I invite you to turn this morning in your Bibles to Acts chapter 17 as we come at the Mars Hill event one more time, and we're going to look a little bit differently at it today than last time. So we will begin reading at verse 16 to the end of the chapter, page 1178 in your Bibles. Let's begin at verse 16. Now, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when 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 hold of 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 thing to our ears. 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. 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 is 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 the face of the earth having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek god in the hope that they might 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 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 the times of ignorance god overlooked but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he's 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 the Onysseus the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them. And there ends the reading of God's word. May he bless the hearing of his gospel. Last time I wanted to sort of set the backdrop of what happened here with Paul and what he experienced when he entered Athens. So I basically gave a whole sermon dealing with the nature and problem of idolatry and what burdened the apostle. I believe strongly that you can't really appreciate what he is doing here. As we looked at, you can't appreciate it until you understand what burdened him and what he felt when he saw everything that he saw entering Athens. There was a righteous anger he had as he was provoked, looking around at a city submerged in idolatry. And it troubled him for the single great reason that everyone made in the image of God should give God the glory, should magnify his name, should praise him. And so today what I want to do is go back over the passage and show how he gave an answer to this, what the solution was. Acts is building and oftentimes showing us these solutions in these particular passages. And this is where today, I believe, we see the true character of the apostle. How do you reach a culture like this? So godless, so gripped by idolatry, so given to intellectual pride, knowledge puffing up in the worst sort of way. How do you reach people like this? How do you deal with that? What do you do in a circumstance like this? How do you bring a message into this that is complete foolishness to the world? And I think you'll see right out of the gates that this is a very important question for our day. This is supremely important for considering what we do and why we do what we do in the church. So this is helpful today as we look at this particular text. With that in mind, what Christianity has done in our day is say, look, what we really need to do and think about is enculturation, is one of the buzzwords. Enculturation. In other words, what we need to do is adapt the teachings of the church so that we are able to present them to non-Christian culture so that Jesus will be accepted and be heard in that culture. For that's the goal, for Jesus to be heard. And this has been the great American experiment with Christianity, hasn't it? We want to reach people. And we try to think about how to shoehorn Jesus in to get his acceptance among the masses because how does anyone not look at all of this and say, you know, Jesus really isn't that accepted and Jesus is not that great in America. So this is the challenge. But here we have a direct presentation of how Paul took the gospel to Athens. What did he do? How did he accomplish this? What kind of wisdom did he show? How did he bring it to this highly intellectual, developed society? Did he step down the message? Did he dumb down the message? All these things that we are confronted with in approaching people with the gospel. And I want us to remember that this is what Acts is about. Acts is about us being witnesses. Acts is about the church's witness. So you have to look at these texts understanding that this is what Jesus was intending to teach us in these texts, how the church was to be faithful in the witness for the gospel. In the midst of all this. Which is a huge question, isn't it? It's a huge challenge. So I want to look today at the conflict, the confrontation, and the call that Paul gives in the midst of all of this. We'll start here with this conflict. We went through all of the details last time of the culture setting and Athens setting. And I want to, without going into all that again, I want to begin at verse 16, that we read that Paul was provoked by the idolatry. It led him to do a certain thing. you'll notice there we see the typical pattern in acts what do we see well uh he would first go into the jewish synagogues there there was one there in athens so paul went into the synagogues and we know what he did in the synagogues we've been studying this in the synagogues haven't we he would go into the synagogues and and and he would have an opportunity to speak he would get get the podium if you will and he would then show them from all the scriptures that jesus is the messiah this is what he did so this is what he's doing again in acts in athens uh luke doesn't need to to narrate that because now he's focused on something else that paul was doing jesus was being shown from all the scriptures to the jews from the psalms the prophets and the law jesus the scripture showing him i've been saying all along this is this is what the ministry is to be to the people of god isn't it this is our distinct privilege we get every sunday is to come here and open the scriptures and see jesus this is what we do this is what christianity is this is what the church is called to do show god's son preach god's son show him is the answer show his salvation show his work show his person we stay with jesus this is what the church is called to do you've had bible stories and you all know the basic challenge with bible stories is simply to make them moral lessons and miss jesus but i'm not so focused on speaking to the church right now i'm interested in the fact that it says paul not only was provoked by the idolatry so he went the synagogue first is what he did but it says that paul also daily went into the marketplace reasoning with them that's curious isn't it uh the larger question comes in well what did paul do in the marketplace right that has to be the question it seems how much contextualization as we all hear we love to analyze the speech on the Areopagus and we love to go right there without thinking what led him there what do I mean in other words that was quite a platform for Paul to get up on in the Areopagus how did this backwoods guy get there how did he end up up there that's a remarkable work of God's providence to end him up on the Areopagus in the place of all the great philosophers of the day. I mean, I would love to go out and speak somewhere and talk to all of the politicians of the day about Jesus. I don't think that's going to happen, but I'm going to try, right? Where am I going to try and how is that going to happen? Go out and dance like a madman somewhere watch this how did he get there well notice this massive conflict everywhere paul went he caused a riot it's the kind of guy you'd say you know i don't think i want this guy as my pastor he's nothing but problems in fact if you look at you have to kind of ask the question why in the world is he alone many have observed that his friends probably said paul just go on for a while take a break man you're stirring up everything all the time riots follow you wherever you go well here we are and paul ended up in athens and he's in the marketplace and if this is today we were asking people well what do we do and how do we handle this well we would say you got to look like him you certainly can't wear this right and i don't really want to look like a mormon when i'm out there but seriously you can't look like them you can't act like them you can't talk like them gotta be one of them and the last thing you want to do is uh is be offensive with your speech that is the last thing you ever want to do what does he do before I go through all this this is not a this is not a sermon on how to be obnoxious in ministry this is not what that is no one wants anyone to be obnoxious and act like the guys at the football game with the megahorns standing out there that's not what we're after what he doesn't do is try to become the next Athenian idol himself you say what do you what do you mean well we're obsessed with this in christianity we all want a name we all want a platform we all want to be idols ourselves this is the first real big issue here that we saw last time of departure from us today is that we're so after the names and the big platforms and we're so attracted to this in christianity we haven't felt what paul felt so here we are paul is now going to confront the idolatry but you can't do it by being attracted to the culture you understand you just can't it's not going to work so here we are what is he doing he's preaching Jesus. Preaching Jesus. In other words, who he saw was the answer to all idolatry is Jesus. You thought I was going to give you some great speech on how to engage the culture, didn't you? The two systems of thought that Paul came into contact with were the Epicureans and the Stoics. I went through some of that last time. Briefly to say, remember, the Epicurean said, all of life is to be lived for pleasure. The gods are distant. You're not accountable to the gods. There's no judgment. There's no afterlife. The Stoics said, just live by the universal principle that you live in your natural reason. Live by a divine internal principle that is in all of you. And therefore, go forward that way in life. God is in everything, said the Stoics. There's nothing outside of this all. What does Paul do? Preaches the most offensive message that undermines their whole systems of thought. The resurrection. The resurrection. He was out there in the marketplace proclaiming God came in human flesh. He became one of us, God's eternal son to die for our sins and then he was raised from the dead i'll come back to all of it did you see the reaction verse 16 verse 16 says the great philosophers of the day said what is this babbler saying what is this it means seed picker what is this seed picker saying he's out picking seeds spitting seeds that's not a compliment by the way they're ridiculing him they're standing back and saying look at this bumbling idiot he's proclaiming this to us then the others were saying well he seems to be preaching foreign divinities that's another insult in other words uh most have picked up here that that they heard paul saying he's preaching two gods to us he's preaching one named jesus and one named anastasis that's the greek word for resurrection so so he's got jesus and a wife a female goddess anastasis resurrection proclaiming foreign deities what a goofball paul was no dummy paul was as brilliant and as they came. Paul had a mind greater than the greatest of Athenian philosophers. You understand that? The scriptures have made that clear to us. God gave this guy a beautiful mind. What's he out doing? Making himself a fool for Christ. Making himself a fool. His entire evangelistic effort made him a fool. I'm not saying Paul was promoting some kind of anti-intellectualism that we see in modern America as if the mind is a disease we're not supposed to use and everything's about heart. No. He was preaching the content of the Christian faith when he knew that it was regarded as absolutely stupid by the Athenians. And this is the very thing in the academy that everyone wants to avoid, isn't it? I mean, we know this pressure today. We feel this pressure all the time today. We all want to be seen as wise, right? We all want to, we cherish our degrees. We all want to be seen that we're established, that we're poised, that we can speak, that we're respectable, that at least we're going to have some kind of platform out there so that they'll hear us. I mean, we really do. We really have watched American Idol long enough that now it's Christian Idol and we're all pursuing it. But I love this passage because here's where the wisdom of God shines. If we'll just listen to this and see this, you'll see who's really doing the evangelistic work. Think about this. He's preaching the resurrection from the dead to the most brilliant thinkers of the day. A teaching that was the most offensive to them. A teaching that they regarded as absolutely stupid and repudiated it. But why does the resurrection matter so much? I think we have to answer that question in this context, don't we? I think many of you would probably always struggle, like me, with this question. Why is there so much attention on the resurrection in the Bible? Because we're not really talking about the resurrection very much. we just don't give it in our lingo in our evangelistic efforts it's the last thing we talk about why is the resurrection so much talked about the implication of that truth was placed on paul as a great necessity in everything that he did why important think about this we all have the problem of sinning against the god of heaven and earth right and he out of the abundance of his goodness and his kindness and his grace and his help to us not leaving us in our sins and giving us a just condemnation decided to give his son you don't think a lot about the gift that is he gave his son to die for what reason not to make you more moral people it's to forgive your sins and you see when god raised his son from the dead that was the greatest testimony to everyone that he actually did it he beat it he satisfied the wrath of god on your heads God didn't put His Son through that for nothing. He's the only way to God. He honored Him in the resurrection, didn't He? Didn't He? How? Well, you know Philippians 2. He gave Him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every, every tongue should confess He's Lord. He was installed in Zion. He's King and Lord over all. All authority and power has been given to Him. He holds the keys of death and Hades. No matter how people feel about this. No matter if they laugh it off and reject it. No matter if they've been influenced by Satan, that it's a stupid doctrine, a stupid idea, and the academy has all of its wise answers to everything in life. It doesn't change the fact of Romans 1, God in the resurrection declared the Son of God with power. Here He is. Everyone has to answer to Him. And the resurrection says that. Well, this is how stupid they regarded the message. But He was willing to die on this hill. He was willing to talk about this. The commitment to making known Jesus is what God honored. This is what I want to say to you today. the commitment to making known God's Son is what God honored. How so? Look what happens. He starts in the marketplace and now he's up on the Areopagus with a pulpit. The very thing we would say, this is not what you do to win a culture to Jesus. Offend them. All the superpowers, all of Athenian wise men, All the religious leaders, all those who were the brilliant thinkers of the day are on this council, and here comes Paul. After being thoroughly offended by the resurrection, they grab him. They take him up the hill, who then, they proceed to ask him to speak about all this. What does he do? Well, many people begin to analyze Paul's speech here and say, ah, this is where true contextualization happens. This is where he adapted the message with his abilities to win the loss. In other words, this is where he enculturated. Yes and no. He didn't adapt the message. This is the most countercultural thing he ever does. He stands up and what does he do? Verse 22. Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. Paul raises that issue and says, listen, I was walking around Athens and I was noticing your many gods. I was studying your many gods. I was observing your many gods. This is a really important point. I found as I was observing and studying your culture that there was one God that didn't have a name. In fact, you're so concerned about that, you put on there to the unknown God. Well, since you're worried about that, I want to talk to you about that. What you worship as unknown, Him, I proclaim to you. As the belief goes, they were so concerned that they had missed a God, they had created an entire altar to honor Him. And this was Paul's way in, wasn't it? Paul had a bigger aim in addressing idolatry here. And here's what it had more to do here with their thought system. And what does he say? First thing, what does he do? What would you do? First thing, very simply, there is a creator. And you know what that means? He's the owner of everything. So he starts with creation. The two systems of thought Paul knew, had studied, that he had come in contact with were the Epicureans that said, listen, that the world came together by a collection of atoms. Sound familiar? The gods are distant. They don't dirty their hands this way. So because of this, this farness of the gods, they're not involved in your affairs. They don't care about what you're doing with life. They just want your happiness. I mean, nothing's new, is it? So what did he do? He completely went after their whole worldview. What's mind-boggling is he knew this was another one of their greatest ridicules. In other words, a personal God creating all of this? You know this. Go into the university today. Go to Oxford and go into the science department and tell them that you believe in God who made the heavens and the earth. You know it's going to happen, right? They're going to laugh you out of there. You want to make it worse? Tell them you believe it happened in six days. this is this is what they'll do we've been so afraid even we know this pressure when it comes to creation we've been so afraid of sounding stupid on this point right this is why we've had all our intermural debates about creation we deep down we're worried a little bit about perception and sounding stupid and we don't want to sound and we shouldn't sound stupid a creator on the outside of all of this lays a pretty large claim on us doesn't it because now if you think about what they were hearing that makes me created and if that makes me created and if you knew the philosophies of the day if you knew platonic thought if you know all this stuff that's all woven together in this you know what he's doing here he now the problems of the one and the many all this is through this this passage look now he has made me and created me he's somebody outside of me there's a gulf but paul's gonna say he's not that far you know what that means you're accountable you're accountable there is a god who is who always was who with his creative power and handiwork made everything that you're seeing see no matter how stupid it may sound We should never be afraid to simply testify to the truth of what God told us. And this is one of the great faults in Christianity today. Our simple challenge is simply to testify to the truth of what we know and have been taught that we're not doing. God made this. He's Lord. He's Lord over all. That means someone's over your life and that you're a subject of his creative work. And that's an important message that needs to be heard. but that's not all, is it? Well, where does he go next? Fall. You'll see the categories here. Creation, fall. What does he do? He takes everything we know about sin. Notice how he's using our doctrine of sin, how he's using the doctrine of sin, and what he does here. He observes the culture, and he begins to engage the culture, having a knowledge of sin, and this is why we're learning this stuff. Now you have to put it to practice. Now you see how you engage it. Notice what he does. Shouldn't be afraid of this. This is another point of departure where we have to, I think, think about a lot. How do we engage the culture with regard to the hardest thing we have to do and talk about sin? This God, notice what he does. This God, who is the creator of all, does not, who made everything, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needs anything since he gives life and breath and everything. What did he just say? He looked around at everything they're doing and he said, guess what? Everything you're doing is wrong. It's wrong. You have brought God here. You've domesticated him like a house animal. You're worshiping him that way. You've tried to domesticate him. You've made him a servant. Talk about servanthood in a minute. What you worship has become is completely self-serving. He made the nations. He determined life. He determined boundaries. He determined where people dwell. But you have made him subservient to you. You see? He's not served that way. You've departed from everything God designed. And everything I'm looking around in Athens at and seeing proves it. I see it right there. I see it right there. I see it right there. I see it. It's everywhere. You're wrong, Epicureans. He's actually near to all who call. He's near. You have to kind of stand there and feel this. As we read it, it doesn't seem to connect. No, he is very much preaching the truth in love. Remember, he was provoked by the others, not yelling at them. But he's speaking the truth. He's witnessing to the truth as it is in the Scriptures and in Jesus. You see, you see everything. You see the idols. That is not how you are to think of God. You've got that all wrong. He is not something of silver or stone or an image. Your whole approach is a departure. There has to be a willingness to talk about sin. There has to be a willingness to engage it thoughtfully. Paul will say in verse 30, these times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now He commands everyone everywhere to do what? You want to step up the offense? Say this. Repent. Repent. He just told the entire Mars Hill Council to repent. Thought about that? He just gave the law of God to them in a very wise way and called them to repentance. I was thinking you have to be able, And I don't do this always well. I mess it up at times. I try and at times fall too far into cultural engagement. And you've got to be really careful with it. And I fully confess that. But you know, you'll never really be effective, I believe, as a pastor in helping a congregation through these issues until you have some measure of observing it and some measure of assessing it. Imagine what Paul would have said on Capitol Hill yesterday. You think I'm going to get into politics? I'm not, I promise you. If you were given the podium, what do you think? Do you think this is how it would go? I do. Dear senators of the U.S. on Capitol Hill, I perceive that in everything you are all about justice. As I listen to your examinations and I think through your positions, I noticed as I was passing into the Supreme Court that their Supreme Court building here in Washington, I notice a seated female named Lady Justice. She has a shawl. I notice something on her mouth, a blindfold on her eyes, actually. I notice that that's supposed to stand for impartiality, equity, fairness, in your treatment of people. How's that gone for you? How's it working? Well, I want to proclaim to you a much greater judge who has taken his seat, who's Lord over all, who sees everything you've ever done from day one, who doesn't show partiality, but who, you know, sees that you have hurt the oppressed. That aside from everything we've been talking about, the truth is women have been terribly treated. Lies have been spoken against people unjustly. Hollywood has been terrible to women. You've done nothing. There are abused women everywhere. And there are a lot of people lied against. You've not preserved truth. Lady Justice, I see her. I want to talk to you about this. Injustice rocks your land. The foundations totter. But there sits Lady Justice with a blindfold on. Before the God of heaven and earth, everyone's guilty of breaking His law. The Lord sees everything you've done in the course of your lives from day one. Unless you repent and believe in His Son, Jesus, you have no hope of escaping the true judgment to come that evaluates all your lives. God has assured us of this by raising His Son from the dead. Feel it? This is what he's doing. And he had the abilities to think