Acts 17:16-34 | Christ Reorders Reality

Others replied, He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities because he is telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, and said, May we learn about this new teaching you are presenting? Because what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these things mean. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, People of Athens, I see that you are extremely extremely religious in every respect.

for as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed to an unknown God. Therefore, would you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you, The God who made the world and everything in it, he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, neither is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.

From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth, and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. He did this so that they might seek for God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is 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 also his offspring.

Since then we are God's offspring, we shouldn't think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance and God now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him, but others said, We'd like to hear you again about this. So Paul left their presence. However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysus the Areopagite, and a woman named Demaris, and others with them. Let's pray. Father, uh I thank you that in your word you tell us

Um that eternal life is to know you and your son whom you have sent. Uh Lord, we get to know you. You are not an unknown God, uh like the people of Athens and many around the world worship, Lord. Um God, I just ask that for any who do not know you today, um, that they would not think of you as a far off, mystical, unknown God. But rather a God who has revealed himself to us in the person of your son, uh who literally ent entered into human history, Lord.

Uh please help them also to see in the passage that uh he is not far from us, Lord, that they need only call on him uh and believe in Jesus Christ to be saved, Lord. I also ask that you use this passage for those of us who do believe to call us to action, to love you more, and to grow in holiness. Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Uh this is one of the big passages in the books of ac book of Acts. We could spend several Sundays here. Um and the uh the early church is continuing to ripple out farther and farther into the world with the gospel of Jesus, the good news about Jesus' cross and his resurrection. And we've seen the gospel of Christ go out to Jewish audiences and to Gentile audiences. And here in this chapter, the gospel is coming to the cradle of classical Greek philosophy.

It's infiltrating the intellectual nerve center of the area. This is the city where Plato and Aristotle founded their schools. It's the city where Socrates lived and taught. It's the most prestigious philosophical city in the ancient Greek world. And the way that the gospel collides with the thinkers and the thinking in this passage shows us how the gospel collides with our thinking, how it aims to challenge our assumptions and change your mind.

Whether you realize it or not, your life is governed by deeply held assumptions. Everybody has a lot of ideas.

About life. And maybe you would think that's not you. It's like no, I'm just I'm practical. I'm just trying to make life work, you know, I'm just trying to make it happen. Dallas Willard in his book The Rel Renovation of the Heart has a wonderful word for you. He says It is extremely difficult for most people to recognize which ideas are governing their lives and how those ideas are governing their lives.

Ironically, it's often people who think of themselves as practical or as men of action who are most in the grip of ideas. So far in that grip that they can't be bothered to think. They simply don't know what moves them. One's culture is seen most clearly in what one thinks of as natural and requiring no explanation or even thought. Well, of course I would do that. Wha why are you Why are you loading the dishwasher that way?

Why do why do you have to say it that way? What you have in marriage is two people who have deeply held assumptions, big ideas that they've never understood they had colliding with one another. And all the things that you've considered to be natural, of course I would do it this way. The other person says, Well, of course I would do it this way. And so you look at one another and everything you do is completely unnatural. Why do you fold the towels that way?

Cause we have all these deeply held assumptions. And that's true of two finite, fallible human beings, how much more so when you come to know God? How much more so may your assumptions and ideas about life be different than his? And all of God's ideas are right and true. So when the gospel collides with our assumptions about God, about ourselves, and about life, the good news of Jesus gets to work renovating your whole worldview.

Working on your assumptions, changing your mind. And so in this passage, we'll zoom in on Paul's sermon, and then we'll zoom out to see the setting of Paul's sermon, and we'll see three ways that the gospel renovates.

Your worldview. The three ways that the gospel changes your mind. The first way is that the gospel clarifies your confusion about God. The gospel clarifies your confusion about God. What catalyzes Paul's conversations and then eventually his address in Athens is their distressing confusion about God. This is what it says in verse sixteen.

Says while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed when he saw that the city was full of idols. He comes into the city. There are idols all around. They clearly have plenty of thoughts about divine things. But they're all just shots in the dark, producing a variety of different conceptions of the divine. This statue and that statue, this God and this God. The city is full of idols.

And their ignorance is reflected in the safety net that they cast for themselves. Over here they have this altar to the unknown God. So we don't really know what's out there. We don't really know who's out there in the cosmos. And so if we left you out, don't be mad at us. Here's an altar to the unknown God.

