From Ignorance to Knowing

This man doesn't really need an introduction because he's already well-known and well-loved in our church.

But Andrew Rimm has been with us in our church for the last two years.

He is in his final year of study at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

And as you guys know, if you were at our last membership meeting, he just began his pastoral internship, which lasts about eight months to 12 months.

Because it's a time when we, as a church, basically try to encourage him and build him up and also assess him as a pastoral candidate in his teaching, preaching ability, but also in his character that meets the requirements of 1 Timothy 3.

And so he's been doing great in all those ways so far.

And today is his first opportunity to preach for us.

So if you would please welcome Andrew to come preach for us.

That'd be great.

Can you guys hear me all right?

Awesome.

Good morning, everyone.

Like Pastor Sean said, my name is Andrew.

I'm a pastoral intern here at Trinity Cambridge Church and a current seminary student as well.

This is my first sermon here at Trinity, and it's really such an immense joy and honor to be sharing God's word with you all.

So, Sean, also thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share God's word with everyone here.

Let's jump right into it.

So our passage this morning will be coming from Acts chapter 17, verse 16 to 34.

Acts 17:16–34

If any of you don't have a Bible and would like one, please raise your hand and one of our members can give you a Bible to read through the passage with us as well.

Please join me in prayer as we pray for the reading of God's word.

Father God, it's by your will.

Lord, it's for your glory that we exist.

Lord, you're the creator God who created us.

You're the Lord of all created things, all things existing in this world.

And because of that, you're worthy to be praised.

Lord, we ask that your word this morning strikes and pierces our heart as the sword that it is.

That it convicts us of the idolatry that's all around us.

And drives us to desire you more than anything else in this world.

Lord, I'm of so much inadequacy.

My words are not enough without you.

Lord, I need you.

Lord, we need you.

Be ever so present in our midst.

Convict our hearts.

And we ask that your spirit fill our hearts with faith.

A faith to make your name, the name of all names known to our world, Lord.

A faith to make the name of Jesus so present in our lives through our words and our actions.

We thank you, Lord.

We love you.

And we pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please stand with me as we read Acts chapter 17, verses 16 to 34.

Acts 17:16–34

Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.

So he reasoned in the synagogue with Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him.

And some said, what does this babbler wish to say?

Others said, he seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, may we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting.

For you bring some strange things to our ears.

We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean.

Now, all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

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.

What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

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.

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all 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.

Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said,

For we are indeed his offspring.

Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone,

An image formed by the art and imagination of man.

The times of ignorance God overlooked.

But now, he commands all people everywhere to repent.

Because he has fixed the day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.

And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

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

But others said, we will hear you again about this.

So Paul went out from their midst.

But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysus, Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

This is God's holy and authoritative word.

You may be seated.

We're starting to enter a season here in Cambridge where we're starting to really see all the fall and autumn colors.

I was just looking outside of Kalo and just seeing all sorts of different leaves just falling all over the ground.

It's a really pretty sight.

And it's definitely a sign that we're entering that part of the year where we're about to get absolutely barraged by wave after wave of different holidays.

One of these holidays that is fast approaching us is Halloween.

We've talked about it through Fall Festival.

And we can see it all around us with these different decorations, jack-o'-lanterns, witches' cauldrons, coffins, all sorts of stuff decorating people's homes and their yards and all that.

For most people, Halloween is just another commercialized holiday.

It allows them to indulge in candy, wear our funny costumes and all that, and go to attend parties to celebrate Halloween with each other.

There are others, however, who celebrate Halloween with more insidious motives.

Like Sean said, I attend a school called Gordon-Conwell Seminary.

It's up in the North Shore.

And the next town over to it is the town of Salem.

In the town of Salem, they have a rich history of witchcraft, of pinning witches down and accusing witches, hence the very famous story of the crucible.

And within that town of Salem, there are people there who treat Halloween not as a lighthearted costume party,

but as a pagan festival that celebrates the dead, the spirits, and even the devil.

