A Man Whom God Appointed

Acts 17:16-31

Easter Sunday is coming soon, today is the Lord’s day, all of which we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The cross and the resurrection is talked about a lot....Jacob and I was discussing this the other day and the importance of those 2 essentials in the Gospel is Who it was that endured those! Jesus the Christ the Son of the Living God!

Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” .......The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation.......

Now, turn with me to Acts 17:16-31.......I am going a long way around to drive home this point.......I want to set this up, somewhat.......Paul has been run out of Thessalonica and also Berea by the Thessalonians....He is a man on the run.........He went to Athens, Greece waiting on Silas and Timothy. While he was waiting his spirit was provoked within him......Paul saw all of the idols in the city.......In heard a preacher say this that when a brick layer enters a building, he is looking at the construction, when a policeman enters a city he notices the crime, when an apostle of Christ enters a city with all of the idols he sees the lost......and he was stirred up in his spirit!.........So, he preached Jesus in the synagogues and the streets.

Epicureans: They taught that the chief end of man was the avoidance of pain. They were materialists. They did not deny the existence of God, but they believed He did not become involved with human affairs and when you died they believed their bodies and souls disintegrated.

Stoics: They taught self-mastery-that the goal in life was to be indifferent to pleasure or pain.

These philosophies were highly regarded in Athens.........they considered Paul as someone who wasn’t legit, but that he picked from different philosophies and made them his own. However, they were curious so and they always loved to discuss and debate, so, they wanted to hear what Paul had to say or how he was going to defend the resurrection of Jesus Christ.....

Verses 22-23....Paul saw that these folks were pretty serious about their idols......One of their idols was one where they inscribed “Unknown God”........These folks, that seemed to be very intelligent, when something would happen, like rain during a dry season, they would make an idol and call it the god of rain. It is said that they had many idol figures/altars for unknown gods. Paul saw one of them.....

He then states to them very boldly, that the God that they did not claim to know, He would now declare to them!

Paul’s purpose was to declare that all of those gods, was One God..........I love how the Holy Spirit went about debunking their ignorance all the while using their ignorance of the God of all, to declare the God of all!

Verses 24-25.....Isaiah 40:12 “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, And meted out heaven with the span, And comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, And weighed the mountains in scales, And the hills in a balance?” ......Isaiah 40:28 “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, That the everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator of the ends of the earth, Faints not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.”..........There is a God of creation, He is One Lord.......

The idea of worship in verse 25 is “served” ........Paul qualifies this statement by stating that He doesn’t need anything

God gives life and all things........God is sovereign over all!

Paul is making the case to these folks that would claim that there are a different God for different things, that there is one God, Who is Creator of all people and things.......Romans 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”

It is clearly seen, so much so that all humanity is “without excuse”.......They have no excuse as to why they haven’t searched the true God out.

This Paul will state in verse 27....

Verse 26......One man, Adam...................Then in verse 26 he explains that this self-sufficient God created all the various nations from one man and that God himself determines how long a nation survives and how far its borders extend.

If there is anything we should know about our existence it is what is 1 Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

Verse 27......Then in verse 27 Paul says that God’s purpose in ruling the nations like this is to put them on a search for God. Verse 27: … that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after him and find him. Then in the last part of verse 27 Paul clarifies this search for God. It is not a search for a distant deity. God is very near for those who seek him. … yet he is not far from each one of us. (v. 27).....Jeremiah 23:23–24 “Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.” ....Jeremiah 29:13 “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” .......

Verse 28.....Paul used a quote from a poet Epimenides that believed that stated we are God’s children...........Luke 20:38 “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.” and Colossians 1:17 “And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

Verse 29......If humankind is the true image of God, the work of God’s hands, it follows that no image made by human hands can render proper homage to God.........Here Paul spoke very much in the line of the Old Testament critique of idolatry. The Stoics would have agreed. They too saw idolatry as the folly of popular religion. But if they truly understood Paul’s teaching of the one true Creator God, they would have realized that they too were idolaters. In their attempt to reach the divine through their own striving, in their view that the divine indwelt their own human nature, they had transgressed the relationship of creature to Creator. If they had genuinely accepted Paul’s major premise that God is Creator, they would have had to acknowledge their own self-idolatry, their own need for repentance........

