00:00: About 11 or 12 years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Thailand.
00:09: It was a trip with a number of other pastors, and it had been organized for pastors as kind of a we want to remind pastors of how much the world globally needs Jesus to kind of get them out of the American church bubble.
00:25: And so we went over to Thailand, and we're in the Bangkok area, and we were traveling around on this double-decker coach bus.
00:34: Literally, it had an upstairs and a downstairs.
00:37: And as we rode around, mostly in the upstairs section, we could see in everyone's yards.
00:43: It gives you that elevated perspective.
00:46: And I noticed very quickly, they were very into birds.
00:50: They had all these birdhouses in their backyards.
00:53: There's a pole, and there'd be a platform, and there'd be a little house-type thing on it.
00:59: And there'd be some food items out in front.
01:02: But what I discovered very quickly, and it was explained to us, these were not birdhouses.
01:06: They were actually shrines.
01:08: They were called spirit houses.
01:10: And what they were is a way of honoring various spirits and ancestors, deities of multiple varieties.
01:18: They were ways of sheltering and honoring the guardian spirits of the land.
01:24: And so what they would do is they'd have them, and they upkept them.
01:26: They were really well-maintained, and they were put in a certain part of the yard where it's out of the shadow of the house and so on.
01:32: And they would put food items, food and drink out there.
01:36: And it was just so strange to see that.
01:40: And it wasn't just that you once in a while saw it.
01:42: It was all over the place.
01:43: It was just pervasive, ubiquitous, everywhere you looked.
01:47: And I think that is the memory that I have of Thailand that most captured my heart for how much of the world doesn't know Jesus, how much of the world recognizes the spiritual realm, recognizes that there's something going on that we can't touch and see with our eyes, and yet doesn't understand the truth of the matter.
02:09: The Apostle Paul, in the passage that was read aloud for us this morning, encountered something completely different but entirely the same in Athens.
02:20: It was different in that it wasn't backyard shrines, but it was idols.
02:25: There were idols and altars all around in Athens that were about recognizing and honoring various deities and spirits of different sorts and levels.
02:35: Countless different ones.
02:37: Now, I say countless.
02:38: I actually read in one historical estimate that there were thought to be about 30,000 deities and spirits of various sorts that were recognized and respected and responded to to some degree in Athens at that time.
02:55: 30,000.
02:57: One historian from the era, a Roman historian, said, there are so many gods in Athens that it is easier to meet one than a man.
03:06: It kind of reminds me of how I've heard Wisconsin described where there's more cows than people, right?
03:13: There's this abundance of religious foci, religious deities and spirits that are honored and responded to in Athens then.
03:28: And so Athens then, like Thailand now, needed someone to care enough to bring them the gospel.
03:34: The gospel is a New Testament word.
03:35: It means the good news.
03:36: That's literally what the word means.
03:38: The good news of who Jesus is and what he's done.
03:40: And in walks Paul.
03:42: By God's plan, the apostle Paul has moved in his journey to this point, and he's in Athens.
03:48: And we see in verse 16 something noteworthy.
03:50: Check this out.
03:52: While Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
04:01: So he's there.
04:02: He's seeing the city.
04:04: He sees all these idols, and he's provoked.
04:06: It irritates his spirit.
04:09: It leaves him with a sense of unrest, a lack of peace.
04:12: It bothered him to see everyone being so religious, but to see that all of that religion that they were practicing was misguided.
04:21: It was aimed at the wrong targets.
04:23: They were aiming at anything and everything except for the one true God.
04:28: Now, why was he irritated?
04:30: In what manner was he irritated?
04:32: The text doesn't explicitly tell us.
04:33: It doesn't say.
04:34: But I think if we read what follows, we can put it together.
04:38: For example, if I were to talk to my wife and say something like, I came home, I walked into the kitchen, and I was just blown away and freaking out.
04:48: Now, I haven't told her what happened, right?
04:50: I haven't specified.
04:52: She might have a different number of guesses.
04:54: But if the story continues, I say, I immediately grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, and sprayed down the stovetop.
05:00: Well, then she can infer something was burning on the stove, right?
05:04: When we look at the rest of how Paul responds here, we can infer what his heart is towards these idols.
