This week we’ve had plenty of evidence to
demonstrate that the culture of America is getting further and further away
from the culture of the Bible.
I’ve said before, we are getting closer to the
circumstances of the early church—a church which did not back away from going
into that culture with the Gospel.
So I do not believe that this passage was accidental.
How do we bring the Gospel into a pluralistic
culture?
I’m sure it bothers you to see what’s been going
on. You’re not alone—turn to Acts 17
to what has been a trendy passage to look at in recent years for a gentle way
to approach the culture with the Gospel.
The problem is that it wasn’t really that gentle. And it’s success should not be measured by
how many converts he achieved—but the truth for which Paul stood.
Troubled by the Idolatry of the Culture—16-17--
Acts 16:16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens,
his spirit was troubled within him when he saw that the city was full of idols.
Just like Paul, we look around in our culture and
see idols everywhere. We see their
effect, we see their destruction, we see the lives that are ruined by
them. Our idols are our money and
success, our sports teams and our sex, drugs and music or entertainment, even
our national pride.
We should be troubled by what we see
around us. Because
what we see is the bondage of the world, we see the influence of the enemy of
our souls that seeks to enslave us. We
see so many who are held captive by those lies.
Our hearts should be troubled. We cannot just sit around and complain
about it—if you see it, you should be driven to do something about it. If you have no desire to do anything about
it, I wonder whether you really see and understand what is going on. You awareness of the circumstances of
lostness and idolatry should move you to action.
Consider Exodus 3:7—“Then the Lord said, “I
have observed the misery of My people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out
because of their oppressors, and I know about their sufferings.”
Imagine for a moment if the story ended there. That God observed everything and just took a
mental note of it, but never did anything about it. What would you think of Him?
Thankfully, the story of God doesn’t end there—Exodus
3:8—“I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to
bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk
and honey”
What would the world think of us if we
see what is going on around us and are motivated to do nothing?
Paul not only saw, but he was moved to action and
sought to change the situation as much as possible by sharing the Gospel. So he went to the Synagogue.
Acts 17:17—
“So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God
and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.”
He began
to speak the truth of God—and he would have addressed the issue of idolatry and
their uselessness.
Psalm 115:5-8—
“They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. 6 They
have ears but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. 7 They have
hands but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk. They cannot make
a sound with their throats. 8 Those who make them are just like them,
as are all who trust in them.”
He went right to the people of God and
began to teach—what are you doing about all this
idolatry. When he wasn’t in the
synagogue, he went out to the marketplace and talked with anyone he could find
and anyone who would listen. The
world needs to know it’s condition—needs to know of its idolatry and
slavery and we are the ones who have the only message of hope.
Seeing the state of the world around us, the
idolatry, the hurt and pain we see should drive us to pray, to seek after Him
with all our heart mind and strength
And when we put the message out there, people will
listen and be curious about it.
The World Is Willing to Hear to a
Point—18-21—“Then also, some of the Epicurean and
Stoic philosophers argued with him. Some said, “What is this
pseudo-intellectual trying to say?” Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher
of foreign deities”—because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the Resurrection.
19 They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, and said, “May we learn
about this new teaching you’re speaking of? 20 For what you say sounds strange
to us, and we want to know what these ideas mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and
the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or
hearing something new.”
While some in the market listened, the cultural
elites will want to hear but already convinced they are superior
intellectually—they called him a babbler or a pseudo-intellectual. They recognize he is preaching a new idea and
they wanted to get a better examination of him so they took him to the
intellectual center of the city to find out about it.
So even though the elites in Athens didn’t really
have the best motives in listening—at least they wanted to hear—because at
least they heard something! Here’s the
point…
I love hearing your stories about the
conversations you have at work, about the opportunities you have to pray with
someone, to invite them to church or an event. Those are praises and opportunities I want to
hear about them every Wednesday night as we start our prayer meeting with
Praises & Opportunities.
But far too often, we go through the markets, go
through our place of work, around our families and our sphere of influence and miss
the opportunities.
No one asks us about our faith because we miss
opportunities that God has for us to speak—it’s as if we don’t really believe
the Gospel is the good News—the good works prepared in advance for us to do.
