The Unknown God: Finding Truth in a World of Idols

• The Nature of Knowledge and God [00:20:32 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses Donald Rumsfeld's 'known knowns' framework to argue that while God is infinite and inscrutable, it is critical for spiritual life to know the truth about Him.
• Idolatry in Athens [00:23:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the historical context of Athens as a city 'swamped' and 'smothered' by idols, noting Paul's visceral reaction to this rampant idolatry.
• Modern Idolatry [00:27:24 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines idolatry not just as pagan worship but as any 'God substitute' (money, fame, etc.) that occupies the place God should occupy in the heart.
• Idolatry [00:26:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes Paul's visceral reaction to Athens' idolatry and defines idolatry broadly as anything that replaces God, including money, fame, and even religious service.
• Philosophical Worldviews (Epicureanism and Stoicism) [00:28:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure and the Stoic pursuit of self-sufficiency with the Christian worldview, noting their prevalence in modern culture.
• Paul's Apologetic Strategy [00:36:07 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor analyzes Paul's sermon at the Areopagus, highlighting his use of a 'point of contact' (the altar to the unknown God) to introduce the unfamiliar God to intellectuals.
• The Nature of God [00:38:49 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor outlines five truths about God, specifically focusing on God as the Creator (originator of all things) and His attributes of omnipresence and immensity.
• God's Omnipresence and Immensity [00:39:09 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues against pantheism and Stoicism, asserting that God is the uncaused first cause who is not contained by temples but is omnipresent and immense, transcending spatial limitations.
• God's Self-Sufficiency and Sovereignty [00:40:56 ▶️ 📄]
  > Contrasting human dependency with divine self-existence, the pastor explains that God needs nothing, sustains all life, and determines the rise, fall, and boundaries of all nations.
• Human Responsibility and Repentance [00:48:12 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor connects God's role as Creator to human accountability, arguing that atheism is a suppression of truth and that God's current patience is a call to repentance before a fixed day of judgment.
• Divine Judgment and Eschatology [00:51:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor outlines the timeline of future judgment, including the rapture, tribulation, second coming, and the great white throne judgment, emphasizing that God is patient but will judge the world in righteousness through Jesus Christ.
• Repentance and Faith [00:52:38 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines repentance as a '180' change of mind from unbelief to trust in Christ, urging listeners to turn from self-sufficiency and place their faith in Jesus as Savior.
• Evangelism and Cultural Engagement [00:55:23 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor encourages believers not to be intimidated by intellectuals or skeptics, arguing that knowing God provides true wisdom, and urges them to share the Gospel to counter 'Christian invisibility' in the culture.
• The Lord's Supper [01:03:39 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor transitions to the liturgical act of communion, inviting those who have repented and trust in Christ to gather at the Lord's table.
• Evangelism and Witness [01:02:18 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor encourages believers to identify those who do not know God and share the good news with them.
• The Lord's Supper and Remembrance [01:03:39 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that biblical remembrance is not merely recalling facts but assigning an active role to Christ, which transforms the worshiper's identity.
• Worship and Identity Formation [01:05:03 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that worship is identity-forming, noting that those who worship idols become like them, and similarly, remembering Jesus expands His identity into the believer's life.

• Sermon Illustration [00:19:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts Donald Rumsfeld's 2002 press briefing regarding 'known knowns,' 'known unknowns,' and 'unknown unknowns' to illustrate the importance of recognizing what we do not know, specifically regarding the knowledge of God.
• Sermon Illustration [00:23:03 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor provides a historical and architectural description of ancient Athens, specifically the Acropolis and the Parthenon, noting its beauty but also its status as a 'forest of idols' where Paul's spirit was provoked.
• Sermon Illustration [00:31:10 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains the etymology of 'spermalogos' (seed picker) to describe how philosophers viewed Paul as someone who just picked up and cobbled together ideas from others.
• Sermon Illustration [00:33:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the physical geography of Mars Hill (Areopagus), noting the slick rock, the flat speaking area, and the view of the Acropolis and the Agora.
• Sermon Illustration [00:40:12 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses a Yogi Berra quote ('everywhere I go, there I am') to illustrate the concept of God's omnipresence ('everywhere you go, there God is').
• Sermon Illustration [00:40:12 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses a Yogi Berra quote ('everywhere I go, there I am') to contrast with the theological truth that 'everywhere you go, there God is,' illustrating God's omnipresence.
• Sermon Illustration [00:42:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > A quote by R.C. Sproul is used to highlight the difference between dependent human beings and the self-existent God: 'Apart from God, I cannot exist. Apart from me, God does exist.'
• Sermon Illustration [00:45:08 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references John Wesley's habit of reading the newspaper to see 'how God is governing His world,' illustrating the belief in God's sovereign control over current events.
• Sermon Illustration [00:46:02 ▶️ 📄]
  > An analogy from Homer's Odyssey is used to explain the Greek word for 'grope for Him,' comparing humanity's spiritual blindness to the blinded Cyclops groping in the dark.
• Sermon Illustration [00:50:46 ▶️ 📄]
  > A story about atheist Robert Ingersoll challenging God to strike him dead in five minutes, followed by Pastor Joseph Parker's rebuttal that one cannot exhaust God's patience in five minutes, illustrating God's long-suffering nature and impending judgment.
• Sermon Illustration [01:00:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts a story about a nervous monk in a monastery who was terrified of preaching. On his first attempt, he asked if the brothers knew what he would say; when they said no, he said he didn't either and gave the benediction. On the second day, they said yes, so he said there was no point in speaking and gave the benediction. On the third day, some said yes and some said no, so he concluded, 'Let those who know tell those who don't know,' and gave the benediction.
• Sermon Illustration [00:55:34 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about watching a speech by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, a brilliant man who was blasphemous against God. He contrasts Gould's intellectual brilliance with the spiritual wisdom of his own young sons, who knew the Lord, to illustrate that intellectual intelligence does not equate to knowing God.
• Sermon Illustration [01:04:12 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses an analogy to contrast contemporary remembrance (like recalling a login and password) with the richer biblical sense of remembering, which involves assigning an active role to God and transforming one's life.
• Sermon Illustration [01:04:49 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references the Old Testament principle that those who worship idols become like that which they worship, using this to illustrate how remembering Jesus forms a new identity.

• Pastoral Charge [00:44:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > Pray, take practical action, and rest in God's sovereignty.
• Pastoral Charge [00:44:49 ▶️ 📄]
  > Trust in God's sovereignty regarding personal, family, and national matters.
• Pastoral Charge [00:52:24 ▶️ 📄]
  > Repent (change one's mind from unbelief to belief/trust).
• Pastoral Charge [01:02:05 ▶️ 📄]
  > Trust Christ if new to faith, thank God for salvation, and identify a specific person in their life to share the Gospel with.
