Series — Paul’s Second Missionary Journey — Sermon — Let me tell you about my Jesus!

Introduction

Good morning Church! I’d like to thank each of you who have come out to join us today for Homecoming!

I’d also like to say to all those who may be watching online, welcome and thank you for joining us on this special day as well!

Today, we celebrate 86 years as a body of believers here at New Home Missionary Baptist Church!

86 Years!!!

That’s a long time, amen!

Over the past 86 years, this little Church has seen many souls come through those back doors.

Lives have been changed, spirits have been lifted and strengthened, relationships have been formed and restored, and the gospel has been preached to countless scores of people all due to the faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of those dedicated men and women who have come before us.

This morning, as we kick off our 86th Homecoming Celebration, my prayer is two-fold.

I pray that each and every member who makes up this body of believers here today will realize the sacrifice of those who have come before and that we will dedicate our lives to the Kingdom work that God has for us and this generation and that we will press on toward the prize of the high calling of God!

I pray that we will continue what was started here at a little brush arbor meeting some 86 years ago and that this Church and the gospel that it stands on will continue on for ages to come until Jesus returns!

And Number two, I pray that if you have come through those back doors today and you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, my prayer is that something in this service will speak to your heart; that the Holy Spirit will call on you today; and that your life, like so many who have come before you, will be changed for eternity here today!

And lastly, we want you to know that this altar is always open, whether it’s in the middle of singing or the middle of preaching, and if you feel the Holy Spirit speaking to you and you need to come up and talk with God, you just come right ahead! That’s what it’s here for! For you to get one on one with God and get things worked out whatever it is your dealing with.

Once again, we want to thank you for joining us on this special day and at this time I’ll turn the service over to Douglas & Johnathon and Angie and we’ll get into our Worship service.

Setting the Scene

Alright, once again it’s good to see each of you who have come out this morning and today, we will be continuing on in our study of the Book of Acts.

I debated on whether we should continue on here or if God had something else in store that he wanted us to look at but the more I read this scripture, the more it just settled on my heart that this is the perfect message for our Homecoming Celebration and that there is something here for everyone!

So, if you have your Bible’s with you, we will be looking this morning at Acts Chapter 17 and we will be finishing out the Chapter by looking at Verses 16-34.

If you have your copy of God’s Word turned to Acts 17 would you say, Amen.

Alright, before we get into the message this morning, let’s go the Lord in a word of prayer.

Pray

Before we get into the scripture, who can tell me where we left Paul at last week?

Athens, right?

Alright, before we get too deep here, I want to take just a few brief moments and set the scene for you here with the aid of an intro into Athens by John Phillips.

John Phillips — In Athens Paul felt the vast loneliness of the city press upon him. This was the university city of the ancient world, filled with all the cynicism and snobbery of such a city. It was a diadem studded with magnificent sculptures and works of art. The Acropolis, with its magnificent square of deified heroes, looked down upon the intellectual capital of mankind. Everywhere there were objects that expressed the Athenian love of beauty and the hopeless quest of Greece after God. West of the Acropolis and rising above the busy marketplace of the Agora was Mars Hill, where sat the judicial body of the Areopagus.

Art, literature, oratory, and religion were the stuff of which Athens was made. This was the native home of Socrates and Plato, the adopted home of Aristotle, Epicurus, and Zeno. Here was the cradle of democracy. Out of respect for her illustrious past, the Romans left Athens alone, a free city, at liberty as an ally of Rome to pursue her own goals.

Athens was a city that rated, along with Jerusalem and Rome, as one of the principal cities of mankind.

It illustrates to what great heights of achievement man can ascend and still be ignorant of God. Athens illustrates what knowledge amounts to apart from divine revelation. Athens gave civilized man his working vocabulary in every field of knowledge.

The age of Pericles had seen the Greek way of life come to full flower. The names that adorned the fifth century B.C. included Herodotus, Euripedes, Socrates, and Plato. Soon afterwards came Aristotle and Demosthenes.

Thereafter, Athens became the school of Greece and Greece the school of the world. Three centuries before the golden age of Pericles, Homer had shone upon the world of Greece. According to Herodotus, it was Homer and Hesiod, his successor, who gave the Greeks the Parthenon and peopled Mount Olympus with the gods.

When Paul came to Athens, his eyes fell at once on the Parthenon, built 447–432 B.C. and considered to this day one of the greatest masterpieces of architecture, probably the most perfect building ever conceived and built by man.

Athens was famous for mathematics. It was the Athenians who laid down its principles, terminology, and methods. Pythagoras and Aristarchus set astronomy on its course; Archimedes invented the science of hydrostatics.