Throughout Salem, you can observe witch museums, fortune-reading divination shops, and satanic temples scattered throughout the town.

And they all seem to glow brighter and grow even livelier as the Halloween season comes upon us.

You can see people attending these satanic temples for worship.

You can see others going into shops to buy charms and hexes.

You can see others building bonfires at the beaches in North Shore to dance around them in a manic sort of frenzy.

And you can even see strangers coming onto our seminary campus, whispering curses under their breath.

Seeing such a sight as a Christian should outrage us, if not deeply trouble us to our very core.

But we shouldn't be feeling this way only on Halloween or other secularized or paganized holidays.

Even in our day-to-day lives, if we look carefully enough, idolatry is all around us.

There are people who are actively practicing pagan rituals or believing in religions that do not honor our God.

There are also atheists and agnostics who do not believe in a God, but instead choose to worship themselves,

and seeking self-gratification and pleasure as the ultimate goal of their own lives.

There are buildings all around us that glorify the imagination and the handiwork, the mind of man.

All these things in being prioritized over God are examples of idolatry, whether we recognize it or not.

We as believers should feel cut to the heart about the idolatry that's around us, the idolatry that happens around us daily.

And we should desire for God to change our community, to change the hearts of the idolaters,

to repent and pledge their allegiance to him.

We should want Jesus instead to be worshiped and honored with our every being and with our everything.

And so this is going to be the main point of our passage and a reminder for all of us today who are in the midst of all sorts of idolatry in our community.

Christ's death and Christ's resurrection demands our repentance to the one true God.

I'll be dividing my sermon up into three different parts.

The first point is many gods made by man.

My second point being the unknown God made known.

And my final point being Christ, the resurrected, pointing to the one true God.

So I know that many of y'all know that we are currently going through a sermon series in Revelation.

So this seems like a very sudden departure, almost like a filler episode in our series here.

But I truly believe, and by God's providence, this passage is just so relevant to our Revelation story.

That we are surrounded by temptations around us.

That we are surrounded by idolatry around us.

And we're called to persevere amidst all these things that threaten to take away God from us.

And so we come to this passage here in Acts.

I'll give a bit of background since this is a filler episode and we don't really know much of the background maybe.

See?

So, leading up to Acts chapter 17, the apostle Paul and Silas have been traveling through Macedonia.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

Ministering the gospel in the cities of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea.

And bringing both Jews and Gentiles to Jesus.

However, in the city of Berea, there were some jealous Thessalonican Jews.

Who in their jealousy stirred up the crowds and forced Paul to flee from Berea.

To the city of Athens all by himself.

Paul's departure from Athens sets the stage for what we are about to read.

What we have read.

And in the following passage, Paul is waiting for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him in Athens.

The writer of Acts, Luke, now documents the events that transpired in Athens.

As Paul comes across a city filled with idols.

And so we see in verse 16,

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him.

As he saw that the city was full of idols.

Athens was historically well known for its multitudes of temples, altars, and statues.

Back in the 6th century BC, the city of Athens had been hit by a plague, an illness, that was afflicting everyone in the city.

And so the Athenians, they asked a priest by the name of Epimenides to come and help them.

Because he was known allegedly to be favored by the gods.

And so Epimenides, he travels from Crete all the way to Athens to help them.

And with him, he brings a flock of sheep.

He brings the sheep into the central part of the city and he releases them.

And he tells the Athenians, wherever these sheep go to lie down,

wherever these sheep decide to find a nice patch of grass and eat the grass,

he said, build an altar there.

Build a temple there and worship an unknown god.

So that that god may be appeased of its anger.

And so the Athenians did that.

They followed these hungry sheep all around the city.

And wherever the sheep decided to take a break,

they would start building temples there and start worshiping at these altars.

And lo and behold, the city of Athens was restored to health from this, apparently.

How ridiculous is this?