• Pastoral Charge [01:03:52 ▶️ 📄]
  > Retrieve Communion elements from the back tables
• Pastoral Charge [01:06:37 ▶️ 📄]
  > Partake in the bread
• Pastoral Charge [01:06:49 ▶️ 📄]
  > Partake in the cup

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:01] Good morning. Welcome to Gathered Worship at Faith Bible Church. Great to see you here today. It's a blessing to be together.
[00:00:09] If you're a guest with us, we're excited that you've joined us this morning. You are honored guests.
[00:00:13] We'd love for you, if you're a guest, if this is your first or second time to visit Faith Bible Church, to maybe stop by the Welcome Center out in the lobby.
[00:00:19] It's the large desk out there. There'll be someone there to help you out, greet you, answer any questions you might have about the ministry here at Faith Bible.
[00:00:25] If you're looking for a church home, we want to help you with that. A couple of announcements in your bulletin that you should take a look at for the today.
[00:00:32] is that, first of all, the library reading program starts today.
[00:00:35] So if you have a child who wants to participate in that, they can go by the library, which is just right next to the Welcome Center, and get signed up for the library's reading program.
[00:00:44] You might ask, if you're an adult, if there's something for you too.
[00:00:47] I mean, Marcia might have come up with something for the adults in the congregation to read as well.
[00:00:52] But then also, today, from 3 to 5, the largest VBS meeting of the year will be taking place.
[00:00:58] We're just a week or so out from Vacation Bible School.
[00:01:01] So if you're a VBS volunteer, you will meet today in this room from 3 o'clock to 5 o'clock.
[00:01:06] I know that they're looking forward to that.
[00:01:08] If you would now, please stand, greet a few people around you, and then I'll call us to worship.
[00:01:12] All right, remain standing as you make your way back to your seat.
[00:01:49] I'm going to call us to worship using Isaiah 40.
[00:01:54] The prophet Isaiah writes, Have you not known? Have you not heard?
[00:01:59] The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.
[00:02:03] He does not faint or grow weary.
[00:02:05] his understanding is unsearchable. Let's pray. Father, we come together acknowledging that you're the Lord of everything. You're the creator, you're the sustainer, you're the everlasting God. And Lord, you have interest in our lives. You guide us and direct us. Your
[00:02:24] kindness and providence shows us where you want us to be and how you want us to grow.
[00:02:33] Lord, your understanding, your knowledge, your wisdom is unsearchable to us. And so we're here gathering in your name, seeking that wisdom, seeking that understanding. But more than that even, we're here to bring glory to your son, our Lord Jesus. Help us with that in Christ's name.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:02:48] Amen. Of those truths, let's just lift our voices in response and praise and worship to the Lord

[00:02:58] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:02:58] this morning. God's grace is our invitation today to come and to behold the Lord, to worship him together. And as David did that, he wrote Psalm 145. And as we set our minds on God's glory and
[00:07:26] his majesty, I want to ask you to just read this aloud with me. We're going to begin in verse 5.
[00:07:32] On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.
[00:07:38] They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and I will declare your greatness.
[00:07:44] They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness.
[00:07:52] The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
[00:07:59] The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made.
[00:08:05] All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you.
[00:08:11] they shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom let's praise the lord for his
[00:08:26] great goodness his majesty all his works as we sing this great hymn all creatures of our god

[00:08:34] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:08:34] Let's go before the Lord now in that wonderful, powerful, beautiful name of Jesus.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:15:54] Father, we come before you this morning as your creatures to praise and magnify your great and glorious name.
[00:16:01] Father, to bow low before you.
[00:16:05] Father, we confess this morning our desperate need of you.
[00:16:08] And you, we live and move and have our being.
[00:16:12] So I pray this morning that you'll bend our wills to your will, our desires to your desire, our thoughts and our minds to your thought and your mind.
[00:16:22] Fathers, we open your inspired and errant word now. I pray that you'll breathe your life into us.
[00:16:28] You'll energize us to understand and to obey. Father, we commit ourselves to you now in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. You may be seated. Well, welcome to Faith Bible Church. Great to see you all here today. If you're visiting with us, we're especially
[00:16:46] glad you're here with us. This is the first Sunday of the month. We'll be celebrating the Lord's Supper at the end of the service. So if you don't have the elements, you can get those
[00:16:55] out in the lobby. And we look forward to that time of fellowship around the Lord's table.
[00:17:00] Well, it's great to be back here in Edmond. I want to thank Jay for his excellent ministry while we were away. And the last couple of weeks, we've been with 79 people on a Journeys of Paul
[00:17:10] trip to Greece and just a little bit in Turkey. We visited the city of Ephesus there on the coast of Turkey. It was a wonderful, enlightening experience. We're grateful to the Lord for His gracious watch care over us on our trip. And as always, it's great to be home, great to be
[00:17:26] back here with you two on the Lord's Day. This morning, I want to leave our current study we've been in, in the book of Colossians, just for one Sunday, to bring a message related to one of the
[00:17:37] great sites that we were able to visit on our trip. Our trip's still on my mind, it's fresh on my mind, so I want to talk about what's on my heart this morning. So take your Bible and turn
[00:17:48] to Acts chapter 17 with me. We'll get back to Colossians, Lord willing, next week. But I want to look this morning together at the account of Paul's sermon on Mars Hill in Athens. I've titled
[00:18:02] this message this morning, Previously Unknown. I want to just read verses 17 to 23. We'll go all the way down to verse 34 in our exposition, but just to get this beginning of the passage before
[00:18:14] us. Acts chapter 17, verse 16. Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the
[00:18:27] synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, some were saying, what would this idle babbler wish to say? Others, he seems to
[00:18:43] be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. They took him and brought him to the Areopagus saying, may we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming, for you're bringing some strange things to our ears. So we want to know what these
[00:19:00] things mean. Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time and nothing other than telling or hearing something new.
[00:19:09] So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, observe, you are very religious in all respects.
[00:19:16] For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God.
[00:19:26] Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
[00:19:31] May the Lord write His eternal word on our hearts this morning.
[00:19:36] Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense back during the George H.W. Bush administration.
[00:19:42] And back in 2002, he responded to a question in a press briefing.
[00:19:47] And he expressed the importance of what we know and what we don't know.
[00:19:52] And again, he's talking about this in the context of war and military, but he gave this response in this press briefing.
[00:19:58] He said, there are known knowns.
[00:20:00] These are things we know that we know.
[00:20:03] There are known unknowns.
[00:20:04] That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.
[00:20:08] But there are also unknown unknowns.
[00:20:10] There are things we don't know that we don't know.
[00:20:13] That's pretty insightful, isn't it?
[00:20:16] But what Donald Rumsfeld said is certainly true in military and war, and it's very consequential in war.
[00:20:22] But it's much more true and much more consequential in life, especially in spiritual life, and when it comes to the knowledge of God.
[00:20:32] Look, it's critical that we know that there are things that we don't know.