At least Paul gave people reason to ask—at
least he had something to say—at least he was not ashamed of the gospel of
Jesus. We cannot be ashamed and this
will be more and more important.
The world my think you’re a babbler a pseudo-intellectual. Your beliefs may sound strange to them, even
ridiculous. But they have to be
confronted with them—they have to have something to choose between. They have to hear there are options. Because that is what we are called
to. We don’t confront them with the
truth to be liked, to be accepted, but to be obedient to the Call, because it
is the truth, and we actually care about their future and eternity.
And while we must be respectful in what we say,
especially how we say it, we’ve got to realize that most of the world is
going to reject it no matter how nice we are—so while we must not be a jerk
about what we believe, we as believers
Believers Can’t Avoid the Root of the
Problem and Must Speak the Truth—
17:22- “Then Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and
said: “Men of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect.
23 For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I
even found an altar on which was inscribed: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, what
you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world
and everything in it —He is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in
shrines made by hands. 25 Neither is He served by human hands, as though He
needed anything, since He Himself gives everyone life and breath and all
things. 26 From one man He has made every nationality to live over the whole
earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they
live. 27 He did this so they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach
out and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 28 For in Him we
live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are
also His offspring.’ 29 Being God’s offspring then, we shouldn’t think that the
divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art
and imagination. 30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God
now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because He has set a day when
He is going to judge the world in righteousness by the Man He has appointed. He
has provided proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”
·
This is not a timid speech. He knows he is in hostile territory
surrounded by people who are looking for the opportunity to tear him or his
ideas apart.
·
But in that he does not avoid their
spiritual condition, nor does he evade the truth.
·
Paul Recognized and Affirmed they
were a Spiritual & a Seeking People
·
He was confident in the Gospel to be
the Answer for their Heart’s Hunger
·
He started with God as Creator and
His Lordship—this is something our culture is
divided on and that many have rejected—but it is the foundation of what we
believe. It was also a statement saying
that the God he was telling them about is superior to their gods, even
Zeus. Zeus is not the creator, he
overthrew the Titans who did not create the heavens and earth either.
·
Buildings do not contain Him, nor does
He need anything from us
·
Every person on the planet—no matter
location, color, political affiliation, nationality is a descendant of Adam
& Eve—all bearers of the image of God, all have dignity, value built into
them. There are no superior or inferior
races, none less than human. Therefore
all are in the same spiritual condition—a broken condition that is searching
for a fix, searching for answers, searching for God.
·
God encourages this search and
wants to be found—but on His terms
·
No one will find God in an Idol or any
object of gold, silver or stone. He
confronts the idolatry head on and says it’s useless and nothing more than the
old song that says, “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” In other words, you will never find God on
your own terms, the way you want to, or in the place that you want to. You and I do not get to define who He is,
what He is like, what He approves and disapproves. He defines Himself.
·
He wants to be found, but you must
come to Him on His terms in the way He approves of. And the Way He approves of is through Jesus
the Messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ who is The Way, The Truth & The
Life—vs. 31—“He has set a day when He is going to judge the world in
righteousness by the Man He has appointed”
·
Paul confronted the practice of
idolatry by the educated elites by calling it ignorance—that’s
a good way to win friends and influence people isn’t it? He tells them that God has overlooked this
sin like a parent giving their child the time to do the right thing—but like
parents, there comes a time when the parents no longer overlook the wrongdoing
of their children. And so now Paul says
God is telling these intellectual elites to Repent from their ignorance.
·
Any presentation of the Gospel
must include the call of Repentance. It means exposing someone’s sin and
highlighting the need, the possibility and the expectation of change.
·
And that message is usually not
accepted very well.
Being told that you are ignorant, especially when you think you’re
smart, is offensive. A person or a
culture that has its sin exposed will not be happy with the messenger.
·
That situation has not changed for
today’s America either. Our culture
does not want to hear that it sins.
Does not want to hear that God has a standard because ultimately, they
love darkness rather than life.
·
We must define our lives, our
actions, our words by the biblical culture and values and not those of our
nation. For a time,
the church has felt comfortable with the combination of America’s culture and
the biblical culture—but that is changing more and more—we can no longer
count on the values of America lining up with the values of the Bible as
the Supreme Court just demonstrated on Friday.
