Turn from Idols to Worship God January 18, 2015 Acts 17:16-34 Matt Rawlings

1 Turn from Idols to Worship God January 18, 2015 Acts 17:16-34 Matt Rawlings Acts 17:16-34 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, "What does this babbler wish to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities"- because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean." 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "' For we are indeed his offspring.' 29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." 32 Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this." 33 So Paul went out from their midst. 34 But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. I want to share with you two different stories about how I was provoked. Now, I am not saying that I was provoked, as an excuse for me sinning in some way. For instance, like when I was a child and I would blame my anger on my brother when he would provoke me on purpose. I would say he provoked me as an excuse for why I hit him even though it was why No, I want to submit that like Paul in our Scripture passage, there are times when it is good to be provoked. Growing up I enjoyed most of the music by a band named U2. A few years ago, they came to Atlanta for a concert. The tickets had sold out almost instantly, but a friend was able to get some and several of us drove down to Atlanta to see them in concert. At first, our seats weren t that great but we asked the ushers and they let us sit right next to the floor of the stadium where everything was happening. 1

2 I enjoyed the music but I became uncomfortable and I was bothered in my soul because of what I saw. You see, what I saw wasn t just a bunch of people liking good music, it seemed that it went beyond that for many and from my vantage point, the concert looked like worship. Not worship of God but worship of a good band and it was provoking to me. It was unsettling and it didn t seem right. It is fine to enjoy music and even go to a concert. But there was an evident exaltation of the band that wasn t ok with me. I was bothered by it for a while afterwards and it provided a context to speak with others about it in a helpful way. Another, very different time, I was provoked by what seemed like a lack of worship. I recall visiting a church in a city that is very conservative. In the sermon, the minister spoke about the passion of Jesus Christ His death, burial and resurrection and then we were all sent out silently to contemplate what was said. Now, there isn t necessarily anything wrong with that. It could be just a different style of worship. But afterwards, I was provoked, I was bothered because the message about the passion of Christ didn t seem to result in very much passion in the people afterwards. The atmosphere seemed cold and unfriendly. People were not warm towards each other, as you might expect of people who have been warmed by the fires of God s grace. Conversation afterwards was joyless and polite at best. My heart had been stirred and I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to worship God and I wanted everyone else to as well. Now, I realize that I could have been reading into both of these scenarios. But I don t think I was and I think I was bothered for a good reason in both cases. In both cases, I was bothered because I was jealous that God would receive worship and it wasn t evident that He was being worshipped. In Athens, Paul was bothered for a good reason. He was bothered because he looked around and everywhere he looked he saw idols. And this bothered him and when we see idolatry it should bother us, no matter where we see it - in the culture around us, in our work, in church and in our own heart. You see, we were made to worship God and to call others to worship Him too. And that is the main idea we are going to look at from the passage in Acts 17. Main Idea: We were made to worship God and to call others to worship Him too. In this passage, Paul reveals the truth about who we are we have been created by God to worship God, who is our creator, our sustainer, our ruler, our Father and our judge. Not only were we made to worship God, Luke gives us Paul s example to demonstrate that we are to call others to worship God too. The reason why we need to call others to worship God is that we can see idol worship everywhere. This is the very first idea that Luke shows us in this passage. 1. We can see Idol worship everywhere In the previous chapter, we find that Paul has just left Berea because he was chased out of town quickly as the Thessalonian Jews pursued him there and were stirring up the crowds against him. So, the brothers in Berea whisked Paul off in a boat by himself and they landed in Athens, then Paul promptly sent the brothers back to have Silas and Timothy join him. Now, in the scene we have before us, Paul is waiting for Timothy and Silas to join him in Athens. Paul probably didn t intend to go to Athens next, it isn t clear. But it is clear that Paul didn t plan to go to Athens in a rush like he did and he clearly didn t plan to be alone but wanted Silas and Timothy there with him. 2

