The Incarnation: Worshipping the Revealed Savior
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· 10 viewsThe self-sufficient, life sustaining, LORD of heaven and earth has not come to be served or assisted BUT to be received and enjoyed.
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So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
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.
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
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,
that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
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.’
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.
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.”
“How much longer are you going to wait to demand the best for yourself?” —Epictetus
“Well-being is realized by small steps but it is no small thing.” —Zeno
“Seek not the good in external things; seek it in yourselves.” —Epictetus
“Devote the rest of your life to making progress.” —Epictetus
“Man is born for deeds of kindness.” —Marcus Aurelius which can be distilled to, “When we help other people, we are helping ourselves.”
If Christianity becomes reduced down to a hodgepodge of pithy sayings, it is worthless.
If Christianity becomes another route of a “self-improvement project” it is vanity.
The self-sufficient, life sustaining, LORD of heaven and earth has not come to be served or assisted BUT to be received and enjoyed.
Paul had recently been run out of several towns before him.
Chased out of Thessalonica by the stirred up mob.
Preached in Berea to the Jewish synagogue’s and was received by the noble Jews.
But all of this led Paul to Athens.
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.
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.
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.
Paul was bothered by the idols that he saw in Athens.
This led him to debate in the Synagogue and the marketplace (something of a town square).
The Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were intrigued by Paul’s teaching and this led them to bringing him before the Areopagus.
They were intrigued because of the “newness” of the teaching.
And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”
Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
The fact that these philosophers only desired to hear something “new” should be telling of the kind of culture they lived in.
They lived in an idolatrous society where the “gods” ruled the day.
Everything that happened had a “god” behind it.
Notice how Paul begins his address with these pagans.
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
In everything, the Athenians seek to honor some deity.
Now the KJV renders this phrase, “superstitious”, but the sense that Paul gives here doesn’t work with that interpretation.
Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
In other writings the phrase can be used in a negative sense.
But here there seems to be a positive sense to the word.
He is commending their religiosity.
He is commending the fact that they know God exists.
Paul is bringing the sense that these Athenians are “very religious” BUT they don’t know God.
For all their religiosity, they are lacking a true knowledge of God.
Acts 17:23 (ESV)
For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’
Worship is generally defined as giving yourself away to another.
To whom are they giving themselves away to?
In what manner are they giving themselves away?
Identity and Idolatry: The Image of God and Its Inversion Chapter Eight: Significance and Security in a New Key
Genuine worship is giving yourself to the living God in whom and for whom you have been created.
That’s not what the Athenians were doing.
The Epicureans thought that mankind was moving toward a kind of extinction.
Believed that God was ABSENT.
Moving toward extinction.
They have also been called “pleasure seekers” because life was POINTLESS.
The Stoics thought they were going to be absorbed into the world.
Believed God was in EVERYTHING.
Moving toward being absorbed into the world.
Whatever happened to them was their “destiny”
Identity and Idolatry: The Image of God and Its Inversion Chapter Eight: Significance and Security in a New Key
Idolatry by contrast is substituting the true object of worship (God) for an imitation (idol) and reorienting the relationship from worship to possession.
The “god’s” of the Nepalese People
This man thought that if he worshipped even foreigners then by some chance he might receive a blessing.
This is the height of paganism.
By offering worship of some kind then he will be blessed by this deity.
What I’m about to say will surprise you.
But we, in America, are really no different than this man who was trying to worship foreigners.
Certainly it looks different but the heart of idolatry is the same.
This man thought he would be blessed if he just “did the right things.”
He thought that God would have favor on him if he just performed the right ceremony.
We do the exact same thing,
“If I just do the right thing, then I’ll be blessed.”
“If I just toss enough money in the plate, then I’ll be blessed”
“If I just perform the right kind of worship in the right kind of church then I’ll be blessed”
But this is the heart of paganism NOT Christianity.
Many in our society even under the name Christian have been sold a false bill of goods.
Many in our society have been told that if we just do the right things in the right ways then God will bless us.
If we pray the right prayer in the right way then we will make it.
Do you hear how similar this line of thinking is to this Nepali man?
This is exactly what Paul is showing these Athenians.
Cultural Christianity is an attempt to possess God for our own purposes.
