God Who Wants to Be Found

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[0:00] This morning, our sermon passage comes from Acts 17, 16 to 34. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 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. 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.

[0:57] They took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, may we know what this teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.

[1:15] All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. Paul then stood up in the meeting and said, people 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.

[1:53] So you are ignorant of the truth. You are ignorant of the very thing you worship, and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 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 human hands.

[2:12] And he is not served by the human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth.

[2:32] And he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, we are living and moving, and we are living and moving.

[3:00] For some of our others remember great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great has appointed he has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead 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 some of the people became followers of paul and believed among them was dionysius a member of the arapagus and a woman named damaris and a number of others let's pray our father we thank you that we can meet with you wherever we are god we ask that you would bless your word in our hearts and in our minds make your presence known to us this morning in jesus name we pray amen so paul was having a bit of a hard time in his journeys he and silas had been chased out of thessalonica to beria for proclaiming jesus as messiah and while the people of beria were much more receptive of the gospel message a crew of thessalonians came to chase paul away from there as well he was brought to athens for safety to await timothy and silas before they could continue on in their journey and i could only imagine he was already feeling some major discouragement he had had to run to preserve his life for preaching what he knew to be a def desperately

[5:29] life-saving eternal truth to god's children a truth of a god who wanted to be known and yet god's children were turning away so i can imagine he was in a particularly thoughtful place when he was preaching to the people of the thessalonians and he was preaching to the people of the thessalonians and he was preaching to the people of the thessalonians and yet the vast number of gods worshipped in that city was mind-boggling wherever paul turned he must have seen another temple or or a shrine they were on every corner every place of business or social life they were in the fields almost every home had some sort of depiction of a shrine or an altar or an image of an idol it would have been hard to look even a few feet without seeing evidence of another god worshipped in athens stepping even from the port i i imagine paul arrived in a port we don't know for sure but by ship he would have cut his journey from 11 days down to three and so arriving through the gate from the port paul would have been immediately bombarded with these images first the temple of demeter with statues of the goddess and her daughter a little further he would have passed the statues of poseidon and of athena and zeus and apollo and hermes

[7:10] these were all certainly seen in his first moments of being in the city now this passage is largely about how paul met the athenians where they were spiritually in order to reveal the gospel to them but it's also important to note that god is constantly meeting us where we are and that certainly doesn't stop when we become followers of christ god meets us each and every day anew as individuals and as all of humanity and as a whole he comes down to our level to help us grow and there are so many examples of this in our lives i'm sure but in scripture also and there are so many of them that they can't even be counted certainly though we think of the incarnation death and resurrection of jesus among them and even paul's own story is full of very clear examples of god meeting us in the city of porcelain porcelain porcelain porcelain porcelain porcelain of it all, he found an inscription to an unknown God.

[8:52] And this must have been on his mind for much of his time there because he remembered it when he was questioned several days after being surrounded by the shrines and the gods everywhere. So I don't think that this unofficial speculation is much of a stretch to say that this was probably one of those moments in his life where God met him where he was. And in doing so, God prepared Paul to also meet the Athenians where they were.

[9:27] This is our example. Just as God continually humbles himself to meet us on our journeys, just as God humbled himself for our salvation, just as God humbles himself when we are disobedient, when we are disbelieving, he meets us and wants us to also do the same for his children.

[9:56] We must exercise humility and love just as God did and does for us if we're to also meet others where they are. We need to meet them in their disbelief, in their discouragement. In their troubles, in their differences from us. And sometimes that's really hard.

[10:22] But God wants to meet all of them. And he wants to use us to do that. Now Paul was deeply troubled by all of these foreign gods. When we know God, we begin to know what it is that God mourns. And God mourns deeply his children who do not yet know him.

[10:50] And so Paul was deeply troubled on behalf of God. And as Paul was prone to do, when he saw what troubled God, he addressed it. He spoke in the synagogues of scripture as he usually did. In fact, the passage just before this, talks of what was his regular routine. That when he would go into his city his first thing would be to go to the synagogue and begin by speaking of the scriptures to anyone who would listen. And he would take the scriptures and point to Jesus as Messiah. That was kind of his format. That was what he knew and what he was comfortable with. That's what he usually did. when God met him before, God met him through the scriptures.

[11:47] Even before Paul knew Christ, God met him by teaching him the scriptures and building that foundation up in his life. And that was how God used Paul to meet people, mostly. But he was so troubled that he took this teaching beyond the temple. And he took it to this marketplace. And the marketplace in Athens was a dizzying array of idols and gods everywhere.