Philosophy was virtually a Greek invention, with Plato and Aristotle dominating Western thought since Europe became civilized. Aristotle was famed for his philosophy and logic, his physics, biology, ethics, and political science.

The Greeks also pioneered the way in political science. Liberty, law, democracy, and parliament, all originated with Greece. The Greeks gave the world not only a love of knowledge and a love of beauty, but a love of freedom.

But for all that, Greek civilization was spiritually bankrupt. They populated Mount Olympus with gods made in the image and likeness of men. They projected the lines of human personality into infinity, and, because the lines they projected were those of fallen man, they created a pantheon of fallen gods.

The savagery and immorality of their gods was fabled, and their theology was a mass of contradictory fables. They had no knowledge of salvation, no divine inspiration. If a Greek wanted to get drunk he turned to Dionysius; if he wanted to indulge his lust he had Aphrodite; Hermes helped him if he decided to steal. Zeus, who headed the Greek pantheon, was savage and lustful.

The Greeks had no church, no creed, no systematic theology. Since their gods had no morals, how then could their worshipers? Neither purity, humanity, nor mercy found a patron among the gods. Greek philosophy found out many truths but never found the truth.

Eight hundred years of Greek mythology and five hundred years of Greek philosophy came and went. God gave human wisdom ample time to demonstrate what it could do. After the Greek world demonstrated its moral and spiritual bankruptcy and showed that human knowledge and intellectualism was not only incapable of finding God but was actually wandering further and further from God, Christ came.

All that came home to Paul as he wandered the streets of Athens, looking at the sights, inspecting the inscriptions on the countless idols, watching the ebb and flow of the human tides that thronged the thoroughfares, the market places, and the temples of this famous city.

Paul looked out from the vantage point of Calvary. He knew the Graeco-Roman-Judean world, knew its literature, its culture, its moral bankruptcy. Athens taught him afresh and more vividly that man without Christ was lost.

Men of brilliance and genius had held the world’s stage. At Athens Paul could clearly see that human wisdom was foolishness. Philosophy had no answers, religion was a mockery, law could not change the human heart. Slowly but surely, then as now, the world was sinking into sensuality, and behind the scenes the old serpent, the great enemy of the race, mocked. Whereas others might be intimidated and crushed by it all, Paul was stirred to anger.

Now, I know that was a lot but I felt the need to share that with you so that you might grasp a greater understanding of just what Paul was dealing with here in Athens.

The brightest city possibly in all the world when it came to knowledge yet submerged in the darkness of human intellectualism without a knowledge of God!

What a sad sight Paul must have saw. The souls of men, women, boys and girls wondering aimlessly day in and day out looking for answers that they would never find without being introduced to one, true God!

Paul would later write to his son in the faith, young Timothy, in 2 Timothy 3:7...

In the last days they will be...

2 Timothy 3:7 KJV 1900

7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Now that we’ve set the scene for the story before us today, let’s begin here in Verse 16 by looking at...

The Stirring of Paul’s Spirit — (Vs. 16)

The Bible says here that as Paul waited for Timothy and Silas to join him, his spirit was stirred in him.

The Greek word for stirred used here is (paroxynō) and it’s actually better translated “provoked”. When you look up this word it’s most often used in the Old Testament when speaking of provoking God to anger.

It literally means to be upset, to be angered, irritated or distressed!

If I had to guess, I’d say Paul was all of these things!

Day after day as he walked up and down the streets of the city and he seen one false god after another and these massive man made structures to honor their false gods, the Spirit of God began to move in Paul and he was angered!

William Barclay — It was a city of many gods. It was said that there were more statues of the gods in Athens than in all the rest of Greece put together, and that in Athens it was easier to meet a god than another person.

Paul’s spirit stirred within him “when” he seen the city wholly given to idolatry!

It was too much for Paul to bear! He couldn’t wait any longer!

Have any of you ever been in a situation where you’re watching someone do something and they are doing it wrong and you’re just like, “please let me fix this the right way” or “here let me have it and fix it” or “listen to me, I promise you I know what I’m doing!”

This was Paul’s thought process right here.

What he was seeing and experiencing was driving him mad and he couldn’t take it any longer!

A righteous anger burned inside of him like Jeremiah when he tried to go without talking about God…

Jeremiah 20:9 KJV 1900

9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, Nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, And I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

This was Paul to a “T”!

He was trying to wait on Timothy and Silas but his patience was wearing thin!

All Paul seen was lost souls wondering aimlessly searching for a god they did not know and something had to be done!

Paul said to himself, “Who else better to tell them about the one, true, living God than me, right? If I don’t do it who will?”

And so he gets to work which leads us to our next point...

Paul’s Plan of Penetration — (Vs. 17)

There’s two things I want to point out here about Paul’s methodical plan to penetrate this city that was wholly given over to idolatry.

