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00:01 All right. Um, let's come to the Lord in prayer now. Okay. Dear heavenly father, we thank you
00:08 for today and thank you that we can be here to come to worship you. We pray Lord that you will use us as your
00:15 servants, as your people uh as we think about today's passage in Acts 17. Help
00:20 us Lord to really be people who can bring the gospel out to all those around us. Show us how and help us to obey
00:26 Lord. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. Um, could you turn to uh Acts
00:33 chapter 17 with me? Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Acts chapter 17. All right. And I'll
00:40 read to you uh the passage that we want to look at today. Verse 16 to verse 34.
00:47 Okay. Acts 17 verse 16 to verse 34.
00:53 All right. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see
00:59 that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews
01:04 and the god-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happen to be there. A group of
01:12 Epicurian and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him, and some of them
01:17 asked, "What is this babler trying to say?" And others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." And they
01:25 said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.
01:30 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Aropagus where they said to him, "May we know what this new
01:37 teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears and we want to know what they
01:44 mean." All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening
01:50 to the latest ideas. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Aropagus and said, "Men of Athens, I see
01:59 that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of
02:05 worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown god."
02:12 Now, what you worship as something unknown, I'm going to proclaim to you.
02:18 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples
02:25 built by hands. And he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything
02:31 because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one
02:38 man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth. And he determined the time set for them and
02:45 the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him
02:51 and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he's not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and
02:60 have our being. As some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring.
03:06 Therefore, since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone,
03:14 an image made by man's design and skill. In the past, God overlooked such
03:21 ignorance. But now, he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has
03:27 set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. and he has given proof of
03:34 this to all men by raising him from the dead. And when they heard about the
03:40 resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this subject." At that
03:48 Paul left the council, a few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Darnius, a member of the
03:55 Aropagus. Also, a woman named Dearis and a number of others.
04:02 Okay. Now I want to show you uh a picture here.
04:08 Now this group of people uh from uh Sudan, they're called the dingers. Okay?
04:14 Uh some of our brothers or sisters here may know more about this than me, but this group in Sudan are a kind of
04:19 nomadic people. They rely very heavily on their cattle for their livelihood. You know, they believe that their cattle
04:26 can protect them from evil. uh and they whenever they do something bad and they want to give compensation to that
04:32 person, they give a a cow or bull. Whenever they get married, they give the
04:37 wives, the bride's family, you know, bulls and then they use them as animal sacrifices. So they're good for
04:43 everything. The the the ox is a is a very important part of their life. So
04:48 when the missionaries went to this group of people to tell them about Jesus, you know, they translated the scriptures and
04:55 in the part uh in John where it says, "Behold the lamb of God, Jesus," they
05:01 put, "behold the ox of God, Jesus." See, why did they do that? Because if they
05:07 said, "Lamb of God," these people would have no idea what he was talking about. But if they said that Jesus is the ox of
05:13 God, immediately they would understand, okay, Jesus is the sacrifice, you know, the the key person.
05:20 Now this tells us how difficult it is sometimes to cross cultures with the
05:25 gospel. Okay? Sometimes we all come from different worldviews, different backgrounds. So we have people here in
05:31 this hall from many different countries. And if you were to go back to your own country, if you're not from Malaysia,
05:38 sometimes you might have difficulty communicating the gospel in the way that we do here in Malaysia.
05:43 Now, if we can do this, you know, Jesus is the ox of God. Can we say Jesus is
05:49 Quankong or Jesus is Lord Krishna? Can we say
05:54 that? Okay. So, how do we where do we draw the line when we try to communicate
06:00 the gospel? when we try to uh contextualize the gospel message for different cultures but without
06:07 compromising the gospel message that is a that is what we want to look at today and how Paul did it. Now Paul had to
06:14 face this issue uh when he took the gospel outside of the Jewish circles. Okay. So far, we've been looking at how
06:21 Paul has been uh bringing the gospel to the Jews. And last two weeks, we looked at uh uh Acts chapters 10 and 11, where
06:28 he took the gospel for the first time to Cornelius, a gentile. And now we have fast forwarded a few chapters, and we're
06:34 right in the middle of his second missionary journey. Okay, Paul has now
06:39 gone twice throughout uh this uh part of uh the Middle East and uh and uh Europe.