05:10: And it's not one of condemnation.
05:12: Oh, these bad Greek people, these bad Athenians.
05:15: I can't believe they do all this stupid other religious stuff.
05:19: He's not self-righteous.
05:21: He's not arrogant.
05:22: He's not condemning.
05:24: We can tell because his response, as we move through the passage, is basically to find common ground.
05:31: To start talking about why they need something new compared to what they've had.
05:36: And what that solution is, namely Jesus, through faith.
05:40: He begins to offer them the spiritual remedy that they so desperately need, but don't have.
05:46: And so it's an issue of compassion towards people that need Jesus.
05:53: That's his heart attitude.
05:54: That's what was provoking him.
05:55: Notice in verse 17 whom Paul engaged and how he engaged them.
06:02: It says, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
06:12: So, Paul's normal MO?
06:14: He'll go to the synagogue.
06:15: Synagogue is sort of like a Jewish church, right?
06:17: He goes to this location where the Jews gather, and he reasoned with them, which we've seen in other passages in our study of the book of Acts's point.
06:25: Meaning he would go in and he would show them from the Old Testament scriptures, hey, this is what God said he was going to do when he sent a Messiah.
06:33: This is what the Messiah was going to be like.
06:35: And guess what?
06:35: It totally matches Jesus.
06:37: And he would try to show them, reason with them, that God's word told them to expect Jesus, and now they need to receive Jesus who has actually come.
06:44: Now, it says he did this with the Jews and the devout persons.
06:48: Well, who are the devout people?
06:50: These, in context, would be non-Jews at the synagogue.
06:54: These would be Gentile, that is, not Jewish people, who were attending synagogue, who had some embrace or exploring or favorability towards Judaism.
07:06: These were converts or seekers exploring the Jewish faith.
07:12: And so he would engage with these religious people in this religious setting.
07:16: But he also would go down to the marketplace each day.
07:19: Synagogue only met typically weekly.
07:21: But he would go down to the marketplace.
07:23: Whoever was out there in the public sphere, he'd engage them, right?
07:26: This would be like showing up at a farmer's market today, maybe, right?
07:29: Or going to downtown Green Bay or what have you.
07:32: Showing up in the mall and walking around, whoever you can find to talk to at the mall.
07:36: He was willing to engage with anybody and everyone, any place he could.
07:41: Anybody and everybody here, there, and everywhere.
07:44: In fact, it's as he's engaging with people publicly in the marketplace that he's redirected to the Areopagus.
07:52: Areopagus is a neat word because it's a little hard to read and to say.
07:57: And I need to stop saying it because I think I've gotten it correct twice and that's probably my limit here.
08:02: But it's literally, it means Aries Hill.
08:06: It's a hill named for a Greek god.
08:10: The Greek god Aries.
08:11: He's like, religious place named after a false god?
08:15: You bet I'll go there.
08:17: And he goes and shares Jesus with him there.
08:19: Can you imagine what it would be like to have been in this place where most of the people around you were enthralled by false gods?
08:28: Where people lived with devotion to things that just really don't matter in the scheme of things.
08:34: To various ideas and thoughts and deities other than the one true god?
08:41: You don't really need to imagine all that much because you can just look around you today in Wisconsin and see much the same thing.
08:48: Despite the number of churches here in Green Bay, Green Bay is absolutely full of people who don't really know Jesus.
08:55: People whose lives are filled with idols.
08:58: And we often think of idols as statues and altars and physical, tangible, touchable, religious things.
09:05: But really, fundamentally, an idol is just anything that's more important to us than God is.
09:12: Talk to a lot of people in Green Bay, whether they go to church or not, and you find that they don't know Jesus.
09:19: If you ask the average person in Green Bay, are you going to heaven?
09:23: And if so, how are you getting there?
09:25: Do you think God will accept you?
09:28: You're getting a lot of, I don't know.
09:29: Or, yeah, I think so.
09:31: I'm a pretty good person.
09:32: Or, you know, I try to do good.
09:35: Or I mostly do the right stuff.
09:36: Often, it's some version of, I think God's going to like my resume.
09:42: I think God's going to be pleased with how I've done things.
09:44: So, yeah, I think I'm going to pass.
