Sunday, October 13, 2024 AM

The Good God Revealed in Acts 17

At all times, in charge of everything and everywhere, bringing glory to your name, good to your people, magnifying your name for your son, Jesus Christ, his reign advancing in this world by your Holy Spirit.

We give you praise. We honor you. We thank you. We depend upon you. We need you. Thank you for this word in which you are declared, in which you are revealed that we may know and know clearly and powerfully, savingly who you are.

That we can worship you in confidence and ask you for whatever we need with boldness. All because of your son, Jesus Christ, who he is and what he has done in our place and for our sake, according to.

Your will.

We ask here this morning that you would help us, help us to respond well to what you have to say, how your name is proclaimed. I pray that you would, by your grace, show us your glory and do great good in us.

And we pray for these mercies in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Acts. We'll be reading from Acts chapter 17, beginning in verse 22. Acts chapter 17, beginning in verse 22. Throughout the gospel story that Luke writes for his patron Theophilus, a title or a name that means lover of God, Luke makes God the hero.

Throughout the gospel of Luke, throughout the book of Acts, Luke tells the story in which God is the hero of every event. As we think of that, it's good for us to recognize that there was never more a fit word, a better word, than that which glorifies God.

Never a word more fitly spoken than that word which glorifies God. And this is what Luke does throughout the gospel of Luke, throughout the book of Acts. He shows that God miraculously and graciously intervenes.

God keeps his promises and keeps them in ways that are even bigger than even the most faithful of the Old Testament would have expected. God takes on human flesh and dwells among men, bringing his kingdom through the risen Son and to the heart of darkness.

Early in Luke, we hear, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. Early on in the book of Acts, we hear that God, concerning wicked men, that they only do whatever God's hand and God's purpose determined before to be done.

So God is the hero. We're not left in doubt as to the strength and the sovereignty of this good God. And that is a word fitly spoken. Here in Acts 17, we've thought about the good book and the good fight.

And now, we're looking at Paul preaching about the good God to the Athenians, to the philosophers, to those at the Europagus who ascribed to the philosophies of Epicureanism, Stoicism, the basics of Greek platonic thought.

What do they need to know? They need to know the good.

God.

Last time, we recognized that God has to reveal who He is to us. He's not discovered by the scientific method, not stumbled into by random investigation, not reasoned to by rhetoric or logic. God reveals Himself to us by His Son so that we will know Him in this eternal life, that we would know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.

Paul is.

There in Athens and his spirit is provoked within him. He is faced with overwhelming death around him, surrounded by idols. Spiritually speaking, Paul is standing in the aftermath of a hurricane. And his heart is.

Upset.

He can't believe the things that he is seeing going on around him in this pagan, pagan city. And so Paul, what does he do? He proclaims a good word. He proclaims the good God, a word fitly spoken. I invite you to stand with me as we read God's Holy Word.

Acts 17, beginning in verse 22. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Europagus and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.

Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing him, I proclaim to you.

God.

Who made the world and everything in it since he is Lord of heaven and earth does not dwell in temples made with hands nor is he worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything.

Since he gives to all.

Life, breath, and all things.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. You may be seated. We live in a particular time of burgeoning new technologies. A time of a.

Of.

Widespread media that reminds me of a quote from Mark Twain.

From.

Broadcast to podcast, I think we live in a world that we are fed many, many lies. And Mark Twain considered that there were about three types of lies. There were lies, there were damnable lies, and there were statistics.

And just now, our ears are being overwhelmed, being bombarded consistently filled with word salads, vain posturing,.

False promises,.

Self-righteous boasting. And these are the kinds of words that twist the joints and break the bones of our body politic. We need a word fitly spoken. We don't need to know more about the election. We don't need to know more about tyranny.

We don't need to know more about corruption. We don't need to know more about Marxism. We don't need to know more about dollars and diseases and disasters and doom. We need to know more about God. That's not the voice of escapism.

God is our reality. God is our maker. God is in charge. He is sovereign. And God reveals himself to us through his son, Jesus Christ. We need a word fitly spoken. Psalm 4 verse 6 says, There are many who say, Who will show us any good?

Lord,.

Lift up the light of your countenance upon us. God will show us good. Many may look at the images from the James Webb telescope or calculate the complexities of the human genome and despair of any unifying, clarifying truth.

Many hang the evil of men and the pain of our day around the neck of God. But they actually hang around their own necks the millstones of despair and unbelief. Many worship diversity. Many celebrate abominations.

