Proclaim 7: Witnesses of Truth

Bookmarks & Needs:

B: Acts 17:22-34

N:

Opening

Good morning, and welcome everyone online and in the building to our Family Worship service here at Eastern Hills! It was a great week of Vacation Bible School, and I’m glad that you have been here this morning to experience a little of what the kids did this week. Thanks to our VBS Worship Rally team for leading us this morning, and to Joe and Liana and all of the adult and student volunteers that made VBS such a success!

I just have one announcement: AOM is tonight at 5 pm in the Parlor (directions). Tonight you will have the opportunity to hear about a new ministry work that God is doing in part using Airbnb.

We’re in our last week of our Proclaim series through Acts, looking at seven proclamations of the Gospel in the early church. I know this series has been a little longer than expected due to a few special Sundays in there, but let’s open up our Bibles to our focal passage this morning, Acts 17:22-34

Acts 17:22–34 CSB

22 Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. 23 For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’ 29 Since, then, we are God’s offspring, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination. 30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” 32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him, but others said, “We’d like to hear from you again about this.” 33 So Paul left their presence. 34 However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

PRAYER

Foundations are critically important in life. Consider it in terms of construction: The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the world’s tallest building. Standing 2,716 feet tall from ground to tip, it’s not just the tallest building, but the world’s tallest free-standing structure. Without a solid foundation, this building would have been impossible to build. Its foundation contains nearly 60,000 cubic yards of concrete, weighing over 110,000 metric tonnes (that’s more than 242 MILLION pounds), reaching a depth of over 160 feet below ground level. The foundation HAD to be that impressive to support such a structure. And if that foundation were to crumble, the building could not stand.

Likewise, if something in our lives is foundational, then it’s of vital importance, and our lives would be completely shaken if not essentially undone if that were destroyed. So it’s critical that we consider what makes up our foundation.

This week at Vacation Bible School, we focused on building our lives on the foundation of Jesus Christ. You’ve already heard our motto from the week this morning: “Jesus! Our strong foundation!” On each of the five days of VBS, we had a different main application point from the Bible lesson for that day, and for each of those points, we wanted the kids to really personalize them. The main point on day 5, for example, was, “Jesus’ love is the foundation for the rest of my life.” And we had the kids (and adults) personalize it by putting their name in where it says “my:” so saying, “Jesus’ love is the foundation for the rest of Bill’s life.” There’s something powerful about putting your own name in a statement such as that. And to hear kids say it that way was a great blessing.

The thing that we need to ask ourselves this morning is this: “Is this true in my life? Is Jesus’ love the foundation for the rest of my life?” See, what we consider to be foundational to our lives impacts our worldview. If we see the love of Christ as foundational for the rest of our lives, that will impact everything else that we do: how we work, how we play, what we are like as friends and family members and neighbors… there isn’t a sphere in our lives that the love of Christ shouldn’t touch if it’s foundational.

In our focal passage today, we find Paul interacting with the people in Athens. Paul was kind of on his own in Athens, having been sent there from Berea because of conflict with the Jews. As Paul explored Athens, he found altars to idols throughout the city. He followed his normal pattern of sharing Christ in the synagogue there, and also evangelized in the agora—the center of city life. Some philosophers from a couple of different schools of thought heard him and thought he was a fool:

Acts 17:18 CSB

18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?” Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities”—because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

Paul here was engaging the Athenians with what would be for them a whole new way of viewing the world—a new foundation. And so they asked Paul to come and share at the Areopagus, which was the name for both the hill and the council that met there. While Paul wasn’t on trial, we see that for many of the Athenians, their foundation had decayed to the point that all they wanted was to hear and talk about new things.

Acts 17:21 CSB

21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

For many, it didn’t really matter what the new things were, as long as they were new.

The Athenians built their lives on the foundations of religion and/or knowledge… you could even call them “spiritual,” but their foundation was unreliable: shifting sand. And they weren’t unique. Today, our culture holds some of the same concepts as cultural ideals: The idea of being “spiritual,” but not necessarily a believer in any one concept of truth; the idea that only that which we can understand completely with our reason is true; or worse: the idea that how we feel about things determines whether those things are true, including things arrived at by reason.

Paul’s message to the people of Athens can teach us much about how we can and should be willing to connect with our world today. We’ll break down this last proclamation we will be studying in Acts into sections: Connection, Declaration, Correction, Direction, and Reaction.

1) Connection

It wouldn’t make any sense for Paul to start off his message to the people of Athens by using the same tactics and starting point that he did for the Jews in the synagogues that he shared the Gospel with. For most of the Athenians, they had very little care (maybe even very little concept) of the history of Israel. So the first thing that Paul does in his message to the people of Athens is to attempt to find a point of connection or common ground with them:

Acts 17:22–23 CSB

22 Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. 23 For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

Many people think that Paul here is insulting the Athenians in the beginning of his message. But I disagree. Why would Paul to start by insulting the people he is trying to share with? Instead, Paul is building a point of connection with them using their own context: their religious nature.

Back before the pandemic, Gary Lowe came and shared at our Sunday Evening service a message about what he called “On Ramps to the Gospel.” I like that term. There are points of connection that we have with other people as we get to know them. And as we find those shared places, we can also then watch for the opportunity for those points of connection to lead us to the Gospel. These are those “on ramps.” That’s what Paul was doing here. By referring to their religious life, he was showing that he understood them to a certain extent.

The Greeks and Romans both worshiped a pantheon of “gods.” Even the Areopagus referenced this fact, as it means “hill of Ares.” Incidentally, the KJV calls it “Mars Hill” because Mars was the Roman counterpart to the Greek god of war, Ares. But even this idea of having a “god” or “goddess” for everything didn’t get the religious job done for the Athenians. Paul refers them to an altar that he found in Athens that was inscribed “To an Unknown God.”

Why have an altar to a god they didn’t know? And why worship at that altar? They did so because they had to make sure they didn’t miss anyone, because the concept of the gods to many of them was that they were tyrannical power-hungry narcissists. They had this altar “To an Unknown God” or “gods” for a reason: if there was a god who they didn’t know about and they didn’t worship that god, they could be in trouble. The ironic thing is that in all of their pantheon of gods, along with their “catch-all” altars, they had actually missed the truth: the only real God was still truly unknown to them.

They couldn’t argue that they were somehow not ignorant. They had already admitted that they were ignorant with the inscription on the altar. Paul wasn’t here saying that that altar was actually dedicated to God Almighty by accident. He was saying that everything about their worship was ignorant, was foolish, and now he was going to tell them what was actually true.

Paul had gotten their attention. Now he would make his declaration of truth.

2) Declaration

Even though Paul’s message to the Athenians isn’t a particularly Jewish message, that doesn’t mean it’s not biblical. No, his message is deeply rooted in the Old Testament, because it is a summary of the story of history and God’s orchestration of it. In fact, his argument’s foundation is found in one particular truth.

Acts 17:24–28 CSB

24 The God who made the world and everything in it—he is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. 25 Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things. 26 From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. 27 He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’

His foundational premise is that God exists, and then that He made everything: the cosmos (translated “the world” here) and all that it contains, and then that He is the master of all of it. This is just the plain, simple truth. And here is the kicker: it’s EITHER true, or it’s not. There’s no middle ground. These three facets: God’s existence, His power, and His lordship are all-or-nothing.

Paul isn’t just making a religious argument or providing his personal opinion. He’s making a declaration of fact, and that declaration is either true or false. The question then is this: Which position (true or false) correctly corresponds to REALITY?

Have we lost this fact in our society? In some ways, it seems that we have. It seems that we have gotten into the nasty habit of approaching things this way: Rather than us having that which is real determine what is true, we decide that something is true and then call it reality. So in this way, we create truth to decide what is real, but this cannot possibly work, because it only works one way: that which accurately reflects actual reality is true. If it doesn’t match reality, it’s false.

We’ve reached the point in our world where the majority of people believe that “Religious belief is a matter of personal opinion; it is not about objective truth.” (Ligonier Ministries, The State of Theology, Statement 31). In fact, when prompted with that question, 54% of respondents agreed with that statement, and 12% more said they were not sure. That’s 2/3 of respondents. Ligonier Ministries gives this explanation:

The religions of mankind do not claim to be mere subjective, personal opinions but claim to reflect objective truths about reality. This is particularly true of the Christian faith, which is based on historical events such as the resurrection of Jesus that must be objectively true in order for Christian belief to be valid. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead proclaims that He is the only God who can save us. If this is not objectively and universally true, then there is no Christian faith. As individuals, we exercise personal faith, but to believe in something that is mere opinion and not objective truth is to believe in something that cannot provide salvation.

All religious beliefs, including atheism (which IS a religious belief), cannot possibly be valid, because each makes claims that are objectively contradictory. The Christian says that the God of the Bible is God. Other religions say that He isn’t. It simply CANNOT be both ways. So which is it? Is God real, the Creator of everything, and the Lord of all? Or not?

