ACTS
Pursuing The Call – Part 4
Dr. Tom Bartlett
JULY 14, 2019
Acts 17:16-34
OUTLINE
GETTING TO KNOW GOD
Acts 17:16-34
The struggle of every person is, “who or what will be God to me?”
TO KNOW THE TRUE AND LIVING GOD . . .
Believe He exists and is knowable
I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Acts 17:23 (ESV)
Understand that He is very close
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. . . Acts 17:26-27 (ESV)
Repent and accept His love for you
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.” Acts 17:30-31 (ESV)
MANUSCRIPT
Good morning, my name is Tom Bartlett. We welcome you to the Northern Tribe of Steele Creek Church. We’re a bible believing and preaching church who loves this community.
Now, every person ever born will have to answer the same questions, who am I? Why am I here? Is there any meaning and purpose in my life?
Why do we ask these questions and seek their answers? It has everything to do with the design of who we are. We are made to seek knowledge, to seek meaning and to find value and meaning in something outside of who we are.
You can seek those things in all kinds of experiences, diving into discoveries in science, in pleasure, in non-pleasure and abstaining from all kinds of things.
BUT – God made us in such a way that none of those questions will ever be fully answered outside of a relationship with Him.
In Acts 17, Paul has found himself in Athens without his travelling party, they were still coming instead of taking up tourism in the city that centuries before had produces, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epicures, he was still on mission pursing the call that God has placed on his life to up set the world in a good way with the truth and Good News!
There he finds the people worshipping everything, rocks, animals, pleasure, you name it. They were so into making sure that every possible god wad worshipped that they constructed a statue to what they called the “Unknown God” just in case they missed one!
Wow, what a set up for a preacher of the One True God!
Now, before you think these people are different than us, we are all the same and while we might say there’s only one God, we all suffer for the same inner struggles that cause us to worship so many other things.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON, THING, OR POSSESSION IN YOUR LIFE. This may not seem like worship, but worship is what you give your thoughts, time and attention over all else. If it’s your car, well that’s the object of your worship, if it’s pleasure in sex or food or whatever that’s your god. It can be anything that occupies that space between your ears and your heart.
HERE’S THE QUESTION:
The struggle of every person is, “who or what will be God to me?”
Let me share with you the advice Paul gave to these pantheistic people of Athens. Seeing the unknown God, Paul is set before them at a particular place in an informal “hearing” where people would cone to listen to different ideas.
TO KNOW THE TRUE AND LIVING GOD . . .
In contrast to the teachings in that culture, Paul boldly stands before his critics and explains that there is “One true God” and they can actually know and involve themselves with Him. He says that they first must. . .
Believe He exists and is knowable
I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Acts 17:23 (ESV)
You all have in our mind that there’s a God you may have missed and guess what? That feeling is there because it’s true. There’s a God you missed and He’s not a dead rock or some philosophical idea. He’s real and He’s personable.
YOU CAN ACTUALLY KNOW HIM!
This idea sets the biblical God apart from all other belief systems. Paul further tells them that if they want to know God they will have to . . .
Understand that He is very close
Many people accept that there “a” God but the thought that He interacts with His creation is beyond their understanding. Paul says about God,
And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. . . Acts 17:26-27 (ESV)
These comments were in direct opposition to the teaching the day that material was eternal. They are not, God is!
God created not chance or some other mystic force. He created all and can found in we seek Him.
The idea that God created, is established in science and common sense. SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS – Things go from order to disorder. To go from disorder to order requires an outside force.
In common sense we can see that things exist with creative purpose and design, there must be a God.
Paul says, He’s real and you can find Him! BUT YOU MUST SEEK HIM.
Again, these people were “seekers” so to speak. Paul is saying reason it out, think about it. He’s close!
Now Paul takes it to the point. This is the real issue for all people. You see people can believe in a God that they can control, they can design. It doesn’t work that way.
He tells them if they believe He is real and that He is close and they want to seek Him, in order to know Him they will have to repent, which is a fancy word for changing their minds and their life direction/allegiances.
Repent and accept His love for you
This is the question of worship. Will you surrender your will to God’s?
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.” Acts 17:30-31 (ESV)
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