Confronting Idolatry: Paul's Challenge to Athenian Philosophers

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,

where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to

this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen

you in the word of God.

Now come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

Well, we're going to be in Acts 17.

If you have your Bibles, turn there with me.

Acts 17.

And we are going to pick up where we left off last week.

Looking at Paul in Athens in his famous sermon on Mars Hill.

And most of you have, at least in some way, shape or form, heard

about this sermon, or if you haven't, you've probably heard it

referenced in sermons before.

And there's great significance to this sermon.

I think there's a lot that we can learn here in Acts 17 from Paul's

message to these folks here in Athens.

I think it's very similar to how we can present the gospel to

our world today.

What.

What's Mars Hill?

Well, we're going to talk about that here.

Paul gets to Athens.

Athens is the center place for intellectualism.

And we're going to see here in this passage that they love to talk

about the things of philosophy and the things of the world and try

to talk about knowledge and wisdom.

Um, they were really interested in that.

And, and we live in a world today that is characterized by people

seeking after knowledge.

Um, you think about our, our Internet today.

There was a time when if you didn't know something, you just didn't

know it until you read a book about it.

Now you can be stumped with something, Google it, and find it

within seconds.

We have a lot of knowledge at our fingertips here in our society

today, but we, many cases in our culture and our society don't

have the understanding of who God is.

And that's what we would say about Athens.

They had a lot of wisdom, but they didn't have a lot of wisdom

when it came to the things of God fully given to idolatry.

And we talked a little about what idolatry is.

Idolatry is putting anything before the Lord, anything before

God.

And it could be a graven image, it could be an item, it could

be a person.

And so in this case, they were given completely over to idolatry.

And so Paul, he.

He can't wait.

It says that his spirit was stirred in him.

And so the Lord is working in Paul's heart, convicting his heart,

challenging his heart to preach the God Power was not interested

or involved with their humanity.

So.

So it was a very distant God that was not involved with them.

And so therefore their whole goal of life, the Epicureans, were

to seek pleasure.

So the measure of life is how much pleasure you can gain.

Kind of sounds like people that we face in our society today.

It's all about you.

It's about pleasure.

Get what you can, when you can.

There might be a God up there, but he's not really interested in

what you're doing.

So.

So that would be a, a very brief summary of the Epicureans,

but you also have the.

The Stoics.

And the Stoics were a different philosophy.

They had a worldview that, that God was in everything.

So if you've heard of the term pantheism, Stoics believe that God

was in the trees, he was in the water, he was in the buildings,

he was in us, he was in everywhere.

And so they believed in that concept.

They were pantheists, and they believed that God was the world's

soul.

So God is what has this world going, but we're all part of it.

They, they believe that they should not show any emotional response

to either pain or pleasure.

They were very much trying to rise above their circumstances.

And so in many ways we would say, wow, Stoics were good.

They didn't allow their emotions or their circumstances to

dictate to them what was the truth in their life.

But what it is, is they didn't have a standard philosophy of truth.

Their.

Their philosophy of truth was whatever you can make it to be.

Basically, they were trying to have no grip to this world, to be

above the world.

Both of them had a lack of understanding of who Christ was.

They needed Christ.

We've.

We'll face people that are Epicureans, we'll face people that

are Stoics, we'll face people that are in between.

And we see here in this case, that when they encounter Paul's message,

what do they say?

They say, verse, verse 18.

What will this babbler say?

So, like, well, he's babbling just like us.

He's just talking about a philosophy.

We want to know more about this philosophy.

So they, they want to know more about Paul's theory of the world.

So they're curious.

They say, let's hear it.

Others said this.

He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods or different

gods.

And they're okay with adding more gods on.

We're going to see here in a moment.

They had a bunch of idols towards gods and there's one idol

that they call the idol to the unknown God, meaning if we forgot

one, that's to that.

So, so they're okay with adding more on.

You gotta be careful with that, by the way, with people in

this world.

There are certain religions out there.

I know, maybe even Hinduism would be a part of this saying, well,

you could add Jesus onto the many gods that we have.

And there are people in our society today that are okay with

accepting Jesus as long as that can come along with everything

else that they believe in.

And so we have to be careful on when we preach the gospel, which

Paul is going to clearly explain.

You can't just have Jesus added on top of your other beliefs.

Okay, so, so I believe this, this and this, and I'll just add

Jesus into my life and that'll be okay.

The Bible says, John 14:6, that Jesus is the way, the truth

John 14:6

and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by him.

And so we have to be, for lack of a better phrase, narrow minded

about the gospel.

Jesus is the only way.

And so they said, oh, he's bringing forth one of these strange

gods.

We'll, we'll, we'll hear him.

And so why did they think that?

Because he preached and now we see what he was preaching.

And, and I think there's so much that we can learn from verse

18 because Paul's message was summarized this way.

Jesus and the resurrection.

Jesus and the resurrection, the gospel, the complete gospel.

Not just Jesus, not just religion, not just morality.

They would have heard that before, but he was preaching something

different.

And that was Jesus and who he was and what he did and the resurrection,

and not only Jesus's resurrection, which is the whole

reason why we can have faith, right?

Don't preach Jesus without the resurrection.

