Good morning church. I will apologize in advance for my voice So you're gonna have to listen closely today Because I don't have a lot of volume. I have a lot of base though, so a lot of foundation Let us pray Father in heaven, thank you for this day Thank you for this day that you call us to worship you This day we celebrate you the stay we worship you and commune with you The stay that you consecrate us Prepare us to ascend to your throne as living sacrifices Father would you buy your Holy Spirit Indwelling your people take this word that we will break open today and Father would you Transform us Would you renew our minds Father would you make us a people more closely conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do this for your glory Lord and the glory of your church We ask it in Jesus name a man All right, wow that's loud Our text today is Acts chapter 17 Verses 22 through 34 Hear the word of the Lord Then Paul stood in the midst of the area of August And said many of Athens I perceive that in all things you are very religious For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship I even found an altar with the inscription to the unknown God Therefore the one whom you worship without knowing him I proclaim to you God who made the world and everything in it since he is Lord of heaven and earth Does not dwell in temples made with hands? nor is he worshipped With men's hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all life breath and all things and He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth And has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings So that they should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grow for him and find him Though he is not far from each one of us For in him we live and move and have our being As also some of your own poets have said for we are also his offspring Therefore since we are the offspring of God We ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone something shaped by art and man's devising Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked But now commands all men everywhere to repent Because he has appointed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained And he has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead some mocked While others said we will hear you again on this matter so Paul departed from among them however some men joined him and believed among them diosinous and an ericabat eric I'm sorry an aerial pagite An area pagite and a woman named de meris and others with them This is the word of the Lord Our text begins with Paul standing in the midst of the area pagus which was a physical location In the city of Athens as well as the name of the Athenian council or court And this place was also called Mars Hill you may have heard Of Paul's famous sermon on Mars Hill that's what this text is concerning named for the Roman God of war Mars and that same God for the Greeks was called aries And this is the time in the place of Paul preaching his famous sermon on Mars Hill are the area pagus and one of his most famous gospel presentations In fact the church of Athens was birthed as a result of the sermon The idols of the Greeks In verse 22 Paul stood in the midst of the area pagus and said men of Athens I perceive that in all things you are very religious That word translated religious also means superstitious Religion being religious and being superstitious is not the same thing, but it's the same word used to describe someone who is very religious And or very superstitious Paul had walked through the city of Athens and with his own eyes He saw that the city was as lucrides given over to idols Paul witnessed a level of idolatry That had provoked his spirit within him And Paul is very astute. He's very clever in the way he opened his speech before this council describing the men of Athens as being in all things very religious He is not directly insulting them yet He is not complementing them He's making his point telling them the truth in a way That to them would sound complimentary yet he's not being complimentary By calling them very religious he is identifying them as both very superstitious and very idolatrous The Greeks were proud of their religion Therefore they were proud of their idolatry though they would not look at it or call it that Like all men they needed to see their sin, but this But first they would need to see the true God and the true creator of all and Paul would show them idolatry in the ancient world was not unusual at all in every city that Paul traveled to he would have encountered idols and idolatrous images Athens was different in terms of the level of idolatry Athens was a center of learning it was a center of art and culture and It had been for many centuries and over those centuries they had accumulated much Many temples many statues many works of art that were really idolatrous and so Paul Encounter this level of idolatry we have an idea of what this was like from historical descriptions written about the city That we still have today one Greek traveler and geographer by the name of Poseneus Wrote within a century after Paul was in the city of Athens and he describes Countless statues and temples dedicated to the gods commemorating all manner of things These idols filled Athens there were even numerous altars named for such deities as mercy health peace wealth shame rumor energy love and even love avenged So if you fell in love and someone jilted you you could go to the altar of love avenged and Pray to a god to avenge your love lost Those are just a few Poseneus filled pages of descriptions and history related to these and other sites and Athens Therefore we have a very detailed description of the city of Athens in Paul's day And it confirms the biblical record That it was a city fully given over to idols verse 23 The charge that had been made against Paul was that he