Sermon Cloud

The story begins with Paul. He was recently in Phillipi. He was beaten there, jailed, they wanted him dead. And so God freed him from prison and Paul leads his jailer to Christ. From Phillipi, he goes into Thessalonica – another city to preach. When he got there, he created such a stir that there is a near riot in Thessalonica. The Thessalonians were very, very upset with Paul. And so what happens is Paul goes on from Thessalonica into a town called Berea. When he got there, the Jews from Thessalonica were so upset that they took time off of work and followed him into Berea so they could beat him again. When a guy beats you once, he’s mad. When he quits his job so that he can follow you around and beat you continuously, you have upset him in a pretty profound way. And so Paul’s ministry companions, Silas and Timothy, are like, “Alright Paul, this isn’t good. You are going to die. And we kind of like you Paul and want you to be around for a while, so why don’t you take a break. Take a vacation. Go to Athens, check out the sites, and lay low for a while.”

So Paul heads to Athens for some down time. But Paul is one of those guys that even when he’s on vacation, he is going to tell people about Jesus, and ask one of them to plant a church. He is one of those guys that all you have to do is remove your hand from his mouth for him to engage you in conversation and begin telling you about God.  Kind of like Greg. Greg isn’t here this week because, as you all know, he is on sabbatical for the summer. But Paul is a lot like Greg. He never stops talking to people. I mean, he loves people so much that he’ll do just about anything to be able to talk to ya (even if he has to introduce himself to you 9 times and still doesn’t remember your name! haha)…[perhaps a story from growing up]…The leadership team always gives him a hard time because first of all, he knows everyone in Nebraska, and secondly, if he’s not talking to someone for 30 seconds, he is on his phone trying to find someone to talk to!) And the guy loves the Lord so much that he can’t help but tell you about Him. Ya know what I’m talking about? (In a couple weeks he is heading up to Minnesota to hit the big fishing opener with some old friends. Can’t ya just see Greg, “Behold, you are fishing for walleye but I will make you fishers of men.” Talking to people and telling them about Jesus is like breathing. That is exactly how Paul is.

So Paul lands at the docks, treks 5 miles into the city of Athens. Athens then had more that was splendid in architecture, more that was brilliant in science, and more that was beautiful in the arts, than any other city of the world; perhaps more than all the rest of the world united. Athens was greatly distinguished for the celebrity of its schools of philosophy. Plato. Socrates. Aristotle. Alexander the Great. It was at that time at the head of the literary world. Its arts and its learning were celebrated in all lands. The Athenians were very intelligent and very proud of their accomplishments, their education, and their prominence. This was the place to be.

So this is what Paul is walking into in to. But like as we said before, although Paul is supposed to be laying low for a while, we find out in verse 16 that he is immediately overwhelmed and deeply burdened by all of the idolatry that he sees. “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” (v16) ...[being burdened for the lost and for the city]

A scholar once said that “The opposite of Christianity is not atheism, it is idolatry.” It is the idea that everyone worships something. Everyone gives their time, money, heart, and life to something – whether it is self interest, a job, a relationship, a hobby, a band, a cause – everyone worships something. The Athenians worshiped many gods. Ancient scholars joked that “It is easier to find a god in Athens than a man.” There were literally hundreds and thousands of shrines and places of sacrifice built for various gods. (Why they have all these altars. About 600 years previous to Jesus’ coming, a plague broke out in Athens. Hundreds if not thousands of people were dying. It was a catastrophe and the people were very afraid and very grieved. So what they did is they decided that they needed to get spiritual – because they needed god. So they began praying to the gods thinking that the gods were angry with them. The Greeks were very polytheistic. They believe in a pantheon of gods. So maybe we need to pray or appease the gods to make them happy. One of the things that they did to decide which god to sacrifice to is they took sheep and let them go in the city. And whichever shrine the sheep went to they took as the god of that shrine drawing the sheep to be sacrificed to them. But the problem is that sheep are dumb and they would lie down in the middle of the street, the park, on someone’s doorstep. And the people were afraid that they had missed a god. So they built shrine after shrine to “unknown” gods. So there were literally hundreds and thousands of these shrines.)

 So Paul sees all this, he’s greatly burdened by it, and we are told that, “So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.” (v17) When we look at life and ministry of Paul we find that he never operated the same way twice. When he’s with Jews, he walks into the Synagogue and teaches out of the Old Testament about Jesus. When he walks out into the general community, he operates differently. So he heads down to the market.

The market in Paul’s day was where people would bring their fresh produce, they bring their crafts, they would bring their philosophies, they would bring their guitar, they would bring their political cause, petition to sign, and they would meet and dialogue and hang out. It was a community gathering place. And so Paul is saying, “if I need to talk to Jewish people I go to the synagogue. If I need to meet with other people, I need to head to the market and meet some people there and get a feel for what their doing, get a pulse for the city and see what is going on here”…[Lincoln equivalent?]…And so Paul heads down to the market to get a pulse for city, and a feel for the people and where they are at; and he ends up entering into a dialogue with the philosophers (in verse 18).

“A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him.”