And this is the natural state of the world that has alienated itself from God through sin. That everyone in the world has a thought about God, and the world is full of ignorant and confused thoughts about God.

And again, you might pipe up here and say, no, actually, like, you know, I I don't have any hard doctrinal stances. I'm not dogmatic. You know, I I don't think that anybody can actually know these things. I don't think these questions can be answered. So what you're telling me then is that you're a practical person.

A a man of action of and not speculation. Remember what Dallas Willard just showed us. That means that you just hold your ideas about God so closely that you don't even know what they are. Your life is governed by assumptions about God. The assumption that he's not there or the assumption that he is there. The assumption that he's disinterested in what's going on in our world or the assumption that he's deeply invested in what's going on in our world.

The assumption that thoughts about God are of no consequence, or the assumption that your thoughts about God have eternal consequence. Your life bears out your thoughts and assumptions about God. And apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ, you are either believing a lie about God or living a lie about God. That's where the world is at. That's what Paul is seeing around Athens. And as Paul looks around at all of this, it says that Paul was deeply Distress.

Rightly understood, it is a disturbing thing to live in ignorance and confusion about God. It's dis it's disturbing because of its implications about us and about God. It cuts both ways. Two pictures from the scriptures highlight the distressing nature of living in the dark about God. The first is the Father. God is constantly pictured in the scriptures as the eternal father that we should come to for love and wisdom and care, just like human fathers are intended to provide those things.

And it is a distressing thing to see an orphan wandering the streets in need for want of a father. And that distress only grows if you see that kid trying to drum up his own concept of God. Imagine a fatherless boy coming every day to a public park. Where there's a statue of some kind of public figure, some historical figure, a statue of a man. And every single day that boy comes to that park and sets a baseball glove and a ball down at the foot of that statue looking for time and attention.

So hey Dad, can we play catch? Hey Dad, I I need help. I don't know what to do. I need you. You would be disturbed. Because that boy needs something real. That boy needs a living, loving father. If you are living without the care of the one who is meant to be your heavenly father, that is a distressing place to be. And it only makes it worse if you come up with the God of your own imagination.

Or come to one of the lifeless so-called gods of the man-made religions or spirituality, one that can't care for you, one that doesn't hear your prayers, one that isn't really there. You are like that kid sitting by that statue with a ball and a glove. The question of whether or not you know the living God matters. It's not just a matter of esoteric sp speculation. J. I. Packer captures this in his book Knowing God.

He writes that seeking to know God is not a matter of esoteric speculation. Instead he says, in fact, however, it is the most practical project anyone can engage in. Knowing about God is crucially important for living our lives. We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God.

Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were. With no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way, you can waste your life and lose your soul. It is a distressing thing to be or to see a spiritual orphan. But that distress also cuts the other direction. Consider the second picture from the scriptures that so often God is not just pictured as a father, he's also pictured as a husband.

He's uh pictured as the lover of our souls, the one that we were made for. And if a friend of the bridegroom sees the spouse, In somebody else's arms, that is an enraging thing. That's how you could translate the word for Paul's distress. It says that he was provoked even more than the distress of the city full of spiritual orphans. Paul is provoked to see people made in God's image.

Made for God for a closeness that far supersedes the intimacy of a husband and wife throwing themselves into the arms of anyone and anything except God. Paul is a friend of the bridegroom, and he is provoked to see people cheating on God. And that is the same thing that's happening whenever we fail to take all of our needs or desires or hopes or longings to God and try to fulfill them somewhere else.

That is the nature of our confusion about God. And Romans 1 tells us that that is a willing ignorance of God, a suppression of the truth that leads us to live for other things. The world is full. The world lives in the self-inflicted cruelty of ignorance about God. But the gospel brings us. Clarity in the midst of our confusion. Paul starts his sermon by saying in verse twenty three What you worship in ignorance.

I proclaim to you. He says, What you are in the dark about, let me shine a light on it. And then he goes on to tell them about the living God. He says he's the Lord of the heaven and earth who created everything. Verse 24. He's the generous giver who gives us life and breath and every good thing, verse 25. Says that he's the sovereign lord of history who governs all times and all people, verse 26.

