Searching for Truth in a Skeptical World - Ben Stuart

Well, I hope you had a great 4th of July weekend with family and friends. I spent the greater part of the day yesterday reading surveys about Americans, specifically what we think about the spiritual world, because I'm a pastor, and that's the kind of thing we do, right? And so I thought here on day one of celebrating 250 years of America, we would check the spiritual state of Americans. And so I consulted some of the most reputable sources out there, Pew Research, Barna, and Gallup, to just check in on the spiritual state of America today. I'll give you a couple highlights. From Pew Research, they indicated nearly two-thirds of Americans, two out of three Americans, say they have thought about God and religion a great deal or quite a bit in recent years. Great interest in spirituality in America today. 79% of Americans believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world, that this is not all there is. 79% of Americans say, I believe in a spiritual world beyond just what my eyes can see. Interesting is that then 83% said they believe in God or a universal spirit that exists. So how do more people believe in God than in a spiritual world? Not clear. I think it shows that America's somewhat conflicted, right?

Or at least 4% of us. Interestingly, 19% of self-described atheists believe that something spiritual beyond the natural world exists. I don't believe in God, but do you believe in a spiritual world? 20% of atheists say, yeah, I do. A third of atheists believe humans have a soul. Barna added to this that 79% of adults in America affirm belief in a higher power, and 74% of Americans desire spiritual growth. Interesting, as he surveyed Americans, not just that people believe there's a spiritual world, but I want to know more, I want to grow, I have an interest there, and yet that interest has fractured in different directions. 55% of the spiritual curious read horoscopes. Maybe the stars can tell me what's gonna happen next in the world, right? Interestingly, another branch, in 2021, 54% of adults in America said they have a commitment to Jesus Christ. Just recently, that has gone up to 66%. Isn't that interesting? That spiritual interest in America is aiming at the person of Jesus. Now, the last one I'll mention is Gallup Poll studied our belief in paranormal activity, and this one was fun. 39% of Americans believe in ghosts,

that the dead can come back to you and have a conversation with you in certain situations. A quarter of Americans believe in astrology, that the positions of stars and planets can affect people's lives. 24% believe in witches, which I love that, because Gallup didn't define believe what about witches, they just said, do you believe in witches? Yeah, totally. Here's my favorite part, we'll close with this. They asked people, do you believe in a supernatural or paranormal world, and for those who said no, then they asked them, do you believe in witches? 12% said yes. I just love that group. Do you believe in a spiritual world? No. You believe in witches? 100%, yeah. No, I knew one in high school, definitely, yeah. What's the point? When I was in college many millions ago, there was a prevailing theory in America that atheism would sweep across the West, and that people would get rid of the ridiculous idea of a spiritual world, and just embrace that there is no God and thus no creator and no meaning to creation. That is absolutely not the case. We see in America a surging interest in spirituality,

but what's fascinating about it is the fractured nature of it. G.K. Chesterton said this over a generation ago. He said, when men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they become capable of believing in anything. As we have seen people break away from belief in the God of the Bible, we've not seen them cast off spirituality, we've seen a fractured interest in spiritualities, right? We believe there's something bigger out there than just eating, sleeping, working, et cetera. But we struggle and we grope to figure out what it is. And I mention that because we're in the book of Acts, and in the book of Acts we're watching the birth of the Christian church. We're watching the good news of Jesus spread across the globe. And here we're in season two. Last week we saw the gospel of Jesus Christ break into Europe. We saw it hit the shores of Greece last week. And today we're gonna see it hit a town that may be familiar to you. We're gonna watch the gospel arrive in Athens. We're gonna see the great apostle Paul speak to the world. the philosophers of his day. Now Athens, at Paul's time, it's worth saying, was not as significant a city as it was in times past.

