Acts 17:16-34
You can be seated. Please turn
in your copy of God’s word to Acts chapter 17, verses 16 to
34. This is the same passage we read
last week, though we zeroed in on a couple of the verses in
the latter portion and considered the providence of God. Today,
we want to look at the whole section, the whole context. Paul
ministering at Athens among the learned people of the Roman empire. And so we want to give our attention
to this passage. Act 17 16 to 34. And let’s seek God’s face one
more time. Pray with me. Lord, we ask that
your word would do its work, that the divine errand upon which
you send it will run its course and do its work. Lord, I am weak. I’m a sinner. My mind is not
as sharp as your word and your spirit, but you have seen fit
to work through sinners, work through your servants. So let
my voice be your voice this day. Let my mouth speak your words.
May people be comforted and built up in their faith and may sinners
be convinced and converted of their need of Christ. We ask
in his name, amen. This is God’s word. 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 the 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 face of the earth, having
determined and allotted periods and 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, even as 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 the imagination of
man. 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. 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 Dionysius
the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. Amen. This is the word of our
great God. I read a very startling statistic
just this past week and I looked it up in some other places to
confirm that it was true. Here’s the statistic, and you
probably won’t believe me when I give it to you, but it’s, I
believe to be true. Only 4%, only 4% of people living in America
hold to a biblical worldview. That means 96% of Americans do
not That is do not 96%. That’s close
to a hundred percent, right? Startling. Nearly 96% of people
do not hold to a biblical worldview in the United States. What is
a worldview you ask? Well, I’ll tell you, if you’ve
not heard that term used before, a worldview is simply the set
of assumptions the set of presuppositions, you might use that word that
each of us holds and you, you have them either intentionally
and consciously because you have worked at learning these things
and believing these things, or you hold them subconsciously
and unintentionally. Uh, you, you, you have a worldview,
you just can’t express it in words. And people, whether they
hold their worldview in clear terms or they just have one because
it’s been absorbed into their being, we live out our worldviews. Some of it’s true, some of it’s
false, some of it’s partial. Some of us are consistent, others
of us are inconsistent. Some of us have deep convictions,
others of us just, well, we believe whatever we hear through various
media. Here’s the sad thing, and I believe
it’s why we’re in the position we’re in in America today. Most
of us hold our view of the world, our worldview, and we never challenge
it. We never critically think about
it. And what a sad state of affairs
we find ourselves in America, when only 4% of people hold to
a biblical worldview. That means we have fast forwarded
from being a nation of Christian values, as it were, to now becoming
a post-Christian nation like Europe. 50, 60, 70 years ago
became. It’s only a matter of time before
our worship places, our nightclubs, or they’re converted into apartment
buildings, or they are torn down, no longer the bright spot in
a city, but now the footprint for a new skyscraper or apartment
building or whatever. A worldview asks what we call
ultimate questions. Is there a God? How do you know? Is there right and wrong? What
does it mean to be a human being? What is the purpose of human
life? What happens when I die? What
is the meaning of history? How do I know right from wrong,
good from evil? All those sorts of questions.
They form a grid or a filter in each of our minds. that help
us view the world and navigate life in various ways, shapes
or forms. Now, every one of us has a worldview. Every one of us can answer these
big questions in some way, shape or form. Some of us were taught
to think well and to think biblically, to think rightly. Others of us
have sort of caught it along the way. Many of us are playing
catch up. Many of us, wish we had heard
the things that we are hearing now, maybe later in our Christian
life, we wish we knew them sooner and what heartache it would have
saved us. Every one of us has some sort
of foundation. Every one of us has had some
sort of shaping influences in our lives. And what I think we
have discovered, particularly as we look at young children,
teenagers, and then now what we call maybe the college age,
the post-adolescent kids, is in the same way when we pour
concrete for a foundation for a building, that concrete will
set. And it will set up and it will
begin to harden in the last way that it was shaped and in the
last way it was formed. And so how did we get to where
we are today, where 4% of Americans and what has largely been a Christian
nation with Judeo-Christian values? How did we get to where 4%, only
4% of our population holds to a biblical worldview? Well, it’s, it’s, it’s a crisis
in America and there’s some blame to go around. We can blame it
on parents. We can blame it on the church. We can blame it on
the education system. We can blame it on culture. We
can blame it on media. We can blame it on Satan. And
yes, some guilt lies at the feet of all the aforementioned folks,
but friends, it’s going to be the church and it’s going to
be parents. who will need to change this 4% to a 5%, a 6%,
a 7 or 8%. Some of you are watching culture
as I am and seeing it rotten to the core. And one theologian
I listened to and read from time to time says this, give it about
50 years. About 50 years from now, our
culture will have fallen. It will have rotted completely.