[00:20:36] But it's also critical that we know that there are things that we can know.
[00:20:41] And by far, the most important thing that we can know is the truth about God.
[00:20:46] And that's what Acts 17 is about.
[00:20:49] That there's a God who is unknown to most people, but a God who can be known.
[00:20:55] Now, God can never be fully comprehended by us.
[00:20:58] God is inscrutable.
[00:21:00] That means we can't ever fully comprehend Him.
[00:21:03] He's infinite.
[00:21:04] But we can know Him, and knowing Him is the foundational issue of life.
[00:21:08] In fact, to know God is life.
[00:21:12] And that's what Paul says in this sermon.
[00:21:15] Now, I've got three simple points to unpack this sermon.
[00:21:18] I won't do it justice today.
[00:21:19] I mean, this sermon, you could spend weeks talking about it, but I want to just give a brief overview of it.
[00:21:25] I want to look at the setting, then spend a bit of time in the sermon, and then we'll see the sequel.
[00:21:30] in verses 32 to 34 notice in verse 16 the setting now while paul was waiting for them at athens while paul was waiting for them at athens so this takes us to paul's uh second missionary journey
[00:21:45] and again we went to these uh cities over here in greece on our trip into ephesus as well over in modern-day turkey remember on paul's second missionary journey he goes back through the the the cities he'd been through there in the central part of modern-day Turkey, there, Galatia,
[00:22:01] on his first journey. And then he ends up over in Troas. And when he's in Troas, it says in Acts 16 that he had a vision from a man from Macedonia. And he said to Paul in his vision, come over here
[00:22:13] to Macedonia and help us. So Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke joins them later as well. They make their way over to Europe. And the gospel comes to Europe. They land at a tiny place called
[00:22:26] Neapolis. Then they go to Philippi. Then from Philippi, they move on. They actually leave Luke behind in Philippi. The three of them move on to Thessalonica. They go on to a town called Berea.
[00:22:37] And then Paul leaves Silas and Timothy there, and he goes on down by himself to Athens. So it's the first time that Paul is alone on any of his missionary journeys. Now, Silas later joins
[00:22:51] Paul in Athens, but he's alone in this city while Paul was waiting for them at Athens. Now, what do we know about Athens in that day? Well, in its heyday, Athens was the greatest city in
[00:23:03] the world. It was the city of Pericles and Socrates and Plato and Aristotle. I mean, it was the cradle of democracy. But the glory days of Athens when Paul was there was long over.
[00:23:16] The golden age of Pericles had faded.
[00:23:19] Now, even so, Athens was still the great philosophical, intellectual capital of the world.
[00:23:25] The center of culture and literature and art and architecture.
[00:23:29] And you'll notice here in verse 16 that while Paul's there, he goes around doing some sightseeing.
[00:23:35] And he would have seen all the beauty there and the glory of Athens.
[00:23:41] But notice what grabs Paul's attention was the rampant idolatry.
[00:23:46] He'd never seen anything like it.
[00:23:49] It's said that there were more statues and idols in Greece, in Athens, than the rest of Greece put together.
[00:23:57] Athens was described as one huge altar.
[00:24:00] It was called by one ancient writer, a forest of idols.
[00:24:05] In fact, the word here, the city was full of idols, can have the idea of being under them.
[00:24:11] In other words, the city was swamped or smothered by idols.
[00:24:15] In fact, one writer said it's easier in the city of Athens to find a god than it was to find a man.
[00:24:22] Because there were 10,000 people in Athens, there were 30,000 idols, shrines, and statues.
[00:24:29] And so Paul, when he comes there, he sees this city full of idols.
[00:24:33] Now every ancient Greek city has an acropolis.
[00:24:37] The word acropolis just means high city.
[00:24:40] It's where the chief deity, they believed, resided and was worshipped.
[00:24:44] And the great Acropolis, or the high city in Athens, was crowned by the Parthenon.
[00:24:50] And so here's an artist's rendition of what the city of Athens looked like in Paul's day.
[00:24:56] It's a spectacular city.
[00:24:59] And of course, the crowning point is this high city, that Acropolis, where the main feature is the Parthenon.
[00:25:06] The Parthenon, it's an incredible structure.
[00:25:09] Here's kind of what the Acropolis would have looked like in that day, looking from the top.
[00:25:13] But the Acropolis, the Parthenon was to the goddess Athena.
[00:25:18] The word Parthenos means virgin.
[00:25:21] The goddess Athena was in worship of her.
[00:25:24] And what's interesting, there's not a straight line in the entire building.
[00:25:28] The columns are tapered.
[00:25:29] They're leaned slightly inward.
[00:25:31] It's an architectural masterpiece, but it's all curved.
[00:25:35] But they knew that people's eyes would adjust and they would see it as straight, even though it's curved.
[00:25:40] It's a masterpiece.
[00:25:41] and it sits there across atop this this great acropolis there was a a gleaming spear the gleaming spear of a statue of athena could be seen 40 miles away think about this the the parthenon
[00:25:56] and the other buildings there on the acropolis were 500 years old when paul was there and that's how old these places were and so again a couple final pictures here just that's what the acropolis
[00:26:08] kind of looks like from Mars Hill that I'll show you in a moment. And there's a picture just of the Parthenon itself standing there up on the Acropolis. But Paul, as he looks at all of this,
[00:26:21] sees all of this, notice what happens, his response. He says, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he's seeing all this, his spirit was provoked within him. Now that word provoked means irritated. It was used actually in medical terms for a seizure. We get our word paroxysm
[00:26:39] from this. He had a visceral reaction, revolted against the city because it was full of idols, literally smothered with idols. And the reasons Paul's spirit was provoked within him is because he hated this idolatry because it robbed God of His glory. You know, Paul saw that beauty of Athens
[00:26:59] and he didn't just walk around the whole time going, ooh and ah, how beautiful this is. He certainly saw that beauty. But his response was to be viscerally moved because he saw that God was
[00:27:09] being robbed of his glory. Athens in that day could be described as a body without a soul. It was a lost city filled with idolatry. And we think about our cities today, and we think, well,
[00:27:24] thank God we're not idol worshipers. Well, idol worship isn't limited to pagan societies. I like what John Stott says. He says, an idol is a God substitute. Any person or thing that occupies the place that God should occupy in our heart is an idol. Money is an idol. Ideologies can be
[00:27:46] idolatries. So can fame, wealth, power, sex, food, alcohol, other drugs, parents, your spouse, children friends work recreation entertainment television possessions even church religion and christian service anything that we put above god in our life that replaces him a god substitute
[00:28:11] and i think if you read that we would all agree that our cities today are filled with idols as well now as was his custom paul began in the jewish synagogues verse 17 he was reasoning in
[00:28:24] the synagogue with the Jews. So on Sabbath, he would go into the synagogues and talk to the Jews, but notice then, and in the marketplace every day. So the other six days of the week, he would go
[00:28:35] into the marketplace or the agora, the marketplace area, and he would talk to people about God and about the Lord Jesus. Now notice verse 18, and also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. These were kind of the two main philosophical schools of thought in
[00:28:56] Paul's day there in Athens. Again, a lot we could say about this, but the Epicureans followed a man named Epicurus. They were the materialists and kind of the secularists. They believed the chief end of life was pleasure. You need to enjoy life the best you can. But it didn't mean they just
[00:29:13] kind of went out and just, you know, did whatever they wanted. They understood if you really wanted to have full pleasure. He had to live life in balance. But again, their whole focus was to
[00:29:23] maximize pleasure and to minimize pain. One of their own writers summarized their view like this of life. There's nothing to fear in God, nothing to feel in death. Pleasure can be attained. Pain can be endured. So live the best you can in balance. They denied the existence of any life
[00:29:44] after death, just kind of live life, maximize your pleasure, minimize your pain. Now you think about that, that's a philosophy of probably many Americans, maybe most Americans, kind of, you know, don't fear God, don't fear death, just kind of maximize your pleasure in life, minimize your pain,
[00:30:00] live your life the best you can, and when it's over, it's over. The Stoics were followers of a man named Zeno. They got their name from the Stoa. Stoa were the little spaces within the
[00:30:13] colonnades there, they moved around in these stoa, spreading their philosophy of life. So they became known then as Stoics. And they were pantheists. They believed that everything is God and God is everything. So there's no personal God. But the biggest issue for them was self-sufficiency,
[00:30:32] self-dependence, self-mastery. So this was a major philosophy in that day. And again, you think about our culture today, this is how a lot of people live their lives.