It had kind of seeded the crown of intellectual capital to other cities like Alexandria by this time, but it was still famous, because it was the seedbed of great Greek thinkers like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato. And so now under the Roman Empire, Romans were kind of enamored by great Greek thinkers and Greek culture. And so Athens was not as commercially significant a city, but it was still intellectually significant a city. Think Boston, or maybe in some ways D.C. You may not have a lot of appliances in your kitchen that say made in D.C., right? And yet, many people look to us, intellectually, or to Boston as well, surrounded by universities. And so, the reality is, Paul's gonna move towards an educated but spiritually fractured city. And here's what's fascinating. Paul, if you look at the text, he almost ends up there on accident. Paul would go to major metropolitan cities, and Athens was no longer one of those, and yet Paul had to sidestep here. But what was a sidestep to Paul becomes a moment of great significance, as God often does that. What you think is a detour is often God delivering you into your purpose and plan for your life. What's fascinating here is,

we get three of Paul's speeches in the book of Acts in detail to three different audiences to see how Paul talked. We already looked at one a few weeks ago, how he reasoned from the scriptures to Jews who understood them that Jesus was the Christ. And we'll see in a few weeks how he talked to Christian leaders, those who had already committed to Christ. Here's how you lead in the midst of a culture that is often hostile to your beliefs and ideas. What we're gonna find here is how Paul speaks to the intellectually rigorous but spiritually uninformed. What we have here is how Paul speaks to spirituality in the life of the mind. This is Paul on the college campus. This is Paul with your skeptical friend. How does the gospel intersect with the intellectually rigorous but spiritually or scripturally uninformed? Some of you have a deep knowledge of the Bible. You grew up in Sunday school, you know all the stories, you saw them on felt boards, you've drawn countless pictures, made crafts about Noah and the like. Others of you didn't grow up that way at all. And so you're not dumb, you're a smart person. The computing process is sharp, but the files aren't found. And you're about to find out how the Bible speaks to you.

And so Paul, we're gonna see the apostle Paul amongst the philosophers. And let me say this before we jump in. Some of you, this kind of talk is right up your alley. You go, I love philosophy, right? Others of you, you say, please God, no. I was up so late, don't make me think. This may not be for you, and that's okay. But I want you to think about your intellectual skeptical friend. You know the one that gets a couple drinks in and suddenly wants to talk about the origin of the universe? That friend. I want you to pay attention because this talk is for them, right? And so you may just want to send this to them. But in reality, many of them probably don't want to hear it from me. So at least familiarize yourself with the arguments because they just might hear it from you, right? The apostle Paul amongst the philosophers of Athens. So in verse 16 of chapter 17, it says this. Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him. And he saw that the city was full of idols. Paul normally traveled with a crew. He had to leave the city of Berea in a hurry. He shows up in this town alone. And when he gets there, Luke notes what he sees.

And it's interesting because Athens was filled with monuments to the gods. The Areopagus was there. The Acropolis was there. The Parthenon was there. Some of the greatest artists of their day did their greatest works of art in the porticoes. And yet Luke doesn't comment on that. He says what Paul sees is a city filled with idols, literally a forest of idols. The Caesars in that day would build a lot of temples. Julius Caesar built one to Ares and Demeter and then Claudius added to the city too. And so it sort of built this snowball. Suddenly everyone with money, patrons wanted to build a monument in the city. And so artists wanted to make sure their sculptures were in the city. And so literally one commentator, ancient historian said, it's easier to find a god in Athens than a man. That temples abounded. Even on the way in, there was little stoas, spikes, with the head of Hermes on it and other body parts of his as well. But the city is a forest of idols. It's a whole Greek pantheon in one city. And then Luke tells us not just what Paul sees, he tells us how Paul feels. It says it provoked him. Provoked, in Greek, is the word paroxysm.

Some of you have heard that word. It means to seize up. It disturbs him. The apostle Paul walks into the city and he sees this forest of idols and it bothers him. It shakes him. Why does it do that? Well, it's interesting. That same verb is often used about God in the Old Testament to talk about how God sees idols. That idolatry in the Old Testament is often related to adultery. That to commit adultery is I have a commitment to the one I am meant to love and give all of myself to. And I take legitimate desires and commitment to an illegitimate place. That's wrong. And so Paul looks around and he feels like God does. These people are made in the image of God. As he'll tell the Colossians, you are made by God and for God. And yet these people who are made by God in his image with beauty and dignity for God are trying to find ultimate meaning and significance in temporary things. That's the issue with idols. We don't worship Aphrodite and Aries today. You don't bow down before a statue. But for many of us, we do look for beauty or success on the battlefield or power in business