Verse 30........Here is where we come to know the true God......God has overlooked our times of ignorance......GRACE and MERCY.......God would be just and right to have allowed all humanity to die eternally, even at the beginning with Adam and Eve, but He “winked” which means “overlooked” it is impossible for sin and purposeful ignorance to be completely overlooked by God, sin must be dealt with! And that is impossible to deal with sin by human hands.......God made it possible, through the atoning work of His Son Jesus Christ!.......Romans 3:25 “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” ......We must understand “winked” as “forbearance or longsuffering”

Verse 31........God has appointed or fixed a day, when He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man Jesus Christ.......the proof of that man would be a resurrection from the dead......Everything will be judged based on the righteousness of God.........based on the whole work of Jesus Christ.....

In Luke 11:29-32......J........Jesus had just cast out a demon, some claimed that He did those works by satan.......some tested Him in Luke 11:16 “And others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven.” .....

The only sign would everything about Jesus........Jesus never did signs on command, sure folks asked out of desperation for healing and miracles, but never when Jesus was demanded to show a sign to prove Himself would He cooperate. In fact on this day, He stated that the only sign would be the sign of Jonah........Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites......Jesus will be that sign to all humanity........This is a powerful statement......In Matthew’s account Matthew 12:40 “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” ........this speaking of Christ’s death and resurrection......In Luke’s account we also read of something else, that Jesus would be the Righteous Judge.....Jonah represented judgement to Nineveh, because he preached repentance and they repented. Jesus’ life, His teachings, His death, His resurrection, everything about Him preaches repentance to us!

He is our sign........So, many of us get enamored with life around us and we also get enamored with ourselves, that we miss the value of Jesus Christ! We might even be seeking for a sign.....I think sometimes we might look at Jesus as the genie in our bottle or our get of “hell” free card!

This is what the Epicureans and Stoics were doing......they worshipped different gods for different things....I believe we look at Jesus this way.........He is my God for this and that..........

Jesus is the standard by which we will be judged and we all fall short of that......with that knowledge we ask who shall save us from this dreadful state? Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ!

Jonah was a shadow of Jesus Christ, preaching repentance............Jesus’ life declares to us our need for turning away from the fallen way!

There is something about this I believe we are misguided on......We think that when things are not going right in our life and we want them to be better then we run to Jesus to get those things fixed........I say, yes ok????? But are we seeking Jesus JUST for those things?

I have sought Jesus because I didn’t want to go to hell, which is great, yes???.....Here is what I found in my search, I found a God of love, not because my bills are paid or my sickness was healed or my marriage was restored, I found a merciful God that didn’t condemn me to hell, that He sent His Son to show us the way of righteousness that would bring a desire to us to be made righteous!

Great teaching to me, is 2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”

When I was scared of hell and I began to look at my whole existence, I found I was worried about myself and I was sorrowful for myself going to hell.......never once did I think I have broken fellowship with my Father which is in Heaven! My Creator!

When I understood, I came to life, my faith in Christ is not based on circumstances or my physical well-being, my faith in Christ is all about His life.....

The Son of God that has always been and that the world was created for Him and by Him

Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us....Emmanuel which meaning God with us!!

Jesus living perfectly unto the Father......even when it pleased the Lord to bruise Him......Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin..........” Christ was faithful to His Father’s will!

He was obedient unto to death........Isaiah 53:5–6 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned every one to his own way; And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

He was dead and buried.......making His grave with wicked, this One that knew no sin!

He was raised from the dead/grave.......To be given a name where every knee will bow and tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of Father God!

In all of the wonderful works of Christ, if you can be happy in your sin and speak of sin as nothing, then maybe you have a Jesus of your own making!

The joy comes this way....Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

God Loves me!!!! God Loves me!!!! Ephesians 2:4–5 “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)”

God can do all of the “secondary” things, nothing is impossible for Him, but do you understand the outstanding measure of MERCY and GRACE that it takes for Him to even seek out our good? The forbearance, the long-suffering!????????

Ephesians 3:20–21 “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” This verse takes on a new meaning when we know that Jesus is our sign to repent, trust in His finished work of atonement and resurrection from the dead! I hope that we can know Him for greater than what we can even think or ask! He is our answer, He is our fulfillment, He is our good, He is everything for us! He is our righteousness......2 Corinthians 5:21 “For God hath made Jesus to be sin for us, Jesus, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ .” ..........He will judge the world in righteousness, His righteousness of which He stands before God for all those that believe that He is their righteousness!

I tell you that is above anything I can ask or think!!!!!