was proclaiming to them foreign gods and Paul wisely begins his response to the council by informing them That he is not in fact proclaiming to them a strange god or a foreign god But he is proclaiming to them the god they already worship without knowing He informs them that One of their own altars that he found in the city has this inscription to the unknown god This is the god that Paul will proclaim to these very religious Greeks Not a foreign god, but their own unknown god And Paul is very shrewd in his response here. He's not introducing a new god But a god that they already worship they just don't know it. They don't know his name. They don't know his identity This unknown god was the one Paul knew he must proclaim to them and though he has yet unknown to them Paul intends to make known this god And Paul begins by introducing them to the god of creation verse 24 God who made the world and everything in it since he is the lord of heaven and earth does not dwell in temples made with hands We talked a little bit about this last week when we looked at the epicurean and stoic philosophers Athens was full of temples to various gods and Paul informs them it is this unknown god Who made the cosmos and everything in it So the word world there in your english bible is the Greek word for cosmos We might think of the universe Which would include our world our earth These Greeks were materialists believing That the accidental cosmos along with everything in it Consistent of atomic matter made up of atoms and matter They weren't necessarily wrong about that But this would also include the gods they worshiped They believed even the gods were in some way part of the matter of the universe For the stoics remember they were pantheistic For the stoics the universe was god and god was the universe Many today by the way whole to similar beliefs and philosophies But here in our text Paul is coming to these Greeks in their materialistic worldview And declaring to them the god who is the creator He is the one who made all matter He made the cosmos and everything in it And this was a different approach from the one Paul would use when he would go into the synagogue to talk to the Jews Because the Jews already believed in the creator. They knew that everything came from god But the Greeks were different They did not have the same worldview even as the Jews did And so the god Paul is declaring is not a product of matter But the creator of matter he is lord of heaven and lord of earth and all things in them And he does not dwell in temples made with hands like the Greek stop These gods did God who is creator and lord of all transcends Anything made by human hands God is infinitely great yet not so great that he would not put on humanity And dwell among us in a temple a flesh that he created Thus the words of the prophet Isaiah And Isaiah 66 one thus says the lord heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool Where is the house You will build for me and where is the place of my rest The temple god chooses to dwell in is not made by the hands of man But is formed and raised up by the hand of god in divine power The Bible teaches that now in Christ as his body We are You are I am the temple of the Holy Ghost And Christ himself is the temple that god raised up without human hands Famous passage in John Chapter two where Jesus said tear down this temple and in three days I will rebuild it and they said man You're crazy it took 46 years to build this temple And John gives us the commentary and says they did not understand that Jesus spoke spiritually concerning his own body If you're waiting for a third temple to be raised up you're going to be waiting a long time Because it's already been raised up it is the lord Jesus Christ and you are part of that temple as you are now called the temple of the Holy Spirit You are living stones being built into a holy habitation in the Lord By the power of the Holy Spirit. This was a concept foreign to the Greeks The god Paul was introducing these Greeks to was far greater and more transcendent than any deity They could imagine in their mythologically biased minds He is the god who transcends all Need verse 25 nor is he worshipped with men's hands As though he needed anything since he gives to all life Breath and all things God does not dwell in temples made with hands nor is he worshipped with man's hands as though he needed anything Since he gives to all life and breath and all things Our worship of God does not provide anything for him As though he needed anything He does not need us Or anything from us We need him God is in all We on the other hand are completely dependent upon him And this is true whether men believe it or not This is not a world that happened by accident This is the world Created by God for his own plan and his own purpose It was in no way created out of Need In any way shape or form For there is no need there is no lack in God His creation of the world And all that is in it including man was a complete expression Of his freely given love And grace you and I are here today because of God's love And because of his grace God did not need us God was not lonely There was nothing that God needed He chose to love he chose to extend grace And he chose to create this cosmos And he chose to put you and I in it Along with every other human being who ever has or ever will live The Greek gods on the other hand were often portrayed as needy Using their powers to manipulate or turn against men or one another Whatever the case may be they are portrayed as mischievous Narcissistic insecure paranoid and often seeking man's affirmation Worship of these mythological gods was a requirement that they themselves placed on man To fulfill their own needs and desires and this is far different from The god of creation I happen to believe that these Gods of Greek and Roman mythology actually were demonic