Paul talks all about that in 1st Corinthians 15.

Remember what he said in 1st Corinthians 15?

If we don't have the resurrection, it's in vain.

What we do is in vain.

Our preaching's in vain, our faith's in vain.

So we preach Jesus in his life, the resurrection, his resurrection,

and ultimately our resurrection, our hope for eternity.

That's what Paul was preaching.

We're going to know that through the context later because

that's what they're actually going to reject.

They will receive the concept of Jesus, a religious figure, but

they reject the resurrection because that's foolishness to them,

because that was something supernatural, that was something

farther than they could understand.

And so he preaches Jesus and the resurrection.

And so what do they do verse 19.

And they took him and brought him unto a.

Now, Arepagus is another term for Mars Hill.

Um, pagus is the idea of a hill or a mountain.

Aries was the God that they worshiped on that mountain.

Mars is the Roman version of Aries.

That's why we get Mars Hill, Aeropagus.

Okay, so they take Paul to this place.

Now, why is this place significant?

Well, for the Greeks there, they.

They saw great significance there because Aries was the God of

war.

And there was this hill there that they said that he stood trial

before the other gods.

And so there was.

It was a great place where they would come and meet and have

the court.

And really what this court would be would be civil cases, criminal

cases, religious matters.

And so even under the Roman rule and in the time of the New Testament,

Mars Hill remained a place for philosophy and religion and law to

be discussed.

So, so you would have this place, it was like the centerpiece

of Athens, that people would come and argue for their case, whether

it be their criminal case, their civil case, their philosophical

case, or their religious case.

And so this was a great place for Paul to have an audience.

And so they, hey, Paul, come, let's hear what you have to say.

So they take him to Areopagus.

And the biblical significance of Mars Hill is the fact that this

is where Paul is going to be able to present the gospel in a time

where it was.

It was opposed.

Right.

It wasn't like Paul would have a youth.

Like we talked about YouTube, right?

Sam, Paul didn't have a YouTube channel where he could get

out and talk to millions of people, even thousands of people.

He had to find opportunities.

Well, this is an awesome opportunity where God opens a door

for him to preach to multiple people in a place where there was

opposition to the gospel.

We should always be looking for a Mars Hill.

Even even though we might not necessarily get the same opportunity

as Paul, we should look for opportunities to say, where can we

proclaim the gospel in our society?

And so different people have different opportunities to do that.

We heard today we got a fellow who wants to do it through sports.

Great.

You know that there are people that are going to come, that's an

act that's active audience to preach the gospel to them.

And it might not be sports for another culture, it might be something

else.

But all of us have an opportunity to find a place where

we could proclaim the gospel.

And this is where Paul's open door is.

And God will open those doors.

He opens this door.

And so they said, come to Areopagus saying, may we not know

what this new doctrine, by the way, it was new for them.

This new teaching, this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is.

So for Paul, they're like, hey, tell us more about what you

believe.

Hey, for a preacher, that's like the best thing you could ever

hear.

Because we're going to preach no matter what.

But if someone says, we want to know what you believe, okay, great.

You left me an open door.

I'm going to come in and I'm going to tell you the truth.

And that's what Paul does.

But Paul is going to reason with them differently than he reasons

with those that come from Jerusalem.

He's going to reason with these people differently because

they have a different background, they have a different

culture, they have a different understanding of the world.

So he's going to speak to them in a way that they understand, in

a way that they can relate.

We're going to see how he does that here in a moment.

Verse 20.

For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears.

Meaning you're bringing things to our ears that we're not used to

hearing.

We've heard a lot of philosophy, we've heard a lot of,

you know, theories.

We've heard a lot of cases.

We've heard a lot of people up here petitioning for their truth.

But yours is different.

Now, why is Paul's different?

Because it's the only truth, right?

It's distinct.

The truth is always going to stand out amongst a bunch of lies.

The truth is always going to seem strange when everybody's lying.

If we live.

If we live in a society that's all about lies and based on lies,

it's a house of cards.

And we bring the only truth in the world to them, that's going to

be weird.

That's like out of bounds.

That's like way out in left field.

You're bringing us truth, and that's what's happening here.

Paul's bringing them truth that they're not used to hearing.

So this is strange to them.

This is different.

And they want to know what these things mean.

We would know, therefore, what these things mean.

Verse 21.

And this explains kind of why they're thinking this way.

For all the Athenians and strangers which were there, spent

their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new

thing.

Meaning this.

They were all about just hearing new philosophies.

It was all about sounding intellectual.

It was all about hearing a new way of thinking.

Oh, that's a new path that's creative.

Let's hear that.

So, so it says basically that they were, they were addicted to

this.

They, they spent all their time just waxing eloquent about what

they believe.

And I think that's important for us to see in our culture today

because that's exactly sometimes how we deal with people.

Today.

Everyone is talking about something.

All you gotta do is turn on the 24 Hour News and you're gonna

hear everyone's opinion about everything.

You want to hear people's opinions, ask them, they'll tell

you.

And sometimes you don't even have to ask people for their opinion.

They're going to give it to you anyway.

And the truth is that all of us have opinions and all of us in

our flesh love to just talk about things.

That's what it's saying there.

They just love to talk about things.

And there's nothing in and of itself wrong about that.

