Encoured, Not Defined- 08/09/2026

Picture the scene in Caesarea. Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, has just ordered the execution of the soldiers who failed to keep Peter locked away. He is angry, frustrated, and now turns his attention to the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon. These Hellenistic Phoenician cities depended on grain from Agrippa’s territories, and in a time of need their leaders sought peace through Blastus, the king’s attendant. On an appointed day, Agrippa appears in the theater dressed in royal splendor. Josephus describes a garment woven with silver that caught the morning sun and flashed before the crowd. The people cry out, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” Agrippa does not refuse the praise. He receives what belongs only to God, and the Lord strikes him down. Luke closes the scene with a stunning contrast: Herod dies, but “the word of God increased and multiplied.” Agrippa’s collapse exposes a timeless danger: when Christ does not define us, we become hungry for people to do it. Without praise, we feel unseen; with praise, we may begin to believe we are more than we are. Acts 12 teaches us that human glory is fragile, borrowed, and dangerous when it is kept for ourselves. Today we will learn to recognize empty praise, receive godly encouragement, and return glory to God, because the goal is simple: Let Christ define your identity, so encouragement blesses you without defining you. When Christ settles who we are, praise loses its power to inflate us, and criticism loses its power to destroy us.