He Preached the Word in a Private Setting — “Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons”

As was his custom which we saw last week, the first place Paul went was the Jewish synagogue.

This would be his easiest “in” seeing they were already familiar with the same God he served and if he could gain a foothold here, he might possibly have some other folks who could help him in sharing the gospel with all the lost souls roaming the streets of Athens!

Not only did Paul preach the Word in a private setting but he also preached the Word in a Public Setting.

He Preached the Word in a Public Setting — “And in the market daily”

Acts 17:17 NLT

17 He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.

As I got thinking about Paul’s strategy in preaching the Word, I couldn’t help but to think of it’s application to us today.

If we want to see a change out there Church, we have to take what’s in here (the Bible) and what we learn in here (the Church House) out there — to a lost and dying world!

We look at Paul and talk about what a mighty missionary he was but the reality is he did more with less than we do today with more!

The problem is, we don’t mind coming in here (The Church House) and opening this (God’s Word) and discussing it with other believers but we have a huge problem taking it out there where it truly is needed most!

Problem — Phones & Electronics — has lead to a decline in people talking!

If we as a society decline in conversations as much in the next 100 years as we have in the last 25 years, we will have a mute population!

The sight of a lost and dying world should move us to carry the gospel out!

It should move us to speak to those who are lost and burdened by the weight of their sin!

It should move us to want to share some hope with them!

Just this last Wednesday night we talked about this in…

1 Peter 3:15 KJV 1900

15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

Dear friend, if you have been born again, you have the hope of eternal life within you and you should want to share that with those who don’t have that same hope!

There are so many hopeless people wondering around today, looking and searching for the answers to their problems in all the wrong places just like these folks here in Athens!

And that was what Paul saw…a people seeking and searching for something greater than themselves; the answer to lostness and he quickly formulated a plan to penetrate this realm of darkness and get to work!

We’ve seen the stirring of Paul’s spirit and his plan of penetration. Next, let’s look at...

The Peaking of the People’s Passion — (Vs. 18-21)

I want to start here by giving you a little understanding into who these two factions of people were…the Epicureans and the Stoicks.

John Phillips — The Epicureans represented one of the major schools of philosophy in Athens. Their school had been founded by Epicurus (342–270 B.C.), who held that indulgence was the key to life and that pleasure was the highest good.

The Epicureans professed to believe in the gods but held that the gods had no interest in mankind—the world was left to itself.

According to Epicurus, the pleasure most worth pursuing was a life of tranquility, free from passion and pain, free above all from superstitious fears and in particular the fear of death.

The Epicureans denied the existence of life after death. In practice their philosophy led to a life of gross indulgence. They tried to overcome the senses and appetites and to attain tranquility by satiating the senses.

The Stoics were the opposite. Their school of thought had been founded by Zeno of Cyprus (340–260 B.C.), a contemporary of Epicurus. As far as the gods were concerned, the Stoics were fatalists and pantheists. God was the world’s soul, the world was God’s body. Their leading maxim was that man should live according to nature.

At its best, Stoicism was marked by moral earnestness, marred, however, by spiritual pride. Virtue was the supreme good. Man should be above passion. He should be unmoved by joy or grief, pleasure or pain. In other words, indifference was the key to life. Stoicism led to stern, impassive, austere apathy.

Epicureanism and Stoicism were the Gentile equivalents of Sadduceeism and Phariseeism. They were men’s attempts to come to terms with life and all its passions, problems, and potentials.

Different as they were, they were agreed about one thing—Paul was a “babbler.” The word they used was used by the Greeks to describe the feeding habits of birds. Applied to men it depicted one who picked up scraps of information from others. The Jew from Tarsus, in other words, was a retailer of some scrappy kind of religion that could not possibly appeal to intelligent men.

Yet, Paul’s continuous preaching in the marketplace garnered the attention of some of these folks.

Notice what it was he was preaching?

Jesus and the resurrection!

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus never ceases to lose it’s power to draw those in who are open to it’s call.

These intellectual giants didn’t believe in the resurrection nor did they know this God Paul spoke of so together, their interest was peaked!

They decided there was enough interest that Paul and his claims at the minimum needed to be vetted by the leading authorities in the land so they bring Paul the council at Areopagus or “Mars Hill”.

John Phillips — This aristocratic council was of great antiquity. It retained, under the Romans, great power and respect and had authority over all matters of religion and morals. Paul was brought before this body to give an account of himself, and of the strange teachings he had been propagating in the city.

If only they’d of known that they were about to get way more than they bargained for!

