And here’s the big idea. God calls us to be joyful witnesses for Jesus in every aspect of life for the good of our city. So, please, if you’re able, go ahead and stand for the reading of God’s holy and perfect word. We stand to to come under the authority of God’s word knowing it’s not my feelings or my personal opinion that’s the authority. It is the authority of the word of God that we listen to.

Here’s what it says in chapter 17 beginning in verse 16. Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be there. Some of the Epicurian and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?”

Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.” And they took him and brought him to the Aropagus, Mars Hill, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting, for you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know, therefore, what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who live there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul standing in the midst of the Aropagus said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.

For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined aotted 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.

For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. All the times of ignorance, God overlooked. But now, 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.

Now when 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. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionius, the Aropagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. Thank you. You may be seated.

So here in our passage, Paul is in the city of Athens by himself. Now, he’s been with a missions team up until this point, but he’s been sent on ahead of the others. And so, he’s there by himself in the great city of Athens. This would be the intellectual and religious hub of the ancient world. Athens is commonly known as the cradle of Western civilization.

All these intellectual philosophers, people like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, they came from Athens. And here is this Jewish, formerly Jewish rabbi Paul in their midst. And he interacts with two schools of thought that were very popular in that time. Epicurionism and stoicism. Epicurans were a bit like practical atheists.

They they believed in the gods. Some of them did, but they thought the gods are so distant, so out of the picture that they don’t even want to involve themselves with human lives. They don’t care how we live. And so their mindset was, you know what, you only live once, so have as much fun as you can while you’re here. They were hedonists at every level.

They believed life was about getting as much pleasure and happiness out of this world before you die. And they denied any judgment at the end. They denied that there was an afterlife. If they were living today, they would find a home among the secular libertarian individualist who lives by the mantra, if it feels good, do it. Then there’s the Stoics on the other hand.

They were the pantheus. These guys believed that God was in everything, the stone, the trees, the sky. God is the soul of the universe, they would say. And so because of that, they believed in determinism. They believe that that life is ultimately about just gritting your teeth, enduring hardship, all for the sake of duty and honor.

Today, those who subscribe to new age thought or or maybe those who read lots of self-help books and very self-sufficient mindset, that would be a stoic. So, these two schools of thought are in Athens. And what both had in common was that they had never heard the gospel. They had never heard a biblical worldview. They had their philosophies.

They had their worldviews and it was not something related to this. And so here comes this Jewish rabbi, formerly Jewish rabbi Paul. And he comes along and he says, “There’s only one God. He’s the creator of everything. And this Jewish man named Jesus who was crucified has come back to life and one day he’s going to judge the living and the dead.”

You can imagine the intellectual elites in Athens. How this would sound so strange and bizarre. You’re telling me somebody came back to life and he’s going to judge me? In many ways, these philosophers would say that they loved wisdom. That’s what philosophy means.

And yet they had no place for God in their thinking. And so even if you claim to love wisdom, if you don’t, if you reject God, if you have no place for God in your thinking, then you’re actually removing any chance of finding true wisdom. Proverbs says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” If you want wisdom, true wisdom, you have to first acknowledge that God is and that you belong to him. Honestly, Athenians probably had a lot in common with Portlanders today.

You know, you can believe in whatever you like. You can you can live your truth. Whatever you want to do, whatever you want to believe, it’s okay. Just don’t be too exclusive, right? That’s the Athenian thought here.

But here’s what I want you to see. Even though Paul was in a very pagan, very idolatrous culture. He didn’t write them off. He didn’t say, “You know what? These people, they’re so full of themselves.

They’re they’re so arrogant. They won’t even want to hear me.” He didn’t see them as a lost cause. He was a faithful witness for Jesus even in Athens. And so in your notes, first thing about being a faithful witness is commit to being a faithful witness for Jesus wherever God places you, wherever you are.

See, instead of just smuggly ignoring all these pagan philosophers, Paul chooses to engage with them. First, he reasons with the Jews in the synagogue. But then he goes on and he reasons with these pagan philosophers and he talks with them on their level in a way that they would understand. It says his spirit was provoked by the all all the idols in the city, but he knew God has me here for a reason. I’m in Athens by myself.