3 We find Paul waiting in the very intellectual city of Athens. The buildings of Athens were unrivaled in the ancient world. The great Pericles had made Athens into the educational and cultural center of the ancient Greek world and he commissioned the buildings of the Acropolis and the Parthenon. Athens was renowned for its democracy and their statesmen, orators, philosophers, dramatists, poets and sculptors. A long line of philosophers, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno had all called Athens home. By all accounts, Athens had been impressive and was still an impressive center of culture, beauty and thought when Paul walked the city. But what Paul noticed the most was that the city was full of idols, as Luke writes. The word Luke uses carries the meaning of being smothered with idols. The Roman satirist, Pausanius, who wrote of visiting Athens 50 years after Paul, mocked the city and said that it was easier to meet a god or goddess on the streets of Athens than to meet a man. It is estimated, that in Paul s day, the population of Athens was likely 10,000 people and there were approximately 30,000 idols. The idols were everywhere. Now, today, you may think that we can t relate to this passage in our day, in North America, because we are far too advanced to have idols. But the reality is that if you open your eyes, if you take the time to observe our surroundings and our culture and I would suggest, our own hearts, we too are swamped in idols. We ve just gotten more sophisticated about them and we don t erect statues on our lawns to our idols. You see, an idol is anything that is placed above God in our affections. An idol is anything that occupies the place which God should occupy. An idol can be anything we look to, besides God, for fulfillment, for safety, for security, for happiness, for peace or joy or contentment. Good things can become idols to us too and if we look with open and honest eyes, we can see many examples in our own lives. If we look around, our idols may be parked in our garage or we may live in them. Food and drink, power, pleasure, sex, self-gratification, success, money, possessions, entertainment, recreation, religion, family, friends, work, status, recognition, and ideologies, like the popular ideas of tolerance and fairness can all be idols. Like Paul, if we open our eyes, we can see idols everywhere And what was Paul s reaction to these idols? He was provoked. Verse 16 tells us his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. Luke shows us this because he wants us to see that not only was Paul provoked by idolatry, Paul serves as an example for us too. The second principle we can see is that 2. We should be provoked by idol worship Luke is not correcting Paul for being provoked. Instead, Paul serves as a positive example here of how he was provoked by idol worship. Paul was provoked because he saw that God, who alone deserves worship was not being worshipped and instead, people worshipped false gods that could not fulfill, that could not satisfy and that could not meet their needs. Their idol worship was wrong and it provoked Paul. And it should provoke us as well. Paul was provoked just like God was provoked when the people of Israel created a golden calf to bow down to, while Moses was up on Mt Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and they thought he d never come down. Paul was provoked for the honor and glory of God s name. 3

4 These false idols were receiving the glory that God alone is due. Only our Creator and Redeemer has the right to be worshipped and God is right to be jealous if we give our worship to someone or something else. And if we love God s name and who God is, we should be jealous and provoked by idol worship. Adam and Eve should have worshipped and obeyed God alone and it was wrong for them to worship being like God. It is wrong when anyone worships someone or something else other than God, because it goes against who we were created to be. Paul was revolted and experienced an inward horror at the idols he saw and he was motivated to speak out against it and to try to point people to the One True God. Paul was so motivated that it says in verse 17, So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Idol worship should be spoken about. And idolatry should motivate or provoke us to speak of freedom from idols that can only be found in Jesus. That is clearly what Paul shared and that is clearly what we should share as well. We can see a third principle from Paul s example in verse 18. 3. We should share the hope of Jesus with idolaters Verse 18 says, Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, "What does this babbler wish to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities"- because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. Jesus and the resurrection were foreign ideas to them. But Paul preached the hope of Jesus, because He is the Redeemer who sets men free from being slaves of idols. Luke tells us that Paul was broad in his methodology as well. He went not only to the synagogue which the church is the most modern equivalent for us. But he also went to the marketplace where people gathered. Maybe the closest thing for us today is a city square or a shopping mall or a coffee shop or a pub or a student union building wherever people go for leisure and to talk. Paul went where the people were and he preached the message of the good news about Jesus that Jesus came to take our place, to live a sinless life that we could not live, to die in our place and take the punishment that we deserve for our sins, for disobeying our Creator and worshipping false gods and then, Jesus was resurrected, as proof that His sacrificial death was acceptable to God in our place. But this message was foreign to the Greeks. They thought Paul was a preacher of foreign divinities maybe because they thought that Paul was teaching about the God Jesus and the goddess Anastasis or the resurrection. The idea of resurrection was foreign to them. There was no Greek school of thought that believed in the resurrection of the body. It was foreign and strange to them. Luke tells us some thought Paul was like a babbler, talking about things he knew nothing about. But the message they most needed to hear was about Jesus and His resurrection because this is the only message of hope. Because Jesus died for our sins, if we trust in Him, we won t be punished for them. Because Jesus has been resurrected and is alive, we can have hope that He is able to deliver us from idolatry. This is a foreign truth to much of the world around us today it is dismissed as either a fairy tale or a naïve belief of the simple-minded, just like they dismissed Paul. But that didn t stop Paul and it should not stop us and we can see in Paul s example a fourth principle 4

5 4. We should speak about God engagingly & boldly Paul encountered Greeks of all walks of life and the philosophers of the day engaged with him as well. He spoke with the Epicureans, who believed that God was distant and everything happened by chance. They believed there was no life after death and no judgment. They emphasized that life should be all about the avoidance of pain and the enjoyment of pleasure. Paul also encountered the philosophers of the Stoics, who believed that god is in everything and that the world was governed by fate. They taught alignment with nature and living by reason and accepted pain and tried to be self-sufficient. And, Verse 19 and 20 tell us that, because of what Paul was speaking, they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and wanted him to explain to the council what he was talking about. The council of the Areopagus decided what was allowed to be taught and they governed the affairs of the city. They were the intellectual elite of the academy. There isn t a precise equivalent today but maybe the leading intelligentsia of Harvard or Yale or Oxford would be the closest thing. But Paul wasn t intimidated he trusted in the risen Jesus to enable Him and empower Him with His Spirit and Paul spoke engagingly and boldly. We can see in verses 22 and 23, that Paul found common ground with them where he could. The man who was provoked by idols used idols as a bridge to engage with them. He said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Paul redirected something that was of interest to them and he built a bridge with them. And then, Paul very gently confronted them. He wasn t angry and he wasn t abusive. He didn t call them names. But he did give them the truth gently. Paul confronted their ignorance what they worship was unknown they worshipped something ignorantly, but Paul was going to fill them in on what was unknown to them what they were ignorant about he was going to proclaim to them. You see, Paul was bold because he knew the power of the resurrected Christ. And he was engaging and gentle, because he had experienced the love and mercy of Christ personally as well. Paul engaged people in all kinds of settings too. In our day, we need to gently and lovingly engage people in all walks of life and in every setting we encounter. We need people to engage with people in the church. We need construction workers and painters, we need lawyers and doctors, we need Christian thinkers and writers, and journalists and poets and actors and producers and artists of all kinds to communicate the good news about Jesus engagingly and boldly. And when we do, we should follow Paul s example and speak of God fully, which is the fifth principle we can see from this passage. 5. We should speak about God fully In verses 24-29, Paul educates them about who God is in a very full way, even though it probably didn t take very long to do so. Luke gives us an outline of his message to the Areopagus but it has the essentials of what people who don t know God need to know about God. He explained what was unknown to them what these very learned people were ignorant about. 5