or money to give us a sense of significance. We look for things to give us ultimate value. And Paul looks at their pursuit, money, fame, sex, power, the pursuit of things with all of their life. And he says, your life is valuable. Spend it on that which is of highest value. You're aiming too low. And it bothers him. The allegiance that was crafted in you to give back to God alone, rather than taking your ultimate desires to an ultimate place, you're taking them to temporary things and it bothers him. So I want you to see what Paul does. In verse 17, so he reasoned with them. In the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be there. What do you do when you look around the culture and see what they're doing and it bothers you? Does he rage? Does he whine? Does he post about them? And what does he do? He reasons with them. He engages these very people and speaks to their mind. And notice who he does it with. The Jews, those who spiritually and ethnically he had a background with. He did it with devout persons,

people who he didn't have an ethnic connection with but still had some spiritual contact. And then anyone he could find in the marketplace. Paul's like, I will talk to any of you, all of you. I want to help you. I am going to try to be a force for good in a broken world, but look at how he does it. He does it by reasoning with them. Why? Because being spiritual and intellectual are not at odds. And here you see Paul is willing to reason about Christianity because Christianity is reasonable. We skipped it at the beginning of Acts, but that's how he came into Thessalonica. You see it in verse two of chapter 17. It says, Paul went in as was his custom on the three Sabbath days and he reasoned with them in the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead. Saying this Jesus, whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded. That's how Paul argues. I reason with you. I explain to you. I prove to you. And some of you were persuaded. Paul understands that Christianity is not antithetical to the life of the mind. It's not.

It's funny because I'll have people come up to me sometimes and say, I can't figure out what kind of church y'all are. Y'all worship like the Charismatics. But you serve like a mission or something. But then you teach like a seminary or a Bible church. What are you guys? And my answer is, yes. Christianity appeals to the whole person. So yes, you should have an emotional experience. You should love. It should produce that. It should affect the way you live and make choices. But you don't have to check your brains at the door. Christianity speaks to the whole person. It's intellectually rigorous. It's emotionally satisfying, and it will direct your life in a positive way. And so Paul engages all of them because the gospel engages all of us. Your thinking, your feeling, and your living. Christianity speaks to the whole human experience. And so Paul engages them with ideas, reasoning with them that Christ, the hero in the Old Testament who would come to connect us with God, had to suffer and die. And then he said, and the Jesus that we know is that Christ. That's how we would argue. The Christ of faith is the Jesus of history,

and you're meant to know him. He argues that way, and some believe, and we didn't read the. This is Thessalonica, others don't believe. Now here's the sad thing at Thessalonica, where Paul reasons and explains, there's a constituency in the crowd that can't refute his arguments, so they slander him personally and threaten him with political violence. Can you imagine? This is not the Christian way to slander and attack a person or threaten them with physical violence. You meet ideas with ideas. And Paul will go and he'll take a beating, but what he'll deliver is truth in a rational way. And so he has to leave Thessalonica earlier than he would like. And again, God uses evil for good. Paul didn't get to disciple them in person, so he wrote 1 and 2 Thessalonians. And so now we get the benefit of reading these books, kind of a primer on the Christian life. We've done a whole series on 1 Thessalonians, I commend to you. He goes to Berea and it gets a little better. When he goes to the next town, it says in verse 11, now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness,

examining the scriptures daily to see if it were so. Now this is fascinating. When he shows up in the next town, Luke just wants you to see Paul reasoned and the noble person examined. That as Paul presents ideas, he commends the Bereans for contemplating those ideas. And not just contemplating them, but going back and reading it for themselves to see if it were so. They said, let me trust but verify. Let me Google that. Where did you find that? Quote the verse again. And the scriptures commend that. The Bible does not command blind spiritual obedience. You will never see me stand up here and say, you must submit to me for I am your authority, right? If I do, you should leave. Or more precisely, I should leave. Paul, the apostle says, let me lay before you the reasons why Christianity fits the world as it is. And you go examine for yourself. Test me. He says, go read it on your own. Read the Bible for yourself. We'll give you one in the lobby for free. We gave out devotions on the book of Acts so you can study it during the week. We record a podcast that comes out on Wednesdays

that goes deeper into the text we study on Sundays. Study this. The Bible is not afraid of your questions. Spurgeon says the Bible is an anvil that's worn out many hammers. Hammer on it. Question it. And you'll find it is sturdy enough to handle your questions and to build your life on. So when Paul shows up in Athens, he's not intimidated by the philosopher. He knows he has got a worldview that fits the world as it is. And so he can hang with the intellectuals. Now what's interesting is, where Paul would argue with Jewish people using the scriptures that they all understood, now he's in Athens and they don't understand. And so you see the problem, verse 18, it says some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him, and some said, what does this babbler wish to say? Others say he seems to be preaching of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. They're like, I don't know what this man's talking about. Some of them called him a babbler. That means a seed picker. It's about a bird that kind of pecks at seeds. I think this guy's picked up random ideas and is just peddling them like he's an intellectual.