I’m not going to waste my time. I am on a kingdom assignment. And so he spends time talking in verse 17 in the marketplace every day with those who happen to be there. Every day Paul could be seen striking up conversations with total strangers who had never heard of Jesus, never expressed interest in Jesus. And he’s engaging with them on an individual level.

And this is important. This says something about Paul. He doesn’t just preach to crowds. He engages with individuals in conversation. Whoever God puts in his path.

The Jewish people had this history throughout the Old Testament of being in foreign lands and God always called them to to point the pagan people, point those foreigners back to the one true God. This happened in the book of Jeremiah. The Jewish people had sinned and they were in exile in Babylon. They were in many ways under judgment, under discipline because of their sin. And and yet God says, “Use this time wisely.

I want you to thrive in Babylon. I want you to make a difference for me in Babylon.” In verse in Jeremiah 29:7, he says, “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” That’s such an important reminder for Christians today. You know, we may live in a very anti-God, anti-Christian culture, and yet God doesn’t want us to not seek the welfare of the city.

He wants us to seek the welfare, to pray for the city, to not see it as hopeless. You know, some some people might say that, you know, it’s it’s a lost cause. It’s it’s like, you know, trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. But I want you to see that that perspective doesn’t come from God. Look at Paul in Athens.

He didn’t see the Athenians with all their self-centered philosophy as as just, you know, a lost cause beyond the reach of God’s grace. No, he’s he’s going to talk with them. He’s going to engage with them and bring them the hope they need. God wants us to be faithful witnesses for him wherever he puts us in our neighborhood, our workplace, our community. God has you assigned wherever you’re at.

You are on missionary assignment. And so, we’re to live with purpose. And later Paul will even say that God is the one who determines when and where you live. It is not an accident that you are living in the year 2025 in Portland area. That is God’s purposeful arrangement because he has an assignment for you.

And that’s exactly how Paul saw it. Seek the good of the city. Love your neighbors. Raise a family. Be a faithful presence.

Pray for the lost. Jesus doesn’t want us to be known for our anger and disdain. It It’s easy to be angry. Anybody can be angry at people that they disagree with. Anybody can be angry at a culture that’s not in line with what they believe.

What takes the power of God is to show grace and to speak the truth in love to those who don’t agree. We’re called to be salt and light. Salt preserves. Light, sheds truth on a situation. We’re citizens of heaven, but we’re also citizens of our nation.

And and one doesn’t cancel out the other. We We can be both. We’re called to be both. Thank God that people like William Wilberforce, the Christian abolitionist, he didn’t take that approach of rearranging deck shares, he said, you know what? This transatlantic slave trade is wrong.

It’s right in the eyes of the culture right now because people want it. It makes money. It’s good for society, people would say. And yet God says it’s wrong. And I’m calling you, Wilburforce, to stand up for truth and justice because these are image bearers of God.

And it’s because he had that mindset that Christianity is not this private faith where where you go into the final, you know, corners of society in the shadows and that’s where you exercise Christianity. No, it’s to it’s something we’re to take public. We’re to be bold and public about our faith in Jesus because Jesus makes a difference. The key to being a faithful witness for Jesus in the city is to stay committed to corporate worship, to develop that that rich devotional life with the Lord and to seize opportunities to bless others. To be salt and light means that our faith causes us to make a difference in the world.

We don’t live for ourselves first and foremost. We live for him. And s so the point would be if we moved away we would want people to say you know things were better when that Christian was here. Things were better when that Christian family lived there. If we moved away what difference would it make in your workplace in your neighborhood in your community?

Secondly in your notes pray consistently for the good of your church neighbors and community. Paul, we know, would have been praying in this situation. Paul is the one who said, “Pray without ceasing. Pray continually in all circumstances. Be thanking God.”

And so, you can know as he’s interacting with all these Epicurans and these Stoics. He is praying for these people. He’s praying for the city. He He loves these people. That’s what it means to be a Christian.

You love lost people. You You want to bring the hope of Jesus Christ to people who don’t know him. And we live in a time of rising anxiety, depression, suicide, a whole raft of social ills. And yet this is a time when Christians of all times, they need to be bold prayer warriors on behalf of the community, the neighborhood, the church. We need to see ourselves as the hands and feet of Christ.