entities that morphed into these mythologies Now this is not at all the nature and character of the triune god He is completely self-sufficient And self-fulfilled in his triune relationship of love between father, son and holy spirit There is such a contrast between all the other gods Men worship and the god of scripture that it is ridiculous to even compare them For there is no comparison Yahweh transcends all comparison Thus Paul assures them that god did not create the cosmos out of need God created all things out of love In his love and grace God does not demand our worship But god calls us to worship him Our worship of god is from the love he himself poured into our hearts by his own holy spirit And the very nature of god commands our worship for he alone is worthy And this is why we worship him he is worthy of our worship Paul makes the statement concerning Yahweh. He gives to all life Breath and all things to the Greeks Zeus was the source of life Paul is proclaiming to them that Yahweh not Zeus Is the source of life and breath and all things Paul is not presenting a new god remember But an ancient god in fact Daniel calls him the ancient of days The eternal god who is creator and source of all From before the foundations of the world Paul understands his first task is pointing these materialistic Greeks To the one true god who is the creator of all things even the cosmos itself And this god does not need worship His nature and his character and his essence inherently commands our worship You know that is why one day all shall bow down and worship before him Once Paul introduces them to the creator of the world He will proceed to introduce them to the savior of the world For as the psalmist wrote in psalm 66 4 all the earth shall worship you and sing praises to you And they shall sing praises to your name He is the god of every nation Then verse 26 Luke writes and he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth And has determined their pre-appointed times in the boundaries of their dwelling This is Paul's declaration to the council there in Athens And Paul is directing their attention unto the sovereign providence of the creator who is intimately involved in his creation God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth the source of the one blood was the first man Adam Every nation and all men that dwell on the face of the earth have a common blood and a common ancestry The fundamental truth of humanity is not our distinctions But our Commonality we like to point out distinctions. We like to highlight distinctions But the reality is we have much more in common than we have different Even more so in Christ where all are one in him and god is not abolishing Distinctions among men he is affirming that all men are his The The movements we see today that are bringing division highlighting distinctions dividing men dividing people groups dividing nations is demonic it is not of god There are Christians there are men of god who promote this wickedness And yet it is god who made one humanity one blood one race the human race That we can trace all the way back to our ancestor Adam even the human genome project New this was true That we all came from a common ancestor Science knows this So why of all people our Christians dividing The body instead of unining the body why are we focused on distinctions Instead of looking at our commonality and understanding that we all belong to him The fundamental truth is our commonality even more so in Christ and god Has determined the pre-appointed times in boundaries of the nations in their dwellings In other words, it is not accidental or by chance or fate the Greeks believed a lot in the fates They believed in chance or the fates would determine what's going to happen to you these mischievous deities who would just On a whim decide they were going to do this to you or that to you and whatever happened to you They would they would say it it was fate we use that today But we don't understand for the Greeks they actually were talking about Deity who was causing all of these things Well Paul is pointing these very religious Greeks to the sovereign providence of the creator Intimately involved in his creation Who pre-appointed times and boundaries for the nations and their dwellings in other words it's not accidental or by chance It's not fate And men did not spring up from the earth. That's what the Athenians believed this is Where they believe they came from they literally believed that they sprung up from the earth Now what I When I read that I'm thinking why would they believe that Well, I think they would believe that because they had the remnants of the creation story were God formed Man from the dust of the earth They just had corrupted it and perverted it and turned it into their Their false worship of false gods and in their idols, but they believed that they had sprung up from the earth Paul would have known this so he's telling them where they truly came from They didn't spring up from the earth they were created by God who created the earth And placed them on this earth at this time This was God's predetermined plan and purpose For this people this is what Paul is declaring to them These Athenians of all men were created by God for their pre-appointed place and time All men have been created by God pre-appointed For their place and their time He also set the pre-appointed boundaries of their dwellings not the fates not chance, but the sovereign God of creation That Truth is to give us great comfort knowing that God is firmly in control of all things including the choices that he allows You and I to make in in his grace Paul in bringing them the truth of the creator and ultimately the gospel was bringing them the good news of hope Our lives are often filled with uncertainty, but there is nothing uncertain about the love of the God Who commands our destiny? We have the