Others go, no, I think he's advocating foreign deities or divinities. Did you notice it's in plural? Some commentators think they thought he was talking about a god and a goddess, Jesus and Anastasia, which is the word resurrection. They're like, is this like a new goddess duo he's talking about? Others just thought they were confused because they had no concept of a resurrection from the dead. And so they're confused. So Paul's gonna have to take a different tack. Because what he's dealing with here as he explains the gospel, did you notice, were Epicureans and Stoics. And we won't go in detail on what they believed, but just a flyover. Epicureans were kind of ambivalent about the deities. Don't spend a lot of time trying to appease some spiritual world. Basically, the physical world is all that matters. And so they had a statement. There's nothing to fear in God, nothing to feel in death. Pleasure can be attained, pain can be endured. The whole Epicurean mindset was minimize pain, maximize pleasure, because when you die, it won't really matter. That was kind of their thing, right? Some of you are like, I think that's what I am. You shouldn't be.

But that's the idea for them. And it wasn't all like full-on physical hedonism. There was an intellectual component. But they were trying to minimize stress and don't worry, be happy. That was their idea. Stoics were a little different. Stoics believed there was a divine spark that embodied all things, that all people came from a divine source, and that divine logos bound us all together. And you could tap into the spiritual through the intellectual. And so they believed in an intellectually rigorous thinking and they understood the world doesn't just have physical structures that make sense, day and night, seasons and years, it also has a moral structure. Justice is better than injustice. Love is better than hate. Right is better than wrong. So they had a sense of morality. They had fatalism, you can't control the world, but you should be a good guy and do what's right and be smart and have a stiff chin as the world beats you up and then when you die, probably nothing happens. That's sort of their idea, right? And so they liked morality and intellectual rigor, but didn't have it rooted in any ultimate why. Interestingly, a couple years ago,

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations hit the top of Amazon. This is popular with a lot of guys that understand being tough and being virtuous has value, but it's unanchored to a compelling why. So Paul speaks to them and they do not get it. They don't know what he's talking about. And so they say, I think he's advocating foreign deities, which puts a little stress in the story because that's the same thing they said about Socrates when they took him to the Areopagus and he didn't make it out of it alive. And so here Paul is in Athens and they're like, I think he's kind of doing what Socrates did. And in verse 19, they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, may we know this new teaching, what this new teaching is that you're presenting, for you bring some strange things to our ears and we wish to know therefore what these things mean. The Areopagus is the Pagas of Ares. Pagas is hill, Ares is the god of war. The Romans called the god of war Mars. So you'll hear this called Mars Hill. This is where the council in Athens would meet and Paul's probably not on trial the way Socrates was, but it's the same idea of we're going to assess your ideas in the marketplace of ideas. This is Paul on the quad. This is Paul taking all comers in the center of campus. They say, help us understand what you're talking about.

And it's funny, Luke comments on it in verse 21. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. He says, I just can't pass up the irony. They called Paul a seed picker, picking at different ideas, when really they're the seed pickers, just trying to get on board with whatever's hot right now. Some of you have friends like this. Whatever the latest philosophy is, they're all about it. They were discovering the secret. Now they're manifesting. They've kind of given up on their atomic habits, but they're still trying to move from strength to strength. Just whatever's hot right now in the quasi-spiritual self-help space, they're all about it. That's Athens. Paul's on the quad. They've put their hacky stacks and Frisbees down and say, all right, what would you say to the intellectually rigorous but scripturally uninformed? As we move to the end, Paul's gonna do five movements of his argument about God, each with about two verses. We'll look at them and summarize them and then be out of here. Paul starts by talking about the unknown God. That's your first movement, the unknown God. Verse 22, so Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, says, 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 the inscription to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Paul begins by affirming their interest and their ignorance. He starts by connecting with them before challenging them. It's called the confrontation sandwich, right? Let me compliment you and then challenge you. That's what Paul's gonna do. And so he starts by affirming their interest. I can see you're very spiritual because there's altars everywhere. I can see you're a people who thinks there's more to life than just eating, drinking, sleeping, and dying. That you think there's a bigger story out there and you're trying to tap into it. And so Paul applauds their spiritual interest, even if it's misguided, right? And yet at the same time he affirms their spiritual interest, he affirms their ignorance, which doesn't sound like a compliment. You go, what do you mean by that? He says, you've built all these statues and idols and monuments. You even built one to an unknown God. He says, what does that mean? Think about that.