God is is reaching out to the world through us. Paul even says, you know, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making his appeal through us. The world needs to hear the message of grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ. And it’s got to come through us, through his ambassadors. So that’s what it means to be his body today.

And it happens through prayer. If you’ve ever watched a cycling race, you know that there’s always the lead racer, right? And he’s he’s the one facing the headwind. Right literally inches behind the lead guy is always the the next racer who’s in the slipstream. And he he’s able to draft behind that lead guy and that allows him to, you know, conserve his energy, stay with that lead racer, not not get that headwind in his face.

And in the same way, we’re called to be in God’s slipstream. We’re called to draft behind God. And through prayer, that’s what we’re doing. We’re letting him lead the way. And we’re asking for him to give us the strength and power we need to live the Christian life.

We can’t live the Christian life apart from him. So being a witness is about praying for others, praying for their salvation, praying for opportunities to bless them and put Christ on display. It it’s seeing yourself as always on assignment, always there for purpose. So it’s about praying for the salvation of others. It’s also about going the extra mile for that canankerous co-orker.

I It’s about loving the neighbor who maybe sees things totally different from you. It’s about raising kids who love the city and and don’t just want to use the city. It’s about treating your political opposites with dignity and respect. Something all too rare in our world. Amen.

But followers of Jesus are called to be different. We’re called to point others to the hope of Jesus. And what happens is that as you pray for the lost around you, God begins to develop this compassion in you where before you were only angry at others, you were only despising them or or looking down on them, whatever it might be. And when you start praying for people who are against you, God cultivates that love. It starts springing out of you.

Now I love these people who are totally different from me. It’s only because of Christ. And so see, every conflict or every issue you face with an antagonistic person, just like Paul saw antagonism when he was in Athens, every opportunity is a chance to put the grace of Jesus on display. And sometimes it’s as basic as laying aside our pride and admitting that, you know, there’s areas I need to work on. There’s things that I need to apologize for.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” And so, it’s looking for ways that we can find common ground with people. Christian marriages won’t be perfect, but we of all people should practice forgiveness. We we should be those who model this is what it looks like to keep short accounts with your spouse, with your own family. And usually this starts with the husband.

You know, God has called the husband to be the head of the household. And that means he’s got to take that step first of establishing that atmosphere of grace in the home. In the kingdom of God, we’re called to make sacrifices and deny our need to get even. Third, in your notes, build bridges to the lost through asking good questions. And you see this because Paul everywhere he goes, he’s ready to engage with people with questions.

Paul was committed to understand people he shared the gospel with. And in different context, Paul is going to share the gospel in different ways. In Acts 13, for example, he’s speaking to Jewish people with a biblical background. And so, he starts preaching Jesus from scripture, from the Psalms. But here in Athens, he’s talking to a primary primarily gentile and pagan audience.

And so, he’s interacting with them on a very different level because he knows they don’t know the Bible. They don’t know scripture. And in this idolatrous culture of Athens, Paul takes this approach and he learns about their idols. It says he sees an altar labeled to the unknown god. You know, these people were so religious that they even had an altar to an unknown god just in case they forgot one.

And Paul uses that as a starting point. I love this. He says, “That God that you don’t know and you’re searching for, I’m going to tell you about him. He is the God who came. He’s the God who created everything.

So that’s Paul building a bridge into their world. He’s able to understand them first. He finds out where they’re at through asking questions, through observing their idols, looking at their cultural context, and then he’s able to apply the gospel in a way that makes sense. When the Christian apologist Francis Schaefer was asked, “How would you share the gospel with someone if you had an hour?” He said, ‘I would use the first 55 minutes asking questions, trying to find out where people are at, trying to find out what their heart struggles are, and I would use the last five minutes showing them how Jesus satisfies their deepest longings.

Too often we think of evangelism as primarily about us talking at people and people just have to sit there and listen. Evangelism is is more of a two-way street. You need to listen to people’s stories. You need to show them that respect and honor of I want to understand where you’re coming from. And then if you’ll allow me, I’d like to tell you my story about Jesus.

Paul explains his approach in Colossians 4. He says, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time, always on assignment. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Again, Paul took time to get to know each person in the marketplace. He’s engaging with them on the individual level, and he’s learning about their life before walking them through the gospel.

