Living in a world that doesn't know God | Sunday Sermon

So have you ever um have you ever seen something in the culture around us or in the world that when you saw it, it just genuinely bothered you?

You know, like in your spirit.

I don't mean just because like it maybe it was personally offensive to you, but that it just that it bothered you more because it dishonored the God that you love.

Have you ever experienced anything like that?

Oh, oh yeah, reminder.

You can speak in church.

You go ahead and speak right up.

Anybody ever experienced anything like that?

You just see something in the culture, something going on, something that's happening, and you just see that and go, ugh, it just kind of like messes me up right here.

Do you know what that feeling is like?

I remember being um like in my early 20s, and it was like when I first, God first got a hold of me, okay?

And so he started just turning me around, and I'd probably only been following Christ for a few months, maybe at that point, but I was going to church and I was doing Bible studies and I was listening to the Bible studies on my radio and all that, and I got invited to this uh birthday party.

Now, the birthday party was being held in like a dance club, okay, at night.

Okay, so there was actually a club going on at the same time in the same place.

We were at the tables, and I guess this is just where the person wanted to celebrate their birthday.

So, you know, I we all went and I'm there, you know, and uh we're having the birthday party, but in the background there's like this whole dance club going on.

And I had been to places like that, you know, it wasn't like something, you know, the first time I'd been there or something like that, but I wasn't doing that really at this point in my life because I was more like, okay, I'm gonna follow Jesus now.

And so I was there at the club, and um at this one point in the night, it was like uh we were still at the tables, but everybody's on the dance floor, and there was this like particularly kind of intense song that's going, and everybody's just kind of jumping and dancing and like partying, and there's drinking, and there's all this stuff.

But it was crazy because for a moment on this screen wall behind the dance floor, there's also this little cartoon devil with his little, you know, red, he's all red with his horns and his pitchfork, and while this club is dancing and drinking and partying, he's also in the background on the screens, and he's like dancing and stuff like that, and it was like, ugh, like all of a sudden I just I just had this little kind of out-of-body experience.

I'm like, oh.

Not that dancing's evil, you know, it's nothing like that.

It's just that, and not even that it was some kind of spiritual thing, like, oh, Satan's here, or anything like that.

It was just like this revelation that there's more to this world than we realize, you know.

As Paul, what was crazy about it is that um, as I'm looking around, I'm like, you know, I've been to this place, I've been to these things, I've danced on that dance floor, probably to that song.

But something had changed, and it wasn't the world around me.

It was me that had changed, right?

And so in our study through the book of Acts, we're now in Acts 17, and at this point, last week we talked about Paul in the city of Philippi.

Okay, and he had been thrown in prison and all that good stuff, and so he had finally, you know, gotten out of prison and went and visited the church there, Lydia's house, and he left town.

And so Paul and Silas and Timothy and probably Luke, they travel over to the city of Thessalonica, and then they go to the city of Berea.

But as Paul always tends to do, he makes some people mad and he gets run out of town.

And so he leaves Timothy and Silas behind, and he gets on a ship with some other brothers from the area, and they brought him by ship to the city of Athens.

And so Paul finds himself in this city of Athens, and he sends those two brothers back, and just for the message to Silas and Timothy, just come and join me as soon as you can, guys.

And so while he's waiting for them, he's in the city of Athens, this magnificent, you know, famous, storied city, sophisticated, educated, cultured, and just completely filled with idols to the brim.

And in verse 16, it says, 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 as he arrives in Athens, he takes a moment, like probably a lot of us would.

You know, I remember when um I went to uh seminary, you know, when I was going back to Western Theological Seminary at one point, me and all the guys at the in the cohort, we stopped in Chicago.

And we just wanted to see the city real quick before we drove in to Michigan.

And so when we um we were there, the guys were kind of being lazy and they were in the room, and I'm like, you know what?

I've never been to Chicago, I don't know if I'll ever come again, so I'm gonna go check it out.

So I just went out of the hotel and started walking around the city and checking out the sites.

And it was kind of like that with Paul.

He's just walking around the city.

