Sermon Cloud

RUMORS OF GOD
"Mere Christianity" - Part 1
October 12th, 2008
Acts 17:24-31
Dwain Tissell

APP = VIDEO  Who is God?

If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe-no more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. That that is just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions? C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity p. 24

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line." C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (TNIV)

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean." 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) Acts 17:16-21 (TNIV)

22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship-and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. Acts 17:22-23 (TNIV)

1. THE RUMORS ARE TRUE.

24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. Acts 17:24-26 (TNIV)

2. GOD STARTED THE RUMORS.

27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.' Acts 17:27-28 (TNIV)

3. HE DID IT SO YOU COULD FIND HIM.

EVERLASTING GOD, IN WHOM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING: YOU HAVE MADE US FOR YOURSELF, AND OUR HEARTS ARE RESTLESS UNTIL THEY REST IN YOU. AUGUSTINE

"I'm after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know GOD...´Hosea 6:6 (MSG)