But I do want to take you to a passage of scripture that speaks

to how in the last days this will be what we do.

I want you to look at second Timothy, chapter three with me.

Second Timothy, chapter three.

I want you to see this because just as it was in Athens, so I believe

it is today what we do.

And it's all about seeming intelligent, knowing things.

But what do we see in second Timothy, chapter three, verse seven?

We'll see says verse seven.

This is how it is in the last days.

Perilous times shall come, ever learning and never able to come

to the knowledge of the truth.

So, so we could characterize Athens that way.

Ever learning, right?

They had all the history, they had all the philosophy they were

ever learning, meaning they were learning all the time, but they

were never coming to the real truth.

We live in a society today that is ever learning.

You know, there's, there's constant learning.

I, I, I, I know at the, at our fingertips here.

Now, some of you might not be as, you know, comfortable with going

to your phones and looking up things, but you have now what's called

AI and you could say to AI, make me a 10 page paper about the

Industrial revolution written in the style of a senior in high

school with a, you know, 12th grade reading level.

And boom, it can pop up something like that.

You say, no, it can't do that.

AI can do pretty much anything like that, okay?

You can get a lot of information in a very short amount

of time, instantaneous information.

That doesn't necessarily necessarily mean that we're coming

to the knowledge of the truth now.

It doesn't mean that, okay?

Now we could get into a whole philosophy on whether or not AI is

sinful or not.

I don't think it's inherently sinful.

I think it can be used for sinful reasons.

But what I can say is this.

We have to be careful that we don't come to a place in our life

where we have so much information and so much knowledge

that we think we've arrived at the truth when it's not based in

the word of God.

And that's what Paul is trying to explain to them here.

He says, you got a lot of learning, but you're not to a place

where you're in the truth of God.

And so he says there's going to be end times starting when Jesus

resurrects and when we live today, that people are ever learning

and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

And so I want you to think about that verse when we're Talking

about Acts 17 here in Athens.

And so Paul is going to address the people here at Mars Hill.

And I think it's important for us to learn from his example how

we can proclaim the gospel to our world as well.

Okay?

So the point I'm trying to make is that I believe Athens has

a lot of parallels to America.

Okay?

I think, I think that's very clear.

Verse 22.

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill.

So Paul is the man.

Okay?

I, I look up to Paul, okay?

He, he preaches.

He says, I'm going to dig my heels in and I'm about to preach

them the truth.

And he gives this wonderful sermon.

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill and said, ye men of

Athens.

I perceive this is a great opener, by the way.

I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.

Okay, what's he talking about here?

That word superstitious?

Essentially, if you look at the Greek that he's using, he, he's

talking about you're, you're, you're religious, okay?

And religion without faith is superstition.

You understand that, right?

Religion without a faith in the truth of Jesus Christ is superstition,

right?

So, so there could be people that say, I believe in this and there's

no faith there in Jesus Christ.

It could be a silly thing or it could be a, a, a, you know, slap

a denominational name on it.

Whatever it is, if it's not in Jesus Christ, it's a superstition.

So Paul gets up in there and says, hey, you guys are really religious,

but you're not in the truth.

You're superstitious.

I perceive that you're too superstitious.

For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar

with this inscription to the unknown God, whom therefore ye ignorantly

worship.

Now what's he saying there?

He's saying.

He's not saying that they're foolish.

He is saying that they're foolish, but he's essentially saying,

you worship that idol without knowing the truth.

Ignorant.

That's what ignorance is.

Ignorance is just not knowing something.

He says, you're worshiping that God, not knowing who that God

is.

And so he says, you're worshiping this unknown God.

Him declare I unto you.

What's he doing here?

He's saying, okay, I know that they worship this unknown God and

I'm going to show them that there is this unknown God to them

and that God is the only true God.

And so he's going to use something from their culture to explain

God to them.

He's going to use something from their understanding to connect

the dots, to say there's some God out there that you don't know

about.

I'm going to tell you which one that is.

Now.

Now, Paul understands that all of these gods that they worship are

fake.

They're false, they're empty, they're nothing superstitious.

But he's going to say, hey, you know what?

This unknown God is the true God, and therefore I'm going to talk

to you about him.

So he appeals to their minds and he's going to appeal to their

heart.

Verse 24, God that made the world and all things therein.

Where does he start?

You would think he would start at the crucifixion.

That's where I would have started.

But Paul goes back even further.

Paul goes back to the very beginning.

Some of you know Ken Ham, Ken Ham would be very proud about this.

Okay?

He goes back to creation.

He goes back to the very beginning, right?

He says, hey, this.

We've got to go back to how it started.

And so he goes back to the beginning.

He says, God that made the world and all things therein, by

the way, I think it's very important for us to believe that

God created this world.

We didn't happen by chance.

I believe that God ordained creation and there's a lot of debates

on how that creation happened.

I certainly am a young earth creationist.

I believe that when God said six days, it was six days.

But I think that all Christians must believe, must believe

that God created this earth.

It's not that God just used Something here.

I believe that even Paul mentions that here in the truth as

he's presenting the gospel.

So he says God that made the world and all things therein.

He says God made the world.

God made you seeing that he is lord of heaven and earth dwelleth

not in temples made with hands.