He's just kind of acclimating himself, just kind of get an idea of what's around.

Let me see what's going on here.

But as he's walking around, you know, he sees the beautiful structures and he sees the beautiful art and he sees the impressive people.

But also everywhere he looks, he sees idols and he sees altars and he sees temples for false gods.

Everywhere he looks, there's references to mythology.

And the worship and honor that should be due to the one who created everything is being given to inanimate things.

In fact, the people are worshiping pretty much anything and everything except the one who truly deserved it.

And it just bothered him.

And again, not like in a personal way, it was more like a jealousy, you know, for what belongs to God, for what should have been given to him.

It was people giving credit to inanimate things for the creation.

And so Paul's gut response is kind of interesting, and it kind of confronts us with a question.

And the question that it confronts us with is does it actually bother us when God is dishonored by the world around us?

There's two main ways.

I'm on social media, you know, like most of you guys, and probably a lot of you guys are my friends on social media, and if you're not, you should be, because we should be buddies, right?

But I'm watching the news, I'm watching the news cycle, I see the social media and all that stuff, and I'm seeing what's going on in the world around me, like all of you are.

But that what I see from Christians, the two main ways that I see Christians reacting, um, the first one is kind of just accommodation, you know?

When you see something going on in the world, it could be a social injustice, it could be just kind of some blatant like sin.

Okay, there's this thing.

We were sitting at BJ's last night.

This is not in my notes.

We're at BJ's last night, we're sitting there for dinner, me, me and my family, and my daughter Madison, she she brings up this thing, she goes, Did you guys see this?

And she shows this picture.

And it's this robot with like a goat head and horns and like a horse body and a human torso, and it's all black and it has glowing red eyes, and it carries chainsaws and all this stuff.

I'm like, come on, like that's a joke, that's not real.

You know, that's not real.

And she's like, No, it is.

Like a lot of people are saying it's not real, but it it really is.

So we started looking into it.

And I go, it's crazy because it reminds me of like Leviticus 17.

In Leviticus 17, it said that the people had been sacrificing to goat demons.

I know it sounds weird, right?

They've been sacrificing to goat demons.

And in the old translations, um, that word just translated satyrs, okay?

It's like a half-goat, like a mythological creature.

And what's funny is we started looking more into it, and the company's name is satris.

Yeah.

And anyways, we looked further into it, and the thing's name is three halves, right?

And we started thinking, well, what is that?

Because I mean, it's obviously like they're they're obviously making a play on this, right?

Because it's too many things.

We started looking at it, we're like, okay, every single thing lines up.

Come on, guys.

So three halves, and we're thinking, well, could it mean the Trinity?

You know, it's like a you know how the enemy kind of imitates and does like a pale imitation of what God is?

He doesn't come up with anything new, he just kind of imitates and he does kind of an ugly version, right?

And so, anyway, we're looking at this thing and it's just like, ew, you know, like why would you do that?

Why would you choose like a demon to make your robot after?

That wasn't in my notes, as I said.

So, but it was just, it's just weird, you know, like things are weird things going on in the world around us.

But a lot of us, it's like, you know, we just are we accommodate it.

It's like it doesn't bother us, it's all good, you know?

Like it doesn't even cross our minds.

We're so acclimated to our culture, we're so accustomed to our culture, we're so comfortable with the idolatry around us that we hardly notice it anymore.

It's like not that big a deal to us.

In fact, we consume what everybody else consumes.

We laugh at what everyone else laughs at, we value what everybody else values, we pursue what everybody else pursues, and we're just kind of like not noticing it.

And I've thought of um, I always think of sin like sort of like a mud, you know?

Like when I was a kid, I liked playing in the mud.

I liked making mud cakes and I liked making mud castles and stuff.

I like getting all dirty and squishing my hands in it and stuff, you know?

But as like a grown man, I'm kind of like, I don't want to play in mud anymore.

To me, it's just kind of gross, you know.

I'm thinking, oh, there's like bacteria in there, you know, and then I'm gonna make a big mess, I'm gonna have to clean up afterward.

But you ask a pig what he thinks of the mud, he's gonna tell you that's his favorite place to be.