[00:30:44] If I can just be self-sufficient, have enough money, and have enough things in this life where I'm self-sufficient, have self-mastery, that's what life is really all about.
[00:30:53] We see these two philosophies prevalent today.
[00:30:58] Now, neither one of these groups, the Epicureans or the Stoics, thought very much of the Apostle Paul.
[00:31:05] They didn't think he was their intellectual equal.
[00:31:07] In fact, notice what they say.
[00:31:10] So they were saying to him, what will this idle babbler wish to say?
[00:31:14] Now that word idle babbler is the word spermalogos.
[00:31:17] It means a seed picker.
[00:31:19] Back in that day, they would see birds picking up scraps here and there.
[00:31:24] And so they come up with this idea of someone being a seed picker.
[00:31:28] And the idea is that it's somebody that kind of traveled around, went one place to another, and they'd pick up an idea over here and pick up an idea over there.
[00:31:37] and then they'd kind of just blend this all together or cobble it all together and come up with some idea. So they really didn't have any original thoughts. They just kind of plagiarized a bunch of other people and just kind of patchworked some ideas together. So they don't think much
[00:31:52] about Paul. He's just a seed picker. Now notice this, as others said in verse 18, he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he's preaching Jesus and the resurrection. So it may be that they thought that he was preaching two gods, Jesus, and the word for resurrection is
[00:32:11] Anastasis. And so they thought actually that Jesus is like a male god, and Anastasis was a feminine god or a female god. So they seemed to have this idea that Jesus was adding two new
[00:32:25] deities to their already overcrowded pantheon of deities. But verse 19 says, they took him and brought him to the Areopagus. The word Pagpagus in Greek means hill, and Areopagus is the god Ares, the Greek god of war. So Areopagus is the hill of Ares. Now in Roman mythology, Ares was
[00:32:50] known as Mars, so it's known as Mars Hill. You'll sometimes hear it referred to as Mars Hill. So they take him to Mars Hill saying, we want to know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming.
[00:33:02] Now, this is Mars Hill.
[00:33:05] It's an outcropping of massive rock about 100 yards northwest of the Acropolis.
[00:33:12] And this is where the Areopagus convened.
[00:33:15] And you can see that, you know, right in here is a lot of rock that you can sit on.
[00:33:19] By the way, the slickest rock in the world is this rock here.
[00:33:23] I mean, you talk about somewhere you can fall easily.
[00:33:25] But see a flatter area over here where someone could stand and speak to people who are sitting up in this area right here.
[00:33:31] And so that's where they take Paul to this Areopagus, Mars Hill to this area.
[00:33:37] And again, here's another picture you can see.
[00:33:40] This is from Mars Hill looking back up to the Acropolis area.
[00:33:45] And then one final picture here.
[00:33:47] This is from Mars Hill looking down into the Agora or the ancient marketplace.
[00:33:53] You can see that building on the right with kind of the red tile roof, everything kind of to the left of that, down there among those trees.
[00:34:00] That was the ancient agora or marketplace where Paul was going about preaching and ministering every day. So they take Paul up to the Areopagus, and this group that met there had jurisdiction over issues of morality and education and religion, and they take him up there not for a formal trial.
[00:34:18] This isn't a formal trial or legal proceeding. Paul wasn't on trial. There's no charges that are ever stated. No verdict is rendered at the end. The council members, I think, just wanted Paul to explain what he'd been teaching the people in the Agora. They want to know what
[00:34:34] he's been saying. Now, I love this in verse 21, Luke here, who's writing the book of Acts, adds this parenthetical comment. Now, the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new. So,
[00:34:52] they just loved and were enamored and enchanted with kind of the latest intellectual fads.
[00:34:58] They're kind of like Paul later describes some people in the book of Timothy when he says that they're ever learning, but they're never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
[00:35:08] So it's in this setting here that Paul preaches his sermon that begins here in verse 22 and 23.
[00:35:17] Now, this is kind of what we might call a sample sermon of Paul.
[00:35:21] We have these in the book of Acts.
[00:35:23] These sample sermons of kind of how Paul preached.
[00:35:27] Back in Acts 13 is Paul's first speech, and it was to a Jewish audience.
[00:35:32] And it's his longest speech, and it kind of is a sample of how Paul preached to a Jewish audience.
[00:35:38] You go to chapter 14 of Acts, when Paul is there at Lystra, he gives a speech there in Acts 14, it's just about three or four verses.
[00:35:47] And it's kind of a sample, a very short speech, of how Paul approached raw pagans.
[00:35:53] But here in Acts 17 now, we have Paul's third sermon or speech, and it's a sample for us or an illustration of how Paul spoke to the intellectuals of his day.
[00:36:07] And there's two parts to this sermon.
[00:36:09] I like to call it the preface and then the proclamation.
[00:36:12] Notice the preface begins in verse 22.
[00:36:14] So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and he said, Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. Now, commonly Greek oratory began by winning over the audience the best you can.
[00:36:30] So you wanted to try to kind of win the audience over, kind of curry favor with them. So that's what Paul does here. He says, look, I can see you all are religious in every respect. And Paul's
[00:36:41] telling the truth, and they probably would have taken this as a compliment. In other words, he's saying, you Athenians are very dedicated in your pursuit of spiritual knowledge. And of course, this tells us that man is incurably religious. Wherever you go, people will always bow the knee
[00:36:57] at some shrine. Everybody worships someone or something. And Paul knows that. He says, you all are very religious. In fact, in verse 23, he says, you all are so religious, you're concerned about worshiping the gods, you're afraid you might miss one.
