Sermon Tone Analysis
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Acts 17:16-34
BI: Turn from idols and turn to the living God through Jesus Christ
1. Introduction
Our world is filled with billions of people who devote their lives to idols.
Many people worship gods they’ve made stone or metal or wood.
It’s true of Buddhism.
Back in uni days I loved travelling to Malaysia, Thailand, China – cheap flights right, but step off the plane and you’d see idols everywhere.
Big impressive Buddha statues overseeing the mountainside.
Little shrines in the restaurants, in homes, hostels.
They believed these gods protected you.
You pray to give them thanks, ask for blessings.
It’s true of Hinduism.
For many others idols are more subtle.
Many say they don’t believe in god or gods but practically, they place ultimate value and worth on man-made ideas or things.
I mean, that’s fundamentally what an idol is.
It is to place anything, worship anything above God.
We see this everywhere don’t we?
Some people live for family, some for legacy, others the praise and adulation.
In our world that holds to happiness as what’s most important in our culture, many live lives devoted to things like beauty, comfort, security from money, pleasure of drugs or sex, and of course, sport.
Tim Keller says that the human heart is a constant idol factory.
We constantly think of ways to place things above God.
The thing is, it's not just something we see today.
We see it in Acts 17:16-34 this morning.
That’s where we will spend our time.
The Apostle Paul comes to Athens, a place full of idols.
Yes it had lost its political power of the past but it’s still an important intellectual centre.
How’d he get there?
Remember last week we were in Philippi.
Well Paul travelled through Amphipolis and Apollonia and preached the Gospel in Thessalonica and then in Berea.
It was hard.
He was being persecuted.
He sneaks out and gets to Athens because of persecution.
Here he is there waiting for Timothy and Silas to come join him.
2. Turn from following idols (17:16-26)
Pick it up with me from verse 16
Acts 17:16-17
Paul gets to Athens but right away he is distressed.
The place is full of idols.
The word there in verse 16 literally means it was swarming with idols.
He is set on edge, irritated, stressed out.
Why?
Why can’t he just chill out?
Well, God is to be worshipped, not these false idols.
Do false idols distress you?
Not just idols made of wood or gold, but other idols like education, family, work just a name a few.
Does that distress you that these things are worshipped instead of God?
It does for Paul.
But notice what Paul does?
He doesn’t rant and rave.
No.
He reasons in the synagogue.
He wants them to turn from worshipping idols but he gives the rationale for it.
He explains who God really is.
He talks about Jesus not just to Jews.
No, he’s going to the marketplace.
The bloke will speak to anyone about Jesus.
It’s that important!
And his words are creating waves.
Look at verse 18 he comes in contact with two other religious systems.
What do these Epicureans and Stoics believe?
Well, Epicureans believed you live for pleasure.
Take life easy.
Enjoy life.
You live once.
There’s no reckoning, there’s no justice there’s certainly no judgement.
Live laugh be merry.
That’s their philosophy.
But the Stoics were different.
They thought life was to be lived in harmony with nature and reason.
Suffering is fate.
So bear it and get on with life.
There’s no future hope, live a good life but whatever will be will be.
Can you that see belief systems did not offer hope of life beyond death?
So of course, what Paul says is beyond them.
But they want to hear more.
So they take him to the Areopagus – think a public place where people talk politics, religion, ethics verse 19
Paul’s got the stage to himself.
God gives him a great Gospel opportunity.
Notice how Paul engages, he's respectful verse 22
Acts 17:22–23 (ESV)
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’
He relates with them by saying ‘I can see you are very religious’.
And he connects with them.
He uses the context he is in.
Can see you have an altar ‘to an unknown god’ let me tell you about this God you don’t know.
Paul is respectful.
He relates and connects.
But he is not defensive about the truth.
He proclaims it without hesitation.
Verse 23 second half “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
So Paul tells gives the reason why we need to turn from idols.
He tells us who God is.
It’s compelling.
First, God is the Creator verse 24
God is the creator of everything under heaven and earth.
We submit to him.
The Stoics and Epicureans think the world is here by random chance, a series of flukes.
They’re wrong.
God is the creator.
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