The Unknown God

Text: Acts 17:16-34

Central Idea of the Text: Paul preaches the gospel with great wisdom and strategy to a hostile Gentile context.

Proposition: The “Unknown God’s” gospel message is to be preached for all people to hear and respond.

Purpose: All who hear should respond by knowing through faith the unknown God.

Statues serve a lot of different purposes. Some of them are little collectibles, like the bobbleheads on the windowsills in my office or the precious moments that line your Grandma’s curio. But I’m not so attached to those things that if you took a baseball bat or trash can to them, that I would miss them. Some of them are just nicknackery, a hobby. But others as they grow in size, they grow in meaning and even grow in veneration and worship.

There are sizable statues outside of memorial stadium of Coach Tom Osborne and the Nebraska Blackshirts. There is a sizable statue outside of Warner Park where Omaha’s baseball legend Bob Gibson is commemorated. As you go to places like the Lincoln Memorial, you see the large seated figure of Abraham Lincoln watching over the Washington Mall. And as you go to certain religious structures in this country, you will find statues of everything from the Madonna, to Jesus on crucifix, to Buddha and Hindu gods worshipped or venerated or prayed to.

But I think that it is wise when C.S. Lewis wrote his Chronicles of Narnia, he noted that those captured by the effect of sin were captured and frozen as statues. Statues are lifeless, dead things. They cannot hear prayers. They cannot care about you. They cannot save you. When they become the focal points of a person’s prayers, worship & devotion, they prove to be empty saviors. And they may even prove to be more like the angel statues of the Doctor Who series, homes where dark spirits and distractions haunt, which will trap you if you let them.

As I’m getting your minds focused on the statues of our day and age, I want to take you back to the book of Acts once again today, and to the place where Paul found himself, surrounded by statues. But these statues did not fill him with nostalgia, awe or reverence; they filled him with anger and revilement. Let’s tackle the text in three portions today, first setting the stage by reading Acts 17:16-21

(*Read Text)

This is the Word of the Lord for us this morning.

Please pray with me: Lord, Paul’s walk in Athens sets the stage for one of his greatest sermons in Acts today. As he preaches it, may we hear it. May we turn from our idols and sin. May we gladly receive Jesus as Savior and Lord. We pray this in his name, amen.

Paul, as we noted last week, has launched off on his own for a short time to go to Athens, while Silas and Timothy shore up the church in Berea. While best to do ministry as a team, there are times to choose when a team should divide and conquer, and this appears to be one of those times. This brings Paul to Athens, the religious, cultural and philosophical center of Greece. Where as Paul has raised the ire of some idol worshippers in places like Philippi, now he has come to the heart of this false religion, the effects of which grip the entire Greco-Roman World. It is widely known and famous, with schools and universities still to this day studying the stories and tales of the Greek gods. And today, if you have enough time and money, you can actually travel and visit the very same sites that Paul walked into on that day in Athens:

You can visit the Acropolis, an entire mountaintop complex which was FILLED with places of worship and statues of worship

You can visit the Areopagus of the text, a place also known as Mars Hill. It was a place of philosophy and religion, the exchange of ideas. And it is the place that Paul is brought to for questioning. The place they would have met was at the foot of this hill.

At the base of the hill, you can visit the Theater, where plays were often performed, telling tales like the story of Dionisius, for the masses to enjoy

You can visit the little that remains of the great temple to Zeus, the most powerful of all the Greek gods.

You can visit the temple of Haphestos, a place of worship to the god of metalworking and craftsmanship and fire. His temple has fared better than many of others, because it came to be used later as a church and so the marble was not quarried out for other purposes.

You can visit the temple of Athena Nike, the goddess of victory. And yes that is the same god that the swoosh that might be on your shoes was named after.

You can walk through the Erechtheon, a double temple with statues paying tribute to gods like Poseidon and Athena. It is a structure that is still to this day lined with many statues.

You can visit the most famous of structures, the Parthenon, built in great tribute to Athens’ goddess, Athena Parthenos. Within those pillars stood a 38 foot statue of Athena, who would be frequented both regularly and at special festivals by worshippers seeking to obtain her favor.

You can visit just in front of the Parthenon, the smaller Roman temple of worship to Caesar Augustus, a reminder that the gods of Greece had been captured and enslaved to the gods and emperor of Rome.

Now I want you to imagine these places, not as museum pieces that we simply walk past, admiring the artwork or craftsmanship. These places are places that are filled with statues. And behind those statues, demons. People are walking around them, bowing and praying in front of them, singing songs to them. They are engaged in the rituals of the temple prostitution, and participation in the sexual cults of their day. They are engaged in the sacrifices and offerings to their empty stone husks of lies and falsehoods that cannot hear nor save them.

While we can admire what that may have looked like, there was one thing on Paul’s mind and heart. He was grieved by all of it. It turned his stomach. It made him sick. The text says that Paul’s spirit was “provoked within him” when he saw that the city was FULL of Idols. This word for “provoked within him” is the Greek word paroxyno. The root word of this is the Greek word for Sour Wine. Imagine the reaction of your face and your body when you eat or drink something that is really bitter or sour. What do you do? Instant disgust, right? Your mouth, your whole face, sometimes even your whole body just retching as you either choke it down or spit it out. That is the type of reaction from Paul here. Because he is a Christian, he clearly sees the worship of idols for what it is to God: disgusting.

