The Reasoned, The Ready, and the Rational: part 4

Intro - Acts 17:22-34

Humanity’s natural state is to worship, to live in a state where we seek to honor something or someone.

This can be seen by how quickly we flock to celebrities, wealth, notoreity, all with the belief that if we can’t have power that somehow we can just get close to it.

We’ll even worship that which we don’t fully understand. We’ll commit our lives to it without fully grasping what it’s all about.

I remember a brother in the Lord that during a conversation I made mention of “binding and loosing spirits”…at first he agreed but then he realized he had been holding to that belief in ignorance and didn’t know what it actually meant. We proceeded to examining the scriptures.

TR: I had been examining his beliefs and realized that while he was worshipping…it was something that was unknown to him…so I engaged.

Unknown

Paul is in Athens, awaiting Timothy and Silas to join him from Berea, and came into contact with this state of humanity…this state of worship to the unknown.

After sharing some of the Gospel he was invited to a place called the Aeropagus where all folks did all day was philosophize, debate, and reason but didn’t really get much done.

Paul begins to dialogue with them and points out that he sees that they are religious.

He had spend time observing their customs, shrines, and altars made to every god including to an “unknown” god...

Here’s something that as a culture we don’t do well…we don’t take time to learn each other well enough to actually have meaningful conversation with one another.

Instead we categorize. We learn one, maybe two truths, and then we fill in the blank with everything else either media, our experiences, have told us.

Posted on FB about Jacob Blake and his kids having to see their father get shot. A sister in the Lord posts, “I’m not going to comment but just know that God is watching”…I had no idea what she was talking about.

Paul didn’t have a prepackaged way of engaging with people. He nuanced it, gave people the dignity of learning about them, and then told them biblical truths.

Paul then stated that the unknown he was going to make known.

There is embedded within the heartbeat of Christianity the DNA of revelation.

In the bedrock of our faith there is a belief that it must be known and revealed.

God has a desire to reveal himself to people. This is not a faith that exists in some monastary in the mountains somewhere.

Think of the beautiful truth that God desires to be made known!!!

TR: Therefore, what was once unknown now is to become unhidden...

Unhidden

Paul begins dismantling their ignorance by stating that the Lord of heaven and earth made everything...

This is a stab at the Epicureans who believed that matter was eternal.

In addition, God doesn’t need our worship, sacrifice, or praise instead He is the giver

This would have been in stark contrast to the Athenians who believed that they were the ones who gave to god…not the other way around.

Listen, NEED is a uniquely human thing…the concept of feeling “need” is foreign to divinity.

What is flooring the those in Athens though is that God doesn’t need but He does give!

Think of the character this passage is displaying about God. He desires to be known and will in fact GIVE that revelation.

Yet what does our world teach us? To run from vulnerability e.g. don’t be truly known and to horde up all that you can!

God also made from one human all the nations

In one statement Paul crushed the ideology of the Athenians who thought themselves to be of a superior stock of humanity.

This would have crushed all ideas of racial superiority if it were taken to heart.

Imagine who that unifies you with. Recognize how that humbles you!

Here’s one of the reasons that I believe Paul was impactful…he NEVER forgot where he came from.

1 Timothy 1:15 (ESV)

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

Paul I believe was consistently reminded that he too was unified with those who he preached to…he was not that far off from them.

This doesn’t bring depression but expression! It doesn’t bring denegration but EXALTATION! Why?!?!

Because when I think about the Lord, how he saved me, how raised me, how he filled me with the Holy Ghost, how he healed me to the uttermost…IT MAKES ME WANT TO SHOUT!!!

God placed mankind where they are, when they are, and how they are all with the purpose of it enabling them to find Him.

Here’s what I find interesting…somehow we can believe that because we exist on one side of an imaginary that we are better!

I recently watched a video where two young mexican girls, age 3 and 5, where dropped over the 14ft wall separating Mexico from the U.S....and somehow people’s first inclination was “look at those illegal immigrants”

Can you imagine what a parent has to go through to rationalize dropping my two kids over a 14ft wall, into a foreign country, hoping that it’s better over there without me than here with me?