Dude will lay down in it, he'll roll around in it, he'll eat his food out of it, he doesn't notice the smell, he doesn't notice the mess, he doesn't care about no bacteria.

To the pig, that's where he belongs.

The mud is his happy place.

But if Christ has made us new creations, then the mud is not our home anymore.

And so we shouldn't feel comfortable in it.

Like we should feel ashamed when some of that mud still clings to us as it does.

I should feel ashamed when some of that mud still clings to me.

Like if God has changed my heart, shouldn't I learn to love the things he loves?

Shouldn't the things that grieve him begin to grieve me?

And if it doesn't bother me at all, what does that say about my heart?

And so one of the common responses I see from Christians over the cult over cultural sin is that one accommodation.

But there's another one that's just as bad, if not worse.

It's condemnation.

See, some of us do notice it, and we're uncomfortable with it.

We notice the rebellion, we notice the blasphemy against God, we notice the idolatry, we notice the rejection of his authority by the culture around us, and it makes us angry.

But the problem is that our outrage quickly turns to self-righteousness, and we become harsh and become judgmental, and we become combative, and we start to be known by all the things that we're against.

And maybe we start to see ourselves as morally superior to our neighbors.

But we need to remember that just because we're offended by someone else's sin, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're any better than them.

It doesn't mean that we're more like Jesus than they are.

Jesus wasn't happy with sin, but he was also pretty unhappy with Pharisees, too, right?

And so we probably want to avoid both of those things.

And so the two most common responses, I see, are accommodation and condemnation, and that's not everybody.

There's others that are making a different choice, but I want to take a moment in the passage to see what Paul's response is.

It says, So we reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons 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 in the resurrection.

And they took him and they brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new teaching is that you're presenting?

For you bring some strange things to our ears, and we wish to know, therefore, what these things mean.

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

And so, as we say said, Paul explores the city, he checks out the site, he sees the rampant idolatry, it provokes something in his heart, but what does he do about it?

Well, the Bible says he went to the people and he begins sharing Jesus.

His grief in his heart over the sin and the idolatry moves him toward the people of the city, and he goes to the synagogue and he reasons with the Jews, and he goes to the marketplace and he begins to reason with just anybody who happens to be there, and while he's there, he meets some of the intellectuals, the Epicureans and the Stoics, and he converses with them, and eventually they bring him to the Areopagus.

And so he's in this center of influence and power in the Areopagus, and he's talking with the intellectual elites of Athens.

See, this is the alternative that very few choose.

It's not accommodation.

Paul doesn't go out and tell the people, look, your idolatry's fine.

Don't worry about it.

Go ahead.

Just keep living in sin as long as you're happy.

God doesn't mind all that much.

He just wants you healthy and wealthy and wise.

And he also doesn't do the other thing, does he?

I mean, to each his own, right?

But he doesn't go out with a big yellow sign either and stand on the corner and say, Repent, suck yourself hot! He does something else.

He feels compassion for those who are lost.

He feels compassion by those who are deceived by false idols and sin.

And he responds in mission as a person himself who had been this who had been one who dishonored and persecuted.

Do you remember who this is, Paul the Apostle?

This was Saul of Tarsus.

He was the chief persecutor of the church.

He's the one that was driving the Christians out of Jerusalem because when this amazing movement of the gospel is happening in Jerusalem, he didn't like it, and he's chasing them, he's dragging them out of their homes, and he's throwing them in prison.

And when it was time to condemn them to death, he was casting his vote against them.

When he met Jesus, he wasn't seeking the Lord, he wasn't going after him, he was going to Damascus to do more of that.

But what did Jesus do?

I mean, no one hates sin more than Jesus, but he didn't stop Paul and say, it's okay, Paul.

No big deal.

And he didn't condemn him either.

He knocked him off his horse, he confronted him by his sin.

He told him to repent, and then he forgave him.

And he made him one of the most powerful of the apostles.

So Paul remembers what Christ had done for him, and now he, like his Lord, does the same for others.

And so should we.

Because we were all, maybe not exactly like Paul.