assurance of hope in the assurance of his never failing love for us And he proved that love by sending his only begotten son and that son willingly gave up his life for you and for me The salvation of the nations Listen again to verses 26 and 27 and he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and boundaries of their dwellings verse 27 so that They should seek the Lord in the hope that they might grow for him and find him Though he is not far from each one of us What this purpose of this divine what is the purpose of this divine providence will Paul tells us here It is that men should seek the Lord in the hope that they might find him God ordains time and place for all humanity Not as an end or goal in and of itself But that men might seek God God ordains time and location to provide an opportunity to seek and to find him This providence is the kindness and grace of God who utilizes his pre-determined plan and purpose for the salvation of man I think about where I came to faith in Christ And how I came to be in that place at that time I could never have planned that I could never in my wildest imagination looked and thought oh here's what I'm gonna do and here here's how this is gonna work out No, it was God's pre-determined plan In God's pre-determined time and he didn't tell me what he was gonna do he just did it And one day one night I find myself in a certain place and I find myself surrendering to Jesus This is exactly what Paul is saying here to these Affinians who believe the cosmos happened by accident He's like there's nothing accidental about the cosmos. You're not here by accident You're not in this location by accident. It's not this time by accident. It is the pre-determined Council of God Therefore God pre-determining the times and boundaries of humanity was a kindness to mankind Their existence is for the purpose of finding God and this is the grace of God for without God working on man's behalf mankind would never even search for God much less Find him the description of this search for God by man in verse 27 Communicates that we cannot on our own search for him or find him the description is that of a blind man Groping or a person in darkness bumbling to find what he's searching for and even in our searching for God It is a work of his grace the Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans in chapter three verses 10 through 11 As it is written there is none righteous no not one there is none who understands there is none who seek after God allow me to say that again there is none who seek after God we seek after God only as God gives us The will and the ability to do so and Without God's intervention No one seeks after God and when we search for God it is only by his grace that we find him Therefore we seek and we find God because he chooses for us to find him He put us in the right place and the right time To seek him and to find him He has done that for each and every one of us For those he chosen him before the foundation of the world they will seek after God and they will find him For he has ordained it so and he has put you in the right place at the right time for such a time is this that Is a comfort to know There is good news that God gives us concerning our search for him the grace of God shown Sin verse 27 is that we might grow for him and Find him where he is not far from each one of us Isaiah 556 the prophet right seek the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near and the good news is God may be found and God is near This was good news for the men of Athens hearing Paul's words. It is good news for us and for all men Out of love God created and predetermined even the times and the boundaries of nations To the end that they might seek him and find him Nothing in your life is an accident All is the result of God's divine and loving plan and purpose and one day When the last enemy is put underfoot you will have eyes to see the fullness of truth in all things In that day you will see all things sad Become untrue Verse 28 for in him we live and move and have our being as also some of your own poets have said But we are also his offspring That is a profound statement that Paul makes here Paul is assuring the Athenians that God is near Even telling them that our very living and moving and being cannot be accomplished apart from him Empowering our every action Without God you would not even be able to take a breath You might think you could but you could There would be no breath to take there would be nothing of this earth That would sustain life apart from God. God has created it all God has placed it all here and just the right order That we live in a place where life is sustained because of God and he sustains it Colossians says Christ holds all things Together and if Christ wasn't holding all things together We wouldn't be alive It's not the dead lifeless idols animating them it is the God of creation who has given them The breath of life. This is what Paul is declaring To these pagans These idol worshipers Not only is this God not foreign. He is so near to all he animates our very life God at creation breathed his breath of life in the man making him a living being and God is still present Still breathing life in the man everywhere where he is eternally Omnipresent and omniscient Paul quotes the Greek poets who make similar statements and uses their own literature to communicate a deeper truth to these Athenians Verse 29 the creator and his offspring Therefore since we are the offspring of God Paul declares we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone Something shaped by art and man's devising Paul draws his conclusion here based on two important points That he has made in his argument before this council The first is God is the creator The creator of all things and the second is we are his offspring God is the creator and we are his offspring Since