Welcome to church at 11 am Sunday morning. And for those joining from home, a recording and copy of this week’s message.

https://youtu.be/HFkJ8IoSL7s

“The Search for Your God”

Call to Worship; Acts 17:22-25

²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship – and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

Invitation, Tithe, and Prayer Concerns; Father in Heaven, and everywhere else in the expanse of your creation, Lord today we pray that you enter this room, and also the very hearts of all who are within earshot of this message, to fill us with your majestic power of faith, hope, and love. For it is only through your grace that we and this world will find salvation both in the here and now and in eternity. Please accept the offerings of our very selves in the furtherance of your kingdom in this hurting and groping world.

Amen!

Message Reading: Acts 17: 26-31

²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any 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 human design and skill. 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 everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Message: “The search for your God”

Today’s message is a continuation from last weeks investigation of Paul’s sermon to the Elites in Athens Greece two thousand years ago. Paul, the most Jewish of people, the most intellectual of evangelists, and a most elite of Pharisees, was converted to our faithwalk by the Lord Himself as Paul was travelling to Damascus to persecute more members of “The Way”, what we Christians were called at that time.

Paul was led by the Shechinah (Hebrew for the indwelling of God among His people, or Holy Spirit for you and me), yes Paul was led to share the good news of the Gospel with people living in Europe. Gentiles, Pagans, and Idolaters were the very people Paul was sent to share God’s good news of hope, because the Lord wants everyone willing to be a part of His family. To include you!

We have from today’s Call to Worship reading that the people of Athens had all kinds of objects of worship (Idols), including the inscription for the worship to: “an unknown god”, leading Paul to say in verse 22 “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.”

Last week I described all of the things in our own society that could have applied as gods that we place in higher status than God (fitting since it is the kickoff for the NFL season). But maybe today it would be more beneficial to touch upon just what our search for God is all about. Because it seems like our society is desperately looking for something to fill the void of modernity.

Our society (much like ancient Rome), is crumbling from the inside out, due to the emptiness that comes from all of the stuff offered by our current culture. And I would throw out there that this is more a defect in human beings than the things available to us.

Case in point; I remember a time when to have popcorn you had to pour oil in a pan, add the kernels, place the lid, shake often to prevent scorching, carefully guide the lid as the corn lifted it above the pan when popping in excess, add salt, butter. Add plenty of napkins for the inevitable mess, and enjoy.

Today, I can have popcorn and the kind I like (salt, no butter), from a microwave, and I get frustrated because it takes two whole minutes from the time I crave it to the time I am munching. Now I want it in seconds and some day because of how I am hard wired, that won’t be good enough. Keeping with a comment I heard the great social commentator and comedian Dennis Miller once say, we want minute rice sooner, and he is spot on.

If I don’t get a handle on my real priorities in life, I will never be happy with all that I have been provided by God, and I will continue to try to fill voids in my life with things that do not satisfy. As Isaiah 55: 2 instructs;

² Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.

For many of us, like the Greeks, Romans, and people of today, we must look beyond our manmade deities, and trade them in for the real thing. In today’s “Call”, we watch as Paul will begin to explain just who God is, by taking the Athenians to a higher plane than the manmade, petty, self-indulgent, and lifeless existence of idolatry;

²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

Oh… That God… I almost forgot about him while I was in the midst of my acquisitions. Busy filling up on all I could get, from the salad bar at Sizzler eating out of principle instead of enjoyment. Or my friend’s insatiable need to compulsively buy new and used stuff. It don’t matter what it is and Saturday morning yard sales have become more hollowed than a High Church Holiday Service. Unfortunately, there will always be another half missing board game, ball of twine, dilapidated piece of furniture or bulk wax to purchase to feed the beast. It lives in the bottomless void, the idol worship of me through stuff. And if buying bulk wax don’t make sense to you, how much of the junk you buy does? Especially after a couple of days.

But Paul clarifies just who that real God is for our ancestors back then, and us in the here and now from today’s message reading in Acts 17: starting at verse 26;

²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

This has always been the case, and now God has sent Paul at just the right time, God’s time, to share what the Lord had made known to the children of Israel centuries before, God is universal! And is God of, to, and for all people. As the Lord spoke through Isaiah 56:7 centuries earlier:

⁷ these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”

I don’t know how future burnt offerings will work but, all of us are invited to be a part of the Lord’s family. God created the world along with you and me in it. And we are the way we are (searching for the ever greater and better in this world), looking for that something that will fill the voids inside us. Or as Paul just instructed in verse 27;

²⁷ God did this so that they (we) would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

The Good news here is; God is not far away from you right now! But he is not in my microwave popcorn, not in the neighbor’s new car, or in that new church porch. God is not in the endless bottle of whatever, or in the refilled prescription of painkillers. No, He made you and wants to be a part of you and reclaim you into His family. Today!

Paul will now say volumes in one verse about our relationship to the one true everlasting God. In verse 28 Paul masterfully leads his audience from where they are to where God is;

 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, “For we are also his offspring”.