It means as intellectually rigorous as you people are, as much as you like knowing the answer to all the questions, there's a part of you that's afraid there's a knowledge gap, that you're missing something. So you built this altar just in case you miss some God and he's mad at you. That's showing you're admitting your ignorance, onosis, lack of knowledge. That would have been a hard thing for a Stoic to be called ignorant and yet Paul's gonna go there. And so what he's doing is challenging them at the beginning of a spiritual conversation with the question of humility, which is the prerequisite for all spiritual inquiry. Are you humble enough to learn? Are you ready to think you may not know everything? You're admitting. Why do you keep reading books? Why do you keep discussing philosophy? Why do you keep listening to podcasts and watching YouTube? It's because some part of you thinks you might be missing something. Some of us are so intellectually rigorous, and yet there's a fear in us that maybe I'm missing something important about why I'm here. And Paul says, I want to affirm that discomfort. I celebrate your spiritual interest, and I also want to affirm your ignorance. You are missing something,

and it's something really important. And so he goes from the unknown God to the creator God. That's movement number two. Verse 24, 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 else. He says, the God you're missing is the big one. You're interested in spiritualities, but there is a singular God who made everything there is. He says, and the God who made all things is Lord of those things. If you make a pot in a pottery class, that's your pot. If you forge a knife, that's your knife. And he says, there is a God who made all this, so he owns all this. So he's challenging this whole artifice they've built of religion around them. You've tried to pin down all the gods in these little monuments and buildings and statues and appease them. I'm trying to lift your head to the problem and possibility of existence. He says, stop this intellectual and religious game for a second. Little money to this God, little money to that God, little money to that God. He's like, stop doing that and just pick your head up

and realize, how did we all get here? You're interested in it, so ask the big question. What's the origin of humanity? What's our being? What are we? What's wrong with us and how it's dealt with? Why are we here and where's history going? Origin, being, meaning, and destiny. These are the big questions human beings are answering or asking, and he says, step into that. Step into the big question of how did we all get here? What is this miracle called life? He says, and don't downshift to something you can manage. For some people, their pursuit of intellectual knowledge is not really because they love to learn, it's because we like control. Let me know enough about this subject so that I can be right, so I'm not subject to something outside of my control. Some people use religion that same way, too. Or some people just shrink their life and make a little money, get a little job, get a little fame, get a little power, get a little sex, and then get dead. That's my whole life. I'm just trying to get some stuff to make me happy, and Paul says, stop playing a little game. Somebody made you, and he gave you life and breath and everything else. These idols don't have life, they don't have breath,

they didn't give you anything. So pick your head up and ponder the miracle of existence because we all got here somehow, and the same possibilities have remained unchanged. The universe has always existed, that's one option. Most don't believe it now because scientists say, no, I think there's a big bang that started it all. In an impersonal, eternal universe, it's hard to maintain when you contemplate personality. If I think the universe always existed and everything else around is impersonal, then that means there is no purpose that made us, there was no will that volitionally created us, and so ultimately, there's no reason we're here, and so there's no reason any action is better than any other action, and so suddenly, love is meaningless, virtue is meaningless, human rights are a joke, and we have a hard time thinking that love and beauty are meaningless. It's hard to maintain that position. Everything came from nothing is a hard one to maintain. That was popular. Nothing happened to nothing, and it spontaneously made everything. That's a faith statement, and again, it's a struggle with personhood. Something impersonal made the personal. It's very hard to maintain that worldview. Even Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, is struggling with it, and so they asked him