So, so he's flipping their understanding of who God is on its

head because he's saying that, hey, you guys worship gods in temples

and, and, and you know, you worship gods that are made with your

hands, but God is bigger than that.

The true God is bigger than that.

So he says you're religious, you're worshiping this unknown God,

but, but you're missing out on who this true God really is.

And so Spa Paul spoke about the God who created everything and

is distinct in his creation.

Paul tells them that God was bigger than the temples that they

had there.

So, so for them to hear that God was bigger than their architecture

was a huge thing for them because they thought that they were

the pinnacle of society.

God's bigger than your temples, God's bigger than your inventions.

God's bigger than your philosophies.

That's what he's saying here, and that's what we have to preach

to our world is that God is bigger than the economy.

God is bigger than politics.

God is bigger than weaponry.

God is bigger than anything that you can ever imagine.

He's above all, he's sufficient.

But not only is he sufficient, the Bible speaks of him being above

and beyond all things.

He supersedes everything else.

That's how we have to preach.

And so Paul recognized that these philosophers had to change

their ideas about God in general.

He had to go to a deeper understanding.

And so he says verse 25.

Neither is worship with men's hands as though he needed anything.

So, so, so the, the Greeks would have understood it to be this

way.

The, the people living in Athens and, and the religious people

at this time, they would have thought that God needed them.

Like go, you know, God needs us.

And we have a lot of people today that think that.

What does he say here?

He says, God doesn't need anything from us.

He gives life to all and breath and all things.

And so they had to move their own personal opinions to an understanding

of who God is according to what the Bible says and not according

to what their culture had said.

So what we do is we preach the truth of Jesus Christ to our culture.

You've heard it said, this, this is the truth.

You know, most people that you're going to come across that

have any understanding of theology, get most of their theology

from TV shows or, you know, movies.

I, I can't tell you how many times people say, well, I always

thought that that's how it looked.

And I would say, well, it's not described in the Bible.

And if I've seen the movie that they've seen, I kind of know

where they got it from.

I said, did you watch so and so movie?

And they're like, yeah, I saw that.

Yeah.

Well, it's not really in the Bible that way.

And well, I've always heard that heaven is this.

We're floating on clouds and playing harps and well, you know,

that's not always how the Bible describes it.

So.

So I think what we have to do is we have to teach people that,

hey, what you have heard about God might be wrong.

Actually, if you haven't heard it from the truth of scripture, it

probably is wrong.

And we have to proclaim to them the truth of God.

And that's what Paul is doing here.

So he wants people to understand the truth from Scripture,

the truth of God.

So verse 26, he goes on, and have made of one blood all nations

of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined

the times before appointed in the bounds of their habitation.

So Paul told them that we're all descendants of Adam, we're all

one human race.

That would have been hard for people to understand.

It's still hard for people to understand.

Right.

We believe in a lot of divisions.

And, you know, these people are from here and these people from

there.

And certainly there are cultural distinctions, there are

visual differences, but we are one human race starting from Adam

all the way down.

We're all brothers and sisters in that regard.

And so that's what he's explaining to them.

He's explaining, hey, we're, we're all descendants from Adam,

and there is one God who created all of us.

Because what would have happened, what would have been understandable

for a lot of people is that, hey, we, the Greeks, have our gods

that created us, and you, you Jews have your God who created you.

And, and this country over here has their gods respectively.

And there was this understanding that it was kind of

segmented.

The, the gods of the Romans, the gods of the Greeks, the gods

of these people.

Well, what he's explained to them is you guys think that there's

separation with creation.

No, we all come from one God.

We all come from one people.

And that would have been really different for their thinking.

And, and so if, if we come from one God.

We're all obligated to that one God.

That's what he's saying here.

He says, you are obligated to the God of Israel, whether you want

to be or not.

That's the one God.

That's the one true God.

And I think that's many ways why most people who reject God reject

God.

A lot of times they will say, well, you know what?

It's just because I don't see enough evidence, and I can respect

that.

But the truth is, is that most of the time that people don't believe

in God, it's because they don't want to be obligated to a higher

power.

Because if God is who he says he is, and if, if I have to believe

in him in that way, I have to submit myself to his authority.

And taking a person and saying, yeah, you got to submit to

the God of the universe is not really a fun thing for them to do,

especially if they've been used to feeding their flesh for their

whole life.

And so many people, as the book of Romans says, reject what's

already in their hearts, whether they believe it or not.

Okay, they, they might not know why they are rejecting God,

but the Bible says very clearly that it's because of the

fact that they don't want to submit to God.

And so that's what Paul is doing.

Paul's trying to present to them the truth of this one God.

Now what is he going to do?

Paul is going to actually use some quotations from their poets.

He's going to use pagan poets to present to them the truth of God.

You say why he can't do that?

Well, he does.

And God doesn't condemn him.

And I think that we as Christians without sinning, by the

way, can use things from a culture to point people to Christ.

And the reason why I believe that is because we see Paul do it.

I think it's at least in four occasions in the New Testament he

does that.

We also see Jude do that, quoting the book of Enoch in the

book of Jude.

And so I think that it's completely fine.