[12:23] Now, we mentioned that this was a place of many gods. But one other thing to note about Athens is that there was actually a law against introducing new gods to society. And that seems a bit strange. Because they had a... They had a god for everything. In fact, almost every resource I looked in quoted this. But there was an ancient proverb that talked about Athens and how they had more gods than men. And so it seems strange in a society where they have seemingly more gods than men that they would have a law against introducing new gods.

[13:08] And yet, Athens was changing. Or at least it was trying to. While many professed faith in the gods of all sorts, there was also a rapidly growing class of philosophers and thinkers who found the worship of these idols to be an act for those who were more simple and unenlightened.

[13:31] Athens actively wanted to be known as a city of intellectuals. And those of the most elite found idol worship to be a way to keep the gods from being ! And so, the city was given to them to be a hindrance to that.

[13:43] Now, this city was also very curious. They wanted to think on ideas and new thoughts. They would spend, or at least the more elite, would spend their time just thinking and talking and learning of new ideas.

[14:06] Some of these philosophers were stoics, some epicurists, and others were epics. and many, many more. The Stoics rejected the old gods, and they believed in a sort of impersonal deity that directed the entirety of the natural world. This impersonal being didn't know the people, didn't want to know the people or be known by the people, and yet this impersonal deity was solely responsible for all of life and the running of the universe.

[14:47] Nothing anybody did could change their eventual fate or even the way of their life, the way their life unfolded from day to day. And that was a very common philosophy and thought at the time, that yes, gods existed, and gods brought, the universe, but there's nothing you can do about it. We live, and then we die. And in the meantime, intellect and thought are what give us meaning in life.

[15:22] Meanwhile, the Epicureans believed that the many, many gods of Athens did exist, but they saw those gods also as distant and disinterested in any kind of life. So if you look at some of the official official official official official official official official official official official official official ethical multiple the most pleasure for the most people. And here I can kind of get a glimpse of why Paul was so disheartened. Because if all of these gods had had no desire to be with people at all, and if pleasure is the ultimate goal in life, then it sounds very disenchanting. And Paul knew a god, the god, who so desperately wanted to know his people that he humbled himself and came to earth to interact with them, even humbling himself to death for their pleasure. For their benefit, for their salvation. And then creating a way for all of eternity to spend with the very people he created. Paul knew a god who wanted to be known. And it was so vastly different from these other gods who wanted nothing to do with the people, or these other gods who manipulated the universe.

[17:35] And Paul was desperate for these people to know the god who wanted to be known, just as he did. These were two of the schools of philosophers who spoke with Paul in our passage. They were accepting of his conversation until he began speaking of the resurrection.

[18:00] Paul was so desperate for the people who believed that pleasure was the ultimate goal. It was a strange concept to realize that there was a goal even beyond life. A goal where you could be in relationship with God himself. It was a weird concept. Even in Jewish circles, if you were interested end end end end end end end end end It was completely unheard of almost. And it clashed with their ideas that God was impersonal and uncaring for humans and how they lived their lives. As well as the idea that humans had no control over the direction that their lives went.

[19:02] These ideas were just unknown to them. But what was truly problematic was that the Greek word for resurrection is Anastasis. And it sounds far too similar to a name that they had and that even we have today, Anastasia. So if Paul was introducing to the people of Athens this God Jesus and this goddess Anastasia, then not only... was he not as mature a thinker and philosopher as they would normally pay heed to, but he was also technically breaking the law of introducing new gods.

[19:48] As such, Paul was put on some kind of a trial. It wasn't... It wasn't one he was probably particularly worried about. It was more of a relaxed environment, really, for a trial. The people of Athens, were curious. As I said before, they liked to spend their time thinking on new ideas. And Paul had certainly introduced something for them to ponder over. And they wanted to hear more about it. So in some ways, this was a trial because he had broken the law by introducing these new gods. But in some ways, they just wanted to know what he was talking about.

[20:32] It's funny because Paul, to us is known as a great writer. One who always had something clever to say. One who was very advanced in using a wonderful rhetoric in his writings. And these Athenians heard him speak and called him a babbler. They were... They were truly befuddled by what he was saying. And they wanted to understand if they could. And so Paul used that even in his distress. I like to think of this as Paul's culture shock coming into Athens when he was already in a kind of down place and just being surrounded by the idols there.