09:46: Right?
09:47: As soon as you hear that answer, you know this is not somebody that understands the good news of Jesus Christ.
09:55: Because the standard is perfection.
09:56: If I told you, hey, I made chili this afternoon, and these are the ingredients I put in.
10:01: I put some beef, some venison, onions, peppers.
10:06: I put one really nasty rotten egg in it.
10:09: Because that's all I had.
10:10: But it's only one.
10:11: Most of the ingredients are good.
10:13: Everyone here is like, which chili is yours?
10:15: We don't want to eat it.
10:16: Right?
10:17: Because even that one bit of nasty ruins the whole batch.
10:21: Guess what?
10:21: Our lives are like that.
10:22: One bit of nasty on the resume spoils the whole resume.
10:28: If you're hiring a position at a company, and you look at the resume, and it's like, ah, I've got this education, and this experience, and yada, yada.
10:34: But I was arrested for embezzlement and convicted.
10:38: But I'd like to be your CFO.
10:40: I'm sorry, that one piece ruins the whole resume, doesn't it?
10:43: God's standard is not, hey, you've got to be pretty good.
10:48: His standard is perfection.
10:51: And nobody measures up to that.
10:56: The religious people around us in Green Bay often don't understand that you're never going to get right with God by performance.
11:05: You're not that good.
11:06: Even the unreligious people around us, especially the unreligious people around us, need Jesus.
11:15: They do the same sort of thing in a secular way.
11:18: Instead of treating some false idea of God or God's system as the top thing, they treat money or family or fame or hobbies or jobs or marriage or something else as the end-all be-all, the priority in life.
11:32: Let's put it like this.
11:35: What is the most important thing in your life?
11:38: What's the thing that has to be okay or your life's not okay?
11:44: If your answer is Jesus, good.
11:47: But if your answer is something else, that thing is an idol.
11:51: It's something that's more important to you than God is.
11:55: And so we have as much idolatry around us here today as I think they had back then.
12:01: It just looks a little different.
12:03: And so, like Paul, we need to be willing to engage with all sorts of different people in all sorts of different settings.
12:09: Willing to engage with family, friends, co-workers, strangers, new acquaintances.
12:14: Being willing to do it at home, at family gatherings, work, school, social things.
12:20: Even totally out in public.
12:23: I have gotten in spiritual conversations in the line at the post office.
12:28: That's the upside to a long line, a slow-moving line.
12:32: Like, hey, I've got time to meet a fellow.
12:35: His name is Jacques.
12:36: I've invited him to church and I'm looking for him to come at some point.
12:38: He said he was going to.
12:40: I met Clem at a McDonald's.
12:42: Like, you can engage people wherever you are.
12:46: Clem's also planning to come, by the way.
12:48: He even had me write down the information for him.
12:50: Now, look at how Paul shared his faith.
12:55: Verses 22 and 23.
12:57: He gets invited to this other location where there's more engagement.
13:01: He says, I love that.
13:25: He has so little in common religiously with these folks that it would blow your mind.
13:31: And yet he starts off by finding something in common.
13:34: He says, I'm religious.
13:36: You're religious.
13:38: Common starting point, right?
13:41: He affirms something good about them.
13:45: He sees something valuable.
13:46: Now, it's not fully on the money.
13:48: It's not 100% right.
13:49: They're worshiping false gods.
13:51: That's obviously bad.
13:51: But he says, I see that you're religious.
13:53: I see that you value these kinds of matters.
13:58: And in fact, I see that you even got this altar to an unknown God.
14:02: I think that's hilarious.
14:04: Have you ever thought about this?
14:06: All these different worship things set up.
14:08: Picture like a, I don't know, a farmer's market or a flea market.
14:11: There was all these different things set up.
14:13: But they're each designated to a different God.
14:16: He's like, yeah, this one little over one in the corner.
14:18: It's like, we don't even know who this God is.
14:20: It's like this catch-all.
14:21: Like, hey, if there's another God out there and we don't happen to have him listed, we don't want to offend him.
14:26: I'm sorry, but a little catch-all table for we don't know who you are is not much of an honor to that God, is it?
14:31: Right?