Our culture today in the the Northwest here is very much like pre-Christian Athens. Not as much like Bible believing Jerusalem. There may be some parts in the South that are more like that, but where we’re at, we’re we’re in a very, in fact, we’re in a post-Christian context in many ways. People think they already know the gospel and yet they don’t see their need for it. And so, one of the things we’re called to do is to show people what the gospel is like and and how it applies to their specific life situation.

And the way to do that is to first understand their story. You have to learn who they are, find out where they’re at, and then you can bring in the truth that applies to them. But the bottom line is building bridges. People need to hear about Jesus. It’s not enough to live a godly, morally pure life and to always be silent.

We’re called to witness with our words. We’re called to speak about the hope we have. We live in a society that’s very squishy about the question of truth. You know, people say things like, “I have my truth. You have your truth.

Let’s just leave it at that.” And so sometimes evangelism is very challenging because of that. Because people don’t don’t like this idea of truth. And yet we have to engage with people on a level that they understand. And it begins with dependence on the Holy Spirit.

I think this is this is such a key thing. And if you’re wondering, how could I ever share the gospel with my neighbor? It starts here. Dependence on the Holy Spirit. Know that you don’t convert anybody.

That’s not your job. You can’t. Only the Holy Spirit can convert someone. What you are called to do now. The pressure’s taken off you.

You’re not the one that needs to convert someone. You’re called to simply and lovingly share the truth, to talk to people as a beggar, telling other beggars where to find bread. And see, we all come into this world loving ourselves rather than loving God. That’s what Romans 1 says. That’s our natural state.

We don’t like being ruled by a unseen God. We want to be in charge. We like being the Lord of our lives. And we would all continue on that road were it not for the grace of God breaking in. And the only way to liberate that spiritually resistant person to to set that hard heart free is for an ordinary Christian to lovingly share the truth about Jesus.

Remember the gospel, the message itself, the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. It’s in the message. It’s not in us. It’s not in our ability or how loquacious we are or how good we are at communicating. It’s in the message itself that the power is found.

If you just get the message out, the power will do the work. We need to pe tell people that their sin separates them from God. But Jesus died in our place. And it’s because of that sin sin bearing death in our place that we can be reconciled to God. We need to continually remind ourselves that no one no one gets into heaven apart from Jesus.

No one gets in apart from hearing and believing the gospel. This means your family members, your co-workers, your neighbors, people in your community, they need to hear about Jesus. It’s not going to happen automatically. Someone has to tell them the gospel. Fourth, in your notes, share the story of Christianity in a way that connects to their world.

So, it says that they thought of Paul as this ignorant babbler. And Paul doesn’t seem bothered by this. You know, people are going to be lobbing insults at you maybe sometimes. That’s okay. But some did want to hear him out.

Verse 21 says, “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. They loved new stuff. Whatever was hot and trendy and in the news, that’s what they wanted to hear. Sound familiar? Old stuff.

Who needs the old stuff, right? People today often wonder, “Why should I take the Bible seriously? Why should I believe a book that was written by a bunch of Jewish men a long time ago?” And see, framed in that way, it can sound a little bit strange that we would base our lives on these teachings. So, it’s a fair question.

It’s good to respect people who have those kind of questions. But here’s how I would respond. You’re right that the Bible was written by a bunch of Jewish men a long time ago. Now, isn’t it amazing that despite there being 40 different authors, that you have one coherent story about how God reconciles sinners to himself? Isn’t it astounding that despite the fact that these 40 different men were writing at different times across 1500 years that somehow in all these different genres, all these different occupations of these guys, somehow they put together this incredibly coherent story that’s con consistent and continuous.

That should blow our minds. See, hidden in that question about why should I take the Bible seriously with it being so old, hidden in that question is the answer. Where else do you find something so unique as the Bible? Where else can you find predictions told from long time ago fulfilled perfectly 10,000 years later? And yes, the Bible was written a long time ago, but that means it stood the test of time.

See, we should be more skeptical about new things that haven’t really stood the test of time. Scientific theories, for example, come and go. People once believed in spontaneous generation that living creatures can just arise out of non-living matter. That was debunked by a Christian Louis Pastor. Meanwhile, there were other astrophysicists at one time who believed in the steady state theory.