[21:23] But in that, he didn't hide away from the people. Even if he thought that their practices were immoral, he got to know them and he invested himself and he jumped right into the marketplace where normally he would just sit in the temples.

[21:46] He got to know this culture that surprised him and even offended him. And so when he was called before this council, he used those things not just to his advantage but to the advancement of the kingdom of God.

[22:06] After only a couple of days in the city, Paul had made some key observations. And he appreciated certain parts of the surrounding culture. Knowing God teaches us how to meet people where they are at God humbled himself to meet humanity for and just as God meets us where we're at, so he also uses those who know him to meet other people where they're at. The people of Athens were a very religious people. The people of Athens were an intellectual culture and those are things Paul could get behind and he didn't have to say that their religion and intellect had offended him. He felt it keenly but his job and his joy was to meet them at a place of common ground. And so he took what he had observed and learned of them and started at a common place of relationality it sounds almost like the phrase in him we live and move for and have our being comes maybe from a place of scripture. And yet Paul used Greek poetry. That was not a line of scripture, it was a line from the Greeks themselves, as their own poets also said, we are his offspring. So Paul used a bit of their own intellect and a bit of their own thinking and philosophies and incorporated them in to his discussion of the gospel. And it fits so well with Paul's message. He defended himself in his trial by speaking of a

[24:09] God who was already worshiped. They couldn't really do anything to him if they already had introduced that God into society. So that's the point. He didn't want to be a god. He wanted to be a god who was already worshiped. So that is why he used the example of the unknown God. But further he invited the intellect and imagination of both schools of philosophers to expand their ideas with his description of this unknown God. Where they had thought that deities were distant and unrelational, they learned that this unknown God was just the opposite. He began on the creational work of God because that included even if he believed God as a source and a sustain for his life for his life for his life for life for for life ! for life of what Israel has known of God, he emphasized that God has already gifted them with life and breath.

[25:27] God gave each people their own time and place to dwell. The Athenians, whose days were spent in idle conversation, would undoubtedly appreciate a God who put them in that place and gave them such a pleasant life.

[25:47] Our God has always been a God who meets us where we're at and reveals himself to become known to us, who has always wanted to be known and be known by his people and who wants to be intimately involved in the world and in humanity. And he wants us to be the same.

[26:11] When Paul struggled, he didn't pull Paul back. And bring him to his place of comfort. He challenged Paul. God wants to challenge us in much the same way. There are people who need to be met, who need to have hope in their disparity, who need to believe in their disbelief, who need to learn and know. There are people who need to know. The God who wants to know them and wants them to know him.

[26:54] When Paul began to speak of the resurrection, that is where the passage ends. Some people were equally offended. And yet some people said, you know what, we need to talk with you again on this. It was such a radical idea. That God would want to enter into the story of everybody's life. And not only that, but spend eternity with them.

[27:29] We don't know what happened after that. We know Paul planted the seeds because he was faithful in meeting the people where God wanted him to meet the people. He didn't expect that. He didn't expect them to come to the synagogue and learn of their own accord. He went where people were gathered, even at his own humility.

[27:59] And God used that. Even in the lives of the people who were offended when he spoke about the resurrection, God still caused them to think about it. And that's what he asks us to do. When we are in our own moments, like Paul was in, chased out, or maybe downhearted, because I doubt we'll be chased out of a city around here for preaching the gospel.

[28:34] But downhearted certainly. When we are in a place like Paul where we are downhearted, or when we are in a place like Paul, where something bothers us or offends us, even on behalf of God, we can still meet people where they are.

[28:57] Our world is a crazy place. And truly, I don't think it's any crazier now than it was in Athens 2,000 years ago. But it's filled with people of all walks of life. I'm going to leave us with a question in honor of our thinking and curious Greek philosophers that we should enjoy pondering over this week. And that is this. How should we best meet the people where they're at and help to reveal them to this unknown God who wants to be known by them as well?

[29:40] And there's another question. For us to ponder this week. How has God met you recently? Has God humbled himself to bring you up to a better place? Has God met you in disparity? Has God met you in joy? Where has God met you recently? And how can that be a part of your story for meeting other people?

[30:12] Some thoughts to think on. Let's pray. Our gracious God, we know you are here with each of us. We know you are never far away from any of us. Whether we know you or whether we've never heard your name, you're never far from us. So God, we ask for your grace in our lives that we may continue to meet and know you more and that we may humble ourselves to meet your people where they are at. These things we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.