about the origin of the universe recently, and he entertained the possibility of supreme beings from elsewhere making us. Maybe there was a race of intelligent beings that created the earth. It's like, okay, so you want to entertain a supernatural. natural, intelligent, personal set of beings that out of the volition of their will made everything, but you think it's ridiculous to believe in a supernatural, intelligent, personal being who out of the volition of his will made everything. I just think you don't like the accountability of acknowledging a God. And so a lot of people now are like, well, maybe there's a bunch of universes. Or maybe aliens made us. You still haven't dodged the problem of existence. Who made the aliens? Who made the universe? You just pushed the question further away. You still have to deal with the incomprehensibility of the fact that we are. This is, it's happening. What is this? And Paul says, there is a person out there. And that's why you have personhood, because he made you in his image, on purpose, with a purpose. There's a God who made all this. And don't try to reduce this life

to play in these little games. There's a bigger story you're a part of, because he didn't just make it all. He's not just the creator God. He's the providential God. That's your third point. That he rules this story, that history is his story, and it's going someplace. Verse 26, and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth having determined allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling places, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. He says, your life has meaning, because he made you on purpose. And so you have meaning and a destiny. You are reasonable, because a reasonable God made you with reason. He says, and so these questions of origin, being, meaning, and destiny, where did I come from? Why am I here? Where is life going? This is the God who's the source of all that. And so don't settle for something less than this bigger story. This is a story because an author wrote it. So pick up your head and realize there's a bigger game here than just eating and drinking and being happy. And the Stoics would have loved this.

We do think all of humanity rose from someplace. We do believe there's something to the connectivity of all this. And yet Paul will also challenge them with this verb choice. God is leaving history if perhaps you would seek him. That's why you're made. And he said, and feel your way towards him. That's the word to grope. It's the idea of a blind person in the dark. So he tells them, there is sufficient evidence in natural theology for you to deduce that there's a God. He affirms natural theology. Through observation, I can believe. When I see the creativity and beauty and order of the universe, I believe there's a creative, beautiful, orderly creator. When I see design, I think designer. And when I look at the universe, it's a Swiss watch. The way all these planets are moving, I think somebody built this thing. He says, there's enough for you to see in the world to know your little temples don't encapsulate what life's about. There's a bigger God here. And he says, but your pursuit of him is groping in the dark. Which would have been a tough shot for the people of Athens to take. But what he's trying to let them know is, the God that you can see through observation, you can't know without revelation.

It's the same with any personal being. You can learn a lot about your favorite celebrity by observing them, right? Follow them on Instagram, stalk them online, stalk them in person. Not recommending it, I'm just saying, you could gather a lot of details about your favorite celebrity. Buy all their merch, listen to all their music. You can know so much about them. But no matter how much you know about them from observing them, if you walk up and say hi, you will see a lack of recognition in their eyes because they don't know you. Not until they choose to reveal themselves to you. And you have a dialogue and connection with them. So observation has value, but to really know somebody, you need revelation. You need them to reveal their heart to you. And he says, you guys, there's sufficient observation to know there's a bigger story than these idols you've built. There's a God who made all this, and you were made to know him. You don't need to fill the world with idols. You're his icon. You're made in his image. He filled the world with you. You look like him. You have creativity and wisdom and order and design.

Why do you have all that? Because you're made in the image of God. And you were made to seek him, but your seeking is a groping unless he reveals himself to you. And so there's a desperation to your search, but here's the good news. Number four is he's the revealed God. He has come to you. And Paul beautifully quotes their own prophets in verse 28, in him we live and move and have our being. These idols don't live, move, or have being, but you do because you're made in his image. Even some of your own poets have said we are indeed his offspring. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think about the divine being like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. Don't try to create a God out of your own imagination. I think the universe is telling me I should have an affair with my boss. No. No. If you have a universe or a God that just happens to always agree with you, you have a God of your own making, and the God of your own making did not make all things. You have not dealt with the problem of existence. There's an actual God who actually made this, and we're actually accountable to him.

And he is there, as Francis Schaeffer said, and he is not silent. Verse 30, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. Notice the verb, he commands. He has spoken. The God who we can observe in creation has given us revelation. He has spoken to us, and we can know him. This is Psalm 19, that I can see God in what he made, but I know Yahweh, the covenant of God, through what he said. And so he's telling them, your interest in spirituality is because you are a spiritual being. Your beauty and dignity is because you are made in the image of God, and you were made for him. Your life is valuable. Don't aim it at something of less value. Lift your head to know the God who made you. Understand you're limited, and yet the good news is that God has not left you in your ignorance. He has spoken. You can know him. And the last thing he says about him is that he is a God of judgment. You are accountable to him. That's verse 31. 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. How can human beings know the God who made us? This is a bad illustration that breaks down, but it might help. Imagine if I'm trying to communicate to some ants that I'm trying to save them. I don't know why. Just say I have a benevolent feeling towards an anthill. If I come to them and go, you're in danger, right? It might just terrify them. They can't really understand what's happening. They just see a big, scary face. You go, how do I communicate to them in a way that doesn't terrify them? I can tell them, don't be afraid, and it may not work. What if I could embody an ant, step onto the mound with them, and say I have a plan, purpose, and will for your life? They might believe me. They might just tell me get in line and carry some stuff. So I'd have to look like them, but then do some stuff they can't do, right? So to say, I'm one of you, so you understand what I'm saying, but then pull off some seriously non-ant behavior that they're like, no normal ant can do that, and then I go, then you're gonna listen when I tell you some stuff that's gonna be hard to believe. That's what God did.

Yes. That when God spoke over the mountain, and Si and I, they trembled from fear and said, let us never hear his voice again. Stand in terror of the Holy God. So Jesus stepped in and became part of the story, like you, so you can understand him, but so unlike us. No one's changed history like this man, and he wasn't a prophet. He wasn't an inspiring moral teacher. He said he was the son of God. Before Abraham, I am, he said. I am pre-existent and eternal, and he talked about the end, like he will sit on a throne in judgment. He says, I run this place. That's crazy, until he starts opening the eyes of the blind and healing the lame, and then not staying dead. They go, this is a different guy. Yes, the God you can observe is the God who's revealed himself, stepped into our story. The God who's writing a story is the center of the story. C.S. Lewis said it this way. How does Hamlet meet Shakespeare? Hamlet's a creation of Shakespeare. How could he ever meet him? The only way to bridge that gap is if Shakespeare takes the initiative to write himself into the play,

and that's what God did. Paul says he has appointed a man, and he has affirmed that man by raising him from the dead, by doing one thing no other man can do, beat the thing that scares you most, death the taker of all. There's a man who survived it and beat it, and that man has spoken to us, and you will be accountable to that man on the day he closes out history. That's the story. The unknown God. is your creator God, who's a providential God, who you were made to worship, and you are accountable to, and he has come. He loses a lot of them at the resurrection. And there's three responses in the end, and we'll close with this. Verse 32 says, now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Probably the Epicureans, because they didn't believe that kind of stuff. But others said, we will hear you again about this. Probably the Stoics. Because he said a lot that would have appealed to them. A sense of divine purpose, a beauty in morality, a reason for existence. But like a lot of Stoics, they see the value of virtue, but don't connect it to a why. Why be virtuous, what's the point, right?

Stoicism is like pre-evangelism for many. I believe in goodness, and virtue, and rightness. I think there's a moral structure to the world. Where do you think that moral structure came from? I think there's such a thing as human rights. Where do you think human rights came from, vote? Or do you think there's a moral law giver? And a sense of the beauty of virtue and reality leads you to maybe there's a virtuous one who put that in my heart. And so they were like, can you run that back again? Can you come back? But the final group is, it says in verse 34, some men joined him and believed. Among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others of them. Some said, I don't wanna hear this, and I hope there's nobody in camp one. There always is, but I hope not. There may be a lot of you in here in camp two. I obviously came here looking for spiritual answers. This is a lot to handle. You just keep coming back. God's not scared of your questions. No one changed history like Jesus. There's a surge of interest in him because you were made for him. And you'll be restless till you rest in him. Yet others of you say, you know what? I wanna believe, and I wanna join

in what the apostles and the prophets are doing. And I wanna encourage you to do that. Some of you are intellectual and unconvinced. Keep coming back. Study the scriptures. Get to know the God who made you. Others of you are convinced. And if you are a believer, let me encourage you as we close. Don't commit the sin, Christian, of dropping your head and living a small little life, where you chase money, power, fame for a sense of significance. You already know there's a bigger game than that. And I want you to see how Paul did it. He didn't rage against a dying world. He stepped in to save it, reasoning with them in a kind and gracious way. Christian, don't join the cacophony of whining online. Don't rage and gnash your teeth. Weep, break your heart, and then do what you can to help the people of Athens know the God who made them. Step into your workspace with a sense of purpose. Yeah, I'm here to get a job, but I'm here because these people are made in the image of God and they don't know him, even that guy. And let's step into the bigger story for the glory of God and the good of those he loves.