Even worse can you imagine Christians…that God has allowed to be on the other side of that wall by the grace of God having the audacity to look upon them and rather than be moved with compassion turn to disdain for “illegal immigrants”

Not trying to make a political statement…when the gods of this world tell you when you see something to view it one way and Yahweh says it’s another there’s a problem.

Know that the only reason we’re on this side of the wall is because God made it so…one day he might put us on the other side…I wonder how we’ll feel about foreigners when they are the only ones able to help us.

See the Athenians had the same mindset…they believed those born in Athens were superior...

Notice why God put you there…so that (v. 27) they should seek God!

This means that your current state is the perfect state, not for your personal well being but instead, your personal dependence on the Lord.

If the searching is purposeful, feeling as those that are blind, not whimisically but meaningfully, God may be found.

So listen Athenians, God has put you where he’s put you, when he’s put you there so that you can find God there AND he can be found if you look...

There’s been a number of times when I’ve been in a place and felt like God had abandoned me…not realizing that’s exactly where I needed to be to find Him!

Paul engages with them by citing even some of their own poets, "in Him we live move and have our being” and that we’re made in God’s image. Since that is true why are we worshipping things that are made lesser

Why are we turning to lesser things when we can’t find God??

Think of Israel, how because they believed God had abandoned them when Moses didn’t return, they created an image to worship!

This is the EXACT thing mankind does! When we can’t find God we create god! We create masters that then abuse us…criteria for greatness that leaves us beaten down.

We construct standards of living that we must arrive at in order to have “peace”, “comfort”, “blessing”....BUT WHAT IF I TOLD YOU YOU’RE BLESSED RIGHT NOW?!?!

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU GOD IS REVEALING HIMSELF TO YOU RIGHT NOW IN YOUR SITUATION IF YOU’D JUST LOOK?!

TR: If I did that you’d be left without an excuse, which is exactly how Paul left the Athenians...

Unexcused

Because of this revelation that God has chosen, humanity is left without an excuse.

God has allowed enough time to pass but now He isn’t playing anymore.

Seleah is one of the greatest discerners in my house. She can feel my mood shift and it’s like an early warning alarm for her brothers. When they keep going crazy, fighting, messing stuff up, I slowly begin to build. But Seleah is always watching…and in a moment she’ll read me and say “hey ya’ll better chill out…daddy is about to get mad”

Some of us have been playing with God too long and he’s done playing. There are some folks in your life right now that God is about to pull their card…you better let em know.

Paul states that literally we need to change how we think, change our minds, repent.

The reason being is that God is going to judge the world, not based on emotions but in righteousness.

You can take that to the bank because he validated his ability and willingness by resurrecting Jesus from the grave.

So before we look at Jesus as liberation we must first see it as a vindication…that God WILL JUDGE UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.

See the Athenians were RELIGIOUS! They believed in many gods of their land…just as there are many gods in this land.

If the Father is willing to offer up his own unique holy son to satisfy the righteous requirements why do we believe that he won’t judge those who are far less holy?

So many of us are praying for Jesus to return but some of us might wanna pump our breaks and read Amos 5:18-24

Amos 5:18–24 ESV

Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Yet when you have responses like Paul did…with some mocking, some seeking more, and even fewer believing it can be discouraging!

LAND IT LOUD

But KNOW THAT ONE DAY RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL REIGN!

THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS ACHIEVED NOT JUST OUR REDEMPTION BUT GOD’S VINDICATION!

God is not to be mocked! He will set straight what is crooked and will bring to light what is hidden in the dark!

Notice that the resurrection is joy for us but is a fearful thing to this world!

Ignorance and innocence are not the same BUT PRAISE GOD THAT WE ARE HIDDEN IN JESUS!!!

THAT WHILE THIS WORLD SCOFFS WE RESIDE IN THE POWER OF THE ALMIGHTY!!!

Freed from the gods of this land…never forget what God delivered you from!!

Yet don’t let us camp out there…instead let us set our affections upon those still blinded in ignorance!

Let us observe them graciously and then engage with WISDOM AND HUMILITY…and in doing so honor the Lord our God…amen