That the city of Athens was so desperate in wanting to be healed,

they were willing to follow these wayward, ignorant, hungry sheep to find their own gods.

That was 600 years ago before Paul arrived in Athens.

By the time Paul came to the city,

first century Athens was estimated to have at least 73,000 statues and altars of gods.

To put this into perspective,

New York City has around 2,200 billboards scattered across the city

and about 800 monuments and statues also throughout the city.

So we'll add those two up to about 3,000 different statues and monuments and billboards

advertising all sorts of different things.

Imagine walking through Times Square.

You're going through this forest of electronic LED billboards

flashing all sorts of different things.

Celebrities, clothes, jewelry, music, all sorts of things.

It's enough to give you whiplash.

You're trying to look around.

You see all these towering monuments.

And you're just so bewildered.

This is a crazy city.

It just does not sleep.

Athens had 20 times more

the amount of statues, monuments, and altars scattered throughout the city.

Paul, seeing this city full of idols,

seeing how the Athenians were just going to every single one of these temples

and worshiping their gods,

was provoked in the spirit.

Church, how many of us are provoked in spirit by the idols that surround us?

All around us, people worship money.

They worship fame.

They worship relationships, sex, and their own personal gain.

Here in the Boston and Cambridge area,

we take great pride in our own intellect,

in intellectualism,

perhaps even to an idolatrous amount.

Even some of us here in this church as believers,

we may not know it,

but we may be idolizing things in our lives.

When we open our eyes and see all these things,

our spirits should be provoked in seeing idolatry

because it takes glory that's due to God

and ascribes it to something else.

Like Paul, we should see these idols

and desire for God to change our hearts

and the hearts of those around us

to instead look to God.

And so Paul, he's surveying the city of Athens

and sees all these idols.

He's provoked in his spirit

and so he takes the opportunity

to reason in both the synagogues and the Agora,

the central marketplace of Athens

with the people there.

Luke's narration of this Acts passage,

it more so focuses on Paul's interaction

with the Gentiles.

Paul's in the central marketplace,

the Agora.

Paul is said to have occupied that marketplace every day

and he was able to engage with the people

in the central square.

And his words were not going unnoticed

as a group of Stoic and Epicurean philosophers

approached him.

Verse 18.

I'll briefly gloss over the Epicurean

and Stoic philosophers' beliefs a bit later,

but what particularly sticks out in this verse

is the mixed reaction of the people

who listened to what Paul was proclaiming.

Some of them reacted negatively,

calling Paul a babbler, an ignoramus.

They're like, what are you talking about, man?

Like, we don't know what this God is.

You're out of your mind.

They chose to ignore him.

However, others took an interest in what was said

because Paul seemed to be introducing

a foreign divinity,

a new God who seemed to be without a temple

or altar in Athens.

Verse 19 to 20.

And so they took him and brought him to the Areopagus

saying, may we know what this new teaching is

that you are presenting?

The Areopagus or Mars Hill

was the location of the Supreme Court of Athens

in which the Areopagus Council

would govern over the city.

One of the functions of Areopagus at the time

was to oversee the customs

that the people of Athens followed,

including their worship of certain gods.

The Greeks and the Romans,

they took very seriously

the worship of gods and cults.

And so when a citizen wanted to introduce

a new deity into the city,

the citizen had to appear

before the Areopagus Council

and the council was to decide

whether the God was worthy

to be worshipped in Athens.

Anything that the council deemed as blasphemous

or as an act of impiety

would result in severe punishment

as far as even death

as decreed by the Areopagus.

Philosopher Socrates himself

was sentenced to death here.

As he was found guilty

by the council for impiety

and corrupting the youth

with his ideas.

And so those in the Agora,

that central marketplace,

who heard Paul proclaiming Jesus

and the resurrection

saw it as a necessity

to bring Paul

to the Supreme Council of Areopagus

so that they may hear more

about this Jesus

and determine whether he is indeed

worthy for worship.