Many venerate political leaders. Many simply turn in on themselves until the darkness consumes them. And if they turn outward, they think tomorrow is the harbinger of doom. All men everywhere, no matter who they are, need a word fitly spoken.

Proverbs 25 verse 11 says, A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

You see that?

Apples of gold in settings of silver. That kind of word is the one that declares the glory of God to those made in God's image. That's a very wise word to very needy men. The word that declares the attributes of God in context of the character of God, that's apples of gold in settings of silver.

Yes, he is all powerful and he is all good. Yes, he knows all things. He's omniscient and he is perfectly just and wise and gracious. He is not only immortal and invisible, but he is also loving and gracious.

And so Paul preaches a word, a word fitly spoken to all of these philosophers and Greek thinking people there at the Europagus. The message is fairly simple. The good God is the only God. He is bountifully God.

He is truly God. He is gloriously God. This morning, we're going to look at verses 24 and 25 and recognize the truth that God is self-sufficient. First of all, God is revealed. We looked at that verses 22 and 23, but also we find Paul preaching this good word about God.

He's the good God and he is self-sufficient. Some of you scrambled for the dictionary the other day. I said aseity. Aseity means that God is self-existent. He does not rely on anybody else to exist.

He is self-sufficient. And we see that in verses 24 and 25 in our text. Listen to it again. Remember, Paul is saying this to those who don't know who God is. He just told them, you are trying to honor an unknown God.

Let me tell you about this unknown God. Verse 24. God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshiped with man's hands, as though he needed anything, since he gives to all life, breath, and all things.

The Athenians are ignorant. The Arapagites are scoffers. The philosophers are fools. And Paul seeks to remedy all of these things by proclaiming the good God to these people whose minds have been overthrown by false gods.

They have already proven their point of view. They've mocked him, scoffed him. They're just there for the entertainment. They exalt lofty ideas and hateful arguments against the knowledge of God. They are in rebellion against Christ.

But Paul, by relying upon the Holy Spirit, utilizes the truths of Scripture to pull down strongholds, the strongholds of the Epicureans, the strongholds of the Stoics, the strongholds of the philosophy of Plato, and preaches the good God to them, revealed by the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul, here in verses 24 through 25, begins the first set of his assertions with a pattern of parallels. And you'll see this on your handout. But Acts 17, verses 24 through 25, Paul begins and ends these two verses by stressing that God created everything and he sustains everything.

Here is his creation power and his sustaining power in his providence. The very first line is, God who made the world and everything in it. Now look at the very last line. He gives to all life, breath, and all things.

So he made everything, he created all, and he sustains all. We're gonna look at that first. But notice the next set of parallels inside of that. He is Lord of heaven and earth, as though he needed anything.

Meaning, God owns everything, therefore he needs nothing. That make sense? God owns everything, Lord of heaven and earth, that means he owns it all, therefore he needs nothing. And in the heart of the matter, he does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshiped with men's hands.

See the focus on hands? What can men do? What's the power and strength and contribution of men? There at the heart of what Paul has to say in his preaching of the good God, is that God is uncontained, he doesn't dwell in temples made with hands, and he's unconstrained, he's not limited by what men may offer.

So three ideas here about God being self-sufficient. He created all and he sustains all.

Those go together.

God owns everything, he needs nothing.

Those go together.

God is uncontained and unconstrained.

Those go together.

Think about the first one. God created all and sustains all. God brought everything into existence that exists. In Genesis chapter one, verses one and two, we hear in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. We get even more detail in John chapter one, verse one, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made. So from Genesis one to John one, we learn that we have a God, a triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, who made everything that there is, and that includes everything that there is.

So God made the world, he made the substance of it, the structure of it, the system of it. All life, all life that is lived outside of God, God made. He made the world and everything in it. And he's not just a big picture God, who leaves all the small things to lesser beings.

The Greeks had that kind of idea about certain spiritual entities. He's not like the Greek philosophers proposed distant supreme being, who subcontracts the governance of earth to lesser demiurges. The God of the Bible is not like the capricious, small gods of the Greeks, a God for this, a God for that, a God for a day, a God for a week, a God for the tree, a God for the sheep.

Paul proclaims the God of the Bible to these Greek philosophers. Paul takes a biblical truth and preaches it to those who don't recognize the Bible as an authority. He's declaring things that can only be known from the scriptures to those who think only things can be known from their rational minds.

Isaiah 42 verse five, thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it.

That's the God Paul preaches. And you can only know him and know him savingly and truly through his revelation in his word. So Paul proclaims that the good God, the only God, the truly bountiful good God made everything and sustains everything.