[00:37:13] He says, for while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription.
[00:37:20] This would have been down in the Agora or the marketplace.
[00:37:23] To an unknown God.
[00:37:26] So again, think about this.
[00:37:27] There are 30,000 shrines, temples, and altars in the city of Athens, yet they're afraid they might have missed one.
[00:37:34] And so they have a shrine there to the unknown God.
[00:37:38] The word is agnosto.
[00:37:40] Agnostic.
[00:37:40] We get our word for that.
[00:37:41] To a God you don't know.
[00:37:44] So they wanted to hedge their bets and cover the bases.
[00:37:47] They wanted kind of an all-purpose, catch-all shrine.
[00:37:50] And Paul, this is beautiful the way he does this, Paul uses that altar to the unknown God as his hook, or kind of his point of contact or connection with the audience.
[00:38:01] He uses the familiar to introduce the unfamiliar.
[00:38:06] It's really a stroke of genius here by Paul.
[00:38:09] He's saying, look, I'm not presenting a strange deity to you.
[00:38:13] I'm just telling you about the God that you admit that you don't know.
[00:38:17] And so Paul finds this point of contact and a connection with these pagan philosophers.
[00:38:23] And basically beginning in the end of verse 23 down to verse 31, Paul's message is simply this, the God you don't know is the God you can know. There's a God that you say you don't know,
[00:38:37] but I'm going to proclaim Him to you. You can know Him. Now, what he does here in this passage is he gives five basic truths about God that they can know. And he begins that God is the originator
[00:38:49] of all things. God is the creator. The Epicureans believed that matter was eternal. The Stoics were pantheists, that God's not personal. He's just part of creation. But Paul starts out back at the very beginning and says, God is the maker of all things. God is the maker of matter. Matter's
[00:39:09] not eternal, God is. You know, there's a common sense argument that everybody kind of knows intuitively, that every effect must have a cause. Yet there can't just be an endless chain of such causes. So scholars and thinkers have come up with this idea that there has to be an uncaused
[00:39:30] first cause. There has to be some uncaused first cause. And Paul is saying here that uncaused first cause is god a plan requires a planner a program requires a programmer a design requires a designer he says god made everything the world and all the things that are in it and he's saying
[00:39:54] since this is true god can't be contained he can't be limited to some sanctuary or some temple made by human hands he's really proclaiming here the the omnipresence of god god is everywhere Yogi Berra, there's a lot of those good yogisms.
[00:40:12] He said this one time, I've noticed that everywhere I go, there I am.
[00:40:18] But someone pointed out that everywhere you go, there God is.
[00:40:22] God's everywhere.
[00:40:23] God's omnipresent.
[00:40:24] But even more than the omnipresence of God, there's a doctrine that's called the immensity of God.
[00:40:31] That God is immense.
[00:40:33] And the immensity of God means that God transcends all spatial limitations.
[00:40:38] God's present at every point of space with His entire being.
[00:40:43] The immensity of God.
[00:40:46] God made everything, so God can't be somehow contained to dwell in temples made with human hands.
[00:40:54] God is omnipresent. God's immense.
[00:40:56] So God's the originator, the creator of all things.
[00:40:59] Paul just starts right at the beginning and boldly proclaims it.
[00:41:01] Then he mentions that God's a sustainer of all life.
[00:41:06] Nor is He served by human hands as though He needed anything.
[00:41:09] since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things.
[00:41:16] God is the Creator of all things, so God is the Giver of all things.
[00:41:19] God doesn't need anything.
[00:41:21] He created everything, so He gives everything and needs nothing.
[00:41:26] Look, you and I, we need everything.
[00:41:28] We depend on God.
[00:41:29] God does not depend on us.
[00:41:32] They acted like the gods, they manufactured these gods.
[00:41:35] The gods depended on Him.
[00:41:37] He said, no, if God created everything, he doesn't need anything. Notice what he says. He gives to all people life and breath and all things. This is an allusion back to Isaiah 42, verse 5. He said, look, we're here because of him.
[00:41:54] God is self-sufficient. I like this quote by R.C. Sproul. He says, the grand difference between a human being and a supreme being is precisely this. Apart from God, I cannot exist. Apart from me, God does exist. I love these next two sentences. God does not need me in order for Him to be Him.
[00:42:16] I do need God in order for me to be me. I can't really be who I'm intended to be without Him.
[00:42:24] But God doesn't need me for Him to be who He is. This is the difference, he says, between what we call self-existent being and dependent being. We're dependent. We're fragile. We can't live without air, without water, without food. No human being has the power of being within himself.
[00:42:41] Life is lived between two hospitals. We need a support system from birth to death to sustain life. This is how we differ from God. God sustains everything. God sustains it all. God's the one who
[00:42:55] gives everything to us. God originated everything. God is over everything. God ordains and orders everything. Notice in verse 26, God's the ruler of all nations. He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and
[00:43:18] boundaries of their habitation. It's kind of interesting. This would have been highly offensive to the Athenians. They saw everybody who was non-Greek, really non-Athenian, as kind of barbarians, and they thought they were totally unique and special in the human race. And God,
[00:43:34] paul is saying here from one man god made every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth we all came from one man and one woman and he says here that the times and territories of
[00:43:47] nations are in god's hand the rise and the fall of nations he's determined their times how long they last and the boundaries so our times and territories of nations are in the hands of god
[00:44:00] God determines when a nation rises how long it exists how extensive its boundaries are and when it's going to come to an end all of that is in the hands of God he's the ruler and creator it's just
[00:44:14] another way to say that God is sovereign you know this is true the United States as well God was in control the beginning of our nation he's controlled the boundaries of our nation given us this abundant land. He's also in control of the time of the ending of our nation. And I
[00:44:32] know a lot of us have deep concern about our country right now and all the things we see.
[00:44:36] We need to pray. We need to do what we can do. We also need to rest in the fact that God is sovereign. He's determined the appointed times, the boundaries of their habitation. It's in God's
[00:44:49] good and gracious and benevolent hands. Look, I fear for our country unless something dramatic happens, seems like we're on our way down. We have to trust in the sovereignty of God over our own lives, our families, and over our nation. I like what John Wesley said years ago. He said,
[00:45:08] I read the paper every day to see how God is governing His world. I know a lot of you don't read the paper, but you look at your phone or your computer or whatever, and as we see the news and
[00:45:18] see what's happening, we're seeing how God is governing His world. It's His world. He's in control of it. But as great as God is, He's created everything. He's sustaining it. He's sovereign over it. Notice that God's not far away, though He's accessible. He says that they would
[00:45:33] seek God, verse 27, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. And then He quotes a poet from the island of Crete, a man named Epimenides,
[00:45:47] for in him we live and we move and we exist god's accessible as great as god is he's near to us he's around us and he can be found the word here that we might grope for him is an interesting word
[00:46:02] james boyce in his commentary says that this same word here was used by the greek poet homer in his well-known story of the cyclops the giant one-eyed cyclops captured odysseus and his men Odysseus got him drunk and blinded him with a sharp stick.