By the way, when Paul quotes these philosophers, that doesn't

mean that everything that those philosophers wrote are, is,

is scripture.

It's perfect.

Right?

He's taken an element that is true with what they said and inserted

into the truth of God.

So let me go back, Let me, let me read this here.

Verse 28.

Um, actually, let's go back up to verse 27, that they should seek

the Lord, right?

So he says I'm telling you this about the one God so that the

people that he created should seek after him, if happily they might

feel after him and find him, though he be not far o far from every

one of us.

Meaning the reality is, is that God is closer than you think.

Paul told them that there's a responsibility here.

There's a responsibility for you to respond.

You can't use an excuse.

Well, I'm not from that country.

I'm not from that place.

No, God is close.

Verse 28.

For in him we live.

This is the quotation, by the way.

He's going to quote this Greek poet.

For in him we live, talking about God and move and have our being

as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also

his offspring.

So he quotes two quotes.

One quote is for in him we live and move and have our being.

That's true.

Now, the poet might not have been thinking about the God of Israel,

the true God, but the truth is, is that the God is the one who

allows us to live, move and have our being.

And so Paul says, that guy that was writing that, even though

he may or may not have recognized the truth, that is the

truth, and you have to recognize that as well.

And then he goes on to say at the end of that verse, for we are

also his offspring.

And so these quote, these two quotations Paul used from the Greek

poets are attributed.

Most people attribute them to Apenides, who was a Cretan 600 BC

years and years before this.

Um, and Paul is going to quote him again in Titus chapter one, by

the way.

And then there's another poet that they believe that this attributed

to called Eratus.

And so Paul did not quote these men because they were prophets

of God or because all their teachings were of God.

He quotes them because these specific words reflected a biblical

truth.

And so using their work could build a bridge from the pagan audience

to the truth.

So he was using a pagan author to connect that pagan author's, whether

he knew it or not, truth of God to connect it to Christianity.

So we, we, we think sometimes we only can witness to people that,

that are from our stripe, okay, if they look like us, talk

like us, and we're okay with giving them the gospel.

Folks, you're going to have to try to win people to the gospel that

are not going to look like us.

They're going to come from a hard background and so not all of

us can do this.

Paul was gifted and being all things to all people.

So for example, we, we have a Guy who just gets.

Let's.

We have a guy showed to our church, and he just got let out of

prison.

He's been in prison for 20 years.

People in prison have a different culture, right?

Some of us that have never been to prison.

I've never been to prison, okay?

Lord willing to keep it that way, I might not understand that

culture, okay?

But maybe, just maybe, we have someone in our church that has already

walked that path and lived that life, and they've been saved

from that life.

They might be able to talk to that individual and bridge the gap

in understanding how to communicate the gospel to them in

a better way.

Because if I got up to him and say, you remember when you went to

Christian school and had chapel every single day of your life?

No, I remember growing up in a totally different route.

Right.

It doesn't mean that people that are not like another person,

you can't minister.

But what I mean is this.

We are trying to find, I believe, biblically speaking, we

should find ways to connect to people creatively and try to find

them where they are.

If I try to act holier than thou and trying to bring this message

of the gospel to someone, the truth might be there.

I can speak the truth, but I'm not loving them enough to find them

where they are in that moment.

And.

And that's a struggle.

That's a struggle for me because I don't like coming out of

my comfort zone.

How many of you don't raise your hand?

But how many of you like, I just love coming out of my comfort

zone.

I just love feeling uncomfortable and being stretched.

I don't.

I like to do things a certain way.

I used to not think that I liked routines.

I used to, like, try to present myself as someone who was

like, I'm spontaneous.

I like to do things on the fly.

And Alicia heard me say that one time in a sermon.

I think maybe it wasn't.

Maybe.

Maybe you just heard me talking.

She's like, that's not you at all.

She's like, you like routines.

You like things being the same way every time.

And I'm like, you know what I do?

I had to come to the conclusion that sometimes my routines

can pull me away from what I need to be doing.

If I'm so routine, if I'm so focused on my way or no other way,

I might miss an opportunity to reach someone for Christ.

And that's why we have the freedom and Paul has the freedom.

Paul has the freedom and liberty to use a pagan poet to connect

the gospel to These people that are pagan, you say what?

Galatians talks all about this.

We have liberty not to use it for a sake of sin, for pleasure,

for our flesh, but we have liberty to show love to people and

bring the gospel to them.

And so I would encourage you to think about how you can present

the gospel to people in a clear, connective way.

So he quotes them, and that's a unique thing.

We don't see that very often in Scripture.

And so he goes on to explain it more.

And so Paul tells them of their responsibility to God.

Why?

Because they are his offspring, like God created you.

And so Paul tells them there is a responsibility there to have

the right thinking, to have the right belief, and they have to

reject the wrong beliefs.

Verse 29.

So.

So if you haven't caught this, we're trying to outline his sermon.

So what Paul does is he says, hey, I'm gonna find a connecting

piece, the unknown God, something that they can relate to.

Then I'm gonna go back to the very beginning and teach them theology.

Who is God?

What has he done?

And then he goes back and he challenges them with something.

If God is this, we believe that to be true, then this is wrong

and this is right.

Every good sermon should have that.

Every good sermon should have a call to action.

We believe this about God.

True.

We believe that he is good.

True.

If he is good, and then this is what he's called us to do, we.

We must follow.

And so how do we do that?

Well, he's going to challenge them.

Verse 29.

For as much then, as we are the offspring of God.

Remember, he's connected that piece with them already.

If they're following him, they're following him to the point

of like, wow, I'm an offspring of God.

What does that mean for me?

He says, well, if you're an offspring of God, we ought not to

think that the Godhead is like unto gold or silver or stone, or

graven by art and man's device.

So what is he saying here?

He says, we are responsible to have the right ideas about God and

reject the wrong idea of manufactured gods.

Gold cannot represent God.

Silver cannot represent God.

Nothing that we make with our hands can represent God.

He's warning against idolatry.

He's warning against graven images.

He's warning against this idea that you can put God into a box.

Now, now, most of us aren't tempted to carve out a little, you

know, idol and put that up on our counter and pray to that.

But sometimes we do want to put God into a box.

God's got to work with my rules.

God's got to, God's got to work in my timing.

God's got to work in my way.

And the truth is that sometimes we can put God into a graven

image.

We can create our own God in our life.

The challenge here is to tell people.

You can't dictate who God is.

You can't dictate how God works.

You ever heard someone say this?

Okay, if you're, maybe you've witnessed to someone and you said,

hey, you get to that point where you say, you know what, God

loves everybody, but sin must be addressed and there is a punishment

for sin.

Well my, my Jesus, my God wouldn't send anybody to hell, right?

I, well I agree with that too.

I don't agree God sends anyone to hell.

I believe that we send ourselves to hell, he saves us from

that pit of destruction.

But I know what they're saying.

So what I would say is, well it doesn't really matter what your

Jesus believes and what your Jesus does.

It's the matter what the biblical Jesus does.

And, and we know the Bible says that there's going to be multiple

Jesuses preached in this world.

And so he's basically telling them at the end of that verse, in

verse 29, you can't put God into a box, you can't make him the

what you want it to be.

Verse 30 and the times of this ignorance God winked at.

But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.

Meaning this.

And this is a tough passage to, to describe but Paul went from

telling them here that God has had grace for a time, but at this

point there's no one with an excuse.

He's calling all men to repent everywhere and, and he's gonna judge

the world.

And, and that's what verse 31's all about.

Because he had appointed a day in which he will judge and the world

in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained Jesus whereof

he hath given assurance unto all men and that he hath raised him

from the dead.

And so Paul's, Paul's not preaching a weak gospel, he's just

confronting these Athenians wrong ideas.

And he says hey, there is a coming judgment and the only way

that you can be saved from that judgment is to believe in Jesus.

That's what he's saying there.

And so it says he, he has given hope world and righteousness,

the righteousness of Christ and given assurance us.

So it's what Jesus who's the One who gives us righteousness, it

is Jesus who gives us assurance.

It is Jesus who gives us the resurrection.

So they've been tracking him now until verse 31.

He preaches that we will raise from the dead.

So he says, jesus raised from the dead.

If you follow him and have righteousness in him and assurance

in him, you will raise from the dead.

And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.

That was the.

That.

That was the line that he stepped over too much.

Why?

Because most of these individuals would have believed that

there was a higher power.

But none of these individuals would have believed in a afterlife

or a resurrection of the dead.

Meaning they would have believed that, hey, there could be

some kind of afterlife.

But they would have never believed in the fact that we would

resurrect and we would have new bodies.

That was a foreign concept to them.

And.

And so they were following him until this.

And then it says, some mocked and others said, we will hear thee

again of this matter.

So just as much as some mocked, others believed.

And I think that's an interesting point because, you know,

a lot of times we think if it's a good message, everyone's going

to believe.

No, Paul preached the best that we, you know, we ever have heard

in this world.

Okay?

Paul preached wonderful messages.

Some believed, some didn't.

And that's how it's going to be in this world today.

We can present a clear message of the gospel, and there will still

be people that think it's foolishness.

There will be still people that mock us.

It doesn't mean that we quit.

And so what, what does verse 33 say?

So Paul departed from among them.

How be it certain men claim unto him and believed?

So we see, not only do people just tolerate Paul, but they believe

in what he is preaching.

And we see disciples made, among which were Dionysus, Arapagite,

and the women named Damaris and others with him.

And so now, for the first time in their culture, the Athenians were

hearing Paul referring to Jesus and the resurrection as something

real, something substantial.

And.

And not only are they preaching, not only is he preaching

the person and work of Jesus Christ, but he's preaching the fact

that we can be a part of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

You can know him.

You can have the same resurrection in your life.

And so the emphasis on the resurrection was important.

Paul saw the resurrection of Jesus as the hope.

Paul saw the resurrection of Jesus as our purpose.

And it demonstrates that we as believers can have that hope in Jesus

Christ.

And so he's presenting hope to them.

I.

I think that it's very clear.

Paul emphasizes the resurrection.

So I think as Christians, we should recognize and highlight the

resurrection in our sermons.

Not just the resurrection of Christ.

We should present the resurrection of Christ, but I think

we should also preach the hope that we have in.

In.

In our lives, in everlasting life.

A lot of times, why is it.

