Peter said, hey, I'll go to death before I do it. And Jesus says, Peter, really? Because before the cop grows, you would have 90 three times. This is the guy, Peter. Peter wanted it. Peter would learn that glory is a gift of God given by a spirit. Behaired and Peter aren't alone. You want it too. You want significance apart from God. You want to achieve. You want to be honored. You want to be loved. You want to find success. You want to delight in characteristics and attributes of God that you find in the world but avoid the problem of a broken relationship with God. So you want everything God has to offer, but you want to avoid the situation that you've got this broken relationship with him that God's word talks about. I heard a joke one time about a man who felt wholly in love with this woman because she had an incredible heavenly singing voice. And he was like, oh my gosh, she is beautiful. She is incredible. She's everything I dreamed of. Just listen to her sing. So he marries her. He wakes up the very first morning. Rolls over in bed, takes one look at her and he says, sing, sing quickly, sing. He had totally, right, fallen in love with the attributes with the characteristics, not with the person. We fall in love with the characteristics, the attributes of God. Don't we? All over the place. But the idea of falling in love with God in himself, we know there's a problem. God has known it from the very beginning. We suppress it and pretend like it's not there, but we know it. It's a rather than God, let's fall in love with things about God, attributes of God. You know guys, the victorious battles held in the sports arena or video games. You're looking for God. Ladies, the romance and delight of earthly love stories that are so appealing to you. Is it the story in those books? No, no, it's God. You're really looking for it. The mystery and amazement of creation, some of us here know what it's like to hold your child, the very first one you have born. Never know what that's going to feel like. It's amazing, right? Because there's something glorious going on there. The spiritual connectivity of music, to stir one's heart and connect you to one another. If you ever thought about that, where do music come from, heaven? Where will it be one day in the new heavens and the new earth? Why does it connect with you and everybody in just some way shape or form because you're looking for something there and you're finding and identifying it with? It's from God. The love and wonder of exploring the creativity and the complexities of nature. I don't know who of us doesn't like to see an incredible mountain scene or to be at the ocean at a certain right time or a sunrise or to see this or that or to go look and see the animals of the zoo or whatever it might be and go, wow, that's amazing. Look at nature, look at mother nature. It's our own way of avoiding the fact that my gosh, look at what the creator has done. Can you imagine if this is that good, how good he must be? We avoid that question like crazy, but don't fool yourself, each of us want it and we want it bad. Why do those things amaze us because they are glorious qualities, that remind us that in our DNA, that once we were in right relationship with the author creator of all that is glorious because he is the source. And if his created things are glorious, he is all the more as the creator, the author of life. We all want it. So the question that that leads us to is so why are we left wanting? I want every single one of you to think about that question for just a second because secondly, we all lost it. We all lost it. Henry O. Miller said this, objects are lost because people look where they are not instead of where they are. That sounds like something my daughter Rally would say on Facebook, but it's true, right? Objects are lost because people look where they are not instead of where they are. Steve, it's profound. That's what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve took and ate the forbidden fruit. They decided to pursue the lie that the characteristics, the attributes, the gifts of God, are to be valued more than being in right relationship with God. See they had right relationship with God. They needed and were lacking nothing until one little crafty serpent began to make them think that they were missing out on something. What was that? Characteristics and attributes of God. You could become like God. They already were. You could know the difference between good and evil as God knows. God never wanted them to know what evil and sin was like. They traded the image of the glorious God for things made of the creation. They decided to pursue those things. Adam and Eve lost it. Everyone who's been born has lost it. Peter and King Herod both had lost it. Therefore, you've lost it. Unless you believe you've lost it, you'll continue to pretend you have it. And that's why this point is so important. Unless you believe that you've lost it, you will continue to pretend that you have it or that you can find it. Reminds me a little bit of this. I've been with my son Reese. I've become a lacrosse fan the past year and one of the little kind of more humorous moments in a lacrosse game. I don't know if any of you have seen this or watched it is that when a player can think that he has the ball in his stick or whatever and he can go for several steps or even take a shot when everybody else understands and most of the other players have seen that the ball dropped actually like 10 feet behind him. Because you can't keep watching the ball the whole time. Sometimes you just think it's in there you don't know and it's like you want to say and cry out sometimes hey dude you lost it like 10 feet ago. All right, but let me tell you as humorous as that is in a lacrosse game it's not so humorous in life. Because we've all lost it and so few acknowledge that and understand that. We don't naturally know that glory is the gift of God given by a spirit. It doesn't come natural to us to see that and understand that analogy because we want to suppress that. Because it's scary. And we don't like scary things especially if they're threatening. Oh, you'll watch a scary movie because you see it on a screen but you won't enter into a scary situation if you think it actually could reach out and touch you. And let me tell you, this reaches out and touches every one of us. Why men can go overboard with sports and video games? Have you ever wondered that? Because at some point self-imagine glory in the sports arena or pulling for your team in front of the TV is better than no glory at all. That's the truth. Because