The Up Close God
Text: Acts 17:16-34
Intro: After being chased out of Thessalonica & Berea for preaching the good news about Jesus, the apostle Paul spent a few days in the city of Athens. I’m not sure what Athens is like today, but in that time it was a favorite place for philosophers and debaters to hang out. The city also had lots of temples, altars, & statues where people worshiped whatever god they thought would bring them the most favor or fortune.
-Paul began talking with people in downtown Athens & in the synagogue, telling them the good news about Jesus. They saw that he was a Jew who served the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh. The idolatry in the city really bothered Paul, because that is one of the primary sins that caused Israel to go into captivity. However, Paul began to talk about his life-changing encounter with Jesus. This Jesus had been executed publicly, but then came back to life. Even to the superstitious Athenians, the claim of someone coming back from the dead was difficult to comprehend. Paul attracts enough attention that they finally ask him to come & speak his beliefs to a large group of them.
-I’d like to look at what Paul said on that day and talk about it. One of the most important truths that Paul spoke that day was this: God is close, but wants to be closer. If that’s all you remember from what I say today, that’s a great place to start. God is close to each one of us, but not as close as He wants to be. And this is the main theme today.
Prop: The up close God wants you to get close to Him if you are willing.
Interrogative: How do we know that God wants to be close to us and to all people?
TS: Well, the Bible reveals a personal God who wants nothing more than to be close to those who will reach out to Him. Let’s uncover a few principles that will help draw us closer to the one true God. First, I’d like to read vv.16-22a to set up Paul’s sermon to those in Athens.
Intro & Background (Acts 17:16-21)
16 While Paul was waiting for them [Silas & Timothy] in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
I. Getting Close to God Requires More than Religion (Acts 17:22-23a)
22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.
-A person might be very religious, but never really come close to God. Religion can serve many agendas. Some use religion as therapy to make them feel good about themselves. Some use it to make money so they can worship their real God, Mammon, or wealth. Some use religion for the power or influence they might gain from it. Simon the Sorcerer was guilty of this. He wanted more control over people, so he tried to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit. People have murdered others in the name of religion, either thinking they were doing God a favor, or simply eliminating the competition.
-The point is this: Religion alone will not save you. Christianity is not about religion, it is about relationship with God through Jesus. Religion is all about doing whatever makes a person worthy to be accepted by God. All man-made religions fall short on that. Only a right relationship with God through Jesus is what makes us acceptable to God. Religion does not take away sin. Faith in Jesus Christ does!
-If God remains unknown to you, then you are missing what you were created for. We might be religious, but God wants us to know Him and worship Him out of love and gratitude. He loved us first, and His love is what makes us able to love back.
-Are you worshipping an unknown God, or do you know Him? Is He simply a force to reckon with, or do you really want to know Him?
-TS: Well, being religious is not enough to get us close to God. Our next point shows us that we need to know the truth about who God is in order to get to know Him. Let’s take a look at what God is really like, as spoken by Paul to these men of Athens.
II. Getting Close to God Requires Believing the Truth about Him (Acts 17:23b-31)
Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.
-Here is an overview of what this passage says about God:
1. He Created Everything (24a) – Whatever forms of micro-evolution may exist, the raw materials all came from God. If things started out with a mass of swirling gasses, what was the source of the gasses? God created this world, and all that is in it, and then he created man in His own image. Man fell away from God through disobedience, but God provided a way for that relationship to be fixed. God the Creator longs to see man, the highpoint of His creation, be restored to a right relationship with Him. As man’s Creator, He has authority over man, and over all things, since He is the source of all things. Man is answerable to His Creator.
2. He is totally Self-Sufficient (24b, 25a) – God needs nothing from mankind. God is complete in Himself. As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is unity in the Godhead that is beyond our understanding. God did not create man out of necessity for companionship or for any other necessity. Rev. tells us that we were created for God’s pleasure. So, man does not meet a need God has for self-fulfillment, security, or as an object for His affection. Does He love us? Absolutely! Does He need us? Absolutely not!