No foundation, no mooring, no floor to stand on. Every bit
of it is rotten. And it will be the faithful Christians.
And some of you are doing the math. I won’t be alive then.
I’ll be an old man then. But this theologian has said,
you know, look, look at history, look at cyclical nature of history. And when we get into situations
like this, after everything crashes and burns, it is the faithful
Christians who are there to pick up the pieces and rebuild culture.
And so another Judeo Christian type culture begins to grow and
to flourish again. Some of you have been listening
in the Sunday school class down in the fellowship hall to the
history of the church and how in the 1700s, the enlightenment
came to America and the enlightenment affected or infected, we might
should say, every aspect of our culture. Art changed, music changed,
education changed, even the church changed. We went from thousands
of years of what we would call a theistic belief, belief in
a God who ruled and reigned over every aspect of life. That’s
why you go to a college campus that was built some time ago
and the chapel or the cathedral is at the center and all of the
other sciences and arts are subject to it. Those buildings may still
stand there today, but nothing submits. to the belief that God
made the world and everything in it, and all sciences, all
arts are to submit to him. Well, we’re in this position
today for all sorts of reasons, some of which I explained to
you, others we’ll leave for another day. But we come to a passage
like Acts chapter 17, and we find Paul in Athens. Maybe Athens
is like modern day New York City. Modern day London, modern day,
you fill in the blank where there is every art, every culture,
every highbrow thinking, every system of thought, every university.
And Paul arrives in Athens. Remember on this second missionary
journey, when he and Silas leave Damascus, they’re prevented from
taking Barnabas. There’s that little dispute about
John Mark. but in God’s providence, they pick up Timothy and Luke.
They’re prevented from going into Asia, but they’re brought
to Macedonia, where Paul preaches the gospel, and at Philippi,
and at Thessalonica, and at Berea, people are converted to faith
in Jesus Christ. But in all those places, he’s
run out of town, he meets trouble, and he’s been whisked away to
Athens, of all places. He’s in Athens to hide out. Paul
had planned if you were to look at your Bible in the maps He
had planned to stay on the northern route and not dip down into all
those little Isthmus is that it I got my geography right peninsulas. That’s what they are Isthmus
connects doesn’t it? I remember the seventh grade
He doesn’t plan to dip down in all those peninsulas. He plans
to follow the Ignatian way and go all the way to Rome and preach
the gospel. So now you find him dipped way down in Athens, hiding
from the Jews who were angry at him for preaching the gospel.
And he comes to Athens and verse 16 begins. Now, while Paul was
waiting for them, He’s waiting for Silas. He’s waiting for Timothy. He’s in Athens, the center of
it all. Now, Athens is not the great
city that it used to be. It’s five or six hundred years
past its beginnings, through its prime, and now it’s got little
glimmers of its past glory. Maybe some of you have been to
Athens. Or like me, you’ve eaten in the Greek restaurant. Seen
it on the TV or watched Rick Steves. Big columns, big pillars,
big temples, lots of statues, lots of thinkers, Aristotle and
Plato and Socrates and all the thinkers that we have to learn
about in our Western civilization courses. came through and lived
in Athens. It was the center of culture.
It was the center of thought. It was what we might call the
university of our day. And so Paul is here in Athens
by providence and by persecution. He’s waiting on Silas and Timothy
and he sees that only 4% of people in Athens hold to a biblical
worldview. Now I’m making that part up.
It’s a really low number. And what does our passage tell
us? It says that Paul’s spirit was provoked. And we got to stop
there for a moment. Some of y’all I think were provoked
when I read about Ahab. You were reminded of your past
Bible reading about how nasty he was. He was a conniving, thieving
man and his wife was worse. And when we read about Ahab,
we should be provoked because he was the worst of the worst
and he did what was evil and wicked in the sight of God. And
here Paul comes to Athens and his spirit is provoked because
there are people there only doing evil all the time. Their idolatry
troubled him to the core. And I have to ask you, what provokes
you when you flip the television channels? What provokes you to
change the channel or maybe even to cut it off? What provokes
you on the news to say, Lord, help our nation? I don’t want
to be political, but I am for a second, and then I will tell
you to get off of that. Probably what provokes and troubles us
the most is taxation and representation and who’s in charge. Am I right? We need to be more provoked with
the way people are living. We need to be more provoked with
every sin that is leveled against the God of heaven and earth,
every sin that is raised and praised as a lifestyle. These are worldviews. What is
the meaning of humanity? Well, it’s your gender identity
today. What is the meaning of humanity? It’s whatever I feel
it is. What is the meaning of this life?
It’s to eat, drink, and be merry. You look across the landscape
and you see all these awful worldviews. What provokes you? Well, what
provoked Paul was that he knew in his mind, he knew in his heart
because his worldview is straight. His worldview pops out in Acts
chapter 17. He believes in God, the creator.
He believes in God, the Lord. He believes in a God who is transcendent. He is above creation. He is outside
of creation. He believes in a God who is eternal,
a God who is the source of everything. It is in him we live, move, and
have our being. This God Paul believes in is
the creator of the world. He’s the sustainer of the world,
and he’s the redeemer of the world. And it’s man’s chief end
to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. He also believes that
since the fall, since sin entered this world, God has been gracious
in our separation from him. And God has been forbearing and
overlooking our ignorance and our idolatry until the coming
of Jesus Christ. But Paul is going to say by the
end of our passage, the time is past. God will not overlook
these things. And so you had better repent
and believe the gospel. And he speaks of the Lord Jesus
Christ as the judge and the savior and the king of all mankind. Have you been that provoked lately?
Is your is your worldview. So firmed up in your mind and
heart who God is, what God has done in Christ, who you are.
You’re a sinner in need of Jesus mercy, grace. And his satisfaction
for sin, you understand that God made the world and everything
in it, and he cares for it, and he’s leading us to an eternity
brought back to fellowship with him, that fellowship lost by
Adam and Eve in the garden, but restored through Christ and ultimate
and eternal in heaven. And you believe that God made
you male or female with dominion over the earth to be fruitful,
to multiply, to work, to dress the earth and to keep it in all
these things that we find in the holy scriptures. You know,
some, some people say, Oh, worldview doesn’t matter. You have your
beliefs and that’s just fine and dandy. And I have my beliefs. That’s just fine and dandy. That
is a really terrible way to think. Let me just illustrate it by
naming two names. Mother Teresa had a worldview.
So did Adolf Hitler. So does Xi Jinping. So does Lil
Kim over there in the Korean peninsula. So did the abortionist. So did the feminist. So did the
alphabet soup people of gender identity. And on and on and on,
we can look around the world and we ought to be provoked in
our spirits because 96% of the people do not affirm God, the
creator, sustainer and redeemer. And again, we lay the blame at
the feet of Satan. Yes, the deceiver. We lay the
blame at the feet of maybe the education system. Okay. But parents in church really
need to hunker in. And we need to make disciples,
as Jesus said, both in the home and in the church, and mix those
two together. Little kids need to hear, who
made you? God. What else did God make? God made all things. Why did
God make you in all things? For his own glory. Those little
catechisms are building blocks of a worldview. You big kids, and I mean us adults,
teenagers, old folks, young folks in between, we need to know what
is my only comfort in life and in death. We need to know what
is man’s chief end. We need to know what is sin. We need to know what is the end
and the goal of human history. We need to know what is right
and what is wrong, the 10 commandments, what they require, what they
forbid. We need to know about the atoning
work of Jesus Christ. These things are important. I
think if we did a survey in this church, we would find better
than 4%. I know we would. But we’re probably not at 100%.
And that’s why we need to keep reading our Bibles. That’s why
we need to keep coming to sermons and coming to Sunday school and
coming to all the avenues that we can to be transformed by the
renewal of our minds until we have a worldview that answers
all those ultimate questions biblically. And then we teach
it to others. We model it to others. We display
it to others. And as we look at this passage
and see Paul’s ministry at Athens, maybe one of the most famous
stories in his life. I want to point out two quick
things, two things briefly that will help us bear witness to
Christ in a Christian worldview. First thing is he finds a point
of contact. He’s in Athens. He’s waiting on Paul and Silas. You know, he’s checking his watch.
He’s looking at the board at the train station. When’s their
train coming in? When’s their plane coming in?