He's the God who, although he's above all things, he's not far from you, and he actually wants you to find him. Verse 27. Your whole life is in his hands, he says in verse twenty eight. He's the living God, not the imaginings of men, verse twenty nine. And he says he has revealed himself and his plan most fully in the person of Jesus, whom he raised from the dead, verse thirty one.

He says, this is the God who made you, who loves you, and whom you must come to in Christ. The gospel does not call you to a generic belief in God. If you're here and you're exploring these things you say, oh man, well I know I get it. It's all good. But like I no, I believe in God. The question is which one? That's like me saying, Hey, listen, I believe in mom. I grew up believing in mom.

I think that everybody, everybody, you know, uh frequently should find themselves in a house of mom. You know? And sometimes, oftentimes when I'm eating food, you know, I'll be eating, I'll say, oh man, it's so good. I'll look at somebody and I'll say, oh man, praise mom. I I believe in mom. The question is which one? Do you know the one that gave you life? Do you know her name? Do you have a relationship with her? Have you made your way into her house? It's the same thing with God.

So I believe in God. Which one? Do you know his name? Do you know the one that made you? Are you welcome in his house? Are you right with him? The gospel calls you out of willful ignorance and fruitless genericisms about God. And to know the God who has a name and a face and a will and a word for you in the person of Jesus. He's the creator, the sustainer, the lover, the healer, the redeemer, and he is the judge. That is where Paul's sermon leads.

He is the cosmic judge and that reality subverts all of your scrutiny of God. This is the second way that the gospel comes in and checks our assumptions and starts to change our mind about God and ourselves. The gospel subverts your scrutiny.

of God. Look at where the sermon ends. Paul clears up the confusion about God and then ends with this call. In verse thirty and thirty-one, he says, Therefore Having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day where he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed.

He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. If you zoom out from Paul's sermon and consider the setting that he's in, that last line, that last line of his sermon is a very significant needle scratch. Because of where he's standing, the Areopagus is more than just a public forum. There's this Australian New Testament scholar named Bruce Winter, and he writes a wonderful uh article about this passage, and he explains that the Areopagus was the initial legal instrument.

responsible for initiating action to assimilate new gods into the pantheon. And this is not just a religious thing, this is also a political thing, because the Caesars were worshipped as divine, so matters of religion and imperial matters were all weaved together, and so they were there to adjudicate those things.

to be the gatekeepers. And so they would want to know, hey, uh you're introducing a new God? Um w who is this God? Are they in conflict with the Empire's agenda? Do they benefit the public good? Well what plot of land are you looking for in order to build a shrine to that God? How are you gonna fund the running of that temple? And at each point of that questioning in Paul's sermon, he's not just clearing up confusion about God, he's also pushing back on all those questions. Oh the public good.

Oh well no he he's the God who uh gives every good thing, everything that we need, life and breath and everything. A shrine? A shrine, no no no. Uh he's the Lord of heaven and earth. He he doesn't live in a shrine. And also he doesn't need anything from us. And also, we're made in his image. And so like that whole like stone and silver statue thing, we're not doing any of that. But that last line of his sermon flips the script on the whole premise. He says, hey guys, he's the judge of the world.

He's not coming here for your assessment. You'll stand under his assessment. He's not under your scrutiny. It is the other way around. The legal language of of the of the passage doesn't always get uh it doesn't fully make it through the English translation. But when they ask, may we learn about this new teaching that you are presenting?

V uh Winter, the uh the New Testament scholar explains, he says, Paul was not simply being asked to provide an explanation, but rather the council was informing him of its long standing responsibility. We possess a legal right to judge what this new teaching is that is being spoken by you. We therefore wish to make a judgment on what you claim these things are. And Paul says, no.

He is the one who will make the judgments. This is part and parcel of all the world's confusion about God. We constantly get it twisted about who is scrutinizing whom. And you see this in our lives in a variety of different ways.

Sometimes you hear people say, Well, listen, I don't think that God could be good if he could allow these kinds of things to happen. Are you saying that you have more goodness than Jesus and are in a position to pass judgments on his government of the universe? Because that's what's happening in that statement.

Or sometimes people will say, Well, you know, I think these parts of the Bible are helpful, but these commands, these teachings, you know, they're out of date. They're small-minded, they're bigoted. Are you saying that you have more wisdom than the creator, Jesus, who knows the nature and the needs of man?