It is on this question that everything, and I mean literally everything hinges: If God is real, then He determines what is true, because He would then be the prime (or first and most important) reality, and every other reality is derived from that fact. This is the first assumption of reality that Scripture makes, in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God...”

If He is not real, we as Christians are really no different than the Athenians with their made-up gods and their metal, stone, and wood altars, and everything else we claim to believe is not true as well, because if God isn’t real, then we cannot believe anything else that it teaches. By definition, you cannot be a Christian and not believe that God exists. They are mutually exclusive.

Hebrews 11:6 CSB

6 Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

I could stand up here this morning and make a bunch of arguments about the existence of God. However, what I want us all to understand is that the last step of any worldview, even the Christian worldview, is a step of faith. Because that last step is the one where you finally land on the fact that your worldview is foundational to everything else: it’s where you completely trust that your view of truth actually corresponds with reality.

Some might try to tell you that the universe has always existed. This is a physical and logical impossibility. Some might tell you that the universe could have started to exist on its own. This is also a physical and logical impossibility (have you ever seen something that spontaneously existed?). Some might tell you that there was a Big Bang and that’s where the universe came from… but that doesn‘t answer the question: if there was nothing, WHAT went “bang?” and WHERE was it when it “banged?”

No, there must be an eternal Someone who has always existed who is also infinitely powerful enough to make the entire universe out of nothing at all. Someone with perfect knowledge about how things must work. And that Someone is the God of the Bible, existing eternally in Three Persons according to Scripture: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, which constantly testify to His existence:

Psalm 19:1–4a (CSB)

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge. 3 There is no speech; there are no words; their voice is not heard. 4 Their message has gone out to the whole earth, and their words to the ends of the world.

All of the rest of the things that Paul says rest on this first declaration of truth: Since God is Creator of all things, then He is Lord over everything. He is not subject to us. We are subject to Him. We cannot contain Him in little man-made shrines. We cannot make Him any more complete than He already is: He has no needs. He is absolutely independent. We are radically dependent on Him, because it is in Him that we “live and move and have our being.” We see all of this in what Paul argues in the rest of this section of our focal passage:

Paul argues that God has made himself evident in His creation through His provision (life and breath and all things) and in His sovereignty over geography, history, or even both (verse 26), so that we “might seek God, and perhaps…reach out and find Him.”

The terminology here is one of “groping around in the dark.” Paul affirms that God isn’t distant from us (which is what the Epicureans believed), but we are distant from Him. We grope in the dark because of our sin. This is why we don’t see reality for what it is. We grope around in the darkness of reality because we don’t see things the way God sees them, and He’s the one who defines what is real and what isn’t.

Paul even shows where the truth of God’s story of history touches their contemporary culture. Be very cautious with verse 28: in its original context, it’s referring to Zeus. But the point he’s making is that there are glimmers of the actual truth in much of what the world says, but the lost are “groping around” for it, as in the dark. And since we’re in the dark, we need the light of truth to find our way: we need God Himself to reveal Himself to us, showing us our failings and faults, our selfishness and sin in light of His glorious reality. We need to be corrected.

3) Correction

If we have gone astray from the truth of the reality of God’s existence, then we are in many ways living out a lie. So where is it that we have gone wrong? According to Paul, one way is by defining God on our own terms.

Acts 17:29 CSB

29 Since, then, we are God’s offspring, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination.

The Athenians had lots of idols, lots of shrines, lots of little statues that they would pray to and make offerings to. And every one of those was wrong—they each one man’s attempt to make gods that are easy to manage, easy to control, easy to manipulate. When we try to reduce God to fit whatever man-made construction we think He should adhere to, we go astray. Whatever those terms may be.

For Paul to say that we are God’s offspring, he’s saying that we are made in His image, not the other way around. We derive our existence from Him, and since that’s the case, we have no right to try to remake Him into our image, or the image of anything else that we can come up with for Him to be. To do that is to lessen who He is, and that is idolatry.

Psalm 96:4–6 CSB

4 For the Lord is great and is highly praised; he is feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. 6 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

Something that we will look at during our study on the Ten Commandments is our penchant for making idols out of just about anything. That series starts next Sunday.