14:33: It's like, hey, I'm giving my speech to accept my award and I'd like to thank What's-Her-Face.
14:38: Right?
14:38: What's-Her-Face is not going to be too honored by that.
14:40: But he says, hey, I see that you care about honoring a God, even if you don't really know who that God is.
14:48: Like, it's that, religion is that important to you.
14:51: Well, there's a God that you don't know, and I'm here to tell you about that God.
14:55: And there's his transition.
14:57: He takes what's good and right to some degree, finds that common ground, and then segues to talking about Jesus.
15:03: We saw earlier in the passage, as William read it aloud, they're like, what does this babbler seem to say?
15:08: He seems to be talking about foreign divinities.
15:11: And then it explains why they said that.
15:12: Well, he was preaching Jesus in the resurrection.
15:14: And that was so foreign to what they were familiar with.
15:16: They're like, what is this?
15:18: Right?
15:19: So, Paul, as always, it's about Jesus.
15:22: He starts off with common ground, says, I'm going to tell you about the one that you don't know about, that you're even paying attention to over here.
15:30: Can you do that today?
15:32: Absolutely.
15:33: Maybe you're talking to an acquaintance, a friend, a neighbor, or whoever.
15:37: You find out they're churched.
15:39: You ask them about that.
15:40: Oh, where do you go to church?
15:41: Tell me about that.
15:42: Right?
15:43: Whether it's a good church, a bad church, a Bible-preaching church, a heresy church, you're in.
15:48: You can start talking.
15:49: Why do you go there?
15:50: What do you like about it?
15:51: What do they teach there?
15:52: What do you believe?
15:53: Tell me about that.
15:54: Right?
15:55: Or maybe they're going through a hard time, and they ask you to pray for them.
15:58: Or you offer to pray for them.
15:59: Oh, yeah, please do.
16:01: Boom.
16:01: Prayer.
16:01: Prayer.
16:02: Are they praying right?
16:03: I don't know.
16:04: But the fact that they value prayer is a common point.
16:07: You can go in that way.
16:08: Right?
16:08: Or maybe they're focused on their kids.
16:10: They're struggling, wrestling with parenthood.
16:13: Any parents ever struggle with that?
16:15: And every parent says, amen.
16:17: Right?
16:18: Hey, I wrestle with how to take care of my kids.
16:20: Right?
16:20: There's a commonality.
16:22: Here's, boom.
16:23: There's your end.
16:23: Right?
16:23: Because, hey, I need God's help as a parent.
16:26: Here's what I really want for my kids.
16:28: I want them to know and love Jesus.
16:29: And I can't make that happen.
16:31: I'm praying for God to change their hearts, for the Holy Spirit to show them how much they need Jesus and to make them such that they love the Lord instead of rebel against him.
16:39: Right?
16:40: Bam.
16:40: There's your end.
16:40: Maybe the person's just struggling in general.
16:43: Like, oh, man, I can't keep up with everything.
16:45: It's just, I'm overwhelmed by life and hardship and difficulty.
16:48: And you can say, yeah, I spend time in that place sometimes, too.
16:52: I get that.
16:54: I'd love to help you walk through that because I've got God helping me walk through those hard times.
16:59: There's your end.
17:00: Right?
17:00: Whatever you have in common can be a point of connection that can begin to give you opportunity to share about Jesus.
17:09: Look for that common ground.
17:11: And then you can go from common ground toward the foot of the cross.
17:15: Verse 23, he says, as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God.
17:24: What I therefore, what you therefore worship is unknown, I proclaim to you.
17:30: He takes this little whatever religious common ground and he says, I actually happen to know something about that.
17:38: And I'd like to tell you about that.
17:40: Right?
17:40: Maybe you're talking to someone who's like, I don't know much about God.
17:42: I think God's real, but...
17:44: And you have to say, yeah, you know, I've been learning about what God is like by reading my Bible, by studying the scripture, by listening to sermons our pastor preaches from God's word.
17:57: Right?
17:57: And let me tell you some things I've discovered about who God is.
18:01: There you go.
18:02: This is what he does.
18:03: And as he begins to describe this God, how does he do it?
18:06: Verses 24 and 25.
18:08: I think he begins to do it in a very general way that they can identify with.
