Today on Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. Now some of you are listening to this right now and you say, well, yeah, but I just don't know as much as you or Paul. So what should I do?
Study is what you should do. If you care about the people around you, then why would you not figure out a way to communicate the gospel to them? So have you ever wondered how bank tellers spot a counterfeit bill? I can tell you this. It's not by spending all their time looking at the fake dollar bills.
Instead, they spot fakes by investing their energy and studying the real bills. And today, Pastor J.D. shows us that as Christians, the same principle applies.
If we want to share God's redemptive plan and a counterfeit culture, we've got to know God's word, the real deal more than anything else. Pastor J.D. titled the message Starting Where People Are. Remember, you can find all the messages in this study in the book of Acts at J.D.
Greer dot com. But now let's get started. Here's Pastor J.D. So Acts chapter 17, we're going to begin around verse 16. I'm just going to work our way through this passage and I'll read a few verses and stop and make some points. And then we'll just work our way all the way down to verse 34 that way. Verse 16. Now, while Paul, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, this is not Athens, Georgia, this is Athens, Greece.
Verse 17. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, which seems to be where he always started his evangelism, and in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be there. The marketplace was not just a place they shopped. Paul's not hanging out at the checkout aisle at Target, you know, asking awkward questions. This was like a cultural center for them.
It's where they discuss new ideas. And so he is there engaging them because he's been provoked by their idolatry, which leads me to number one. If you're a Christian, write this down. For the Christian, grieve over idolatry and do something about it.
Here is my question for you. When you see idolatrous structures in our society, what is your reaction? When you watch things like the Oscars or the Grammys, what emotion fills your heart? Is it admiration? Is it awe? Is it a sense of repulsion?
Or is it compassion and heartbreak? You see, if you're not provoked by the idolatry, if you're not provoked by the sensuality, then that means you are, here's an old word, worldly. It means you're just very at home in the world and its idols, or whether you acknowledge it or not, are kind of the idols of your heart.
What they want is what you want. But if you're one of the ones who sees all those things and just gets angry and says, you know, to hell with the world, then you don't really get the gospel. Summit Church, in Paul, we see a picture of what we need to be.
People who are deeply aware of our culture, able to dialogue with it, but untainted by it, which means that we got to get to know our culture. We got to pay attention to it. The only way Paul was upset by the idolatry of the culture is he'd spent time getting to know it.
Many of us are all peeved and ticked off about where our culture is headed, but we're not actually listening to what people are saying. Now, I'm not advocating that you sit around and watch filthy movies and call that cultural research, but that you be engaged, you stay engaged in the culture for the purpose of reaching people, because you're going to see that Paul's presentation of the gospel is built on how much he has listened to them and understood the questions that they're asking. And you do that because that's what Jesus did with you. Jesus did not see your idolatry. He was provoked by it, but he did not run away from it. He did not desire to be accepted by us. He ran straight to us. He confronted us and he showed us the futility of our idolatry and that there was a gap between what we were doing and what God wanted for us.
So that's number one. Verse 18, some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also converse with him. And some say, what does this babbler wish to say? Now, babbler is a very derogatory term. It literally means a bird who picks up seeds and spits them out without digesting them.
Think like a chicken. Verse 22, so Paul, standing up in the midst of Mars Hill, the Areopagus said, men of Athens, I perceive that you are in every way very religious. Now, is that a compliment or an insult? That's the beauty of it.
You don't know. The word religious in Greek can literally mean spiritual, which would be a compliment, or it can mean superstitious, which would be an insult. They think he means spiritual, so they take it as a compliment. Paul's probably got a twinkle in his eye because he meant the double entendre. Oh, you're very religious. So they're like, oh, yes, we are.
Thank you for noticing. Verse 23, for as I pass along and observe the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God. This was their just in case God.
Just in case the real God didn't get represented in the thousands of other guides, we got, here's to you unknown God. Acts 17, two, when he walks into a synagogue, it says he opened the scriptures and reasoned with them. Paul didn't open the Bible on Mars Hill.
Why? Because they don't recognize the authority of the Bible. So he knows he's got to reason with them to get them to pay attention to what the Bible says. So he starts not with chapter and verse, he starts with their questions. And the only way he could start with their questions is he knew what they were. Number two, Paul found points of agreement.
Here's what he said. I can see you're searching for God. Now, what Paul's about to do in the next few verses is he's going to start pointing out little logical problems with their approach to God. Look at verse 24. The God, the real God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't dwell in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything since he gave to mankind life and breath and everything they need. Greek and Roman gods, you see, were always a means to some other thing. You worshiped and served them because you wanted something they could give you. Whatever you were looking for, prosperity, money, sex, smoother bowel movements, whatever, whatever was important to you, you worshiped God to get that thing. The real God, Paul says, is so glorious and transcendent that he is his own reward.
And he's not sought as a means to anything else. Paul is quoting from things embedded in their popular culture. Being then God's offspring, just like your poets have said, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and the imagination of man. I'm going to give you number three and four.
We'll do them together. Number three, Paul reasoned with them. Is your approach to life or approach to God, is it working for you?
I'm just going to ask you questions to help you be honest with yourself. You see, before Paul presents Jesus as the solution, he wants to show them that their current solutions aren't really working, that their current answers aren't working. Francis Schaeffer, who was a very famous Christian philosopher that was, I think, probably really popular in the 1960s and 1970s. He's since gone on to be with the Lord.
But Francis Schaeffer called this blowing the roof off somebody's house. He means that before, somebody doesn't know they need to seek shelter in Jesus until you've blown the roof off the shelter they're currently in. So he said, what we got to do first before we show them Jesus is the answer is we got to show them that their current answers aren't really working.
He said, you do that just by asking questions the way that Paul did. For example, I've asked activists who are concerned about global suffering but are seeking to address global suffering apart from the gospel. I'll say, it's awesome that you want to give food and education to everybody, but do these things cure the problems of mankind? I mean, look at the places that have lots of food and education.
Are they free of problems? Is our country free of problems? Every utopian attempt in history has ended in tyranny. That's what human history is, the ash heap of utopian attempts.
Doesn't that show you that we need a solution that's greater than just external changes and more prosperity? I've asked people who say, you know, evolution explains everything. We have no need of God. I'm like, well, if you think evolution explains everything, that given enough time and space that nature will naturally just work itself into higher and higher levels of complexity and ultimately perfection, where did nature get that quality to begin with? In fact, where did nature itself come from?
Why is there something rather than nothing? I heard an interview years ago with Carl Sagan, who was the guy who famously said the universe is all there is and was and ever will be. And he's talking about basically getting back to the big bang because everything just came from there. And that's where it just all began and it worked itself from the complexity we have today. And the guy that was interviewing him, not a Christian, but he said, okay, well, where did the big bang come from? He said, well, that's where science stops because it just always was. And we just can't go farther back from that.
And you're listening to that and I'm thinking, you can't stop there. You can't tell me, hey, nothing times nobody equals everything, just accept it. Where did it come from? Is that really a satisfying answer that, yes, it just all just, it always was, always will be.
It just came from nothing and just developed into what it is. When I talk to people who say that all roads lead to God, whatever way you choose, God's like a mountain, whatever way you want to get to the top, it's up to you. You've heard me do this. The question I ask them is, how do you know that? The only way that you can tell me all roads lead up the mountain to the same place is if you can see the whole mountain.
And that's the very thing you're not allowing me to do is see the whole mountain of God. So you're doing the very thing that you won't let me do, which is how you can tell me that my road is getting to the same place that the Hindus road is getting to. Does that really make sense?
Is that fair? When I talk to those who say that all moral values are equal, whatever morality you choose is good for you, I'm like, do you really believe that? Because I lived in a society for two years.
It was a Southeast Asian society that genuinely believed that life works better if you keep women uneducated and keep them a home. Are you willing to say that those moral values are equal to ours because they'll claim it works for them? When I see that somebody has given themselves to an idol, I usually just ask, is it working for you? Because I know it's not. I'm like, do the people that have the God that you're searching for, do they look like happy, satisfied people?
Just fast forward and look down to if you get everything you're looking for. You want money? Look at the people who have all the money. Do they look like happy, satisfied people to you?
Paris Hilton, she looked like well-balanced, happy person. What happens if Wall Street crashes again? What happens if the whole financial system goes to pot? What happens if you die?
Are these things going to sustain you after death? And if I can quote their own profits to show them that, then I do that. And you guys hear me do that in here, don't you? For example, you probably heard me quote a number of times that little line I saw in a Fortune 500 CEO said this in Forbes magazine, where he said, I spent my entire life climbing the ladder of success.
I finally got to the top of it only to find out it was leaning against the wrong building. Is your God worth the things you're sacrificing for it? I ask people, I'm like, you know, if you're God's money, then you sacrifice your integrity, you sacrifice your family. Is that worth it?
If your God is comfort, then when your wife gets on your nerves, you sacrifice her and divorce her so that you can maintain comfort. Then your kids dislike you. I mean, is that really worth it?
Is it worth the things you're sacrificing for it? I just ask questions. Because I know that God has placed eternity in every human heart. And the Bible, which is kind of a cheat sheet for me, tells me that only Jesus truly addresses that need. And so I know that if I ask questions long enough, I'm going to expose that.
Now, some of you are listening to this right now. And you say, well, yeah, but I just don't know as much as you or Paul. So what should I do?
Study is what you should do. If you care about the people around you, then why would you not figure out a way to communicate the gospel to them? It does not make any sense to me that you would actually believe the gospel and then just be lazy in your abilities to communicate it with people. You know, I don't know how to do sign language.
You want to know why? It's not because it's hard, but it is hard. But the reason I don't know sign language is there's nobody in my immediate family that's hearing impaired. There's nobody that I've ever wanted to communicate with so badly that it forced me to learn sign language. I guarantee you that if one of my children were hearing impaired, I would know sign language just like that. I would study. Why?
Because I want to communicate with them. If you are not learning to be able to express the gospel to people around you in ways that are effective, you either A, don't really believe it's true or B, you don't care about those people at all. So you need to study. You need to get good at this.
You need to learn. The other thing I'll just tell you is like, what? I don't know what to do. Just ask questions.
Anybody can ask questions. I just ask questions. I just keep asking questions.
I'm that guy. I just keep asking until they say something. I'm like, there it is right there. You just laid it out. And just keep asking questions because that's what Paul is doing. That's how he's exposing what's in their heart. Here's number four.
I told you I'd do it together with number three. Paul demonstrated to them, God is greater than you've imagined. He demonstrates to them that God is greater than they've imagined.
You see, listen to this. One of the chief characteristics of all false religions, listen, is a truncated or shrunk down view of God. So that's what Paul goes after. Your view of God, he says, is too small. God is not someone that you can manipulate to get something else you want like prosperity or power. The real God, Paul says, is never just the means to an end. The real God would be sought for his own sake. Any God so big that he created the universe, you don't use that God as a means to get something else. He would be the thing worth knowing. He's so glorious that you would use everything in life to know him. What he is saying to them is, if there really is a God who is powerful enough to create the whole universe, that God you would not seek as a means to a better life now.
That God is better than money. He's better than power. He's better than prosperity. He's better than good sex.
He's just worth knowing. He's like, your God's what you're small. You know, I tell people, the real God, and this seems to be what Paul is saying here too, the real God's not somebody you can easily explain. When I talk to people who've got questions about God, I'm like, you know, if we're talking about the infinite God, wouldn't we expect that there are certain things that that God does that are going to be beyond our immediate ability to explain? You know, there's a thing called the problem of evil. It's a reason that a lot of people say they don't believe in God. If there's a good God, how could there be suffering?