Because that's exactly what's happening in that statement. Remnant Church, listen, and understand that you're not immune from this. I'm stealing this uh example from Tilly Dillahay in her book, My Dear Hemlock, but do you ever find yourself uh in a moment Where something breaks, or you get sick, or something goes wrong, and your response is in that moment, of course.

Anybody ever said that? The thing breaks, you know, the plans fail. Of course. Have you ever thought about that statement? Well, of course, of course this would happen. Well, this makes sense. This is typical. Why is it typical? You know that whatever happens in your life passes through God's sovereign hands.

He wrote every single one of your days in a book before a single one was lived, Psalm 139, no matter how hard the day is. And he appointed good work for you to do, Ephesians 2.10, no matter how taxing or how complicated or how frustrated the work is. And as Job said in Job 121, he's the one who gives and takes away. He is sovereign over everything that happens in your life. So of course, implicitly means, of course, God would do this. Of course God would allow this.

Of course God would send this or take this. And in those of course moments, the assumption is not usually that God is doing something wise and loving and shaping and saving in that moment, which he always is. Humanity has a constant tendency to put God in the dock and preside in judgment over him.

To try to scrutinize him. But Paul's sermon and the rest of the scriptures are given to remind us what a Romans 11 says when it says, Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments! How insurance! Inscrutable are his ways. The gospel collides with all of our assumptions and confronts us with the re with the reality that we do not have the authority or the wisdom or the righteousness to pass judgments on God.

God is in the seat of power and authority. There's no better illustration of this reality check than the Dark Knight Rises. If you've seen it, if you seen it, you know, there's this uh there's uh you know Batman squaring off with this hulking, menacing figure in Bain. You know, he wears a scary mask, he's jacked out of his mind.

And there's some like Bush League bad guys, some corporate businessmen who are trying to do some bad things. And so they think that this guy's just a a thug. So they hire Bain to go do some things. All of a sudden they start to realize he's got his own agenda. He's going rogue. What are you doing?

And there's this moment where one of these businessmen tries to confront Bain and says, hey, hey, we hired you to do a job. Why are you doing these things? And he starts to mouth off. He starts to get frustrated. He says, hey, I'm in charge around here. And Bain just very quickly and quietly lays his open hand on the man's shoulder. He just lays his open hand on his shoulder and lets him feel it. He asks him a question. He says very calmly, Do you feel in charge?

And you can see the reality ch reality check wash over the man's face. Under the weight of that hand, he realizes, I have no power over this person. Just under the weight of Bain's hand on that man's shoulder is enough to put him in his place. He realizes I am at his mercy. He is humbled under his hand. And that is what 1 Peter 5-6 shouts to each one of us. It says, Humble yourself, therefore, under the mighty hand of God. Can I tell you about God's hand for a second?

Have you ever tried to mix concrete by hand? You know, just liquid rock. You know? It is strong work. Our arms get tired sometimes mixing cake batter with a spoon. It's like trying to mix the liquid rock to pour a foundation or something like that. Isaiah forty forty-eight, thirteen says, God uh uh God says, My hand laid the foundations of the earth. Have you ever been on a beach and been rolled by a wave?

Zoom out to the atmosphere and consider how shallow a wave is when you compare it with the depths of the ocean. Just a wave on the beach, it's about that big. It is enough to pick you up and hurl you head over heels, to roll you, to throw your life into an utter whirlwind. And it's God's hand that keeps the entire ocean at its bank.

It's God's hand that keeps the entire ocean from spilling out onto the land. Listen, do you understand that the best estimates that scientists have right now is that there are more the stars in the universe, then there are grains of sand on all the beaches of all the world. that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches in all the world. Now God holds all of those things in his hand.

All the stars that outnumber the sands on all the beach, on all the earth, he holds them all in his hand. How many can you hold in your hand? Like, just go to the beach. Next time you go to the beach, it's a fun exercise. Scoop up as much sand as you can in your two hands, and then count them.

You know, just pour it out and count him. It's like, well, that would be miserable. Nobody can do that. You're saying just one handful of sand? You can't count one handful of sand? The scriptures in Psalm 147 say that God doesn't just number the stars, He has names for every single one of them.