6 Paul begins with telling them in verse 24, that God is the Creator. They needed to know that God made the world and everything in it. The Epicureans believed that everything was by a chance combination of atoms. The Stoics believed that god is in everything. Both groups needed to know the truth that God is the Creator of the entire Universe and all things belong to Him and come from Him. They needed to know that God is the Lord or the ruler over heaven and earth. Things don t just happen according to chance and God isn t in everything, and everything isn t part of God, but He is actively ruling and involved in everything. He isn t distant, he is a personal Lord of everything. So, it would silly to think that God lives in temples made by man the Creator can t be confined or constrained or limited. Paul also informed them that God is also the giver and sustainer of life. Verse 25 tells us that God doesn t need us and He doesn t need anything we can give Him either. And that is good news, because God sent His Son to give, to come and deliver all of us who are in need. God didn t need us and Jesus didn t come to fulfill His needs, He came because we needed Him and Jesus came to meet our every need. After all, God Himself gives life and breath and everything as Paul says. Then, we see that God rules over all the nations. In verses 26-28 Paul says, And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, God made all of the nations from one man, Adam and God set up the times that nations should rise and fall and He ordains the boundaries of nations, so that both the history and the extent of nations are under God s control. And we can see that the purpose God does this is so that people might look for God and not rely on nations but search for something more lasting. God set things up so that the people He made in His image would want to search for Him, to grope for God as it were. To feel their way toward Him and find Him like a blind person searching a room for their guide. But the hope of finding God is thwarted by sin the rest of Scripture tells us that people are alienated from God and because of this, we search for God but on our own we are blind and unable to find God, even though He is not far from us. But our sin separates us from God and keeps us from finding Him on our own. It darkens our eyes so that we cannot see Him, sin hardens our hearts so that we cannot feel Him and sin clouds our minds, so that our thoughts of Him are foggy on our own. Then, Paul quotes one of their poets and says, for 'In him we live and move and have our being'. God is near to us and our very life and what we do is sustained by Him. And not only that, Paul again quotes another of their poets and builds another bridge with them by using their own truth to show them the ultimate truth. In verse 28-29 Paul says, For we are indeed his offspring.' 29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. Paul is using their own logic against them. He is saying that if we are God s offspring the product of His creation, then they shouldn t think that God, the divine being that they don t know is relegated to some feeble imitation something made by man. So, the logic goes, that since God made man and we are thinking individuals, then God is at least a living, thinking individual 6

7 who is greater than us, so He surely cannot be an idol of gold or silver or stone or anything else we can make up or imagine. So, it is absurd to make idols and worship anything less than God Himself. Paul explains an integrated world view to them that is full and robust and makes sense of things. People today need to hear the same kind of message from us. We need to preach the doctrines of God and creation and judgment if people are to make sense of the message of the Cross and salvation through Jesus Christ. God s glory motivates us to worship Him. But we aren t to just the leave people there. We can see lastly, that Paul calls them to a response. And this is the last main principle we will look at from our passage 6. We are called to respond In verses 30 and 31 Paul says, The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." Before, God was patient with the ignorance of the nations in their idolatry. But now that He has sent His Son Jesus, God commands all people everywhere to repent. Paul now comes full circle. He has seen the idols and the Greeks and he is grieved. Now, he calls them to repent because in Christ Jesus, God has commanded everyone to turn away from their idols, to turn from looking from anything or anyone else to satisfy or fulfill and to turn to trust in Jesus. Paul calls them, and all people everywhere are called, to turn from trusting in ourselves, to turn from living for and thus bowing down to, any idol, whether it be food or drink, power, pleasure, sex, self-gratification, success, money, possessions, entertainment, recreation, religion, family, friends, work, status, recognition, or ideologies. Everyone is called to turn from worshipping the created and worshipping even God s creatures to worship God Himself. Everyone is called to turn from lesser creations that will never satisfy to God alone, who will satisfy us truly and meet our deepest need. Paul gives further motivation to respond as well. He says that you need to repent, because God the Creator will rightly and justly judge the world one day through Jesus, the man God has appointed. And we can be sure that Jesus is the appointed judge because God proved Jesus is who He said He was through the resurrection. God commands all people everywhere to repent. Because Jesus will judge the world one day. And we can trust in Jesus because He is risen. The Athenians had acknowledged in their inscription to the unknown God, that they were ignorant. Paul filled them in and tells them about the God they need to know. Now, we are in turn called to respond and once we respond, we are to call others to worship God too. Like Paul experienced, some may not listen, some will ask questions and some will reject Him. But some will respond and worship God. May we worship God, by living for Him and speaking for Him, engaging with the world around us boldly, fully proclaiming the good news and then trusting in Him for the response. 2015 Redeeming Grace Church. This transcribed message has been lightly edited and formatted for the Website. No attempt has been made, however, to alter the basic extemporaneous delivery style, or to produce a grammatically accurate, publication-ready manuscript conforming to an established style template. 7