A lot of argument goes like this. If God is all loving, he would not want suffering to exist. If God is all powerful, then he could make suffering cease to exist. Because suffering exists, that means that God is either not all loving or not all powerful. And if God is not all loving or not all powerful, he's not really God. Therefore, suffering proves there can be no God.
Do you follow that? Because there is suffering, it means God's either not all loving or not all powerful because it exists. Therefore, there must be no God.
Here is the hole in that, that is almost so obvious. If God is infinite in power, and he's infinite in love, he's also going to be infinite in wisdom. And if his wisdom is as high above mine as his power is above mine, I mean, think about how much greater a God who created the galaxies, how much greater his power is than yours. God speaks the worlds into existence.
I can't figure out how to sync my phone with the Bluetooth thing in my car. And I've got an instruction manual. When I'm thinking about a God who is infinite in love, he's also infinite in his manual. When I'm thinking about a God who creates the complexity of atoms, and a guy who has trouble syncing a Bluetooth device, that's a pretty big gap between his power and mine.
Right? If the gap between God's wisdom and mine is as great as the gap between his power and mind, then see, it just makes sense to me that there's going to be a few things in life that are just not going to make sense to me. I was reading a philosopher the other day who said that the person he doesn't believe in, God, is purposeless evil. He said, if evil had a purpose, I could concede that God may be allowing it to happen. He said, but there is no purpose for a lot of the evil, therefore God does not exist.
Again, here's the problem with that. He's assuming that whatever purpose that God has, his mind can grasp. Another philosopher named Alvin Plantinga answered him this way. He said, well, he said, imagine that you're out in the woods camping and you're in a single person tent and I come up to you and say, is there a camel in your tent? There is no camel in my tent because if there was a camel in my tent, I could see him. He said, if I came up to you and said, however, is there a, he called it a no-see-um.
You ever heard of that? We always called them chiggers when I was a kid, these little tiny things that like, you know, that when you're camping out, they make it miserable for you. They bite you and everything. He said, if I ask you, is there a no-see-um in your tent? And you turn around and take a glance and say, nope, there are no-see-ums in the tent because no no-see-ums in the tent because I can't see them. He would say, I think you're missing the point of the name no-see-um is that we call them no-see-ums because you can't see them. Your eyesight's not good enough to see them even though they're there. So that's not a good reason for you to say that there are no no-see-ums just because you can't see them because they're smaller than your eyesight can perceive. If there is a God who is infinite in his wisdom, then maybe some of the things that he does has a purpose that your mind is not readily going to grasp. I just don't feel like that's a big jump. If there really is a God, he's going to be beyond some of these questions he's saying that the philosophers are asking.
I will admit to you that is frustrating to me because I do not like unanswered questions. But I just understand that if God is infinitely wise, then of course there's going to be things about him and his plan that I can't always grasp immediately. In fact, I love this statement right here.
Look at this. If God were small enough to be understood, he would not be big enough to be worshipped. If God were small enough to be understood, he would not be big enough to be worshipped. The real God is transcendent and glorious.
He's going to baffle you sometimes. Paul says to them, don't you know that? Don't you have in your heart this yearning for a God who is infinite in goodness and infinite in power and also infinite in wisdom?
Your heart knows that he exists and you know you want to know him. Isn't that the unknown God that you're searching for? And then at last, Paul goes into the gospel.
Verse 30, the times of ignorance God overlooked, which just means that God stayed uninvolved, leaving them to their idolatrous error. 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's given assurance, or the word there is proof. He gave proof to all by raising him from the dead.
Write this down. Number five, Paul proclaimed Jesus and then asked this question, who do you say that he is? He says the God that you were looking for came to earth. He revealed God's ways to us.
And then he gave us proof of who he was by raising from the dead. So the question now is not is Christianity a better explanation? The question is, is Christianity a divine revelation? Real truth, he tells these philosophers, is not achieved by idle speculation. Real truth is achieved by divine revelation. I am not asking has God given me the best explanation?
I am asking if this is divine revelation given to me through Holy Spirit illumination. And the question becomes, who do you say that he is? You see, that's the most important question that has ever been asked in human history when Jesus looked at a group of people and says, who do you say that I am? When I don't know what else to do, y'all, I just go straight to Jesus. After I've done my best to ask the questions and sometimes do a good job, sometimes not, I say, would you just consider who Jesus is with me? Would you read the gospel with me? Would you look at this man and tell me, is he a fraud?
Is he a phony? Or is he really who he says he is? At the end of the day, I'm not a Christian because I've developed a better explanation for all the questions.
I am a Christian because I believe Jesus came through the divine revelation. He told me that he was God in the flesh. He demonstrated his power.
He demonstrated his love. He claimed to die for me on a cross and rise again. I believe he is inaccurate. I believe he is true.
I believe he is faithful. I believe he has given to me the picture of God. And so who do you say that I am? I say that you are Jesus Christ, the son of the living God. Religion and philosophy, when I ask questions like, who's got a better argument for truth? Who is right? The gospel says, nope, who is Jesus?
That's the question. Religion and philosophy say, which one is the best explanation? Christianity, the gospel says, what happened in the death and resurrection? Religion and philosophy ask, what does God want for us? The gospel declares, look at what God has done for us. Religion and philosophy say, what kind of sacrifice do I have to make to gain God's acceptance? The gospel says, look at the sacrifice God has made for you. You see, you don't know what else to do. You do what Paul did.
You say, hey, who is he? Knowing they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, we will hear you again about this.
So Paul went out from their midst, dropped the mic, said I'll be here all week. Some men joined him and believed. Three reactions. Mocked, curious and want to hear again, joined him and believed.
You should be getting all three of these reactions in your life. There should be people who mock you. There should be people who are drawn to you curiously that are coming with you and visiting your church with you and maybe reading the Bible with you. And there should be people who are joining you and then believing.
By the way, did you see the order of that last one? Not believed him and joined, but joined him and believed. It means that sometimes in this kind of context, people end up joining themselves to you before they join themselves to Jesus. Jesus saw us in our idolatry and instead of condemning us and writing us off, he ran to us, showed us our insufficiency and then revealed the love of God for us in his death and resurrection. So now it's our turn to do that for others. You're listening to Pastor J.D.
Greer here on Summit Life. You know, one of the biggest themes in Acts is the idea that in the end, is the idea that every believer is called to be on mission. But I think sometimes when we hear the word mission, we think it's for the pastor or the youth group or someone else. But that's not the case.
Right, J.D.? What you come to understand is, yeah, the word mission applies in a special way to those that go cross-cultural. But in another and maybe even more fundamental sense, all Christians are are sent to live on mission.
We always say that the question is no longer if you're called into mission. The question is simply where and how. So what we've done is we've created a companion Bible study to go along with this series. This Bible study will take you deeper into the pages and the stories of them that are there in the Book of Acts and show you how they apply to you. Now we're offering part two that covers chapters nine through twenty eight and beyond. I want to make sure that you have a chance to get volume two. It's available right now at J.D.
Greer dot com. And there's a few copies of volume one still left. If you you can find out there how you can get that one if you missed it. Just get them both. We want you to be able to study the Book of Acts and to have it transform you like it's impacted us. So just go and get either of these at J.D. Greer dot com.
Like J.D. mentioned, the Summit Life team has created a Bible study that complements this series and answers some of the questions you may have about being a missionary right where you live. It's volume two of a personal Bible study called Sent the Book of Acts. If you missed volume one earlier this spring, it's not too late to get that as well. We'll send you a copy as our way of saying thanks for your support of this ministry. Ask for Sent the Book of Acts study guide when you give a suggested donation of twenty five dollars or more today by calling eight six six three three five fifty two twenty.
That's eight six six three three five fifty two twenty. Or go online to request your copy at J.D. Greer dot com. I'm Molly Bidevich inviting you to come back tomorrow when Pastor J.D.
explains that we've all got idols in our lives and they're probably closer than we think. It's time to identify and remove them as quickly as we can. See you Thursday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
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