Every single one of them. Do you feel in charge? The sun at the center of our solar system is just one of those grains of sand. It's not even the biggest one. And you can fit one million of our earths in that grain of sand. Which means that you and I are microorganisms on a speck orbiting a grain of sand. Your whole life is Horton Here's a Who.

That old Dr. Seuss book, you know, it's like that elephant finds that speck of dust and he realizes there's a whole who will, there's a whole civilization on this ground. We are here, we are here, we are here. That is humanity's autobiography. Do you feel in charge? And any accusations, any scrutiny, any judgments of g against God, against the God who holds the cosmic seashores in his hands, no matter how thunderous they feel in our mouths, are just whispers.

Orbiting a grain of sand. We are here, we are here, we are here, we don't like what you're doing. The only reason why God hears anything that we have to say is because in loving condescension. He stoops. In love and condescension he stooped.

His judgments are unsearchable, his will is inscrutable. The authority, the power, and the wisdom to sift the world, judge, and make things right are his. That's why C.S. Lewis once wrote, In the end, That face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us, either with one expression or with the other. Either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.

I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not. That how God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of him is of no importance except insofar as it how it relates to how he thinks of us. It is written that we shall stand before him, we shall appear, we shall be expected m inspected. We are at his Mercy. And the good news of the gospel is that he has mercy.

Lewis goes on to write: The promise of glory is the promise almost incredible, and only possible by the work of Christ that some of us. that any of us who really chooses shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God, to please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness.

To be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in, as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son, it seems impossible, a weight or a burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. This passage tells us that the God who holds the cosmos in his hand is inclined to overlook all of the willful ignorance.

To forgive the infidelity, to adopt the runaway orphan. Having overlooked the times of ignorance, now God commands all people everywhere to repent, to turn to him, to come home. And when we do, we move from being objects of wrath, not just to being objects of pity, but being objects objects of glory and delight and love. To be an ingredient in God's happiness. All of this because as we sing, that mighty hand of God that made the heavens and the earth.

was nailed, was held by nails upon the cross to bear the sinner's curse. And the mighty hand of God undoes the wretched work of sin, restores our lost and dying souls to victory in him. If you haven't, now is the time. If you haven't come to him, now's the time. Now is always the time. Turn from ignorance and confusion to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Lay down your scrutiny and your skepticism about God's goodness.

His goodness is on full display in the grace of Jesus. Entrust yourself to that grace. And many of you already have. Just continue to walk with God in repentance. Because as J.I. Packer said later in his book about knowing God, it is not the breadth of your knowledge of God that changes you, it is the depth of your knowledge of God that changes you. It's not the breath. I know more theology than everybody around me. It's not about that.

And as you walk with him that way, the gospel continues to reorder all of reality around Christ. And that's the last way that we're gonna see that the gospel challenges our assumptions and changes our minds. The gospel reorders your reality around Christ. Knowing Jesus reorders all of reality around your newfound knowledge of him. That is why the watching world often is bewildered by how Christians can hold on to their various beliefs.

As uh that's why as Paul is reasoning with the people in Athens, it says in verse 18, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him, and some said, What is this ignorant show-off trying to say? The word that it's translating literally means seed picker.

You know, it's an idiom that we wouldn't understand, so it says we'll just translate it this way. But it means seed picker. It's the picture of a scavenger. It's a word picture of a bird that's just pecking around and grabbing different seeds at random.

Because based on their worldview, the philosophies that they hold to, they don't see how everything Paul is saying can fit together. It doesn't fit together according to their systems. And you say you see people seeing uh saying the same thing today, you know. It's like man Christians, like, you know

Listen, you guys talk about the sanctity of life, but then you guys like believe in the death penalty? You're just grabbing things at random. It's like, no, no, no. Actually, you just see the connection once you know God and have heard from his word.

Because the word says that God knits every human life together in the womb. And so the unborn should be protected because they're an image-bearer of God. And actually, by the exact same token, God says in Genesis 9 that if somebody murders a person made in God's image,

that God's justice requires the life of the murderer because of the sanctity of the life of the image bearer that was murdered. And I don't know if it's together, you just have to know God and what he says. Or or sometimes people do it with kindness. It's like, hey You Christians say that you believe in kindness, one of your fruit of the Spirit. This whole sermon seemed unkind. You called me ignorant in the first point. You called me a microorganism in the second point.

Well what happened to all that kind of stuff, seed picker? It's all inconsistent babble. Actually, no, actually, once you come to know the kindness of God, The kindness of God, how he confronts us in his kindness, how he saves us in his kindness, how he pushes back in his kindness, how he draws us in his kindness, you realize that kindness is not merely a sentiment, it is a substance.

It's a substance that serves whatever God says is good in someone's life. And it's good. It's a benefit to know if you are in the dark about God. If you are, you should want to know. It's a benefit to understand your stature and your standing before the judge of the universe. The person and the work of God are the coherent logic of everything the scriptures teach and everything the Christian believes.

And as you walk with Jesus, who is the light of the world, it puts all of reality in its proper light. And so faithful Christians aren't seed pickers. It's actually the exact opposite. We live in a culture full of seed pickers. Worldview scavengers picking up bits and pieces trying to shape their opinions about life. Our culture is like the Athenians when it says in verse twenty-one, now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent time on nothing else.

but telling or hearing something new. We just have a digital Areopagus. Like some of the biggest platforms in our culture are the Joe Rogan's or the Andrew Huberman's or the Lex Friedman's, countless podcasters where much of the time that's spent there is spent on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

There's a refrain. It's like if you if you are um far enough removed, like if you had enough life experience before the world of podcasting, long-form podcasting, and you actually have immersed yourself in that world of long-form podcasting, there's a statement that is Conspicuously frequently used.

It's just all over the place. It's like, man, how did this caught? This really can't. Like, I don't know if like somebody told them to say this, but they say it over and over again, over and over again in those conversations. They'll say, hey, this was a great conversation. I love coming on this podcast. It's always a great conversation. This was a great conversation. Man, what a great conversation.

The the question is not first and foremost, is what we said true? Did it put us more firmly in touch with firm ground? It's always, was it a good conversation? Was it interesting? Was there a good back and forth? Did we say or hear something new? It's a digital areopagus. And then people in our culture listen to those things endlessly and grab some ideas there, uh, grab some sentiments here, and then try to live by a grab bag of insufficient and often incompatible ideas.

That are often out of step with God's truth. Like open open-mindedness is not a virtue in and of itself. As G.K. Chesterton once said, an open mind is like an open mouth. It's only good for closing down on something solid. So don't want to walk around with your mouth open. Don't just walk around with your mind open. No, you want to open it up so you can close down on something solid. And the word of Christ is solid food. And so the aim of the Christian life in discipleship is to see.

How all of reality coheres in Christ.

And in this evangelism is to show how all of reality coheres in Christ. And Paul's approach in this passage shows us how to do that work. The gospel often changes minds and reorders reality through Christ-centered Scripture soaked conversation.

That's so much of how in our discipleship our minds are changed and our and all of realities reordered around Christ. In evangelism, this is how we draw people to Christ and help them connect the dots. Oftentimes it's through Christ-centered, scripture-soak.

conversation. It's not the only way, but it's a huge part. And so I just want to s end by walking what I mean walking out what I mean by that. I'm actually gonna moon walk it out and we'll start at the end and go backwards. So first, seeing all of life and reality rightly. Often comes through conversation.

Paul does preach Jesus and the resurrection in Athens, but a lot of what he does is conversate with people. If you look in verse 16 and 17, it says he was dis he was deeply distressed when he saw the city was full of idols. He's just distressed, he's disturbed, he's freaking out, so what do you do? He just goes and just start punching everybody in the face, start whiling out. No, no, no. It says he was distressed, so what'd he do? He reasons.

This is how Christians should respond to a lot of what's distressing in our world. It's you feel like you're gonna lose your mind, you're gonna freak out, and so let's talk. Let's talk about it. Let's have a conversation. So he reasoned in the synagogues with the Jews, and with those who worship God, as well as in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. And that word for reasoning is literally the word dialogue.

Preaching is important. We do it every week. We want to stand and announce who Jesus is and what he means and call people to decision. Reading is good, reading the Bible, reading books about the Bible, but people can still leave sermons and books and the Bible with questions, confusion, objections. That's one of the many reasons why we tell people to get plugged into a community group because those are the pockets where people are constantly dialoguing about the scriptures and what they mean.

And so if you're exploring Christ, bring your questions, bring your hangups into conversations, bring them into your community group. And remnant, continue to draw people into conversations. Deeper conversations, conversations about the things of God.