-God is complete! He is totally self-sufficient and does not need anything from man. This can be further seen in the next phrase, which shows that while man cannot meet any of God’s needs, God is certainly the source for man’s needs.
3. He gives life, breath, and everything else to mankind (25b) – There is nothing man can give God that God has not already given to man. God is the source!
4. He is a divine strategist (26, 27a) – He has a plan for all of us! We’ll talk more about this one in a few minutes.
5. He is not far from any of us (27b, 28) – This is one of the most exciting truths in this passage to me. Paul is not even speaking to Christians here; he is speaking to pagan philosophers, the Stoics, and Epicureans. This is Paul’s first major exposition of the gospel to an audience without a background of Old Testament theology or Jewish thought. The Stoics were pantheistic, believing that God was in everything: god is all, and all is god. They were also opposed to self-indulgence and pleasure. The Epicureans, on the other hand, lived for enjoyment and fulfillment. They did not deny that deities existed, but saw them as very far away and unconcerned about the affairs of man. So, Paul tells these people that God set up things so that man would seek after Him and find Him, although He is not far from each of us.
-Many people seem to adopt this Epicurean view, that God is so far off, that He doesn’t even know what is going on in our little world. However, that is not what the Bible teaches, nor is it consistent with the life experience of a true believer. Psalm 119:150-151 150 Those who devise wicked schemes are near, but they are far from your law.
151 Yet you are near, O LORD, and all your commands are true. Then in Isaiah 55:6 we read, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” He is not far from anyone here today. All that is needed is a heart that will start looking for Him, and you will find Him.
6. He is much more than man’s grandest idea of Him (29) – Men have made idols of gold and silver. Many of them are beautiful beyond imagination – according to man’s standards. However, these idols fall so pathetically short of showing what God is like that God commanded His people not to make idols. Only a living being made in God’s image is capable of showing what God is like. Christians, we have been given that charge. We are here to show the world what God is like, so that they may desire to know Him for themselves. Let’s don’t limit God by trying to make Him in our image. What else can we learn about the knowable God?
-Let’s watch a short clip from a preacher who is now with Jesus. I think it will help remind us how great God is. [That’s My King]
7. He has overlooked past ignorance, but now requires repentance (30)
-The time for ignorance is past. Now that Jesus the Messiah has come and the age of the kingdom has come, man may no longer plead ignorant regarding God’s requirements. What does He require? He requires repentance from every wrong deed. He requires a change in the posture of our heart. Rather than arrogantly thinking we can make it without Him, He wants us to humble ourselves before Him and ask Him to forgive us for the mess we have made of our lives. We must acknowledge that we need His help!
8. He will judge the world one day by the Man He raised from the dead (31) – Nobody likes to talk about judgment (including me). However, we lie to ourselves and to those around us if we pretend that God will not judge each and every person who does not call on His name in repentance. Every person will stand before God and give an account for his or her life. When that day comes, will you be able to say that you lived for Jesus, or for yourself? According to the Bible, there may be a lot of nice people in hell. Doing a lifetime of good deeds is not enough to earn our way into heaven. We can only get there by trusting in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross to take away our sins. Who will avoid this Judgment? All who believe on Christ, those who call on Him for forgiveness and salvation.
-These are some of the truths we find about God in the Bible. He is an awesome God whom everyone will answer to some day. However, in addition to holding us accountable, God wants to hold us close.
-TS: That leads us to our next main point. God wants closeness with us.
III. Getting Close to God Is What He Wants from Us (Acts 17:26-29)
26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ’For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ’We are his offspring.’ 29 "Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by man’s design and skill.
