The Risen King
Notes
Transcript
The Risen King
The Risen King
Easter is arriving soon, in seven weeks.
Seven is a good biblical number (days, sabbath, etc.)
He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying.
It seems like this was so long ago and it feels far away in our world today.
Unless you are a nerd like me and you consume information through the week.
(While fun for me, I would not suggest it for you!)
Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he observed that the city was full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What could this scavenger of tidbits want to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.” (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.) So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’ Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.” Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We shall hear from you again concerning this.” So Paul went out from among them. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.”
SLIDE: Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought.
Our Apostle, Paul, lands on an interesting thought:
Among some Christians they turn different things into idols:
Work, money, success, house, car, etc.
I don’t usually go along with that thought.
Rather, what caught my attention was the whole thought in the phrase:
We ought not think the divine is something formed by human skill and thought.
For several decades now, we connect:
What we do
What we think
With the divine
If you do the right thing
Divine blessing
You can think (or manifest) something
Divine blessing
This is not isolated to stuff:
We are living in a time where you can DO something to your body because you THINK it will CAUSE you to be better.
Would you permit me to cause a bit of trouble?
Can I say something disagreeable, controversial?
Okay, hang with me for a moment: After all you came to church, so you expect something a bit controversial:
Way back at the front of our book, in the first chapter on the page, an idea is presented that God created humans to be something:
His image and
His likeness
On earth.
The term for image has a general meaning:
Idol.
Let’s explore this for a moment…
Is it possible that what we are seeing people do to their bodies is akin to forming an idol by hand and thought?
Are you with me?
And once the idol is formed, it is proclaimed the most important idol.
And worship is demanded
Bow to it
Call it by the correct name I made for it
Sound far fetched? Consider this:
In ancient Rome there is a demi-god named Hermaphroditus
He is the product of the god Hermes and Aphrodite
When he was young (15) he escaped Mt. Ida
He took refuge in a spring where he met a Nymph named Salmacis
She enticed him to play a game of role-reversals to seduce him
While she embraced him she prayed their bodies would become one
Thus, Hermaphroditus was remade as a male with a female body
This demi-god was likely one of those idols Paul saw in Athens.
But it does not stop there…
We have been doing this to our children for generations.
If a parent expected you to be something you are not
Or if you expect your children to be something you want
How is that any different?
You are attempting to form an idol by deed and thought
You know what our children do?
The same thing we did.
They form and fashion idols
Paul goes on to say…
SLIDE: So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent
He does something we, as Christians, fail to do:
He recognizes their ignorance.
Not foolishness or stupidity
This is part of their culture
They have never heard this news about a resurrected man
Related to this Jewish God
In a radical moment, Paul states that God overlooks the times of ignorance
As if he would say to us today, “You don’t need to do this.”
And don’t make your children into an idol of you so that you live on for generations.
Repent means to stop what you are doing and turn to God.
SLIDE: because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.
For the Athenians Paul is speaking with, he is appealing to them to abandon their gods and return to Yahweh, the Most High God, the God of Jesus.
The one who will represent the judge is Jesus
The one who God raised from the dead.
The judgment is going to be really simple:
Are you a loyal believer in God through Jesus?
Or are you a loyal believer in the god of the idol?
For many, when they hear about Jesus being raised from the dead, they think about everything they have heard about Christianity.
For Paul, he sees the resurrection as proof that God is calling to all to return.
Paul will go on to write most of the letters of the New Testament:
He is going to affirm that humans are the image, the idol by which God will be present on the earth.
Paul specifically calls us the temple of the Holy Spirit
God is the one that makes us, his idol in his cosmic temple called creation, he makes us alive.
Give us, his idols, life and breath.
Where God dwells, that place, you, becomes a temple.
Tend the temple, but don’t build a shrine.
What Jesus did through his death and resurrection makes it possible for God to dwell among any human image.
Meaning, we should care for this body and mind we have, to the degree we are able.
Versus
Demanding worship of and for ourselves.
That last thought is what makes many uncomfortable
You may not have been able to put your finger on it…
But that is what causes your confusion.
You would not call it…
Idol worship…
or
Idol formation…
But that is what is happening.
I wonder what would happen if…
Instead of trying form ourselves into an image
We allowed what God says through scripture to form us?
In order to have that opportunity, we must adopt the same approach God did.
We must learn to overlook these times
Not judge them (God will do that)
So that we can introduce them to the God of Creation
Who wants to make them complete and whole
Through his presence.
The Risen King
The Risen King