“Paul, you bring strange teachings to our town, the teaching of a man named Jesus who supposedly is the Son of an almighty God who came to save the world from it’s sins. We’ve never heard of this man and we do not believe in life after death so please do tell us more about your beliefs so we can see for ourselves if what you claim is true!”

This is one of my favorite parts of this entire story!

You can all but see a smile come upon the face of Paul and say within himself… “Why certainly! I’d love to explain this doctrine to you! I thought you’d never ask!”

It’s here we transition to our next point...

The Powerful Preaching of Paul — (Vs. 22-31)

Now, in the KJV this almost seems to come across as very snide and it’s as if Paul comes right out of the gate punching but that’s not quite the case.

If you look at the NLT which does a little better job translating here, what Paul is really saying is this...

Acts 17:22 NLT

22 So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way,

Instead of degrading right off the cuff, he obliges their sense of religion, as far off base as it may be.

Paul knew what the scriptures said

Proverbs 15:1 KJV 1900

1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: But grievous words stir up anger.

Proverbs 25:11 KJV 1900

11 A word fitly spoken Is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

And would later write himself in...

Colossians 4:6 KJV 1900

6 Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.

Paul addressed them first and foremost by appealing to their intellectual side.

“I have noticed that you all are religious in every way!”

And then look what he goes on to say....

Acts 17:23 NLT

23 for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

“You all are curious about the doctrine I preach yet you have a statue dedicated to the “unknown God”. It’s this God that I want to introduce you to because I do know Him!”

Amen!

I have a question for you this morning…do know this God?

Do you know the one, true, God…Jehovah?

The God who loved you so much that He sent His one and only Son to die for your sins, in your place, on an old rugged cross on Calvary’s hill!

That’s the God Paul introduces them to!

But he’s just getting started!

Vs. 24-31

As Paul begins to deliver his explanation of who God really is, there are two overarching themes that I feel he was trying to drive home here.

The God he was introducing to them was a Sovereign God.

He was also a Sustaining God.

And here’s what I want to say about Paul’s declaration today…the God that Paul describes here in these few verses is the same God that’s still in charge today, Amen!

And He will forever and always be the same God as Paul describes here for He is an unchanging God.

The Bible says in...

Malachi 3:6a — For I am the Lord, I change not;

Hebrews 13:8 KJV 1900

8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Now, I don’t know about you but this characteristic of our God brings me much peace!

This world we live in is ever changing but praise be to God in the highest that He never changes!

There aren’t many things for sure in this world anymore but there’s someone who is sure and that’s God!

Paul preached Christ and Him crucified and resurrected for a lost and dying world on one of the world’s biggest stages and look at the outcome of his powerful preaching.

Vs. 32-34

Paul had the same outcome that we still have today. Some will believe and some will deny that Christ Jesus is Lord.

The Bible says here that one of the council members even believed along with a woman and others with them.

How many we cannot be for sure but the gospel seed had taken root and began to sprout in Athens!

The unknown God was now known to the highest authority in the land and only time would tell what would come from this moment!

Close

And as we come to a close this morning, there are two things that I want to make sure we don’t miss when it comes to this passages application.

Those of us who are sitting here born again this morning, we have to have a heart for the lost in our world today.

We have to care where they spend eternity and not just care but do something about it!

Paul’s spirit was stirred within him as he saw the lostness of the people of Athens. He was angry! Not at the people but at the fact that Satan had such a foothold and in the midst of this great city there was a Jewish synagogue but by the looks of it, it was simply existing not making progress bringing others to at least belief in their God!

And the question I have for you today is this…do we here at NHMBC want to simply exist as a Church or do we want to see souls saved?

Do we want to just take up a spot of real estate here on the corner of New Home Rd and Short Mtn HWY or do we want to be an effective Church in Kingdom of God?

We should look at the shape of this world we live in currently and it should stir us!

It should create in us a righteous anger against Satan and the foothold he has in our world today!

There is plenty of work to be done, Church! Will you decide today that the status quo isn’t good enough? Will you decide today that you don’t simply want to exist but that you want to do whatever you can to lead the lost to Christ?

I pray to God that we’d all get stirred in our spirit as Paul did at the sight of the lost and that God would use each of us in a mighty way to further His kingdom!

And the second point of application this morning is this…if you walked in those back doors lost and undone in your sins, you have a choice to make.

You have heard the gospel preached. You have heard how the God of all creation loves you so much that He sent His one and only Son to die for your sins.

You have heard how that the Son of God, Jesus, died on a cross for your sins, was buried and rose the third day and now He sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for all those who call upon His name.

And dear friend, you have a choice to make.

Will you put your trust in the one and only Son of God or will you deny Him and mock Him as many did on this day in Athens?

The choice is yours but please choose wisely because as Paul said, there is a judgment day coming for all of us!