06:46 And this is his second trip. And this time he uh preached not only to Jewish
06:52 people but to increasingly to the Gentiles. Now it was easier for him to preach to Jews I would suspect because
06:59 you know Jews have a common uh background with him. They all believe in the Old Testament. So we didn't read the
07:05 first half of chapter 17. But if you look at how Paul preached in Thessalonica and Berea, he preached in
07:12 the synagogue. He opened up the scriptures. He said he proved to them Jesus is the Messiah from the Old
07:17 Testament. That was his standard approach. But now in Athens, he has to do something completely different
07:23 because they don't accept they don't even know what the Old Testament is. They've never read it. They don't accept it as any authority. So how can Paul
07:30 share the gospel to a Greek culture? That's what we want to find out today.
07:37 Now, Athens, Athens is a city that is uh soaked through with Greek uh culture,
07:43 Greek thinking. And um this is a picture of the famous
07:49 Acropolis in Athens, okay, which has the temple to Athena on the right hand side,
07:54 which is called the Pathonon. Okay, today it's in ruins, but I imagine in Paul's time, this would have been a
07:59 splendid uh place, you know, beautiful and, you know, very well done with art and sculpture and everything like that
08:06 in there. Okay, it would have been it was in the past before Paul's time, hundreds of years before Paul's time, it
08:11 was the leading city in all of Greece. It set the tone for the rest of Greece. It was full of philosophers, full of
08:17 sculpture, uh, sculptors, artists, and so on. It was a is a great place. Okay.
08:22 By Paul's time, it had kind of faded a little bit. it uh it was smaller than Corinth, the next city that Paul went
08:28 to, but it was still uh a very well-known famous city and if you wanted
08:33 to learn how to speak in public, if you wanted to, you know, have a good education, this is where you would go in the ancient world to Athens. So, I guess
08:40 the nearest equivalent for us today maybe is something like Oxford or Cambridge where you go there to to learn
08:46 and and to be to be surrounded by culture and intelligent people. Okay.
08:52 So, imagine how exciting it would have been for Paul to visit a place like this, a place that he has heard of, you
08:58 know, since he was a child. I imagine I'm sure it was have been beautiful. And
09:03 this is some some sculptures in the British Museum which was taken to Britain from the Pathanon building that
09:08 I showed you earlier. Okay, just an example of the art of Athens. This is
09:14 artist's conception of what it would have looked like in Paul's time.
09:19 And then uh this picture shows the same thing, but there's a rocky part in the foreground which is called the Aropagus.
09:26 This is where Paul actually stood up to give his speech uh to the people of Athens.
09:32 Now imagine if I was to have a chance to go there, I would go and have a look at everything like a tourist, right? But
09:37 what was Paul's response when he went to Athens? Let's look at uh verse 16.
09:46 Okay, verse 16 tells us that when Paul was waiting for them, Silas and Timothy in Athens, he was greatly distressed to
09:52 see that the city was full of idols. Full of idols. You see, Paul didn't
09:58 react like a normal tourist. See, for him, beautiful works of art aren't
10:03 important. The important thing is God's glory. And when he saw the people with
10:10 streets filled with idols everywhere of all sorts, he was sick to the stomach.
10:15 And he he felt this is terrible. How human beings use all the gifts, the talents that God has given them. Use the
10:21 resources, the materials that God has given them to make idols to worship instead of worshiping the God who gave
10:28 them all these things. human beings blessed by God so abundantly and yet
10:33 taking away from God's glory and giving it to worthless idols. That is what so
10:38 greatly distressed Paul. So we learn that the first principle in communicating the gospel that we must be
10:45 distressed at the idolatry that we see around us. Now, um Cynthia and I uh went
10:52 for a honeymoon to Bali a few years ago and we went to Bali and we we saw that
10:58 these people are really artistic, okay? They have beautiful architecture. All their artworks are really nicely carved
11:04 and very unique and very intricate and we like to look at their handiccrafts and go from the shop, you know, shop to
11:10 shop. But the funny thing is every shop we went into, there was a flower offering, an incense offering in the
11:16 front. Okay? And that is a reminder to us that this place is heavily full of
11:23 idols. It was just full of idolatry. And I think that we should have been more distressed when we were there. How
11:29 come these people are all worshiping idols, isn't it? Instead, we were like, "Oh, this is beautiful. This is nice."
11:35 Okay. Yeah. So, I think, you know, when we see people who can make beautiful things and yet, you know, use their
11:42 talents to make it for idols, that is very sad. Now, what idols do we see today in
11:49 Malaysia? Well, it's obvious when you walk around, you look around. You can see it in
11:54 people's living rooms. You can see in the shops. You can see in the restaurants. You can see in their
12:00 cars. You can see around their necks. You can see tattoo on their arms. You see that should provoke us to distress
12:08 to be distressed that people are worshiping idols and want to make us tell them the gospel about the true God.
12:16 Now there are also many unseen idols in our country.
12:22 Now anything that takes the place of God is an idol. So the Bible says
12:28 in Colossians chapter 3 that greed is idolatry. the end of the verse. Greed is
12:36 an idol is idolatry. You see, we have this idol. Greed everywhere in our
12:41 country because we see people who put all their lives, all their effort into making more
12:47 and more money, into having more and more things and they sacrifice uh their
12:53 families. They sacrifice their time. They sacrifice their integrity
12:58 to this idol greed. And we have other idols too. status
13:04 maybe or maybe people my my wife my children are
13:09 my idols you know or some people worship their work some people worship their
13:16 golf some people worship sex some people worship their TV drama some people
13:21 worship their food you see all these can be idols for us and we need to know what
13:27 kind of idols the people that we are speaking to worship just like Paul knew knew because that is the first step to
13:35 for us to understand them and how to bring the gospel to them
13:40 and what we learn too is is our heart full of idols too. I mean we are Christians but do we have idols in our
13:47 own lives? We should be distressed at idols in our own lives and in the lives of others.
13:55 Now Paul didn't just go and condemn the idol idol worshippers or you guys are terrible. I don't want to shake your hand. I don't want to talk to you. You
14:01 know stay away from me. No, he didn't do that. He reasoned in the synagogue with the
14:07 Jews and the god-fearing Greeks as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happen to be there.
14:14 You see, he took action. He took the initiative to go and talk to these people. So, the second thing that we
14:20 learn in today's passage is to go and engage people where they are. Now, don't
14:27 expect them to come here to sit here to listen. You must go. We must go out there and tell them.
14:35 Now notice how Paul is very adaptable. He can reason in the synagogue with the Jews and then he goes into the
14:41 marketplace. Okay, the common people he can tell he can talk to them. He can have a conversation and make a dialogue
14:48 with them about Christianity. And after this he speaks at uh at uh the meeting
14:53 of the Aropagus which is like the meeting of all the philosophers, the intellectuals basically in the academy.
14:59 Okay. He can speak to university PhD level people as well and defend the gospel. So he can do he can he's he's so
15:06 versatile isn't it? Now I I I heard I read it somewhere that our the Christian
15:12 uh the Christian church today we are quite good I think or reasonably good at reaching the middle classes. Okay. So
15:20 how many I think all of us here probably or most of us here maybe consider under the middle class. Okay. But we are not
15:26 so good at reaching the lower classes because we we don't engage with them. We
15:31 have nothing to do with them. We don't make it a point to to get to know them at all. And also Christianity has a
15:37 difficulty reaching up to the top classes of society as well. Okay? Because the int the intellectuals they
15:45 they are not convinced by the arguments that we give to them or so far what they've heard about Christianity. Okay?
15:51 So we need to make an effort. We need to make an effort like Paul to reach out to all the different types of people in our
15:58 country. Okay? Whether it be the lower classes, okay? People who don't usually
16:03 get to come to church, people who work night shift, taxi drivers, these kind of
16:08 people, okay? They they're very hard to reach, okay? And I don't know how to do it, but we have to work out something to
16:15 do something to be able to do that. Now, Athens was a center of philosophy
16:21 in the ancient world. And we read about the Epicurian and the Stoic
16:27 philosophers. Okay, what are these? Okay, you see Athens was where Socrates I think some most of you would have
16:32 heard of Socrates and Plateau the famous Greek philosophers were born and then other philosophers like Aristotle like
16:39 Epicurus and Zeno the guy who started the stoic philosophy they all came to Athens. Now what is what did Epicurus
16:46 teach? What is the Epicurian philosophy? Well, basically they they thought the gods are very far away from us. They
16:53 have nothing to do with us. Okay? The gods are not interested in your lives at all. So don't think that you know go and
16:59 pray to them and talk to them everything because they they're not interested. So whatever have you know life is just
17:04 random. Sometimes you're lucky and sometimes you're not lucky. So you might as well just enjoy life to the max
17:10 because after you die there's nothing. So go and enjoy life. Eat, you know,
17:15 have the most fun you can. Now this is called the Epicurian philosophy and it sounds like a modern day philosophy
17:21 isn't it? A lot of people live this way but actually it's hundreds of years before Christ time.
17:27 Now what about the stoic philosophy? Uh the the stoic philosophy for them God
17:33 was not a person. God was more like an impersonal force underlying everything. So if you have you watched Star Wars I
17:40 think a lot of us may have watched Star Wars. Okay, in Star Wars there's the force and the force is something that kind of throughout all the whole
17:46 universe and somehow it decides how everything will come out in the end. Okay, so for them God is something like
17:52 that. Okay, there is no personal God. Everything is determined by fate. So they're very much into fate. Okay, so
17:59 you might as well just you know bite your lip if something bad happens to you and just accept it because you can't do
18:04 anything about it. Resign yourself to fate. That is the stoic philosophy. And that's why today when when people endure
18:12 harsh here and don't show any emotion, we call them stoic. All right, that comes from here.
18:18 So these groups of uh philosophers were all there in essence and Paul went to talk to them. Now I think he would have
18:25 a hard time talking to them about Jesus. Okay, because they come from a totally different worldview, totally different
18:30 background. Now Epicurus would think that God is not interested in our life. Why you talking about this God? You see
18:37 this God who cares deeply for us and who will be so interested in our affairs. And they thought it doesn't matter how
18:43 you live. But Paul later tells them that you must repent or you'll be judged.
18:49 And the stories find it hard to believe that there's a personal God. And they say you can't change your faith. But
18:54 Paul says you must repent in order not to be judged by God. Now the hardest
18:59 thing of all for the for these uh Greeks to accept was the good news about the
19:06 resurrection. Okay, they don't they see the Greeks they didn't believe in resurrection at
19:11 all. So the philosopher plateau they he thought that after you die you just kind of become an immaterial spirit. That's
19:18 it. You know you will never have a body again. So just like for modern scientific people they don't believe
19:24 that you can be resurrected to life after death. And so when Paul started talking about Jesus and the
19:29 resurrection, what did they say? They said he seems to be advocating foreign gods. Now why does he say foreign gods
19:35 and not god because the the word for resurrection in
19:40 Greek is anastasis. Okay, Anastasis which from which the name Anastasia comes. So and it's a feminine word in
19:47 the Greek. So maybe they thought his Paul is talking about this god Jesus and his wife Anastasia. He's advocating
19:54 foreign gods. You see? You see, they didn't understand at all what Paul was trying to say. And that tells us that
19:60 sometimes people have a completely different worldview from us. That makes it very very hard for them to understand
20:06 when we share the gospel with them. Now, I read about some missionary who wasn't a missionary. He was a person who went
20:12 to work in India and in his spare time he tried to share the gospel and he told a lot of people the gospel. A lot of the
20:17 Hindu people got converted and uh but then he would find they will still go to the Hindu temple. So he ask them why are
20:23 you going to the Hindu temple? you're converted, right? And then they would tell him, well, I'm now about 60%
20:29 Christian and 40% Hindu. Okay? Now, why? See, because for Hindu,
20:35 you can be a Hindu and believe in all the other gods too and you can still be a Hindu. You see, it's not exclusive.
20:41 See, in order for them to understand, we need to understand their mindset where they coming from. Now, how does how does
20:48 Paul do it with the Greeks? Let's try to learn from him. These people have never read the go uh the Bible. Okay, let's
20:55 have a look. Verse 22. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Aropagus and said, "Men of others, I see that in
21:00 every way you are very religious." Now, Paul is not trying to flatter them. He's not being insincere. You know, it's like
21:06 trying to like butter them up for, you know, or whatever. What he's trying to do, he's not saying it's a good thing
21:12 that you're very religious and have many idols. He's not saying it's a bad thing. He's just making an observation because why he's using this as a point of
21:18 contact to tell the people about the gospel. Now, you see, they are so different. Their Greek thinking and
21:24 Christianity are worlds apart. But here is a common point of contact. Both sides are very interested in spiritual things.
21:30 So the first thing it picks up on is you guys are really interested in spiritual things, right? Same here. Okay. So you
21:37 guys are very religious. I see that you have you have you know this these uh gods everywhere. Okay. So this is the
21:43 first thing he does. So the next thing that we learn in the principles in communicating the gospel is that we must
21:48 look for points of contact between the gospel and the culture. What are the
21:54 common points of contact? Now why did the Athenians have this god
21:60 to an unknown god? Because they were really scared they would miss out some god. They want to be comprehensive cover
22:05 everything. So in case you know there's this other god that they miss out and he's going to be angry and destroy them.
22:11 So, better put up a a god to an unknown god just to cover their bases. Right?
22:16 So, Paul is using this. He knows that. Of course, he knows this, but he's using this now as the bridge into his gospel
22:22 sharing. He says, "Oh, you have an unknown god." Okay, but I'm going to tell you now about this unknown god that
22:28 you don't know, but I'm going to tell you. Now, see how Paul uses something in
22:33 their religion to to make a point of contact the gospel, but then he never endorses their religion, you know. So he
22:41 doesn't go and say ah uh Zeus or Apollo those gods that they worship okay let me
22:46 tell you about Zeus okay he's the he's Jesus okay he didn't do that right he
22:52 doesn't he doesn't accept those idols as true gods now there was one uh uh Indian
22:60 theologian I think a Christian theologian who wrote this book called the unknown Christ of Hinduism
23:06 and his argument is that actually Hindus Whether they know it or not, they're actually worshiping Christ. Okay?
23:13 Because if you look from Acts chapter 17, he said, you know, to an unknown god, but this God is actually the true
23:18 God. So they worshiping the Hindu god. Actually, that Hindu god is the real God. Now, is that a right argument or
23:23 not? I hope you'll say no. Okay, it's wrong. Okay, it's wrong because look,
23:30 Paul never does that. Paul does not use that kind of strategy. It's wrong. Okay, Paul just looks for a common point of
23:36 contact. He doesn't actually endorse that religion at all. So if just now I show you the quangong picture. Okay. If
23:42 you say oh you know actually it's easier for me. Oh Jesus is Kangong. Okay. So
23:47 you worship Jesus is the same thing as worshiing guangong. That's completely wrong. Okay. That's completely wrong. It's not the way to do it. Now another
23:53 book Don Richardson. This man was a a missionary in uh uh New Guinea in the
23:60 60s and he went to work among a tribe of people who are very very fierce. they
24:05 will not think twice about killing you for a small thing. Okay? And they are cannibals too. So after they kill you,
24:10 they eat you as well. Okay? So uh this group of people very fierce the Sawi tribe and he tried and tried to bring
24:17 the gospel to them. And you know what he told the gospel many times they just didn't get it to them like Jesus is a
24:23 loser. Judas is actually the hero of the story for them. When they heard the story they thought Judas is the hero.
24:29 Why? Because in their culture the person who betrays someone is the hero. the person who can really deceive somebody
24:36 uh the person who can uh cheat somebody successfully that is the hero of their culture. So he couldn't get the gospel
24:42 through to them because Jesus sounds like the loser in the story until one day he found out about one of their
24:47 practices. You know when let's say they they kill somebody from another tribe right in order to make peace with that
24:53 tribe this person would bring his son and give it to the head of the other
24:58 tribe give his own son to that person and this was called a peace child okay
25:05 so this was the link in that culture that he used to to uh communicate the
25:10 gospel to you know what Jesus is the peace child that god has given to us and then the penny dropped and they
25:16 understood you see there are links like is in cultures. So in that culture it
25:21 was the peace child. So the moral of the story is that in every culture no matter how pagan or how idolatrous or hostile
25:27 to God there is a link there are points of contact that we can use to share the
25:32 gospel. So what about Chinese culture? Okay I was thinking about this uh if I
25:39 tell the Chinese person you need to have your sins forgiven. What would they say? Say what sin? What
25:46 are you talking about? uh sin not important more important I'm successful I make money uh you know I have healthy
25:53 body those are the important things for me you see these are their idols you see how to communicate the gospel to Chinese
25:59 people now I'm not saying that I'm a I'm a expert in this okay I'm not Chinese educator I grew up in a Christian home
26:05 so maybe I'm not the right person maybe we should ask a brother like Alen O who is much more you know knows more about
26:11 these kind of things but you see if I say okay you want success and prosperity
26:17 and health, right? Okay. So, come and believe in Jesus and you'll be successful and healthy and wealthy.
26:24 Okay? Is that the right approach? No. Right? But do you know what? There are many churches out there saying that.
26:31 Many churches saying that saying you believe in Jesus h ah you will never get sick. Uh you will heal of your cancer
26:37 and uh you know you you'll get rich and I think God doesn't want us to be poor. So they are actually pandering to the
26:44 idols that the people have already. They just repackage it with Christian uh dressing, but these are still idols.
26:50 They're not God. This not the gospel. These people's churches are full.
26:56 They're full of people. Why? Because they're saying what people want to hear. So, of course, they'll be full. But that
27:02 is not the right approach and that's not Paul's approach. How do we reach Chinese people? I was thinking about this. I was
27:08 thinking, well, one thing, you know, the Eastern play people have got it right. thing they say what is one thing that
27:14 Chinese people really fear dying right they fear death okay
27:21 and so of course I'm not going to go to a Chinese person and say hey you know you're going to die one you know okay
27:27 maybe not they're not the right approach okay but there's a way that maybe we can start talking about it okay you know
27:33 Chinese people are so scared of death they don't even want to think about it they banish it from their thinking even even you talk about it is bad luck
27:39 already and you don't want to write a wheel even because it's bad luck you're acknowledging I'm actually going to die, you know. So, this is the thinking of a
27:46 Chinese person. Now, that's one point of contact that we can use to introduce the gospel. I think because the gospel deals
27:52 with the fear of death decisively, the gospel that Jesus has rose from the dead to conquer death and death has no more
27:59 sting according to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Now, we have to find a suitable
28:04 occasion maybe like the Easter play. Okay? But this is a way perhaps to you
28:10 know one way out of many that we can use now. So Paul has used a point of
28:17 contact. Now next thing he he uses this point of contact to talk about the gospel. Okay.
28:23 This was the mega church. Okay. All right. So this is how he starts. The god
28:29 who made the world and everything in it is the lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. Now
28:36 Jesus doesn't start the gospel sharing by saying you know Jesus died for your sins or believe in Jesus.
28:42 Why does he talk about God first? You know he spends you know that the only the last verse of his sharing he
28:47 mentioned Jesus right at the end. The whole sharing he didn't mention Jesus until the end. Why is that? Because if
28:54 he had told them you need your sins forgiven he's assuming too much. What what sin? What are you talking about? I
28:60 didn't think I don't think I've sinned. Okay so firstly you need to show them that they've sinned. Now if if there's
29:05 no problem, why do you need a solution? If there's no sin, why do you need a savior? Isn't it? So in order to share
29:12 the gospel, we must start from the beginning. So Paul starts from the beginning. And he says that you must
29:19 before you can understand God as savior, first you must understand God as creator.
29:25 Why? Because if God is our creator, then we have an obligation to worship him.
29:31 And we have an obligation to serve him and to please him and to seek him. So he tells his people who love their idols.
29:37 He says God is not like an idol that we have to make it with our hands. We have
29:42 to feed the idol. We have to clothe the idol. No, it's the other way around. God is the one who makes us, who feeds us
29:48 and clothe us, who gives us everything that we need for life. You know what? It's not God who needs us. Is we who
29:56 need God. Now if you are not a Christian here today, non-Christians may ask what can
30:03 your God do for me? But that is not the right question. If you realize that God
30:10 is a creator, your question should not be what can your God do for me but what
30:15 can I do for God? How can I seek God? How can what does God want of me? That is the right question.
30:22 But people don't ask this question. That is the whole problem. So in verse 27,
30:28 Paul says that God made people so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. See, God
30:34 didn't just make people to fill this whole world and enjoy this world. The whole ultimate meaning and purpose of
30:40 human existence is for people to have a relationship with God, to seek after
30:45 God. And that is why God made you and me. We are meant to seek God our creator and
30:52 to find out what does God want of us. And so Paul says actually God is not
30:58 very far from us. Don't think that he's far far away like what the Epicurans thought. God is not interested in us. No
31:03 he says God the true God is right around us. He's he's right in our midst or we
31:08 are in his midst rather. Okay. So in verse 28 he says for in him we live and move and have our being. He's this line
31:16 actually is a popular Greek saying okay it's a proverb of the Greeks so Paul is
31:22 using their own culture to convince them okay he's using their own culture to support his arguments so so he knows how
31:29 to get into the mind of his hearers he knows how to understand how they think and use that to get uh to get his point
31:35 across okay so and then he quotes another Greek poet as some of your own poets have said we are his offspring see
31:43 he knows how to do that now what when he means when he says we are his offspring. He's not saying that all of us are God's
31:48 children. We are all saved. No, he's not saying that. He says we are all created by God and in that sense we are his
31:53 offspring. So the next principle that we talk about
31:58 in committing the gospel, teach them the Bible's grand story so that the gospel makes sense. See, before you can even
32:04 talk about Jesus and before you can even talk about Jesus dying and resurrection, you have to make them understand why
32:11 they need Jesus. Why so important to have Jesus? Okay. So we must start from the very beginning. If they do not have
32:18 the the story in mind and nowadays in our culture, even in western culture, people have lost an understanding of the
32:24 Bible. Okay. And the next principle I want to
32:30 talk about is talk about the problem of sin and judgment and the solution which
32:35 is Jesus. So so far Paul hasn't talked about sin or salvation. He's simply been
32:41 laying the foundation so far. Okay? But now he has to move on to talk about
32:46 sin and salvation. So here verse 29. Therefore since we are God's offspring
32:52 we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone and so on. In the past God overlooked
32:58 such ignorance. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
33:03 So idols are really wrong. He says if God is truly the creator, you worshiping
33:08 your idols of gold and silver and stone is a it's definitely a slap in God's face. is a huge insult to God. But you
33:15 guys are ignorant about God. And you know, so far God in the past has put up with it. God has overlooked it. But no
33:22 longer now. Things have now changed with the coming of Jesus Christ. And now that
33:27 Jesus has come, there is no more excuse for anyone because now God commands all
33:32 people everywhere to repent. So we must call for a response. Okay? Turn away
33:40 from your idols to the living God. Turn to Jesus.
33:46 Now why why does it matter whether we turn or not? Well, verse 31, for he has set a day when he would judge the world
33:53 with justice by the man he has appointed. See, only after Paul has laid this
33:59 foundation, this framework for them, now he finally mentions Jesus. And he didn't even mention the name, right? He said
34:04 the man God has appointed. And he introduces Jesus as God's appointed one. The one who is judge of the whole world.
34:11 Now this is a very big claim for him to make, right? How can one man judge the whole world. Well, the proof that we
34:18 have is that Jesus was raised from the dead. So now the central point he's
34:23 arrived at the central point which is the resurrection of Christ. And of course it's not written here because this is just a summary of what he said.
34:29 I'm sure it took hours to speak but it's only condensed into a few verses. Now in order to be resurrected you need to die
34:35 first right? So he must have talked about the death and the resurrection of Jesus.
34:41 Now you know when we preach the gospel we cannot avoid talking about sin and about judgment. It's very uncomfortable.
34:49 But if you share the gospel without talking about sin and judgment it has no
34:54 meaning because God did not send Jesus to save us from our health issues
35:00 primarily. And God did not send Jesus to save us from our money problems or from our sense of unfulfillment.
35:07 God sent Jesus to save us from our biggest problem that is sin.
35:12 Paul did try very hard to be respectful to communicate uh using points of contact but he didn't compromise the
35:18 gospel message one bit. He didn't leave anything out that he thought would be unpopular with his audience.
35:26 Now, think of the evangelistic messages that you have heard over the years. How
35:32 many times have we heard evangelistic sermons that present Jesus as a warm fuzzy guy who will embrace you, who
35:39 fulfill all the longings in your heart, you know, who make your life wonderful.
35:45 See, this is an appeal to self-interest. God does not Paul does not appeal to
35:52 self-interest. Paul appeals to your obligation to God. You as people created
35:58 by God are meant to repent or be judged. That is the message to the Greeks. No
36:04 matter how respectfully he did it, he had to say it in the end. Now, what do we learn from that? We
36:11 learn that when we preach the gospel, we need to be faithful to the message. Don't sugarcoat it. Yes, be respectful.
36:18 Yes, try to be tactful, be sensitive, understand, but at the end of the day, we must tell them what the gospel is or
36:25 we are not sharing the gospel properly. Next, don't judge the message by the
36:32 response, but by its faithfulness. Now, how did people respond to Paul's
36:38 gospel? Oops, I think I forgot to put the verses in for you. You have to look at it yourself. in verse uh 32 to 34,
36:45 some of them sneered as soon as they heard about the resurrection because to them is rubbish. This guy doesn't know
36:50 what he's talking about. And then there were people who were more interested to hear more and then there were people who
36:56 believed. So you get all kinds of responses but in general the the response seemed to be quite
37:01 disappointing. Didn't seem like there was a huge turning to Christ. Okay, it was maybe a handful of people who were
37:08 interested. The rest just shrug their shoulders and moved on. They were there just for the intellectual curiosity. Now
37:14 what do we learn from this? We learn that we mustn't assess how
37:19 successful our evangelism is by how many people signed the form or came to the
37:25 altar or whatever. Okay? But whether we are faithful in proclaiming the gospel message that is the measure of the
37:32 success. Now Paul was a master evangelist. He was the most adaptable versatile evangelist. And look at his
37:38 results. you know, today's uh so-called uh expert evangelist, you know, may say,
37:44 "Well, Paul has a thing or two to learn from us. Why didn't he um you know, put a bit of mood music in the background to
37:50 soften people up?" Okay? Why didn't he uh give a very long alter call, you
37:56 know, why didn't he put, you know, pander to what they want? You see, Paul
38:03 didn't do any of that. Paul didn't, you know, say, "Oh, you know, it's too hard
38:08 to tell them about sin and judgment now. Maybe we'll leave it another time." Once they have said, "Yeah, then we'll tell them." Okay? Tell them the fine print
38:15 later. Okay? No. That's not the way to share the gospel. Because Jesus said,
38:21 "If you want to come to me, you must count the cost first. You must know what you're getting yourself in for if you
38:26 want to be a Christian." You know, so this is the same thing we must we want these people when we have a an
38:33 evangelistic gathering, we want them to walk out knowing what the gospel is about. Whether they agree with it or
38:40 not, whether they accept it or not, we want them to at least know what the gospel is. That is what we learn from
38:47 here. Now, I'm not saying that we must have really boring evangelism, you know, really boring that, you know, it has no
38:52 contact with people's lives. It's just talking about Bible Bible. No, that's not what I mean. We must try to connect with people to
38:60 get inside into their heads to know where they at so that we can communicate with them like Paul. But having done
39:06 that then we must present the whole gospel and not compromise it. It is
39:11 going to be offensive to some people but we must tell it to them clearly because
39:17 it's no point for us to have a huge event spend huge amount of resources uh
39:22 draw a huge crowd entertain everyone and then they go back at the end of the day wondering what it was all about. We did
39:28 not communicate the gospel. So as we come to a close today I want to
39:33 tell you about this man Henry Martin. Henry Martin was a brilliant graduate of
39:39 Cambridge University in the 19th century and when he graduated the world laid at his feet. He could have had a very
39:46 successful career, got a good job, he could have advanced in life and through a good marriage but he threw it all away
39:52 to go to India as a missionary. And one day in India he he saw this Hindu
39:59 procession come by and the people bowing down to the images and kissing the ground before it. And he looked at it,
40:05 he wrote in his diary, you know, he wrote, "This excited more horror in me than I can express. I thought that if I
40:12 had words, if I could speak the language, I would preach to the multitudes all day if I lost my life for
40:17 it." This is the kind of burning heart that we see for the lost. Now, do we
40:26 have this kind of evangelistic zeal? Do I now do I have such a heart for the lost? Because in Acts, God calls us to
40:33 bring the gospel out to the ends of the earth. But what are we so preoccupied with in our lives?
40:41 Now, I want to challenge you today. I don't challenge myself today to think of somebody, one person that I can share
40:48 the gospel with in this week or maybe next week. Okay? It could be it could be your parents. It could be a family
40:55 member. It could be your work colleague or maybe your business client or your
41:00 neighbor, your golfing khaki, your maid or stranger or someone that you meet
41:06 through one of our church ministries. Anyone choose somebody to focus on. Pray for
41:12 that person. Think about how you can introduce the gospel to that person and
41:17 and uh engage with them. You know what? I think that sometimes we are so busy
41:23 and myself included. We're so busy and tired and we only mix around in Christian circles. We have no time to
41:29 mix with non-Christians. I think it's a good thing for us to to uh use our
41:34 non-Christian context and and maximize it. Don't throw them away. Get to know people, hang out with them, engage with
41:40 them because that is where we can start sharing the gospel. Don't think, oh, this evangelism stuff
41:46 is too hard. I'm not Paul, okay? So, I'll leave it to the experts in the church. know there are people that only you have access to in your life. So you
41:53 need to do all of these things. Be distressed at the idolatry.
41:59 Go and hang out with them. Engage them. Think of ways that you can communicate the gospel with them. Tell them what the
42:05 Bible teaches about God, about the creator, about sin and judgment and
42:10 Jesus. And then leave the results in God's hands. Okay, let's pray.
42:18 Dear heavenly father, we thank you so much that the gospel came to us and we
42:23 believed and have received your great salvation. Lord, we pray for those who are out
42:29 there, Lord, who do not know you, who do not know Jesus, who are still living
42:34 lives of idolatry and paganism. And even some may be in our midst. We pray Lord
42:41 that you will help us to bring this gospel, the truth, the glorious truth of the gospel out to them. Help us not to
42:48 fear, Lord, anything. And help us not to compromise, Lord, but help us, give us
42:54 wisdom and the ability to really speak the your truth, Lord, to to understand
43:00 where people are at. And yet, Lord, to be able to uh speak the whole gospel.
43:06 And we pray, Lord, that you will use us as your vessels to bring many people into your kingdom. We pray all this in
43:12 Jesus name. Amen.