In this one verse Paul first alludes to the Latin Poet and pantheist Virgil who wrote beautifully but miss the point about God;

“God permeates all lands, all tracts of sea,

 And the vast heaven. From Him all flocks and herds,

 And men, and creatures wild, draw, each apart,

 Their subtle life. To Him they all return,

 When once again set free.

 No place is found

 For death, but all mount up once more on high

 To join the stars in their high firmament.”

Virgil’s Georgics is beautiful and splendid in scope…

But in Paul’s teaching, he rightfully elevates God. The personality of God is not merged, as the Pantheist teach, in the thought of the great “Soul of the World”. No, God stands forth with “majestic distinctness” in the character of Creator, King, and Judge. In fact, Paul’s own instruction of a time when God shall be “all in all” and without detracting from His majesty, can be found in 1Corinthians 15:26-28;

²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. ²⁸ When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.                 (And we will flourish in the trinity!)

Next in verse 28 Paul refers to being offspring of God, He is speaking to the Greek Poets Aratus who wrote “Phenomenon”, and the Stoic, Cleanthes, who penned the “Hymn to Zeus”

Put clearly, in one verse, Paul is making the case for God, by using Latin and Greek thinkers and instruction that the Athenians or any intellectual in the Roman World would have known and understood.

This demonstrates how smart Paul is, and the wisdom of God in using Paul to share His Good News to the heart and birthplace of Western Civilization.

Paul now will bring home his message to the Greeks and you in audience, if you’re listening;

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 human design and skill.

(And if I might add the stuff we as a society today, spend so much time chasing. All that garbage that does not satisfy!) The junk we eat, drink, smoke, wear, display, add the popularity and fame that we seek, the egos we stroke, or the things we watch for cheap entertainment. And none of it lasts or satisfies longer than a moment, a whisper in time.

Paul goes on to say:

 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 everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Let me take this idea to a personal level if I may. In your past God overlooked your ignorance, or the hurt and hate you carried from things that happened in your life. Your lack of forgiveness for others who had injured or disappointed you, and your constant chasing for things that gave you instant gratification at first, and then only with diminishing results.

Yes God has understood the ignorance from wherever we came from, and the nowhere that we were headed towards, but the time for renewal in our lives has come. By the way, it does not matter if you are new to the Lord or an established family member, we all need the renewal that a daily ongoing relationship in the Lord provides. As Paul stated back in verse 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’

That’s a real relationship for you! Not mine, not Billy or Franklin Graham’s, or even Saul/Paul’s because those won’t work for you, and yours won’t work for me. But each of us living in him uniquely as a one of a kind relationship. That’s the kind of renewal that comes from transformation, being “Born Again” and then experiencing that renewal for the rest of our lives, from today forward. I say that because there is no retirement program in our church, since the day I stop searching for the will of God is the day I spiritually will die.

I’m sure there are some out there listening to my voice saying to themselves; “my life has been so bad, I have done such evil, that God doesn’t want me. Wrong. You are exactly who God wants in this incredible family of His. You are exactly who I want to worship with in this life. Here’s why:

1. There is nothing that you have cooked up in your past that God can’t and won’t forgive. Plain and simple. You’ll have to find another excuse for not trying!
2. I am not the one in charge of judging, and the Christians in my family are also below that pay grade. What we are called to do is reach out and share God’s forgiveness, love, and hope, which leads to the growth of all of our faithwalks.
3. Most importantly; Personally, give me a person who knows they are a sinner and are upset about it and want to do better over someone who feels comfortable about their non-sinning stress free non-empathetic life anytime! (But it’s God that chooses.)

The person who knows their guilt, and appreciate God’s grace, will reach out to help others, any chance they get. Without a doubt, those people are alive spiritually, and ready to grow in the Lord.

So let me reemphasize the obvious of today’s message;

³⁰ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

Now, today, the Lord expects us to grow up and put the ways of our youth away in favor of living life in Him and each other. Because we are setting aside the ways of our youth, God’s future judgement no longer brings fear but great joy. Because God’s judgement, His vengeance, is His house cleaning and preparing our new home of eternity. The Lord who does the judging is also the one who does the forgiving, and we have invited Him into our lives. All of us can because this invitation is open for all of us that opt in.

It is my hope and prayer for all that can hear me today that as you search for your God, you will discover your God is our God, the one risen, living, giving, forgiving, and sustaining. And as you find your true God, my hope and prayer is that we all will discard our gods, idols, and nonsense of our youth, as we pursue our service in Him, as one family.

Amen!

The benediction applies to all who try to walk in the footsteps of the Lord, bring hope and love, food and clothing, and a release from the old gods that kept us from our real God. You have been anointed to help in the Lord’s field of harvest, our family of eternity.

Benediction based on Isaiah 61:1-3

May the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord be upon you,
because the Lord has anointed you
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent you to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
May you be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor!