1.
Please pray with
me. May the words of my mouth and the
meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this morning
comes to us from Acts 17:16-31 and it’s entitled, “The Unknown God,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Scientist Carl Sagan
hosted the first TV program dedicated to the great unknowns of space. The show
was a hit, viewed by half a billion people. Of the show's success, Sagan
remarked: "I was positive from my
own experience that an enormous global interest exists in space and in many
kindred scientific topics—the origin of life, the Earth, and the Cosmos, the
search for extraterrestrial intelligence, our connection with the universe."
(Footnote 1: Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Ballantine, 1985), pp. xvii.)
3.
Sagan names things that
are globally sought after. We find throughout each generation this hunger for
the unknown. The mysteries of our universe can fascinate us, compel us, and
give us hope. But, they can also become a stumbling block on the road to
truth. In the mind of a skeptic, no
matter how many of his or her questions are answered, the elementary ones still
escape them. The great unknown becomes the obsession. The great unknown, no
matter how great, can’t fill the holes in our heads and hearts until it’s
known.
4.
Graduates
over the next years, you will feel as if you are facing the great unknown. you will likely do many things: go to school,
have fun with friends, start a career, enjoy singleness, date and start a
family (etc). It will be tempting to
think of these things as your focus, your life and joy. But don't. Because in
themselves, they’re not life. Jesus is life (Jn 14:6, Col 3:3). Seeking the Kingdom
of God is life (Mt 6:33). A whole life dedicated to God is what God wants from
you—in fact, demands from you (Lk 9:23-27). But it is also what he wants FOR
you. In all those other areas of your life, even if they basically go
"well," you will still face struggles, disappointments, conflicts,
betrayals, suffering. But God's love and friendship never fail; he has promised
to be with you always and to forgive you every time you repent--even when you
find it hard to forgive yourself (Ps 136:1, Mt 28:20; 1 Jn 1:7-8). Moreover, he
has also promised to help you find JOY in a life of GOOD works he has already
planned specifically for YOU to carry out IN all those other areas of your life.
(Eph 2:8-10). Because these things depend only on God and no one else, you can
always find joy in them, no matter what else is going on in your life. So if
you truly want what is good, stay focused on Christ and living as his disciple.
For he is your life, and he will make every other area of your life good in a way
that it simply cannot be "on its own."
5.
The Apostle Paul spoke
to the Athenian thinkers many years ago words quite fitting for present times. As
his eyes observed that culture, he saw their fascination with knowing—so strong
they even sought to know what was unknown to them, placing a sign over one of
their altars for the "Unknown
God." And this is what Paul says to them in Acts 17:23: "What you worship as unknown, I
proclaim to you as known."
6.
The
Apostle Paul knew the audience that he was speaking to. There were the Epicureans, who believed that
the gods didn't care about them; who believed that right now, right here was
all that life has to offer. These people denied God, and dedicated themselves
to the task of grabbing all the gusto they could. But, there were also the Stoics
who were convinced that the gods resided in everything, and occupied themselves
with managing the universe. Although the Stoics also rejected the idea of an
afterlife, they thought that since the here and now is all we're going to get,
we ought to be totally responsible. Responsible is a good word for the stoics. And
the Stoics are still with us today. They
are the people who take a stand against cruelty to animals and protecting the
environment.
7.
Right
now there are people who are wondering how a good God could allow such
suffering to take place in the town of Joplin, MO. How could an all-powerful God allow something
like that to happen? Over 140 people
dead and so many people still missing. A
great number of people have lost their homes.
A God that would allow something like this to happen seems unknowable to
me. Rabbi Kushner wrote a book, which
you’ve probably heard of, “Why do Bad Things
Happen to Good People,” well that title is wrong according to the
Bible. A better title would be, “Why do Good things Happen to Bad People.” See, according to God’s Word none of us
are good. The Bible tells us that, “there is no one is righteous, no one who
does good. All have sinned and fallen
short of the glory of God.” As Christians
we can rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that when we suffer we’re
reminded of the consequences of our sins and our need for a Savior. We remember that it was our Savior who
suffered on our behalf to set us free from sin, death and the power of the
devil.
8.
The
ideas of the Stoics and Epicureans that were in Athens 2000 years ago are still
with us today, even when it comes to our understanding of suffering. Our culture has embraced the epicurean view of suffering.
This way of thinking seeks to reduce pain and acquire pleasure. To dull
physical and emotional pain, men and women turn to sexual infidelity, illegal
drugs, gluttony, and other sinful behaviors believing that “if it feels nice, don’t think twice.” The stoic
view of suffering says that
we have no control over what happens to us. All we can do is choose how we will
respond to it; the goal here is to let nothing bother us. We should do our best
“to keep a stiff upper lip” and to “let nothing get us down.”
9.
Christians
have probably been most affected by the stoic view. Unfortunately, we’re often
prone to minimize the reality of our grief. But this isn’t the approach of
Jesus. The Apostle John recorded that He wept at the death of his friend
Lazarus in John 11. It’s not sinful to mourn the death of a loved one or to
admit our pain.
10. God isn’t obligated to give us
the reason for our suffering. Still, whether He is disciplining us or not, we
know He is always with us in our pain (Ps. 23:4) to use our suffering for
good, redemptive ends and to bring glory to Himself (Rom. 8:28).
11.
As
Paul preached to the Athenians he basically tells them, “We blew it.” We don’t know who God
is, since we have all these ridiculous idols. Paul is preaching the law here,
to convict sinners of their sins, before he reveals to them the answer to their
sin, namely, Jesus Christ, their Savior.
He goes on to tell them, “The
times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to
repent, because 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.”
12.
Paul’s
basic point is this. What you people did by worshiping everything but the one
true God–that was ignorance. But now I’m making known to you the God you
missed, the one true God of all mankind. He’s calling you to repent, before it’s
too late. Judgment Day is coming. You will be judged. Your only hope is in the
one I’m about to tell you about. The one who will be your Judge, this one is
also your Savior. It’s this man Jesus Christ I’ve been telling you about, the
one who rose from the dead.
13.
Do
you know that Judgment Day is coming? On that day you will stand before your
Creator, and you will be judged. How will you fare? I can tell you that if you
rely on yourself, it won’t go well. But,
if you rely on Jesus as your Savior, you will be saved. This man Jesus, whom
God raised from the dead–the reason he died was to save you from your sins, to
save you from the judgment and eternal condemnation. That’s why he died, in
your place, as the sacrifice for your sins. He did this for all men. Your sins
are forgiven, covered, paid for, by the blood of Christ, the Son of God and the
Savior of the world. God raised this man Jesus from the dead, on Easter, to
show that life is the result of what Christ has done. Baptized and believing in
Christ, we share in His mighty victory over death. This is the good news that
God has for all people everywhere.
14.
It’s true. What we worship in this world as unknown,
Christ gives us the chance to know. It is His life, death, and resurrection
that proclaims to you that "The God
who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth…"
(Footnote 3: Acts 17:24) He’s worth knowing, and through Jesus we understand
everything. That is the answer we desperately need. Amen.
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