This causes him, even though he’s flying solo, to become bolder stepping from reasoning in the synagogue to reasoning in the marketplace. Surely, there is someone who will listen in a town full of philosophy and reason! There are! There are Epicureans and Stoics, from different schools of Greek Philosophy. There are others who are listening. They are wondering if he’s babbling or if he is promoting gods of other nations. This leads him to be taken to Mars Hill, the Areopagus, and be placed on trial. They aren’t just asking him to clarify because they are curious about him, they are asking him because they want to see if he needs to be put on trial toward imprisonment or even put to death for promoting foreign gods. And here stands Paul, without his wingmen.

So what will Paul do in this moment? Will he give up as if for dead? Will he chicken out finally? No. Paul will look for an open door for all. Let’s continue in the text and read the message that Paul preached in Acts 17:22-31

(Read Text)

Paul acts in a way that is fully inline with Jesus instruction, that we are to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matt 10:16). He moves with great cunning to navigate his knowledge of the scriptures, of the Greek gods and religion, of philosophers and writers, of the culture of that day and age. He remembers a monument he has seen. A tribute the the unknown god. It was probably something of an out that the Greeks had built into their religion, to say “If there’s a god we didn’t know or left out, well here is a tribute to that God to. But Paul sees that tribute to the Unknown God as an open door. It is a place to make the God they do not know now the God they know. And the message that Paul preaches is a reminder that the Gospel message is a universal message. It is a message that is meant that all should hear it and respond to it. Look at how Paul’s message about the unknown God is meant to introduce them to the God of Creation and bring clarity to the confusion of the Greek culture and religion.

The Unknown God is the Creator of All (v 22-27)

Paul begins in verse 22-27 by noting this monument to the unknown God. This is important, because a big concern of the Greeks is that Paul is preaching of a foreign god, “a new god” if you will, he will be in trouble. The Greeks are very defensive of their religion, economy and culture. They do not need someone introducing something new and making new converts. But Paul, seeing what he sees and knowing what he knows, is cunning to see the Unknown God monument as an open door for Gospel proclamation. He points their eyes off of the temple mount and to look at the view of creation around them ...

This unknown God is Maker (v24): Paul says that God has made the world and everything in it. When you look out from this place, there is a cause for all that was made here. You know that it was not simply a lesser god who has only realms of his governance. All of it came from a source.

The Unknown God is Lord of all creation (v24): “Lord of Heaven and Earth” as Paul calls him. Even the things that are far beyond us … the sun, moon and stars. They are all put in place and their movement and designed is governed by One God over all. This goes against the teachings of the Stoics mentioned in the text, as they believed that the impersonal “fates” governed the universe. But Paul says, “No, look up at the size and design.” There is a maker and Lord. Therefore Paul says ...

No Palace can hold this Unknown God (v24): Yes, all of the Greeks note these impressive temples, but Paul says look at the world around us. Look at the universe! Do you you think that you can contain or control such a god? No building built by human hands can contain Him!

No statue can represent Him (v25): Yes, Paul says, you have an impressive statue that you all revere here, but look around you! No statue could possibly represent the Unknown God who is the creator and Lord of all! He is the one who gives life and breath to every living thing.

The unknown God is ruler of not just one nation, but of all nations (v26): The teachings of the Epicureans (who are mentioned here) taught other ideas about the gods, that they were not interested in the matters or borders of the nations. But Paul taught that this God, as he gives life, he guides time and the boundaries of the nations that as verse 27 says “the nations should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward Him.”

What Paul is speaking of here is the basic building block of proclaiming the Good News of Jesus in a place and among a people. It is general revelation. It is available to all people everywhere if they would simply look up and look out at creation. The enemy was trying to distract the people by getting them to look inward at the city and downward at their own creation. Is it no surprise that the enemy uses the same tactic now, to get us to look in and look down and marvel at what Man has made, while ignoring what God has made.

The Unknown God is withing reach of All (v 27-29)

Ultimately, Paul’s not noting that people should just marvel at what is made out there, but in the existence that God has placed right before them. He brings truth all back to life and people, because God cares about us, and this Gospel is ultimately about finding a landing spot with people.

We are because he is (v27-28): Paul says that the life we have shows that God is not far away and disinterested. He is near. Paul goes on to quote one of their own, Epimenedes of Crete, to bring a truth they all knew to bear on what the Bible says. It would be the same as if I quoted one of our great songwriters or poets of our time. It shows that Paul was well read, and could bring phrases outside of scripture to bear on scripture.

We are his offspring (v28): Again in quoting another poet Aratus, Paul ties it to the basic truths of Genesis. That God made man and woman from the beginning, and all of our linage can be traced back to God’s creating work on the 6th day. It takes a special ignorance to miss that these basic things are true, that man comes from a creator and not from accident or coincidence. This should be plainly obvious to us, as we watch robotics and AI advance in modern times. There is no way we would see one of the modern Optimus robots built by Tesla in the woods and think that it was a happy accident. There is no way we would ask a question of AI and think that the responses that it gives come by random chance. WE KNOW they were designed, that they had a creator and an origin. HOW MUCH MORE MARVELOUS IS THE HUMAN BODY AND THE HUMAN MIND?? It is beyond comparison that we are (as David says in Psalm 139) “Fearfully and wonderfully made.”