But if we've been saved by God's mercy today, we have a story too, right?

Back in the day.

When I was young, I'm not a kid anymore.

But I have my own story, you have yours.

And so if we want to be like our Lord, we should love the love our God too much to be comfortable with rebellion.

We should love people too much to condemn them and walk away from them.

And if this is what God's calling us to do, the question is, how?

And 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.

And so how does Paul move toward them?

The first thing he does is he meets people where they are.

See, Paul doesn't begin by attacking the Athenians.

He begins a conversation with them based upon where they are in that moment.

And so he begins there.

He says, Listen, I went around your city, I checked it out, I saw the sights, I see, man, you're very religious, you know.

Like he's finding common ground.

You like to talk about spiritual things.

That's amazing.

So do I.

So let's do that, you know?

Then he begins as I was walking around, you know, I found this altar to the unknown God.

And he just begins where they're at.

And this is how Paul began with everyone he met.

He did this with Jews and with Greeks and with pagans and philosophers.

He listens, he observes, he tries to understand them and find a place to begin the conversation.

And when we talk with people, we don't have to have memorized spiels, you know.

We just talk to them.

We try to understand where they're coming from.

We try to help them understand that whatever they're placing their hope in, if it's not Jesus, if it's not God, then what they're worshiping can't save them.

And that just like us, they need Jesus.

And so he goes on and he says, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't 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 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.

Yet he's 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.

And so when Paul moves toward these people, the first thing he does is he meets them where they are, but the second thing he does is he shows them God.

He shows them the real God, who he truly is, that God is creator.

He's not a statue, he can't be represented by a statue, he's not gonna fit in your little tiny temple.

That God is self-sufficient, he doesn't need anything from us, and he never did and he never will.

That God is our sustainer, that everything we have is from him, our life and our breath and everything, that God is sovereign.

He doesn't need your counsel and he doesn't need mine.

He made us according to his own design, according to his own will.

He determined the time and history that we'd be born, he determined the place that we would be born.

God is near and noble, he's not some distant deity that stays away.

I don't care about them.

Paul even mentions that their own poets had noticed that God, um, that humanity's dependence depended upon God.

And that because all these things are true, we don't get to make up our own version of God.

You know what I'm saying?

We don't get to make up our own version of God.

God made us, not the other way around.

I was sharing with some students at Cerrito's College on Tuesday, and I'm standing there, I'm talking to one of the kids, and we're talking about these things, you know, and he's like, I don't really have, you know, uh, I don't really know what I believe.

And then at some point in the conversation, he says, you know, to me, God is.

And then he goes on to describe this version of God that is really based upon like nothing at all.

And it's just kind of made up out of his own sense of right and wrong.

And it and it's amazing how many times I hear this out of people's mouth.

You know, to me, God is, you know, my God would never.

And then they go on and describe their vision of God, and inevitably, when they finish that sentence, they've described a vision of God that miraculously sees God, that a God that sees everything the way that they do, a God that miraculously agrees with all of their own ideologies and philosophies and sensitivities and lifestyle choices that demands nothing of them, that approves of all of their choices and thoughts.

But we don't get to define God for ourselves.

And so with this student, I brought up the topic of identity.

I said, you know, our culture, one of the highest values of our culture is identity.

Like the right of each individual to define for ourselves who we are, right?

Is that not a high value in our culture?

Like, I don't get to define you for you.

I don't get to tell you who you are.

And you the same.

You don't get to tell me who I am.

I define me, you define you.

And so the students said, Yeah, you know, I agree with that, actually.

Yeah, I totally agree with that.

That's the way it should be.

And I said, Okay, well, cool, you know, that's good.

But if that's true, if it's true for you and me, shouldn't God be allowed to define for us who He is too?

Because the thing is, God has revealed Himself to humanity.

He said, I'm creator, I'm holy, I'm self-existent, I'm sovereign, I'm the giver of life, I'm the Lord of all creation, I'm the Alpha, the Omega, I'm the maker, the designer.

And because all those things are true, He also has every right to tell us who we are.

He's the one who made us, He designed us, He formed us.