Identity and Idolatry: The Image of God and Its Inversion Chapter Eight: Significance and Security in a New Key
One who worships the living God does not possess him for one’s own purposes. But those who create an idol seek to possess it for their own purpose.
It is trying to grab hold of God not because He is great and glorious.
It is trying to grab hold of God for him to meet some “need” within us.
It is trying to use Jesus for our purposes rather than for His glory.
Paul saw the vast forms of idolatry that the people practiced and it grieved him.
He saw the vast attempts to satisfy the addiction of the “domestication of God by the human heart” (Lints, 119).
That’s why he points out here that they are so “religious” or “devout” that they even have a statue “to the unknown god.”
They have hundreds of thousands of statues to every kind of deity.
The Warning
The Warning
“The Living God is NOT…”
Acts 17:23 (ESV)
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
The Living God is NOT Unknown
The Living God is NOT Unknown
“Agnosticism”
They worshipped all of the deities.
Deities for the rain,
for the harvest,
for fertility,
for the sun,
for even the unknown god.
The word for “unknown” here is where we get the word “agnostic” today.
Agnosticism is the admission that there might be a God but we can’t really know Him.
But Paul picks up on the unknowable nature of these Athenians deities.
What you think is unknown is actually KNOWN.
Think about the arrogance of that claim.
All of these gods that you serve are actually nothing.
They are nothing and God has made Himself known to us.
Listen to the “good news” that Paul will proclaim to these Athenians.
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
The Living God is NOT Living in temples.
The Living God is NOT Living in temples.
The Living God is NOT constrained by human hands.
He is NOT bound by a specific location.
Every temple has its origins in mankind.
Paul’s point here is that God does not dwell in manmade houses.
“The ONE True God does not live in the kind of temples that you all think.”
People who would’ve been dirt poor.
They would offer sacrifices of food.
They would offer their own children.
But Paul’s point here is that the god of heaven and earth does not live in the kind of temples made by human hands.
The God of scripture is the God who has made everything in it.
The God of the Bible is the God who is THERE.
He had no beginning.
He has no end.
Everything that you see and touch is made by Him.
For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
God is not like the deities that these Athenians worship.
He does not need to be upheld as though he needed anything.
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
The Living God is NOT Served by human hands.
The Living God is NOT Served by human hands.
You may wonder, “Why are we even talking about this in this way? Of course I know that God exists and made everything?”
But the problem is that we subtly begin to think somehow that we come here today as though God needed something from us.
We speak of serving him, as though he were really needy.
We speak of serving him, as though he desperately is pining for our attention.
This view of God is very similar to that of the Athenians.
They believed that God needed their attention.
He was desperately pining after their attention.
But Paul presents a vision of God far different than this.
God is NOT served by human hands.
God does NOT have needs from us.
God has NO needs.
The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint.
The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house.
He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.
Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.
Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!”
And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
Notice the reason Paul gives for this, God “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
There is literally nothing you have ever had that you have on your own.
Nothing.
Everything you have ever had has been given to you.
It has been given to you as a gift.
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,
that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
The Living God is NOT Sought and found by humanity.
The Living God is NOT Sought and found by humanity.
Paul references Adam who was made and formed in the garden of Eden.
God made through one man all humankind.
Not only did He create humanity, but he also determined where they would dwell.
Human’s don’t think like this do we?
We have a posture that views humanity as autonomous.
We have a posture that thinks we are self-governed.
God has allotted the area that every nation will dwell on earth.
God has allotted even the boundaries of our dwelling.
Don’t miss the purpose of this....
Acts 17:27 (ESV)
that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.
Walking around in the Dark
Picture a bunch of people in the dark.
Feeling around to find their way around the room.
That is the picture that Paul is painting here.
Without the GOD who is there, you will feel around but cannot find him.
This is so different from many people’s understanding of God.
Which they describe as a blind man feeling an elephant which we all have a piece.
This is so contrary because everyone is blind in Paul’s example.
Nobody has sight unless they grasp the God who has made Himself known.
This mood typically expresses a wish without the possibility of it happening.
It’s not as though they will find God but the emphasis is on the fact that they will never find Him on their own.
