Sunday, January 12, 2014 God Is, Part 1: God Is! Genesis 1: 1; Acts 17:24-31.

Genesis 1: 1

Acts 17: 24-31

- The ancient, famous, and learned city of Athens stood for all things Greek.

- Greek poetry and philosophy continue to be renowned the world over. The Greek pantheon of gods and their mythology continue to be studied to this day.

- There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end leads to death.

- Paul spent a fair amount of time in Athens before delivering the message we are looking at this morning.

- He preached in the synagogue reasoning with the Jews and God-fearing gentiles and he spoke daily in the public square.

- When they heard him preach on Jesus and the resurrection, the Greeks thought Paul just wanted them to add Jesus and Anastasia (which means resurrection) to their pantheon of gods.

- That, of course, is not what Paul wanted them to do at all.

- Rather, Paul wanted them to abandon their ignorant idol worship and turn toward the living God in repentance and faith.

- Paul argued for the living God in five ways.

- First, God is Creator. “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." (Verse 24)

- Paul taught a worldview that was very different from the Epicurean philosophers of that day who taught that life comes from chance combinations of atoms.

- That sounds remarkably like the evolutionary philosophy of today, which teaches that we all exist because of random natural selection.

- The truth of the matter is chance combinations or random natural selection of atoms, molecules or proteins cannot produce life.

- In fact, natural selection is not random at all.

- The existence of all life anywhere occurring by random chance is statistically impossible. Mathematics proves it.

- Life requires order and design, not random chance.

- Random Evolution cannot design anything because order and design point to a Designer.

- The creation points to a Creator.

- The Stoic philosophers of Paul's day believed in pantheism, that God and the material world are one and the same.

- If God is all, then all is God. Therefore, I am God also.

- Today, right along with evolution, one of the most promoted philosophies is the worship of self.

- The popularity of Oprah Winfrey and her new age gurus and books like The Secret are evidence enough that Stoic pantheism still lives. God is all. All is God. I am God.

- Such teaching is not the message of the Bible. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

- He does not live in temples built by human hands, but is himself the Lord of heaven and earth and maker of everything that exists.

- It is meaningless to think that the God who made everything lives in temples or idols built by human hands.

- It is equally meaningless to suggest that this Creator God exists as all created things.

- These ideas are illogical and are well within the realm of fantasy.

- The hymn writer agreed with Scripture when he wrote of Jesus: Very God, begotten not created. O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

- A meaningful life is found only in our Creator; without him everything is meaningless. - God is Creator.

- Second, God is Sustainer. "And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else." (Verse 25).

- If God gives everyone life and breath and everything else what needs could he possibly have for which we, his creation, could possibly provide?

- God does not depend on us for food, clothing, or shelter. No, and God is not even dependent upon our love.

- John RW Stott puts it succinctly: "We depend on God; he does not depend on us." (Stott, Acts, 285)

- Human hands cannot serve God with anything he needs because he provides for all our needs.

- It is meaningless to think that the one who sustains all life would himself need to be sustained by us.

- A meaningful life is found only in our Creator; without him everything is meaningless. - God is Sustainer.

- Third, God is Ruler. "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. 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. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ (Versus 26-28a)

- Paul clearly had Adam in mind as the only ancestor of the human race.

- Every human being on the planet is descended from Adam and Eve.

- Grounds do not exist for prejudice or discrimination on any basis of culture, the color of one's skin, or language for we are all sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.

- Shortly after the cataclysmic global flood of Noah's day at the tower of Babel, God confused our language and sent us out to the four corners of the globe.

- The history and geography of every nation is under God's rule and is decided by his grace.

- His purpose in doing this is that we would seek and perhaps find him because he is not far off from any of us.

- As the Cretan philosopher Epimenides wrote and Paul quoted, "for in him we live and move and have our being.'

- It is meaningless to blame God for the alienation from him we experience because of our sin.

- It is our sin which alienates us from God. Blaming God or suggesting that he is distant, unknowable or uninterested is meaningless when we understand that God is active in history and that he is nearby.

- If it were not for the sin that separates us from him, God would be available to every single one of us.

- A meaningful life is found only in our Creator; without him everything is meaningless. - God is Ruler.

- Fourth, God is Father. "As some of your own poets 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 skill." (Verses 28b-29)

- 'We are his offspring' is a quotation from the third century BC Stoic philosopher Aratus from Paul's native province of Cilicia.

-Although Aratus was referring to Zeus, Paul is correct in affirming God as Father. We are God's offspring twice over.

- Those who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in repentance, obedience, and faith are the adopted children of God by his grace.

- As our Creator, God is our father and we are his offspring.

- Since he created us, sustains us, and rules us, then it is meaningless to think of God as an image made by human design or skill.

- Anything made with human hands is lifeless and owes itself to human imagination and creativity alone.

- Since God is our Father, then we cannot in any way attempt to father him.

- Our attempts to create, sustain, rule, and father God are meaningless because they are absurd contradictions to the truth which attempt to make us into gods and God into us.

- It is meaningless to worship anything made in the place of Almighty God.

- All idolatry attempts in one way or another to either limit God or to tame God, thereby bringing him under our control.

- A meaningful life is found only in our Creator; without him everything is meaningless. - God is Father.

- Fifth, God is Judge. "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.”

- Paul began his message to the people of Athens at the Areopagus using an altar with the inscription on it, to an unknown God.

- He used their ignorance as a springboard to launch himself into teaching the truth, and it became the theme of his message, revealing to them to their own ignorance.

- Paul plainly told them that they are accountable to God for their ignorance.

- "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he calls all people everywhere to repent."

- God was patient with people, graciously and mercifully looking the other way.

- But now things have changed; judgment is coming.

- God will judge the whole world; no one will escape his judgment.

- He will judge the world with justice. Everything will be exposed, every secret sin, every fatal flaw. And his justice will not be miscarried or denied.

- The date is set. The judge is appointed and that judge is Jesus Christ.

- "He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

- The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is God's evidence that Jesus is both Lord and Judge, and that he alone will judge the living and the dead.

- It is meaningless to ignore God's warning of impending judgment.

- It is meaningless to reject the resurrection of Jesus Christ because God has made him Lord and Judge.

- As Paul said, now God calls all people everywhere repent.

- A meaningful life is found only in our Creator; without him everything is meaningless.