[00:46:19] But they were still afraid of him.
[00:46:21] They were trying to get out.
[00:46:22] But the Cyclops, remember, was groping around.
[00:46:25] The same word used here, trying to find them as they're escaping.
[00:46:29] And Boyce goes on and says this.
[00:46:32] That's the word Paul uses here.
[00:46:34] So it's as if he's saying, in our sin we're as blind as the blinded Cyclops.
[00:46:40] Nevertheless, because creation is there, We have an obligation to feel after God and find Him, even though we cannot see Him.
[00:46:49] So God's given enough just through creation and natural revelation for us to know that He exists.
[00:46:56] To know that He's powerful.
[00:46:57] It only takes us so far.
[00:46:59] But still, as His creatures, we're under a responsibility to grope after Him, to find Him.
[00:47:05] To know that He exists.
[00:47:07] But he goes on further here.
[00:47:10] He quotes another of their poets and says, God is the Father of all humans.
[00:47:15] Notice the end of verse 28.
[00:47:16] As even one of your own poets has said, for we are His children, or we are His offspring.
[00:47:22] Now, he was talking about Zeus, but he's just saying, look, there's ideas out there that we're the offspring of a greater being.
[00:47:29] And he quotes a poet named Aretas, who's actually from the province, home province of the Apostle Paul.
[00:47:36] And then he draws in verse 29 the logical conclusion from this.
[00:47:40] If we're God's children, and for His offspring, being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and the thought of man.
[00:47:53] It's a logical conclusion. If we're God's offspring, if we're His children, then we ought not to think that we can then go out and manufacture a God. No, we come from Him.
[00:48:03] He doesn't come from us. And then he moves on to really his fifth truth here about God, that God is the judge of the world.
[00:48:12] So He takes us all the way from the beginning of God creating and originating everything to God is going to judge all things.
[00:48:19] He moves from creation very suddenly to judgment.
[00:48:23] So the idea here is if God created us, instinctively we realize that we're responsible to Him.
[00:48:31] Notice what He says in verse 30.
[00:48:32] Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent.
[00:48:40] He's fixed a day.
[00:48:42] There's a marked day on God's calendar in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man that He's appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.
[00:48:56] If God made us, then we're responsible to God.
[00:49:00] That's ultimately why people are atheists.
[00:49:03] Now, I would argue that according to Scripture, no one is an atheist.
[00:49:07] because Romans chapter 1 says that everyone down in their heart knows that there's a God.
[00:49:14] So I don't want to be a smart aleck, but sometimes when I talk to atheists, I'll argue with them for quite a while at the beginning telling them they're not really an atheist because I say that I believe what God says about you
[00:49:26] more than what you say about you.
[00:49:28] God knows you far better than you know yourself.
[00:49:30] And God says you're not an atheist.
[00:49:32] God says you know that He exists.
[00:49:34] But what God says is you've suppressed the truth of God and unrighteousness. You pushed it down. And the reason they do that is they want to get rid of God because if there is a God, then they're accountable to Him. They know they're
[00:49:47] going to have to stand before Him someday and give an account and be judged. So they suppress the truth. They push the thought of God away, the thought of any accountability before Him. But notice what he says here. He says, God overlooked the times of ignorance. That doesn't mean that
[00:50:04] that God let people do what they want to do, but he's just saying God has not ultimately brought final judgment yet.
[00:50:10] God has been unbelievably patient up to this point is what he's saying.
[00:50:15] But make no mistake, he's saying your judgment is coming.
[00:50:19] God has been gracious in His forbearance.
[00:50:21] And every one of us here who know the Lord, we thank God for His patience with us.
[00:50:26] His patience with us to draw us to Himself.
[00:50:29] But he's saying there's going to be a time that's going to come to an end.
[00:50:32] This gracious forbearance of God will end and judgment's coming. There's a story about Robert Ingersoll. He was the best-known atheist of his day, a very, very powerful, powerful speaker. And one time when he was speaking,
[00:50:46] giving one of his speeches about why he's an atheist, he stood on stage and he said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to blaspheme God, and then I'm going to give God
[00:50:56] five minutes to strike me dead. If there's a real God, He'll strike me dead in five minutes. If He doesn't, it's a proof there's no God. So he goes on for a few minutes, just with the most vile
[00:51:08] blasphemies of God you could ever imagine. In fact, it's said that there were women in the audience who actually fainted when they heard the things that he said about God. And so when he gets to
[00:51:19] the end of all that blasphemy against God, he stands there on the stage for five minutes.
[00:51:25] And at the end of the five minutes, he says, God doesn't strike me dead. It's a proof that God doesn't exist. There's no God. About a week later in London, a pastor there named Joseph Parker,
[00:51:37] one of his parishioners came and told him about that story and asked him what he thought about it.
[00:51:41] And he smiled and he said, did the American think that he could exhaust the patience of God in five minutes? God's patient. He's long, long suffering. But he says, God someday is going to judge this
[00:51:55] world. This world is hurtling towards judgment. God's fixed a day. God has a day marked on the divine calendar. He's going to bring judgment. And that judgment is going to begin, I think, with the rapture when the church is caught up to heaven. And the tribulation period is going to
[00:52:10] begin on this earth and culminate in the second coming of Christ and ultimately, in the end, the great white throne judgment in Revelation chapter 20. It's all going to be triggered someday. The dominoes will begin to fall when the rapture takes place. It's an event, I believe,
[00:52:24] can can happen in any moment in time and paul says because of that god is declaring to all men every word that they should do what repent and repent means to change your mind to do a 180
[00:52:38] you're going this direction you go that direction what you think about god you have a total change in mind about who god is and what he's done you go from from unbelief to belief and to trust in him
[00:52:52] And notice it says here, He will judge the world in righteousness.
[00:52:56] It's going to be a just judgment.
[00:52:58] And He's going to judge the world through a man, the God-man, the Lord Jesus.
[00:53:03] Now, it's interesting, He doesn't name Him, or He doesn't say He's going to judge the world through Jesus Christ.
[00:53:07] He's going to judge the world through a man.