through when he talked to people these things because he was aware of the blatant hypocrisies of what sin has brought to the world. And he brought those into a point of contact for people to engage the truth of the Word of God and the God who made all of these things, the one to whom all these things really matter. And you may not get a Supreme Court standing and hearing on these things but you do every time you're standing in front of somebody and you're talking about Jesus and you're talking about the problems in this world and showing him is the answer Paul went after it turn from your evil ways God has overlooked this stuff far enough can't you see long enough can't you see can't you see this America God has overlooked this ignorance long enough but the day now is for everybody all tribes tongues peoples men and women all peoples of all the political parties turn you today and come because he's appointed a man who came here and he died and god raised him here's the answer here's the hope here's the blessed good news God so loved the world that He gave His Son. His Son was given to redeem us from every lawless deed and to set apart a people who know love and know gospel and know justice. Here's your Savior. Here's your God. You see, He was given that we would turn from this foolishness and serve the living God. We all fell in one man, Adam. He came as the last Adam. But can't you see none of this is offering you an answer? God put His Son through the terrible death of the cross to save, to give you what true service looks like, to redeem your worship, to make true praise of the true Creator fill your lives. But I have something to say. You need to hear this because there's one more component to my message and it's this. He's coming again. There is a day set when He will judge the world in righteousness by Him. There is a judgment. There is someone that you will give an account to for your life. There is a punishment for what you're doing. A day is set and it's very, very soon. So He pressed them. He pressed them to urgency to come today. Believe today. Have your sins forgiven today. Creation. Fall. Redemption. Consummation. Right here. all ending the speech where he offended them to begin with, the resurrection. This is the ultimate claim of Christianity because what the message is saying to us is here's God's answer. He put him through this to address our idolatry. But his resurrection has declared him to be the son of God with great power, meaning he finished his work. He's seated. He's king and Lord over all. bow the knee today. What I find remarkable is that this is the message that got him into trouble and conflict to begin with. And it's the message through it all he never wavered from, even when he knew Socrates stood there years ago and died for this stuff. These guys were relentless with the Gospel. We will never really be effective in this if we're talking about witness. until we become fools for Christ's sake. Then we have to have a willingness to speak the truth as it is in Jesus. We ended last time, we're going to end right now, with this thought. There are three responses here. Some mocked, some laughed. Some said, we'll hear you again on this. We'll hear you again. Because they like new things. But some believed. Two names are given, but there were many here believed. How wonderful has the Lord been to you today? He set you free. You see. You have turned from idols to serve the living God. That's His grace to you. That's His gospel to you. That's His love to you. He's helped you and He's opened your eyes and given you a wonderful Savior. He's opened your hearts like Lydia's. And you have Christ. But I have to say this, some won't respond. Does that mean we compromise our message hoping that those who didn't respond will? That's what we're doing. What do you think would have been the outcome if Paul would have removed the resurrection from the message, stopped talking about sin, accepted the idolatry of the academy to try to sound like somebody, trying to inculturate, trying to do contextualization of the extreme, softening the claims of the Creator, abandoning talk about sin after and after he preaches Jesus who comes across as an indulgent, tolerant, loving, accepting Savior who's just like all the other gods, who exists to make you happy. Here's how I think the end would read. Now when they heard Paul preach Jesus as another road to God, another way of happiness, the council convened and they decided to remove the statue of the unknown God and put a different name on it, Jesus. And everyone believed by indulging Jesus and placing him in the pantheon of Roman gods. That's the result of a culture, a Christian culture, compromising the message of their Savior. Jesus is not just another God. He's Lord over all. We have a great claim, and we should be bold with it. We should have holy jealousy for the glory of God. For the honor of His Son's name. For His kingdom, His power, His honor, His glory, His throne. God has raised Him from the dead. May all of us hail the power of Jesus' name. This is your Lord. This is your King. Let's pray. heavenly father we ourselves have to repent of being afraid of being careless being weak and often compromising with the greatest news this world needs that you've been so loving to us thank you for giving your son this way thank you for providing the answer to this mess we ask that you would give us all wisdom in how we engage others with the gospel humility but yet boldness speaking the truth as it is in Jesus without fear being willing to state the claims of Christianity not worried about the results knowing that you're sovereign over the human heart to begin with you've shown us that math as many as are appointed to eternal life will believe give us to have a holy passion and zeal for the name that is given above every name. The name of Jesus. Every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Bless this message to Your people today. Strengthen them in hope and encouragement of Your forgiveness. And may they know Your love. In Jesus' name we pray these things. Amen.