Paul didn’t shy away from pointing out where they people had been wrong: how they were in sin. It’s important that we realize our sinfulness, or else why would we see that we need a Savior? But it’s not about us fixing ourselves: Now that we have been told how we’ve gone astray, we need to know what God has done about it, and what our response to that should be. For that, we need direction:

4) Direction

So how do we respond to this revelation of the truth of both the reality of God and the reality of our idolatry? The answer that Paul gives to the Athenians is simple: repent of their ignorance:

Acts 17:30–31 CSB

30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Paul is clear with the people of Athens that God’s righteous judgment is coming against everything that stands up against the truth of God. God is going to judge the world for our sins, and that judgment is going to come through Christ. While this record of the Areopagus address does not specifically name Jesus, we saw earlier in verse 18 that this was exactly what Paul was preaching throughout his time in Athens:

Acts 17:18 CSB

18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?” Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities”—because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

The good news of Jesus is that those who belong to Christ through faith will be delivered from the coming judgment, because Christ has already paid the price, and those who belong to Him have received that gift. God calls us to repentance: turning away from our sins, turn away from going our own direction, and turn to Him in surrender. We can’t go our own way AND go with God.

And I want to testify, along with Paul, that the God of the Bible exists, and that He is the One True God, and that He made you and loves you and wants you to be in a personal relationship with Him. We have broken our relationship with Him by rebelling against His will, and we can never make it right in our own strength, because we can never get back to being perfect on our own. Since that’s the case, God Himself provided the way back into relationship with Him, which He did by giving His Son Jesus, fully God and fully man, to take the punishment that we deserve for our sins, so that we are set free from the wrath we deserve and from the power of sin in our lives. He died in our place, but defeated death and rose from the grave, so that He is now our strong foundation for abundant life now and eternal life forever.

Finally, this brings us to our last point: reaction.

5) Reaction

When Paul makes his appeal, there are three different responses: some ridicule, some have curiosity, and some believe.

Acts 17:32–34 CSB

32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him, but others said, “We’d like to hear from you again about this.” 33 So Paul left their presence. 34 However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Some just thought Paul was nuts, as they had mentioned in verse 18. Some were unconvinced, but said that they would like to hear more (we don’t know that they ever had Paul speak again, however). But some heard the Gospel that day and believed (including a member of the Areopagus), trusting in Christ for their salvation, making Him the foundation of their lives from that point forward.

Closing

So what is your reaction to the Gospel message today? Will you be like some and scoff at it as the words of an outdated book spoken by a fool or a madman? Will you say, “you know, that was cool and all, and I’d like to hear more, but I’m not sure I’m ready to commit just yet?” Or will you surrender to the truth of the Gospel, and trust your forever to the foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ?

The world that we live in today doesn’t see the Bible, or Jesus, or the Gospel, as foundational. But Jesus is the only foundation that is trustworthy, the only foundation that will always stand, the only foundation where true rescue, true deliverance, true hope is found.

This morning, if you have trusted in Christ for your salvation, we want to know about it! If you’re here in the building, in a moment the Worship Rally team is going to come back up, and if you have surrendered your life to Christ in faith today, come and share that with us when the music begins. If you’re online, please let us know by sending me an email to [e-mail]. We just want to be able to celebrate with you and to help you as your start this new journey of faith.

If you believe that Eastern Hills is a church where you can grow in your walk with the Lord and serve alongside your brothers and sisters, and you would like to talk about joining the church in formal membership, please come down during the invitation as well. If you’re online, but you live in the Albuquerque area, again shoot me an email at [e-mail] so we can set a time to talk about church membership.

If there is some other response that God is prompting you to make this morning: perhaps to repent of sin or idolatry, or to surrender yourself to His call on your life to ministry, please use this time for that response.

PRAYER

If Milli doesn’t come down, call her down.

Missionary Prayer

TURN OFF THE STREAM. We have partnered with missionaries who are serving overseas. They are here with us this morning. These missionaries serve in a place where you cannot openly tell others about Jesus, and they return to the field this week, so I wanted us to pray over them this morning as a church before we send them back out.

CALL THEM DOWN and PRAY

TURN THE STREAM BACK ON.

Closing Remarks

Bible reading: Exodus started on Wednesday. Exodus 5 this morning. At this point, we have read about one quarter of the chapters of the Bible together.

Father’s Day is next Sunday.

Following our benediction, we’re going to go out to the same song that the VBS kids went out with every night.

Benediction (It’s a little long, but it is a great challenge for this morning’s message):

2 Timothy 4:1–5 CSB

1 I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: 2 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. 3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. 4 They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5 But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.