[00:53:10] Now, I think Paul, when he was going around the Agora, probably told them many times who he was, but here he calls Him a man that God has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead. Now, people will criticize Paul and say, well, Paul in this
[00:53:27] sermon never mentions the cross, never mentions the death of Jesus. Well, it's probably true that when he'd been speaking for days in the Agora, he'd mentioned it many times. It's also true that when he mentions the resurrection, resurrection assumes that you died. And it's also possible
[00:53:43] here that Paul gets cut off before he has time to go on and finish what he's saying, because they begin to laugh at him and mock him when he mentions the resurrection. Because that's the
[00:53:54] core of Christianity, that Jesus lives, that he's conquered death, that the grave has no more terrors. But the problem is, of course, that the people in that day, the Greeks, they had this dualistic idea that, you know, matters evil and that, you know, when you die, you get released
[00:54:10] from the prison house of this body. And so they totally denied any idea of resurrection. So we see the sequel here the response in verse 32 when they heard of the resurrection of the dead
[00:54:22] some begin to sneer or mockers that they laugh it off or again these these greek dualists believe that you know the dead remain dead there's no possibility ever of resurrection but notice some postponed the decision and delayed they said we'll hear more about this later
[00:54:39] and then it says in verse 34 but some joined him and believed among whom were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. One of the men actually on this council
[00:54:52] of the Areopagus put their faith in Jesus and trusted in him and a woman named Damaris. It's interesting, we never hear about the church in Athens. We never hear about Paul visiting the city of Athens again. We do know that Paul preached the gospel faithfully and fearlessly. Think about
[00:55:11] standing in front of these people that don't believe in the resurrection. They're pantheists, They believe matter is eternal.
[00:55:17] They're the intellectuals of the day.
[00:55:19] I like to call them pseudo-intellectuals.
[00:55:22] By the way, let me just say this.
[00:55:23] Don't be afraid to talk to people who are really smart about the Gospel.
[00:55:27] I remember one night I watched a speech or a talk by Stephen Jay Gould, a brilliant, brilliant man.
[00:55:34] A man who had no use for God or creation.
[00:55:38] Paleontologist, geologist.
[00:55:39] I mean, brilliant man.
[00:55:41] I watched that and then I went in a little bit later and put our two sons to bed.
[00:55:45] They were both, I don't know, they were six, eight, something like that, six or eight.
[00:55:49] And both of them knew the Lord at that time.
[00:55:52] And a lot of the things Gould had said were really pretty blasphemous against God.
[00:55:56] It upset me.
[00:55:57] But I went in there with my boys to put them to bed praying with them.
[00:56:00] And I laid in there, I thought to myself, you know, here are these two boys, our one six and one eight.
[00:56:05] And they know more about life than Stephen Jay Gould does.
[00:56:08] They're smarter than he is.
[00:56:10] Because they know God.
[00:56:11] He has no idea who God is.
[00:56:13] So don't be afraid to talk to people who seem really smart.
[00:56:16] Look, they're blind.
[00:56:18] They're in darkness.
[00:56:19] They don't know.
[00:56:20] You know the true God.
[00:56:22] You have the message that can give them life.
[00:56:24] Don't let their intellect and a lot of their arguments push you away from talking to them.
[00:56:32] Let me just mention a couple points of application here to think through.
[00:56:35] The first one is, if you've never done so this morning, you need to repent.
[00:56:39] You need to change your mind about who Jesus Christ is and trust in Him.
[00:56:43] You need to do a 180 from trusting in self-sufficiency or living life or pleasure or whatever it is, whatever philosophy of life you're in.
[00:56:52] You need to do a 180 and trust Christ.
[00:56:54] Put Him first in your life.
[00:56:57] And I believe that He's the one who died for you and rose again.
[00:57:00] Trust Him and take Him to be your Savior if you've never done that.
[00:57:03] That's the first thing.
[00:57:04] If you don't know Christ, trust in Him.
[00:57:06] The second thing is if you know God, thank Him.
[00:57:11] You and I could still be groping in the darkness, blind as cyclops, blind to the reality of who God is and to ourselves.
[00:57:22] But God came and He invaded your life. He arrested you and He brought you to faith in Himself.
[00:57:28] And I pray that you will never, ever get over being saved. Think of where we'd be without Him.
[00:57:34] Think of where we might be. And then the third thing I would say is be faithful to tell others about the God they don't know.
[00:57:43] We're going to actually pick up on this in Colossians next week in Colossians chapter 4.
[00:57:47] It kind of fits in beautifully with this idea of sharing the Gospel with others around us.
[00:57:54] But to most people today, the true God is an unknown God.
[00:57:59] They don't know Him.
[00:58:00] They don't know who He really is.
[00:58:02] I was reading this week, and George Barna has some new research.
[00:58:06] He warns our culture has reached a time of Christian invisibility.
[00:58:10] Here's what he says.
[00:58:12] This is our moment.
[00:58:13] We've reached a time of Christian invisibility in our culture.
[00:58:17] What I'm seeing now is we're getting to the place where the typical American will not have anyone in their circle of influence who has a biblical worldview.
[00:58:27] Reaching the time when the typical American is not going to have anybody in their entire sphere of influence with a biblical worldview.
[00:58:34] You're not going to be influenced by God's truth.
[00:58:38] And it's interesting, one of the things he goes on and points out for the reason for this is poor leadership in America's seminaries.
[00:58:45] They're training people to go out in ministry.
[00:58:49] But what we have here in Acts 17 is our worldview.
[00:58:53] That there's a God who's the Creator.
[00:58:55] There's a God who's the giver and sustainer of all things.
[00:58:58] There's a God who's the controller and the ruler.
[00:59:00] And there's a God who's coming back as the judge.
[00:59:03] May it not be said about us that the people in our sphere of influence don't know about our worldview.
[00:59:08] what we believe about God and about this world and about ourselves and about Christ.
[00:59:15] One person I read this week put it like this, if we follow Paul's example of establishing a common ground, showing them the supremacy of God and their own sinfulness, and calling them to repentance and faith
[00:59:28] in the risen Lord Jesus, some will sneer, some will put us off till later, but some will believe and be saved.
[00:59:38] May God help us to be faithful to that witness.
[00:59:41] Let's not have ourselves be invisible as Christians in the lives of those around us.
[00:59:48] Well, I'm going to close with a story.
[00:59:49] I told it not long ago, sometime back.
[00:59:52] I don't remember exactly when it was, but it came to mind yesterday as I was studying.
[00:59:56] And it also fits because on our trip to Greece, we saw all kinds of monasteries.
[01:00:00] This is a story about monks in a monastery.
[01:00:03] Saw a place called Meteora.
[01:00:04] Most unbelievable sight.
[01:00:05] You've seen all these monasteries on the top of these mountains.
[01:00:08] I mean, it's incredible.
[01:00:10] So I'm going to end with a story about some monks in a monastery.
[01:00:14] One monk who lived in this monastery lived in mortal fear of being called upon to preach a sermon in the daily chapel.
[01:00:21] The day came, and it was his assignment to preach, and he got up to speak before the other monks, and he was in great fear, and he was so nervous, he didn't know what to do.
[01:00:30] So he started his sermon by asking, Brothers, do you know what I'm going to say?
[01:00:34] They all shook their heads in the negative.