Now all the Athenians

and the foreigners who lived there

would spend their time in nothing

except telling or hearing something new.

Verse 21.

Luke's observation here

of the Athenians and the foreigners,

it seems like a rather innocuous statement,

a bit of a random statement actually.

It sounds like the people of Athens,

they just enjoyed spending their leisurely time

talking about what's new in the city.

Imagine two of your friends

going to Tate

or to one of the cafes here

and just chilling there

with a cup of coffee

or pumpkin spice latte

and talking about stuff like,

oh my gosh,

did you hear about Taylor Swift,

the Ares tour?

Or did you watch the basketball game

last night?

Or the state of our economy?

They're all new things.

Yeah.

And so it sounds like

Athens is that type of people.

The Athenians are that type of people

just wanting to hear something new

all the time.

But that's far from the truth.

Luke's observation instead

goes to show that the Athenians

were serious

about what information

was being disseminated in their city.

Upon realizing that Paul

was preaching and proclaiming

of a new God,

they brought Paul

to the Supreme Court,

the Areopagus,

and essentially placed him on trial

for introducing this new God of his.

Paul's life was at stake

in this trial.

Since there was a potential

consequence of death

if his proclamation of Christ

sounded blasphemous

to the council's ears.

And so Paul appears

before the Areopagus council.

He's summoned there.

And what we read next

from verse 22

is Paul's address

to the council of Areopagus.

This will begin my second point,

the unknown God made known.

Verse 22,

So Paul,

standing in the midst

of the Areopagus,

said,

Men of Athens,

I perceive

that in every way

you are very religious.

Paul begins his speech

by addressing the people of Athens

and commending them

for their religiosity

and their piety,

being most religious

in every way.

Paul goes on to explain

why he commenced Athenians,

saying,

For as I passed along

and observed the objects

of your worship,

I found also an altar

with this inscription,

To the unknown God.

Paul has seen all these temples.

He's seen all these altars

and all these statues

scattered throughout Athens.

And he understands

how important

the worship of gods

was to the city.

During his survey,

Paul comes across

an altar dedicated

to an unknown God,

which was inscribed

into the altar.

And so Paul then

makes this statement,

What therefore you worship

as unknown,

this I proclaim to you.

Paul uses this altar

as his starting point

to share about

the one true God,

Yahweh,

to the Athenians.

It's important to note here

that Paul is not saying

to the Athenians,

The unknown God

that you guys worship,

that's Yahweh.

The unknown God

of the Athenians

is one of many gods

in the Greco-Roman

consortium of deities.

In other words,

the Athenians are worshipping

an unknown God

in a pantheistic,

in a polytheistic context.

Not a monotheistic one.

To identify Yahweh

as one of many gods

would be a severe

ontological error

because God

is the one

and only

true God.

The greatest commandment

as written

in Deuteronomy 6,

Deuteronomy 6:4

verse 4 proclaims,

Hear, O Israel,

the Lord,

our God,

the Lord is one.

You shall love

the Lord your God

with all your heart

and with all your soul

and with all your might.

If Paul were to identify

Yahweh as one

of many gods,

he would not be loving

Yahweh with his all,

with his everything.

He would be divided

in his devotion

and he would not be obeying

the greatest commandment.

This ontological issue

is also relevant

in our modern culture today.

There is this westernized notion

that Yahweh

and the Muslim Allah

are the one and the same.

because Christians

and Muslims

believe in Abraham,

they believe in Moses,

they believe in the Old Testament,

and even in the existence

of Jesus.

Both religions

are categorized,

therefore,

as Abrahamic religions

for those similarities.

However,

Muslims do not,

they do not believe

that Jesus

is the Son of God.

In fact,

the Quran

views the notion of God

as having a Son,

as blasphemy.

If you ask

some of the most devout Muslims,

they would absolutely hate

the idea

that Christians

and Muslims

worship the same God.

How can we be

worshiping the same God

if such an important attribute

and a core person

of our triune God,

Jesus Christ,

is rejected

by the Muslim faith?