So now put away your idols (v29): Paul, now that he has built the case that we have not originated from these gold and silver idols, built by human hands, he guides us to do what we know we ought to do … put away the idols. Be done with them. Stop worshipping them. They did not build man, man built them. They cannot hear. They cannot respond. They cannot save.

The case of this unknown God and his nearness simply point out that in our own life and breath, God has shown us a kindness that only God could. He has given us life. And that life is meant, with every breath, to show us that he is not far away.

The Unknown God brings salvation to All (v 30-31)

The final piece of this is a very simple nail in the coffin of the old self and sinful idolatrous ways. Look at verse 30:

You lived in ignorance/Now you’re called to repentance: Acts 17:30 “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” Paul points to their sin in overlooking and being distracted in things that are false. He simply says the past was a time of ignorance, but now God has shown you your sin. Now it is the time to turn from what is wrong, and turn to him. And this is what happens when we are exposed to God’s law and God’s word. It reminds us that there is a God who is holy, who created us, who gave us standards of living. The law of God brings to light our sin. It brings us out of ignorance, and into repentance. Now that you know you ought to turn. And Paul encourages the people to turn because of what is coming ...

God will judge all because of Jesus. Verse 31 reminds the people that God will judge EVERYONE. Not just the Jews. Not just those present at the crucifixion of Jesus. Not just those in the church. Not just those who heard over those who didn’t hear and lived in ignorance. Everyone. Christ died, and he arose from the dead to prove that He is God and that he will one day judge all. Those who receive him as Lord will inherit eternal life. Those who do not, will die an eternal death in hell. Paul sounds the call and gives the warning.

It is a brief ending to his message, and I do believe, as I believe with many passages of teaching in scripture that there was probably even more that was proclaimed at Mars Hill on that day. We are getting the essentials of the Bible’s record. But it is enough to tell us that the call that went to them is the same call that goes to the Mars Hill of our day. The confused, the misled, the flatly wicked, the ashamed and the ignorant, all lost in sin. Turn to Jesus Christ. Leave behind your sin. Leave behind you idols. Trust the true and living God in Jesus who will save you, when you call upon his name for salvation.

In sum, the message of Paul to the Greeks is a message for all: the Gospel of Jesus Christ is for everyone, and there is not a culture, religion, philosophy or ideology that the Gospel is not meant to invade and challenge. The unknown God is the creator of all, and it is obvious to every human being on earth that HE IS. The unknown God is within reach of all, because he is our maker and giver of our breath, we can throw all other idols away. The unknown God brings salvation to all, and calls all to turn from sin and yield to Jesus in their confession and obedience in baptism. That is how the discipleship journey begins. And to these ends, this message is universal. It is a Gospel for all people, for all time. From Paul’s time to ours, it must be preached. There is an open door, an “unknown god” in every culture that wants to make himself known through his people, the Ekklesia, his church.

So what happened next? Did everyone come forward, and there was a new Pentecost? Not so much. The text concludes with these words in Acts 17:32-34

(Read Text)

Note that there were three reactions to the message, which may be the reaction of anyone in the room or not in the room hearing this message today.

Some are Rejectors. They mock Christians, their God, their morals, their message. They laugh at us and say “Not in a million years.” Some will always do that.

Some are procrastinators. They say, let’s talk later. Let’s hear more tomorrow. All the while they reject the message that is for them today: you are a sinner and there is a savior in Jesus. He is the only way of salvation.

Some are Believers. They, like a few named disciples here (Dionysius and Damaris), stay and believe. Following in the pattern laid in Acts, they turned from their sin and were baptized in obedience to Christ. This is what it means when it says they “joined him”. They too became disciples of Christ and part of the Church.

Was it a massive crusade response? The altar call and everyone rushing forward? Not at all. It was a meager response compared to others we have seen in Acts. But the Gospel was preached. Seeds were planted. The Word found root in some hearts, and at the end, progress was made for the church in the center of Greek culture, religion and life.

And ultimately? The temple mount that was once filled with worship and worshippers to all kinds of idols now lies in ruin, and the worship of the One True and Living God through his Son Jesus Christ continues. And it happened as the Kingdom was built one believer at a time.

One day, the structures and places that we see as thriving will lie in ruins like Greece. What will survive? The faith that has been delivered to the saints. The old saying is appropriate here: “But one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Friend, we are not looking for a massive response this morning. Only the Holy Spirit can provide that. We simply and faithfully preach so that one more would come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Would you be the one that hears the message this morning: There is a God. We are not him. We have sinned and that sin separates us from him. But God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sin, so that everyone who looks to the son and responds to his offer would receive eternal life. Would you trust in Jesus? If so, respond by turning from sin that has entangled you, speaking with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and responding to his call on your life to be baptized in obedience to the savior.