human beings are the offspring of God being made in his image We ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone We also should not think the divine nature may be shaped by art or man's devising God transcends anything that man may build or supply or devise in an attempt to contain the divine nature God does not dwell in temples made with hands God is not served by human hands and human objects cannot contain the divine nature Our God cannot be contained in gold or silver or stone formed by the hands of man Man has always fashioned such images in an effort to idolize and worship the divine nature And man does this in his willful and rebellious ignorance and Paul now proclaims that those times of ignorance are over Verse 30 truly these times of ignorance God overlooked but now commands all men everywhere To repent Some translations use the metaphor of God winking at such ignorance It in no way implies that God approved or God was in different concerning such sinful ignorance It does reveal to us though the grace of God You do realize what we deserve from God is his wrath it we deserve destruction But God does not give us what we deserve He gives us grace instead And God overlooking This ignorance is the manifestation of God's grace in his grace he overlooked those times of ignorance Remember he predetermines the times Well, there are various reasons we can discuss as to why God overlooked those times But what is important is that he did then but will no longer now overlook it In his predetermined time God sent forth his son and now it is time to repent for such ignorance as the truth And the good news of Christ goes forth God now commands all men everywhere to repent It means exactly what it says all men everywhere are to repent including all of us men and women in this building today That certainly includes each of us Our willingness and our ability to repent is also the grace of God if God did not extend his grace to you You would have no desire to even repent The man whom he has ordained In verse 32 In verse 31 and 32 Paul talks about the man whom God has ordained that man is Jesus Christ God has appointed the day on which he will judge the world in righteousness Paul tells these Greeks and he will carry out that judgment by the man Jesus Christ That day is yet to come He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead That too should be a comfort for us The judgment of God should be a comfort for us The Bible also teaches that it is appointed on demand to die once and then the judgment We will all stand before the Lord one day Those in Christ will not be judged for their sin as Christ has taken our sin and our judgment for sin We may not meet Jesus in the air on his way to the earth But we will all meet death sooner or later and then the judgment Judgment day in other words will come for all of us In one way or the other For those who reject Christ or reject the resurrection those things can become a point of mocking as it did in Paul's day The Council declaring the man when he declared the man whom the father ordained to judge the world And upon hearing of the resurrection of the dead Luke writes some mocked While others said we will hear you again on this matter So Paul departed from among them he departed from the areaapagus However Verse 34 Luke writes some men joined him and believed among them Dionysius the era Arip a guide Arip a guide I have a trouble with that word In a woman named Demaris and others with them Dionysius was More than likely one of the judges In the areaapagus Thus the church in Athens is birthed and Paul's labors were fruitful God had led Paul there for such a time as this Just as God has has led you here For such a time as this And God has placed you on this earth at this time In this place for such a time as this You are where you are by God's predetermined plan and purpose Therefore lean into that reality and thank God and seek his face and ask That he reveal and supply what you need daily To walk in his way For his glory and the glory of his church And the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Let us prepare to come to the Lord's table Here is your charge church Paul's conclusion in his sermon before the areaapagus was God is the creator and we are his offspring God does not dwell in the temple's Men fashion for him. He does not need man's service his nature cannot be captured or contained In any creation of man Yahweh transcend transcends all You are his offspring created in his image and your identity is tied to your maker And that is why your life matters It is not what you do it is what God has done You are not you are not ultimately defined by your works or your service for God It is your identity that ultimately defines who you are and if you belong to Jesus you have a whole New identity You are called in fact a new creation the oldest past the way be hold all things are made new and by his grace That is now your identity It is your identity as the offspring of God but more specifically as a new creation in Christ That will ultimately determine everything else God does not need your worship but he calls you to worship him and he deserves your worship Your identity will determine your worship God does not need your service yet he calls you and gifts you to serve him Through good works which he prepared beforehand that you might walk in them Your identity will determine your service to God You cannot fashion with human hands gold silver or stone And capture the divine nature rather God has formed in fashion to you In flesh and blood and spirit with his unseen hand and he has placed you where and when he ordained you to be And he has made you his temple in partaker of his divine nature in Jesus Christ That is your identity And what a glorious truth that is May it set you free to express fully the manifest life of his spirit in you and for his glory And our men