18:12: He doesn't start explicitly talking about Jesus here.
18:15: He's definitely going to go there.
18:17: But he says, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
18:34: He starts off by saying, the God I'm talking about is way bigger than any of these little deities who I'm talking about.
18:41: Oh, the God of the hills, the God of the plains, the God of this country, the God of that country, the God who helps out with rain, but not harvest, and the one that helps out with harvest, but not war.
18:50: No, no.
18:51: This is the God who made the world and everything in it.
18:55: The creator God who is Lord of heaven and earth.
18:58: This is the God who reigns over everything and everyone everywhere.
19:03: That's the God I'm talking about.
19:04: The God.
19:05: The God above all so-called gods.
19:08: That's the God we're talking about.
19:11: And you know what?
19:12: You can't serve him as though meeting a need.
19:15: God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything.
19:20: Now you take the first half of that.
19:22: God is not served by human hands.
19:25: Isn't he?
19:26: Well, yeah.
19:27: Yeah, we can serve God.
19:29: We can do things that serve God, but not as though he needed anything.
19:33: We can't serve God in a way that meets a God need.
19:37: Right?
19:37: We can serve God.
19:39: We just can't meet any needs because he doesn't have any.
19:42: He's the one that controls everything.
19:43: Everything that's out there is his.
19:45: You are only in existence because of God's gracious will towards you.
19:48: God caused you to come into existence.
19:51: God keeps you in existence.
19:53: Your heart continues to beat by the mercy and sovereignty of God.
19:56: And if that's the case, then we need to rethink religion entirely.
20:02: Religion, as they conceived of it back then, was primarily about seeking favor with this God or that God.
20:08: Doing something that would please that God so that God would reciprocate and do something you wanted.
20:13: It was a tit-for-tat trade system.
20:16: I put out offerings.
20:17: I sacrifice bowls.
20:18: I do this.
20:18: I do that.
20:19: And then God will be happy with me and give me good harvest and health and children and so on.
20:23: Whatever it is you're looking for.
20:26: He's like, no, you can't bargain with somebody who has everything.
20:29: He made everything.
20:30: He sustains everything.
20:32: He's the creator God.
20:33: Bargaining isn't going to do you any good at all.
20:38: Then he segues from this creator God to its relevance for them finding the one true God.
20:43: Verses 26 and 27.
20:45: And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.
21:03: Yet he is not actually far from each one of us.
21:07: He starts talking about how this God who's sovereign over all of heaven and all the earth puts you exactly where he puts you with purpose.
21:14: You are where you are and you are when you are by God's design that you might seek God.
21:21: God's purpose in putting you here this day in Wisconsin is that you might then seek God.
21:29: That's why you're here in this building this morning.
21:31: That's why God has you living in the Green Bay area or wherever you might be visiting from.
21:35: This is the time and the place and he's calling you to seek him.
21:40: That you might find him.
21:41: He's not trying to hide from you.
21:42: He's not that far off, he says.
21:47: And then he quotes Taylor Swift.
21:54: Not literally, but basically he does.
21:58: He says, verse 27 and 28, Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.
22:04: For in him we live and move and have our being.
22:07: As even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring.
22:12: He quotes a couple of contemporary Greek poets.
22:17: Like poets, I'm saying contemporary, ones that they would have been familiar with at their time.
22:22: Right?
22:22: He's like, let me reference your own culture.
22:26: Icons in your culture that say some of these same kinds of principles that I'm highlighting here.
22:31: That would be like us today talking to another American and quoting Taylor Swift.
22:38: Or Lady Gaga.
22:39: Or Bruno Mars.
22:40: Or Mark Twain.
22:42: Or Robert Frost.
22:44: Right?
22:44: Saying, as I did last week, right?
22:47: You guys remember that?
22:49: I got some feedback on that.
22:50: When I talked about how some people are just going to have issues with Christians.
22:56: And I quoted Taylor Swift who said, haters are going to hate.
22:59: Right?
23:00: That's what he's doing here.
23:02: He's saying, let me put it to you in a way that you'll understand.
23:05: Let me quote people that you're familiar with so that you can understand what I'm saying.
23:09: He comes at it in speaking to these Greek people totally different than he does when he's talking to the Jews.