[01:00:37] And he said, neither do I.
[01:00:38] Let's stand for the benediction.
[01:00:40] Pax Viboscum.
[01:00:41] Peace be with you.
[01:00:43] Well, the chief monk was infuriated.
[01:00:45] And he said, you better do what I tell you on this second chance.
[01:00:48] You better bring a message.
[01:00:50] The next day, the scene's the same.
[01:00:51] The young man was as terrified as before.
[01:00:54] He said, brothers, do you know what I'm going to say?
[01:00:56] This time, they all shook their heads in the affirmative.
[01:00:58] He said, well, since you already know, there's no point in my saying it.
[01:01:02] Let's stand for the benediction.
[01:01:03] and Pax Viboscum, peace be with you.
[01:01:06] The head monks livid and said, if you don't preach a sermon tomorrow, I'm going to put you on bread and water in solitary confinement.
[01:01:12] So the third day, the scene's the same.
[01:01:15] He begins as he'd done the previous two days.
[01:01:17] He says, brothers, do you know what I'm going to say?
[01:01:20] Some nodded their heads in the affirmative.
[01:01:21] Some shook him in the negative.
[01:01:23] Then he concluded with these words, let those who know tell those who don't know.
[01:01:27] Let's stand for the benediction, Pax Viboscum.
[01:01:31] Now I like that story because the end of it, the message is clear.
[01:01:35] Let those who know tell those who don't know.
[01:01:39] And the tragedy is the true God, the God we've talked about this morning, His Son Jesus Christ, is an unknown God to most people who are out there today.
[01:01:48] But you and I have the privilege to have our eyes open to see who God is.
[01:01:54] So you and I have the responsibility when we know to tell those who don't know.
[01:02:00] And what I want to do as we go to prayer now is just each one of us as we go to this time of prayer.
[01:02:05] Just, if you haven't trusted Christ, trust Him today.
[01:02:08] If you know Him, thank Him so much for opening your eyes.
[01:02:12] And I'll pray that it'll bring somebody to mind that you know who doesn't know God.
[01:02:18] He's unknown to them.
[01:02:20] And you know Him and you can tell Him.
[01:02:21] You can make the unknown God unknown to them.
[01:02:25] Well, let's pray together.
[01:02:30] Father, thank You for revealing Yourself to us as a Creator and our Sustainer and the ruler and the sovereign over all things and the one who's coming someday to judge this world in righteousness through the man that You've appointed,
[01:02:47] having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.
[01:02:53] Father, I thank You for all of us here that know You that we're not groping in the darkness any longer.
[01:02:59] We know You. We know who You are.
[01:03:01] You revealed Yourself to us through Jesus Christ.
[01:03:05] Father, I pray for some today here who may not know You that they'll turn to Christ today.
[01:03:09] They'll repent.
[01:03:10] they'll do a 180, turn to Jesus Christ.
[01:03:15] Fathers, we leave this place today.
[01:03:18] Help those of us who know to find someone who doesn't know.
[01:03:23] Share this wonderful good news with them of a God who loves them and cares for them.
[01:03:28] Now, fathers, we take this supper together.
[01:03:31] Bless us and nourish us spiritually.
[01:03:33] We ask these things in Jesus' name.
[01:03:35] Amen.

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:03:39] Thank you, Mark.
[01:03:40] Before we conclude our time together today, we're going to gather at the Lord's table.
[01:03:43] I should remind you that you don't have to be a member of Faith Bible Church to celebrate the Lord's Supper here with us, but you do need to be someone who is looking to Christ, who's repented
[01:03:52] from your sins and is trusting in Him to be your Savior. If you didn't grab these elements on the way in, they're in the back, they're on the back tables. You can go grab those now and you'll be
[01:03:59] back in time to take each element here in just a moment. Jesus told His disciples at the Last Supper to eat the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of Him. And the word that Jesus uses
[01:04:12] for remember is richer than our contemporary sense of remember. To remember in Jesus' sense is not simply to call to mind, like remembering your login and password information. As Jesus uses the term to remember, it's to remember the acts of God or the work of Christ. It means to
[01:04:33] assign him an active role in one's world. So, it's a remembering that transforms one's attitude and actions. Remembering the Lord Jesus is an identity-forming practice, you might say.
[01:04:49] One of the things the Old Testament says about idols is that those who worship idols become like that which they worship. So, no matter what you worship, worship is identity-forming.
[01:05:03] It's deep integration of this object of worship into the life of the worshiper, assigning it an active role in one's world.
[01:05:14] So that's what Paul is preaching at Mars Hill.
[01:05:15] He's giving the unknown God an identity because if the Athenians worship Jesus and remember Jesus and allow his power and resurrection life to transform their attitude and actions, they're going to have a whole new identity.
[01:05:32] And every time they remember him, his active role in their identity will expand.
[01:05:36] His goodness and faithfulness to them will expand.
[01:05:39] His life and joy will expand.
[01:05:42] So when we take the supper, when we remember Jesus, we are asking for his active role to take more ground in our life, in our world.
[01:05:53] For his identity of goodness and grace and righteousness and joy to be more and more and more of our own identity.
[01:06:02] This is what remembering does.
[01:06:03] This is the fruit of our worship.
[01:06:06] So bow your heads and close your eyes.
[01:06:08] Just silently go before the Lord.
[01:06:10] Prepare your heart to take the supper.
[01:06:29] Scripture tells us that the Lord Jesus, on the night that he was betrayed, he took the bread.
[01:06:32] And when he had given thanks, he broke it.
[01:06:34] And after he gave thanks, he said, this is my body, which is for you.
[01:06:36] Do this in remembrance of me.
[01:06:37] Take the bread together.
[01:06:42] In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
[01:06:46] Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
[01:06:49] Take the cup together.
[01:06:55] For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
[01:06:59] Let's pray.
[01:07:03] Father, thank you for this meal, this celebratory supper, which causes us to remember, causes us to think on, look on, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose body was broken for us, whose blood was spilled out for us.
[01:07:24] Lord, together we are assigning to him an active role in our life once again this morning.
[01:07:33] We're identifying him and asking for his identity to form our own, for his goodness and his faithfulness and his joy to be more present in our lives.
[01:07:47] Lord, use that.
[01:07:49] Cause that for us to be fruitful ambassadors of him as we leave this place today.
[01:07:53] It's in Christ's name, amen.
[01:07:55] Please stand for the benediction.
[01:07:56] If you have a need or a burden on your heart, you'd like to talk to an elder or a pastor about, those that are in this service would be down front ready to speak with you.
[01:08:03] if you're a guest with us.
[01:08:05] Again, stop by the Welcome Center.
[01:08:06] We'd love to help you out in any way that we can.
[01:08:08] The benediction is from Colossians 2, verses nine and 10, where it says, for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in him you have been made complete.
[01:08:20] Go in that completeness.
[01:08:21] You're dismissed.