-God arranged things so that people would try to find Him and be able to do so. People in the past have tried to show what He is like by making statues and images, but He cannot be condensed into an image or even into an idea from man. He is much too big for that. He is in control. He puts people in the right place at the right time so that they will hear the gospel and have an opportunity to receive Him. The enemy tries to thwart His plan, but God is a much better strategist than Satan is. Satan is clever, but God outclasses him infinitely in every way. God will have the last word on everything! He is omniscient, knowing everything, and is also infinitely wise.
-And in God’s wisdom, He has made Himself accessible to us. He does want us to seek Him and search for Him, but He wants us to find Him – He is not far from each of us! God wants to be found by us. Now, please understand, God is not playing games with us, making it difficult to find Him, just so He can get a kick out of watching us stumble around in the darkness. No! The reason God wants us to do a little seeking for Him is because only that which is worth seeking is worth finding. If God just threw Himself at us, we may not honor Him as the Powerful King of the Universe. But when we become driven by our desire to know our Creator, and begin to seek Him out, knowing that without Him we are lost, then we will find Him and honor Him for who He is. We will find Him when we look for Him with all our heart. Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
-TS: Well, fourth and finally, getting close to God will never happen without this last requirement.
IV. Getting Close to God Begins with Repentance (Acts 17:30-34)
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." 32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 A few men became followers of Paul and believed.
-At this point, Paul lost much of his audience because most of them did not believe in the resurrection, life after death, let alone final judgment, that required repentance. As soon as Paul starts to talk about this resurrected Man who would judge people for doing right or wrong, he received 3 responses. First, it appears that most of them just wrote him off as kind of crazy or strange to believe that someone could come back to life after dying. The second response was that some people wanted to know more about what Paul had said at a later time. The third response was that some people believed what Paul had said about the God who is close and not far away. They repented, being willing to change the things in their lives that were an offense to God, and they started a relationship with the God who can be known.
-Repentance is absolutely necessary, if you want to get close to God. It is absolutely necessary if you want to make it to heaven. The reason humans struggle so much with it is because it deals a death blow to our pride. Something inside us dies so that something much greater can live! Who enjoys saying, “I was wrong?” Who really wants to admit, “I messed up. I’ve sinned and done God wrong?”
-Yet, that is exactly what God needs to hear from our mouths and see in our hearts. NLT Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise.”
Conclusion: Hopefully, we are past the point of caring more about what people think than caring what God thinks, and what is best for us and our families. I can tell you today that a relationship with the one true God through Jesus Christ will help you become a better person. It will help you be a better parent to your kids (or grandparent). It can help you be a better spouse. It can help you become a better friend! It will improve your quality of life, because it allows you to deal with the hurts and disappointments in life, freeing you to enjoy each day without anger, fear, guilt, or other negative emotions, that bog you down. It even results in deliverance for so many who are bound by addictions or are tormented by the enemy. However, one of the greatest things about knowing God is knowing that the future is taken care of- not only in this life, but in the life to come.
-What will your story be? Will you be like some who heard Paul, and had no further interest in the things of God? Will you just go on with your life? Will you be one of those who would like more information about these things before you decide how you need to respond? Or, will you be one of those who heard the truth and knew that they needed to make things right with God? I’m not here to coerce you or push you into anything, but don’t let the enemy talk you out of the best offer you’ll ever have in this life or the next! I’m not talking about joining a church or a religion, but starting a relationship with the living God, the King of the universe.
-Maybe you’d like to talk about some of these things more. Maybe you are ready to start a loving relationship with the God who loves you and is not far off. If so, I’d love to chat with you and pray with you, after we close in prayer.
-Folks, God wants you to be close to Him! If you already have a relationship with Him, I urge you to get closer! God is as close to you as you want Him to be. The question is, “How close will you let Him get?” If there is anything in your life that is keeping Jesus at a distance, it’s not worth it! Put it in its place! Don’t give your heart affections away to any other than the One who gave His life for you! He loves you and wants you to get closer to Him than you’ve ever been. I hope you will take steps to do that today.
Let’s pray.