23:14: I want you to think about who you're talking to when you're sharing Jesus and put it in a way that they're going to understand.
23:21: Right?
23:21: If you're sharing Jesus with a five-year-old, you better be explaining Jesus differently than when you're talking to a 50-year-old.
23:29: Right?
23:30: A five-year-old, you've got to keep it simple.
23:32: And you've got to keep it short.
23:34: Or they're not going to get it.
23:38: He says, let me put it to you in a way you'll understand.
23:40: And he quotes these folks that they'll know.
23:43: And he points out, they say, hey, every part of our lives is dependent on him.
23:49: Right?
23:50: In him, we live and move and have our being.
23:53: So even in the Greek poetry, they have this understanding, some of them at least, that there is a God that's in control of our whole life.
24:01: Paul's like, I'll tell you who that is.
24:03: And it's not the Greek gods.
24:06: It's the God.
24:07: The God of creation.
24:09: And then it goes on.
24:11: We are his children.
24:12: Not meaning that we're literally adopted as children of God every single human being.
24:16: But saying, we're something like God.
24:18: We reflect what God is like.
24:20: They had that understanding in this poetry he's citing.
24:24: Well, don't we have that same teaching in Scripture?
24:27: Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 and 27.
24:30: Let us make man in our own image, God said at creation.
24:33: He was making humanity, creating men and women, that in some way we reflect what God is like.
24:38: And that's what he's referencing here.
24:40: And saying, if we're like God in some ways, then you can't limit God to these little statues you might make.
24:45: I mean, you can't whittle yourself a little bird and say, oh, it's God.
24:49: No, that's just a little piece of wood.
24:51: It's good for kindling.
24:52: It's good for artwork.
24:53: And that's about it.
24:53: It's not going to help your life.
24:54: Being God's offspring, verse 29, we ought not to think that the divine image, that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
25:07: That's not like what we can make.
25:08: He's so much bigger than that.
25:11: Don't shrink God into a little box.
25:13: And then he transitions again, verses 30 and 31.
25:16: He started with common ground.
25:17: He's saying, we need to think bigger thoughts about God, as even some of your own folks have said.
25:22: Like, there's one God that's above everything.
25:25: And we can't put him in this little box.
25:26: And then he says in verses 30 and 31 some really important stuff that we have to convey when we're sharing the message of Christianity.
25:35: Now, we might put it totally different, but the content.
25:37: He says, the times of ignorance got overlooked.
25:40: But now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.
25:52: And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
25:56: So he's saying, hey, in the past, you didn't know.
26:00: And God let that go.
26:03: But now God's sending word out.
26:06: He's making sure everyone hears about Jesus, right?
26:08: That's the man who's going to judge the world.
26:09: That's the man who's been raised from the dead.
26:11: God's going to judge everyone via Jesus.
26:14: And you can't skate by with the I didn't know line anymore.
26:20: Judgment is coming.
26:21: God's going to evaluate and make a determination.
26:26: And claiming you didn't know any better isn't going to cut it going forward.
26:30: You need to respond to Jesus.
26:33: In fact, there's coming a day when God will judge everyone in righteousness.
26:39: How do you think we stack up, right?
26:44: Think about some of your least liked people in your life.
26:47: People that really got some issues.
26:50: For some of you, it might be neighbors.
26:52: For some of you, it might be family, right?
26:54: Families like fudge.
26:55: There's always some nuts in there.
26:57: We got some of those in our family trees in most cases.
27:00: You might stack up pretty good next to some of these folks.
27:07: But you're not being measured against them.
27:10: I tease my kids about grade inflation these days.
27:14: Oh, what did you get?
27:14: I got 102 on my tests.
27:17: What?
27:17: Back in my day, 100 was as high as you could get.
27:22: But there's all these bonus questions and this and that.
27:25: Oh, well, I got 100.
27:26: But really, I got a 90.
27:27: But they curved it, right?
27:28: Because when they looked at everyone, I did better than everyone else.
27:31: And so I curved it to 100 or whatever it might be.
27:36: When God grades you, he will not grade you against your peers.
27:41: And he will not grade on a curve.
27:44: You'll be compared to Jesus.