the fantasy world of video games glory can be achieved with enough work, effort, and cheats even though eventually the game must be turned off at night. Will you give a guy a couple weeks? Actually, you give a guy a few days and he'll conquer that video game and all the glory that comes with it. Because some imagine glory is better than none at all. They don't naturally know that glory is the gift of God given by his spirit. That's part of what we lost. Why can women be so overly tuned into a romance novel or Chick Flicks or love stories? Because they cannot escape the gnawing internal sense that they were made to be part of a glorious love story. And connecting with an imaginary love story is better than no love story at all. Why do my wife and daughters like the show once upon a time? Because every woman longs for a relationship with royalty. A prince has the power to turn any young lady into a princess and every single woman here on this planet knows that. They don't naturally know that glory is the gift of God given by his spirit. Because that's part of what is lost. So why do you so desperately seek each of us to find success in your career at parenting and your physical fitness and your hobbies and your social circles and your projects? You name it. Why do we do that? Because deep down inside each of us, we want to know that life has mattered for something that we matter. We want to know that there's a reason for our existence. I mean, when I was in high school as a senior and some of the sports we played, everybody was in the weight room and the weight room was designed to set up to have on the wall the records of different people in their weight classes who could bench the most, who could squat the most, you know, military press or whatever the different things were. And you had the names of the guys in the year that they graduated. And you could look up there and see the history on the wall. So for me, all four years there at high school, it was thinking, man, could I ever be up there? I was in at the time in the light category and I was like, I was looking at these records up there and sure enough in the squat, I was able to get my name up there in my senior year and I thought, I finally achieved immortality. There I am. Printed, you know, it wasn't just like written up there. It's printed. All right, until Frankie's a lot. Like two months later came in and beat my record by 10 pounds in the squat. And so I had to watch that day when they kind of slid that little marquee off and put Frankie a lot up there. It yet. But I had a few months there where I felt like my existence was justified in that. Frankie's a great guy by the way. In case he's listening. You know, Harold, Abraham's, if you saw the movie, Cherry, it's a fire, you saw him portrayed. In 1924, he was a British Olympic champion. He said this, I will raise my eyes and look down that corridor, four feet wide with 10 lonely seconds to justify my existence. He ran the hundred meter dashed and he had 10 seconds to justify his existence. You know, his gold medal race at 10.6 that year did not break any record. In fact, you know, today he would not even qualify to be in the Olympic 100 meter competition at all. Each of us knows deep down that there is no glory in the arbitrary. There's no glory in the unimportant. There's no glory in purposelessness. So we must manufacture it for ourselves. We don't naturally know that glory is the gift of God given by His Spirit because that's part of what we lost. King Herod sadly, even though he was familiar with Jesus and has claimed to be Christ, we know that at least to some degree because he's out on a mission to help squash Christianity. He had believed that he could find it. He had believed that he could earn it. He could believe that he could demand it by power. He had believed that somehow that he could create it. That's why you were a robe made out of complete silver when you're giving your presentations. He had the title, he had the power, he had the recognition of the people. King Herod though never acknowledged that he had lost it. Never came to that place in point. So God, through an angel, finally takes away the self-illusion of it for Herod. Doesn't God do that often in our lives? He did it for me as a senior in high school in the weight room? He took away the illusion by His mercy and grace that glory is never something I can manufacture. And some of you are going through difficult things in your life right now and you're thinking, God, why God? Where are you, God? And he don't understand he is mercifully and graciously pulling back the facade that you placed around to think that you have found glory to never yourself in what you've manufactured. Because he wants you to have the real thing. He wants you not to settle for some cheap imitation. Some of you are struggling to be mad at God. Maybe it's time to be thankful as he's lovingly pulling it himself. If Herod wasn't to give God glory, God would be glorified in judgment on Herod. And that's one of the key points on this passage. God will be glorified. Peter, on the other hand, my guess is that it was somewhere in the long hours after Peter had heard that caught Crow after three times he denied Jesus. It was sometime after that that he probably fully understood and came to the point where he's like, I've lost it. Peter tried so hard. Peter tried to be good. Peter tried to do the right thing. He tried to step up and be strong. Peter tried really, really hard. But I think it was sometime in those hours after that. When he knew that maybe a hundred yards away, we don't know where he was exactly. He was hiding. Maybe it was a couple miles away. He knew Jesus was hanging out across. And in the moment Jesus needed a mouse, he had denied him three times. I think Peter somewhere along there found it out. It came to the conclusion that he's lost it. Glory was not to be found in himself in his own self effort. Although he tried. Glory was hanging on the cross at that moment. Glory was seeing the resurrected Jesus stays later. Glory was having Jesus forgive and restore Peter to himself. What she did. Glory was the presence of the living resurrected Jesus living inside of him as Acts tells us the Holy Spirit's poured out. Glory is the gift of God given by Spirit. But it wasn't until Peter acknowledged that he had lost it. He actually found it was being offered to him to receive. Jesus offers it. We all want it. We all lost it. Jesus offers it. Now some of you might be saying here, wait a second. I thought Jesus offers salvation. I thought Jesus offers forgiveness of sins. You're saying Jesus is really about offering glory? Yeah. That's exactly what he's doing. Is glory part of the package? I bet it is. Glory is the point of forgiveness. The Apostle Paul who discovered he had lost it and received it. Remember we just read about his story? The one who had been out. Persecuting Christians. The one who wanted to put them to death and encounter the living resurrected Jesus Christ. He writes, listen to some of his passages. Colossians 127. To them God is chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you. The hope of glory. Romans 8. For those God for new he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those who he predestined he also called. And those who he called he also justified. Those he justified he also glorified. Second Corinthians 1. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal ownership on us and put his spirit in our hearts as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come. And what is to come? Glory. Glory. That is why it is important to know that glory is the presence of God be held in rightful worship. And why nothing you try to find here on earth or in and of yourself will ever lead you to what you are longing for. Because every man who visits a brothel is really looking for God. You are looking for glory. We cannot come into the presence of God with unresolved sin in our lives. And we cannot worship him rightfully apart from his presence. By definition, glory, what all we want, what all we lost must be given to us. By definition, it must be given to us. You cannot manufacture it. You cannot create it yourself. I like what St. Francis of Sales said back in the 16th, 17th century. He said, some men become proud and insolent because they write a fine horse where a feather in their hat and are dressed in a fine suit of clothes. Who does not see the folly of this? If there be any glory in such things, the glory belongs to the horse, to the bird, and to the tailor. Everything we want to glorify in of ourselves, our looks, our talents, our possessions, our intellect, our money, our good choices, our religious behavior are all gifts that have been given to us. They don't belong to us. Glory is the gift of God given by a spirit. See, King Herod would have known of the teachings and the power displayed by Jesus. I mean, that was well known in the area. He certainly would have heard the reported resurrection because that's what not things really going after Jesus's death is that saying he's not dead. He's alive. He's risen again. That's what kind of got the buzz going. Probably from his point of view, that's what got his followers going crazy. He no doubt have heard of the work of the spirit among Jesus followers, because not only was Jesus doing miraculous things, now his followers do are doing that. Peter was raising people from the dead. No wonder he wanted to put him in jail. Apostles were healing people. Even some of the deacons now, right? Philip was seeing miraculous powers through them. So, Herod rejected the offer of Jesus, but he became the object of God's glory and judgment in the midst of that. To receive Jesus' offer of glory would have meant humbling and yielding of himself and he was not willing to do it. Enter the worms. God will always be glorified. Peter, on the other hand, learned to receive grace and mercy offered through Jesus. That became his glory to enter into Jesus' glory. And let me tell you, you cannot enter into Jesus' glory proudly. To enter into the glory of Jesus to realize that you are the reason why he had to die in a cross. It is your sinful record, which by the way is mostly tainted by your self-effort. You know, we were to list our sins, what were our worst sins, and what are not so bad sins. Much of the time, I think it would be opposite to what God would say. Because your list is probably talking about different things that happen, or different events that happen in your life in God, but say, you know what my word says? I'm opposed to the proud, but give grace to the humble. And pride was probably not the top of any of your list. When the Spirit is poured out on Peter, he receives him. He rests in him. He enters into the glory of Jesus. And he lives his life that way. He is redefined as a man. He no longer is going, he thinks the greatest. I think it might be me. He's no longer rebuking Jesus, right? He's no longer denying Jesus. In fact, he will suffer the death as a martyr as well. He no longer is trying to strive to find glory. He has received it. And he's walking in it. We all want it. We all lost it. And only Jesus offers it. Glory is the gift of God given by Spirit. So here's the question. Will you receive him? Will you trust in him? Let's pray. God, I just asked that as we respond now, and we come to your table, that you would continue to refresh in us this morning, that understanding of what we're longing for, and that incredible love story, that picture that you have come to rescue us, to bring us to yourself, to make us a people following you, a people who are set free, as we sang about earlier, from the chains of sin and death, to live free, to walk and restore relationship with you, to be reconciled to you through trusting in Jesus Christ. So God, for those hearts that are here this morning, maybe some that don't even know you. They know they haven't rested and trusted, and you're forgiveness on the cross for their sins. They've been trying hard. They might be very religious here this morning. Their friends might even think they're a good person, and certainly would get to heaven, but they know deep down inside, that they are full of self-effort and self-righteousness. God, would you give them the grace this morning? Turn from that, to come and receive what you have to offer through Christ. And God, for those of us who are walking following you, and God who have gone back as the Galatians did, gone back to trying to what we had received by grace, to walk now in the power of our flesh, would you rebuke us in your love and your grace this morning to walk instead of trying to prove who we are, but to walk in who you've already said we are? To walk in love, to walk in forgiveness. To rest and trust that Christ has given all the righteousness we need, and that we've been forgiven, and that we've been made new. God, would you do your transforming work in our hearts through this morning? Would you come and minister your grace, for your glory and for your honor? So we might end your glory. We might receive your gift of glory. And we might share it to the world around us. And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.