He gives to all life, breath, and all things. Not only is God the original artist, responsible for each droplet of paint and each brush stroke on the canvas, but he also of his own power brought the canvas, the paint, and the brush into existence by his word.

So when he puts his signature on creation, that signifies a kind of deep and glorious ownership that I think runs far past our capacity to fully appreciate. He's Lord in that way. Melchizedek, priest of God most high, king of righteousness, king of Salem, had this to say, God most high is the possessor of heaven and earth.

He owns it all. So God created all and he sustains all. This is what we mean when we say that God is self-sufficient. We also mean that God owns everything and therefore he needs nothing. God is the Lord of heaven and earth, as if he needed anything.

Think about that. Since he owns everything, what possibly could be given to him that's not already his? I wonder if we understand that kind of ownership, that God owns the substance and the structure and the system altogether.

If you own land, you don't own land. Well, you're not making more of it. Better invest and buy some land. When you buy land and you own land, you don't own land. You don't really own land. But what if you own some land, not just the surface area, which is what's mostly on your deed?

You own the surface area. Not just the surface area, but the mineral rights. Not just the mineral rights, but all the airwaves above that land. The airspace and all the organisms therein that happen to cross upon your land.

And you own it all untaxed. Then you kind of own the land, but not really because you didn't make it. God made it. So if you own land, you still don't own land. Not in the way that God owns everything.

Isaiah 45, verses 5 through 7. God says, I am the Lord and there is no other. There is no God besides me. I will gird you though you have not known me that they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting.

That's space and time. From east to west, that's a big area. And all day long. So all of the space and time. There is none beside me. I am the Lord and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness.

I make peace and create calamity. I, the Lord, do all these things. The ancients that Paul is preaching to would have been confused by a God who didn't need anything. And wasn't actively requesting contributions.

If a God didn't need anything from them, then what was the point of that God? Because they attributed all of the difficulties and frustrations, opportunities and fortunes to capricious gods who needed handling, appeasing.

And if I couldn't get this God to listen to me, then I will butter up this God to afflict that God to finally get what I want. Playing them off of one another like a daytime TV talk show. These gods were unsurprisingly very human in their passions and in their ways.

Because they were made in the image of sinful man. Bad gods always demand these things. Bad gods are always needing something more, something extra. The bad gods need to be settled down and handled. So also our modern angry gods.

The modern angry gods of Gaia and D .E .I. Always need handling. Always need something more. Always need more appeasing. They need sacrifice. They need the blood of unborn infants if the weather and the welfare are ever going to improve.

Such are very bad gods. But the good God needs nothing from us. He is self-sufficient. In Psalm 50 verses 9 through 12, he says, I will not take a bull from your house, nor goats out of your folds, for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.

Which means all the hills, by the way. I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are mine. Did you know that we're still discovering the animals that God made? They're still finding new species of animals.

Oh, we didn't know about that one. We don't even know all the creatures God has made yet. We're still finding them, but God knows every single one of them. Verse 12, he says, If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine in all its fullness.

What a good God!

When he instructed the people of Israel to offer sacrifices to him, it wasn't because he was hungry. It wasn't because he was lacking. It wasn't because he needed to be manipulated. He was teaching them something about who he is and his holiness and their sin and their need for a substitute sacrifice, a lamb.

The owner of all, who is independent of all, is the Lord of all, and nothing can contain him or constrain him. This is the center point of what Paul says here in our text. Paul says that he does not dwell, God does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshipped with men's hands.

Now this is, pun intended, the Achilles heel of Paul's opponents on the Oropagus. This is the Achilles heel of their philosophical and idolatrous system. Their sanctuaries, their sacrifices, are all manufactured by the hands of men.

That's what makes it so terrible. They have 30 ,000 public shrines in the city of Athens, and men's hands have built every single one of them. The reason why they have so many gods, so many shrines, and so many fears and failures that they continually try to appease by managing all of these gods, is not that the gods are crazy, as it was said.

It's because these gods are so small,.

So powerless, so dead,.

So bad.

Paul says God does not dwell in temples made with hands. That's the very same thing that Stephen said in Acts 7 when he was preaching against the idolatrous temple worship of the Jews, who loved their temple.

They loved the gold in the temple. They liked the Roman architectural style of the temple. They liked the pride and the glory of the temple, and they worshipped the temple. The temple was the very best.

Don't say anything about the temple. You might get killed. Stephen preached against the temple in the same fashion that Jesus did. Both of them, you'll notice, got killed by those idolaters. Now, Paul, I think, is aware of the danger.