It's not possible.

Our God, Yahweh,

is one,

and our God

is unique.

To equate His nature

to the nature

of other gods,

including Allah,

is a grave mistake.

And so what Paul

is trying to say

to the Athenians

is that they have been

ignorant

of the one true God,

Yahweh.

And so Paul

is going to make

the unknown Yahweh

known to them.

in the following

set of verses,

Paul,

he identifies

points of agreement,

but also points

of contradiction

as part of his apologetics

to his audience.

His audience

being the Stoics,

the Epicureans,

the Areopagus Council,

and the rest

of the Athenian crowd

in order to proclaim

Yahweh

to all of them.

While Paul

first finds

points of agreement

with the Athenians,

he is not agreeing

with them

in order to fit Yahweh

into their own

philosophical

or religious ideas.

Paul's contradicting

the beliefs

of the Athenians

and he uses

scripturally based

statements

to set apart

Yahweh

from the Athenians'

idols.

And so Paul

begins his introduction

and defense of Yahweh

in verse 24.

The God who made

the world

and everything in it,

being Lord of heaven

and earth,

does not live

in temples

made by man.

Paul first states

that Yahweh

is the creator

of the world

and everything in it.

This means that

all things inanimate

like the stars,

the skies,

the lands,

and the waters

were created

by Yahweh.

And all things animate

like plants,

animals,

and human beings

were also

created

and designed

by Yahweh.

Everything that exists,

living and non-living,

is the result

of the handiwork

of Yahweh,

the Lord God.

And so Paul

emphasizes then

that Yahweh

is the Lord

of heaven and earth,

meaning that he has

dominion

and control

over everything

that is in

and between

the expanses

of heaven

and earth.

Through this emphasis,

Paul is contradicting

and challenging

the values

of Greco-Roman

polytheism.

The Athenians

would have believed

that their gods

ruled over

only specific

domains

of influence.

For example,

there's Zeus,

the god of the sky,

the god of thunder,

or Poseidon,

the god of the ocean

and the seas.

Zeus has no control

or influence

over the seas.

He has no influence

over the fish

that swim in the seas,

while Poseidon himself

doesn't have any influence

over the skies

or the winged creatures

in the skies.

But Paul is asserting here

that Yahweh

is the one true creator

of all these domains,

all these things,

and his lordship

is over all these dominions.

The creation narrative

in Genesis 1

attests to this truth

that God was the one

who created all things

from nothingness.

His lordship

is over all these things.

In the final part

of verse 24,

Paul says that

God does not live

in temples made by man.

If Yahweh is the creator

of all things,

and if he has infinite authority

and dominion

over all things,

such a powerful God

can't be confined

into structures

made by human hands.

The Stoics and the Epicureans

would have agreed

to Paul's assertion here.

The Stoics were convinced

that the gods

did not live in temples

that were constructed

by humans

because they were

of one essence

with nature.

The Epicureans

also believed

that the higher powers

were uninvolved

with human activity

and therefore

did not participate

in any worship

or sacrifice

from humans.

Therefore,

they would not want

to dwell

in these altars

and temples

of sacrifice.

But Paul isn't building

his argument here

of God

and agreeing

with these

Greek philosophies.

His assertions

are biblically informed.

Isaiah chapter 66

Isaiah 66:1–2

verses 1 to 2

says,

Thus says the Lord,

Heaven is my throne

and the earth

is my footstool.

What is the house

that you would build

for me?

And what is the place

of my rest?

All these things

my hand has made

and so all these things

came to be.

Scripture affirms

that God created

all things

and in his infinite power

he can't be contained

in these man-made structures.

Verse 25,

nor is he served

by human hands

as though he needed

anything.

God doesn't need

our services.

He doesn't need

our sacrifice.

He doesn't need

anything that human beings

can offer to him.

While the Stoics

and the Epicureans

would once again

agree to this point,

Paul makes this assertion

once again

not to appeal

to their philosophical values

but to make

a scripturally based point.