Stoics: believed that everything was sort of a part of God. We call them monists or pantheonists. They believe there is a spirit in the tree, and a spirit in my pet dog, and a spirit in me, and a spirit in the sky, and we’re all sort of one. They also believed the passions and affections were to be suppressed and restrained; that happiness consisted in the insensibility of the soul to pain; and that a man should gain an absolute mastery over all the passions and affections of his nature. They made excellent poker players.

Epicureans: believe that the world is governed by random chance. There is no order, design, or god over it. One of the distinguishing doctrines of Epicurus was that pleasure was the summum bonum, or chief good, and that virtue was to be practiced only as it contributed to pleasure. They lived by the philosophy: “if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.” (Sheryl Crow? Epicurean. See, you learn something new every day.) More than that, they believed that the better something feels, the more virtuous it is. The more it brings you pleasure, the more you should indulge in it. Wouldn’t it be nice?! Aside from us all having gonorrhea and liver cancer, it’d be great!

Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" “Babbler” or “seed picker.” Accuse Paul of being a sort of religious hack, taking little bits and pieces of all these different beliefs and philosophies and kind of throw them all together to create his own religion. [Kind of like a Tom Cruise and Scientology…take some evolution, some aliens, some rabid unicorns, and a cult or two, and throw ‘em all together, and wah la, religion.]

(Verse 18 continued…) “Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus…”

This was the place or court in which the Areopagites, the celebrated supreme judges of Athens, assembled. On many accounts this was the most celebrated tribunal in the world. The Athenian court was ruled by 30 men. If you wanted to teach, or lead, or instruct, or start a religion, in Athens, you had to come before these men. They would try your case, they would ask you questions, and then you had to get permission to go do your work.

So here he is at the Aeropagus, “…where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)” (v19-21)

“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 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. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.” [v22-23] Wow. Paul does a couple really important things here.

First of all, do you remember why Paul is here in the first place? He was so overwhelmed by the idolatry around him, by the hundreds of idols and places built in devotion to and worship of false gods, by the scope of the darkness in which these people lived, that he can’t help but spend day after day reasoning in the synagogues and talking in the marketplace with anyone who would listen to him about Jesus. We are told that he was greatly distressed over the spiritual state of Athens. He is upset and overwhelmed. And now he stands before the high court that is responsible for the condoning of these false religions! And not only did they condone it, they encouraged it! And now here Paul stands before perhaps the greatest court in the world, he has been given the microphone, and what does he do? He doesn’t light into them…pointing out all the places in which they are wrong…highlighting all the things they need to correct or forever be condemned…(1 Peter 3:15-16 says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”) Paul is being nice here. He doesn’t start by burning a bridge. He starts by building a bridge to connect with the people he’s talking to.

Here’s a really good example of “how not to build a bridge” to people who need Jesus: go get a big giant wooden cross, stand outside the places people go to try to enjoy life – like say, movie theaters, bars, and restaurants, and then process to scream and yell at them about how horrible they are and how God is going to unleash his furious anger towards them in eternal fiery judgment and condemnation. (Idea: follow him around with signs that read, “We promise Jesus loves you a whole lot more than this guy,” or “Dear world, we are really, really sorry. – Christians.” Have you ever seen the group of people that stands on the other side of the street with signs that say “You are loved”? I love that. Did you know that is an actual on-campus organization that has no religious affiliation? Yea, it is pretty sad that the rest of world has to affirm people’s value to make up for the damage that is often done in God’s name. I feel like we need to launch a ministry just to follow this guy around and pick up the pieces after him!)            Paul doesn’t do this. He doesn’t start off by numbering off all the things they need to repent of and all the things they need to buy into to go to heaven. What do you think would have happened if he had? He would have been run out. They wouldn’t have heard a word that he had to say. Paul starts by paying them a complement. “Hey guys, I see that you guys really take your religion seriously. Let’s talk about this unknown god.”

The second thing Paul does here is speaks to them in a way that is relevant to their lives. All of these guys know the shrines he is talking about. It is something they can relate to. He is speaking their language. This is so important. And this is a huge problem that I have with a lot of churches. If you were to walk out of here right now and go visit a different church this morning (preferably a well-established church), many of you would find the same thing the rest of the world does. You’d walk in and feel like you just stepped through a time machine. You know what I’m talking about? So many churches look and act and do the same things they were doing 10, 20, even 30+ years ago! This is a huge problem. Because our world is constantly changing. Culture is constantly changing. The reality in which people live – their hopes, their fears, their experiences, and the world in which they interact and live life – are constantly changing.

(Outreach event: Atheism versus Christianity…) It is completely irrelevant to people’s lives. The tendency of the modern church to right off their responsibility to incarnate the gospel in the world in which we live. They hold fast to the verses that talk about “persecution” for the sake of the gospel, but what they are really doing is using that as a crutch to not have to get involved! They completely insulate themselves from reality by staying inside their little bubble of Christian subculture and in the process, fail to be Jesus’ hands and feet to a world that desperately needs Him! It’s sad. “Fundamentalism has all the right answers to all the wrong questions.” This is the reason that 60-80% of churches in our country have either plateaued or are decreasing in attendance and/or membership. This is the reason that over 3800 churches in America closes their doors each year. This is the reason that young people are disappearing from the church and older churches are dying with their members. It’s not that God isn’t relevant to our lives anymore. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is as actively involved in our world and our lives in our time as was with Moses and the Israelites before Jesus’ time. Our God desires more than ever for all men to know His name and He actively involved in drawing all men to Himself. And we are called to follow Jesus’ example of incarnating the gospel in the world in which we live.