And do it the way Paul does in this passage. This kind of dialogue is go the the kind of dialogue that's going on in the synagogue and the marketplace in Athens would mean, yeah, of course, sharing truths from the Bible. You know, Paul's kicking out ideas that belong to God. But then also asking people questions, it's a dialogue. Hearing and answering questions and objections. Well, hey, have you ever considered this?

Also meeting people where they are, you know, getting to know where people are come from. A lot of our conversations with people in our lives, it's just trying to draw out what what why do you do what you do? You know, how are you thinking about that? You know, I see that you move this way. What's behind that?

Paul understands how these people understand life. And so he's able to do a number of things. He's able to draw from their own poets. He says, hey, no, no, no, I know what you guys uh you're you're you're even your own poets uh say that we're God's offspring and that we live and move and have our being in him.

He's able to draw on those things. He's also able to affirm where they're close to the truth. Say, hey, actually, yeah, we are made in God's image and we live in God's presence. This is the truth of the scriptures. He's also able to point out where they're being inconsistent. Hey, listen.

If we live and move and have our being in him, if he transcends all things, why are you acting like he lives in that house over there? What's up with the like silver and stone statues? That doesn't make much sense, does it? He he he's able to show them how the scriptures actually put the pieces together better.

And we want to do the same. To look at somebody and say, hey, it seems like you think that justice is really, really important. Actually, yeah, and the scripture, Psalm 11, 7, says that God is just and he loves just deeds. At the same time, you you don't believe in God, so what actually is the basis for your judgment?

Like what what enables you to say that that's wrong and we shouldn't do that rather than you just don't like that? Like I don't understand where that's coming from. If there's no transcendent objective source and standard for justice, then who's to say what justice is? Actually the scriptures show us a better way. Let me take you to Psalm eleven. Let's see how these things actually fit better together. Look for every opportunity to get into deeper conversation.

about people's lives, where they're coming from, about the scriptures about Christ, not only with the folks in our community groups or the synagogues, but also in the marketplace, in the neighborhood, at work. And as you step into those conversations, make sure that they are scripture-soaked conversations.

No matter who Paul's talking to, he might flow differently, but the scriptures are always behind everything that he's saying. With the Jews, he starts with the scriptures. Hey, you guys believe in what Moses wrote? Let me tell you about Jesus and how he fulfilled all of that. He doesn't do that here with the Athenians.

With the Athenians, he doesn't start there. He says, Hey, um, I see that you guys have a lot of assumptions about the divine and life. You guys are very religious, you know. And here's what your own poets have said. And he doesn't start with the scriptures.

And although he doesn't cite chapter and verse, he does situate them within the story of the scripture. Here's who God is, what he's made, what he's given, what he's up to. He shows how the scriptures affirm the places where they get things right, uses the scriptures to expose the places where they're wrong or inconsistent. So continue to saturate yourself in the script.

Because it is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. And then we want to run into our conversations, holding up that light to show how it illuminates everything in life for whoever will listen. In the midst of all those things, put Christ at the center of it. Ca he's the one that makes the difference.

It all points to him. It all finds its significance in him. He is the key to understanding God's wisdom and his mercy and his love and his justice. He is at the center of all these things. Paul tells them that the person and work of Christ is at the center of all this, and that his resurrection is the proof.

that it's all true. Christ is the light of the world. Whoever comes in will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of men. So this morning, are you still in the dark about God, about yourself, about life in this world?

Step into the light of Christ. And what you do, help turn on the lights or help turn up the lights for other people by meeting them where they are, showing them the meaning of the Messiah, calling people to turn to him by Christ-centered, scripture-soaked conversations. And the results may vary.

At the very end of this passage, it says some people scoff, some people say, you know what, we can talk more about this. And some people, even some of the leaders of the Areopagus, believe. The results may vary, but all that is in God's hands. Leave that in God's hands. Like it says of Paul in verse 18, you're just a proclaimer.

You're a messenger, a tour guide to reality. So let God give the growth. And no matter how long you've been walking with Christ, anticipate that there's more that He wants to show you. There's still part of your mind that he wants to change. There's still more of your reality that he wants to reorder. As I'll seek to know God more. If you disregard the study of God, you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life.

But Jesus says if you abide in my word, you will know you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.