Psalm 50

Psalms 50:12–13

verses 12 to 13

illustrates Yahweh

proclaiming,

If I were hungry

I would not tell you

for the world

and its fullness

are mine.

Do I eat the flesh

of bulls

or drink the blood

of goats?

Because God

is the creator

of all things

he is self-sufficient

not needing anything

or anyone else

to sustain him.

As a matter of fact

Paul states

that God gives

to all mankind

life and breath

and everything.

Once again

this is a biblically

based assertion.

Genesis 2

in the creation narrative

Yahweh formed man

from dust

and breathed

into his nostrils

the breath

of life

and the man

became a living creature.

Isaiah 42

also proclaims

of God

of God's creation

the creator

of the heavens

who stretches

them out

who spreads

out the earth

with all that

springs from it

who gives breath

to its people

and life

to those

who walk on it.

If Yahweh

is indeed

the one who creates

the one who gives life

and the one who sustains

life for all of mankind

how can we not

give him the recognition

and the worship

that he deserves?

Our very existence

is wholly dependent

on him

from start

to finish.

And God made

from one man

every nation

verse 26

and God made

one man

every nation

of mankind

to live

on all the face

of the earth

having determined

allotted periods

and the boundaries

of the dwelling

place.

Paul's now making

it very clear

to the Athenians

that he's proclaiming

of the God

of Israel

the God

of the Jews

Yahweh.

Any educated

listener

in the Areopagus

would know

of Jewish cosmology

and would recognize

Paul's reference

to the creation

account

that God

created

one man

Adam

as the original

ancestor

of all creation

of all humankind.

This one man

would lead

to the entire

human race

who would inhabit

all the face

of the earth

and this one man

would give rise

to every nation

that dwelled

on the earth.

However

God

isn't just

a distant God.

He doesn't just

remove himself

to the background

to let humans

determine their own

fates.

Paul states

that Yahweh

had determined

allotted periods

and the boundaries

of their dwelling

place.

God is not only

Lord of all creation

but he's also

Lord over all

the history

of the human race.

Nations will appear

and disappear

over time

and the boundaries

of the nations

and cities

will constantly

change.

Yahweh

in his sovereignty

is the one God

who oversees

all these changes

and he determines

the times

in which the nations

will see their rise

and their fall.

The Stoics

and the polytheistic

Athenians

they would have believed

that every nation

and boundary

was governed

by a higher being.

However

they believed

that each of these nations

were governed

by different gods.

Paul contradicts them

by saying

that there is only

one God

who rules

over them all

and that

is Yahweh

who created

all human beings

and subsequently

created

all nations.

There's a song

that we at

here at Trinity Cambridge

like to sing

called Ancient of Days.

This song

it refers

to Daniel chapter 7

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

in which

the prophet Daniel

he sees this vision

of four terrifying beasts.

Four beasts

each representing

a tyrannical nation.

However

each of these nations

are destroyed

and stripped

of their dominion

by the Ancient of Days

the Lord God

Yahweh.

This can only be done

by the Almighty God

the Lord of all nations

and human history

the Ancient of Days.

As the lyrics proclaim

though the nations rage

kingdoms rise and fall

should I sing this?

There is still one king

reigning over all

none above him

none before him

all of time

in his hands

for his throne

it shall remain

and ever stand

all the power

all the glory

I will trust

in his name

for my God

is the Ancient of Days.

The God

that is proclaimed

by Paul

is not only

the creator

of all humans

he is the sustainer

and the sovereign Lord

over all the life

of mankind

and all the history

of nations.

And so Paul

goes on to reason

in verse 27

and Yahweh created humans

that they would seek him

and hope to find him.

Paul remarks

that Yahweh

created human beings

so that they would

naturally desire

to be in fellowship

with him.

In Genesis

Adam and Eve

we're in direct fellowship

with God

in the Garden of the...