27:47: And in case you're wondering, you don't look good in that comparison.
27:51: Jesus was perfect.
27:54: You are not, and I am not.
27:57: And so in getting ready for that judgment, that day of judgment, you need something other than your own resume.
28:04: I didn't know anything else isn't going to work.
28:07: And the fact that God's going to do this is proved by the resurrection.
28:13: What's he saying?
28:13: Now, this is the summary version.
28:15: No doubt he explained more about Jesus.
28:17: And he would have explained to them, God sent Jesus, the eternal, uncreated God, into the world.
28:24: And he became a human being.
28:25: That in itself is mind-blowing.
28:27: God became one of us?
28:29: Now, it's one thing for God to show up as a burning bush or a pillar of fire or a pillar of cloud and these mighty earthquakes and so on and so on.
28:35: But God became a little baby that soiled himself?
28:40: God became a child that had to eat food or die?
28:43: God became a human being and slept and ate and swam and so on?
28:50: Really?
28:52: Yeah.
28:53: And then he died.
28:56: He died willingly according to the plan of God.
29:01: And what that was about is this.
29:03: This is the good news that you need to understand and be able to communicate.
29:07: We should live a perfect life, and we don't.
29:10: Jesus is the only person in the history of the world, from the very, very beginning to present, who has ever lived a perfectly perfect life.
29:19: And then he got punished as though he hadn't lived a perfect life.
29:22: He died unjustly at the cross in the place of guilty people.
29:28: He took the judge of the universe's condemnation against sin and said, punish me instead of them.
29:36: He swapped places.
29:39: Whatever punishment you or I deserve, Jesus said, I'll take that on their behalf.
29:44: Punish me instead.
29:45: And that's what the cross was about.
29:46: It was about the perfect life lived by Jesus.
29:49: We get credit for that when we trust in Jesus.
29:52: And then he takes credit for our failures.
29:56: It's like trading report cards.
29:59: Imagine your kid walks home with a neighbor kid every day and comes home from school, and they've each got their report card, and the one's all A pluses, and the other one's a report card full of Fs.
30:08: Jesus says, let's trade report cards.
30:11: I'll take credit for yours.
30:12: You take credit for mine.
30:13: That's the trade at the heart of Christianity.
30:16: If you trust Jesus to take care of you, if you trust him to save you from God's wrath against you because of your failure, your wickedness, your mess-ups, God says, I give Jesus credit for your mess-ups.
30:31: I give you credit for Jesus' successes.
30:34: You're accepted.
30:35: You're welcome.
30:36: That's the good news message that Paul was bringing to the folks in Athens.
30:40: It's the good news message I bring to you today.
30:42: It's the good news message your friends and neighbors and coworkers need from you.
30:46: You can describe it a thousand different ways, but that basic truth needs to be in there because judgment is coming, and people need to know time is running out to get ready for that.
30:59: Jesus' resurrection from the dead is proof that God is serious about punishing sin and that there is a way out.
31:05: In fact, Jesus conquered.
31:07: That's why he got to be raised from the dead.
31:12: Now I want to close with just a few observations from the end of our passage.
31:15: Verses 32, 32 to 34.
31:18: How do folks respond to Paul's message?
31:21: In this passage, there's three responses singled out.
31:24: The first one is they mock him.
31:26: Some of the folks mock him.
31:28: What a stupid message, Paul.
31:30: Right?
31:31: Intellectual arrogance, dismissal, apathy.
31:35: We don't know all of why they mocked him, but they mocked him.
31:39: Can that happen today?
31:40: Yeah.
31:42: People might mock you for your Christian faith.
31:44: They might mock the message of Christianity as you share it.
31:47: That can happen.
31:49: The second response, verse 32, is procrastination.
31:53: Eh, I'm not going to do anything with this right now.
31:55: Come back and talk about it again next week.
31:58: Eh, we just like to talk about this stuff.
31:59: We don't actually want to decide anything.
32:00: We don't want to do anything with it.
32:01: We just keep talking about it.
32:02: You ever met any procrastinators with regards to religious stuff?
32:06: Eh, maybe Sunday.
32:07: Maybe later, maybe when I get to the stage where I'm having kids or when I get old and sickly or whatever.