They believed that the universe is eternal. No beginning, no end. The Bible said from the beginning, the universe has an absolute beginning. It’s been scientifically confirmed. In fact, scientists had to repeatedly go back and see that the Bible has already said these things.

For instance, people used to do bloodletting as a practice. That was scientifically they thought this is going to help this person heal. The Bible said from the beginning, blood is essential for life. You need the blood. Animals reproducing after their own genetic kind.

The earth hanging on nothing. The importance of sanitation to prevent disease. All these things, science has had to catch up to the Bible. The Bible is not anti-science. It’s actually very pro- true science.

But many times, our scientific theories, because we’re limited, have had to catch up to what the Bible has said all along. So, the Bible is not outdated or merely upto-date. It’s full of timeless truth and wisdom. It applies to all circumstances, all cultures, all contexts. What other book can do that?

And how I would turn the question around and say, how is it that a a book written a long time ago by a bunch of Jewish men could so radically transform the world we live in giving us everything from the foundation to human rights to the abolition of slavery. That all came because of the Bible. We should be thankful that God used those 40 men a long time ago. But also, it gives evidence that it’s not just 40 men. This was one God who gave us this Bible.

So when you talk to your friends, co-workers, neighbors, remember everyone has a worldview. Whether they realize it or not, everyone is working from a story about where they believe everything came from, what’s gone wrong, and where things are going. Everybody believes that on some level. And the Bible has a story, too. Paul lays this out for these Athenian philosophers.

He tells them there is a God. Not many gods, but one God who created everything. He made everything good. And because he made everything, everything depends on him. He depends on nothing.

He’s self-sufficient. He doesn’t need us to build him temples or altars because he’s everywhere. He’s omnipresent. And because Paul gets to know these people, he’s able to speak on a level that they understand. He says, “Look, even your own Greek poets would agree with me here.”

This is Paul finding common ground with them. He quotes Epimenities who says, “In him we live and move and have our being.” Now, here’s what’s interesting. That’s a pagan poem. That’s actually that’s Epimemenities writing about Zeus.

It was very different from the God of the Bible. And yet, Paul is saying, “Look, even you philosophers understand that life comes from God.” See, he’s finding common ground wherever he can, building those bridges and saying, “Let me give you a fuller understanding.” He goes on to say, “And he made from one man, that’s Adam, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” Do you know the Bible provides the greatest reason for opposing racism?

Why? Well, because we all came from one man. Adam is the great grandappy of all of us. We’re all one big human family. And so, how can you be racist against your brother or sister?

It’s crazy. The Bible gives us the reason for that. And he says, “God put you where you are that you might seek him and find him.” He’s not far off. He’s not this distant deistic God.

He is here in our midst. Are you ready to meet him? Paul says, “We’ve all gone wrong, but God has done something about it. And all of history is going somewhere. It’s not circular like you Epicurians believe.

It is going in a direction and it’s all going to culminate in one event. Verse 30, the times of ignorance, God overlooked. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent. To repent is to do a U-turn. To stop going your way and to start going God’s way.

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. You know some people say Christianity isn’t inclusive enough. It’s too exclusive. Actually Christianity is very inclusive.

God commands all people everywhere to repent. No one’s left out. Everybody is invited. Everybody is commanded in fact to come to Christ to find forgiveness in Jesus. Finally, in your notes, help others see that forgiveness is found in Jesus Christ alone.

See, what religion will confuse people with is it will say there’s all these ways that you have to go about to get forgiveness. All these things you need to do to get eternal life, but ultimately it’s only found in Jesus. This is what it comes down to. To be a witness for Jesus Christ. It’s to seek the good of your city.

It’s to seek to honor Christ in all you do. Raise a godly family with biblical values. Pray for your neighbors. But at the end of the day, God has put you where you are so that others might know Jesus. The gospel wasn’t meant to stop with you.

Your life is not a culde-sac. It’s a thoroughfare. The gospel is meant to go through you to somebody else. Paul says again, we are ambassadors for Christ. An ambassador is one who knows both the kingdom he represents and he knows something of the kingdom he’s traveling to.

And he’s speaking on behalf of that kingdom so that this kingdom he’s traveling to will know it, will understand the terms of a relationship with that king. So you’re not just the hands and feet of Christ. You

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 5,451 words.