They’re not there yet. So he makes hay while the sun’s
shining. He goes in the marketplace, he goes in the synagogue, and
he goes to the Areopagus. These three contexts. The Areopagus
would have been like the Supreme Court where they listen to and
make judgments on all these new things they’re wanting to listen
to and hear. They’re the intellectual elites
of the day. The marketplace, he’s street
preaching. The synagogue, he’s reasoning
with the Jews and the God-fearers who’ve gathered on the Sabbath
day to read the word, to pray to God, and to have some sort
of edification. And in these three contexts,
Paul is building relationships and he gets taken by the Stoics
and the Epicureans to the Areopagus, this little supreme court of
intellectual thought. They tell you after they listen
to you whether you’re full of it or not, right? He’s a babbler. That’s what they call him. He’s
a he’s a peddler of crazy ideas. He’s got bats in his belfry.
That’s what the accusation is. Well, he goes and smart Paul,
who says in First Corinthians, I want to be all things to all
men so that Christ can be presented. He takes notice as he’s walking
along the way. They have an idol. They have
a God for everything. This is why he was provoked. And he notices there’s one that
says to the unknown God, in case we have missed one, in case our
pantheon is incomplete, we don’t have enough statues or, or, or
gods. He sees one to the unknown God.
And there’s this point in contact. He says, there’s this unknown
God in your hall of statues. I’m going to tell you today who
he is. And he begins to tell them about the Christian worldview. Now, remember, Paul doesn’t have
the new Testament. He’s going to write a bunch of it. Luke
is working on Luke and Acts probably as this is going on. But what
does Paul have? He has the Old Testament. And
those of you Wednesday nighters who went through our Genesis
study, one of the things you’ll remember that we looked at is
Genesis is a worldview. It tells us about who God is.
It tells us about creation. It tells us about humanity. It
tells us about male and female and having dominion and having
children and being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth
with the glory of God. It shows what happens when sin
enters the world. It shows us what is right. It
shows us what is wrong. And it shows us that life is
ultimately to be lived for the glory of God. And Paul has all
that in his mind. And he says in the latter part
of this passage, I’ll tell you who God is. He’s the creator. He’s the sustainer. He’s the
redeemer. He’s the Lord. He’s the maker of heaven and
earth. He’s the maker of mankind. And by the way, all of you come
from one man. Yes, that’s Adam. And then Noah
after the flood. And he explains to them all the
big questions of origins. Who’s in control? And he does
so by finding a common ground with them, a point of contact.
Maybe you have a coworker. And they want what you’re having.
They see your Christian faith. They see your Christian life.
They see the ups and downs and how you’re just kind of, you
know, you’re making it because you have faith in Jesus. And
they take you to lunch. They take you to coffee and say, where
do, where do you get this from? And you tell them about God,
the creator, the sustainer, the redeemer, the Lord, the author
of life. It’s in him. We live, move and
have our being. It’s in him that all good things come. And so
we can then from that point of contact, proclaim, the goodness
of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s not rocket science,
is it, folks? You come to faith in Jesus. The
word and the spirit are blessed and you are convinced and converted
of your sins. You repent of your sins and you
endeavor to live a life for Jesus through the power of his Holy
Spirit. and you long for heaven, but
until then you wanna serve him faithfully. And by God’s grace,
he puts you in all these places where people may ask you to give
an account of the hope that is within you. And Paul gives us
a wonderful example of what that can look like. But friends, if
you are stopping short of calling people to repentance before the
day of judgment, You are not being faithful to the call and
the demands of the gospel. That’s ultimately what Paul does
here. He stands in front of the most learned people in the world
and says, I’m gonna tell you who your unknown God is. It’s
Jesus Christ, who is the savior of the world, but the judge of
sinners, and he’s coming back. And you better be found resting
in him for the forgiveness of your sins. Let’s do pray together.
Our great and mighty God, we thank you that you are the king
of the earth, that you rule over us and you defend us against
your enemies and ours, and we thank you that you are subduing
all things under your feet. Lord, hasten the day, hasten
the day of judgment so that all wrongs are made right, all justice
that is deserved is meted out. And we will see the glory of
Jesus Christ, the gathering of the nations, the ushering in
of the new heavens and the new earth, and the glories of God
for eternity. Lord, we also pray that those
we know who do not love you, who are still stuck in their
sins and trespasses, we pray that they might know of the grace
of God in Christ Jesus. It’s in his name we ask these
things, amen.