The God, WHO IS THERE, has indeed made Himself known.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
The fact that people know God exists is what makes us all worship the creation.
Idolatry is the twisting of the worship of God.
Acts 17:27–28 (ESV)
Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
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.’
The God of the Bible is not like the gods that these Athenians worshipped.
He is not a god who desires to be served as though he needed anything.
Every religion other than Christianity at its foundation is about a “god” who needs something from us.
Whether it is right worship, penance, or some other thing.
The self-sufficient, life sustaining, LORD of heaven and earth has not come to be served or assisted BUT to be received and enjoyed.
But the God of the Bible is the One who indeed is the Lord of glory.
The Hope
The Hope
“The Living God IS…”
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
The Living God IS the Creator of All Things.
The Living God IS the Creator of All Things.
Two things are being highlighted here for comparison, the first is the “this ONE” nature of God who is the God who is THERE.
He does not have an origin.
He does not have a beginning.
Everything finds its origins from Him, not the other way around.
nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
The Living God IS Giver of Life and Breath.
The Living God IS Giver of Life and Breath.
“[I]f you want what Jesus has to give, you can’t buy it. You can’t trade for it. You can’t work for it. He already owns your money and everything you have. And when you work, it is only because he has given you life and breath and everything.” — John Piper
The Dawning of Indestructible Joy, 62
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.”
The Living God IS Your creator and Judge.
The Living God IS Your creator and Judge.
But Paul says here that mankind is actually moving toward judgment.
After setting the framework of the God who is there, the God of all providence.
He concludes that judgment is coming on all those who are not righteous.
whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
The word for “overlooked” means to “to disregard as not worthy of one’s notice” (BDAG).
This means that God passed over as Romans 3:25 says or He judged the former things by looking over them which was both an act of mercy and judgement.
God looked over them and yet now has appointed a day by which He will judge all people everywhere.
There is coming a day of reckoning.
God will judge all sins which is what he goes on to say...
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.”
The ground of “all people everywhere to repent” is the fact that judgement is coming.
Judgment on all the inhabited world is coming and the standard of that judgement as well as the person who will judge the world is the Lord Jesus.
Jesus is both the standard for the judgment and the One who will execute His judgment.
It’s important to remember how Paul even got to the point of preaching at the Areopagus, Acts 17:18
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.
Paul was not preaching some other form of the gospel.
He was bringing the cold law and hot gospel.
The difference we see here in talking to the pagans is in regard to the cold law.
When Paul would reason with the Jews, they had a common law to start from.
But for the pagan, Paul has to build a defense of the law upon their hearts.
The LORD is the One who sits enthroned and the One who brings forth judgment.
The Living God IS Seeking you.
The Living God IS Seeking you.
We don’t come to God because He needs something from us.
"Every other god except the living God is a taker, and they consume us, but the God of the Bible is a giver." — Rod Mays
We come to God because He is the fountain head of every joy.
We come to God because He is the fountain head of life abundant.
“All we can do is submit to his spectacular offer to be our servant. And this submission is called faith—a willingness to let him be God. Trust him to be the Supplier, the Strengthener, the Counselor, the Guide, the Savior. And being satisfied with that—with all that God is for us in Jesus. That’s what faith is. And having that is what it means to be a Christian.” — John Piper
The Dawning of Indestructible Joy, 62
God will one day judge all things by the Lord Jesus who will also stand as the standard of righteousness.
This means that the only way we can stand before this judgment seat is with the righteousness of another.
This means that the righteousness of Christ must be given to us for us to be able to stand at the judgment.
Your Response Matters
Your Response Matters
The Response
The Response
Responding to the Living God
This example of the gospel being preached to pagans is a good example of the way the gospel always goes out.
It goes out and some people respond positively while others negatively.
Acts 17:32 (ESV)
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.
You can mock the truth.
You can mock the truth.
Acts 17:32 (ESV)
But others said, “We will hear you again about this.”
You can kindly dismiss the truth.
You can kindly dismiss the truth.
So Paul went out from their midst.
But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
You can receive and enjoy the truth.
You can receive and enjoy the truth.
For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
The self-sufficient, life sustaining, LORD of heaven and earth has not come to be served or assisted BUT to be received and enjoyed.