·
Your first citizenship, your first
loyalty is to the Kingdom of God—before America and
before the Stars & Stripes. Because
some day, maybe sooner than we’d like to admit, someone, some government is
going to make you choose.
In terms of not avoiding the root of the problem and still speaking truth, I found this powerful quote from a pastor named John Piper—“Christians know what is coming, not only because we see it in the Bible, but because we have tasted the sorrowful fruit of our own sins. We do not escape the truth that we reap what we sow. Our marriages, our children, our churches, our institutions — they are all troubled because of our sins.
The difference is: We weep over our sins. We don’t celebrate them. We don’t institutionalize them. We turn to Jesus for forgiveness and help. We cry to Jesus, “who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
George Orwell—“The further a society drifts from
the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”
·
As much as the people of Athens were
getting irritated at Paul, and as much as America’s culture and the Bible’s
culture are taking divergent paths—our countrymen may not want to hear it, but
they will need it more and more. we’ve
got to keep in mind that…
The Resurrection Will always be the
Turning Point—32 “When they heard about
resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him.”
The idea that someone can come back from the dead was
the last straw. They could tolerate
almost anything else, but ultimately, everything turns on Jesus—who He is,
what He came for, how He won our freedom—the Cross and the Resurrection. Paul doesn’t mention the cross—the instrument
of Roman execution and torture, but he does the Resurrection—in order to be
raised, someone has to die.
Paul looks at the Resurrection as God’s
proof that Jesus is the Messiah—the world will be
judged by “the Man He has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone
by raising Him from the dead.”—vs. 31
But the intellectual elites thought it was
ridiculous. The Resurrection is the
central turning point—because if the Resurrection really happened—then it
really does validate that everything Jesus said is true, everything that He did
has been accepted by the Father, death and sin have lost their sting. That’s a game changer.
Paul realizes this, and later, rather than treading
lightly in regards to the Cross and the
Resurrection he runs straight to it, highlights it, makes it the stumbling block
on which the whole issue turns.
1 Corinthians 1:17-25—“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to
evangelize —not with clever words, so that the cross of Christ will not be
emptied of its effect.
18 For the message of
the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is God’s power to
us who are being saved. 19 For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom
of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the experts.
20 Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this
age? Hasn’t God made the world’s wisdom foolish? 21 For since, in God’s wisdom,
the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who
believe through the foolishness of the message preached.
22 For the Jews ask
for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a
stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. 24 Yet to those
who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom,
25 because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is
stronger than human strength.”
The cross & the resurrection are
the turning point.
Together they represent a miracle that goes beyond reasonable
experience. They had never seen it,
neither have we.
Our world today, with our scientific mindset,
accepting a cold universe believes that death is the end and there is nothing
beyond the veil—but the concept of resurrection destroys that.
Our culture is full of people who accept aliens,
bigfoot, the lochness monster, evolution, vampires & werewolves because those
things are not threatening nor do they require anything from us—but
God—don’t put that out there—
because if there is a God, I may one
day have to stand before Him. if there
is a God, I may have to answer to Him.
If there is a God He may have legitimate authority over me. If there is a God, He may hold me accountable. If there is a God, I don’t have a chance.
Oh, but you do—because there is always Grace—repent—from
your own way & believe in the name of the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
While Some Will Believe—Majority will
Reject –32b—
While some ridiculed Paul, “others said, “We’d like
to hear from you again about this.” 33 Then Paul left their presence. 34
However, some men joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite,
a woman named Damaris, and others with them.”
We think of divisions in our country on political
and racial lines—but those are not really what is most important nor real.
The division that is most prominent and eternal is
one of belief—based on the answer to the Question—“Who do you say that I am?”
It’s the division between the sheep and the goats,
the lost and the saved, the slave and the redeemed.
Some believed Paul and accepted the message—they
wanted to hear more and learn more. But
most did not. Paul was not a failure—he
preached the word and it did not return void.
He was Faithful. So many measure
Paul’s success by how many believed, but the better measure is His
faithfulness.
Today you can change your eternity with a decision.