Our God never changes. Our message never changes. But the way in which we communicate that message has got to change because people (and the world in which they live) are constantly changing.  

Paul is doing this. He is speaking their language. He has built a bridge to connect with them. And now that he’s earned his right to be heard, he now goes on to begin telling them about God. "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. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” (v24-26) What this means that there are people all around you who are groping to understand who God is. And God has placed you there just as he placed Paul in the Aeropagus to have a conversation. Neighbors. Coworkers. Classmates. Family. Roommates. We serve a Sovereign God who is always interweaving people and experiences and tragedies and conversations to draw people to Himself. God has placed people all around you who desperately need to hear about him…

“God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” (v27) Now I’m not God, but if people are groping around for God, and God loves them and desires to draw all men to Himself, and God’s not far, I’m expecting action. This is why it doesn’t surprise me that the size of the church has doubled over the past year. This is why it doesn’t surprise me that that we had to move to 2 services. This is why it doesn’t surprise me that we’re planting another church in the fall. This is why it doesn’t surprise me when I continue to hear stories of life change week in and week out. I expect lives to be changed. I expect these seats to fill, for this church to continue to grow as people come to know Jesus Christ for the first time. We all should. “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him.” That’s what God desires.

Paul goes even further to connect with them on their level. “As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” That quote is from a guy named Epinemedes. And another who came about a 100 years after him. Both were philosophers. The first was from about the same time as the plague. Both were poets, artists, musicians, songwriters. “We are his offspring.” Who are they talking about? We’re in Greece. Zeus! These are worship songs written for Zeus. You might say, so why is he quoting that? You see, in every culture there are things with elements of truth that are useful for the people of God. These guys believe that there is a god, that all things come from Him, and that we are His offspring. Is that useful? Yes! Do they have the wrong god? Yes. But they have a few things that are very useful…war against culture?...leverage culture…find out where people are at…what is resonating with them…I love picturing Paul coming and speaking with us today and quoting the late great poet Kurt Cobain in sharing the gospel with us.

“Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” (v29-31)

So now Paul lays it out there. There is one God. Serving Him requires repenting and changing our lives. There will be judgment. And Jesus is proof of all these things.

And it says that, “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that, Paul left the Council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.” (v32-34)

People responded in one of three ways…(defiance, curiosity, conversion) contempt (“I don’t want to talk about this. Don’t give God a name. Don’t talk to me about sin. Don’t talk about Jesus. I don’t want to talk about that.”); some people are curious (“I don’t know. That’s interesting. Let’s talk about that. Can ya answer some questions? Give me anything to read? I’m open.”) Some people are just curious. And let me ya something, with curious people, be patient. You’re going to have friends, family, coworkers that are open and they want to talk. But it might take a while and be patient. God is patient. We need to be patient. Loving, kind, patient and respectful. So some react contempt, some are curious, and some convert.

Some people come to place their faith and trust in Jesus Christ for the first time. This includes Dionysius of the supreme court there in Athens, a woman named Damaris and a number of others. And out of this, ya know what happens? A church gets planted in Athens. It starts with just a couple people and this guys Dionysius, becomes the pastor of that church. Church history tells us that he later gets murdered. People don’t just murder someone unless some things are happening that they really don’t like. A church had been planted. A movement had begun. All because Paul was obedient to God’s call on his life to share the gospel. He met people where they were at, spoke to them in a language they could understand, and let God do the rest.

“But Aaron, this is Paul we’re talking about…”

“For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” (2 Corinthians 10:10)

It appears as though Paul was a lot better at writing than he was at speaking to people. But he did it anyway. And God used him in huge ways!…

But here’s the key, not only was he obedient…but he was effective in his ministry because he didn’t use the cop-out, “Well, as long as I am speaking the truth, nothing else matters.” No, Paul followed Jesus’ example of adapting the way he communicated to most effectively communicate to his audience. He didn’t just go set up shop on top of a hill outside of town, build a building, or buy a sound system, and expect that people will want to listen to what he had to say. Nor did he just speak the message the same old way every time.

In 1 Corinthians 9:19-22, Paul says this: “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”

My charge and prayer for us is that like Paul, we would see the city of Lincoln as our mission field. That like Paul, our hearts would break for the people of this city. That we could not walk down a single street without our hearts becoming distressed as Paul’s was, until we see this entire city reached for Jesus Christ. That we, as a church, would constantly be pushing the envelope and engaging culture, as Paul did, to more effectively communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that we, as the people who make up this church, would be actively engaging those in our lives – our family members, our neighbors, our coworkers, our classmates and roommates – praying that God would work in their lives and sharing with them the reason for the hope that we have.