Today's scripture, it's on Acts 17, 16 to 33.
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
So he reasoned in the Senegal with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosopher began to debate with him.
Some of them asked, "What is this blabberer trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
Then they took him and brought him to the meeting of Areopagus, where they said to him,"May we know what this new teaching is that you're presenting.
You're bringing some strange ideas to our ears and we would like to know what they mean." All the Athelians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest idea.
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.
For as I walk around and look carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God.
So you're ignorant of the very thing you worship and this is what I'm going to proclaim to you.
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.
And he is not served by human hands as if he need anything.
Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
From one man he made all nations and they should inhabit the whole earth.
And he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.
God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps we reach out for him and find him.
Though he is not far from any of us, for in him we live and move and have our beings.
As some of your own poet have said, we are his offspring.
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 skills.
In the past, God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
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.
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered and others said,"We want to hear you again on this subject." And then Paul left the council.
This is the word of the Lord.
- Praise be to God.
- Good morning, George.
- Good morning.
- Today, if you would join me, please here, Dave.
We are joined by Dave Lung.
Probably some of us remember him from last June.
He was sharing with us some words and thoughts from the book of Psalm.
So, Dave is a chaplain. - Hospital chaplain, yeah.
- Chaplain at the city hospital.
- Vancouver General Hospital.
- Right, right.
So he will be sharing with us his thoughts and his words today for the book of Acts.
Thank you for being with us.
And I wanted also to pray for your word precisely to get rooted in our hearts.
So thank you, Lord, for letting Dave be with us for inspiring him in the lessons and words that he will be sharing with us.
Please allow those words to be fully rooted in our hearts that those words really have an impact in our lives and we can use them the way you have planned it for us ahead.
In Jesus' prayer, I have prayed, and amen.
So thank you, Dave. - Thank you, thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
All right.
Okay, good morning, everybody.
Nice to, yeah, nice to see everyone again.
I think you guys can hear me okay.
All right, okay.
Yeah, so thank you for having me again.
It's great to be worshiping with you.
So this morning, we're gonna be returning to a familiar season in Paul's ministry to the people of Athens.
I know you have been going through the book of Acts.
So I think this passage was actually preached six weeks ago.
And so some of you might be thinking, oh, well, what's he doing?
But with that said, I think this passage has a lot to speak to us in our context, particularly about what it means to have a heart, have a heart for mission, for have a heart to participate in what God is doing in our own lives, as well as in the lives of those around us.
And so for those of you, some of you, you're unfamiliar with what we mean when we just say God's mission.
Here for me, I'm simply meaning that we're trying to make the good news or the gospel of Christ known to others through our deeds, our words, how we live.
And for those of us who have perhaps been Christian for some time or have been in the church for a long time, we're likely familiar with this call to be part of God's mission.
So I think most of us would say in Vancouver, this is not an easy thing to do.
And as we read in the passage, I think if we tried to get up on the street and start preaching, that probably wouldn't work very well in Vancouver either.
And so with that said, when I think about mission, I think for some of us, and especially if you're a parent like myself, often your biggest mission on your mind is probably getting your kids from A to B, right?
Whether it's piano or soccer, whatever that is.
And those are important things.
But often, like say for myself, I will be doing these things and I just find mentally, I don't have a lot of space sometimes to think about God's mission.
And part of that is a season of life.
But for some of us, we may find that there's just so many things that's pulling on our lives, good things, whether that's work or study, university, that also seems to occupy so much time in our thought and in our space that again, we really don't think very much about this sense of God's mission.
Some of us, when we think about mission, we feel a bit lukewarm.
And I've definitely felt that way before, almost like there's this sense of, ah, gee, I'm not really feeling that motivated for this.
So all of that into this context, I think Paul's words here has things to tell us.
And particularly, I titled my message,"Cultivating a Heart for Mission, Lessons from Paul's Life and Ministry in Athens." And so here, I'm gonna be looking kind of at three movements in this passage.
I'm gonna look a little bit at Paul's context and ours, kind of what we can learn from those two.
I'm also gonna be looking at Paul's heart.
You know, what was driving Paul to minister the way that he did and what can we learn from that?
And then lastly, we're gonna be looking briefly at Paul's engagement.
So that's a little bit of kind of where I'm gonna try to go with this message.
And okay, we'll kind of dive in.
Okay, so yeah, so next slide.
So we begin our passage in Athens, starting in verse 16.
And we read here, it's, and so Athens is one of the most beautiful and foremost Greek cities of Paul's time.
And so this is a picture, I believe, of the Erypagas.
Oh, exactly, I see that, but that's where they, you know, that's where they debate and there's culture and art.
And historically, this was Paul's second missionary journey out of the three in Acts and dated somewhere between 49 to 52 AD.
At this time, Athens was not a political hub, but it was known for its high level of culture, literature, sculpture, and oratory arts.
And so this is also the native city and home of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.
Some of you might be familiar with those names if you studied philosophy in university.
And I'm just gonna jump actually here briefly to verse 18 and 19, where we see Paul encountering and debating with these Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, you know, each of whom represent a very different belief system and way of life.
And so I'll just kind of briefly paint this.
The Epicureans, they follow after the philosopher Epicurus, and they believe that pleasure was the chief end of life, along with ensuring that one is free from pain.
The Stoics, on the other hand, valued morality and duty, self-reliance and logical thought.
And so two modes of life that I think, you know, are very present in our modern life today.
You know, on one hand, people who seek mainly to live for pleasure, and I think, you know, our world, our society can tell us this, and others, perhaps, you know, their main purpose in life is self-help, self-improvement.
And again, you know, I think we could see, you know, aspects of this in our city.
But I wanna return here briefly to verse 16, where we see Athens' most distinctive feature.
And so now, while Paul was waiting for Timothy and Silas at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city was full of idols.
You know, Paul here sees this intellectual, artistic city that's steeped in idol worship.
You know, a historian at the time quoted that one can more easily find a god in Athens than find a specific person.
We could go to the next two slides there.
Yeah, there we go, yeah.
Yeah, there were that many idols and many more altars, you know, temples to a pantheon of deities from Zeus, Athena, Ares, each of them having an area of power or influence, whether that's wisdom or beauty or battle.
And so, just gonna pause here for a moment to kind of paint a picture of what this idol worship looked like, you know, as we're thinking about his specific context here.
You know, in those days, the act of idol worship was a bit like a religious economy.
People would pray, they would sacrifice, they would devote themselves to serving and worshiping these deities in exchange for what they promised, whether that's beauty, riches, prosperity, and health.
And so, families would have private altars to particular deities, they will organize their lives around different public festivals, feasts, worship, and celebrations.
And so, for example, in the religious atmosphere of Athens, if you're needing wisdom or love or financial success, you'll make sacrifices, devote time, service, prayers, and worship to the deity of that specialty.
And the promise is that in the giving of your wealth, sacrifice, and energy to this deity, they would bless, protect you, give you what you're needing in return.
And you know, so as I'm describing this, you might be thinking, well, you know, this feels pretty far off from our practice today.
You know, maybe it's hard to imagine people today devoting, organizing their lives around the worship and festivals of an idol, you know, making sacrifices and offerings to it.
But I think there are some parallels.
You know, don't we also commit, make sacrifices, organize our lives around things in life that are important to us?
You know, whether that's work, kids, your student, maybe that's studying, sports, Minecraft.
And you might be thinking, aren't these good things?
And yes, I would say absolutely, all of these things are good things, 100%.
Being a good employee brings glory to God.
But the connection that I want to make is that many of the things that we seek in life as humans, you know, that we devote ourselves to make sacrifices for, whether that's money or beauty, work, success, these are all things that the Athenians of that time sought after too.
Only for them, they became idols with the names of Zeus and Athena and Plutus.
And I will say that I think these idols are very, just as present today, you know, only with different names.
The next slide, please.
Now, this is from Pastor Tim Keller.
He says, "Why do we lie or fail to love or break our promises?
And the general answer is because we are weak and sinful.
But the specific answer is that there is something besides Christ that we feel we must have, we must have in order to be happy.
Something that is more important to our heart that is enslaving our heart for inordinate desires." Okay, so I know that's a bit of a dense quote.
But I think what Keller is saying here is that whenever we look at whatever good thing in life, whether it be beauty or money or success, and these are good things, but when it starts becoming something that is like an ultimate thing in our lives, like if I don't have this, then I truly do not have value, that saying starts to become like God in our lives.
Because we end up looking to it to fill our deepest needs for value, for love, for security.
You know, again, I'm not saying here that, you know, those things that I described, they're not bad things, but rather it's our relationship to them.
It's our relationship to them, you know, that affects whether they start becoming like a God in our lives.
You know, and sadly, friends, idols are poor masters.
You know, I've met patients in the hospital with eating disorders because they are convinced that they need to look a certain way in order to truly be lovable.
You know, we read stories of students in Asia taking their own lives because they failed their university entrance exam.
And because I think for them, their definition of success is so tied to this vision of obtaining their degree or landing a high paying job that to not achieve it would mean that they are simply failures.
You know, John Calvin, the 16th century Protestant reformer wrote that the human heart is a perpetual factory of idols.
Okay, so why I'm bringing this up as we're talking about this context, you know, as I'm explaining this, you could probably see what some of the common idols in our city might be.
But I think what is most helpful for us and what I'm trying to, you know, focus on this morning is not simply to kind of point out what the idols might be in our city, but actually to reflect, identify perhaps some of the things in our own lives, you know, that might, where our relationship with them begins to start looking a bit more like, this is just so important in my life, you know, it's becoming so much that it starts becoming the foundation of who I am.
And so where do we begin?
You know, how do we tell if something becomes like an idol in our lives?
You know, a good place to begin simply is to pray, you know, to ask God to help us to see the relationship we have with the different things in our lives, where we might be looking, where or who we might be looking to, you know, so much for love, for worth or value that they start acting like a God in our lives.
And some of the questions I think, like I don't think there's an absolute clear way to do this, but some questions that have been helpful for me, you know, kind of just share with you, what am I sacrificing for?
You know, we naturally give up or sacrifice for the things that we value in our lives, whether that's work or relationships.
So what are the things I'm willing to sacrifice the most for?
Does it bring glory to God?
You know, another where and in whom, in what do I place my highest hopes?
Is getting that job or that good saying, has this become the center of my life?
You know, where or what am I putting my face in to get me through life?
You know, perhaps I trust my job and my abilities, but do I also trust God?
You know, have I placed so much trust in my work that my chips aren't really on God anymore?
You know, and one of the reasons that I'm kind of pressing on this point is because to cultivate a heart for mission, we need to regularly displace the things that try to topple God's place in our hearts, regularly displace the idols that can grow in our hearts.
You know, you can't have a zealous heart for God if something else already has that center place.
And so I wanna pause here to explore our second movement, which is Paul's heart.
That is what drove Paul to engage with this diverse religious group of Athenians, and what can we learn from Paul here about being on mission?
And so the next slide there.
(audience member whines) So first, I think Paul can relate with the hollowness and the emptiness of these ways of life.
You know, the idol worshipers, the Epicureans, the Stoics, and so he was moved to engage with them as a result.
You know, we read in verse 23,"For as I was walking among you, I saw your many shrines,"and one of your altars had this inscription to it"to an unknown God." You know, these people were turning to false gods, doing empty rituals and track sections, trying to purchase for themselves the real needs of the human heart.
You know, unlike in our modern day, I think, for many of us, we try to make success or career or beauty.
When we try to make them the foundation of our lives, we will come to find that these things are ultimately insecure, because the meaning or significance that they are meant to address, they can always tumble.
They're not, you know, they can always tumble.
They can always, they're not secure, but Christ is secure.
And so Paul is a former Pharisee, religious zealot.
He knows this, you know, he's experienced this in his life.
And so Paul in verse 24, 25, then gives this beautiful description of who the true God is.
He says, "He is the God who made the world"and everything in it,"and since he is the Lord of heaven and earth,"he doesn't live in manmade temples,"and human hands can't serve his needs,"for he has no needs.
"He himself gives life and breath to everything"and he satisfies every need." Now that last line,"He himself gives life and breath to everything"and he satisfies every need." You know, Paul has experienced Christ, meeting him in a very powerful way.
You know, I think before it was religion that drove him perhaps to meet the sense of purpose.
But now he knows that there's this freedom and mercy that Christ in the gospel has given him, a freedom and a way of life that fills him, not only to the surface, you know, that fills him deeply rather than filling one on the surface and leaving them hungry.
You know, there's this beautiful line from St. Augustine who says, "Our hearts are restless"until they find its rest in you." Our hearts are restless until they find its rest in you.
You know, the more we can find our rest in Christ, whether that's ultimately our need for acceptance, for worth, for meaning, the more we will find ourselves desiring to share this treasure with others.
You know, the world may tell us that we are only valuable if we achieve this or done this, or if people in our lives love us.
And while these are good, they can't hold us the same way that Christ can.
You know, he deemed us valuable enough to die for, even though we have rejected and sinned against him, and before we ever made a single contribution to this world.
You know, here we know that Paul has met Christ as the one whose love knows no bounds.
And so as I'm talking about his heart, you know, we see that he sees the pain, the spiritual blindness around him.
But we also see here that there's this zeal in his heart.
And this is what I wanna talk about.
And I'm gonna go back briefly to verse 16.
You know, turning back to verse 16, we read that Paul was greatly distressed within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
And different translations will translate this as troubled or angered or provoked.
And now the Greek word here, parasono, has associations with strong, deep feelings, most notably anger and passion.
But what did Paul feel here?
You know, I mean, did he lose his temper and did he become angry at the Athenians?
Or was it distress that became pity?
I don't think it's either of these.
You know, in my research, the best commentary I read on this was that this affect is best described as provoking Paul's jealousy for the glory of God.
And so that is what drove him to respond as passionately as he did.
And so another word for this jealousy is zeal for God's name.
So what does it mean to be jealous for God's name?
You know, particularly in a righteous sense because we often think about jealousy, not as a positive thing.
You know, I think a helpful way to understand this is to consider the jealousy that we might feel for someone we love or care for.
You know, one of the ministries of our church involves, you know, befriending people in a modular house in Richmond.
You know, many of these individuals have lived difficult lives, have used or continued to use drugs or substances, and they often find themselves very lonely or unloved.
And one of them has become a good friend of mine over the last several years.
We've gone out to get some Chinese hot pot together.
And one of the things that I've learned is he's very vulnerable to online scammers.
Now imagine my friend begins to not make much time for me anymore.
You know, I call back, he's always busy because he tells me that instead of meeting us from church, he needs to spend time helping or talking to his new friends online.
And these friends tell him that they are his friends, but then they ask him to send him money because they're in trouble.
And they tell him that he's a terrible, heartless person if he doesn't, and messages him day and night until he does.
And you know what?
My friend gives in.
He sends them money.
And so my response is I become part angry, part jealous, and part zealous for him.
Angry at these scammers for pretending to be his friends.
Jealous that these scammers, these online people who are out to steal from him occupy such a high place of trust in my friend's life.
You know, I think very much that's how God feels about us as well.
You know, wanting what is good and right for us.
You know, I am jealous for him because he's not putting our friendship, because he's putting my friendship within a lower place, but also the friendship of our Lord Jesus who is here for him.
You know, I am jealous for him because I know Jesus is jealous for him.
You know, he is jealous for my friend to place his worth in what actually deserves it, to ship his friendship to Jesus because the friendship of these scammers, they don't deserve that kind of place in his life.
And so this godly jealousy, this is what I think was driving Paul here.
And so this question, so how can I cultivate this sense of godly jealousy or zeal for God in my life?
I'll just kind of share two things here.
I think number one, being grounded in the gospel, and secondly, delighting and beholding Christ, the beauty of Christ in the gospel.
You know, first and foremost, Paul is someone who is deeply grounded in the gospel.
That is, he regularly, routinely encounters the beauty of God's love and mercy for him.
You know, in 1 Timothy 1.15, when Paul is well into his ministry as an apostle, he says this, "This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance.
Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the worst." You know, as Paul deepened in his relationship and faith in Christ, he continues to be deeply aware of the incredible mercy and grace that Christ showed to him.
As a former prosecutor of the church, someone who dragged Christ followers into prison and death, you know, I think there is a certain amount of shame that he carries with that.
And yet, as he returns to Christ time and time again, you know, he will find that ultimately there is an acceptance, there is a grace and a love there that will never run dry.
You know, I don't know what you do with some of the failures or mistakes that you have in your own life.
You know, I don't know what you do when sometimes you look back and you're like, oh, I wish I did this, I wish I did that.
And sometimes it's, you know, sometimes we, well, I'll say for myself, you know, as a parent, sometimes we do things that are like, I've done things, or it's like, ah, I just, I really, I really mucked up, right?
And you know, these are the times where I can turn to my family, but ultimately I could turn to God, you know, and at the cross, always at the cross, I find that there is love, there is forgiveness, and there is acceptance there.
It's something that can meet us in our failures wherever we might find, and it's one that does not run dry.
- The late pastor Tim Keller puts it this way.
The gospel is not just the ABCs, but the A to Z of the Christian life.
It is inaccurate to think that the gospel is what saves non-Christians and then Christians mature by trying hard to live according to biblical principles.
It is more accurate to say that we are saved by believing the gospel, and then we are transformed in every part of our minds, hearts, and lives by believing the gospel more and more deeply as life goes on.
You know, there is a progression here.
Why is Paul zealous for God's name?
Because he is deeply grounded in the gospel, because he finds the deepest needs of his heart can be met there.
Now, this is also from Tim Keller.
He says, "If we are deeply moved by the sight of his love for us, it detaches our hearts from other would-be saviors." Maybe I'll say that again.
He says, "If we are deeply moved by the sight of his love for us, it detaches our hearts from other would-be saviors." You know, another practice I find that really brings this, that really brings us to bear actually is the practice of communion.
You know, it moves us to reflect, to confess our sin.
It reminds us of Christ's sacrifice, of Christ's love for us as sinners and his mercies that are new every day.
You know, you and I, we might not have a conversion story like Paul's, but we can recall where Christ has shown up in our lives.
And for some of us who, you know, feel like we haven't met Christ that way before, you know, I think Christ promises that as we come to him, you know, with our failures, our shame, our sin, you know, we are renewed in knowing that Christ gives us new life.
Now that Christ gives us a new sense of worth in who we are.
And so communion is another beautiful way of returning to the gospel.
And I think both practices, so confession, communion, both practices help us to see the beauty of Christ in the gospel.
And secondly, beholding, delighting in the beauty of Christ.
I think there's many ways to do this, more than I can list, but giving thanks to God regularly for his blessings, for his promises and our hardship, for our choice, for praise, for others, and maybe seeing the beauty of creation and giving thanks.
And you know, I think the reason is that the more we see the beauty of Christ in the gospel, the more he will stay center, at the center of our lives.
So I suggested two ways, to cultivate a heart of zeal for God, and then to return turning regularly to the gospel, and then engaging in practices that help us to see anew the beauty of Christ.
That will help Christ to move more into the center of our lives.
And so the last point that I'm gonna look at is how Paul engages.
And so picking up in verse 26, 27, we read,"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.
"And 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." Now Paul speaks about how God is not far from any one of us.
You know, this is a good news for us, and a reminder that ultimately Christ is the Lord of the harvest.
You know, whenever we think about mission, friends, we don't go into mission alone.
You know, that would crush us.
No, instead we are reminded that the spirit of God is already there.
You know, he is at work drawing people and hearts to him, including ourselves, and we are called to partner and join God in this work.
You know, that's very much the approach that we take when we go to the modular house to befriend the residents.
We go to befriend them, to love them, to be Christ's hand and feet to them, and trust that God is already at work in their midst.
And so I'm gonna draw here briefly too about how Paul addresses those in the "Era Pegas," particularly in verse 27, 28, where he says,"In him we live and move and have our being," as some of your own poets have said.
You know, here he quotes two authors.
One is Epimedes of Sosnos and Crete, and the other is Erotus, a third century Stoic poet.
And both of these poets would have been familiar to the Epicureans and Stoics who were his audience.
And so now this is quite impressive and probably unique to Paul as a scholar intellectual, but the key that I wanna highlight here is how contextual Paul is in connecting with others.
You know, that Paul presents the gospel message not only in a way that is respectful, but in the language that his audience understands.
And so I think one of the lessons we can learn here from Paul is that if we wanna connect with our communities, I think a good start is simply to spend time learning about them.
You know, learn their stories, their beliefs, what they value, learn the language that makes sense to them, and ask God to help you to see where his gospel meets the deeper needs and brokenness of those around you and how we can serve and love them.
And so I'm just gonna end with this short story.
And this story is of somebody that I met in the hospital that I worked with for some time.
And her name is Julie.
And last year I had the privilege of meeting this woman in her 40s who shared with me that she walked away from God when she was in her 20s.
She had made some poor life choices.
She felt shunned by the church she grew up in and consequently left the faith.
Unfortunately, this path led her into drug use, but she eventually became drug-free.
And when we crossed paths, however, because she had a relapse, this relapse has caused her a stroke.
You know, when I talked with her, there was so much regret in her life, so much regret.
And I know that might sound intense, but what do we do with something like this?
What do we do with, again, some of the regrets in our own lives?
But Christ, you know, He is so full of grace and mercy.
And because this is causing her to desire her life back with God, you know, most of our meetings, I am simply prompted to pray for her to leave her guilt on the cross and to trust that there is hope on the other side.
You know, I could say today that she is slowly leaving her shame behind and walking in faith in Christ.
Okay, so to conclude, we've covered a lot of ground today.
We looked at three lessons from Paul's ministry in Athens, reflecting on his context, city of idols and ours, the need to repent of idols in our heart.
We looked at Paul's heart for mission and how he engaged.
And in each, I think there is a lesson to be learned from our own sense of mission, to consider the idols in our own contexts and lives and to grow in our jealousy and zeal for God's name.
And lastly, to engage others with humility and respect.
And so here, lastly, I'll say we participate in mission with the knowledge that we do not go alone.
You know, that the God who created and breathed life into all living beings is also the God who is actively at work today in our lives and in those around us.
You know, as we are promised in Matthew 28, 20, surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
And so I have a picture, it's supposed to be like the footprints poem.
Some of you might know, but this sense that, you know, the God who calls us is also the God who walks of us, who qualifies us.
And his work on the cross qualifies each and every one of us by the gift of his spirit to be participants in his mission.
So may we go to be the hands and feet of Christ in service, to promote the gospel and word and deed to one another, to our communities and to our city.
Let's pray.
Gracious Lord, we thank you that, you know, you are the one whom we serve.
You are the savior that is never gonna leave us, is never gonna forsake us.
You are the savior that holds even when everything else in our lives may not.
And so Lord, we ask that, you know, as we go, that we will continue to find our deepest sense of verse, deepest sense of acceptance, deepest sense of love in you and in the cross and in what you have done for us.
And so Lord, as we move from this time of word to time of communion, Lord, may you continue to speak to us and be with us.
In Christ's name we pray.
Amen.