When he preaches against temples made with hands, as he stands in the Europagus, and with just a brief gesture, points everyone's attention to the Parthenon.

No gods over there.

Oh yes, you spent generations building it, and all this money building it. This is your pride of place over there, the Parthenon. But there's no god there. No god dwells in temples made with hands. This god does not dwell there.

The one true God. The good God of whom they were ignorant could not be contained or constrained. He was not limited by the devotion of the worshippers, nor by the size of the temples that they made. And this was something that Solomon, on a clear day full of the wisdom of God, said for all posterity.

1 Kings 8 verse 27,. But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built. Solomon the wisest of all men recognized, it's not just this temple that can't contain you, it's the entirety of the universe can't contain you.

You're beyond anything that we could ever experience or fathom. You are not contained by anything you have made.

What a good God!

He is self-sufficient. Self-sufficient.

So He is not contained or constrained. Now, God made this ordered adornment that we call the world. God made this universe. He made the cosmos. And not just in a sense of the macro, but also in terms of the micro.

God is not just a god expansively, but He is a god intensively. God made everything in its largeness and everything in its minuteness. There is no sense in which God is too big to care about small things, or that if God cares about small things, it means that He's not in charge of the big things.

Those are false dichotomies. The good God of the Bible is self-sufficient. He owns everything and He governs everything. And this is a biblical truth that Paul's opponents needed to know who lived in the city of 30 ,000 shrines.

This is a word fitly spoken. It is meant to confront us with our fears, to confront us with how small we treat God. It's to compel us to fear God, to find our confidence in Him, and to hope in Him. Isaiah 66, verses 1 and 2, thus says the Lord, Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool.

Where is the house that You will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist, says the Lord. But why would someone build a temple? And why would someone offer sacrifices?

Because they want to know God, and be in relationship with God, to know their Maker, and be at right relations with Him, to be at peace with this God. And so God says,. But on this one I will look, on this one I will show My favorable countenance, He who is of a poor and contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says. To weigh in. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel. The poor in spirit are those who repent.

I have no more commitments to living life my way. I have no more commitments to the merits that I have accumulated in my life. I'll make a pile of all of my bad deeds. I'll make a pile of all of my good deeds.

And I'll leave them all for Christ. That's poverty of spirit. I'm not seeking to save my life at any level. Losing my life in Christ, that I may have life in Him. How blessed are the poor in spirit. Paul preaches this good God.

Notice in the context, he does so by preaching Christ and Him raised from the dead. This is how he begins his preaching in Athens. And he's going to complete his preaching in Athens by bringing everybody's focus upon.

Christ crucified,.

Christ raised from the dead. Preaching a humbling and hope-filled Gospel. How blessed are the poor in spirit. Those who recognize their neediness before an all-sufficient, all-powerful, good God. And the good news is, for the poor in spirit, to whom belong the Kingdom of Heaven, it's because they belong to Christ.

And if we belong to Christ, Christ is ours, and God is ours. And that's good news. How much of our anxiety and anger has to do with our realizing how insufficient our former confidences were? How much of our anxiety and anger has to do with realizing that our nation is not self-sufficient?

Our political system is not self-sufficient. Our bureaucracies are not self-sufficient. Our economy is not self-sufficient. Our banks are not self-sufficient. Our trade agreements are not self-sufficient.

Our military is not self-sufficient. Our power, our wisdom, our tactics, our capabilities are not self-sufficient. Our bank accounts are not self-sufficient. Our jobs are not self-sufficient. Our health is not self-sufficient.

Our relationships are not self-sufficient. Our wisdom is not self-sufficient. Our sanity is not self-sufficient. But we have a good God who is self-sufficient. And it is in Him that all of our confidence must lie.

To confess the good God, that He is self-sufficient, is not to despair that He is absent, that He is distant and far away. But when we confess that He is self-sufficient, we may in Christ by the Spirit know the confidence and stability of communion with this good God.

We don't have to flail into sin, flail into idolatry, when we have the anchor and the ballast of this self-sufficient, good God. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank You for this reminder. Lord, we need to know this.

We live in a world that is extremely idolatrous and pagan. We live in a world that is filled with fear. We live in a world full of bad news. I thank You that You have revealed Yourself as the God who doesn't need anything, that You are good all on Your own, powerful all on Your own, glorious all on Your own, and that out of Your good pleasure, simply out of Your grace, You save sinners like us and bring us to know how good You are.

We give You praise for this.

We pray.