He made the whole world and the environment, the habitat that we live in.

It's his universe.

We're just living in it.

He gets to tell us who we are.

Paul tells the Athenians the times of ignorance God overlooked, 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.

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

Amen?

So when we understand that God is our creator, we're able to see and understand that we are his creatures, right?

When we begin to understand that God is holy, we can see that, like Isaiah, standing before the holy God, he could see, oh, well, ah man, I kind of thought I was okay.

You know, compared to all the other people around me, I was great.

I was the most holy one.

But standing next to him, I can see that I am a sinner.

When we understand that he's Lord, we can see that we're accountable to obey him.

When we understand that he's judge, we understand that we will stand before him and give an account.

We like to invert it, put God on the witness stand.

We like to cross-examine him, stand in judgment over him if God is so just, if God is so moral, if God is so good.

You know, do I actually agree with God?

I don't know.

Could I worship a God who and we put ourselves in the place of judge?

But Paul flips the entire script on the Athenians and he tries to help them understand that he made us, not the other way around.

And he's not just another religion or another idea to throw in their hat of religions and ideas, he's not one path among many.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.

And we don't judge him.

He judges us.

And he commands repentance from all of us because all of us have rebelled and we all need his salvation.

So Paul says he has fixed a 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.

And so finally he brings them to Jesus.

And this is the path that the conversation many times needs to follow.

How are you gonna understand that you need someone to save you unless you realize you're not gonna make it on your own?

We talked on a Thursday Bible study.

If you're in an airplane and the both motors go out, engines go out, and you're like diving and you know you're gonna hit the ground, but someone says, Here, I got one more parachute, put it on.

Are you gonna throw it out?

No, because you know the plane's going down.

And if you don't have a parachute, you're going down with it.

How do we know we need a savior?

Like Jesus died for you.

Oh, that was nice of them.

Thanks.

They first have to understand their situation.

It's not because we're being mean, it's not because we're being judgmental.

It's because we need to understand our situation so we can understand our need for a savior.

And when we understand our need for a savior, now it's time to bring the gospel.

Now it's time to bring the good news.

See, for Paul, Jesus was always the point.

God created this world perfect.

He created humanity for a relationship with himself, to know him, to love him, to live with him, to have fellowship with him, to find our purpose and our identity in him.

But humanity embraced sin.

Humanity rebelled against him.

We broke the relationship with him because we didn't want to do what he said.

And so we must be judged.

Because God can and will not ever accommodate our sin.

But God's heart was always mercy toward us.

And so instead of condemning us to hopeless lives of eternal separation from himself, he came forward and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, and he took our sin upon himself in exchange for his own righteousness, and he died for us, and God provided salvation through his victory over sin.

And he proved it by raising him from the dead, and that's Paul's message to the Athenians.

He did all this so we could be reconciled to him.

And so, just like Paul, when we see the idolatry, we see the sinfulness in the world around us, the response should be moving toward them.

How do we live in a world that doesn't know God?

Paul shows us, don't become acclimated.

If you love God, his dishonor should grieve you.

Don't be condemning.

If we're becoming like Jesus, our grief over sin shouldn't produce contempt or condemnation for sinners.

Amen.

I'm not moving forward until I hear an amen.

And look, if we're becoming like Jesus, right?

Jesus didn't like sin.

But he also loved sinners.

And he would go with them and he'd eat with them.

And he would give them grace and he'd give them mercy, right?

The woman caught in the act of adultery.

Did he let the people stone her?

No, he confronted their self-righteousness and put them in their place.

And then he told her, Go and sin no more.

He showed her compassion.

He did that with a leper too.

Go and sin no more, lest something worse come upon you.

Don't become acclimated and don't become condemning.

Become compassionate and go.

Move toward people.

Listen to them.

Understand them.

Meet them where they are.

Tell them who God really is.

Help them to see themselves rightly before Him and then bring them to Jesus.

Because if we are Christ's people, we should love God too much to be comfortable with idolatry and sin.

And we should love our neighbors too much to leave them without the gospel.

Amen.

Amen.