32:13: I don't want anything to do with God right now.
32:16: But maybe at some point.
32:18: Procrastination is a common tactic today as well.
32:22: But some, verses 33 and 34, some joined Paul and believed, including Dionysius, the Oropagite, a council member, and a woman named Demarius and others with them.
32:36: Some people said, yeah.
32:40: Yeah, we get what you're saying, Paul.
32:43: We're on board.
32:44: Count us in.
32:45: We need Jesus.
32:46: You're right.
32:47: Thank you for coming and telling us about him.
32:49: All three of those responses can and do happen today.
32:54: So what should you do?
32:56: Number one, leave the fruitfulness of sharing the faith to God.
33:02: But do the business of sharing the faith.
33:07: Your job is to open your mouth and tell people about Jesus.
33:11: God's job is to change people's minds and hearts.
33:13: You don't have to do that.
33:15: You don't have to argue somebody into God's kingdom.
33:17: Let me tell you why you're wrong and I'm right.
33:19: Let's argue this out until you take my side.
33:21: Anybody enjoy being on the other side of that table ever?
33:24: Not me.
33:25: That's obnoxious.
33:26: Obnoxious.
33:26: Please don't do that to people.
33:29: Be kind.
33:29: Be loving.
33:30: Be patient.
33:32: Be gentle.
33:33: Don't be condemning.
33:36: Open your mouth and share the message of Jesus.
33:38: Leave the fruitfulness to God.
33:40: And realize that God's going to bring fruit in his time according to his plan.
33:45: Expect mixed reactions.
33:47: Which means two things.
33:49: Expect some people to not be on board.
33:51: Don't be discouraged when that happens.
33:53: That's exactly what God's word tells us to expect.
33:56: But also expect that sometimes there's going to be people who say yes to Jesus.
34:00: Expect that too.
34:02: Don't go into it saying, oh, probably have another time when they mock me.
34:06: Another time when they make fun of me.
34:07: Another time where, you know, they just, oh, I'm not going to think about it today.
34:12: That can happen.
34:13: But you know what?
34:14: Maybe today's the time that God has prepared someone in his heart and transforms them.
34:18: Think about Paul himself.
34:20: Paul hated Christianity.
34:22: He hated Jesus.
34:23: He hated Christians.
34:24: More than you have ever hated anything in your life.
34:28: And God flipped the switch in a single day, in a moment, and transformed him.
34:33: God can and does do that today.
34:35: And so when you share Jesus with the people around you, no.
34:39: Yeah, this might be a disappointment.
34:41: But this might be the moment that I'm singing his praises for.
34:44: This might be the beginning of a new eternity for someone today.
34:47: God can and does do that today.
34:52: And I've got good news for you.
34:56: God has chosen a group of people to be his ambassadors and to represent him to the Green Bay area.
35:02: Look around.
35:05: Look around.
35:05: You're them.
35:07: You are an ambassador of Jesus Christ.
35:10: Called to represent him and tell the people around us about him.
35:14: Because people aren't going to hear if we don't share.
35:17: Can you imagine if Paul had walked into Mars Hill and been like, oh, there's a lot of religion here.
35:21: I better just keep quiet.
35:22: But no.
35:26: God's not honored in that.
35:28: Let's love the people around us enough to share Jesus with them.
35:32: And leave the responses to God.
35:34: Amen.
35:35: Let's pray.
35:37: God, help us to be so confident in you.
35:42: So confident in what you've done in Jesus.
35:44: So confident in the truth of who Jesus is.
35:49: God become man.
35:50: So confident in what he's done.
35:53: Living a perfect life and dying in our place.
35:56: So that we can be forgiven just by trusting in him.
36:00: That we have safety and security for ourselves.
36:03: For eternity.
36:04: And we can offer that good news to others.
36:07: Give us enough confidence in the gospel.
36:11: Enough faith in you to do your work.
36:15: And enough love for the people around us.
36:17: To live out our job as ambassadors.
36:22: Gladly.
36:23: Cheerfully.
36:24: And may you bring many men and women.
36:28: Boys and girls.
36:29: Into your family for eternity.
36:32: It's in Jesus name we pray.
36:34: Amen.