And I noticed the time we're almost done, why is it that many

times we stop at, hey, we got everlasting life, and we stop.

We stop talking about the hope that's in that.

I think we should study heaven more.

You say what?

Yeah, let's study heaven more.

Let's study what our hope is in.

Let's study what it means to be with our Savior one day.

We have too many Christians that are like, I don't know if I

want to go to heaven.

They're back in that idea of, I'm going to be on a cloud and playing

a harp for eternity, and I just don't want that.

I think that many Christians are living hopeless because we don't

really understand what our eternal hope in Jesus Christ really

is.

Eternal life.

That sounds good, but what does that look like?

And so Paul preaches in our resurrection, we're gonna have glorified

bodies one day.

I'm excited for that.

The older I get, the more excited I am for my glorified body.

Cause that pain and that struggle is real as.

As we get older.

Right?

And the Bible says that not only for us, but for others that

we know.

Right.

It's a tough thing when you're dealing with someone that's in pain,

because we pray for healing, right?

We pray for them to be healed on this side of heaven.

But one thing I think we can theologically say is that if they

are believers, they're going to be healed one way or the other

on this side of heaven or when they get to heaven, they're completely

healed.

And I know that sometimes that's a struggle because in our

humanity, we miss.

We miss it.

I get that.

I understand that.

But we have to hope in the greater.

We have to hope in the bigger.

And that's what Paul does.

And so I think that it's preaching hope to people.

And Paul was preaching hope to them that, hey, it's not over when

you die.

And some followed, some believed, some were in.

They were.

They were in.

What do we need to do?

Paul and.

And he obviously teaches them how to follow Christ.

And so the resurrection was not a popular idea for these Greek

Philosophers, they called him foolish.

Other people wanted to hear more.

The Greeks were.

They were fond of immortality, but.

But the resurrection of the body was a strange thing because

they thought things that were material were evil.

And what God is teaching is that material isn't always evil.

Right?

Jesus came.

And.

And by the way, there were a lot of people that thought that Jesus

really didn't come in the flesh.

He was like a manifestation of God.

He was like a spirit being.

Um, Jesus was flesh and blood, right?

If he was here in his, you know, humanity, we would be able

to touch Jesus, right?

We would be able to see him.

And so not all material is wrong, right?

Not all material is bad.

And so the Greeks were having a hard time understanding that.

And so Paul departs, some men join him.

And we see these wonderful disciples joining on in the work.

And so we know that there's so much more to be said about Mars Hill.

But Paul preached Christ crucified, but he preached Christ

resurrected.

And I think that's what we should do as well.

The hope of eternity, the hope of salvation.

If we preach just, hey, when you're a Christian, you don't get

to do this anymore.

When you're a Christian, you gotta stop being this way.

If we take the negative side of everything, we miss the positives

of what it means to be a believer.

So.

So.

So let's say a person comes forward today in church.

We have an invitation.

They come forward and they get saved.

What now?

Well, now here's all the things you gotta cut out of your

life.

What I didn't know I was signing up for this.

Are some of those things things that they should cut out of

their life?

Maybe.

But instead of telling them, hey, these are all the things you

gotta get rid of, tell them, here's all the things you get.

You now get the peace of God.

You now have the hope of eternity.

Now you have the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the

kindness, the goodness, all that you have, all those things imparted

to you as a gift of God.

And so now you don't want to do those things.

And the desire should be that those things in our life should die.

And there's that wonderful song.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus look full in his wonderful face and the

things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of his

glory and grace.

The more we look to Christ, the more we love him, the less we

will love the world, the less we will want to do those things.

And so I think what Paul was doing there was not just, hey, be

Religious, just like us.

Paul was saying something different.

They all would have understood religion.

And Liszt, Paul was saying, know Christ.

Know him differently.

Know him in your culture.

Understand him.

You're not just adhering to.

Because, because Paul never told.

At least if, if he did, someone correct me.

But, but I don't ever see Paul coming into a society and saying,

stop being who you are and become all Jewish.

That's not what he says.

He, he, he's, you know, they, they continue on as gentiles, but

as gentile Christians.

Actually, Paul fought for that.

Oh, there were some instances where things needed to happen for,

for unity.

But for the most part, Paul didn't come in and say, now you all

have to do exactly what we're doing.

Make sure you're eating kosher.

Make sure you're doing this.

Make sure.

No, he said, you're going to be you and follow Christ in your

culture.

And so I, I, when I left Florida and I came up here, my thought

was, every church is the way that my church was.

Like you have.

You have to do the exact same things, because that's a good church.

I had to realize that taking things that worked in one place culturally

might not always transfer over here.

Now, the truths are the same, but the way that those truths are

played out sometimes are a little bit different.

And what I would say for us as a church is, where is Middletown

Baptist culture?

Like, we need to reach people where they are.

If we go out into our society and say we only want people from

Middletown that are good church people.

I've heard churches pray.

Bring us just people that know about the Bible.

Bring us people that look like us already so we don't have to work

folks.

That's not really what the prayer should be.

When we're reaching our community, reach the community where

they are now.

They don't stay where they are.

You lead them to Christ and then you start showing them what

it means to be a believer, and that's discipleship.

But we can't be afraid of, hey, that.

I don't know.

If we want those kind of people around us, we have to say,

hey, look, there might be a challenge here.

And not everyone's for that ministry.

Okay?

Not, not, not everyone's able to do everything within the church.

What we can say is, hey, you know what?

And I, I loved how Brother Gibbs said it this morning.

They're looking to take a snapshot of their community and bring

that into the church.

That's what we should do.

We should have different people in the church, not different

People, as in strange.

But we could.

But different people, we should have different cultures.

We should have different ages.

It would be a little bit, I would be a little bit nervous if

everyone in the room was the exact same, because we might be doing

something wrong.

We're missing something.

So what I would say here is, let's not be afraid of reaching Athens.

Let's not be afraid of using the wisdom that God has given us

to reach people.

I, I, I, I'll leave you with this.

If I come to someone on the street and I, and I start reading

from the King James to them, which is not bad, and I ask them

a question, I say, now how did that speak to your soul?

Do you feel justified now?

You know, is the Holy Spirit moving in your life?

The Lord speak to you?

And they're going to be like, what?

An unsaved person is not going to understand Christian vernacular.

They're not going to understand our Christian, what's

the word for it?

Christian language.

Okay?

Not saying that we use improper or foul language to them,

but what I'm saying is, let's think about how we are coming across

when we're presenting the gospel to somebody.

Are we using words that people have no clue what they mean?

If you, I try to do this.

I really try to do this when I'm preaching.

If I use a word that I don't feel everyone's going to understand,

I try to explain that word, okay?

And I want to make sure that you understand what I'm saying.

And I think that's how we should do it when we're trying to

preach the gospel to people.

And I think that's what Paul did.

Paul says, okay, you've heard of the unknown God.

I'll talk to you about the unknown God.

He didn't have to go that route.

He could have said, I have a God in my country.

And he's, you know, he didn't do that.

He reached them where they were.

So I think about that and I think about how we can find our moriso.

And I think we can do great things.

I really do.

This type of preaching and teaching and ministry is most likely

gonna take place in our Samaria.

What do you mean, our Samaria?

Places that we're not as comfortable with.

Places that's gonna stretch us.

I remember I had a preacher preach to me one time.

He said, not just to me, it was the whole church.

But I felt like he was preaching to me.

He said, how many of you are willing to be stretched for the Lord?

And I thought about that.

And I said, at the time, I was like, I don't wanna be stretched.

I wanna work in my comfort zone.

And he said something, he said, you're never going to grow

unless you're stretched.

I said, well, I want to grow.

And so there was a time where I had to say, okay, I'm going to

do this in order to be uncomfortable in doing this.

I'm going to be scared to do this.

I remember when my dad told me growing up, I asked him one time,

so what does it mean to be a man?

And, and I, and I didn't understand what he said when he said

this, but he said, son, being a man means you gotta do the things

sometimes you don't want to do.

And I was like, what?

And I didn't know what that meant until I got older and I realized

what that meant.

I got to do things I need to do, not always what I want to do.

And sometimes as a Christian, sometimes as a Christian, we got

to do the things that we don't necessarily want to do in our flesh,

but God is calling us to do it.

And that's the challenge for us tonight when we go, are we willing

to stretch ourselves?

I'm going to try to stretch myself this year.

I'm going to try to stretch myself.

And so if you guys come along with me as we stretch ourselves together,

we can feel uncomfortable together.

But ultimately, the discomfort in stretching ourselves will lead

us to the comfort of God.

And the Bible says, as we get comforted by God, we comfort others.

So what that means is this.

Some of you that have done that before, you stretch yourself

and got outside your comfort zone, and you've been able to do

it, now you go grab that person that's so scared, say, guess

what?

I did it.

And I'm not dead.

I'm alive still.

We can do it together.

I, I, I gotta tell you one, one more funny thing.

So I was, I was going through a really stressful time, and my pastor

friend of mine called me.

He says, well, how are you doing?

And the first thing that came in my mouth was this, well, I'm alive.

And he goes, well, that's a start.

And sometimes that's how it goes.

It might not go well.

It might be, you might fall right on your face, and there might

be a, you know, you might say, I'll never do that again.

But guess what?

God's gonna get you through it.

Going to preserve you through it.

And so, so I'm, I'll be praying for you.

And I hope that you pray for for me as we try to stretch ourselves

in 2025.

Let's go ahead and pray and I'll have a few announcements and

we can go.

Lord, I thank youk for this time that you've given us.

I thank you for this opportunity to hear the truth of

God through the message of Paul there at Mars Hill.

Lord, I pray that we can find our our area, Lord, our our message,

our our avenue of reaching the loss for Christ.

Or it's an amazing thing to see folks interested in preaching

and teaching the gospel.

Or we know not everyone is a teacher, not everyone is a preacher,

but all of us can preach and teach by the way that we live.

Lord, I pray that you give us the strength and the boldness to

stretch ourselves to be able to proclaim Jesus and Jesus crucified

and also Jesus and Jesus resurrected.

Lord, help us to present the truth, but also the hope of what

it means to have everlasting life in the resurrection or our eternal

destination.

So Lord, I pray that we can live in light of that here this week.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church

podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church

or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org

or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh [email protected].

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.